#((this is relevant to this blog))

[littlemut]

[ore-else]

I’ve been trying to think of a “why” to Joel having multiples of himself doing different tasks (editor Joel, the Joel who tells you to subscribe, etc) and my brain said well what about them being formed from Joel’s ribs. How about that, huh?

[fumifooms]

Omg guys he just genuinely likes bugs and mollusks and critters 😭💘💔 Forced to noble when he just wanna crouch and watch things skitter in the dirt…

[chuckwon]

streets are saying that Misha stood on a convention stage today and said "If the CW hadn’t been so homophobic, Dean and Cas would’ve been balls deep for sure.”

now I know Misha’s said many noteworthy and occasionally unhinged things on stages in his time and he phrased this in the most chaotic manner possible

but I'm just here to say that I think what's noteworthy here is him explicitly calling The CW — the network itself — the homophobic obstacle to destiel

it IS a Big Deal because overall the censorship really just isn’t talked about, as we all know

but finally, there it is

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[custom-emojis]

HEY YOU

have YOU seen my emojis for sale illegally on Shein or Temu as stickers? Have you been tempted to (or have) buy them?

Well! Do I have news for you!

You can now officially buy ACTUAL stickers of my emojis, directly from me !

The emojis selected were some of my personal favourites and most popular emojis through the years!

Don’t like the selection? Well, you can also order a custom set of any emojis I’ve made ! (Feel free to DM me on kofi, tumblr, or discord { @ hereticsys } to discuss that ! )

Support a queer disabled artist who’s been doing this for ~ 4 years and has had my shit stolen and resold COUNTLESS times ! (And a reminder— I still have a sale ongoing! Code SETH for 21% off until my boyfriends birthday ! )

[spirk-trek]

she is to me what leia's gold bikini was to straight boys

[tevintersnakes]

back in the fallout pit, fortunately my art has improved since 2016 so I can draw doctors hanging out together somewhat effectively now

[notherpuppet]

What is your opinion of AI? Personally, I think that like any technology, it depends on the user and their intentions, but that is just me.

What about you?

1. Theft

The most central issues with AI as it is now is that the programs were trained/are trained with STOLEN art. Stolen visual art, music, writing, etc.

The vast majority of what it has been fed is stolen. As in, the artists behind the work were not ever given the chance to consent nor be compensated for their works being used to feed the machine.

This reason alone is straight up copyright infringement and the optimist in me does believe the long arm of the law is gonna shut these programs down for that. But the long arm of the law is looooooong, and the technology is disrupting people’s livelihoods now. Unlike robots or machinery that was invented and built to expedite assembly line/factory work, this technology is only functional by using other people’s labor. If we didn’t live in a society where you have to “earn” your right to live in it, then this would still be wrong, but it probably wouldn’t be such an existential problem.

There are active class action lawsuits for infringement of copyright. And the private sector has begun filing suits and I’m quite certain they’ll win because again—it’s simply theft. These companies did not make licensing contracts, they’re not paying royalties to the artists they stole from.

So if you consider using ai that generates “art” (whether it is visual, music, writing, etc.) please consider stopping immediately, as you would actively be benefiting from theft (which is wrong imo!!!!)

2. AI in its present form dishonors the human spirit

In my personal relationship with AI technology, I do not use it to generate ideas or ‘art’. I detest the notion to use technology in that way tbh. AI is a form of technology, so it’s difficult to break it down into every specific use it actually has. But here’s an attempt; no to generative AI, okay to certain AI.

There are kinds of AI programming in the programs I use (such as features that help you color in a shape quickly or make a perfect circle). This is useful tech (that requires zero IP theft) and I like it because it helps me by taking care of tedious tasks so that I have more time to spend in the creative and drawing processes. But I still choose the colors, I still draw the images, I still write the stories.

I think the way AI is used right now with a focus on “creative thinking” (where it’s not actually creating anything it’s just churning out other people’s *stolen* ideas and practice) is a total waste. AI being used as an assistant to help humans find information easily can be/has been swell. And requires no theft :D

But for whatever reason (greed, capitalism are my guesses), tech companies are leaning into a direction to replace creativity with AI?? I imagine the people behind this view the practice of art as tedious work because it is challenging??

But the beauty of art and the practice of it is that it allows humans to experience and overcome challenges with little to no stakes.

When society determines that is not a valuable use of human time, then I think we’ll all be significantly more miserable. If we allow a machine to be “creative” and leave us to only experience challenges with stakes—like survival (rent, putting food on the table).

So here are some examples of how I feel about AI uses;

AI to translate languages, find resources, discern malicious malware/spam from harmless messages > 👍🏽

AI to generate ideas/art for you > 🤢 Why??????? Why would you want that…that’s the most exceptional part of the human experience and you relinquish it to a bot trained on stolen ideas? 😭

[thegeminisage]

SPOCKANALIA VOLUME 1 IS NOW ON AO3!

do you like vintage fanzines, but hate reading tiny font? do you love spock, but hate the headache you get from squinting at textured paper and imperfect scans? are you someone who wants to read SPOCKANALIA but has trouble getting your screenreader to cooperate with 60-year-old PDFS? have we ever got news for you. @maulthots and i have been very, very, VERY hard at work digitizing SPOCKANALIA, a SFW star trek fanzine about spock first published in 1967, and now you, YES YOU, can read it on AO3!

updated features of SPOCKANALIA on AO3 include:

text has been meticulously retyped and can now be read at whatever size you have your browser settings on, which means the line width also changes based on the width of your browser window or device screen

images are dynamic to fit on your screen whether you are on a pc or a mobile device so you don't have to scroll until your hand breaks and still only see mr. spock's eyelashes (you have to turn work skins on for this feature)

backgrounds/paper texture/echoes of ghost text removed (by hand!) from images for easier viewing, and in some cases the images have been rotated to correct tilted/sideways scanning

images come with ALT TEXT for those using screen readers!

here are a few before/after shots for your perusal:

so what are you waiting for?! get your inner 60s fangirl (gender neutral) on and read SPOCKANALIA today!!

and if you think this is COOL AS SHIT (i do), please consider giving this post a reblog or leaving us some love on AO3! we have only your good vibes to fuel us as we contemplate volume 2 💪

[eddiegotout]

what do you mean we got beautiful beautiful Visitor Tommy who needs to have a Buck Decoder explain the Events and also they sleep on Separate Couches and also eddie sucked on a ring pop and got handed lube by buck and Treated His Boils while Tommy Watched and you all want me to believe it's over. be serious. be serious and have spiritual fortitude and endurance HAVE STRENGTH IN YOUR CONVICTIONS

[cath-lic]

i didn’t realize this was official merch and thought i had encountered the world’s funniest person in the jewel-osco parking lot

[ccycloneblogging]

Thank you to everyone who submitted a suggestion! I actually had more people asking for various fandoms - unfortunately I struggled drawing some of those characters, but I do appreciate everyone's suggestions!

So! Here's Bobby x Hoppy, DogDay x CatNap, DogDay x Craftycorn, and then my choice - DogDay dealing with multiple crushes.

[jarchaeology]

WELL! going back in time to tell my past self that i made it happen. jensen appears at 1:35. 🤗

[great-and-small]

I know you're a fan of animal husbandry and the human animal connection so i have a recommendation for you if you haven't seen it, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. The horse movements, including the correct ear movements when they're scared or calm/happy are so perfect. The story of the different ways you can tame a horse, through love or fear, the parallels of the destruction of Native land and culture between Little Creek and Spirit. The landscape paintings! It makes me yearn for the desert and I think you'd like it

Oh man I love love love that movie. When I was a kid I watched it over and over and the opening transition scene as Spirit grows up always made me cry. To this day seeing any old Buckskin horse makes my heart flutter a bit ❤️

As you said, it’s one of the best Children’s movies to explore the human animal bond, and I am always more interested in stories that examine animal exploitation alongside human exploitation. The two are so often linked that it’s hard to faithfully talk about one without the other. The nature of Little Creek and Spirit’s bond is the emotional centerpiece of the movie and a superb way to start talking to kids about how the way we connect to animals matter immensely.

This is going to sound like a weird aspect of this but I am also really really into the way horses run. Seeing a horse that loves to run just absolutely fly and let loose running in an open area literally gives me goosebumps. If there are horses in a movie Im watching and I don’t get to see them running full speed I will be grouchy (possibly relevant info: I learned to ride on a retired racing thoroughbred).

Running is what horses have evolved to do over millions of years and the result is an astonishing feat of biomechanics. My equine anatomy classes were so fucking hard for me due to the painstaking detail in understanding the structures that allow horses to stand and run in the way they do; it’s unbelievably complex (look into the stay apparatus for just a small taste). To see all of those tendons, ligaments, vessels, nerves, and muscles come together with such fluidity and grace is just one of the coolest products of evolution that we see today. It will never become mundane to me!

For an animated movie from the early 2000’s , it just blows me away how beautifully they render the horses running. You can tell they watched a lot of real animals to get it right. Something about those horses running across beautiful landscapes is just uniquely moving. I don’t know why but I am very much with you, in that this film fills me with yearning.

[every-sanji]

Palestine Spotlight Campaign

If you've been following this blog for the last week, you know that I've been trying to figure out how to spotlight and help some campaigns on this blog, since it has many more followers than my main. I've decided that for every €100/CAD$100 donated collectively to the fundraisers below, I will up my queue to post an extra Sanji every day, with an upper limit of 15 (for a total of €1000/CAD$1000 raised). Until we reach the upper limit or if donations stagnate for more than 2 weeks as of updating this (11/12/24), the queue will drop back to five posts a day (updates in donations will bring us back to the number of posts dictated by the amount raised in total, so since we're between 100 and 200 currently, a new donation would bring us back to 6 posts). Once we hit the goal I will run 15 posts a day for 2 weeks before starting over again.

Campaigns I am spotlighting:

Help Ahmed to Leave Gaza EXTREMELY LOW ON FUNDS + STAGNATING €237/��8000

Help Save a Gaza Mother from MS and Permanent Disability EXTREMELY LOW ON FUNDS + STAGNATING €4,681/€17,000

Save Mohammad's Family and Children Escape Gaza Genocide EXTREMELY LOW ON FUNDS + STAGNATING CAD$12,765/CAD$50,000

I will also accept donations to Mona's Mutual Aid Fund (GFM , Paypal) for this campaign!

You can send proof via my inbox or DMs and I will update this post and the queue at least once a day as applicable. All campaigns have been verified by @/el-shab-hussein and are on their spreadsheet!

GOAL: €200/€1,000