#(*about discourse on twitter.)

[chromegnomes]

the most frustrating thing about AI Art from a Discourse perspective is that the actual violation involved is pretty nebulous

like, the guys "laundering" specific artists' styles through AI models to mimic them for profit know exactly what they're doing, and it's extremely gross

but we cannot establish "my work was scraped from the public internet and used as part of a dataset for teaching a program what a painting of a tree looks like, without anyone asking or paying me" as, legally, Theft with a capital T. not only is this DMCA Logic which would be a nightmare for 99% of artists if enforced to its conclusion, it's not the right word for what's happening

the actual Violation here is that previously, "I can post my artwork to share with others for free, with minimal risk" was a safe assumption, which created a pretty generous culture of sharing artwork online. most (noteworthy) potential abuses of this digital commons were straightforwardly plagiarism in a way anyone could understand

but the way that generative AI uses its training data is significantly more complicated - there is a clear violation of trust involved, and often malicious intent, but most of the common arguments used to describe this fall short and end up in worse territory

by which I mean, it's hard to put forward an actual moral/legal solution unless you're willing to argue:

Potential sales "lost" count as Theft (so you should in fact stop sharing your Netflix password)

No amount of alteration makes it acceptable to use someone else's art in the production of other art without permission and/or compensation (this would kill entire artistic mediums and benefit nobody but Disney)

Art Styles should be considered Intellectual Property in an enforceable way (impossibly bad, are you kidding me)

it's extremely annoying to talk about, because you'll see people straight up gloating about their Intent To Plagiarize, but it's hard to stick them with any specific crime beyond Generally Scummy Behavior unless you want to create some truly horrible precedents and usher in The Thousand Year Reign of Intellectual Property Law

[thisshitisridiculous]

okay but daniel molloy pulitzer prize winning journalist who wrote a book in the twilight of his career about how vampires are real and now only comes out at night definitely has an actual cult following

[idolomantises]

Twitter does fascinate me, because I feel like tumblr has been a lot more accepting of people who draw women with big boobs, who draw adult art on the side, and who aren't afraid of being sensual and intimate.

But twitter seems to be actively terrified of anything that could turn them on. For years I've been harassed for my art. Way back in 2020 I was called out for "sexualizing" Ankha, but this was the image they were referring to.

This fear of adult works and porn has to end man. Queer artists shouldn't be harassed or labeled as bad, untrustworthy people because they want to draw women with curves or big chests, or draw some NSFW art on the side.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

actually can we stop talking about “deserve” when it comes to characters dying in fiction. not everything is a fable with a moral lesson to be learned. romeo and juliet didn’t “deserve” to die. bambi’s mom didn’t “deserve” to die. izzy dying in the finale doesn’t mean ofmd is saying that certain types of queer people “deserve” to die. fictional death can serve more narrative purposes than just punishment for the character doing the dying.

[gay-meowmeow]

me trying to explain to certain bl fans that a series with a sex scene that doesnt feature our gmmtv faves, is longer than 3 minutes, and has positions other than plain missionary, is not in fact "gay porn"

[sforzesco]

something. about. the horror of being sent on an impossible (death) quest and obligations and hospitality politics. the trauma of not having a home, and then the trauma of being in a house that becomes actively hostile to you, one that would swallow you whole and spit out your bones if you step out of line. all of this is conditional, your existence continues to be something men want gone.

it's about going back as far as I can with the perseus narrative because there's always a version of a myth that exists behind the one that survives. the missing pieces are clearly defined, but the oldest recorded version of it isn't there! and there's probably something older before that!! but it's doomed to forever be an unfilled space, clearly defined by an outline of something that was there and continues to be there in it's absence.

and love. it's also about love. even when you had nothing, you had love.

on the opposite side of the spectrum, this is Not About Ovid Or Roman-Renaissance Reception, Depictions And Discourses On The Perseus Narrative.

edit: to add to the above, while it's not about Ovid, because I'm specifically trying to peel things back to the oldest version of this story, Ovid is fine. alterations on the Perseus myth that give more attention Medusa predate Ovid by several centuries. this comic is also not about those, either! there are many versions of this story from the ancient world. there is not one singular True or Better version, they're all saying something.

Perseus, Daniel Ogden

Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited & translated by Stephen M Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, Stephen Brunet

[asukachii]

Where Our Blue Is

(I don’t like putting watermarks so, PLEASE, if you want to post this gif somewhere GIVE CREDITS! Also, don’t use it in edits/videos. Thanks~)

[firelxdykatara]

I think part of what frustrates me about age gap discourse with respect to BTVS specifically is that framing Buffy's relationship with Angel as 'grown man preys on teenage girl' requires that you ignore everything about the context of the show, the context that their relationship occurs within, and also what it means for both of them as characters and for the show as a whole.

It's also just like, really boring?

Like before you get to any of the story reasons why that's just a stupidly reductive analytical framework, you have to start with this: in a story aimed at teenagers, the fantasy is of being special and desired by a sexy immortal, and because the story is aimed at teenagers, the main characters are (or start as) teenagers, since the coming of age narrative that underpins everything else doesn't work without it. Hard to tackle that transition from adolescence to adulthood with a main character who begins the series as an adult!

(And it's not as if coming of age stories for adults don't exist. Phoebe Halliwell is a very good example--unlike her older sisters, she starts off unemployed and kind of adrift and desperate to find a purpose, which she ultimately does as a witch and a Charmed One, and all of this is done while she, as the youngest, is in her early twenties at the series start, because the show is primarily aimed at adults.)

And the thing is, Angel isn't just some adult man preying on a highschooler for kicks because he can't find women his own age. As Angelus, he spent well over a century enamored with Darla and committing wanton slaughter and destruction by her side. As Angel, with the exception of Buffy, all of his love interests are adults, and his love for Buffy is not tied to her youth, innocence, or naivete, considering that it links and binds them so completely that they keep crossing in and out of each other's lives through the end of Buffy's show, with the door explicitly open for a future relationship once Buffy's finished baking.

What draws Angel to Buffy--and what makes their relationship so dangerously compelling and also ultimately spells its downfall as, within the text of the show, it is explicitly a tragedy--is the fact that she's the Slayer.

That's the key point--her status as the Chosen One! He is drawn to her (as all vampires are, to a greater or lesser extent, but it's no accident that her only other truly earth shattering romantic relationship in the series is with another vampire) because she's the Slayer, and because of the soul he was cursed to bear and the guilt he feels for the evil he committed as a vampire, he wants to protect and save her as part of his atonement. He falls in love with her because she brings light back into the darkness he has been cast into since being forced to bear a soul even as a monster. And he would be 241 years old whether he was turned as a teenager and could pass as one of her peers or turned at 26 (the show is inconsistent on the age at which he was turned and it really doesn't matter, since the buffyverse never tries to pretend vampires are 'frozen' at the age they're turned anyway), and yes, part of what is darkly compelling about their relationship is that the age difference is obvious (Sarah Michelle Gellar was 20 and David Boreanaz was 28 during season 1), but the reason Angel being an 'older man' is never considered super relevant (aside from a few lampshades) is because... it really isn't.

The important thing, the critical thing, the thing that matters in the context of their relationship is that Angel is a vampire. That's why when Angel pulls out his 'I'm 241, you're 16' spiel it rings so hollow--because that doesn't really matter to either of them and he knows it. He's trying to push her away because it's the only way he can really protect her, and even then it doesn't work, and they all suffer for it horribly, Buffy most of all. (And even then she can't stop loving him, nor he her, and that makes it all the more tragic when he realizes the only thing he can do for her is leave.)

Also, it really throws into sharp relief the fact that people care so much about Buffy being a teenage girl when it comes to her romantic relationships but not at all when it comes to her being fated to die. Something the show itself is also quite critical of, because that's part of the point--being the Slayer is an awful burden that none of them have ever had a choice but to bear, and Buffy was supposed to die at sixteen years old. The only reason she survives is because she broke the rules by trying to have a normal life in addition to being the Slayer, which is the only reason she has friends to help her and save her, and I'm supposed to look at all of that and care that her broody vampire bf was a 'grown man' when he was turned? Really?

I don't think so. You can't just be willing to take what the show says for itself at face value when it comes to all the fighting and killing and dying but then balk when it comes to sex. That just doesn't work for me. (I mean, you can, and a lot of people do, but it's frustrating, hence this post.)

[bread-wizards]

I actually think Dorian and Orym should fight more.

Remember when their slowly building tension over and entire episode (full of passive aggressive remarks and blame throwing) led to threats? And how after, Orym thanked Dorian for handing over the crown sadly because he knew Dorian would be mad at him? And Dorian couldn't even look at him because he was legitimately hurt, thinking Orym was disappointed in him for doing what he thought was right? That was peak.

The fact they went from that to their current closeness and trust is the best part of their entire dynamic. Their relationship was hard fought and still will be. They will fight for it because they respect and care for one another deeply, and their disagreements don't change that, only improve it.

[revvethasmythh]

You know, I think there's something so, so insidious to the idea that Orym's perspective of the Vanguard is "flawed/human" or that him repeatedly reminding his friends what the Vanguard does (kill innocents to achieve their means) "blocks nuance" in the conversation, etc, because it implies that, in this mythical "objective" perspective that apparently exists, the Vanguard aren't so bad. If only Orym could put aside his petty grievances, such as the murder of his father and husband, and let people be nuanced about this situation, he'd see there's two sides to this story. And why discount the Vanguard's perspective just because *checks notes* they're a massive, manipulative cult that preys on vulnerable people to join their ranks and turns them to violence, or that they work with a centuries-old fascist eugenicist literally mind-controlling psychic government with the goal of freeing a creature that could very well destroy the world as we know it and even if it doesn't, will leave an enormous power vacuum for that fascist government to potentially occupy when they invade Exandria?

I think there's some misconception people have that they think war shouldn't ever be personal and if it does become personal for someone then their logic is too clouded by their feelings to see the situation clearly, just automatically. And perhaps sometimes, in some contexts, this can be true! But not here. It's actually quite cut and dried that Orym's "flawed, human" perspective is the one reminding everyone of the human cost to Ludinus' grand plans, all in the name of so called "progress"

[atopvisenyashill]

people will be like “elia isn’t central to the narrative it’s crazy she’s so popular” and meanwhile not only is ned stressing out about her murder and what it means for jon snow every three to four business days, but her daughter’s angry black cat is quite literally haunting the red keep and someone claiming to be her son is about to land on westeros. it’s almost like the ghosts of elia and her children are in fact central to the narrative and she’s popular for a reason.

[lazy30]

Don't want to say this on twitter because I'm a coward but I really like this dsmp behind the scenes thing, that you can see they bantering and their friendship without the dialog planing for the lore, and this video is make me happy to see rivals duo friendship or Technoblade friendship with the others like snf and bad, that he such a troll I love him.

Now the point is I really hate when drantis said that rivals duo friendship it's just on dsmp, but no, they still talking not just on dsmp, they still talking behind the scenes, on MCC, etch and more importantly is in this video or more scenes that they don't recording it. Rivals duo friendship is real.

[hypogryffin]

Twitter cold and hard. Tumblr soft and warm. Can I have some Kannao to counteract everything that happened please?

the way this ask was sent a year and a half ago and i dont even know which kanji and naoto twitter discourse its even for because weve cycled through like 27 separate events within that time frame

[luckthebard]

I should know better than to go on CR twitter but I just read someone in all seriousness complain about Orym “pulling the dead family card” without any seeming awareness of how callous of a thought that is

And I just desperately want some of these people to take a giant step back and try to exercise some curiosity about different explorations of life experiences and emotional truths instead of resorting to downplaying or dismissing ideas that are difficult or uncomfortable.

[allpiesforourown]

Tbh I feel like we need to be a bit more sympathetic to the younger generations because you do need to remember these kids are from a time of tiktok activism while we were suffering through terrible fanservice no one asked for

Like keep in mind this is what we had for women in fantasy games

Whereas this is what women in fantasy games look like now

Like I cannoooot tell you how many times I've seen people calling a totally normal story problematic and thought "these people would have a stroke watching the anime we had"

Obviously they're going to see something scandalous yet harmless and freak out, they're dumb as hell and their brains aren't fully grown. Instead of calling them puriteens and making fun of them we can just be like "things that are normalized for us are not normalized for them"

When I look back at being a teenager I can admit I had a LOT of opinions that were wrong and I have no shame admitting I've changed as a person. But older people making fun of me and telling me I'm stupid because I'm young definitely was not something that helped with that process

[axolotlclown]

not giving a shit about anything dream smp related anymore is just living a normal life and then every couple of months or so dream is calling tommyinnit stans slurs