#(more complicated but thats the short version)

[wolfeyedwitch]

When it's 3 years after the fact and you realize that you accidentally helped a friend name a character Tim Drake.

*facepalm*

To be fair, it's a nickname? But still. When my friend went "hey what should my character Septimus's last name be?"

I said "Drake," because fantasy setting, and it sounds cool, and why not.

It wasn't until later that we got into the whole "Septimus is kind of a mouthful, what would people actually call him?"

And that's when Tim came up as a nickname.

And I put NONE OF THIS ALL TOGETHER until just recently when reading Batfam fics because that's the rabbit hole my current fandom fixation went down via crossover introductions a la dpxdc.

I think I need to go hide in shame now.

[eternityservedcold]

my guide to getting started on firefox is the only one you need

step 1: download firefox from the official website

step 2: import your passwords and such from your browser. this sounds complicated, but it should take no time at all

step 3: download ublock origin from the firefox add-on website

thats literally all you need to do in terms of out of the box setup. you may wish to do more, such as downloading more add-ons (see under the cut for some i recommend), but this is all that is needed for most people

my recommended add-ons:

sponsorblock & her sister dearrow. sponsorblock allows you to skip sponsors in youtube videos, dearrow changes clickbait titles and thumbnails

dark reader. forces all websites to have a dark mode

the wayback machines official extension. allows you to archive and see archived versions of websites with 2 clicks

right-click borescope. allows you to view and save images, even on websites that disable it

search by image. what it says on the tin, including like a billion different image search engines, and you can customize which ones it uses

ruffle. a new flash player that is supposedly safer?? idc i use it because i have nostalgia for flash

xkit rewritten, my beloved. a suite of tumblr features you can toggle on the fly, including one-click reblogs with tags, blocking entire posts, loading the vanilla versions of audio and video, and much, much more

dont accept webp. does what it says on the tin, kills webps FOREVER

wikipedia vector skin and old reddit redirect. forces the old, better layout for those two websites

tampermonkey. allows you to write and use scripts for any website

redirector. make websites redirect to any other website, like forcing fandom wikis to go to breezewiki, forcing youtube to display shorts as videos, or forcing tumblr to display images in full quality (plaintext of these rules)

[bunnidid-reviews]

DID Short Films

Something I really enjoy is watching short films about DID :) it's always intriguing to see what sort of representation can be showed in a few short minutes, and just how much care and attention to detail is put into it.

I don't have the energy to do a full review of each, but here's a lil list of my favorite short DID films, along with some trigger warnings!

___________

Petals of a Rose

Triggers to watch out for:

a non-explicit incestuous childhood sexual abuse flashback (there's a safe version to watch with this part cut out in the same link!)

a safe and gentle non-explicit sex scene

dissociating and switching during sex

spiraling, hitting self, friction between parts

over-crowded dialogue

Things I love about this short:

We get multiple stellar scenes of what it can feel like to have DID - like being overwhelmed in the grocery store, talking yourself through the steps of it all. I really related to a lot of this

A good representation of how both positive and negative triggers can cause switches

communication between parts!

the implication of there being more parts yet to be found and how that's just kind of an accepted reality? I don't know if thats relatable for anyone else, but it really is for me

A LOVING AND HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP :DDD a partner who loves and supports and listens even if he doesn't fully understands, but clearly wants to. The amount of relief I felt when the partner STAYED with her after experiencing triggers during sex!!

The reiterations at the end that Now Time Is Safe and also, We Deserve to be Loved, and also, Each and every part is appreciated and loved

________________

Alter

Triggers to watch out for:

mild friction between parts

time loss + confusion

Things I love about this short:

The actress who portrayed the parts did a really stunning job with expressing complicated emotions surrounding time loss and the acceptance of a new part showing up

portraying a well-established system with functional multiplicity!

the use of color to portray parts is something I always remember about this one! I love that each part represents a color! I love that you can see all those colors throughout the home and in the outfits!! I love the rainbow-striped shirt she wore in the end with all the alters' colors + extra space, as if to signify that they're ready to accept more parts!!! aaaa!!! Such a great aesthetic to this film

I was SO pleased there really isnt anything triggering about this film. It's important to indicate that trauma creates the disorder, but it's SO nice when we get a bit of a break from the Horrors

supportive therapist :D

_____________

Alters and Me

Triggers to watch out for:

Mentions of trauma/abuse (very general + vague)

use of Alcohol to cope

self harm, visible scars

yelling/crying

Things I love about this short:

I like that this one's more like a general overview of the alters and how our main character came to understand and accept her DID

nonhuman alter representation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (a doggo)

The alter who struggles with alcoholic coping and self harm has a realistic reformation arc and turns out to be a cherished caretaker!!

Overall this one's pretty short, but very down to earth and realistic without being too triggering. I liked it a lot!

_______________________

I'm sure there are others that are good too, but that's my list for now! I tried to choose ones that didn't lean too far into horror trope editing or twists so they're safe for anyone to watch :) I might add to this sometime in the future if I see more

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy! Feel free to let me know your thoughts or share some of your favorites with me, you know I'm always curious to hear about this stuff

[wazzappp]

Ok @moosemonstrous here we fuckin go.

OK SO. I apologize if it comes off more Evangellion than Pacific Rim but I thought that making The Charger more slender would help to differentiate it and allow for a focus on agility (also helps it to look more skeletal and unsettling).

The Charger is built in layers. An outer layer that constitutes the armor, a thinner covering, metal scaffolding, secondary thin covering, and then finally the essential wiring that makes the 'nervous system' of the Jaeger. Most of the damage (corruption scars, nicks, paint chipping) is just cosmetic, and the structural nature of the Jaeger is intact.

HOWEVER. The same can not be said of the reactor core. At some point (maybe during Eli's death?) corruption made its way behind the main fans of the outer engine and into the main reactor that powers the Jaeger. In theory this should lead to a catastrophic failure, but in this instance Im thinking there was a chemical reaction that essentially stabilized the corrosive nature of the Corruption (were gonna circle back to that).

For the most part my version of Robbies suit is fairly standard. I added an orange tint to his helmet screen for flavor because hey. Why not.

The spine of the suit is probably newly integrated to allow for an updated interface, I imagine theres at least a little development in the technology between the time Eli dies and Robbie comes into play. That would make the suit a weird mishmash of past and new technology which could be VERY fun.

Also I LOVED the white accents @cicada-candy added for their design but I didn't want to steal ideas so I just added it in my own places. Your art fucks severely bro I just wanted to make sure and let you know that <3

TIME FOR MY FAVORITE PART: SPECULATION ABOUT THE CORRUPTION AND ITS THEORETICAL GENETIC EFFECTS IN DOSES ON A SUBJECT!!!!!! (AKA self indulgence part 2 electric boogaloo)

I believe you mentioned the Corruption being a Neurotoxin which would be Very fun and VERY cool but I also have a suggestion. Mainly because you also referenced an increase in Robbies strength, as well as another person who got fuckin deaded shortly after.

A rapid growth in muscle density to allow for this strength would be very interesting, but why would the Corruption cause that? Simple answer; it isn't. At least not intentionally. Whats actually happening is a kind of nerve damage that changes the brains regulation of muscular exertion. Our brains really only let us use a certain percentage of our real strength, because if we just let loose and used it all we would cause significant physical damage to ourselves. Like. ripping your own tendons free from their anchors. you could break your own bones. you would die SO fast bro.

Now it is POSSIBLE to access this strength in situations of extreme stress and thats how you get people lifting cars off of loved ones, but this does still cause damage. It also gets more complicated when you consider Fast Twitch muscle reactions but for the sake of simplicity: You Would Die.

So a release of cortisol and other stress hormones, combined with a lessened ability to control strength. This means they would be USING that strength A LOT against ANYONE AND EVERYONE. But maintaining this sort of metabolism is not reasonable. Someone suffering from Corruption would likely also suffer from Hypoglycemia fatally. So extremely strong, extremely scared, and extremely short lived is the kind of deal we would be talking about here.

SO. Having said ALL OF THAT. WHAT IS ROBBIES DEAL. Well heres my proposal: The Corruption is a virus that causes neurodegenerative disease.

If Robbie was exposed to very small amounts of it as a child, it's possible it was inactive or defective, which would have allowed for an immunization point. Its also highly possible that this is a virus that can not survive (well i say survive very lightly. theres significant debate as to wether viruses are actually alive at all but I digress) outside its usual area AKA Inside a demon. He could have been exposed through contaminated water, direct contact, maybe even breathing burned version through the air. Either way, he came into contact with a weakened version of the virus and it helps him later on.

As he comes into DIRECT contact with Corruption via plugging into The Charger this is when we would start to see some more interesting effects. This Corruption would still be different though because of the aforementioned stabilizing chemical reaction in the reactor. Also, because I think Eli's DNA would be integrated into it. This provides Robbie with genetic compatibility for the virus to jump off of. Remember, viruses don't want to kill a host, they just want to reproduce as much as possible (which does end up killing a host but still). And a fun fact about viruses is that we never actually get rid of them, we just get rid of the symptoms. Once you have it its in you forever.

SO. 1. Immune response from Robbies body begins to cause the nervous damage that would allow for his rapid increase in strength. 2.Immune system recognizes the genetic material is familiar (Eli doing something good even inadvertently I guess). 3. Immune system neutralizes the virus and incorporates it into Robbies genetic coding. All good right? Happy ending? WRONG.

BECAUSE WHEN THERE ARE COPYING ERRORS IN YOUR DNA (SOMETIMES FROM VIRUSES) WHAT DO WE CALL IT?? DING DING DING 10 POINTS TO THE MUTUAL THAT SAID ✨MUTATION✨

This virus still carries genetic material from demons, this would also be getting integrated into Robbies DNA. Places like his spine which would have the most regular contact with the Corruption would probably take the brunt of these changes. It's possible that the nerve damage never truly goes away and he continuously tears and then rebuilds those muscles, resulting in overall increased strength thats technically?? stabilized?? Also I could totally see his body going 'oh shit were finally growing with decent access to fuel? BET' and just. Reactivates the growth plates in his bones ('Look! I've fixed his runt of the litter insecurity!' 'YOU FUCKED UP A PERFECTLY GOOD PILOT IS WHAT YOU DID. LOOK AT HIM. HES GOT ANXIETY ABOUT THE STATE OF HIS HUMANITY').

Oh yeah its also worth noting that this would be like. Pretty painful. We're talking constant soreness, cramps, deep aches that just won't go away. General suffering <3

Of course tapetum lucidum OF COURSE TEEF obviously as if I could go without it. You can get funky with mutations because hey. fucky wucky demon genome integration whoop whoop. Also could be interesting to see damaged areas on the Charger manifest on Robbie as damaged tissue. His skin says 'AH. Damage' and copies itself as scar tissue instead of the usual.

Oh god Ive been writing for a solid hour and a half I was supposed to be asleep a while ago ok. Moose I love this au and its making me unwell thank you for sharing with the class I hope you will consider my virus proposal for body horror purposes.

[absurdly-overpowered-astronaut]

The first of (hopefully) many OC ramblings

Oc posting? On this blog? More likely than you think! >:)

These guys are Kat (the one on the left) and Tory (one on the right) I made them for my writing class last week and to boil the story down to an elevator pitch ‘one day Kat discovers that not only are ghosts real but there is a secret organisation (well calling them an organisation is abit generous theres like 20 people with no funding) hunting them and on top of that that his best friend is now a ghost and hence dead! So to stop his friend’s ghost from getting hunted and to combat his inferiority complex he and Tory decide to join this organisation and now have to juggle life , death , ghosts hunting and stopping said ghost hunters from working out one of them is secretly a ghost oh and on top of that Kat‘s best friend is still somehow still alive?! Now there are two of them. One who is alive and one who is dead.’ this ended up longer than I thought it would…oh well I guess it’s just a really long elevator ride.

Talking about them more as characters

Kat struggles alot with as aforementioned inferiority. He’s never really been able to understand socialising so as a result to participate in conversations he learned to put himself down / put himself in uncomfortable situations and that self depreciating humour was the only way he could socialise consistently. It was easier to just assume he was always wrong then it was to try and understand the complexity’s of the social dynamics at play or to stand up for himself , It was easier to not try at any then to try really hard and get picked apart by his family for not being the best at said thing , it was easier to take the blame for things he didn’t do because no one would believe him anyway.

This is where Cory comes in (Cory is alive version of the character and Tory is dead version of the character I don’t want to get to much into Cory because I’m writing this as a way to recover from exam week stress and I’ve worked out that if I ration out oc lore posting then I can cover all the exam days but anyway I’m getting off track) Cory is someone Kat has very complicated VERY gay feelings over. On the one hand Cory is like a life raft to Kat he’s his only friend , he stands up for him , he acts as almost a social translator of sorts , he gives Kat a space to be start to unlearn bad coping mechanisms.

But Kat also feels a tangled mess of guilt and jealousy. Cory is smart , he doesn’t struggle with understanding things and seemingly has a good home life (all of which are some what untrue but once again I’ll hold off on the Cory info dumping) he feels like Cory is just wasting his time on him like he should and will be abandoned by Cory and its just a matter of time but also that he wants to be like Cory. Less in a apparitional way but more in a “the oracle told me to beware the ides and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t wished for an untimely death or demise what motivates me is it hatred is it love? Whats wrong that I too wish to be great and my mother wished she’d had a son” way , he doesn’t want to be like Cory so much as he wants to be the idealised version of Cory in his head. By demonising himself and idolising Cory he ends up in a cycle of hurting both himself and his best friend and Cory accidentally feeds into this also with his own toxic mentality “if I show him any part of myself thats not presentable he’ll leave me” and the boys are so wrapped up in their own perceptions of eachother they can’t recognise how the other person is hurt and how they are hurting themselves and its a whole thing or in other words.

Conversely Tory is a seemingly very different person to Cory despite being the same person. Cory is very charismatic and presents outwardly as self sufficient but Tory for lack of a more fitting descriptor is a sad wet cat in human form. A pathetic little mew mew if you will. (Also the reason he is call Tory is because its short for Cory two and sounds like とり)

Tory and Kat have a very different dynamic than Cory and Kat having pretty much flipped dynamics. Where as in Cory and Kat’s relationship Cory had the power now Kat has the power. He gets to be the one who knows things , he gets to be the protector , he gets to keep secrets for the greater good and he gets the social power. He enjoys getting to have power and agency.

I’m struggling to be coherent so I’m going to put this in terms of Krapman’s triangle.

Kat and Cory is victim saviour Kat sees Cory as his saviour Cory see’s himself as Kats saviour and Kat see’s himself as a victim with no agency and Cory see’s Kat as a victim with no agency that needs protection.

Kat and Tory is saviour victim Tory sees Kat as his saviour Kat see’s himself as Tory’s saviour and Tory see’s himself as a victim with no agency and Kat sees Tory as a victim with no agency that needs protection.

(I’ve been listening to alot of Crane Wives recently and they are very inspired by many a Crane Wives song)

Now I should probably explain the goose in the room. That is Goose! She is part of the ghost hunting agency and is able to sense supernatural forces. Tory because of his ghost powers he and by extension his team become high ranking members of the organisation and Goose is assigned to the team under the guise of being part of the promotion but is actually there to prove the leader’s suspicions of Tory actually being a ghost.

I like to imagine if this become anything it would be a really cool set up and pay off of having Goose the join the party really early on and the audience is all like “okay cool animal companion” but then during the BIG REVEAL that the ghost hunters knew the whole time that Tory was a ghost because of Goose and was just waiting to act on this information and just having Kat be absolutely crushed that he tryed so hard to protect Tory and he felt useful and like a smart boy and it turns out that it didn’t even matter and all because of a singular silly goose.

Goose being a goose was inspired by a video I saw the other day taking about how geese were becoming used as guard animals in prisons instead of dog because geese can not be bribed and thought it was fitting. I also just like geese.

This is the concept art I drew of the boys! They didn’t change to much from their initial concept designs surprisingly.

Now I get to talk about the magic system of the world! I’m unreasonably proud of it :) Okay so I really like the prison uniform designs in milgram and I kept seeing pictures of these cool beats and such which made me want to craft a world where the characters wore this kind of belt/cottage core stuff and so I came up with the idea of ghosts being repelled by natural materials!

Leather , whool , chawk , lead , sticks ect ect and it just opened up so many fun possibilities. I haven’t fully worked out how ghost would react to the materials I know touching them to ghosts feels like burning and they are repelled/negatively effected by them I just haven’t figured out to what extent. Here some visuals concepts I drew of possibilities. It was actually really fun to make the smoke effect it was just a scribble that I erased holes into and then blended.

I don’t want to say to much because this once again ties into Cory stuff so I’ll go more in more depth in the future but essentially ghosts attacking people used to be a really big problem in the past so clothes where designed with this in mind but after ghost all mysteriously vanished clothes started to be made of non-natural materials and no longer had ghost protection in mind so the ghost hunters wear older clothing styles because those provide the most protection (and makes them visually distinct from other characters :) IT IS SO FUN TO THINK OF DIFFERENT OUTFIT COMBINATIONS FOR CHARACTERS!

There are a couple different things ghosts can do personal to the ghost but the most can do possession , levitate objects/people and switch things.

Kat uses knifes and fights in close range so the ghost could easily make contact with him and possess him so he wears a wool sweater , gold necklace and leather bag all these are around the area that gets touched to get possessed to avoid this but getting levitated isn’t really issue like it would be for other characters because he can just throw his knifes so he doesn’t have any ghost protection on his shoes/legs.

Even though the bag provides a perch for Goose and is good protection it could get trouble some in close combat so it has clips so that it can be dropped easily.

All the characters have atleast two outfits. One is for when they are ghost fighting in public and don’t want to look suspicious and other is for when they are alone and can afford to be as protected as possible.

The buttons are made of ghost resistant materials and are to prevent ghosts from attempting suffocation. Kat can’t actually uses his knives when undercover so he uses his bag as a weapon but when its just the ghost hunters he’s allowed to go stabbing (only ghosts ofc)

And then Tory doesn’t have anything because he is a ghost and it would hurt him :( (this is actually the reason why Cory has little wooden do ups on his jacket and Tory doesn’t. Its because the wood as a natural material would hurt Tory so he has to get them changed)

it was/is so fun to think of different ways of using the ghost weakness for character design purposes and fight scenes where cards are effect by different techniques to different degrees and ahh so fun! I never thought I’d love thinking about this kind of stuff so much.

Here is some art of them from when I actually started to finalise their designs.

I had alot of fun designing hair for these two especially. It was an interesting challenge in stylisation. I tried to give them similar but different shapes.

Thank you so much for reading about my sillys!!!! In honestly it means the absolute world to me that you read the whole thing :)

[snowmoonzegoober]

💮⚘~°ROBUX ART COMMISSIONS°~⚘💮

I ALSO DO POOR GORE!! ITS 5 ROBUX!! AND IT MAY TAKE A WHILE TO DO THE COMMISSIONS BUT THATS JUST THE EFFECTS OF WAITING ON AN ARTIST-

-THE DISADVANTAGES OF THE ART!!-

•THE ART STYLE MAY NOT BE THE SAME EVERY TIME I MAKE IT!! IT MAY CHANGE!!

•THE PRICES IS HIGHER ON SOME BECAUSE IT TAKES LONG TO DRAW IT OR ITS MORE COMPLICATED TO DRAW!!

•SHORT ANIMATION(S) COST WILL DEPEND ON HOW LONG THE ANIMATION IS OR HOW HARD THE ART IS TO ANIMATE!!

•I CAN'T DRAW HANDS FOR SH-

-OTHER STUFF-

•THE COMMISSION PRICE IS EITHER ROBUX (BECAUSE I'M NOT REALLY READY TO DO THE MONEY VERSION YET!!) AND CUSTUME OC(S) (INCASE PEOPLE DONT HAVE ENOUGH OR ANY ROBUX AT ALL!!)

•NO NSFW, HOMOPHOBIC, TRANSAPHOBIC, RACISM ART!! (ETC)

•AS I SAID I DO SHIPS!! JUSY DON'T GIVE ME AN INAPPROPRIATE POSE FOR THE SHIP!!!

•I DO FURRIES BUT JUST KNOW THEY'LL LOOK REALLY BAD!!!

•NO INAPPROPRIATE GORE!! EXP - N@K3 BODY!, PR!V@T3 PARTS BEING SHOWEN!! ETC!!

💮⚘~°CUSTUME OC(S)°~⚘💮

Discord Sticker(s) - FREE!!

Just Head - One small custume oc

Helf Body - One custume oc

Full Body - Two custume ocs

Sketch(s) - One custume oc

Line Art - Ig one custume oc?

Colored LineArt - Two Custume's

Lineless Art - Three Custume ocs

Short Animation - Depends

Background(s) - FREE

Ship(s) - Ummm One custume??

Gore - One or Two custume ocs

[lightleckrereins]

Not sure if you’ve discussed this, but what actually is used for Cleves’ breakaway costume? Snaps? Velcro? Magnets (my best guess)?

Also I thought I remember somebody mentioning the actress had a separate, non-breakaway costume for post-Get Down, but I feel that may have been just a rumor. Any insight you could provide would be incredibly interesting! Thanks!

The reveal uses a combination of magnets, zippers that separate when pulled apart and really smart construction. I will eventually make a breakdown on how the costume works but those are the basics.

As for the second costume those are real. Mostly for practical reasons. During the show, after the reveal the jacket and shorts are thrown to the wings one on each side of the stage. After that Cleves goes offstage at the start of AYWD and comes back in for the first chorus. That leaves the wardrobe team a very short timeframe to retrieve both halves of the costume, take one to the opposite side of the stage, reassemble it, make sure it will stay in one piece and prepare a very fast and slightly complicated quick change; mostly in the dark. Thats not accounting for the potential of closures being damaged in the reveal or the costume not falling deep enough in the wings that they can retrieve it without being seen by the audience.

Wardrobe workers can literally do magic in a very short timeframe. But there are too many potential complications for this to be reliable so making a second costume is the safer option. Wardrobe just needs to preset the second costume in advance and do the quick change. This also has the advantage of giving them a costume with no visible tear spots (and more decoration in the case of US costumes) for promotional material and public performances.

As I said promotional images always have the non reveal costume, but a lot of backstage photos are from before the show so its easy to compare both versions. Reveal has a small gap on the sides of the shorts and the back of the jacket and no chains in US costumes.

[moving-to-dreamwinged]

OK HEY soooo sort of an update under the cut regarding sharing / other tangentially related selfship stuff !!

feel free to not read , i put it under the cut cuz its long/not super important but yea ;3

so idrk how to word this but basically since iv started hangin out on tumblr my views on selfshipping have changed a lot!!! i honestly was not expecting everyone on here to be so lovely and accepting and im so happy to be in a community i feel so comfortable in :'3

but!!! basically: with the nature of me not being open abt f/o on here things have gotten lowk really complicated LMFSJDFJHSF long story short i ended up having to sb a moot today bc i didn't realize we shared a main </3 i feel really bad abt letting that slip thru the cracks, but i just honestly did not know until i saw smth they reblogged today; and i wanted 2 respect their "dni if we share" !

however at the same time as this my views have also changed on sharing !! one week on selfship tumblr and im much more relaxed about it,,, crazy. tbh youre ALL canon and real to me even if we share cuz different versions n multiverse theory n all that. ;p SO

i realized that im comfortable interacting w/ people that i share w if it's not one of their mains, and if they state that theyre comfortable sharing on their profile bc ofc i wanna respect their boundaries!! so from now on i think thats prolly gonna be how i go about things bc it honestly just doesnt trigger me anymore yippee yahoo.

i know tht might be worrisome tho for some who dont wanna view content potentially centered around a character they *also* are dating so if that concerns you, feel free to reach out to me and ask me if we share, ill tell u!!!

or u can just block my #. 🔮 tag entirely bc that covers anything posted w The Blorbo in mind. i will never explicitly post a character tho so dont worry about being triggered either way! (yeah im prob never publicly revealing sorry)

sorry this is so long and probably WAY deeper than it actually is but im so new here and idrk the ettiquette so i just wanna make sure i dont unintentionally hurt anyone! tbh i never expected anyone to see or interact w this blog in the first place (my policy at first was . "i dont feel comfortable naming my f/o but if we share i wont interact w u!!" not accounting for the fact that ppl could interact w ME first... LMAO i just didnt expect everyone to be so nice and welcoming 😭) and im so grateful to have virtually met all u guys and ur lovely f/os ;3

anyway x o x o SORRY THAT IS SO FUCKING LONG oh my god anyways. back to ur regularly scheduled programming

[adanaac]

Could I ask about your OC's? Specifically Ophicucus and Tsuru, I love how majestic Ophi is drawn and Tsuru fascinates me both with the concept and also how lovely you have illustrated him.

I hope you are well, and thank you again for helping me with my questions o7.

Sincerely HMAD.

oh good i get to talk about my son!!

my blorbo my beloved my babygirl he means everything to me

i made him in 2017 so hes sort of grown up with me (or i've grown up and realised things about him that i couldn't have when i was younger. i have so many complicated feelings abt this that i made a short comic about it last year)

to preface this im not a great writer dont expect good writing from me lol all i have is my personal experience and stealing tropes from stories i like

(got a lot to say so its all going under the cut. also a lot of death mention)

So. who is this dude

Tsuru (not his real name in-story, i havent come up with one im happy with), 18 years old, a ghost

he has a little sister, Ori, 15, who was meant to be my sona but then i just drew him more and like drawing him more anyway

first 2 drawings i ever did of him. he was based off natori natsume yuujinchou at this point, i dont remember why or if i even liked natori that much, but i remember distinctly hes based off him

u may have noticed he sort of looks older in my older art. this is because first of all art style drift lol but also as ive gotten older ive figured out that 18 isnt actually that old.

theres also a black haired version of him (two actually) its basically something like this ⬇️

important to know that everything about this dude is a convoluted metaphor

i lovingly summarize white tsuru as "people pleaser" and black tsuru as "nihilist prick" in my head and those are the things consistent throughout all the AU versions of him

(important differences only to me) alive tsuru doesnt act like black tsuru at all thats just his warped self perception (he also doesnt act exactly like white tsuru either)

also alive tsuru has black eyes and the shortest hair, black tsuru has blue eyes and slightly longer hair (also white tsuru is slightly taller than both of them)

if they all existed at the same time they would hate each other on sight but fortunately (unfortunately?) he is just 1 dude with issues

the general vibe is white tsuru is the "yippee floaty trickster" brand of ghost and black tsuru is the sort of ghost in horror media that stands just outside your field of view in the darkness dripping with blood

for the longest time only white haired tsuru was a "character", "black haired tsuru" existed just as his corpse at most, a footnote

but over the past 2 years ive figured that hes actually really fun to draw and play with, and in a different way than white tsuru

(wait fuck isnt this just abe trio. i do always almost accidentally draw tsuru when im trying to draw haruaki.... fuck.....)

(ive had tsuru for long enough that i just keep tacking details from my fav characters onto him.....)

halls smp

so ive been on this minecraft roleplay server called halls smp with other artists for the past 2 years, theres a new season of it every few months with a different theme each time to keep things fresh and ive just been making AU versions of tsuru for it so ive had a lot of opportunity to think about him

season 1 - halloween - jiangshi tsuru

this one is almost entirely unchanged from his base characterization because i didnt want to rp too much and also didnt know there would be future seasons at this point (also basically after the first day i gave up on being called "tsuru" bc its too hard to pronounce and everyone called me canada anyway)

same basic story, guy dies and theres now a white haired version of him (actually this is the same for all the AUs). in fact im pretty sure the black haired version of this one is exactly base alivetsuru. basically what ive been interested in exploring is different kinds of death, the events leading up to it, and what kind of person he becomes afterwards (but also in equal amounts im interested in making fun designs and playing minecraft and fucking around)

(this feels like the start of the beginners guide...)

i associate him with doves and at the time, tarot card 18: the moon, but in retrospect i now think he's card 0: the fool.

season 2 - winter - ishmael

guy who died at sea and eaten by a interdimensional whale and got isekaied. loosely conceptually based off moby dick, although i havent actually read it LOL but i did spend a week reading up on drowning and hypothermia

strangely, his death didnt create a white haired version of him, perhaps because he didnt have anything in life to give up his identity and replace it with. (and also remember the hair color doesnt actually mean dead/alive)

im only calling him ishmael now in retrospect, at the time he was just tsuru/canada

while designing him i had the biggest crisis bc i didnt want him to look to much like this old old oc i had (pic 1) but then i sucked it up and went with it anyway

i never got around to drawing it but his fingers are black from frostbite thats why he wears gloves all the time.

hes one of my favorite iterations of tsuru he looks so mad or upset all the time it makes me want to tease him, and also i think the grey skin and eyebags are very cute

i associate him with whales and tarot card 18: the moon

season 3 - golden grove - fox tsuru

honestly i think this is my favorite design of him i kinda popped off. i think im just a lot more comfortable working with warm colors. and also i associate white tsuru with foxes anyway (black tsuru is totally a catboy btw) (why is he not associated with cranes if his name is tsuru you ask?? bc cranes are hard to draw next question. he did start out based off cranes tbf, thats where the white hair and the tallness comes from)

dead fox possessing his dead human friend's body (although thats only the most literal interpretation of events; in all these iterations there's only ever been 1 person) the white tsurus are mostly interested in "moving on", whatever that means to each of them

btw my banner on this blog is him

hes sort of a set with s2 tsuru to me, mostly bc theyre the ideals that "white tsuru" and "black tsuru" hold taken to the extremes, and also theyre on opposite ends of the "hates people hates talking" and "loves to talk and mess with people" scale

anyway. hes tarot card 10: wheel of fortune to me

season 4 - wild west - mirage

the desert dragon, mirage. this is the season i started giving them actual names that arent "tsuru" and putting actual thought into the story lol previously it was just vibes-based character design. i have a short thing written about him thats meant to be the script for a comic, but i never got around to drawing it.

a sandworm-esque dragon that got tired of being a dragon and took up a passing witch's offer to give him a human form. this is all a metaphor i think. he has longer hair bc i wanted to spice things up a little

(also i consider this a form of death bc he left behind a giant sandworm/dragon skeleton somewhere in the desert)

the mirage-dragon thing comes from the shen 蜃 (which is used in the chinese word for mirage, 海市蜃楼 haishi shenlou, literally translating to "ocean city and shen's castle"). it's a clam-like dragon that produces foam that creates mirages over the ocean.

if u read "even if you slit my mouth", this is what the "shinkiro" or "shin" in recent chapters is. (i had one of those "smug because i already know all about the mythological creature a story is referencing" moments, which i also had with the four gods in yohaji bc i used to translate a game that mentioned them too)

isnt it romantic in a way? that the two places mirages are most known for happening are the ocean and the desert.

i dont have too much art of him because around this time i was uhhh (checks calendar) got back into yohaji and got consumed by it for a couple months lol (can u even blame me. it was july to september that was when like chapter 91 came out lol)

an earlier version of his design that i didnt end up using but i still really like this art

hes tarot card 9: the hermit to me

season 5 - fairytales/medieval - ophiuchus

NO FUCKING WAY YOURE NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE THIS for this one i actually ironed out what kind of people the black haired and white haired versions of him are. and also specifically this one isnt black tsuru but alive tsuru

i have a short poem thing about him, to summarize its like so many other fairytales about grateful animals granting their saviors something, but it doesnt end well for anyone

hes based off ophiuchus and asclepius of course, but also a lot of other snake stories in general, like the lindwurm and baishezhuan

to reiterate, for none of these stories do i consider there to ever actually have been 2 separate people, its always just 1 fucked up guy

i also sort of consider him to be a set with mirage, for both being serpents, and also for being "black tsuru whose personality is like white tsuru" and "white tsuru whose personality is like black tsuru", thereby codifying for myself that to him, someone who's stuck in his own head a lot, what matters most to him is his ideals, what all his actions are in pursuit of

he's tarot card 12: the hanged man to me

bonus: dnd character - alba

i also have a version of him i play for dnd, named alba to match with my party who all have color themed names. a halfling ranger who's very small and very loud. except he has amnesia and cant remember anything from before he was 12 (hes around 18 now according to him), including that he's actually a changeling who just transformed into a halfling to seem older than he is to work at a bar and nearly died in a bar fight.

(if you spend as much time fretting over semantics as me, you may note that changelings are medium sized and cannot transform into halflings which are small sized, for which my explanation is that he's been in halfling form since he was a kid, and after the amnesia he thought he actually was a halfling. this is also why his hair is white btw bc changelings have white hair. pre-amnesia in his "actual" halfling transformation he had black hair. i care too much about semantics but hey isnt dnd the semantics game anyway?)

anyway congrats alba for being the only version of tsuru that hasn't outright "died"!! if only because dnd has actual rules and i can't pull my usual death-ghost nonsense as easily!!!

hes very ship of theseus to me, all versions of him are. what makes up a person? what defines them? is it their face, their appearance, their name? their personality, their memories, their ideals? if you slowly replace each of those, one at a time, with a copy thats very similar to the original, at what point are you a different person?

as thanks for reading all of this i'll reveal what some of the metaphors are, the core of who tsuru, as a character, is to me. maybe this is fairly obvious, but all the death and personality weirdness stuff is a convoluted metaphor for depression and autism, as well as the experience of reading the things you've written years ago, seeing old photos and others talking about who you were years ago and finding that person wholly unfamiliar, that you understand the thought process of that person no more than you would a stranger's, as a result of having taken apart your identity and replaced it piece by piece with things from people you like more than yourself.

im always scared of scrutinizing tsuru too hard because he's just a weird reflection of myself, and i think i'll only be able to write a version of him thats more of a "whole person" once i figure that out for myself. the only way you see your own reflection is through a mirror after all, a flattened 2D surface.

haha this got kinda weird and depressing and personal at the end (mostly bc ive been writing this in the middle of the night, its now 4am)

after seeing my soul laid bare like this, if theres one takeaway, i think its pretty obvious why i'm so enamored by the parts of yohaji that i talk about often (huh wasnt this a post about my oc why did it become about yohaji)

oh yeah i just realised u probably also wanted to hear more about my yohaji version of tsuru specifically. honestly theres not really more to it i just like drawing him in situations. like of course the same themes apply but i just like drawing this dude thats 90% the reason hes my sona. like heres a pokemon au of him i drew recently bc i wanted to draw them as kids and also as pokemon gijinkas

anyway thats all. not really bc i could go on and on about him but this is way too long and also way too personal at this point. i think about him a disproportionate amount, i only have 2 other ocs i remotely care about and the extent of my thoughts for those guys is "i think hes fun 👍"

this has probably also been like, the 3rd most comprehensive description of tsuru that ive made, 1st being the thoughts in my head and 2nd being the past 5 years worth of DMs with my friend who i talk about tsuru with

(why was this sort of structured like the beginners guide. if youve seen the beginners guide tell me if im right or delusional. if u havent, go watch a playthrough of it, have an existential crisis, and then afterwards tell me)

[viktortittiforov]

hahaha LEMME SEE - BULGARIAN RULES!

и - used for long i sounds, like ирена - irena

й - short i, the best way to deacribe is If youd type it with a Y in latin, it probably uses й! for example:

край - kray, while краи would be kraee instead (ee as in evil). i hope this made sense! also й ALWAYS needs vowels around it otherwise you cant pronounce it. sounds like yo, yu, ya, oy, ay, uy, etc.

as for ъ and ь , its similar, the first one is pronounced as in the word Under, while ь is a soft sound like latin Y again. for example кьоше is kyoshe. if you wrote it къоше it would be kuhh-o-she instead! thats what its used for, and never at the start of the word, and always with a vowel after i believe.

i dunno the third one since we dont use it in bg RIP but i hope his helped!!

@x-eins yeah thanks that helps!!! in that case й seems like it is kind of a 'j' in czech, because i think in most cases where the english transcription would use y, we use j (sounds the same), e.g. kray – kraj, perestroyka – perestrojka, yogurt – jogurt etc lol

with ь and ъ it's a bit more complicated lol but comparing with czech i think the first one is a bit of a mix between: our háček (what we call the hat in the hat letters - č, š, ň, ť, ď, ž), which is basically an indicator to soften the letter in question; our j, again, but only when it's after the consonants which don't have a hat letter version in cz (k, l, p, v, b, m, g, f, h), which again somewhat softens them (e.g. pyotr would be Pjotr in a czech transcription, though that might be written as пётр lmao, but let's not get into ё); our i, which also sometimes softens the consonant preceding it but only if that consonant is d, t, or n (DON'T ASK ME WHY THIS IS SO COMPLICATED); and our ě which again softens consonants (there are rules as to which consonants can precede it but essentially the english transcription of it would be 'ye').

ъ on the other hand is like??? what the hell. but as far as i understand it it's only used in front of certain vowels which *could* soften a consonant, but the ъ is there to indicate that they don't.... and some websites say it's only used after the prefix before a root word if the prefix ends with a consonant and the root word begins with one of the potentially softening sounds which would have y in them in the english transcription (я, ю, е, ё, so words like объезд or подъезд, which are objezd and podjezd respectively in cz, but this is the j that importantly doesn't soften certain consonants... 😮‍💨 this is where it gets kind of tangled up and confusing, but essentially podjezd if written as podězd would be like writing the word without the ъ in cyrillic...). but these rules might vary across slavic languages lol i wouldn't be surprised if they did, i think a lot of the pronunciation rules i am able to get my hands on are russian pronunciation rules

and as far as i understand it the one that you don't use, ы, is basically what would be y in czech, WHICH FOR US IS A HARD SOUND TO MAKE EVERYTHING VERY EASY FOR PEOPLE WISHING TO LEARN CZECH. we literally call it "tvrdé y" (hard y) and we call i "měkké i" (soft i), and where i would soften a consonant, y doesn't (it never softens anything) lmao and we also have a whole set of rules around when to use which i/y FOR THE CASES WHERE THEY SOUND THE SAME (the cases where i doesn't soften a consonant)

sorry this accidentally ended up containing a lot of unnecessary and cursed info about czech which is making me question how the fuck i ever got competent at speaking/writing/pronouncing this language 🫠

[leclerced]

Well its not germany vs redbull exactly. But in the DEL (highest german ice hockey league) theres a redbull team „redbull munich“ and EVERYONE hates them bc they’re a „money team“. They don’t have the tradition and just throw money around and that is generally not really respected in german ice hockey. Technically they are just „playing the game“ and have the most money to win over the best players but redbull is generally considered to just buy teams for the achievements and not really for the passion of the sport. Their fans have the reputation of being „success fans“ and not sport fans.

Idk about football and RB Leipzig but i think its the same there.

This is the very short version of the redbull hatred, its much more complicated. And also yeah im gonna out myself as a redbull hater bc its in my nature (not maxie though, rb is a flaw i can overlook for him 🫶🏻)

🫀

gotcha gotcha makes sense !! redbull certainly has a reputation

i had no idea they had an actual hockey team tho thats interesting. im learning sm from u

[toonqueen]

Day 28: Macabre Duck

My headcanon for Nega Magica and Nega Gladstone’s relationship is complicated. Ha. I have written about it before. My Nega Magica is a paladin/healie magic type. Though that seems like a good thing, her magic spells can also dip into memory manipulation and a little mind control when needed. I like the concept that Negaverse versions are not like just completely opposite of their prime versions. At first glance she seems like a goodie goodie compared to Prime Magica. Believing in balance and helping innocent parties. However she has some shady dealing and secrets. Those that don’t know the couple well would see the situation as a Beauty and the Beast type thing. Grimstone is moody and edgy seeming personality while Magica seems like an innocent soul just hopelessly in love with a monster and willing to stay with him. But oh boy she’s doing the manipulating let me tell you.

My Nega Gladstone goes by Grimstone. My prime-verse headcanon has the luck being something coming down from Grandma Duck’s side of the family, magnified by the Distelfink. So in the Negaverse the  bloodline from Grandma Duck has one family member each generation that is consumption cursed. Like how Paddywack feeds on fear, Grimstone feeds on luck. So you can see how that would pit him against his primeverse version at some point. Oh ho ho. While Gladstone is lazy and relies on his luck, Grimstone is a well studied warlock on top of his consumption cursed abilities. 

Grim and Magica stay at Grandma’s farm, which unfortunately Grandma duck isn’t alive anymore. She was a bit of a paranoid survivalist so the farm is pretty self sustaining and had power off the grid. They do work as a pair to fight super natural things and collect dangerous artifacts they keep safely locked up in the farmhouse basement. That part of their lives is a parody on the RL based couple in The Conjuring. Once again I like the idea of Negaversers not being black and white good and evil based on their prime counterparts. Though Grimstone has tried to each Gladstone’s luck a few time in the primeverse, in the negaverse he and Magica are doing things to help save the world sometimes. Yah know. (I do the same with Negaduck but that's a different story HA)

I’m giving a lot of links to old stories cuz I haven’t had time to do Duckvember this year but here is a great story touching on their relationship haaaa. 

What little short story I wanted to write for this prompt was actually Magica getting badly injured on one of their missions and Grimstone bringing her body back to the barn with the Distelfink. He can’t do any healing magic at all because of his whole consumption cursed thing. He does his best he can with no luck (ha.) 

The actually have three kids and there youngest an adopted canadian goose named Orin, witnesses this going on. Grimstone tells him momma is alright and to go in the house and get some things needed. I see him being around 7ish in this story. With Orin’s help he is able to get Magica’s major wound closed up and maybe she might have needed a little rezz to. She might have been a little bit more dead than alive. But luckily now stable her own healing tomes kick in and she though unconscious, gets healed enough that she is going to be okay. 

Grimstone reassures Orin that momma was okay all along she just need a little help. And also don’t tell momma what just happened she’ll be worried and we don’t wanna stress out momma. 

Of course the next day when Magica is feeling better but resting in bed, Grimstone brings her breakfast. She states she knows everything that happened. Because Orin is a little snitch and loves his momma more than his daddy so he told Magica EVERYTHING. Magica isn’t mad, is glad Grimstone was able to save her. But like, his healing job is horrible she’s gonna have a scar on her torso thats never gonna go away but GRIM DID HIS BEST OKAY. ;-;

[voidsentprinces]

Homestuck Day. Time for an annual short hand.

Homestuck is about four kids who want to play a hit new game together that devours their reality and gives them items, armor, and titles with powers. But, because it destroys reality if they can’t win it, their reality ends.

Sorry did I say Homestuck is about four kids? Sorry, Homestuck is about a group of gangsters trying to kill one lady in particular, her boss, and the bosses’ right hand man. But in doing so kick starts the end of the universe.

Sorry did I say Homestuck is about a group of gangsters? Sorry, I meant Homestuck is about a mail person and a mayor trying to make their way through the universe when an incel on another planet kills his Queen and gives himself god powers and kick starts the end of the universe.

Sorry did I say Homestuck was about a mail person and a mayor? Sorry, I meant Homestuck is about a group of alien children who have overtly complicated relationships who live in a fascist, brutal society and are divided into a caste system based entirely on the color of their blood. They also just so happen to align with the Horoscope. They also try to get together to play a game but after some of them accidentally kill each other and at least two people purposefully kill each other and leave at least one person blind. They find they’re not able to win the game because the Incel who killed his Queen is also under the unfiluence of the BRITISH.

Sorry did I say Homestuck is about a group of alien children? Well I didn’t stutter because those alien children fucked up their reality they decide the best use of their time is to harass the first four children and thus get dubbed internet “Trolls” which is perfect cause thats the name of their alien race anyway. Funny thing about how they fucked up their reality. You see while the original four children are moving forward in time, the Trolls are from the future and all their online interactions with the kids happen in reverse order. From being future all knowing internet gods to their first actual meeting of one another online on the forums. Think Tenet but before Tenet was Tenet. But for internet forums. Anyway, because of this the trolls are free to mess with the kids and at least one of them gets one of the kids killed at least once in a rocket flying accident. But that same kid goes onto make incestous, homoglobian, homunculus clones of himself, his four friends, and their parental figures making them a mesh of being related but not really being related and becoming a bootstrap paradox.

Sorry did I say Homestuck is about a group of alien children? I meant the mail person isn’t able to deliver mail, the Mayor is the Mayor of a Can Town and the Incel who is possessed steals on of the kids dogs but its alright because the Mail Person is SO ENRAGED that they also get the power of the kids dog that power is ULTIMATE OMNIPOTENCY! And the two spend the rest of the series literally just fighting each other. Ruining the universe.

Sorry did I say Homestuck is about a mail person who isn’t able to deliver mail? I meant it was about the author who is being harassed by the ram troll’s ghost but then the BRITISH kick his door in and kill him ruining the future endings of this story...where was I?

Homestuck then actually becomes about four kids trying to reset their universe before the BRITISH arrive and thus causing a supernova and the birth of a frog so powerful it propels them through the four wall into another universe. Meanwhile a Clown boy goes randomly insane and kills a cat person and a muscular troll before being sliced in half by the vampiric one with a chainsaw who also kills the Harry Potter stand in for killing the mermaid stand in because Harry Potter was jealous the Royal Mermaid was paying more attention to the IT Beelon Musk and kills him too. By the way, one of the ones who is already dead is possessing a robot version of herself built by a muscular dude but she has no interest in him cause she’s also ALL IN on Beelon Musk. The Spider one who ended up blinding the justice one also crippled the bull one. And kills him too cause if you’re gonna start a murder party, you might as well get to EVERYONE! Anyway justice gal kills spider troll. Fuck where was I again? Oh right

Sorry did I say Homestuck was about four kids trying to reset their universe? Cause if you like kids, yo dawg check this out, we got kid version of the kids parents who are also kids trying to play a game together, so you got kids from the kids of the kids, ya dig? No? Well fuck off this isn’t going to get any easier cause these kids universe is also getting fucked by the BRITISH.

So Homestuck is about these eight children hanging about doing fuck all with the remaining trolls while one of them tries to raise an army of the--

Sorry let me back track, Homestuck is about twelve different trolls who are already dead but not really? Who are the ancestors of the main trolls but different personalities and a little more emphasis on the ones we didn’t get focused on before because they got killed when the Clown went insane. Also cool fact this Royal Mermaid stand in crows up to be Betty Crocker. You heard that right. But in this world Betty Crocker is a motherfucking Empress of the Universe and right hand murderess extradoinare of the BRITISH!

Homestuck is actually about the BRITISH being the most incel person you’ve ever met and spliced with Eric Cartman and Jeoffrey Baratheon. The universe is ended but he dreams of being a cool king pin dude, my guy. But he can’t do that cause he’s chained to a stone tablet and when its his turn to sleep, he is replaced with his creative sisters. Who is the stand in for the fan artists and thus is just the best in world...so naturally he hatches a plan to kill her and escape. Which he does. He then goes on to take over Homestuck and make a shitty clay puppet show. One of the four children who are the kids parental figures in kids form kind of sort of maybe also become clowns and yell things like CAUCASIAN because they are awkward teenagers who don’t know how to express their feelings. Some of them might be dating trolls, some of them might be dating the Mayor of Can Town. Bottomline everything gets fucked so now they have to try aga--

Homestuck is about the Spider Troll not getting killed and thus fixing the timeline and everyones issues just in time for them to split up into squads. One squad has a giant ghost army of all the times the trolls have ever died in every universe ever to the BRITISH to stall the BRITISH for the other squads to beat the game. Another Squad is task with fighting the possessed Incel who killed his Queen and became possessed by the BRITISH! Then another squad has to fight and kill Betty Crocker right hand murderess of the  BRITISH! and lastly, a group has to fight the gang members who are back for some reason...also one of the original four kids has to go calm down the two dogs from fighting. But only distracts one the mail person then gets angry enough to punch out the kid and take the others power killing him for good. Its...a cocaine induced, hyperactive fuck a thon of fighting. But the kids win and go on to live happily ever after.

There is probably 20,000 things I missed but there, that is fucking Homestuck. I saved you hours of your life.

[titleknown]

https://www.tumblr.com/monsterkissed/697364310418227200/watching-the-ai-art-debate-thing-on-twitter-is-a

Thoughts on this post? (If this appears twice, thats because i sent it twice to reduce the likelihood of tumblr eating it)

Well, I agree with their view that the way it's tied to emotional underlying reactions is not helping their case, and that it does need to focus on material; practical policy.

But... I don't think forcing AI models to only use PD art and license all copyrighted art they use for their models is good policy, and to bring it up in good faith to @monsterkissed who presumably is annoyed at hearing this Discourse specifically on the notes of their original post, I'd like to elaborate on why.

Specifically, forcing PD stuff or stuff you own to be the only stuff you're allowed to use for AI models would not affect megacorps using this tech to replace artists at all.

Because, places like Disney and Warner still own reams of art copyrights, which they could freely plunder to train their own models. For examples of how that might happen, see also, the franken-CG versions of Star Wars characters and the use of James Earl Jones' voice that Disney is doing. But independent artists would only have access to much weaker tools in this status quo.

So it would mean only megacorps could use these tools at their full power, while independent artists are left with scraps. Which seems counter-productive at best to avoiding megacorps replacing artists with AI artists.

Expanding copyrights to an artist's style would do some terrible things to art too, as the lawsuit over Blurred Lines and the talk about that and the follow-up waves of lawsuits have shown.

And if one makes artists legally liable for the art program they use, that could be its own nightmare; like say; if you use an out-of-date Adobe product, or get attacked by a copyright troll for using abandonware.

Heck, even with regards to money, due to the inherent size of AI art pools, artists would likely only get a fraction of a penny if that in terms of royalties if such a licensing scheme were in place.

And we've seen examples of how the approach of "everything must be properly licensed" can backfire enormously, look at the story behind sampling.

In Chokepoint Capitalism (Which I urge you to read) Cory Doctorow talks about how sampling in music as a widespread artistic tool basically died when artists were forced to license every single clip they used, because things became so cost-prohibitive it was impossible.

And, while it started with a few windfalls for legacy artists being paid for use of their clips, that was extremely short-lived, because corps started taking sampling rights in their contracts too, thusly this mandating of licensing ended up helping basically nobody but the megacorps ended up better off.

I could easily see such a nightmare scenario applied to AI art if they went the copyright maximalist route.

My policy view... well, it's complicated. Let it be noted that I'm a copyright minimalist, and have been for years, and I think that copyright is too damn long and too damn much, more a tool of corporate monopoly than creator protection at its current scale, and it needs to be reduced for the good of us all.

I actually believe it should be based in the opposite of copyright expansion, IE expanding the commons, because if it draws from the shared pool of public art; then it should give back.

I think that, while AI artists have pointed out there are problems with raw AI art being auto-PD, as is currently the legal status-quo, I think that would probably be a mutually preferable compromise to forced copyright nickel-and-diming, if only because it would make it harder for the corpos to exploit and allow AI artists to keep working on their medium.

There's also policies that one could take to make it more difficult for megacorps to exploit AI art to directly take artists jobs, a couple of which were suggested here, and I think that makes more sense as a policy thread to tug on.

And finally... god, we need more arts funding. Like, here in the US Republicans basically murdered it years ago, and we could do so much good by expanding it, especially in new ways geared towards the online artists that the system seems to have underserved over more traditional gallery-style/public works artists.

Heck, we could probably advocate for more Guaranteed Basic Income For Artists programs like Ireland is doing, if only to bring it into the Overton window in this "nice things don't get to politically happen ever" country!

So yeah! In not-very-brief my thoughts!

[thelostscholarofmcd]

What type of MCD Aaron fan are you? An Aarmau Aaron fan or a He Had Great Potential Until Aarmau?

oooooooo lordy is my answer complicated to that one

in short: he had great potential until aarmau

buckle up cause here comes the long version

from a story telling point, aaron had certain characterisation that was cringe at best and unbearable at worst (mainly referring to the "broken human" thing here) but what I always liked was how he formed connections with others and how at his core he had a "protect those deserving of protection, show kindness to everyone" mentality

he didnt speak or even make an effort, simply decided that those people were better to be with than to live the rest of his life alone - this is the character i loved most

from a storytelling point i can understand why aarmau quote on quote worked in canon, though i never fully agreed with it because it not only ruined aarons haracter but also took away from aphmaus

to me aarmau never really had any romantic underlining and instead resembled a mentor-mentee connection, and thats why it surprised and disappointed me when they decided to take it down the path of romance

now after aarons death in season 2 we dont find out anything more about him (other than the letter which is uhm... w e l l . . . there really is not a nice way to phrase it; was the shows attempt at salvaging/making aarmau plausible) and even after in season 3 he barely has any appearances, and the rare appearances he is given just further deteorite his character and centralise his love for aphmau as a core motive

So in conclusion; i understand why aarmau is canon and can sympathise with it to a certain degree, but i would prefer if it didnt turn romantic and instead allowed the characters to help grow and learn from one another

[mearpsdyke]

hola, pollito 🐥 here's a question: what do you think is your best fic, and why? you can pick more than one, and i really want you to compliment yourself! usá esa educación universitaria

omg mar hiiii, why would you do this to me? 😭 i have such a hard time picking... i'll just do a top 5 of what i think my best recent fics are lol.

obsesionario. i've really taken to heart all of my literature classes, i think the challenge here was (a) keep a consistent writing style, (b) try to show the conflict between jamie and dani from all angles to make it fully explicit that there aren't just black and white areas but a whole rainbow of complications when it comes to soulmates. (even when some readers hate it bcuz of the bias towards jamie but thats not something i control *shrugs*)

fate don't take my bribes. listen. LISTEN. i wrote this in a period of my life where i was madly in love with someone that KNEW i was madly in love with them and led me on for MONTHS. this is my personal catharsis and every time i re-read it i'm like, wow i was in so much pain- and this language is so very poetic. i don't think i'll ever top the language in this fic, truly. the end symbolizes me cutting all ties with that person and allowing myself to move on. it's very special to me.

in my head, we belong. this one is up there in my personal hall of fame, i've grown as a writer since this fic happened but i have such a fond memory of it. i think this kickstarted my need to always improve and try out different things with my writing. it's very simply written, it's a rather short story, but it laid the foundation for many techniques i use up until now.

something they can't take away. i really don't know what possesed me to write this monster of a fic in, like, 5 days, but i think this one is the best example of what i can do with psychologically complex characters. i gave angel the backstory she never had, gave her complex ptsd, and somehow made it work. i wanna write more fics delving into the psychology of my version of angel but i need to have the ideas first.

tierra y sol. i dont know what is it with me and giving complex trauma to characters i love but it's not like i'm the only one. tierra y sol has a special place in my heart because i think this is what *i* like in a good romance; quick, tender, and silent. it's not about the things they said, it's about the things they left unsaid and only hinted at them!! it's about falling in love in summer as healing!! it's about allowing yourself to be loved!!! i'm struggling with the second part of this fic but by GOD it is coming. i dont know when but it is.