#Right now it's limited to fandoms and visual arts but the way corporations are backing AI into literally everything

[narudoodles]

Logging in after a busy weekend irl, and seeing no further responses from @skykashi presumably they've blocked me after I asked to see the layers of the artwork. I was anticipating it, but it's really funny nonetheless.

The easiest and simplest way to disprove my theory would've been to post a screenshot of all the layers in the art file, or better, in a video like here, but instead they went off on a lengthy 30 min video about irrelevant topics.

At the end of the day, they know what they have done, and no amount of defensive posts or deflection will take away from the truth. AI art obtained by a few clicks of the mouse for social media validation may feel nice temporarily, but I hope one day they truly improve their skills to match those of the artist they entered as prompt on mid\journey or the likes.

Going forwards, they will either have to use AI for all their future arts to maintain style consistency (or rather, inconsistency, since they said in their explanation vid that their style actually varies dramatically as per their wishes, which is. Cool?)

Or, the more desirable, but less likely route - they'll revert to their original art style, in which case, AI won't be used, which was the original point of the conflict.

[jeanjauthor]

Writers?  This is the artistic version of a short story.

Artists...?

...WHY??

So...many...questions.

A lot of this breaks what writers call “the willing suspension of disbelief.” It’s where the audience is willing to overlook implausible things in order to keep following the story.  At some point their credibility has a limit, a breaking point where their ability to suspend and ignore their disbelief will snap, like hanging a thread from the ceiling, and then putting too much weight on it.

Some of these weighty questions include:

Why is she "standing" like that? She looks like she's sitting on an invisible stool!

Why is her cloak/sheet still bound up like that if she's been fighting long enough to get her sword bloodied?

Why is she so pristine when the wyrm corpse is clearly freshly arterially injured??

Why does she have no shoes and pristine feet when she’s clearly touching a bloody corpse?

Why is the tag end of her cloak/sheet...thing...whipped up under one leg and over the other when she’s been chopping up a monster and now has to fight another one?

Again, why is she so clean??

There are so many WTF questions...

What is she sitting on?

If she’s not sitting on anything, how is she supporting her weight in that position?

She’s not being supported by her feet, that’s for sure--is she seriously en pointe with her left foot (the one on our right, visually)?

And the one on the left (her right foot), if it’s resting at a 45-ish degree angle on a corpse so freshly butchered it’s still spurting, how is it she’s able to keep it in place when it should be slipping out from under her by all the laws of squshy meaty blood-filled things?

Where is the missing V shaped wedge of that tail?  Look at the angles on those two cut ends; there is clearly a whole big fat wedge of flesh that is missing!  If there wasn’t, that tail would literally have been an L shaped structure with the cut angling on the diagonal down into the corner, and that is just disturbing to contemplate...

...Where are the arm bones in those dragon-wings?? Seriously, that is disturbing, seeing the thin metacarpals and phalanges (the “finger bones” of wings if you look at wings as nothing more than elongated & weirdly angled hands) ...but not the arm bones...so where are they??

...Now this isn’t to say the picture is all bad!  The concept is actually a neat idea, looking like a cross of Lord of the Rings meets all those hedonistic Renaissance paintings of the Ancient Greek mythos.  And it would be 100% correct to mix mythos like this, as the Renaissance painters were doing that all over the place, mixing Greek mythos symbology into Biblical art, and vice versa (all of which was fan art, btw).

The streaky effect of the Nazgûl is wonderful, though I’d like to see a bit more tattering (along the same diagonal upper left to lower right lines) on that right side of the Ringwraith fellow, there.

The Ringrwraith even seems to be bending the airwaves around and above him, with the effects of the clouds sort of streaking in toward that bright spot in the sky above and behind.  It makes it look like the halo is sucking in all the Light before fleeing into the West, or trying to suck the Nazgûl  off the face of the planet to hopefully disinterate its evilness out of existence...

The bright part of the sky also kind of looks like dragonbreath fire, even though the Fell Beasts that the Nazgûl rode upon aren’t evern mentioned (as far as I can recall) as being able to breathe fire like dragons.  So that’s another point of coolness.

I have no idea what’s going on anatomy-wise of the presumed fallen and chopped up Fell Beast, but at least some effort has been made to provide it with a (weird) internal structure.  If it really is a Fell Beast and not meant to be a dragon or a wyrm, then I can accept the odd anatomy and darkness of the...I’m not sure if those are bones, but I’m presuming that it has some bones in its tail, and if it’s a foul abomination style creation, I can accept the creator had no clue.

I do like the crispness of the woman in focus versus the Nazgûl who is equally clearly not in focus.

Certainly the woman definitely looks like a Renaissance painting of a Greek Mythos Action Sequence! She’s in a classic serene, poised action pose that no doubt has some sort of supporting stool & armature behind and under the original model for her to rest her arms upon.

The symbology of Shield Maiden of Rohan certainly gets the first two components of that descriptor down visually: for the first part, she has a shield (lovely round thing, very Classic Greek Hero With Spiffy Expensive Metal Shield), and she definitely is using it to shield herself from something. (Plus the sword.)  The other part of the symbology is the “modesty sheet drape” under one thigh (gotta show off them nekkid thighs, Renaissance foiks!!) and up over the other, between the legs, blocking off any view of or access to the mons pubis...aka, shielding her maidenly modesty.

However, there is zero sign she’s from Rohan, because there’s zero symbolism representing Rohirrim culture...and the key element to Renaissance pictures of various cultures’ mythos were that they were rich with symbolism.  The Rohirrim, the Riders of Rohan, were emphasized over and over as horse people.

Tolkienn also cribbed the Scandinavian culture for his descriptions of them (I suspect the Golden Hordes of the Russian Steppes, heavily influenced by the Rus folks who were Scandinavians who had moved east and mingled with the Mongolian Empire remnants who a little earlier had moved west.  The Greeks knew of the Scandinavian peoples (no, really, they knew of them! Electricity is actually just the Latin word elektron (which comes from a similar-sounding Greek word I’m not going to bother to spell correctly), which meant amber, as in the petrified pine pitch being shipped down through Europe from the Baltic Sea in the far north, which is surrounded by Scandinavian countries.

Yet there’s no signs or symbols of Scandinavia about her, no knotwork animals, no amber, just pale blonde hair (which frankly could be representative of the British Isles or partial albinoism)...  So while there’s a lovely Greek Mythos in Renaissance Paintings feel to her...it falls short of being a true copy/homage, which is unfortunate.  It could’ve been so easily fixed, too, with a bit of knotwork braiding painted onto the cloak/sheet thing.

I will say that the folds of that sheet are spectacularly well painted, lovely depth and dimensionality to them!

Same goes for the condours of her body, and the tail of the wyrm.  I fully believe these are three dimensional objects!

The lighting is beautifully done.  Admittedly if the light is coming from that glowy bit of the sky behind the Nazgûl, she should be in shadow...except he’s a Ringwraith, and it’s 100% acceptable for light to go through him, since according to cannon, they’re not fully corporeal.  This is a “plot” point where fans who know the lore are more than willing to suspend disbelief.

I’m not a rabid Tolkienn fan by any means, but I do know enough to accept that Ringwraiths are wraiths, and not fully of the physical realm.  Plus, Greek Mythos Heroes in Renaissance paintings are supposed to be Bathed In The Light Of Holy Goodness, sort of an inner aura spiritual goodness radiance-effect, I guess...?  Either way, it’s symbolism, it indicates visually that the Light (Good) will shine through upon Heroes (& Heroines) when they are being their Most Heroic...and it’s very well done.

(...Another question if that’s her helm on the ground, where is the rest of her armor? Where are her clothes?? Or is this meant to parody the “sword and magic helmet!!” trope and the helmet was providing all her armor and clothes up until the point she removes it to reveal she’s a nekkid Not A Man? And really, are Nazgûl so far removed from their mortal lives that they need nakedness to be able to tell males from females of their own species...?)

If this were a story, it would be a crossover fanfic with awesome potential...but it falls a little short of what’s needed to successfully suspend the reader/viewer’s disbelief.

Why is it important to do a better job next time, to get these details a little more accurate? Because most Tolkienn fans I know are rabid about it, & willing to nitpick any mistakes or inaccuracies. Cast your minds back to the huge raging fandom debates around the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies about whether or not Peter Jackson & co were “butchering the mythos” of Middle Earth.

Also...I’m trying to figure out how the Nazgûl is standing, and on what if he is indeed standing, though perhaps he’s actually astride the fallen Fell Beast, and simply swung himself around while she was chopping off & somehow disintegrating that V-shaped wedge of wrymtail? I can suspend some of my disbelief for that, though it does add to the overall strain of that willing suspension, and obviously there were too many other issues that ended up snapping it.)

As an editor, if this were a story, I’d be telling the artist to fix the wing bones, to give the woman some shining chain armor with a Rohirrim tabard, or boiled leather armor and tabard--at the very least a tabard with the Rohirrim symbols on it!!. I’d also at the very least slap some Scandinavian knotwork on it, if not the actual Horse of Rohan. (I’d also suggest using the accepted colors for the Rohirrim banner, green and gold, though I might keep the majority of the tabard white and just have a gold-and-green knotwork horse centered on the chest, or something.)

I’d also request there be more chunks of hacked-off tail all over. (Bonus points if one of them looks like The Lonely Mountain!  lol...)

Plus, I’d give her at least a tiny bit of blood spatters around her boots and on her thighs & a little on the lower tabard, to show she’s been fighting in battle all along.  However, I’d actually hesitate to put the spatters any higher than belt-line at most (and definitely do something different than that cloak/sheet thing).

Why would I hesitate to get the chest area bloody? Because of the symbolism.

Renaissance paintings had blood & gore, but only up to a point.  She’s the heroic figure who slays the 3rd Biggest Nasty of the entire trilogy (#1: Sauron, #2 Saruman, #3 chief king of the Ringwraiths, the one she stabs in the face-hole), so she needs the symbolism of still being Clean And Pure Of Heart, aka no muss, mud, tatters, or blood in the torso (chest / heart) area.

In fact, if you just replaced the cloak/sheet thingy with just a tabard (a white one with a little knotwork on it, and put Grecian sandals on her feet...that would seriously fix a lot in this image.  You’d still get to paint the glorious three dimensional folds arrowing down between her thighs, “shielding her modesty.” and you could put some of the symbols of Rohan on the tabard (horse, knotwork, etc) to make her more clearly the Shield Maiden of Rohan, and not just a shield maiden, while still retaining that Greek Mythos feel.

(Plus, you could have a bit of Side Boob showing on the side closest to the viewer to make it clear She Is No Man, and still avoid the blasted censorship issues rampant in modern society, particularly on this site these days.)

...Definitely fix the dragon wing armbones with a bit of shadowing to remove the fact they look like they’re translucent with nothing along the upper/leading edge... ‘cause once unseen, I cannot un-see-it, and it’s creepy as-is...  >.>*

I love the color palette. It’s very dusky, as in nearing-sunset-dusk, with lots of earth tones.  It looks a bit dirty in its hues (as tragically poised battlefields should), and yet it has kind of a “Romanticism golden afternoon light” quality to it. These are all colors that I 100% believe Renaissance painters had access to and would’ve used.  Excellent choices!

At a quick glance, it’s a good painting.  When you look at it a little closer, however... the contrast between all the high quality stuff (lighting, three-dimensionality, focus versus unfocus, at least half the necessary symbolism is there, etc, etc) and the lower quality stuff (oy that lack of proper dragonwing armbones, etc) means it’s really not quite the artist’s best work, and it could be so, so very much better.  Why?

Composition is as important as technical performance.

Seriously, the way she’s painted is gloriously done...except for her positioning.  The dragon wings (I haven’t even touched on the odd angles of the metacarpal bones on the left-side one, just the right one, which is well done for the “finger bones” but there’s no way it should be pointing up lke that), those wings are too anatomically implausible, though I’ll admit they’re more about visual framing than being actual key features.

And lastly, if you’re going for a glorious Greek Mythos Renaissance Painting look to the art...go the whole hog.  Paint it like it’s Second Breakfast, Elevenses, Lunch, Dinner, Tiffin, Tea, Supper & Midnight Snack all rolled into one. 

Hell, paint a Loyal Dog (a staple of Renaissance symbolism), put it down at her feet (to represent the hobbit Merry, who was with her on her quests), and give it a little Rohirrim helmet and/or tabard!  Go the whole distance with this.  I truly believe this artist has that kind of quality in them!

If they did, I do believe all the old Renaissance Masters would totally thumbs-up this painting, if those flaws were fixed and the symbolism ramped up to at least a 9, if not necessarily a 10, rather than just doodling around down near a 5 or 6.

If this were a story and I was the editor for it (and presuming this was done on a tablet / computer, since if it’s an actual painting, that’s harder to fix), I’d definitely strongly suggest the revisions and rewrites listed above.  And then I’d pimp the hell outta this painting.

(Oh, and to fix the weird positioning of her body, I’d give her a Radiant Aura Of Goodness with some golden streaks of light or something angling out at all directions, so it looks like she’s kinda floating, rather than wondering if she’s “suspended” by secretly sitting on a stick or a tail spike or something.  That would help strengthen my suspension...as in the suspension of my disbelief.)

[olderthannetfic]

It’s a really fascinating subject, yeah.

AO3 is built to house a particular type of oldschool fanfic fandom first and foremost. Our labor to build it, our rules. Commercial links on embedded fan art are also against the rules on AO3 for that reason.

Like... I hear you on culture changing, but AO3 isn’t simply a reflection of culture, nor is it full of corporate PR people trying to draw in young customers. More users are not a plus for it (in fact, they’re often a minus). It’s a site built by specific people for specific purposes. It’s retro on purpose because the people it was built for prefer that. Still. Now. In 2022.

If other people don’t like AO3′s noncommercial stance or any other aspect of its retro-ness, they can—and should—make another archive themselves.

Usually, when I say this, the next thing out of people’s mouths is “But that’s so much work”, but... it was the first time around too. I was there. I did a lot of that work along with dozens and hundreds and eventually thousands of others. And there were already other big, popular fic archives and still are, so AO3′s popularity does not preclude other big archives existing. FFN was started by one dude. Wattpad was always more of a commercial venture, but it too required effort to build and started small.

I wrote the AO3 terms of service with the content policy committee. I gave seven years to OTW. If other people who like hanging out in the clubhouse are mad that the club painted it red instead of blue... well... they didn’t build it, and the original club isn’t done with it yet, you know?

There are some legal reasons for the rules that others have outlined, but honestly, a big chunk of this just comes down to culture. You may think your fannish culture is more widespread than mine, and you might even be right! But it’s my fannish culture that built AO3, and we built it how we wanted it.

My feelings on AO3 rules discussions boil down to a combination of The Little Red Hen and Dr. Frank-n-Furter.

You know:

🤣

Anyway, on the broader meta topic: Fan art being something you can sell while fic is not is a longstanding double standard in fandom culture... kind of.

One thing to keep in mind is that lots of not-for-profit fic types always hated fan art being sold, but the art-centric and fic-centric communities were slightly different locations and sets of people and they had different norms.

Another aspect of this, historically, is that the money changing hands used to be for physical objects: art prints, zines. (And the zines in those days were primarily fic with only a little art.) Zines were nominally priced to break even, while art seems like it was not so much, but money was still changing hands for fic, just fic in physical form.

Differing perceptions of visual art and writing also contribute. Sure, it’s a lie that “anyone can write”, but it’s a lie lots of people believe.

Fic went digital faster and earlier than art did. I think both the pre-digital understanding of art sales and the fact that plenty of current artists sell limited edition prints and other physical objects contributes to many fans feeling like it’s okay to sell art but not fic.

Rights holders, however, do not agree. Fan art products are routinely tossed off of sales sites. There are crackdowns all the time. To the extent that art is safer, a lot of it is that some types of art have plausible deniability. Remove the words, and that elf is just a generic elf, not some particular franchise’s elf. Not so with writing! The names are all over every paragraph.

Of course, fans can and do sell writing with the names changed. Hell, this is what my first novel is. I was absolutely thinking of fandom characters as I came up with the plotbunny. But at that point, we just go sell our stuff on Amazon, the same as artists of generic fantasy art are free to sell it anywhere even if they were thinking of LOTR when they made it.

Discussions around fan art and profit go way, way back. There are a bunch of old-ass quotes on Fanlore here:

https://fanlore.org/wiki/Fanart#Selling_Fanart

*cackling*

If OTW weren’t around, this wouldn’t be “scaremongering”: It would be the inescapable status quo.