#and creative remixes and edits and so on

[s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s]

"Sufjan Stevens Announces Carrie & Lowell - 10th Anniversary Edition – Out May 30 

This May, Asthmatic Kitty Records celebrates the ten-year anniversary of Carrie & Lowell with an expanded double-LP album that includes seven previously unreleased bonus tracks, a 40-page art book, and a new essay by Sufjan Stevens. The deluxe edition also offers an alternative cover: a full-framed version of the original Polaroid zoomed out to reveal the photo’s caption written in a child’s handwriting—“Carrie & Lowell”—disclosing the source of the album title (it was written by Sufjan's sister Djamilah). The new edition was designed by Sufjan himself: the 40-page booklet contains various collages of vintage family photos spanning four generations interfused with artwork and drawings (on themes of death, dying, grief and the state of Oregon) as well as landscape photos Sufjan took while traveling across the western U.S. over a decade ago.

The original album is preserved on disc one, while disc two contains 40 minutes of extras, including demo versions of "Death With Dignity," "Should Have Known Better," "The Only Thing," and "Eugene". Expansive outtakes of "Fourth of July" and "Wallowa Lake Monster" are also included, both featuring a more cinematic mood. The final gem is the original demo of "Mystery of Love”, which was recorded around the same time as Carrie & Lowell. This song was scrapped for the album but later re-worked and re-recorded for Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name.

Carrie & Lowell was the result of an immensely difficult process in which Sufjan’s songwriting – usually a salve – failed him in the wake of his mother’s death. He was eventually led out of a cycle of creative doubt with a rare handover of production duties to Thomas Bartlett. In wrestling with darkness and devastation, life and death, Sufjan was eventually able to begin making sense of the beauty and ugliness of love.

Sufjan toured the album and personally connected his findings with his listeners, a beautiful hand-over of sorts happened - making these songs those of the listeners and their lives and losses and complexities.Since the album’s release the live tour was turned into a live album, so surprisingly celebratory and cathartic as to become something else entirely. Outtakes, remixes, and iPhone notes have been shared via Sufjan’s The Greatest Gift mixtape as well as a collection of “Fourth of July” versions that took one moment from the album and explored its every crevice.

Ten years on, this anniversary edition does things differently to those other treasures. Rather than deconstructing the album or building on it and continuing its legacy, this edition takes the listener back to the moments leading up to and including its release. Carrie & Lowell is presented in its full form once again, alongside a glimpse of the different roads it could have taken. There are new corners to explore, photographic realising of moments previously only lyrically painted, direct reflection from the album’s creator, subtly different weight on certain syllables that speak to Sufjan’s mind right before he shared it with the world.

Carrie & Lowell -10th Anniversary Edition Tracklist

Disc 1:

1. Death with Dignity 2. Should Have Known Better 3. All of Me Wants All of You 4. Drawn To the Blood 5. Eugene 6. Fourth of July 7. The Only Thing 8. Carrie & Lowell 9. John My Beloved 10. No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross 11. Blue Bucket of Gold

Disc 2:

Death with Dignity (Demo)

Should Have Known Better (Demo)

Eugene (Demo)

The Only Thing (Demo)

Mystery Of Love (Demo)

Wallowa Lake Monster (Version 2)

Fourth of July (Version 4)

Carrie & Lowell - 10th Anniversary Edition is now available to pre-order / pre-save here. All pre-orders will include a lyric postcard featuring artwork designed by Sufjan. 

“Mystery of Love” may be widely known from the film Call Me By Your Name, but it began as an early demo during the Carrie & Lowell era. Now released as the first single from Carrie & Lowell – 10th Anniversary Edition, this version presents the song in its original, intimate form.

Video directed and produced by Rena Johnson. Original artwork and select photos by Sufjan Stevens. Archival photos and 8mm film provided by Sufjan Stevens and additional assets provided by Rena Johnson.

Ten years of 'Carrie & Lowell'. Explore the full story in our new comprehensive archive, featuring 'Carrie & Lowell 'and its six companion releases. Photos, video, essays and other materials, gathered in one place for the first time.

WWW.CL.SUFJAN.COM" - Originally posted by Asthmatic Kitty Records

[leenathegreengirl]

Tunes-Giving Event: Crosshair/Kay (NOV 24)

It’s difficult to prioritize yourself when your entire life has always been shared with someone else. For both Crosshair and Kayden, learning to break free from the shadows of the past and allow their true selves to emerge isn’t an easy task. Crosshair struggles to heal from his trauma, while Kayden has always lived in the background, overshadowed by her twin sister. But as they each navigate the changing dynamics brought on by their siblings' blossoming romance, they begin to discover something unique and meaningful in the friendship they’re building. 

This collection of songs captures the hope, fear, uncertainty, and deep connection between Crosshair and Kayden. With a mix of energetic tracks for their brighter moments and tender ballads for their quieter times, these songs reveal how both characters shine in their own way—finding strength, solace, and a sense of belonging in each other’s company.

The experience of survival is the key

To the gravity of love

Looking at you, holding my breath

For once in my life, I'm scared to death

I'm taking a chance, letting you inside

the stars may be fallin'

I'm still coming for you

I love this feeling

But I hate this part

I wanted this to work so much

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place

Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace

Suddenly my life doesn't seem such a waste

It all revolves around you

Meet Kayden! 

EVENT MASTERLIST

(Special thank you my dear friend and creative partner @legacygirlingreen for making this event possible! She is responsive for all the writing, design layout, post editing & greatly assisted in song selections!)

💚Tag List💚

@legacygirlingreen @thora-sniper @sukithebean @thecoffeelorian @neyswxrld @somewhere-on-kamino @clonethirstingisreal @royallykt @morerandombullshit @burningfieldof-clover @tbnrpotato @keantha @returnofthepineapple @justanotherdikutsimp @antisocial-mariposa @techs-stitches @resistantecho @kimiheartblade @dezgate

[carlyraejepsans]

Aside from the obvious of Grick and UTDR, what games would you recommend?

999 was super fun for a mystery visual novel, for all i have my gripes with the execution of the villain in the finale

the beginner's guide is an absolute emotional gut punch that will make you think about games as art and the rapport between artist and medium and viewer

slay the princess. the stanley parable ran so slay the princess could reach hyperspeed and leap into tomorrow. gorgeous art style, gorgeous voice acting, gorgeous writing, delightful use of visual novels as a narrative medium, one of the best games to come out of 2024

mouthwashing. one of the most well executed pieces of psychological horror i got to play in a while. the art direction is incredibly solid, surprisingly gripping character writing (not the kind of media you'd expect to have blorbos all the way down, but here we are), really really fun narrative style and back and forth storytelling format, and a solid allegorical language that builds with every scene.

clinical trial. this is not an rpg maker horror game. this is not a normal 3 arc structure. this is an experimental indie work with a script so solid it lets it do away with almost every writing convention for pacing and plot structure. one of the most hauntingly human little games I've ever played. it made me sick to my stomach

moon: remix rpg. one of the earlier and most visually/conceptually interesting works toying with the pillars of videogame rpgs as a genre.

earthbound. come and see the cataclysm that spawned the modern rpg game scene

off. come and see the cataclysm that spawned the modern rpg game scene (french edition)

mother 3. this game is worth it for the soundtrack and art alone but man it is FUN to play. like its predecessor, it's a doubly interesting experience for a UTDR fan. it really gives context for Toby's underlying love for the genre in making his own games

night in the woods. before clinical trial, this was the game that made me physically ill with its character writing. absolutely gorgeous as an art piece. young adulthood, looking back on the past, and heart-rending working class appalachian americana. i could see my future rolled out before me like a carpet in the form of mae borowski, all the way back from age 14. also gay people here

tearaway. i never got to play this game myself, but after learning about it god i wish i did. you have that chance now. very fun bit of 4th wall breaking narrative and one of the most tender, earnest, loving exercises on suspension of disbelief. a love letter to creativity, to video games as a medium, and paper crafts as an art form specifically

the professor layton games! extremely fun puzzle series with some truly batshit and endearing characters. one of the best videogame OSTs of all time

[festiveferret]

Wipdate!

Well. It's been like three years since I've done one of these, hahaha, but I've been missing fandom life so I thought it'd be fun to share an update of where I'm sitting. Toddlers manage to take like 140% of your time and energy, even though they sleep a lot, so I've mostly just been parenting, but I've been getting the writing bug lately, so there's very slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

Basically, I have a list of fics I want to make sure I finish. They're the ones it would break my heart to look back on twenty years from now and realize I put all that time and those words into something that never got shared. I haven't been having new ideas very much, so I'm putting all my creative energy into things I've either promised to other people or to myself.

I'm not going to list everything I've posted since my last wipdate, since that was a looong time ago and you can always sort my works page chronologically! But here's the latest ones...

Posted:

Do Not Reply  - Tony replies to a Do Not Reply email address thinking he's shouting into the void. Spoiler alert: he's not. Runaway Train - Preserum Steve and Prince Tony meet cute. Entwined - The aftermath of Ults Stony being magically soulbound and then separated. Lost and Found - Winteriron - Bucky finds a lost dog. Vacation Days - SHIELD needs Steve to take his PTO Sanguinary Revelations - Tony and Steve go on a date with a twist Kindly Calm Me Down - Ults Steve knows how to calm his Tony down after a mission First Christmas - Stony's first xmas as parents Even of My Secret Soul - Secret soulmates

Updating:

Second Chance Summer - Stony with a 20yr age gap. Pre-written and posting on Saturdays. Up to chapter eight. A Good Thing - Comic collab with Askafroa - Alpha!Tony and Omega!Therapist!Steve - almost done! Yet I Will Try the Last - Truck Stop Hooker AU with hooker!Steve and flashy billionaire, Tony Stark. Up to chapter four! (I swear I haven't given up on this) Held Remix - A rewrite of Held with Tony as the sub and Steve as the Dom. Up to chapter twenty-nine. Ashy and I are making a point of getting our chaptered version of Held edited and posted, and then we're cracking on with Remix. We may or may not do both seasons, but we're at least going to finish out S1.

Beta Queue:

Bro Code -  This is one of my 2023 MTH fics Rented Family - I started this one in like 2019 and finally finished it. It's a no-powers Ults AU where Tony is dying of his (canon!) brain cancer and Steve is a security specialist/bodyguard who Tony hires to be around while he dies. Yay for finishing old wips!

Wips:

This wiplist is basically just going to be my list of "I'll be sad if I never finish them" fics I mentioned above. I have no plans to stop writing fic entirely, but I'm definitely slowing down, and I want to focus on the stuff that will feel really good to have done so I don't ever leave myself or you guys hanging!

1) Held edit (the chaptered repost) and Held Remix (at least S1). @ashes0909 and I are picking away at it, but between three kids, two jobs, and two timezones, it's slow af. But we'll get there.

2) My other 2023 MTH fic, older professor Tony and young flirty student Steve for @sabrecmc pod bid. It's maybe a third done.

3) My contribution to the Stony Dating Sim game from MTH 2024 (I'm doing Ults Tony as a love interest. If you want to know more, check out @stevetonydatingsim).

4) My Stony Twilight AU. I posted a snippet of it here a long time ago and I've been picking at it ever since. It's at 33k and probably about halfway done.

5) Fangbait 3. My Fangbait series was always intended to have three parts. Two are up already. The third was on hiatus for a long time, but I just abruptly wrote 80% of it last night, so once I get the sex scenes (and a title oh no) done, she'll be good to go!

6) Yet I Will Try the Last has been waiting for waaay too long for an update and I feel really bad about it. It was the one time I experimented with posting an unfinished WIP (mostly because it started as a oneshot and then I started adding to it) and I regretti spaghetti every day that I did that lol. I. Have. Not. Given. Up. I have the outline for the rest, I know what I want to do, I just need to do it.

7) Brooklyn is a canon divergence from right after Avengers 2012 where Stony travels on a modified quinjet together, cleaning up the chitauri weapon's market. It's maybe a third to a half done? Another one I started a loooong time ago and never got my steam back with, but I would really like to. I really like that one.

8) A Venom/Eddie fic from right after the first movie. It's not too long and it's probably also about halfway done, so I believe in myself. It's called Parasite.

9) A collab started a few years ago that I'm not going to out here in case my collab partner doesn't want to do it anymore, but we did a fair bit of it so I'd love to get it done.

Writing comes in little spurts, but I have to pick and choose between my hobbies now, so I just have less time and energy to spend on one thing. I've been trying to read more to fuel the words! I also have OG stuff I'm working on, but that's just as slow as the other stuff lol. I miss you guys! Hope y'all are doing well. (Happy Easter if you celebrate!)

Thanks as always for reading! <3

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A year in illustration, 2023 edition (part one)

(This is part one; part two is here.)

I am objectively very bad at visual art. I am bad at vision, period – I'm astigmatic, shortsighted, color blind, and often miss visual details others see. I can't even draw a stick-figure. To top things off, I have cataracts in both eyes and my book publishing/touring schedule is so intense that I keep having to reschedule the surgeries. But despite my vast visual deficits, I thoroughly enjoy making collages for this blog.

For many years now – decades – I've been illustrating my blog posts by mixing public domain and Creative Commons art with work that I can make a good fair use case for. As bad as art as I may be, all this practice has paid off. Call it unseemly, but I think I'm turning out some terrific illustrations – not all the time, but often enough.

Last year, I rounded up my best art of the year:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/25/a-year-in-illustration/

And I liked reflecting on the year's art so much, I decided I'd do it again. Be sure to scroll to the bottom for some downloadables – freely usable images that I painstakingly cut up with the lasso tool in The Gimp.

The original AD&D hardcover cover art is seared into my psyche. For several years, there were few images I looked at so closely as these. When Hasbro pulled some world-beatingly sleazy stuff with the Open Gaming License, I knew just how to mod Dave Trampier's 'Eve Of Moloch' from the cover of the Players' Handbook. Thankfully, bigger nerds than me have identified all the fonts in the image, making the remix a doddle.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/12/beg-forgiveness-ask-permission/#whats-a-copyright-exception

Even though I don't keep logs or collect any analytics, I can say with confidence that "Tiktok's Enshittification" was the most popular thing I published on Pluralistic this year. I mixed some public domain Brother's Grimm art, mixed with a classic caricature of Boss Tweed, and some very cheesy royalty-free/open access influencer graphics. One gingerbread cottage social media trap, coming up:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

To illustrate the idea of overcoming walking-the-plank fear (as a metaphor for writing when it feels like you suck) I mixed public domain stock of a plank, a high building and legs, along with a procedurally generated Matrix "code waterfall" and a vertiginous spiral ganked from a Heinz Bunse photo of a German office lobby.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/22/walking-the-plank/

Finding a tasteful way to illustrate a story about Johnson & Johnson losing a court case after it spent a generation tricking women into dusting their vulvas with asbestos-tainted talcum was a challenge. The tulip (featured in many public domain images) was a natural starting point. I mixed it with Jesse Wagstaff's image of a Burning Man dust-storm and Mike Mozart's shelf-shot of a J&J talcum bottle.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

"Google's Chatbot Panic" is about Google's long history of being stampeded into doing stupid things because its competitors are doing them. Once it was Yahoo, now it's Bing. Tenniel's Tweedle Dee and Dum were a good starting point. I mixed in one of several Humpty Dumpty editorial cartoon images from 19th century political coverage that I painstakingly cut out with the lasso tool on a long plane-ride. This is one of my favorite Humpties, I just love the little 19th C businessmen trying to keep him from falling! I finished it off with HAL 9000's glowing red eye, my standard 'this is about AI' image, which I got from Cryteria's CC-licensed SVG.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Though I started writing about Luddites in my January, 2022 Locus column, 2023 was the Year of the Luddite, thanks to Brian Merchant's outstanding Blood In the Machine:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

When it came time to illustrate "Gig Work Is the Opposite of Steampunk," I found a public domain weaver's loft, and put one of Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes in the window. Magpie Killjoy's Steampunk Magazine poster, 'Love the Machine, Hate the Factory,' completed the look.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/12/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk/

For the "small, non-profit school" that got used as an excuse to bail out Silicon Valley Bank, I brought back Humpty Dumpty, mixing him with a Hogwartsian castle, a brick wall texture, and an ornate, gilded frame. I love how this one came out. This Humpty was made for the SVB bailout.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/23/small-nonprofit-school/#north-country-school

The RESTRICT Act would have federally banned Tiktok – a proposal that was both technically unworkable and unconstitutional. I found an early 20th century editorial cartoon depicting Uncle Sam behind a fortress wall that was keeping a downtrodden refugee family out of America. I got rid of most of the family, giving the dad a Tiktok logo head, and I put Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes over each cannonmouth. Three Boss Tweed moneybag-head caricatures, adorned with Big Tech logos, rounded it out.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/30/tik-tok-tow/#good-politics-for-electoral-victories

When Flickr took decisive action to purge the copyleft trolls who'd been abusing its platform, I knew I wanted to illustrate this with Lucifer being cast out of heaven, and the very best one of those comes from John Milton, who is conveniently well in the public domain. The Flickr logo suggested a bicolored streaming-light-of-heaven motif that just made it.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/01/pixsynnussija/#pilkunnussija

Old mainframe ads are a great source of stock for a "Computer Says No" image. And Congress being a public building, there are lots of federal (and hence public domain) images of its facade.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/04/cbo-says-no/#wealth-tax

When I wrote about the Clarence Thomas/Harlan Crow bribery scandal, it was easy to find Mr. Kjetil Ree's great image of the Supreme Court building. Thomas being a federal judge, it was easy to find a government photo of his head, but it's impossible to find an image of him in robes at a decent resolution. Luckily, there are tons of other federal judges who've been photographed in their robes! Boss Tweed with the dollar-sign head was a great stand-in for Harlan Crow (no one knows what he looks like anyway). Gilding Thomas's robes was a simple matter of superimposing a gold texture and twiddling with the layers.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/06/clarence-thomas/#harlan-crow

"Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in wage-stealing Skinner boxes" is one of my best titles. This is the post where I introduce the idea of "twiddling" as part of the theory of enshittification, and explain how it relates to "reverse centaurs" – people who assist machines, rather than the other way around. Finding a CC licensed modular synth was much harder than I thought, but I found Stephen Drake's image and stitched it into a mandala. Cutting out the horse's head for the reverse centaur was a lot of work (manes are a huuuuge pain in the ass), but I love how his head sits on the public domain high-viz-wearing warehouse worker's body I cut up (thanks, OSHA!). Seeing as this is an horrors-of-automation story, Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes make an appearance.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Rockefeller's greatest contribution to our culture was inspiring many excellent unflattering caricatures. The IWW's many-fists-turning-into-one-fist image made it easy to have the collective might of workers toppling the original robber-baron.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

I link to this post explaining how to make good Mastodon threads at least once a week, so it's a good thing the graphic turned out so well. Close-cropping the threads from a public domain yarn tangle worked out great. Eugen Rochko's Mastodon logo was and is the only Affero-licensed image ever to appear on Pluralistic.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how-to-make-the-least-worst-mastodon-threads/

I spent hours on the sofa one night painstakingly cutting up and reassembling the cover art from a science fiction pulp. I have a folder full of color-corrected, high-rez scans from an 18th century anatomy textbook, and the cross-section head-and-brain is the best of the lot.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

Those old French anatomical drawings are an endless source of delight to me. Take one cross-sectioned noggin, mix in an old PC mainboard, and a vector art illo of a virtuous cycle with some of Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes and you've got a great illustration of Google's brain-worms.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/

Ireland's privacy regulator is but a plaything in Big Tech's hand, but it's goddamned hard to find an open-access Garda car. I manually dressed some public domain car art in Garda livery, painstakingly tracing it over the panels. The (public domain) baby's knit cap really hides the seams from replacing the baby's head with HAL9000's eye.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

Naked-guy-in-a-barrel bankruptcy images feel like something you can find in an old Collier's or Punch, but I came up snake-eyes and ended up frankensteining a naked body into a barrel for the George Washington crest on the Washington State flag. It came out well, but harvesting the body parts from old muscle-beach photos left George with some really big guns. I tried five different pairs of suspenders here before just drawing in black polyhedrons with little grey dots for rivets.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/03/when-the-tide-goes-out/#passive-income

Illustrating Amazon's dominance over the EU coulda been easy – just stick Amazon 'A's in place of the yellow stars that form a ring on the EU flag. So I decided to riff on Plutarch's Alexander, out of lands to conquer. Rama's statue legs were nice and high-rez. I had my choice of public domain ruin images, though it was harder thank expected to find a good Amazon box as a plinth for those broken-off legs.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/14/flywheel-shyster-and-flywheel/#unfulfilled-by-amazon

God help me, I could not stop playing with this image of a demon-haunted IoT car. All those reflections! The knife sticking out of the steering wheel, the multiple Munsch 'Scream'ers, etc etc. The more I patchked with it, the better it got, though. This one's a banger.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

To depict a "data-driven dictatorship," I ganked elements of heavily beribboned Russian military dress uniforms, replacing the head with HAL9000's eye. I turned the foreground into the crowds from the Nuremberg rallies and filled the sky with Matrix code waterfall.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/26/dictators-dilemma/#garbage-in-garbage-out-garbage-back-in

The best thing about analogizing DRM to demonic possession is the wealth of medieval artwork to choose from . This one comes from the 11th century 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros.' I mixed in the shiny red Tesla (working those reflections!), and a Tesla charger to make my point.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

Yet more dividends from those old French anatomical plates: a flayed skull, a detached jaw, a quack electronic gadget, a Wachowski code waterfall and some HAL 9000 eyes and you've got a truly unsettling image of machine-compelled speech.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

I had no idea this would work out so well, but daaaamn, crossfading between a Wachowski code waterfall and a motherboard behind a roiling thundercloud is dank af.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/03/there-is-no-cloud/#only-other-peoples-computers

Of all the turkeys-voting-for-Christmas self-owns conservative culture warriors fall for, few can rival the "banning junk fees is woke" hustle. Slap a US-flag Punisher logo on and old-time card imprinter, add a GOP logo to a red credit-card blank, and then throw in a rustic barn countertop and you've got a junk-fee extracter fit for the Cracker Barrel.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

Putting the Verizon logo on the Hinderberg was an obvious gambit (even if I did have to mess with the flames a lot), but the cutout of Paul Marcarelli as the 'can you hear me now?' guy, desaturated and contrast-matched, made it sing.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/10/smartest-guys-in-the-room/#can-you-hear-me-now

Note to self: Tux the Penguin is really easy to source in free/open formats! He looks great with HAL9000 eyes.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

Rockwell's self-portrait image is a classic; that made it a natural for a HAL9000-style remix about AI art. I put a bunch of time into chopping and remixing Rockwell's signature to give it that AI look, and added as many fingers as would fit on each hand.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

(Images: Heinz Bunse, West Midlands Police, Christopher Sessums, CC BY-SA 2.0; Mike Mozart, Jesse Wagstaff, Stephen Drake, Steve Jurvetson, syvwlch, Doc Searls, https://www.flickr.com/photos/mosaic36/14231376315, Chatham House, CC BY 2.0; Cryteria, CC BY 3.0; Mr. Kjetil Ree, Trevor Parscal, Rama, “Soldiers of Russia” Cultural Center, Russian Airborne Troops Press Service, CC BY-SA 3.0; Raimond Spekking, CC BY 4.0; Drahtlos, CC BY-SA 4.0; Eugen Rochko, Affero; modified)

[marveltrumpshate]

Want to participate in Marvel Trumps Hate, but don't know what to offer? Think outside the box!

Stumped on what to offer because you don't write fic or draw? Marvel Trumps Hate welcomes a huge variety of fanworks and fan labor (see our sign-up post), so there are different ways you can contribute. You'll be amazed by the breadth of skills, talents, knowledge, and types of creative expression found in fandom!

Here's a smorgasbord of offers that we've either had before or seen people discuss as possibilities for MTH 2024 or future years to help inspire you. What you can offer is not restricted to the list below; these are just examples to get you brainstorming about what you can auction off because trust us, even if you think you might not have something to offer, you probably do!

ART (VISUAL/ILLUSTRATIVE)

Drawings/illustrations

Single-page and multi-page comics

Pixel art

Paintings (oil, acrylic, gouache, watercolor)

Mixed-media artwork on canvas

Ink-on-bristol art

Embroidery on canvas

Pour paint/spin art

Rotoscopes

Digital coloring books

AUDIOVISUAL WORKS

Fan music or filk inspired by characters, ships, or fics

Podfics

Videos (fic trailers, themed edits, vids set to songs)

Animations (making original art/animation or turning existing art into animation)

BETA SERVICES

Editing

Cheer reading

Soundboarding/planning/development work

Fact-checking

Culture-picking

Sensitivity reading

Knowledge about specific topics or experiences (e.g., identities, lifestyles, professions, interests, fields of study)

Research

CRAFTS & MERCH

Candles

Lip balms

Soaps

Stained glass/suncatcher

Scented beanbag-style sachets

Candy/chocolate/baked goods/jellies/sweets

Fic/character/ship/theme boxes (like book boxes)

Pins, magnets, patches, charms, standees, key chains, ring holders, calendars, stickers, bookmarks, temporary tattoos

Sculptures and clay figures

Ceramic mugs and other ceramic items

Apparel/wearable accessories (shirts, jackets, scarves, gloves/mittens, hats, face masks, regular masks, cowls, pajamas/onesies)

Backpacks, tote bags, itabags with custom window shapes, leather dice bags, wallets, pouches/pencil cases

Plushie animal or Tsum Tsum versions of Marvel characters

Dolls (crochet, needle felt, matte board, hand-sewn)

Embroidery hoops/wall art and cross stitch pieces

Jewelry (diamond painting, macrame, metal, crochet, wire, beads)

Woodwork/wood burning (cheese board, box/chest, USB stick, coasters, photo frame, alphabet blocks)

Glasswork

Custom Funko Pops

Paper cut light boxes

Pillow cases, quilted pillows, baby blankets, dishcloth/washcloths, potholders

Handmade leather journals

Linoleum stamps

Dog/cat/pet toys

Artbooks, paper doll books, and coloring books

Hand-dyed yarn skeins

Custom tea blends

DIGITAL (GRAPHIC DESIGN)

Gifsets

Graphics/edits

Mood boards

Photo manips

Fic covers/posters/banners

Icons and headers

Webweaving

Tumblr or website layouts

Digital calendars

Wallpapers

Custom Discord emojis

FAN LABOR & TRANSLATION

Typesetting

Bookbinding

Recipes based on characters, ships, or themes

Names, tags, and summaries for fics

Audio/sound editing and/or soundscaping for podfics

Book cover design and printing

Art/comic/fic translation

Website/game/AO3 skin coding

Fic rec lists

Fic playlists/fanmixes

Knitting/crochet patterns

Art coaching

Help with launching and organizing fan events

WRITING

Fic

Poetry

Meta posts

Social media AUs

Physical letters written by characters to the reader or between two characters

Remixes of your fic or an existing fic with the author's permission

Whether you can do something on this list or something else altogether (we're sure there are a lot of other things that you can do that we haven't thought about or seen before), we hope you'll consider signing up before the deadline: September 28, 11:59 PM ET.

[halloweenreaper]

I like the saying, "Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly." Especially when it comes to creative things. While AI is fine in some regards. I'll admit that I used AI to write cover letters when I was applying for jobs because those are the absolute bane of my existence. And even then, I had to check it over and edit what it wrote. But with things like creative writing and art, there's just naturally a human element to it that a mechine can't replicate. Art comes from who you are and how you see the world. It's an expression of you. AI can't do that. And besides that, what we have isn't really AI. It's machine learning. Pattern recognition. It can note common elements and remix them into something that on the surface looks like art, but there's no deeper meaning. There's no happy little accidents.

I think we get so caught up in this world where there's always some end goal, and everything seems to demand 110% out of you all the time. But that's not what art is. You can half ass art, and it's still art. It doesn't even need to be profound. In fact, art is a lot like being alive. It's never going to be perfect. And that's fine. For me, I don't write to make something perfect or profound. The highest level of praise I can get is seeing someone react to my work. Laughing. Crying. Anything.

We've used art to say "we were here" since humans started humaning. And handing that off to something as cold as a pattern recognition software just feels disingenuous. I'd rather see a handprint smacked against a wall than some cold amalgamation spit out by something that will never understand what it made. Half ass your art. Be bad at it. It's not about being the best anyway. It's about saying you were here. You were alive. That you had thoughts and feelings. And that's worth something. Even if it is done poorly.

[tawked]

In my darkest dreams I saw a business plan for DC to make Batman a success with kids again. It's horrible but I am obsessed with it.

launch a #1. A real #1, new universe. Not a total remix of familiar concepts like the Earth One project, new shit or bangers only.

heavily market it as the creative vision of the one writer and keep that bitch on retainer forever. She must, MUST have a compelling but relatable origin about how she was the biggest fan ever and one day dreamed of standing beside the giants of the medium, but - and this is essential - she always knows she isn't there yet and stays humble. Nothing but compliments for others. Sometimes sassy. Sexually oblivious to comedic effect. Make sure she has a minor social media presence. Secretly, this is a fake person and all writers on this project are ghostwriting under this pseudonym. Never break kayfabe even when outed.

Release in monthly chapters, 50 pages each. Too much work for the artist? I agree! No more colour. Coloured editions collecting the previously published black and white work come out every seven months, containing 300 pages or six months of chapters. These will be the only version of this comic anybody buys, but both must be made available at all times simply for brand presence.

Now that the format is roughly in place, start to closely emulate the character arcs, tropes and dynamics of shonen manga. Remember: much like the first few episodes of Demon Slayer, formulaic shonen nerver tips its hand straight away, and you should introduce these elements slowly while smoothing out the rough edges of whatever unique, experimental base you start with. The Straw Hat Pirates went through whole individualized character introduction arcs before we were well and truly one with the format. Nevertheless: Batman is now motivated by an endless quest to perfect his skills as a crimefighter. He now has a rival character and they inspire each other to improve through competition, a vehicle for which they learn mutual respect. Gotham's cyclical criminal justice system is now a wry social commentary, to which the answer is slightly less capitalist neoliberalism - no Miyazaki leftists up in this bitch, they make art not money.

The team he assembles, who are NOT Robins or the Outsiders but a whole new thing, MUST follow the dynamic of: charming but nonthreatening childhood friend, quiet serious one, affable loser, and girl. Girl is a wildcard and can be anything but it is vital to avoid The Webby (that is, a hypercompetent at everything but socially incompetent adorkable weirdo) or The Smurfette (the girliest girl to ever girl); aim for Bulma and even if you miss you'll be among stars, but note the Bulma is not a fighter and this series is about fighting crime. The rival joins the team later but remains sort of on the edge, unwilling to follow orders unless they make sense to him and occasionally going rogue to be a real rebel boy and keep the rivalry alive, but he ultimately matures into part of the family.

No more Joker. Batman needs a new primary villain and he is a real weirdo. He's a genetic freak and he's not normal. But he's also a victim of society and has a particularly sad backstory that relates to the central theme of cyclical punitive justice. His dad was killed in prison, maybe, so now he resents prisons and believes that we must all build a world without prisons, no matter how many walls he must tear down to do it. Batman represents prison and so while they can agree that shanking is bad, Batman believes in slow reform (the slightly less capitalist neoliberal solution presented as the right answer), while Anti Prison Man represents a disingenuous version of prison abolitionist beliefs. They routinely cross paths and sometimes work as allies, sometimes as enemies. The possibility of Anti Prison Man's redemption is always dangled.

It is essential that these two have a dynamic like they fuck, but Batman is asexual and Anti Prison Man is never confirmed as anything but heterosexual. I cannot stress enough how core this is to the success of this project. There should also be a Jacob to this Edward, probably the charming but nonthreatening childhood friend, especially if Anti Prison Man is a childhood frenemy and he absolutely should be. That way you can have a friendly threeway situation in the fanfic while maintaining perfect plausible deniability ala "they're just good friends!" in canon. This perspective is inspired by the fact that I was there when Berserk was getting localized for the west and routinely saw comments about how there's nothing gay going on at all with Guts and Griffith: you will not alienate straight boys because they are the most blind motherfuckers on this side of a guide dog.

There must be tits. Not as much tits as would've been the case if this was the 90s, but perhaps if we have Batman learn martial arts from an elderly pervert who wants porno mags, we should do so in a tasteful, satirical way, where we still show this elderly man interacting with children and pornography in the same context but with a tone like we disapprove. We simply cannot go full Dragon Ball / Naruto in the 2020s.

Finally, and this is most important, by the time collection 3 is on the shelves an animated adaptation that runs concurrently to the comics MUST be airing. This is crucial to the success of the project. What is Harry Potter without the movies? What was Dandadan, Ranking of Kings, Mob Psycho or any popular manga before the anime created mass exposure?

All of these concepts seem like they only work for something with an ending in mind rather than the perpetual storytelling approach of western comics, to which I point to Detective Conan. Do not tell me if Detective Conan actually has an ending because with over 1, 100 chapters, I will never fucking see it.

Anyway this isn't a real idea I think would work or that I am advocating for, I just had a fucking out of body experience and imagined a world in which DC has a freak identity crisis over the (somewhat misrepresentative) fact that manga outsells western comics lol.

[apartmentsmoke]

New ask game! Please recommend at least three of your favorite BuckTommy fic authors, artists, meta writers, gif makers, or edit makers. Maybe sing their praises a bit if you'd like. And if you want to, send this to a few other people and spread the good vibes 🥰

hey hey! this has been sitting in my ask for a bit (my b, i always open these and intend to get to them and then get distracted) first, i want to shout out you @thatmexisaurusrex - you are a bright light in this fandom and i appreciate all of your positivity and how much joy you've brought to bucktommy shippers. i've loved seeing everyone's answers to all of your ask games, and the ones you've come up with are really creative and fun.

gif-wise, i always want to shout out @sunglassesmish and @xofemeraldstars and i've also been loving @bambibuckley and @tommykinardbuckley and @tirpse (the close-ups of the 7.04 kiss were perfection) some of my favorite writers in the fandom are @middyblue @hipsterdarcy @al-the-remix

@persiflager @bugboybuck @wakeupnew @dharmaavocado @kirkaut @beefcakekinard @jamesandanthony and i know i am forgetting many incredible writers - i love the well of fic that's sprung up from the seeds of the few fics that we had before 7.04 and i appreciate everyone who has contributed to that <3 there's so much fantastic fic out there in this fandom, i could keep naming people for ages.

art, i absolutely love @aringofsalt and @lazybakerart, @until-i-set-him-free, @macaronimars, @newtkelly,

@inogart, @kinardsboy, @chaussettecanape, and like every other category, i know i'm forgetting people (and i regret being lazy and not tagging my queue) but this is just a taste of the great art out there! and i also want to shout out awesome bloggers like @buckevantommy @ohithankyou

@talktonytome @firewasabeast @half-oz-eddie (i adore the kinley cafe <3), they all have some great content

i encourage bucktommy fans to check these folks out, there are a lot of wonderful, talented people in the fandom and this is just the tip of the iceberg!

[tua-masked-author]

[ID: A cassette tape in a cassette player, with TMA SUMMER REMIX written on it. Photograph by Xingye Jiang on Unsplash; edited by non-plutonian-druid. End ID.]

🎭Time for TUA Summer Remix! 🎭

We are so excited to be bringing you all the details for TUA Masked Author (and Artist) round five! This round, Summer Remix, is all about celebrating the incredible fanwork in the TUA fandom. We are encouraging you guys to remix (make fanworks for) the fanworks our fandom has made! With the final season of the show coming in August, we felt that this was a perfect opportunity to show our appreciation to the fandom. For anyone who needs the refresher, [we go over what a remix is in more detail in this post].

🌺 What is TUA Masked Author?

TUA Masked Author is an Umbrella Academy fandom event that allows you to embrace your creative muse and test your investigative prowess! In the first phase, authors and artists post their TUA works to an anonymous AO3 collection. Afterwards, we’ll release a list of participating authors and the guessers will put on their detective hats to try to match the fics to their authors and art to the artists with coveted bragging rights at stake for the best detective!

📻 The Exciting Details

Summer Remix will take place from Saturday, June 8th through Thursday, June 27th.

Our AO3 collection is live! The official posting period is June 8th through June 15th. You may submit your fic or art to [the TUA Summer Remix AO3 collection] at any time from now up to (and including) 23:59 UTC June 15th, although works submitted early won’t be visible until the 8th of June. 

After entries close on June 15th, check the tumblr for a list of participants (to be posted shortly after submissions close) and your guessing ballot which will be posted a few days later.

Put on your detective hats! You will be able to submit your guesses up to June 27th.

All secrets will be revealed on Saturday, June 29th, after a few days to let us crunch the numbers! We’ll unveil each of the fics’ authors and artworks’ artists, as well as crown the best guesser!

🌺 Reminders

Anyone is welcome to take part! No need to have posted a fanwork for TUA before, and no need to post a work for this event in order to be a guesser!

If you are remixing please make sure you have the original creator’s permission. This can be a general permission statement, because you asked directly, or because they submitted their work to the permission sheet. [The permission sheet can be found here], and [you can add your works to it here].

You may submit a maximum of two works of art and two fics, in any combination. 

All submissions, fic or art, must be gen, ie. not ship focused, and not rated E (explicit). We don't have specific rules about where the lines are; use your own judgement and ask us if you have any questions.

Fic entries are to remain under 10k words for the duration of the event, and each participant may only post one fic under 500 words. Once the authors have been revealed, you may add chapters and expand your fic as much as you wish.

Artists, please do not publicly post your art anywhere else until after the reveal, in order to preserve the mystery. Additionally, please do not sign your submitted art.  We provide a watermark you can edit and use at the bottom of this post. Once the reveal has taken place, you can edit your submission with your signature and post wherever you want! 

📻 Useful Links

[This round’s AO3 collection!]

[The original announcement, with more detail about remixes]

[The remix permission sheet]

[The form to submit your works to the remix permission sheet]

[How to make an AO3 account]

[Our guide on posting art to AO3]

[ID: the watermark provided for artists for the event; black text reading TMA over a black domino mask. End ID.]

[saltymothball]

my unpopular takes on beetlejuice beetlejuice SPOILERS!! (long post)

(i am a fan of the original pls do not come for me) these are just my thoughts on the sequel :D please feel free to add yours too

context! im writing these notes as i watch so theyre a little disorganized

for reference i also rewatched the original immediately prior to the sequel

not opening with the classic beetlejuice muisic ?? even the stage show opens with that music where is it (EDIT- restarted it and it actually does open w the music, but it is much less fun/campy an and more of a spooky remix so i forgot)

its not plot necessary but i do wish we learned how BJ fixed his shrunken head and death by sandworm

where are the maitlands ???? 0 mention of adam and barbra at the beginning ?

BJ's ex wife intro was a very creative concept but i wish they did it with more sfx props and less cgi/green screen

Astrid is like very boring, theyve done nothing to get the audience (me) invested in her?? disney wish vibes like who is she

call it a headcanon i feel like lydia wouldnt be this fucking awkward of a parent ?? she had good role models ie adam and barbra (even if her own parents werent as active, by the end of the original movie it implied they were now living in a healthy family dynamic

the mother daughter drama feels really forced, reminds me of the out-of-place tension between wednesday and morticia in the 2023 show

all angles are super close up and feel like horror angles. the scene where astrid befriends that boy ?? felt like someone was gonna come up and kill them the ENTIRE interaction (edit i guess that makes sense but it nerfed the scene)

IMMEDIATELY knew his parents are dead btw. not showing their faces is so clearly they are dead. not an ounce of mystery. theory the boy might be a ghost too?

theory astrids dad isnt dead bc Lydia cant see him

the witching hour wrong ?? last i knew it was 3am not 12am. weird thing to get wrong

its like not a silly campy vibe ?? its like uncomfortable.

dont like lydias new man hes pushy and gross

i miss adam and barbra

it doesnt make sense that no one taking lydia seriously ? delia knows she can see ghosts and has also experienced beetlejuice

lydias fiance is a horrid excuse for a partner (how tf did she meet him like did he just walk in bc the plot needed another person to hate lydia

not the dead protester joke :(

the spill-your-guts/pregnancy felt really idk,,, icky??? dont know how to explain it but it uncomfortably long

follow up- a lot of the visual ghost gags felt very gross/gorey ? like in the original movie the gags were inbetween silly/sexual/spooky-but this one feels more like blood and guts instead of spiders and snakes. exhibit A) otho casually shoving corpse barbra out of the way when looking at the closet with delia / exhibit b) the guy with the cigarettes at the end of the original

theory that astrid is going to end up seeing ghosts by the end of the movie

love the "eeee!" noise BJ makes when people say his name

ok BJ with the guitar after lydia tells him off was legitimately funny

i know astrid is an angsty teen but my god she is so hostile towards lydia

calling it at 56mins the boys parents are SO dead bc they deliberately didnt have lydia meet them

listen i have nothing against jenna ortega but it feels like she is type-casted to play exactly one character now, like let the girl play something other than a monotone gothy teen

"they found a loophole and moved on" okay whatever that means

astrids awkwardness w this ghost boy is pretty cute. he is so definitely a ghost though

yup called it hes a ghost

"my mom was telling the truth... shit" lmao

this boy feels very sus bc why are you trying to bribe her w her father

still no info on how lydia and rory met ??

MURDER HOUSE ?? TH BOY IS A MURDERER ??? okay thats a good twist ill give them that

astrid going into the afterlife to see her dad feels very "lydia going to the afterlife to see her mom" plot from the stage show ?

astrid honey you have too much faith in this ghost boy

oh my fucking god delia did you really get poisonous snakes....so on brand for her

Beetlegeuse literally carrying the whole movie

every scene he's in is absolutely giving

william dafoe is pretty good too but adding him just feels like he is william dafoe and not the character hes playing (who is also an actor)

delia correcting herself from saying fuck is really funny like girl was that scripted

okay ok astrd seeing her dad working in immigration was pretty neat

i had actually forgotten abt BJs ex wife until now ? doesnt seem like she actually adds much to the story beyond giving BJ a new reason to pursue lydia... which he was already doing...?

are they all going to end up in the afterlfe wtf

the afterlife desert takes place on the fucking moon of saturn ?? okay

is it just me or is the sandworm not claymation... like maybe its just the way it looks but i swear it looks like they cgi'd it but then cut down the frame rate

damn lydias husband really got eaten by piranhas.. what a way to die oh my god

there was no real stakes to astrid switching her soul? they resolved that so fast like lydia just grabbed her and they ran

oh their husband/dad is back now everything is fixed...? like all that hate towards her mom is now gone bc her mom was telling the truth about seeing ghosts? dad just resolved the only conflict

beetlejuice didnt even help get astrid back he went on a pee break and the plot progressed

love bad cop william defoe

"are you filled with fear and trembling?" "yes im shitting my pants" absolutely gold

BJ on fetchquests this whole movie fr

the soul sucking lady please she ate bobs nametag :(

ok wtf they really solved ghost boy dilemma in 5 seconds, BJ ex machina... like he rlly just got him like that ??? anticlimactic

ok good astrid apologized for being a shitty kid

rory please stop kissing lydias neck

i kind of hate the modern nods like the self securing seatbelt in the priests car, or the influencers at the wedding, really weird unnecessary detail

BJ and Delia wedding crashers my fav

how did Beetlejuice get into the church ? if he is a demon like previously established, shouldnt he NOT be able to step on holy ground

enjoyed the slapstick moment of lydia punching rory, good moment

her red dress omg !! pretty

BJ himself is just too funny, making the priest sing top tier

i still miss adam and barbra :( if they can cgi that dead guy in star wars i think we couldve brought alec baldwin and geena davis who are in fact still very alive and look great

they really didnt make me interested in BJs ex wife other than she is pretty and looks like morticia addams ?

BJ making everybody partake in singing is very silly

everybody dancing at the wedding scene must have been fun to film, everybody looks like theyre jamming

lmao whos dog was that in the hallucinations ?? is that the dog who killed the maitlands

"ghoul squad" ok monster high

oh finally his ex is here

lydia so casually pushed out of the way lmao

why does BJ have more etherial powers than every other ghost?

offering rory to the soul sucking lady is so good

theyre really just gonna sandworm for the plot resolution again ???

his ex wife was a threat for all of 4 seconds

lol the legal marriage loophole was kinda funny

is delia like forever dead ? is she a ghost now? is beetlejuice dead?

i still love delia. "i will find charles and we will haunt you both" good for her

are the influencer wedding guests dead

everything got wrapped up very quickly

good on delia for still loving her husband even though that shark absolutely annihilated him

what ?? astrid is married now???

WHAT ??? SHES GIVING BIRTH ?????

oh ok its a dream

having a second pregnancy bit felt really weird

they alluded to another sequel :(

please remember i am actually a huge fan of beetlejuice !! no hate to the franchise these are just my personal opinions on the sequel. i would love to hear your thoughts as well !!

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 01/05/2024

super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont

Season 8 No Album Release (Read More) super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont

Ripper Unknown

So. It's been a month now. Has it all settled yet? Have we had the time to let SiIvaGunner's April Fools 2024 event sink in, 30 days later? Speaking personally, I don't believe I have yet. Visions of Gegagedigedagedago, Pomny (digital circus), Boykisser, Brainless Kitty and all of my other favorite memes continue to haunt me to this very day - I see one of the events' rips in my recommended, and in the blink of an eye five hours will have passed. I cannot be anything but amazed at the surgical precision that the SiIva team captured the phenomena of online internet brainrot with during this event, spanning the whole range of severity levels from bad to worse. super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont was certainly not the worst it got - yet it embodies everything the event sought to achieve through it's title alone.

But, right, the event - you'll have noticed right away that everything about the above-linked video's metadata is completely awry from typical SiIvaGunner videos. No attempt at a bait-and-switch, completely different video description, not even a thumbnail of the game used...and what the fuck is the "Buddy Holly Soundfont"???? What's going on here? Well, a lot of these traits may seem familiar to you if you've been on other corners of YouTube in the last few years - like I mentioned briefly back in we are number one but with outdated memes over it, there's been a trend in how non-SiIva audio edits are presented on YouTube as of late. There's an algorithm to appease now, after all - surprises and ambiguity only serve to ward off potential new listeners! After the explosive popularity of some of these, particularly during 2023 with videos like Nirvana's Nevermind but with the SM64 soundfont, they began feeling inescapable - often times sounding pretty low-effort to boot. I don't intend to shame anyone who's made these videos or anyone who enjoys them, of course, but...through how hard they aim to appease the algorithm that be, its difficult not to see these videos as attention-seeking first, and as creative endeavors second.

Which then brings us back to SiIvaGunner. Eight years in, and the channel's way of presenting its videos has remained thoroughly consistent, rain or shine - content in charting its own course. Narratively, this is actually playing to the channel's thematic core, something enforced all the way back in The Reboot story of Season 1, and that continues to be relevant over the years through rips like NIGHTMARESCAPE 〜Unrestrained HyperCam 2〜 (Final Boss Phase 2), and indeed through this very April Fools event. That core is simple: To never conform, to never restrict, to let the channel's team of artist continue doing what they love purely for love's sake, rather than to appease a crowd or a system. Throughout this April Fools day event, then, it was as if we were shown the twisted view on that core, the channel's rippers following the opposite creed - clickbaity titles and thumbnails, no core theme, often even lacking any regard for the tracks being remixed - several times the Wii Shop Channel theme was simply called "The Wii Theme", and of course the very notion of games having "soundfonts" is something that's woefully misinformed to begin with. Opening the entire event with Buddy Holly by Weezer but in the Mario 64 Soundfont set the stage perfectly - after all, what game more overused in "soundfont" edits than Super Mario 64, what album more trendy to playfully make fun of in 2024 than Weezer's Blue album, and what song from said album is more memed than its hit single, Buddy Holly?

Except, of course, this whole thing went one layer deeper. Throughout the four months that the season has been running for thus far, Season 8's running theme above all else has been pure silliness - everything from a Justin Bieber takeover, to an MLG day, to the currently-ongoing SpongeBob day embodies that theme perfectly. And at the helm of it all sits the Joke-Explainer 7000, the current in-universe manager of the channel. Her name doesn't lie: as we saw back in Magolor's Shoppe Fusion Collab she do be Explaining the Jokes, and that was initially assumed to be the bit of this very April Fools bit, the titles like super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont explaining the jokes of the event immediately. But forget not the point of April Fools as a holiday - to deceive. Indeed, though the titles suggest that the team are spending the day just explaining the joke of every rip uploaded, they're in reality just spoiling the supposed "premise". Listen to any one of them yourself, and you'll be given a bait-and-switch surprise which completely transforms the rip of choice. And as the day went on, these surprises only grew stranger and stranger...

SiIvaGunner's April Fools events have an incredible track record, as I've hopefully made clear in Our Sweet Parsley and Your Best Nightmario - but I think I can safely say this year's bit was at least the FUNNIEST one of them all. Every minute of the day felt like slipping deeper into insanity, made all the more clear the moment super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont was uploaded - in a matter of hours, the event had gone from making fun of low-effort soundfont edits that very much DO exist on YouTube, to completely making up an entirely new tier of slop through the very idea of a "Buddy Holly Soundfont". In case it needs to be explained, "soundfonts" are used to refer to video games using sequenced music, wherein individual instruments are played note-by-note through data sent by the game, rather than being streamed from a recording - it is IMPOSSIBLE to derive a "soundfont" from songs like Buddy Holly, played on live instruments and saved as masters back in the 90s. That is the gag that super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont is built on - the "instruments" used to recreate Bob-Omb Battlefield from Super Mario 64 are intentionally low-quality snippets taken from Buddy Holly, used just the same as Super Mario 64's sequenced instruments are used within soundfont edits.

The end result feels like getting splashed with cold water at every part of listening. Rivers' repeating "Whut" voiceline being used as the main melody for the first 40 seconds, for instance, is the kind of obviously "wrong" thing one would never seriously do in this sort of arrangement, yet it only serves to add to the joke here, of just how far we've fallen so deep into the event. The tinny guitar shredding, the low-effort thumbnail edit, the vocals suddenly being added onto the track, the bass being far deeper in the mix than it reasonably should be...it's an experience to behold, and just as you're letting it all sink in, the vocals are suddenly pitch-shifted to the quintessential SiIva meme, Grand Dad himself The Flintstones - its like the rip is poking fun at your misery, as to remind you that this IS indeed still SiIvaGunner, the bit is still going, you are merely along for SiIva's wild ride.

The entire event was RELENTLESSLY funny to see unfold from every angle. Be it experiencing every rip as it was uploaded, or seeing the comments' reactions to the gradual spiral of rot we were being taken on, or most importantly - realizing just how much fun the team must've still had finding ways to subvert expectations at every turn. Season 8 has been an absolute blast so far, and I cannot wait to see where its patented silliness takes us next - even if it'll be hard to surpass the shit we saw on this day, and the absolute state of things that super mario 64 but it's in the buddy holly soundfont represents. Truly one of the SiIvaGunner rips of all time.

[cityof2morrow]

Bella Brand: Bella's Beauties 005 - Signature Collection

Published: 11-7-2023 | Updated: 11-20-2023 SUMMARY “Inspired by the wealth of Bella Goth lore from the Sims/SimCity franchises (aka the “simsverse”), the Bella Brand Series includes more than a dozen sets and 230+ new business-themed items. Lore suggests that the wealth/influence of the Gilman, Crumplebottom, Bachelor, and Goth families increases considerably under Mortimer and Bella Goth, especially the latter. So, this series imagines what a prestigious Bella-based brand might look like…” For the Bella brand’s most loyal customers - a special edition hosiery/display rack and several recolors of the functional hosiery from the Bella’s Secret Remix set (Simmons, 2023).

DETAILS Requires ALL EPs/SPs. You need Mesh Set 001 (Simmons, 2023) and the Display Counter (BellasSecret_Counter_Somedaythesun)from the TS2 Maxis Match Lingerie Store Set (SomedayTheSun, 2023). This set includes a hosiery rack linked to Marble Display 001 from Bella’s Beauties 003 (Simmons, 2023) and recolors of the hosiery apparel items from the Bella’s Secret Remix set (Simmons, 2023) – all of these items are required for all textures to display in-game. Optional recolors of items from the Bella Brand Gift Set 001 (Simmons, 2023) are included as well. The counter uses recolors from the Bosenklavier Model B grand piano (Bon Voyage EP). Find recolors for the counter interior in the Bella Brand: Retail Floor Set (Simmons, 2023). Recolors may include swatches for items in other Bella Brand sets such as signs, packages, cosmetics, etc. Objects in Sims 2 are limited to two recolorable parts, so not all items are recolorable in the same way. Find additional recolors for Bella Brand sets on this site under #ts2recolors, #co2recolors, and #co2bellabrand.

ITEMS Bella Brand Legs & Heels Mannequin (1735 poly, HIGH) Bella Brand Signature Hosiery Rack (788 poly) DOWNLOAD (choose one) from SFS | from MEGA

*A known game bug may disable some shelf slots. If you cannot access more than 2 slots on the hosiery/lingerie racks (the ones with 4 or 6 bars), download ONE these fixes: MORE_Custom-objects-placeable-on-shelves (Numenor, 2006) MORE_Custom-objects-placeable-on-shelves+LOCKEDTILES (Numenor, 2006) Object Freedom 1.02 (Fway, 2023)

Functional Apparel Objects Apparel objects are debug items and show up as “clothing pile” in the catalog (Misc > Dressers). They must be placed on one of the DEBUG displays/shelves or they’ll float. Once purchased, take them out of the sim’s inventory and choose from one of the following: Purchase Clothing. Select an outfit (or several) of any type. Each apparel object is worth §100 towards the TOTAL cost. Sims save more money (and your businesses make more money) if they use one apparel object per new outfit. Sell. Recycle the object for §100 simoleons.  If you exit the Buy Clothing window without adding anything to your shopping cart, §100 will be added to the sim’s household funds instead. Apparel objects are worth §100 regardless of how much sims pay for them on OFB/community lots. Pricing an item below this amount can function like a discount sale (i.e., pay $75 in-store and §100 towards the purchase or a 25% “discount/rebate.” You can decide whether this counts as cheating). Pricing it above this amount is not recommended since sims will end up losing extra money. Debug objects have slots which “catch” fellow clones if you place them too close. To prevent this when trying to clutter them close together, turn “snap objects to grid” OFF and “move objects” OFF.

CREDITS No copyright infringement intended. All trademarks belong to their respective owners. CCA = Creative Commons Attribution. Thanks: @catherinetcjd, @gayars, @gummilutt, @haziewhims, @kashmiresims (Rach’), @somedaythesun, whoward, Easy Shine Removal Kit (PF Forest, 2023), Reducing GUIDs/OBJs Tutorial (HugeLunatic, 2022), Sketchfab and Blender Communities. Sources: SEE CREDITS (ALT).

[not-terezi-pyrope]

One thing that frustrates me about AI dangers conversations online is that a lot of it is just people discovering that a lot of perfectly ordinary types of crimes and antisocial behaviour can also be done with the new technology, and then immediately making that fact the technology's fault.

People can produce a lot of bullshit and post it online? People can already do that with their own hands, by paying a dude to write, by using a crude algorithm stitching text. Using the bullshit to lie? You can do that by... Lying. Or pasting your bullshit into a fake news format. Media organizations can and do do these things at scale.

People can create convincing images of things that didn't really happen? You can already do that with photoshop. Or by staging a photograph. Or by physically modifying film images, back in the day.

People can blend images of someone's face onto nudes? Terrible thing to do, but you can do it with photoshop. Or by cut and pasting printouts. Or hiring an artist to sketch your custom porn.

People can plagiarise your content and take your ideas, or elements from them, in ways that are hard to trace or detect? To do things with them you did not intend? They can and do already and have done this for centuries. Hell, you probably support them doing this to an extent, when it is called "influence", "homage", "derivative work", "remix".

People can produce fake audio recordings of your voice? Harder, but impersonations exist. It is possible to edit speech, to ascribe words to people who didn't say them.

Now the obvious rejoinder to all this is that AI tools lower the access barrier to some of these things, and yes, they do. As did photoshop, photography, mass media, the internet. You have discovered the purpose of technology; to increase accessibility across the board to more complex creative and productive processes.

All of the above problems are real and concerning, but they are human problems, and they will continue to be done by humans, as they are, and condemned/combated by humans, as we already do. New methods being invented to do these things may embolden people to try their luck at being shitty for a time, but that will lessen as these techniques become normal things that exist, as all technologies do. AI is in so many ways just another general purpose technology that makes doing a lot of different things easier, for good or ill. Actions are the problem here, but in this regard AI itself specifically really isn't.

Unless your problem is with technological development in general, and you believe that past a certain point people, or at least "the masses", can't be trusted with new tools. But that's a different conversation, and a position that I imagine people will find much harder to defend and find acceptance for than "computers bad".

[yesterdayiwrote]

I wish I could make edits purely so I can make the George/Sympathy is a Knife (Ariana remix) edit that's swimming in my head. Just imagine it for me okay... Look at some pictures of him and put the song on in the background or something to get the jist... that's the extent of my creative ability and cheaper than getting photoshop.

[curioussubjects]

Kara/Lee Fic LiveJournal Links

It occurred to me a while ago maybe not everyone is familiar with navigating LiveJournal, much less how to go about finding fic there. I figured it could be helpful to have a list of personal journals and communities to make that easier, or just to have on hand. What's included on this list: * Authors (prolific and/or widely rec'd, some with partial AO3 archiving); * K/L Communities (great sources for other fics and fanworks); * General Battlestar Galactica (2003) fic communities; * Friend-Locked and Deleted Journals (for reference and archived links, if applicable); * Authors that moved all their fics to AO3 (not linked, also for reference). All that being said, this post is neither a rec list or comprehensive. Mainly, I wanted it to be a point of entry for new fans or fans who aren't familiar with LiveJournal. With that in mind, if I forgot a community or user you think should be here, let me know and I'll edit the post to include them. Let me know if there are any issues/questions!

If you see your username on this list and you'd like to be taken off of it, just let me know and I'll edit the post, and likewise if you have your fics listed on LiveJournal and you'd like me to link to them.

Note: You might notice reference to a specific archive for Kara/Lee fic, called Fallout Shelter, as you explore these links. The bad news is that the site is offline. Unfortunately, the site wasn't archived very well either, so pretty much all the fics that were exclusively archived there are gone. The good news is that the archive was a repository for fics originally posted on the ApolloStarbuckFic yahoo group, which was saved during the massive archival effort to backup YG back in 2019/2020. The even better news is that the data for that group might become available some time next week. I'll make a post explaining how to go about sifting through all the messages if/when the data becomes available. Keep in mind though that I haven't seen this data yet, so I have no idea what, if anything, is saved in the group's messages and files. Still, though, definitely something to be excited about!

Fics under the cut! ☺

General Communities

Battlestar Recs BSG 2003 Fics BSG Creative BSG Epics BSG Fic Finders BSG Kink BSG Remix BSG Slash

Kara/Lee Communities

The Applecart Beyond Insane KaraLeeFic No Takebacks Pilots Big Bang Pilots Presents Reel Pilots SASA HQ (additional fic tag)

Authors (A-Z)

alissabobissa (general k/l tag, ffn) anr (general k/l tag) apodixis bantha-fodder (general k/l tag on dw) that i should suffer (archived) brynnmck (general bsg tag) coffeesuperhero (general fic masterlist) daphnaea (general fic masterlist) dionusia (general k/l tag) elly427 (general k/l tag) embolalia (general k/l tag) fahye (general fic masterlist) hackaddict indigo419 kate98 (lj deleted, find on ffn) kdbleu leavingslowly leda13 (general fic tag) letterstonorah (lj deleted, general k/l tag on dw) liminalliz (general fic tag) lint (deleted lj, fin on ffn/ao3) lotus79 meyerlemon (lj deleted, find on ffn) mnemosyne olaf47 sangga (general bsg tag) shah-of-blah (general bsg fic tag) stars-like-dust (general bsg fic tag) svilleficrecs (general fic tag) tamsibling thefannishwaldo (general bsg tag, also on ffn) voleuse whatimages (general bsg tag) widget285 (general bsg tag) wisteria- (general bsg tag) zeplum (saintstreet, plumunited) F-Locked Journals queenofthorns (f-locked on dw) rawles/peri-peteia (ao3, dw) workerbee73

Deleted Journals/Fics

kag523 latteaddict nancy777ca (some fics on ffn) oxymoronassoc (archived, see below) Look Him Straight in the Eye Just Something Out of Step shawngf sloanesomething (archived, see below) And So I Woke (1 [might be gone], 2, 3, 4, 5) All the While Byzantium (SVU crossover) Terms Five Things that Didn’t Happen on Colonial Day Untitled

Find on AO3: callmeonetrack elzed Innibis ninjamonkey73 rachelindeed rayruz scifishipper SomewhereApart