#and please PLEASE don't use AI

[triaelf9]

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Are you a player who has a wildly specific character and can't really find a token that works for them?

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I have a list that I draw from and add to the archive over time, so you can add anything you need each month, and it'll get added! (currently I've caught up on the list)

So if you enjoy playing AND want to support a small, indie creator supporting their family and creating comics, join the $5 level and up, and you'll get access to all these cool things!

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☕️Ko-fi http://ko-fi.com/triaelf9 ✨Patreon http://patreon.com/TriaElf9

[minamill]

since i've seen people being unaware or uncaring about the catastrophic toll generative ai has on both the environment and the workers behind it here's some information about what that toll is actually like. i'd encourage everyone to read the full articles, but i've highlighted some important parts for convenience

Q&A: Uncovering the labor exploitation that powers AI

Generative AI’s environmental costs are soaring — and mostly secret

How 'modern-day slavery' in the Congo powers the rechargeable battery economy

[dummy-dot-exe]

Near future art department by Bplay@bongftah

[ravenstargames]

Now available under our Terms and Conditions in our website :^)

[practicefortheheart]

"AI art" doesn't exist. AI can't make art. It can generate an image. But it's not art.

Art is the result of creative skill and imagination, which AI doesn't have, created for their beauty or emotional power, which are not concepts AI "knows".

Also it's always ugly.

[antlered-vixen]

No-reference two-hour scrapsketch of Elu Thingol, single hard brush only, for training. Mostly post this because someone accused me of my art being AI and like mate I don't know how much more obvious my human brushstrokes could be. It's not even not AI it's not even GIMP it's basically MSpaint straight out of the 90s.

[rwuffles]

hi. i don't know how to explain that using generative ai is bad—no matter what you're using it for—because it's bad for the ecosystem, steals from other sources and mashes the best combination of words it can together with no real comprehension (because it is a glorified Word Generator).

[frameacloud]

A Masterpost About Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARCs)

During the upcoming presidency, it is likely that people in the US will lose many options that keep them from getting pregnant (contraceptives). The right-wing Project 2025 is against birth control pills, abortion, emergency contraception, and the government-provided health insurance ("Obamacare," Medicaid, and Medicare) that helps people afford these.

If you or your partner are concerned about the possibility of losing access to those options soon, you can ask your doctor or Planned Parenthood about getting a Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptive (LARC). The two kinds of LARCs are IUDs and the implant. If you get a LARC right now, it can protect you for years, without you having to do anything to maintain it. A LARC isn't permanent, so you can get rid of it if you later decide that you're ready to have a baby.

Hormonal Intrauterine Device: 3, 5, or 8 years of protection, depending on brand

An IUD is a T-shaped object that a nurse or doctor puts into your uterus. It's tiny, just a little more than an inch. The procedure for getting an IUD isn't surgery, it lasts just a few minutes, and it goes much better if you ask for an anti-anxiety medicine and the right type of painkiller.

Hormonal IUDs work because they slowly release progestin. That's the main hormone in birth control pills. Like pills, they can make your periods get lighter or stop, which is helpful for people who need to get rid of cramps and PMS.

Of the brands of them in the US, the FDA currently approves of using Kyleena for up to five years, Liletta for eight, Mirena for eight, and Skyla for three. Kyleena and Skyla are smallest and therefore easiest to insert.

I have more info in my tags about IUDs.

Copper IUDs: 12 years of protection

The other type of IUD is a copper IUD. Instead of changing your hormones, it works because copper makes the place unfriendly to sperm. Another difference is that this kind can make your periods heavier. Its brand name is Paragard. The FDA approves of using it for ten years, but studies show it's still good at twelve or longer. More info in my tags.

The birth control implant: 5 years of protection

It's a rod the size of a matchstick. A nurse or doctor uses an applicator to put it under your skin in your arm. There, it will slowly release progestin to protect you from getting pregnant. It can make your periods get lighter or stop. The FDA approves of using it for three years, but a study shows it's still 100% effective five years later, and so does another study. Its brand name is Nexplanon, which has improvements over the older Implanon, such as being visible on X-ray. More info in my tags.

Some honorable mentions

There are some other contraceptives that last a long time but aren't considered LARCs. The diaphragm and the cervical cap are two kinds of plastic cap that you put on your cervix each time before sex, and you can keep using the same one for two years. The birth control ring, Annovera, lasts one year. Each injection of the birth control shot, Depo-Provera, lasts three months.

Only barrier methods such as condoms, internal condoms, and dental dams can protect against sexually transmitted infections. The right wing wants to stop people from getting condoms, too. That's another problem, but LARCs can help us get through the next four years without unplanned pregnancies.

[beholderaddict]

College friend: I used AI to write my 4,000 words essay Me using AI:

[weabooii]

New AIBOXES by GreatGRIN! Order today at Azamon.com 👍

[pftones3482]

Happy Pride Month!

Combined today's Spirit Week Prompt (Friend Group Without the Flynn-Fletchers) with @howtonerdoutovereverything's Revival Challenge prompt of the day (Pride). This is the combo I was MOST looking forward to doing when I was comparing the two lists.

Find the fic here on AO3, or read it without an AO3 account under the cut below!

~~

“All right girls, hoist it higher!” Isabella hollered between her cupped hands, watching with an amused smile as her troop heaved on the rope holding their logo to the top of the float. “Gretchen, Katie, secure it to the post!"

"On it, Chief!” Katie yelled down, scrambling up the float with her drill, Gretchen following her with the toolbox.

Isabella stepped back, glancing down at her clipboard and eyeing the schematic they’d plotted out weeks ago. It was the morning of the Danville Pride Parade, and Troop 46231 had signed up two months prior to be included in the Fireside portion of the march. She knew Phineas and Ferb were around somewhere – they’d helped build several of the floats for the parade – but for right now, it was just her and her girls, and they had some last-minute float things to get done. Like putting their troop number, painted rainbow colors, at the top.

“Got it, Isabella!”

She waved at Katie to acknowledge she’d heard her. “Great! Let’s clean up and get ready for the starting line!”

Isabella set her notes aside, taking a breath and glancing down at her uniform. They were all wearing them, as per Fireside Girl protocol, but some of the other girls had switched out their sashes for their own pride flags. Milly was tying an ace one around her shoulders, Holly the lesbian pride flag, Adyson the trans one. The rest of her troop was decked out in the standard pride flag, and Isabella had been planning to do that too. Already had her button on, in fact.

But.

“Oh, the float came out wonderful!” came Baljeet’s voice behind her.

She turned, grinning, to find him and Buford walking up. “Thanks! It took a lot of work – we’re really proud of it.”

“Eh,” Buford muttered, squinting up at it. “Could’ve been bigger.”

Baljeet slapped him on the chest. “Nonsense, do not listen to him.”

Isabella snorted and crossed her arms, cocking her hip. “Never do,” she said, accepting Baljeet’s offer of a fist bump. She eyed Baljeet’s outfit, the casual dark tee and the original pride flag design, complete with lavender, turquoise, and dark pink, draped across his shoulders. Buford was in his normal clothes, a single bi flag painted on one cheek. “You guys sitting on the sidelines or walking in the parade?”

Her smile widened, just a little, as Baljeet laced his fingers with Buford’s – they’d been dating for the whole spring semester, and it never got old to her. “We are going to sit on the sidelines – someone will try and beat up the protestors if we walk.”

“They deserve it.”

“I agree, but you do not need anything else on your record when we are only one year away from graduating.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Baljeet looked back at Isabella, eyes flickering behind her to the troop before he lifted a brow. “Are you not going to wear a pride flag?”

“I am!” she protested, tugging on the massive button adorning her sash. Her stomach coiled, just a little, and Baljeet tilted his head with a flash of sympathy in his eyes.

“You know what I mean – are you not wearing your flag?”

Isabella swallowed and eyed her backpack on the bench. In it sat a massive pan flag, one she’d brought in case she got the guts to wear it. It wasn’t that she wasn’t proud of herself – she was. Her girls were, all of her friends were, had been nothing but supportive. It'd be crazy if they weren't - they'd been coming out to each other since basically the first year of highschool, if not sooner in some cases. But-

“I just…” She paused, looking down at the parking lot pavement under her and shoving a toe against it.

“You still ain’t told your ma?”

When she looked up, Baljeet’s nose was wrinkled, but he’d long since stopped trying to get Buford to stop using contractions. “No,” she admitted. She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, curling into herself. “She’s watching, and she’s supportive of everyone else. Hell, she was one of Adyson's biggest cheerleaders back in elementary school, so I don’t know why…”

Baljeet’s hand settled on her shoulder, gentle, and he squeezed. Isabella didn’t remember him getting taller than her, but she had to peek up to look him in the eyes. “It is scary. It took me a very long time to tell my parents, and it was emotional even though I knew they loved me. There is always the “what if” feeling, especially when you have not known your own identity for that long.”

Isabella swallowed around the lump in her throat. She’d been out to her friends for months – telling her mom should have been the logical next step once she’d gotten through all of them. But she’d put it off, over and over again, because she just didn’t know. Her mother was her favorite person in the entire world, and the idea that she just might not support her…it was ridiculous, but it had kept her mouth shut.

Another hand settled on her other shoulder, larger and warmer, and she looked up at Buford. She hated that all the boys were taller than her now. His eyes were shockingly kind. “Your ma is like the nicest person we know. And if she don’t like it, for any reason, we’re here. All of us.”

Isabella took a shaky breath and wrapped her arms around both boys, ducking her head so that their temples all pressed together for a second. “Thanks, guys,” she whispered. Her fingers felt cold when she pulled back, and she twisted away from the couple and dug into her bag, pulling out the flag from the pocket.

It unfolded in her hands, fabric tumbling to the ground, and she rubbed a careful thumb over the stripes of pink, blue, and yellow before swinging the whole flag around her body and draping it across her shoulders. With slightly trembling fingers, she tied a careful knot in the cape at her throat, letting the cool fabric fall over her back.

From behind her, whoops and cheers rang out, and she shot a playful glower at the Fireside Girls, who were whistling and giving her thumbs up from their stations across the pride float. “Oh shut it, you guys.”

“Proud of you, Chief!” Ginger hollered.

Her smile won out over her desire to playfully flip them off, and Isabella twisted back to Buford and Baljeet, taking a breath. “Thanks,” she said again, keeping her voice soft. “Where will you be standing?”

“Ah, over by City Hall. Our parents are already there, so we will wave at you.” Baljeet paused his speech, taking Buford’s hand again. “Are Phineas and Ferb riding your float?”

She shook her head. “I think they’re on one of the first ones, for the school. So you’ll see them before us.”

Baljeet nodded. “Perfect. We will meet up with all of you afterwards and go through the festival!”

Isabella smiled and fiddled with the edge of the flag, rubbing her fingers across the edges like a stim toy. “I’d really like that.”

They left with a wave, and Isabella grabbed her backpack before letting Milly and Holly hoist her up onto the parade float. Her troop surrounded her, colors bright, and Isabella felt warmth bloom in her chest, pride and gratefulness at having the literal best friends in the world. “All right, girls. Who’s ready for the most amazing pride parade Danville’s ever seen?”

The girls whooped around her, moving to their positions, and Isabella took her place at the front of the float with Adyson, gripping the railing to keep from falling over the edge. Around them, the music for the parade started up, loud and pop heavy, and she shut her eyes for a second, just letting herself breathe.

“You good, Is?” Adyson whispered, leaning in close so that it was as private a conversation as it could be.

Isabella bumped into Adyson’s shoulder as the float shifted, and their capes billowed back in the wind. She opened her eyes. “I’m great,” she said, and she’d never been more certain.

Well, except for later on, when she caught her mother’s gaze in the crowd and found the brightest, most accepting smile she could have ever asked for.

[themadknightuniverse]

Emilia, OC commission for @trixierosewrites ! ✨

[ellipsesandawkwardpauses]

i'm done with you ai "artists"

my sanity is way below sea level with you so-called "artists". it's not that hard. get off your lazy ass you worthless piece of crap and learn how to draw. what do you get out of making ai art? there's certainly no satisfaction in making those dumb images. everyone sees through them. no one pays attention to them. sure, AI art is more accessible, but just watch one of the millions of art tutorials on yt. and learn, dammit. please, for the sake of my sanity, learn.

[wahoo-stomp]

I spent five years coming up with unique ways to photograph the same group of plushies to help tell a story.

You don't need AI to help you be creative, you're just being lazy and want brain chemicals without doing any of the work or respecting the people who put time and effort into it.

[bratbarzal]

Hey, sorry for bringing this up but I was wondering if you could give any advice on how to spot AI in fic or writing? It makes me feel weird to think I'm reading or enjoying fics on here and the content is AI generated :(

I'm not necessarily the one to be policing this but I'll do my best to help bc I understand how disheartening it is to think you're unintentionally consuming AI generated content when it doesn't align with your own morals. I'll do my best to be helpful, but if anyone has any other advice, please feel free to add on if you can!

I'll also preface these points by saying, I'm talking about using AI to write a fic. I'm not talking about AI to translate, I'm not talking about AI to generate a prompt, or any other ~innocent use of AI within this sort of space. I don't intentionally use it at all as a personal decision/dislike, but I can understand it's place and the fact that it can be unavoidable for certain things that there is no ~easy alternative to.

Imperfection! I don't want to sit here and say perfection in writing is anything to be alarmed by - people proof read their work, or have people who do so for them, to make sure it flows or reads as well as it can, and obviously no one wants to be putting out anything that isn't their very best - but if I see any sort of mistake in writing, I feel safe enough to assume it wasn't generated by AI. Spelling errors, grammar mistakes, this boy doesn't even know the difference between there, their, and they are sort of thing. Imperfections are human. Ramblings are human - does a sentence go on way too long (me)? Does it seem like the writer is running out of ways to avoid overuse of the same word and are getting a migraine from scrolling through power thesaurus (me)? All indicators of someone who doesn't know when to stop, and isn't interested in keeping things looking perfect, therefore most likely not AI. The same can also be said about imperfections in written speech. Stutters, hums (uhms, ah's, ehh's, uhh's etc), saying phrases that are incorrect (like "could care less" which should always be "couldn't care less" lmao) are all human, and would not be replicated in speech generated by AI.

Personality! I think it's impossible to write something without inserting a little bit of yourself into it, and often you can see a consistency between someone's personal posts, and their writing. I acknowledge I'm saying this as someone who signs every sentence off with lmao like it's a period, and then writes 81k word fics with excessive use of the oxford comma and that often read like unhinged ramblings, but what I'm saying is, you will see their personality in their writing. I'm admittedly and to a fault sarcastic, and a raging idiot, and the shit I say on here reflects that, but my writing, and the people I write specifically, reflect that, also, and do so in a way that shows there is a human being behind it. I've never read an AI text that isn't robotic, or monotone, or lifeless. It doesn't matter how many prompts you give it, or how many times you run it through the mill, it cannot manipulate the essence of a person. I also recognise that not everybody shitposts in the way I personally do, but if you can get a good read on a person through their blog, through posts they make otherwise, or tags they add, or asks they answer, you should be able to tell if their writing is their own.

Language! Similar to the above, is the language used throughout consistent with the kind of language that writer uses elsewhere. Is any of it unnecessarily formal? Does the fiction that you are reading, read like fiction, does it read like there is thought and intention behind every word as there would be behind something a real person wrote?

Emotion! Again, tying into the above few points, is there more to the story than just action? I see a lot of AI that is - this happens, this happens, this happens, speech, movement, telling and rarely showing. It's all very specific, and again, robotic. Shoutout katie @nol-pat bc we were just discussing examples and she brought up a valid point which is that there is never anything beyond the action of it all, because the bot isn't capable of the emotion or explanation that goes along with any of it. There is little thought, there is little feeling, there is little grit, if that makes sense? And sometimes, people write this way, but if they have the power to be writing a story, they usually have the power to add beyond the bare minimum of basic human movement. And in a similar vein, does what you are reading make YOU feel something? Beyond a description of flushed cheeks and heart hammering, can you really relate to what you are reading, to how the characters are reacting and responding to what is happening? Do you feel immersed in what you are reading, and do you feel that way throughout?

Consistency! Chances are if you are reading anything multi-chapter or that is a continuation of a previous work, it won't be AI generated. If there is a story you can follow through each chapter, if there are call-backs and references and repeated traits and characteristics, that make the story flow, there is someone putting a whole lot of pain-staking thought behind it. I think the same goes for generally longer fics. From what I've seen of AI in other works, the longer it is, the more likely it is to go off the beaten path. There will be inconsistencies later down the line in an AI fic because of the way it is set up - it usually takes more and more prompts to make it longer, and the more you instruct it to expand, the more it forgets what it originally gave you.

This last one I was hesitant to bring up because I see it all over, and I see people pointing the finger at it's use, and I don't generally agree that the EM-dash is the devil, but in looking at a few proven and assumed AI works while I've been thinking about this, I feel like it's something I want to raise for you to look into yourself, because it is very much something that keeps cropping up.

I'll preface what I'm about to say with I don't think the use of an em-dash necessarily an outright indicator, but bare with me on this whole thing, because there is something to say about its overuse.

-, a dash, is typed outright, and a part of most regular keyboards, certain writing tools will autocorrect this to a longer version, which is an EN-dash (e.g. I use pages, when I type a -, it will often elongate it to an – within the app. - vs –) when it is used to signify an "up to" or a "until" like you'd see on opening hours or something, but when works are copied into Tumblr, it will usually just revert to it's regular dash size. An EM-dash is a longer dash and the correct use of this would be to indicate a break/change in sentence structure —. So that is - vs —.

- which is a dash/hyphen (eg. book-end, co-worker, etc.)

– which is an EN-dash (eg. 9am – 5pm, pages 4 – 5, etc.)

— which is an EM-dash (I'll use an example from merriam-webster here, because as I will go onto say, I would usually just use a regular dash “That is—I suppose it is concerning.”)

If you type in a DOUBLE hyphen into most tools, it will correct to an EM-dash, and I don't know if it's the tool I'm using, but when I have then copied this into Tumblr, or written straight into Tumblr if you're the kind of live-life-on-the-edge maniac insane enough to rely on doing that, it usually ends up coming out as a double hyphen (--, so that's -- vs —). Again, I'm not saying em-dashes are a certain indicator, but something to consider if the rest of the text seems off. There's a lot of research and debate around this, but in my personal experience, as a creative writer, as a reader, as a general enjoyer of fiction, when I see an EM-dash outside of a corporate email or an essay, it feels generally misplaced, and you'll notice it replacing commas, colons, semi-colons, etc and you will be able to see what I mean for yourself. I (again, PERSONALLY) have always just written a hyphen, never even a double that would auto-correct, which is why it's shifty to ME. An em-dash, despite it's definition and it's place in grammar and punctuation as a whole, reads more like a personal or professional function, and not something I would see or use in creative writing. I'll attach some reading on this, I've tried to find anything not behind a paywall, and a few different opinions on the matter. (1) (2) (3) (4)

Something I will say to look out for specifically when it comes to the EM-dash, is how it is being used. If you think it's being used to cover up where a human imperfection may be, especially in speech, like a stutter, or a pause to think, or fillers like "uhh" or "erm" you have your answer.

Overall, AI is a complex and ever-evolving beast, and it's borderline impossible at the end of the day to ever know for sure, but I can tell you as someone who has been on this site a long time, there are a lot more creatives on here than there are those who are fraudulently posting AI works as their own. Sometimes it can feel like a plague, and sometimes the tags are riddled, but if you're ever unsure, ask around. People will direct you to fics that made them feel something - fics that made them laugh or cry or think, and you'll find the authentic writers behind them 💕

All we can do as a community here is continue to push for authenticity and honesty - and encourage people to post their own works, no matter how rough they believe them to be. I'll make more of an effort to reblog fics I love if it helps, and celebrate the thriving creativity that still remains in this space.

I've said it a million times by now, I'd rather sit here and read bullet pointed thoughts/fragments of a story than the same regurgitated nonsense I keep seeing people paste from chatgpt.

Also, the obvious would be running it through an AI detector, although this can be subject to error as with everything else, my above points are kind of to make you think without having to copy and paste fics into the below, but they're always useful too!!

UndetectableAI, Grammarly, ZeroGPT, QuillBot

And I’ll follow on by saying, if you’re using one of the above, use a couple. I ran a text that I knew to be AI through QuillBot, and it said 0% was AI generated, but ZeroGPT said 94% of it was.

[rott3nmutt]

artists, reblog with ur favorite piece of art u have ever made ( and why )

I'll go first

I love this piece because it represents how far I've come with my art ! it took me a long time to find my style and this was when I finally was like "holy shit, this is it." I just love this piece, it's so clean and so pleasing to look at. I don't have anything I'd change about it. it's just pretty and nice and I wish all my art could turn out as nicely as this did