#but “sexy” is censored in the generator

[agena87]

The multiple lives of Agena and her men.

[islaplato]

They say the night is for dreamers. I say it’s for action, and I’m waiting to see yours.

[rubyjones]

Too many writers are using generative 'AI' to make their book covers, so I've written a guide on how to make your own cover for free or cheap without turning to a machine.

If you can't afford to pay an artist, you CAN make your own!

I hope this is a helpful overview that covers the basics and points to some free resources.

[Edit:] this is getting well outside this account's usual reach and a few people in the notes are making not so great comments about the fact I write weird erotica. So, for full disclosure: yes, I am an erotica writer. And the book covers include those for tentacle erotica and robot erotic romance. But you cannot see anything NSFW. All of these covers were approved by Amazon. Frankly, the cover of the most NSFW story, Oviposition, is downright tame! And to those complaining about the word 'Oviposition', that is a scientific word for a naturally occurring phenomenon - it's only naughty if you know the content of the story, which is only alluded to as 'sexy'.

I also do not believe that shirtless men require a warning, but yeah, two of the covers have shirtless men. The cover with a tasteful nude drawing (showing a bum, but not a weenor) has already been censored.

I can't do anything about the version of this post that got rb'd by a popular person, but for those who are concerned, consider this your content warning.

[yesmissnyx]

I brought this up in a reply, but I wanted to make a post about it because it's an important aspect of kink and self-expression in general:

When you're by yourself, you don't have to mask.

You don't have to censor yourself. You don't have to imagine what others would think if they were there right now.

You can do whatever harmless weird, horny, gross, silly stuff you want.

Experiment with doing things that you'd never do in front of another person. Experiment with things that you'd love to do with another person, if only you weren't scared. Wear what you want when nobody can see you. Say what you want, out loud, when nobody can hear you. Watch, play and listen to whatever you want.

Nobody will know, unless you tell them!

Thought crimes aren't real.

Life is so much better and so much more fun when you slowly transform the critic in your head into a voice that goes, "Hey, wouldn't it be fun/sexy/cool if I [did X thing]? I should try it."

You don't have to feel shame over what you do when you're enjoying your own company!

Maybe you'll hate it or get the ick after trying it, but then you've learned something about yourself and you don't have to try it again. Laugh about it, if you can. Open yourself up to new experiences with the knowledge that you'll be fine even if something makes you uncomfortable.

It gets easier the more you do it. I promise.

Life is way too short to not even give yourself the opportunity to do something you might love. There are enough judgmental assholes out there who would love to tear you down. You don't need to be one for yourself 💕

[bikiniarmorbattledamage]

So, naturally we had to, now the game is actually out, bingo the CENSORED outfit in Stellar Blade. Credit to HarryNinetyFour for showing all seventy-four outfits, and Kotaku for this article where they propose that Eve is at her sexiest when she's got more on.

Okay... maybe not that but...

Seriously, if you're playing to fap - this game has you covered. But it also has a few really interesting, covering outfits that seem to reflect fantasies of fashion and comfort.

The only thing that's really not present is any sort of actual military like BDUs or combat jumpsuits. That's kinda weird, even Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain let you put BDUs on Quiet.

And that bit is weird is, based on what I've seen people who've been playing the game saying - there is really a story about her being a soldier and fighting for a cause there. But you'd never know that based on the ongoing outrage.

The outrage is weird and sad

So as you can probably guess, the continuing riot of "censorship" here is pretty absurd. It's got to the point where they even bullied the Stellar Blade's X/Twitter account to un-repost the Kotaku article that praises the game.

But here's the thing, in all the years I've had to deal with brodudes doing this kind of nonsense in various online platforms etc, I have never seen one that is happy.

YouTuber Moon Channel did a two part (1, 2) series on a different drama in South Korea involving a Gacha game that dared not to be pointlessly horny, but here's the general take away.

English speaking brodudes in this situation are imagining that Stellar Blade is some sort of iconic work coming from the anti-woke wonderland where everyone is happy. The reality is:

South Korea has a deeply hierarchical society which essentially tells young people they are to obey and not to speak up

The economy and nepotism is such that unless you are born into a rich family, your employment prospects are downright depressing

Many young men in South Korea develop a lot of resentment toward women primarily because they are told that in order to enter a (heterosexual) relationship they will need to demonstrate they have the ability to be a great provider, and then are denied those opportunities by the economy and nepotism

On top of all this, the government takes a "we know whats best for you" approach to the extent that not only is porn banned but you will be expected to supply your identity information if you want to look up basic sexual educational materials

They would find it to be an absolute nightmare realm.

The reality is that in the "woke" world that brodudes fear, we'd probably see a lot more eroticism in art, including games, and it'd be of the more focused, sincere variety rather than that directed by creepy marketing guy.

All we really need to do is accept each other as people, appreciate each other's humanity and boundaries. Then we can both enjoy a sexy paradise, but also unite and deal with the assholes who keep oppressing us economically and socially.

Wouldn't that be nice?

-wincenworks

[deepdreamnights]

Using Vidu to Make Character Turnarounds

Disclosure: I am in the Vidu Artist Program.

Having (at the very least) front and back reference greatly improves the quality of character image prompting. And very often, one finds that they were lazy and only got a couple of bits of character reference. Or they have tons of it in the wrong art style.

A character like Wally Manmoth requires some good reference to work right.

Now, it's not that hard to prompt up something that matches close enough and then modifying the stuff manually until it works, such as I did with TriceraBruce and DeinoSteve:

You can tell Steve's the bad boy because he's got a cool rip in the back of his jacket.

But for Wally, I decided to try out Vidu as a means of getting turnaround frames.

So I loaded Wally's front-view pic (above) into the image-to-video feature, and prompted with:

vintage traditional animation scene (1985) humanoid mammoth/furry elephant wearing a red hawaiian shirt and blue shorts, by filmation and sunbow productions, 90s colors, friendly on green background, streamlined black line art with cel shaded vintage cartoon color, official media, character design fullbody shot on green background. The mammoth-anthro starts facing the camera, turning around to face away from the viewer, providing a view of his back.

I gave it two shots at the 720x quality setting (12 points per, total of 24), and got:

Huh. Weird it happened twice, etc.

This demonstrates both that the tech is viable for this use, and the reason you'd want to have that multi-view reference. The robot clearly assumes that a luau shirt would have a large print on the back, whereas wally's is a more basic print. That's ultra easy to fix, though.

I started by exporting the last frame of each (or close to it, picking the one that looks cleanest)

While its image editing features and often touch-and-go, one thing the Midjourney edit feature has going for it is it's utility as an upscaler. You load the image in, make your tweaks (just a little bit of background if you're just upscaling) and then upscale and at the very least you have 2048x2048 worth of resolution.

I used the midjourney edit process, that got those two images to the following state, as a test.

The results are good, but getting the large trees to erase-and-replace out took several attempts, and just doing it in photoshop then using the editor to upscale would have been faster.

This is why we do tests.

I went with the slightly-at-an-angle one for the main reference sheet. I'll be keeping the straight-on-back-shot in case it winds up being useful for specific scenes down the line.

In photoshop, I touched up the shirt print, made sure the colors where consistent, and simplified the hair coloration to something more period-plausible.

No more giant trees on the back! On the other hand, I think the feet sprouting toes on the heel is going to be something I'll be fixing frame-by-frame until there's another revision.

Human characters will induce these issues less often. I just stick with my genre of choice.

Midjourney was not cooperating with TyrannoMax (it really doesn't like giving him the proportions I like, preferring to make him a weird big-head salamander), so I went the same direction, resulting in this stage 1 front/back:

Only Midjourney refused to work with it, at all. Declaring everything that came out of it too lewd for its internal censor. Apparently, this hunky relative of cheesasaurus rex is too sexy for general consumption. Nevermind that it's a cartoon lizard in a shade tangello orange.

The workaround is too dumb for words.

Slam the hue slider until it's off anything that could be perceived as a human skintone.

Then make the modifications. Here I had to rework the leg several times, and do a lot of tweaking to remove-overinking. Then I popped it back out, droped it back into lineart, re-colored it, and and composited it back together:

And voila, a front and back for Max. I shortened his tail, as the longer tails have been causing problems with confusing the image prompting systems. The armor skirt has scallops to accommodate the tail, which looked better more consistently than the flaps folding around the tail.

The results are, thus far, encouraging.

Of course, if the back of your character has any unexpected details, you're going to have to add those in after the fact or include them in the prompting, and you're going to be making a lot of edits regardless (as you should).

Oh, and Max has a sword now.

A blade of amber crystal with a fossilized femur grip and a faceted dino-eye that should be far enough away from the Eye of Thundera for safety. A roleplay-toy friendly trademark weapon, usually a sword, was a must-have for 80s action-adventure lines despite the fact that you'd never see it used on anything that wasn't a robot, living statue, or skeleton.

Thus the sword's gimmick is it cleaves through non-living matter with ease but anything BS&P doesn't want subjected to a stabbin's is encased in amber crystal: locked in place if partially encased, put into suspended animation if fully encased. A nice, nonlethal use for a magic sword.

It's proportioned like a gladius, but is generally interpreted as larger, approaching a broadsword, in keeping with the generally ridiculous blade sizes of kidvid fantasy. They're just more fun when they're stupidly huge.

Is "Sword of Eons" too on the nose?

[kytiapseud]

In Defense of Epic Manwhore au

Okay, so I’m kinda nervous to post this but I feel like it should be said. I hope I tagged correctly for the topics I discuss in this. So, in defense of the Manwhore au as for the concept being coerced, it’s not like the god(s) said ‘you’ll die if you don’t have sex with me’. Odysseus is the one who brings it up. Although yes, the line of consent there is a bit murky with Odysseus more doing so to get out of situations rather than because he wants to. It’s totally valid for some fans to not be a fan of the au, not everything in fan spaces is for everyone. You are entitled to your opinion and get to make your fandom experience safe for you. There is something I saw though that felt like commentary about those who came up with/ enjoy the au. To me this felt close to attempted fandom censoring or those who try to ‘cleanse’ all fandom content to what they think is morally correct. Again, it is fine if you want to share your thoughts on something. But I hope no one comes after those who do enjoy the au. I haven’t seen that happen yet, I’m hoping it doesn’t. But the generalization about what it says about those who enjoy the au doesn’t sit right with me. For reasons like I mentioned above, about worrying it could turn into attempted censoring. Especially if anyone tries to get others to agree to black-and-white thinking about what they think is true. That could easily turn into justification to harassment, which I have seen in fandom spaces before. Particularly with anti-proshippers.

There may be valid criticisms to this au concept, but that doesn’t mean everyone who is a fan likes it for the same reasons. Let me address some of what I’ve seen though. The joking about Odysseus being a Manwhore coming from homophobia. Yeah, that’s possible (although personally I feel like a homophobe is more likely to not even mention gay things.) I don’t think that’s always the case though. I know there was one animatic I saw, the first thing I saw for the au, that had a joke in it that I didn’t like. I don’t judge this creator, and in fact it’s a common joke I’ve seen. Particularly with people wishing they didn’t see something. It just doesn’t vibe with me. In no way do I think that those who say such jokes have something wrong with them. People have different senses of humor and I think some use such jokes as a way to cope.

Anyways, I think some of the humor more comes from how unexpected it would be. I mean, we have a war captain facing foes who instead of choosing to fight goes for seducing them. It’s certainly interesting. I know some of the jokes come from the others not involved in the coupling being just shocked or grossed out. I think that more comes from like not wanting to see someone else talk about or get busy with another? I mean, some of these men probably consider each other to be like brothers. I imagine that would be weird. I think homosexuality wasn’t taboo in ancient Greece, I’m not entirely sure though I may need to do more research on that. So there could be some homophobia to the jokes, but I don’t think that’s the case for everyone. It certainly wasn’t for me. It could also be lgbt+ fans wanting to see more gay stuff in the story. Gay shipping isn’t uncommon after all.

I don’t think everyone who talks about the Manwhore au has no problem joking about sa. There can be many reasons why someone may enjoy a concept in media. You don’t know. Like how women are criticized for rape fantasies. I watched a documentary about sex once (I can’t remember which one this was in now) and there was a whole segment about the rape fantasy, discussing why this is an appeal to some women. It did not mean these women want to be raped of course. Part of it could come from a culture of feeling pressure to not experience any sexual feelings, so the scenario allowed them to experience something without feeling guilty about it. There isn’t always a clear explanation for why someone can find something sexy.

I think this started as a joke, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some who wanted something sexy in their Epic fan experience. I mean, having read the Odyssey in school (twice actually) I did not expect I would want to see Odysseus in such a scenario. But then I saw one sexy fanart of him with others and cough I ended up liking it more than I expected. Those who have seen my reblogs on this tag know heh.

There’s also the infidelity notion. I feel like given the situation, Penelope would understand. I also saw some comments that they could be poly, which is a concept I like for this. I’ve also seen mention that human relationships with gods have ended up tragically for the humans involved. I don’t think everyone who listens to Epic knows about that. I didn’t. But again, this goes back to it being fantasy. People enjoying picturing it the way they want to. It doesn’t have to be accurate to the myths. It’s fanfiction/au.

I think the infidelity notion to it didn’t bother me as much as others because in the original, he wasn’t faithful. Sorry for Odyssey spoilers I guess. Anyways, I was already used to him being a cheater. Although the one with Circe may match more with the coercion along the lines of ‘sleep with me for your crew’. The knife that’s been shown in some animatics wasn’t in the original. It’s been a while since I’ve read it so I’m not entirely sure about how that went down.

Referring back to if Odysseus wants it even if he was the one who offered (sorry if I’m all over the place with this, I have a lot of thoughts.) Seducing foes doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t want it. There’s a character in a Sanders Sides roleplay I was in named Remy (Sleep), whose rp version was created/and played by the wonderful @queroze , who was proclaimed by them to be a manslut. His go-to to get out of situations, if he saw it was a fit strategy, was to seduce. Sure, he got into situations that weren’t great, but often he was the active one in the seducing. I wouldn’t say his go-to being to seduce meant it wasn’t always consensual. In fact, there’s many descriptions and some statements from Que themselves saying Remy loved bringing pleasure to his partners.

Then there’s the mention of the unlikeliness of the scenario actually happening. I don’t think this matters that much to be honest. It’s fandom enjoyment. Who cares if people want to enjoy something that doesn’t seem likely in canon? I personally couldn’t see seduction working, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t find the concept entertaining. Sure people shouldn’t insist it could occur to the creators. But aside from that, it doesn’t affect you. Enjoying fan spaces is way more fun if we let things stay peaceful.

I kinda want to write a fanfic now that adjusts to some of the critiques I’ve seen of this au. I know I said I probably wouldn’t, but I got inspired while planning this heh.

[duckprintspress]

Fandom 101: The Origin of the Citrus Scale

A guest post by Aeryn Jemariel Knox. (@jemariel)

Ah, the citrus scale. It’s like a cryptid roaming the edges of modern fandom communities. Long-tenured veterans speak of it with affectionate mockery while newcomers google curiously. A relic from a bygone fandom era, the citrus scale saw a brief resurgence in 2018 during the Tumblr porn ban, suggested as a way to avoid the new bot censors trawling for posts with the NSFW tag—though never, I think, in seriousness. 

That may have been jocular and short-lived, but it does point to the reasons why the citrus scale was created in the first place. Certain fandom activities have always had to fly under the radar to one degree or another. Whether you’re trying to evade legal action or simply avoid deletion based on explicit content, a certain level of obfuscation is sometimes worthwhile.

It’s not hard to find the generally agreed-upon definitions of the citrus scale’s levels. According to Fanlore, KnowYourMeme, and others, this is more or less the “official” citrus scale:

Orange: Light stuff, kissing, nothing below the waist or under the clothes. 

Lime: Groping, implied sex without details, fade-to-black, no intercourse or intimate contact.

Lemon: Sex, in full detailed glory. Woo-hoo! Regardless of the actual acts performed, if you can tell who had an orgasm (or, perhaps, had an orgasm denied), how, and where, it’s a lemon.

Grapefruit: We’ll get into this later.

But these tidy categories are clear thanks to the benefit of hindsight. In the Wild West of the early internet, it was not so easy to pin down exactly what you might be getting into based on which term was used.

At its origin, the citrus scale wasn’t a scale at all. It has its roots in hentai (and was always more popular in anime fandoms), stemming from a specific early hentai film by the title of Cream Lemon (1984). Hentai being what it is, this led to certain subculture communities referring to any story with explicit sexual content as a “Lemon.” And for a while, that was the extent of it. Then came fanfiction.net purging explicit content (2002), Livejournal suffering Strikethru (2007), and other events that pushed burgeoning fandom communities out of their growing hubs and back into smaller, isolated communities centered on a single fandom or pairing. In the relatively sparse early ’00’s internet, anybody could spin up an Angelfire website, pass the link around to their friends, and get a reasonable amount of traffic.  Websites devoted to the works of a single author or small group were common.

I mention this to describe the landscape in which fandom lexicons grew and evolved in the early-mid 2000s. Each pocket community had its own rules, lingo, and expectations; venturing outside of your home pocket could lead to some pretty major miscommunications. 

“Lemon” was established early and its definition has hardly shifted. It means that the labeled content (art, fic, mood board, etc.) includes sex. Intercourse, bumping uglies, etc. However, some yaoi fandom niches used it specifically to mean gay sex of the male variety. In some communities, “lime” developed as a corresponding term for feminine gay sex, while other communities brought it up with the usage that eventually “stuck,” “not quite a lemon.” Given that lemon and lime often go hand in hand when discussing actual flavors, the fact that we had some divergent term evolution is not surprising. But coming in from a different pocket of fandom and seeing “lime,” thinking you’ll be reading semi-softcore sexual tension and instead being confronted with graphic sapphic antics? Bit of a shock, I’m sure.

A more dramatic example is the rating level of “Grapefruit,” which occupies two completely different ends of the scale. In some circles, grapefruit was defined as “less intense than lime,” G or PG-rated stories that were more soft or cute than sexy. In other circles, it was used to mean the exact opposite. Kinkier than kink, smuttier than smut, grapefruit art and fic was where you went to have your eyebrows singed off. Some communities were even more specific, using grapefruit for stories featuring non-consensual sex. This was where darkfic lived – in modern day parlance, your “Dead Dove, Do Not Eat” works. To say that this usage difference caused some disagreements would be putting it mildly.

Nobody really worried about orange. Orange just existed, not bothering anybody.

When these terms were coined, the internet was not an assumed aspect of everybody’s daily life the way it is today. There was no Tumblr, no Facebook, no social media to speak of. There were no large repositories of internet lore and knowledge such as Urban Dictionary or KnowYourMeme. It was a playground. And what do you do on a playground? You make friends! The citrus scale, like so many fandom tropes and concepts, was defined by groups of friends that created them ad hoc to meet their own needs at the time. No one could have predicted that it would become so much a fandom history that it’d be enshrined, nor that I would be writing a blog post about it two decades later. From the common source of lemon, people extrapolated what the rest of the scale might look like, and there was no authority to tell them they were wrong. (Except other fans. That hasn’t changed.)

In conclusion, it’s best not to take the citrus scale too seriously. At best, it’s a cheeky way to avoid censors who try to bar a community from engaging with explicit works, but it’s also varied to a fault and open to interpretation. If you and your community have come up with a use for it that suits your needs, then congratulations: you’re part of a fandom tradition stretching back to the roots of the internet. Just don’t try and tell anybody else that they’re wrong. You might start a flame war.

References:

Prokopetz: Orange and Grapefruit

She’s Got Plans: What is the Citrus Scale in Fanfiction?

Unwinnable: Lemon and Lime

Past Fandom 101 Posts:

Everything About A/B/O Dynamics You Wanted to Know (but were Afraid to Ask)

How to Diversify Your To-Be-Read Pile

Recognizing AI Generated Images, Danmei Edition

[synstoria]

Imperial Grace FAQ

When will the game be out?

Hopefully, early 2025, we will communicate an official date when we have more visibility. At the moment (16/08/2024) the full script is written, but we are still missing some key arts (all the CG, 5 sprites, and some MC customization), and a portion of the script still needs to be properly edited and translated.

I want to smooch the Master of Murmurs 🙏

Thanks to our generous backers, the MM will get a proper romance DLC after the game release, so you just have to be patient <3

I want to smooch another character 🙏

Unfortunately, it’s not possible; we do not have the time and resources, but that’s why fanfic and fanart exist, and they are always welcomed. 😉 (You can see more about our fan content policy.)

Is there any DLC plan for the game?

On top of the MM romance DLC, we plan on doing a marriage DLC (with a standalone storyline for each love interest) and a short prequel telling the story of Mellissandre of Terinfel. Both have been funded on Kickstarter, but I have no dates to give you yet.

How much the game will cost?

The final price is not completely set yet, but it will be somewhere between 20€ and 30€. 💸 After careful thought, I also decided I will do proper regional pricing. 🎉 I was dubious because I know a lot of people are abusing the system with VPN but I don't want to punish the people who actually benefit from it. 💖

On which platform will the game be available?

The game will be available on Steam, GOG, and Itchi.io; at the moment, we are working hard to make it completely Steamdeck compatible! At the moment, a switch port is not possible but not excluded; if the game does well enough, we might be able to get a special partnership for this.

A mobile port is not on the pipe either, as it would require a full UI overhaul and regular updates to comply with stores, and our economic model is not appropriate for the mobile market.

In which language will the game be available?

The game will be available in French and English on release day. At the moment, we do not have the budget to translate the full game into another language but we are looking for solutions to allow the most people possible to enjoy the game.

Where can I follow you?

The most reliable platform for news is Discord as I am very active on it. We also have a mailing list (with exclusive gifts upon joining!) and a twitter account.

What is the game rating?

The game doesn’t have official ratings (that cost money), but considering the mature themes in it, I would say 17+. Imperial Grace includes verbal (but not visual) descriptions of violence and consensual sex.

The game, especially through the petitions, also alludes to topics that may be sensitive, such as arranged marriage or suicide. The list of full trigger warnings is available on steam (beware spoilers). It might be subject to change depending on the petitions we include or not in the final game, I want to make sure that every sensitive topic is treated with care and really brings something to the story or denounces a social problem close to our hearts.

Sexy time, you say? 👀

The game features plenty of hot kisses and two optional sex scenes; they can be stopped (in game choices) and not happen at all or censored (fade to black). The text is explicit (anatomical parts are mentioned; it’s not all metaphor, but there is no vulgar words either.), and some suggestive but not pornographic images illustrate them. In other words, even the uncensored version of the sexy time will be safe enough to be streamed on Twitch but more steamy than what we usually find in otome games!

Is the MC customizable?

MC physical appearance is customizable to some extent: you can choose her skin color, her hairstyle, her eye colors (heterochromia possible!), and minor details like moles. The skin color options are not just recolors; the features are actually slightly different to reflect different ethnicities and bring more variety.

All customisation will be reflected in CG, except hairstyle (you can learn the difference between hairstyle and hair type on this post.)

What do you mean by “meaningful choices”?

Imperial Grace has over 200 choices during the main storyline; contrary to traditional Japanese otome game where there is usually a “good” and “bad” option for each choice leading to the best/good/bad ending, we have a more Dragon Age-like approach where most of the options are valid just entails different consequences to shape a more custom epilogue with tons of little variation to reflect your decision as Empress. (And there is instant game overs when you take very very bad decision :p)

You have more questions? Our ask box is always open! <3

[just-antithings]

Antis: Fiction affects reality!!! We need to ban those sexy fics and art because heres our evidence that the sexy fics and art on fandoms change people's reality and cause harm!

*Shows Jaws, A thriller adventure movie that's still able to be watched and is not banned despite supposedly affecting people's reality. Not 18+*

*mentions slenderman, an indie horror game which has also not been banned. Not 18+*

Huh it's almost like its not the sexy problematic fics doing it, if we want to take antis words for it how fiction affects reality then what we really need to ban is Horror, Thriller and Adventure games and movies by both big budget companies and indie developers that are targeting anyone below 18!

Jaws is not rated 18+ neither is slenderman what does this tell us? It means we should higher the age rating to 18+ since as antis say minors can't tell the difference between fiction and reality it also tells us that THINGS FOR ADULTS should NOT be sanitised because 18+ games, movies and books are NOT causing the issues. Obviously I'm anti censorship, i do not agree in sanitising or censoring anything but if this are the only two pieces of media that they will show time and time again regarding fiction affecting reality they need to realise that their fav media will be first on the chopping block

Why do they never mention CSI the fur and loathing episode where it painted furries as a mainly sexual thing and made the general public more hateful towards furries? Oh wait because it shows its not the sex that is the problem, it's people being close minded and those who lack the care to actually research before judging. It's peoples laziness or lack of education, not the tv shows fault itself. The worst thing that happened? A lack of understanding about the topic they focused on, ignorance is harmful that episode showcased how a creators ignorance can push further harm.

But no antis don't talk about csi, doesn't talk about how the stigmatisation of sexual acts are shamed and hated on which furthers hate to furries! Instead they push the horror game & Thriller/ adventure movie to try and claim sex is bad, taboo sex is evil and that depicting fictional sex deserves you to be harmed and that everything needs to be sanitised for kids!

Sorry I am really passionate about this and the csi episode was popular with adults in my life so I had to keep explaining what a furry was and to dismantle the assumptions they made because of that episode for years after. I think it's a disservice not to mention how misinformation is spread through badly researched mainstream programs and how that can impact people who are ignorant of the topic and not caring enough to look into it, but that goes against antis plans, they want to santise and censor the sexy thungs and since sanitisation and censorship allows for misinformation and abuse to run rampant... well, they can't really bring it up unless they stop their anti sex campaign

👆👆👆👆

[scrumptiousstuffs]

Well anon…vent away. You clearly have strong views on this show.

I did mentioned in my previous ask, there were many plot holes and questions that I am puzzled about. I wasn’t going to list all of them but you clearly already did with your ask above 😅…

I also said THK was never going to be the type of show that will be award wining. But that doesn’t bother me - I am personally entertained by this show, something that I haven’t feel for such a long, long time. This is the only show I watch live and stayed up late despite having work tmr (time difference means it airs after midnight for me).

Our criteria for liking a show obviously differs - you seems to prefer tight plotlines on top of amazing acting (at the very least, we can both agree FirstKhaotung as usual brought their A-game to the table). Personally, I also think JoongDunk are doing great.

I don’t particularly put stock on plotlines - as long as it make general sense, I can fill the “holes” for the inconsistencies myself (isn’t that how fanfictions are generated anyway? People expanding on missing plotlines etc etc).

As for the BDSM scene - is it weird Bison didn’t bring it up after that “bad” take in Ep 3? Maybe? But I am also not surprised. This show was never designed to be sex-focus despite what people may have feel when they watch the official trailer (or even pilot). Like it may have open up with the sexy scene of Fadel feeding Style water, KB red room plus the BDSM scene - however, the rest of the trailer really didn’t show any other NC scenes - just the boys messy, intertwined relationships with each other instead (that’s how I felt when I watched it. Of course, you may feel differently).

And let me reiterate again, this show is designed first and foremost for local/SEA audiences. International viewers are just bonuses for them. I don’t know which country you are from, but I’m originally from SEA. BDSM (or really any sex) is censored so heavily by the governing body that allows the show to even air (for eg,I can confirm even chaste kiss scene used to be cut out before they would air it in Malaysia cinema). And while Thailand/SEA may have a blooming LGQBT/queer market - their audiences are still largely conservative (esp when it is aired by GMM 25, which is marketed to be more family friendly). Only Friends was considered controversial when it aired. Plus, I’m sure Ninew/Jojo mentioned in an interview somewhere, it took them a long time for the show to get a green light from GMMTV.

So to me, as someone who lived in SEA for a long time, even having one scene of introductory BDSM is revolutionary. Yes, like you, I would love more exploration but I’ll take what I can get - and if this is Jojo slowly introducing the concept to local audiences, so be it.

I’m also reminded by @fadelbison recent take - these directors are learning and also honing their crafts. We will have wins and losses. Some will be to your taste, some will not.

Plus, as people keep pointing out about my blog entries, I am an optimist 😂 who prefers to focus on the positives and shrugs off the negatives.

If you personally think FirstKhaotung is the only reason why THK is worth watching, well - you are entitled to your opinions.

I adore FirstKhaotung - they will always be my bias. But I truly like THK beyond just FirstKhaotung. So, you bet I’ll be buying that DVD box set when it comes out.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/766688842914938880/wait-soif-the-only-things-making-companies-censor?source=share

So I've been keeping half an eye on the NSFW AI chatbot and image generation scene (because it's funny watching how fast they flare up and burn out), and the app store and payment processor thing is really evident here

Horny AI image generators can't go in app stores. Full stop. It generates pornography, there's no really getting around the artistic merit stuff, and anything that generates believable photographic styles can actually spit out literally illegal images (digital content which is indistinguishable from a real life photograph recording of a living child) if it's good enough. Users only have minimal control over if what they generate will comply with the ToS; if you ask a bot to give you an image of a "cute boy" it might give you a heartthrob pop star, a generic smiling toddler, or a shota with a huge dick. If the shota is against the ToS, you are now breaking a rule that you have no control over.

And becaues it's AI, it can't actually be filtered. The robot doesn't know what it's looking at, it can't generate an image and then make a judgement call about how that image applies with the ToS because it doesn't know what a ToS is and all it knows is that the image it generated from the "cute boy" prompt is the kind of image that is associated with the caption "cute boy".

App stores and the big payment processors don't want to deal with that mess, so these platforms will have apps that can be downloaded from their website or from discord, and weird sketchy ways to pay, like crypto or some small payment processor that you've never heard of and that sounds like a phishing scam.

Horny image gen platforms tend to be very short lived, and either rebrand as SFW platforms or completely shutter after only a few months. It's funny, but the tragedy is that this happens because of poorly moderated NSFW images, not because the images it generates suck.

****

Text does a little better, since it's copyright laws, not "we can't let people pass off recordings of child abuse as digitally generated art" laws that AI text tends to violate, and "horny is bad" as a social more is applied more strongly to visual material than to plaintext.

The bigger text platforms, like Google's Bard, have filters in place that will refuse to show NSFW text, and they're more or less accurate. The smaller platforms, which most of the "talk with your anime waifu" chat platforms are, have stupid insane garbage filters on what text users can enter, but not on what the chatbot generates. So you can prompt "describe her sexy vagina" and get "I'm sorry, I want to keep people safe so I can't talk about that", but if you type "describe her petals" you get a graphic description of a vagina from a bot that obviously has a mountain of het erotica in its database.

There are some text-only NSFW chatbot platforms that seem to be chugging along just fine with paypal, but they have strict rules about what images can be uploaded as avatars. Some will allow users to make sexually explicit loli bots, but won't allow any images of young characters, sexual or otherwise, anywhere on the site. Many text-only platforms don't seem to be in app stores, though. Paypal is fine with them but Apple isn't.

It's a weird, weird, little microcosm of the internet, and an interesting insight into what's going on with payment processors and app stores in re the pressures placed on websites.

****

The takeaway from all this (aside from the fact AI is amusingly ridiculous) is that text-only sites like AO3 and or Literotica are probably just fine, while sites that host images, like Tumblr, are under more scrutiny.

--

[merriweather-boat]

For the absolutely blessedly buckwild insurance fraud AU (speaking to my SOUL with that premise), I have the following inquiries:

Do Cloud and Genesis have to live with each other at some point? If so...

Do they do anything at home that drives the other person absolutely buckwild? No in a sexy way. In an infuriating way. (For example: Does Cloud, who comes from a region with no mayonaise, eat mayonaise directly out of the jar like it's Nutella?)

What the actual hell is up with the marriage/partnership situation in Midgar that couples that aren't legally bound to each other get legal benefits? Would they need to register partners? Or does Shin-Ra have a mandatory "do they kiss and fuck?" test for everyone who registers a new partner?

Who does the investigating? Is there a dedicated department? Privates Eyes? Like Private Eyes, but the look for where your privates are going?

Speaking of marriage, is it less a Christian set up and more like a Jewish situation where you're married if you decide you're married? In which case, does marriage not exist as a formal legal binding in this setting? And what does this say about the rights of women, considering the origins of marriage in our world and their human-property-adjacent BS? I'm sorry, i have so many thoughts about this. What? Why is this number here? There is no fifth question.

I would like to formally apologize for 90% of what's in this ask.

DON'T APOLOGIZE FOR THIS ASK. I should be apologizing. I just wrote 1.7k words to respond to it because I got a bit… overzealous, to say the least. Expect: Analysis of Shinra as a tax administrator (and why that's relevant to its "marriage" situation), a couple of excerpts (I apologize for quality/mischaracterization, they're essentially first drafts), and a brief list of silly HCs.

I'm going to respond to this ask's questions out of order, so the answers to different questions will be responded to as the conversation moves in that direction.

Let's start with the Shinra Electric Power Company and how it exerts power in the world of FF7 (this is related to their ability to impose taxes). We know that Wutai was an independent nation up until Shinra started its imperialist war there, which leads us to the natural conclusion that before the Shinra Electric Power Company existed, the geopolitical situation on the Planet was far different. However, I'm under the impression that Shinra superseded whichever powers came before it and used its control of global media to censor discussion surrounding those original powers, effectively erasing them from conversations about government and—based on the fact that Cloud & other characters in his age group never talk about the governments of "before"—the collective memory of the world.

You might be thinking, "wait, but didn't Nibelheim and Midgar have mayors, implying the existences of governments separate from Shinra?" And you're right! They did have mayors. But Midgar's mayor literally called himself a "librarian" because Shinra held all the real power, and Nibelheim's mayor deferred to Shinra's directives whenever the opportunity presented itself. So aside from Wutai, Shinra had total control over the general affairs of the world. Which is insane, by the way, but I think we're all on the same page about that.

I imagine a lot of their takeover was negotiated with local leadership from Before, anyway. "We'll build you a reactor and handle any conflict in the region, just give us a plan for how to tax you all—designate businesses and households, infrastructure, provide financial statuses, marital statuses, the like. Handling your affairs is expensive, but wouldn't you agree it's convenient? It'll make things easier for you, really." Yeah. Picture that. Shinra made a good case for themselves, didn't they? Didn't it sound solid? Reasonable? Convenient, and exciting?

Also, marriage is a near-universal cultural phenomenon around the world, though it takes on different forms. So it definitely existed, and it meant different things to different people in their unique cultural contexts. (Banora, Gongaga, Nibelheim, and Cosmo Canyon would all have different approaches to marriage.)

Long story short, Shinra totally taxed people who lived in areas which "benefited from the reactors," as I imagine they would phrase it. Anyone living in Midgar would be taxed even more, because Shinra runs the city. They built all of the infrastructure, they own the land, they own the industry—if you can name it, Shinra owns it.

A modern government/company/shitfest like the Shinra Electric Power Company, given its need to tax people and turn a profit on its "investments" (re: colonialism-fueled mako reactor construction), would need to set up an effective tax structure including brackets & things like marital status & dependents. Much like in our world, you can absolutely get married for tax reasons! Shinra does a god awful job of tracking it, though. They're not very good at dealing with civil affairs. As long as you and your partner both file the appropriate forms, they'll tax you as a couple with very few questions.

Shinra also insures its own employees, which will pretty much get you covered at any office that doesn't have a grudge against Shinra. If you are a Shinra employee and file for taxes with any dependents or a spouse, Shinra automatically puts those people under the insurance plan. I think that an interesting exception here is SOLDIER cadets, who receive SOLDIER training, room, and board during their application process, but as they aren't officially Shinra employees/the whole training process is part of the job application itself, they actually don't get insurance benefits. I made that up to suit my AU by the way. Reality can be whatever I want it to be. It's in line with corporate BS either way. SOLDIER doesn't have the highest return on investment, so why would Shinra want to cover people during that application process?

So how, exactly, does Genesis get Cloud covered by insurance at the hospital?

"Huh? Genesis?" Zack's voice crackles through the speaker. "Zack Fair," Genesis hisses. "I know you're with Soldier Second Class Kunsel. Put him on immediately." "Huh? Wait. What's happening? Are you, like…?" Genesis can feel the headache building behind his eyes already. "Just hand him your PHS. It's urgent." Kunsel speaks a moment later. "Soldier Second Class Kunsel, sir, what can I—" "Can you falsify marriage records?" "Sir?" This headache is going to be positively vicious. "I asked you a question. Are you or are you not capable of falsifying marriage records within the Shinra company system?" Genesis spits, his eye twitching. The urge to throw his phone out into oncoming traffic, where it will ideally face the same fate as Cloud Strife sans recovery, grows stronger by the minute. Fools. He's surrounded by obtuse, incompetent fools, and if he wasn't already drunk, he would have attempted to be within the hour. Kunsel pauses. "Who told you about that?" Zack Fair. Who else? Genesis doesn't even bother to respond—the answer should be immediately obvious. If the Puppy's friend cannot identify the prime suspect in this situation, then he is certainly not qualified to muddle about in Genesis' personal records. "Not me!" Zack says cheerfully. Kunsel says, very calmly, "I'm going to burn your eyebrows off, Zackary Fair." That's when Genesis decides that he quite likes this… Kunsel. "Aren't you a doll," he murmurs, an unwitting smile blooming across his face. Oh, yes. They are going to get along quite splendidly. "I need to be married to SOLDIER cadet Cloud Strife within the hour." He jerks the phone away from his ear as the speaker screeches, Zack's voice—yes, he's certain that it's Zack, Kunsel would never conduct himself in such a manner—almost entirely incomprehensible through the volume distortion. "STRIFE?!—LITTLE—YOU'RE MAR—DIDN'T EVEN—ME?—FUCKING BITCH! HE'S—A SHOVEL—WEDNESDAY! I'LL—" Genesis hangs up. Kunsel will handle it. What a sweetheart.

On the topic of questions 1 and 2, um… I just wanna talk about the mayonnaise comment. Do you do that? Do you eat mayonnaise like peanut butter, straight out of the jar? Do you know someone who does? Sephiroth would. He totally would. But how did you come UP with that? I'm genuinely afraid?? Consider my timbers shivered? My boots quaked in?

Question 1: Yes, they do.

And, of course, just as Genesis settles into his couch-cocoon with a glass of Junon Noir wine, some fool begins to pound incessantly at his door. Really, everyone at this company has a death wish. When Genesis slams the door open, he has death in his eyes and fire in his hands, and he has every intention of making whichever cadet knocked on his door on his night off regret being born— "What's wrong with you? Why do you keep screwing everything up for me?" —except for the fact that the cadet in question is Cloud Strife in baby blue pajamas that cling to his body like they're one size too small, emphasizing the low taper of his waist and the slightest bit of muscular definition. And that doesn't protect Genesis from the way that Cloud's words sting, so it doesn't matter at all that the man is beautiful if he's going to throw the same accusation at him that Genesis has heard all his life, does it? "I'm serious. Why do my dormmates know that we're—we're married? They won't leave me alone!" Cloud hisses the word "married" as though he resents it, and it shouldn't hurt at all, but there's that ever-present monster inside of Genesis that can't help but wonder if it's truly so terrible to be married to him in no form but on paper. "If you resent our 'marriage' so much, I advise you file for divorce," Genesis murmurs coldly, turning to go back into his apartment. "No!" Cloud yelps. His hand latches onto Genesis' wrist, rough callouses scraping against smooth skin. The texture makes him wince, but it stops him in his tracks nonetheless, so he supposes that Cloud has accomplished something. "And why not? If I'm ruining everything, would it not be better to simply be done with me?" Genesis spits, letting the words fall at Cloud's feet, staring straight into the eyes of a man who won't even look at him. Cloud lets go of Genesis' arm. It falls listlessly to his side, pathetic and shaking ever so slightly. It feels cold where Cloud's hand just was, like his skin misses the warmth already, even though it was just fine before. "You know why I can't do that," Cloud finally says, pained. "I just…" "Just what?" "I—" "What, Strife?" "I can't sleep in my dorm right now, and Zack's gone." Cloud says. "I swear to Odin, Rhapsodos—" "Just get inside, Strife." Genesis lets out a long-suffering sigh, his eyes drifting towards the ceiling, all popcorn-paint and smoke stains.

Question 2:

After 6 hours of Genesis' impromptu one-man performances of Loveless, Cloud hits his breaking point and starts tweaking out the same way he does when Sephiroth tries to take over in Rebirth.

Genesis leaves all of the lights on, like a magical fairy will just walk through each room after him and turn them back off. This gets not only on Cloud's nerves, but Angeal's, too. They are the magical fairies turning the lights off.

During Yule, Cloud gets crazy into it in a way that you just wouldn't expect from him. Cloud's ugly sweater, which has Sephiroth on it, is the bane of Genesis' existence; he's literally tried to assassinate it. Shrink it in the wash, light in on fire, put it in the in-sink garbage disposal—nothing works. It just keeps coming back.

*marriage is a near-universal practice, though the details of the ritual/rite vary by culture and religion. It's difficult to say what the implications of marriage in the FF7 context would be, and I'm having a hard time figuring it out right now, but I'm certain that sexism is present in FF7. It's ingrained in the writers, which means that it'll end up ingrained in the story, which means that it'll end up ingrained in the world.

OH MY GOD I FINISHED IT. Almost 1.8k later and I finished answering this ask. I'm so glad you sent it. It took me an insanely long time to put together my answer, but I had a wonderful time! Always in the mood to talk about FF7 worldbuilding + give that some extra attention, and as usual, always excited to talk about my AUs! Again, thank you for this ask. It was a joy to work on lol.

If you're seeing this and you sent an ask earlier, this is why I haven't responded to you yet!

[problematic-yuri-poll]

Problematic Yuri Tournament Season 2 - Losers' Finals

Suteki na Kanojo no Tsukurikata vs. Murciélago

Suteki na Kanojo no Tsukurikata (visual novel by sushi_soft)

psychological, erotica

Sexual Content: HIGH; Gore: NONE; Violence: HIGH // Eroge, has a censored Steam version.

Mod submission.

Mod-submitted problematic elements:

Yandere protagonist meets a girl who looks just like her first crush and tries to "train" her into her perfect girlfriend. Noncon/dubcon heavy.

Mod-submitted content warnings:

Noncon, dubcon, non-yuri sexual assault, unreality, paranoia, drugging, death, abusive parents, suicidal ideation.

Mod-submitted propaganda:

It's probably concerning that we relate to Sumire. This VN is pretty rough around the edges and leaves its mysteries open-ended, but anyone who wants a yuri where things go wrong and get worse all the time and the protagonist's mental state is in constant decline may appreciate this VN! It also has petplay.

Murciélago (manga by Yoshimurakana)

action, comedy

Sexual Content: HIGH; Gore: HIGH; Violence: HIGH

Submitted 2 times.

Submitted problematic elements:

Main character is a serial killer lesbian. theres incest, rape, body horror, emotional manipulation, among others

Protagonist is a serial killer, sexual predator, and a pedophile. She's basically the worst woman of all time. She also manipulates several women into sleeping with her.

Submitted content warnings:

oh yeah i mean tw for violence, incest, rape, bullying, children in peril and others

Extreme violence and gore, explicit sex, sexual assault, pedophilia, child murder, cannibalism, and just a general mess of nasty stuff

Submitted propaganda:

Its got an actually evil lesbian MC who has a lot of depth. Its funny as fuck and its got really interesting narrative, amazing action and compelling characters. Its also very sexy and beautifully drawn

Kuroko Koumori is the best character in yuri history and absolutely nobody does it like her.

[coulsonlives]

Y'all. There has officially been "furry" drama on the neopets subreddit, and I'm crying. It's such a trainwreck.

Someone posted anthro artwork of their neopets OCs, which looked like this:

And I guess it was reported as NSFW by multiple people, because these neopets were really um, well. I'm not gonna lie, they look like naked people with super short fur, and they even have pretty big mons pubis (genital area) which for anthro characters, especially super humanoid ones, is normally covered by clothes and/or thick fur.

Plus the poses seem a little playful (tongue sticking out? toesies?) and could easily be interpreted in a sexy way, especially once you factor in the more realistic anatomy, which again, there are shapes there in the genital area that aren't even really hidden. So I'm not surprised a lot of people were uncomfortable.

My opinion? It shouldn't have been taken down (and it wasn't!), but people had the right to be confused about why it wasn't marked as NSFW.

My thinking was, you wouldn't want to open something like this at work and show it to your coworkers. Or leave it around the break room table.

But of course, the artist got snarky. Apparently this happened to one of their older posts too, so they were really annoyed and acted like the mods were spineless (literally, they said multiple times that the mods should "grow a spine"), and there was some weird implication that the mods were censoring women's bodies, or fatter bodies, or something. They also compared their OC artwork, which is of the above very-humanoid neopets, to the Fontaine Sisters (who ofc, are always fully clothed sigh), and said if the Fontaine Sisters would be allowed to be posted, their naked humanoid neopets should be, too. Uh?

Then, they made a totally separate rant post on the subreddit, titled "yes, neopets is a furry website", which was promptly removed (I didn't even get a chance to see it, rip).

But I'm scrolling through the comments, and oh my god.

Someone replied with this comment:

The <image> link goes to this picture, with a few comments:

This person also seemed to agree on the general interpretation that it was a very "sexy" rendition:

And someone else on the original post with that character:

So hrmm, okay. Nothing wrong with drawing what you think is sexy, but. Own up to it and accept it might get marked as NSFW.

Someone made the following comment...

And the third reply checks out tbh. If I was still working with kids, I'd probably get written up too lol. And no, not everyone has a hip with the kids, totally down to hang boss, so that's a weird argument. If you couldn't leave this in an office break room, like I said before, it's not okay.

This person explains why the NSFW tag actually is appropriate, even though the artist claims it isn't:

Another comment that points out the mons pubis:

To which the artist replies:

To give them credit, they're not wrong that humanoid animals and humans in general do have a shape in that region! And it looks weird to just have a totally flat silhouette there, especially if the rest of the character is super curvy. But. again. There is almost no fur. So it comes off as nakey + features too humanoid for some peoples' routine, at-work browsing.

Someone else comments:

When... the artist could've just dropped the subject as soon as their post was labelled NSFW, but instead they had a tantrum and made a totally new post to whine about the mods' decision and peoples' reactions? Um.

Here's someone else trying to explain peoples' reactions, and the artist's reply is just silly:

Those are dogs and cats and fish. They're. not. extremely. humanoid. anthro characters. Now I'm getting annoyed reading all of this stuff lol. Is this really the hill you've chosen to die on? This has happened twice now. Mods are gonna mod. Get over it or leave. Your art isn't the same as say, King Coltzan even if people do thirst over him too. He's fully dressed.

Another commenter who missed the point about how most neopets characters have clothes and aren't very, very humanoid:

But thankfully the mods came in and locked some of the comment chains:

So um. That was wild lol.

[kittydragondraws]

the way the md fandom treats nsfw is hilarious

On one extreme you'll have AO3, with people writing all sorts of kinky (as well as creepy and borderline illegal) sex.

Then you have MDTumblr, where we generally like suggestive and sexy stuff provided it's properly tagged and not like... illegal

Then you have Fandom, Reddit, and Youtube. Where people will look at cheek kisses and sfw cuddling and cry that's it's horribly inappropriate and needs to be censored immediately.