#but I've seen clips from the Anime

[leashesandlaces]

I usually don't ship Sanji x Ace, but I don't mind seeing the pairing, but check em out..

Ace, who's a Devil Fruit user, he ate the Mera Mera no Mi, while Sanji is flame resistant.

can't you see how cute that pairing is?!???!?

Sanji not getting affected around Ace's flames made Ace fall for him as if like Sanji accepted Ace for something he is dangerous of.

[peachesfrompluto]

"First of all, the name's not 'Zippy'!"

present for my dear friend of their human design of Blurr (TFA) 💙

[oh-meow-swirls]

need to keep watching the anime at somepoint. idr what episode i was on anymore tho tbh. and also idk if there's any ✨totally legal websites✨ that have the rest of dub season 3 i wanna be able to watch more than three episodes of season 3 in the dub-

[misskriemhilds]

if i had a dime for every well-meaning sort of comic relief but all around heart of gold large bird that helped out the small mammal protagoists in a xenofiction story i'd have two dimes which isn't a lot biut it's weird that it's happened twice

[penguindrumblr]

Also, kinda forget about this but... uh... in the HIDIVE dubbing of both RE:cycle movies, Sanetoshi has a British accent.

...I'm not sure how to process that, but on repeat listenings... it actually surprisingly fits him?? I'm not sure, cause I liked his previous english voice actor? Who did a really suave way of conveying him and who he is?

Forget about the dubs. Watch it subbed with me

[cloud-the-forgotten]

Gotta find a good animation software that allows me to actually have audio so I can tell if I'm animating something correctly

[davidfaulkner]

I'm taking too many classes this semester that relate to interests I'm way too into I'm gonna freak people out

[canonkiller]

Accessorizing With Disability ✨

I've seen a lot of people (Yes, For Real) reluctant to add disability aids to their characters because those aids are visually unappealing (and in case of character designs, "boring") or they do add aids, but so over the top on aesthetics that they wouldn't actually function (anyone who replaces a wheelchair with a living breathing animal, really)

So here is literally just a list of Shit I've Found While Decorating My Wheelchair. Feel free to add on.

Wheelchair Modifications

Some of these are for fun, some of them are for function, some are both. Many are chosen with intent to be stated at on purpose instead of for the wheelchair itself due to who I am as a person. This is the category I've done the most brainstorming in.

Custom paint jobs / decals (pictured example below, first image)

Bike horns / bells

Bike handlebar streamer thingies

Custom hubcaps and wheel covers (pictured example below, second image)

Clip on, usually folding rear view mirrors

Stickers / decals on seat backs (or patches for fabric chairs)

Handlebar or back bags

Colored / high visibility tape on wheels

Noisemakers / bells on wheels (admittedly these get annoying pretty fast)

Custom seat / armrest cushions

Clip on cup holders

Clip on cane holders

Eyes + Vision

Glasses chains

Pocket magnifiers worn as necklaces or on pocketwatch chains

Sunglasses

Goggles (tinted, to protect from irritation / dry eye, to magnify vision, etc)

Patterned fabric eye patches (pictured example below, first image)

Colored / embossed leather eye patches (pictured example below, second image)

Hearing

Hearing aid stickers / skins (pictured example below, first image)

Hearing aid jewelry (pictured example below, second image)

A note on hearing aid jewelry: I originally got an anon ask that I added here about dangly jewelry causing issues during sign, which was then refuted by other users, so I've removed it. For total clarity it's 2am where I am and I'm trying to minimize misinformation before looking through things when I'm more awake. Sorry for the confusion.

Mobility That Isn't Wheelchairs

Custom paint jobs (pictured example below, first image)

Stickers / decals

Keychains on wrist loops

Attached decorations (within reason) (or without reason I guess) (pictured example below, second image)

That's all I've got for now. Thanks 👍

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Since everyone is talking about that concept art of Jayce and Viktor fighting, it's useful to know that the concept artist, Suheb Zako, also posted it on their twitter with some context.

It is early concept art for a final fight between Jayce and Viktor in the hexzone sorry I'm not calling it that astral plane. There's a link in the twitter thread to an anime clip that gives you a sense of what the vibe would've been.

It's not totally clear when in the development/production process this art is from, but I wouldn't be surprised if Jayce and Viktor originally had a dynamic that was more like their game counterparts. In that case a knock-down-drag-out fight in the astral plane might've fit better. But in the final version of the show it wouldn't have worked anywhere near as well as what we got, and not just because it would have seemed out of character for what the characters and their relationship arc became in the finished show.

First of all, we already did have a knock-down-drag-out fight between them. That's the Council chamber fight scene. It would've felt like a repeated beat and that's the last thing you want in your big finale. When you have characters who fight each other multiple times, you want each fight to reflect a progression of their relationship.

Secondly, by the end of the show, Viktor is absurdly overpowered compared to any other character. Once he goes full Machine Herald he is basically a god. A conventional fight scene is just not gonna do it here. You need a twist, some way to win that doesn't involve being stronger than him. And the trump card being The Power of Unconditional Love (And Also This Time Machine Getting Chucked at Your Head) fits perfectly with the show's themes.

Thirdly, the final episode is ALL action. In an episode that's one massive battle, it takes a lot of work to make individual pieces of action stand out. (And generally, you do it not by making the fighting look Super Duper Extra Cool, but with character work.) But any scenes between the characters that are not action are automatically gonna pop because they're so different in pacing and energy from everything around them.

I haven't seen as many people discussing this set of keyframes, but the changes here are also fascinating:

Because Viktor assimilating Jayce as a battle move is almost the complete opposite of what we got in the finished show, and what we got in the finished show is so fucking good. It's one of my favorite moments in the whole damn series.

I've already written about it here, but playing it so that Jayce doesn't get surprised or overpowered but chooses to allow Viktor to bring him into the astral plane as a last-ditch effort to reach whatever is left of Viktor's humanity is sooooooo narratively sexy. (And also just. Sexy. Big stronk dude with his fuckass hammer and his stupid shoulder armor waiting on his knees for his eldritch god bf to materialize behind him and oh so tenderly penetrate his brain with his magic fingers, listen I am not making this up this is just what happens, no homoerotic fight scene could ever top this.)

It also fits with the motif of a number of characters winning their individual battles in the finale by surrender/submission/potential self-sacrifice. It fits with Caitlyn realizing that to cut the string of protective runes off Ambessa's arm she has to allow Ambessa to get within stabbing distance of her face. And of course, Jinx forcing Vi to let her go by popping the gemstone out of her gauntlet and letting herself fall with Warwick.

Arcane has fantastic action storytelling and part of good action storytelling is knowing when to have the character stop fighting each other. Seeing the early concept art is cool to see how much things evolved, but I'm glad they moved away from just trying to do an epic boss fight because what we ended up with is so much more interesting.

[loustica-lucia]

Heroes of the Dragon Age

An animation I've made for Dragon Age Day 2023, featuring my main Warden (Alyssa Cousland-Theirin), Hawke (Eleena Amell Hawke) and Inquisitor (Sulevin Lavellan)!

It's to this day one of my best artwork and I thought I should share it here too! 90+ hours between the original sketch, outfit design, the rough animation, rotoscope, inking, flat-colours, background shading and even the audio :')

Interested in the process? I detailed it below since it was my first time doing something like that:

I would like to start by saying I'm not a professional animator!Everything you've seen here is the result of experimentation and a lot of practice to learn and understand how 2D animation works.

My first idea started in May 2023. I just finished rewatching DA Absolution for the X time, and wanted to analyse why I loved the intro so much. (Even after countless rewatch, I never skipped it once.) I was inspired to study it with my main three protagonists!

Then came the first test with Alyssa Cousland-Theirin, my Hero of Ferelden! I tried to understand which part to separate for the animation. Mainly the hair and cape because it flows a lot more than the rest! If I recall, my first idea here was to make her counter flame attacks (?). Then, as the camera turns around her, I tried to add a grid to know how the camera would work around it.

I ended up making the clip longer, so she could position herself to the further left and leave space to the two other protagonists.

Now it was time to try to animate Sulevin Lavellan, my Inquisitor. I really kept that quick doodling style just to capture the vibe without putting too much time/effort into it! The background would be static to contrast with Alyssa's. I also loved the idea of a rogue sneaking!

Instead of working on Eleena Amell Hawke, my Champion of Kirkwall, I went back to Alyssa and started working with Clip Studio Paint 3D models (this entire animation has been done on the EX version of the software!) It helped for rotoscope animation and maintaining likeness! That's when I got the idea to make the background swirl around the character to let the eyes be guided by the rest of the screen!

After a couple more hours, I planned the entire animatic with 3D models and quick doodles! I finally found a cool pose for Eleena Hawke, which was honestly the hardest of the three to imagine for some reason? I tried many other poses but ended up picking an animation from the game!

This whole time, I was studying a bunch of background ideas and how studio Red Dog Culture House (who made Absolution) work! Thankfully, they have a YouTube Channel where they shared some BTS content so I could analyse it!

Then, I simplified my character and their original designs in the style of the studio! These outfits are how I imagine them after Trespasser. Alyssa as the Queen of Ferelden, looking for a cure to the Calling, Hawke following Fenris to Tevinter & Sully as a Red Jenny Inquisitor!

The idea for Sulevin's animation actually came from a piece I doodled on a live stream, when I was drawing pose studies and turning them into finished artworks haha As for Alyssa, I wanted to draw the fight that got her facial scars!

Once their designs were ready and the background ideas too, I made the rough version of the animation! Basically a sketch done on top of the 3D models to add the details, staying pretty rough just to capture the idea and movements.

Then it was time to start the lines! I decided make a folder per frame, so I could separate all he main elements and draw them one by one. It helps keeping the likeness of a character in the different frames without having big "jumps" between frames! In fact, every parts were coloured differently to recognize them, and then I used vector erasers and masks (Ah yes, the entire lineart is done in vectors of course! It's easier to adjust and save time when working on similar frames!)

At first of course, everything overlaps! But I find it easier to draw too much and erase after, just to make sure everything is coherent in each frames! The cool thing about CSP is how you can change the colour of the layers in one click! So all the coloured lines turned into black in one second, and I could reverse it just as quickly to double check!

Then I started working on Sulevin! I made a blue line to mark where her feet were, as the sketch in the background wasn't perfectly straight! (Like Sulevin's sexuality 🤭😂) The silhouettes were very quick to do, but I had fun adding more & more details as she came closer to the foreground!

I really wanted to add that little dagger trick, but I remember it required me to change the pacing of Eleena's apparition, as it was recovering her arm too quickly! I had to change the pace of multiple frames quite a lot during the project, to make sure the flow was right! For Eleena, most of her animation remained around her arms and the staff itself, as magic would be the most difficult part! That way each character has their own focus: Alyssa has a very animated background, Sulevin got the grappling hook and Eleena the ice!

Then it was time to start adding colours! Just like for the lineart, I separated every colour on it's own layer, so I could easily adjust the colours later if needed. I added one colour at the time, going through all the frames, and then another colour!

I made full palette tests with the colours I would use for their background at this point, checking if the details remained readable! Alyssa was the most challenging in terms of clothes, because I made her a very detailled armour! I had to simplify the Theirin heraldry, vectorize/redraw the Cousland, and make a brush for her cape's pattern!

Once I was done adding the flatcolours, I started the background, and oh boy it was a wild ride. For the cave, I painted multiple tests. I imagine was to use CSP panorama tools, which transform a texture into a 3D sphere, so each corners must match to look good. Sadly, it made the background very blurry, so after hours of testing, I changed ideas. Instead of the random fire balls (?) I originally imagined for Alyssa, I made three simple frames of a Rage Demon to attack her.

I ended up using the cave as a repeated pattern to make it turn 360° around the character. For Eleena, I mixed inspiration from the comics, Dreadwolf & Absolution, using warm colours matching Hawke's signature red. Just like I made the cave very grey/blue to match Grey Wardens. For Val Royeaux, it was more complex because I wanted to make it green, matching the Inquisitor's signature green. But bright green couldn't work, and the original colour during day time was blue/white/gold. So I added more leaves, played around the design a bit! After adding the rage demon, I made the shading! It was surprisingly easy and quick to do now!

I clipped a white layer on the flatcolours to not be distracted by the colours, and made thin lines to separate the light/shadows, then simply filled everything with the bucket tool! Then you set the layer to multiply and remove the white layer, and you have celshading shadows! Now the character looks out of the picture, so I added layers of blue in color burn, saturation and substract blending modes to make her look like she's in the right setting! Of course, I did the same with the other two, giving Hawke a red overlay and Sulevin green shadows!

Then I added the details, it went from white irises, to sword/staff smears to earrings and smaller finition that goes on top of these layers. To add the lights, I simply selected the shadows and reversed the selection! Using warm and cold tones to create contrast with the purple/bluish shadows! I also added more ambient light layers for Alyssa to reflect the Rage Demon fire. Now it was time to add ice magic! My first attempt had too many frames, making it look weird! Sometimes it's better to lower the frame rate to make things less bumpy!

Then I downloaded some cool ice brushes on CSP assets that made it look less like blue magical flames! But when I covered the screen in ice, I realized "Oh wait, I could make a cool transition from the ice, to blue lyrium turning red?"Red Lyrium truly links these three games and The Veilguard somehow! I spent the next hour painting over the idol and putting it in a black background, with lyrium and then the golden Dragon Age title text.

For the SFX, I used free youtube libraries sounds & "Darkspawn!" comes from the violent human female voice set (iconic for ""Can I get you a ladder? So you can get off my back!"😂🤭) After editing all that, the animation was finally done!

Here's the final math:

About 15 hours for the sketching/rough/animatic phase, 30h for the lineart, 25h for colours, 10h for backgrounds, 5h for details & 5h for music & SFX, for a total of 90 hours. Aka the same amount of time it took me to finish Baldur's Gate 3 the first time lol

If you have any question regarding the animation or the softwares etc. do not hesitate to ask, I'll do my best to answer!

[arealtrashact]

i was on tiktok and i saw a clip of an old stop-motion animation that reminded me of you. it's called "The Tale of The Fox" from 1930, it's a black-&-white stopmotion animation featuring a house-cat bard singing to a lioness of nobility outside her window. it reminded me of you because i thought youd like the pairing of them, and their designs are fun! it's very cute and sweet. the caption has a lot of good info, such as but not limited to how it is based on the Renard the Fox folktales

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT2AQjtdr/

You've got my tastes down pat -- This is the most charming thing I've seen in a good long while.

Thank you for sending it my way !  ♥ 

[yunsound]

The Third Installment to the Oubing Saga- Yunbing

PRIOR EXPERIENCE NEEDED!

Entry ticket: reading this post and acknowledging that the following is about to be 18+. No, I'm not writing anything explicit, but it's going to be some mentions of sex. Move on.

After finishing Ne Zha 2025 (or the 2019 version if you're a real one), did you feel overcome by the gayness? Did you wonder why the fuck anyone would ever look at their best friend like that? Did shoujo anime music start playing in the back of your head?

...yeah you're not alone.

As previously mentioned, Oubing is currently China's biggest fandom ship (I stay hopeful that this wave of hype will last longer than it did in 2019). I also trust that you all understand why that is.

Seriously, I've never seen any piece of Chinese media except for straight up BL THIS gay.

Let's count on one hand how many BL tropes these movies include.

Red/blue

Soulmates

Only friend

Enemies to lovers

Friends to lovers

Oh oops, we ran out of fingers! Next hand.

Friends to enemies to friends to lovers

Forbidden romance

Demon x angel

Two halves of one... thing

...bondage? I suppose? If you know you know THE scene.

Oh wow look at that we ran out of fingers again. MOVING ON TO THE NEXT HAND-

Okay, I'll stop here. All of this makes Oubing technically a very vanilla ship (ignore the bondage that's mostly a joke. Though you WILL see a lot of art involving Ne Zha's red sash in... different usages) and very sweet. Pure love, I suppose.

Do you know about Shangmei Oubing, a variation on Oubing featuring different adaptations of Ne Zha and Ao Bing? Well now you do. Read this post to figure out what I'm talking about.

If there's a spectrum of the wholesome-ness of Oubing ships, Shangmei Oubing is in the middle. Yes, it's very toxic, but technically Ne Zha does really love Ao Bing a lot, just in the wrong ways.

On the OPPOSITE end of that spectrum, we have Yunbing.

Yunbing is the ship between Ne Zha and Ao Bing from the 2021 movie New Gods Reborn: Ne Zha. The movie itself is on Netflix- it's kind of a mid movie, I'm NGL, but the animation is pretty good.

I haven't watched the whole movie (how do I know it's mid? Because I saw some clips and they made me sigh out loud) so I'm maybe not the most reliable critic, but it's just not peak storytelling, okay?

Yunbing is 80% made TF up (headcanon ships are the best ships) because in the movies they hate each other, like TRUE hate, not gay hate. I'm talking GENERATIONAL hating.

If you ignore canon, though, (my favourite thing to do), you are left with Yunbing, which is honestly really fucking yummy.

Here's a quick overview of the background and dynamic of the ship/movie/characters without spoiling the plot of the movie.

The main character of the movie is called Li Yunxiang (remember that Ne Zha's dad is Li Jing, so technically his full name is Li Nezha prior to him fucking himself up via sashimi-ing his flesh from his bones).

Li Yunxiang is the reincarnation of Ne Zha in a modern setting in the fictional East Sea City (Donghai City). He doesn't know or remember being Ne Zha. He works as a deliveryman I think, or a smuggler or something low-paying and dangerous I think.

In East Sea City, water is in shortage due to the Dragon Clan (now a rich family business) hoarding it. The third son of this Dragon Clan (his name is De San) is, you guessed it, the reincarnated Ao Bing.

Actually I'm not sure if he's reincarnated or if he's just been here the whole time hating.

De San, unlike our polite nice Ao Bing from Ne Zha 2019/2025, or the terrified victim Ao Bing from Shangmei, is a huge bitch. He's also a girlfailure. He's not some mass-murdering psychopath, but he's a spoiled rich brat who lives and breathes capitalism and privilege.

Look at his stupid face. Isn't he punchable? No, despite the blonde hair, the director has confirmed he isn't mixed or foreign, he's just an idiot who bleached his hair.

He was supposed to be some sort of dominant playboy daddy character but the entire nation of China just immediately saw the potential for girlfailure brat bottom and I guess that's where my brain went too.

After Ne Zha pulled his tendons out, his dad paid some SERIOUS money to make him a mechanical tendon. Let me tell you I don't know why but this shot of his metal spine is SO fucking sexy

Sorry for thirsting on main, IDK what it is but it's getting to me.

De San still wants revenge on Ne Zha for pulling his fucking tendons out so he spends like 10000 hours trying his very best to kick Li Yunxiang's (confused) ass and never manages to get there, it's so funny.

See, the main reason this ship is so delicious is the dynamic, not their interactions because this is ACTUAL hate, I'm talking they'd kill each other in an instant with NO hesitation. The sexual tension is through the roof. Okay, they're both straight, but you DON'T HAVE TO BELIEVE IN THAT DOCTRINE.

Mild spoiler alert!

There's a scene in which Li Yunxiang gets one over De San by making him crash his car. As De San goes flying out of the car in intense pain, he glances over at Yunxiang, who's looking back at him.

Instead of giving him a middle finger or a thumbs down, Yunxiang fucking gives him a finger heart. IK it's supposed to be mocking but it's so funny, especially the BLATANT rage on De San's face afterwards.

The appeal of this ship is just the hate sex. This is a ship 100% meant for gooners, if you'd prefer sweet vanilla hand-holding and blushing you probably want to go back to regular Oubing.

Why does De San have such pillow princess potential? First of all, look at him. What the fuck is that waist to shoulder to leg ratio?

Second, in the Cantonese dub, he calls his father (Ao Guang) "daddy" (in English btw). Sorry, what? You are a twenty-something year old fully grown man. It is fairly common for rich Cantonese people to call their father daddy (according to my rich Cantonese friend) but it's a little much.

Third, he's such a failure it's hilarious. Spoiler alert: there's a whole scene in which his father calls him a failure and he's like "wait what". He's kind of dumb and pathetic despite being arrogant and proud.

Very princess-like. Chinese version of Drarry, basically. They also both really like cars! TBH if they weren't Ao Bing and Ne Zha's reincarnations they'd probably be really good friends.

Generations of hating each other is such gay behaviour, WHY is that other man on your mind over thousands of years??

Some of the popular headcanons for Yunbing:

Yunxiang calls De San "third princess" or "princess" because he's such a... princess

In the middle of like, fistfighting each other they somehow transition to having sex without knowing how

De San slaps Yunxiang in the face and he's like "on the other side too"

"Only I can be the one to kill him, fuck off!" *surprised look* "No that's not what I meant-"

Inappropriate usage of the metal spine (which is probably more sensitive and delicate...?)

I recommend, if you're looking for Oubing content (of the decidedly not workplace friendly variety) and if you like ENEMIES to lovers (emphasis on the enemies part) that you go through the AO3 Yunbing tag (云冰, I'll link the AO3 tag here directly).

If you want recs please ask me, I am so passionate about all three iterations of Oubing.

To quote a XHS user:

Oubing: Pure love

Shangmei Oubing: Pure fear

Yunbing: Pure hate

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Snap have you seen the Menace of Magneto?

It’s an episode of a 70s Fantastic Four show where Magneto is the villain and the animation is UGLY and the story is HILARIOUS

It’s where the clip of Magneto at a gas station comes from if you’ve seen that

I'VE BEEN MEANING TO WAATCH THE EPISODE JVLKJKEALVJ thank you for the reminder.... may you please take this silly sketch as a thank you...

link to the ep in case anyone else wants to watch magneto refer to himself in the third person for twenty minutes straight

[bogleech]

Welp....it happened. I've already seen what I, a nature enthusiast, could not distinguish from a video clip of an actual animal until I read that it was 100% ai generated, from a text prompt alone, and then noticed that its details waver by like a few pixels when you're looking for it.

The fake footage moves almost exactly like a bird really does, and knew the right bird species from its taxonomic name. This generator is eventually going to be released to the public. "People could always photoshop things!".....yes, with EFFORT. By the end of this year anyone will be able to fake almost anything by typing a few sentences and get a BBC Documentary quality lie. There are so many horrible ramifications I can't even pick one to feel sick over first. It will be easier to make ai footage than to actually go outside and film anything....like do you realize how much of the internet is going to get completely suffocated in faker shit than ever, all at once, borderline impossible to debunk anymore? Will the coming generation grow up even giving a shit whether footage of something is real or just be like "oh you really filmed that in person? Huh neat, retro."

This WILL also be used to dismiss human suffering like never before, too. Photos out of Gaza already get accused of being faked. Now even videos won't have any obvious "tells" and any asshole will be able to dismiss anything at all as just ai. We're living in a world where no form of documentation is going to be any more reliable anymore than a verbal claim.

[lackadaisycats]

Hey Tracy! Have you heard about the new Ai called Sora? Apparently it can now create 2D and 3D animations as well as hyper realistic videos. I’ve been getting into animation and trying to improve my art for years since I was 7, but now seeing that anyone can create animation/works in just a mare seconds by typing in a couple words, it’s such a huge slap in the face to people who actually put the time and effort into their works and it’s so discouraging! And it has me worried about what’s going to happen next for artists and many others, as-well. There’s already generated voices, generated works stolen from actual artists, generated music, and now this! It’s just so scary that it’s coming this far. 

Yeah, I've seen it. And yeah, it feels like the universe has taken on a 'fuck you in particular' attitude toward artists the past few years. A lot of damage has already been done, and there are plenty of reasons for concern, but bear in mind that we don't know how this will play out yet. Be astute, be justifiably angry, but don't let despair take over. --------

One would expect that the promo clips that have been dropping lately represent some of the best of the best-looking stuff they've been able to produce. And it's only good-looking on an extremely superficial level. It's still riddled with problems if you spend even a moment observing. And I rather suspect, prior to a whole lot of frustrated iteration, most prompts are still going to get you camera-sickness inducing, wibbly-wobbly nonsense with a side of body horror.

Will the tech ultimately get 'smarter' than that and address the array of typical AI giveaways? Maybe. Probably, even. Does that mean it'll be viable in quite the way it's being marketed, more or less as a human-replacer? Well…

A lot of this is hype, and hype is meant to drive up the perceived value of the tech. Executives will rush to be early adopters without a lot of due diligence or forethought because grabbing it first like a dazzled chimp and holding up like a prize ape-rock makes them look like bleeding-edge tech geniuses in their particular ecosystem. They do this because, in turn, that perceived value may make their company profile and valuations go up too, which makes shareholders short-term happy (the only kind of happy they know). The problem is how much actual functional value will it have? And how long does it last? Much of it is the same routine we were seeing with blockchain a few years ago: number go up. Number go up always! Unrealistic, unsustainable forever-growth must be guaranteed in this economic clime. If you can lay off all of your people and replace them with AI, number goes up big and never stops, right?

I have some doubts. ----------------------

The chips also haven't landed yet with regards to the legality of all of this. Will these adopters ultimately be able to copyright any of this output trained on datasets comprised of stolen work? Can computer-made art even be copyrighted at all? How much of a human touch will be required to make something copyright-able? I don't know yet. Neither do the hype team or the early adopters.

Does that mean the tech will be used but will have to be retrained on the adopter's proprietary data? Yeah, maybe. That'd be a somewhat better outcome, at least. It still means human artists make specific things for the machine to learn from. (Watch out for businesses that use 'ethical' as a buzzword to gloss over how many people they've let go from their jobs, though.)

Will it become industry standard practice to do things this way? Maybe. Will it still require an artist's sensbilities and oversignt to plan and curate and fix the results so that it doesn't come across like pure AI trash? Yeah, I think that's pretty likely.

If it becomes standard practice, will it become samey, and self-referential and ultimately an emblem of doing things the cookie-cutter way instead of enlisting real, human artists? Quite possibly.

If it becomes standard industry practice, will there still be an audience or a demand or a desire for art made by human artists? Yes, almost certainly. With every leap of technology, that has remained the case. ------------------ TL;DR Version:

I'm not saying with any certainty that this AI blitz is a passing fad. I think we're likely to experience a torrential amount of generative art, video, voice, music, programming, and text in the coming years, in fact, and it will probably irrevocably change the layout of the career terrain. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was being overhyped as a business strategy right now. And I don't think the immensity of its volume will ever overcome its inherent emptiness.

What I am certain of is that it will not eliminate the innate human impulse to create. Nor the desire to experience art made by a fellow soul. Keep doing your thing, Anon. It's precious. It's authentic. It will be all the more special because it will have come from you, a human.

[cindersnows]

the problem with mitsi (or as i like to call it. mitsogyny)

(context: this was written under a youtube video, which i'm sure most of us have at least seen pop up in our recommendeds, in response to many people taking criticism against the new episode. it has been edited a little to be more cohesive as a somewhat-essay)

ok, i wanted to write out a rant/essay/ramble/whatever sort of summarising the criticism against mitsi's plotline because a lot of the people here seem to be misunderstanding the fundamental issue that people have with it, including some of those people themselves.

first off, an analysis that i think tell both sides of the argument very well which i feel should be read before reading the essay: Mitsi: What Makes A Fridged Character (and why y'all are wrong about it) | an AvA essay by InksandPensblog. i will note: i don't care to discuss whether mitsi was fridged or not and that won't be of much importance in this post. the above link gives some insight into some of the fandom's criticism of mitsi and how she was "fridged", defining common tropes for examples. that's what's relevant to this post.

the main issue with mitsi, in my opinion, is less with the fact that mitsi's a girl and moreso the fact that she's one of the only female-coded character in the series, and that her character's main purpose was to further victim's own development. the other arguably female-coded character in the series is pink, who (like navy) only really exists to explain purple's motivations. i don't have much of an issue with that since they're not meant to be important or sympathised with at all. that's not their job in the story.

with mitsi, i've seen people point out that she has more character to her than just victim's love interest and supporter: she invents rocketcorp, she's smart, she's kind, innocent and helpful. narratively speaking, she shows other creations' relationships with their animators, parallels her innocence with victim's trauma, and introduces victim to the outernet (as most fans call the stick realm).

but most of this things imo are either stretches or invalid arguments. she's not really a 2/3-dimensional character in any way; her main character traits boil down to the fact that she likes to be in service of others with no nuance behind why she likes helping people. she hypes up victim for the villagers, she starts a company with him to share his talents with the world, and she helps him overcome his trauma from alan's torture. all of her main plot beats center around victim: and while technically the sticks are genderless and free to be interpreted however the viewer wants, alan and most of his team see all the main characters as male, and that subconciously affects how they're written. mitsi, the first major female-coded character, spends most of her storyline in service of victim, a character not written as female.

there's also the issue of her being victim's canonical love interest. i feel like this statement from alan is important to keep in mind (don't mind the sound effects and edits, this is the only isolated clip i can find at the moment). in particular:

"i just assume that [the ava/m characters] are just a bunch of bros]. i haven't thought of adding any female stick figures but i think it'd be good. i don't want to introduce any romance though, i don't want that to be a theme."

he seems to have changed his mind on that last part, which is fine, but the notable part for me is that he seems to associate female characters with romance from the getgo. before anyone misinterprets this, i'm not trying to call alan sexist or anything. but there's a common issue with women in stories being reduced to just a romantic partner for the male lead, and mitsi falls under this, with her entire character existing to serve victim. (not to mention people will make things about romance whether you like it or not. that's just basic fandom. search up grapeduo or chodark.) even her death is to put victim on the path of vengeance--- it doesn't need to happen to show the extent of tco and tdl's destruction, because that's already made pretty clear in ava s2 the flashback and the earlier scenes showing various characters escaping burning buildings. when you write a female-coded character whose only purpose is to serve a male character, you're contributing to sexist narratives.

a counter i see many people point out with the idea that she has no character is that she does have character traits, it's just that they're generic ones like "kind" and "innocent". the issue is that she has no flaws to counterpoint this; it's not that she didn't have enough screentime. in ava4 for example, we see tsc's flaws pretty clearly; they can be very mean when they want to, they're petty (albeit for a fair reason), they're a little impulsive. this is shown in 11 minutes (from the moment they come alive to the end of the video).

with mitsi meanwhile… she doesn't seem to have any flaws? she helps victim whenever she can. she's nice to all the villagers. her customers all like her and she's a great leader at rocket corp (to note, specifically as part of a pair with victim. they're a power couple, she's barely given credit for her work alone). she has 13 minutes of screentime, or 10 if you count from her waking up in the outernet. there's plenty of opportunities to show her having flaws; maybe she acts a little selfish during tdl and tco's attack, only wanting to help herself and agent smith, or maybe she overworks herself, or feels awkward at having too much attention (and that could also be why she redirects so much attention to victim, she's shy). you could argue that the episode needs to develop victim and agent smith too, but ava4 shows that's easy to do too: just a few seconds dedicated to showing rgyb fighting over who leaves first shows that they can be selfish and childish. it's very easy to insert a moment like that for mitsi.

it's a little disappointing when the first major female-coded character in ava is completely flawless, with no personality outside of being nice and helpful for others.

also, slightly unrelated, check out this quote from mitsi's plushie website: "her white featureless face seems to ooze mystery and feminine power all at the same time." her main character trait, as a woman, is being feminine. it's irritating as someone who's been raised a woman to see her reduced to just her gender. she feels more plastic than a person, like the concept of what a woman should be (perfect, kind, useful) and not an actual character/person.

i would expect more from the writing in the series seeing as it's not just an independent passion project anymore, and has multiple writers that all could've worked to flesh out mitsi, or at least get a sensitivity reader of sorts to point these issues out. it's extremely disappointing and i can understand why people were upset.

tldr: the problem isn't just that mitsi's a girl, or that she's nice or dating victim, it's that she's written in a misogynistic way.