#create with your minds and hearts

[pomegrnteseed]

a transfiguration of the internal kind

or, a love letter to transformative justice, and its usefulness for fandom communities for moving away from artificial intelligence use in transformative works

This is not going to be the shortest, but nuanced issues require capacious responses. I'm going to try and keep this as jargon-less as possible, while also using the words that hold importance in transformative justice, because words are important. We all know that, as writers and artists and readers and universe-builders.

I'm also going to ask for a little bit of patience here. Because tensions are running incredibly high. I understand all too well the urge to respond immediately, to unleash the anger in your chest that once again we're having this conversation about the problems of artificial intelligence technologies as they're used for creative purposes. But directionless anger adds fuel to the fire; while anger honed into a tool for change is a useful resource (though change cannot be sought on the coattails of anger alone - this is a surefire way to reach burn out; quick flash and then nothing but errant smoking ashes).

Why do fandoms hate artificial intelligence?

The short version, in case you've not come across anyone talking about this before, is that artificial intelligence technologies like ChatGPT and Midjourney are trained up by their developers with ungodly amounts of data - data which, often, is scraped from the internet without direct permissions from original creators.

These technologies are great at spotting patterns, but because they don't have human brains, they cannot create. They can only replicate. This means that every time they're used for creative purposes, they're remixing, replicating (copying, plagiarising, stealing) the work of artists and writers and other creators without any acknowledgement, citation, payment, or thanks. When users feed reference images into these technologies, they are similarly stealing.

And, while fandom thrives on transformative works, we are careful to credit where the sandboxes we play in originated.

You'll see from time to time righteous anger as someone lifts an entire fic, replacing character names to fit their preferred ship - and the response is never positive. Stealing, in all its forms, is a huge faux pas in fandom. And not everyone is aware, because people engage in fandom across different platforms, and different fandoms have different rules or etiquettes. But thievery is an overarching Do Not.

Why do people use these technologies?

There's a huge internalised pressure, I think, for many to create. We live in a world where Influencer is a legitimate job. Where a so-called living wages still isn't enough money to actually live on. Where loneliness is rising, disconnect is growing, capitalism is thriving, individualism has us in a chokehold. There are any number of reasons why we want to be good at things, but we're subconsciously (or blatantly) being given tools and latent permission to skip steps and cheat code our way to greatness.

Artificial intelligence technologies are another way to skip steps.

There's also the fact that AI is kind of everywhere - it's increasingly normalised (see Grok on Twitter, Meta's AI in development, Grammarly ads every five minutes on YouTube). Artificial intelligence has been talked about in the media for a long time, but it felt sort of distanced to many because it was mostly used in contexts of analysing massive data sets, or other technologies we don't use every day (facial recognition software, for one). And, if you're not keyed into specific communities talking about the ethical implications of AI and machine learning, if you're not a nerd like me who follows Timnit Gebru and the Distributed AI Research Institute, who has long been fascinated with futurism and the implications of tech on society, then you likely have been subliminally aware of AI for a while without realising that it has much closer touch points to your daily life than you think.

So when these amazing technologies that can complete mindboggling calculations or complete the work of twenty human brains in minutes, that can spot patterns that help with diagnosis or condition management in healthcare, that (thanks to the prison-industrial complexes so many of us live in) are naturalised that facial recognition software is a normalised element of news reporting on crime - when they become available to the average human trying to save their limited time and energy, and are marketed as harmless, as fun, as exciting, as helpful? It's no real surprise that so many reach for it.

And some aspects of AI technologies *are* helpful. Because we have to remember that people use them for different reasons. I have a friend who wrote a book outline using ChatGPT because he's incredibly dyslexic. Some aspects of AI technologies *are* exciting. I have watched How To Drink's 'midjourney chose my drink' episode because it was fascinating and entertaining.

The ethics are complicated. But, fundamentally, these technologies steal and regurgitate the words, work and creativity of others and that is hugely problematic.

But - and this is where I suspect I'll lose people - shouting at people on the internet will not lead to long-term behaviour change.

This is where transformative justice comes in.

Transformative justice is an alternative approach to seeing justice, healing and repair. It's abolitionist in its approach, actively divesting from punitive and carceral responses to harm (e.g. policing, prisons, foster care, psychiatric intervention), instead grounding responses at the community level. Transformative justice is holistic, looking not just at What was bad, but Why it happened. It's often used to deal with the community-impacting wounds of interpersonal violence, drug misuse, domestic violence, etc.

Transformative justice is founded on principles of respect, care, patience, and compassion for *everyone*, including those people who have done harm. Because people won't change without the material conditions to do so.

I see AI use for generative purposes (to create, to skip personal skills development) as a kind of harm for creative communities at large. I think it's fundamentally problematic to use AI when there can be no full oversight of the training data sets (data which is often influenced by unconscious biases from the developers, leading to outputs that are ingrained in racism, misogyny, ableism, transphobia, etc).

I also think, for fandom in particular, this chasing ideas of perfection or greatness does us all a disservice. Fandom is the place for WIPs, for seeking progress not perfection, for charting authentic skills development and celebrating engagement with the universe regardless of skill or talent. I especially think it's unethical to use AI and charge money for your artwork that uses stolen ideas.

I do not think that shouting at those who use AI is conducive to a healthy, thriving community.

Especially as a collective that primarily exists digitally, and for whom meet-ups happen typically either at cons or small, local scales between friends, shouting on the internet is unproductive in changing hearts and minds.

Transformative justice would seek education. The Philly Stands Up! roadmap to accountability is as follows:

Identifying behaviours that harmed others (this can take a really long time!)

Accepting harms done

Identifying patterns

Unlearning old behaviours

Learning new behaviours for positive change

This might seem simple, but it takes an awfully long time in some instance, particularly where people are resistant to holding themselves accountable and taking responsibility for the harm they've done.

It's not impossible, but it requires commitment from the community to stick to the principles set out and agreed upon - something that's hard when you exist in a digitally diverse, dispersed community across multiple platforms around the world with very different ideas of what justice looks like.

But maybe we can, in our micro communities - the spaces where we know people best, where we interact most frequently - begin to set expectations clearly. Maybe we can commit to not immediately letting the rage direct our tweets when we come across yet another AI user in our broader or inner circles. Maybe we can learn to hold patience and compassion (and make good use of our priv accounts, because transformative justice also recognises that this work is resource heavy, and those involved need space to vent/process/protect their peace too).

In my mind, transforming the community standards is an ongoing education project. It's unfair to expect everyone to arrive with the same knowledge or understanding as you. Especially when most AI conversations are so emotionally charged - no one has to read the shouting or snark, and many will scroll right by if it doesn't have a ship tag or NSFW in the first line. You cannot demand full compliance with your ethics and morals and practices when there is no entrance exam to joining a fandom community. But you can keep sharing why these technologies are harmful in the precarious spaces we occupy. You can drop people a message and link them to resources that explain the ethical problems with AI. You can rage on your priv with your likeminded friends, and publicly post your monthly or fortnightly or weekly reminder that AI is not welcome in fandom spaces and here's why.

Expecting the same education and understanding from everyone is ableist and classist and exclusionary. Chasing people out of fandom for making mistakes, for letting their need for validation or their desire to be better than they can currently create or their lack of understanding as to what AI is, how it works, and why it's not a good tool to engage with for creative means is going to gatekeep fandom in ways that do us all a disservice.

Keep the fandom aware of those who monetise their work while using AI technologies to generate the outputs. Ask those people to quit and focus on honing their skill set the old fashioned way. Encourage those who have been missold art to request refunds. But if you're sending death threats to community members for historic AI use and creating an environment so toxic and hostile that others who have done similar don't feel able to speak up, apologise, and assure the community that they've changed without harassment and unnecessary shaming? We'll never foster the sense of supportive, loving community so many of us crave.

There will always be people who seek to profit off of kindness. There will always be profiteering book binders, people selling AI-generated art they pass off as their own. That doesn't mean that we should denounce all who have ever used the tools. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater, I think.

Shame is a tool for control. You can't force people to stop using artificial intelligence. You can lead the abraxan to water but you can't make them drink. That doesn't mean that creating an environment where it's safe to acknowledge past or current behaviours that are harmful and to learn without total ostracism from the community they want to be a part of isn't a worthwhile endeavour.

Edited to add:

Some practical steps people can take towards holding themselves accountable and taking responsibility for previous AI us. (Writing ideas are more plentiful because I am not an artist, my stick men are questionable at best).

If you've used AI to create anything

Share why - I think it can be helpful to humanise the realities of why AI is attractive and helpful to those who use it (and also we can help as a community give you the support, encouragement, learning resources you need to develop further)

Commit to not using it down the line

Help educate others in how to spot AI-generated content; it's not so obvious to those of us (like me) who are not artists - what do you look for? How can you tell the differences?

Create goals for your creativity skills - what do you want to be able to do, but can't yet? Set yourself challenges or journal activities that engage your creativity while not relying on those technologies

If you used AI for art

keep a diary of your skills development as you learn to create art without generated reference images or skeletons for tracing

share non-AI resources for inspiration/reference images to keep folks away from Pinterest and other less trustworthy sources

follow artists on youtube etc who take you through their processes to pick up tips and tricks

If you used AI for writing

get more involved in online conversations on twitter/discord servers to make connections with people who you could ask to be alpha and beta readers on your work

set goals for yourself - could be tropes, writing styles, word counts, whatever it is you want to achieve, share them with the community and we will cheer you on!

journal or reflective activities can help unlock ideas or inspire work

read, comment, scream about the works you love - and also think about what it is that makes them special, what writing techniques do they use?

check out writing courses or youtube tutorials! they can be so helpful!!

throw your plunnies you don't feel comfortable writing yet into the community and see what ideas people throw back; you might just find that a back and forth with someone sets you off down a path you didn't expect and before you know it you have a couple hundred or thousand words written ready to share with us!

All that is to say, there are ways of maintaining transparency about prior AI reliance, while not being self-flagellating, and also not minimising the extent of the harm done by the use of these technologies - especially if you do so for profit. Nevertheless, I won't shout anyone out of the community, personally, because I have capacity to hold space for those who've done harm and want to set things right, who want to continue creating and supporting and enjoying within our community while no longer using extractive, plagiarising technologies to do so.

[rottengurlz]

"my jugular misses your teeth." 🩸

a collab with @kashisun 🔪

[dailyhmsw]

loop 26

[victorgrwrites]

Gortash is an Artificer

Some people doubt this, and those people do not see the light. One angle I've seen is that he just steals other's schematics, but let's be real. If you're not stealing or finessing into other artificer houses' schematics, you're not an artificer.

Two, there's documents that clearly comment about additions to those schematics in Gortash's writing. It takes knowledge to alter those schematics, let alone comprehend them.

AND ANOTHER THING, there's no reason for a warlock (and by extension a devil patron) to be interested in a dirt poor kid with shitty parents. Unless that kid happens to be good at something, and there's multiple times where his mom talks about how he was a smart kid that was too smart for his own good.

If I had to hazard a guess, parents that talk like that probably didn't like that he was more interested in artifice than shoe making, didn't like that he was smarter than them in anything, and didn't like the 'mess' or 'time wasted' on pulling apart and putting together little machines.

Now, with my rant done, here's some bonus HC broth I've been making specifically about Gortash.

He absolutely snuck into the Hall of Wonders all the time as a kid, just to look at everything. There might have even been a worker there who let him sneak in cause Enver just looked so damn excited every time.

Man doesn't have a crossbow, fuck that. He has a gun/enhanced arcane focus, Larian just didn't have time for artificer stuff yet we're just not ready for it.

In case anyone hasn't noticed yet, he likes artifice because they're machines and can't turn on him. He literally builds them; they can't lie and choose to hurt him, they can't leave for something better, they are the ultimate barrier between him and anyone else.

The majority of his knowledge came from his time in the House of Hope, or maybe elsewhere in the Hells. It's why the Steel Watch have infernal engines.

Durge Bonus:

I've got a little bit in mind for the first fic where Jack (Durge) and Gortash meet, and Jack asks to use his knife. He throws it back at Gortash to give it back, but instead of stabbing his leg, it just comes back to Gortash's hand. Returning Weapon, not RAW, but rule of cool, baby. Because again, Enver's machines never hurt him.

Jack often wonders if he'll find metal in Gortash if he digs around in his body enough. Even though he knows it's probably not true, his instincts tell him it'll be in his chest, near the spine, under the sternum. One of the many and various kinds of looks he'll give Gortash is the 'searching for your metal' look every now and again.

And Gortash finds it weirdly flattering.

[fitpacs]

<3

[bunnihearted]

i dont even try to "hide" my bitter angry and envious side like it is just out there and it is not my fault if other people try to twist it into me trying to put on a fake act because their minds dont register that duality exists

[teathattast]

you are my one, you set my world on fire

i know there's Heaven, but we must be higher

i'm gonna love you til my heart retires

forever will last

[izayoichan]

Amuary: I did this for him in the beginning, but I don’t anymore. I love you, and that is the reason I am here.

Tyvan: Go.

Amuary looked at Emil, who noticed the look in his eyes, a look he had seen before in a mirror and in Flynn’s. One of regret, and wanting to set things right, but he still had only one thing to tell him.

Amuary: Please, let me expl… Emil: Go!

Amuary held his tongue and looked away. He bowed his head, watching as Tyvan walked away, knowing this was now a whole new mess. He had wanted to tell him, but how does one tell the person one loves, that it all started with him doing his moms bidding. When he was young, he had been so happy to help his mom with a job he thought was honorable and valorous at the time. Only to later grow and feel unmeasurable guilt over it.

He thought it would never be something he’d need to worry about, that his Vami would see the good people they were and let it go, but they never did, and he never worked up the courage to tell Tyvan. Now? Now, he wished he had, then perhaps this would not have happened. 

Emil turned his head watching his son go into his bedroom, the door slamming behind him.

Rylan: I’ll talk to him.

Beginning - Previous - Next

[zipart]

brain worms

[sidewalkchemistry]

the magic of your LIFE is created by how you start the FIRST FEW HOURS of your day. start it softly and sweetly 💚

[bijoumikhawal]

"Oh but if so and so gets elected then-" read 1-45 Have Lied, 46-100 Will Be No Different (I Don’t Want a Dyke for President) by Mwende Katwiwa before you spit out representational platitudes. I am SIIIIIIICK OF IT. Be brave. Imagine bigger things. Imagine a better future. If you don't, it will never come! You deserve better! The world deserves better! This is not a good world! You could elect the Messiah and it would still not be good! The system itself is rotted! Nothing can grow within it! Do people not nod along when people explain that "systemic racism" describes a state of affairs where it is possible that no individual in the system is racist, but the system itself reproduces racism? If you can understand that, never open your mouth about this nonsense again! Fight for a better world!

[whiteshipnightjar]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOANNA NEWSOM! 🥳️💖🥳️ January 18th, 1982

“If you were a world leader, what would be your first law? Gravity. I feel like we need to tighten up the constitutional protections that particular law enjoys. It’s a ticking time bomb, if you ask me. Who would be your top advisers? Cute angel on one shoulder, cute devil on the other.”

[blaqueswanzaghouliishiilikeda]

don’t mind me. just thinking about what the writers of iwtv gave us in season 1 and the fact that they weren’t properly compensated.

[savagevillain]

WHAT IS YOUR PRIMARY FEELING IN LONGING?

frustration

In longing, you feel frustration. You feel that you've almost reached your desire one too many times and you don't understand why you keep getting denied. You feel the universe is taunting you, playing just beyond your reach and leaving you on the brink of breaking every time it dances away. When you let yourself feel your yearning, you bury your face in your hands and turn to look at the sky, not expecting an answer, but pleading for relief. There's a burn in your heart that you just can't explain in words but it's deep, you can feel it in your throat and just under your chest. You take a deep breath and exhale heavily. It settles you enough to continue on as you were. You see others living your desire and you don't feel jealous per se, but the burn raises in intensity and you just wish ... something. You want change from your current situation, at this point you don't really care what it is, just ... something. Have courage, my dear, you can brave the fires of this world if you so wish.

TAGGED: @klaeus ( i love u !! ) TAGGING: @silencedrage ( shauna ), @deceptivemorals, @icerots, @rippeah, @wailshe, @witchfirst & u <3 !!

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

“A part of me still thinks we’ll find our way back around.”

I hope we do ❤️

I left the church a while ago and I don’t think I have any blessings I can actually give but the best one I can think of is that I hope you find a place for your art to go

[warriorfujoshi]

im seriously so obsessed with brassius and hassel’s “transgenders who met when they were in their teens/early 20s, sought solace in each other while going through the toughest times of their lives, then made it into adulthood, which eternally bonded their souls” energy