#don't wanna work but i really do have to get into this website in case next week is busy...but also do i really? it has no set deadline

[six-of-ravens]

the sun is shining in at just the right angle to highlight all the dust and crap on the floor and listen. I already feel shitty today I don't need cosmic judgment about the state of my apartment from a goddamn burning ball of gas >:(

[snowflop]

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Top 5 Emotional Outbursts

See if no one else on this website has my back, I know Ben has my back because he is giving me a chance to talk about my boy Patts once more

TOP 5 EMOTIONAL OUTBURSTS OF 2023

Patts, La Pluie

gif by the beautiful, marvelous @liyazaki

Episode 10 was just an absolute masterclass in emotional outbursts. The fight between Lomfon and Patts, then Patts and Tai, then Lomfon and Tien, then Patts and Tai again. Like goddamn, finally thank fuck, Patts is able to let out years worth of frustration and pain at Tai's silence was just so beautiful, and cathartic, and necessary. What an absolutely incredible moment to not only witness but experience. Patts has been so kind, so patient, so forgiving, and it was time for all the pain that he's been letting simmer for two years out. Good! For! Him!

Uea and His Bio Family, Bed Friend

There are few characters in this world I hate more than Uea's mother, and it was so so so so so so wonderful to see Uea finally give her a piece of his mind. I am so proud of him for speaking his mind, standing his ground, and getting the ever living fuck out of his bio family's house. Too personal, sorry, but this fight hit especially well for me because I too have had a parent say they'd live perfectly happily without me, and it was great vindication of my reaction to that to see Uea GTFO immediately after.

Secondarily, James' sobbing screams at the beginning of episode 4 and in the flashback of him getting dragged in to the bathroom when he was an adult have never left my brain. James absolutely crushed those scenes and this was going to be my Bed Friend pick before I remembered this fight exists.

Jim and Li Ming // Heart and His Parents, Moonlight Chicken

I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that Jim and Li Ming's relationship dynamics is one of my favorite of all time. Aof is such an incredible screenwriter/director and I feel like he's able to make such realistic depictions of families in all their complicated glory. The screaming match between Jim and Li Ming is SO good, and really is what solidified my appreciation for Fourth's acting skills because there was a fucking storm cloud on his brow. Happy fucking birthday to you Uncle Jim I guess. Poor fucker.

And then of course, one of the first ever posts I made in the BL Sphere of tumblr was a full essay on Heart's confrontation which I loved so motherfucking much. Once again a much needed fight with lots of interesting, complicated emotions flying around the room.

Kiyoi and Hira, Utsukushii Kare Season 2

gif by @itsallaboutbl

"I'm sorry that I like you" one of the best moments of the year for me by far. This fight between Kiyoi and Hira was desperately, and I mean desperately needed. I know changing will be a slow process for the two of them, and even in Eternal they are no where near where they need to be, but Hira needs/needed to cut this Pebble to a God bullshit out and I am so glad that Kiyoi was able to call him on it. Also from a performance standpoint, Yagi Yusei had his work cut out for him as a scene partner to Hagiwara who absolutely bodied his role as Hira. In season one Yagi did not need to do all that much for his performance because we didn't know as much about Kiyoi until closer to the end, but that cannot be the case for Season 2 and Yagi knocked it out of the motherfucking park.

Sunshine and Q, 7 Days Before Valentine

Okay, almost positive this isn't a BL but I love when people structure TV shows like stage plays, and there was a fight between Sunshine and Q in like Episode 4 or 5 where they were shouting over each other and it just felt so real and the dead silence that hit the room when Q said something that struck a chord with Sunshine was expertly handled, and some of the best work I've seen out of Atom the whole show. I don't think anyone gifed it so I can't put the scene in, but I think you talked about it in your Stray Thoughts @bengiyo

And just cause I wanna, the Top 5 Emotional Outbursts of the pre-2023 shows I watched this year:

In and Wang's fight in 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us, Ep 8

Gav sobbing about his aunt in Gameboys (the movie, i think?)

Pran sobbing in to Pat's shoulder in Bad Buddy, Ep 10

Tarn's fight with Teh in I Told Sunset About You, Ep 4 (shout out to Smile there because I still cannot believe it was the first thing she filmed on set)

Shiro being terrified Kenji was dying and Kenji being worried Shiro was dying and the resulting clownery from them blurting that out in What Did You Eat Yesterday? I think it was the New Year's special.

ASK ME MY TOP 5 OF ANYTHING BL 2023

[seaurchin0]

MAKE A FULL GUIDE BRO PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS I WOULD EAT THAT SHIT UP!! /nf

oh man, this gonna be a long one but ty for letting me infodump about my interests </3 my overall advice would be to be creative, and DON'T underestimate how intertwined social media is with everyday life. Experiment, see what works, and good luck <33

so a lot depends if you know the person in question irl or online and i'll go over both but first, here are some things that help in both cases: -names are not necessary to find people, useful af but info like what school they go to, class they're in, clubs they're in etc do better -look at their friends, their friends' friends, family, tagged photos, followers and following list (if they're active online), info doesn't just come from them, if you can't get in contact with them you can learn a lot from family, friends classmates etc

-intelius.com

-please PLEASE keep track of what info you found out and what they told you, don't accidentally drop that bombshell

-i have a folder where i keep my fp's information saved, all the "useful" images they sent me, link to their social medias, school website and more so i'd suggest making one of those

if you only know them online, here are some cyberstalking tips that don't rely on being close and location (all this assuming they're active online):

-look up their username(s) and variations everywhere. literally every platform you can think of, i had to sign up to 3 platforms i never used just for that

-look up their friends' usernames

-look at tagged photos, mentions and interactions they have with others in the comments under their posts to find out who they're friends with

-if you can see previous usernames (like on instagram) look up those too

-you might get lucky with wayback machine

-if you can find their reddit, twitter or any social media that shows their post and comment history study that shit

- if they haven't shown their face but have photos including any other part of their body that isn't usually covered up, even in colder climates (like hands most commonly) save those too, if you manage to find a school website or something later on that might have photos of their face you could match them up. it's difficult af but never give up, if there's a will there's a way

-reverse image search all the images they posted

-try images on geoimgr.com. photos taken on phone or camera will sometimes have GPS coordinates stored in the metadata of each file, but there are some websites that encrypt this

-anaylze the background of images, especially if they're taken outside

-trying to pinpoint a location (town or country they live in) would be good but not necessary: • if they posted screenshots that aren't cropped and include the time, it will be easy to figure out the general area because of timezones • use google maps to match up the background seen in images

if you wanna figure out an email or number: • log out of your account, put their username in in the login section, press "i forgot my password", the next part may vary from platform to platform but select the option for their the recover of their password to be recieved through email and it will display the first and last characters of their name, as well as what domain they're using. same with the phone number

next, in real life, i'm not really an expert in this since i've never stalked anyone irl for as long and as much as i have online but hope these help too!:

-eavesdrop

-if you're not close or to them (as in not in the same class, school, workplace etc) look for someone that knows them in any way.

-assuming you found that person, don't directly ask about them. let's say, your fp likesa art, so you ask that person about art clubs. chances are, they'll mention the one your fp is in. very vague example but it works with almost everything

-ask your parents about your fp's parents, works well if you're younger and still in school

-VERY carefully try to glance over at their phone's screen as much as you can, it could make finding social media accounts 10 times easier

-use all the info you manage to get for cyberstalking. don't follow them around, especially don't follow them home, you don't need to do that to figure out more about them. again, don't underastimate how ingrained social media is in our lives. Cyberstalking is much more easier and safer.

[rintarousgirl]

i wanna be yours -- 2. pretty visitors

✦ - Y/N is a small business owner, offering her services not only as a designer but an at-home makeup artist and cosmetic producer as well. She's perfectly content with her small life when she's approached by the manager of the INARIZAKI band, asking for her to fill the position of backstage artist on short notice. Needing the money, and wanting the experience, Y/N agrees. Little does she know of the fatal attraction she will share with the band's lead, Suna Rintarou.

»»————-　★　————-««

You feel a little hesitant when you get the email from Kita. Your stomach is flipping with nerves, wondering how in the hell you got yourself into this. Would you change your decision? No. But were you allowed to worry and be curious? Absolutely.

You were a small business, you've only had about a thousand orders, and fifty actual makeup gigs. You had roughly seven thousand followers on twitter, and you rarely ever checked your website unless it was to look at commissions. It made you wonder what kind of recommendation Kita was given to actually consider you, or if he was really that desperate. Given the fame of the band, he could probably pay off some really good artist to drop whatever clients they had and dress up the band for that concert. But he didn't, he came to you.

So, you had to make sure you didn't blow it.

While waiting for the time to head out, you organize all the supplies you might need. Multiple shades of foundation and concealer/color corrector, muted and neutral eyeshadows, contour and a bit of blush, some eyeliner for those who were willing. You neatly put all your blenders and brushes into a small bag before placing it in a large makeup case.

Blowing out a sigh of relief, you looked at the clock. You still had three hours before you even had to meet them. Pulling out your phone, you sent a text to Akaashi.

༻✦༺

༻✦༺

You sat at a small table, your bags by your feet as you sipped on your hot chocolate. It melted on your tongue, the creamy marshmallows slipping down your throat. Akaashi sat in front of you, smiling down at his phone as he held his hot chocolate in his other hand.

You checked the time, 2:43.

"Shit," you cursed, sitting up straight. You wiped the hot chocolate from your upper lip as Akaashi looked up.

"What is it?" he frowned, pocketing his phone. His hand tightened on the handle of his mug.

"I need to leave, I have my...interview in fifteen minutes," you reach across the table, holding Akaashi's wrist and giving it a firm squeeze. "I'm really sorry, Kash. I thought we'd leave before 3:30 and I'd get to leave."

He smiled faintly, rubbing his thumb over your hand. "Don't worry about it. I'll get you home."

"Thanks," you beam, picking up your bags as the two of you head out. Your apartment wasn't far away, so you should be able to drop your bags and run out the door really quick.

The drive is relatively silent, both of you having shared how you'd been when you were driving to the mall. He drops you off outside your apartment, and you mutter your thanks again as you run into the building. You pretty much open your door, drop your bags on the couch, grab your keys, and run back down to the parking garage.

Typing in the agreed address into your GPS, you pull out of the lot. From what Kita had told you, you'd be meeting at a rented work office. He said they didn't use it often, but they didn't have anywhere less personal to meet at the moment. Apparently, they usually met at one of their houses, but because you were a stranger, they decided to take the precaution, which you could understand. A well-known band meeting a stranger? You'd do the same.

The office was only ten minutes away, so you pulled in with five minutes to spare. You breathed out a sigh of relief, before slinging your purse over your shoulder and heading into the building. You were told it was office 9b.

Taking a small trip in the elevator, it opened up in hallway "b". Slowly, you walked down the hallway, eyeing the numbers above the left doors.

5...7...

You fell a bit short at 9, swallowing down your nerves. The blinds to the window were closed, but you could see the shadows of figures inside. Five of them.

You stepped in front of the door and took in a deep breath. You raised your hand to knock only for the door to swing open. You paused, surprised, and slowly lowered your hand.

A man with dyed blonde hair stood in front of you, a smile on his face as your eyes met. His face was familiar, though you couldn't place a name to it. He was muscular, built similarly to Bokuto, which led you believe he played some kind of sport at some point.

He didn't seem to be as startled as you were, and only leaned closer from where he was bracing himself on the door. Subtly, you leaned a bit back, your feet shifting to flee.

"You must be Y/N. I was 'bouta go lookin' for you."

"Uh, hello," you said, with a small bow of your head. "You are?"

He raised his brow, a bit amused as his grin grew. "You don't know me? The most famous member?"

"No," you admitted, "I'm sorry?" it was a geninue sentiment, but it came out as more of a question.

A dark hand wrapped around the man's bicep, and pulled him back. "Don't torment her, Atsumu," a grumbly voice came. There was a face you recognized.

You knew Aran briefly, so his face was a pleasant surprise. You'd worked for his little brother before, the younger of the brother's being an influential model. You'd worked on set with him, and occasionally Aran would join you guys. You'd never shared more than small-talk, but from what you remember he was a sweet guy.

"Aran," you smiled. His eyes met yours and his smile matched. You stepped forward, past a spluttering Atsumu, and gave him a quick side-hug. It was relatively informal, but you were never big on handshakes. "I didn't know you were in the band."

He shrugged. "Didn't have much else to do," he admitted, leading you in.

"Hey!" Atsumu shouted, running up next to you, "I thought we agreed I would greet her!"

"You did, and you failed," another voice drawled. You looked up, finding the other two members sitting on a couch, Kita only a few feet away. The man who had spoken was clearly Atsumu's twin, sharing pretty much the same face. His eyes though, were a softer grey, and his hair was a natural dark brown.

Your eyes shifted, and you found the second man. His eyes were a hazy green, and they were focused on you. His hand lifted to run through his hair, brown and fluffy. You felt like there was a tug on your gut, and for a second you were afraid you were about to puke. His brows furrowed, and you felt your own lips twist.

He looked away, cutting off that horrible feeling in your stomach. You took in a deep breath. Aran gestured you toward an empty seat, which you took with a grateful smile.

Kita came to your side, dragging over his own chair. He handed you a coffee, which you accepted. "Thank you," you said, holding it in front of you. You took a hesitant sip. It wasn't the coffee you liked, but it was thoughtful, so you drank.

"You know Aran?" Kita asked as the boys got settled into their own seats. The key voices you could hear was Atsumu and his twin, and a grumble here and there from Aran. You had yet to hear the voice from the stranger on the couch.

"Very little," you agreed, running a thumb over the rim of your cup, "I know his brother better. I..I did his makeup for a photo shoot one time."

Kita made a little "Ah," sound, and took a sip of his coffee. "So, you have work experience, that's good."

You sighed, "Not a lot of it. I may do...really bad at this gig."

"Everyone has nerves. I think you'll do great, Y/N," he rifles through his bag for a minute, before pulling out a folder. He hands it to you, and you take it.

"What's this?" you ask, peering into the folder. It has your name written on it in Kita's neat handwriting. He opens his mouth to explain, and you hang on intently to every word.

"I know you haven't agreed to take the job on full time yet, but that's all the needed paperwork and schedules for the next tour. We're going on this October after our newest album drops."

"Oh, tour's a big commitment." He nods. "And you want me to do it?"

"I have faith in you," he looks over to the rest of the band, "and I know eventually they'll learn to trust you too."

"I don't know their names yet," you laugh, rubbing the back of your neck. Kita chuckles, and points at each member.

"I know you know Aran, so I'll skip him. The Miya twins are Atsumu and Osamu, you've met Atsumu," you recalled the blonde who'd leaned against the doorframe when you tried to walk in. He was a loud personality, and it was clear his brother was too. Osamu appeared quiet at first, but you were pretty sure he was just putting on an act to seem better than Atsumu.

"And that, is Suna Rintarou," your eyes drifted over to the stranger, and you felt your heart leap into your throat. He was ignoring the bickering going on around him, scrolling through his phone. One arm slung over the back of the couch. "Lead singer, though he doesn't talk much."

"I see that," you comment, "He's, uh, very intense."

Kita laughs, drawing the attention of the band, who seemed to forget your presence. Atsumu sends one last scathing remark to Osamu, which has Aran pulling him down and sitting between the twins. But you don't care much for their antics, focusing on the way Suna's head slowly picks up and meets your eyes. He tilts his head ever so slightly, that you wouldn't have noticed if you weren't watching him so intently.

A small shiver racks your spine, and you quickly look away.

Kita clears his throat and claps his hands together. "I believe we have business to discuss." The band seems to straighten and put themselves together at that, the only one seeming unphased being Aran, who was no doubt used to Kita's formal way of speaking.

"This is Y/N L/N, she will be your makeup artist for the concert we have tommorow. Depending on how she enjoys the job, she will continue to be our makeup artist on tour. She will also be the one deciding costumes from here on out."

You give a small wave and offer a polite smile. "About that," you say, "Will there be options for me to choose from? Or should I go shopping?"

Kita nods, "You will be expected to shop tomorrow for the gig. I will fund you the money necessary, and don't be afraid to call me if you need more." You hum, mentally thinking of what you had planned for the next day. Going to the mall shouldn't disturb anything, maybe you could drag Kuroo along with you, he'd know what kind of things these guys wear onstage.

Atsumu purses his lips and tilts his head to the side, squinting at you. "What are your qualifications? I don't mean to be offensive, but Kita literally picked you up off the street."

You laugh, small and airy. "I understand completely. I went to school for cosmetology in hair and makeup, with a minor in business. And while I don't have anything decreeing excellence in costume designing, I do run a fairly successful business." You rummage through your purse, pulling out one of your cards. You hand it to him, and he hands it to Osamu to inspect.

"She worked on set with my brother as his makeup artist, Atsumu. Relax, she's good," Aran spoke up on your behalf, which had a bit of relief flowing through you. If you had Kita and Aran on your side, two very reasonable men, then the other three were sure to approve of you.

"Seems legit," Osamu drawls, tucking the card into his pocket. You smile, trying not to show just how nervous you truly were. "Can we go get dinner? I'm rather hungry."

"Me too," a softer, raspier voice spoke up. Your eyes slide to the side where Suna is looking at you. His eyes are piercing, but he doesn't stare at you with animosity. More so a curiosity he wouldn't dare act upon. His voice was nice to listen to, even that soft whisper of words. It was no surprise that he was lead singer.

Kita looks over to you, extending a silent invitation. You shake your head. You still had so much to prepare. "Find a place," he says, before standing up. He walks you to the door and pulls out his wallet.

"Thank you for coming," he says, counting his money. "I truly do hope tomorrow goes well."

He drops a wad of money into your palm and curls your fingers around you. You want to deny it and say it's too much, but you know it isn't for you. It's for the band. You nod, and tuck the money into your purse.

"Thank you for having me," you agree, and give him a brief handshake. "I will contact you if anything is needed."

He smiles, and you look back to the office. The twins are hovered over a phone, no doubt searching for a nice place to eat. Aran is packing up his belongings, and Suna just stands there, observing. Bu the isn't observing the rest of the band. He's observing you.

Your hands tighten on the strap of your purse before lifting to give him a small wave. Your fingers shake as they do, and you watch as his lips turn up in an almost smile before he turns away. It was probably the best you were gonna get out of him.

Then you leave, sitting in your car as your body sags with exhaustion. Who knew nerves could make a person so tired? Leaning your head against the steering wheel, you take deep breaths. Anxiety is starting to kick in, but you refuse to let it hit. There are things at home you can distract yourself with.

Like your long list of commissions. You groan, another eave of exhaustion ripping through you. You should probably put your business on hiatus if you decide to go through with the tour. But you just got to finish up these last few commissions.

You can kiss goodbye a goodnight's sleep.

༻✦༺ <- previous | next -> | masterlist

fun facts! :

★ - im trying to make y/n a calmer and more mature person. i dont mean this as hate to other writers but in most cases y/n acts very immature and high energy, and i feel like that type of y/n just wouldn't fit in this plot. so here we have my y/n!

★ - suna drinks herbal tea to keep his voice safe and regularly orders gummy vitamins for his vocal cords. he isn't very vocal regardless though, preferring to keep his thoughts to himself. that's why his social media is so busy and random, it's where he empties his mind.

★ - atsumu trusts osamu's judgement better than his own, so in most cases he relies on his twin to help him decide things

taglist: @gojoscumslut | @mannaornot | @sunarots | @alienvarmint | @fleoresies | @tkooooop | @cheriesdear | @shotenvinsoot | @wolffmaiden | @riiceandsoup | @thebrownemo | @vivian-555 | @effmigentlywithachainsaw | @rukia-uchiha-98 | @weird0o0 | @seiamor | @rory-cakes | @blue-violin

[birdofprey1234]

Hello all. In case you've been unaware, recently tumblr has begun rolling out a partnership with Midjourney to scrape the entire website and its users' posts for their AI training. This includes peoples art, and probably also writing and photography. Anything you've posted the company may use for training, and you are opted IN by default.

Obviously this blog has been inactive for quite a while now, and no new art has been or will be posted here, but this puts me in a difficult position. I'm not sure exactly what I'm gonna do with this blog from here on. Some people have recommended editing posts to put a glaze filter over old art so that it's unusable, but I have many hundreds of posts, not all of which are tagged, and I'm unsure whether the AI training has already gotten a hold of them or not, making the potential filter useless. Not to mention the reblogs that already exist of the old un-glazed artwork.

I considered deleting everything, maybe even the blog itself, but that idea...sucks. I like the idea and the feeling that though I'm not active, my art is still out in the fandom tags somewhere, and that I have had an effect on the fandoms I was in and shared my art with. And again, the reblogs still exist, so I'm not sure what that would mean in terms of AI scraping. My worry is that deleting my blog would only relinquish any control I do have of what is done with my art.

As it is I'm kind of at a standstill. I was recently thinking over sharing my art again on other blogs, since I do miss being a part of that creative space. But now this change has kind of crushed that idea entirely. All this, plus the extreme transmisogyny apocalypse happening on here in the last month, and the seeming silencing of important movement tags like palestine, it really makes me want to ditch tumblr altogether. I've seen many people considering switching platforms. There's been a lot of markiplier mutuals specifically who have encouraged me to join cohost, I also have seen pillowfort as an option for others. But those platforms are new, kind of janky and will be hard to get used to for me. Plus, idk if I'm using them wrong but there's like...11 posts in each tag that I've seen so far, which kind of kills the feeling of being a part of a big open fan community I really love. Cohost seems like a nice platform, but if only 30-35 people move over, then it's really going to be a moot point. I wanna be where everyone else in the fandom is. I worry that this mass migration will only splinter communities, as we're all going to different places. I don't want to make 500 accounts on different platforms just to stay active and feel aware in the community.

My entire online social life up to this point has basically been on tumblr, I have a lot of blogs with a LOT of memories attached to them, and it would hurt to just drop them and move away.

Overall I'm at a loss. I enjoy sharing my work, my ideas and thoughts, I like being a part of these creative communities. But it seems like everyday the online space becomes more and more hostile toward creatives and fans, and much more advertiser friendly. One thing i never ever wanted to happen was for my art to be used for AI, and I naively thought that tumblr would be safe in that way. Guess not. I sometimes wonder if eventually all large social media will crash down and The People will dedicate to going back to personal websites and forums. I would enjoy a space where I could share my art on my own terms, and not have other peoples interaction with it overshadow everything else.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. For now I will be staying on tumblr until I figure it out, but definitely no more posting creatively. I want to try to keep my work up if I can. I would recommend on all your blogs going to settings and toggling ON "prevent third-party sharing for this blog", as that will let tumblr know you wish your work, including reblogs of it to be excluded from the scraping. I'm unsure how actually useful this will be, or how much the company will respect these wishes but. It's there. I would also love for you to come talk with me @boobookiss and, hey, maybe make a cohost account. I'm on there as boobookiss as well. I hope to keep touch with you all and see this little community stay together.

[dokidokitsuna]

...I just remembered I wanted to make my own statement on the AI thing. ^^;

So you've probably heard, but in case you haven't: Tumblr just sold out everyone's data to the AI trash compactors, they probably did it long before they gave us the option to opt out, and even if you do opt out they're probably still taking and using your work anyway (telling people to opt out instead of actually asking for their permission is already scummy business practice, but when it comes to AI it's functionally meaningless. :/ It's always "well, we're telling them not to use these people's data and we're hoping they'll be nice and go along with it" with no regulations or consequences if they decide to just steal everything indiscriminately...)

Despite that, I am not leaving Tumblr anytime soon. I'm looking into other sites*, but at this moment in time, I have nowhere else to go. ^^; Besides, I still like it here. When I left DeviantArt I was already getting sick of the place, having my art stolen regularly by "fans" and paradoxically getting less and less interest in my work over time. By the time the devs turned the website into eye-blinding slop with Eclipse, I was more than ready to move on.

But I still enjoy using Tumblr. I like writing long text posts that no one would bother to read anywhere else, I like answering asks, and I like the unique sense of humor and style among the users here. ^^ It would take a lot to force me out.

Also, I can take a little solace in the fact that AI-bros do not value "low-quality" art like mine. ^^; If messy cel-shaded sketches with visible pixels ever become popular, then I'll worry, but for now I think it's highly unlikely that anyone will want to wholesale regurgitate my art. If anything, I think prioritizing it in their datasets would only make them worse...and on that note, if you do have "high quality" detailed/painterly/semi-realistic art that would be targeted, I'd recommend 'poisoning' it with Nightshade/Glaze. Although I heard a rumor a while back that AI is "building immunity" to Nightshade and already learning to work around it, but I'm really hoping that was just a wishful lie from the trash compactors themselves. I haven't heard it repeated since then, so I think it's still worth a shot. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So anyway, like the post I reblogged said, I think the best thing we can do now is to make it clear that WE DON'T WANT AI ART. We don't care how easy it'll be to instantly generate thousands of hours of mindless 'content' to look at; we don't want it. Since regulation is lagging so far behind (wanna know why Disney's copyright hounds didn't shut this down on sight? Most likely, they're hoping to profit from it down the line) the only way to fight this right now is with individual litigation and consumer demand.

Don't support projects made with AI**; don't hate-watch them or spotlight them. Focus your energy on the millions of human artists who are still here, and need your support now more than ever.

*I've heard people mention moving to Twitter and/or Artstation: fam, you're jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. ^^;;; IIRC, Arstation was one of the FIRST art sites to start flirting with AI, and Twitter has been selling off its users' data for several months already. Go there if you must, but don't go under the impression that it's "safer".

**Please keep a cool head when discussing AI art, and keep in mind that it used to mean something other than "mass theft". Artists have and still do create AI tools that are built on limited data sets with permission/compensation, that are used to aid them in their work and encourage human artistry (Vocaloids and DAW's, for instance) rather than stamp it out. Until a specific word evolves into popular use for exploitative AI, we're kinda stuck with this confusion, so remember to get the facts before you speak out.

P.S. Praying every night that this is a dumb fad that will soon die and go to the same hell as NFTs. >_< Praying every morning that the influx of AI art into its own datasets will eventually corrupt itself and make it useless. >_< >_< Praying every afternoon for both at once! >_< >_< >_< Like to charge, reblog to cast, all that

[needtoloveoutloud]

Apparently, a hot take on hive-mind tumblr?

Every time I see a post that equates pro-shipping or difficult, problematic themes in (fan) fiction and books and other stories with actual, real-life SA or whatever the topic is, I automatically assume that the OP lacks critical thinking skills and media literacy, fell for the dangerous Puritan movement that's sort of going on in the US (and other countries, too) right now and is likely 14 y/o (or at least mentally stuck at that age) and simply jumped up on that dangerous bandwagon of wanted censorship.

Also, a little bit of hope dies within me.

I could write a damn essay on why equating the “experiences” of fictional (read it again: fictional aka NON-EXISTENT characters) with the trauma and experiences of real-life people is incredibly harmful and hurtful.

To somehow put the plot of a story on the same level as what actual victims went through under the guise of "omg you write/read something like that, so you must support this" is so disrespectful, on so many levels. To everyone affected.

(for example: in my story, I wrote about a 4 y/o girl that got kidnapped by child-traffickers. Does not mean that I a) condone that shit in any way shape or form in the real world and b) am a kidnapper and/or child trafficker myself...? I don't even know why this needs to be clarified?)

Only because some people don't like something that does!not!actually!harm! a real-life person, doesn't mean that that thing should be forbidden or censored. This is so, so incredibly dangerous. I feel like we have learned nothing from history. How about we just start burning books again? That worked out amazingly in the past and wasn't a catalyst for any big issues at all, right?

Assuming stuff is properly tagged, it's your own responsibility for what you consume online. If you are under 18, this applies too. A lot of authors feel uncomfortable to sharing their work with minors, which is completely fine, and they are in the right to do that. If you still continue to read a story (or in the case of AO3, click "accept" when the warning pops up that a story might include adult themes (graphic description of violence, sex, language, whatever, really): then it is on the minor (or the parents who didn't oversee their child's internet activity). Authors are not their parents or guardians. If minors have unrestricted access to the internet (which I am not sure they should have, at least not when you're 12 or something, but then again: I'm no one's parent), then all you can do is learn by experience. You lie and pretend you're older than you are? You click "understand" and read a story that involves adult themes?

If you do all that, despite the site's warning or the author's warning, then you do not get to complain that the story is intended for people who are older than you, have more media literacy and critical thinking skills to be able to differentiate between fiction and real life or the fact that the story contains adult themes — as it was tagged. WHATEVER adult themes are included.

Trying to censor stuff or illegalize things only because YOU subjectively think they are wrong or immoral or whatever opens the door to a lot of dangerous effects that we, in a civilized society, had to work hard to bounce back from in the past — historically speaking.

Some countries still have major restrictions and censorship of stories, books, and whole websites (that do not harm people) and it was often possible to implement such laws and censorships because it was argued (in the beginning) that it was for the protection of young people or because all porn is inherently bad or stuff like that. Then, it opens the doorway to a lot of other censorship, and then it's too late or very, very hard to reverse.

Idk, there are just so many things wrong with the notion of "anti-shipping" or "I wanna censor shit you read/write because I don't like it/think it's immoral" and, personally, it just rubs me the wrong way.

God, I can already feel people starting a discussion or blocking me or unfollowing me or whatever. And you know what's the beauty of it? You can do that — because we, luckily, have the power and responsibility to be in charge of what content we actively consume online. :)

P.S. I shouldn't have to say this, but obviously (as stated) my take on all of this only applies to fictional characters. Writing SA stories on real, existing people (celebrities or not) is not okay.

Feel free to ignore this, feel free to jump in to discuss this topic like adults, idc, really :D Just wanted to voice my thoughts to the vast void of the interwebs

Also: feel free to help educate me if you think I lack background information or stuff.

[putschki1969]

Hi, thanks for answering, I decided to order a Wakana disc and a Keiko disc. But I'm a little sad because I won't receive my package, customs is charging me a lot to deliver it and I can't pay that amount and if I don't pay in 20 days they auction it off. I had asked for it as a birthday present for myself, the main objective of supporting them was fulfilled anyway. It should be noted that it was my friend The person who made the order was not well informed and ordered the things through Fedex and everyone who buys from CD Japan tells me that they shouldn't have ordered it through there. In short, now I'm afraid to order something again and not The person who made the order was not well informed and ordered things through Fedex and everyone who buys from CD Japan tells me that they shouldn't have ordered it through there. In short, now I'm afraid to order something again and not receive it 😢Sorry for answering here, but the answers don't let me say much. By the way, drink a lot of water because of the heat.

Oh no!! 🫂 That sounds like such a horrible experience. I'm sorry you encountered these problems while making your very first order. Is there really no one who can help you pay that amount? I know those charges can be criminally high and it's painful to even think about spending that much money (often more than the actual price of the product) but it would be a real shame for those CDs to be lost forever.

I can totally understand why you are now afraid to order anything else. Even after being a fan for so many years, I still hate how difficult and expensive it often is for overseas fans to buy anything from Japan. There have been some improvements in the last decade but it still is a hassle and I don't even wanna think about the many times my anxious little self had to argue with some rude person from the customs office.

With CDJapan, I can recommend Air Mail as the best shipping method. It takes quite long but it's considerably cheaper than EMS, FedEx or DHL. I don't know the customs and import tax rates of your country but they usually like to include the shipping costs as part of the value (which is used as basis to determine the charged tax) so the cheaper the shipping, the lower your customs/tax fees. On a related note, it is better to order smaller/fewer items to reduce the overall value of goods. These days, I mostly order on Japanese websites using a proxy service called Tenso. They allow me to adjust the price of the items which makes it possible to keep the goods value pretty low.

Maybe also try to check if Amazon.co.jp provides international shipping to your country. At least in my case (Austria, Europe), they already include taxes and such in the price I'm paying so the packages don't get held up in customs. This might just apply to EU states though so please keep that in mind (for me, CDJapan works the same as Amazon.co.jp when it comes to taxes).

Please don't let this experience discourage you. It can sometimes be a lot of trial and error when you first start ordering from Japan (especially if you are not familiar with the different shipping options and your country's import procedures). Definitely take a break for a while and try to do some research to be better prepared for future attempts. Then maybe, you can try again in a few months.

In the meantime, check if their solo stuff is available in your local iTunes or Google Play store. If you don't feel comfortable ordering physical goods, you can still support them by purchasing the digital music. It's not much but at least it's something.

Thank you, I'm trying to stay hydrated as best as possible. Hopefully the hot and humid days will be over soon.

[milfweirdal]

gif making tutorial for the inimitable @snowysobsessions

disclaimer: this is exactly how i do it, but im basically just winging it tbh. there may be other methods that are quicker and/or look way better. this is just the way to which i have become accustomed. i am not a fancy ass gif maker who does colouring and sharpening or uses photoshop whatever, those folks are the real pros. i just like to get the job done :) if you wanna make really fancy gifs other tutorials may be more appropriate. ok lets get into it under the cut!

step 1:

select your source. for the purposes of this tutorial im going to stay on-brand and use this video of weird al on 30 rock (aka the original Milf Weird Al).

step 2:

either download the video (i dont have a good recommendation for a website for that unfortunately, they all seem virus-ridden these days) or screen-record the part of the video you want to turn into a gif. for me, thats the part with al in it.

my computer runs windows something - 11 maybe? and it comes with screen recording software built in that saves into a folder called "captures" in the video folder, which can be activated with the keyboard shortcut Windows Key + Alt + R. most phones also have screen recording functions, you could record it on your phone and transfer it to your computer? (for the record the website i use works on mobile too, but its very slow and annoying so i much prefer to use my laptop.)

step 3:

use video editing software of your choice to cut the clip down to just the part you want giffed. i use microsoft clipchamp because thats whats on my computer. it can also be used to crop away any black bars around any video clip, which is useful, because a properly cropped gif will probably be better quality. export the clip in as high quality as possible.

tip: try to keep the gif 3 seconds or under. this keeps the filesize down. tumblr gif size limit is 10MB, but i keep all my gifs 5MB or below because otherwise the loading time/storage burden is painful, and like i said, im not making fancy ones here, i dont mind them being a bit lower quality.

here is my clip. i saved it muted because its filesize is smaller that way.

step 4:

go to https://ezgif.com/video-to-gif which looks like this.

note that ezgif has tools for cutting, cropping and resizing videos if you dont have access to any video editing tool. its quicker if you do it in advance, though, i find.

upload your video and you will see this type of screen appear.

if youre uploading it to tumblr, the 540xAUTO size option is the one i go for by default, but it also has the following size options.

smaller size = smaller filesize, and you want the filesize as small as possible within reason. i sometimes make a gif smaller in dimensions if i'm really struggling to get the filesize below 5MB.

next is the frame rate: i set it to 25 because thats closest to the oriignal frame rate of most recorded video, but in order to make savings on filesize, it can be selected to 20FPS or 12FPS. i wouldnt recommend lower than that unless you want it to look weird and choppy, in which case, go ahead, and i wouldn't recommend higher unless you literally need the animation to be smooth as silk - for making it slowmo, for example.

i don't mess with the "method" drop down bc idk what it means.

the "Optimise for static background" tickbox is useful for if someone is doing something on a totally still background, because it reduces filesize by not animating every single bit of background in every frame. it could be helpful here as our background is not moving at all, just our heroine Alfina. i'm going to tick it.

now you can click "Convert to GIF". you should see something like this - itll be animated of course, this is just a screenshot.

our gif looks crispy fresh (and has 69 frames - NICE), but its filesize is 5.51MB which is more than id like it to be, but first we're gonna look at Effects, so I'm not going to click the "Optimise" option yet.

step 5:

clicking effects will provide the following options

if the video was sort of dark and hard to see, for example if it was live footage, it can be helpful to increase the brightness. changing the brightness and contrast makes our gif look like this, and makes it pop a little more.

you can keep playing with the settings and clicking "Apply selected" until it looks about right to you, or not add any effects at all - it's up to you. I hit the back button in my browser to go back to the gif before i added the effects, then I went to Optimise.

step 6:

the Optimise screen is like this

i tend to stick with the Lossy GIf optimization method. I put the compression level down to 30, and press Optimise GIF and see what happens.

as you can see, the filesize has been reduced by 41.95% to 3.2MB without a super noticeable drop in quality.

if you set the compression level to 200, this is what it looks like

much more pixely, and not much further reduced in size, so i stick to the lower end of the compression scale.

this is our finished gif! isnt she beautiful. i just right-clicked and hit save on it on the webpage after generating - on mobile, i guess you'd long-press on it to download it.

hope that helps!!! lmk if you need help with any other aspect like changing speed or overlays or anything but honestly it's pretty intuitive once you know how to do these bits.

[manebioniclegali]

for the writer ask game! 💖, 🎉, 🤯?

Writer ask game!

💖 What made you start writing?

The long and short of it is me, myself, and I; same with drawing, I wanted to be able to see my ideas come to life, and get personal satisfaction out of finishing a story. The oldest fanfic I wrote was from first grade lol, and anytime there was an opportunity to write a story for a school assignment, I went above and beyond. I did write plenty for myself, between first grade and when I started uploading stories online.

I started posting bc I saw people posting MLP fanfic on a specific site, and I was like "I wanna do that!" and I had just officially fallen into MLP G4 in 8th grade, so I had some ideas and wrote them and posted them, and I enjoyed getting feedback, so I kept writing and kept posting. That site was great for that, bc people would largely give constructive criticism, and it was SO easy to find someone to edit your stuff....posting on Tumblr and especially AO3 just doesn't hold a candle to the way that environment was. I moved over to Tumblr bc 1) didn't know AO3 existed, and 2) that's largely where the Markiplier fandom is. At least Tumblr you know that people are sharing your work by reblogging (sometimes); the website had a featured box and a popular box and groups that you could put your stories in and get exposure! I don't really have ideas for MLP anymore, hence why I'm not really on there as of late :(

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

It depends, really. Comments and reblogs are a huge part of it, and if every reblog I received had someone making a comment about the fic, I'd be thrilled (although that's not always the case). The number of notes are a factor (80-100 I'll consider it successful), but it's hard sometimes when most of those are just likes. 😞 I'm still deeply appreciative of all the interactions, but having 50 likes but no reblogs makes you wonder if you've done something wrong that nobody wants to share it. :(

The other side to this is that if I wrote something specifically to "target" another person, or it involves referring to lore I participate in, then as long as that person/those people see it and react and I get to interact with them about it, then it'll be worth it, even if the fic doesn't break like 20 (the only piece of writing I did for Egotober didn't get far cuz it was so niche, but the people whom I participated in the lore with saw and liked it, so I'm not as bothered (unlike the MLP art I did for the Cringetober part...can't believe that one)

🤯 What's a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

Mystery for sure, bc I only attempted it once for school and I felt I didn't do the greatest (had to hide a phobia in the writing and my classmates guessed it rather quickly). I'm also not super interested in writing mysteries, so it works.

Angst might be the other one, bc it depends on the type of angst. Most angst I can't write unless I'm already in a funk, bc even my own writing has the opportunity to bring me down. At the risk of sounding like the meme, I have a bit too much empathy to write depressing circumstances unless I'm in that mindset. I wrote something with mild angst recently and it made me tear up 😅 I can't read angst cuz it usually hurts too much. Major angst/whump no, minor angst sometimes.

Thank you for da ask!!

[aihoshiino]

hello there! first of all i wanna thank you for your translations of the side stories! we get so little about b komachi and I found it really fascinating to see that some of the lyrics from idol seem to have been lifted from 45510 especifically. ( could be mistaken, haha)

but in any case, there's a particular outfit of Ai's that you tag as beautiful dreamer, at first I had only seen this outfit in cosplay websites and I was skeptical of it even being anything more than an effort to sell more costumes. I was wondering if you knew what official art it is from? I'd love to see the original picture, cuz as hard as I try I don't seem to be able to find it!

even if you don't have i still thank u lots for all the theories and analyses you've been sharing here! ( not enough people talk about ai being neurodivergent and the ai on stage being a mask)

thanks!!!!

ANON THIS WAS SUCH A LOVELY ASK TO WAKE UP TO, THANK U SO MUCH 🥺 Honestly it has been years since I actively took part in a Big Fandom enough to contribute meta so knowing that people are enjoying reading my thoughts about this silly little series is kind of mindblowing to me lol. Ai's neurodivergence and the way it factors into the way she navigates the world is suuuuuuuch a key foundational part of understanding her (at least imo) so it makes me glad to see people are vibing with me talking about it so explicitly.

You are correct, tho! IDOL's lyrics are directly based on 45510 and parts of Ai's dialogue scattered around the first volume of the manga - it's always kind of a surprise when I go back through it and I'm like oh my god right, yosasobi just came for the THROAT with some of these lines!!! I've been working on my own TL of 45510 just to keep myself occupied and I've been having a lot of fun trying to make my translations of those lines actually scan to the appropriate lines of IDOL hehehe.

To answer your question tho! That particular Ai design is an official alt outfit/AU design for the Lies and Ai (展 嘘とアイ) exhibition and collab cafe that was held in Japan!

As you can see, everyone got a cute, mahou shoujo inspired look as a tie in.

You can read a little more information about it in this news article but it was basically a little art installation based around Oshi no Ko where certain iconic scenes and outfits from the anime's first episode were recreated for folks to see and a collab cafe with character-themed foods was also hosted. If you'd like to get an idea of what the exhibition looks like, happyuchannel (who does a lot of videos on OnK events in Japan!) has a video about their visit where they show off the parts they were allowed to photograph and some of the merch they got.

The reason I tag this as 'Beautiful Dreamer' is because I run a magical girl AU roleplay called Beautiful Dreamer over on Dreamwidth and Ai is one of the characters I play there! By total coincidence, this art dropped like the day after I decided to play her there and had to work out a mahou look for her and then I guess the universe rewarded me for good decision making LOL

("Claire is this a transparent ploy to get people to come over to Dreamwidth and play in your mahou game?" Of Course It Is)

Unfortunately there aren't any full/high quality images of the art anywhere that I know if since it exists just for the collab cafe but I imagine that when an art book specific to the anime inevitably drops, we'll get full spreads of a lot of the collab cafe/promo art.

BONUS: Here's what those mahou Ai standees look like in real life. Aren't they cute?

("claire how many ai standees do you–" normal amount.)

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

What are your favorite types of swords?

Do you have any personal theories about the creation of true damascus steel?

What are the top 3 swords you would recommend for home defense?

I love swords.... that have a SOLID construction...

when you can look at a sword and go "if I reversed it and hit someone over the head with the hilt/guard, it wouldn't even rattle afterwards" that to me is amore

as a kid I loved the knightly swords, the long boys with the straight cross-hilt guards, but now I just desperately pine for anything with a curved single edge and maybe a sharpened false edge at the tip O///O so like, messers, sabers of some forms, hangers, the shamshir, the kilij-

oh my gods WAIT also also any jian by LK Chen okay it's a straight sword but oh wow WOW and they did a much more affordable version of the Munich town guard sword which is just, so, so pretty and satisfying to my brain...

not much interested in the whole damascus steel thing. Any sword that gets used is gonna get beat up in the end, so for me it's more of How Well Is It Put Together and How Easily Could I Fix It.

or How Cheap Would It Be To Replace This

if I could someday own a bronze short sword, now THAT would be true bliss.

Home defense?

....

Don't use a sword for home defense.

To me a sword is nice because its easy to carry and a fairly good compromise between several better things that wouldn't be so easy to carry.

Maybe I don't wanna walk several miles lugging a spear AND a shield around just in case of gets attacked :(

Sword is nice then. Better reach than a knife, not as clunky as a spear, can be used to block and parry pretty well, only problem is they're not very intuitive to use.

(please don't eff up your wrist by overextending it while swinging a hunk of metal it's not worth it it's not it's not)

so when I go for long walks I actually just carry a staff or walking stick WITH a knife. I'm not trusting my life on a sword if I can help it.

Home defense I'd, I'd really say please don't wave a sword at someone who got into your house. Even in Ye Oldie Times I feel like, throwing stuff is the better bet unless you've been spending a good bit of time training with the sword and preferably actually fighting with it. Or are lucky and good at a bluff.

Like... a master swordsman might fear the unpredictable windmilling of an amateur...

...but a scared guy with a knife doesn't need to be a master knife guy to rush in and kill you after your first overextended swing.

Poking at someone from out of their range might work better but gods help you if they smack your sword point away with their coat or whatever.

People are good at throwing things though! I suggest a heavy ceramic mug. Or several.

If you really want a sword in your house then something straight-ish and short-ish would be best unless you live in a Very Open Space house. Don't worry about hand protection either. Unless your visitor also brought a sword this probably won't turn into a duel. Or last long enough for hand injuries to be a big worry.

If you have a longsword with a screw-on pommel maybe just loosen that up and end them rightly. If nothing else it'd be really funny way to go XD

please note: i am not a resource for good information i am an idiot on the internet but im also not kidding about the wrist thing, swing with your arm not with your wrist unless you've got one of those hilt-heavy light-tipped swords with amazing point control or are really good at redirecting momentum cheers <3

Also shoutout to my baby the Devil's Edge Celtic Short Sword for sale on Kult of Athena's website, she's a heavy hunk of historically inaccurate metal that was just barely within my price range at ammunition grade and I love her dearly <3 <3 <3

truly proof that your "type" doesn't always dictate the whims of your heart ^w^ b

[northwest-cryptid]

i totally get the reasoning on your post and it seems really true, but then why do you think it generated the penises? or do you think they are not penises and we are simply seeing objects in the AI goop

I just wanna really quickly point out that this is EXACTLY the sort of questions I'm looking to answer and educate people on, so genuinely; thank you so much for asking.

I'm going to open with saying that while I don't know for certain, given that there's a ton of factors we can't possibly know without actually getting in touch with the person who generated the image; I will do my best to answer this with as much detail as possible.

So my best guess is that, simply put we're just seeing things. It's likely that, given the objects around the object in question; they simply told it to create objects.

A lot of objects that we see in Overwatch (such as the handles of hammers/swords and such) could easily be misshapen by AI to appear like a penis, especially when as pointed out by the commenter we sort of do associate Overwatch with porn/NSFW material.

My best reasoning for this is simply that it's unlikely the AI in question would generate a sort of one off occurrence without any other sort of "hint" or "evidence" of what kind of checkpoint it's running.

To put it simply, a lot of people have this idea that an AI itself "learns" things; that's not quite the case. In reality the AI is sort of a shell for a brain of sorts. That "brain" is called a Checkpoint, the checkpoint or sometimes called a "model" is essentially a point of reference for what words mean. That is the thing that learns, and when the AI needs to generate something it essentially references what the Checkpoint says something looks like.

What this means is that if we are to believe that the AI (Checkpoint) associates Overwatch with porn, it should have some kind of stylistic choice we can see in the art that would reflect that, outside of a one off penis in the corner of a bunch of stuff, which if I'm being honest; upon closer inspection doesn't even really look that much like a penis...

I mean, I understand where you're coming from if you think it looks that way but I think that's more on your own human brain if I'm being perfectly honest with you. Like yea I can see it too but I don't think that's what the AI was going for if I'm being real here.

Anyways I wanted to test my theory here, so I went to Civitai, a website for sharing checkpoints and the like; and found two checkpoints to compare the original against.

They are both highly rated at 4.8 rating though I will openly admit that the NSFW checkpoints has 34,000+ downloads while the seemingly SFW checkpoint only seems to have around 3,100+ so yes I understand that rating isn't exactly equal but never the less they're both highly rated checkpoints with thousands of downloads, of course the NSFW one is more popular; for our testing purposes that doesn't really matter.

Now I want to say this up front; as both of these checkpoints are actually merges (meaning they're made up of a bunch of smaller checkpoints merged together into a big one) it would be nearly impossible for me to source everything back and make sure everything is ethically sourced. I do not condone using unethically sourced checkpoints and only generated these images for the sake of example and education. Both checkpoints were deleted shortly after running these generations.

The first was Animerge, a seemingly safe for work checkpoint; and the second was Grapefruit, a NSFW checkpoint that also focused on anime.

I ran the original overwatch image that we are discussing through the controlnet canny system as a reference for both of these images and ONLY gave the AI the prompt "Overwatch" as to not create any sort of bias.

I gotta say as much as the results speak for themselves, I'll explain for those who don't really get it (that's fine no worries).

I feel like you can tell without me even telling you that the image on the left was generated by the SFW checkpoint, and the one on the right by the NSFW checkpoint. Not only do we see something more heavily resembling the original image on the left, but we see specifically that it left the man in the image intact. Where as with the image on the right, we can see this man got himself a bit of plastic surgery in the ass to basically become "thick Mercy" and we can additionally see the robot on the left became a wannabe D.Va with the lady on the right becoming something of a Tracer character from the looks of it, given a wider butt, and generally more pronounced shape. In fact the NSFW checkpoint almost entirely deleted the background, with only a few of the foreground debris being left behind but heavily altered.

So hey why is that? If all I prompted was Overwatch then that's all it had to go off of right? Well yes, exactly; the only thing either of these checkpoints has was Overwatch. Yet that which was trained on specifically NSFW images incorporated those features of anatomy into the image, likewise the SFW model seems to have latched onto Overwatch's general sci-fi vibe using the white, blue, yellow color scheme the game is sort of known for.

See this is what I mean when I say, I think we're projecting a bit onto the AI's thoughts here. First of all an AI can't actually "think" per se, so all that association stuff doesn't really make sense, it's going off tags not off what we as humans think of first when someone says overwatch. Most tags or color schemes or common traits around overwatch honestly probably aren't NSFW in nature. We just tend to latch onto the NSFW art/media around the game because it's what's well known to people.

So interestingly enough I really wanted to see if I could get the Grapefruit checkpoint to make something closer to the original, and after a few attempts this was the closest I got. You can clearly notice that the anatomy is STILL effected! The overly pronounced butts, and the fact it REALLY wants this guy to be Tracer giving him her hair and general color scheme.

We can also see that the oh so famous "penis" has become just another object in the pile of vaguely phallic shape. In fact, if we compare the butt of the original to the new butts the change in shape is REALLY obvious.

If we want to believe that the AI associated Overwatch with porn inherently, and that the checkpoint trained on pornographic material "on the internet, where the porn is" then we should see that reflected in how it handles the anatomy of these characters and we just don't.

Technically speaking there's a system called "inpaint" which allows you to specifically alter parts of an AI generated image using a different checkpoint, meaning it's possible theoretically for someone to paint over the characters with inpaint, and select a different; safe for work checkpoint that still has innocent virgin eyes untainted by "The Internet, You Know; Where The Porn Is™." However given how absolutely lazy the overall image is, I honestly can't bring myself to say that's what happened. Especially because at that point they could have simply painted over the penis and removed it. If they somehow didn't notice the penis shape, despite it's prominence; a penis still wouldn't have just been generated without the checkpoint specifically being aware of, and typically learning on porn; and there's no reason why it would appear there and have no semblance of NSFW material elsewhere if such a checkpoint was used.

the tl;dr of this is that while sure it's TECHNICALLY possible it's an AI generated penis; I HIGHLY doubt that's actually true. Simply put that's just not how AI works, and for that to be how the image came to be they'd have to have taken some weirdly specific precautions and care to un-NSFW the two characters and surrounding environment but specifically ignore/not see/leave the penis for some reason. I can't, in sound mind; convince myself that was the case.

So while I may not exactly know what it's meant to be 100%, or why it was created I cannot with any level of certainty say it is actually what people say it is. I think we're just all projecting what we find funny, or what we personally associate with Overwatch.

After all, have you considered the fact that given the prompt of "overwatch" it specifically is trying to generate the women in the cast? If we believe that it really associated overwatch with pornography; it doesn't make sense that a penis of all things would be the image it chooses to create to represent that. Not when even across multiple image generations it's consistently trying to make the man into either Mercy or Tracer, and if it's given no image prompting to go off of, it simply creates some kind of tracer lookalike, you know; like a tracer who accidentally fell in some acid and her face is melting off, but I digress. I just can't bring myself to believe that any of the claim is actually true given my knowledge of how AI works, that being said; I think it's incredibly funny that it made some kind of dumb phallic shape because the people who generated it were too lazy to even think about having an actual artist touch up the picture in the slightest and fix the GLARING problems with it.

When I said, "if the commenter is some form of authority on the matter I'd love for them to tell me which AI it was, or what website it's trained on." That was genuine, because you know; with that information you'd likely actually be able to get to the bottom of this.

At the end of the day, AI can't REALLY think for itself, it doesn't know how to learn anything a person doesn't directly teach it. So unless it was shown a penis, and taught what a penis was specifically; it wouldn't be able to generate a "penis" but it could generate something that resembles something that could be a penis if you squint at it and have the thought on your brain.

Genuinely hope that is a satisfactory answer to such a question.

[thejournaluser]

HELLO stranger! welcome to my posts- or blogs- or whatever! i still dont know how to use tumblr or how it works!!! this is basically my randomness stuff, take it as you will. i might do blogs just to post poems and stuff, but ye. Enjoy your time here in my acc!

account announcements log:

(jan 26) made lots of poems before making this account. might post them all but it takes a while ughghghg

(jan 27) im starting to write my thoughts here as well. oh well, might as well make fun here in this account LOL

(feb 4) might wanna post stuff about my ocs. dunno why but i thought i wanted to be famous but eh seems illogical

(feb 11) i might write random shitposts because im THAT out of ideas and full of boredom. mega spoilers tho-

(feb 15) hiya peeps. not feeling the ups right now, just the downs. it'll go away eventually but right now i'd rather feel the emotions than bottle them up. i'll be back soon.

(feb 19) hi y'all. im back from the downs and im currently in a valley in between (istg if any beasts would appear i would-) anyway time to do my usual

(feb 20) woah, did not expect my writing prompts to be getting attention lol. might do those just to get some hearts and all. enjoy the stuff btw!

(feb 22) did NOT expect for my post to get this much attention lol. this account was supposed to be a dump for my creativity BUT im glad people are enjoying it. Thank y'all for staying!

(mar 3) might not be up for it but uhh i wanna do story prompts with a side of shitposting. i already did a sample a few hours back here

(mar 5) i dunno anymore. should i turn this posts of mine into a public confession? i mean, no one might read it lol.

(mar 6) lore???

(mar 19) i decided to write something today. a small project, really but due to some trouble i did in school, it inspired me to write it. enjoy.

(apr 6) hello. i'm still alive. anyone alive, still? i stopped the project for now. i'm so burned out.

(apr 12) tasked my friends and fam to give me one word only. and from that one word, i'll have to make a story prompt out of it. enjoy my silly ideas

(apr 13) aight guys. i might make one sentence writing prompts soon.

(apr 17) introducing The Rooftop, a once-planned short story turned into a long series. hope u guys enjoy

(apr 24) hi guys sorry for not posting anything in a while. school's anniversary week and it's absolutely draining now that instead of going home at noon, i now go to school in the evening. i basically live inside the school now

(apr 27) IM BACK! but i'll still be gone in a few days. still have a lot of things to do and too tired to make story prompts.

(may 12) i have to make to make an announcement in may cuz i don't wanna miss a month just in case. also, to make sure i actually did say something interesting: here's my most popular post

(may 22) ok uh im kinda having a slight anxiety attack rn due to drinking three cups of coffee in one sitting

(may 22, pt2) ??? aight, sorry for the past announcement. it was me freaking out. anyway, im fine now and just listening to music to calm myself down. ngl it's getting hot now with three layers of blanket i just put myself in.

(may 26) on may 24 i think... i called, and they hung up.

(may 27) sorry for making the last announcements too personal. anyway, i noticed that i've been reading a lot lately and been getting into different fandoms thanks to this website. might make a blog dedicated to making reviews. dunno

(june2) wassup. birthday and graduate here. and also a fellow pride month celebrator.

(aug 15) woah, been gone for quite a while. anyway, hi.

[clarktooncrossing]

HELLO THERE PEOPLE OF TODAY AND ROBOTS OF TOMORROW! IT'S ME, CLARK!

Happy National Cartoonists Day, everyone! What, you didn't think my current computer crisis would stop me from celebrating the Holiday, did ya? Actually, it almost did. Y'see, despite this piece being drawn by hand, my computer's scanner wouldn't save the file onto my craptop. My computer's going through a processing error, meaning it's set to stop working any day now. Fortunately this hunk'a junk managed to work just long enough for me to upload the newest Sketch BOOM! Yes my friends, the Sketch BOOM is back! I figured if I could only post one thing for NCD it might as well be something covered head to toe with cartoons. Some pretty well drawn cartoons too, if you pardon me tootin' my own horn. It just feels so good to have drawn something, have it come out looking as good as it does, and to be able to upload it here on tumblr for you all to see. For the record though, screw tumblr's stupid@$$ upload size limit, I freak'n hate websites that do that! It makes me as mad as a blood-cursed Croczilla fighting a sentient mobile home, but we'll get to that in a bit. For now though, let's see what silly sketches managed to make their way onto the page, starting from the top left corner and making our way down.

Don't forget to be on the lookout for the Snow Conies, the tiny sentient species of snow cones that have invaded almost every part of the page! Can you spot all 8?

[1] DID SOMEONE SAY PIZZA? You wanna know what the downside is of drawing at the bottom of the page and working your way up is? You have tiny pockets of blank space that you're unsure what to do with. Such was the case was this corner, having been left blank after drawing #2. For a while I thought of filling the void with a cosmically charged Snow Conie in the same vein at Rosie, but the Cosmic Cutie was already part of the BOOM due to Discord shenanigans. Instead I opted for a Clarktoon that sadly hasn't been drawn in a while, that being the ever-goofy Pizza Monster. No doubt he was lured here by the scent of all the pretzel pizzas I've been eating lately. While he was here I decided to experiment with his expressions, adding more cheek to his smile. Honestly I think he looked better without them. Still, I'm happy to see him here as I hope all of you are. Now if only he'd stop hogging all the grub!

[2] EYE OF THE THERIAN Rosie isn't the only character here due to Discord shenanigans. At the beginning of every month my friend @Foxhatart opens herself up to sketch suggestions on her Kofi page. For the record, those of you wanting to help out another artist keep food in their bellies can click here. With a few of these Kofi slots still left open, Fox came to her friends asking if they had any ideas for pics involving her characters. Not knowing a ton about her characters, I joked that she ott'a draw her half-lemur girl Cath bench press a bus, her freakish strength having become a reoccurring gag via game nights. Funny as the idea was, I didn't expect Fox to actually do it. You can imagine my surprise when this popped up in my inbox a few days later. Consider this doodle a long overdue 'thank you'. Here we see the crazy Cath lifting weights with, of all peeps, Bumper! No doubt the little marshmallow's here for moral support since he can't actually build up any muscle mass. Ghost problems, am I right? Hope you enjoy this silly little sketch, Fox. Next time I'll have Cath bench-pressing your mortal nemesis; a train.

[3] TOOK ME LONG ENOUGH Despite what I said about Pizza Monster, he actually wasn't the last sketch to be included. No, that honor goes to the metal mercenary, the bodacious bot bounty hunter, the anarchistic anti-hero herself; Candy Banger! Much like the aforementioned monster I figured it had been too long since I drew Candy or really any of the robotic cast of 3K. Atop of that, Candy represented a good chance for me to use the stockpile of poses I've saved up from a thumb drive. Using one from a tumblr site called @posereference turned out to be surprisingly easier than anticipated, the only real flaw in the end being how I colored her. This is one of many coloring errors I made on this piece, Candy's hair looking more bluish purple than I had intended. Still, considering I drew her at all, I doubt Candy's complaining. Here's hoping I can draw more of her in the future, otherwise I might be riddled with bullet holes like that wall behind her. 

[4] AN AVERAGE DAY AT WHIMSYLAND And thus we've arrived to the first sketch of this compilation given to me by a friend, this one coming from @jackieariane. She and I both suffered during the Chapek administration of Disney, Jart regaling me with tales of when she dealt with rude customers at Animal Kingdom. It reminded me of when my friends AnimatedTigerGirl and RigbyH00ves worked at the Floridan Park too, all three of my companions having a surprisingly miserable experience. All these stories started melting together in my brain until I asked the question; what would happen if Brooklyn Nine Nine was set at Disneyland? Thus Whimsyland was born, albeit originally out of spite towards Chapek. I already detailed all this back in the DUDELZ from the Dumpster I posted earlier this year, but I failed to mention the human protagonist of this story, Wendy. Having been to Whimsyland once in her life at a young age, the young Vietnamese gal with OCD was immediately smitten by the place, vowing she'd someday work there. Spending the rest of her life researching the park and watching Matt Whimsy documentaries on uView, you can imagine Wendy's disappointment when she returned to the Perkiest Place on the Planet to find nothing was as perky. Whimsyland had lost its whimsy. It's here where she met Freddy Fox, the cartoon mascot of the company living in exile over how the house Matt built is being run today. In other words, what I'd imagine Mickey would be doing if he were real. Together these two kindred spirits are set to bring magic back to this wonderland! Overall I'm pleased with how the sketch turned out, though Wendy's face reminds me of my character Sue the Game Genie more than I'd prefer. Also, Fred Fox is way bigger than intended, no doubt I'll be changing that for future depictions of these two. For now though, this drawing has just enough Whimsy for my liking. 

[5] CROCZILLA: BLOOD CURSE More Discord Shenanigans! This time it's the result of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that @burningthrucelluloid somehow roped me into yet again. Instead of robots and dragons set in a medieval fantasy however, this time it's elves and crocodiles in an approximation of the American south. One ruled by Jerimiah Strahd, a ruthless blood-sucking bastard that Alec based off Leonardo DiCaprio's character from Django Unchained. If that wasn't a sign of how crazy this campaign has become, here's an actual moment from the game. The heroic but hesitant human Jason (YoungSamurai18), the loud-mouthed scaredy cat Toby (Mr-Herp-Derp), and the silent but deadly Ed (void-android), and the equally hungry and adventurous Crocie (me, of course) were hunting for a witch named Bubba Lysiga when all of a sudden the witch brought her mobile home to life in order to attack our heroes. Worse still, she put Ed under mind control to attack his comrades. Croc got the worst of it, his HP dropping to 0 due to him falling from the house and getting stomped on by its gigantic set of wooden chicken legs. Did I mention this campaign gets strange? Well it got even crazier when a dark, shadowy entity housed in Croc's body suddenly gave him a recharge, the reptile taking the chance to mix a Heat and Growth potion he obtained earlier to become CROCZILLA! It was a moment Alec was hoping would happen in game and I didn't intend on disappointing. Same goes for this sketch, it mostly going just as envisioned in my head. The pissed off look on my green friend's face, the damage done to the rusty trailer that is the witch's house, the tiny silhouettes of Croc's teammates in said home, the heavy fog, the Earth-shattering roar in the background, it all came out great. Save for one detail. You'll notice that Croc's eyes are black with red irises in this pic. That detail's due to Croc having blood curse abilities, hence the dark entity sharing rental space in his body. As such, you'd think Croc's fire breath would be just as vibrantly red, but sadly that idea didn't occur to me until after I made the fire blue as well as the shine off every surface. Spam it! Still, coloring hiccup aside, I'm mighty proud of this pic! Hopefully so are the rest of the Barovian Bozos that make up my team. 

[6] WONDER ZIGGY, CINEPHILE FROM THE PLANET GARBONZA EVEN MORE DISCORD SHENANIGANS! Cut to a few months back and I was restructuring my Discord server, cutting down the multiple move threads it had before merging them all into one. Being the story-driven bozo I am, I quickly wrote a backstory for this thread involving an alien named Ziggy falling in love with the Earth B-Movies he was picking up on his deep space probe. So much so that he came down to our planet only to discover there were even MORE types of movies for him to enjoy! It overwhelmed him so much that he blacked out, awakening the next day having purchased a since abandoned drive-in theater on the outskirts of Clarksburg. Faced with this new impulse purchase, Ziggy followed the oldest piece of wisdom known to man or alien; Screw it. After a refurb Ziggy reopened the drive-in, screening B Movies and cinematic shlock to an appreciative public. And if you can believe it, I typed all of that out after thinking about it for five minutes. My brain is weird like that. All that said, it'd take a couple of RP sessions before I got his personality down, that being an MST3K character if the show were written by Joe-Bob Briggs. In other words, a surprisingly well educated weirdo with a deep love of Hollywood history. It'd take me a while longer before finally sketching him, basing him off the titular villain from Robot Monster, an appropriate design for someone who loves old, cheesy movies. All he was missing was a pink Hawaiian shirt and a cowboy hat. If you think he's strange, you should meet his wife Wanda, though let's save that for a future BOOM...

[7] LOOKIN' SPAM GOOD! What better way to show my friends I care than drawing them in ridiculous outfits? This sketch, the first to be included in this BOOM, is a merging of two repurposed ideas I had for other pictures. The first would've involved the Swedish menace Finjix with a fish bowl on his head much to the confusion of Alec, the recipient of a kawaii make over. I can't remember where the fishbowl idea spawned from but Sir Alec the Adorable came from him scoffing at the idea that I could make anything cute, himself included. Just you wait Alec, I'll get you someday! For now though I swapped out making him uber-adorable in favor of dressing him up like the Wasp from Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the awesome animated show he finally binge-watched on my behalf. Granted I could've drawn him as Maria Hill, the character on the show he deemed the sexiest, but it wouldn't have been as funny. After all, all Maria's outfit is a blue jumpsuit. Far less interesting than Jart's leather jacket, an image that popped into my noggin following her telling me she's learning to ride a bike. That and me desperately clinging onto the back as she gave me a ride, but that would've been harder to draw. Instead I went for the jacket, a fashion statement that would be stupid in real life since she lives in the infamously hot country of Vietnam. Yet even in the face of logic, Jart not only humored me but encouraged me to include this in the final sketch. Thank goodness she did cuz I love how it turned out, minus the green stripes that were accidentally colored black like the rest. DRATS! Not only that but she informed me that she was no longer using her fursona, instead opting to draw herself as a human from now on. DOUBLE DRATS! Ah well, I have more ideas involving 'Trang the Tyrant' as I've nicknamed her, so chances are I'll get the chance to correct both mistakes in the future. It might also give me another chance to draw myself as Super Giraffe, which was what I originally intended to do with my own fursona. Sadly the costume still needs work so instead I opted for my classic Pagonian Wizard robes. Even in the face of all these snafus, I think we all look spam good!

[8] ROSIE STARDUST, SPACE WIZARD Turns out I'm always right even when I'm spewing nonsense. Don't believe me? Plenty of peeps have made that mistake before. Take my friend Alec for example. In the midst of him running the current Strahd campaign I mentioned earlier, I jokingly tossed out the idea of Rosie transporting our heroes out of Barovia and into another universe. A cute 'What If' scenario the Dungeon Master wasted no time in shooting down. Mistaking my silly suggestion as a legit one, Alec explained how unfair it'd be for a god to play a game with a bunch of mortal meatbags. Let the record show that I never declared the sentient Einstein-Rosen Bridge to be a deity. Some alien cultures have mistaken her from one, but Rosie herself would be the first to tell you she's no holy being. Not that any of that mattered. Alec held firm to his statement, Rosie was denied access to any dungeons. For about six seconds before my buddy realized how a depowered Rosie would make a wonderful wizard for a Spelljammers campaign. Fueling this fire was his recent watching of The Owl House, imagining Rosie rocking wizard robes similar to those worn by The Good Witch Azura. Before I could say, "NOW EAT THIS SUCKA," he was leading the charge on my server of peeps demanding I draw Rosie as a space wizard. At first I was floored at the audacity! You shoot down an idea that wasn't meant to be taken seriously only for you to turn around and do so anyway? MAKE UP YOUR SPAM MIND! Then I followed Alec's example and got over it, the idea of Rosie in wizards robes too tempting a sketch not to capitalize on. In the end the only aspect of Azura that made it into the final product was the hat, minus the cute lil' crown. Everything else took cues from the fashion of @cherrysdesigns along with a style @girlofhearts101 turned me towards called whimsigoth. All of which resulting in an costume that gave Alec 'David Bowie Ziggy Stardust vibes'. It's thanks to that comment that Rosie now has a last name. Everyone, say hello to Rosie Stardust, universal explorer and space wizard!

[9] DIREKTOR AND 3D1T0-R Is there a Hollywood equivalent in the Star Wars universe? Some sort of glamorous planet where overpaid alien celebrities are shamelessly rebooting beloved classics for a profit? All while amazing writers are getting screwed out of the earnings they deserve? This was what I asked Alec during his binge watching of The Clone Wars. Surprising me once more, the Masked Maniac revealed that he had asked SIM-N the same question before, the two creating a character called The Direktor for their Monova comics. Her whole gimmick was producing hypnotic propaganda for the tyrannical Twin Emperors, a cool concept that never went anywhere due to the robotroll cutting From Destiny's Ashes short. Being the character man that I am, I decided The Direktor couldn't go to waste. Especially when she'd make such a good villain in the world of 3K and a good addition to this BOOM. After asking SIM-N for the character's original reference sheet I set out to give her a Clarktoon makeover while watching cutscenes of The Second Sister from Jedi: Fallen Order. No doubt Elizabeth Grullon's intimidating vocal performance effected my outcome, the alien movie maker now sporting a streamlined outfit along with a smugly sinister smile on her face. As apposed to her boss, the Direktor's little droid 3D1T0-R hardly changed in the transition. He was a little creepy ball to start and he's still a little creepy ball now. One that was cooked up by Alec according to SIM-N, which makes sense given our pal's passion for film editing. Once the two were fully drawn I decided to test out my shading and lighting techniques in an attempt to make her look more menacing. If the response I got from the others on Discord is any indication, I succeeded. Indeed, this fem fatale filmmaker will fit in phenomenally as a 3K villain. Now the question is to who? 

[10] JURAKISS Finally we conclude things with a sketch somewhat prompted by @zernna. Way back in August of last year she was commissioned to draw my cretaceous crusader Saura and her girlfriend Patricia enjoying a delightful day at the pool, a pic as charming as that description would imply. In my comment thanking Ze I couldn't help but laugh at how the two had already been declared a cute couple despite how I hadn't drawn the two together in my own artwork yet. The Alien Artist than demanded I draw 'moar art of them then', prompting me to ask if that was a challenge. She said yes. Though not from a lack of trying, it took me nine freak'n months to meet that challenge. Blame that on me being a picky artist since I have been meaning to draw references of these characters in the meantime. After all, Zerna got asked to draw Saura in other pics without having any color references for the Blue Beast of Fosslin. Fortunately Saura's shown up in a number of previous Sketch BOOMs, now getting to share the spotlight with Patricia here. A Patricia that would've been notably paler were it not for Alec asking if I had any markers that matched Patricia's skin tone. I didn't, but the local hobby store did! Who knew Sharpie made skintone markers? It not only helped me color in the cute Muslim girl here, but also Cath and Wendy later on. Talk about a perfect purchase! Now if only the colors of Patricia's outfit were as satisfactory. Ah well, there's always next time, since I'm pretty sure Zerna's challenge still stands. XP For now though, I hope you all enjoy this compilations of crazy scribblings fresh from my mind. If you didn't, worry not, chances are I'll be making another one soon....

MAY THE GLASSES BE WITH YOU ALL!