#like i do not claim to be a pixel artist i have an interest in it but hand pixelling is not a specialty of mine

[gaysheep]

i am literally astounded by how bad the pixel art in hatsune miku logic paint is. like youd think the developers for a puzzle game in a genre that revolves around filling in a 1-bit grid to reveal an illustration would think to hire a guy who's good at pixel art

this is supposed to be a piano keyboard. why is there so much anti-aliasing in this 10x10 image.

[lynxnothinks2]

FR Fanart Stats

Have you ever wondered which FR dragons are the most popular to draw? No? Well clearly you're not a university student with looming deadlines, a severe procrastination problem and unlimited access to research grade statistics software let's dive in

Originally I was doing this to see which dragons I'd drawn the most for commissions over the years, but then I got curious generally about if the popularity of dragon breeds correlated with the amount of fanart produced. We artists are always fighting algorithms and trends, so this info may be useful to those of us looking to utilise them!

A brief intro/some disclaimers to the data:

I've only included modern breeds as they are more numerous than ancients on-site, have been around for less time (excl. Obelisks) and Excel was already protesting with what I had so I saved myself the headache. Look forward to the ancient breed sequel ahahahah :P that's a joke i'm not doing this again

For my 'tumblr popularity' data, I counted the breed of dragon of the first 100 featured in the '#flight rising art' tag. I excluded ancients and any unidentifiable breeds. Each individual dragon was counted in multi-image posts, unless if the dragon(s) in question were in a comic, series etc. in which case each unique dragon was counted once.

Assuming my personal commission stats are the least interesting to most people, but I'll give some background. I started doing comms in mid-2018, producing art at a relatively impressive volume (rip my time and motivation.) I do a lot less FR art now, but if we assume breed popularity has stayed consistent since then the only breed this should really effect are Obelisks as the newbies.

And then finally, on-site breed popularity. I used the dragon search feature on FR to identify the number of named, active dragons for each breed. Total dragons as of 27/01/24, if you were curious: 12,924,070! That's a lot of guys!!

I threw everything into percentages, then made a graph. it's got issues probably but my degree isn't in niche pixel dragon info and i was getting bored at this point

I ran some stuff through statistical tests but they don't show anything remarkable that you can't see in the graph. Rstudio claimed a few more years from my lifespan for naught

Conclusions:

Skydancers and Imperials are crazy popular in all categories, but SDs are Tumblr's favourite

Obelisks and Ridgebacks do disproportionately well on Tumblr compared to their site popularity

Snappers and Bogsneaks are pretty unpopular across the board. I've never drawn either! But at least snaps are getting a bit of love on here

The popularity of Faes and Guardians on-site is not significantly reflected in fanart (excl. Guardian comms for me which is? an odd outlier??)

Mirrors and Nocturnes are not popular on Tumblr - found the latter interesting as I thought there may be lingering bias from NotN, but apparently not

Coatls, Pearlcatchers, Spirals and Tundras are pretty consistent between categories. Nothing really of note for these guys except for less people wanting me to draw spirals (good they're complicated)

I could draw a Wildclaw with my eyes closed and although that will not make me popular, it can make me money

Well that was a good use of 4 hours I'm going to write my essay now

and if you'd like to show your support for this cool art stats guy check out my main @lynxnothinks commissions are open thank you byeee

[thealexchen]

What do you think about the 'Lesbian Max' discourse?? There's a lot of debate on Max's sexuality again...and a lot of pricefielders who think Max is a lesbian....are not okay tbh. Like i saw a person the other day begging the devs to confirm Max was a lesbian (not a bisexual) and to remove Warren and his kiss option from the games, because his pixel ass existence is ?????. I dunno...um I think this fandom is going fucking insane.

I dunno, I’ve always thought Max was bi. Isn’t it weird that fans accept Rachel as unambiguously bi when the only guys she’s associated with are much older predatory men? LiS is still a choice-based game, so I don’t know why kissing Warren is a less valid scene than Max and Chloe kissing. If you can choose to pursue either a guy or a girl, I think that would make her bi. Of course comphet is real, but a male LI doesn’t diminish the same sex romance or Max’s queerness.

If anything, this discourse is likely due to how older (and straight) writers vs. younger audiences view queerness. Young audiences want role models; they want to see characters with the labels they use and find visibility and comfort. They prefer unambiguous queerness and characters who are bold and proud in a (privileged, liberal, developed, Western) landscape that wants to silence them, compared to decades past where people had to stay closeted for their literal survival and didn’t have the knowledge or vocabulary to label themselves. Older writers like DN never intended LiS to stand for queerness and wrote it as one of many themes in the game, likely seeing it as an artistic choice and not part of Max’s identity as a character. Some older directors also talk about queerness as “just like any love,” and believe a lack of labels supports that idea, while younger queer people are rejecting this assimilationist narrative and want to show how queerness and queer culture is different from the mainstream.

I think not including an opposite sex love interest could contribute to that rejection, like not giving straight gamers a straight option, especially since most choice-based games word it so that the player “chooses” the protagonist’s sexuality, rather than the character being bisexual by default. That’s also why it was big deal that in True Colors, Alex is confirmed to have been with guys and girls before the game starts, so her bisexuality is canon regardless of player choice. True Colors can actually claim that representation. So the debate is definitely rooted in valid concerns, but I’m just not that invested. This is why I’m not on Twitter, lmao.

[macabremayhem]

Hot take & kinda bitter pill: The main reason for the death of fandom is censorship within fandom. "This pairing is good and it's okay, but this pairing is bad and we will attack you if you ship the Wrong Pairing™ instead of the Right Pairing™".

And I have seen this many times with my own eyes. This is what people do. But what if fandom is just a fandom and pixels are just pixels? And someone is just here to HAVE FUN instead of the Morality™ Lessons? And maybe someone is even... mature enough to decide what they're like?

It's so funny to see when my posts are faved by people with "anti-proship" in their profile, because... wow, isn't my favourite OTP someone like you has claiming as proship, lol?

But not funny when you, say, look for some favourite content by relevant hashtag and see tons... of content you dislike and NOT RELEVANT, just because authors added all the hashtags for force-feeding. Thank you. But no. When I search for my favourite content on the special hashtag, I want to see my favourite content on the special hashtag. Is that a complicated concept?

Also not funny when you find the artist who draws such good stuff with your OTP and... discover that this artist has left the fandom because someone decided to be a "ship police" and attacked this artist. Thank you for that shit.

But please, can someone answer my question: why do you think your OTP is better than mine? And why do you think you can impose your opinion on me or anyone else? Are you the shining paladin in the white robe? Who do you think you are to judge us?

What can I say? Oh, I have so much to say, really. Maybe as a person who doesn't like the evil characters in the sugar syrup. Maybe as a person who makes a very clear distinction between reality and fantasy. Or, for that matter, as a person who has an opinion about common tropes in fandom and disagrees with them, based on my experience (has anyone here heard of the concept of interesting literature and why it is usually interesting? The smallest hint: it's interesting because it has realistic, well-drawn characters, even in fantasy). And for some reasons I know: even my relevant experience does not forbid to someone to have their own fantasies. And that is not even what I want to achieve.

Again. I'm not here to forbid anything, I'm here to say: leave us alone. Don't bother the creators, don't force-feed your creations to someone who doesn't share your vision.

Spoilers: NO ONE HAS TO BE LIKE YOU. People are... different? They love different things, and who are YOU to shame them? As long as it doesn't hurt anyone (really hurt!). But before you contradict me, I'll repeat: I have some personal opinions and some real background to contradict YOU. And I really don't want to start a holy war.

But why, a few months ago, I was talking to a person about the Valdemar headcanones, and they, in between, careful expressed their opinion about intersexual human!Valdemar (not AMAB, not AFAB!), to avoid conflict with others — who had never been in our conversation. WHY?! You call yourselves "an open and friendly community" and someone even friendly attacked creators like: "you can't ship Valdemar with %charactername%, they're aroace! How dare you erase the aroaces!!?" (sorry, I have problems with socialising, is that what friendly people do? *sarcasm*) and... what do I say? People with a slightly different opinion are trying to be careful! I see the artists who did NOTHING wrong, but were forced to leave the fandom. I see the artists who have been forced to publicly apologise for their art, or even delete their art. How dare you and who you are?

Don't tell anyone what to do with their fanart. Because I have seen it so many times and it is disgusting. Where someone tries to justify their headcanons like "it's ok, aroaces can be in relationships! (but only with my MC of course)", someone was forced to leave the fandom just because another someone saw themselves as the morality police.

And there were many REALLY GOOD ARTISTS. With beautiful art styles, interesting art, unusual headcanons. But all I see now... is what I see.

And I really need to say a lot more than I have. Many of these things come from my own experience (and, my fellow children, you couldn't even handle a person with a personality disorder, I guarantee it), you judge the practices you know nothing about (like BDSM), or you tell aroace creators what aroaces have to do. And if anyone should say that, it should be me. Why does the person with no empathy have more empathy than you? Why my only goal is not to forbid someone to create their M.C., even if I don't like the whole concept, but... idk. Maybe make someone think about it. Don't even defend another creators, because it's too late.

Fandom is dead because people are acting as moral police. But let's guess, what happens when I try to tell you something? What if I said: "Yes, aroaces can have a relationship with someone, but they will most likely behave differently than you imagine"? Who will be the first to accuse me of "YOU'RE FORBIDDING US TO DO WHAT WE WANT! IT'S JUST A FANTASY!"? Even if I tell you only from my own experience. Even if I repeat ten thousand times: "I can't forbid anything, my opinion is my opinion", someone will be mad about it. But it's me, the person who doesn't have the content of amazing artists because they LEAVE the fandom. Me, but not you. Because people take it too seriously or something. And why do you think it's a funny joke to leave comments like "oh, how dare you, Valdemar is mine!" or "Julian is mine, bitch, stay out!!1"? Should I bombard you with the same comments like "what a bitch with Valdemar, I don't like it, stay out!1!1"? Should it be funny? Will you laugh at it? And why don't I want to do it, even if something happens to me? Should I give a person a dose of their own medicine? Or will someone cry and not find such joke funny when it turn around?

So many questions and no answers. And for several years now I see it in the fandom. I'm tired. And I know why many people have left the fandom, and most of the time I see no content I like. But what do I see? People who don't like the content of Dorian. People who want something different and who have fucking standards that don't include attacking people who don't share their vision! People who have standards of writing quality, who want to improve their art, just to make favourite content for themselves! I see people who just want something interesting. But I see NOTHING but the original NixHydra routes, especially the first three. Or something rare, some pieces that miraculously survived. And I am not even talking about the attacks on the NH members. There's nothing special for their burnout. So, enjoy the Dorian.

Because if the fandom is sterile — this fandom is dead. Dixi.

[lionews]

"Anybody got anything to say about Xy/the custom decor process in general? Im not an artist so i dont know how it works, but i just read an interesting post on Wolvden (i know its not the same game, but, yno, same team) about how the rejection/approval times can take up to months, Xy will condescend and mansplain about the art process and decors get rejected for the most asinine reasons. Anyone can confirm/deny?" OH BOY! Now this is my niche! I have been making custom decors for around a year now, and have over 50 approved decors as of now. And god damn, I have a scathing review for the custom decor process. First Claim: rejection/approval times can take up to months Yeah. Sounds about right, especially for Wolvden. I've never submitted a custom decor there (I've rolled over a grand total of 5 times on that site) but unless you're well known to the art team (took me a couple of months of weekly decor submissions to get to it) responses will take anywhere between 1 day and 2 weeks,

Second claim: Xy will condescend and mansplain about the art process

In my experience, it hasn't ever seemed that way. BUT, Xylax has a habit of being very unclear in his denials. As in, he will give a reason, but like... how the hell do you fix it? He will deny detailed decors for being 'too pixelated' when there are official decors with the thinnest lineart known to man. I'm looking at you, African Flower Ornaments [White]. Where the FUCK is your 1.5-2px thick line art.

Xylax's standards move based on how the hell he feels sometimes. I got this denied, but this decor is approved? (both are mine, btw.) Winter Mane [White] - Denied 3/4 times. Might start work on it again, if I can get it approved. Was denied... for line art being too light and not having a fur texture. Lovely. What the fuck.

Monstera [Green], my first ever approved decor.

Not to mention the decor submission process just feels totally outdated, like a lot of the rest of the site. I really hope it gets overhauled, or, at least, when decors are made to be able to fit mutations, they add that to the custom decors ability. I would hate having to spend 70gb per piece of decor for my decors to fit all major mutations (Felis, Ferus, Smilus, Primal, Leopon, Tigon, and the Jaglions) I've been told Spirited will be added to the custom decor submission categories for posed decors, SO, it's not out of the range of possibility. Thank you for coming to my ted talk

.

[miloscat]

[Review] Antonball Deluxe (NS)

Wario meets Arkanoid meets Punch Ball Mario Bros.!

Having wrapped up my Wario Land fest, I picked this out of my backlog due to it taking some inspiration from the big goof. Summitsphere had previously published Annalynn, which models itself on arcade classics of the early 80s, and this likewise remixes ideas from retro games both popular and niche. Their next game is actually a direct Wario Land homage, but it's not out yet!

Antonball started as a pair of Game Boy homebrews made in just a few days: one a mashup of brick breaking platforming, and the other an expansion on Hudson's Punch Ball Mario Bros., which is itself a neat little remix of Mario Bros. but with a ball projectile. Antonball Deluxe fleshes both of these out, and adds a head-to-head brick-breaking Pong-esque multiplayer mode reminiscent of one of the faux-retro games in the underrated Game Center CX 3. All in all it's a nice package.

The Wario inspiration comes in the design of the main character Anton and the general tone, as well as a shoulder-barge attack that can be used in mid-air. You can also do a high-jump that looks a bit like the backflip in Donkey Kong 94 (you see, this game is very citational!). In the primary game mode, you use your moves to platform around the single-screen stages in order to body block the bouncing ball and break all the bricks. Sometimes there are enemies or hazards to avoid, and powerups to claim. There are 30 stages but I wasn't able to finish them all, as it gets super hard and it's all too easy to let balls slip past you.

I had a better time with the Punch Ball mode, whose story focuses on Anton's coworker Annie. Annie was specifically added as an equal but feminine counterpart to Anton's Wario-like depravity and goblin charisma, something the Wario series itself has always lacked. There are actually a bunch of unlockable characters, by the way, that you can freely use in any mode including the Waluigi-esque Danton, versions of Anton in different art styles, Anton's dog and Annie's cat, guests from other indie games, and—my favourite—the punny "Ant on Ball". It's an ant on a ball.

Punch Ball by its nature is less twitchy and more about carefully manoeuvring and stunning enemies with the ball so you can knock them out, with a variety of foes with different behaviours, some even interacting with the ball in interesting ways. Some clever level design gives you another 30 stages of fun in a quite different format, even though it uses the same movement engine and controls. The Switch version I played also comes bundled with what was DLC on PC, with two extra joke characters and level packs based on the original Game Boy homebrews.

Silly designs and jokey art permeate this collection, and the interstitial cutscenes add a lot of character to this wacky little world and its denizens. Full disclosure, the illustration and some cutscene art was done by my friend Cameron Reigle (hire him! commission him!), but even if I didn't know him I would be in love with the art in this game, from the goofy cutscenes to the moody backgrounds to the chunky pixel art. It's actually a shame for me that the sequel is going in a slightly different direction artistically, because the look of Antonball is so much fun (there's a grid filter on by default, but it looked better to me when I turned it off)!

I'm impressed by how Antonball was able to hone in on specific mechanics from retro games and remix them in such fun ways. It comes together really well in this package, even if I think the progression in the Antonball mode could have been a bit more merciful. I couldn't engage much with Vs. mode on my own, but I have no complaints for Punch Ball mode, it's great. Actually speaking of multiplayer, both of the solo modes can be tackled in simultaneous co-op with up to four players, which is nice. What else can I say? Check it out!

[imiging]

Hello and good day imiging team! I'd like to point out that the work of petitmonsieur1 that you reblogged recently is not photography, but an AI-generated image. Thus it can not be categorized as original photography on account of it not involving a photographer, a camera and a subject.

I know you caption your reblogs with "daily original photographs and creations", so I guess it still counts as some form of a creation. Although the rest of your reblogs are actual photography, not what petitmonsieur1 is doing.

You'll notice that their creations are entirely digitally created by taking a closer look. Skin, metal, and cloth appear way too smooth, the background is sepia like from a painting, icons and writings are indecipherable. They've even uploaded videos showing how they mess with the creation process, either by adding skeleton makeup to a person (who is posing exactly the same in both frames) or moving a person's head, covered in a knit wool ski mask, up and down from their scarf like a piston. To me those are clear indicators that their creations are not authentic as the photos, paintings and art you showcase here.

With this I hope you at the very least consider removing petitmonsieur1 from the pool of your following. One can argue whether AI-art is art, but since the focus of your page is on photography, that really doesn't have a place here.

Thank you for receiving my input. Kindest regards!

As we are obviously unable to answer directly to this anonymous expert in AI, our response is outlined below.

Dear anonymous,

You will, undoubtedly, be disappointed to learn of our disavowal of your "expertise" in this particular instance as we wish to inform you that AI was not involved in the creation of this image. As we had reservations about your claim and explanations of same, we deemed it patently obvious that our first step should be to direct ourselves to the creative source. Therefore, we messaged Petitmonsieur in order to determine exactly his process and his medium. His response was clear : "I mainly use photos, old paintings, wallpapers...and I crush the pixels as much as possible to obtain a painting effect. If I used AI, the rendering would be of better definition. In fact, I'm tinkering with Photoshop, and I find that the AI ​​stereotypes the images too much."

Upon viewing this particular photo we were, of course, unaware of the creative process (other than what the tags indicated) but we found it to be interesting and quite striking at first sight which resulted in it being chosen.

Furthermore, one might ask, what exactly defines a true photograph these days especially in the world of digitization? With the advent of digital cameras and advances in photography software (Photoshop, Lightroom, etc.) how many of these photographs, including those that started life as a film negative, use some form or other of "digitization" in the making of the final product?

AI is just another step (granted a large one) in that direction and not really so much different than using a "dehaze" or "clarity" filter in Lightroom, Healing Brush Tool in Photoshop or DeNoise AI, to name but a few of the tools used by a growing number of photographers. Even film can be "manipulated" in the darkroom or made into a digital negative and then reworked on a pc. These are all tools used to enhance the artistic aspects/creation of a great number of photographs which are regularly posted and reblogged on the Tumblr platform. (Our apologies to those of you that shoot raw and only post unedited photographs -- we love them too!)

At Imiging, our shared opinion on AI is that it has the potential for making the unreal appear real and believe it has numerous other risks and drawbacks. We have to say that it truly alarms us if only for no other reason than the obvious geo-political implications when AI is used by unscrupulous individuals or governments for nefarious purposes.

Sincerely,

The Editors of imiging

[mllenugget]

Hey!

I'm looking for tips on improving my art. I'm currently a broke-beginner but really want to improve. Any advice or drawing tips?

Oof beginner art tip ? Uhm 🤔 My Too Long Didn't Read take is : Fill your head with lots of references from real life photographies, movies, comics or any other artists that inspire you and analyse how they work and why you like them As well as practice practice practice ! Explore and experiment ! There's a LOT of free art ressources on the internet and specific tutorials for what you may be interested in Some of my personal favorites are ARVEN92's My rambling answer is :

Personally, I know that my art level stayed stuck for a very long time because I kept drawing the same things over and over again. I used to never get out of my confort zone.

Exploring new horizons is hard and frustrating and sometimes it takes a dozen of failed attempts before you finally make something look just like how you want it to (I sure did) But I can't recommend practicing and experimenting enough !

Look up artists' who inspire you and study their pieces in order to understand what you like in them (watch their speedpaints if they have any to check out their process)

Google photography of people and analyse how the lighting works. Find painting of landscapes and try to understand why such cluster of pixels looks like a bush from afar, how can you replicate that with your own hand ?

Take/Print multiple pictures of the same animal and TRACE IT, that's right don't be scared to do so ! It's a taboo topic in art communities but it shouldn't be ! As long it's not from a fellow artist and as long as you don't claim it as yours then it's perfectly fine ! So trace over it and try to get a grip of how the anatomy work and where the bones are and how the muscles wrap around all that mess. Then try to replicate that same drawing but without the model. Compare the result to the image again… See what might be off Then do it again, this time try to stylize it and shape it however you like !

Photography source

Also, don't hesitate to take a step back. You won't notice your improvement right away because, just like your own face : you see it everyday and thus may not notice the slow changes as you grow, yet they are still there ! If you feel exhausted from practicing, take a break for a couple of days and come back with a fresh eye and mindset I used to think I never changed my way of drawing horses, but once you look back how far you've come you only realize that is simply not true

[fragile-practice]

Week in Review

October 23rd-29th

Welcome to Fragile Practice, where I attempt to make something of value out of stuff I have to read.

My future plan is to do longer-form original pieces on interesting topics or trends. For now, I'm going to make the weekly reviews habitual and see if I have any time left.

Technology

OpenAI forms team to study ‘catastrophic’ AI risks, including nuclear threats - Tech Crunch; Kyle Wiggers

OpenAI launched a new research team called AI Safety and Security to investigate the potential harms of artificial intelligence focused on AI alignment, AI robustness, AI governance, and AI ethics.

Note: Same energy as “cigarette company funds medical research into smoking risks”.

Artists Allege Meta’s AI Data Deletion Request Process Is a ‘Fake PR Stunt’ - Wired; Kate Knibbs

Artists who participated in Meta’s Artificial Intelligence Artist Residency Program accused the company of failing to honor their data deletion requests and claim that Meta used their personal data to train its AI models without their consent.

Note: Someday we will stop being surprised that corporate activities without obvious profit motive are all fake PR stunts.

GM and Honda ditch plan to build cheaper electric vehicles - The Verge; Andrew J. Hawkins

General Motors and Honda cancel their joint venture to develop and produce cheaper electric vehicles for the US market, citing the chip shortage, rising costs of battery materials, and the changing market conditions.

Note: What are the odds this isn’t related to the 7 billion dollars the US government announced to create hydrogen hubs.

'AI divide' across the US leaves economists concerned - The Register; Thomas Claburn

A new study by economists from Harvard University and MIT reveals a significant gap in AI adoption and innovation across different regions in the US.

The study finds that AI usage is highest in California's Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area, but was also noted in Nashville, San Antonio, Las Vegas, New Orleans, San Diego, and Tampa, as well as Riverside, Louisville, Columbus, Austin, and Atlanta.

Nvidia to Challenge Intel With Arm-Based Processors for PCs - Bloomberg; Ian King

Nvidia is using Arm technology to develop CPUs that would challenge Intel processors in PCs, and which could go on sale as soon as 2025.

Note: I am far from an NVIDIA fan, but I’m stoked for any amount of new competition in the CPU space.

New tool lets artists fight AI image bots by hiding corrupt data in plain sight - Engadget; Sarah Fielding

A team at the University of Chicago created Nightshade, a tool that lets artists fight AI image bots by adding undetectable pixels into an image that can alter how a machine-learning model produces content and what that finished product looks like.

Nightshade is intended to protect artists work and has been tested on both Stable Diffusion and an in-house AI built by the researchers.

IBM's NorthPole chip runs AI-based image recognition 22 times faster than current chips - Tech Xplore; Bob Yirka

NorthPole combines the processing module and the data it uses in a two-dimensional array of memory blocks and interconnected CPUs, and is reportedly inspired by the human brain.

NorthPole can currently only run specialized AI processes and not training processes or large language models, but the researchers plan to test connecting multiple chips together to overcome this limitation.

Apple’s $130 Thunderbolt 4 cable could be worth it, as seen in X-ray CT scans - Ars Technica; Kevin Purdy

Note: These scans are super cool. And make me feel somewhat better about insisting on quality cables. A+.

The Shifting Web

On-by-default video calls come to X, disable to retain your sanity - The Register; Brandon Vigliarolo

Video and audio calling is limited to anyone you follow or who is in your address book, if you granted X permission to comb through it.

Calling other users also requires that they’ve sent at least one direct message to you before.

Only premium users can place calls, but everyone can receive them.

Google Search Boss Says Company Invests to Avoid Becoming ‘Roadkill’ - The New York Times; Nico Grant

Google’s senior vice president overseeing search said that he sees a world of threats that could humble his company at any moment.

Google Maps is getting new AI-powered search updates, an enhanced navigation interface and more - Tech Crunch; Aisha Malik

Note: These AI recommender systems are going to be incredibly valuable advertising space. It is interesting that Apple decided to compete with Google in maps but not in basic search, but has so far not placed ads in the search results.

Reddit finally takes its API war where it belongs: to AI companies - Ars Technica; Scharon Harding

Reddit met with generative AI companies to negotiate a deal for being paid for its data, and may block crawlers if no deal is made soon.

Note: Google searches for info on Reddit often seem more effective than searching Reddit itself.  If they are unable to make a deal, and Reddit follows through, it will be a legitimate loss for discoverability but also an incredibly interesting experiment to see what Reddit is like without Google.

Bandcamp’s Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off - 404 Media; Emanuel Maiberg

Bandcamp’s new owner (Songtradr) offered jobs to just half of existing employees, with cuts disproportionately hitting union leaders. Every member of the union’s eight-person bargaining team was laid off, and 40 of the union's 67 members lost their jobs.

Songtradr spokesperson Lindsay Nahmiache claimed that the firm didn’t have access to union membership information.

Note: This just sucks. Bandcamp is rad, and it’s hard to imagine it continuing to be rad after this. I wonder if Epic had ideas for BC that didn’t work out.

Surveillance & Digital Privacy

Mozilla Launches Annual Digital Privacy 'Creep-o-Meter'. This Year's Status:  'Very Creepy' - Slashdot

Mozilla gave the current state of digital privacy a 75.6/100, with 100 being the creepiest.

They measured security features, data collection, and data sharing practices of over 500 gadgets, apps, and cars to come up with their score.

Every car Mozilla tested failed to meet their privacy and security standards.

Note: It would be great if even one auto brand would take privacy seriously.

EPIC Testifies in Support of Massachusetts Data Privacy and Protection Act -Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)

Massachusetts version of ADPPA.

Note: While it may warm my dead heart to see any online privacy protections in law, scrambling to do so in response to generative AI is unlikely to protect Americans in any meaningful way from the surveillance driven form of capitalism we’ve all been living under for decades.

Complex Spy Platform StripedFly Bites 1M Victims - Dark Reading

StripedFly is a complex platform disguised as a cryptominer and evaded detection for six years by using a custom version of EternalBlue exploit, a built-in Tor network tunnel, and trusted services like GitLab, GitHub, and Bitbucket to communicate with C2 servers and update its functionality.

iPhones have been exposing your unique MAC despite Apple's promises otherwise - Ars Technica

A privacy feature which claimed to hide the Wi-Fi MAC address of iOS devices when joining a network was broken since iOS 14, and was finally patched in 17.1, released on Wednesday.

Note: I imagine this bug was reported a while ago, but wasn’t publically reported until the fix was released as a term of apple’s bug bounty program.

What the !#@% is a Passkey? - Electronic Frontier Foundation

Note: I welcome our passkey overlords.

[mossify]

hi! :D hi there! :3

THE BASICS

the moss.

Moss or Manny

he/they

aroace and i guess transgender? maybe just agender. idk.

Random Interests

Chonny Jash

literally any mcyt (mostly Purpled)

Will Wood (And The Tapeworms)

Lemon Demon

Tally Hall

Should I just put indie artists?

The Amazing Digital Circus

Billie Bust Up

Ninjago (Zane my boy :])

Chikin Nuggit

Smokeebee

Anthropology (Did you know that the man who invented the frisbee—)

I can't think of more :/

Random Shit

side blogs: @mossifier @ask-showfall-media @pixelation-of-posts @jandthf-daily

reblog tags (art only. I only add comments if it's a text post, and if I have any): #monch #moss monch

autism + adhd

uh.

emoticons. yea. I use em.

tone tags, blease, I need em. 3:

DISCLAIMER

I might like art without reblogging it, mainly due to not wanting to articulate my thumbs to add the reblog tag.

(Just reblog it without the tag?)

I have a NEED to tell artists how much my stomach has claimed their art. If I see a piece of art that I haven't reblogged: I will do so later. I always have.

DISCLAIMER NUMERO DOS

I will not create multiple blogs for different interests, fuck that. You can handle my autism.

DISCLAIMER #3

I am NOT a Dream supporter. I like his silly little SMP lore, but I do not like the actual person. Please do not send hate just for me liking something/someone who's even moderately interacted with Dream.

I also don't support Wilbur.

bye! :3

[fruityyamenrunner]

this is a good cut and read of crumb.

Just like neural net generated text or images, we are so overwhelmed by the low-order correlations, the pixel to pixel or word to word coherency, that we easily become convinced there must be a there there, because we don’t ever encounter such fluent text or locally coherent images which don’t have any global meaning. The generated samples are parasitic on human samples, which do have multiple levels of structure, and payoffs for thinking about it. But the longer we look at a generated sample, the more we realize that it’s “just one d—n thing after another”, and it adds up to less than the sum of its parts. We put more into it than we get out; it is the artistic equivalent of a scam, or those videos on social media where the gimmick is that it is impossibly blatantly wrong or always looks like it’s about to make sense, to keep you watching and troll a reaction out of you. (It is not even good pornography.)It is also no wonder that Crumb was so popular among the hippies and fit in with the psychedelic artwork of the era: the signature feature of that style is that it is packed with meaningless detail, which means nothing, but feels important. (Isn’t it interesting that a false feeling of profundity, insight, and unity is also one of the most striking aspects of the psychedelic experience?) Crumb’s LSD-caused art was the perfect fit for an era of LSD-affected readers

the robot artist is an extremely illustrating technology because it exposes a lot of frauds like crumb.

i mention every time i post about the robot art that the people who freaked out about it the most when it was released were precisely the sort of people gwern talks about here: people whose sensibility was bust open by schizophrenia, or psychotomimetics, or initiation into occult nonsense, who were presented with evidence that their ~spiritual visualisations~ were crude and even pre-artistic.

critics have been saying as much for a long time, but having a machine prove it was something else.

gwern mentions crumb's illustrated genesis and thinks there's nothing to say, but I think there is a little. crumb claims:

he has, as it were, recapitulated the fate of the prophet. visionary art is a crude rorschach, and where it resonates it is because the artist is best considered an agent of something greater than himself, even if the something greater than himself is only a genuine artist who can apply thought to a prophet's automaticity, or even a critic who can turn a basquiat scrawl into something worth a million dollars.

the genesis book is therefore very dull, because what you see is the product of a prophet who has been always-already sacerdotalised. a prophet precisely *intends* to ridicule and make jokes -- crumb in crumb mode is more genuinely prophetic than when he illustrates the Bible! These are some typical pages:

this is dreamlike, in the sense of "some people appeared and said things". pure automatism -- these are the kinds of dreams that artists do not usually find worth remembering.

[nevros-fr]

Three Kinds of Chickensmoothie Pets :)

I've realized a lot of people have heard of the pet site Chickensmoothie (CS) but probably only get as far as the site pets and just stop there. I want to just put it out there that there is a lot more to do! It's a small community but it has great community driven events.

TLDR: I wanted to highlight Oekaki pets and pixel adopts to more people! They deserve to be more popular! Oekaki pets are drawn by anyone often us the CS browser drawing app, Oekaki. Pixel adopts are usually drawn in a different program and shared on site for people to adopt. Most of these adopts are totally free but you have to put in some elbow grease to adopt them.

Keep reading if that interests you :0c

Chickensmoothie Crash Course:

Why the name Chickensmoothie? Tess, the creator, really liked chickens and made a website that was a "smoothie" of a lot of what she liked at the time and called it Chickensmoothie. That website was pretty short lived but she reused the name for her pet site.

The Site Pets

You essentially log on every month to adopt pets that site artists make. You can log in during holidays to get special pets, there are three "banner" events a year where you scavenger hunt for tokens to trade in for pets. These events are: Summer Break, Halloween, and Easter.

The other type of event is to just log in for pets which is the Advent Calendar for the month of December. Log in everyday for a new pet - Dec 18 being the day when three rare+ are given as gifts to everyone.

Oekaki Pets

I have been on CS for 10+ years on and off, but what really gets my goat are the oekaki closed species! Closed species is a group where the artists make designs for people to adopt.

If you were on the deviant art closed species boom, this is like that but 80% of the oekaki ones are free. Closed species are usually designs that you pay for or you pay for make your own or custom slots to get a design that you can call a closed species.

On CS, what happens is that one or two people make lines on the oekaki program and the artists colour them in to make designs!

I can make a tutorial on navigation later but in any case, you can click on the oekaki image and it leads you to a page like this: Marumis are currently the hit closed species right now. The big image are the original lines and the smaller images under them will lead to pets that you can adopt.

How do you adopt one? It can be a raffle, answering a writing prompt and/or draw an answer. Do your best to develop a character for the art and you can win the adopt! I think it's a great, low stakes way to practice writing and drawing.

Pixel Pets

On CS they are considered UMAs - user made adoptables because they are in the area of the forums. Not to be confused with user made accents on FR.

UMAs are often pixel styled pets. These buddies are completely luck to get since artists put out a batch and you just have to hope you are one of the first people to post a claim form, first come, first served style.

The newest group on the block that I really like are Sqim! They are cute critters that are having a belated Halloween event. You just have to post a few forms, do a few tasks and bam, Sqim!

Here are some of my recent favourites from all three categories:

Smallest to largest:

Site pet hamster from Halloween 2024

Wermz UMA made by Oblivion

Marumi adopt made by phione.

I hope I opened your eyes to the delights of Chickensmoothie.

Now go explore the pets on CS! Adopt some pets! Make your own!

[valend]

Well well well. Look who climbed out of his hole, at last. I was starting to get worried you choked on your own spit while vomiting out another 'message' as you call them. Personally, my only guess to why you do so is because you're sending them to devil himself, as an application letter to the position of his right-hand man. If he does not be so horrified he steps down from his own throne and gives it to you. Might as well happen. Not a surprise if it would, anyways. You are outslutting him enough.As 'pleasant' was your return, I, nevertheless, have a few (by few I mean a lot) of questions and some objections directed towards the argument you had presented in your before-the-last message, the one where you address the theme of your own homosexuality, or, rather, deny the existence of such. Cap, if you'd be to wonder what was my sincere reaction to such a brave declaration. Let me provide an insight as to why. I'll even follow the writing style in which you made a habit of cleansing the brains of anyone who reads a word of text thought out by that pussy-licking brain of yours. Perhaps then you will become conscious of the meaning that my letters do try providing. Firstly, the situation in which the claim was made is absurd enough on its own already. Starting with a mostly sane (compliment) artist, who, on a wishful day, decided to draw our Lord and Daddy Burr. Nothing wrong with that, I reckon. Mais, our sagacious Caesar, whose voice shall make burrites filthy lot, to tremble, covering in fear, his judgement on their heads be brought, decided to slip in, loud and proud with his announcement: "THE TITTIES ARE NOT SEXY THE TITTIES ARE NOT SEXY DO NOT GIVE IN TO THE PROPAGANDA. HE IS NOT A REAL MAN. IF MY DICK STANDS UP THROBBINGLY AT THE SIGHT OF HIM HE IS NOT A MAN HE IS A WOMAN IN ESSENCE. BURRITES LIE ALL THE TIME. JERK OFF TO IT ALL YOU WANT BUT REMEMBER IT DOES NOT COUNT HE IS NOT A MAN. IF YOU'RE A WOMAN WHO LOVES HIM YOU ARE LESBIAN. PERIOD"As compelling as it is to claim this a madman's hysteria, which it most likely is, I will take my time deconstructing it, losing my own sanity in the process."THE TITTIES ARE NOT" that is a subjective matter, and while you are free to express your own opinion, other men are free as well to disagree with you. Repeating your message multiple times does not make it more compelling for others to take your side."DO NOT GIVE IN TO THE PROPAGANDA" What propaganda, exactly? "IF MY DICK STANDS UP THROBBINGLY AT THE SIGHT OF HIM" Interesting. So your own admittance, you do get hard at the sight of Daddy Burr? "HE IS NOT A MAN HE IS A WOMAN IN ESSENCE." So you headcanon him as trans? Nice, but you know your little delusions do not define reality? Your dick reacted positively to an attractive male figure. Seems pretty gay to me."BURRITES LIE ALL THE TIME" Starting off strong with vilification."JERK OFF TO IT ALL YOU WANT" Thanks, I will."IT DOES NOT COUNT HE IS NOT A MAN." It seems to me that thy is deeply in denial of his own feelings."IF YOU'RE A WOMAN WHO LOVES HIM YOU ARE LESBIAN." So, uh. Loving a man, as a woman, makes you lesbian? Got it. Can't argue with the flawless logic."PERIOD." Pls be honest r u a drag queen or not I'm getting mixed signals here As you may have seen, Idiocy spews from every pixel of that shit. Hoe are you fr😭 who is letting this man cook he is burning the whole kitchenAnyway. For us to be able to judge 'Caesar' fully, we must proceed to his 2nd braincell-threatening rant, which I will do in my second letter because I'm literally done with his ass

At least three other people at the bus stop read your message!!! I am impatiently awaiting the second part

[avastivengrad603]

Week One

ANZAC day no class, out of class learning activities:

Examine the brief.

The Brief:

Objectives:

Assimilate, contextualise, and collate content.

Compile and organise relevant visual research.

Plan content and storyboard

Familiarise with the principles of animation.

Consider layout, typefaces, legibility, imported graphics and rhythm.

Become proficient in animating type and images, and publishing the files.

Design Task:

Using Adobe After Effects— design and create a kinetic type animation that works with, and enhances, the tone of a supplied audio clip of a historic, or public speech. Your animation should include a title at the beginning, and correct credits at the end - your name, year, and any audio credits. Final published mp4 file must be between 40 – 75 seconds in length, allowing room for a title at the beginning and credits at the end.

Digital Hand-in Deliverables:

Size – Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) Frame rate – 25 frames per second. Published using Adobe Media Encoder – in the mpeg-4 format. Upload final animation to the Assessments area on Canvas

URL for blog/research. (example: GRAD603.tumblr.com). This should include AT LEAST some research on speech and speaker, concept development, ideas, progress screenshots, storyboards, experimentation, and some reflection on design decisions.

Create a new blog for this module.

Listen to your randomly assigned speech.

Research your speaker.

Transcribe the text - check for spelling, slang, and stuttering.

Self-Directed Learning:

Task B 1.1 - Speeches

Task Outcomes:

Locate your randomly assigned speech.

My assigned audio speech is number 11 Benee backstage NZMA.

Research the speaker, or historic event.

Background about Benee and her audio speech backstage at the NZMA’s:

Stella Rose Bennett (born 30 January 2000), better known as Benee and formerly Bene, is a New Zealand singer and songwriter from Auckland. In both 2019 and 2020, she consecutively won Single of the Year, Best Solo Artist and Best Pop Artist at the New Zealand Music Awards at aged 19 and 20. Benee initially gained local prominence with her singles "Glitter" and "Soaked", before her 2019 single "Supalonely" saw international popularity following its success on the video-sharing platform TikTok and YouTube. Benee subsequently released her debut album, Hey U X, in November 2020.

Stella Rose Bennett was born and raised in the suburb of Grey Lynn in Auckland. She grew up in a "really musical" family with parents who would expose her to the catalogs of Radiohead, Björk and Groove Armada. From the age of eight, Benee began taking guitar lessons in primary school before starting saxophone lessons in high school. Eventually, Benee dropped all music in order to prioritise water polo. She claims it "was her life" and that she at one point hoped to represent New Zealand competitively. Benee later became interested in writing and recording music at the age of 17, after deciding that she did not want to pursue a career in water polo. Benee attended an all girls Catholic school, St Mary's College, where music was compulsory for four years.

My audio clip is of Benee backstage at the NZMA’s in 2019 at age 19 after winning Best Solo Artist and Single of the Year on the back of her incredibly popular debut single Soaked. She was also named the Best Pop Artist and Breakthrough Artist of the Year.

Transcribe the text in a word processing application (MS Word). Check for correct pronunciation, as well as the use of slang and stuttering.

Benee backstage at the NZMA’s transcription:

I feel kinda like a blank, like a blank page right now, like kinda like what the actual heck just happened to me. I’m gonna go and cry about it later. I’m a bit embarrassinggggg. I don’t know, I swore a lot, and then I was like oh my goodness it’s live I probably shouldn’t be doing that. Nah, but insane. I was like, I wanted to be a astronaut when I was 12 so like I would have no idea that I would be a musician, here, so no, nah-ah, never would’ve thought.

Task B 1.2 - Kinetic Type

Task Outcomes:

Find out how other communication designers approached similar projects. Research other kinetic type animations.

Upload examples of kinetic type that interest you to your workblog. Comment on why they interest you.

[damnfandomproblems]

Rounding up a few responses here:

Anon:

"All are ignorant of the idea that minors are the foundation to fandom. Fandom would not exist if it wasn't for minors being interested in it and starting groups for people to join. Often times, the best artists and writers in the fandoms are THE MINORS." Fandom was made and exists thanks due to grandmas writing horny star trek fic and sharing them with their friends, fandom was popularized by their adult daughters writing smut for other fandoms and sharing those with their friends, then even more so by their adult daughters writing and sharing more horny fics with each other. Adults are the foundation and main part of fandom. We're the ones who actually had the money to mail each other fanart and fanfics before the internet became popular. We're the ones who has the money to buy computers and use them and had the knowledge to access forums before social media became a thing and child were allow online by the majority. We're the ones who made all these popular fansites and fan focused social medias you use now, are the original users and still are the primary users. We're the ones who write those amazing fics and draw those amazing fanarts and host the vines, and organize the cons and month challenges like whump/ink/etc-tober, we're the ones who do the hard work that minors just don't have the experience, skill, or even just money to do "Adults make the space uncomfortable by inserting themselves and putting NSFW fics and art of minor characters. Then they get pissy when a minor points out it makes them uncomfortable and go "stop invading our space!" You are the ones trying to push minors out when we just want to have fun! Just leave us alone!" Minors make adults uncomfortable because they can't stop projecting onto every little thing, including bug eyed, bare human looking pixels, and try to accuse adults of horrible things because they're uncomfortable and self centered and too young and stupid to realize they aren't fucking pixels but flesh and there's a huge fucking difference between them and pixels. Minors make adults uncomfortable by inserting themselves into adult spaces and topics rather then being mature like they claim to be and blocking/filter people/tags, and getting pissy when told they don't own the internet/website and that unless as space is specifically marked for minors it isn't for minors, and trying rewrite history to make that space theirs because their entitled fucking snot nose twerps who need to play in a park and not be online. Your the ones trying to push adults out when were using the internet we fucking pay for because you want everything to be for you. Get the fuck off the internet until you have your own job and pay your bills and aren't leaching off mommy and daddy anymore

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anon:

“Constantly inserting yourself into fandom” tell that to minors who would constantly barge into designated adult spaces without the owner seeking them out. I’ve had THREE separate instances of “minors do not interact”, in my about me, in my byf, and in my pinned post. This is not counting the ones on my ao3 profile and each of my fic posts just above the “read more” Which I already put as “warning: snuff, death, dark funtimes under the cut, minors do not interact” on, yknow, every fic post. Not to mention I write for a 18+ work that despite what some minors think are still 18+ even if the characters featured are “high schoolers”. Yet despite all this precaution I STILL get anons shouting and screaming that I’m a criminal irl, I should get doxxed and should die, and all that stuff.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anon:

The person insisting with their whole chest that children make the fandoms (yes, even for kid's shows) and not adults sounds exactly the same level of cuckooness as the person a few problems ago who claims queer people made and started fandom.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anon:

As a roleplayer, I have it in my rules that I won't interact or roleplay with a minor under the age of 18, but also that I'm more comfortable with interacting with 21+. I just want to thank all of the minors out there who are responding to this post, because you all are convincing me that I made the right decision to have this in my rules. And you guys wonder why adults don't want to roleplay with you? Just look at all of these responses and it will answer your question. Over half of you have the victim complex just because adults exist.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anon:

All are ignorant of the idea that minors are the foundation to fandom. Fandom would not exist if it wasn't for minors being interested in it and starting groups for people to join. Often times, the best artists and writers in the fandoms are THE MINORS. I laughed out loud at this. Sorry. This is so removed from reality it sounds like a troll threw it into the ether for people to get mad at. If whoever wrote this legit believes this, for the love of god, please get some perspective and do some reading.

Posting a compilation of replies to Fandom Problem #5796.

Anon:

"Don't you think that minors would be more polite if..." No. No I don't. I was a minor in fandom. I also grew up at the dawn of the internet age and had internet safety pounded into my head from the age of 10 onward. If I interacted online at all outside of viewing and reading, I knew better than to be an asshole, because the internet has always been an adult sphere. I saw other minors get well deserved internet smackdowns for acting stupid online. If the kids are in actual kids spaces, then fine, leave them alone, that's their space. If they're on Xitter or Tumblr.com or A03 and acting the fool? No. You're in an adult space, interacting with adults, and those adults aren't there to cater to or coddle you. Which media the adult in question happens to like is irrelevant. You came into our spaces and started throwing a shit fit because you, a minor, didn't like what you, a minor, saw in our, adults, adult spaces. Most of the time we don't care if you're being cringe and having fun. Go, have fun, be cringe be free all that. Some kids are great and here to learn and have fun and are able to actually read the fandom room and know how to act like a respectable human while also having a good time. But if you're being antagonistic and hateful because you literally just are not mature enough to handle/comprehend what's going on in the space, then you don't need to be in the space at worst. At best, sit down, hush, and learn rather than running at the mouth about how you hate x y z thing because eww icky or you think it's problematic to your current pet social issue that doesn't even have anything to do with it. Kids are some of the biggest natural bullies out there. Kids being assholes to each other isn't just a trope, it's why secondary school/highschool was hell for so many people. Adults aren't all assholes, we're just better at calling kids out on their bullshit and don't have the patience for the "but I'm a minor" nonsense. Being a minor doesn't mean you're free from consequences, but some of y'alls parents clearly never taught you that. They aren't puritans, they're being idiots because they literally have no concept of fandom history and are just parroting nonsense that's been spoon-fed to them by other idiots. And rather than question things like anyone with critical thinking skills should be doing they take it all at face value and believe their own poor understanding or lack thereof is gospel, and everyone suffers for it, including other minors who also don't know better.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anon:

Fandom isn't just for minors though. Adults are allowed to be in fandoms even if it is uncomfy to minors. Adults are allowed to make NSFW of fictional characters in fandom if they want to. If minors don't like it, they can just ignore it. If minors want to be respected, they should also respect adults in fandom spaces. Complaints like "adults shouldn't be here" or "you are an adult, go get a job instead!" does not make you any better.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anon:

I agree with this tbh. Like adults are the ones making things unsafe for minors in fandom spaces. YOU are the ones who approach minors unprompted. Minors are just minding their own business in fandom, then you all come along and bother everyone.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anon:

I agree with this post, cause like... the ones doing the most harassing are adults. I am a minor, and it makes me feel unsafe in fandom spaces. Especially when I see adults drawing nsfw of characters who are MINORS! aging them up does not excuse that gross and creepy behavior. Just stop and give us a space where we don't get pushed into a corner and called annoying. Leave our fandom spaces!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anon:

When I was 17 so technically a technically still a minor I would have to keep my age off of all my blogs and accounts because so many other minors have ruined being younger in a fandom space. Literally just having my age up affected my numbers and how seriously I was taken. Y’all are not innocent though stop playing victim there are valid reasons why people don’t like you. Tons of younger kids these days are entitled overly sensitive and somehow both pretentiously “woke” and super disrespectful at the same time. So yea saying this as someone with pretty recent memories of being a minor online so many of you are actually insane and people not feeling comfortable around you is completely valid especially when you’re typing stuff like this up as your best defense. Especially with darker or NSFW stuff you don’t have to look we aren’t shoving down your throat you chose to be here just look away.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anon:

I see people getting mad about Fandom Problem #5796, but that kind of is just proving the point? You all act like the minors are the biggest problem in fandom, but you are the ones constantly inserting yourselves and making it about you. I see adults say things like: - "Fandom wouldn't exist without adults." - "Who do you think created fandom? Not minors!" - "Minors wouldn't have content if it weren't for adults." All are ignorant of the idea that minors are the foundation to fandom. Fandom would not exist if it wasn't for minors being interested in it and starting groups for people to join. Often times, the best artists and writers in the fandoms are THE MINORS. Adults make the space uncomfortable by inserting themselves and putting NSFW fics and art of minor characters. Then they get pissy when a minor points out it makes them uncomfortable and go "stop invading our space!" You are the ones trying to push minors out when we just want to have fun! Just leave us alone! -A minor

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anon:

Of course, 5796 has a corollary: "To the minors who constantly complain about adults in fandom being mean to them: don't you think adults would be more polite to minors if said minors didn't make fun of them, didn't treat them like shit everywhere they went, didn't blame them for all the problems on the internet, didn't publicly shame them for minor social faux pas, didn't call them "pedophiles" for anything from liking an icky ship to saying two words to a minor in passing to just existing peacefully in a space where a child might theoretically be present, and didn't try to gatekeep them out of fandom spaces that were literally made by and for them?? And don't give me that "well we just want to be safe! 🥺" Bs. Because if that were in any way true, then y'all would be listening to the safety tips that the adults are giving you, not using them as a scapegoat for anything bad happening in fandom and generalizing them as these eeeevil predators who just hate children." It doesn't matter what your age is; if you refuse to behave in a given space, then you won't be welcome in that space.

[tutumydear]

🚨WEEWOO WEEWOO! This is the Ptutu merch police! 🚨

I don’t wear bows much anymore. But I was intrigued when I heard of these because wow, what a cute idea! They weren’t very pricey, so I snapped up all the styles they offered.

In the most neutral tone in the world, let me share this information with you, person who may be interested in purchasing your own:

The medallions are pixel-y printed image files individually cut with scissors and pasted to the underside of thin plastic domes. The floppy ribbon has a printed image on it as well, and the metal clips, ribbon, and medallions are all hot glued together.

Let’s not speak on the quality, as they were cheap to buy and consequently cheap to produce. Mmhm mmhm. Understandable.

But. All the images used are either from official art or the show, EXCEPT for this one:

I’m 99% sure that part of this medallion’s image is from someone else’s fanart. It looks to me like cropped, cut out, and pasted fanart on top of official art. At least.

This seller offers a lot of different franchise versions of these bows, all using official art. Maybe they didn’t realize that the pieces they used here aren’t? It’s definitely not theirs.

From their shop: “…I do not claim ownership of any character or image used in my designs.”

Even given the benefit of the doubt, I’m very unsure of how ethical this product may be. Some light digging would’ve revealed that the added art isn’t official. I see no credit or signs of a consenting and profiting artist.

There is debate about using official art in fanmerch. Printing manga page scans and using them in your anime-themed resin tray is an example I’ve seen often.

Even fanart is almost always illegal to sell YEEESH

Obviously when it comes to Ptutu, I don’t have strong feelings as a consumer, seeing as I did buy these.

I might feel differently if the rights owner gave us literally anything merch-wise, but for now, sure. I’ll eat up your official unofficial merchandise. (Hint hint I request a Ptutu resin tray hint hint)

But, wow. I would think anyone would draw the line at using someone else’s fanart to make money with. I’m looking directly at aliexpress enamel pins.

Normally if I have a poor experience with a merch seller or receive poor product, I just don’t share it. No harm, no foul.

I’m gonna explicitly say for this one though, pass it over babes. Pass it over.

-_-_-_-_--_-_-_-_--_-_-_-_--_-_-_-_--_-_-_-_-

If you happen to recognize the added artwork and can identify who it belongs to, as crummy as the printing quality is, please let me or them know.