#open to discussion and suggestions

[dewinabsentia]

gaslight: aurora, dew, phantom

gatekeep: aether, swiss, cumulus, mountain

girlboss: sunshine, cirrus, rain

[sealeneee]

actually i really don't fucking get the whole ''anders was better in awakening" circlejerk. "sealene you have posted about this several times already isn't it enough" NO IT IS NOT

anders in awakening is a cliche funnyman guy whose motivations aren't particularly interesting or compelling. oh he likes cats and doesn't like templars and wants a pretty girl. truly revolutionized writing. it doesn't help, of course, that awakening is only like 15 hours long if you do all the side content, and really none of the companions are that fleshed out.

idk man i don't have any screenshots or long professional essays about character analysis i'm not that kind of blogger. i'm just some guy who finds the da2 version of anders much, much more interesting and compelling as a character. "oh they ruined him in da2" it's called fucking character development?????????????

anders in dragon age II is far from being a flawless person. some might even say he is a bad person, and while i don't really agree to that, i do see where those people are coming from. but he is an interesting character, one that provokes heated discussion even 13 years after the game's release. how often is there any meaningful discussion regarding awakening anders that isn't just "hur dur he was better back then"?

i don't even dislike awakening anders he's a fun little guy wish he wasn't voiced by fucking greg ellis tho but come on man would this man really be an interesting companion in something longer than a 15 hours long dlc with very little companion interactions

edit: i have a feeling this post might breach containment so in case it does -- i wrote this while being kinda sleep deprived and without thinking too deep, i was just pissed at dragon age reddit being stuck in 2016. i could have articulated my point better and with less generalization towards daa anders but i won't bother rewriting the post now because most people likely won't see the new version anyway

[somanypetals]

Class of ‘07 1.01 vs. 1.06

I just really love these shots

[myondolls]

A little doll project round up in an attempt to get me motivated again.

Starting with the "limb projects".

First up we have Sindy (aerobics? She was the barbie gymnast competitor). That one I got from @keiths-dolls I think?? Or maybe it was @firespirited ? I have 2 of these but I forgot if I got both from any of you or not.

Her legs mysteriously fell off during the night as the plastic as the joint crumbled. I want to keep as much of her original body as possible so the plan is to cut a bit at the knee (just the rounded tip and whatever is inside), fill the leg with something (hot glue? Milliput?), Round up socket, drill and stick DCSHG legs in there. The hand is broken too but thats the same kind of replacement.

Second we have Sindy (the cycling one). Strictly speaking there is nothing wrong with her, but I saw @oak23 give her DCSHG arms and I really wanted that for her. Not my original vision. So the usual cut/round up/drill and insert ritual.

Next we have Pocahontas. I didn't like her click legs, and in an attempt to remove them properly I snapped the pegs off. Found some barbie legs that can fit (the color is not an exact match but very easy to correct with just a blush). I would need to use the method of inserting bars across the socket on the legs, drill a hole in the hips "middle wall", and pass an elastic across everything (much like the early monster high dolls and some barbies).

Next we have bootleg Elsa. The torso did not have a proper joint and relied on plastic elasticity of a bar between the 2 parts. Which huh.... Didn't last. I need to stick them back together somehow (i don't care much if there is no movement). Probably gonna fill the cavity with hot glue and just stick it together. Hot glue is my friend. I don't care too much for this doll but the skintone is interesting and she had nice joints so it would be a shame to waste it.

I forgot who she is. i found her in a carboot sale covered in mud with a broken arm which I already mostly fixed. The wrist hole is too big for the donor hand on the "new" arm so I need to fill that and do the usual round up/drill/insert. I also wanted to paint the arm silver but I need to find a way that won't stain around (metallic paints seem to have that issue long term??)

Not sure who they are. It was part of the carboot sale haul. The hair and all fixed up nicely but the hand is all chewed up. I think the nicest way would be to find limbs and cut at the elbow. Color matching isn't too much of an issue but I cant find limbs of the right size (barbie is too big, that doll is on the smaller side).

Disney body. Nothing wrong with it really, but I have matching arms and could "upgrade" her. Not an urgent project as she has no matching head.

Another project sponsored by @keiths-dolls (not really). I dont know what doll this is and there is nothing wrong with it, but I don't like bent arms so I thought giving her bootleg MH arms would look nice. I don't know what heads fit on these, but the small neck make it a good candidate for figurine hybrids.

If anyone is new and sees this, I feel obliged again to tag @dolldirt without whom I wouldn't consider any of this, since he made the tutorial for limb replacement/upgrade that sparked all this, all those years ago. So if y'all don't know what the "cut/round up/drill/insert" method is, i am referring to his tutorial. Go check it if you haven't seen it.

[aceredshirt13]

gang i have to share this P. G. Wodehouse quote with you all because ever since I found it I can't stop thinking about it. it's from a letter he wrote when he was 78 years old to his friend Guy Bolton (many thanks to P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters)

I have been on the sick list myself, but am better now. Inflamed bladder or chill on the bladder or something, the symptoms being agony when I passed water, as the expression is. It brought back the brave old days when I used to get clap.

he really said "yeah the pain from my bladder issue reminds of the days when I used to have so much sex I repeatedly got venereal disease"

[mistbornhero]

Got more questions after last week's "what's your primary podfic host?" As last time, if you're a podficcer, you should join the tumblr community!

streaming only would be youtube, spotify, soundcloud where it's kind of harder to download for whoever wants to listen? Unless you are finding the easy download link and offering it on your page, which can be done for some?

download only would be any file host without a media player like mediafire

[l-a-l-o-u]

do you support ai art?

that's a tough one to answer. sorry in advance for the wall of text.

when i first started seeing ai-generated images, they were very abstract things. we all remember the gandalf and saruman prancing on the beach pictures. they were almost like impressionism, and they had a very ethereal and innocent look about them. a lot of us loved those pictures and saw something that a lot of human minds couldn't create, something new and worth something. i love looking at art that looks like nothing i've seen before, it always makes me feel wonder in a new type of way. ai-generated art was a good thing.

then the ai-generated pictures got much more precise, and suddenly we realized they were being fed hundreds of artists' pieces without permission, recreating something similar and calling it their own. people became horrified, and i was too! we heard about people losing their job as background artists on animated productions to use ai-generated images instead. we saw testimonies of heartbroken artists who had their lovingly created art stolen and taken advantage of. we saw people being accused of making ai-generated art when theirs was completely genuine. ai-generated art became a bad thing.

i've worked in the animation industry. right now, i work at an animation school, specifically for 2D animation. i care a lot about the future of my friends in the industry (and mine, if i go back to it), and about all the students i help throughout the years. i want them to find jobs, and that was already hard for a lot of them before the ai-generated images poked their heads into our world.

i'm not very good at explaining nuanced point of view (this is also my second language) but i'll do my best. i think that ai-generated art is a lot of things at once. it's dangerous to artists' livelihoods, but it can be a useful tool. it's a fascinating technological breakthrough, but it's being used unethically by some people. i think the tools themselves are kind of a neutral thing, it really depends on what we do with it.

every time i see ai-generated art i eye it suspiciously, and i wonder "was this made ethically?" and "is this hurting someone?". but a lot of it also makes me think "wow, cool concept, that inspires me to create". that last thought has to count for something, right? i'm an artist myself, and i spend a lot more time looking at art than making art - it's what fuels me. i like to imagine a future where we can incorporate ai-generation tools into production pipelines in a useful way while keeping human employees involved. i see it as a powerful brainstorming tool. it can be a starting point, something that a human artist can take and bring to the next level. it can be something to put on the moodboard. something to lower the workload, which is a good thing, imo. i've worked in video games, i've made short films, and let me tell you, ai-generated art could've been useful to cut down a bit of pre-production time to focus on some other steps i wanted to put more time into. there just needs to be a structure to how it's used.

like i said before, i work in a school. the language teachers are all very worried about ChatGPT and company enabling cheating; people are constantly talking about it at my workplace. i won't get into text ais (one thing at a time today) but the situation is similar in many ways. we had a conference a few months ago about it, given by a special committee that's been monitoring ai technology for years now and looking for solutions on how to deal with it. they strongly suggest to work alongside AIs, not outlaw it - we need to adapt to it, and control how it's used. teach people how to use it responsibly, create resources and guidelines, stay up to date with this constantly evolving technology and advocate for regulation. and that lines up pretty well with my view of it at the moment.

here's my current point of view: ai-generated art by itself is not unethical, but it can easily be. i think images generated by ai, if shared publicly, NEED a disclaimer to point out that they were ai-generated. they should ONLY be fed images that are either public domain, or have obtained permission from their original author. there should also be a list of images that fed the ai that's available somewhere. cite your sources! we were able to establish that for literature, so we can do it for ai, i think.

oh and for the record, i think it's completely stupid to replace any creative position with an ai. that's just greedy bullshit. ai-generated content is great and all, but it'll never have soul! it can't replace a person with lived experiences, opinions and feelings. that's the entire fucking point of art!!

the situation is constantly evolving. i'm at the point where i'm cautious of it, but trying to let it into my life under certain conditions. i'm cautiously sharing ai pictures on my blog; sometimes i change my mind and delete them. i tell my coworkers to consider ways to incorporate them into schoolwork, but to think it over carefully. i'm not interested in generating images myself at the moment because i want to see what happens next, and i'd rather be further removed from it until i can be more solid in my opinion, but i'm sure i'll try it out eventually.

anyway, to anybody interested in the topic, i recommend two things: be open-minded, but be careful. and listen to a lot of different opinions! this is the kind of thing that's very complicated and nuanced (i still have a lot more to say about it, i didn't even get into the whole philosophy of art, but im already freaking out at how much i wrote on the Discourse Site) so i suggest looking at it from many different angles to form your own opinion. that's what i'm doing! my opinion isn't finished forming yet, we'll see what happens next.

[worstloki]

if there was 1 item of their outfits that they had to keep on them while bared otherwise naked the recognisable option for Thor would be Mjolnir and for Loki it would be his helmet.

[drekkavac-moving]

〚 𝑺𝑻𝑨𝑹𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑺. 〛━  𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒓. 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒔.

" I  said ... don't  move. "    A  hooded  gaze  stares  back  at  the  other  person.  Anya's  hands  now  PINNING  the  hands  of  the  person  laying  in  her  bed.    " You  can  move  when  I  tell  you  do ... Înțelegi  dragă? "    While  her  voice  had  a  bit  of  a  growl  to  it  before ... when  she  spoke  in  Romanian ... Their  voice  took  on  almost  a  purr  ,    as  lips  brushed  against  the  others  ears.  Releasing  a  hot  breath  to  linger  there.

[phagodyke]

kind of annoys me sometimes how I can happily listen to my roommate explain the entire plot of whatever she's currently into but when it comes to my interests she can only listen for a few mins before wordlessly walking out of the room

[mrs-bingley]

listening to Pour Some Sugar on Me by Def Leppard really makes you wish men would menwhore more these days

[blueboyluca]

As you all know, I’m not a professional dog trainer, but it’s my hobby so I have a great interest in the profession. I’ve been thinking about the whole “two sides” thing that seems to be the defining mode in which the industry operates – “balanced” or punishment-reliant trainers and “force free” or reinforcement-reliant trainers.

I’ve been thinking about that bicycle guy on Twitter (I cannot find the tweet for the life of me) who theorised that his position as anti-car is a deradicalised position, as it is more radical to fundamentally structure society around vehicles over people and the environment. I’ve been thinking about this for months and how it applies to most (all?) of my progressive positions, including dog training. In my view, it is more radical to use punishment as a foundation for interactions with animals; it is a deradicalised position to attempt to minimise use of aversives.

I’ve been thinking about how demoralised I personally feel about encountering punishment-reliant modes of operation both online and in person, for example, my forays into reddit and utter dismay at the breadth of punishment-first mentality. And I’ve been thinking about how people like Michael Shikashio strongly believe in building and maintaining bridges with people “on the other side”.

Part of me is sympathetic to the chronically online “force free” crowd who think that any crossing of the bridge is an endorsement. I don’t actually agree with this sentiment, but the visceral reaction I have is distaste, so I understand where they are coming from.

I struggle more with understanding where punishment-reliant trainers like Ivan are coming from, especially when they are educated. This commenter on Michael’s post helped me understand a little better:

As a crossover trainer myself, I keep trying to imagine how I would have responded to this culture war as a young trainer. I don’t remember ever having a bright line moment where I said, “from this point forward I will be force-free.” That’s not how it worked for me, and I imagine that’s not how it works for most trainers. It’s more of a subtle shift over time. Since then, the science has only gotten more and more clear about the fact that humane, force free training is best for results, best for animals, and best for humans. I’ve been puzzled and sad that instead of everyone gently moving toward the obvious solution, some have really dug in their heels and gotten louder about their ideas that using force on dogs is absolutely necessary. The only real difference these days, from my perspective, is that the younger force free trainers have gotten equally loud. I’ve been deeply curious about what keeps trainers like Ivan, who have been training and learning for decades, and who’ve had access to all the same information I did, so firmly in the “aversives are necessary” camp. Why would an experienced, successful trainer who has dedicated their life to these animals be so hellbent on continuing to hurt them in the name of training? My answer can be found at about 1:00:20 in. Because he truly believes that if we can’t “control” dogs we can’t have dogs. And that moment in the interview made him human for me. Because if I truly believed as he does, that we can’t love dogs, and welcome them into our lives the way we do, without aversives, then I too would be desperate to preserve aversives in dog training.

This is where I will always butt heads with punishment-reliant trainers. I fundamentally do not agree with this position centred around "control". (It's a nuanced discussion, including my thoughts around dog culture today, my understanding of the partnership between humans and dogs historically, and my acceptance of the very real threat dogs can pose to people on a basic predatory level. I think it's also why I struggle to accept "slippery slope" arguments as they feel in the same vein.)

Michael’s approach to this issue is the activism approach – you use these high profile names to cast a wide net. You’re not going to catch the smallest fish that have no interest in being deradicalised, they'll swim right out of the net. You probably won’t catch the slightly bigger fish either, who need more time in the primordial soup. But there are two categories you could catch, the second biggest fish who are open to change and the biggest fish who are already halfway there. It’s these people I assume Michael is actually targeting, and not Ivan or his most devoted followers.

To people in the shit, this feels wrong. Because you see the bad stuff all the time. You see any open hand as a capitulation to the other side. But in the world we live in, I think it’s the only way. Think of parenting, right? There are so many shitty parents. But there’s no way to just outright stop shitty parents being shitty, they’re only going to get slightly less shitty over time. But you can’t just… give up. Because humans will keep having babies and babies are also humans and so we need to keep trudging along trying always to deradicalise shitty parents.

I mean, it’s the same for any progressive movement: fix your heart or die. You’ve got three categories of “the other side” that have the potential to fix their hearts, and you’ve got one category that will eventually die out.

I think that Dr Susan Friedman’s discussion of this topic on their recent appearance on Enrichment for the Real World helped me formulate this understanding, while also allowing for the feelings of anger in the deradicalised camp.

I don’t hold the value that people shouldn’t be angry. And I mean, I’m angry about many, many things and they’re righteous angers. But I can say for me, from my point of view, I can remember the previous generation. And when you come from that generation’s force and coercion, to my parents that turned down that dial, at least mine did, and then my generation that turned it further down. We know better now, but part of the reason why we know better, or we’re moving in that ongoing, always improving direction, part of the impetus of those changes is the righteous anger. So, I never want to forget that without the righteous anger that I read about, and hear about, and the information it holds for us. About what it was like to be in those situations, and so forth. That is our, our best source of change. I remind people that we didn’t know what we know now, and that each person will experience that effect in their lives. That they look back and think, how could I have missed this? That's just a very natural part of growing. But at the same time, this information is very precious because it’s part of the impetus we need for change. If we don’t get that feedback, what would be the reason for changing what we do?

I struggled with this segment because on the one hand I agree that progress has been made and can only be made incrementally like this, but also it’s troubling to present this to anyone who has suffered under previous regimes. But then I think, as exhausting as it is to consider, the answer is to keep the open hand and keep the open dialogue – and keep the anger. As Emily Strong said on the same episode:

I think it’s really important, and much appreciated, that you don’t tone police people and that you give them the space to have and express those emotions. Because I see that happening so much with people who are pushing for change in general, everywhere. I think that tone policing happens, like you’re not going to be as effective as if you’re angry. And that’s simply not true, as you pointed out.

But it’s not a singular effort. The weight of the world isn’t on individual shoulders. It needs to be a collective effort from all those in the deradicalised basket. To take your turn to try, and tap out when you need a break – but never stop. A lot of the time, the Michael Shikashio approach is going to be the most effective for starting the deradicalisation, but the righteous anger Susan and Emily are talking about is the impetus for even trying.

I don’t have any grand conclusion here, just that I think I am understanding things a bit more clearly at the moment.

[beanutbutterbisquick]

I think that Bo Katan is glad to be the one who “walks both ways” because she feels like she can finally do some good for her people. The others were actually okay with her helmet being off and didn’t once question the Armorer. My problem is, why didn’t they question the Armorer? Where in the world does it state that if you see a Mythosaur you “walk both ways?” Where in the world does it say there are two ways to walk? I simply believe that all along Bo Katan knew the real truth to being Mandalorian. I believe that it truly is a people, not a race, and not exactly a Creed, but a people. Individuals who came together under the Resol’nare and decided to form a people. That idea of supporting one another is so important to me because we see that clearly the Creed of the Watch is flawed. Bo Katan (and Din) were redeem by means of bathing in the Living Waters. Yet, we have the Armorer telling her to remove her helmet? And she didn’t get kicked out? She saw a Mythosaur which hell I get is a big thing, but aren’t foundlings just as sacred to the clan? Even the Armorer said so when she saved Ragnar. So how is it that Din Djarin saying goodbye to Grogu who literally WAS a foundling, and was his foundling, was kicked out and shunned? Called an apostate? Nearly died to be part of something that he believed to be so true? And yet all Bo had to do was see a Mythosaur?? And the Armorer decided that removal of her helmet, which is literally so forbidden Din was also about to die a FIRST time in s2 (IG-11 scene), was okay for Bo to do? What kind of leadership and standing does the Armorer have that she can idk, pull these sort of exceptions out of her ass like this? I don’t understand. It doesn’t feel sacred or religious it just feels confusing. I don’t feel that there is any justification for it. Genuinely. I may be wrong, and I may be seeing this as something it isn’t so I’m open to hearing interpretations but my mind is genuinely confused. Even Bo Katan was confused when the Armorer was commanding her to take her helmet off.

Also, let’s note that the Armorer has always stated that their way is the True Way. Hence Din feeling the need to die (literally got attacked by that mech eyeball and then nearly drowned!!) to become redeemed. While Bo Katan has always identified as a Mandalorian and not because she follows the Creed or the Resol’nare to the T but that was her home, Mandalore was her home, her planet, and she had always seen each and everyone one of the people on that planet as a Mandalorian. She had simply felt that her sisters pacifist beliefs took away from their warrior heritage. (It’s a mess, okay, yes, Bo Katans previous lifestyle and manner of handling her beliefs were very messy I am aware) but she never once looked at Din and thought he was an imposter. But when she had removed her helmet, Din was immediately like, give me that armor, because he didn’t believe that she was a real Mandalorian simply because she had removed her helmet. That’s how deep his beliefs were. That’s how deep they had been when he encountered Cobb. And now after all this the helmet removal is okay???

Like I said. Im open to others opinions. Literally. But please don’t come at me with anger. Im not angry about anything I’m simply confused.

[aggravatedartist]

More WIPs (except that first one and second to last I suppose)

This is a totally normal hellhound I'll be playing in a friend's COD themed DND campaign; purple flames is what I'm most likely to go with, but I have been offered other abilities that I find interesting (frost and electricity, as shown here, and plague, which I'm less jazzed on given how COD's plague hounds look

We're still working on backstory stuff, but at one point they might have been human- that's who the person is. They won't remember what their face looked like, in most the backstories we've discussed this far, hence the scribbles

Depending on what we go with, she can't read or speak English, so she has no idea what he shirt says, but she'd definitely stand by it

(... also i have no idea what the faint lines over image 3 are. I don't remember those being there, but seeing as this is a wip post, just expect it to be fixed by the finish)

[permanentreverie]

just a quick lil rant before i head to bed

[dreamingawaits]

Criminal Minds Story?

I have been tempted to write a Criminal Minds based book but I have zero idea what to make of it. I’m open to work with a team of people we can meet via Zoom call or we can exchange numbers in private and talk that way I suppose.