#so I am kind of sure that they were an ai artist

[tonhalszendvics]

I have a half-abandoned user on Fanfiction.net, it was pretty quiet there in the past year or so, and then this month I received three messages from different people that they apparently like my work and would love to make art of my stuff?

I mean, it would be wonderful if it would be true, but 99% of my work there is in Hungarian and any online translating program is basically garbage when it comes to translate from Hungarian, mostly because it messes up all the pronouns, to the point of making it absolutely rubbish, so I am 100% sure that these people haven't read anything from me.

Where is the scam, though.

[tuiskuh]

I am sympathetic to the anti-copyright conversation and I agree that big IP and copyright holders like disney are bad for the whole industry, both spiritually and economically. However, I would love it, if people talking about this were more aware and conscious of the realities of the working artist. Making art is slow, laborious, often mentally and physically exhausting and it already pays like shit. One time, I spent two months doing 40hr work weeks on a project for a client that ended up paying only 600€. I have RSIs that will never fully heal. My partner has a low paying full time job but between my part time jobs and my freelancing I work more out of the two of us and still only make a third of what he does. And I'm not special, these kind of situations are the norm for most artists (especially us comic artists...) When this is the everyday reality, it is really frustrating to realise that if you scratch the surface of most leftists, you find a person who thinks that art is not real labor. Artists' rights and wages are a worker's issue, a labor issue. I know one answer to this would be UBI but that is not likely to happen anywhere right now. It would solve a lot of my problems but it sure is not here yet. Generative AI sure is though, training on stolen art and being used to replace me. I wish people understood and respected how much time and energy goes into making art. Nearly everyone wants art and culture and wants to experience it every day in some form, yet so many people think that the people who make it do not matter and should not be paid for their work. Make it make sense.

[nei-ning]

Gonna rant a bit. I saw one set of beautiful anthro arts on another website. Sadly they were done in AI. I did left a comment, complimenting how beautiful these arts were but how sad it made me that they were AI arts.

The artist themselves was kind and polite, telling they use AI because they want to learn and be able to make game arts one day (but they too, apparently, with AI so...)

But then there was another user, AI "artist" too who replied to me that there's absolutely NO ARTIST who can draw anthros with detailed fur, goat like arm, lights, colors etc without editing or photoshopping. On the whole planet, absolutely none! This person clearly don't believe in people's skills when it comes on arts. Heck, I followed one artist on DA who drew ALL her arts traditionally and she drew, and still does, SUPER DETAILED FURRY ANTHROS! No photoshop, editing, nothing digital. Just her hands, paper and a set of color pencils.

Also, if people's art skills wouldn't had been amazing back in the days through mankind, we wouldn't have cave paintings, old amazing paintings or sculptures, ALL DONE BY HANDS IN TRADITIONAL WAY. NO AI, NO PHOTOSHOP OR EDITING.

Humans can learn amazing skills if they only want to. AI artists, maybe not all, just wants to take the easiest way / be lazy (and get lots of likes - like that other person who straight forward said it. That he uses AI to create furry arts to get hundreds of likes).

They also mocked my style / arts, saying they are not good enough to be used in AI arts - yet.

Like what the actual fuck?! I am pissed! I don't even want my arts to be used in AI arts by some lazy idiot (or at all). At least I draw EVERYTHING in my arts, from first sketch line to the last shade / light. Surely my skills are not as good as they could be. After all I'm self-taught, not gone in art school like some have. Not to mention I draw for fun, I draw to bring joy to my watchers, I draw therapy arts to myself, I like to keep my style easy and simple. My arts are a hobby, not professional thing or to fish a lot of likes. If my arts can make someone's day a bit better, then I've done my job! I never haven't taken my arts or skills too seriously, trying to improve them to the top.

Is there times when I wish I would put more effort to my arts, learn and study more, becoming better? Absolutely! But do I bother? Not really. Like I said, this is a hobby. I know I would burnout myself if I would start to force and pressure myself to do better, to learn more, to improve my skills. I mean I struggle to draw even now!

I do have some saved tutorials on Pinterest what I would like to try, yes, but still not in a way like if I would have a fire under my ass.

[boreal-sea]

So something I realized watching a few videos and reading a few articles is that most of us aren’t angry at the idea of AI in general. Many of us are excited to learn about AI systems that can identify cancer better than doctors, for instance.

What we’re angry about is generative AI being used to destroy the jobs of artists (and I mean all creatives here), who have already been dealing with their work being devalued by modern society.

And I��m not sure how to deal with it. I do remember learning that when photography became a thing, many painters were horrified and terrified of would erase the art of painting. It didn’t obviously, and in fact photography because a whole new art form.

I grew up during the birth of digital art. I distinctly remember the phase digital art went through where many people declared it to not be “real art” and that it was “cheating” etc. I’m sure other millennial artists also remember this transition. But graphic designers pretty quickly adopted digital tools, and websites like DeviantArt popped up, and I don’t think there are too many people nowadays who would say a digital painting isn’t “art”. Still, I do imagine there is a gulf between how some people would view the “artistic merit” of a 3 ft tall oil painting hanging next to a 3 ft tall print of a digital painting, even if the subject and styles were similar. So the worries that digital art would erase physical painting was also proven false. And for the record, I think digital art is 100% art. The merit of digital art is equal to that of physical art.

On the other hand, I can’t say these changes didn’t affect older forms of art. Like, photography did affect the world of painting. I don’t have statistics, but it seems like it probably affected the world of portraiture the most. And I wonder if many of the 20th century art movements were influenced by photography. None of my art history classes touched on that and it’s kinda weird to me. There is definitely something about a Dada or cubism or surrealist painting that transcends beyond what a traditional photo of a landscape or a portrait can do. There is no location in the real world with actual melting clocks or people whose faces show multiple angles at once.

And then there was the digital photograph that changed everything again! Film has become a niche art form.

There were specific kinds of jobs lost due to the digital transition, too. I’m thinking of things like murals being replaced by printed banners, or book covers often being done in photoshop. Oh, and that’s another tool that was faced with fear: Photoshop! There was a fear it would destroy the need for professional photographers because everyone could just fix their own photos. Turns out nope, and in fact people skilled in photography and photo editing are still in demand. And of course there’s the loss of 2D animation in favor of 3D animation, the loss of practical effects for digital, etc.

And you might argue that in some of those cases people can tell corners are being cut and that they won’t stand for it, but Marvel movies still make billions of dollars so…

So I don’t know what’s going to happen with AI art. I am NOT saying “all current artists are stupid and wrong, in the future history students will laugh at how stubborn they were to resist this idea”. AI art is not comparable to photography or digital painting.

With a photograph, you still need to compose the image in the frame, you need to position yourself in the real world, you need to know your equipment, whether you’re using film or digital. You also need to know how to process that photo either in the dark room or in Photoshop. These are skills the average person does not have. You cannot tell an AI “that shot was good but can you increase the contrast?” It’ll just produce a completely new image.

I read an article about an art director who was encountering difficulties as the department tried to incorporate AI. They got back first drafts of art ideas from the people employed to work with the AI, gave critique, and the second round was just completely new images that didn’t include the suggestions… because they couldn’t. AI does not understand color theory. It does not have the ability to take critique. It can’t slightly alter the layout of a design.

And all of that applies to painting too. AI (currently) can’t do what a trained art student can do. It doesn’t know that to create a sense of atmosphere you should make distant objects bluer. It doesn’t know how to use human physiology and psychology to draw a viewer’s eyes across a large painting to reveal a story.

AI also can’t replicate INTENTION - and intentionality is a HUGE part of art. WHY an artist chose those colors, that medium, that composition, those tools, why they chose to display it a certain way, why the composition is like this instead of that - all of that adds meaning to the painting that you can’t get with AI.

(Yes, there is an absolutely valid field of art critique that evaluates a piece of art on its standalone value and the message it conveys without the context of the artist’s intent, but that should be compared to the analysis that DOES include the artist’s intent! That comparison can bring about so much understanding!)

Anyway I’m going to end this post now because it has gotten WAY too long. I focused mostly on painting and photography in this post because those are my particular fields of speciality, but this applies to ALL ART. It applies to music and writing and scripting and acting and composing music and just. Everything. All art.

I don’t think there are any forms of art AI doesn’t threaten. Now granted, AI can’t currently pick up a paint brush. It can’t use a crochet needle. It can’t hold a camera. And maybe there will be some sort of return to physical media in response to AI produced digital art. Or maybe there will be a response in digital art to stylistically distinguish it from AI in a way AI can’t reproduce. I’m not sure what will happen. Maybe some proof the image was digitally painted by a real person, somehow. Or that it’s a real photo, or a real article. I saw someone mention there may end up being labels like “100% human made” like we do for organic food lol. Maybe work in progress videos or photo metadata will become more commonplace as evidence of authenticity.

Anyway, NOW I’m ending this post. Whew.

[kaelidascope]

In light of some dirty laundry found, I'd like to set the record straight about a threat that was made against me and my work

Since I'm being accused of stealing or copying a roleplay that was done between 2021-2022, here's the facts. The roleplay started with a concept that I had made about a magic college school for another roleplay that never went anywhere and was then repurposed for this one with a new partner. The question was popped on 2/23/21 and we began on 2/25/21.

It lasted the span of a little over a year and went through several rounds of development, a few attempted rewrites, and a spin off sequel revolving their kids. It was a good split between actually roleplaying the characters and also just hours upon hours of talking/plotting as one does. Usual exchanges between creators. We never posted the roleplay publicly anywhere, so it was never officially 'published', nor were any legal steps taken to get rights reserved. I'm fairly certain a discussion happened once about turning it into a book but both parties were not on the same page so it never went anywhere. We did ofc share it with close friends and just talked about it in general.

I also drew quite a bit of art for it, and we both collectively commissioned better artists for art for the characters as well. I did not put in nearly as much money as my roleplay partner did, but I did most of the concept art to provide as reference.

After the friendship ended and the roleplay was put to rest, I pulled the OCs that I had exclusively made to start working on a new concept. I had no intention of using anything that wasn't mine. The new concept was entirely removed from it's original source, meaning different setting, different characters, different everything. It was just repurposed OCs that had new backstories and purposes and new ones that I had made to replace characters I didn't own. However, despite the change, I was threatened with a Cease and Desist form pulled off Google by my previous roleplay partner because I made a vague tweet showing progress of the reworked characters (Rowen, who was in the original roleplay, and her love interest, Lyra, that was meant to be a replacement design for a character I did not own). Lyra shared a physical likeness to the original character, Emi, that was owned and played by my roleplay partner that they designed using an AI generator and then I later drew concepts for [white complexion, black hair, blue eyes]. I took it down as requested, sent it back to the workshop, consulted several professionals to make sure any likeness was scrubbed away, and put it on the back burner for further development so I could be left in peace.

I made this disclaimer post back in December 2023 about any likeness my own OCs would share in future projects and their affiliated partners on twitter. At the time, the names and designs were still being changed so Rowen Santiago was a placeholder while I was waiting to hear back from legal advice. I never said I was taking what was originally written and publishing it 'as is'. I'm allowed to use my original character designs for different purposes.

Ultimately, I came to the decision after a lengthy back and forth to scrap my own OCs original personality and design and start from scratch. Only a few things survived that can have lines drawn between the original roleplay design and the new story concept [the magic collar, werewolfism, Hispanic descent, wolf eyes] but that's nothing new. I have a lot of werewolf OCs. I've got an entire series dedicated to werewolf OCs. The new story concept is more military and racism based set in a fantasy dystopian universe than a magical school romance trope set in English Europe. The new story isn't even set on Earth, it's so far removed from where the original design came from it's not even remotely close to this roleplay. The kind of prose and worldbuilding featured in this new work is similar to the fanfiction I already write and am known for [The new world building will be somewhat similar to a setting I already made as far as fantasy science themes go. See Midnight Menagerie]. I also have several designs that look similar to each other (see MM Blake and Tessa for example. Same hairstyle. And MM Yang's entire physique was scraped from Rowen's whole vibe) though I can say my art style is improving enough to where I don't suffer from same face syndrome anymore (at least I hope!). All my bases were covered, everything was a brand new start over and nothing from the original roleplay was touched.

Well, even after a whole year and a half later post cut-off and small meltdown, it's apparently still living in their head rent-free that I am stealing their work and threats are still being made both anonymously and by name!

So I'll tell y'all what, for anybody who's curious, go ahead and have full access of all the notes and docs that I supposedly 'stole' and you tell me if my future works are stealing lol since you wanna wave it around like it's a big scary threat to get me any time I draw sapphic content that isn't fanart. The only things I will not include on this post is the commissioned work because I don't know who originally did them and therefor I'm not sure what their reposting terms are

Anything listed as [NOT ME] was not written by me. Otherwise everything else is either by me or was collaborated on (like the roleplay exchanges)

Misc Docs

Rowemi timeline 2.0

Figure Skating Practice

Emi/Lauren Relationship Notes

Pregnancy Arc Notes

Project Blackbird Notes

Worldbuilding Notes

Rowen Build Sheet

Rowen Notes

Emi Build Sheet (NOT ME)

Emi/Mom Relationship Notes (NOT ME)

Rewrite Docs

Prologue

Episode I

Shorts

William's Lament

Another Secret in the Pile

Rowen's Invitation

The Meeting (NOT ME)

The Hospital Visit (NOT ME)

Simon's Suggestion (NOT ME)

The Date (NOT ME)

Original Roleplay Docs

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 4.5

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Artwork Done By Me

Genuinely I'm not sure what y'all hope to accomplish by obsessively sending me hate mail and empty threats like I'm supposed to care and be effected by it. I haven't even looked at it since I quit Deviantart lol it has nothing to do with my current projects and it died when I cut you off. You never even knew what the new novel project was about, so you really had no grounds to threaten me with that email or the anonymous inbox submissions. You also slipped up and sent one with your actual user after I turned that off, that's how I figured out you were still obsessed with me after all this time. I encourage you to do something with your ideas someday. While you weren't the healthiest friendship I've ever had, the roleplay was fun to engage in. Maybe working on something new will bring you the peace of mind you're looking for and help you move on.

[aihoshiino]

Pls Dr Claire of the Hoshino PhD, what thoughts do you have on Ai's attitude towards being an idol? I always thought that, despite all the hardship of the industry and intentional objectification, she did find joy her career and appreciated the happiness she gave to her fans... (Her expansion of her career had more to do with her also wanting to earn more for her children, which is something the idol industry wasn't able to give.) At least, I dont think Ai hates being an idol? If so why would she want Ruby to become one?

The reason I am re-evaluating this is how the story concluded. Ai as a character showed the complexity of what an artist's struggle looked like (hopes and dreams and exceptional low pay), but after Ai, there seemed to be only lows when it comes to this topic. The way ONK concluded made me wonder why anyone would want to be an idol at all? Even Ruby, who chased this dream for two lifetimes, found no joy in her job in the end. Like sure the fans are happy but nobody else is? Ruby suffered so much and it felt like she's just buried herself in her work as an escape in the end. I always thought Ai at least enjoyed when she was "telling her lies" (ie what others would call job performance but she's an autistic teenage girl so a tad more dramatic).

This is my read too! I do think that despite everything, Ai did find satisfaction and enjoyment in being an idol - it was something that had a lot of good and a lot of bad for her and ultimately, despite everything, it did afford her an escape and freedom from what could have been a much worse situation for her. That doesn't mean that being an idol was a net good for her, ofc, but that Ai found enough in it to genuinely enjoy all the same.

Viewpoint B also gives us a really interesting alternate perspective on idolhood for Ai, in a way she doesn't really get a chance to get into in the main story;

"The "idol" Ai is pretty much the complete opposite of who I really am, but... she's the person I'd like to be. For me, being an idol is about working towards my ideal self. Since I was already a liar to begin with, telling lies on stage doesn't make any difference to me." [...] "Even lies can turn true when you tell them enough times. Like, when you sing a cheerful song, doesn't it make you feel a little more cheerful too? It's like that, I guess. So, the me on that stage is the end goal that I'm aiming for." [...] "That's what I'm striving for... but I'm still a work in progress. Becoming a girl who's pretty, kind, invincible... who loves everyone and everyone loves in return... it's not easy, you know? But it's the kind of person I really want to be."

In other words, despite the fact that it also stunts her, Ai (at least at the time of this conversation - so, just before she turns fifteen) views being an idol as something that gives her an opportunity to rehearse being a version of herself that she actually likes, in hopes that she may authentically become that person someday.

The way OnK flops on talking about idolhood is, imo, more of a symptom of the way it ends up kind of burning out when it comes to some of its more complex themes and ends up watering them down to the point where they come off as contradictory to how they were previously established. But I do think Ai ultimately enjoyed being an idol.

[violet-nebulaa]

Kendrick Lamar vs Drake, my own little rant

FIRST OFF, THIS HAS CREATED SOME OF THE MOST IMMACULATE MUSIC I'VE EVER LISTENED TO. I AM VIBRATING AND NOT MANAGING TO CALM DOWN, SO I'M GOING TO RANT ABOUT IT. There's so much background to this. Drake was the one to originally put Kendrick on the world stage. Kendrick was literally an opener for one of Drake's tours back in 2012. That was before Section.80, which was Kendrick's first real studio album, and even then it was more of a mixtape at the time. So, Drake and K-dot were always basically involved with one another. However, while I don't know all of the background to it, I'm pretty sure Drake has been taking shots at literally like half of the rap game for the past few years. Future, A$AP Rocky, Kanye, and obviously Kendrick a couple of times. Saying that his first big hit was basically because of Drake, and that he kept doing features with big artists like Rihanna (LOYALTY.) and SZA (All the Stars). This all leads to a lot of bullshit recently. I'm not EXACTLY sure on the timeline (Feel free to correct me if there is anything wrong), but there are a couple of notable events, notably Drake using a *AI VOICE OF TUPAC* in a song (which led to him getting a cease and desist and a LOT of heat because, well, obviously.) Kendrick accuses him of being a culture vulture, basically trying to appropriate the Black US culture that he did not grow up with. LET'S REMEMBER DRAKE WAS ORIGINALLY BORN IN A GATED COMMUNITY FOR WHITE PEOPLE IN TORONTO. HE HAS NEVER BEEN "HOOD", NEVER LIVED THROUGH GANG VIOLENCE OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. HE STEALS ACCENTS TO SEEM LIKE HE BELONGS AND BASICALLY APPROPRIATES THE CULTURE LIKE A BITCH. I'm pretty sure J.Cole also dropped a song that called himself, Drake and Kendrick the "Big 3" of the Rap Game, to which Kendrick responded in Like That by saying "Fuck the Big 3, [] it's just big me." which obviously means that he considers himself a step above both of them. That's basically when we get to the most recent stuff, and the MEAT of the topic. Drake drops Push Ups. It is some tame shit, let's be honest with ourselves. That song calls out the fact that Drake "handed" Kendrick his first number one hit, which, yeah, he kind of did, but whatever. There's picks at Kendrick's height, his foot size, the fact that his label TOP DOG takes 50% (Hence the lyrics "drop and give me 50" and the push ups title, dropping a song and giving TPE 50% of the profits) Also calling K-dot "wiped down" by more popular artists like SZA, Travis Scott and 21 Savage. Also weirdly enough taking a shot at Metro, a producer that had worked with Kendrick on Like That, but like, why??? AND THEN. FOR A FEW WEEKS, KENDRICK SAYS NOTHING. ON TUESDAY OF THIS WEEK, THOUGH, HE DROPS THE ABSOLUTE BOMB THAT IS EUPHORIA. Euphoria is the title of Drake's show he co-produced that got a bunch of heat for having some weird sexualisation of teenage girls, which is already a pretty good hit, but the LYRICS THEMSELVES. KENDRICK LITERALLY CALLS OUT DRAKE ON SO MANY THINGS. Talking about how he's not a rap artist but a scam artist that wants to be accepted (culture vulture, again), talking about the Tupac shit with "I'd rather do that than let a Canadian [] make Pac turn in his grave", once again calling out Drake being fucking CANADIAN and trying to appropriate the culture. Also making a reference to YMW Kelly and calling Drake and J.Cole his "friends" (YMW Kelly murdered two of his friends, hence why that is a diss and not a compliment.) I have to comment on the absolute HATE FEST too. "I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress I hate the way that you sneak diss, if I catch flight, it's gon' be direct We hate the bitches you fuck 'cause they confuse themself with real women And notice, I said "we," it's not just me, I'm what the culture feelin'"

[bogkeep]

grousing about ai art stuff

every time i open twitter (my mistake) there's a new thread on how to spot ai art or ai photos by finding all the mistakes in it, and like obviously this is useful and it's good to watch out because they kEEP SHOWING UP EVERYWHERE AHHH HELL WORLD HELL WORLD, but it's also a little depressing that we're training ourselves to nitpick all kinds of details within a piece of art.

like even before the artifically generated image boom randos on twitter would reply to fully finished illustrations with the most asinine unsolicited advice possible. art's gonna be flawed sometimes! i'll draw someone in a weird pose because of vibes! i'll wing a hand! i don't fucking know what a house actually looks like!!! like yes of course the way a human artist creates flawed art is different from the way an algorithm doesn't actually know what anything looks like because it has no mind. it doesn't know shit. so it's not that it's UNRELIABLE but it's like. it's like... i've been telling myself and others every time i'm struggling to make something look Just Right that actually nobody i going to be staring as hard at my art as i am while making it. if i don't point it out people aren't likely to notice unless they are going through it with a fine toothed comb BUT NOW WE ARE DOING THAT APPARENTLY. WHICH IS ANYONE'S PEROGATIVE AND FAIR ENOUGH! PEOPLE CAN LOOK AT MY ART HOWEVER THEY WANT IT'S FINE

but it's ALSO so depressing to consider having to analyse every single piece of art you come across like that my goddddddd i just wanna enjoy it!! i wanna enjoy art!!!! i mean the main reason i finally stopped going on twitter regularly was during the NFT boom and i got so tired of having to vet every single artist i came across to make sure i wasnt retweeting nft stuff. like that really ruined my previously enjoyable experience of LOOKING AT NICE ART ON MY FEED WITHOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE.

god another thing that happened during the dark nft times was how certain art styles tended to be nfts. and i don't mean the ugly apes and stuff, like of course there's those, but there were a lot of artists who sold their souls to crypto and there was just a certain Vibe to a lot of those styles. like i got a sixth sense for it, i would see a piece of art by an unknown artists and when i checked - yep, that was a crypto guy now. and you know what!!!! i hated that!!!! i hate that it ruined entire art styles for me!! AND NOW ARTIFICIALLY GENERATED IMAGES ARE DOING THE SAME!!!!! like what tends to tip me off is less because i spotted some wonky hand or a weird flap but because the style is a popular one for the ai bros to imitate. you know what i mean right!!!!!! it's kind of how the ai photos look a bit too clean and crisp and smooth in an unsettling way. it just pings the brain a bit.

ULTIMATELY the absolute main method i have for filtering away ai images isn't so much looking for mistakes, but by checking sources. it's the same way i check that i'm not reblogging from reposting accounts Because That's A Thing I Care About Too - if there's no description or the description seems off and i don't recognise the OP, i check the original post/blog to see what's up. if the image gives me a weird vibe, i check where it comes from and who posted it. oftentimes the comments on posts with ai images will point it out - they're not always accurate and there's definitely been times where people are a little too trigger happy to accuse art of being AI... but it can be a good lead or confirm suspicions. on one hand, i don't want to do detective work while im having chill scrolling time, but on the other hand - i already had this habit for other reasons, so it's less disruptive to me than the alternative. it also helps that it's very rare for ai shit to turn up in my tumblr feed. i don't want to keep looking over my shoulder!!

(also for anyone who wants a little bit of optimism in the middle of all this, here's an episode of Better Offline podcast that outlines how it's very unlikely for generative ai to actually get much better. here's the part two also.)

[theleatherdragon]

The TMI Update

Welp, I guess it's been about a year since I was last really active online aside from a few places. It wasn't by choice, that's for sure lmao?? But I suppose I should give a bit of a life update for the people that are curious about my absence. A TL;DR for some people: my health was garbage, my parents health is even more garbage, and I wanna come back to the art community online but I'm not sure when/how between the recent ai/art theft and website changes while I was gone.

It started with my mystery health issues. From about May 2023 to Feb 2025, I was dying, slowly. Like I was losing my hair, my muscles, I had no energy, my brain was just constantly fogged up like a dementia patient, I couldn't stay awake for more than 4-7 hours a day, I couldn't eat, I was scared that I wouldn't wake up the next day every single night I went to bed. It started off slowly and then by around April 2024, it just snowballed into catastrophe. After burning through 16+ different doctors of all kinds, none of them would help me despite multiple blood tests being flagged as either too high or too low. They all kept telling me that I'm just depressed or some other wacky crap like "you're just a woman, this is normal."

Eventually I learned that you can buy your own tests on Labcorp, and through trial and error I learned that I had 0 estrogen and 0 testosterone. Apparently a pill that I had been taking for years, the ingredients got changed in 2023 and it completely wrecked my hormones. That's when I learned just how much work hormones do, and I found a doctor to change my pills because apparently I was going through something that was considerably WORSE than menopause. I've been on this new pill for 80+ days now and literally every symptom I had is just completely gone now.

Unfortunately, as soon as I figured out my health mystery and started to get better again, my parents were rushed to the hospital. On April 13 my dad got a ct scan of his lungs to see how bad his pneumonia was and I saw the screen and said oh god that's cancer. Not only does he have cancer, he has TWO separate lung cancers, both stage 4. And then while dealing with that, my mom's cancer that she's had since 2021 has gotten worse. It's been nothing but a nightmare for the last year, but now it's gotten significantly worse. To the point that we even went to buy a family burial plot. Not many people my age get to brag about having their own cemetery plot reserved already, hand picked by myself lmao??

I lost my grandmother in February and now there's a good chance I'll be losing both of my parents this year as well, we're not sure yet. Since April I've probably spent a few hundred hours in and out of the hospital with them and driving them to radiation/chemo treatments and just ugh, I'm exhausted.

Aside from all of that grief, my other problem with being online has been a mixed bag of bad too. I sort of had my online world rocked last year after discovering things about some so called friends and other things about my art, and that really broke me too. All my life I just wanted to be an artist, to draw fun characters and have fun art trades and all sorts of things with the community. But apparently some people were just using me for their fetishes or trying to gain their own reputations and just, I'm not like that man. I literally am so ace coded that I thought the debate between top and bottom was for bunk bed choices like lmao bro

I started building my own website to combat that and also the fact that a lot of art websites have succumbed to the ai/art thieves mess. Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to build it and also as soon as I created it, Google decided to take my website and stick it on their algorithm even though I specifically had it coded to NOT do that. All the other search engines respected my request and so I went to Google asking about it. I followed their instructions and now ALL the search engines have my website. Unless I can find a way to stop that, I'm going to have to password protect my website so that bot crawlers won't see my things and make it super easy access to the wrong people.

I really do miss being online though and making art for and with people. Unfortunately I'm going to have to make some big changes in the near future before I can come back, but I wanted to at least drop an update on things. I'm absolutely going to power through Art Fight again this year, so you can catch me there if I haven't returned elsewhere by then. It's really unfortunate how much these websites have changed while I was gone, but I won't be leaving if I can help it.

I really hope everyone else has had a much better time than me. Aside from all the health scares, my life hasn't been terrible. I got back into photography and a few other crafts, I just haven't been posting things online. Heck, I haven't even been on Discord in months now, I honestly have no idea what all has changed for a while. I just haven't had the mental ability to do much aside from lurking on Tumblr here and there, but even then some of the negative things I see are just too much to bare for my mental state of being right now.

I want to come back soon, but I'm scared at how fragile my mind is lately. It doesn't help that my hormones have come back in full swing, so it's really weird going almost 2 years of feeling nothing to suddenly feeling everything again lmao??

Anywho, this is a big enough wall of text for now. I really hope you're doing awesome and I wish nothing but the best for you. I really hope we can all make art again soon!

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Hi! You're brilliant. Literature major here and someone who's loved Swift a lot growing up. I absolutely loathe who she is as a person now that the blinders have been off for a year and also the utter embarrassment that is TTPD. I'm seeing Swifties say "actually Taylor IS allowed to use female rage because she's had AI porn of her, been sexually harassed multiple times and won the court case for it, belittled for her art and is never taken seriously despite being stolen from" and despite the very obvious argument that "the TTPD setlist has 0 songs alluding to any of this to supposedly be about her female rage", I would LOVE to hear your take on this argument. My perspective is that despite these being very real experiences *building* to female rage Taylor has been through, she has never once spoken about them seriously outside of how they have impacted her as an individual. In this very album she's the epitome of a pick-me with her "you said other girls were boring" and "i can fix him" lines in her songs about the rat. This is opposed to the deep rooted community backing that comes with representing female rage as a topic (again, Paris Paloma's Labor is so good at representing that). Anyway I just have been subject to too many Swifties claiming Taylor has every right to co-opt Female Rage and it's making *me* rage. I don't have plans to battle anyone about it cuz the critical thinkers are coming to these conclusions themselves but I would love to hear your very well articulated thoughts on this supposed "argument" Swifties have about her being allowed to use the term. The fact that she's been through sexual harassment in the past and continues to despite being the biggest artist in the world.

Hello! First, I am so happy to hear you are a fellow Literature major <3 <3 Wonderful! And thank you for your kind words, I appreciate it. I hope you enjoy your study while finding it all as beautiful and important as I do!!!!! Sorry, it took me so long to write back- I was busy thinking it all through. I understand your frustration though, believe me. I feel it too.

Okay, let’s talk about your question. It’s an intense question- but I do think that just shying away from the conceptual point within the Swifties argument would be to give a shield against criticism- and I truly believe that nothing is above criticism. Criticism keeps us grounded in reality- but more than that it keeps us humble in self-reflexivity.  

The argument is as follows: Taylor Swift is allowed to claim the term “Female Rage” because she has experienced harassment based on sex classification- correct? The swifies then levy four pieces of evidence for her experience of sex-based harassment, 1- she has had AI porn made of her, and 2- that she was in a sexual harassment lawsuit, 3- her art is often belittled, 4- her masters were never owned by her. 

Okay, now that I’ve laid out Swifties argument- I am about to go full Analytic Philosophy major on it. <3.  

The first piece of evidence is about the AI porn scandal. I want to express that the current mess of AI porn being made of women is despicable- there are sick, sick men out there who seem to think themselves entitled to viewing any womans naked body- real or fake. I am firmly against the creation of AI porn- and truly feel empathy for Swift having experienced it. I am sure that it was a negative experience. However, how exactly is this evidence in favor of her using the term “Female Rage” to describe her work when in fact none of her work addresses the AI Porn issue? Her work never even describes or addresses any of the issues implicit to the patriarchally permissive culture that allows for men to feel entitled to create AI porn in the first place. If this is to be a direct defense of her calling her actual body of work “female Rage” then I am going to need to see evidence of her being mad about the AI porn in her work.  

She literally never even condemns the patriarchy in her music. Not even one of her songs is about how the patriarchy, in connection with the digital age, allows for men entitlement to bleed over in the creation of AI porn. It is a systemic issue too- more than just Swift experiences AI porn being made of them without consent- so it could be the subject of song to express “Female Rage” at this being a systemic issue- yet Swift did not do this. Thus, it is not an accurate defense for calling her work “Female Rage” 

It is much the same case for the second piece of evidence. The closest we get is her singing “Clean” in Denver a year after her trial concluded, and during the time leading up to “Lover” in which a “dollar” was an Easter Egg. She famously wanted only a dollar for winning her trial. That easter egg, however, never had anything to do with the trial. In any case, there is still nothing in her work to suggest “female Rage” about being sexually assaulted. As far as I can tell- and I’ve listened to every song she’s ever written multiple times- there are only a few songs that can be loosely interpreted as dealing with anxiety and sadness. If we want to give benefit of doubt here- anxiety could tie into her experiences; I find this loose tie, however, uncompelling, because most of her music about anxiety- directly ties into some proto-capitalistic fear she is expressing.  

Again, I’m sure that she did experience something negative during her trial- and did feel passionate about its verdict; however, there is nothing in her music about this instance- nothing. There’s no Paris Paloma style call-to-arms against the Patriarchy for enabling men to commit sexual assaults.  

Before I move on- about the first two pieces of evidence- Swift is not obligated to write music about it- but if she is going to claim her work is “Female Rage” based on her experiences with either of the two things above- then I would expect to see reflection of these experiences in her work.  

Onto evidence three and four. The claim is that her art is belittled based on sex-discrimination thus qualifying it as female rage. The connecting claim is that she was never given the opportunity to own her masters.  

Her art is often regarded as simple pop-music made for adolescents- because that is what it is. I failed to see how this is belittling. It’s saying that the music does what Swift wants it to do- which is entertain children, teenagers, and those among us who want “family-friendly” pop-music. What’s the problem? I like simple pop music. I listen to a lot of pop music, because it’s fun and easy and simple. It does what it sets out to do- how am I belittling her by saying she writes basic pop music- not poetry.  

People often only draw issue with her music when she tries to claim it is more than simple pop music. I draw an issue here- because it doesn’t live up to the standards of real, robust artistic music. It just doesn’t- again it’s not really belittling anything. This is the difference between belittling- and giving legitimate criticism. None of these complaints against Swift’s musical ability, lack thereof, or lacking creativity as a groundbreaking talent is at all related to discrimination based on sex or on her identity as a woman. It literally has nothing to do with her being a woman- she's just not a serious writer. She’s clearly not even a classically trained musician.  

The fourth piece of evidence is again predicated on industry standard injustice. She did not own her master's- and was not offered the chance to own her master's. I, however, don’t really believe she was never offered to buy her own catalogue- I think she just gave a low-ball offer and got rejected. Personally, I feel like the amount of capitalistic rage that was unleashed after that- and the spiteful nature of her re-record issue- is because she was angry about getting her offer rejected. We all know, by this point, Swift can’t stand being told no. In any case, her not owning the masters of her catalogue is industry standard.  

It could be likely that perhaps the two men buying and selling her music were rather sexist- I do recall the “I own Taylor Swift” Scooter incident. While that is clearly a sexist remark, I do think that Swift’s response to this incident is less directly correlated to feminist effort and more in line with her own personal feelings of dejection- and feeling capitalistic rage. If anyone want further detail on that- it's all in my previous post on Swift’s rage in my discussion on “Mad Woman” (2020).  

The closest we get to a feminist-forward remark is her saying “Master of spin has a couple side flings” in which she is essentially outing Scooter as a cheater. That can only loosely be described as female rage- if you squint and look at it sideways. Otherwise, it’s just her trying to denotate a bomb in his life- it's very “eye for an eye” revenge that really doesn’t correlate to feminism or female rage. Because “revenge” is not the point of “Female Rage” or Feminism- The Point is JUSTICE and Showcasing WOMEN as Equals To MEN! AHHHH! It’s not like the guy was even cheating on her- she literally just wanted to ruin his life. (Not that I have sympathy for him. I’m just saying this situation was a personal vendetta for Swift- not some grand feminist declaration). But again, the interior motivations of her rage at Scooter- and the rage of women for centuries culminating into Female Rage as a movement- are drastically different motivating factors. In this instance she is lashing out with personal rage in which she is only advocating for her own point of view and personal hurts - not the community-driven concept of female rage. 

I do also find it strange that only on point three and four, the two points directly connected to her power and money, are the only two things we can directly trace into her music and her work. She literally only gets angry about threats to her money and power-  

Thus, I support my conclusion from my other post on Swift’s so-called female rage, that she is expressing corporate rage, or capitalistic rage. It is a different thing altogether, because, as I said in my other post:  

Female Rage is grounded in experiences of oppression and injustice- yet marked too by its ability to clearly advocate for women’s rights in systemic, patriarchal issues. Female Rage necessitates extending empathy to other women- who have suffered the patriarchy too. It’s a call to community and a call-to-arms against intersectional forms of patriarchal abuse.  

Never, in any of her four points of evidence, does she legitimately utilize her music to critique the patriarchy- which is an implicit necessity for art relaying themes of female rage.  

If she ever did actually broach the subject in her music in a way that gives legitimate criticism to the patriarchal standards she claims to hate- then I will change my mind.

Where exactly has Taylor Swift ever really advocated for anything? She gives us the world's most lazy, throw away lines about “Girl Power” and “Being a Boss” and even a few “you can want who you want/ girls and girls and boys and boys” (“Welcome to New York” 2014) - yet never does it culminate into any remark upon injustice in society. She never once modulates into a reflection into the mores of society in which some demographics are considered lesser- it's all just bleak pop-music wherein she appeals only to the most populist- surface level aspects of social issues. Notice too- that she only ever mentions social issues when it becomes most likely to have good reception from the public. She only became a feminist- after it became popular on social media.  

Where was she when I was a young lesbian feminist fighting for my life in the early 2000’s? Oh yeah, she was writing homophobic versions of her debut singles- and adding lines like “My Daddy’s gonna show you how sorry you’ll be” (“Picture to Burn” 2006) as an appeal to the patriarchy - I forgot. LOL. Where was she when feminism couldn’t be commodified- made fluffily and easy to “copy and paste” into her shitty pop-songs? Nowhere. 

It’s not about feminism, or female rage, for her- or standing up for anything at all in the face of the larger social system. For her, it’s about commodification and economic power.  

She's literally not a feminist. She’s not a LGBT activist- She's a goddamned opportunist and that has made her incredibly rich.  

Anyway, about TTPD, specifically, I need a whole separate post to talk about the overt anti-feminist, pro-patriarchy messaging of that album. Can’t do it here- I've rambled long enough. And I have a boat load of textual evidence to incorporate into my discussion on Swift so-called “feminist music” that I want to discuss in depth soon. I also have a Feminist-Marxist analysis lined up- that one I did just for fun 😊 

Ps- If you like any aspect of this argument or think that it might be true feel free to use it if anyone brings up the argument with you again. Sharing is caring. 

If you disagree and wish to burn me in effigy- Well, catch me if you can. <3 hahaha 

[voyaging-too]

March books and such

Recs Bolded.

Books

William Gibson: Count Zero (Sprawl Trilogy 2). Sequel to Neuromancer. The plot is somehow too simple and too complicated at the same time, but I don’t really mind because the characters (one elite mercenary, one disgraced art dealer, one suburban kid in way over his head) are just as lost as I am, wandering around a complex lived-in world full of wonderful subplots and supporting cast. Top-notch classic cyberpunk with corporate espionage and simulated virtual realities and weird AI gods.

William Gibson: Mona Lisa Overdrive (Sprawl Trilogy 3). Concludes the trilogy with yet more cyberpunk shenanigans and yet more hapless humans (world-famous influencer, yakuza heiress, traumatised reclusive artist, penniless teenage addict), caught up in the inscrutable machinations of all-powerful international corporations and rogue AI. Probably my favourite in the trilogy, because of the drop-dead gorgeous writing, the humour, the massive amounts of idiosyncratic weirdies populating the plot, and the return of an older, wiser Molly Millions. Gibson is not great at writing women, but here he made a concerted effort, and as a result, we have three very distinct female POV characters, all of whom I love but especially Mona herself.

Doris Lessing: Shikasta (Canopus in Argos 1) I’ve seen this book brought up as an example of what happens when a literary author decides to write sci-fi without a solid grounding in the genre’s conventions and possibilities. And that’s kind of true, but it’s only a small part of why this book is so weird. Lessing was already weird, her literary books were already doing weird things to pacing and structure. This novel is like… a novella about the fall of a prehistorical civilisation, then a few tales reinterpreting the events of the Old Testament, then a long compilation of very short stories, most of them brief fictionalised biographies of individual people in 20th century Britain, then a first-person novella about three siblings in a dystopian near-future, then an epistolary novelette about some teenagers doing a mock trial against the whole of Europe, which runs into another epistolary story about preparing for nuclear annihilation, these disparate pieces glued together by a framing device that involves aliens who observe and try to influence human history. Weird inconsistent book, but the good parts are extremely good. Some of the best short stories I’ve read in my life pretending to be a novel.

Andrea Dworkin: Right Wing Women. This is a feminist nonfiction classic for a reason. Easy to read, hard to forget. Yes, a fair bit of it is hastily written analyses of specific 1970s questions and conflicts, but the rest of it is painfully applicable even today. It’s a stark statement about how much of our society is built on facilitating marital rape, and how many women make the rational choice to accept and shore up that system in order to avoid even worse violence.

JRR Tolkien: The Hobbit. (German practice reread.) Everybody knows what the Hobbit is, it’s still good on reread although very much an episodic children’s book that swerves into a tragic war story at the very last minute. It sure has a lot of vocabulary that I didn't have before, most of it related to trees.

Jo Walton: Among Others. I loved the premise, loved the semi-autobiographical perspective of a teenage Welsh SFF-fan in the 1970s, I absolutely loved the low-key and hard-to-interpret fairy magic. But the book itself didn’t work for me, the writing didn’t work for me, too much of it felt like inert padding between the few fragile pieces of plot, and the constant name-dropping of 1970ies SFF titles didn’t give me a real connection to the character or a real sense of the historical fandom, instead I felt like I was reading a version of Ready Player One for people who actually read.

Star War

Revenge of the Sith. A double tragedy. A tragedy because if the characters made slightly different choices they could have had a happy ending, and a meta-tragedy because if the filmmakers made slightly different choices they could have made a good tragedy, as opposed to a frustrating muddle. Key parts of the plot are cribbed from Dune: Messiah and applied without context. Padme is written so atrociously badly it loops around and becomes a bold feminist statement on how a relationship can turn you into a shell of your former self.

Clone Wars Season 1. The dialogue and the moral lessons are written for eight-year-olds, the setting and the war story plots are written for fifty-year-old dads, it is dumb and doesn’t mesh well. There are some flashes of something almost interesting, and I’m told that that there’s more of that in later seasons.

A More Civilized Age Podcast, Season 1. Four people with varying levels of knowledge about Star War watch and discuss a star war. It’s funny, it’s smart, sometimes they yell at the show for being dumb and bad, sometimes they give it incredible amounts of grace and basically invent the secret good version of it, it’s fun.

Theatre

Ariane Mnouchkine & Théatre du Soleil: Ici sont les dragons. A play about 1917: I expected either the bloody yet justified glory of the revolution, or the justified yet bloody execution of the tsar. Instead I mostly got endless political discussions between various revolutionary factions in various rooms. This play said: the original sin of the Russian Revolution wasn’t killing the tsar, and it wasn’t even killing the tsar’s children, all that hardly matters now: the original sin of the Russian Revolution was killing the emperor and then choosing to remain an Empire. Suppressing non-bolshevik revolutionary parties, even fellow socialists, and deciding not to let Ukraine go, Lenin let the Russian Empire survive, and it survived Socialism and the fall of Socialism and survives today. A dark bitter weird play in five languages with subtitles, metafictional digressions, long quotes from memoirs and history books, and historical figures portrayed by actors in rubber face masks of Lenin, Stalin and so on, yes really, it was a hard watch, except for a gorgeous five-minute farce about Lenin in his pyjamas.

Exhibitions (I got to go to Paris last month)

Louvre: Revoir Cimabue. Religious art from the 13th century, when some people had already started painting interesting, differentiated faces, but everyone was still indicating holiness by drowning the painting in golf leaf. Strange arched features, hooded eyes and green-tinged skin in a sea of gold, altarpieces just shining with divinity. Works by Cimabue and also all of his contemporaries and precursors and students because not even the Louvre has enough Cimabues to fill a small room.

Pompidou: Suzanne Valadon. May be my new favourite artist. She started modelling for painters as a teenager, she features in works by Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec and a dozen other great Parisian painters at the turn of the century. She learned painting from being painted, and started making her own work, first drawings, then eventually oil paintings. Her work is idiosyncratic and meanly realistic but also warm. Her portraits and her nudes are all wonderfully mundane. She was one of the first women to paint not only female but also male nudes, from life. (But the Salon of Independents made her add a strategic leaf or they wouldn’t exhibit it. No! Let her paint cock!) My absolute favourite painting from her was also centred at the exhibition, because look at it, The Blue Room is just perfect, she doesn’t give a shit, she’s in her pyjamas.

But I also loved Lady with Little Dog, partly because of the little dog, partly because of the colours of the drape, partly because the androgyny of the model.

[theknittingsquid]

Hey, this post is largely directed towards anyone who has found me here through my ao3 fics for Flare and Amir.

I'm sorry for fandom tagging this but I do want to make sure as many people as possible that read my work and also are on here see this because its really my only way of addressing this in a wide open space where anyone can see it.

Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not submit my work to any kind of generative ai or ask me to do so to create a character.ai or whatever the hell. same goes for any other creators work in *any* fandom.

I am VEHEMENTLY against any kind of generative AI, especially ai "art", and it would make me feel very very sad and honestly violated to find out that my work, which through all the silliness, the dramatic stories and smut, does contain some of my *real actual people feelings* and serious self expression as an artist, was submitted to something like that so that you can have more of the characters as ive written them.

if you want to see more of my characterizations, im honestly flattered, but please just hope that i write more of that character in a fic for you to read soon instead of asking an ai to try and mimic my voice.

AI art is not art, and please go find time to text rp with your friends like I did back in the day instead of essentially asking chatgpt to be a character for you. i swear you will not die of cringe, some of my best memories of my friendships from my teens were created by 1x1 rping with a buddy with our ocs. collaborative fiction is fun, try it out.

Thanks.

[femslashfeb]

HELLO ALL

TLDR

No reblogging from the blog this year - posting prompts tomorrow the 31st

For the past few years I've very much struggled with reblogging everyone's activity in the tag. So this year I will not be doing so.

(OR maybe I will? I just don't want to commit)

Even if I knew how to make a bot that reblogs - a lot of people still use the unique tag to tag outside challenges. So I've always had to hand submit. However it became too stressful for me and for the past few years I ended up avoiding it until later weeks or even months.

If you noticed I didn't finish reblogging last year so- I've just given up on that.

Honestly I've struggled a lot with depression for the last 7 years or so. It's been harder and harder to find my way back to tumblr. It doesn't help that my phone can barely handle the amount of apps it already has.

My main account @puff-pink hardly ever updates because of my big sad. And I don't know if I'll ever get back on the horse in the same way I did before.

Some of you know me as an artist, and tho I still churn out subpar art for my day-job I've struggled a lot to make art for myself during my depression. Partially because one year I overworked my hand - and still deal in continual wrist aches. Even the weeks I don't pick up a drawing tool.

I intended this challenge for myself and maybe the small fandoms I was in at the time. But it took off among writers and creators of all types across all fandoms.

One year I even tried to tally the most popular fandoms but there were honestly too many to keep track of- and I stopped after the first three pages of submissions.

I don't claim to have invented the concept of FemSlash February. Before I started the prompts I swear I had heard the phrase somewhere. Tho not sure where. Perhaps it had been amongst my friends on Skype. Back when I had online friends and Skype(I'm still not sold on Discord🤷‍♀️).

However that January I thought it would be fun to partake in a challenge of some kind. But scouring tumblr and the general internet. I could only find half hearted efforts on fanfiction sites from years past.

I'm so proud of all my Sapphic creators on here that have partaken every year. Even if I've never shown favoritism or awarded anyone. I do notice those that actually complete the challenge AND those that keep coming back each year(looking at you H20 writer(I don't remember your username but there's a mermaid writer that's a writing machine)). I truly am proud of you especially in my shriveled state of creativity. Thank you for your efforts. For your hype. And for your love of women of all kinds across all the universes.

Each year I'm surprised to find even more categories I never thought to include. From mood boards, to doll photography, to ofc the classic art and writing. May your pencils forever be in union with your sister mediums.

On that note. There is a strict NO AI GENERATED ART or writing this year.

Not that I could physically stop anyone who does use AI. But I do not want that sort of thing associated with this challenge. It's become scarily good in 2023 to the point it can't always be identified. So I simply ask for the honor system when it comes to AI generated creations.

That being said. If you've made it to the end of this post:

Prompts will be posted tomorrow.

I usually prefer to give yall more of a buffer, but I've been busy. Both with Big Sad, rescuing some feral cats, my own life, errands, chores and work.

If you're still here- here is a preview of the first three days.

FEB 1 - black

FEB 2 - spring

FEB 3 - cake

The 14th as usual will be some sort of Valentine romance type theme(haven't decided specifically yet) and as always there will be a Rest Day.

Expect some repeat prompts. In the past I tried to avoid them but idc anymore.

It's also a Leap Year this year so expect one extra prompt to throw off the symmetry of what's normally 28 days.

Thanks for coming back this year. And thank you to those that still check on this blog.

❤️🧡🤍💜🩷

Keep loving girls

-PuffPink

[vivalgi]

Hi, I know you said you didn't people arguing with you, and that is not at all what I'm trying to do, but I do think this is important to point out. Feel free to ignore this ask. As an artist and someone who also hates AI and has had their own art detected as AI by AI art detectors, I do not believe that Bardric's current design was fully AI-generated (please do keep in mind that with AI nowadays it can be hard to tell for a fact unless confirmed by the artist or has the stereotypical AI art style). I know you make a lot of edits, but I'm not sure if you're an artist yourself. If you are, there is a chance you have more experience than me, in which case I would trust your word more (I've only been doing art for around 3 years). From what I can gather, most of the evidence you've pointed out are easy-to-make mistakes, with one not even being a mistake. Based on my understanding, this design is still technically concept art (I think they stated that in a story, correct me if I'm wrong) so mistakes are completely understandable. The lapel that looks like it's divided into three parts seems to be like a not-fully rendered part. If you were to use a smudge tool in that area, you would get something similar to the other lapel. Many digital artists try to not use a copy paste or symmetry tool in their art for one reason or another, to the point that if you look at other art with somewhat similar styles (like wlop's older art or Samdoesart's portraits with a lot of metal and jewelry) and you zoom in, you will see very similar things occuring. Personally, I've never seen AI generators do the "double vision effect" with such harsh edges, often being overly blended out. Based on the lighting (which seems to be coming from the upper-left) I'd assume it's a bounce light from the gold because if you look at the entire rim, you'll see it is meant to be above the lapel, not sewn onto it. Now, I will admit, I have 0 clue about what is going on with the pants. It both does and does not make sense (to me) and just gives me uncanny valley vibes. And I can make no comment on the belt as I have seen way too many kinds of belts out there in fantasy worlds (literally just google 'belt buckle fantasy' and you will see belts that make no sense, like, you can see the prong in some but not others and in so many of them it looks like the prong is melted into the buckle) when doing studies and getting some of my won so I have given up. Also, there are no egregious issues with the shadows. The light is coming from the front, not the back. Were it coming from the back, there would be rim lighting and the front of his face would not be shiny. If you find pictures with similar lighting, you will notice the collar makes a shadow on both the neck and the part beneath the collar (if it is on the side the light comes from). The lighting in this image makes total sense with any issues simply being minor mistakes even advanced artists do Once more, I am not expert, and I could totally be wrong. I am not a professional artist, especially not in the semi-realistic art style. However, I have notices a lot of artists who have been on the internet for ages and have proved many times that it is their own art are just now being called out for AI since their own art style is similar. Finally, keep in mind that a lot of artist follow the rule of "don't add too much detail if the image is understandable", again I point to wlop and samdoes art, but there's also rishidraws, Alberto Mieglo (make sure you're looking at his concept art, particularly spiderverse art, as some of his posts are fully finished products where he was required to add a lot of detail due to the size of the piece) and rossdraws. If you look at their art for long enough, you will notice a lot of similar artistic/stylistic decisions (aside from the part where the pants and shirt meet, again, I have no clue wtf is going on there) that you pointed out

Constructive conversation is always welcome. What happened on the other site was more like making fun and laughing off by crazed fangirls when I only dared to mention my suspicion and nothing more, so don't worry about annoying me with your post 😅

I can see why those artists you've mentioned could be accused of using AI due to their art style and it's a shame this is happening. I still trust myself more than any AI detector, even when all of them happen to agree with me. There's lots of things that could trigger those tools, even totally innocent ones, or just some barely noticeable filter.

I also wouldn't dare to say Bardick's art is fully AI, but I'm still pretty confident the process involved AI assistance. How exactly, I'm not completely sure. The evolution images are too low quality (and suspiciously late stage drawings as someone pointed out) to fully understand the process. I haven't really had a chance to try AI-assisted art creation myself (not sure my PC can handle it and the tools online have been pure scam and gambling so far), but it seems similar to what I've seen on videos: the artist starts with a sketch (or AI generated image), feeds it wholly to AI (again) or masks certain areas to regenerate, sketches over again, fixes some things, another round of AI, rinse and repeat, until finally adding finishing touches.

The right lapel's triangularly placed sticks certainly aren't just lazy brush strokes in a non-focus area. They're too detailed for that, having proper shading, highlights and maybe even shadows, yet don't make any sense compared to the other side.

That corner even seems to change slightly between the last two evolution images (although too low quality once again):

(the skin tight shirt is also something AI likes to do, although no abs sticking out this time 😛)

Maybe you're right and the double lines around the hem really are intended to be a reflection or something but even then it would be such an unnecessary detail to add.

I can see it could have been badly worded but I didn't claim that the light comes from the back, that's why I pointed out why the coat's collar leaving a shadow on the shirt was strange, as if the light was cast from behind, unlike the rest of the image. Before daring to write about the shadows, I must admit I even put on my white shirt and played around with phone's flashlight in front of the mirror 😅, so I'm pretty sure there's too much shadow on the shirt below the collar. Some shadow and shading due to light getting trapped under the collar would have been normal, like this quick 1-min smudging:

...but otherwise it's impossible to get two such clear and large shadows on both sides with a single light source.

Why I've been wary of Candlelight when it comes to the use of AI, is because Andrew was the creative force behind Storyloom (creative director according to Linkedin) and there was at least one book series made by PB - Season of Love - that heavily used AI generated assets (some Youtube playthroughs still exist). Like you, I also remember there being a comment or post from CL about the stage of Bardick's design but I'm already doubting myself if it was claimed to be final or not and I can't find the post anymore. I'd like to believe we've only seen the concept. From what I understood then the character arts are outsourced, so there's some chance they're not even aware about the use of AI.

Link to my post we're talking about

[ozzgin]

hope this doesn't come off as rude, but do you condone the usage of ai art? because I noticed you use ai art for quite a few of your post headers ^^;

No worries, it's a reasonable question, although a rather complex one! There are multiple layers that I would like to go through when answering you.

Do I condone the use of AI as a replacement for actual art? Obviously not. I enjoy drawing, and I enjoy collecting art. This won't change regardless of technology. The reality, however, is that generative AI will continue to develop, whether we like it or not. So, you know, instead of denying its existence, I would prefer to openly discuss it and have it regulated by laws and ethical conducts. For example, laws that would protect artists from being laid off in favor of one single AI engineer. Or laws that would limit the profit companies can make using undisclosed AI. Basically, making sure that this new technology serves the people instead or rendering them useless.

Do I condone the use of AI for individual use? Depends. My opinion is that non-profit, entertainment purposes are not the root of the problem. Someone generating a funny image of a cat is not the equivalent of someone generating hundreds of images a day. Those terrible environmental statistics you see online are mostly targeted at this kind of business usage. If you were to go on Instagram, for example, you would find a lot of accounts who publish vast amounts of AI works, often omitting this fact. Some sell merch, advice, or - if they are honest about their methods - courses and books on prompts and AI imagery. It's an actual thing. Does it take visibility away from actual artists? Absolutely. Even worse, it leads to a lot of doubt, where artists must prove themselves against accusatory claims. Again, I believe the solution is not to ignore progress or demand it stops, but to find concrete measures and implement them.

I use AI images for story headers, strictly for decorative purposes. If I want to express something visually, I will draw it myself. I do not have the time nor resources to draw every single picture I want to use on my hobby blog. Whoever disagrees with it is free to pay me a full employee salary. Mind you, on that note, I've seen a lot of people mentioning Pinterest and similar as open sources for pictures. They are not free repositories to just grab whatever you want. That photograph of a foggy forest was taken by someone and requires crediting. That unspecified manga panel was drawn by someone and requires crediting. 90% of the images I see here have no source or credit. I find it terribly hypocritical to parade as a supporter of human arts while conveniently ignoring every case where said human art is stolen, modified or uncredited.

Lastly, do I condone the use of AI by artists? This is an interesting topic, and a recent case immediately comes to mind: a well-established artist I've been following for over a decade has alluded to potentially training AI to replicate their art in the future. It's their way of easing their workload. Is it any different from comic artists using filtered photos to skip drawing backgrounds, for example? Is it any different from commission artists pre-drawing body parts and objects as brushes and stamps, so they can skip a lot of the drawing process? I am not a professional artist, nor do I require the use of this sort of assistance, but I cannot help but wonder: how many of the individuals who had a meltdown over this suggestion have actually paid or tipped an artist in their life? How many of them regularly call out stolen content? How many are mindful about the content they share/distribute/save, making sure it involves given permissions and fulfills ethical standards? I'm not necessarily calling people out; rather, I'm saying that the outrage is misdirected and untargeted.

I don't have a concrete conclusion to the last paragraph. It's a novel dilemma, a gray area with a lot of factors involved. At least to me. I wanted to include it in the conversation to show that generative AI and its implications are rapidly changing and expanding, so it's difficult to encapsulate it all in one definite opinion. All I can tell you is that my appreciation for human art has not changed, and I will continue to support it. :)

[da-birb-writes-sometimes]

Devilish

A scare during the witching hour turns into something more pleasant than you thought it would.

Character; Trey Clover

Content; Gender-neutral reader, some fear but ends in fluff

Content Warning; Fear/anxiety, swearing

Word Count; 1.6 K

Author's Note; This is for @jade-s-nymph's TWSTober collab! I had a lot of fun writing this, plus this is my first fic/serious work featuring Trey ^v^ Please make sure you support the other writers and artists in this collab as well; and remember to reblog works that you enjoyed!

As a reminder, do not put my work — or others for that matter — into AI as it steals. Link to Masterlist

You woke up, a bit in a daze since you were just deep asleep, but the groggy daze of ‘Why am I awake… nevermind, I’m going back to bed’ quickly left your mind as a strong, acrid, smell filled the air; the smell of something burning. That grogginess quickly morphed into a slowly building and intensifying anxiety, but none of the smoke alarms were going off… you still got up though and turned on all the lights; you wouldn’t be able to rest easy until you found the source of the smell.

Room by room, you turned on the lights, and thankfully you didn’t find anything ablaze. Thinking about it, you didn’t even have anything on that could theoretically start a fire… better safe than sorry.

I mean, like, who wouldn’t wake up and not be freaked out? My brain is practically running around in circles and screaming FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! You thought to yourself, rubbing your eyes. You also knew full well that you wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep after this, the anxious part of your brain making sure that you stayed awake until you either found the source of the smell, or it went away.

You ended your quest of trying to find the smell in the kitchen, but there was no sign of smoke or the ‘fire’ that your brain imagined engulfing all of your earthly possessions. Yet, you didn’t feel relieved, instead, you hunched over your counter and started scrolling through your phone, looking for answers.

‘what smells like burning rubber’ 

You got everything from phantom smells caused by hallucinations, to electrical fires, to skunk. You let out a sigh and massaged your temples. Yeah, I should have seen that coming. Go looking for answers and instead, I have more questions than I began with. 

“Lovely,” you sighed, straightening yourself back up and looking up at the ceiling, “just lovely.”

It was honestly no use trying to go back to sleep now, since you were fully awake. Glancing at the clock, you groaned again; it wasn’t even four in the morning; what kind of sick joke was that? 

You gave your clock the stink eye but started your journey back to your bed, maybe you could start reading that book you’ve been meaning to get into… or you could just scroll mindlessly through social media while nice and comfy under your blankets. But right as you reached the threshold of your room, three knocks sounded out.

You paused and listened. Knock, knock, knock. There they were again, but they weren’t coming from the front door, no. You were half tempted to pull the blinds back from the window, but if there was some creep knocking on your window in the dead of night, you would rather not come across them. So yet again, you went through your place, triple-checking that all the locks were secure. First a fire scare, and now this? Today wasn’t going great, was it?

All of the locks checked out though, everything was good.

Knock. Knock. KNOCK.

A third round of knocking, but this time it was louder, more insistent. And the burning smell was back, and you could taste it from how strong it was. It commanded all of your attention and wasn’t going to be ignored… it was consuming, hungry almost. 

You were back in the kitchen, and thankfully(?) there was no more knocking, it seemed like three sets of three and it was done, but the smell, the smell. It was oppressive, and you started coughing, but despite the all-consuming smell of fire and burning, there was no smoke anywhere to be found; with the smell this thick, you would have been able to feel it. 

You went ahead to turn on the light, but despite you flipping the switch up and down multiple times, the light stayed off. And the rest of the lights just shut off suddenly on your final flip of the light switch, plunging you into darkness, engulfing you in darkness and the smell of burning.

FUCK! You fumbled around for your phone, trying to get the flashlight on.

Knock, knock, knock. The knocking was back, and it was slower and louder than before.

Finally, your phone’s flashlight turned on, and from the darkness, a pair of glowing yellow eyes stared at you, unblinking and looking into you, as if trying to see your very being.

And you? You just stood there, frozen, barely even breathing, since hey THERE WERE GLOWING EYES IN YOUR HOUSE STARING AT YOU? HELLO?! WHAT?!

You tried to move, to even open your mouth so you could make some attempt to either scream in horror, or hiss obscenities at whatever was in your kitchen, but you were frozen. And as you stared back into the glowing eyes, they were getting closer, and changing from a startling, eerie glowing gold, to something more dull and warm; a warm hazel. Despite this change from unnatural to something more human, they still pried into your consciousness, as if looking for something.

Soon, the former-glowing-eyed thing that was lurking in the dark corners of your kitchen stepped into the weak light of your flashlight. By the time he — yes, he — had stepped into the weak cold light, his eyes had stopped glowing. But the smell, the acrid smell of something burning, was stronger than ever, and it was coming from him. Yet, he looked like a polite neighbour who would offer you some sugar if you ran out, but you knew that wasn’t what he was.

He cleared his throat, and fixed his glasses, still keeping eye contact with you which you couldn’t escape. “You summoned me?”

You blinked in surprise at the question. It was out of pocket, but this entire situation was entirely ludicrous when you really thought about it. But the green-haired man just blinked back at you, as if he was just as confused at the current situation as you were. It was almost comical in a sense.

Finally, whatever spell you were under, lifted. “No,” you said, still gauging what he was since human was only the form he was taking on. “No, I really didn’t.” 

He offered you a polite smile, which was unnerving as it was charming; and if you were in a completely different situation, it would have you feeling at ease. The hairs on the back of your neck stood at end though, and your brain screamed DANGER! DANGER! RUN AWAY!

“You did though,” he chuckled softly, scratching the back of his neck. “Don’t you remember? At the bakery?”

The bakery? … all you had gotten at the bakery was some sugar, flour, and some lemon squares. And you would have remembered him if you saw him at the bakery; since green hair wasn’t natural, yet it looked like it was for him.

You shook your head, “All I got was some supplies and lemon bars. I didn’t ‘summon’ you. And what do you mean by ‘summon’? Who are you? What are you? How did you even get in my house?”

He pursed his lips and looked at you pensively. “Must have been a mix-up then… you don’t seem like the type to summon…” He let out a deep sigh, and adjusted his glasses — apparently, both of you were not happy with your current situations. Also, you didn’t know if you should have been offended or not at that statement. “Can I see what you got?”

You nodded, bringing out the flour and sugar, which, judging by his lack of reaction other than saying, “That’s a good deal for that,” was not the reason why he just spawned in your house. But then you showed him the half-eaten container of lemon bars, with three still left over.

“Ah, looks like there was a mix-up,” he chuckled. He turned back to you, with your citrus confectionaries in hand. “These are demon bars, not lemon bars. Eating them summons, well, a demon.”

A demon… A DEMON?! You balked at him, looking from the traitorous sweets to his bashful smile. And no wonder they tasted devilishly sweet… You knew it was bad going shopping on an empty stomach, and now you were dealing with the consequences.

“No offence, but uhhhh, how do I… send you back?” You were going to say ‘get rid of you’ but you didn’t want to offend the guy; he seemed polite enough, but you also didn’t want to test your luck either. “And what do I call you? Since I don’t want to just call you ‘demon’?”

The demon brought his hand to his chin and looked at you. 

Man, his eyes are pretty when they aren’t glowing in the dark— WHAT AM I THINKING?! GET A GRIP OF YOURSELF! You dug your fingernails into your palm to stop your wandering, and sleep-deprived, thoughts from skipping merely down a rose-tinted road.

He looked at the ‘lemon’ bars (apparently it wasn’t just a fancy cursive L then) and looked back up to you. “Trey, you can call me Trey.” 

Like a serving tray? Or three in Spanish?

“As for sending me back? Well, you didn’t know they were actually contracts, so I think if we make three more of those bars you should be good.” He nodded at the end.

Your night had taken multiple turns; from you thinking your house was aflame, to being scared half to death by Trey in your kitchen, to now making demonic-infused lemon bars in your kitchen at four in the morning… at least you made it out with your soul intact with the whole experience only costing you some ingredients, which you could always get more of… and maybe you even made a friend in the process?

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Tags; @afunkyfreshblog, @azulashengrottospiano, @eynnwwyjth, @ithseem, @krenenbaker, @lucid-stories, @savanaclaw1996, @twistwonderlanddevotee, @xxoomiii