#sorry for posting random arts unrelated to what I usually do :')

[r-aindr0p]

Robots learning to human will be one of my favorite types of character forever Lil guy unmasked under the cut

[hajihiko]

Ahhh, I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense, but I'm curious to know what changed Hajime/Izuru's mind in the universe your art takes place in? Like, what made him go from not caring about anything because everything was boring and meaningless, to trying to enjoy life?

I don't really remember what it was in the anime, but it was probably hope. And like, that makes sense if you think about it, considering that's the definition of hope, but hope doesn't usually just happen like that, you know? Especially not to someone who probably had never felt it since the whole Ultimate Hope thing (ironically). In my mind, it's hard to imagine what it could have been, considering nothing ever phased him. I know that whatever gave him hope doesn't have to be that deep, because that's how it is sometimes, but I was wondering what you think it could have been (or more importantly, what you consider it to be in your art)!

Also, this is kinda unrelated, but I find it so cool how much your art makes me really think about the characters. It's amazing how you're able to really see how you've fleshed out the characters through you art, and honestly, you are probably one of my favourite artists because of it.

But anyway, sorry about this long and random rant 😭 Idk why I spend my time analyzing the character and point of view of fictional characters, but I guess sometimes the ADHD brain goes brrrrrr.

Thank you for sharing your art; I hope have a great day or night!

depends on the universe! But I'll assume you mean my general post-game stuff.

I've said it somewhere before so if it's old bread to you bear with me, but basically, it was a genuine dedication to face the big horrible awful feelings that come with trauma and life in general, and also the brain boost of getting to skip the slow growing part even for just a while.

My idea is that Izuru and Hajime are not two separate identities, rather, an amnesiac and horribly traumatized boy was given a moniker he didn't care to accept or deny. It's not like he had any other name to go by. That was Izuru Kamukura.

The brain has these neural pathways of how it responds to things, and his all got burnt out so he could respond with an appropriate talent each time. As a very simplified example, someone might respon to threat with the Flight response, because it worked in a dire situation and the brain decided "that saved us, this is how we will respond from now on".

Hajime, in the game, gets a sudden bump out of those pathways, enabling him to feel things properly and be fully present in his life. Thematically, the big Super Sayian moment is him deciding to not fall into old, but true and tried, brain patterns, and instead taking on the horrific experience of being human, with all the messy Emotions and Failures that comes with it.

When he wakes up from the game, he still struggles, but the artificial boost from his old thinking as well as a conscious, strenuous, painful effort to not repress himself anymore but instead face the things that he did and were done to him, make him able to carve himself into a new Him.

Not the same, in the sense that WHO could say they're the same as they were before a simulated murder game that revealed that you were a killing machine terrorist and so were your friends. But the same as in, he's Hajime Hinata and he decides what exactly that means. To want is an emotion, and he wants to become someone who can experience life fully, and chasing that single feeling of Want opens up the doors to everything else. You might've heard this before but "before you change, you have to want to change".

So in short. What enabled him to get Hopeful so to speak was the combination of a brain kick (you could call that a metaphor for outside help), and a concrete decision to try to do the difficult but right thing. Sounds kind of boring maybe, but everything else comes later - like his interest and care for his friends, an enjoyment of philosophy and the arts, a pleasure from being useful and helpful, a serenity from accepting things as they are, and a thrill that comes with strong genuine emotion (from my own life, sometimes a single moment of !!!! can carry you on for months).

Yes the whole thing is a metaphor for getting better with mental health stuff. It's personal to me okay 😂

(also I like the idea from Miggys fic that his human connections override the apathy and distance so as long as he's around the people he loves he can hold onto what keeps him going)

I love thinking about and building on characters too! Spending tons of time inspecting them like a specimen 🤝 people (and therefore characters) are very interesting to me so I just like rolling them around my brain. Thank you for your interest and kind words!

[vtori73]

Unrelated to biphobia for once lol but I do think there should be some in-between opinion on the recent discourse about AI art spotting guides and such. Sure some of them are being too lenient and broad with these guides that can cause people falsely accuse artists of using AI art BUT I also do think the artists (specifically newbies) are being just a wee bit sensitive and assuming some of these guides are talking about them when in actuality these guides don't actually apply to them majority of the time.

What do I mean by this? Well, what I mean is it's not too hard most of the time to tell when someone is a newbie making art vs AI art the reason people HAVE to make guides about AI art to begin with is because it deceptively looks more skilled then it is but in actuality its not and just copying the art it was fed. I'm sorry but that doesn't apply to newbies, and anyone who thinks so is lying, trolling, doing so in bad faith or just REALLY ignorant. Your skill level is not on par with actually being mistaken for AI art that has been trained on professional, skillful art, which is fine, you're a newbie, that's kind of what it means to be a newbie!

I think the problem with these guides mainly is some are being WAY too broad and not being detailed enough about what they mean which is bound to happen on places like Twitter or social media in general since a short amount of words is usually the key to better engagement.

One thing that I do find helpful with spotting ai sometimes is hair. Look for hair that connects to nothing, that comes out of spots that don't make sense, like jewelry or even hair that has a weird pattern or falls/flows unnaturally, this last one might be more useful if you have an eye for art or have skills to spot this kind of thing though. Another is backgrounds/landscapes, AI art can become easy to spot if you have some understanding of perspective and basics of shadows, form, light direction etc.

One tell also that doesn't have to do with just the art itself is random gaps in skill level or styles changes between posts they make sharing their art, not gaps in time necessarily but it can be. Also a big tell is if they've dabbled in stuff like this before like nfts and such or support it, look at who they follow and such and probably become much easier to tell what side they are on.

Can some of this stuff I mention just be a stylistic choice? Sure, but a big part of this that spot ai guides don't mention is context is also an important factor for telling something is AI art. Maybe someone wants to go for punk/grungy dirty, sloppy look and wanted to have a character whose hair goes through there jewelry & such which would and should make sense for the character, the art direction, and the art piece as a whole but if it's ai it's usually just a random detail that's on a piece that looks generic (because it's going off of a bunch of art that was stolen to train it) making it easier to spot it's not a personal choice but one that the program did because it can't actually make art it just literally copies shit.

[lenteur]

random thoughts about run on, episode eleven

(please do note that this post contains spoilers so read at your own risk.)

let me start this post by saying ki seon gyeom makes one “strict coach” (woo sik’ words) but a great one still

seeing seon gyeom prepare woo sik’s training was heartwarming because you can see how serious he is about it

totally unrelated but we all need a roommate like seon gyeom. applications are open btw

as usual, we have yeong hwa being the cutie that he is. i don’t think i’ll ever get tired of him

funniest scene in today’s episode was the uni students running after tae woong lol yeong hwa stole the show by trying to catch up with them. i mean, i don’t think anyone could be funnier than him. he’s on another level

it’s interesting how mi joo offered seon gyeom a “practice loving myself” book (i don’t remember the title sorry) it goes to show he still has a hard time taking care of and loving himself

the tension between dan ah and yeong hwa is palpable. i’m so invested in their relationship. i want to know everything i can (that does sound a little weird but it’s just that their story is more interesting to me than the main couple)

the show continues to plant the seed that seon gyeom is synonymous with motivation. this time it’s woo sik that says seon gyeom motivates him

talking about woo sik, it’s so refreshing to see him let loose and be a little more carefree. using less and less honorifics around seon gyeom and the people around him :) i like that

also, did we get to see seon gyeom being jealous for 5 seconds? or am i just seeing things? it was so cute how he put himself between mi joo and woo sik when they were watching the footage of woo sik running

and then we get to the most interesting scene of today’s episode: the discussion between dan ah and mi joo. the one thing i took away from that section of the show is they’re a lot more similar than we think

dan ah pointing out that mi joo “doesn’t seem tough despite her rough childhood. you (mi joo) refuse to kneel despite not having any backup” 

“i was aware of what i did or didn’t need. if i never had it, i wasn’t greedy. if i still wanted it, i got something similar even if it was fake” i didn’t think i could relate to mi joo more yet here i am. it’s important we get to know more about mi joo’s upbringing because we got to see every main character’s background except mi joo’s. 

i really like how dan ah seems more and more vulnerable and sincere in these last few episodes. we get to see little glimpses of what lies behind that cold exterior. “things i already had were always taken away from me.” “in my world, i’m the weakest” “i never know when things will be taken away from me, so i put up walls” it’s true that the double standards in dan ah’s family are unfair. her brother gets all the credit even though she’s the one who did everything.

when mi joo tackled the topic of ai replacing translations, it made me think. of course, i’ve already thought about it before but with the growing “success” of ai in recent months, i think it’s even more interesting to talk about it. translators are in fact competing against ai for their jobs. during my time as a translator, i saw a lot of clients using engines like google translate, reverso or linguee for their translations. i mean they’re great to some capacity but it’s hard for them to understand nuances. and that’s even more the case for movie translations. a movie, as any form of art, has the goal of eliciting emotions in the viewers and ai is not really capable of translating the feeling/message. they are capable of literal translations (meaning translating word for word) but sometimes, you can’t translate something word for word because it’s an expression that doesn’t exist in the language you’re translating to. or, it might mean something in the original version, but the subtitles won’t work for the translated version because the culture is completely different.

oh and there has been a controversy in recent years when entire movies were translated and dubbed by ai. the end result was catastrophic to say the least. it was hard to understand things when watching said movies (i’ve watched excerpts and it was something...) so i think translators still have a few more years of peace. i mean, you never know how ai will evolve but it will take time until they’re able to perfect the art of sharing emotions with the public. in that sense, movie and book translators still have some hope. for other more “technical” fields though... i’m not so sure

sorry if you didn’t understand a word i wrote. it’s difficult for me with this heat

when mi joo said the movie was like seon gyeom (aka complex) i understood her. it’s difficult for her to understand him but she’s trying

we’re finishing this episode with dan ah kissing yeong hwa. their relationship development is surely interesting. it’s like dan ah is disappointed when yeong hwa acts like she wanted in the beginning: obedient and not feeling anything. but now it seems she wants him to be the yeong hwa from before. 

it hurt to see yeong hwa be so cold and sad because it doesn’t seem like him. she definitely messed up with his heart. poor yeong hwa, you don’t deserve that.

additional note (before i end up sweating all the water in my body): yeong hwa’s outfit in the ending scene is gorgeous. he looks amazing in it

[ghost-shipping]

The whole point I was making is that proshippers will make light and by make light I mean portray shit like that in a good light as if it’s ideal and desirable. And most of the proshippers I have personally met had confessed to wanting to try that shit out or hoping some of that shit would get done to them. And I’m sorry something I had witness was a “weak take” and yes the creator of those a hentais really shouldn’t have made them, I’m for watching porn and consuming sexual media as long as it’s not fucked up to that point, bc how many others have consumed that media to the point where they need to act upon their thoughts? And ofc this is going to apply to their real life bc fiction in fact does have that power. If you push pass the excuse that “these are just fictional characters and aren’t real” and think about the how the media you consume can affect your critical thinking, proshipping isn’t as innocent as anti antis try to make it out to be. And I’m not saying everyone is like this but a vast majority of people are susceptible to being conditioned

I apologize for not leading with condolences in my original post. Upon rereading it I do think it came off as pretty insensitive. I did not mean to imply that what you experienced was “a weak take” I meant the logic you’re using to analyze the situation itself is flawed. Obviously I do not wish sexual harassment upon anyone, let alone from family members, and I’m incredibly sorry that happened to you. I do think I got caught up in how deliberately snotty the use of your emoji’s was and how pretentious the subtext of your argument is but that’s no excuse to potentially come off like I don’t care about assault.

For the sake of argument though, let’s say you’re correct in that everyone is just super open to being conditioned to do things/be okay with things that go against the moral codes they’ve developed irl. Wouldn’t there be way more people okay with murder? There’s an awful lot of murder that’s over glorified and only there to be cathartic in fiction. Violent videogames have been shown to potentially increase general aggression, but don’t really affect people’s actual physical actions. There are tons of works of art where violence is there for the sake of it and not even in a negative way, but regardless of how many gorey movies or violent comics a person enjoys, they still react differently to real violence. Because it’s real and therefore elicits a different response.

People with good critical thinking skills and a solid grasp on reality consume problematic media and understand that if what they were viewing was happening irl they would have a different emotional response to it. I mean you’re literally talking to an incest shipper who’s repulsed at the idea of committing incest irl, for example. And if you’re about to say “well murder is different because i’m talking about bad things that are sexual in nature” then I’m afraid you’re missing the point. Because while that’s a line many people are free to draw in the sand for themselves, many people are also unbothered or are interested in bad sexual things in fiction in the same way they can be interested in fictional murder. And these “proshippers wanting to do things/wanting things to be done to them” are usually either talking in fictional hypotheticals or are referring to kink rp where there are safeguards to experience things safely.

But again, even if someone did actually commit a crime because they were influenced by a piece of art, that is not the artists fault. “They shouldn’t have made those anime because someone was hurt” every piece of media has the potential to hurt someone. If a work has themes or content that a person is not stable enough or critical enough to handle in a healthy way then they were not the intended audience, and random unrelated people trying to express themselves/make a living/both are not at fault for other people’s actions.  A person should always be held accountable for their own actions if they are directly harmful to others, but in this scenario that is your sibling, not people who you don’t know on the other side of the world drawing anime titties for an unreasonably small check.

Btw the implication of your argument seems to be that most people are too stupid to make choices and think for themselves when it comes to fiction, they they are beneath you who clearly has The Real Morals and A Good Brain, and it’s both condescending and is the same rhetoric used against women reading novels back in the day. People literally thought women were too stupid to tell what was real and what was fake and that this would make them commit adultery and be sinful. You and your friends who “ship the correct ships” are not the arbiter of morals or what other people can handle in fiction. 

[despiteherself]

Squidward?

i don’t think I’ve ever made a singular squidward post anon, either you love him a lot or you think i’m gonna have some funny opinions. idk if they’re very good!!! I thought about this a lot.

* favorite thing about them

I love a dry ass sense of humour & he does get to have some of the funniest deadpan lines fjdkkdkskkdkdk. finally, depressed nobody representation <3 I think squidward is such a fun character, and it must be so much fun to get to invent stories and ideas with him in it!

also i am serious about the depressed nobody thing, like I really like that he loves the clarinet and art but is just okay at both of those things. i want to learn to draw but i find it overwhelming and terrifying and I keep trying but I don’t like a lot of what I do, and it’s really hard to get out of that mindset of feeling like you have to be perfect. Whilst I don’t think sbsp teaches you it’s okay to be okay at something, bc that’s not it’s point & it’s used for jokes, it’s still rlly nice to see a character that’s not Great at something - and that there’s value in doing a hobby because you enjoy it. Idk if anyone else gets from him (lmao) but like. I just rlly appreciate that he’s only okay at stuff, as someone who is also only okay at stuff (and also that spongebob is always telling him he’s amazing, but this ain’t about him).

* least favorite thing about them

sometimes he’s REALLY mean and i get that it’s the joke but i don’t like it when spongebob and patrick are sad :( that art teacher episode is one of my least favourite bc spongebob says he belongs in the trash. i know it’s an episodic kids show so it’s never going to change but i wish there could be some some growth. if it had growth I would love that episode actually. on the other hand, sometimes he’s REALLY nice and that does make it a little better. I know it’s mostly writing so!!

i wish he wore pants

* favorite line

I only thing I can think off the top of my head is the “When are you gonna learn, SpongeBob? The world is a horrible place filled with fear, suffering and despair. Also dashed hopes, shattered dreams, broken promises, and abject misery.” Line from the musical bc I watched it last night! The delivery of it is so funny!!! and i think it’s a good example of his character - especially in comparison to spongebob’s optimism.

I also like the “why did I give up everything in my house just to make spongebob happy?” bc I think it shows deep down he has a big heart, and that he does value other people’s happiness & idk I love cheesy shit like that.

* brOTP

hmmmm…. i want like lots of ppl tbh? i want him to be better friends with lots of characters. i haven’t seen all of sbsp yet cause i keep getting distracted, but i would love squidward & sandy to be friends, and for him to be more friendly with spongebob and Patrick, and more the krabs family stuff!!! let him be friends with like Larry and co

* OTP

squidward x getting some therapy

hm, this is a tricky question for me to answer bc i don’t rlly ship anything in sbsp in the sense i’m not going to go looking for it, and i don’t rlly think that’s the point of the show, but like I’m not avoiding it & i think all the crush stuff is very cute. and like, of course i think stuff like squidward & squilliam are bitter exes, and if you asked me abt idk squidward/larry or squidbob or the Stephen King’s Misery episode of kamp koral baby crush on patrick, I’d be like oh it’s cute :) and i’m happy to make jokes but i’m not rlly deeply interested in shipping anything.

i know this would never happen bc its not the point of the show but if we wanted to be “serious” abt it i want squidward to fall in love with himself.

* nOTP

see above & this is dumb but i see a lot of heavy focus on shipping aspects of sbsp sometimes and i kind of feel a little tired of it? i think i’m a little sensitive at the moment bc of something unrelated idk i feel kind of overwhelmed about ppl picking out nice moments and calling you an idiot for not seeing it as shippy. so it’s not a notp bc I think it’s fine and i’m glad ppl enjoy shipping him but like, i don’t rlly need to ship squidward with anyone cause i think getting their friendship is just as fulfilling a story for me.

also i see mr krabs as his family so.

* random headcanon

I don’t know if I understand squidward enough to have a good headcanon :(

I’m sorry my head has gone absolutely blank, I feel very *lists off facts* and not like i can cohesively put something together & i don’t think anything i can think is very fresh or interesting. I think maybe he should keep a pet rock & calm down a little <3

* unpopular opinion

idk if this is unpopular opinion but I’ve see the joke a million times about how “maturing/growing up is liking squidward more than spongebob” and idk i just think it’s rlly sad actually. I know it’s not serious but some people do say it like it’s a Truth of Adulthood (lmao) as much as i like squidward and do think he’s relatable sometimes (not when he’s being mean!!), he’s also not goals? he’s bitter cause the world chewed him up and it’s understandable, but he turns around and tries to do the same thing to others he thinks is below him and whilst it usually backfires as a joke, it’s just not rlly goals idk why people think optimism is childish. This is probably too serious djkfkdkdikd sorry

[takaraphoenix]

You know what kind of people I find utterly obnoxious?

The know-it-all who has the extreme need to show off their knowledge.

There’s knowledge-oversharers who do it out of a place of good intentions - the kind that think you do not know that but you should, so they tell you in an educational way.

Then there’s knowledge-oversharers who do it out of a place of personal interest - they love something so very, very much that when it comes up in conversation They Will Not Be Stopped and that... can get exhausting after a while but it comes out of a place of personal excitement and if it’s someone I give even a quarter of a shit about, I can sit through that even when the thing in question doesn’t interest me.

And then there’s the ones that want to rub it in. It’s in the way they phrase it, in the way they present it and themselves. As though they wish to convey that they have this knowledge that you apparently did not have and want to, I don’t know, make you feel embarrassed or flustered for not having known it.

(You can find this brand of people especially often in universities as literature or philosophy majors. I hear history majors too.)

And these kind of people, they somehow manage to bring up Trivia They Know even when it’s kind of... off-topic. To show off, you know.

Now to the part that is really annoying. It’s when they’re actually wrong.

Those people go outta their way to show off their knowledge and then they’re wrong.

And here’s what makes that even worse. When it’s not on a spoken conversation where, hey, everyone can be wrong. But rather when it’s online. Where... you could have just opened a new tab and fact checked yourself before slapping your “knowledge” onto that post?

I mean, I fact-check myself in situations where I am completely sure I remember the facts right. There’s no way I’m wrong. But on the off-chance I might have misremembered it, I’ll just... jump into a new tab and ask Google if I’m right before I say it out loud, on the internet.

And now, to be less vague, here’s the example that prompted this post!

A friend of mine shared this really fucking brilliant Hercules/Megara cosplay picture. It is so on-point, high quality, they are gorgeous and a perfect fit!

Now some know-it-all posts a comment beneath it: “just thinking about how they’re half-siblings... Greek mythology is worse with the incest than the Targaryens on Game of Thrones.”

And that just... rubs me the wrong way. Mainly because it has literally nothing to do with the cosplay at hand. What does it matter even if they were siblings? The cosplay is artfully made, those two people spent their time and money and clearly also their love on this thing. And you’re commenting on the myth behind it?

And you’re commenting on the myth behind it with wrong facts?

Megara and Herakles were not half-siblings? Not even by any stretchy, sketchy definition of the word.

So yeah, maybe I was being a tiny bit petty when I corrected him because come on, you didn’t have to leave this comment at all, but how do you manage to take one of the like five non-incest Greek mythology ships and claim they’re siblings? Like you couldn’t have just fact-checked yourself?

Now the most surreal part about this? He replied to my reply.

And he tried to get out of it. Like, he seems physically unable to say “Oh yeah, I mixed that up, sorry”. And he doesn’t even take the easy out. I expected that he just mixed Megara and Hebe up.

But he’s saying how he was talking about “Deinereira”, which is a very artful misspelling of Deianira. And how she was actually Herakles’ niece since she was the daughter of Dionysus. (And he tags on more trivia on Deianira. Unprompted and unrelated. But we gotta show off our knowledge, huh? Oh, pardon me, I mean Deinereira.)

She was not the daughter of Dionysus. And how were you talking about Deianira on a picture of Hercules/Megara and about how she was his niece when you were clearly referring to “those two” (in the photo) and called them half-siblings?

Is it really this hard for you to admit when you are actually wrong? Do you truly rather stumble into this very clear lie of what you “actually meant” which is somehow even more wrong than your original post? There’s actually nothing wrong with being wrong; everyone can mix something up. It happens. But this adamant refusal to admit that is nearly comical.

I find this to be such an internet phenomenon... and somehow in particular a Nerd Boi phenomenon - you know, the Big Bang Theory route of guys who have to rattle off the most trivial facts about a fandom just to show What Big Fans They Are and to make you feel bad for not being As Big A Fan because you didn’t know this insanely random, insanely unimportant fact?

In other cases? In other phrasings? Yes, there can be something educational about someone just spouting facts. There can even be something entertaining or charming about it.

But when you tag it on when there is barely a thread connecting what you say to the topic at hand? And what you say actually adds nothing to the conversation that is being had (in this case said conversation should have been: wow what an amazing cosplay!, not: wow what bad incest the Greeks did!), then maybe consider not adding your two cents?

Or at the very least asking Google if your two cents are actually right.

(And yes, usually I just roll my eyes and ignore people who try to grab attention by tagging their wisdom onto things unprompted, but as a creator myself, I just find it incredibly pretentious and obnoxious to put unrelated shit like this in the comment section of something amazing that someone spent hours and hours creating.)