#this isn't negativity or anything it's more just thinking

[naamahdarling]

So, the other night in an effort to show a friend that LLMs can produce very credible fiction and relatively inventive ideas, I played with ChatGPT for about 10 minutes I was able to make my point flawlessly. Don't get up my ass about this, that's juvenile.

ChatGPT has watched enough Dropout to be able to reasonably (and genuinely amusingly) impersonate Brennan Lee Mulligan and, to a lesser extent, Sam Reich. It's successfully produced a script for Game Changer where the show was entirely about cats and Brennan couldn't win, and parts of it were actually funny. It also produced an AITA post from the point of view of Brennan Lee Mulligan AS DM OF DIMENSION 20 that was in places absolutely hilarious.

It is able to very successfully postulate a set of G1 my little ponies that do not actually exist, complete with colors, cutie marks, and back card stories. It had a little trouble with G1 versus G4 due to the sheer glut of content, but its ideas were genuinely appealing because the source material it was drawing on was designed to be appealing.

It generated a list of birthday party themes that would terrify an arachnophobe, two or three of which were really good. A request for it to generate a list of queer pride birthday ideas didn't produce anything particularly original, but it was all appropriate and convincing.

It produced a short script where Johnny Sims from the Magnus archives receives birthday gifts from his coworkers, and one of those was a knife-wielding tentacle. This script was in places a little less sharp than the actual writing, but it absolutely nailed the speech patterns, and each gift was appropriate to the character giving it. It was genuinely funny. In places it was clever. It actually made me laugh.

I have most of these saved if anybody wants to see them instead of playing with it themselves.

It really isn't a question of what has been dumped into the data set. We can just assume it has been dumped in there somehow.

We can't undo what has been done and we're never going to be able to name all of the people whose work has been used to train these datasets.

I have both positive and negative feelings, strong ones on both sides, about this technology. If someone wants to use this technology to create a script for a movie in the Predator franchise, or a sequel to their favorite book, or whatever, that is a neutral act. Profiting from that is highly questionable, passing it off as the real thing is completely indefensible, using this technology to replace writers and artists and real people doing ANY work where there is no benefit to humans (like identifying cancer cells -- "AI" does that) is the second worst thing that can be done with it.

That's what worries me about this. It could produce infinite Simpsons episodes without the need for a single writer. Eventually it will be able to animate them so accurately you could ask it to make it look like it had been recorded on a video cassette and it would be completely convincing. It would be able to imitate the voice actors perfectly.

We do not want corporations to have that power. Worker protections are critical. It isn't that AI produces art that is bad or soulless or whatever. Those are completely spurious arguments and irrelevant to any true discussion of whether or not it is ethical.

What matter is is that we keep this shit out of the hands people who want to delete us from the workforce. They aren't going to delete the data. We need to protect workers.

P.S. Artists, Disney and Adobe do not have your best interests at heart. Copyright issues are more complicated than they are being presented, and if you find yourself on the side of one of these companies in any capacity, re-examine literally everything you think immediately. Unions. You want unions.

For reference, because I think it's really important to bring this up as often as possible, the worst application of this technology I can think of would be deliberately or accidentally misapplying data that could be used to affect things like a person's medical care, criminal record, and credit score, all of which are actually currently things that a single company can do, APPRISS, now owned by Equifax, yes that Equifax, and fucking nobody, none of y'all, are freaking out about that even though it's the single most frightening thing I have seen in 20 years. I cannot overstate its potential to utterly destroy the lives of literally anyone who comes into contact with the system that uses it, and those are unbelievably common. They are currently selling their product to law enforcement so that cops and businesses can use it to predict who will engage in criminal behavior, I'm literally not kidding about that, they come right out and say it. It is being trained on existing data and refined constantly.

Enjoy breaking your leg and needing painkillers, which get you flagged in a medical database that will try to prevent you from accessing them in the future (already happening), and also entering you into a law enforcement database that knows you have taken them. Then add in whatever eldritch fuckery bringing credit bureaus into it would cause.

We aren't fucked, I'm not a doomer who insists that all people are terrible and that we have no future and we might as well let things burn, I do actually care about the world we live in and the people who populate it and I consider humans a delight rather than a plague, but we need to start seriously resisting the use of this shit by entities more powerful than us. They are already way ahead.

“I can now say with absolute confidence that many AI systems have been trained on TV and film writers’ work. Not just on The Godfather and Alf, but on more than 53,000 other movies and 85,000 other TV episodes: Dialogue from all of it is included in an AI-training data set that has been used by Apple, Anthropic, Meta, Nvidia, Salesforce, Bloomberg, and other companies. I recently downloaded this data set, which I saw referenced in papers about the development of various large language models (or LLMs). It includes writing from every film nominated for Best Picture from 1950 to 2016, at least 616 episodes of The Simpsons, 170 episodes of Seinfeld, 45 episodes of Twin Peaks, and every episode of The Wire, The Sopranos, and Breaking Bad.”

😡

[eelclaw]

the protagonists of the broken code. who's rootspring

i am tbc's number 1 hater! negative thoughts below

shadowsight: other characters sometimes acknowledge that he was manipulated by ashfur, but the narrative puts all of the blame for the ashfur situation on him, neglecting that (a) he did exactly what he was supposed to do as a healer (obey and take messages from a starclan cat), and (b) the codebreaker hysteria was far more a product of clan culture than the actions of a single apprentice. he isn't treated like the victim that he is, and it is frustrating and not cathartic.

bristlefrost: what the hell does she even do. what does her spy arc accomplish or contribute (like mother, like daughter). she finds out that bramblestar isn't bramblestar far too early. she's so perfect and she has no flaws and she's so empty. i want her to be worse. how much more interesting would she be if she was sneaky and selfish? if she was loyal to the imposter because she truly believed in what he was saying? not to mention how she reciprocates rootspring's feelings with literally zero warning, and ceases to have what little character she'd had to begin with. i genuinely don't care that she dies, they did nothing to make her an engaging character. miss bristlefrost, i'm sorry they did you so bad.

rootspring: first rootpaw thinks he's weird because of his father. i hate this because i hate tree. later, rootpaw thinks he's weird because he can see ghosts. so they give him this "i just want to be normal" deal, and the clans suddenly pretend that ghosts are silly and not real. sure, rootspring and tree are the first clan cats with this specific power. and i get that the clans have very rigid beliefs, and they are afraid of anything that contradicts those beliefs, and that's interesting! but ghosts have been appearing to clan cats all the way back to tpb. fireheart tries to kill clawface at one point and he senses spottedleaf's spirit beside him, there to avenge her death. so rootspring's issue is stupid and he's nothingburger to me.

bramblestar: the arc really depends on me giving a shit about what happens to him. which i don't.

i think bramblestar is unintentionally a bad person and a great character. he proves himself by rejecting tigerstar, but he's still deeply insecure. he makes mistake after mistake (conspiring with tigerstar; hesitating to save firestar from the fox trap; forsaking his children after finding out they're not biologically his; using his power over squirrelflight as a warrior, deputy, and leader to control her), and for none of these mistakes is he held accountable (no thunderclan cat except leafpool learns that he plotted with tigerstar; he is allowed to remain deputy; his children think he was the best father ever; in every situation, squirrelflight seems to bear the consequences of his actions).

in other words, bramblestar gets chance after chance to redeem himself, and he keeps fucking it up. again, that's interesting! there is a story here about how difficult childhoods affect adults, and how powerful men are not held responsible for hurting people. except that's not how he's written. he's written as a completely good person, a brave and noble leader, and all of the clans respect him and they need to get him back.

there's a crazy amount of bramblestar worship in this arc. even rootspring, a brand new skyclan apprentice, thinks about how important bramblestar, the thunderclan leader, is, and how all the clans wouldn't be the same without him. i can't take it seriously.

graystripe: graystripe also got a crazy amount of worship. i couldn't stand reading every few paragraphs about how great he is.

side note: shadowsight, bristlefrost, and rootspring all want the same thing. they advocate against killing bramblestar's body. wouldn't it be more interesting if the protagonists had different perspectives and opinions? if they wanted different things? for example, it makes sense that shadowsight wouldn't want bramblestar dead. he feels like the only way to make up for his mistake is to recover bramblestar alive. but bristlefrost could be in favor of killing bramblestar, because the only way to make up for her mistake (supporting the imposter) is to get rid of him. putting our protagonists at odds would generate some interesting conflict.

conclusion: i also have problems with ashfur (why does ashfur try to stir up trouble with codebreaking which will certainly get him caught when he could just take over bramblestar's body and live quietly with squirrelflight), tigerheartstar, mothwing, starclan, the dark forest insta-death water, firestar possessing rootspring, the pacing (oh my god! they were debating whether to kill bramblestar for like three books! and for three more books they were running in circles in the dark forest!), etc. but i've already written a lot and i'm out of steam lol.

let me finish by saying these are kids books, and i'm not expecting them to be the cream of the crop, but there are a lot of writing choices which are incredibly misogynistic and/or completely baffling from a narrative standpoint. i still have a soft spot for this series though. dammit. okay bye

[kyouka-supremacy]

This is probably more of my personal headcanon / how I best like to interpret the characters rather than something canon based but... I have been thinking, at the end of the day most of the relationship bonds Dazai created in the ada span between rough and silently hostile. He doesn't get along with Yosano because of their shared link with Mori, and he doesn't like Ranpo because Ranpo being the only person he can't trick or manipulate probably makes him feel unsafe. It's not like he can exactly get along with the Tanizakis either, he's simply... Too distant from them to actually build anything positive with either Naomi or Jun'ichirou.

I think this explains why Dazai is so obsessed with Kunikida and can't leave him alone one second: because despite everything, I truly believe Kunikida is fond of Dazai (for reasons he himself would never be able to explain), and I feel like due to Kunikida's straightforwardness the tension between Dazai and Yosano and Ranpo would go completely unnoticed to Kunikida (whereas otherwise his seniors' negative opinion of Dazai could have negatively influenced Kunikida's feelings for him). That's why Dazai loves to spend time with and torment Kunikida, because he's the only member that doesn't feel directly hostile / out of reach. Even better, you know Kunikida isn't happy with Dazai; but it's also all very superficial, kind of a game, and the hostility isn't personal. It all makes me reflect on how Dazai feels truly desperate for human connection despite what he makes it look like. It's maybe more of a gut feeling, but I do truly believe Kunikida cares about Dazai and is willing to play their game, because I feel like otherwise he would have already told Dazai off definitely.

That also explains why once he met Atsushi Dazai absolutely latches onto him. It's like he's saying, this is my dude, I brought him to the agency; he's under my wing, and he's on my side. Which is a weird thing to say, there's no sides in the ada, but be it relapsing to old habits, be it a deep insecurity of Dazai, I feel like he's trying really hard to create connections and find allies. And Atsushi is such an ego boost for Dazai, I have no doubt Dazai absolutely loves him. In the end, as crazy as it may sound, I'm convinced that Dazai is way more dependent on Atsushi than Atsushi is on him.

But Atsushi is in good terms with the whole agency. Well, because he's Atsushi, and he's kind and clumsy and just trying to do his best, I feel like everyone warms up to him sooner or later. It's very nice to think in the end it may be Atsushi himself to bring Dazai closer to the rest of the ada, by breaking sides that never existed to begin with and linking them all together.

[a-heart-of-kyber]

It's interesting that I've seen at least one person say "Mel is a born Mage and Viktor is an Artificial one." Which holds this negative connotation regarding Viktor’s abilities and also...feels a bit off base.

We actually don't know if Viktor was a born Mage or not. Mel is in her 30s, and her powers have only just activated. Why would it be different for Viktor?

At the very least, Viktor was literally Fated to be The Mage. He's on some divine destiny shit.

It's also interesting that it's not until Viktor shows up that Jayce gets anywhere with Hextech. Literally, at the trial, Mel asks if he has anything to show for his studies other than an explosion, and Jayce says that nothing ever came of them. Then, suddenly, it's the movements of The Mage that Jayce recalls to stabilize the Hex Gem...and he's doing it while that same Mage is standing right next to him.

The first initial bit of genuine magic in the present time is Viktor bleeding on the Hexgate and receiving the vision of the Hexcore. It's also a bit wibbly wobbly on whether or not he is the Hexcore and the Hexcore was Always him. It basically spawned from his actual blood.

Also, The Black Rose says, "The Arcane is waking up." Whilst Viktor is essentially doing that? It seems the stronger Viktor gets, the stronger other magic users get.

Idk man, I actually think its pretty damn plausible that Viktor was also a born Mage the more I think about it. His abilities were just latent like Mel's were. And they started activating before Mel's did.

It also suits the idea of the line "In all time lines, in all possibilities, only you can show me this." People are assuming that Viktor just doesn't get magic unless Hextech exists, but this line is telling you that isn't the case. Future!Viktor has lived lives where he has magic without ever meeting Jayce, but it's only through meeting Jayce that he can be saved.

[loopdile]

loopdile so real. i have a Vision of both siffrin and loop being Deeply Deeply Closeted Repressed Transfem and having gender envy over odile and i feel like that'd do Something to the Dynamic. Something......... Something........................... well i'm not successfully envisioning it but maybe YOU are?

i am positively plagued by loopdile gender visions!!! maybe not the exact same as you're thinking but i think you will enjoy them. walk with me, anon, through the garden of my loop gender headcanons. it's kind of a big garden but we'll get to the odile part eventually i promise.

Before they were Siffrin, Siffrin had their gender on lock: something transfem, but also tied to unique cultural elements in some way, either the specific identity or the way of thinking about it or just the particular set of presentation options. Perhaps they even started fantasy HRT! But then they forget everything, obviously, including their identity and transition plans. They decide pretty quickly that they're not a man, but none of the alternatives feel exactly correct either; if their previous identity was presented as an option, maybe it would click and they'd settle into it pretty fast, but unfortunately that is literally impossible.

So, no clear goals in mind. And because of his forgotten past, continued memory problems, and constant traveling, Siffrin starts to really value the few things he can count on to stay consistent. He'd rather wear his comfortable hat and cloak than leave them behind in favor of anything more gendered. He'd rather stick with his familiar body than risk changing it. Still, maybe there are some changes he'd be happier in the long run to have made... but the process would be stressful, and he's got enough stressful things to worry about already!

But then we get to Loop. Who has already been changed, suddenly and irrevocably and so very, very accidentally. They are not Siffrin anymore, they do not have the hat and cloak, they aren't even human. They don't even really remember who they were pre-loops. There is no familiarity for them to cling to; instead, they're desperate to find things they can control, things they can change, proof that the world moves forward and they're in charge of their place in it. The motivation that Siffrin lacked, Loop now has in spades!

However, their negative feelings are more intense as well. They struggle to face real stakes, to put effort into anything too complicated, to try anything that might disappoint them. They take risks, yes, but not about things they care about; they take risks because they don't care. And they have a lot of other things going on, too, both practically and psychologically, so gender isn't their immediate priority. "Who and what am I?" is a very difficult question for them right now on multiple levels, a difficult question with only difficult answers.

But, starting with the practical: wearing clothes is an easy way to look and feel a little bit more normal, right? So they experiment, and they decide that dresses are just similar enough to the cloak to be comfortable, but distinct enough to not be as emotionally fraught. And they like them in a frivolous way that Siffrin was never willing to lean all the way into. Siffrin didn't put much thought or energy into his appearance, but Loop's inhuman form is a constant issue, so they might as well dress it in a way they like! Something good to balance out the bad, since they can't be neutral any longer.

And of course they think about body craft, though in a different context from most people. Even the nearly-human parts of their body are lacking detail, without all the right functions behind the form, and then other parts aren't human at all. Their body feels wrong, distracting, constricting. They don't understand how it works, and it draws attention they don't want, and it's not them. And yet, isn't it? Even if they'd been put back into a Siffrin body again, they aren't Siffrin anymore, either. Loop is what the loops made them. They want to change their body, to make it something they can be comfortable in, but they can't. Because body craft is a method of changing flesh and blood and bone, and Loop is not made of such human stuff anymore.

So we've got Loop. Trying to find themself, and maybe succeeding in some ways, but stymied or uncertain in others. Desperate to change, but scared to hope. To make a long story short, they join back up with the party, which brings its own set of problems, and yet... it's also a step towards fixing some of their problems, too. Most relevant to our post, here: Odile is a craft expert with a unique set of experiences. She's got a wide foundation of knowledge, since she's familiar with all three main craft types. She used to be part of Ka Bue's underground body-crafting scene, where she not only crafted her own body but also helped and taught other people; and unlike in Vaugarde, where Houses provide resources and education, Odile and her peers had to do their own research and experiments, develop their own techniques. She even has some knowledge of wish craft from Siffrin, and the way she stopped Siffrin from looping proves that she's unusually good at analyzing and adapting to new forms of craft.

So once Loop's dissatisfaction with and ignorance regarding their own physical form comes to Odile's attention, of course she offers to help. To see if she can figure out what their body is made of, and how it works, and hopefully, in what ways it can be changed.

And this dynamic with her... it's totally different from her relationship with Siffrin, both pre-loops and post. And Loop has always admired her, and here she is, talking about the confidence and determination with which she changed her own body, not without fear or frustration but not letting herself be slowed down by them, either. Taking her fate into her own hands and refusing to be anyone other than herself. And Loop used to feel that Odile understood them best, and losing that connection felt like the end of the world, but here she is, still! Observant and caring as ever. Dedicated to figuring them out again. Unflinching as she sees them for the strange thing they currently are, but equally unshakable in her insistence that they do not have to stay exactly as they are.

So Odile helps them figure out their body. Helps them with the craft itself, too, but even more than that — through both encouragement and example, she helps them be brave enough to genuinely try. To ask themself what they really want. To strike a balance between Siffrin's complacent hesitation and Loop's miserable desperation. To experiment, and face both the chance of failure and the chance of success with head held high. To hope.

Odile is not one for platitudes and empty positivity, after all. If she says something's possible, then it is, or she will make it so, one way or another, despite any setback. Isn't she proof? She remade herself, and she can remake Loop, too. Changing them, slowly and carefully and so very, very deliberately. Loop will never be human again, but they can decide who they are and become themself.

[diamondkat]

Regarding Alastor being redeemed, I have been seeing some posts regarding how it can happen that trigger an instant ick reaction from me. I have taken time to think about why I keep having such a strongly negative reaction to it. The first thing I took into consideration is that I really do not want my current favourite bad boy to become good. I am first and foremost a villain fan and his becoming good has a high chance of ruining the character for me. This means that there is a chance that I would dislike any theory that ends with Alastor redeemed. A lot of time you see people making arguments for why a ship or character should not be liked when the real reason is they personally don't like it and the reasons are merely support. I try to make sure I am aware of my personal bias.

Regardless of my personal bias, I have decided that there is one particular theory regarding how Alastor can be redeemed that I hate from the bottom of my heart. It is the theory where Alastor after being humiliated, degraded and losing everything including his pride has no choice but to accept Charlie's care and change for the better. Sometimes it involves betraying the hotel first, but generally involves him being unable to deal with the challenges that he faces. I am sure how this works in the minds of those who like this theory makes perfect sense. He can no longer rely on himself, he sees that he isn't capable of anything and now has no choice but to become what Charle wants him to be. I hate it so much. I have kept turning it over in my mind and I think I have figured out all the reasons why separate from my bias.

First, suffering doesn't make people better. It just doesn't. The theory seems to require enough suffering to rewrite Alastor's personality and make him Charlie's puppet. It also reminds me of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The story of how the proud woman was broken down to make her obedient. She might be "better" but it also felt to me like she died and became a puppet. He would be "redeemed" but that wouldn't be Alastor. It would just be something that looks like him. I just feel like fans of Alastor who like this theory don't realise that he would lose everything that pulled them to him in the first place if this happened. Some could not deal with him being less energetic in the main show than the pilot due to him being bored. How would they deal with what would essentially be a hollow creature wearing his face trying to become good because there is nothing left in him?

Second, with a proud character you can't brute force them into letting people in. Part of the idea of the theory is that after he is humiliated and suffers in front of them, he will drop his smile and be forced to let others in. That doesn't make sense to me. We have already seen in S1E8, how Alastor deals with things not going his way. He holds onto what little control he has by refusing to drop his smile and holding onto his pride while going through a breakdown. The best way to get someone like Alastor as far as I am concerned is to deal with him the same way you would deal with a wild animal. Slowly lower their guard. I think Charlie is already doing that whether Alastor knows it or not. Besides, pride is an important part of the character. Pride is part of what drew me to the character in the first place. The kind of pride that makes a person think it is okay to say, "If I wanted to hurt anyone here I would have done so already" in front of the Princess of Hell, is part of what drew me to Alastor. If he lost it, the character would likely immediately lose all appeal to me. So, there is some personal bias there.

It would make sense to me if the theory was more about Alastor learning that he can rely on others and doesn't have to depend solely on himself which leads to him opening up and letting others in. However, the theory leans very heavily into suffering as a way to make him a better person and a complete erasure of everything that makes up the character through suffering to make him into someone who wants and is worthy of redemption. That's fine for fanfiction but I hope it never becomes canon.

[cynthiav06]

Annabeth stans and Percabeth shippers are talking about how ooc Annabeth is in WOTTG with her thinking Percy is stupid as if she hasn't constantly made fun of Percy's intelligence since the very beginning. As if she doesn't do it in every book, multiple times. Rick's characterization of Annabeth isn't changing, people are finally just growing up and realizing their fave ship when they were 12 isn't healthy. But instead of actually acknowledging that it's a bad ship they just blame the author.

Warnings: This is going to be a rant; bear with me. People from the "take everything as a personal offense" group stop reading. Will give us both the luxury of a peaceful mind.

It's easier to blame Rick, I think, given his series of shit decisions. The Wrath of a Triple Goddess is a complete abomination, and so is Chalice of the Gods in many ways. But at least it has helped readers understand the glaring flaws of Percabeth as a ship. How Percy's character is butchered to hype up Annabeth.

And I am completely exhausted of trying to get any of them to think rationally and in an unbiased manner. I can't make a willfully blind individual see sense after all.

But yeah, Annabeth has many, and I mean many character flaws throughout the series. The number of times I have made a post on Annabeth's flaws or even why Percabeth is incompatible.... At this point, I believe open-minded and careful readers are going to see and make their own conclusions, and the blind shippers will keep doing their own thing. This , I think, was my most recent post and will probably be one of my last ones on a similar topic. Unless I get newer asks that have some different viewpoints that I can actually explore cause, all has been said so far, I think.

I had a feeling that things would get better as they got older, more mature, you know, an Annabeth character arc of some sort. Maybe exploring the positive and negative nuances of Percabeth or even Percy's suicidal thoughts, non existent self esteem and how Annabeth has been unknowingly feeding into those.

She is one of the more iconic characters to people even outside the fandom. One from a very, very , and exclusive pool of actually strong female characters and the way her character is devolving isn't helping anything.

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All of Riordan's characters have such high potential, and the amount of plots he could explore is staggering, and yet he still dishes out the same generic plot again and again. He is in it for the money now, has been for a while, and so there's no hope there.

This might be a very hot take, but I think romance ruined the series. Rick kept slapping romantic relationships on every character as if that would suddenly make things better. Give them a relationship rather than explore their trauma. I guess it's the easier of the two.

But seriously, Caleo? Jiper? Solangelo ? (I can see the hate comments already). Whatever he was doing with Reyna, but at least she wasn't completely butchered.

Rick's problem is that he keeps giving more importance to romantic relationships and makes that the entire personality of a character.

He butchered Percy, even Jason at times, Leo bloody Valdez and Nico more prominently.

The way Percy and Nico's very deep and volatile bond and heavily dynamic relationship was butchered and distorted to feed into Solangelo and Percabeth, and I can't possibly understate how highly that's been going on.

Then Luke and Thalia's relationship was completely butchered for no absolute reason. I have no idea why. They were in love or at least had romantic feelings for each other, and Thalia just woke up and wanted to kill him? He literally gave all the angst to Annabeth even though Thalia had known him longer, and they had a more nuanced bond.

Jason's relationship with Camp Jupiter individuals was completely scrapped, his and Reyna's dynamic completely watered down, or even his and Leo's great friendship discarded all for Jiper or whatever else was shoved at him.

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As opposed to this whole shit show, I loved the relationships in the Magnus Chase series and Kane Chronicles. That was good stuff. Both character relationships and romantic ones even though I am pretty sure he got a lot of diverse representation wrong or so I have read recently.

Then there's the stupid, blind, bigot part of the fandom that just can't help themselves. I mean dumb Percy takes, Annabeth stans ruining Percy's character arcs and overinflating Annabeth's character, which in turn made Rick do the same.Then the boring Jason thing? What the hell was that? It's like everyone missed the point of why Jason is the way he is. I am going to make a post on that soon, but seriously, the shit that's been going on.

Then the shippers. Solangelo stans and Percabeth stans. They have single handedly ruined the ships for me with their distorted ideas of character dynamics. And their blatant and brutal hate against other Percy or Nico ships is just ridiculous and heavily toxic.

It's a fandom, not a monopoly. Everyone can have their own little thing as long as you don't meddle in someone else's own thing. Let everyone enjoy their own thing.

And for all our sakes, at this point, just pick your own version of canon. Choose which books to stop at. Trust me, it's less frustrating that way.

[backjustforberena]

I love the way you say she is a dragon-rider before anything else because that's such a nice way to look at it. Before anything else, and outlasting anything else, she was a dragon-rider. It's the constant in her life. Her other accolades can be made irrelevant or even negative (like being a Targaryen Princess) but to be a dragon-rider is always a good thing, a thing to be proud of, a thing to fear, a thing to take power from. It is always a part of her and her reputation and the implications are fierce. It's a blessing.

RHAENYRA: If dragons begin fighting dragons, we invite our own destruction. Fear of it is in itself a weapon. The Greens will make the same calculation. BROOME: The value of a sword is not within its scabbard.

And Meleys has to be that sword. And that's why Rhaenys glares at him: not just for the callous way he wants to burn Green strongholds, which would only incite a similar response from the Greens and would absolutely mean a loss of innocent lives. Rhaenys would be only too aware that, now that Daemon has left for Harrenhal, the dragon who will be fighting other dragons is hers.

Vermax and Moondancer are young (and ridden by her teenage grandchildren), Syrax and Rhaenyra cannot be risked because that's the monarch. It's her. She's the only one that can do it - and, as we know, she is the one to do it.

"Sending Meleys into war isn't just sending a weapon, you are asking Rhaenys to risk the potential loss of part of her very soul."

LOVE THAT!!!! And it concurs with something that Eve says, "She truly believes that the end justifies the means, even if it means sacrificing her own humanity in the process" - I love the idea that participating in dragon warfare is a sacrificial act even before it becomes a literal sacrifice for both Rhaenys and Meleys. That chimes for me.

And you can also read your statement two ways. A loss of a part of her very soul as in literally losing Meleys and Meleys dying in the conflict. But also something even before that. Losing a part of her soul or morals or humanity by using Meleys in such a way as well. Putting her in that scenario.

Meleys is capable of more than aggression. Meleys has feelings and empathy and is humanised. She is an individual being, not simply an extension of Rhaenys or a tool for her to use. There is conscious and consistent thought about her wellbeing. That bond is everything to Rhaenys. It's something she risks her life for. It's something she lives for. And it's central to Rhaenys, with that battle, and also broadly in terms of her character - that he dragon is part of her and her dragon is so much more than a weapon:

"the core of any Targaryen is a dragon."

"My dragon and I have a tender bond [...]"

"[...] her only ally and her only friend is Meleys."

"I think, at that point, her own fate means less. It’s what’s going on with Meleys that’s agony."

"[...] knowing that there was nothing she could do, feeling that it was her fault and that she’d somehow let down Meleys."

"you see the dragon respond and they’re taking care of each other in that moment."

"[...] feeling that somehow she’d let her down or betrayed her in some way..."

"I felt like Rhaenys was saying help and Meleys just says, “you’ve got this.” That moment of connection felt really important."

"The poetry of her literally coming to an end in the sky on her dragon and letting go into eternity is perfect."

In a series that puts quite a lot of stock in the idea of religion, prophecies, gods and touchstones, it doesn't escape me that Rhaenys looks like she's praying here:

I really like the idea that Rhaenys gets just... steamed whenever someone dehumanises Meleys or trivialises her - treats her as a pawn or just an asset.

So instances like when Meleys is imprisoned by the Greens just for what she is and what she could mean for the war, when Daemon just counts Meleys amongst the fighting dragons for Team Black, or he tries to order Rhaenys to take her "mount" and fly with him, or whenever ANY of the men on the Black Council say they should use dragons, send dragons, press their advantage (dragons).

All of those times, I feel like Rhaenys is, to various degrees, outraged.

I think whenever Rhaenys councils against dragon warfare and the bloodiness of it and when she responds to suggestions of attacking with dragons (like side-eying Alfred Broome and wishing his head would catch fire) or the inevitably of it... it's with a personal stake.

Because it's not just unleashing hell. It has specific implications and a specific role and specific risk for a creature that Rhaenys loves.

When they talk about sending dragons to war, it's sending Meleys to war.

[dazais-guardian-angel]

kinda wild to me that one of the most compelling aspects of both Chuuya and Kunikida's characters to me, that I never really see talked about, is how they're heavily set on a doomed crash course towards complete and utter destruction, and how I am so, so worried for them both.....

[phoenix-flamed]

I'm sorry. I know I'm being a giant ball of negativity on here lately, and posting way too much OOC while not posting enough RP replies to people.

There's no need to interact with this post; it's mostly just me yelling into the void to get it off my chest.

I won't ramble. I'm sorry if I'm off-putting. I know some people just don't vibe OOCly, and that's fine -- I have no issues with that whatsoever. But I still want to apologize regardless.

[seventh-district]

not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go

(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)

[glindyupland]

I just think it’s silly that so many people complain about Villain Amaya as “wasted potential” and that “we were robbed” like-

My pals, post canon fan fiction is right there. The desire to free her husband is right there. Either by touching an evil book while being too eager to remember the obsidian oil, or being possessed by contact (ie what she believes is true loves kiss) when trying to reason with him in the dungeon.

We don’t need a rewrite, we can have a continuation. Both can be true. Amaya is a complex character, she can handle it.

[scintillatingshortgirl19]

blehhh not them making a queer character say the no homo line :/

[egginfroggin]

I usually try not to get too negative on my blog, but I have to say that one thing that I'm worried about with AI art is the possible accusations that could be placed on people with certain artstyles (surrealism, hyperrealism, etc.) that are more prone to the "uncanny valley" effect, or even just artists who are in that midway point where most of a piece looks great but there's a few things that are anatomically questionable.

I think it's fine for people to have suspicions, but I'm worried that people will come to expect things such as progress videos or shots as a given, and that this will intimidate young or new artists, making them feel incredibly pressured to provide things that they shouldn't have to. And, speaking from experience, pressure does not do good things to the creative mind.

I'm worried that people will start seeing inconsistencies or awkward anatomy and immediately react with accusations of AI. It's happening on other platforms, and probably also on Tumblr, and as much as I dislike AI, I think that people need to learn to slow down and really look at something before making that accusation.

What good will stamping out AI with vigor do if innocent artists get caught in the crossfire and stop creating out of fear? What good will it do if the next generation of artists is too scared to share and inspire each other?

Genuinely, I would personally rather deal with AI images existing while still being able to freely share my actual works than I would deal with tiptoeing around very real people who would dismiss my hours of work (and musculoskeletal pain) as worthless and not real. Let artists still be free for goodness' sake.

I can be more thoroughly worded later if anyone asks, and this will probably be sorely misinterpreted, but I just need to get this out and I'm tired.

TLDR: It's fine to be against AI-generated images, but please check yourself and be careful who you accuse of using such technology before you get someone innocent caught up in it. AI-generated art isn't great, and neither is putting down someone's hard work as fake.

[wereh0gz]

Not feeling great abt some of my creative endeavors rn

[vulpixelates]

😩 dang it. i go to draw for the first time in forever and my stupid pen is acting up aoeifjaoi i think i might need a new nib or something