As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.
The final TF2 issue really got to me. Spoilers, but it’s the reveal that all of this suffering and murder and war over gravel and shitty land was for nothing but senseless, bottomless hatred. That the administrator can’t even remember where this revenge plot started as she flashes through different false memories of her parents’ deaths. There was never a tragic backstory or justification, only terrible people doing despicable things. And despite how crass and stupid and unserious TF2 is, the story subverts every expectation by showing the survivors and inheritors willingly breaking the cycle. Ms. Pauling lies to the administrator and chooses not to save her, and finally lets her die. (Hurts even more if you read into the subtext that Ms. Pauling is in love with the administrator.) She lets the final cache of Australium go and walks away from the burden and legacy of a century-old bloodfeud. Hale lets Gray’s daughter go and live her life freely. Spy is the first to arrive at Scout’s house and meet his big family, finally takes off his mask, and helps with the kids. Even Merasmus exhaustedly makes peace with himself and Soldier and chooses not to curse him or something. There’s nothing to finish, no promises to keep, and no one to avenge. The only thing to do is break the cycle and walk away.
It feels odd how happy and warm everything is, but it feels so right and earned. These bloodthirsty, awful, violent men were expendable cogs in a machine of endless violence, and they found a way out. It’s a genuinely great message about letting go the past that burdens you and finding the will and a way to hit the bricks, change, and be happy. Maybe they don’t technically deserve happiness, but they’ve got it nonetheless, and they’re not gonna let it go to waste. They’re still all crazy and violent, but on their own terms now and with people who love them! Smiles.
reading ms pauling’s actions as romantic makes it all so much more stinging too. Her devoting so much of herself to someone she looks up to, admires, and desires.
As a big fan of mad geniuses and villains in fiction, I already find that line of “I’ll be right there with her when she does it” to be such a killer fucking chord of devotion. a statement that whatever end she’s placed herself as a devotee of, she will give herself to it with gusto, because she has bought in and made it part of her…
but she hasn’t. When she at last, finally learns that the end of it all is… pitiful. confusing. lost. when the figure she’s admired for so long, the figure she’s given a part of her soul to to reshape as seen fit, reveals itself to be a human mania rather than some divine and wrathful angel who’s sins are in service of something greater… it breaks
she lies.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the same descent features the scout finally admitting that the romantic spell is broken. For Pauling, the same romance has finally ended. Much as the scout finally admits that his desire is fruitless and born of wrongheaded thoughts… so too is Pauling forced to admit that she’s wrong. that the love she’s felt is just… not right for her life. for what she truly wants to do in the world.
In the end, she isn’t there with her when she does it. because it turns out that ‘doing it’ involves just being a fucking lunatic with no endgame.
She doesn’t end up kissing that old woman. And god do I feel for her in that struggle.
Yes, these pages are genuinely so heartbreaking if you read it this way.
Ms. Pauling learns the truth –– that this woman she’s been serving and desiring isn’t a genius mastermind with a justifiable motive, but a toxic tar pit who will drag her down with her –– and realizes that in order to save her, she needs to let her go and let her die. That refusing to let her keep living is a mercy. Ms. Pauling looks like she’s on the verge of tears when the Administrator turns away from her and just… stops caring about her the moment she doesn’t have what she wants. She never really mattered.
All these slow-paced panels of the mercs giving Ms. Pauling space as she silently grieves in shock. The blank, sunken, numb stare. Faced with a total reset of her life. You can feel the weight and guilt and relief of a huge burden being lifted through the death of a loved one. She loved the Administrator, so she let her go; now she’s finally free.
But here, Engie floats the idea that her love could endure as obsession and worship. As total servitude, even after death, to the Administrator’s legacy and whatever lovely fantasy Ms. Pauling had of her. And she stares at this last piece of Australium with manic temptation. But Ms. Pauling rejects it and discards it all. It’s done.
There’s something to be said about Ms. Pauling being in an abusive relationship with the Administrator and allowing herself to be used like this for validation. Because lets be real, Ms. Pauling is treated horribly with zero recognition and she often just laughs it off or rationalizes as necessary to better serve the Administrator.
(it’s honestly extremely obvious. ask yourself why ms. pauling believes getting manipulated, attacked, and shot by the administrator is worth it and not a big deal.)
I think when Engie tells her, “And you oughta know that [if you keep it] you won’t never be free of it. And I mean maybe really never,” he’s talking about their relationship. That if she doesn’t leave and drop this baggage and self-destructive love now, the Administrator will have her claws in her for the rest of her life. She will be dependent on her forever. It’s a great way of showing how just “ending” a relationship like this is never the end; the shit will follow you until you purge everything.
In short, Ms. Pauling’s arc is about surviving toxic boss-employee yuri and finding the strength and bravery to fully walk away from an abusive relationship and that’s why she’s the strongest TF2 character.
The final TF2 issue really got to me. Spoilers, but it’s the reveal that all of this suffering and murder and war over gravel and shitty land was for nothing but senseless, bottomless hatred. That the administrator can’t even remember where this revenge plot started as she flashes through different false memories of her parents’ deaths. There was never a tragic backstory or justification, only terrible people doing despicable things. And despite how crass and stupid and unserious TF2 is, the story subverts every expectation by showing the survivors and inheritors willingly breaking the cycle. Ms. Pauling lies to the administrator and chooses not to save her, and finally lets her die. (Hurts even more if you read into the subtext that Ms. Pauling is in love with the administrator.) She lets the final cache of Australium go and walks away from the burden and legacy of a century-old bloodfeud. Hale lets Gray’s daughter go and live her life freely. Spy is the first to arrive at Scout’s house and meet his big family, finally takes off his mask, and helps with the kids. Even Merasmus exhaustedly makes peace with himself and Soldier and chooses not to curse him or something. There’s nothing to finish, no promises to keep, and no one to avenge. The only thing to do is break the cycle and walk away.
It feels odd how happy and warm everything is, but it feels so right and earned. These bloodthirsty, awful, violent men were expendable cogs in a machine of endless violence, and they found a way out. It’s a genuinely great message about letting go the past that burdens you and finding the will and a way to hit the bricks, change, and be happy. Maybe they don’t technically deserve happiness, but they’ve got it nonetheless, and they’re not gonna let it go to waste. They’re still all crazy and violent, but on their own terms now and with people who love them! Smiles.
@butwerebothmares and I were chatting about our takes on Tracer and Widowmaker from OW and I’m sharing this now to you all.
We think Tracer should be a delusional adrenaline junkie who gets off on life-or-death danger. And she’s fallen madly in love with Widow because she’s the most dangerous person to her. And it’s not even a ‘ooh you want me so bad it makes you look stupid’ type of dynamic, it’s straight up blushing when a 7.62mm caliber bullet misses her head by an inch. Why do you think she’s giggling maniacally while fighting Widow in their short together? Meanwhile Tracer is the only thing that makes Widow feel alive because she’s the one person she can’t kill. And they can’t actually kill each other because then they’d lose their source of purpose and satisfaction (Joker and Batman style, except Tracer is Joker LOL).
And they’re so obsessed with each other that Tracer can’t even maintain normal civilian romantic relationships. Her best friend is a gorilla from the moon, socially she’s fucked. She and Widow are doomed to only be satisfied by each other’s mutual lust for revenge and killing. And the end of this toxic doomed yuri cycle would be the two of them mutually killing each other and falling to their deaths F&C Bubbline-style and sharing their first and final kiss. Thank you.
In case anyone who’s not on Twitter is wondering what it’s like now, I just got punched in the throat by four random consecutive discourse posts on my timeline as follows:
>bojack horseman is pathetic and anyone who likes “cartoons for adults” should have their harddrives checked for cp.
>anime is/isn’t carried by black culture, citing dandadan referencing a rihanna dance in its intro (it was a qrt exchange so both sides were present).
>angel dust is good sa victim representation and the person who made that video essay about them needs to be cyberbullied (or the inverse).
>this random stranger online made a post about how they’re bisexual and a trans ally but aren’t interested in trans people romantically or sexually, let’s make assumptions about their failure as a queer person and also dox them.
LWA was the first anime I watched and became really attached to back in high school. There’s a lot I could say as an intro to it (I highly recommend the OVA film and The Enchanted Parade Film, both are some of the most perfect short anime films [spot the MLP reference in the OVA!]. The main anime series is pretty good but is mostly no-plot shenanigans), but I wanna highlight the designs of background characters as an appeal for you to check it out. Because by god, the crew really cared about developing a fun, diverse cast of students that actually captures teenage girlhood pretty well.
Here’s a cool fact: every student in the background of the anime has a name, nationality, and personality (and possibly backstory and relationships). A lot of love went into designing each individual student, and 90% of them have no speaking roles or major screen-time.
This is only half of the student body too. More under the cut.
In the past, people in the Animal Crossing community would make fun of Tom Nook as a sleazy landlord. Since then, he’s really rehabilitated his image as this ‘heart of gold’ businessman (he’s the one who puts bells and furniture in trees for you to find! he adopted orphans! he donates to charity!), but New Horizons genuinely paints the most devious version of him.
He’s successfully privatized settler colonialism: you pay HIM to move to a “deserted island” (which apparently the oceans in the AC world are just full of) and start a colony that he is directly invested in. At best he’s running a weird vacation package scam (you arrive on the island with no money and in debt for “using his services”). At worst, he’s using you to set up company towns. For god’s sake, he literally has his own fake currency that he forces you to use to pay off your debt. But don’t worry, he’s repackaged it in a way that definitely doesn’t sound like an MLM scam: the Nook Mileage Program!
You’re no longer just his tenant or his temporary part-timer, you’re his business lackey. The entire tutorial section of the game has you spending actual weeks running around completing tasks and doing hard labor to set up his colony. You’re even tasked with preparing his properties and finding buyers for them. No, you aren’t a tenant anymore. You work for the landlord. You are directly responsible for finding tenants for him. And he doesn’t even fucking pay you. Not for setting up town hall and museum, or his nephew’s shop –– which is the ONLY store on the entire island that sells necessities –– or bringing KK Slider to town, or helping populate his town. Not a single cent. No, actually, you have to pay HIM to BUY infrastructure like bridges and stairs and park benches. And all the while, he’s telling you’re the “resident representative”; you get to call the shots! That the reward is the community’s progress. That what you’re doing is in everyone’s best interest (but most importantly, his).
Since NH’s release, people have done a lot of legwork to say that Tom Nook isn’t a capitalist while the game shows him at his very worst. He owns the only general store in town. You’re forced to use a phone that he modified and branded as his own. Buy Nook-branded furniture and merchandise at the self-serve kiosk in the town hall, a governmental building! There’s no conflict of interest here!
But hey, if you’re tired of being the landlord/business mogul’s goon, you can also find work as a deluxe resort home designer for a company that also pays you in their special company currency that can only be used to buy their products instead of a real salary! Because that’s what the Animal Crossing franchise needs!More vacation homes!!!
I’ve been seeing some discussion about Overwatch’s new characters and Kiriko on Twitter following the MHA crossover event and, as someone who’s not totally in the loop of OW lore anymore, what does Kiriko… do. Like, what does she contribute to the story of Overwatch and Talon and the Omnic Crisis, how is she involved. I know she trained with the Shimada brothers when she was a wee embryo, but what’s her connection to… Overwatch. Girl, what are you doing here.
Hi, Tumblr. It’s Tumblr. We’re working on some things that we want to share with you.
AI companies are acquiring content across the internet for a variety of purposes in all sorts of ways. There are currently very few regulations giving individuals control over how their content is used by AI platforms. Proposed regulations around the world, like the European Union’s AI Act, would give individuals more control over whether and how their content is utilized by this emerging technology. We support this right regardless of geographic location, so we’re releasing a toggle to opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use this content for model training. We’re also working with partners to ensure you have as much control as possible regarding what content is used.
Here are the important details:
We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from Tumblr and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner.
We want to represent all of you on Tumblr and ensure that protections are in place for how your content is used. We are committed to making sure our partners respect those decisions.
To opt out of sharing your public blogs’ content with third parties, visit each of your public blogs’ blog settings via the web interface and toggle on the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.
For instructions on how to opt out using the latest version of the app, please visit this Help Center doc.
Please note: If you’ve already chosen to discourage search crawling of your blog in your settings, we’ve automatically enabled the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.
If you have concerns, please read through the Help Center doc linked above and contact us via Support if you still have questions.
ALT
unfortunately, a lot of the userbase won’t opt out. those who don’t see this post, those who have posted to tumblr but don’t anymore, users on older versions of the app who forget to opt out next time they’re on desktop, etc. the point of making it opt-out is to take advantage of people who wouldn’t have opted in but don’t/can’t opt out in time.automatically opting out people who have discouraged search crawling is a gesture that helps Tumblr look more kind, but from the fact that everyone else has to manually opt out, Tumblr is definitely not looking benevolent.
I wonder, will Tumblr/Automattic be selling images from deactivated blogs? I assume deactivated blogs can’t opt out.
when will they start selling this data? Is it already too late to keep them from selling every image you’ve posted before you opted out?
and if they’re especially malicious, I wonder if they could get away with saying “this image is from a blog that’s opted out, but it was reblogged by a blog that hasn’t opted out, so we’re selling the image that’s on that non-opted-out blog.”
making users need to opt out to keep their images from being taken and sold is a shitty move that makes it clear Tumblr/Automattic don’t respect our privacy, and @staff are really not giving us much info here to suggest otherwise.
To all the people claiming AI is on our side and will free us from the shackles of copyright (and I am not arguing in favor of copyright), does this really seem like something that’s done with our interests in mind? Are you seriously putting your faith in developers and staff who are actively trying to undermine and trick its own userbase for free labor and profit? Do you seriously believe the people behind this sleazy behavior, a behavior that has been repeated over and over again on countless media platforms, to share your same leftist ideals in de-privatizing art and media?
Splatoon 3: Side Order is good, but not great. I still highly recommend it, but if you care about the story, you’re going to be disappointed. Quick review: spoilers ahead.
Side Order was the devs experimenting with Splatoon’s gameplay loop. The campaign is a rogue-like, and it works amazingly well. Super fun, super challenging, building my deck and fighting through challenges with the stakes of resetting really scratched an itch in my brain. They did a great job with it.
Unfortunately, I feel like priority went to game design rather than story. Much of the mysterious artwork we saw in the first teaser trailer was completely unused; turns out, all of that was just concept art that never made it into the final product. Side Order failed to make me care about what was happening. I don’t know why the protagonist had to be Agent 8; it could’ve been anyone else and the story would’ve worked the same.
Octo Expansion was the absolute peak of meshing story and gameplay. The campaign’s hook is insanely strong; we immediately empathize with Agent 8 because we know from previous lore that octolings like her have been trapped underground for all their lives. We care about her fight to the surface because it’s a fundamentally ideological fight for freedom. The plot stuff about Tartar and the Thangs is just nice set dressing; 8’s fight for freedom is the real story.
There’s none of that in Side Order. I don’t particularly care about Marina’s metaverse, even if it’s tied to Octo Expansion’s story. I don’t know why Acht is there other than backstory stuff. It really feels like 8 is just told to do something and she does it because she’s the protagonist; she has zero personal stakes or motivations in the conflict. This is a story blunder the devs did in Splatoon 3’s default campaign––forgetting to give the protagonist a personal reason to fight––that I hoped would be fixed here, but alas.
What makes it worse is that the gameplay and story progression are completely out of sync. I beat the entire game on my third run in 4 hours. With each run, you get up to two keys to potentially unlock bits of story. That means you’ll get about one piece of the story every two runs. There are twelve pieces of the story; I got the first and then beat the whole damn game. Now I have to go back and grind to see the remaining story when I’ve already beaten the final boss and resolved the conflict. I missed the entire story because I never had to reset because I blazed through the gameplay! It’s just a real shame that I experienced everything without knowing… why it’s happening. The final boss had me asking myself what the hell is going on because I don’t know the backstory at all.
Again, I still really recommend. The devs did a great job, but Side Order remains in the shadow of Octo Expansion’s incredible success. Like the default singleplayer campaign, there’s just a lot of lost story potential here that, while not necessary, would have really elevated this DLC into something amazing.
I feel so conflicted because I’ve been begging for a new Endless Ocean game on Switch for years, but I’m… kinda disappointed by what I saw in Luminous’s trailer. There was no mention of a singleplayer story, which makes me feel like this is just a party exploration game.
The thing that made Endless Ocean 2 for me was how hard they committed to its story, characters, and settings. It was a full-ass RPG.
Comparing Lum to Blue World, it… doesn’t look better either. Lum seems to have reduced caustics, light rays, distance fog, and blue lighting, which makes underwater environments feel fake and sterile.
Top is new, bottom is old.
Plus, I’ve never been a big fan of the Switch era’s phone-app-game-style UI design… Especially compared to the original’s very Y2K look.
I know I’m being nitpicky, but this was my favorite childhood game and it’s been 15 years since the last installment. I’m still gonna buy, but it’ll be a hilariously cruel twist of fate if the 15-year-old installment is not only more impressive in scale but also looks better than what we’re getting now.
I think 90% of my gripes with how modern anime looks comes down to flat color design/palettes.
Non-cohesive, washed-out color palettes can destroy lineart quality. I see this all the time when comparing an anime’s lineart/layout to its colored/post-processed final product and it’s heartbreaking. Compare this pre-color vs. final frame from Dungeon Meshi’s OP.
So much sharpness and detail and weight gets washed out and flattened by ‘meh’ color design. I LOVE the flow and thickness and shadows in the fabrics on the left. The white against pastel really brings it out. Check out all the detail in their hair, the highlights in Rin’s, the different hues to denote hair color, the blue tint in the clothes’ shadows, and how all of that just gets… lost. It works, but it’s not particularly good and does a disservice to the line-artist.
I’m using Dungeon Meshi as an example not because it’s bad, I’m just especially disappointed because this is Studio Trigger we’re talking about. The character animation is fantastic, but the color design is usually much more exciting. We’re not seeing Trigger at their full potential, so I’m focusing on them.
Here’s a very quick and messy color correct. Not meant to be taken seriously, just to provide comparison to see why colors can feel “washed out.” Top is edit, bottom is original.
You can really see how desaturated and “white fluorescent lighting” the original color palettes are.
[Remember: the easiest way to make your colors more lively is to choose a warm or cool tint. From there, you can play around with bringing out complementary colors for a cohesive palette (I warmed Marcille’s skintone and hair but made sure to bring out her deep blue clothes). Avoid using too many blend mode layers; hand-picking colors will really help you build your innate color sense and find a color style. Try using saturated colors in unexpected places! If you’re coloring a night scene, try using deep blues or greens or magentas. You see these deep colors used all the time in older anime because they couldn’t rely on a lightness scale to make colors darker, they had to use darker paints with specific hues. Don’t overthink it, simpler is better!]
Always an experience watching the leftism leave FNAF fans when someone mentions that Scott Cawthon financially backed fascist politicians.
The switch from posting hardline leftist tweets about boycotts and signal boosts and critical takedowns of politicians and celebrities to ‘ohhh, well. everyone makes mistakes. who can blame him, listen he. he donated money to gay charities too. that makes it ok! a millionaire in his forties is allowed to have political beliefs. does it even matter? just let it go!’ is whiplash inducing. The antivaxxer celebrities have got to go, but this one horror dev who quietly handed wads of cash to antivax lawmakers? He’s chill, he can stay.
The charity thing is so funny too because suddenly utilitarian positive-negative point counting is the way to go. Maybe an abacus would help calculate the net good of donating to the Trevor Project minus donating thousands of dollars to Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. -10 points if I push a kid in a lake but 11 points if I help an old lady across the street, so I’m chill. You can’t judge me. Hey, maybe. Just don’t push a kid in the lake period. How fucking low is the bar when we’re excusing maxing out the possible dollar amount of donations to Mitch fucking McConnell. That should be like. Default you’re a bad person.
Bro wtf was with that anon dude. AI art is an actual problem for artists, and you deserve to be able to talk about it. I know from your reaction you already know this, but I'm making sure you double know this
Asked by Anonymous
To be fair, the take is one that usually requires an artists’ perspective, since we’re most at risk by AI art, not just through work opportunities, but also our likeness and creative work being stolen for someone else’s profit.
I’m not against the use of AI on an industrial level, but there needs to be a distinction made between AI art and AI graphics. AI graphics are simply images with utility; the video game industry could see massive benefits to workload and crunch if they could generate textures, for instance. But art doesn’t exist for utility’s sake. Art isn’t just created to be consumed, but to also inform viewers about who the artist is. What does AI art say about the AI? That its algorithm was well written? That it’s really good at copying real humans?
Contrary to popular belief, art isn’t the pursue of beauty, it’s the pursuit of self-expression and self-reflection, something that machines can’t do. It’s a two-way stream of communication between viewer and creator.
Until AI can produce its own emotions and understand sensory experiences without relying on external input or databases, it cannot make creative decisions, thus it cannot create “art.” It doesn’t understand color theory, or even how what we think of color theory, it understands the most popular trend in color theory. To an AI, blue and yellow together isn’t pretty, it’s just common. Breaking the components and traits of art down into a big graph and calculating their visual appeal through statistics and probability? That’s not good enough for art.
Unfortunately, this is something a lot of people don’t understand. For most, art is purely for consumption, rather than a means to explore and understand the world around us.
When I look at a painting of a sunset by a human, I think about their experience of being there, seeing this sunset, translating it onto canvas. I think about what they must have been feeling: loneliness? Melancholy? Awe? When I look at a “painting” of a sunset by an AI, all I see is a sunset. Because I know that’s all the AI wants it to be.
So yeah, I think AI art is a problem. But I think the threat it poses to the definition of art and the way we interact with it is going unnoticed. And before anyone calls me a doomer, it’s already happening. A few months ago, a piece of AI graphic using other artists’ work won first place at the Colorado State Fair’s fine arts competition, beating real artists. The user even bragged about how little work went into generating the graphic.
Taking a break from drawing a ton of fan-art and focusing on my original stuff is great because I have so much art for portfolios and college now, but after my last two posts, I can’t help but feel like I’m a washed up, 16-year-old has-been. Feels like not drawing fan-art for you guys and everyone else has caused a huge dip in interest, which sucks. I’m not sure if I’ll go back to focusing on fan-art though. And I’m not about to make empty promises (again).
And I know notes aren’t everything and don’t make up for your skill and complaining about notes is very whiny. But with a looped animation getting less than a thousand notes and art riding the BOTW train receiving less interaction than art that was posted after, it’s pretty worrying to me. Especially comparing it to activity during 2018. I can’t help but feel like I’m doing something wrong.
ALT
