I didn't think I would post something that isn't a reblog in a long time, but I won't be doing this if I wasn't concerned with what could happen to fandoms, and in particular, fan fiction.

Given this whole issue started months ago (and probably for a much longer time before), I'm late when writing this, but as a fanfic writer (and an artist who does fan works) I couldn't just ignore it.

To the point, I've just learned that fanfics are being bonded and sold on Etsy (and maybe a few other sites as well). Based on what I have seen, this is primarily happening with the Harry Potter fandom, but this can occur in any fandom.

All I can say in this situation is this: DO NOT SELL FANFICS AND FANWORKS. It's blatant plagiarism and thief. Also, it can hurt both the original creators, and the fandoms. More information on the harm can be read here.

There is a very good reason why fan works are supposed to be nonprofit. It's meant to be a fun thing for everyone to enjoy, but story thieves who sell just to make a quick buck take the fun out of it.

How I feel about Jax from the Amazing Digital Circus in a nutshell.

And you have a spare incase something happens to the other one.

Now I can wear my favourite shirt even when it's in the wash :)

hold on a second man…

So a free tool called GLAZE has been developed that allows artists to cloak their artwork so it can't be mimicked by AI art tools.

AI art bros are big mad about it.

Emergency reblog because I've learned KOSA is still around, and it's still a threat to the freedom of the internet. It's undergo revisions recently, but it's still at its very core, a censorship bill.

Read the link yourself, but basically, KOSA is a harmful internet bill that disguises itself to protect children, but in reality it's mean the censoring of LGBTQ+ resources, fan works, and who knows what else.

I've been telling myself that it'll never get passed, it won't be passed for a long time, and even if it did, nothing will really change. However, if there is anything I learn from dystopian sci-fi stories, it's that the worse is always expected to happen.

So, if you're concerned, then call/email your local congressman and remind them why KOSA is a bad internet bill.

I'm alright with internet safety, but KOSA as it stands, is not the solution for it.

A Threat to Free Speech

I don't want to want to get involve with political things; I really don't. It can get really messy and stressful...

However, I won't be posting this if I didn't view this a threat.

leave your laundry on the floor for them

Neat, I can vibe with Craftycorn in this AU too.

As someone who plays DnD, how was the campaign? Who plays what race and class?

CRACKS HANDS

aight.

Poppy: The dungeon master! she's been stuck in that case for 10 years, she's got many many stories to come up on the spot

Angel: Plays as a ranger (get it? because he uses a grabpack?) he's a tiefling, and he's just in it for the booze

Dogday: plays as a paladin and is a sun elf!

Bobby: a Shapeshifting Druid and also a Whole Bear. literally Just a Bear.

Hoppy: Plays as a drow who's a rogue, mf that tries to kill everyone

Crafty: Surprisingly a rogue as well! but she's a fairy of sorts (home brewed)

Kickin: a half elf half human bard (he just learned to play guitar and likes to sing in character lol)

Picky: She doesnt play but loves to watch! she ensures that the party eat some food while playing!

Bubba: Doesnt play either, is there to either instigate for funsies, or reading the lore for the others (they have the reading comprehension of a third grader/j)

Kissy is there for emotional support face smacks!

I might be a bit whiny, but I’m seeking for advise after what I’ve learned about art and writing thieves, and not just from your case, but others too. How do you continue posting your work knowing that a thief can just take it and try make the credit theirs? After all I’ve learned, I find myself in a slump and ask, “What’s the point of showing anything?”

That's a valid question, and the answer for each individual is going to stem from the question, "Why do I create?"

For some people, the primary motivation for creating art (of whatever kind -- visual art, writing, music, whatever) is external. That means they are making things with the goal of receiving some kind of response from other people, whether that's in the form of reactions from friends, Tumblr notes, AO3 comments, awards from a competition, revenue from sales, etc. For these creators, art is a vector for connecting with others in some way.

For other people, the primary motivation is internal -- they have an image they want to create, a story they want to tell, a mood they want to express, a struggle they want to work through, or some other personal desire that they can achieve through creating something. Recognition from others is a nice bonus, but these people are creating for themselves first, and others second.

It's important to understand that neither of these motivation types is a more "pure" or morally superior approach to art! They're equally valid but different, in the same way that some people are introverts who are recharged by alone time, while others are extroverts who are recharged by social contact. And most creators have some mix of these two motivations. (In my case, I tend to create content that I have a personal passion for, but I also want to share it with others and get excited about their response, so I'm about 60% internal/40% external.)

Now, for those creators who are externally motivated, something like art theft or piracy is a massive blow to their creative motivation, because the whole reason they're making the thing in the first place is so people will engage with it and connect with them. Having that engagement/feedback/revenue go to someone else is robbing the artist of their incentive, just like robbing someone of a paycheck they've earned by working hard. (In the case of commercial artists/writers/musicians, the paycheck theft is literal.)

That's not to say that creators who are internally motivated aren't also hurt by piracy; in their case, the theft might feel extremely personal, because the thing they made was for them, and someone else took it. Rather than entirely killing their creative impulse, though, an internally-motivated artist might still create, but will be more reluctant to share their work in a venue/format where it could be stolen.

All of that can help you recognize why you're in a slump, which might help you decide what approach you want to take with your creative works in the future. For someone whose work is therapeutic or deeply personal, piracy might be extremely hurtful, and it might not be worth the risk to share it publicly. For someone who thrives on feedback but is upset by the thought of someone else taking credit for their work, there are options to create and share works in smaller communities (such as a focused Discord server or to Patreon followers). For someone who just wants the most people possible to see their work, posting publicly but monitoring more frequently for piracy might be the way to go. The answer might be different for every artist.

Preventing piracy in the digital age is difficult. Posting in places where visibility is high carries increased risk of theft. Paywalls like Patreon, et al. can slow bot scraping, but also drastically reduce the number of people who can see your work. Some visual artists use watermarks and low-resolution images to prevent theft, but speaking as an artist, it's very frustrating to have to obscure parts of or reduce the quality of something I spent dozens of hours on when it's meant to be seen in glorious high definition. As a writer, I've just had to accept that posting publicly on a site like AO3 or publishing my work professionally carries risk, and address it when it happens. (To be honest, my commercial writing is at just as much or even more risk; piracy is a huge issue in the publishing industry, too.)

Ultimately, the choice is up to you. If you want to take some time off from creating to think about it, there's nothing wrong with that. If you want to throw yourself into something creative to try to overcome the slump, that's also a valid approach. If you want to change how (or if) you share your work online to reduce risk, that's fine. But as a fellow creator, I'd urge you not to let the existence of a handful of thieves discourage you from creating art -- for whatever reason -- if making things is what makes you happy. (EDIT: Apparently when I tried to save this as a draft it posted a half-finished version. I think I've fixed it now, but Asks are a weird thing.)

Saw my first post with someone admitting they used chatGPT to ‘write a fic’ which they then shared here on tumblr and on Ao3.

To be clear, using AI to churn out a piece of fiction is not writing.

Using a bot (possibly one that was trained using a scrape of Ao3, that is to say, the theft of work from every writer who has posted their work on Ao3) is NOT WRITING.

It is theft. It isn’t creation. It’s a regurgitation of the consumed collective work and effort and heart and time of every writer who has shared their work on Ao3.

‘I’m not a good writer’ is no excuse.

Want to be a writer? Put in the time everyone else does to practice.

Don’t feel confident in your work? Open yourself up to the same vulnerability and risk that the rest of us do.

You don’t get to use a fucking bot to vomit out an approximation of a story and pretend you’ve got skin in the game.

The sad thing? This bot-assembled fic wasn’t bad. It was bland, but it had internal logic, some passing context to character and canon. It wasn’t like those early AI art pieces that had surreal compositions and extra fingers. It wasn’t immediately obvious it was made by a bot.

In this instance the person who posted it admitted they had used a bot. Which, actually, I have some respect for. But it probably isn’t the first and it won’t be the last.

I don’t know that there’s a solution to this, but it is both hurting my heart and enraging me.

What would Jax do or react to Gangle getting abstracted?

Ah, yes. The consequences of his actions.

Whether her abstraction was caused by him or not, he would nevertheless feel extreme guilt, for the simple fact alone that he treated her poorly. Desperately trying to fix her mask as in his delusion he believes there is still time to save her if he fixes his mistakes.

Once realization hits him, he would do one of two things:

1. Lock her in her room and pretend she's okay, that she only wants to isolate herself, in order to keep her from being put in the cellar. If the picture on her door gets automatically crossed out by the game, he would draw over it with the limited amount of drawing skills he learned from Gangle.

2. If she gets put in the cellar, he would gather all her broken masks and repair them. Keeping them around his room or just carry one with him at all times. (In his overalls pocket if possible.) He would lay down on the floor where the cellar is, to hear her growl or just to feel like he's closer to her, day by day being eaten alive more and more by guilt and grief, until he eventually abstracts himself.

Bonus?:

It's only been a few days and now a new change has been made...

I don't think I can post any new art on here (fan art or otherwise). Tumblr has destroyed most of the trust I have for it and I don't want to post on here anymore.

I have deleted most of my art and my second blog out of anxiety. However, in the end, do want to stay connected with the artists that remain that I respect, so I'm not deleting my account... yet.

When it does happen, look for me on Newgrounds and Inkblot under the same name. I'll still be active there.

Time for A Change

If you haven't heard the news, then I'll be the one will let you know that Tumblr has plan to... team up with OpenAI and Midjourney. What this means is that they will give content to help train their AI programs... And if you know me, then you know that I absolutely hate that they're resorting to this.

It's no surprise that it's come to this; Tumblr's not especially an art website, but it doesn't change that I'm not happy about this.

They've added a feature to help opt-out of AI scraping, and I've already done so. However, I'm taking the words with a grain of salt.

The majority of my old work is staying: most of its fan art and done in my old crappy art style anyway. Still, if I find out they got processed through AI, I will be livid. I will never give permission to that sort of thing

For the future, I won't be posting my art on Tumblr as much any more. Instead I'll be posting it on NewGrounds, and I'm considering a site called Inkblot.

I'm not going to be officially leaving Tumblr (there's still a lot of interesting stuff on here), and I might post a fan art or two if I find it extremely interesting. Of course, they're going to be put through Nightshade and Glaze, which are programs that are to help protect us from AI.

It's been a fun six years... I can only hope it'll get better, but I won't hold on to it.

I know I said I won't post as much anymore... But I didn't say anything about reblogging; especially when it's stuff that's this that's worth sharing.

Fuck Your AI

An ode to Tumblr Higher Ups, OpenAI and MidJourney

When you open your mouth; may the shit you spew "we accidentally queried private posts, deleted musings, unanswered asks - sorry, we were too busy on our backs, taking Benjamin up the ass" choke you, silence you: may your users leave again, in droves - may your stocks follow you s i x f e e t below alone; for only those so unloved - even by their mothers - could conspire a betrayal while so unbothered;

a userbase so dedicated, stayed despite ever-changing hands, stayed despite the sheltering of Nazis, stayed despite censoring of queers, stayed stayed stayed. This site, once gave the lonely virtual hands to hold; a safe haven for communities disparaged by the norm - how we've long placed roses within the bones of what once was; how they've rotted, the smell of decay is overwhelming, now.

Fuck your AI. If you support AI using the work of artists and writers like myself, you're in support of theft, specifically theft that often effects underprivileged individuals who use their craft as a means to survive. This post is inspired by Tumblr recently admitting to selling our data to Open and Midjourney without gathering consent of the userbase. They have retroactively added a feature to opt out of this - but they themselves say there's no guarantee our data will be scrubbed. Wholeheartedly, find other sites to use. This has been a sinking ship for a long time. The captain just threw us overboard.

You know what...

F*ck it. I'm deleting a majority of my art off of the blog. As soon as this post is out, I'm going to the master post and deleting most if not all. It's not ideal, but my paranoia is getting the better of me; especially since opting out isn't guarantee to protect my works.

Sure there are the reblogs, but I trust whoever reblogs my old works to opt-out and respectably credit me.

The deleted works are mainly be original works featuring characters I'm proud off and don't want AI to scrap. The ones that will remain will primarily be just a couple of fan works for fandoms such as Epithet Erased and Craig of the Creek.

These deleted works might come back one day... depending how Tumblr turns out, or you might see them on a better website one day.