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mdzsartreblogs · 1 year

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Recognizing AI Generated Images, Danmei Edition

Heyo, @unforth here! I run some danmei art blogs (@mdzsartreblogs, @tgcfartreblogs, @svsssartreblogs, @zhenhunartreblogs, @erhaartreblogs, @dmbjartreblogs, @tykartreblogs, and @cnovelartreblogs) which means I see a LOT of danmei art, and I go through the main fandom tags more-or-less every day.

Today, for the first time, I spotted someone posting AI-generated images (I refuse to call them AI "art" - and to be clear, that's correct of me, because at least in the US it literally LEGALLY isn't art) without any label indicating they were AI generated. I am not necessarily against the existence of AI-generated images (though really...considering all the legal issues and the risks of misuse, I'm basically against them); I think they potentially have uses in certain contexts (such as for making references) and I also think that regardless of our opinions, we're stuck with them, but they're also clearly not art and I don't reblog them to the art side blogs.

The images I spotted today had multiple "tells," but they were still accumulating notes, and I thought it might be a good moment to step back and point out some of the more obvious tells because my sense is that a LOT of people are against AI-generated images being treated as art, and that these people wouldn't want to support an AI-generator user who tried to foist off their work as actual artwork, but that people don't actually necessarily know how to IDENTIFY those works and therefore can inadvertently reblog works that they'd never support if they were correctly identified. (Similar to how the person who reposts and says "credit to the artist" is an asshole but they're not the same as someone who reposts without any credit at all and goes out of their way to make it look like they ARE the artist when they're not).

Toward that end, I've downloaded all the images I spotted on this person's account and I'm going to use them to highlight the things that led me to think they were AI art - they posted a total of 5 images to a few major danmei tags the last couple days, and several other images not to specific fandoms (I examined 8 images total). The first couple I was suspicious, but it wasn't til this morning that I spotted one so obvious that it couldn't be anything BUT AI art. I am NOT going to name the person who did this. The purpose of this post is purely educational. I have no interest whatsoever in bullying one rando. Please don't try to identify them; who they are is genuinely irrelevant, what matters is learning how to recognize AI art in general and not spreading it around, just like the goal of education about reposting is to help make sure that people who repost don't get notes on their theft, to help people recognize the signs so that the incentive to be dishonest about this stuff is removed.

But first: Why is treating AI-generated images as art bad?

I'm no expert and this won't be exhaustive, but I do think it's important to first discuss why this matters.

On the surface, it's PERHAPS harmless for someone to post AI-generated images provided that the image is clearly labeled as AI-generated. I say "perhaps" because in the end, as far as I'm aware, there isn't a single AI-generation engine that's built on legally-sourced artwork. Every AI (again, to the best of my knowledge) has been trained using copyrighted images usually without the permission of the artists. Indeed, this is the source of multiple current lawsuits. (and another)

But putting that aside (as if it can be put aside that AI image generators are literally unethically built), it's still problematic to support the images being treated as art. Artists spend thousands of hours learning their craft, honing it, sharing their creations, building their audiences. This is what they sell when they offer commissions, prints, etc. This can never be replicated by a computer, and to treat an AI-generated image as in any way equivalent is honestly rude, inappropriate, disgusting imo. This isn't "harmless"; supporting AI image creation engines is damaging to real people and their actual livelihoods. Like, the images might be beautiful, but they're not art. I'm honestly dreading someone managing to convince fandom that their AI-generated works are actual art, and then cashing in on commissions, prints, etc., because people can't be fussed to learn the difference. We really can't let this happen, guys. Fanartists are one of the most vibrant, important, prominent groups in all our fandoms, and we have to support them and do our part to protect them.

As if those two points aren't enough, there's already growing evidence that AI-generated works are being used to further propagandists. There are false images circulating of violence at protests, deep-fakes of various kinds that are helping the worst elements of society to push their horrid agendas. As long as that's a facet of AI-generated works, they'll always be dangerous.

I could go on, but really this isn't the main point of my post and I don't want to get bogged down. Other people have said more eloquently than I why AI-generated images are bad. Read those. (I tried to find a good one to link but sadly failed; if anyone knows a good post, feel free to send it and I'll add the link to the post).

Basically: I think a legally trained AI-image generator that had built-in clear watermarks could be a fun toy for people who want reference images or just to play with making pseudo-art. But...that's not what we have, and what we do have is built on theft and supports dystopia so, uh. Yeah fuck AI-generated images.

How to recognize AI-Generated Images Made in an Eastern Danmei Art Style

NOTE: I LEARNED ALL THE BASIC ON SPOTTING AI-GENERATED IMAGES FROM THIS POST. I'll own I still kinda had the wool over my eyes until I read that post - I knew AI stuff was out there but I hadn't really looked closely enough to have my eyes open for specific signs. Reading that entire post taught me a lot, and what I learned is the foundation of this post.

This post shouldn't be treated as a universal guide. I'm specifically looking at the tells on the kind of art that people in danmei fandoms often see coming from Weibo and other Chinese, Japanese, and Korean platforms, works made by real artists. For example, the work of Foxking (狐狸大王a), kokirapsd, and Changyang (who is an official artist for MDZS, TGCF, and other danmei works). This work shares a smooth use of color, an aim toward a certain flavor of realism, an ethereal quality to the lighting, and many other features. (Disclaimer: I am not an artist. Putting things in arty terms is really not my forte. Sorry.)

So, that's what these AI-generated images are emulating. And on the surface, they look good! Like...

...that's uncontestably a pretty picture (the white box is covering the "artist's" watermark.) And on a glance, it doesn't necessarily scream "AI generated"! But the devil is in the details, and the details are what this post is about. And that picture? Is definitely AI generated.

This post is based on 8 works I grabbed from a single person's account, all posted as their own work and watermarked as such. Some of the things that are giveaways only really show when looking at multiple pieces. I'm gonna start with those, and then I'll highlight some of the specifics I spotted that caused me to go from "suspicious" to "oh yeah no these are definitely not art."

Sign 1: all the images are the exact same size. I mean, to the pixel: 512 x 682 pixels (or 682 x 512, depending on landscape or portrait orientation). This makes zero sense. Why would an artist trim all their pieces to that size? It's not the ideal Tumblr display size (that's 500 x 750 pixels). If you check any actual artist's page and look at the full-size of several of their images, they'll all be different sizes as they trimmed, refined, and otherwise targeted around their original canvas size to get the results they wanted.

Sign 2: pixelated. At the shrunken size displayed on, say, a mobile Tumblr feed, the image looks fine, but even just opening the full size upload, the whole thing is pixelated. Now, this is probably the least useful sign; a lot of artists reduce the resolution/dpi/etc. on their uploaded works so that people don't steal them. But, taken in conjunction with everything else, it's definitely a sign.

Those are the two most obvious overall things - the things I didn't notice until I looked at all the uploads. The specifics are really what tells, though. Which leads to...

Sign 3: the overall work appears to have a very high degree of polish, as if it were made by an artist who really really knows what they're doing, but on inspection - sometimes even on really, REALLY cursory inspect - the details make zero sense and reflect the kinds of mistakes that a real artist would never make.

So, here's the image that I saw that "gave it away" to me, and caused me to re-examine the images that had first struck me as off but that I hadn't been able to immediately put my finger on the problem. I've circled some of the spots that are flagrant.

Do you see yet? Yes? Awesome, you're getting it. No? Okay, let's go point by point, with close ups.

Sign 4: HANDS. Hands are currently AI's biggest weakness, though they've been getting better quickly and honestly that's terrifying. But whatever AI generated this picture clearly doesn't get hands yet, because that hand is truly an eldritch horror. Look at this thing:

It has two palms. It has seven fingers. It's basically two hands overlaid over each other, except one of those hands only has four fingers and the other has three. Seeing this hand was how I went from "umm...maybe they're fake? Maybe they're not???" to "oh god why is ANYONE reblogging this when it's this obvious?" WATCH THE HANDS. (Go back up to that first one posted and look at the hand, you'll see. Or just look right below at this crop.) Here's some other hands:

Sign 5: Hair and shadows. Once I started inspecting these images, the shadows of the hair on the face was one of the things that was most consistently fucked up across all the uploaded pictures. Take a look:

There's shadows of tendrils on the forehead, but there's no corresponding hair that could possibly have made those shadows. Likewise there's a whole bunch of shadows on the cheeks. Where are those coming from? There's no possible source in the rest of the image. Here's some other hair with unrelated wonky shadows:

Sign 6: Decorative motifs that are really just meaningless squiggles. Like, artists, especially those who make fanart, put actual thought into what the small motifs are on their works. Like, in TGCF, an artist will often use a butterfly motif or a flower petal motif to reflect things about the characters. An AI, though, can only approximate a pattern and it can't imbue those with meanings. So you end up with this:

What is that? It's nothing, that's what. It's a bunch of squiggles. Here's some other meaningless squiggle motifs (and a more zoomed-in version of the one just above):

Sign 7: closely related to meaningless squiggle motifs is motifs that DO look like something, but aren't followed through in any way that makes sense. For example, an outer garment where the motifs on the left and the right shoulder/chest are completely different, or a piece of cloth that's supposed to be all one piece but that that has different patterns on different sections of it. Both of these happen in the example piece, see?

The first images on the top left is the left and right shoulder side by side. The right side has a scalloped edge; the left doesn't. Likewise, in the right top picture, you can see the two under-robe lapels; one has a gold decoration and the other doesn't. And then the third/bottom image shows three sections of the veil. One (on the left) has that kind of blue arcy decoration, which doesn't follow the folds of the cloth very well and looks weird and appears at one point to be OVER the hair instead of behind it. The second, on top of the bottom images, shows a similar motif, except now it's gold, and it looks more like a hair decoration than like part of the veil. The third is also part of the same veil but it has no decorations at all. Nothing about this makes any sense whatsoever. Why would any artist intentionally do it that way? Or, more specifically, why would any artist who has this apparent level of technical skill ever make a mistake like this?

They wouldn't.

Some more nonsensical patterns, bad mirrors, etc. (I often put left/right shoulders side by side so that it'd be clearer, sorry if it's weird):

Sign 8: bizarre architecture, weird furniture, etc. Most of the images I'm examining for this post have only partial backgrounds, so it's hard to really focus on this, but it's something that the post I linked (this one) talks about a lot. So, like, an artist will put actual thought into how their construction works, but an AI won't because an AI can't. There's no background in my main example image, but take a look at this from another of my images:

On a glance it's beautiful. On a few seconds actually staring it's just fucking bizarre. The part of the ceiling on the right appears to be domed maybe? But then there's a hard angle, then another. The windows on the right have lots of panes, but then the one on the middle-left is just a single panel, and the ones on the far left have a complete different pane model. Meanwhile, also on the left side at the middle, there's that dark gray...something...with an arch that mimics the background arches except it goes no where, connects to nothing, and has no apparent relationship to anything else going on architecturally. And, while the ceiling curves, the back wall is straight AND shows more arches in the background even though the ceiling looks to end. And yes, some of this is possible architecture, but taken as a whole, it's just gibberish. Why would anyone who paints THAT WELL paint a building to look like THAT? They wouldn't. It's nonsense. It's the art equivalent of word salad. When we look at a sentence and it's like "dog makes a rhythmical salad to betray on the frame time plot" it almost resembles something that might mean something but it's clearly nonsense. This background is that sentence, as art.

Sign 9: all kinds of little things that make zero sense. In the example image, I circled where a section of the hair goes BELOW the inner robe. That's not impossible but it just makes zero sense. As with many of these, it's the kind of thing that taken alone, I'd probably just think "well, that was A Choice," but combined with all the other weird things it stands out as another sign that something here is really, really off. Here's a collection of similar "wtf?" moments I spotted across the images I looked at (I'm worried I'm gonna hit the Tumblr image cap, hence throwing these all in one, lol.)

You have to remember that an actual artist will do things for a reason. And we, as viewers, are so used to viewing art with that in mind that we often fill in reasons even when there aren't. Like, in the image just about this, I said, "what the heck are these flowers growing on?" And honestly, I COULD come up with explanations. But that doesn't mean it actually makes sense, and there's no REASON for it whatsoever. The theoretical same flowers are, in a different shot, growing unsupported! So...what gives??? The answer is nothing gives. Because these pieces are nothing. The AI has no reason, it's just tossing in random aesthetic pieces together in a mishmash, and the person who generated them is just re-generating and refining until they get something that looks "close enough" to what they wanted. It never was supposed to make sense, so of course it doesn't.

In conclusion...

After years of effort, artists have gotten across to most of fandom that reposts are bad, and helped us learn strategies for helping us recognize reposts, and given us an idea of what to do when we find one.

Fandom is just at the beginning of this process as it applies to AI-generated images. There's a LOT of education that has to be done - about why AI-generated images are bad (the unethical training using copyrighted images without permission is, imo, critical to understanding this), and about how to spot them, and then finally about what to do when you DO find them.

With reposts, we know "tell original artist, DCMA takedowns, etc." That's not the same with these AI-images. There's no original owner. There's no owner at all - in the US, at least, they literally cannot be copyrighted. Which is why I'm not even worrying about "credit" on this post - there's nothing stolen, cause there's nothing made. So what should you do?

Nothing. The answer is, just as the creator has essentially done nothing, you should also do nothing. Don't engage. Don't reblog. Don't commission the creator or buy their art prints. If they do it persistently and it bothers you, block them. If you see one you really like, and decide to reblog it, fine, go for it, but mark it clearly - put in the ACTUAL COMMENTS (not just in the tags!) that it's AI art, and that you thought it was pretty anyway. But honestly, it'd be better to not engage, especially since as this grows it's inevitable that some actual artists are going to start getting accused of posting AI-generated images by over-zealous people. Everyone who gets a shadow wrong isn't posting AI-generated images. A lot of these details are insanely difficult to get correct, and lots of even very skilled, accomplished artists, if you go over their work with a magnifying glass you're going to find at least some of these things, some weirdnesses that make no sense, some shadows that are off, some fingers that are just ugh (really, getting hands wrong is so relatable. hands are the fucking worst). It's not about "this is bad art/not art because the hand is wrong," it's specifically about the ways that it's wrong, the way a computer randomly throws pieces together versus how actual people make actual mistakes. It's all of the little signs taken as a whole to say "no one who could produce a piece that, on the surface, looks this nice, could possibly make THIS MANY small 'mistakes.'"

The absolute best thing you can do if you see AI-generated images being treated as real art is just nothing. Support actual artists you love, and don't spread the fakes.

Thanks for your time, everyone. Good luck avoiding AI-generated pieces in the future, please signal boost this, and feel free to get in touch if you think I can help you with anything related to this.

#resources

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mylittleredgirl · 9 months

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while we’re having the endless debate about sorting by kudos or not on ao3, i have to stump for my personal favorite way to find fics:

i basically always go straight to the “bookmarks” page for whatever pairing/tag i’m reading rather than the “works” page, and i literally just realized why: it lights up the same parts of my tumblr gremin brain as my dash does.

content hand-selected by people who are bookmarking shit for their own reasons entirely unknowable to me, so it’s a mix of quality peer review and user xyz’s to-read list

if you keep going back to it there’s a repetition over time as new people bookmark old fics. as a tumblr girlie my brain enjoys seeing Thing I Recognize

brand new fics often show up there if they’re good!! (equivalent: new posts tagged “investing at 5 notes”)

a lot of the top kudos fics keep showing up too because so many people sort the works page that way (equivalent: heritage post)

but so much random stuff shows up too that i would otherwise never find, thanks to the hardworking folks out there sobbing into the bottom of the tag at 4 am (equivalent: those posts with 56 notes from 2011 that somehow?? end up on your dash like bestie how did you even find that)

sometimes there are 30 bookmarks in a row by the same person who has a new hyperfixation and you get to think “good for them”

sometimes you get to recognize a username as someone having good or seriously bad taste

sometimes i see my own fics in the mix!! and get that little hit of positive attention (or neutral attention i guess, when people add a bookmarker tag like “it’s about [my fave character] but it’s ok”)

yeah! people can add bookmarker tags and their own notes! so sometimes people rec fics or add marginalia and their own sortable tags (but most people don’t)

there’s always that one fucking harry potter crossover fic with 194 tags in the mix (equivalent: manscaped ads you can’t escape). not saying this is a plus, but scrolling past the same long post you hate for the dozenth time is also an essential part of the tumblr experience.

re: that last bullet point, the one downside of the bookmarks page is that the filtering isn’t quite as robust as on the works page. you do have all the usual include/exclude filter options, but the very last section of filtering (crossovers, WIPs, word count, date range) is not available. (@ ao3 coders please i’m begging 🥺🙏)

anyway i’m sure the bookmarking economy is different across fandoms, but this will give you a semi-randomized feed of the tag, weighted toward new and popular fics (and, for better or worse, unfinished multi-chapter works and megafandom crossovers). it’s probably a good place to start for people who long for an algorithm, but unlike the usual user-targeted panopticon experience it’s more like the chance to rummage through strangers’ junk drawers for fic. tumblr vibes. you get me.

#will it make you a little paranoid about your own bookmarking practices? yeah but cringe is dead 🖕 live cringelessly 🖕#and for anyone who just learned this is a thing and is freaking out private bookmarking is always an option #ao3

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celaenaeiln · 7 months

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12 am anon back at it again. my friend called me at 2 am, tipsy on i wanna say wine??? and ranted about how nightwing’s “superpower” is his charisma for like 15 mins . and then they talked about how he looks like he’d have a great spice tolerance before hanging up. i think its a hyperfixation .

I absolutely love it!! You and your friend just have the best conversations ever.

Your ask immediately reminded me of this scene from YJ Season 3

"That's just about everyone. Wasn't sure they'd all respond."

"You command more respect than you realize."

"I'm starting to get that."

Literally this boy has charisma oozing out of his pores. It absolutely is his superpower!

Charisma is known as "a personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a public figure" or "the quality of being able to attract, charm and influence those around you." And Dick is the living embodiment of it.

It's actually a canon trait of his

The New Teen Titans (1980) Issue #5

Dick has the unique ability to lead people. It's not just about telling others what to do, it's people wanting to follow him, listen to him, and and accepts his commands of their own volition.

In the DC/RWBY comic, the RWBY team crosses over to Gotham with all their problems so they have to work together with Batman, Batgirl, and Nightwing (Ruby REALLY gets along with Dick which for some reason makes so much sense idk why). And the batfamily get superpowers.

And DC-

DC LITERALLY WENT-

DC/RWBY Issue #3

THEY ACTUALLY GAVE HIM THE POWER OF INSPIRATION. THEY SAID "if anyone has the ability to lead people to a better life, give them light and hope, and be everyone's favorite leader and savior, then there is only one person to which we can attribute this power to."

Inspiration is the factor that leads people to moving mountains, becoming greater, and changing our entire lives and everyone else and Dick is the one who bestows that power.

He literally inspires people to be better and inspires them to follow him and became the greatest they can be.

Teen Titans (2003) Issue #33

He just has the ability to inspire people to reach greater heights. The younger generation, his own, and the older ones kind of hero worship him.

Charisma is a dangerous power to have. It's essentially the unique ability to convince people to want to do things for you.

Examples of charismatic leaders are Martin Luther King Jr, Joan of Arc, Fidel Castro, and Napolean.

These people moved nations, worlds, societies but they are only one person. And Dick, has the ability to do this too.

To describe him as a person, to describe his charismatic authority, you need to combine all those figures into one person. And that's the equivalent of his power.

Because in the comics when he wants something - the whole superhero society answers.

The Titans (1999) Issue #39

On a separate note, Dick does have a high spice tolerance!

Batman and Robin (2009) Issue #1

Also Romani food is made hot and spicy, commonly using chili, paprika, and red and black pepper. So he can definitely handle the heat.

Lol I'm just imagining Dick absent-mindedly chewing on a red chili pepper while he watches Garth dare Wally to eat a ghost pepper while Donna's rolling her eyes and Roy's hyperventilating on the floor because he's having flashbacks to Ollie's Chilli.

#dick grayson #nightwing #bruce wayne #batman #konner kent #super boy #fun fact: GA's Chili is so spicy that Supes has to use his freeze breath. Batman and GA are the only two people in all of DC who can eat it #cl anon asks #thanks for the ask!

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unholyverse · 1 month

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awtto toronto is my ryden seattle: a rambling

yeah yeah ik ryden seattle has been debunked but this is similar enough to that and seems more plausible so. bear with me here. thanks to my good friend @filthyjanuary for actually watching all of this go down and having pics so i can be insane about it and write stuff like this lol.

also disclaimer before anyone tries calling me out. i don't actually know anyone in the band and this is all speculation for the sake of good ol fashioned real person fiction meaning don't take this too seriously and don't show this to the band or anyone connected to them. cool? cool.

night one: september 4, 2022

waterparks were on their final opening spots (if you don't count la night 4) of their leg of mcr's return tour in toronto at scotiabank arena.

this was already a strenuous tour despite the short length because not only would this mark parx's first time playing arenas, but it directly followed their run on the sad summer tour that year, putting some extra strain on them. in some of my mutuals' words, awsten was annoying and sounded like shit.

up to this point, waterparks had been doing free meet & greets after shows. however, this would be the only show (besides la) they would not do m&g because awsten posted this on his story at roughly 11:21 pm.

however, he was seen leaving the venue with otto roughly around 10:50 pm. a fan had caught them outside the venue by the buses and tweeted about the experience.

(note: the tweet embeds have timestamps in UST; these tweets were posted on the 4th at 10-11pm EST and the UST version is equivalent to that)

not anything too weird. they just left the set earlier than the rest of the band and crew since awsten was feeling out of it; lucas and geoff were seen leaving during the last song anyway.

the weird stuff starts with the fact that otto flooded the showers backstage (audio taken from this interview).

otto estimates that around 2:00 am, he was scrambling to find custodial staff to help him clean up his shower mess (literally a situation only he of all people would get in lol).

weird though, right? if otto was so concerned with cleaning up that mess, why would he leave with awsten long before he even tried? and even then, why would otto leave the set of his favorite band ever to go with awsten?

also let's shift to the day after: supposedly an anon of mine had met awsten in a starbucks the next day and said he was wearing the same clothes he had wore onstage on the 4th.

they also said he smelled good but he always does

this would align with a couple of things i already thought were likely. there are a couple of starbucks locations in the area, but if awsten and otto had walked out on their own instead of with the crew, they were likely within a short distance of the arena to do so. as you can see there is not only a hotel within walking distance of the arena, but there is also a starbucks within the vicinity of the hotel.

there's no proper way to put this and this is just rpf madness anyway but my theory is: they were sucking and fucking that night and awsten was tired enough after he slept in his stage clothes and sprayed a bunch of cologne on him for his coffee run the next day. end of story.

night two: september 5, 2022

this show would mark parx's last opening slot for mcr before la night 4. my friend said awsten sounded better that night. can you sound better a night after getting dicked down? who knows that's an answer for science.

also after their set, parx were caught watching the show on the floor and awsten was sitting down with otto's hand on his shoulder and it was very cute.

anyway, parx were able to do once final free m&g that night. one thing to note though was otto and awsten's change of clothes between their set and the m&g.

(terrible cropping and sorry to the fan i cropped out)

as you can (kinda) see, awsten is wearing a red tank top and otto is wearing a yellow shirt during the show. however, once their set was over, awsten and otto decided to wear matching mcr merch (and not tell geoff because he's still wearing the same shirt from onstage).

what would make these two do this who knows. they're no strangers to sharing or matching clothes anyway but it is sorta funny to me how they're matching like a couple and leaving their own bandmate to third wheel that lol.

was something in the air between awsten and otto in toronto? maybe, but it's not like we'll ever know. i can only imagine what they could've done.....

#awtto #rpf #welcome to my twisted mind

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freakartack · 4 months

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I love your Orbulon and space bunnies are sea creatures propaganda how do you even come up with that it’s so cool‼️

Thank you!! A fun fact about me is that i am actually insane about invertebrates. So when wario presented me with two made-up invertebrates i went a little insane. I do play it kind of fast and loose with these guys so i'm sure an actual specbio enthusiast would not be impressed but i'd say 40% of my creative decisions are also based in what would be the funniest (such as making sure the polyp looks like a bowling pin)

I have hinted at this via my orbiology poster but i have an entire orbulon corkboard living in my head so here is the bulk of that iceberg

Based on orbulon's aversion to heat, big ol' sunglasses, and milky complexion, i think that he is the interstellar equivalent of a cave olm. Instead of an underground cave i think he lives on a gas giant far from his system's sun, which would be cold, dark, and have a thick atmosphere for him to "swim" through. ("What about the air pressure?" You say. "Hold your horses" I say. "It will all be worth it in the end.") This reason i think it is worth it is because my model for this is uranus, the gas giant whose atmosphere contains notable amounts of, and i cannot stress this enough, methane. Tell me a more warioware planet

I also think that his planet is predominantly blue, not just because of the youranus thing but also because whenever he gets really scared he literally turns blue. Check it out

I think this is NOT the same as blushing, but a fear response similar to cuttlefish changing color to camouflage with their environment via chromatophores in their skin. Unfortunately when orbulon is scared shitless he does a bad job of it and just defaults to his home planet color, but when he actually thinks about it he can change his color and shape to be whatever he wants (such as a pretty woman).

3. On a similar note, orbulon does not have teeth but he can shapeshift his mouth to create the facsimile of teeth. This is a cool party trick but you need to know that the fake teeth are still squishy and it's really gross.

4. Orbulon's eyes are uber-sensitive to light which is why he needs those impenetrable coke-bottle sunglasses. He also doesn't have eyelids, so during his 24-hour naps his eyes are open the whole time. Sweet dreams.

5. This is going to veer out of plain biology and into his society so i'm not going to go too deep into this but basically i think that telepathy is an integral part of intraspecies communication and that their society is very communal as a result. Think like ants with pheromones, not a hivemind in that they lose their individual identities but they're definitely less atomized than humans. They're also wildly intelligent and have canonically developed time travel technology to the point where the average person can just have a time machine built into their car. This gives a little insight into orbulon's mindset here

(I don't think he's very clever by orbulon standards)

This is getting too long and crazy so i'm going to top it off with one more thing. I know orbulon is supposed to have smooth skin but in my heart i wish he had the texture of these bad boys

#If any of this is contradicted by the new game that just came out do NOT tell me i will cry #not art

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amethyinst · 5 months

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god im thinking gale post war. he's got a kafkaesque middling bureaucrat position on government or perhaps something like 'minister for outreach' or some bs job. mostly there to be the attractive young face of the new government.

his friends are all 40yo rebel leaders turned bureaucrats and posy his 6yo little sister who writes him pen pal letters from district 12 where she is going to school (its an assignment where you write to a pen pal from another district and she was like i pick my brother Comrade Gale Hawthorne Of The Rebellion and the teacher is like well i meant another kid from another district but okay then.)

she's only now learning to write so its mostly little kid stick drawings in her new gel pens he bought her with a note from hazelle asking if he's eating enough and that katniss asked about him. and he reads them crying while getting whiskey drunk at 9pm. and he writes back like hello posy what a lovely drawing tell mummy im doing absolutely fine and please dont bother katniss about me but also is she okay does she talk about me is she happy is she mad please and thank you lovely pen colour by the way.

he is engaged to a female rebel about his age maybe a little older. i have named her evjenny a future dystopia spelling of yevgenia russian form of eugenia meaning 'good breeding'. because its funny to me for him to go full bolshevik. she's from district 5 a slightly wealthier district in comparison to the outliers like 10, 11, 12. she's a little uptight, very type-a, respects gale, loves the state, believes in black-and-white justice. thinks katniss is mostly a propaganda creation and that she's a little weepy but good for morale. has a pet bird she is wanting to teach human language to.

vaguely know each other from the little inter-district rebel communications that coin allowed. coin off-handedly mentioned that she respected her so when The Powers That Be were arranging propaganda couples to marry (they didnt call it that ofc) he was like yeah okay she seems fine.

meet each other at panem galas that are about like fostering relations between the districts. TPTB are like ah gale this is evjenny you are attractive young people you should chat. we did not plan this we did not have several meetings planning this. they bond over hating all the former capitol turned rebel folks.

evjenny (evjen for short, she says, because it is efficient) mentions that she enjoyed gale more than katniss in the propos because gale was an 'actual working man' as opposed to katniss (who is the equivalent of a kardashian to her). and gale is like. Eye twitch. thank you. i enjoyed when you organised that power plant to get blown up and she goes thank you it did take a lot of work. she is not joking she's just a very serious person. they go on like five 'dates' (paparazzi outings) and they agree to marry with a handshake three months after meeting. (there is a more official ceremony where evjen pops the question on tv with a sensible steel ring)

their marriage is like an absolute flop cos gale has a drinking problem and evjen is like if a robot was a 15yo girl and that 15yo girl got parentified because the russian revolution happened. she's not even like jealous about katniss at first until it becomes insanely obvious that gale has like deified / villainised katniss in his head not even deliberately she just represents the past/future he can never have. so evjen is like okay but why cant you just repress it better why are you making it my problem? this is not important we are literally rebuilding a government and you are getting winedrunk over your childhood situationship Man Up.

they have a daughter the first year of marriage who plutarch wanted to name peace but he got outvoted and they (evjen and gale but also The Powers That Be) settled on pax. gale calls her sweetpea :) pax hawthorne is kind of a child star from birth which evjen is fine with cos its for The Greater Good but gale is like. This Is What They Did To Katniss. but he cant say that because he banned all mentions of her.

after a few years of fail marriage they choose to get pregnant again to try and save it (BAD IDEA) and they have another daughter. The Naming Committee was a nine month process all the way till the fuckn day of childbirth. they wanted something evocative of olive branch imagery. olivia was considered but they vetoed it cos it sounded too capitol (plutarch was miffed about it and left that committee) then olive but since that's the skin colour they vetoed that too even though gale liked it. eventually went with dove :) because gale has apparently not had enough damn birds in his life

i think they do divorce once an appropriate amount of time has passed where its not bad optics. gale 3Ds (drunk, divorced, dilf) is very important to me. anyway this post is long enough my bad

#gale hawthorne #the hunger games #thg

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my-writings-and-musings · 1 year

Text

The Dragon Prince ASL

I'm sure someone has already done this, but I wanted to try my hand at interpreting the American Sign Language in the newest season of The Dragon Prince! Please note that I am not Deaf and only have a bachelor's in the language, so this is likely to be rough and if there are mistakes PLEASE let me know!! Please also let me know if I missed any scenes!

I'll transcribe each individual sign as best I can as well as the English language translation if one isn't provided and note anything I think is interesting!

Spoilers, of course!

Episode 1

7:20 - WHAT DO-DO HERE? UNDERSTAND NEED FOR-FOR SECRET GOAL BUT INFORM-ME TELL NOTHING ME?

8:05 - SOME THING NOT RIGHT. WE NOT ALONE.

13:50 - THEY ATTACK-ME.

14:50 - WHY (She mimics the whips usage for WIELD) FIRE WHIP?

15:10 - WHAT KIND CEREMONY?

15:28 - YOU... WILL YOU... WRESTLE ME?

(Adorable to note Janai almost gets it right! She starts to form the sign for marriage before second guessing herself and going with wrestle!)

15:50 - THAT AMAZING WOW

16:10 - SORRY

Episode 2

9:45 - I VERY-HAPPY TWO-OF-YOU! YOU WORLD- (camera cut)

10:06 - THANK-YOU. NOW YOU OFFICIAL MY (She indicates a height, then a smaller height for "younger", and adds a sign that makes me think she's emphasizing the "little" for comedic effect) BROTHER I- (camera cut)

22:30 - YOU-AND-I (I don't know the exact word for this sign but MOVING-FORWARD (as in time not physical space) would be my most literal guess!) FAST?

"Are we moving too fast?"

22:45 - THAT NOT MEANING I

"That's not what I mean..."

Episode 5

8:05 - YOU HURT? WHAT HAPPEN?

"Are you hurt? What happened?"

8:10 - I FINE. ARGUMENT INSIDE CAMP ABOUT OPEN FLAME. ARGUMENT HOT.

(Gren indicates the argument grew out of control by having the sign become more wild.)

(Camera angle makes it impossible to be sure but I think he says ONE HUMAN HURT while his back is turned.)

8:20 - WHO?

8:25 - HER NAME L-U-C-I-A. CHIEF ARCHITECT FROM K-A- (Camera pans away)

8:40 - (Camera pans back) NOW RIGHT?

17:00 - NO. THEY GUARD FOR CAREFUL.

(The sign for careful is used in such a way as to indicate care going forward in their situation.)

17:10 - PEOPLE UPSET ABOUT WHAT HAPPEN. ABOUT WHAT YOU DID.

17:45 - YOU STAY HERE. MAYBE NOT SAFE.

17:55 - QUEEN JANAI WILL DECIDE.

(Amaya uses a namesign for Janai as opposed to fingerspelling, and the sign in question is VERY interesting to me! It's a "J" on the upper chest, and while that could be for her status as queen, I like to think it's quite possible Amaya intended it to be over her heart <3.)

Episode 6

5:40 - I INTERRUPT SOME THING?

6:35 - FACE JUSTICE WHAT? BLOW-OUT-CANDLE? SHE ATTACK BURN.

(The physical nature of the injury is indicated by Amaya signing ATTACK to establish what happened and signing FIRE up her arms to mimic the burns.)

6:55 - FOR BLOW-OUT-CANDLE? TYPICAL APPLAUSE (She signs the hearing and DEAF equivalent of applause) BIRTHDAY CAKE SLICE EAT.

7:10 - TRIBUNAL? IF GUILTY WHAT HAPPEN?

7:15 - DEATH? JANAI CANNOT DO THAT.

10:35 - THEY SIX HORNS.

14:55 - I CAME HERE WHY? FOR DEFEND L-U-C-I-A. (Camera pans away then back) -CANNOT. SHE NOT INNOCENT. PRINCE K (Namesign for Karrim) CORRECT. (Camera pan) -OPPORITUNITY THINK PAIN CAUSE. SHE NOT. SHE CRUEL. (Camera pan) -SAME ME. I ASK YOUR JUDGEMENT GENEROUS COMPASSION. DEATH NOT ANSWER. (Camera Pan) -THROW-WAY CHANCE LEARN GROW.

Episode 8

5:00 - YOU HAVE NEW FRIEND?

"Is this your new friend?"

5:10 - SO. NEED TALK WHAT?

"So, what do we need to talk about?"

12:45 - SO TALK ME.

"So, talk to me."

13:35 - FORGET KINGDOM. WHAT LIFE YOU WANT (She touches Janai's heart to personally indicate IN-YOUR-HEART.)?

"Forget the Kingdom, what kind of life do you really want?"

18:40 - THAT NOT ANSWER YOU WANT BECOME QUEEN I-ASK-YOU?

"That's not an answer. I'm asking if you really want to be Queen?"

19:20 - I SAY JUST HAVE TWO CAKE.

"Well, I say you should just have two cakes!"

19:30 - TWO CAKE

"Two cakes!"

#the dragon prince #tdp s4 #tdp amaya #tdp janaya #tdp janai #spoilers #dragon prince #dragon prince spoilers #dragon prince season 4 #tdp season 4 #tdp gren

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enigma-naturae · 11 months

Text

Obey me brothers with a Shigeo Kageyma/Mob like GN! reader

Authors note: I got this idea from the overpowered child trope (my fave) and thought this would be interesting. For people who don't know this character he's a strong esper (Psychic user) from the anime Mob Psycho 100. (I really recommend this anime!)

The reader is Mob's age so they're about 14 (This is purely platonic). They also have Mobs personality.

Cw: Slight lesson 6 spoiler in Lucifer's section, Slight lesson 4 spoiler for Levi's section, Obligatory lesson 16 spoiler in Belphie's section

Lucifer:

At first he'll dismiss your abilities.

The first time he probably sees your powers is when you stop his mug of coffee from falling off his desk

He appreciates it but he still thinks of your powers as the equivalent of a party trick

Your just a child! Surely you won't be too powerful.

Then when Luke ends up in the underground tomb and Lucifer is just about to attack him you end up sending him flying trying to protect Luke

At first he's furious

How dare you attack him!

But then when he realizes You sent Him flying across the room he starts rethinking how strong you are

Afterwards he's still a little salty he was attacked by a child but he does have some newfound respect for you now that you've showed your strength

He tells you to have pride in yourself when you start to feel insecure or if you get shy with things such as public speaking

"MC, If you'd like I can help you practice your presentation for your class tomorrow. I know you can do it with a bit of practice <(￣︶￣)>" (You spent 5 minutes standing in silence in front of the class during your presentation)

Mammon:

When he first hears about this the first thing he thinks of is how he can use this to his advantage

(He's essentially Reigen 😭)

"Whoa! Can you read minds? I could make a pretty fortune using you for psychic readings! ☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆"

He kinda treats you like Luke since you're so young

He essentially becomes your new big brother

"It doesn't matter if ya have powers or not, as the Great Mammon i'll be here to protect ya!ヽ( `д´*)ノ"

If you have trouble with class, mainly math, he'll try to help you as best as he can

He's really good at math, especially problems that involve money so you don't have to worry about getting behind

He uses you as a getaway whenever witches come to him to collect his debt

He mostly asks to see your powers in really dumb ways like making things float but he still thinks your cool nonetheless

You and him together probably makes Lucifer grow more grey hairs.

Leviathan:

He thinks you're just a random normie at first but when he finds out you have psychic powers he goes full nerd mode

The first time he finds out is when he tries to attack you during the TSL quiz

Out of reflex you protect yourself and he ends up running full force into a protective barrier around you

At first he goes to wallow in his room because he literally just embarrassed himself by running into the barrier like an idiot but then he's like wait a second you have powers?!?!

He ends up rushing to your room and starts to ask a bazillion questions

"Whoaaa!!! You have powers? It's just like that one anime I saw! (°ロ°) !"

He probably ends up showing you a bunch of psychic related anime and compares some of them to you

He probably ends up asking you if you want to cosplay or rp these characters

He's over the moon if you agree

He ends up finding you really cool

He totally relates to your social anxiety and you two try to help each other get hyped up for any type of public presentations

He probably stands frozen with you in front of the class too 💀

Satan:

He's a bit shocked when he finds out you're a psychic since that isn't common in humans

He asks you if he can research you and takes notes about your behavior and such

He's actually very impressed at the fact that your so strong

He kinda feels bad when he realizes that you have to keep your emotions in check to stop you from hurting others

He tries to help you by taking you to rage rooms or he let's you vent to him

"You shouldn't hold in your emotions MC, it'll do more harm than good to you. (ﾒ` ﾛ ´)" (kinda hypocritical coming from him)

He's a bit jealous at your endless compassion

He helps you with any of the classes you're having trouble in

Asmodeus:

His first thought probably "Wow! They're so cute! ♡" (platonically)

He definitely criticizes your sense of fashion 😭

Tries to teach you to talk to people or be less awkward

Uses you for his devilgram photoshoots

"No MC angle the camera like this!" "Can you make the air around me look sparkly? (⌒▽⌒)♡"

It would be funny if Asmo's narcissism rubs off on you and you end becoming 100% carried away

I can't think of much for Asmo I'm sorry o(〒﹏〒)o

Beelzebub:

He thinks it's actually kinda cool

Probably asks you if you can make food magically appear or something

"Mc, can you magically make some BLT devil sandwiches, gigadeath burgers, and some hellfire curry rice? (*´ڡ`●)"

Unfortunately for him you can't magically make food but you can help speed up plant growth!

With your help you two can make a pretty impressive fruit and vegetable garden (If Beel doesn't end up eating up first)

He sort of relates to the whole 'not knowing how to express yourself' thing

"Sometimes I find it hard to express myself too but that's ok, you're still cool to me. ٩(｡•́‿•̀｡)۶"

Belphegor:

Well... You're still human so he probably will still hate you in the beginning of your friendship

Instead of getting strangled you probably end up being able to fight back against him albeit reluctantly

He ends up being pretty impressed that a human can defend them self against a demon

Afterwards when you two end up becoming friends he probably asks you for dumb stuff with your powers

"MC, can you teleport me to class." MC, can you make my bed feel like a cloud." "MC... (:3」∠)"

I hc that Belphie can astral project so you and him can astral project together and do things like prank Lucifer or scare the others

#obey me shall we date #obey me #obey me gn!reader #obey me gn!mc #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me levi #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me asmo #obey me beelzebub #obey me beel #obey me belphegor #obey me belphie #obey me headcanons #novella

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primeministerofantarctica · 1 year

Text

A3! Fic Recs Post

One-Shots

dress for success by valdera

2k words, Juza & Yuki AO3 Summary: The ensuing silence makes Juza feel so awkward that he blurts out, “Where’s your hat?” “My hat?” “Uh,” Juza says, feeling his face grow warm in embarrassment. “You’re usually wearing it.” “I don’t usually wear it when I’m sewing because it gets in the way,” Yuki says, “and I thought—right, that doesn’t matter now.” Abruptly, he moves to stand right in front of Juza, scowling at the ground like it’s personally wronged him. “Juza,” Yuki says, meeting his eyes with that same challenging look again, “I heard that you wanted to try wearing a dress?” Juza blinks at him. “What?” Notes: REALLY CUTE JUZA AND YUKI BONDING FIC

Late Afternoon Sunset by Timeskipped

1.7k words, Kazunari & Misumi AO3 Summary: Summer Troupe is welcoming him with open arms, and it’s not that Misumi doesn’t like it (because he loves it, adores it, would die for more of it) but rather because Misumi isn't used to this kind of friendship. He’s not triangular enough for them. Kazu, especially. Notes: I looove how the author writes Misumi (in all of his fics, but in this one especially). Top-tier platonic hurt/comfort.

Today I Will Be You by NoodleStories

6k words, gen AO3 Summary: It would be funny, she thought. Have her actors pretend to be each other for a day under the pretense of it being an acting exercise. It couldn't be that bad, she thought. She had a headache. (A personal writing challenge where I randomly generated who had to imitate who) Notes: DELIGHTFULLY funny (and also lots of fun trying to guess who's playing who).

What A Slutty, Slutty Lightbulb by flavovitta

1.5k words, gen, M AO3 Summary: Tsuzuru, Kazunari, and Misumi sit down for a talk about his adjective choices Notes: This fic made my soul leave my body

Multichapter (Complete)

offer me that deathless death by flavovitta

69k words, Kazunari/ Misumi/ Tsuzuru, Immortality AU, M AO3 Summary: If you tread into the woods and offer up a gift, there's a chance a witch will grant your wish. Notes: Emotional equivalent of being wrapped in a blanket, given a mug of hot cocoa, then being punched in the face. And then wanting to go back for more.

Permanent Marker by thechavanator

10k words, Kazunari/ Misumi/ Tsuzuru, Soulmate AU AO3 Summary: A little less "the person (or people) you're meant to spend your life with", a little more "make an effort, goddammit!" or; Tsuzuru makes a questionable late night decision, Kazunari tries to make a plan, and Misumi is apparently the only one who knows how soulmates work. Notes: If you like soulmate aus, you'll love this. If you don't like soulmate aus...you'll also love this, not in a "oh it's just so good you'll change your mind uwu" but in a "the complete deconstruction of predestination has set the bar for literally every other soulmate au".

Pyrrhic by Timeskipped

39k words, Chikage & Hisoka AO3 Summary: adjective - (of a victory) won at too great a cost to have been worthwhile for the victor. Hisoka forgets. “I won’t die. I’ll just lose my memories again. I can make new memories. Everyone will understand. If I do this, you’ll believe me. And I can have my whole family back.” Notes: What would happen if Hisoka DID end up drinking the memory erasing potion in Act 5? PAIN. LOT'S OF PAIN THAT'S WHAT.

Multichapter (In Progress)

(word count as of 1 March 2023)

Boreas Over Veludo by Luonto

6k words, Fuyupoly, No Mankai AU AO3 Summary: "The Spring Troupe is like a family, the Summer Troupe like school friends, and the Autumn Troupe like comrades for the same cause. What does that make us, then?" "Noble figures fated to share the same destiny, perhaps?" "…I guess I'd say our relationship is supporting each other when our burdens become too heavy to bear on our own." // Award-winning poet Homare Arisugawa grapples with the unchanging pace of everyday life. A mysterious man with no memory of his past finds his way to his apartment doorstep. The two's destinies become inexplicably intertwined together, drawing in those around them. Even without the common ground of Mankai Company, the members of Winter Troupe still find their way to each other. Notes: Hasn't been updated in a while so it might be abandoned, which is a damn shame because I ADORE what exists so far

手紙 (Letters) by NoodleStories

15k words, gen AO3 Summary: Hello everyone! I have a new exercise I'd like you to participate in. I thought it would be fitting if I told you all through letter. Encased in this envelope are everything you need to write a letter of your own! As well as the name of an actor who I'd like you to write to. I haven't looked at which name went into each envelope, so I'm trusting you all to not cheat and swap names! As for the contents, it doesn't have to be anything big. Just put down whatever comes to mind. And if you're up to it, try to write it all in one draft. It's important for us to understand each other as a company. I won't be reading them, but I hope that you all receive a lovely letter in the next few days. - Izumi Tachibana Notes: Another character study by the same author, albeit slightly more serious. Has lots of great bonding moments, especially for characters that don't interact that much in canon.

Mankai Suisougakubu by ImberNox

269k words, High School AU AO3 Summary: Mankai High's Wind Symphonic gets a new director by the name of Tachibana Izumi. With only three members in the club initially, she goes to great lengths to recruit new members for her band and secure funding opportunities. Thus begins a long two years of practices and rehearsals. Along the way, Izumi realizes that, for all she needs musicians in her band, her musicians need her and each other as family even more. Notes: Pretty heavy-hitting (mind the tags) but damn.

mirror's face by ryukogo

150k words, Isekai AO3 Summary: Once, during an old production, the previous members of MANKAI bought a set of floor mirrors that never ended up getting used, and was forgotten about. However, these mirrors were rather strange ones - if you saw a different “you” inside a mirror and touched it, you would switch places with that “you”, and be trapped in the world within the mirror while that “you” wandered free. Unfortunate, really, that all of Yuki’s troupe members touched those stupid mirrors at different points while he wasn’t looking. How the hell was he going to hide this from the rest of the dorm, anyway? And how was he going to bring the rest of the summer troupe back? Notes: This fic has everything. Chaotic Natsugumi shenanigans. Absolutely insane levels of worldbuilding. Yuki having the only braincell.

of covens and magicians by flavovitta

436k words, Urban Fantasy AU AO3 Summary: Izumi, a Fourthborn Witch who had given up on becoming a powerful magician years ago, receives a letter addressed to her father. It requests assistance in the following two endeavors: 1: The restoration of the Mankai Coven, 2: The Education of a Firstborn Witch named Sakuya. Notes: bro.

#astra rambles #a3!

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lord-pigeon · 4 months

Note

The thing you're not getting about why genshin is worse is because events are not meant to be the primary source of quartz in fgo. It comes from your weekly log in, live streams, 50 day ten pull, ascending servants to their second last ascension, story quests, free quests and the ten quartz you get from doing ten of them, rank up and interludes and the quartz you also get for doing ten of those, and special occasions like anniversary and new year. If you do ten rank ups you get a ten pull and you can do this in maybe an hour or two, now try grinding a ten pull in genshin. It'll be a lot more time investing and taxing considering you're just pressing buttons in fate. Also genshin's odds are just lower and it bleeds whales way harder by making constellations do more than just damage and they make modern 4 stars suck without them. Yes genshin has a better pity but that isn't the be all end all, you need to get 5 copies to max a 5 star in fate where as genshin its 6 AND 5 copies of their weapons. I could keep going on about ways that it's worse all day long, especially when genshin has way more micro transactions and predatory practices like battlepasses and resin but take that fate is worse is utterly baffling tbh

Oh boy let's get into the math here because this is where the fun begins.

Don't get me wrong, I'll never defend Genshin's dogshit practices, but I have a personal grudge against FGO fans sucking on it when it's literally the bastard of the mainstream bunch. This argument is me pitting garbage against garbage to say which one is stinkier.

This gonna be long so I'm putting this under a cut:

Alright FGO dailies list (I'll use NA for FGO, since Genshin is a global server schedule):

Day 2=1 SQ, Day 4=1 SQ, Day 6=2 SQ and Day 7=Ticket (3 SQ equivalent)

Total: 7 SQ

Needed for a tenfold: 30 SQ

Weeks needed for a tenfold via Log-In alone: 4 weeks and 4 days. 32 days total.

It should be noted that if you miss a single day, it resets from the very start. You must log in no matter what. It might take but a few moments, but note, you have to.

Genshin dailies list:

10 Primos per Comm/action, total of 40, and a 20 Primo bonus for turning into Katherine

Total: 60 Primos

Needed for tenfold 1600 Primo

Weeks needed for a Log-In alone: 26 days total.

Genshin's big detriment is that while you never lose your place, you need to spend time on Commissions. It can be anywhere from 5-10 minutes, which is a bit of a serious timesink. It's a bit better with the Fontaine update but it's still a pain in the ass for those on the go.

Alright, but Lord, that's just raw Log-In, what about monthlies?

Monthlies are the same, since both give you 5 tickets/fates to use. Genshin is at the disadvantage here since you need to spend the stardust you get from summoning on it, but Fate also requires you to spend Mana Prisms. Fundamentally similar, it's just that Fate wins out by the small margin Mana Prisms are slightly easier to obtain.

What about pity?

Eat my ass, Fate's pity system just happened cause they were getting this ass beat monetarily and they gave up and did a base-tier QOL update. Six FUCKING years we waited for pity and its over 900 SQ??? ((330 pulls btw))

I saved a whole year and a half back for Musashi's inital release and I just barely had that shit. And that was events, dailies, so on and so forth. (I got her in three tickets so nobody come at me with the fact I'm just a bitter old bird who didn't get my cute girl.)

While there's the 50/50 mechanic with Genshin, that levels the idea of 180, and that's going to hard-hard pity. No matter what, you can, and will, at least get the character you want.

Now what if we include Weapon Banner, since people assume Weapons+Characters *must* go together rather than it just being BIS and disregarding the completely different game mechanics of turn-based FGO and action rpg Genshin (<bitter).

Weapon Hard Pity is 240 pulls. You get a Fate Point for 80 pulls if you don't get your directed weapon, and you get another one if you get screwed again. Two Fate Points guarantees the next 80 is what you want.

Now, that might equal 420 pulls, but there's a catch few people acknowledge: Soft Pity.

Genshin has a system that, the closer you get to that hard pity, the higher the rate goes up. Therefore, it's not often someone actually goes to the hard 80 or 90. I'm just using the hard numbers as a point.

FGO is a hard pity, nothing about the rates changes from Summon 1 to Summon 330. Plus no guarantee you actually even get something from those 330 pulls--at least in Genshin you get a Basic Banner character who has some measure of utility you can use to make progress.

Also FGO pity doesn't carry per banner, but Genshin's does, so if you get fucked over and wanna wait a few months, you have another shot instead of wasting all of it cause you got close but no cigar.

But what about upgrades? Constellations?

NP-bonuses are rather minor and not as key as say, Xiao C1 or Hu Tao C1, so FGO has the edge there. However, that leads me to the side point of:

Weapons.

Reasonably, everyone talks about how the 3-star weapons suck, yadda yadda. You get so many weapons from the game as welfare that are good and can be used by multiple characters. You don't need a 5-star weapon, just because you aren't hitting 300k a hit doesn't mean shit.

Genshin has a lot more versatility in team building than FGO tbh, since a lot of FGO's boils down to "Do you have Merlin/Skadi/Chen Gong/Waver/Tamamo/Castoria/Support Caster.png" that you can then use with any other character.

Not saying Genshin doesn't have that too with Qinqiu and Bennett, but due to the nature of Spiral Abyss, people have gotten smart about using others instead of just them cause it's a split up team system.

Citation: I didn't get a single 5-star Weapon until Year 2.5 of Genshin. Fun fact, I also didn't have a single DPS 5-star either (all I had since launch was Diluc and Venti), until fucking Cyno came out. I managed to play the game just fine.

Now in FGO NA, I was also there since Launch, and I didn't get my first SSR until the Solomon raids, in which I finally got Florence Nightingale. I was playing the game carried by Kiyohime, Salter, and throwing SQ at revives. And guides, christ, so many guides it made Arknights look elementary.

What about general SQ/Primo flow (the Anniversaries and whatnot mentioned)?

FGO, the year of 2023, had, according to a Reddit post which I can link if people want the source, is: 2571 SQ, tickets included.

This Reddit post involved Servant NP Ascension Quests, Events, Chunked Log-In Bonus, Live Streams, Bond Stuff, ect ect (also, stuff you can't do if you didn't roll them, the post was being generous with people getting what they rolled or had)

That is about 85.7 tenfolds. So, if you don't spend a penny and not miss a day of logging in, the average joe might get about 2, 3 hard pities on who they want. Presuming I'm doing the math right on that.

Genshin, in the year of 2022, had, according to another Reddit Post, roughly 100k Primogems.

That equals about 62.5 tenfolds, or over 620 Fates. Now, tossing that into the system with someone with the worst luck imaginable that wants a character, that's about the same amount of 3 to 4 guaranteed pities.

One might note that the numbers are about the same, and yeah, that checks. However, there's a lot of variables, such as Spiral Abyss for Genshin, and actually having the characters to do Interludes on.

Half-baked conclusion

FGO is a money sink, Genshin is a time sink. They both sink your serotonin. Nobody wins.

Look, I play both, I have grief with both, I have fond memories of both. I wouldn't have a stupid expensive Okada figurine sitting next to a custom Cyno plushie if I hated these games.

But they're gacha, they're both out for your money, it's just that one is just a raging cunt about the whole affair.

Reddit Post Citations:

#if theres anything I'm fucking stupid about its gacha #espeically the two i have the most time in #i been in fgo since year 1 day 1 in jp #i had two np 5 merlins before nasu took me out back with a shotgun #i was day 1 (day 4 technically cause rerolling lmao) for genshin too #theyre both my problematic dickhead comfort games #who need to be slapped for gambling crimes

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queenimmadolla · 2 years

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so i have some thoughts about doja cat that i need to get out because i’ve been a HUGE FUCKING FAN of hers but lately…. it’s been hard. she constantly switches up on fans, one minute we’re good the next minute ONE fan uses “stan” language to reply to her and suddenly she’s shitting on all her fans and anyone else who talks like that. if she has a bad interaction with ONE fan, she takes it out on the rest of us. she’s also becoming increasingly difficult for people to interact with, which is one hundred percent okay, if she doesn’t want to interact with people or be pleasant with them she doesn’t have to but she also is CONSTANTLY trying to interact with people without really knowing them, and then shit like this Noah Schnapp stuff happens. If it hadn’t been for her reaction, i would have thought they were super good friends who knew each other with how fucking easy she found it to slide into his dms asking him to hook her up with his co-star. Yeah, it was kind of dumb for him to post it but that is literally his niche, he’s known for being a shit poster. and i think that’s fine too!!! it’s the humor of his generation, but her not reaching out to him to tell him it wasn’t okay (bc he would have deleted that so fast and definitely issue a public apology, that’s the type of good kid he is) and instead being like “he’s a kid and i’m being fair” and then making statements about how he’s the equivalent of a snake and weasel is not fair. she shouldn’t have been trying to use a 17 year old cast member who followed her to try and get with a dude when she could’ve just searched his name up. (**Side note, she definitely knew he had an instagram account, she’s hot, not stupid, I’m pretty sure she was being manipulative because if noah had reached out to him for her she would have gotten a definite reply be it yes or no, whereas if she had done it she may not have ever gotten a reply because 1.) joseph does not run his account 2.) i don’t think he’d be interested in her bc of how public she can be aka this and he legitimately values every second of privacy he can get) She is 100% entitled to be upset, but she ALWAYS deals with things the wrong way (which makes me sad bc she said in her live that she learns from her mistakes and i’ve seen them all but she really isn’t and it’s frustrating bc i love her music and how it makes me feel so much and i want to like her as a person but she’s reminding me very much of the early stages of azealia banks, those screenshots did not reveal anything new about her interest in Joseph Quinn, if anything it was really cool to see her ask if he had a girlfriend instead of immediately trying to hit on him like it seemed on twitter because she often doesn’t respect boundaries when it comes to tweeting her thoughts about people (which i will admit i thought was pretty admirable up until like 5 months ago or something, it’s just kind of shitty since she doesn’t think before she tweets to be different and quirky lately), and she went and tried to tear Noah down when he was literally hyping her up. So now the internet is pissed at her, and she’s pissed about that, and she’s gonna take it out on us (her fans) for like the next two weeks until she has a twitter breakdown, threatens to leave, and then pops up all quirky talking about how she’s a doo doo head or a streak of cum again a week and a half after that. it’s fucking exhausting and it makes me not even want to be a fan of people anymore. just listen to her music and not give a fuck about the person behind it. that fucking limits the experience of enjoying an artist and their music and it’s frustrating. very frustrating.

#doja cat #amala #stranger things #noah schnapp #joseph quinn #will byers #eddie munson #CAN SHE LET ME HAVE LIKE ONE FUCKING MONTH OF PEACE WITHOUT HER SWITCHING UP #LIKE DAMN just don’t talk to us anymore if you’re gonna lose it like this every other week

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juniperusashei · 3 months

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Homer’s Iliad translated by Emily Wilson - 3/5

I think I must have been assigned to read Homer’s Iliad on at least three separate occasions throughout my youth, and Sparknotesed it every time. Which I feel bad about, because I always did want to read it, or maybe I wanted the clout that came with being a person who reads Greek epic poetry. In any case, when Emily Wilson’s new translation was released last year, I finally went for it. I had read selections from her Odyssey and found her approach to translation very accessible and easy to read. There was a lot of media hype about “the first woman to translate Homer” which led to some reviewers claiming this was a feminist reinterpretation of The Iliad. My pet theory is that they had her confused for Maria Dahvana Headley, whose translation of Beowulf was intentionally transformative. In any case, Wilson’s Iliad is meant to be fairly traditional and accurate to the original text, including some metrical craft I could not pick up on. Compared to all the other times I tried to finish the Iliad, I found Wilson’s version a much easier read, so I would recommend it for that reason. The supplemental materials are also way more impressive than most editions and justify the extra cost over just a Project Gutenberg download. Wilson’s introduction is hefty to say the least, at around 75 pages, and was often more moving than the poem itself (She even defends the infamous third chapter, the Catalogue of Ships, imploring the reader to “read them out loud: in mouth and ear, the long list of names become music.” I find comparisons of superhero movies to mythology mostly kind of dumb, but I could see Homer’s audience going crazy each time their guy’s name is called in this chapter the same way people soyface about the Avengers or whatever.) She provides all the context for a beginner like me to understand the poem, but also includes an extensive glossary and notes for each chapter for those who want to dive deeper. The hardcover edition is around $40, so whether or not this masterful editing justifies the high price honestly depends on how much you like reading about guys getting stabbed over and over again. I just got it from the library.

The poem itself was not as impressive. A lot of armchair critics (NOT Wilson) love to claim The Iliad as an anti-war piece to make it palatable to modern audiences. This was not my impression in the slightest. Sure, the epic deals with the horrors of war, often brutally (as I said before, pages upon pages of vivid gory disembowelments) but it seems the product of a society which obsessively fetishized war. I’m not condemning the text based on this, but I do think it’s harder to understand without unpacking the very different set of values that were held back then, so it’s a lot easier to attempt to update the text in a really sloppy way. Wilson does give a really cogent explanation of these ethical differences which helped me understand the text more fully, but that doesn’t mean I agree with it. Every time the equivalent of a Star Trek redshirt got killed off, Homer would expound on his ancestry and life, and then conclude with something like

…Menelaus stabbed his forehead above his nose, right at the bridge, and broke his skull, and popped his eyeballs out.

I literally opened to a random page and found something disgusting on my first try. It’s incessant. But I can see how telling each person’s life story dignifies their death. Still, it is hard to feel any sympathy for men who did not see women as people, but as property, as goes the inciting incident of The Iliad.

#the iliad #Homer #greek #emily wilson #poetry #3 #january 2024 #2024

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jmalegni · 1 year

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Assassination Classroom (Ass Class) (Episodes 1-1, 1-5, 1-16, 2-11)

Welp, this is the last official blog post for this class so here we go.

Assassination Classroom takes on the subject of discrimination in education pretty head on. It gets to the point where class A students become zombies that only desire to kill class E. And for what reason? just because they were told that class E is a bunch of inferior idiots and if they do not score better then their ego will be hurt? Not quite following there but it is still entertaining. Still, class E is pretty much sacrificed by the principal in order for every other student to succeed, and somewhat follows the utilitarian philosophy that anything that benefits the overall group should be done even if a few people suffer. In juxtaposition, Koro takes the opposite philosophy about education, adapting his style to every student's individual needs to bring the kids to their full potential. Before Koro, the class was full of the equivalent of punching bags for everyone else, but one teacher turned them into top students capable of challenging even the brightest of the other classes. It shows the importance of having a good teacher that is truly passionate about their student's education, I personally have encountered this where I didn't have a teacher for the first quarter of an AICE class (AP equivalent) and my high school ended up putting one of the AP teachers in for us even though she had no experience with the content. She was amazing and even though we were super behind, her attitude and desire for us to succeed is what allowed me to do very well on the final. Any other teacher and I guarantee that I would have failed. It is amazing what a good teacher can do for students, and this anime shows it very well.

I also want to note that these 13 or 14 year old kids have exam questions that I literally have been covering in Discrete, that is crazy. But, I guess it is commenting on the pressure in other countries to do well in school by having all these kids handle tons of pressure and very difficult concepts while trying to kill their teacher.

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unholyverse · 10 months

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i want to know i want to know about it so bad tell me about it. please

ok a lot of people sent me the asks for it but i will answer yours because :3

sorry in advance for formatting i’m on my phone and tumblr never shows me the right image thumbnails

ok so sometimes i’ll subscribe to the slumber podcast patreon bc. honestly i think they’re more enjoyable together when they’re being boring and talking about mundane shit. but one of the times i wasn’t, i see this on the podcast twitter

and me <- fic writer with morbid interest wanted to see what the fuss was all about because:

travis is writing a fic about his very real and personal friends

travis is writing a fic about his very real and personal friends’ to the theming of the album (that’s supposed to be) about religious guilt and sexuality that as far as i know, said writer of said album has not discussed with him because of the nature of it

this was set in travis’ knockoff pokemon au he sells books of on amazon (i don’t think awsten has read any of his books including this one)

on top of that when i open the first chapter, he says he wants to post this to ao3 when it’s done. i want to punt him to a wall until he goes splat like a cartoon before he’s able to do that.

ok so this is where the terror starts for real. there’s only 5 chapters up so far but each chapter is supposed to correspond with a track on intellectual property (which is 11 tracks….)

so we start on chapter 1: ST*RFUCKER

in this chapter, awsten goes back home from his pop star life in whatever in universe equivalent to la travis has and back to the in universe equivalent to houston while he muses on a recent falling out with some oc travis also made up named ash.

oh did i mention im pretty sure travis made everyone gay in this. bc he did. travis made everyone gay in this.

and here’s when i start to see some of the notes other friends have made about travis’ writing from reading his other books. it’s almost like…too travis than anyone he’s trying to write lol. it feels like i’m just reading travis self projecting more than writing the thoughts of another character (who is. his irl friend)

so awsten gets reacquainted with his parents who are loving but just don’t Understand him and his big city habits and clothes now but it’s fine.

oh and travis made jawn and awsten have a past hookup in this. did i mention that bc he made that a thing.

the chapter ends with awsten not getting a text back from ash and getting pissed at it in his childhood bedroom.

and that brings us to chapter 2: real super dark

travis starts this with awsten having a post coital convo with ash and flashes forward to the present where ash won’t text him back.

as awsten is mourning this, he starts thinking about how at least he never wrote a song about him and travis makes awsten muse on the ciara situation but replaces her with a guy literally called NAMELESS.

normal things to write about your irl friend hahahahaha <- i’m starting to lose my mind but know this isn’t the worst of it.

after this is the part where travis texts awsten to come to a party at his place and it becomes very apparent how much travis has fucked with his own self characterization LOL.

here, travis characterizes himself as an avid drinker and party boy that awsten begged to go to the in universe equivalent of la with him, but travis stood his ground and stayed back home. in real life, i think travis is like a sentient piece of white bread and the general coolness of a high school anime club. also i feel like awsten ignores travis sometimes for his other friends. sorry travis.

when it hits me again that this is something i paid $5 for and this is a guy writing incredibly self indulgent and personal fic that is too self indulgent and personal to be a joke, i stop to ask a discord server of friends if this is insane (they agree it is) and continue on.

in the end, awsten flashes back to another post coital moment with ash before he’s supposed to leave and i have to read the implications of awsten banging the oc travis made up again.

that was kind of a nightmare just from the bare bones of it right? it gets worse. it gets so much worse.

here comes chapter 3: funeral gray (he spelled it like that bc fuck british spelling we’re in the us of a 🦅🦅🦅🦅)

so awsten is at travis’ place which is kind of a shithole and i assume travis starts projecting about his own neighborhood through fic!travis for like a paragraph.

the party sucks and awsten isn’t really around any of his friends so he goes to leave but notices some guy in a gray sweater outside doing the in universe equivalent of filling up his pokédex with one of the creatures under someone’s car.

then after that we have to have this bit of dialogue that reaffirms to be that this song’s lyrics taken literally is probably the most annoying conversation ever.

awsten introduces himself to the guy, who immediately clocks him as a pop star he’s heard on the radio.

then travis ruins the moment by showing up drunk and telling awsten to come back in, where jawn is there and it’s not that awkward for them to hang out despite their weird hookup.

they try catching awsten up with local gossip while making themselves out to a fire pit and awstens still trying to find out who the guy he met with the sweater was. by pure coincidence, the sweater guy is outside having a smoke and awsten is crushing hard like an idiot and then we get the reveal that sweater guy is geoff.

yep. we just got gawstened.

now here you might ask, “oh the friend groups all there where’s otto?”. he is literally not in this. at all. i assume there’s a lot of reasons he’s not in this (he’s not close enough to otto, he doesn’t know enough about him in general, possible jealousy on travis’ part on. things?) but either way. he’s not in this shit at all which i find to be a mercy to otto but also. rather interesting. hm.

ok this got too long that tumblr won’t let me post the rest of the screenshots so i have to do a part two which i’ll prommy i’ll link here later i just refuse to type this shit out myself and i need to show you how this is something he is actually posting.

edit from the future: here’s part 2

#this took me SO LONG so i’m giving it a special tag #travis fic post #vanweezer #confessionals

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