Opinion on AI art?

Hum (and know that 'hum' encompasses the minutes I sat here staring at the wall sorting through my feelings on AI art)

First and foremost, before I say anything else, know that I'm no artist. I can't draw to save my life.

On it's face, it's a really cool concept that has really wonderful potential. People like me who cannot create artwork but who write- we can have a tool that lets us visualize scenes and work out stuff. Any creative person can have that- from writers to tabletop gamers to really any number of people.

I do think it's a good thing, I do think it's a promising thing... that just wasn't done the smart way.

I know they would have needed a lot of images to train the systems, and there are a thousand reasons they would have just used any image they could find.

But... it would have been smarter to put limits on the images drawn from. There were always going to be original artworks caught up in it all- the way people steal and repost art across platforms, things were always going to be caught up in it.

But to my knowledge, no effort has been made to rein it in and limit what it's drawing from to only image libraries that it can subscribe to vs dragging in original creations.

It sounds like a wonderful tool (I haven't tried it at all, not curious enough to hunt it down), but it just wasn't handled properly in its development. There were ways they could have done it to try to at least lessen the original creations being pulled in, and those steps simply were not taken.

Or at least not yet, I'm open to changing my opinion if they make a more ethical form of it. It makes the "creation" (generation) of art more accessible to the un-artistic and can open creative outlets for a lot of people, if it is done properly.

Art is a relatively exclusive industry, just because the talent for it is fairly rare. AI generated art will open that wide, sure, but there will always be a demand for artists. Every technological leap has led to cries of "this is the end for art", and it never is. Creators will always create, and there will always be a consumer demand for their creations.

So yeah. I wish the engines were produced ethically, and overall I'm not bothered by the existence of it. But again, I'm not an artist, so what do I know?

Some of y’all be out here being loud about defending artists and their hard work but in the same breath reblog stolen art. Reblog art that has the watermark cropped out or is just missing entirely. Regbog art that is being reposted. 

You can’t be for the artists and not be against the rest. That’s not how that works. Please be more mindful of the stuff you reblog. It’s disheartening to see so many people reblog stolen art. Come on 

Can we please normalize not sending pictures of fanart directly in asks and/or submissions? Especially when it's a fandom writer sending it? Believe me - I get it. You want to show your fave writers, your moots, you friends, etc, artwork you think they'll like, artwork you think they'll love. And that's great! You should do that!

Just with a link to the artist who created it, not the picture directly or a pinterest or iheartit or tumgir or whatever other unofficial link there is. Why not those? Because the art on them is stolen and reposted art. Much like it is when you send the artwork, not the twitter or instagram or deviantart or tumblr link, directly in an ask.

I have been in the fandom community a long time as a writer (on two side blogs) and even longer just as a reader. And the one constant I have seen is that people repost fanart by sending them in asks to fandom writers. Not only is this very much not okay, it's a recurring problem. Let me clear: I am not blaming anyone. I do think it's just that, because it's being sent in an ask, no one thinks of it as reposting. But it is. It is still taking someone's art and creating a new post with it and taking away the credit from the person who worked hard on it.

And I know the thought process was probably something like "I saved it to my phone and forgot who the artist was" or "I saw it on pinterest and just saved it to send to you" but guess what? There's a way to find the artist. Reverse google image search exists and it works to find the artist a majority of the time. Also, there's a good chance that the artwork has the artist's signature/username. So you can search their username on google, twitter, instagram, tumblr, etc, and then find the art you want to send like that. If you can't find the direct link to the artist through either of these, then it's likely they deleted the art or just deactivated because people kept stealing and reposting their work.

And I mention these being sent to fandom writers specifically because, like, artists are in the same boat as you? Or, at least, they're on the same cruise line as you. If you're a fandom writer and you're going to send fanart - no link, just the picture - to another writer, if you're a writer who received fanart in an ask or submission, please stop and think about how you would feel if someone took something you wrote, something you worked hard on, and just copy-pasted it into the ask box of another, completely taking your name off it, taking away your credit, simply because they thought of someone who would enjoy it. Think about how they didn't bother to link your work, they just sent it directly.

It wouldn't feel good, right? You'd probably be mad and sad and disheartened? Disrespected, even? The same thing goes for artists. They, like writers, deserve to not have their hard work stolen and reposted, whether it's intentional or not.

This is especially important because of the fact that fanart is being sent to writers from writers and, yes, sometimes, even non-writers, but it's especially frustrating and upsetting to see when a writer sends another writer fanart in ask, instead of taking the time to find the artist link and send that, because I've seen some writers who are sent fanart make posts about accounts that have stolen and reposted their work then turn around and answer that ask with stolen artwork. Please give the artist who works just as hard as you do on the stories you write on the art they create and just, please, stop reposting it in asks.

Please take the time to find the direct link by using the google reverse image search and send that instead. If you can't find it or don't have the time to search for it, then, please, don't send it at all. This also goes for discord servers because, even though it's not reaching the thousands it could by sending it in an ask, it's still a repost and you're still taking away views and likes and retweets/reblogs from the artist who worked hard on it.

Because, if this doesn't change, if art doesn't stop getting reposted, then, like writers who have had their work stolen, the artists will deactivate and stop creating and you will be left with nothing. Or they'll probably still create but they won't share it and you will still be left with nothing. Treat artists with the respect you, as a writer, want to be given and don't repost their work, whether you're sending it or just answering what was sent to you. Put it in your rules to send a link, not fanart directly, and to not post or answer the asks that have just a picture - no link, no credit if the artist does allow reposts, no nothing.

Thank you.

I know I only drew Theasauri/Shapechanger a few months ago (September 2020) but, recently, I realized how unhappy I was with the design. It's obvious I had no fucking clue what I was doing. I hate that design nowadays, I might even put it in my scraps TBH it's that bad. Her backstory/Links to my other sites is under the cut, tw for, uh, organ theft and meantioned past cannibalism?

I kept the og arm decals, since I like those, but redid the chest ones and didn't put as much focus on the legs. I also partially based her of TFP Arcee. Mostly. Shes 75% OG Design, 15% TFP Arcee, and then 10% TFP Starscream and Knockout. Thank god I managed to find the TFP Artbook at a good price, thing is priceless when it comes to me and my art! Another Transformers artwork. NO I will not be getting out of this fucking hellhole anytime soon! I'm in the fandom to stay so yall better buckle down and prepare for this shits! OH and this is available on my Rebubble which is linked below. ALSO meant to post this in 2020 but fuck it I forgot posting my artwork was a thing and did this mostly for a TF RP im on so its here now in 2021 instead.

Remember to reblog, as likes do JACK SHIT for me and my art & reblogs and comments show us artists that y’all like our art enough to share it with others!

Shapechanger AKA Thesauri was a silversmith (hence the name Theasauri, which means "Silverware" and is also a play on her mostly-silver-gray appearance, so she's "Wearing Silver") who turned into an Electric Motorcycle. However, after her t-cog was painfully stolen from her, she started to go a bit crazy. Finding herself in a deep depression, she wandered the wilder parts of Cybertron, hoping something will kill her. In the end, she only started starving, and in her confusion she took a mech that was lost in the wilds to be one of the people who stole her t cog. She killed them, took their t-cog, and may or may not have committed cannibalism???? IDK?? Anyway she now hunts for her og t-cog, stealing those of others, and has even modified herself thru surgery (which she preformed herself) to be able to quickly and efficiently switch out t-cogs. She carries around MANY knives, and also any extra kibble that she's not wearing on her persons.She ended up using the name Shapechanger, referencing how she had many alt-modes due to, well, the stolen t-cogs.

Rebubble DeviantArt Twitter YouTube

DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT PERMISSION AND WITHOUT GIVING PROPER CREDIT!

PSA: This effects my blog going forward.

... So after receiving some very unkind messages and being reported for theft by someone for this post (I was actually asking who made the artwork so that I could give them proper credit/ ask if they knew about the pintrest post) I've now taken down the post and decided two things.

1. I don't think I'm going to reblog any more art because I had some very unkind things said to me over the situation by 3rd parties, not the owner of the piece.

2. I'm not going to be posting any art of my own on this blog because this whole experience has turned me off to the entire idea.

Being told that I'm "a fucked up person" or "that I'm stealing and should be banned" or that "I shouldn't be part of this website" or "that I shouldn't be alive" (or any of the other comments I received) doesn't really put me in the mood to contribute.

... I'm new on Tumblr and I'm still learning I really don't know how this works yet, especially reposts, but this level of aggressive anger and profanity kinda doesn't make me want to stick around and it isn't called for. I'm not saying that people don't have the right to ask me to take something down, I'm saying don't use my anon asks to inundate me with insults when I obviously just wanted to support another artist and let them know that someone had posted their art on Pinterest. I asked who they were so I could bring light to the situation and help, not so I could be attacked over this. I was genuinely trying to help.

I'm just saying you could have been nicer about this. I can understand if you're upset, but there is no reason we can't talk about this calmly.

I've had things I've created be stolen before. I would NEVER purposefully do that to someone else. I know there is a lot of at theft going on right now. I was trying to help find out who made this piece so that I could give them credit. It's beautifully done and I was trying to bring attention to that.

Sorry about that. I didn't mean any harm.

But yea... I've had some pretty fucked up things said to me over this situation and I'm pretty hurt over it. I'll still like your posts, but I'm not reposting anything with images anymore. And I've made my likes private. I don't feel like being ripped apart like I was today ever again. I come on here to spread positivity and make people smile. If I wanted to be insulted, I would just talk to my family and stay offline.

SW is actually really racist and full people who glorify sexual choices. Its not about freedom of anything except a bunch of people attempting to drag you into a cult and then some

YOU cannot be against anything they say or you will be shamed for being problematic Tumblr is overrun by cultists who don't even think they're doing wrong. They don't believe they are toxic within themselves. Sjws are narcissistic, poison to their own health and others They are uneducated, use false statements, and even some forms of propaganda Immature brats who basically cry wolf every time they don't like something which makes them a bunch of fucking children who need to stay their asses in kindergarten A sjw is so damn full of themselves they will delete their blogs, come back. And if you were the one to call them out on bullshit. They get hurt. And will not apologize like an adult but run like a child in trouble. If you so happen to delete your blog for whatever reason. They will lurk and take your username. I know this because my former username Nikikikia was stolen and I no longer can get it back. That user name was my actual name, exaggerated, BTW. They kiss POC asses and then have the nerve to jump on black people. I remember a negro saying he likes short girls and they all bashed the poor dude for being a women beater and accusing him of only liking short girls as a sign of power. People who join or start a damn cult. Want power, want to find a purpose in life, or mock Charlie Mason and he ended up with a bunch of teenagers from either broken homes or some fucked dumb shit. And they ended up as killers within the damn cult family. How fuck can no one see this shit turning into Charlie fucking Mason. I am sick of a bunch of fucking KIDS out here starting shit and clearly can't fucking finish it. They accuse. They bully. They steal. They talk shit but ain't. They are racist. And this is my two cents because I 🇷refuse to let another motherfucker come after my black ass after the kingdom hearts fandom fucked up. I like my fandom. Don't ruin my fandom. You cannot call a person a pedophile for reblogging certain artwork. 1) an actual child has more worth then some damn paper 2) that shit is not liable in court 3) the police themselves would hung up the phone of you called them over some artwork 4) how do you know that person was not molested as a child themselves? Fetishizing and glorifying the shit out of Trans. They out here because of a damn choice to do with their bodies. Going into a motherfucker's inbox doesn't fucking help some of them. How about, in the bathroom? Be a bodyguard, bring a bat, bring a knife, because you simply marking a goddamn character as trans and telling everybody if they don't accept it they are transphobic. How about, you write, I don't know, you're own fucking story with trans characters instead of being so self entitled to some shit about people you barely understand? You can't fucking put a false fucking label on a fictional character from a goddamn anime and defend like it's a real person and the only characters that I am aware of is fucking Dangaronpa, a fighting game, and an anime I can't recall. You don't rewrite a character for the sake of rewriting for your own fucking pleasure. Because nobody went into the trans community and asked if they were comfortable with this type of behavior. Because I saw a post where they did talk about it and I lost like two followers so I guess they self entitled asses value a fictional stack of lines more then an actual goddamn human. I am an angry black woman. I am. Because it seems that this is what we call in the ghetto as white people foolishness and some niggas is in this shit. STOP. this has turned me damn near racist. It doesn't take the n-word. I don't get offended by the word nigger. I'm offended when people act like they really know something and don't. Around my friends and family. I'll admit I was wrong or joke about it. However, outside my house. I was told you either apologize or shut the fuck up. Sjws have done nothing but goddamn website to turn into the first ever cult that doesn't even need to be discovered through the deep web. Nobody and I mean nobody has to kiss sjws asses because they want the world to circle around them. There I fucking said it. And every damn message I get will be ignored and deleted fuck you feelings. I wasn't born to please everybody. Except my future husband and my unborn children. And I will promptly beat my child for even thinking or saying they are some type of Dogkin. That's just stupid. Beyond stupid. It is a mockery. The fuck?

I HAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY, PLEASE READ AND/OR REBLOG!

Okay, so listen, I’ve been meaning to avoid doing this, but I’m really worked up over something. I hate to do this, but I really think you all should know. I know this is going to make me seem like the bad guy, but there is a person on tumblr in the Cars fandom reposting other people’s artwork without asking for permission or giving them credit. They’ve also abused me, and a few of my friends.

They are @sallyxmcqueen95301 . (And no, I don’t care if you see this, SallyxMcQueen95301, what you’re doing is wrong! What you did to me and my friends was wrong too!) I really, really don’t want to start drama in the Cars fandom, and I apologize if I end up doing that, but I’m really worked up over this.

SallyxMcQueen95301 has been stealing and reposting other people’s artwork without asking for permission or giving them credit, including art from me. 

 This is MY drawing of Siddeley from Cars 2 with the rest of the image including my signature cropped out. 

This is the complete image on my Deviantart: https://bavv123.deviantart.com/art/Stanley-Siddely-Sheriff-Sarge-Sally-and-stars-699392331

If you look at the images of Siddeley (the jet plane you see in the pictures if you haven’t watched Cars 2 or don’t recognize him), you’ll see they are exactly the same. BECAUSE THEY ARE. This is MY drawing, and SallyxMcQueen reposted it.  

They have also stolen artwork from many other people without asking for permission, crediting, or even posting the source. 

She also stole my drawing of Holley Shiftwell:

 Again, she cropped out my signature.

She’s also mistreated me and my friends. (CONTENT WARNING: Self harm, suicide, or rather, SallyxMcQueen was JOKING about it)

She harassed my friend @agent---starfire by trying to show her a NSFW picture, sent her multiple messages asking her to RP something NSFW because she was “sad” and when Star said no, SallyyxMcQueen threatened to cut herself. She sent her a message asking why her sister (my friend @agentsandracartrip) had blocked her when she “did nothing wrong” and when Star blocked her, she sent the same thing to her ask box. Nothing wrong MY REAR END! Note that Starfire and I are BOTH minors. We’re both underage for pornographic content and we don’t even WANT to see it.

She also harassed my friend @agentsandracartrip and FORCED her into a humanized, Finn/Holley NSFW roleplay. No offense to Finn/Holley shippers is intended, but Sandra doesn’t even ship Finn/Holley and never even wanted to do a NSFW HUMAN roleplay in the first place. Sandra is not a minor, but she didn’t even want to do NSFW.

@sallyxmcqueen95301 harassed both of them along with me when we weren’t available for roleplaying due to life, schoolwork and bad internet. She’d send us about 20 messages at once begging us to rp long and as time went on she would threaten to kill or harm herself along with deleting her tumblr just because we couldn’t roleplay.

Here are some messages she sent me in February:

Our chat that month started out fairly happy like this. She was sending me all sorts of pictures and I asked her if she wanted to see some of mine.

 (Not roleplay in three months? Mind you we met in January)

(I know it seems like I was being over dramatic, but I have fiends who have self harmed before, so this sent me into a panic because I didn’t want it to escalate into something worse.)

(LOL?)

(YOU DON’T JOKE ABOUT STUFF LIKE THIS GENIUS)

(She asked me if I was angry after she sent that pic, but I didn’t get a screengrab of that. Honestly? Very.)

I blocked her after this, but then I saw my Siddeley drawing that she had stolen floating around and my friend notified me when she stole my Holley picture so I unblocked her today.

SallyxMcQueen, I know you’re reading this, the whole world knows what you did to me and my friends now, so don’t you try to say that I’m lying. My friend also relayed this message from you to me before I saw your replies on my post:

“@BAVVfishpotato I dont care!! You blocked me!! So you can just forget that i gonna delete it!, it’s your fault that you dont can take a joke!! So no sorry!“

WELL EXCUSE ME, I’m sorry for caring about you when it turned out you were just manipulating me. CUTTING IS NOT SOMETHING TO JOKE ABOUT. IT IS NOT FUNNY. YOU REALLY DID SCARE ME, I WAS WORRIED IT WOULD ESCALATE INTO SOMETHING WORSE! 

And for your information, I CAN take a joke under certain circumstances. A close friend of mine could playfully call me a farting chicken nugget brain or a stinking egg and we’d both laugh it off. But, even if I thought we were friends before, we sure as heck were not super close, so I wouldn’t have been able to tell. Like I said before, YOU SHOULD NOT JOKE ABOUT CUTTING, it is a SERIOUS topic, so even if I WAS close to you, I wouldn’t have been able to tell anyways and would have panicked like I did before anyways. YOU ARE AN ADULT, AND I’M JUST A TEEN, AND EVEN I KNOW BETTER THAN TO JOKE ABOUT STUFF LIKE THIS. Growing older is mandatory but growing up isn’t, and it appears your mind hasn’t changed at all from when you were seven years old. 

I had blocked you for a reason, you know. You were treating my friends and I like crud. Our lives don’t revolve around you, the internet and your roleplaying. If you can’t understand that and threaten to hurt or kill yourself because off it when you really won’t follow through, you’re just an immature idiot who doesn’t understand that other people have lives just like you (if you even have one) and can’t be online 24/7.  

And since you’re stealing my art and other’s art and posting it on your tumblr and instagram, I might block you again. It’s your fault you lost me as a friend. I don’t think you were ever mine in the first place. I’m reporting you to tumblr, @sallyxmcqueen95301. 

See you thought it was fun, and now I’ve gone and done some pondering #prayers for Sal

salvachester replied to your post “Hello, new Nashooligans!”

but NASH, it's fun to see you lecture when you are actually right (srsly, what part of "don't steal from others, Stealing IS BAD" ppl don't get??)

@salvachester I’ve actually given this some thought, Sal, and - other than it not being addressed formally by parents and/or in school - my guess is it’s the knee-jerk thought process of “Well if it’s not for sale, it must be free.”

This was likely a rhetorical comment, but it’s Monday and I’m avoiding Monday adulting, so here we are. Feel free to ignore. Or hey, waste time with me, it can be a group activity.

And I don’t know if the opposite - being almost wary of stuff that’s not got clear parentage - is my knee-jerk due to having gone to school for a thousand years (citations! proper biblio! what does the literature say! footnotes! robust sources! gaaaah!), or if it has to do with age. I already had one foot into adulthood when social media exploded. I’m sure I’ve failed in the past, but now-a-days, I try not to pass along things that appear to have been slapped on here/the Twits without being “shared” as appropriately as possible.

Which, I tell you, the way I was “raised” in terms of leadership style/management style is to train your brain - in a situation where a subordinate has made a mistake - not to immediately blame them, but to first consider were they in any way set up for failure? Meaning: was this related to a systems issue/supply issue/staff support issue/etc. 100% incompetence and/or willful malice should be the conclusion when all else is eliminated. 

So most of these sites - the ones with broader focus than sharing quick thoughts or life updates (like, Twitter’s primary function wasn’t about sharing artwork, Facebook’s jam was supposed to be non-business networking, I know things evolve, but you get my point) - in particular play a big part in this, too. Specifically for the lack of share buttons with every popular media site listed, which should then alert the creator to the publishing of their thing on an outside site. It’s nigh impossible to track, just for plain ol’ metrics, but also because if I were able to see an uptick on Instagram, I’ll know to keep an eye out for folks who do the ol’ screencap and pass-a-long thing.

I’ve thought about locking this blog down to the “nth” degree possible (it’s currently viewable by anyone), and making a side blog for CASPN that’s public. I know that won’t prevent 100%, but maybe it’ll shave off the top.

I also am really convicted regarding naming names, if a thief (or accidental re-posters who can turn themselves into thieves) has been informed and given a link to follow and asked to kindly delete their post, then does not do it. I give them about a week, depending on if it’s evident they post multiple times a day, and then if not? I think the given fandom should be told.

But.

That garbage overtook my blog and drew out a handful of cranky folks who were apparently having a bad day and needed to process it aloud and it fell at the NashHole Inc doorstep (and, hey - they lucked out, they could’ve done it to a dragon slayer instead of someone who decided a loooong time ago to go the educational windbag route with those types of folks), and it really wasn’t my intent. I *am* thankful that nobody piled on that kid, that people did as I asked and just reported the post/spoke bluntly but not rage-y in messages, but lord have mercy, I wish I could shut it down and let folks know this particular one is over, and there’s no need for anyone to waste their time going over there, or clog up their blog.

So here’s my thought: Should there be a blog that’s focused on SPN thievery, story plagiarists, etc., exclusively? Kinda like how Canon SPN gifs is just.... well, canon SPN gifs. And it’d have a whole slew of mods who’ve been around forever, who live in a variety of continents/countries/time zones so that the mailbox 24hr coverage so to speak, and ideally a good chunk of whom have had things stolen from them. And it would have a process similar to what I describe: the request to take down; some standard time period with flexibility based on whatever circumstances (say, if they’ve noted somewhere that they’re on a hiatus); if that time period passes with no response, or they block the rightful owner or behave rudely, then comes the report to the site in question followed by the “report to the fandom” via this blog in an agreed-upon simply formatted post; tag the post with the thief’s name so that people can come back and search for updates; and of course, update the fam along the way.

I figure that way people can follow or subscribe for alerts, and then reblog at their discretion, or could make a tiny post of their own with a link back to a certain post at the theft blog being like “Y’all need to look at this post if you’re a writer, the SPN Thief Alert blog found a Wattpad user with a ton of stolen stories”. 

Anyway. Hmmmmm..... Okay, sorry my brain droppings fell on you, you lucky victim! MWAH!

Parts 7 & 8 come together, because I got home late and had internet troubles. 

Once again, I’m not adding this on to the original post, because too many reblogs deep, frankly, makes the original post unreadable. And that had links to ways you can help support this project, like:

Keeping your eye on the Cypora’s Guide to Cementing Your Rule as an Evil Queen tag on my blog.

Look back at the tag for the original story, here; the posts from last year of the original, un-edited draft of the story can be found about halfway down this page.

Tell me about your favorite characters from the story—or draw them, if you like! You can find visual references in the art tag, or look at the stuff that inspires me, visually, in the inspiration tag.

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Got any questions about Cypora’s Guide, the characters, or the setting? Feel free to send them to me!

For those who missed it, Part 6 was back here!

So it was that Cypora, her friends, and the assorted dungeon denizens who had gathered together with her—as the novelty of the newcomers had not yet worn thin, and it was still interesting enough to see what might be going on that a crowd gathered quickly—went to see Acantha’s work.

A novice artist normally couldn’t afford a security guard, or at least, not a deterrent like Hashraa. But few of the dungeon dwellers wanted to risk an encounter with the jettatura, and even the rest avoided her nest out of habit. This had resulted in something of an air of mystery about Acantha’s artwork, and the finished scarecrows that she had set up outside the door of the workshop had become akin to a new installation at an art gallery.

Thus, the small crowd together with Cypora grew when it met the small crowd outside of the workshop, and the narrow alley of the dungeon walls became claustrophobic. Cypora and Aletheia vied for somewhere to stand apart from the crowd, and Shiaroc obliged them by taking up extra space with her tail, swishing it back and forth in a wide arc.

“Thanks,” Cypora said, smiling perhaps a little too wide at the lizard-woman.

“Well, you’re living up to your promise,” Shiaroc replied, “it seemed right.”

Cypora cocked her head at that, pausing mid-way between two knocks on the workshop door.

“A more,” Shiaroc began, and paused, searching for the right word, “demanding overlord, one who had not sworn to, as you said, ‘decentralize’ control of the dungeon, would not have tolerated being crowded.”

Acantha opened the door before Cypora could think of a response. A living being doing as she had been might have had disheveled hair and signs of sweat, but the clues of Acantha’s labor were limited to having dressed for ease of movement by partially disrobin*g, and smelling so strongly of herbal smoke that it irritated Cypora’s nose.

“—could open a window,” Hashraa hissed from somewhere inside. Acantha stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame. She didn’t need to sleep, eat, or drink, but she did need to keep smoking . Cypora was very glad it was not tobacco; the stuff irritated her breathing when people smoked it, but Acantha’s herbs of choice were more along the lines of incenses.

A bout of pain struck from somewhere down and to the right of her navel as the reworking of her body continued, and she had to lean on Aletheia again for support. Acantha shut the door and moved forward to help, while Shiaroc shooed the crowd back further.

“I’m fine, it’s nothing,” Cypora lied as the pain of an entire internal organ being magically replaced and gradually worked out of her body continued. “We wanted to ask you something.”

Acantha nodded, and watched as Cypora pointed a slightly shaky hand towards the displayed, completed scarecrows.

“You talked about propping them up to confuse adventurers,” Cypora continued, and murmurs of approval filtered through the crowd. This idea hadn’t made it far beyond Cypora and the two wrought, it seemed. Acantha nodded, and Cypora pretended that she’d been waiting for a response instead of trying to will the pain away by hating it. “Open to other plans?”

As Cypora explained the idea, the three Widows were, in fact, already inspecting the scarecrows. The appreciative noises they made were like autumn leaves rustling in the wind.

Acantha tilted her head, considering it.

“It would make up for the lack of bodies quite nicely,” Qurra said from much too close to Cypora’s ear. When she looked, the monkalb was actually standing several feet away, admiring Acantha’s handiwork. “There will be some demand for more, and we could arrange a fair trade.”

“Part of that being the matter of digging,” Ucsir said, giving Qurra a wary eye.

“Certainly,” she replied, smiling wide. She turned to Acantha again. “But I think we should compensate the artist responsible, as well.”

Acantha nodded, sucking deeply on her pipe. She continued nodding, pulling tight the sleeves of her blouse, presently wrapped around her waist like a belt. She strode quickly back into the workshop—spurring more protests from Hashraa—and returned with a book of draft paper, already writing notes.

Cypora and the other living beings present—as well as Aletheia—watched as Acantha began to inspect and consult with the Widows and other dybbuks that had joined them. It was something like seeing a tailor discussing with a client, although the result would be a whole body to inhabit, rather than a suit.

But Cypora’s attention turned, even with the pain dulling to a low burn instead of a sharp fire, and she considered Qurra and Ucsir. The two were bristling at each other, or at least, she could see that Ucsir was hostile to Qurra. It was far harder to judge Qurra’s half-dead and fully human body language.

She might be the overlord of the dungeon only in terms of the official status conferred by the quadriga, but she still felt a need to make sure things were running smoothly. After all, it would be impossible to fight off adventurers if the dungeon’s inhabitants were also fighting one another.

And then there was the matter of bringing the fight to the adventurers.

*  It was perhaps fortunate that Acantha lacked certain details of human anatomy, as having her chest bared simply displayed a featureless trunk of plant matter. Still, Aletheia stared.

8th of Vernary, 5647 CC—even earlier than before

Scoloaster Spitznogle receded from the presence of the human adventurer Alícha de Matos. It had been utterly lovely to inhabit a mortal body once more, especially one so near to her own age. Or at least, the age she had been when she had passed away. Abandoning her new ride stung even more knowing that she had given up her longest-used one for the chance, convinced by something in the earnestness of the Fossoyeur girl. But she had promised Cypora, and she had a job to do.

First task: take the adventurer as far away from the dungeon and the nearby village of Crossroads as she could manage without losing her own way. Second, deliver the message. It had been mostly a bluff. Yes, Cypora had officially given her the title of Ritermaysterin of Her Majesty’s First Avanturistyeger Company. But there were only seven others who had been assigned to the role of Adventurer-Hunters, and of those, one held the same rank as her.

Back in the shadows and watching as Scoloaster moved out of the sunlight and became more visible again, Ritermaysterin Orangella Fossoyeur revealed her own face.

“Think she bought it, then?” Orangella asked, leaning out of the shadow cast on a tree as if coming up from the surface of a deep pool. The rest of her body was not in the world of humans.

“There is no trickery in my words,” Scoloaster chuckled. “Only in the spaces between them.”

“Hm,” was all the mazik said in response. Where Orangella’s sister Licoricia had the blood of angels, ‘Ella’ was born to a demon mother, and had practiced at slipping out of the world of her human kin and into the otherworld of the shedim. Practically, this meant that she could cut the distance between two points as if folding up a map to make one end meet the other. But Scoloaster could not see into that shadowed realm. The dead might know more things of the living world than the living did, but that only applied to the world of humans, in so much as Scoloaster herself was a dead human.

It was frustrating, and tantalizing.

“On to our third assignment, then, my fellow esteemed Ritermaysterin?” Scoloaster asked, moving to Orangella’s side to look out in the same direction she was. The living, breathing human Alícha wandered off in the distance, still looking disoriented. Well, Scoloaster had made sure she was well-fed. Perhaps a little too much; it had been so lovely to eat again, to need to eat again, particularly something other than what that damned old vampir body craved.

She stopped her thoughts, rising back a bit. She didn’t realize she’d resented it until now. It was queer how something unpleasant could become so familiar and customary that one didn’t realize they disliked it until it was done with.

She’d need to find another body soon. She was sure she’d go mad without one.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Orangella replied, breaking the silence. She slipped down out of the shadow, her whole body revealed. Where Scoloaster had taken on Alícha’s body and acted in her stead—quite easy when that included possessing the brain of a living person, and being able to recall their memories as easily as one’s own—Orangella had followed her and worked on her own assignments. As she settled onto the forest floor, Scoloaster took in the results of that.

The Avanturisyegers had been Orangella’s idea, building on Cypora’s notions of being proactive about keeping adventurers out of the dungeons, and taking back what they had already stolen. The sheer hypocrisy of it, the pretense adventurers made that they were reclaiming things the Icosans had stolen from the people of the land, as if they were redistributing things like some sort of folk-heroes.

It made the fact that Orangella was dressed in things stolen from adventurers all the more delightful. Bits of armor and other equipment, stripped from the few who had been successfully dealt with, at least before they rose as zombies and fled to seek a true resurrection. In a few cases, even things taken from adventurers who had simply met their end in the dungeon, one of whom had zirself risen as a dybbuk, returned from death by hatred of fellow adventurers who had coerced zir into a dungeon raid beyond zir experience, and abandoned zir when things turned in favor of the dungeon.

“Where’s Lináloe?” she asked, and her answer came as a small flock of pigeons fluttered into amongst the trees.

Like Orangella, Lináloe was dressed after the likeness of an adventurer. In fact, she had been one, another left by her companions in the dungeon. But where the dybbuk Menax rose as an immaterial haint, Lináloe had found herself shut in with the dead, and chose to use her hatred to hope for a more physical revenge, calling upon old and forbidden witchcraft.

The zuvembie strode wordlessly into Orangella and Scoloaster’s presence. She had been tall and very strong in life, a proud warrior whose companions had, in the end, seen as only a ‘meat shield’ to defend them. Now, she was withered away beneath her armor and cloak, the gleam of eternal hatred the only sign of life when her movement stilled. Three of the pigeons that preceded her roosted on her broad shoulders, and she brought one arm up to give more of them a perch.

For all her hate, Scoloaster mused, Lináloe was quite tender towards the animals whose loyalty she was granted by undeath. Lináloe looked from Scoloaster to Orangella, and her face contorted into a smile, her lack of recent practice at it showing plainly.

“You found one, then?” Orangella asked, smiling back.

Lináloe shook her head, and Scoloaster watched as the pigeon-free arm rose up to reveal three fingers.

“Oh, magnificent,” Scoloaster said.

Three tasks: get Alícha de Matos away from the dungeon, convince her of the existence of the Avanturistyegers, and finally, set about making the company real. Scoloaster looked into the distance, where Lináloe pointed as her arm swept out towards a town in the opposite direction that Alícha had headed. It was perfect.

“Well then,” Scoloaster said with a grandiose sweep of her phantasmal arms, “shall we Adventurer-Hunters hunt?”