project-paranoia

[project-paranoia]

So, English-Speaking Danmei Fandom, You Want to Support Authors…

…and so do I, so here’s my dumb white English-more-or-less-only (I speak a small amount of Japanese…it vaguely sort of kind of helps) speaking ass, doing a little homework that hopefully will help others? This is not exhaustive, not complete, not better than resources others have made, but I checked things I personally cared about, and since I’ve done the research, I figure I might as well toss the info out into the wild.

First - as Suika linked, HERE IS AN AMAZING GUIDE TO HELP YOU MAKE A JJWXC ACCOUNT and it teaches you how to use it. It was created by Shoko Translates and it’s incredibly clear and easy to use and you should use it and trust anything they say over literally anything in this post, because I only have the vaguest idea what I’m talking about but they know their shit.

Google translate on Chrome works decently to make the site English…but doesn’t work well in any other respect; overall it functions WAY better on Firefox even if it’s umpteen times harder to figure out what anything says.

Use the guide to make your account; I couldn’t get it to successfully send my phone a text, but I had zero problems when I switched to e-mail. Chrome translate is definitely easier for making the actual account, but then it’s better to switch.

Once you’ve got the account and you log in…

…so, I have no idea what either of those two I’ve circled say (USE THE LINKED GUIDE, IT’LL TELL YOU) but I know that if you click either of them, you get a huge list of authors and book titles, with genre notes, hits, publication date, etc. More importantly, you get a search bar - you can see it right below my silly black circle.

Congratulations, you can now find the things you want to support using search! The first option in the search drop down is book, and it brings up the actual book but also a lot of superfluous stuff. I had way better luck searching by author, which is the second option on the drop down menu.

Now that you know how to search - when I sat down with this today, my goal wasn’t yet to actually pay for anything, I just wanted a sense of how many points things would cost, and I wanted to be able to look that up. So, that’s this post’s goal, and sorry I’m a little disjointed in presenting that out, I got like no sleep last night. Anyway. The point is, based on that link I provided (DID YOU USE IT YET? YOU SHOULD):

10,000 points on JJWXC cost approximately USD 17. Convert as needed for your own currency. Or, one point costs 0.17 cents. (To be clear: that’s about 2 tenths of a cent, not 17 cents.)

With that basic conversion, once you have an account, you can see how many points things cost, and therefore calculate how much they’d cost you in $$$ to support the author. Anyway, I haven’t actually figured out ANY of the money parts of this yet, because I wanted to figure out how many points the books I would want to support were before I even attempted money stuff. My thinking with this post was - if you, like me, were holding back cause you were wondering about expense…well, here, have some answers about expense, and probably in a day or four I’ll sit down and try to figure out the money part, and I’ll do another post then. Or, you can just use that guide I linked. Cause that’s what I’m going to do.

So, what/who do you want to support?

Priest (search for author: priest)

镇魂 (Zhen Hun/Guardian). Point cost: 1,742. In USD: $2.96

天涯客 (Tian Ya Ke/Faraway Wanderers/Word of Honor). Point cost: 943. In USD: $1.60

有匪 (You Fei/Legend of Fei). Point cost: 3,031. In USD: $5.15

默读 (Mo Du). Point cost: 3,506. In USD: $5.96

杀破狼 (Sha Po Lang). Point cost: 2,673. In USD: $4.54

七爷 (Qi Ye/Lord Seventh). Point cost: 934. In USD: $1.59

(This is not an exhaustive list, but you can search for others - the Priest Wikipedia page gives a full list of Chinese names, translations, adaptations, etc.)

墨香铜臭 (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, search for author: 墨香铜臭)

天官赐福 (Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official’s Blessing). Point cost: 5,270. In USD: $8.96

If 魔道祖师 (Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed) and 人渣反派自救系统 (Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong/The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System/Scum System/Scum Villain) are on there, I wasn’t able to find them - someone who knows more than I, and has the time to the research right now, will have to explain more to help with those, but for starters, they’re on the publishers website - Scum Villain; MDZS)

肉包不吃肉 (Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou/Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat, search for author: 肉包不吃肉)

二哈和他的白猫师尊 (Er Ha He Ta De Bai Mao Shizun/The Husky and His White Cat Shizun/Hao Yixing/Immortality). Point cost: 7,246. In USD: $12.32

余污 (Yu Wu/Remnants of Filth). Point cost: 4,245. In USD: $7.22

梦溪石 (Meng Xi Shi, search for author: 梦溪石)

千秋 (Qianqiu/Thousand Autumns). Point cost: 2,783. In USD: $4.73

(There are many others.)

漫漫何其多 (Man Man He Qi Duo, search for author: 漫漫何其多)

当年万里觅封侯 (Dangnian Wanli Mi Feng Hou/Those Years in Quest of Honor Mine). Point cost: 1,551. In USD: $2.64

(Again, there are many others.)

I could go add titles for years, but, well, it’s my post, and these are the stories I was most interested in supporting personally. Doing ALL this research, AND writing it up for this post, took me less than an hour, and once you’re in the website and have bought points, you can select all chapters with a single click, it’ll tell you the final point cost, and with another click - bam, you’re done, you’ve bought the raws. You’ve supported the original creator. You’ve done what translators have been begging us to do for ages. And, if it’s a story that’s not all out yet - you’ve got the raws! You can mtl them! You can read them before the translators are done! Or, if you’ve got a fave author? You can read their work in progress! You can learn what’s coming next! Even without speaking Chinese (I don’t speak a word of Chinese!!!) there is NO DOWNSIDE HERE.

(also, can I point out how INCREDIBLY SMALL some of these dollar amounts are? Some of ya’ll are acting like this is bank-breaking, I mean seriously, COME ON.)

Google is your friend. Find the carrd for your fave. Copy and paste the author’s name in Chinese. Use the JJWXC search. Find the thing. Support it.

English danmei fandom, this is our chance to do better.

PLEASE, can we do fricken better??? It’s so easy. And so cheap. And these fandoms have brought so many of us so much joy.

Go forth, and do the thing.

I’m doing it.

(edited: I DID do it! Part 2!)

[project-paranoia]

Google is actively blocking Captcha on Firefox

Firefox users have noticed that captchas - both the picture kind and the click the box kind - are not resolving on Firefox. Tests on Chromium based browsers show that it works perfectly fine on them. It is also known that Chrome will be disabling all ad-blockers in June when it moves to Manifest v3, which will greatly limit what extensions can do.

If you use Firefox, there is an extension called User-Agent Switcher and it allows you to change your browser's UA to Chrome. This will allow you to bypass reCaptcha/Captcha blocks set up by Google and make them function properly.

It could be a code snafu on Google's part - but given how predatory they have been acting lately, I'm going to guess not. Don't get locked out of your websites or feel forced to use Chrome again just to browse.

[project-paranoia]

The most popular browsers in different countries in 2012 and 2022.

by @theworldmaps_

[project-paranoia]

About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

[project-paranoia]

Wonderful News! TGCF is unlocked on JJWXC!🎉

After being locked down a few years ago, there was no word on whether or not we would ever see TGCF on its original publishing site of JJWXC. However, just today, it's been unlocked and is available for purchase again!

It also seems to be the newly revised version, as well as being uncensored (i.e. the kisses and such are still there, and have not been removed as they were for the physical release in China).

For those maybe wondering why it's so significant:

Purchasing the webnovel most directly supports MXTX, and you can tip her directly there as well.

This is the only novel of hers currently available on JJWXC -- as MDZS and SV are still locked -- thus making it the only way to do the above.

This is now the newly revised edition of TGCF, and since it's on web browser, we can more feasibly MTL it if you wish to experience the revised edition as a non-CN-speaker! The only other options until now were fan translations of certain chapters, and the audio drama. If you're curious about certain changes, you can now check it out yourself whenever!

Bonus blog post by MXTX:

She has mentioned that she's temporarily paused work on her 4th novel (and that it's changed quite a bit from the original concept she had so she privated the original synopsis for now), but assured fans that she has not stopped writing! This is one of the rare times we actually heard directly from her in recent years, so it's definitely reassuring.

[project-paranoia]

hello google chrome refugees

don't use any of these browsers, they're also chrome

Here are my favorite firefox plugins for security/anti-tracking/anti-ad that I recommend you get

please get off chrome google is currently being investigated for being an Illegal Monopoly so get outta there okay love you bye

[project-paranoia]

FYI I just came across a thread on twitter which says that an author shared on google docs an explicit story with a friend for beta reading and google removed the file due to violation of TOS (apparently it has been updated where you are not allowed to share anything with sexual content). Not sure if it’s just this instance or if it’s going to become a widespread thing but if you guys write in google docs MAKE BACK UPS!!

(Instagram link to the screenshots)

Edit: also wanted to add that it seems that Microsoft word has the same language in their TOS so onedrive is not a safe alternative!

[project-paranoia]

i am so grateful to all the creators of both explicit and censored queer media from China. the Word of Honor team, the Stay With Me team, danmei writers, and absolutely everyone else who took part in chinese qls. i see their tremendous sacrifices, i recognise why they do what they do. and i'm really so thankful for them to go through so much to allow us to experience their beautiful art

[project-paranoia]

wow. this is dangerous.

[project-paranoia]

HOW TO GLAZE YOUR WORK WITHOUT A GOOD PC(or on mobile)/TIPS TO MAKE IT LESS VISIBLE

Glaze your work online on:

Cara app. It requires you to sign up but it is actually a good place for your portfolio. Glazing takes 3 minutes per image and doesn't require anything but an internet connection compared to 20-30 minutes if your pc doesn't have a good graphic card. There IS a daily limit of 9 pictures tho. Glazed art will be sent to you after it's done, by email. It took me 30 minutes to glaze 9 images on a default setting. Cara app is also a space SPECIFICALLY for human artists and the team does everything in their power to ensure it stays that way.

WebGlaze. This one is a little bit more complicated, as you will need to get approval from the Glaze team themselves, to ensure you're not another AI tech bro(which, go fuck yourself if you are). You can do it through their twitter, through the same Cara app(the easiest way) or send them an email(takes the longest). For more details read on their website.

Unfortunately there are no ways that I know of to use Nightshade YET, as it's quite new. Cara.app definitely works on implementing it into their posting system tho!

Now for the tips to make it less visible(the examples contain only nightshade's rendering, sorry for that!):

Heavy textures. My biggest tip by far. Noise, textured brushes or just an overlay layer, everything works well. Preferably, choose the ones that are "crispy" and aren't blurred. It won't really help to hide rough edges of glaze/nightshade if you blur it. You can use more traditional textures too, like watercolor, canvas, paper etc. Play with it.

Colour variety. Some brushes and settings allow you to change the colour you use just slightly with every stroke you make(colour jitter I believe?). If you dislike the process of it while drawing, you can clip a new layer to your colour art and just add it on top. Saves from the "rainbow-y" texture that glaze/nightshade overlays.

Gradients(in combination with textures work very well). Glaze/nightshade is more visible on low contrast/very light/very dark artworks. Try implementing a simple routine of adding more contrast to your art, even to the doodles. Just adding a neutral-coloured bg with a darker textured gradient already is going to look better than just plain, sterile digital colour.

And finally, if you dislike how glaze did the job, just try to glaze/shade it again. Sometimes it's more visible, sometimes it's more subtle, it's just luck. Try again, compare, and choose the one you like the most. REMEMBER TO GLAZE/SHADE AFTER YOU MADE ALL THE CHANGES, NOT BEFORE!!

If you have any more info feel free to add to this post!!

[project-paranoia]

[project-paranoia]

They are already selling data to midjourney, and it's very likely your work is already being used to train their models because you have to OPT OUT of this, not opt in. Very scummy of them to roll this out unannounced.

[project-paranoia]

Well, see you, friends

https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/

Don't go after staff members because of this, for what I know they weren't even informed until later in the process. You know who this comes from.

[project-paranoia]

What is this about the tumblr staff wanting to sell art data to midjourney?

An ex-colleague of mine mentioned yesterday that there may be contacts between Automattic and midjourney in that direction, but nothing is public yet and I don't have any more info. They probably won't have anything specific to share either, since they left the company weeks ago too. That being said:

I have no reason to doubt my ex-coworker word, they are a trustworthy person.

Tumblr's CEO has been absurdly enthusiastic (comically, even) about AI, and is a big fan of LLMs and 'AI' companies.

A deal with midjourney could solve tumblr financial issues (not the same company, but openAi is paying up to 5 million/year to news companies to use their content as training data... tumblr generates several orders of magnitude more content than any newspaper or any media company and it only would need a 20 to 30 million per year deal to be profitable)

So I don't have any extra info yet, but I'm keeping my ears open.

[project-paranoia]

keep seeing Temu ads on here so just to share cause idk if people are widely aware

[project-paranoia]

“What this means is that the entire 2023 Hugo scandal is something completely different from what we've understood it as during the last month.”

[project-paranoia]

Hugo Award Follow Up:

I think it's fair to say that the astonishing thing is how enthusiastically the American, Canadian (and British?) people involved in the Hugos took to censorship. I'm proud of the whistleblower, and am still puzzled by the removal of Sandman Episode 6. But this appears to have been what was going on: