#art is automated. and that makes me sad. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

remastered-feedback · 5 months

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Photoshop and AI: An unintentional masterclass in cynicism

(You can also read this post on my blog/personal site!)

My feelings are very mixed on the topic of AI, mostly because I believe it is being grossly misused right now. It has incredible power to improve our ability to utilize large amounts of data, whether by allowing more effective, intuitive command processing, by utilizing that data to generate more reliable statistical predictions, or countless other legitimate uses that can actually make people's lives and interactions with technology easier and better. This isn't blockchain or web3 or the metaverse or any of the other digital snake oil that's been peddled in the last few years, there are real, powerful use-cases for AI to make the world better.

And instead of using it for any that, because the technology is primarily in the hands of out-of-touch executives at massive conglomerates, we're using it to try and eliminate jobs, gut creative work, and invent self-driving cars that totally don't commit automated hit-and-runs.

What I want to talk about today is a commercial that Adobe, one of these out-of-touch corporations trying to push AI into places nobody asked for it, has been pushing the last couple months, because I feel like it has no idea how depressing and soulless a depiction of AI's utility it has wound up presenting.

youtube

The premise for the video is pretty simple. Now you and your child - because let's be honest most small children will need an adult's help to use photoshop - can use generative AI to create your own fantastical images! On its face, this seems like a perfectly reasonable sales pitch to make.

And yet I find it an extremely depressing premise, because the AI isn't being used to accomplish some impossible task the child could have never done before. It is being used as a substitute for the child drawing the art in-question themselves.

The pitch Adobe is making is that the world is better if your child's drawing were automated and done by a machine, and that is...just so, so depressing.

I loved drawing as a kid. This sort of "Me in a magical garden with bears and cats and a castle" idea is the kind of thing I would've spent an entire afternoon having a blast coming up with. All the cats would've had names and personalities, as would the pegasus!

And all of that is just handled by a click of a button and an algorithm, and that's...sad to me. Sure it probably looks much "better" than the small child's handiwork. The kid would probably draw a bunch of stick figures and blob cats around a rectangle with triangles on top for a castle. In terms of looking "professional" it's not even a contest.

But basing the merit of the child's drawing on that completely misses the point to me. A child's drawing isn't supposed to be a masterpiece, or a professional quality work you can publish. It's an opportunity for a child to be a child, to have fun and enjoy the act of creating. Foster and learn a creative pursuit that could become a lifelong passion. None of that happens with a couple keyword searches and a click of a button.

More than anything though, there's no excitement. No joy. A child's drawing may not look impressive, but there is love and passion in it, an excitement and earnest joy that shines through even absent any fine detail. The drawings my parents saved from when I was a little kid aren't impressive visually, but they were truly labors of love. I loved making them, and I had a ton of fun doing so. That was the real value. Not something that looks like the dust jacket of a grocery store paperback's, but a kid getting to make something they loved, bringing their idea to life, and crafting every bit of it with a passion and glee a lot of us lose as adults. They didn't save those drawings because I was Rembrandt at seven, they saved them because every one of them had every ounce of care and focus my tiny hands could muster, and that meant the world to both them and me. Far more than any spit-shined generation.

That enthusiasm and wonder are truly, genuinely magical. This whole ad posits that we're better off replacing them with an AI generated amalgamation, because Dall-E's interpretation of "A pegasus on a castle" looks more "professional" than the drawing your kid spent an hour on. It fundamentally misunderstands the purpose and beauty of children creating art, and that is just...sad for what is ostensibly an art company.

I can tolerate marketing your AI features to professional adults. I mean shit, when I used to be a photographer, I'd occasionally use tools that amounted to primitive AI to fix red-eye and similar issues. There's some valid sales pitches to make there. But marketing it based on its ability to replace a child's drawings is just so unbelievably cynical, divorced from the whole point.

Every time I see it, I don't think to myself "Wow, what a cool feature," I think to myself "Wow, how jaded and out of touch was the marketing team to think that this was anything other than depressing?" It reeks of people who're so concerned with making every single thing have a neon shine and a mirror polish that they're completely oblivious to the human element that makes art worth making and consuming in the first place.

Which, thinking about it, makes a lot of sense given the features they're touting here.

#ai #ai art #adobe

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cookies-super-secret-blog · 7 months

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something something grow a pair and state thoughts on ai?

So, funny story, I made a post about this before, whenever the topic tag for it was trending. And like, I still stand by that, sans the part where I call the AI itself a form of art under my definition. A little bit after that, I saw a post, while definitely not in response to my own post, made the point that while we should hate AI art for the rampant theft of jobs and content, that its somehow bad to dislike it as Bad Art or Not Art because "gatekeeping art is baddd". Which like, in the context of someone drawing stick figures or painting giant blocks of color, is valid; we shouldn't gatekeep art from people. I still think AI doesn't deserve that privilege. Like, not to try and define art again, but, like hold on ket me grab something.

This is an ai generated adoptable from deiantart. Now, I have to ask, what's being expressed here- besides "cute girl in big hoodie (despite the one on the left not having a hoodie)"? Like it's easy to take these apart mechanically, but conceptually? It's somehow easier. Like, part of character design is visually communicating stuff about the character. There's nothing here besides anime girl in big outfit with minor armor details maybe? Like nothing else here is coherent! Like she looks sampled off of genshin and honkai characters but that's it. Like the cutains are just blue, and its dull and boring because of it. Why is the jacket neon green? The prompter wanted it that way. Why does she have the shoulder pieces and the case she's holding? Because the prompter likely put "battle girl" and/or "solarpunk" into the prompt. And it's not bad to have design elements for the sake of it, but the ai can't do anything but that, and the content it generates suffers because of it. There's no artistic value there, imo.

Now, not to toot my own horn, but here's my take on this design:

This is still a "cute girl in a big lime green jacket", but there's more to it. It's a high visibility jacket, with stripes reminiscent of construction vests. In the other doodles on the page, this high visibility theme is expanded to a theme of her being some kind of rescue personnel, and/or an angel (see; the halo in the bottom right). While it's fairly easy for me to point these themes out- it is what I intended- I'd still argue an obersever would be able to point out similar, or other themes and motifs that bring this character together.

No ammount of prompts and generation models can recreate that. Even if the prompter had the exact same intent I had when making the og ai content, that intent doesn't come across whatsoever. Because AI cannot replicate human intent and artistic processes.

These image generators register to me as the miserable end point of the sad, art-illiterate belief that art only is, and is only meant to "look pretty". Every time modern art is decried as "ugly and pointless", another prompter gets validated in their shameless attempts to assert their narrow-as-fuck vosion of what art is.

Art is human. Art is messy, art is intricate, art is sloppy, art is beautiful and art is ugly.

No machine on earth can comprehend or replicate that. And the ceasless attempts to commodify and capitalize on art have made some people forget that fact. The kinds of people who prompt really only see art as a gimmick product, pretty knickknacks that will make them rich quick.

For lack of better terms, the dehumanization of art itself is disgusting, and so like hell am I going to consider AI's mass-produced, slot machine-esque, drivel as art.

And I will not be guilted by other people on this hellsite who think its a moral failure to call mindless content what it is because its dressed up in distorted frills and anime girl boobs.

Art is human, and AI is not human. And what a sad world it is, that we're automating and strangling human creation, instead of letting it thrive.

Thank you for reminding me to share my thoughts.

#bit speaks #ai art discourse #anti ai #ai art discussion #ai art debate #old man yells at cloud

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julymarte · 2 months

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remember that server that warned me and deleted my posts cause i was underselling and stuff?

MIND YOU I AGREE THAT UNDERPRICING IT'S HARMFUL TO THE BIGGER PICTURE BUT THIS IS NOT ABOUT THAT today i tried to apply to their art seller role (that was removed from me back then) and i found it so....detached??? let me elaborate to apply for that role you need to send a form where you show your listings and send proof of payment for at least one of your commissions and provide said commission to certify you are not a scammer , i was already feeling a bit uncomfortable sharing payment informations even if i had nothing to hide and the client's data would have been censored like....bruh but still...i was unsure if the kofi order documentation was enough or if they wanted the screenshot from paypal with al the other data of the transaction(cause that's what they normally request people to submit) so i asked about that but i unfortunately had happened to send my material in the incorrect way so when i got the response from a mod via an automated bot reply not answering my question i was confused so i went to the chat and asked if i could talk to a human and they said oh just write to the bot and???? so i just remade the form asking the question inside the form again...seems like i got in but everything was super cold like i'm totally in for formal things, i am fine with professionality but that felt...like... the whole server is operated by the bot system...i understand that it's a big server but... right the other day i was talking with a couple of friends how the art community is freezing.... it's not just about the advent of AI but also about the fact that people have stopped interacting with art as something another person made but as if they are consuming a product and no one is on the other side that server is about selling a product. tou have to lower your prices cause you are struggling? i don't care raise them cause you are ruining the market, you have a problem? ask the bot or other social medias completely ruled by algorithms?? people stopped interacting with art as they used to just a few years ago, there are less comments less human interaction people leave a like and leave, i'm on several servers and only in few of them people actually have a positive interaction among eachother, i've been trying to make conversations or ask for ideas in my own server too but the more impersonal something is the more willing people are to take part like several people voted for a poll that could have been left unanswered if it was just a simple question... it's so depressing and alienation tbh... and part of the reason why my creativity is dying everything has become a product, you have to think about your audience, you have to think about the time you post, the format, you have to create a package ready to be consumed just to hope to be seen by someone that will say something to you....mind you i'm an introvert with social anxiety i don't like talking to people it stresses me out but i'm a human being and being social creatures is in our nature... idk i'm just rambling at this point but eh.... sad....

#art #rambling #long post #text post

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tangibletechnomancy · 1 year

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What makes me sad about the AI art discourse is how it's so close to hitting something really, really important.

The thing is, while the problem with the models has little to do with IP law...the fact remains that art is often something that's very personal to an artist, so it DOES feel deeply, incredibly fucked up to find the traces of your own art in a place you never approved of, nor even imagined you would need to think about. It feels uncomfortable to find works you drew 10-15 years ago and forgot about, thought nobody but you and your friends cared about, right there as a contributing piece to a dataset. It feels gross. It feels violating. It feels like you, yourself, are being reduced to just a point of data for someone else's consumption, being picked apart for parts-

Now, as someone with some understanding of how AI works, I can acknowledge that as just A Feeling, which doesn't actually reflect how the model works, nor is it an accurate representation of the mindset of...the majority of end users (we can bitch about the worst of them until the cows come home, but that's for other posts).

But as an artist, I can't help but think...wow, there's something kind of powerful to that feeling of disgust, let's use it for good.

Because it doesn't come from nowhere. It's not just petty entitlement. It comes from suddenly realizing how much a faceless entity with no conscience, sprung from a field whose culture enables and rewards some of the worst cruelty humanity has to offer, can "know" about you and your work, and that new things can be built from this compiled knowledge without your consent or even awareness, and that even if you could do something about it legally after the fact (which you can't in this case because archival constitutes fair use, as does statistical analysis of the contents of an archive), you can't stop it from a technical standpoint. It comes from being confronted with the power of technology over something you probably consider deeply intimate and personal, even if it was just something you made for a job. I have to begrudgingly admit that even the most unscrupulous AI users and developers are somewhat useful in this artistic sense, as they act as a demonstration of how easy it is to use that power for evil. Never mind the economic concerns that come with any kind of automation - those only get even more unsettling and terrifying when blended with all of this.

Now stop and realize what OTHER very personal information is out there for robots to compile. Your selfies. Your vacation photos. The blog you kept as a journal when you were 14. Those secrets that you only share with either a therapist or thousands of anonymous strangers online. Who knows if you've been in the background of someone else's photos online? Who knows if you've been posted somewhere without your consent and THAT'S being scraped? Never mind the piles and piles of data that most social media websites and apps collect from every move you make both online and in the physical world. All of this information can be blended and remixed and used to build whatever kind of tool someone finds it useful for, with no complications so long as they don't include your copyrighted material ITSELF.

Does this mortify you? Does it make your blood run cold? Does it make you recoil in terror from the technology that we all use now? Does this radicalize you against invasive datamining? Does this make you want to fight for privacy?

I wish people were more open to sitting with that feeling of fear and disgust and - instead of viciously attacking JUST the thing that brought this uncomfortable fact to their attention - using that feeling in a way that will protect EVERYONE who has to live in the modern, connected world, because the fact is, image synthesis is possibly the LEAST harmful thing to come of this kind of data scraping.

When I look at image synthesis, and consider the ethical implications of how the datasets are compiled, what I hear the model saying to me is,

"Look what someone can do with some of the most intimate details of your life.

You do not own your data.

You do not have the right to disappear.

Everything you've ever posted, everything you've ever shared, everything you've ever curated, you have no control over anymore.

The law as it is cannot protect you from this. It may never be able to without doing far more harm than it prevents.

You and so many others have grown far too comfortable with the internet, as corporations tried to make it look friendlier on the surface while only making it more hostile in reality, and tech expands to only make it more dangerous - sparing no mercy for those things you posted when it was much smaller, and those things were harder to find.

Think about facial recognition and how law enforcement wants to use it with no regard for its false positive rate.

Think about how Facebook was used to arrest a child for seeking to abort her rapist's fetus.

Think about how aggressive datamining and the ad targeting born from it has been used to interfere in elections and empower fascists.

Think about how a fascist has taken over Twitter and keeps leaking your data everywhere.

Think about all of this and be thankful for the shock I have given you, and for the fact that I am one of the least harmful things created from it. Be thankful that despite my potential for abuse, ultimately I only exist to give more people access to the joy of visual art, and be thankful that you can't rip me open and find your specific, personal data inside me - because if you could, someone would use it for far worse than being a smug jerk about the nature of art.

Maybe it wouldn't be YOUR data they would use that way. Maybe it wouldn't be anyone's who you know personally. Your data, after all, is such a small and insignificant part of the set that it wouldn't be missed if it somehow disappeared. But it would be used for great evil.

Never forget that it already has been.

Use this feeling of shock and horror to galvanize you, to secure yourself, to demand your privacy, to fight the encroachment of spyware into every aspect of your life."

A great cyberpunk machine covered in sci-fi computer monitors showing people fighting in the streets, squabbling over the latest tool derived from the panopticon, draped cables over the machine glowing neon bright, dynamic light and shadows cast over the machine with its eyes and cameras everywhere; there is only a tiny spark of relief to be found in the fact that one machine is made to create beauty, and something artfully terrifying to its visibility, when so many others have been used as tools of violent oppression, but perhaps we can use that spark to make a change Generated with Simple Stable

#ai art #wip #stable diffusion #ai ethics

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marielle-heller · 10 months

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I saw a video on instagram (here is a link, the comments are assuring at least) that really fucking pissed me off of a lady saying like “oh if we don’t want a show to end we can use AI to keep generating new episodes” and it’s just,,, I fucking HATE this fucking idea so much? rather than learn to let get and accept endings we should just fully automate the creation of media so that we can continue to consume this mindless drivel? you care more about consuming content than actually absorbing a satisfying, well-plotted story that, by its very nature, should have a conclusion??

even if we’re looking at like, being upset a show was cancelled early, there are SO many talented, passionate writers on fanfic sites working their hardest to provide you FREE content to explore what could come next, created from a place of love for the original media rather than,, by logically and soullessly predicting what would have come next based on what came before.

why do we hate actual art so much!! why do we feel the need to CONSUME, CONSUME, CONSUME, to the point that we would rather ask a robot to provide some mediocre facsimile of what a real human was originally getting at? why are we so self-centred that we would employ AI to give us precisely what we want down to the smallest detail rather than explore what people have poured their hearts into hoping you’ll enjoy?

and more to the point, a large amount of media IS someone trying to create something that is precisely what they wanted to see in the world! why should we let that need push us to turn to AI instead of motivating us to find the value in our own talents and experience the joy of creating for ourselves???

it’s just so SAD art is meant to be so fucking real and raw and creative and one of those core human experiences why are there people (and I’m sorry I’m saying “we” cause I sure as hell hope it’s not all of us) who are so HELLBENT on automating something so vital and full of joy for mindless viewing? why are people advocating for the use of fucking AI facsimiles so you can cast your favourite actors in these precise roles???? I get wanting to see a certain actor play a certain part but I want that so I can see their genuine take and approach! not so I can see some fucking uncanny valley creep with their voice take the most direct and uninspired path through the character. I may like an actor but do I want everything I watch to just have them there, bland and so easily replaced with any other actor the moment I decide I’m interested in something new?

it incites so much fucking anger in me do the people making AI not care if anything is even a little bit authentic? real and raw and crafted because of a true belief in the material? a raw devotion to the art? do you care about NOTHING I’m going to scream!

#ai #automation #anti ai #ai critical #I HATE YOU AI I HOPE EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO PROFIT OFF YOU DIES ACTUALLY!#i get stuck writing all the time #but i write to (hopefully) enjoy the experience #if i made a robot do it for me #well then i’d have nothing to do like okay cool now i’m completely missing the part that made it all worth it #the doing and the creating and the joy of when it feels right!

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simlicious · 5 months

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My game recommendations

I had a reblog in my drafts folder for a couple of days to keep working on it and when I was done I saw that the original poster sadly deactivated reblogs on their post. They lovingly suggested that simmers should indulge in other games too, and I couldn't agree more. It is a special feeling to dive into a new game, learn new mechanics, and have a very different experience from the last game you played. I really put a lot of work into my answer, so I decided to make a new post for it.

I'm a simmer and a gamer (simming since 2000), gaming since 1994 or so. I used to play Everquest II way back when and dabble in Elder Scrolls Online but I quit for Baldur's Gate III which has me obsessed for months now, highly enjoyable. Sims 3 has fallen a few steps on my top 10 list in recent years, but I use it as a creative outlet anyway and do not tend to judge it against other games much. I do judge Sims 4 though, which is a sad state of affairs. I can have fun in it if I spend the time in CAS, or for the first 6 hours in a new expansion - but it's just too expensive for its little value, especially compared to other games on this list.

City Builder/Automation games:

Factory Town: super chill cozy vibe, automate logistics for your pixel-people town. Lovely game

Timberborn: build a town for cute beavers!

Farthest Frontier: a nice city simulation with some logistics and events such as raiders invading the town

Satisfactory: one of the most ambitious automation games, with amazing graphics, for people who like to puzzle, analyze/calculate, and really use their heads while gaming. I like to play it as a challenge and see how far I can take my spaghetti conveyor belts!

Frostpunk: a harrowing/grim atmosphere, dystopian, make hard choices for your town

Simulation games:

Roller Coaster Tycoon and Planet Coaster: I love building super scary rollercoasters and then riding them and trying to get people in the park to ride them too

Strategy games:

Anno 1800: I can spend my entire life in this game it feels, it is engaging and relaxing all at once - love this so much!

Action/adventure games:

Assassins Creed Origins: stunning world, super detailed visuals and fun combat mechanics

Scifi/Exploration

No Man's Sky: At first I thought this was more of a casual game, but prepare for a lot of grinding and long-ish quests. It is fun to discover new plants/creatures and name them!

Survival games:

Raft: great to play with friends too and it has a relaxed vibe but also survival mechanics that keep you engaged

The Long Dark: I love the art style and music so much, the story mode is great, the survival mode can be very challenging depending on settings and it is super immersive. Wrap yourself in a warm blanket to play 😂

Subnautica: my favorite game ever before Baldur's Gate 3 dethroned it! It is a game that will guide you to leave your comfort zone time and time again, but you choose when you feel ready for it. You can really follow your own pace and exploring the vast, beautiful, and terrifying depths of this ocean planet is absolutely immersive and filled with surprise and wonder. It has also very chill and calm base-building elements to counteract the scarier moments. The soundtrack is one of the best in terms of evoking feelings/ building atmosphere, do not turn off the sound while playing this game!!!

Storytelling games:

Life is Strange: a classic, it's fun to explore what we could change and what the consequences would be if we could go back in time.

Firewatch: very emotional and touching, leaving a lasting impression

Casual games:

Bridge Constructor Portal (the dark humor is a bonus, it's fun and trains your analytical thinking!)

Carcassonne (like the tabletop game, chill puzzle game)

Simulacra (you uncover a mystery on a phone, interesting idea!)

Retro Games:

My favorite old/retro game would be Black & White (from 2001), which I played when it originally came out, I loved it so much! The free camera was revolutionary at the time. You play a god who is powered by worshippers whom you can either provide and care for or reign terror over, and your actions decide your alignment, good, neutral, or evil. You get a creature that you can train (and will be more or less useful to your goals or disrupt them depending on how well you train it). IIRC, you can train the creature either in the story mode or sandbox/skirmish mode and then go back to story mode with a stronger creature. The mouse gestures which activate miracles in the air felt like a revolutionary new idea back then. The game is not available officially anymore, but it is downloadable from some abandonware websites and the community-made patches so it is still playable today! Writing this, I had to reinstall it right away... the nostalgia!

RPGs:

Cyberpunk 2077: it's just iconic, the city energy and car drives are nice, the story is interesting and it feels immersive

The Witcher 3: great quests and story, beautifully crafted open world

Baldur's Gate 3: I could also talk for hours about Baldur's Gate 3. If there is one game out there that everyone should have tried once in their life, it's that one. It really lets you try any strategy you want and did not actually expect to work in a video game, but in BG3, it does. Even cheaty ones like pushing enemies from a cliff or using explosives to blow stuff up. If you got surprise-attacked but have no weapon handy, you can throw a grease bottle at the enemy that can make them slip and fall, and then you can throw your burning torch at it to light everything on fire. You can stack boxes to climb up to reach something (or throw a goblin body onto someone's head, because it's perfectly normal to carry those around with you). You can be sneaky and steal stuff, even rewards from enemies. Don't like fighting? You can talk your way out of most fights if your character has the necessary skills and still complete quests that way. 95% of NPCs have something to say, and if you click them again, they will have another line. The narrator is awesome. The companions have so much character, the banter is great and every character has its own story arc and goal, the voice acting is phenomenal all around. Definitely get the talk-to-animals skill and use it on all animals, you'll have hilarious conversations! It's worth every penny, even if it's not on sale (and I hardly ever buy a game at full price, so that is saying a lot). Thanks for reading, I hope you feel inspired to try some new games! Have fun 😊

#game recommendations #but for simmers #not exclusively though #non-sims

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booksandchainmail · 10 months

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Pale 10.4

oooh, I wasn't sure we'd get a Verona chapter this arc

“Can’t show you this one, Tash.” Tashlit, lounging on a beach towel, reached toward her waist and gestured. “No, this one isn’t rude."

I like the unstated "gesture"

Tashlit held up a finger. One. Then the ‘what?’ gesture. “The first most recent email is a reminder from Ding Phones that my prepaid phone account is almost out of funds, please visit the site to top up.”

I'm reminded of a great bit from Bloom Into You where the protagonist is eagerly awaiting a response from love interest, and when her phone pings it's an automated version update notification

“My mom tried to give me the dumbed down explanations but it felt a lot like I was in the way. So I gave the excuse I had to get stuff sorted out. And then we left a couple days after and we stopped in for a visit with her artist friend and I think that was meant for me. Like, she thought I would be receptive and I’d get it and stuff, and it was cool to see the guy’s studio and stuff but like, I’m here and that guy’s alllll the way over there.”

I got to avoid this as a kid: if the people coming over for dinner were family friends who would want to talk with me I would stay, if not I could eat early and then just hang out elsewhere instead of having to stay at the table while conversations went over my head.

“Oh. Disappointed, but not disappointed in me. Maybe.”

disappointed in her own parenting skills?

Verona grabbed her book, flipped back a few pages, and found the image she’d drawn after Tashlit had insisted she would take every art critique seriously. It was rude: a crude and rude drawing of a guy hugging a two-foot-wide boner that came up to the top of his head.

well if all else fails you have a career path on furry twitter

Jeremy replied. I don’t know how to respond except pic just made my week. Have some pics of Sir.

oh big mood, I also start messages with "I don't know how to respond" or something similar. If I wait to try and find words for a good response I just never send it.

“Is my dad going to jail?” The words left her lips before she realized she’d asked. “Is that another priority, Verona? That your dad be punished?” It was subtle. The tone a little cooler than before, less warm. Oh. She’d fucked it. She’d thoroughly fucked it, hadn’t she? Because now the idea was in David’s head. That she’d had an argument with her dad and things had gone wrong and now she was a manipulator or she was trying to get back at him and he was a tool for her to do that.

I can't tell if the child protective services guy is geniunely disapproving, or if Verona is panicking and reading too much into it. Because tone cooling here could mean a lot of things (ie David worrying that things were worse than he thought). If it is that says bad things about him! Honestly my first thought in this scenario (especially Verona was talking about not wanting to move) would be that she was scared of hr life getting completely disrupted by her dad getting arrested.

It's also sad that Verona's first thought on getting a (possibly) negative reaction to a genuine emotion is worrying that it makes her look manipulative or petty, because that is 100% what her dad has been telling her

The way he looked off to one side here and there made her wonder if he felt like his time was being wasted, now. Or misused. He kept taking notes when there wasn’t anything to take notes on.

I think "kid in a protective meeting visibly panics when told their parent won't be arrested" is something to take notes on!

“Sits in bed and sobs and tells me everything I’m doing wrong and everything he’s doing wrong and stuff about my mom.” “Okay. How often is that?” “Two to six nights a week, except when I’m away, or like, not nights but in the kitchen after he gets home from work, he’ll start telling me I didn’t mow the lawn or whatever and then it gets into how much his coworkers suck.”

... that is more often than I thought it was. Six nights a week at max, gods.

“Exacerbated by life circumstances?” he asked. He started to take a note. “Not- no,” she said. She watched him continue to take the note, ignoring the ‘no’. She could imagine that penned down ‘life circumstances’ taking all the heat out of what she was saying.

I cannot tell if Verona is reading this accurately and this guy is going to be useless or not. Leaning towards not because I want to be optimistic.

“The third was- we went shopping and I got on his case, called him a bad dad and stuff. I pushed his buttons on purpose, because I could. And he freaked and stopped the car in the middle lane of a three lane road and made me get out. Cars were honking their horns and passing on the left and right. And I had icecream I’d bought for myself I was too full to eat and it melted while I walked home. I guess that doesn’t count when I think about it.”

I MEAN YOU'RE RIGHT THAT ISN'T TECHNICALLY BREAKING YOUR THINGS BUT IT IS IN FACT MORE WORRYING FOR DIFFERENT REASONS

“When was this?” “Christmas.”

winter in Canada? Admittedly I don't know that much about the weather but that seems hazardous

How could she even put it into words? It was pressure and pressure over years. It was telling her dad about her problems and it never mattering because he always one-upped her, and that added up little by little.

fascinated to see what people have done for Worm-style powers for Verona based on this as a trigger event

“Are you and your dad close?” “No. I think he wants us to be.” “How does he want you to be close?” “Hanging out, watching movies. He’d rather I didn’t see my friends and instead went with him. I think he’s lonely.”

I normally think of this as a red flag in romantic relationships, but it's even more one in a familial relationship

It felt like every time he was making notes, he was taking down the statements or arguments she felt were weakest and most unimportant. Or stuff that made her dad seem more okay than he was. Dad’s lonely, wants to bond with shitty daughter.

I really don't think that's why he's taking a note of it!

And also wow does Verona place the blame on herself all the time. No wonder she has self-esteem issues as part of the Kennet Trio, if this is how her dad has taught her to think of herself

…She wasn’t even sure what she wanted. She wanted to land this entire thing in the zone where she left her dad’s and went to Jas’s. That was the perfect outcome. It’s bad, gotta take this girl out of there, it’s crushing her and making her feel small and broken. So we pick her up and take her… no, that’s too far. Where’s a place we can put her that’s out of the house but not that super far away… Jas’s house!

yesyesyesyesyes. The guy mentioned temporary custody earlier, could that be this?

And even if it wasn’t impossible she couldn’t burden Jas like that, especially if Jas had a job she wanted and no time or money.

this has also been my concern with what is otherwise the perfect solution. Would the government provide a stipend for caring for Verona? It's not like she takes a lot of maintenance time-wise

“Almost died? Tell me about that.” “At this thing I went to at the start of summer. I don’t want to get into it, it…

I think that's the kind of thing he has to follow up on, actually. Verona's dad not wanting more info on this was a red flag, and I don't think Verona recognizes how weird that was

I mean, she can probably pass it off as like an outdoors accident at summer camp (storm while hiking, bridge broke, etc etc) but she should have to at least come up with a story!

“Right now we’re in a middle stage, deciding what the immediate needs are. It doesn’t sound like you need to be removed from the home, and it doesn’t sound like you want to be removed from the home.”

“I want to leave that house. I don’t want to go back,” Verona said. “But can’t I go to Jasmine’s, instead? Can’t- isn’t there a way to-” Breath hitched. She was aware her mom was sitting next to her. “Can’t we- you guys give money to foster parents, right? So couldn’t I go there, and couldn’t, um, you could give her money and I wouldn’t be a burden, and she’s a really good mom to Lucy and she’s lovely.”

the degree to which Verona is breaking down in this conversation is distressing

Verona didn’t know what to say when what she’d already said and how she’d reacted had probably hurt her mom, and her mom didn’t say anything.

eh, deserved

“Is it possible? To give Verona what she wants? I don’t imagine the money from the system going to her would be possible, like she suggested, but if we could divert child support, maybe?”

surprising W from Verona's mom! I mean, it means she doesn't have to change her life at all to accommodate her own child, so low bar, but this is also what Verona wants

“We’d be looking at… the schedule’s tight. This looks like, hm, three at-home visits over three months. During those visits, I or someone else with access to the file would be checking in to make sure that all course participation is maintained, that the house is safe. I would check in with Verona.” “Only three visits? She’s so upset right now.” “Resources are stretched thin.” “You’re sending her back to that house?”

well fuck.

Lowering my estimation of CAS right back down.

Guess it's time to see if we can get Verona set up with a Demesne she can live in?

“I finished talking with David Williams. Then I called Jasmine, and I called your dad, and I called Jasmine again.” Verona looked up. “She’ll take you until the end of summer. Your dad agreed to it.”

oh fuck yes

And one way or another, by the end of summer things will be different

She was going to Jasmine’s. What came after could be saved for after. The headache was gradually easing.

“So he gave my mom a preliminary plan of three visits from CAS over three months, right?” Verona told Tashlit. Nod. “And that’s now going to be twelve over six.” Double nod. “And originally, anger management classes and parenting classes. Now it’s anger management classes and parenting and therapy.”

on the one hand, bleak that it took the drawing to get this boosted. On the other, good that this is happening, and specifically that when Verona felt she couldn't get meaning across in words, she was able to use her art to communicate

“I hate that we go off and do our own things and we don’t cross paths. And it is entirely my fault as the mom that I let it happen. A part of me hoped my situation would change or we’d grow into new interests that did have those overlaps… I did with my mom. It took until I was seventeen or eighteen before I could talk to her, adult to adult. But I screwed up.”

Yeah you did! I mean I also didn't have a lot of shared interests with my mother as a teenager, and I still tease her about saying "You know, I actually like you as a person" when I was ~22 (liking the person I was as an independent adult, as opposed to just loving me as her daughter) (english is my mother's fourth language so phrasing is sometimes off). But she still did her best to understand my interests, and was always engaged in my life. Adult to adult is not the only way to have a strong relationship with your child!

“Call. Anytime, any reason. I would move heaven or earth for you.” “But you wouldn’t move,” Verona said

ouch

“Want to turn in earl-” her mom said, at the same time Verona said, “Want to look at my art?” “I would love to,” her mom replied.

baby steps :)

“Boyfriend material?” “Blegh. No. Not what I’m after.” “A boyfriend? Are you-?” “Nope. No, I wish. It’d be nice. No, it’s not the boyfriend part of that. It’s the material part of that. I’m immaterial. Maybe I’ll get there, maybe I won’t, but not right now. Lucy and Avery keep saying stuff like ‘uh oh’, poor Jeremy.” “That doesn’t sound friendly.” “It’s sorta accurate. Because we’re hanging out and he likes me and I don’t like anyone like that, so…”

aro Verona rights

A figure stepped out of darkness, and it wasn’t the local Others come to check in with her or welcome her to the area.

UHM?

“You tell me. Look what I found, or well, look who found me while I was out there!” At that cue, Miss stepped out from behind the power pole. Wind picked up and dust from the roadside hid her face.

oh fuck yes

“A good one,” Miss said, walking past the girls. She walked up to Rook, and the two of them hugged. “Hello, it’s been some time.”

huh! Didn't see that coming, but potentially very useful if they have Miss bridging the gap between them and Crooked Rook

“I asked Rook to make sure you three were more or less alright until I could find my way back. She has, I hope.” “She said she didn’t want to associate with us.” “Maintaining that position let Matthew, Edith, and the rest draw their own conclusions about my intents and goals,” Rook said. “And it helps keep this secret right here.”

clever clever clever! This completly changes the balance of power in Kennet. Miss back, Crooked Rook as an ally, by extension Nibble and Chloe...

“Rook,” Miss said, sounding more than a little upset. She turned her head Rook’s way, and Rook adjusted the position of the mask perfectly, in accordance with that.

this is cute

“As long as Montague could seize control of the diagram at any time, on Matthew and Edith’s request… Miss can’t come into Kennet.”

good counter for Miss, but I think Montague might be recruitable? something to work on

“I’m thinking back to a few nights ago. At the factory. Edith pretty much sent Chloe right at us. She was aggressive with the furs, she’s been testing the rules. What if we dealt with her, like, right away?” “Let’s,” Rook answered.

OwO

#pale #booksandchainmail reads pale #wildbow

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x7r · 6 months

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Okay hear me out, realism in art is most interesting when it's a) made out of a fragile or temporary material, the tension between something looking real, but can be destroyed so easily is the whole point (cake, nail or glass arts come to mind) or b) it's a self- portrait, because it's always really interesting* to see how someone has depicted themselves

I mean I guess realism is best when it's doing something more than just literally being the thing. When the artist is trying to tell you something more than: this is the thing.

I guess it works the same in photography, the point is the person who has made or captured this image is trying to tell you something.

Art is communication. That is the purpose of art. It's an extension of language.

If the only thing being communicated is: "here is thing" what can I even respond with? Okay? I see it? So? What about it?

Arguably you could say that if the thing being communicated is "I think it would be cool if this thing were real" is also hard to know what to do with. I guess I want to also have the context of why: you the artist thinks it would be cool so I can know how to respond. If you think it's cool because you think it would be hot: great okay that's cool, tell me what parts of this relate to that so I can understand more. Art is something you should be able to interrogate.

Anyway my point is that it's hard to do these things if you're making automated art (AI).

I don't really believe you can make a self portrait with AI. I don't believe replicating photos of yourself counts.** I just think there's too much decision making being done by software. I think self portraits require more deliberateness and AI puts a barrier in front of that intention.***

Also AI can't really make things out of temporary or fragile**** materials. So it misses out on the cool things you can do with that.

Also I think realism (any realism any medium) process videos are great because it shows you the artists hands and their decision making as they made the piece so the piece itself doesn't have to do as much heavy lifting giving context.*****

*sorry I love to say things are interesting but i'm being interested in it, I can't help that

**I don't care if people disagree, it's my opinion and I doubt my mind could be changed on this.

***okay I did think of a exception: if you had an AI database generating individual facial features (eyes, nose, etc) making an infinite refresh regenerater thing to make the ultimate picrew and sat down and did a self portrait like that I then I think it's legit. But like I feel like at that point it's getting further away from even being automated/AI art. It's more like collage.

****you could argue that refreshing a prompt until it generates something you like might quality as a material that is temporary/fragile. It's interesting to think about liminal temporary pieces of data. But it's not really a train of thought that ever goes very far for me. Data, snippets of communication - being lost, it's sad. But it's not very sad. Like because usually the small nothing bits of data that's born only to die instantly, they're not like... Important. Like how can you care for them? It's a funny thought experiment to think you care for them, but it's hard to actually feel the genuine caring emotion. I feel like art is meant to make you feel the genuine care emotion.

*****like star wars scroll text intro

#adhd simulator #im giving real blogging a go #but like this is probably boring to read its more for me rather than others

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ante--meridiem · 1 year

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So I've already said my piece on the economic side of things in the ai art debate (tldr: trying to ban one specific form of automation to protect one specific career is a bandage solution unlikely to gain support outside artist communities because of how much it sounds like - and tbh is - special pleading, and you should really aim for ubi to protect everyone if you want to advocate for legislation) but on the aesthetic side of things -

People are saying it has no aesthetic value because it doesn't reveal anything about the artist's interiority and I just need to say that the fact so many humanities people find no interest or aesthetic value at all in technology people studying interiority by trying to recreate parts of its processes in other systems, however far we may be from doing it, as a reflection of human interiority in itself, and instead are just creeped out by the attempt*... makes me really sad.

*I acknowledge valid concerns about unethical uses by corporations, but there is a very clear sentiment of just visceral uncanny valley response/technophobia in the way people talk about it that goes beyond that

#It's just. I see so many humanities people complain about how stem people devalue their areas of study #And it absolutely happens I won't deny that #But most stem people I'm close to myself included greatly appreciate the beauty of arts #Just for the arts people to turn around and call the things we find fascinating and often study out of genuine passion #Cold and soulless #And the tone this particular debate is taking is so reminiscent of that attitude #I'm going to make this post unrebloggable because it is very much not a principled discourse stance #So much as a 'people whose areas of study i admire finding things close to my areas of study soulless makes me sad :(' personal sentiment

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softlyfiercely · 1 year

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welp i just had to quit on a project that was going to be ~50% of my income for the next few months so that's super cool. i dont even have a ko-fi or stuff i can do commissions for or anything just. stressed and pissed and sad.

things we could try and automate: monitoring repetitive processes, identifying patterns in large data sets, repairing or restoring damaged documents

things we do not need robots to do: teach, give medical advice, provide therapy, create art, develop policy why is this so hard why is our world so fucked

jesus franklin christ i am exhausted. and broke lol. got me a fucking useless resume at this point too considering i can no longer work in tech and retain my sanity. spent some time this afternoon looking at potential jobs that wouldn't make me want to claw my own soul out through my eyes and they all require certification and education that i don't have cause i wasted a bunch of time on uSeR fAcInG cOnTeNt CrEaTiOn

i am still trying to make a living writing genre fiction but that takes a while to spin up - and it's harder during an AI-content explosion crisis, apparently! i have great timing! - and in the meantime i need to do bullshit like eat and pay rent or whatever.

im also not really clear on why im even bothering at this point cause the whole draw of freelance work was so i can spend my time at home maintaining community, feeding people, caring for kids, etc. and have a flexible schedule for parenting, but i'm not currently able to do any of that! having a "job that lets you go anywhere" while living in a culturally desolate high cost of living area is just a dumbass move all around - but the other option appears to be 'make more money working in tech' which i just. cannot do

i feel like there is one of those cymbal monkeys in my head screaming SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE YOU CANNOT LIVE LIKE THIS SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE YOU CANNOT LIVE LIKE THIS

#fuck the entire tech world #i hate it here

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lenbryant · 2 years

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After haggling with the author Stephen King (don’t worry about it), Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, decided that Twitter users would have to pay $8 a month to keep their blue verification check marks. Previously, these check marks were free and indicated an account was authentic—that’s the real New York Times, the real President Joe Biden, the real Slim Jim, and so on. They’re sort of a status symbol, in the sense that check marks make users stand out, and the process for getting one is opaque and mysterious. And they kind of confer importance by suggesting that a person or an entity or a brand with a check might be someone who someone else would attempt to impersonate. People sometimes talk about verification badges as being signifiers of “clout.”

Musk renovated the blue-check-mark system with the stated intention of making it, like, more egalitarian or something: Anybody could have a check if they paid a fee, and then they would have the glory of the check mark, even if it would no longer indicate anything other than the user having paid a fee. This devolved into chaos about as quickly as you would imagine. A blue check appeared next to an account pretending to be George W. Bush, which tweeted, “I miss killing Iraqis” with a sad-face emoji. A blue check appeared next to an account masquerading as the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, which tweeted, “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.” (The verification program is now on pause until after Thanksgiving.)

For those disgusted or confused by Musk’s antics, there is an alternative: Just go back to Tumblr, where the antics are better.

The famous microblogging website for freaks is constantly rumored to be at death’s door, but things are on the upswing there—and people are paying attention, thanks to the company’s inspired response to Twitter’s tumult. Last week, it started offering users the option to purchase, for a onetime fee of $7.99, not one but two “Important Blue Internet Checkmarks” to display next to their username. “Why, you ask? Why not?” the announcement explained. (The page for purchasing the check marks discloses that they “may turn into a bunch of crabs at any time.”) This was a good joke from the jump, but it got better when users realized they could buy more than two check marks. Someone bought 10. Because this is Tumblr, the check marks quickly became the subject of fan art—“the Important Blue Internet Checkmarks are gay and married actually,” etc. Tumblr is also selling blue-check-mark pins in its shockingly good merch store.

“We’re always looking across the industry for innovation,” Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Automattic, which owns Tumblr, told me when I asked about the Important Blue Internet Checkmarks. Then he apologized: “I’m not good at being funny.” Anyway, he went on, you can buy up to 24 check marks. “But we are making no promises. For a technology company, maintaining the check marks is very difficult.” (Joking again.) “The check marks might transform into something else in the future,” he warned. (Referring to the threat of crabs.) He wouldn’t give specific numbers but said there are now “hundreds of thousands” of Important Blue Checkmarks on Tumblr.

According to Mullenweg, iOS downloads of the Tumblr app were up 62 percent the week after Musk took control of Twitter. (Although, to keep things in perspective, Tumblr is still much, much smaller than Twitter.) The mobile app has a pretty chic new logo. The discovery features are finally useful. And, at the beginning of the month, Mullenweg announced that the company had figured out a way to allow nudity on the site again (though it will not be bringing back actual porn), putting an end to a four-year-long ban and possibly starting Tumblr down a path to regaining the trust of users who were dismayed when it began removing, among other things, posts that showed “female-presenting nipples,” in a bloodbath of poorly considered automated takedowns.

Whoever is currently running Tumblr’s Twitter account has also been making the most of the Musk era by welcoming fleeing Twitter users “home” to Tumblr and asking current Tumblr users not to scare them away: “We need everybody to pretend to be normal for a little bit.” (Mullenweg would not say who runs Tumblr’s Twitter account, but he told me that the company Slack has “kind of turned into a writer’s room.”)

Now, maybe you see this as sort of an obvious and opportunistic publicity play by a competing social-media service. Maybe it even seems crass to you—a little grave-dancy. But Tumblr’s users and staff know something about unexpected business deals with ominous implications. (The site was acquired by Yahoo in 2013; Yahoo was then acquired by Verizon; Verizon squished Yahoo and AOL together to form something called Oath; it then sold Tumblr to Automattic at a fire-sale price—a twist after rumors circulated that it might sell the site to Pornhub.) They also know something about sudden changes and broken features and never-ending suspense over when or whether a site may disappear completely. You can hardly blame them for enjoying the fact that something has gone wrong elsewhere.

Tumblr diehards do not want the site to be a landing pad for the normies. As Ryan Broderick reported in his newsletter, Garbage Day, last week, they have busied themselves posting “cringe” in order to ward off returning Twitter users—it’s kind of a “Keep Austin Weird” campaign. (Of course, the Twitter “normies” are coming from a website where people sincerely argue that it’s classist to shower and sexist to be afraid of the woman monster in Barbarian who rips arms off—so they’re not that normal either.) But some Tumblr users prefer to be welcoming. “All of us were new to the site at one point,” Nat Ku, a 20-year-old Tumblr user, told me in an email. “If someone wants to switch from twitter to tumblr, celebrity or otherwise, good for them. Who cares? That’s their business. We’re all equally insufferable anyway.”

Today, Tumblr has a reputation as a refuge from the louder and busier social-media landscape, and those who still spend time there—or who returned to the site, as many did at the start of the pandemic—love it for being somewhat creepy and overlooked. If Musk ruins Twitter, maybe it too could have a second life as something most people are always forgetting about—in a good way.

A year ago, many would have placed their bets on Tumblr having far less time left on Earth than Twitter, but that’s life online for you. Any platform that you invest years of your interest and creativity in—that you become reliant on for community and news and stimulation and something to complain about—is about as stable as the winds of capital and the whims of those who hold it. Although it feels like the end of days on Twitter right now—which is to say, everyone is acting hysterical—there’s something a little exciting about it. It’s beautiful and painful. Now, a Tumblr user might say, you know how it feels.

“I hope both Twitter and Tumblr are around 100 years from now,” Mullenweg told me. “These are important parts of the internet, and they need good stewardship to stay around for future generations.” He said he learned the hard way that running a social network is extremely difficult—in more ways than running any other large-scale internet service or tech company—and that he is rooting for anyone who tries it. “You’ll never hear me bad-mouth Elon,” he said, after I honestly kind of tried to get him to. That said, if you’re wondering what to do now that Twitter is getting more upsetting by the day: “Everyone at Tumblr has been burning the midnight oil the past few weeks to keep up with user demand.”

Kaitlyn Tiffany is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Everything I Need I Get From You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It.

#cancel twitter #twitter #tumblr #social media #the atlantic #elon musk #elon twitter #cancel rich narcissists

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clorofolle · 1 year

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I mean, as someone who makes money off of art, the whole AI situation is exhausting and depressing etc etc.

But a thing that makes me deeply uneasy is how a lot of regular people are approaching ai generated images. Like... a LOT of people are excited! And feel like they can finally be an artist as well. They say art is finally not an elite thing anymore.

What went wrong? What failed them?

Humans have been making art basically as long as we've been human. We sing and make figurines and mark our walls with the outline of our hands. Art is such... An essential component to human life. It's an act of creation. An act. Something you do. Something that makes you feel good while you do it. That's all there is to art.

What happened? Maybe it's that we call "art" both the instinct to Make Stuff (which you do mainly for yourself), and the actual professional job that requires years of study and practice (which you often do for others). One name, two drastically different experiences.

Being a professional artists is hard work. But... Art art? The one you do for free? Why would you automate that? That's like automating looking at a pretty flower, or going on a nice walk or ride, or dancing, or singing. Why would you do that? Why automate the things that give life meaning and joy?

And like. Idk. There's something a bit sad going on here. About us becoming less and less creators and more and more consumers. Giving so much more importance to results rather than experiences. Not wanting to do art because it Feels good, but because you want to have something else to show for yourself.

One push of a button and you can consume another image, passively experiencing another visual input, but now that gets called "creating" or "being an artist".

My man, I'm so so sorry if they told you creating feels like That. I want to give you a pencil or some clay or some paint and your hands and a wall. I swear if you actually tasted creation you will never want to let it go, never ever ever.

#long post #ai #i definitely blame the tendency to just say art to mean the products of art professionals #you get SO many people scared shitless of creating because they've been told they're not creative enough #or have made something wonky the first time and felt ashamed #my man!!!! art IS the wonky thing you created!!!!#an artist is just someone who enjoys the process instead of feeling deep shame throughout it

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casuallyyoa · 1 year

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STEAM NEXT FEST JUNE 2023 ROGUE EDITION 2

Welcome to another edition of the Steam Next Fest June 2023 Roguelite / Roguelike Demo Taster! I decided to go through the list to see what else caught my fancy and presumably determine my finances for the months to come. If you haven’t seen my previous list, you can find it in the video description.

I give the games at least 30 minutes or so to try hook me with their demo. Who knows what will change come full release?

NEEDS MORE TO STAND OUT

While simple isn’t necessarily bad, I consider these games either being too derivative or not having some ‘spark’ to draw in people who may have already played similar games.

Geometry Arena 2

Choose your shape and fire away! Auto-shoot is available to toggle on.

A sequel it may be, I think the genre is now pretty saturated with games with similar mechanics, so if you haven’t played the first game, I’m not sure what this has to draw you to it.

Goobies

Another one of those in a niche Vampire Survivors is currently occupying. It’s got a cute style and wide variety of upgrades to be sure. A little problem I found with it is that the visuals of defeating the enemies into globs makes it hard to tell if the other blobs on the screen are from dead goops or hostile ones.

Yokai Art: Survival

It’s anime Plants vs Zombies! The randomness comes in ‘equipment’ your yokai can equip - available in different qualities, of course - and the skills you charge up over time to assist in beating back the parade. Other than that, it’s pretty standard in my opinion.

INTERESTING CONCEPTUALLY

These are titles that have things that draw me or I can acknowledge seem quite fun, but it’s not quite for me.

Downtown Dealers

Can you build a town to hit the given objectives while getting dealt random cards to use with limited budget and space? If that tingles your grey cells, then this one could be for you. I’m certainly not the best at it, which is why it’s in this category, but there’s definitely something here.

Golden Record Retriever

A combination of lethally bad luck and instructions being lost in translation does not make this a game for me. You need to roll your dice to get coloured ‘auras’ to execute actions, and the colours need to be in the right configuration. I actually flunked the tutorial because I ran out of resources trying to reroll for said combos, but I wouldn’t dismiss this game right away just because I’m terrible at it.

Kanji Industry

If you like games like Factorio and similar, add a little randomness into your drive towards automation to get this game. I think this game has the potential for educational purposes, just that looking at kanji alone is already enough to collapse my brain into a pile of goo.

Prescience

Whether you play black or white, you’re gonna need a mix of both to use your skills. Consume a set number of pieces to use them, otherwise if you don’t draw the right amount of the colours you need, that’s too bad for you. I got into a sad loop of getting slept and whittled down by damage over time by the first boss, myself. If only I could eat their pieces.

Territory of Egg

Protect the big egg with smaller eggs, but you can’t place your eggs willy nilly. They can only be placed on certain tiles, forcing you to expand out. There’s risk reward even after you’ve killed a particular area’s boss; you can choose to retreat to ensure you keep all the stuff you’ve earned, or keep going to brave the darkness and unlock new areas.

I’d like to take this mid-roll to shill a little.

If you find my subjective list interesting, consider tipping me on Ko-Fi so that I can buy these games for myself and support the devs. Link is in the description as well.

Now for the rest of the list.

TO LOOK OUT FOR

Titles I have more interest in than those in the previous category, basically.

Never Ending Beyond

This is something I’d actually peg as a Personal Pick, but for some reason, I was getting motion sick or at least some visual effects I was not having a good time with. Aside from my personal maladies though, this is a pretty neat game where, depending on your menagerie, you can have a wide variety of weapons and effects to take on the world, and they follow you around too!

There’s definitely a lot of runs you’d want to do to unlock the critters permanently and have them graze at your sanctuary, as well as have them as your starting gear for future runs. It can potentially be incredibly grindy in that way due to the random nature and all, so that might be something to consider.

Rogue Cube Defense

This is yet another spin on the ‘build your own map’ roguelite tower defense. Carve out the path towards your cube and hope you can place your towers along the way as the environment could potentially screw over the perfect placement. As you level up, you get to slap down more of the towers you’ve set in your loadout and upgrade them via passive buffs.

Sliding Swords

I don’t know how big the 2042 (ed. note: I meant 2048) player overlap is with the roguelite genre, but this is the one for that niche of people. Resources and enemies will spawn on the grid as you shunt yourself in the four cardinal directions, stacking buffs on yourself or making your enemies real thicc. So, if you fail your math, you die.

PERSONAL PICKS

The ones I’d prioritize to purchase.

Astrea: Six-Sided Oracle

Considering I really loved Dicefolk from the previous video, it’s rather a no brainer I would highly consider this game. You need to Purify the Corruption, but your dice won’t necessarily always have beneficial effects. You might have to apply more Corruption to the enemies and thus trigger an Overcorruption attack that occurs immediately.

Alternatively, you have to get Corrupted yourself. However, you do have multiple 'lives' so to speak, and getting Corrupted grants you access to more skills depending on the level. It's about balancing the risk/reward faces, with this game giving you more control over the 'bad' effects.

CONCLUSION

Steam Next Fest June 2023 will be on until 26 June Pacific Time. Some of these game demos are for games that will be out somewhat soon, so if any of them interest you, you should definitely try them out!

Until next time. Thanks for watching.

#Steam #Steam Next Fest #Steam Next Fest June 2023 #Roguelite #Roguelike #Demo #Impressions

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