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drchucktingle · 3 months

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Good day Dr. Tingle. I haven't read your stories, but I've known about you from afar in this website for a while. Your recent post about separating Ideas and Message is very similar to how I teach a class. I wanted to ask you, if you could share some of your Messages, in whichever structure/length/complexity you think about them before writing, to have some real world examples to show in class.

Personally I tend to simplify and shorten my messages as much as possible, like "everyone deserves forgiveness" for example, so that I can permeate it throughout the story, and so that anyone experiencing the story can come to a similarish conclusion.

I'm curious as to how your Messages look like inside your head, during the creative process. Not the refined versions used for marketing and sales and stuff.

Thank you!

sure buckaroo.

high concept idea of the book STRAIGHT was this: zombie apocalypse story but the rage only effects straight cis people (there is also a second high concept idea in there which is: what if zombie plague only happened one day a year? how would culture handle this politically and otherwise?)

so i had this idea that i thought was good, but before i can write it i think 'well what do i want to SAY about this? what am i FEELING?'

and i realized that i was a little torn about how to write this story because of the one day a year thing. when is it okay to fight back? can you hurt a zombie if it turns back into a person the next day? is that right or wrong? and WHEN is it right or wrong? what situations?

then i realized that with the metaphor of this story what i was really asking was something bigger: why is it up to the victims (in this case queer buckaroos) to be forced to make these decisions? marginalized groups have TWO kinds of violations done to them, the first is the obvious act of violation, but the second is that they are forced to use their time and mental space and emotional tolerance to learn how to HANDLE the first violation in an 'acceptable way'

so THAT became my message. if you want to know how i feel about these questions you can read STRAIGHT and find out.

CAMP DAMASCUS high concept idea was (SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT READ CAMP DAMASCUS STOP READING HERE) what if the church really DID decide the ends justify the means and instead of stopping demonic possession they were inflicting demonic possession to counter sinful acts.

but that is not the message of the book. that is just the idea. if i just had that idea i would not write it, but as things evolved i realized WHAT i wanted to say with this story

in this situation WHO is the force of 'evil'? would it be the demons? would it be the possessed? or would it be the SYSTEM AND MENTALITY that was creating this situation in the first place? so the book sets out the answer this question and express the conclusion that ive made for myself

i also noticed that many churches who are anti gay have a sort of infantilizing trot with how they handle their young buckaroos. this idea that gay feelings will just go away if they are ignored and that they can almost keep young queer buckaroos from ever aging into fully realized adults. obviously i think this is WRONG and so fighting back against this mentality became part of the message as well, and that informed most of the metaphor and symbolism in the book.

it is important to keep in mind that sometimes the message can change. as the book trots along i am LEARNING myself, working out these thoughts on the page and coming to a conclusion of my own. this is actually VERY true of BURY YOUR GAYS, which is probably most autobiographical thing i have written. i will save talking about that MESSAGE and HIGH CONCEPT for after book is out though

EDIT FOR CLARITY OF MY WAY:

when i say i write MESSAGE FIRST that does not mean i think of the message first in TIME (although that does happen sometimes) it means the message is the most important thing over plot or characters or anything like that (although those are important too). it means that i write with message as my north star, which is rare, but it is how i make art

#writing #buckaroo lifestyle #chuck tingle

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danswideslit · 1 month

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slime video analysed thru horror with a queer pov

kay it gets its own post because im stil aaa bout it

This is just what I remember/was able to brush up on, since I studied this in 2019, so if anything is outdated I apologise, feel free to correct me, I love to learn!!

also I realized it has all become a lil rambly as I couldn’t contain my excitement soz

So this is my essay on the parallels of queerness in the horror genre and how DanAndPhilCRAFTS - Slime (2024) could be analysed in this light, especially given the creators’ personal history with the topic.

Among the classic tropes of the horror genre, is the topic of losing ones innocence.

Most emphasised is the loss of ones virginity, as a synonym for the innocence, although the innocence as such has many forms. As mentioned in Scream (1996), you may not survive if you have sex, if you drink/do drugs, or if you claim to “be right back” or in other ways investigate to satisfy your own curiosity.

The parallels to the christian church and societal norms are already obvious. If you deviate from the path of purity, it will lead to death and suffering. The only way to survive the night, is to stay pure. Do not be tempted by mere curiosities, for they will be the death of you, essentially.

In the same light, Baphomet is most often portrayed with characteristics from both the male and female human anatomy, and can be used as a metaphor for the inherent evil of gender expressions beyond the societal norm.

In the same light, monsters in various movies are often shown with a deviance in gender and/or sexuality. This role of ‘sexual outsider’ has, for years, been a symbolism that queer people have connected with. The has only further skewed the ‘stay pure’ narrative, as it brings on an ambience of kill or be killed. An either/or of sorts. But it has also made monsters and villains walk the line between sexy and terrifying, which naturally leads people to be enticed. We are sexual creatures afterall.

Often the monsters have an aura of masculine energy, as they make people cower, and the stereotypical jocks abandon their hardcore exterior. This, on one hand birthed the “the boyfriend is the killer” trope, but it also gave way for diving into morality, how many crimes can a villain get away with, as long as the character resonates with the audience.

This is demonstrated in Jennifers Body (2009) which was, at first, marketed to the male audience, making the monster Jennifer an attractive young woman, essentially getting the film marked as “Twilight for boys” by film critic Robert Ebert.

The ratings, however, were lackluster and claimed the movie was neither funny nor scary and thus was unsuccessful. Jennifer wasn’t “as hot as you’d hope she’d be” and essentially the “lesbians-for-the-male-gaze” marketing to boys 17+ failed.

However, many women and young girls between 17-25 saw the character of Jennifer as empowering and resonated with the film. My theory is that the men did not like being the victim, being killed my something that they are supposed to be worse than. But the women saw a strength in the conflict between what is essentially two sides of the same existence - on one hand the rage of the injustice and gender inequality, and on the other hand Needy, who follows every character trope connected to the “last girl standing.” Except even she is tainted in the end, killing Jennifer and losing her innocence. (more talk about innocence, murder/virginity bla bla bla, okay but this essay aint about that)

All this plays a role in how the queerness of DanAndPhilCRAFTS - slime (2024) can be interpreted. Throughout all four installments of the narrative, Dan is seen being guided by Phil and scolded when he doesn’t do it right. Phil seems not at all surprised when Dans glitter face turns satanic, and by the third video, Phil hands the control over as he gives himself away.

Essentially, the indoctrination of Dans role in Phils devotion is cult-like. Cults are often hidden behind a facade of “found family” before the true behind-the-scenes terror is revealed. Dan is evidently comfortable in letting a more experienced person guide the way, despite his own hesitance. He knows that he cant do this halfway.

also the idea of Phil rising from the dead, during Easter… Jesus Christ, where would we even begin (lol)

But beyond that symbolism, It is the hesitance in Dans nature that seems to point to the “purity being tainted” horror trope. Phils devotion to Him is evident, but Dan seems more so to be devoted to Phil. A follower. Believing whatever Phil believes to be true. A Billy and Stu, Scream situation, if you will. The subtext of two lovers and the blurred lines of love and death, which has been analysed and discussed a whole while by smarter people than me.

Dans hesitance to follow Phil guiding him to the other (queer) side. The penetrative stab and the menacing disarray of emotions on Dans face afterwards. This was anything but a selfish act, but he gave into the curiosity, he is not the last survivor, he has joined Him. This ritual was giving into love, without trying to contain, rationalise, or diminish any part of it.

(Kind of how like dan, selfproclaimidly, would still be a ‘Daniel in denial’ if Phil hadn’t come into his life, because Phil ‘led him astray’ but he’s very okay with it and he has embraced it, and he’s happier giving in instead of fighting it?? Too far??)

#dan #phil #dan and phil #dnp #daniel howell #amazingphil #danandphil #dan howell #dandandphilgames #danandphilcrafts

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rthko · 6 months

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Someone left this tag on one of my posts about bathhouses and the excellent addition from @drdemonprince and I have to say I'm touched. Bathhouses and other sex-on-premises establishments are discreet by their very nature, to protect their clientele and skirt around legal gray areas. But they're still here. They're not a relic of a naive time or a mistake to be rectified. Marcus Mccann wrote the following on the subject of park cruising, but it still applies here: "We cruised through winter. We cruised through police raids. We cruised through the AIDS crisis. Reagan is dead and we are still cruising." But it is true that bathhouses are not as common as they were in, say, the 70's. The catastrophe of AIDS did bring the promiscuous zeitgeist of the Gay Liberation era into question, but others have argued that it was this very promiscuity that helped queer people mobilize, educate, and build networks of support. Medicine and awareness regarding HIV have changed, but the ordinances in many cities have not caught up. If you hear less about them these days, there's often a reason.

Sex is at the center of an alleged generational war within the queer community, but this framing is misplaced. We might roll our eyes at talk of the "good old days," and sometimes we're right to. But older gays who talk this way are often expressing melancholia for a world, both real and imagined, that some would rather zone, gentrify, and police out of existence. Young adults are told that if the bars or the baths shut down, this is just the will of the free market, or the triumphant end of gay history. But we're sick of the apps. Many of us can't host, and we want more options than just "your place or mine." History finds a way.

I will not simply idealize the past, but José Esteban Muñoz describes queerness as an "ideality that can be distilled from the past and used to imagine a future." If marriage promised to temper gay sexuality, Grindr promised to privatize it. What if something else was possible? What if chemistry worked in different and unexpected ways when you're face to face and everything is right in front of you? What if it were easier to strike a conversation when there's no ice to break? What if this world had a growing place for trans men, men who would face language barriers in a bar setting, and in some venues people who aren't men to begin with? It might not be utopian, it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but there is something to be said for pleasure possibilities that have been wrongfully declared obsolete. If any of this sounds appealing, go for it.

#this is the post for which I accidentally posted a premature draft. sorry about that

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olderthannetfic · 5 days

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https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/749847926364307456/confession-time-i-shipped-reylo-when-the-force#notes

Maybe it's bc I never got into Star Wars bc I'm not a big fan of sci-fi, but I'm fairly certain that Reylo was the cishettiest cis het ship to ever set sail in the cis sea, riding the het waves of the cishetero straights.

Like, that ship seems to be a staple with cishet hetero-cis young adult YA authors. I've probably seen more rewritten cishet Reylo fanfics with the serial number filled off to become #original works than any other fanfic cishet ship in a long time. Last one was Twilight Edward Bella I think.

Like that ship seems to be the staple of the cishetero foundation of todays cishetero YA market for better or for much worse. It's like the bodice ripper Fabio trashy romance, but for women under 35-50 year old. That ship was probably the most cishet coded ship I've seen in some time with any notoriety, with how it basically falls into every classic and rigid cishet romance trope, and seems to blossom in that garden of straightness. I mean, I don't think all the writers are cishet, but with that ship you you can try to take it out of its cishet story and try and make it queer, but you can't take the actual cishetness out of the it. The rainbow don't shine on them, to say it nicely, no matter how much it rains.

Yeah, it's a quintessential Wattpad ship of a certain type.

A lot of the pull-to-publish ventures I've seen in recent years are run by Reylos girlbossing their way to a writing career. (Like, not just individuals pulling to publish but people trying to start their own presses or apps or whatever.)

I saw TFA in the theater because friends wanted to go. I like fake death and Finn and Poe were hella hot, so I was marginally interested, but I really don't care that much about Star Wars. I only ended up in the fandom because 1. Finn and Poe are hot, as I said and 2. I got pissed about some bullying.

Anyway, we got to the scene where Kylo is leaning over Rey in all his uninspiring... uh... glory. And my friend hears this tween girl in the row ahead of us let out an "Ohhhh."

In the words of my friend: "Someone just became a woman today!"

That little girl and her audible italics are what I associate with Reylo to this day.

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waitmyturtles · 7 months

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THE MORNING AFTER: ONLY FRIENDS, EPISODE 12 -- WHEN ONLY FRIENDS GOT 2GETHER-ED

TRIGGER WARNING: EVERYONE'S UP FOR CRITICISM HERE, JOJO AND TEAM, FORCEBOOK, FIRSTKHAO, ALL OF THEM. Read at your peril.

Well. Big deep breaths. I spent a lot of time on a show that had been marketed as not-a-BL, that ended as a BL. As a mom with not that much time to spend on watching and writing on dramas that were marketed incorrectly, I am feeling some kinda way (fucking pissed off).

So many people had amazing takes yesterday, on both sides of the aisle, regarding how the show ended (pro-ending here, anti-ending here, here, here, here, here, and here, and my dear friends @neuroticbookworm and @lurkingshan did heavy lifting on reblogs yesterday, so stroll on over to their blogs for more).

I want to set up a constellation of points to touch upon before I get into the meat of this post.

1) I referred quite a bit to my review of Theory of Love throughout my watch of Only Friends. In that review, I meditate on how the majority of the general global public judges sex, and casual sex, and people who have sex and/or casual sex. Generally speaking -- even in countries that makes as progressive art on sex and sexuality as Thailand and the United States -- that's a rule of thumb that I can rely on. Sex is judged by the majority of the global public.

2) I hate to say it. I cannot believe this happened. But I was right about monogamy being an ultimate theme in Only Friends. Not just a theme, fam. A theme by which people judged others for having open, casual, and consensual sex. Queer sex. Queer sex that is so very often had outside of the constraints of a monogamous relationship.

There was a reason why that holiday party was populated by couples, except for Boston, and Boston had to grovel to them in apology for their friendship. In Only Friends: monogamy wins, and casual queer sex loses.

3) Unfortunately, in part though an analysis of Cheum inside of last week that I accidentally started (ha), I see that points 1 and 2 come together to have created a fabric and framework of judgement that Only Friends ended on.

The last paragraph in this excellent post by @benkaaoi notes that the assumption by a large portion of the OF fandom that the creative choices that were made to end this series were designed to save the sanctity -- economic and otherwise -- of the shipped pairs of ForceBook and FirstKhao. This rings true to me.

Most of the BL shows that I've watched this year are older shows, through my Old GMMTV Challenge, in which I've been studying the changes over time that GMMTV and other Thai networks, have made towards their editorial choices, attitudes, and risks in producing BLs. I included Only Friends on this syllabus to note the show's impact as a kind of zeitgeist measure of how much heat and literary controversy GMMTV could take in airing increasingly progressive queer media -- even though Only Friends wasn't originally intended to be a BL.

To the theory that Only Friends needed to save the ships... and to another theory that the ships needed to be saved in the most moralistically judgmental way that I could have ever imagined (I was actually blown away by how heavy-handed this messaging was) -- I look to the ending of 2gether.

The majority general reaction to the ending of 2gether from within the existing BL fandom in 2020, was one of guffawed incredulousness. BrightWin/SarawatTine did not kiss in the first season of 2gether. It took Aof Noppharnach to come in to make Still 2gether to indicate that these two young men may have been at least vaguely sexual with each other throughout the course of their fictional relationship.

Yet, 2gether was a massive success. Many theorize it was because 2gether was the first big BL to air during the start of the COVID pandemic, and new BL fans had time to be at home and watch shows. But I posit in my 2gether/Still 2gether review that 2gether was also successful PRECISELY BECAUSE IT LACKED SEX (and by sex here, I mean plain old kissin').

As I stated earlier: sex is judged by the majority of the global public. With BrightWin NOT kissing, new fans who may have been implicitly and/or explicitly turned off by physical depictions of queer love could glom comfortably onto 2gether, and watch a BL without the "threat" of physical depictions of two men expressing their love to each other.

Subsequently, BrightWin gained massive social media followings, 2gether made GMMTV buckets of money, and GMMTV went -- well, hot diggity.

Many of us had impressions of Only Friends as...something else than it ended up being. Early on, Jojo Tichakorn, for instance, cited an early non-GMMTV, non-BL show, Gay OK Bangkok, that he and Aof Noppharnach worked on in 2016 and 2017, as being referential to Only Friends. Gay OK Bangkok centered on a group of queer friends, mostly cisgender men with Jennie Panhan in the mix, as they lived their lives and dated away in Bangkok.

I'll tell ya, GOKB didn't end the way Only Friends did, and I'll get into that more in a bit. I believe @benkaaoi, @lurkingshan, and others are absolutely right that the ultimate moralization on casual sex that this show depicted -- and how Only Friends punished Boston for his casual sex -- was an economic decision designed to reflect on the sanctity of monogamy that shipped couples like ForceBook and FirstKhao can sell back to their fans, fans that may have actually flocked to GMMTV shows from 2gether, and that demand a fantasy of devoted monogamy from both fictional characters and professional actors who are actually only just doing fan service to earn their livings. GMMTV has known for a long time how to make money, and money the network doth has made from Only Friends, and from shipping their ships around the world to service the growing fandom.

Casual sex in fiction, casual sex that breaks up the ships.... fucks that economic shit all up.

GMMTV has taught us our lesson, a lesson that we had already learned from the no-kissing rule of 2gether. Loose lips shall not sink ships at this network. And I think we lost a chance for a big and progressively artistic zeitgeist that GMMTV could have taken risks on, if it had the courage to risk depicting something truly novel.

I want to note quickly another framework that I dug into while I was watching this show. I sent a flare to @lurkingshan before I started watching the episode that I was going to, in part, watch this last episode from my personal Asian lens. I wanted to ask myself, as I was watching this disaster -- is there anything happening here that strikes my heart with fear and doom as an Asian?

Indeed, yes. I didn't expect it, but there was a dialogue on individualism vs. collectivism.

Boston. My dear, sweet Boston. Boston, named after a city so very distant from Bangkok.

Boston was punished by his group of friends because he didn't adhere to the rules of the group. His individualistic actions and preferences -- his preferences to "roll alone," as Nick stated, would not work in the frameworks of either monogamy with Nick and/or the group dynamics of the hostel crew.

The link I linked above is an amazing answer to an inquiry I posed to dear @absolutebl last year about how Asian social collectivist paradigms are depicted in BLs. In that question-and-answer dialogue, I asked ABL Sensei about the motif of queer revelations in BLs, and how seemingly straight characters respond in kind to being approached with a proposition to a queer dalliance and/or relationship. Generally speaking, the Asian collectivist mindset is to at least attempt to respond in kind to those kinds of propositions, as one's behavioral habits are designed to be responsive to others instinctually, as opposed to only servicing oneself. To only service oneself is not only seen as selfish, but also as disturbing to the general flow of public existence among one's societies. To respond in kind means that you will not cause potentially disturbing angst to another individual or group. (Collectivism explains why Asian countries performed much better with mask mandates during the pandemic than we in the States did.)

So -- Boston filming Ray, Boston sleeping with Top, created waves in the friend group. He was so severely punished for it.

And the show iterates, and repeats, Nick's preference that Boston move forward alone in Boston's life, because of Boston's tendencies to make decisions that suit himself. As an Asian-American, I mutter to myself: god forbid.

Nick will not commit to Boston -- and yet, will also condemn Boston for making his own decisions outside of the specter of a monogamy that does not exist between Nick and Boston, and that Boston will still get judged for, as referenced in the Sand/Nick conversation depicted above.

In other words: if Boston makes a decision for himself? That's punishable. Because it might hurt someone else's feelings -- a someone else that actually hasn't committed to Boston, and/or allowed Boston to commit himself to.

This group caught Boston in a moralistic and collectivist catch-22, the likes of which I just would have never expected from Jojo and team, even if the creative team faced the economic pressures of the GMMTV bigwigs. I'm sorry to state that I am beyond disappointed in this condemnation of individualism, sending Boston alone, judged, and friendless, off to New York City to live in, what, the immoral boundaries of Chelsea? Homey, get a fucking SWEET-ASS PAD, and FUCK THESE LOSERS, leave 'em BEHIND in your cloud of airplane gas emissions. See you at the La Quinta rooftop bar on 32nd Street, friendo.

Only Friends could have ended so much better. And I understand that in the Only Friends novel, published AFTER the script was finished, that it did end somewhat better for Boston (cc @jinitak, reporting from Thailand, thank you for this heads-up about the novel!).

So. Any-fucking-way. Do y'all know how Gay OK Bangkok ended?

Of many lovely endings for the various GOKB characters, an older main character, Aof, was dating a much younger character, Big. (CC to @neuroticbookworm for our quick convo on this last night.)

Aof was sex-averse. Big wanted lots of sex. Big slept with a lot of people. He loved Aof. Aof couldn't handle Big having sex with other people, and they broke up. It was a lovingly handled break-up, written just gorgeously by Aof Noppharnach.

After their break-up, I thought Big would disappear from the show. Instead. Instead! Nong Big, the little brother to the core group of queer friends that centered GOKB, was welcomed back with open arms. Arm, Pom, Sathang (played by an effervescent Jennie Panhan), and others toasted to Big, telling him he would always be family, no matter if him and his ex, Aof, had broken up. In the queer circles of friends that I'm a part of, exes are not as commonly excommunicated as they are in straight circles.

Only Friends could have been this. Something, a little something, like this.

Instead, Only Friends punished a friend for acting outside of the rules of their group.

Boston was punished because.... because Only Friends had to end up being a BL. For the sake of the moolah, for the sake of collectivism, for the sake of the shippers who'll buy tickets around the world to see ForceBook and FirstKhao perform fan service on stage.

I just didn't think that the show would be so brutal, on so many levels, in the end, to people who want to have casual sex. I don't think any of us expected this. But, it's over, it's done, and the piece has been said -- GMMTV said, no casual sex today, and here's how we actually feel about it.

I'll see you over on Gagaoolala for Playboyy. Deuces, OF.

(It was an absolute pleasure writing meta with the Ephemerality Squad -- onto the next one! @lurkingshan @neuroticbookworm @ranchthoughts @twig-tea @slayerkitty @thatgirl4815 @distant-screaming @clara-maybe-ontheroad)

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tangibletechnomancy · 5 months

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Neural Nets, Walled Gardens, and Positive Vibes Only

the crystal spire at the center of the techno-utopian walled garden

Anyone who knows or even just follows me knows that as much as I love neural nets, I'm far from being a fan of AI as a corporate fad. Despite this, I am willing to use big-name fad-chasing tools...sometimes, particularly on a free basis. My reasons for this are twofold:

Many people don't realize this, but these tools are more expensive for the companies to operate than they earn from increased interest in the technology. Using many of these free tools can, in fact, be the opposite of "support" at this time. Corporate AI is dying, use it to kill it faster!

You can't give a full, educated critique of something's flaws and failings without engaging with it yourself, and I fully intend to rip Dall-E 3, or more accurately the companies behind it, a whole new asshole - so I want it to be a fair, nuanced, and most importantly personally informed new asshole.

Now, much has already been said about the biases inherent to current AI models. This isn't a problem exclusive to closed-source corporate models; any model is only as good as its dataset, and it turns out that people across the whole wide internet are...pretty biased. Most major models right now, trained primarily on the English-language internet, present a very western point of view - treating young conventionally attractive white people as a default at best, and presenting blatantly misinformative stereotypes at worst. While awareness of the issue can turn it into a valuable tool to study those biases and how they intertwine, the marketing and hype around AI combined with the popular idea that computers can't possibly be biased tends to make it so they're likely to perpetuate them instead.

This problem only gets magnified when introduced to my mortal enemy-

If I never see this FUCKING dog again it will be too soon-

Content filters.

Theoretically, content filters exist to prevent some of the worst-faith uses of AI - deepfakes, true plagiarism and forgery, sexual exploitation, and more. In practice, many of them block anything that can be remotely construed as potentially sexual, violent, or even negative in any way. Frequently banned subjects include artistic nudity or even partial nudity, fight scenes, anything even remotely adjacent to horror, and still more.

The problems with this expand fractally.

While the belief that AI is capable of supplanting all other art forms, let alone should do so, is...far less widespread among its users than the more reactionary subset of its critics seem to believe (and in fact arguably less common among AI users than non-users in the first place; see again: you cannot give a full, educated critique of something's failings without engaging with it yourself), it's not nonexistent - and the business majors who have rarely if ever engaged with other forms of art, who make up a good percentage of the executives of these companies, often do fall on that side, or at least claim to in order to make more sales (but let's keep the lid on that can of worms for now).

When this ties to existing online censorship issues, such as a billionaire manchild taking over Twitter to "help humanity" (read: boost US far-right voices and promote and/or redefine hate speech), or arcane algorithms on TikTok determining what to boost and deboost leading to proliferation of neologisms to soften and obfuscate "sensitive" subjects (of which "unalive" is frequently considered emblematic), including such horrible, traumatizing things as...the existence of fat people, disabled people, and queer people (where the censorship is claimed to be for their benefit, no less!), the potential impact is apparent: while the end goal is impossible, in part because AI is not, in fact, capable of supplanting all other forms of art, what we're seeing is yet another part of a continuing, ever more aggressive push for sanitizing what kinds of ideas people can express at all, with the law looking to only make it worse rather than better through bills such as KOSA (which you can sign a petition against here).

And just like the other forms of censorship before and alongside it, AI content filtering targets the most vulnerable in society far more readily than it targets those looking to harm them. The filters have no idea what makes something an expression of a marginalized identity vs. what makes it a derogatory statement against that group, or an attempt at creating superficially safe-for-work fetish art - so, they frequently err on the side of removing anything uncertain. Boys in skirts and dresses are frequently blocked, presumably because they're taken for fetish art. Results of prompts about sadness or loneliness are frequently blocked, presumably because they may promote self harm, somehow. In my (admittedly limited) experiment, attempts at generating dark-skinned characters were blocked more frequently than attempts at generating light-skinned ones, presumably because the filter decided that it was racist to [checks notes] ...acknowledge that a character has a different skin tone than the default white characters it wanted to give me. Facial and limb differences are often either erased from results, or blocked presumably on suspicion of "violent content".

But note that I say "presumably" - the error message doesn't say on what grounds the detected images are "unsafe". Users are left only to speculate on what grounds we're being warned.

But what makes censorship of AI generated work even more alarming, in the context of the executive belief that it can render all other art forms obsolete, is that other forms of censorship only target where a person can say such earth-shaking, controversial things as "I am disabled and I like existing" or "I am happy being queer" or "mental health is important" or "I survived a violent crime" - you can be prevented from posting it on TikTok, but not from saying it to a friend next to you, let alone your therapist. AI content filtering, on the other hand, aims to prevent you from expressing it at all.

This becomes particularly alarming when you recall one of the most valuable use cases for AI generation: enabling disabled people to express themselves more clearly, or in new forms. Most people can find other workarounds in the form of more conventional, manual modes of expression, sure, but no amount of desperation can reverse hand paralysis that prevents a person from holding a pen, nor a traumatic brain injury or mental disability that blocks them from speaking or writing in a way that's easy to understand. And who is one of the most frequently censored groups? Disabled people.

So, my question to Bing and OpenAI is this: in what FUCKING universe is banning me from expressing my very existence "protecting" me?

Bad dog! Stop breaking my shit and get the FUCK out of my way!

Generated as a gift for a friend who was even more frustrated with that FUCKING dog than I was

All images - except the FUCKING dog - generated with Dall-E 3 via Bing Image Creator, under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

#ai art #generated art #i want to make a stress toy out of that dog #i want to make a squishy stretchy plush toy #with weighted beans so it makes a satisfying THUNK when you throw it at the fucking wall #you did it you bastards you made a dog problematic

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melanielocke · 10 months

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Book recommendations: queer adult SFF

It's been a while since I did one of these posts but I'm thinking of doing more regularly. I have read a lot more new books that I hope some of you will pick up and I've made another selection. I'm reading more and more adult SFF lately because lots of YA is getting a little too young for me. But I also find that transitioning to reading more adult can be difficult, and it's not always easy to find what you're looking for. I found YA a far easier market to navigate, so I figured I'd make a post featuring some of my favorite adult SFF books.

The Unbroken & the Faithless I read recently.

This is a trilogy, with book 3 coming out most likely in 2025? Not sure actually. The series focuses on Touraine and Luca. Touraine is a conscript in the Balladaire army, stolen from her homeland and trained to fight from a young age. She is originally from Qazal, a country colonized by Balladaire, but doesn't speak their language or understand their customs. In the first book, she returns home for the first time since she was taken, to stop a Qazali rebellion.

Luca is the princess of Balladaire. Her parents both died when she was young, and her uncle is ruling as regent, refusing to allow her to be crowned Queen until she proves herself. She too is sent to deal with the Qazali rebellion. What makes Luca interesting is that she often means well and is definitely more benevolent towards the Qazali, but she's also very power hungry and wants her throne, and no matter how much she does to help the Qazali she is still the princess of the empire that colonized them, and the author continues to hold her accountable for her role in the empire and some of the choices she makes.

Luca is also disabled, she injured her leg when she was young and uses a cane.

There is a sapphic romance between Luca and Touraine. It is not really the focus on the series but at the same time it is what shapes much of the negotiating between them since Luca has a very obvious soft spot for Touraine and Touraine has to use that to improve things for Qazal.

The world is inspired by North Africa and French colonialism (in Balladaire they speak French so I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be France), and the author themself is Black and North African. The series as a whole is very political.

Next is Notorious Sorcerer by Davinia Evans

This is the first in a duology (I think?) with book 2 coming out this November.

This is set in a world where there are four different planes, and Siyon is a poor man who can delve into the different planes to get ingredients for wealthier alchemists. He wants to be an alchemist himself but can't afford the education. There's also the problem of magic being technically illegal, which means rich people can do alchemy but poor people can't.

Then one day Siyon accidently unleashes wild magic and is thrust into the world of alchemists where he wants to belong but doesn't. And there's also the matter of the four planes being instable and at risk of collapsing, and Siyon might be the only one capable of stopping it.

Siyon is bi/pan and his main love interest is a man, though this is not the main focus of the series.

Then Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

I think I had this one last time too, but not enough people are reading it so I'm going to discuss it again.

Check out the summary, but honestly not sure if that does it justice. Some Desperate Glory is the story of a girl who grew up in a fascist cult and was raised to believe in everything this cult stands for.

The earth was destroyed before she was born, and the Majo, aliens, were responsible. Kyr has been training her entire life for revenge. She wants nothing more than to be the perfect soldier for earth. As a result, she is a terrible person and everyone hates her.

Kyr first starts questioning Gaea station when she is assigned nursery to have babies even though she is the best fighter in her mess. When her brother disappears, she teams up with his friend Avi, a queer genius who works with the station's systems and was always aware of how fucked up Gaea station is. They discover Magnus has been sent on a suicide mission and go after him, and Kyr is confronted with the outside world, including a Majo she grows close to, and has to unlearn everything Gaea station taught her.

This book has a difficult to stomach mc at first, though it is very obvious what she believes is not what you as the reader are supposed to think. But there is some wonderful character development going on in here. It's hard for her to change, and she's thrown into lots of difficult situations before she gets there, but in the end you can see she's nothing like the person she was before.

There's an amazing cast of side characters, though not a very big cast. There's her twin brother Magnus who never wanted to be a soldier and is actually very depressed, which Kyr never noticed. Yiso, the cute non binary alien Kyr develops a weak spot for even before she comes to realize Majo are people. And my personal favorite, Avi, who is an unhinged little guy who is way too smart for his own good. He's a great example of how a cult can affect different people in different ways. He doesn't believe in Gaea station like Kyr does and is aware of how fucked up he is, he experienced that first hand as the only visible queer person on the station. But he did internalize their messages of revenge and violence which plays out in interesting ways.

This edition is the Illumicrate edition of the book from April's box, which has the UK cover.

Witch King by Martha Wells is next

This is a confusing book for people who do not have a lot of experience reading adult fantasy. It has a lot of world building that is explained gradually, the book doesn't really hold your hand, so be prepared for that.

Kai is a body hopping demon. He has been betrayed, killed and entombed under water. When he is freed by a lesser mage hoping to hone his power, he kills them and frees himself and his friend, the witch Ziede.

Together, they have to uncover what happened to them, who betrayed them and what is going on with the Rising World coalition. He's not going to like the answers.

Alternating is a past timeline in which Kai and his band of allies rebel against the tyrannical rule of the Hierophants, which happened decades before the present timeline.

The strenght of this book is really in the characters and how they grow and the bonds they have with each other. I loved the relationship between Kai and Bashasa, who is the rebel leader in the past timeline in particular. It's not quite clear what the nature of their relationship was, though it is implied to be romantic and I do think Kai is supposed to be queer. He is a body hopping demon after all, and spends his early life in the body of a girl. There's also a sapphic side pairing between Zieden and her wife Tahren, who they spent much of the present timeline looking for.

The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach

This is a science fantasy set in a world inspired by New Zealand and Maori (I think? The author is Maori and a trans woman herself)

The main character is a police officer from a poor background who believes she's making the world better for people like her. She's already been demoted for being queer but believes she can make the police force better from the inside.

Then she's murdered by fellow officers and thrown into the harbor. Unfortunately for them, she comes back from the dead with new magic powers.

She teams up with a pirate crew with similar powers and has to stop a plague from being unleashed on her city.

This book focuses on how police functions in many modern societies to protect the wealthy and harm and restrict poorer, non white communities. The main character doesn't believe this at first but it's obvious to the reader that they're not helping anyone doing their job. Next book is coming out next year.

Last is the Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

Two books are out and book 3 is coming sometime in 2024.

This series is set in a world inspired by India. Priya is a maidservant with a secret. She is one of the few surviving temple children and still has some powers from being once born.

Malini is the princess of Parijatdvipa, the empire that conquered Priya's land. Her religious zealot brother has taken the throne and imprisons Malini because she refuses to be burned alive.

Priya is one of the maidservants sent to take care of Malini in her prison, which is the old temple where Priya grew up. Together, they can change the fate of an empire, but they can never quite trust each other.

This is a sapphic fantasy with magic but also lots of politics and I think if you like this series you'd also like the Unbroken and vice versa. I've talked about this one before but it should definitely be included on a list for adult fantasy.

I hope you can find something you like on here. All these books are not super well known and deserve a bigger audience

@alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @astriefer @justanormaldemon @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @amchara @all-for-the-fanfiction @imsoftforthomastair @ddepressedbookworm @queenlilith43 @wagner-fell @cant-think-of-anything @laylax13s @tessherongraystairs @boredfangirl16 @artist-in-soul @aliandtommy @ikissedsmithparker

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alasse-earfalas · 10 months

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Let’s clear some things up.

"omg you hate queer people!!"

No, we don't. There's several queer people in the server and we've all gotten along just fine, in fact we've had some wonderful conversations discussing our different views. The reason we marketed our server as a “conservative Christian server” is because that’s primarily who we’re trying to find. Other people with different beliefs and ways of life are welcome to join so long as they’re respectful.

"but you said you're anti-Pride!!"

Admittedly, this was due to a misunderstanding of what that term means to a lot of people. The "pride movement" and LGBT people are not the same thing to me. Clearly they are to a lot of people, so I understand the confusion. I used this terminology because I’ve seen others in the LGBT community make this distinction in terms, but I understand now that this distinction is not as widespread as I thought it was.

Allow me to clarify: When I say we "don't support the Pride movement", I'm talking specifically about the political movement that advocates for giving porn to young kids in school, putting them through medical procedures they are too young to consent to, and viciously attacking, harassing, and silencing anyone who brings up concerns about these things. Obviously this is not all of the LGBT community, nor would I ever insinuate that. But it is a very vocal and nasty subset of it, and it's a subset we want nothing to do with.

"queered into oblivion"

If it's wrong to straightwash queer characters (and I believe that it is), then it's wrong to queerwash straight characters. Many of the Links are canonically straight in the games, and all of them are portrayed as straight in LU (I don't have the time to go into all the evidence for this right now, but it's there if you look). If you want more queer representation in media—which is totally valid!—go make your own queer characters and give them an engaging story. I've seen it done and it's great! Queerwashing established characters is lazy, disrespectful, and just as offensive as straightwashing. So we're not allowing that in our server.

"youre banning people just because they're queer!! I was banned and I didn't break any of the rules!"

If we banned people just for being queer, we wouldn't have any queer people in the server, and I've already debunked that.

As for the second point: Yes, I have banned people wrongly and I apologize for that. This is largely thanks to a constant bombardment of malicious trolls, many of whom pretend to come to us with good intentions, only to wreak havoc once they're granted access to the server. So I am being a bit overzealous with the ban hammer at the moment because we've been burned too many times. It's hard to tell anymore who wants to have a civil discussion and who's just biding their time. If you feel you were banned wrongfully, please reach out to me in dms and we can discuss the matter.

Another quick point I want to make is that our current server rules are due for revision. Now that we've spent some time open to the public, we have a better understanding of what kinds of rules our server needs. So, yes, we're not going to be strictly sticking to our rules right now because we're in the process of tweaking them. I understand that’s frustrating but there’s only so much we can juggle at once.

"the people in your server are so mean! You don't even talk about loz stuff!"

It's kinda hard to relax and nerd out with your buddies when raiders are lighting your house on fire. We've been burned and we're on edge. I won't ask for anyone in the server to be excused for bad behavior, but I will ask for patience.

Part of the reason I'm bothering to write this whole thing out in the first place is so we can stop repeating ourselves on these points. Many of the trolls we've dealt with have started out "respectfully disagreeing" with us only to turn nasty and crude. So now whenever there's a disagreement, it puts everyone on edge.

Before we opened this server up to the public it was just a private little place for me and some friends, and we all happened to share similar beliefs so it turned into a bit of an echo chamber. Please don’t take our old conversations as representative of the current people in the server. We did talk about LoZ stuff, and we still do, but we’ve also got two general chats and a place to discuss controversial topics. And, as I already mentioned, we’re a little preoccupied with the trolling situation.

Now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, here’s a non-exhaustive sampling of what we’ve been dealing with over the past few days:

typical troll spam: inappropriate images, death threats, etc.

sleeper trolls: people who come into the server pretending to be there in good faith in order to gain access to the server, and then wreaking havoc. Several of these have been… obnoxiously “Christian”, to the point where I was in the middle of typing up a “knock it off” message when they decided to oust themselves.

false accusations and even outright lies from people on tumblr who’ve “checked out” the server and then left. Idk why people do this. We’ve been baselessly accused of antisemitism among other things.

vicious asks about this issue sent to tumblr blogs who have no affiliation with our server.

I’d like to point out here that for being such a “hateful” server, none of the mods (I can’t speak for the other people in the server obviously) have ever done any of this, to anyone, nor would we. I’ve spoken about people using their (real or perceived) victim status as a cudgel to beat others with, and this is a fine example of that. You wonder why we’re trying to make a safe space? Because this is what happens when we share what we believe. You claim we have “institutional power” or whatever and yet we can’t set up and advertise a freaking discord server without people going on a witch hunt.

I have had a few people reach out to me in kindness, and I want to let those people know that it’s really meant a lot to me. I expected trolls and some lashback but the maliciousness has been something else. I’m sorry to anyone on tumblr who’s been attacked over this, I don’t know why people are going after blogs that have no affiliation with this server, it’s disgraceful and disgusting.

Hopefully what I’ve written here clears up some of the misunderstandings. We appreciate anyone who’s willing to hear us out rather than jumping to conclusions. Take care everyone.

#linkeduniverse #linked universe #lu #discord server

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vanquishedvaliant · 2 years

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If the gayness can be denied it can just as easily be called queerbaiting. Text (and subtext) is less impactful and meaningful than action, even in the right direction. I think if gay people say it's not good enough isn't that an indication that it isn't good enough or enough for them to feel represented?

No.

There’s been a concept in social media activism that the primary perceived value of queer content in media is how loudly it demonstrates inclusion of a particular identity, and a lot of popular media gets judged solely on this aspect, like it’s checking off a tickbox for binary approval.

A kiss has been chosen by many of these circles to be the most concrete binary proof you can have for a character’s queer sexuality, but putting aside the fact that many identities don’t benefit from that at all; (theoretically a bi person would have to kiss 2 different genders to ‘prove’ themselves this way, why would a trans person kissing anyone prove anything, asexual or aromantic obviously inapplicable, etc) w

It’s simply incorrect that text is less impactful than “action”, given that media is Text. The Text is what comprises its “action” and what it’s statement of intent is. A kiss is not action, a kiss is Text. A gay character that does kiss or meets whatever satisfaction the audience deems for “representation” is still a creation of Text as much as a gay character that never kisses anyone. There’s no separation there. This wholesale disregard of theme and meaning of text and subtext in fiction and instead only approving media-friendly headline screenshots is one of the greatest tragedies of modern popular culture.

Treating the ‘undeniable’ existence of a queer character as “action” and “representation’ and not examining the actual context of their inclusion and what the story says about their identity, their lives, and their experiences is how you get Disney’s First Gay Character popping up in the news twice a year- it’s become more important for the headlines to State that you have one than for them to actually be important or meaningfully written, or for the story to have anything to say about the character or their lives. At this point of popular social media understanding, Queerbaiting simply does not mean what people have begun to use it to describe. Queerbaiting was intended to refers to deliberate marketing attempts to accrue viewership by over-promising the presence or importance of queer content to Bait in queer viewers hoping to be included. The key part of Queerbaiting is the intentional misdirection here, and because of that there is a very important distinction between queer subtext that is created to build intentional undertones and that which is included specifically to tease and entice viewers with the promise of more.

Many anime shows that people accuse of queerbaiting are doing exactly the opposite; in the case of Flip Flappers the overwhelming Text of the story is largely and centrally focused on the burgeoning sexuality of a young girl as she grows up and realizes that what her heart desires may conflict with expectations set by herself, her family, and society at large. That remains true through to the end of the story where she makes a breakthrough in her understanding of herself and her place in life and her sexuality is a major part of that.

A kiss is not at all required for this, but because there isn’t one people somehow become convinced that the story is “baiting” them desptie the actual meat of the story itself being fundamentally about being queer. Now, there’s definitely room for subjective differences in appreciation here, especially taking more Yuri works as a whole (particular Slice of Life), in which many of them do place their queer undertones as a less central tenet that aren’t deeply explored. I’m not saying that you as an individual can’t feel that you’re not satisfied without a more substantial story; but it doesn’t mean these stories have Failed in their role of Representation; they still have value and purpose whether they meet that shallow criteria or not. And it doesn’t mean that they aren’t Real and these characters aren’t quite obviously gay to anyone paying even the slightest attention.

What I’m actually hearing most of the time is that people consider the capital r Representation buzzword to tick off a box of “HAS LESBIAN” to be more important to them than actually reading a Story about gay people that has something meaningful to say; Add further to this deeper disqualifying factors restricting death, tragedy, “unhealthy” relationships, etc. And you quickly begin to cut down the number of stories you accept to only those which portray a superficial, consumer-friendly veneer of queerness.

This is in itself a sanitization of Queer identity that doesn’t celebrate or represent anyone; it’s selling an idea of Queerness that is clean, palatable, easily accessed.

That’s simply not enough to satisfy me, and it shouldn’t be for you either.

#vivi original #i have more to say but im tired of writing this

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