Sushi Tushi

Wisdom of the day, presented by Tyrael

reference under the cut

Waiting for a post that's like:

Grace: "I'm kinda nervous to meet Adrian..."

Rocky: "Grace already met Adrian."

Grace: "What???"

Rocky: "Adrian is ground Grace stands on right now."

Page 33

hoooo buddy this one is a three-fer. i couldn't fit everything i wanted on the dual pages and adding a whole other double page felt like a lot, ergo: 3 of them

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close ups \/

Two people do not decide that they are "courting". One person decides to "court" someone else. It's an action, not a stage in the relationship. A man decides to court a woman because he wants to encourage her to have romantic interest in him. He's trying to win her favor. It's not an exclusive relationship--a woman could be courted by multiple men at once. She'll spend time getting to know the guy who's interested in her, but they won't officially define their relationship as one where they only show romantic interest in each other. If they reach a point where they want it to be exclusive, that's when you propose.

bizarrely, America has in many ways gotten more conservative about dating since World War II.

And like there was no permanent cast, all these celebrities seem to have gotten a scene or part of a scene to do (i’m not sure exactly, I did not ever watch Quibi and thus haven’t seen this yet), and then they just… recreated it as best they could. At home. Under quarantine.

So like, you had Jennifer Garner in a blanket cape playing Princess Buttercup AND the Booing Old Woman with a crowd comprised entirely of stuffed animals:

Or Taika Waititi paying Westley off a badly-drawn Inigo on a piece of cardboard held in front of someone’s face:

And it’s all just delightful.

But my absolute favorite part of this thing that I’ve sadly never seen but assume is probably absolutely hilarious and a treasure and I want to find it some day and watch the whole thing… is that Carey Elwes is in it.

As Prince Fucking Humperdink.

Here ya go

Fanfiction is more difficult to turn into money than fanart, that much is true, but it's not impossible as such—just look at the recent wave of authors who managed to score traditional publishing deals off the success of mediocre, but popular fanficion. "Filing off the serial numbers" is not a new thing by any stretch and for a lot of scammers, lying for clout is just a step towards lying for money. There is a lot of fiction being generated and I personally would not be surprised if at least some of that fanfiction was used as a testing ground for models before they start generating "original fiction" they can then try and sell on Amazon and fuck if I know where else.

Not saying that everyone using genAI has an ulterior motive, but most of them do and the fanfiction spaces are no different. Just think of all the spam comments accusing various stories of being genAI; I don't remember if it was confirmed or not, but it was theorized that the goal was to scare people into feeding their fics into various "AI checkers" so the models can be improved further. How about that other scam that is trying to tempt fic authors into messaging them on other social medias so they could sell them scam "fanart" for their fic or outright steal their information? Whatever the reason behind the various generated spam comments, it's never to anybody's benefit, even if it's not immediately obvious what their angle is.

It's much harder to identify generated text than generated images, especially in a space with a lot of amateur and ESL writers, but I don't think that means that we should just shrug and let the matter go. "If you suspect something popular is genAI, but it's not disclosed (or the author is outright denying it) then just hit back and pretend you've never seen anything" is well-meaning advice on the face of it, but if you start insisting the same when somebody creates a tool that can reliably show the presence of claudeAI generated text then you are providing an implicit way in for the worst kind of scummy slop merchants using kindness as a smokescreen. You are playing devil's advocate for the kind of people we've been trying to keep out of fandom because they benefit nobody but themselves and ruin things for everybody else.

"If even one person gives up on writing because of a false accusation then it's not worth calling out genAI." It sucks that this is the world we are living in, but this is the equivalent of insisting that we shouldn't call out tracers, art thieves and plagiarists because what if somebody gives up on art because of a false accusation. I'm sorry, you need to be able to move past the rude comment or the groundless accusation, because you will hear much meaner things out in the real world and I know it hurts if it happens in a hobby space, but if it wasn't about AI then it would be about something else.

The cat swings like a sausage link as Garrus makes for the door, its body stretched and elongated as its back feet paddle uselessly in the air. It lets out a pathetic yowl to let him know how it feels about being handled in such away. “An undignified insult,” it seems to say.

“Here,” he says, thrusting the creature out at the woman, elbows locked.

“Oh thank god!” she says, and takes the creature into her arms.

Strange, he thinks, she cradles it as if it were an infant.

She buries her nose into the top of its head, then takes a long inhale. Only now does he notice the woman’s thickly lined eyes, rimmed in black makeup so they’re just as sly and tapered as the cat’s.

“How did you even get in there?” she asks.

“No idea. I just came home and there it was,” he replies. “Scratched me pretty good when I came around the corner.”

He feels for the wound and idly wonders whether he needs to get it looked at. He’s liable to catch some rare disease or suffer an intractable infection, not unreasonable concerns when it comes to encountering new alien species. (Note to self: read up on “cats”.)

“Must’ve slipped out the door when I left this morning.”

The creature, now recumbent in her arms, relaxes with its eyes half lidded and makes a strange juddering noise as she runs her fingers through its fur.

“So…is thing like, a pet?”

“Yes, my cat,” she says, sounding rather unimpressed. “By the way, do you always hold animals like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re holding a bag of smelly garbage.”

“Are you not supposed to hold him like that?”

“No. Like this.” She removes a hand from the creature’s underside and tucks it under again, a slow demonstration to show how its hips and legs might be supported securely. “And it’s a she,” she adds crossly.

“Oh. Sorry, Mangled.”

The cat, upon hearing its name, glances at him with an air of contempt.

“Strange name for a pet. She doesn’t look all that mangled to me.” To the contrary, she appears quite healthy as far as he can tell. Not that he can. (Again: look up ‘cat’.)

The woman chortles. “Her name is Mango. M-A-N-G-O. Like the fruit.”

“Ah, my mistake. Translator must have misheard.”

“Uh huh,” say says through a loud yawn. "Listen, I need to go. Sorry about the trouble.” She takes two steps back and holds up one of the cat’s paws, swiping it up and down in a gesture that vaguely resembles a wave. “Bye bye, Mr. Turian!”

“Wait, I didn’t catch your name—”

“Shepard!” she shouts and slinks back into her apartment. A disembodied hand waves through the threshold before it disappears completely and the door closes behind her.

* * *