Eclectic Writer and Artist. And as far as I know the first Jewish Korean Adoptee writer pro-published in SFF. Double gray-a. BA in Anthropology concentrated in systems. Minor in Comparative Lit.
Yeah, I had it on my old blog–it’s somewhere in there, but the page keeps reloading preventing me from finding it. And then people stole the list and then claimed they made it up. Per the usual, don’t steal kids, it doesn’t help anyone. (If you didn’t see the reason not to steal–did you read about the real history of the 3 and 5 act models and the gigantic mess of not citing sources which caused a bunch of issues later?)
This time I’m adding caveats to the rules of character agency with some jargon, ‘cause it makes me look cool, like Aelius Donatus using Greek? Nyahh, ‘cause it’s pretty easy to look up.
So, I watched the Chinese drama, The Longest Promise and I have to revise the definition after long, long frustration with that drama. Originally, I stated Character agency is:
1. The character makes a decision
2. Which affects other characters
3. Such that the events change direction based on those decisions
4. Preferably more than one time.
But I think I missed out on Character motivation and LEARNING from mistakes in agency.
Character motivation is the character either WANTING something, or the character NEEDING something. Sometimes these align, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the character needs something they don’t want, too, but either of these will add to the character motivation. It gives and shapes the character are in the end as they move through the story.
Anything the character has previously fully learned should be applied to the story later.
This can and could be delayed for a number of reasons, such as character age, the background of the character, or they are in an oppressive society.
The character can make the same sort of mistakes over and over, but usually the reader has a limit of 3-4 times before it’s annoying. If you made promises to change that character trait, then this does not apply, but usually promises to changes in the character arc are made in the first set (whether in the first 3-4 chapters, or in the first set of episodes for that week) The trait can be a virtue, flaw or quirk, doesn’t matter, but the story should commit to changing that thing about the character.
It is 100% possible to go through a story with little to no character change, however, you need the *other* characters to change drastically around the character which may include setting (Rip Van Winkle, if you will) If in the try-fail cycle the character fails to change, or make incremental changes, there has to be a really good reason given why–for example addiction. The character can also slip and fall, but the decisions made should be clear with clear consequences–positive or negative with something learned to get passive agency.
So my revised list is:
1. The character makes a decision
2. Which affects other characters
3. Such that they learn something positive or negative such that the lesson learned is applied subsequently to the next step. (This can fail for about 3-4 times or they learn the wrong lesson)
4. Such that the events change direction based on those decisions/lessons
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I did a post on Character agency…
https://www.tumblr.com/kimyoonmiauthor/723032778922508288/character-agency?source=share
BTW, I created the list originally from excessive amounts of reading philosophy, psychology, taking therapy, and lots of thinking about it, after I reviewed someone’s piece on Nanowrimo, and then spotted that it lacked character agency, because the character went place to place because other people decided that she should go place to place. But then I ran into a block–what is character agency? There was no good definition, so I did some reading up, thinking about stories, etc and came up with a rough definition.
Could I cite my therapists that helped me with this and why? Sure, I could, but I kind of think I don’t want people to harass them, too.
Anyway, I was also thinking long and hard after watching Longest Promise (Longest Disappointment, lol) Chinese drama and then watching Legend of Anle, (really good) and Destined (All 2023 dramas) and comparing how characters make decisions in those dramas compared to Chinese classic literature, Korean lit and dramas, Japanese dramas, and basically European and European-related canon. Are there types of agency?
There’s an argument to be made for no character agency can be a sum positive. There’s definitely situations where this may arise.
I disagree, though that Character agency is conflict+Character decisions.
Some stories have no conflict. We’ve gone over this several times.
So I think it’s more useful to think about *how* character agency is applied in a worldwide context through various writings throughout history, and not just the after-19th century, individualism that’s favored heavily in the US.
So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
I would move bluesky to pro now, as the devs have bragged about vibecoding the site (uses AI to generate it) and mocked their userbase for being upset with it.
The plot isn't a good reflection of the publishing industry at all...
So Savannah Cade is an editor at a nonfiction small publishing industry house with a manuscript at another publishing company.
The manuscript has a critical problem: The main character of the manuscript "Isolde" is a passive character.
What strikes me about this hook, is that this is either some really bad white nonsense, where white writers get a huge leap of leeway that's not given to mostly PoCs, OR Savannah must be a terrible editor who doesn't meet up with her fellow editors and literary agents through email to read the industry.
Upsides of the movie
I like seeing Introverts as all of the main characters. There is often criticism that Introverts make terrible leads. I disagree. I think anyone can pull anything off with enough thought and skill.
The office setting wasn't that bad, though the building they chose looks nothing like any publishing building I've seen... I get it's visually stunning, but it's also an odd choice.
I get a plantation feelings from this... and it doesn't leave me feeling warm especially when there are no PoCs—if it is a plantation, then well, I could see why PoCs wouldn't want to go to work there.
Criticisms
Book editing in the movie
Re: Passive characters
Savannah gets a note that her characters are passive, especially her fmc. Passive characters, BTW, aren't bad reads, you just need to set them to succeed later by them being able to make decisions for themselves. You make promises up front and reasons they are limited in chapter 1 and promise that will change through the course of the book. But usually if it doesn't start to happen by about chapter 5, a point of change, (in a 25-30 chapter book) people will check out. That's pretty much true worldwide.
There might be a reason for a main character to stay passive throughout the book, but then it has to be illustrated and that's more like a psychological horror or Literary rather than a romance.
Re: Names
One of the notes was to change the names of the main characters.
"Isolde" and "Renaldo" change to "Johnathan" and "Riley." The note read in the movie at least that "Renaldo" is a bullfighter and "Isolde" is an opera singer.
No, Renaldo, is clearly a Latino biker bad boy with a cause and wants to do the world good. I'd be much, much more invested in him over a John picking up a book. John is a John Smith I'd forget. Though if he was a bullfighter, that would be EXCITING. Johnathan is a corporate exec who doesn't like nicknames and I'm about to roll over and croak on my boredom. Seriously?
Why do people think that Opera singers are BORING? You seriously think a story about a bullfighter trying to court an opera singer is boring??? I don't think so. That's a much more interesting hook than whatever this contemporary novel was. Isolde comes from the precursor of Romeo and Juliet. You already have half a plot there.
Riley I hate as a name. It makes me imagine things like Rye fields and an undetermined character who can't speak for herself. I watched this TV show that had a super passive character called "Riley" with the nickname, "Riles" and she was boring and I have to admit I hated the name ever since. I realize this is a super shallow reason, but I'm more inclined to read a book with names with a history than BORING names.
I like to choose names with a past that I can weave into the plot. (Yes, the names I chose for the pro story I published were carefully chosen)
Which story are you more likely to read? Renaldo the Bullfighter who faces bulls all day and could DIE with one wrong move who is in a long term lustful romance with Isolde, the opera singer... whom he has seen from afar and in passing, until his heart aches... and then he gets to meet her, and it's spicy as hell... but she has to leave to another town...
Or a story about a Corporate Exec who is an uptight prick who refuses anyone to shorten his name at all, who meets passive Riley from the small farm who grew up around Tennessee rye fields.
The first seems a lot more exciting to me. Latino spice, give me that. Grounded my ass. More like BORING. I think the names should be married to the plot.
Re: Time to write a draft of a Romance manuscript
THREE YEARS? OMG. I can do it in about 3-5 months. Deary... I get from first draft to publishing you would take that long, but that's to publication. In all that time that editor didn't once consult other editors in her industry, or get Alpha or Beta readers? REALLY?
By the time you get to draft 10-20, you're ready to chuck it and aren't as emotionally invested.
Plus you usually rack up about 50 rejections first as a white woman unless you have some nepotism. (Diana Gabaldon is the only exception I can think of and even she discourages people using her method. But she's also mixed heritage so a really huge exception.)
Romance, I hate to say it as someone who likes the genre is pretty formulaic and straight-centric.
Re: The page samples from the movie
He considered the question. "True."
She smiled, her eyes closing briefly, as if the word settled something in her.
They did not say I love you that night hovered at the edges of their [] present but unspoken. Renaldo sensed that
TT So terrible. How did that book get to publication without nepotism? Is that white nonsense too where white authors get more leeway than PoC authors? (I've covered this, where PoC writers have to get double the rejections and get stolen from where their premises are turned white by *some* Literary agents, and the bar by which they are measured is much higher, and measured against a white male, Syd Field, who is a SCREENWRITER, not a novelist.)
The other weaknesses from the movie:
I had no idea the guy she was trying to date and couldn't even bother to remember his name. TT Give me Renaldo. I would have remembered that name.
She seemed to be more interested in her friend than she was in the main lead. There wasn't enough build up to argue they should be together. Like I said, sometimes Romance is more like a court case. WHY should these two be joined in holy consecration of HEA of HFN? Just because he wasn't the editor, there wasn't enough for her to go after the book editor.
Her editor who literally is working on the book with her didn't leave her any specific notes?? Really?? She's an editor who survived the gulag of publishing to be at the top of her industry. Do you know what that means? She survived the horrible low pay of editors, entered when she couldn't be paid at all as an intern, was made to do copy editing of the early 1980's, to only find that her industry was collapsing in the 2000's and survived the massive layoffs and cuts to her industry, such as laying off editors, having no publicists anymore, and the semi-collapse, got through it to the 2020's and managed to retire somehow?? Even though we all know this industry pays crap. And she made NO notes in the margins on how to fix Isolde/Riley. BUT a publisher's son who is a third of her age, at least did better? DOES THAT MAKE SENSE???? (Plus hers is the much more interesting story. HOW did she survive all of that publishing chaos AND get to retire instead of switch industries?)
There was no emotional crescendo for me when the characters got together. I was so bored during the kiss, that was when I turned it off. Yes, Savannah changed her character because of the notes, but the person the Main male lead is—I really don't have a clue of any emotional connection they might have. (BTW, this is why asking a Demi if it lands is a good idea) There wasn't enough electric chemistry to ague for limerence in the film. And there wasn't enough suspense from the mystery either. So the crescendo lay flat. I didn't have the "Finally they are together" I had the "She's so dumb to not have figured it out." feeling and the "Meh, probably will break up in 4 months" feeling. And as I argued before, Romance is an emotional high of cheering that the characters belong together and they belong together forever or at least for a long time, not a time prediction of when they will stop liking each other.
Savannah did an all nighter and still has make up neat and tidy and her eyes are neat? And her voice isn't shaky? The direction on this was terrible. Her eyes aren't blood shot, she doesn't have a weak voice? She doesn't have the almost falling over from lack of sleep? Her make up isn't a mess from pulling at her hair because she's rewritten the sentence ten times and it still feels wrong? She hasn't been rubbing her face because it's still wrong? She doesn't felt built up as a character this way.
Most editors I know don't dress in Office Formal. They dress in formal casual, or for important meetings, which are few, Office casual? Costuming is odd on this one...
Next week Claire lost the manuscript and had to leave the industry, so the book got lost. "Revised manuscript.pdf" NO. Don't do this.
It should be Title of the bookBYAuthorname+date+Revised.
Also, if she's leaving the next week, there are still galley proofs to get through and the next editor might drop the book anyway. I've seen that happen too. The deadline isn't believable.
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So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
Both Bluesky and Affinity are pro-AI. Affinity was acquired by Canva. They merged all the apps into one added AI features. Bluesky is built using AI vibe coding. The devs there love AI.
Nightshade has a new version out April 2026 with bug fixes, for people arguing it's a dead project, etc.
Scrivener managed to fix a lot of the outstanding bugs with icons, and the templates I gave them. I literally gave them the Better Novel Template and all of the minor bugs that people complained about with that disappeared. Ha. I only gave it to them to fix the template stacking issue. I had to buy a new computer so had to update to the last version.
Ellipsus put out a Pro version, but decided to block enshittification accusations by having the subscription pay for the full version. So the cost is low at around 99 USD, but if you get a subscription, it STOPS paying once you hit the 99 USD, motivating them to create a better app.
Most of the HTML programs I can find have added AI. ==;; Even the free ones. The only one that doesn't shove it into your face every 10 seconds is Atom, notably doesn't work on Apple Silicon because it was last updated 2022. (Mac/PC, no Linux?)
There is a baby project that is not going to add AI to it based off of Firefox, but if you run on Windows or Mac, it won't stream (No Youtube, etc) But as it doesn't have an attached search engine, it looks like it might be able to beat Firefox once it's done, to the point that Firefox is adding some of the features from their development back to Firefox.
So yeah, keeping up-to-date as much as possible, but as I said I haven't figured out a fix yet for the word limit on Tumblr on the masterpost.
So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
Addendum for Affinity: the whole suite (vector, pixel, mass page editor) are now one program and free, HOWEVER the company has been bought out by Canva. They claim using Canva's AI is optional (a toggle switch under the paid premium plan), but considering you need a Canva account to download I would still be wary.
So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
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So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
For the tags: #PROTON HAS SPELREADSHEETS NOW ACTUALLY THEYRE REALLY CLOSE TO GOOG IN A GOOD WAY#also scrivener my absolute beloved#never not open on my laptop tbh
When did they post this? August 11, 2025, 11:19 AM
As I said before, I constantly update and keep this post clean of trolls.
Those 3 dots are magic. You will find them in all sorts of places. Use them.
💬 0 🔁 1 ❤️ 2 · Tumblr DOES NOT Update the original post after it's reblogged. · I'm trying to explain this for the n00bs that keep posting
So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
The attitude of "We need to kill people in order to make technological advancements" is terrible. It's terrible. If these AI bros love it so much, they should live in one place and then put the data centers there.
I don't hate Western Europe, but hasn't that been in fantasy enough often with poor justification and forgetting...
The Gulf Stream exists.
I'll say it one million times if you need:
To get England and Germany, and France, and Spain and kinda Italy, you need a Gulf Stream. How many more times do I need to say it? That far North it would be SIBERIA.
And then worldbuilders yell at me how dare you! You're destroying my world building. Then invent a Gulf Stream, that's it, yes, you Tolkien. Especially you. You need a gulf stream to get Middle Earth to work and be like Germany/England
But also, it's so much done that the rest of the world gets neglected for that, so I thought, "We should reverse it."
I'm justified in doing it because
THERE IS NO GULF STREAM-like structure in my world building.
The continent is large enough North to South, to have monsoons, so I can have monsoons and then that justifies the need for Desi-like culture.
(The requirement for monsoons is large enough continent that reaches into the zones, on Earth this would be Hadley and Ferrel Zones to create Continentality and extreme enough weather. I hope my geography prof is proud of me.)
This would justify Desi-like culture on the continent, and then the Northern reaches of the continent to be more like Eastern Europe and perhaps like Sámi. And as I illustrated in my world building post about Europe without the rest of the world, I really, really like the idea of wooly Rhino and Hippos roaming around and getting hunted. So I'll set Europe back to prehistoric times because that's FUN.
I do have Med cultures elsewhere in the world building but kinda where it makes sense. somewhere near the tropics, where there is likely a current, and between "Africa"-ish, and West Asian0-ish cultural influence, because unlike White supremacist idealization, Roman and so on cultures help that way.
Overall, Western Europe with an Agriculture subsistence system has been so overdone I would really like to see more Rromani-types, etc.
I have some Southeast Asian-ish, Indigenous peoples of North America-ish and (central and South) West Asian-ish and of course Peoples of the Pacific kind of represented. (Prof Egan would say something like I taught you all of that and you didn't apply it?)
The most technologically advanced in the world building as a nod to real world events are of course West Asian and Indigenous people. (All hail the Sweet Potato) Massive historical crush on Al Andalusia. I'm not doing that whole noble warrior crap. In my mind, if you can change the gene structure of a potato, you deserve it.
Best navigators, are of course the Polynesians-esque peoples.
Why? Because I may as well use my anthro degree to give great credit to things that people forget to include in fantasy and try to attribute to white people instead. Why not reverse that? Stepwells. water screws. The domestication of plants that seem near to impossible.
Western Europe would be nothing without wheat! Domesticated where? West Asia. So why not actually do world building around celebrating the whole of humanity.
As a kid, I always thought the Disney logo spelled, "Disnep." and never saw the logo spelled out until later. I constantly still think about that.
I always hated the term, "RIP" because I thought people were praying for the body to be ripped apart. I suppose it's a Christian notion. I still hate it.
My policy on banned books is that I don't think any book should really get banned or television show/movie, but that if we want to become more intelligent as a species, we should probably engage in why the belief or what is said is wrong, instead of shoving it into some basement closet somewhere and oooohhh... what if you actually think things like that. I'm more of the thought, if you do that, someone is going to repeat it again and again.
I still believe that children's media that bends to please adults first is a piece of trash and is invariably always going to be terrible. The bag clutching experience of watching television shows swerve important topics makes me long for Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. He talked a lot of tough topics on his show. Death. Bullying. And he still got through it. Oh, Racism. Can't talk about that. Oh, sexism! what about the innocent children. Adoption issues are too complicated for Kept children to talk about. We can't talk about divorce and how difficult it is and how to treat a kid that is/has experienced divorce. At some point, you are saving the adults, not the kids. I mean, I explained the structure of the solar system to a 7 year old.
I also think it does a disservice to make a writing "identity" for oneself based on the tools one uses habitually. It traps you. You used a hammer to put in that fastener! You must be a a hammerer for life! Oh look, a screw. "No, you are a hammerer and there is no way you could learn how to use a screwdriver. You're crazy. There are people who use screwdrivers." You can only outline your plots for life and never change your mind. That's your identity. You're doomed to never improvise in your life. And if you do a bit of both, you can't strictly improvise or strictly plot. I dun get it. Of course you can learn how, just like learning how to make scrambled eggs doesn't mean you can't learn how to make an egg sunny side down.
And generally, I like posting things that challenge people's base beliefs and on, "This is just the way we do things." But are you sure about that or are you repeating it because you never wanted to challenge it and ask the question: Is the sky really blue, or is it really a reflection off of water droplets reaching our eyes to appear blue, but then our eyes tend to see the opposite color of what the object is, so maybe, just maybe we are seeing the sky as blue, but really, the color we are experiencing is orange. But is that RGB or CMYK? And what about the animals that can see more than RGB, but also infrared.
BTW, the last one was pretty much me as a kid...
Math problem:
Jesse wants to go from Baker street to West Central. It will take him 20 minutes to go to Baker Street to Lexington and then he must spend 5 minutes at the tollbooth, spending 75 cents and then from the bridge travel from Lexington to West Central.
I would go, what's the traffic? Are there any turns? What kind of driver is Jesse. How many traffic stops are there? Has he driven the route before. How sure of the numbers are they? What is the weight of the car and how fast can it come to a stop? What is the torque on the car? What is the inertia.
And then my parents would be telling me "STOP, solve the problem."
Me: But, but he might be distracted by birds and why is he going to West Central, because he might have kids, groceries...
Why is conflict in US stories so much?
Why didn't Indus valley flush toilets make through Indian history?
Why did stepwells stop being a thing when we clearly need them still?
Why did Europeans stop using bolt pillows?
Where did the Asian eye pull come from?
How much Denosvan am I?
What if there are wavelengths of light that we can't see?
What if body to brain size isn't how intelligence is true?
But, Mom, Bees don't see like that even though their eyes are faceted, I saw it on a documentary. They might actually have better vision that we do in a 360 sort of manner, though not the same colors. Why can't I tell the natural museum staff? (They removed the exhibit the next time we came)
What if animals have an intelligence that humans can't match? How would we measure that?
Where did that phrase come from in history?
Why does Korean have so much synesthesia in it?
If you don't challenge every day things, like say, trees use a mycelial network to communicate, I think life is just that little less fun to live. (BTW, the Netflix doc on mushrooms has a lot of weird and bad info...)
The universe doesn't follow human rules, but you can choose to react to it as you like: fear or awe. And I rather not be married to a belief to a degree it has such power over me, it dictates everything I do.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
My Penne-ultimate impossible Imp Pasta Impasto painting
Impasto is the painting technique particularly, but not only with acrylic where the paint comes off of the canvas because it is so thick. One is allowed to use gel and various mediums to get there.
This is my first sketch of the painting But I decided to change the aspect ratio and this wasn't a good sketch.
Plus I wasn't sure how to do forced perspective yet.
This painting took a long time and a lot of effort to think through. I changed my mind a lot.
Originally I thought I was going to go more cute, but I worried it looked too cartoonish...
So I revised.
This is in my sketchbook.
I used myself as a reference and tried to get a forced perspective.
This turned out to be difficult to get right. And holding ones pinky like that is rather impossible, but aesthetically pleasing.
So I drew it on canvas, but ended up having to redraw the right hand a few times.
I also got a reference for the caterpillar and looked up the meaning of "pasto" and found out it means "grass" and a place in Colombia called "Pasto" which has this really striking mountain.
I didn't copy the picture exactly, but this is my reference:
Not my image:
Una cadena de volcanes, selvas vírgenes y playas desiertas, lagos y páramos, plantaciones de café, reservas indígenas, sitios de interés
I was working on other paintings at the same time.
At this point I was mostly done, and the prof comes around and asks, "Is that real pasta?"
I said, "No. It's clear plastic straws."
I had this sinking feeling he was going to say it's not paint so I can't use it in the painting.
And then he says, "Do you have more? I was thinking, who is this imp? It should come off of the pasta plate."
I was like Oh, OK...
I then decided to put grass (pasto in Spanish) into the 3D vase I created out of a leftover string roll and cut up Styrofoam cups.
Excuse the poor lighting on this...
I was unhappy with the caterpillar, so I found my paper mache clay I made for my 3D class and used that (It's the RFK Jr. CDC project) I stuck it to the canvas, found out it worked for areas of the painting I needed it to work for, so I started modeling the vase better, and painted it white, and then used it for the fork, the meatballs and slathered it all over the background. I couldn't paint the red at home because my yellow lights skews the yellow in the picture, so I did most of the painting in stages.
After the white paint dried, I painted it a really dark blue.
The hills of Pasto Colombia were looking the wrong color, but it was supposed to be triadic. So I was going to stick to the yellow, but then I hated the living daylights out of it and decided to cheat it to look more like the picture and so painting the hills 100% yellow first on purpose to get the peaks of green and then coated the yellow with a heavy set of blue over the top.
I'd taken several monarch butterfly pictures so used those as reference and made the catepillar stick out.
Is there still surviving visible modeling paste on the canvas? Yes. In the hills. I also used it to stick the straws on some of them.
So I took it to class, and slowly turned the hills more and more blue, but didn't completely get rid of the yellow.
The teacher comes by and I had this sinking feeling. He said "What is that?"
And I said, "It's a vase because pasto in Spanish is grass, so I picked some weeds to put in it."
He gives this long pause before he says, "You know what it needs more. It should be overflowing from the painting."
I'm so used to teachers saying, "That's not the assignment."
But this professor said, "Real art challenges you." (Something AI can't do as I said, a grand averaging machine because the average of humanity is not interesting.)
My main problem in the later stages was to develop the imp and make sure the red hues were correct and correctly shaded. Color blending due to years of drawing anime isn't my strongest suit and so, I ended up adjusting it back and forth a lot.
The professor liked the fact I sunk the hills backwards by making them that blue.
I wanted to fuss with it, but one of my classmates said, "Stop" so I did.
This is proof it's impasto.
And so this is the final painting.
Some people thought it was cute, some people thought it was scary, some people thought it was a dinner date trying to eat them... I'm not sure, but it got the strongest visceral reaction out of the class out of all my paintings, which pleased me.
This is my penne ultimate impossible impasto painting with the background from Pasto, Columbia. Pasto means grass in Spanish. Imp pasta impasto. I feel impish with impostor impastor syndrome. Let me usher you into my painting exorcism. I think you can tell my influences from Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Catherine Koening and Lichtenstein.
The materials are paint, modeling paste, string cardboard tube, clear plastic straws, paper mache clay I made out of dry wall paste, toilet paper and cornstarch for my 3D class in the fall.
The plants are tropical milkweed, wild wheatgrass, rice grass, calendula, blue and white cornflower, Mexican oregano lippia type, Cuban oregano aka coelus amboinicus, fountain grass, tufted hairgrass, sweet potato leaves from my garden, Mexican sunflowers, marigolds, epizote, passionfruit leaves, lavendar, malamar spinach, thyme flowers, and taragon. The calendula are courtesy of Bliss and Nigel and the fountain grass is from my cousin with permission. The tarragon and mexican sunflower is from my plot neighbor Louise (with permission, of course). The malamar spinach is from Britney who wanted to join in the fun and then the marjoram is from Hope (with permission) And then there is tropical milkweed (not native milkweed).
Except the milkweed and probably some of the grass, the rest of it is 100% edible, which I thought would be a funny statement.
I gave the epizote to the teacher, BTW.
I hope you don't feel peckish at my impeccable painting of pasta. I hope it leaves you with a good impression.
There is no way an AI could do any of this.
The theming for this painting is off of a very bad pun that DOES NOT EXIST ON THE INTERNET until I came up with it. Believe me, I looked. And then the computer would have to cross correlate not one, but three soundalike words for "pasto" and then choose the right pasta (penne) for a bad joke.
Then it would have to know that imps are tiny creatures. Then it would have to know that imps have gold hairs on their body. And then it would need to figure a way to scale the imp to theme. Would it choose a monarch caterpillar? I doubt it. That one was by experiencing the world on the way to art class that I became determined to paint one in.
AFTER that, it would need to be able to make a 3D vase out of Styrofoam and a leftover paper tube. And then after that, it would need to create modeling paste version of a caterpillar out of homemade paper mache clay and modeling paste.
And then after that, it would need to be a part of a community garden where it could individually ask various artists/gardeners if they were willing to participate in a painting and have their good graces enough. And then intelligent enough to pick the flowers that would do the least destruction to the plots involved.
And then be able to pick wild wheat and grass from the parking strip.
The physically arrange the elements into the painting.
None of that AI can do. Because none of that is human average. It's the hard work of this planet, the sun, and human cooperation that made the final product possible. And I think this is what art can be, if we let it be it.
So thank you to everyone who helped make the final product what it is.
This was sent to me...
https://www.googlewebappactivitylawsuit.com/
So Google is willing to spy on its own non-users too.
Class 1: All individuals who, during the period beginning July 1, 2016 and continuing through September 23, 2024, (a) had their “Web & App Activity” and/or “supplemental Web & App Activity” setting turned off and (b) whose activity on a non-Google-branded mobile app was still transmitted to Google, from (c) a mobile device running the Android operating system, because of the Firebase Software Development Kit (“SDK”) and/or Google Mobile Ads SDK.
Class 2: All individuals who, during the period beginning July 1, 2016 and continuing through September 23, 2024, (a) had their “Web & App Activity” and/or “supplemental Web & App Activity” setting turned off and (b) whose activity on a non-Google-branded mobile app was still transmitted to Google, from (c) a mobile device running a non-Android operating system, because of the Firebase SDK and/or Google Mobile Ads SDK.
Are you sure you trust them as a search engine and a company when they are willing to repeatedly get sued for this and still not stop it? This is not their first case and will not be their last.
De-Google as much as you can. I preferred if you did it because you were anti-AI, but if you want some class action lawsuit cash in the future, that's good enough.
If you still are on Google Docs, etc, I'd seriously reconsider. Notice the wording of the what was won in the lawsuit. Google can freely collect the information of its users, including everything in the GSuite as they like.
A great alt is Ellipsus which allows much of the same things, but doesn't steal from you and has their user agreement to say they won't.