A Note To All Creatives:

A note to all creatives:

Right now, you have to be a team player. You cannot complain about AI being used to fuck over your industry and then turn around and use it on somebody else’s industry.

No AI book covers. No making funny little videos using deepfakes to make an actor say stuff they never did. No AI translation of your book. No AI audiobooks. No AI generated moodboards or fancasts or any of that shit. No feeding someone else’s unfinished work into Chat GPT “because you just want to know how it ends*” (what the fuck is wrong with you?). No playing around with AI generated 3D assets you can’t ascertain the origin of. None of it. And stop using AI filters on your selfies or ESPECIALLY using AI on somebody else’s photo or artwork.

We are at a crossroad and at a time of historically shitty conditions for working artists across ALL creative fields, and we gotta stick together. And you know what? Not only is standing up for other artists against exploitation and theft the morally correct thing to do, it’s also the professionally smartest thing to do, too. Because the corporations will fuck you over too, and then they do it’s your peers that will hold you up. And we have a long memory.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking “your peers” are only the people in your own industry. Writers can’t succeed without artists, editors, translators, etc making their books a reality. Illustrators depend on writers and editors for work. Video creators co-exist with voice actors and animators and people who do 3D rendering etc. If you piss off everyone else but the ones who do the exact same job you do, congratulations! You’ve just sunk your career.

Always remember: the artists who succeed in this career path, the ones who get hired or are sought after for commissions or collaboration, they aren’t the super talented “fuck you I got mine” types. They’re the one who show up to do the work and are easy to get along with.

And they especially are not scabs.

*that’s not even how it ends that’s a statistically likely and creatively boring way for it to end. Why would you even want to read that.

i just saw a video on tiktok of someone complaining about fanfic writers who have the ✨audacity✨ not to complete a fic. that it’s rude, it’s inconsiderate, it’s disrespectful of the readers emotional investment. and then a whole bunch of commenters saying underneath that this is why they won’t read incomplete fics, that they’ve seen authors go from updating every week to horror of horrors only every month. and because i am a wise and mature individual i’m not going to stitch the video dragging them to hell but instead i’m coming here to you beloved tumblr dot com to bitch behind their back

because i know we’ve said this before but the emerging culture of fanfic writers as content creators and readers as consumers is fucking disgusting. it breeds attitudes exactly like this and turns something that is fundamentally anti-capitalist into another cycle of produce compete exploit where your worth is based on how quickly you can meet consumers needs

it’s called archive of our own for a reason. its about repurposing these stories for ourselves, for our own enjoyment and interest whether thats i want to right the wrongs of this author or i want to see what happens if this one tiny plot point changed or i want to make these characters tie each other up and fuck until they cry. its about sharing as a community, leaving these stories in a communal toy box so people who come along in a few months or few years can enjoy them too

tl;dr keep your fucking capitalist little mittens away from our stories

Short post of paleontologists absolutely slaying photo shoots with their discoveries. Please add more such images if you have them.

A lot of people think you have to read these physical copies of giant, expensive, non-fiction tomes for reading to be beneficial. And you don’t!!! This idea that you must read whatever dry historical text (as someone who reads a lot of dry historical accounts and analyses for academia) is rooted in the intersection between misogyny, racism, classism, ableism, and access to education.

don’t let stuffy people mock you for how you chose to engage in reading. Read for pleasure. Read fanfiction! Read ebooks. Read used books (it’s better Read the Ice Planet Barbarians, Heartstopper, City of Brass, Beach Read, Bridgerton, Six of Crows, Legendborn, Yellowface, etc. Listen to the audiobooks (that counts as reading!). If you don’t like the modality in which you read , try a new one! And don’t feel bad if you’re having a hard time with it!!

the idea that reading is 'supposed to be' some kind of unenjoyable gruelling intellectual penance is also so goofy because like, good fucking luck disciplining yrself into cultivating a habit you hate and that makes you miserable i guess! it's like if you insisted people's food should be bland or unpalatable in the name of Health and anyone who ate something tasty was morally inferior and a societal danger. oh wait

OKAY I’ll watch pride and prejudice again

pride & prejudice: from book to movie