There’s a protest going on against AI art over on artstation, so I feel like now is the time for me to make a statement on this issue!
I wholeheartedly support the ongoing protest against AI art. Why? Because my artwork is included in the datasets used to train these image generators without my consent. I get zero compensation for the use of my art, even though these image generators cost money to use, and are a commercial product.
Musicians are not being treated the same way. Stability has a music generator that only uses royalty free music in their dataset. Their words: “Because diffusion models are prone to memorization and overfitting, releasing a model trained on copyrighted data could potentially result in legal issues.” Why is the work of visual artists being treated differently?
Many have compared image generators to human artists seeking out inspiration. Those two are not the same. My art is literally being fed into these generators through the datasets, and spat back out of a program that has no inherent sense of what is respectful to artists. As long as my art is literally integrated into the system used to create the images, it is commercial use of my art without my consent.
Until there is an ethically sourced database that compensates artists for the use of their images, I am against AI art. I also think platforms should do everything they can to prevent scraping of their content for these databases.
Artists, speak out against this predatory practice! Our art should not be exploited without our consent, and we deserve to be compensated when our art is exploited for commercial use.
I know this isn’t art or anything I usually post, but I felt like taking pictures of all my gw2 characters today and also put together a reference for my weaver because I have to make people draw the glitchy rainbow cat at some point in time.
Sylla - currently my fav to play because aoe spam \o/
Nathradas - first character I made on gw2, I probably hated myself for choosing mesmer
Pertinax - Wanted to hear the male charr voice, decided revenants aren’t my thing, he now acts as a bank slot expansion
Cilia - I didn’t have a guardian, but had a level 80 scroll so whatever
Kara - Literally a placeholder for a tengu name, should they maybe miraculously ever happen. She’s level 80 anyway though because I had nothing better to do at the time
Nerva - I thought deadeye would be so cool, camping somewhere in a corner and sniping people, wasn’t fun for me in the end
Grima - Once had the face skin with the blind eye, hence her name “one-eye”, changed her face though and now her name is kinda a joke
Glaslasair - Voiced by Jennifer Hale. Enough said
Lssai - Stealing my own characters’ names, thinking a holosmith has to be a smartass Asura. She said Amnoon should accept Joko’s help because clearly it’s the most logical thing to do, and the human gods are stupid.
Back to your regular schedule of art...except I have nothing new I can post because I’ve been doing a lot of secret work for a while now -o-
What is the rp group you are a part of on dA and are they accepting new members?♡ I adore your art, it really resonates with me for some reason. Like I see it and am like "YES EXACTLY that it what I want and yes." Thank you, wonderful bird.
Aah, thank you! I’m happy to hear you enjoy it so much 8]And the group is http://silver-and-bone.deviantart.com/ but I think it’s currently closed because the forum is being moved, the wiki needs work, species are being revamped, and there is an event still in process which kind of blocks new characters from moving into the city yet. Just keep an eye on things, but I can’t promise anything. x’)
Bunch of pictures from my first fursuit outing with this character. I made the mask/neck and the paws I bought off of Zephyr and I gotta say they are really well made and super comfy to wear!
Next up, making tails and feet and getting his proper attire done in time for NFC 8]
I know everyone is probably really annoyed by this already, I just wanted to make sure people knew what to expect from me regarding this, as I had a wave of such things in my reblogged tags lately:
I am well aware that people will relate to my art and reblog it for such purpose, and I am perfectly fine with this, but many of the things I draw are either commissions, or my own characters, including my alter ego.
So if you decide to do the thing and reblog them, please make sure it’s actually obvious that this art is neither yours, nor that it was done for you in any way. Because it’s not actually you, no matter how relatable it may seem to you.
I’m also way not comfortable with people using my art for their werewolf oc’s shifted form or whatever, because as it is, most of my werewolf art is already related to either my sona, or my original story.
I’m generally pretty relaxed about things, but if I see this happening anywhere I promise I will bite and it won’t be fun.
WELP it’s official, I am *the* werewolf. Went out to look at the moon tonight, because I felt kinda crappy and I don’t know if tomorrow night won’t be clouded over, so I decided to take a look at the not-quite-full-yet moon, and as I made my way towards the little bit of forest down the street, a police car drove up to me and stopped me. They asked me if everything was alright, because they found it very suspicious that a lone woman would go out into the woods without a dog, and I told them I just wanted to get away from the lights and look at the moon, because I’m that werewolf nerd. Then they ‘ah!’d at me, and asked if that was me in the photos eating their colleagues, and yes, it was me, I am that werewolf. Then they looked at some of my werewolf arts, wished me a good night and told me to call them if anything should happen.
I am the werewolf. It is me. Apparently the local police knows this by now.
Then I sat down on the roots of a tree and had this view. The tree was on a hill, so I also had a beautiful view over the area around. I freaked out a little when I heard something running behind me, and turned around just in time to see a fox chase something, I couldn’t see what it what, but it made weird sounding yelps, and then everything was quiet again. On my way home I found a cool branch I took home and had a strange encounter with a cute little marten. Actually it was quite big, and it kept circling me. I just stood still and watched, as it ran around, then stood up and watched me, only to run off a bit, look again, return a little closer, look again, circle, and so on. Very cute!
Today I was asked if I wanted to go out and play knight with a friend and her horse, Sir Pantarhei of Independence (he is the actual knight, we’re just the people letting him stab us with swords and giving him treats for it)
I was gonna post pictures of us playing with the larp swords, but these are so much better imho. We’re playing “catch the fingers”, an all-time favourite game, and apparently my hands are very photogenic. Not to mention his cute nose, but Panti’s forever photogenic.
In a dramatic twist, the lizard is oblivious to the werewolf's big gay feelings.
There you go, leave it to you to send me the prompt that I cannot possibly place into the canon story without spoiling everything, so here’s a ridiculous modern urban fantasy AU I keep coming back to in my mind because why the hell not. 1545 words, how did this even happen.
The first time she entered the tattoo parlour you work at, she did so to investigate a crime, or so you were told later. It had seemed strange to you at that time that someone like her would have any interest in the kind of work you do - she had no tattoos, no piercings, not even earrings. In fact, she didn’t wear any kind of jewelry at all, unless you want to count the eyepatch covering her left eye as such.
But here she was, asking you a lot of questions about your work, how much you charge, how long it takes, what your usual customers are like. Of course you couldn’t give her a decent answer to half the things, what did she expect? Oh, here, have five bucks, get ink? That’s not how it works.
Eventually she gets to a more interesting point: Special services. Yes, you do offer those, but you’ve learned your lesson long ago, so you play dumb and tell her you don’t know what a special tattoo service would be, but if she was talking about certain other things, well, all she’d have to do was ask, and maybe meet you for a few drinks at the Red Siren later.
She rolls her eye at this, declines your offer, and returns to her original question, this time narrowing it down closer to charms and the likes. Ah, so it is magic she is after, and now you’re curious how she knows about such things. Normal people don’t just come into a shop and ask about spells and charms, and even if they do, none believe it to be real anymore. You haven’t been around long enough to remember times when that hadn’t been so, and frankly, you’re quite happy. They would probably have burned you on the stakes for being a witch long ago had you been alive then, despite the fact you never traded in your soul with a demon for exchange of magic power.
But what is her interest in the matter? A quick glance at her in the magical spectrum gives you no clue either. You have developed a spell for that, allowing you to check the aura surrounding witches and spells, but to your surprise, she has none. So, not a spellcaster of any kind then. But there was a hint of something surrounding her, a sort of disturbance you could not quite point your finger at, just like the illusion of water that air creates on hot asphalt in summer, but when you take a closer look, it’s just gone. Weird.
“I might, O nameless one, but I’ll have to insist on you buying me drinks before I shall speak.” You say, with a grin.
“Fine.” She huffs. “And it’s Ilyana.”
Ilyana did indeed show up at the Red Siren that very night, and she looked completely out of place with her neat and entirely too formal attire. Pants? In this place? Ridiculous. She spots you in the far corner, lounging on a pile of pillows and smoking a hookah with some people you quickly tell to leave. When she sits down next to you awkwardly, and keeps her eye fixed on your face, you start suspecting she must have never set foot in a place like this before. You have actually bothered putting on something at all for tonight, aside from the ink on your skin that is. She orders something explicitly non-alcoholic for herself, aswell as whatever it is you want, and you can’t help but become more and more curious about her. It’s not every day someone trying so hard to be perfectly normal comes into your life after all. Not when there is so much screaming that she’s not anyway.
When a waiter brings you your drinks, Ilyana sniffs at hers a few times, then scrunches up her face and puts the glass on the small table, without even taking a sip.
“Lemons. I hate them.” She states when you give her a puzzle look, and then continues. “Let’s keep this simple. I’m a private investigator. I help out when things get.. well, weird. A few days ago, someone had been killed, and I suspect a spell was involved, one does not simply drop dead like that. I traced a potential suspect, but lost him at your workplace. Do you know anything about that?”
You almost spill your drink as you exclaim. “I.. what, how did you even? You’re not a magic user!”
“I have my methods.” Ilyana says calmly. “Now, you do know something about this, so how about you tell me.”
“Only if you tell me your methods, and why the hell you have this weird something in your aura.”
She reluctantly nods, and you tell her everything you know. There had been a guy in the shop a while ago, and he did ask about a spell. Someone from one of the gangs that sometimes come to you for their tattoos. You didn’t do this job, one of the other artists did, so you don’t know all the details, but promise you can have a look around the studio tomorrow, to see if you can dig up anything, and then she should come here again, say, on the weekend, and maybe you’ll have something for her.
As promised, she lets you in on her secret.
Weeks had passed since Ilyana had asked for your help in solving a case. You had read about it in the newspapers after, they had caught the culprit, and she had sold them evidence that the murder weapon had been poison. Not a spell, nobody would have believed it anyway. Too bad that it all had been over this soon, there had been so many things you had wanted to ask her after she had revealed to you that she is a werewolf. A real werewolf! Of course you knew they were real, but usually they stick to their packs and never do much outside of these groups. Yet there she had been, just an arm’s length away from you, and just as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone again.
Until she showed up in the Red Siren one Friday night, and heads straight to your usual spot. She greets you, you order her a drink, making sure there would be no trace of anything lemon in it, and ask her if there’s another case she needs help with.
“No, not really. I took a day off from work today and thought I could show up here. See what you’ve been up to perhaps.” She says, and you immediately conjur up lists of all customers you’ve seen in the past days. Nope, nobody who wanted anything suspicious. It just doesn’t seem right for her to spend her free time in a place like this. The Red Siren is somewhat known for being a hotspot of crime, although nobody could ever find enough evidence to close it down. The owner, Adrasteia, who is also one of the most capable witches you know, is taking care of that.
You get more suspicious of her motive when she starts asking about you, what you’ve been up to, if you spend a lot of time here, where you live and such things.
This continues for the whole evening, and the next one too, as she shows up again. When you ran into her at a grocery store on Wednesday afternoon, you start getting paranoid. Is she surveiling you now? What’s she trying to find out? You haven’t done anything illegal, not lately anyway, and never anything that lead to anyone dying. Not as far as you know anyway, and even if, that cannot have been recently.
Deciding you’re not really in the mood to spend your evenings at the Siren anymore, you instead go home quickly once you’re done with work. You were almost starting to relax again, but then she had the nerve to show up at your work, asking when you’d be done for the day.
“Okay look, I have no idea why you’re following me, but I promise I have done nothing wrong!” You blurt out when you see her waiting for you on one of the sofas in the entrance hall.
“What?” She looks up at you, slightly baffled by your sudden outburst. “Follow you? I’m not. I was just worried because you haven’t shown up in the Siren at all the past two weeks, so I thought I’d drop by here and offer my help, if needed.”
Okay now you are completely lost as to what kind of game she’s playing. It must have shown on your face too, because her lips quirked in amusement.
“What were you thinking? That I was trying to get you jailed?”
“You’re not?”
“Hell no, why would I want that? I was thinking more along the lines of buying you those drinks you mentioned the first time we met, and see what comes of it.”
Wait, wait, wait, is she being serious? That is what this is all about? You curse yourself for being an idiot, tell her you can totally skip the drinks if she wants, and throw yourself at her when she just rolls her eye at that.
Right, Shaeryl also exists, I forgot about her. Oops?
Ever since Shaeryl had become the great Oracle in one of the last temples of Ahmestar, the Moonchild, it had been a custom that any white animals were considered holy and had to be kept at the temple. Over the years the collection had grown to include not only common pets like white doves, cats, or dogs, but also rare specimen like albinistic peacocks, snakes, and even a white raven.
The rarest of all however is a pair of pure white gryphons, said to have been bred to specifically look like their long since gone ancestors, the Anai Gryphons. Most people believe the species to be extinct now, as there is nothing but an ashen wasteland covering the lands where they used to roam.
While this isn’t exactly a lie, Shaeryl knows more about this than she would ever admit - these two, a male by the name of Shai, and his sister Nau, are actual Anai. She knows, because she had been there when the last of them were brought to safety on another plane, and then she had broken the spell and the closed the portals herself, hundreds of years ago.
But she would never let the public know that they are her friends, and not the mere pets they seem to be in the eyes of humans. This is just one of the many things she keeps from the world, for better or for worse.
It took you about three seconds too long to realize that. You shouldn’t have tried defending your honour as a pirate amongst these people, you have no such thing. Lousy at fighting, no matter if it’s with a spear, a sword or your bare hands, lousy at drinking and brawling and raiding a hundred ships, and all these things some of these people at least say they’re so very good at.
But apparently nobody will take you seriously unless your breath stinks of alcohol and you tell a hundred stories over scars that probably were the result of something much less glorious than people would like you to believe. So you played along.
You told them about the time you stole this glorious ship right from under a wealthy merchant’s nose, leaving out the part where you are his daughter and nobody would have tried stopping you until it was too late. Then you tell them about the encountered a sea serpent, and lived to tell the tale, and how you then did this, and that, and so on.
And then you screwed up.
But can you kill this guy?
The room fell silent when you exclaimed Sure! What’s a man to someone who has seen a serpent! and three seconds later you realized that ‘this guy’ was referring to a picture of the eldest son of the selfproclaimed royal family of Vadhiapur, so a prince to the pirates basically.
As sudden as the voices had died, as quickly they were raised again, cheering you on. Great, you have just volunteered to kill one of the most powerful people sailing under the black flag - and one of the most generally hated.
