A little something more for The Esmeralda Factor!!
Here's my master vibes playlist. Specific characters each have their own playlists too. Some songs are deeply relevant to a character and some are just the right vibes for writing.
The end goal is for this to be a comic, I'll write it like a screen play and draw rough drawings then my brother will help me make a clean comic in the end!
Please enjoy following along and ask questions! The only characters I've revealed so far are my main characters, Esmeralda herself, the young ward of a notorious crime lord, and Arthur, the ambitious lackey (and boy failure...).
Let me introduce to you Dante, the kingpin and Esmeralda's detached uncle. He raised her in a gilded cage, she had everything she could ever want. Except like... Friends or time in the outside world.
Dante is both respected and feared, he prefers to do business politically and he is good at what he does.
Esmeralda is represented by cocker spaniel and Dante by a Rottweiler when i draw them. In terms of the story everything is described like they are fully human, just expected as anthro characters.
Here's a meme, that one "daddy?" "do I look like???" But it's little Esmeralda and Dante at dinner. He doesn't like being called her dad.
Here's another small doodle of Dante.
And some vibesss pictures
I'll post more about Dante later! Including some short scenes over written about him. The reason Arthur wants to get close to Esmeralda is to try and get close to Dante and make it into the big leagues. It's a shame to have Esmeralda's and Arthur's relationship start on a lie! But will charming Esmeralda really help Arthur win her uncle's favor?
And how come no one's ever heard of Esmeralda until now, why is she hidden away like some Rapunzel?
I'm working on an original story! It's called the esmarelda factor. And I've been trying to draw the characters. I decided to visually give them all animal heads, but when writing I'm going to write like they are fully human.
It's a 1920s noir mystery with scifi element. These are my two leads! Esmeralda and Arthur!
Arthur is a boy failure who flunked out of everything and ended up finding a perfect career as a low level lackey in an organized crime ring. He's mostly a getaway driver, but wants to move up. He sees the perfect opportunity to do so when he meets esmerelad, the sheltered ward of the notorious don Dante. Arthur thinks if he can charm esmaerlada he can make it into the big leagues and use her to get connected to other more important people.
Esmarelda is tired of her guilded cage and emotionally distant uncle. She knows there is a secret to her past and she wants to know, more then that she wants to go out and live and see the real world.
What secrets will Esmeralda uncover, and what happens when Arthur starts to get more trouble that he bargained for with the mysterious girl with a dangerous past?
You want morelly grey characters?? Doomed romances??? Fatalistic Plot lines where the reader alone carries the burden of the truth? Dark world changing secrets? Cruel calculated and numb crime lords(of course who have secret tragic back stories) mad scientists?????
Follow along as I write "the Esmeralda Factor" and post about it here. :3
Some more doodles and references I used! Next I'll share dante, the crime lord and Esmeralda's uncle.
it has been like what, a year since i properly drew these two???? i was actually planning to draw gaster too but then the universe decided to just load a ton of work for me to do so i wont be able to finish it properly for a while
Rewatched dubs of @zarla-s 's handplates recently and had so many feelings about gaster so naturally I needed to draw sans finally getting revenge cuz he deserves it 💞
I've been waffling about shipping on these long enough, I'm just gonna go for it! I did a limited run of these little shaker Papyrus keychains from a Handplates comic you may recall, haha. I've had them listed in my store as Coming Soon for... way too long, but now's the time!
So at 6:10pm (ten minutes from now, ideally) I'll open them up for orders. There are only 15 of them, so if you want one you should move fast! I know international shipping is ridiculous but I don't have any control over that. :/ I wish I did, believe me. I'm not sure if I'll do another run of these or not, it depends!
Anyway, keep an eye on the store page until then, haha.
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.
scrivener is great but no, it doesn't have a download option specifically for linux, you have to use redwine or something similar to create a false windows thing to trick it.
I've been playing mass effect! It's super fun, I got legendary edition. I finished mass effect 1 and now I'm on to 2.
So far I haven't got any spoilers, finding garrus as archangels was wonderful! How did my cop guy become such a bad boy? I thought he died at the end of the quest, good to see he didn't.
Then the war criminal scientist doctor, I like him but he is morally very questionable.. more like a harmacist than a real doctor.
I also woke up grunt, I don't know how to feel about him yet, but I opened the pod so I'll take responsibility for him either way. I hope he grows fond of the crew and learns to be part of a team.
I think the old mercenary is park of a dlc. I like him though, he's funny and dangerous. Kinda reminds me of my grampa so I keep him around a lot.
Of course my best boy is joker. I love him so so so much.
And you can have pet fish? And a hamster?
If anyone wants to yap about mass effect in this year of 2025-2026 please feel free! No one close to me has played it so I'm all alone in my sci-fi fangirling.
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