you have permission to pick that 2 year old "abandoned" project back up. it's not mad at you for setting it aside. and maybe time and distance have helped ease or erase the things that made you put it down in the first place.
Some is better than none. Some is better than none. Some is better than none. Walking for three minutes, is better than nothing. Drinking a glass of water and eating a snack, is better than nothing. Wiping down the counter, is better than nothing. Small things are not nothing. Small things are not nothing. Small things are not nothing. You don’t have to achieve grand things if all you’re capable of right now is the smaller things. They are still achievements. Don’t do nothing just because you don’t think you’re capable of doing bigger things, just do something you’re capable of today. 
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 did something." - "Scale of one to ten." - "Depends who's asking." "Me." - "Seven." - "Police." - "Four." - "God." - "Thirteen."
⟢ "We need to leave."- "Why." - "I'll explain in the car." - "Why." - "I'll explain in a different country."
⟢ "This is your fault." - "You literally came up with the idea." - "I have bad ideas all the time, you're not supposed to DO them."
⟢ "Okay hear me out." - "My lawyer has advised me not to hear you out." - "You don't have a lawyer." - "I'm getting one specifically for conversations with you."
⟢ "Nobody got hurt." - "Physically." . "Nobody got physically hurt." - "Yet." - "Nobody has gotten physically hurt yet, which is a win."
⟢ "I have a type." - "Yeah?" - "People who are bad for me and you specifically." - "That's not a type that's a pattern." - "Same thing."
⟢ "What's the worst that could happen." - "I have a list. It's laminated. I made it specifically for when you say that."
⟢ "Rate my decision making." - "Historically or right now." - "Both." - "Zero. Consistent zero across the board."
⟢ "You're the only person I trust." - "I dropped your birthday cake last year and told you it arrived like that." - "Yeah but you still got me a cake."
⟢ "I need your honest opinion." - "It's bad." - "You didn't see it yet." - "I've met you. It's bad."
⟢ "Why do you even keep me around." - "Honestly? Entertainment. And you're warm in winter."
⟢ "I wasn't thinking." - "First time for everything." - "I resent that." - "Statistically valid though."
⟢ "On a scale of fine to not fine." - "Remember that time in Prague." - "We don't talk about Prague." - "That fine."
⟢ "Nobody panic but." - "I'm already panicking." - "I haven't said anything yet." - "I know you. I'm getting ahead of it."
⟢ "Promise you won't be mad." - "Absolutely not, that's a trap and I won't fall for it."
⟢ "I have good news and bad news." - "Good news first." - "The car is fine." - "And the bad." - "Define car."
⟢ "You're my emergency contact." - "I know." - "You're listed as my next of kin." - "I know." - "You're also listed as my therapist, my lawyer, and my spiritual advisor." - "I know." - "Do you want to talk about that." - "Nope." - "Cool."
⟢ "I'm a responsible adult."- "You once called me crying because you got your sleeve caught in a door and didn't know what to do." - "I was panicking." - "For forty minutes." - "It was really stuck."
⟢ "I regret everything." - "No you don't." - "No I don't but I feel like I should." - "Same honestly."
So some asshole has thought up a new Tumblr scam: it's a post on a Tumblr account that's named something to make it look official-ish.
Variations include:
account-help
account-sync
account-update
account-updating
These posts show up on your dashboard, telling you that because they think you've monetized your Tumblr account, they're putting you in the penalty box sending you to the cornfield setting you to "Lurker Mode" where you can post but no one will see your posts. And, naturally, all you have to do is click on the helpful link to give tumblrsupport your account data to get it fixed.
Friends, this is a big fat lie.
The official location of Tumblr Support is https://www.tumblr.com/support or https://support.tumblr.com. And guess what? They'll already have your account information.
Tumblr has no such thing as Lurker Mode.
If you right-click on their link, you'll see it's a munged/shortened link. You can go to a site like https://www.expandurl.net to expand that link and see where it takes you: it's not Tumblr Support.
@staff, please be aware this is happening.
Be aware. Be careful. Don't give your account info to anyone. Be safe, and happy blogging!
The ground in these places is too compact for water to soak in during wet season which leads to flooding but digging these holes gives the water a place to stop and soak in. And they’re pushing back the desert with this. By just digging holes.
The new plants also help even more water soak into the ground which reduces flooding even more.
These places also give people places to grow food and graze animals like people are turning completely dry compact desert into a refuge for wildlife and plants and solving regional food insecurity just by digging holes.
The half-circles are called zaï! They're a traditional farming practice in the Sahel desert, and their introduction + reintroduction can be largely credited to Yacouba Sawadogo, the man linked above! He reintroduced and innovated on the zaï on his own farm in the 1980s, and did extensive outreach (along with scientist Mathieu Ouédraogo) to encourage other farmers to adopt them as well.
He also promoted the use of cordons pierreux, which are basically just lines of rocks to reduce erosion, preserve sediments, and increase water absorption.
Immensely cool dude. He's been a personal hero since I learned about him.
Ooooh, Mr. Sawadoga innovated the traditional zai method by adding manure and other biological matter to the holes! This put nutrients in the soil as well as helping even more with water retention and attracted termites whose tunnels helped loosen the compacted earth, all of which supported plant-growth like no zai before! Which increased water-retention even further! Oh excellent, excellent work!
Community not Consumerism: Fandom Etiquette for the Heated Rivalry Newbies (who are on my Last Nerve)
First, I need to address that the only social media I use is Tumblr, a private Discord with friends, and AO3. So the fact that I know about this terrible behavior means it is bad.
Second, credentials. I’ve been in fandom spaces for over 15 years, creating for 11 years, and I have a Bachelors and (almost) a Masters in Creative Writing. I also was an editor on a literary magazine during my graduate classes. I normally don’t flaunt the degrees, because Good Writing comes from experience, not just degrees, but The Kids have me steamed.
Now on to the Issue.
Heated Rivalry (the show) is barely four months old, so why am I seeing fanfic authors already deleting fics and jumping ship on the fandom?
Because I have seen thee most entitled comments I’ve ever seen in my fandom experience. People upset that a WIP isn’t uploading fast enough. Upset that a WIP isn’t going the way they want. Witch hunting authors because a fic is too good and too long to not be written AI. Leaving unwanted “feedback” and “critique.” Upset when authors take creative license. Just straight up bullying.
Y’all have got to stop it or you’ll be out of fic by the end of Pride Month.
This kind of behavior isn’t new in fandom (see, flame wars), but the severity and amount is flabbergasting.
To the newbies, I am begging you to stop. Fandom is about community. Fandom community is about uplifting and supporting those around you. It’s about making friendships; creating headcanons, fic, art, and meta; and going “Look at this cool thing!” to your friends. This behavior of trashing fics in the AO3 comments, blasting authors on Twitter, and being a general all-around obnoxious human is relatively new and invasive to fandom.
If you are new to fandom, this behavior can and should get you ostracized.
When you’re new to an alt subculture, your job is to learn the history, respect your elders, and shut up when you’re wrong. Regardless of what you may believe, fandom is an alt subculture. COVID and then Heated Rivalry has shot it into the stratosphere. This kind of behavior is based on overconsumption and an idea that everything has to be built around your comfort level. Get used to being uncomfortable.
If you hate, hate, hate a fic, use the back button and talk with a friend. Do not tell the author in an AO3 comment. Do not subtweet or vague post.
And to authors? Keep blocking the assholes. Lock your fic to AO3, so if someone does comment like this you can block them. Monitor comments if you need to. And honestly, if you’re done with this behavior, delete the fic. I know it absolutely blows, but do not keep it up if it’s harming your mental health. Take care of yourself first.
To the authors still posting: I see you, love you, and hope you have your favorite snack for life.
To the authors who’ve deleted/left: I see you, love you, and hope you have your favorite snack for life.
To users leaving excellent comments: I see you, love you, and hope you have your favorite snack for life.
And if you leave these comments and have never written and posted a fic? I dare you to do it. Once you’ve put yourself out there you might find that your behavior is pretty terrible.
Since some of you don't seem to understand how this 'new notes' thing works, I'll break it down:
I'm the OP. I'm making this post. If you like, comment, reblog (without comment) on this post, then I'm the one who will see all those notes in my activity page.
However...
If you reblog (with comment), I will get a notification that you did that, but any likes/comments/reblogs (without comment) you get on that reblog will only be shown to you. As OP I won't see them.
If someone adds a reblog (with comment) to your reblog...as OP I won't see that. I won't see any of those notes in my activity page.
Basically, if someone with a large following makes a comment, then they will get all the notes and OP will see nothing. If OP has said something silly because they're, y'know, 21 and it happens, and then someone reblogs it onto the dash of someone with a large following who then dunks on them for fun? OP doesn't see it, doesn't get notes for it, but they're gonna get the harrassment for it in their inbox.
If I, someone with a 5 digit follower count, reblog something to correct misinformation on Ancient Egypt, then OP will never see it unless it was on the original post, but I will continue to get notes on that post even though it's not my post. If I reblog fanart, or just art in general, with a comment like 'Oh this is so lovely!' then OP will not see any of the notes from people reblogging it from me. They'll only see my reblog. So it's possible for an art post by someone else to have 200 notes for them, but 9000 for someone who reblogs it with a comment, and the OP artist will have no idea it's been seen by that many people.
It's killing blow to the community we've built here, by someone higher up who doesn't understand that being able to see all the comments and reblogs is what makes this site the place I keep coming back to.
That's what sucks.
I encourage people to go to tumblr's support page, select contact support, and then in the dropdown menu select 'Feedback' and leave polite and constructive feedback (for those of you who enjoy 'emails worded politely but are a strong 'are you an idiot?', try that way of wording it). They're more likely to listen to you if you're not an asshole about it. I've already gone and done this, and I hope others will too.
kianamaiart
snowghoul
gummygunk
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
