Just A Little Bit. @laurelynfaye - Tumblr Blog

grug dont have to change!

following weird horny furries who are into shit like pooltoys and transformation and stuff is enrichment. the vitamins and minerals of posting

squeakitties

twinkenjoyer-deactivated2023083

once you get over your ass and realise you will never get some people and that’s ok you are basically immune to right wing fearmongering. otherkin? none of my fucking business

stevishabitat

mandate-transgenderism

I must not fall victim to disgust. Disgust is the heart-killer. Disgust is the little-death that brings total apathy. I will face my disgust. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the disgust has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

fox-bright

Swarovski can continue to fuck off.

In 2021, Swarovski (the company that makes the very sparkly crystals you see in certain jewelry, on figure-skaters' twinkliest outfits, on red carpet dresses), decided they didn't want the grubby fingers of small-time jewelers, clothing designers and costumers and crafters on their shiny beads and rhinestones anymore. They decided to limit their sales to "luxury" and couture creators, not girls who sell stuff on Etsy. The tenor of their press release on the subject was snide and insulting. Resellers (like your favorite bead shop) would no longer be allowed to carry their product; the average Jane on the street would not be able to purchase them. You could only get them if you had an authorized business agreement that bound you to very strict brand behavior. And those of us who still had good stock of the crystals would no longer be "permitted" to use the brand's name in our listings for sale.

Every bead shop and craft supply place and many, many small clothing makers--wedding shops, prom and dancing dress suppliers, the sort of salt of the Earth mom and pop time machines of shops that are the backbone of the field--scrambled to find something that could replace them. The last of the stock dwindled quickly, all of us grabbing what we could get while there was any chance of it, and then it was gone and we no longer had any access.

I was Big Pissed about it at the time. It was just so goddamn stuck-up, when wholesalers and indie jewelers had made them so much money, when some people I knew--when *I!*--had been brand-loyal for decades. But with no recourse, everyone pivoted fairly quickly, most of us to Preciosa Crystals. Those are Czech, quite sparkly, and considerably less expensive than Swarovski. The faceting method they use is different, but not worse; any differences are hardly noticeable when you're seeing them as a hundred pinpoints of light.

Well, out of nowhere, Swarovski just dropped this: https://www.harmanbeads.com/swarovski-brand-policy-update

"Effective June 1, 2026, Swarovski updated the distribution and brand usage policies introduced in 2021. Businesses may now purchase Swarovski Crystals without signing a Brand Control Agreement, and Authorized Distribution Partners may once again sell Swarovski Crystals to resellers, including bead stores and online retailers. Businesses may also use the Swarovski brand name when following Swarovski’s Proper Use Guidelines. Designers, manufacturers, artists, brands, retailers, and resellers are now eligible to purchase Swarovski Crystals through authorized distribution channels."

They want us back. A lot of the companies who could have kept a brand relationship with them also have swapped to Preciosa, over the last half-decade, in solidarity with indie creators and out of a sour awareness that it could be them, next. And it doesn't hurt that Preciosa was able to expand their line quite a bit now that everyone who wanted sparkle had no choice but to go to them.

And I'm not seeing nearly anyone who intends to return. The feeling is, "Y'all told us to fuck off! Off we fucked! And now, that's what you can do, too!" I'm seeing a lot of "How many of us did you stab in the back?" comments from the people whose money they're hoping to attract.

And personally I'm sitting over here all rubby hands, mean snickering, because they really thought they were going to be able to outclimb the people who actually provided all their profits, and now here they are, hat in hand.

muttsandmustelidae

From the Nashville Zoo’s fb page! Here’s the petition, please please please take a moment to add your name (even if you’re not from Nashville!). If you are from Tennessee, contact your representatives and make it clear that the people do not want this data center. This is an AZA accredited zoo which is home to several species of critically endangered animals, we NEED to protect it. Make your voice heard!

muttsandmustelidae

Because people will pay attention to cute animals, here are some of the critically endangered/endangered species housed at the Nashville Zoo!

The Amur Leopard and Clouded Leopard (which recently celebrated its 50th cub born at the zoo!)

The Sumatran Tiger

The Red Ruffed Lemur and Ring-Tailed Lemur

The Cotton-Top Tamarin and White-Cheeked Gibbon

The Colobus Monkey and De Brazza’s Monkey

And the Mexican Spider Monkey!

Look at them!!!! Look at them and fight like hell to save them!!!!

elierlick

Yet another new study debunked the basis for the anti-trans sports bans. It was never about sports but for creating legal avenues for exclusion and abjection. This is one of the largest analyses ever conducted, involving 52 studies and 6,485 trans people. Read the study here.

lucieslucidity

post so nice had to reblog it twice and force it down everyone's throats

fleshengine

At minimum about 4.5 thousand people liked this without reblogging it.

We gotta fix that.

derinthescarletpescatarian

musiicpix3l

Yes yes i know love is love. But they are still killing CHILDREN. over this.

odyver

alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

please rb for larger sample size!

Question 1/3

What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?

under 18, AI is a net positive

under 18, AI is a net negative

18-29, AI is a net positive

18-29, AI is a net negative

30-45, AI is a net positive

30-45, AI is a net negative

46-60, AI is a net positive

46-60, AI is a net negative

over 60, AI is a net postive

over 60, AI is a net negative

Voting ended onJun 11

odyver

Question 2/3

How often do you visit or interact with museums/archives (whether in person or online)?

Frequently (multiple times per month)

Often (multiple times per year)

Occasionally (a couple times per year)

Rarely (once every couple of years)

Never :(

Voting ended onJun 11

odyver

Question 3/3

If you saw a museum was using AI in exhibits, marketing, research, etc., would you be more or less inclined to visit that museum?

under 18, more inclined

under 18, less inclined

18-29, more inclined

18-29, less inclined

30-45, more inclined

30-45, less inclined

46-60, more inclined

46-60, less inclined

over 60, more inclined

over 60, less inclined

Voting ended onJun 11

Thank you for helping with this data collection. Please rb for as big a sample as possible!

🫶

phaeton-flier

Bear religion probably fucking rocks. You're a fucking bear, you're the deadliest thing on earth, once a year an endless supply of salmon just flings itself up the river to gorge on and then you nap for 3 months.

phaeton-flier

The most delicious food in the world is protected by tiny demons who can defend it from everyone except you. Your natural armor is thick enough that you can just eat the damn hive while they buzz around you. God's chosen animals right there

theaudientvoid

centrally-unplanned

Regular bears tell stories of angel bears sent by the Bear God, pure white and twice as strong as any normal bear could be, who rule the summit of the Earth and kill all who stand in their path.

And they are right, those bears exist and totally do that. Humans just have fake angels as a cope.

theabigailthorn

love the idea of bears being the chosen species actually. having a near death experience and glimpsing heaven and realising it's just full of bears, no humans at all, humans not ensouled actually, humans an accidental byproduct of God's plan for bears

lovely-v

I’m gonna propose “I guess you haven’t read the silmarillion then :/” as a default response to anyone not understanding a reference to something obscure. even if it’s not remotely Tolkien related. I want to build up a perception that perhaps the sum total of human knowledge is contained in the silmarillion

lovely-v

10-4ward

This is the polar opposite of this:

froginakettle

myonlypen

inkskinned

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht.

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

inkskinned

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

sedoretu

I’m reading The Deviants War: The Homosexual vs The United States of America and the entire point of gay pride as a concept comes from police raids on bars, clubs, public restrooms, etc where gays were humiliated and outed in the newspapers (sometimes with their addresses!) and had careers ruined and lives upended by being associated with perversion and vice squads and all that and they responded by going “no I’m proud” and took that pride to the streets in defiance of the huge mechanism of shame that existed to oppress the gay community into obscurity and so the fact that people are now trying to apply conservative dogma to pride parades to make them “safe for children” or in other words “safe for people with oppressive conservative values” is simply insane

sedoretu

To phrase this more clearly: “public indecency” laws were the primary tool for brutally enforcing gender and sexual conformity, so applying a “public indecency” lens to pride parades of all things is a slap in the face of everyone who ever suffered under gender & sexual oppression and took their anger (and yes their pride!) to the streets. If it makes you uneasy or uncomfortable maybe you’re not on the side you think you are!

thedupshadove

There is something to be said about the kind of... phantom parallel between the Vamp/Femme Fatale, and what TvTropes calls the "Deliberately Cute Child".

thedupshadove

Like, from the perspective of the presumed adult male viewer, it's the fact that they both play on anxieties of "This person with less power than you will exploit their ability to Make You Feel Emotions to get you to do what they want." But from the perspective of the respective characters themselves...

The people around you, the ones who seem so unlike you, the ones you don't understand and who seem to understand you even less, have Ideas about how a person like you is supposed to look, and talk, and act, and think. These Ideas don't match what you're like, except perhaps on the surface level, and they don't match your experience of other people like you. Deviation from these ideals tends to be punished, and if anyone notices that you're putting actual effort into meeting these ideals, you'll be tarred and feathered as being "manipulative", but if you can manage to outwardly embody all these ideals perfectly, and have it seem like there was no work or conscious thought involved in doing so, then a surprising amount of the power that those not-like-you people possess will be bent toward keeping you happy and safe.

thedupshadove

Anyway, someone should do an extremely arch Noir pastiche where instead of a beautiful woman roping the protagonist into killing her husband, it's a big-eyed, cherub-faced little boy roping the protagonist into killing his dad.

aethersea

#With the exact same just-barely-unspoken (or maybe outright spoken) promise #of 'if you help me get rid of him you can take his place in my life'

including your tags bc that added an extra chill down my spine

hollers-and-holmes

Are you like the only guy who hasn’t been in Jerusalem this weekend? still one of the funniest beats in Scripture

mademoiseli

While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” (Luke 24:15-18)

supreme-leader-stoat

theconstitutionisgayculture

If anyone thinks Jesus doesn't have a sense of humor one of the first things he did after coming back from literal death is disguise himself as Some Guy, walk up to his traumatized followers who just watched him tortured to death, and go "Sup guys. Did something happen?"

allthingswhumpyandangsty

I just came across two "authors" that have written fics Im interested in.. and I rigured out they used ai for the whole thing

How should I deal with blogs like that? Do I report them? Block them? Should I do anything at all?

Because I commented on the first fic asking if its ai and they blocked me so I cant even protect anyone else from reading that because I forgot their name

And on the second fic I commented I asked the same thing and they suddenly deleted all of their post but they had a full ass masterlist

Is asking about ai an insult now? Cuz i dont want to blame this people out of the blue Im asking, but they are quicker to get offended then to defending "their" work..

Am I the crazy one??

can I be honest? you are in the wrong here. I stand with the two authors, and I’m glad they blocked you.

you said you “asked if their works are ai” which means the authors did not specifically said their works were ai-generated, meaning you guessed, based on vibes, and then you threw an accusation at them. I have already talked about why it’s rude, entitled and insulting for someone to ask a writer if their works are ai-generated here, here and here.

and I have said time and time again that “ai witch hunt, speculation and accusations harm the writing community as much as ai does, if not more”.

so whether or not you know it, you are harming the writing community — just like ai does, if not more — by going around asking random writers if their works are ai, as if writers owe you anything (fun fact: they do NOT owe you anything).

every “ai telltale” is something human writers write. what do you think ai was trained on? what do you think it was trained to mimic?

“how do I deal with this?” by curating your own internet experience. block them if that’s what you want (you can block anybody for any reason). it’s not your problem or your business how a writer writes, whether or not they use ai.

no, I am not a fan of ai, but I can accept that if someone chooses to let ai write everything for them, then that is their business. do I agree with them? no. will I harass them for it? no. will I call them out? no. what they do is literally none of my business.

also no, it’s not your job or your business to “protect anyone from reading their works”. you are not their parent. if someone reads their works and if they think it’s ai, then they can make their own decision on whether or not they will continue reading it.

if you think their works are ai, you can choose not to read them. you can block them if that’s what you want. but

1. writers do NOT owe you anything

2. yes, it’s absolutely valid for a writer to NOT want to be asked if their works are ai — them deleting their works after you asked them if their work is ai is NOT proof that they used ai. they could very well be devastated that something they worked so hard on was accused of being something it’s not, and if that’s the case then you should be ashamed of yourself. (if they did use ai then that’s still their choice, their business and something they have the rights to do — even though I don’t agree with them, I will never condone harassment.)

3. I have already seen enough writers step away from posting their human-made works online BECAUSE PEOPLE KEEP ASKING IF IT’S AI. and it can be very disheartening for them. (me personally I don’t care if someone asks me this, because I know I don’t let ai write for me and I never let strangers’ negativity affect me, but I understand why some other writers care.)

3. no, you cannot know “for sure” if a fic is ai-generated. unless the author says so themself, you can only guess based on vibes. as I’ve said before, every ai telltale is something human writers actually write, otherwise ai would never have been able to mimic it at all.

4. harassment will never ever make you the good guy.

also you cannot report them for being ai, let alone because you personally suspected that it’s ai, because ai-generated works are allowed. it’s allowed on ao3 (here’s what ao3 said about ai-generated works on their platform), and since tumblr as a site itself, just like every other social media platform, also promotes and uses ai to help them run the platform, I guess it’s fair to assume they allow ai-generated contents on their platform too.

again, I am not a fan of ai fics, but I condemn harassment, ai witch hunt and speculations more.

respectfully, do better.

if anything, I believe you owe these two writers an apology.

laurelynfaye

Also, unless they’re using an anti-ai writing tracker there’s no way for them to “prove” they aren’t using ai. Also, what kind of ai are we talking about here? Grammarly’s writing check uses ai now (very irritating), and so does half the other shit one way or another. Are you accusing them of generating whole cloth? One section? Like. Generative Ai usage is generally pretty bad at writing, actually, so it would be difficult to get a full fic out of it that made any sense at all. Let’s give fic authors the benefit of the doubt.

hostelhell

An anti-ai writing tracker itself IS ALSO AI. IT IS KNOWN TO BE SUPER UNRELIABLE. IT DOES NOT WORK. IT NEVER WORKS.

It literally flagged Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as AI. (X)

The only way you can know if a piece of writing is AI is if the author themself says so. Otherwise you’re just guessing. And for the hundredth time, “AI checkers” NEVER WORK. It’s flagged human-made works as AI and AI- generated works as human-made so. many. times.

Also AI can write terrifyingly good. As someone who once decided to read a fic that is tagged as AI out of curiosity, I can confirm AI can write a terrifyingly good fic. It’s scary how good it can get now.

laurelynfaye

I specifically mean the kind that tracks your writing in real time, like a “video” record of you writing not the checker. Personally I feel like I can tell usually it’s ai writing from certain mannerisms, and I tend to find ai prose repetitive and irritating. The not this but that, short, one sentence paragraphs and a few others. Dialogue tends to be an especially telling, imo. My reaction to that is just to stop reading the fic, though.

allthingswhumpyandangsty

the “not this, but that” is something I personally write, and I’ve been doing it for about a decade now, way before gen ai became a thing. I also love em dash. and I know several writers who love short sentence stacking as a stylistic choice.

every “ai telltale” is something a human writes, that’s how ai was able to mimic them. I don’t know how many times I have to say this.

*I am not saying "you can't suspect a fic of being ai ever" because that would be... weird (as long as you don't actually ask the writer and you just choose to click away from it if you no longer want to keep reading it, you're already doing the right thing), but it bothers me when someone says "yeah I think this is ai because it has xyz in it" and the xyz in question is something human writers have been writing for ages before ai starts mimicking them

laurelynfaye

Oh for fucks sake. I’m not accusing anyone of anything and it’s the combination of all of those factors along with a certain other sense. I have a degree in creative writing, I’ve read over half a million books in my life, and I’m more than familiar with most every literary device people use in writing. I did extensive reading into LLMs when they came out, and made myself familiar with the short falls. I’m not saying I can always tell, but that in cases where I’m seeing certain things that are indicative, I can usually tell after certain key points are hit. Usually being the key word there. I will say I am more familiar with the ChatGPT style rather than the Claude one. Basically if someone isn’t an experienced user it becomes easier to tell. I’m not saying I’m flawless at it.

It’s like the book Blink, where sometimes someone with lots of experience can just look at something and know it isn’t quite right. I’m not a full on expert but I read a lot and I read very quickly. I have a degree in writing. I also experimented with AI when it first came out, before a lot of the dangers and issues were more public knowledge. I’m not in the camp that AI is an absolute moral evil, either. The way it’s being implemented is, and the things it’s being used for in general are- but I think it could be very helpful if self-trained and hosted locally by the user rather than utilizing huge data centers.

The qualitative (rather than ethical) issue with using it in creative writing is actually that it is often too consistent in the use of literary devices, in a way that can come across as uncanny valley. Also as far as I can tell you’ve never interacted with me, so maybe chill out on the “I don’t know how many times I have to say this.”