ah pac noticed how mr reaper kept saying "oh dear", and told him that he has traumas with people calling him "dear" or "darling" (querido/queridinho). a chatter asked if he hadn't gotten over it yet and gave just a dead smile at the camera
probably not gonna finish this because pacās supposed to be here too but the anatomy is kicking my ass but the rendering on felps is chef kiss so enjoy bb <3
Pac is thirteen, and Mike is finally asleep. His best friend got sick a few days ago, the pair having been caught out in the rain. Pac had avoided the worst of it, only to be up all night anyway, keeping track of Mike's fevers.
It broke last night, but then they had had to run - the owner of the cafe they were sheltering behind had returned from her holiday, and released a pair of dogs to scare them off. Thankfully they did not get close to either child, but the running and the searching for another place to sleep had it return.
Maybe it would be better, to try and beg there way into the keeping of another orphanage?
... Pac takes four seconds to remember why that is a bad idea.
Mike whimpers, sweating more than their water supply allows for as he shifts under stolen blankets. Pac brushes his forehead, and gently, mentally shushes him.
Pac is thirteen, which means that Mike is eleven, which means that Pac has to be the one to look after them both.
The dogs? He would have fought them. When they steal? Pac is the distraction, the one starting a showpiece of a fight as Mike scoops up the bags. When they are sick?
When they are sick, Pac pretends he does not feel his own fever, and dedicates himself to looking after Mike.
He isn't really sure what to do, but he knows someone is supposed to watch people with fevers when they sleep. They don't have enough water to waste on wetting a rag, like people do in books, but he puts one on Mike's forehead nonetheless. Mike gets the blankets, and the cushion they found lying in a puddle, and the driest spot under the overhand. Pac, meanwhile, has scraps of fabric, and cold concrete, and a very sick best friend.
It is very hard to stay awake, sick and exhausted as he is from days of looking after Mike. He would give him the world - has given him the world - but it is very hard to keep his eyes open.
Pac needs to do something, else he will fall asleep. And he is not sure why that is bad, but he knows that it is.
... One of the bags they stole was not a bag at all, but a sewing box.
Inside are threads, and needles, and buttons, and little scissors and offcuts of larger pieces of fabric.
Really, Pac should use them to fix their clothes, or save them for when things are even worse. He remembers just enough of the right classes to know that both he and Mike have growth spurts still to hit, and that will mean needing to lengthen their clothes.
But...
Pac is thirteen, and Mike is eleven, and also in the sewing box are a couple of small glass circles, like teddy bear eyes.
Pac looks at the missing button on his coat, then looks at Mike, sleeping and distressed and reaching for something that is not there.
Pac picks up the fabric, and begins to sew.
Sewing is not one of his greatest skills, but Pac knows a little about it; when Sister Isabela has been in charge of discipline, she had tended to making him help her with repairs rather than the usual punishments. Pac had been in trouble a lot, and so he had learnt to fix many things - clothes and buttons and electrical sockets and plumbing and all sorts. He had not been allowed to help fix the gas stove, but he had been made to watch it happen.
Fixing things is not quite like making things, but... but Mike is eleven, so Pac has to look after him, and the books he learnt to read from say sick children are supposed to cuddle toys.
Pac thinks it might be wrong - even before his parents hated him, he did not get to cuddle toys, and the Nuns and the Priest certainly never gave them any. Still, he has no water to make the rags wet, and he needs to steal some energy drinks in the morning and force Mike to drink them, and it's late and if he does nothing he will fall asleep too.
So, he grabs the scraps of fabric, and the needles, and the thread, and does his best.
None of the scraps are the right shape, and he is scared to cut them. Working fabric in 3D is very different to flat, but Pac does his best. The head is two approximately round shapes stitched together, with bits poking out for ears. It has a body and two arms and two legs, even if all of the limbs are different sizes and the stitching stretches a bit too much. It is a patchwork of colours - and an actual patch where some of the fabric tore, Pac does know how to patch things - stuffed not with proper stuffing but instead the remaining fabric scraps.
It is an ugly, ugly thing.
Pac, desperate for some way to help, tucks it under the blankets with Mike anyway.
In feverish sleep Mike clings to it, and clings to Pac's sleeve too. In the morning, still sick, Mike holds it even tighter when Pac has to go.
Pac comes back to their camp with a bag of stolen energy drinks, and a few sandwiches grabbed from the same rack, to find that Mike has named her Alegria.
Alegria does not survive the winter.
But two boys do, and that is what matters in the end.
What is this about the tumblr staff wanting to sell art data to midjourney?
An ex-colleague of mine mentioned yesterday that there may be contacts between Automattic and midjourney in that direction, but nothing is public yet and I don't have any more info. They probably won't have anything specific to share either, since they left the company weeks ago too. That being said:
I have no reason to doubt my ex-coworker word, they are a trustworthy person.
Tumblr's CEO has been absurdly enthusiastic (comically, even) about AI, and is a big fan of LLMs and 'AI' companies.
A deal with midjourney could solve tumblr financial issues (not the same company, but openAi is paying up to 5 million/year to news companies to use their content as training data... tumblr generates several orders of magnitude more content than any newspaper or any media company and it only would need a 20 to 30 million per year deal to be profitable)
So I don't have any extra info yet, but I'm keeping my ears open.
And I just got confirmation from a second ex-colleague that a deal with midjourney has been brewing since months ago. Not any extra details, just that's a real thing.
Shit, I don't see any way for this to happen that doesn't make it an apocalyptic event the size of the porn ban. Fuck.
Shit. This may be pure chance and coincidence, and it's not he is in a position to be able to talk about anything, but seeing prominent staff members announcing they are moving their original photography out of tumblr just two weeks ago seems a pretty significant cue of shit to be about to hit the fan.
Just tested. Itās possible to swap out pictures on already-published posts. So in that case, a solution:
Nightshade your photo posts now.
Even if you donāt post your own art anymore, go back to your old stuff and watermark it.
Do it ASAP, before the deal goes through and the scraping begins.
This will not only protect your art, but has the opportunity to fuck over this deal on a pretty large scale. The more of these posts that are glazed or poisoned, the less valuable this deal becomes for tumblr and midjourney.
amandla
tangentwithtanner
areudirty
pixelskylines
gamechangershow
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis
gummygunk
origamiaround
