#franzis thoughts

[franzis-frantic-thoughts]

Listen up podcast fans, because that's what you do best!

The fantastic cast behind Rusty Quill's Stellar Firma - so Tim and Ben Meredith, Imogen Harris, and Jenny Haufek - are making a new podcast together, this time supported by the fabulous voice of Amy Dickinson as well!

The fundraiser for the first season will be launched on Friday, and one of the fundraising goals will be high quality transcripts! How do I know they'll be high quality? Why, I'll be writing them!

I've already transcribed the pilot episode and let me tell you, this is Meredith shenanigans as we know and love them. There's only so many times you can listen to the word "bypass" being said in ridiculous voices before you go insane.

[franzis-frantic-thoughts]

KCD was less than 13€ on the Nintendo shop and @the-pen-pot writing fic for it is all the endorsement I need. Let’s see what this is then.

[franzis-frantic-thoughts]

I’m not even religious - and when I was still a member of the church it wasn’t that flavour - but I guess I’m Catholic Breaking News now.

[franzis-frantic-thoughts]

A "popular" fandom post I made in 2019:

[ID: A screenshot of a post's notes showing 16 replies, 936 reblogs, and 1626 likes. The reblog bubble map shows multiple branches spreading out from the original post and clustering more reblogs together before branching further. /end ID]

A "popular" fandom post I made in 2023:

[ID: A screenshot of a post's nots showing 2 replies, 190 reblogs, and 1028 likes. The reblog bubble map shows that the vast majority of reblogs were made from the original post and the longest reblog chain extends just four blogs in a line that only branches off once at the second level. /end ID]

I realise the notes aren't yet at an equal footing, but the ratio of reblogs to likes is so fucking skewed nowadays.

This is the reblogging website, not twitter. It's no wonder artists - whether gifmakers, cosplayers, authors, digital or traditional artists, or any other medium - are leaving this place. It's not spreading their works anymore. If tumblr dies it'll be because its users killed reblogs.

[franzis-frantic-thoughts]

I know that AO3 cannot ban AI generated texts, because even though all AI generated text is inherently infringing on a copyright - as all AI text engines are trained on stolen data - it is nearly impossible for any one person to satisfactorily prove that their data was stolen to train the specific engine used to create the text in question. Perhaps eventually wholly AI generated texts without any kind of human editing will eventually be banned under the copyright issue.

I know that AO3 even more cannot ban AI generated texts on a moral/philosophical basis because that would be a slippery slope to any kind of content moderation that we do not want on AO3.

But as a (fanfic) author and avid (fanfic) reader, it just saddens me to see this.

As a reader, I wonder why I should bother reading a text that nobody bothered to write. I wonder why I should read a text that isn't based on passion and creativity. I wonder how I should expect humanity in machine generated characters.

As an author, this makes me wonder why I should bother writing a text, if others just press a button to generate one. I wonder if other readers have the same opinion as I do or if I'm in a minority. I wonder whether my works will be valued the same as AI generated text when mine include so much effort and hearts blood. I wonder if readers actually value this effort.

[franzis-frantic-thoughts]

[ID: A tweet by Maddy Searle (@Maddy_abstract), posted on October 14th, around 3 pm BST. It reads “Sadly, I am among some staff cuts at Rusty Quill, so I am available for work in podcast/radio sound design, production, directing. 3+ years experience with clients including Stripped Media and Picturehouse Cinema. Links to my work below.” followed by aforementioned link with a headshot of Maddy /End ID]

So Maddy is leaving RQ, citing “staff cuts” and thereby implying it wasn’t her decision, following a rather surprising hiatus at Rusty Quill which affected Chapter & Multiverse, Trice Forgotten, as well as Patreon Bonus content, such as Problemagicians and Compulsory Film Appreciation.

At the same time, RQ is putting out multiple updates daily for their stupid little TMA ARG. teasing “The Magnus Archives 2″.

What. The actual fuck. Is going on in this company.

They’re Rusty Quill. Not “The Magnus Archives Incorporated”. They have other shows that have fans. They have other shows that could make them money, if they only promoted them decently.

The Magnus Archives had a great ending, stop milking a dead cow and instead focus on the ones that are still alive.

Stop shooting yourself in the foot.

Can’t believe I’m supporting this shit show with a patreon subscription. I am seriously going to reevaluate this decision.

EDIT: The tweet has since been deleted, but Maddy’s bio still reads “Formerly @TheRustyQuill” on twitter. Go and send her some love.

[franzis-frantic-thoughts]

Too hot even for my little sun goddess.

[franzis-frantic-thoughts]

scrolling through the game changer tag and encountering a random bible quote bc that was apparently a game changer for someone is a whiplash of sam reich proportions