Literal Definition Of Spyware:

Older than history itself

What if the oldest vampire was a Neanderthal girl 🤔

further solidifies the point of posting your work with ai poisoning applied! it isn’t a permanent solution, but it’s the best we have for if you wanna keep posting with your work not getting scraped as easily!

how does it feel knowing tumblr is the only (i think) safe space with no ai

i’ll be real with you: there aren’t any truly ”safe” platforms out there while good, universal regulations aren’t in place. nothing’s stopping ai bros from going to tumblr and manually grabbing images to train their algorithms on. i feel like platforms not doing the same (or at the very least, making it a permanent easy option to opt out) is bare minimum for any platform that wants to respect its users (yes, including the users who don’t post art, since on instagram for example they’re scraping ALL posts, not just art).

i’m happy that to my knowledge tumblr is still a platform that wants to respect the artist community, but either way i’d still be posting. we aren’t gonna win against ai by running away from the platforms that don’t respect us— we’ll win by staying and supporting each other, continuing to use the current ai poisoning methods, and campaigning for our rights as artists and copyright holders of our work!

Genuinely the #1 thing you can do to make sure trans people around you get gendered correctly is to just lead by example. Saying "hi this is [x] she'll be joining us today, could you show her [y]" is 100000x more effective and less scrutinizing pressure than a pronoun circle.

i love these!!!

Teen hood

Another bundle of ocs drawings without context, but now medieval edition :)

many thanks for inviting me to do one :)) !!

@caustic-caffeine and I did a collab!! :)

my thoughts on the instagram ai situation, as a digital artist on the platform

figured i’d write and share this around so others in the community i’m in know my status. sooo, some basics for starters:

“Are you leaving Instagram? Where can I find you active?”

i’m staying on instagram for the time being. seeing as instagram almost certainly already has the data of my past posts, i won’t be deleting anything; going forward, i’ll be using ai disturbance filters and other anti-ai overlays for any stills i post. i anticipate using instagram for reels primarily, as well as staying in communications with mutuals and other artists. i do have a cara account, but will likely be posting intermittently until some issues i’ve noticed get addressed. going forward, i’ll most likely be at my most active over here! growth, fortunately, never was a priority in my social media presence so i’m not super concerned about that.

tldr:

instagram: gonna continue posting reels and occasional stills, will be primarily focused on interacting with fellow artists

here: most active! will post both rough and polished stills, as well as lore and whatever random thoughts pop into my head. (see pinned post for a tag guide)

cara: activity will be low unless shit really hits the fan on instagram and i can no longer protect my work via overlays. if you’re an insta moot, feel free to dm me if you want me to share your posts around, though! if the link doesn’t work: i’m @/asphodelity [EDIT] cara does work with an ai organization, hive; here is a post that goes into it and other things people have said about the platform! as i already wasn’t intending to use the platform all that often this won’t change anything for me, but make sure to do your research if you’re looking into the platform!

“Will this affect how much you post?”

not really! i already have a fairly sporadic posting schedule, so i’ll just be continuing what i’ve been doing: posting when i have things i wanna share :]

“Help! I’m an Instagram artist and want to know how to protect my art!”

i gotchu.

[EDIT] the non-glaze/nightshade/artshield filters are mostly ineffective! it won’t hurt you to use them, but if you can stick to using the glaze and nightshade sites!! if you don’t have a pc, you can apply to get a webglaze account!

how to (hopefully) opt out of your art being scraped in the european union (i think?)

how to (hopefully) do the same in the united states (note: post could be outdated)

other ways to protect your art: one, two, three, four

ai disturbance filters: one, two, three (set these to overlay at 30% as the top layer for most effectiveness! these aren’t as effective as using a website like glaze, but are better than nothing)

after june 26, no matter your region, you’ll be unable to opt out of ai data training. this affects, to my knowledge, everything you post, including captions.

“Any other thoughts?”

now, more than ever, we as a community need to stick together and support each other. don’t let anyone tell you your art isn’t worth anything; we as artists have something very special in our ability to create, express ourselves, and connect with the world around us, an algorithm and misguided techbros will never be able to take that away from us. keep pursuing what you love, my friends; we have to weather the storm to see the rainbow.

my dms are always open for art reasons. need a pep talk? i’m around. wanna collab or trade? i’d love to! need help boosting your social medias? i’m happy to help (although my presence is admittedly very small). whatever it is, i’m here and willing to help!

i’ll keep updating yall on this platform as my activity changes (or, perhaps, something big related to ai happens), so be sure to stick around if that seems interesting! also, please feel free to reblog this post and add more information i may have missed, that’s all for now, thank you for your time <3

I need to say something and I need y'all to be calm

if it isn't actively bad or harmful, no representation should be called "too simple" or "too surface level"

I have a whole argument for this about the barbie movie but today I wanna talk about a show called "the babysitters club" on Netflix

(obligatory disclaimer that I watched only two episodes of this show so if it's super problematic I'm sorry) (yes. I know it's based on a book, this is about the show)

this is a silly 8+ show that my 9 year old sister is watching and it manages to tackle so many complex topics in such an easy way. basic premise is these 13 year old girls have a babysitting agency.

in one episode, a girl babysits this transfem kid. the approach is super simple, with the kid saying stuff like "oh no, those are my old boy clothes, these are my girl clothes". they have to go to the doctor and everyone is calling the kid by her dead name and using he/him and this 13 year old snaps at like a group of doctors and they all listen to her. it's pure fantasy and any person versed in trans theory would point out a bunch of mistakes.

but after watching this episode, my little sister started switching to my name instead of my dead name and intercalating he/him pronouns when talking about me.

one of the 13 years old is a diabetic and sometimes her whole personality is taken over by that. but she has this episode where she pushes herself to her limit and passes out and talks about being in a coma for a while because of not recognizing the limits of her disability.

and this allowed my 9 year old sister to understand me better when I say "I really want to play with you but right now my body physically can't do that" (I'm disabled). she has even asked me why I'm pushing myself, why I'm not using my crutches when I complain about pain.

my mom is 50 years old and watching this show with my sister. she said the episode about the diabetic girl helped her understand me and my disability better. she grew up disabled as well, but she was taught to shut up and power through.

yes, silly simple representation can annoy you if you've read thousands of pages about queer liberation or disability radical thought, but sometimes things are not for you.

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

The Conversation

Explainer: what is citizen science?

Public participation in science is increasing, and citizen science has a central part in this. It is a contribution by the public to researc

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

--

I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

caustic.caffeine’s art fight 2024 info

since the art prep thread is long and such. besides, there’s some things i’ll note that don’t fit there!

my art fight profile: https://artfight.net/~caustic-caffeine

my hitlist: https://forms.gle/VAoyqmHSmNdE9UDp8

plans: my biggest priority is getting onto the top three longest revenge chains this year. this person and i are shooting to reach 800 levels, minimum, which means at least 400 attacks per person. whew! that’s a lotta drawing! i’m setting a 13 drawing daily minimum for myself with some days where i’ll draw more, and probably some days where i’ll draw less. assuming vivi and i hit the 800 level mark/end up on the top 3, this’ll probably be the only year i attempt this xD i’ll die happy if we manage to get on the top 3 for sure.

i’m also hoping to hit some instagram mutuals and do some scenes, as far as art outside of the 800 level chain goes. i won’t hit the majority of the people in my hitlist; it’s there for me to find fresh ocs if i feel uninspired or bored by the ocs that i’ll be very exposed to/focused on this year

all this to say: i’ll do my best to revenge, but don’t expect it! (you will be more likely to get revenged if you attack fran, though heheh)

i’ll update this blog to reflect my status as things change. suuuper excited for this season!