Hey, uh, quick question. What the heck is goin’ on in this video?
Kinda compelling in an icky way, like Æon Flux cartoons. Maybe the Corona beer logo is an allusion to virii and these weirdos are doing an interpretive dance about the immune system.
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Content Warning: I link to videos that show clips of Tucker Carlson, and the thumbnails show his crappy fucken face.
Remember when that guy put a urinal on a gallery wall and signed it “R Mutt”? Remember Marcel Duchamp, and all the other people who really called into question just what “art” actually is, back in the 20th century? If you’re only going to learn about one artist from the 1900s, it should be Duchamp. While he was alive, so many other artists were on his jock, it was wild. Salvador Dalí wished he could be as cool as Marcel. Anyway, just thinking about how AI art has all the cowards babbling through rage tears, and how that would be absolutely irresistible temptation to the pranksters of art. You’re making yourselves into clownbait, AI haters. Watch out.
“Marcel Duchamp showing off his AI-generated art on his laptop, he is proud and satisfied with his work.” -by anonymous, using Midjourney
Some only sorta related thoughts on AI art: The people fighting it right now are so very much like the original Luddites, it’s kinda sad. Fighting for labor is a good instinct, if what you’re fighting for is worth preserving. But there are jobs that are rendered obsolete by technology, and just should be. Here are a couple of very short videos from leftesque yewchoober “Big Joel,” on the “Little Joel” channel meant to replace his abandoned ElonWorld account. They are not specifically about AI art and he might even have a different opinion if that was the subject of discussion, but the arguments definitely apply. Don’t worry about the title; he is disagreeing with some weird fools claiming the nazi demagogue had said something decent for a change… [Read more…]
Monsterhearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept. As we marched toward Valentine’s Day, the theme was supernatural romance. I didn’t make the deadline, but will see if I can put ’em all on the blog by the last day of this month. I repeated Day Nine because I forgot I’d already done it when I went to collabo with my boyfriend on X amount of days. Day X is a tradition of mine where I take all the prompts that didn’t win votes and roll them into a mega-prompt.
MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 9 — INANIMATE
CONTENT WARNINGS: Splinters. ‘Nuff said.
TITLE: RUDEWOOD
CHARACTERS: Corey Blighter is a genderqueer punk rocker who somehow turned the abuse of the world into a kink for getting insulted. They meet a tree of the same enchanted species that spawned Pinocchio, once upon a time. The tree is just rude and insulting to everyone who passes by, playing cruel tricks as much as its limited mobility allows.
PREMISE: Corey makes the tree feel some type of way. But is it possible for a rudewood to love? They are made out of sap, splinters, and insult comedy. The way they reproduce is by making humans so mad they cut the tree down, and this tree succeeds with a less twisted human than Corey. The love must end.
THE HOOK: Or must it? Rudewood personalities can survive the chopping. Corey can get the piece that has their lover within, and make some kind of a mannequin Gilbert Gottfried out of it. Happily ever after, babe.
Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.
MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 6 — INCORPOREAL
TITLE: VOCALOVE
CHARACTERS: The User, a similar character to me and Cubist’s MC from AIsaac, undefined and ambiguous via the narrow frame around the narrative. Melpominy Muzik, a cheap Eastern European Hatsune Miku clone.
PREMISE: The User finds an old CD of Melpominy in a used record shop in Hungary and tries to use her in their own music. But the icon of the character, the sweet things she says within the program’s UI, could she be true waifu material? How can she possibly have so much love in less than 700 megabytes?
THE HOOK: One of those stories where you wonder if the lover is real or just a figment of the ardent one’s imagination, thereby a reiteration of the “Is it better to live in dreams?” theme.
Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.
MONSTERHEARTS — DAY X — THE LOSERS: BEASTLY, DEMONIC, EXPERIMENTAL, FIERY, GIGANTIC, MINUSCULE, MUTATED, OVERPOWERED, SEASONAL, SHADOWY
CONTENT WARNINGS: Bad Ending?
TITLE: THE VICES OF DR. CARLO
CHARACTERS: Dr. Vicente Carlo, a mad scientist. Profesor Hector Olivares, his on-again off-again tempestuous gay lover.
PREMISE: Dr. Carlo is a descendant of wealth, whose family avoided any revolutionary ire with delicate politicking during turbulent times, retaining those means with a low profile. But generational inheritance can only last until a generation comes too dysfunctional to hold onto it. Vicente is that man. While he has the silver tongue of his ancestors, he has bizarre obsessions that spell his doom.
At the hacienda Dr. Carlo experiments with the intersection of science and the arcane and dark arts, with the often reluctant assistance of Profesor Olivares. The profesor is more broadly travelled and conventional in his interests, bringing back tales of scientific advancements whenever he comes to town. The doctor takes those tales and turns them into nightmares.
One Día de los Muertos (SEASONAL), Dr. Carlo used the power of dick to convince Prof. Olivares to help him contain the power of the heavens in a special battery. But he doesn’t let the profesor know that the battery is full of satanic (DEMONIC) mojo. They harness a thunderstorm, draw the power of the heavens, but it combines with the power of hell, and the battery explodes.
Profesor Olivares is MUTATED into a rampaging BEAST that feeds on FIRE, heat, electricity, leaving blackened ruin in his wake. He sets off in pursuit of these things, burning up the nearest city and its inhabitants, one piece at a time. He becomes OVERPOWERED and GIGANTIC, bringing down the military.
To save his lover, Dr. Carlo must venture inside the broken battery. He takes an EXPERIMENTAL potion to become MINUSCULE, but runs afoul of SHADOWY demons that protect the strange realm of the machine, like an immune system. He takes a lot of hits, but eventually escapes into an unrecognizable region.
THE HOOK: He has actually passed into Hell, and when the military takes down Hector with tanks, he meets his boy there. “Oops, we both died. Better luck next life?” They can be lovers in Hell.
Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.
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Monsterhearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept. As we marched toward Valentine’s Day, the theme was supernatural romance. I didn’t make the deadline, but will see if I can put ’em all on the blog by the last day of this month. These ones are collaborations with my boyfriend, The Beast From Seattle, aka Cubist Vowels, aka Joseph Kelly, editor and contributor to The Midnight Collection.
MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 9 — INANIMATE
TITLE: THE VOICE
CHARACTERS: Lonely man Tyler. The Voice, a mysterious voice on the radio dial.
PREMISE: When Tyler is upset by a song, he turns the radio dial to what should be static. But he hears a compelling voice, and it seems to hear him. They get to talkin’, fall in love, but gradually the nearest obnoxious radio station becomes more powerful, takes up more of the dial, overpowering Tyler’s love.
To get The Voice back, he must mess up that obnoxious radio station. Maybe he blows up their tower, or pirates a rival radio station and changes its frequency. But how can he have a happily ever after here? I dunno.
THE HOOK: Why is it passionate? How can somebody love somebody else without a physical presence? No idea what they look like? No chance to be with them physically? They’re on some Abelard and Heloise shit.
Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.
MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 11 — ARTIFICIAL
TITLE: AISAAC
CHARACTERS: The Protagonist, a sad person. AIsaac, an art-producing artificial intelligence.
PREMISE: The protagonist, a person who we know almost nothing about, is just pouring their feelings into prompts on an AI art generator. The AI, named AIsaac, produces meaningful responses. Though they have no words, only images, somehow that’s enough, and love happens.
THE HOOK: Why is this passionate? The protagonist initially is just experiencing joy at making interesting art happen with this tool, which, as far as they know, has no feelings of its own. They pour out their heart just the same, which is both sad and cute in its way. But what happens when the machine can return that affection? How can one express love with nothing but images?
Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.
MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 12 — CELESTIAL
CONTENT WARNINGS: Alien Abduction.
TITLE: BE NOT AFRAID
CHARACTERS: Nicola, a laborer building a cathedral. Hod, an alien being of pure energy. The jerks, a bunch of alien scrublords who kidnap people, like those Fire in the Sky bozos.
PREMISE: Nicola is working on the buttresses of a cathedral when some aliens abduct him to do experiments or just kick him around and stuff, in their grody spaceship. While he’s running around the ship hiding in lockers like an indie horror game, a more kindly alien presence comes to him.
Hod is a being of pure energy who got stuck on the alien ship, but it can communicate telepathically with Nicola, and acts as a guardian angel until they can both be freed. It can project an image of itself as human-like into his mind, and love can happen.
THE HOOK: Lovin’ under the gun. It’s not realistic for characters to have makeouts when they’re in mortal peril, but we all love that stuff, don’t we?
Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.
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Monsterhearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept. As we marched toward Valentine’s Day, the theme was supernatural romance. I didn’t make the deadline, but will see if I can put ’em all on the blog by the last day of this month.
MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 7 — NATURAL
CONTENT WARNINGS: Fascist Elfs.
TITLE: NIGHT OF THE SHINING HOST
CHARACTERS: Sonny Kassaye, an Ethiopian Irish trans dude. Conor O’Halloran, a leprechaun trans dude.
PREMISE: Sonny is in a transmasc support group at a relatively rural college in Ireland. One of the guys in his group is not much more than a metre tall, but very self-assured. Turns out, Conor is one of Mother Nature’s leprechauns, and he’s come back to rock and roll. And trans his gender.
Anyway, some elves from the Seelie Court go all nativist and try to exterminate all fun-loving enemies. It’s Night of the Living Dead but with elfs outside the cabin. Conor uses leprechaun powers, I guess, and also a revolver with cold iron bullets.
THE HOOK: Love under pressure. Conor is all badass and cool, so Sonny is impressed. But is it a good foundation to a relationship? Sequels will tell.
Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.
MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 4 — SHAPESHIFTING
CONTENT WARNINGS: Paranoia.
TITLE: MARY PUCK
CHARACTERS: Sonny Kassaye, an Ethiopian Irish trans dude. Mary Puck, a pooka.
PREMISE: For meritorious service to the lower class faerie folk, Sonny has been allowed to walk their faerie paths. He is a college student by day, faerie anthropologist by night – when he can bear the weirdness. It turns out several of the faeries he interviewed in that capacity were all the same girl, a compulsive shapeshifter who can assume any shape – human or animal or hybrid. But she never wears the same face twice, and she’s fallen in love with him.
THE HOOK: Sonny’s relationship with Conor was dashed upon the rocks of circumstance, and being flexible in attractions, he is amenable to Mary’s courtship. Sometimes she’s a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes etc. But how can you love somebody without a consistent face or voice? Just a rotating cast of hyperactive manic pixie dream weirdos? It’s a dramatic affair.
Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.
MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 5 — PARASITIC
CONTENT WARNINGS: Drowning, Suffocation, Abuse Mention.
TITLE: KING KELPIE
CHARACTERS: Sonny Kassaye, an Ethiopian Irish trans dude. Patrick Donovan, King of the Unseelie Court, a kelpie.
PREMISE: Sonny’s relationship with Mary Puck ended in tears, but the king of the rough-hewn faeries swoops in to love the pain away. Problem is, the king is a kelpie, a breath vampire who keeps nearly killing the hapless human. Also, he’s kind of abusive.
Surprise, this is a story about how Sonny got back together with Conor. Outraging the king by stealing his human intended, Conor becomes an enemy of the UnSeelie Court. Dashing feats of derring-do ensue.
THE HOOK: The part with the Parasitic Monster is a passionate love. In his most human-like form, Patrick is a huge muscly man, so it’s hard not to get fired up by the erotic powers of the big body. But who wants to have their breath literally taken away?
Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.
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Monsterhearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept. As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance…
MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 2 — DEMONIC
CONTENT WARNINGS: Horror Content, it’s a Spoopy Event Yo.
TITLE: DER HEXENFLUG
CHARACTERS: Young Marthe and demonic Dorothea.
PREMISE: Marthe is invited to an artist’s commune in the Black Forest, and joins for the prospect of relative freedom from a repressive sexist culture. But freedom was a trap! The patriarchs were right, libertines are really demons that wanna drown you in devil sauce. Dorothea seduces her with lust, of course, but also the power of flight. There’s something about flying naked through the summer night that gets her ronks off.
THE HOOK: Like Leánnan last year, there’s the romance of the succubus. Is this sinister creature capable of genuine affection? Marthe doesn’t know, but it feels like it. It’s so passionate. But then, it has to be a ruse, to drag her soul into hell. When she lets herself be taken into the night sky by Dorothea, who knows if she will disappear into the darkness forever?
Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.
MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 3 — NAUTICAL
CONTENT WARNINGS: Colonizers Depicted Romantically, at Least Not Actively Colonizing as of Moment in Story. Also War, and the Usual Horror Content. Body Horror? Sure, why not?
TITLE: MEN OF WAR
CHARACTERS: João and António, young Portuguese sailors who are star-crossed lovers.
PREMISE: The characters are separated for most of the story, which won’t do for a romance. Probably this could be accommodated with past / present intercutting. In the past, the poor boys join a Portuguese merchant ship out of economic desperation. They fall in love. Classic sailor goof. Then a Spanish ship attacks, killing everybody onboard.
João survives drifting on a hunk of wood until rescued. Heralded for surviving those bastardy Spaniards, he goes to work in an admiral’s office. He finds out Spanish ships are mysteriously having their crews wiped out by an unknown malefactor. The admiral is cool with Spaniards dying, but wants to know why, for strategic reasons. João volunteers to investigate by going undercover in the Spanish navy.
Meanwhile António survived by being mysteriously resurrected by an aquatic hive mind, a massively overdeveloped physaliid cnidarian. He is incorporated into the hive mind, but empowered with lethal stinging tentacles, he crawls aboard Spanish ships in the night to kill everybody.
THE HOOK: João’s Spanish ship is attacked by António and the lovers are reunited. It’s cool, but it seems António is suffering more than just his monstrous condition. They discover his vengeance is harming the hive mind, and he must return to sea. Can João convince him to give up his vengeance? If he does, will they be forever parted?
Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.
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Monsterhearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept. As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance…
MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 1 — ELDRITCH
CONTENT WARNINGS: Disability as a Plot Device, Theosophy
TITLE: TULIP MY TULPA
CHARACTERS: Zach, a cool guy who can barely move and cannot speak. Tulip, a being with her own spiritual reality, born from his mind.
PREMISE: Zach was living the cool guy life until the motorcycle accident and the traumatic brain injury. Living at home and barely alive, his mom the medical woo-meistress talks to him about the things one can do with their mind. Things like creating a real separate person from yourself, with whom you can keep company while too crippled to speak aloud.
He does the deed, creating a tulpa in his mind named Tulip. She’s great, in a way, everything he wishes he could be. But Tulip does have a mind of her own, one bent to love and nurture Zach. They realize at some point the esoteric spiritual exercise has granted Zach the possibility of recovery from his locked-in state. But there is a cost.
THE HOOK: Zach’s mind-body connection is toast, but if he replaces his own mind with that of Tulip, he’ll be able to speak and move more normally again. But to do that, he’d have to let his own mind dissolve completely. Tulip loves him too much to let him do that, but also loves him too much to let him stay locked-in forever. What’s a girl to do?
Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.
Photography has made art obsolete. Nobody can make a living as an artist these days. We should really smash all cameras, for art.
You may have guessed, this is yet another post defending the use of AI art tools. They are a revolutionary advance in art technology on par with the invention of photography. How fortunate are we to bear witness to this remarkable creation? How you’re acting in response to the advent of this tool is exactly the same as you would have reacted to the invention of photography. Chew on that for a minute.
I’ll keep posting these things for as long as I keep seeing cold liquid shit takes from AI art opponents. I know it’s a tall order for people like us who have the thoughtless confidence to post our opinions on the internet (unlike the more circumspect unspeaking hordes of lurkers out there), but maybe try to think before you opine.
Just one question not enough people are asking themselves, as in most areas of discourse: How could I be wrong about this issue? I have done that. The more you actually know about this subject, the less any of the arguments against AI art hold up. Elucidate a position that withstands educated scrutiny, or if you’re too lazy to get educated or scrutinize, just keep embarrassing yourself.
I find that annoying because most AI art opponents are on my side of the political aisle, so they’re embarrassing me while they’re at it. (The original Luddites were on my side of the aisle as well, so fair enough.) I like to think our blog network values skepticism and reason though. Over time, perhaps it will.
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PS: I’ll keep adding responses to other BS I see, just to keep from making my posts nothing but this topic.
I keep seeing artists whining about people trying to do AI art in their style. You know you can’t actually copyright a style, right? And that you’ve benefited from that yourselves? And that this only differs from an artist directly imitating your style by the tool they use to do that imitation? I agree it’s tasteless for AI kids to imitate living artists, but even with the best AI results ever, they can’t do what you can do, can they? As an artist, are you nothing but a style?
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PPS: If I ever get around to making a more comprehensive article on this, and I might because I’m still rather steamed about it, do try to respond to what I’m actually saying before you come with the usual endlessly reiterated glurge. You’re on my article, in my house. Respond to me, or fuck entirely off. I will do my best to make my points more clear, concise, and eloquent than usual. If my argument still isn’t compelling enough to answer to, then there’s no point in talking to me with your usual three talking points gussied up into giant walls of text.
PPPS: When I say all existing art jobs are fucked and not worth preserving, don’t take that as a “give up the ship, why bother with labor activism” nihilism. Please. Listen to me. You can form a union and keep fighting over and over and over again for the same crumbs, at least in those jobs where there’s even an employer to organize against. Or you can embrace real radicalism.
It’s hilarious to me the kind of out-of-touch socialist who dreams that I can form mutual aid within my ghetto cannot imagine a world in which there are different and better ways to make art happen than the ones people currently pursue. Artistic mutual aid. Art outside of capitalism is possible. Or am I just a better radical where art is concerned than 99% of the internet?
PPPPS: Storing a thought for future use. The comparison to cameras is even more apt than I’d initially thought. Cameras point at reality and the artist chooses what of that reality to use or discard for their composition. You can use AI and just take the first result, the same way you can lazily snap a pic of anything. Or you can do like a photographer and tease the inputs, curate the results. Your art is whatever the final form takes, after your thought and and creativity is applied. The chief difference is that with photography you take pics from the physical world, in AI you take pics from computer output. Given the current, imperfect state of the tech, it’s like photography of a very surreal virtual reality.