Catucat's Domain

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
qbdatabase
qbdatabase

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Book bans are on the rise across the US, but even if you want to go read and buy as many books with LGBT+ representation as you can get your greedy little hands on--it's hard to know what you don't know :/

The Queer Books Database lists over 3,500+ fiction and non-fiction titles in a google docs spreadsheet that lets you search by representation, or just by age, genre, year published, and more. It doesn't just track LGBT+ rep but also tags for people of color, disability, mental health, neurodivergence, fat rep, older characters, and religion!

You can use the database to search for:

  • multiple identities at once--find rep for a schizophrenic asexual lesbian, an autistic black boy, or a non-binary soldier with tinnitus
  • age appropriate books--search for children's books, junior chapter books, teen titles, and YA
  • non-fiction education--this includes biographies and memoirs, self-help, mental health, sexual education, LGBT+ history, legal resources, and affirming spiritual texts
  • trope/setting/time period--get a list of ghostly paranormals, queer fiction set in africa, gay regency romances, enemies-to-lovers, dark academia, and tons more!

Using the database, supporting my patreon, or buying me a ko-fi also really helps out the autistic transgender librarian who put this all together during the pandemic! Please share and reblog if you can~

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entpscarleharrrr
shealwaysreads

Saw my first post with someone admitting they used chatGPT to ‘write a fic’ which they then shared here on tumblr and on Ao3.

To be clear, using AI to churn out a piece of fiction is not writing.

Using a bot (possibly one that was trained using a scrape of Ao3, that is to say, the theft of work from every writer who has posted their work on Ao3) is NOT WRITING.

It is theft. It isn’t creation. It’s a regurgitation of the consumed collective work and effort and heart and time of every writer who has shared their work on Ao3.

‘I’m not a good writer’ is no excuse.

Want to be a writer? Put in the time everyone else does to practice.

Don’t feel confident in your work? Open yourself up to the same vulnerability and risk that the rest of us do.

You don’t get to use a fucking bot to vomit out an approximation of a story and pretend you’ve got skin in the game.

The sad thing? This bot-assembled fic wasn’t bad. It was bland, but it had internal logic, some passing context to character and canon. It wasn’t like those early AI art pieces that had surreal compositions and extra fingers. It wasn’t immediately obvious it was made by a bot.

In this instance the person who posted it admitted they had used a bot. Which, actually, I have some respect for. But it probably isn’t the first and it won’t be the last.

I don’t know that there’s a solution to this, but it is both hurting my heart and enraging me.

thehoneybeet

Just wanted to add to this really important post. (Thank you sm @shealwaysreads)

I think part of the issue here is that people who do this think of fic as an end product. As a thing to be consumed. As content.

That's not fanfic.

Fic, in its essence, is the act of creation, of transformation. It is critically analyzing characters, exploring ideas, relationships, societal values, the dynamics of love and sexuality... the list goes on. Fic is a process that encapsulates all of this, the effort to make something that means something. That says something about what it means to be human (yes, kinky smut included). That takes vulnerability and guts and love to put out into the world.

If you think of fic as content that is there to be consumed, then yeah, it makes sense to find a quick and easy way to produce it. If the point for you is getting attention (kudos, reblogs, etc) with little to no work, using AI is tempting. But that's a capitalistic mindset that entirely negates what fanfic is.

If we instead think of fanfic as a creative process, then AI fic is not fanfic at all. Call it something else.

vukovich

Lukewarm take from left field. I'm not threatened by this, in part because I write weird. Like, nobody following me is here for a bot-logical good story. If I thought my writing could be indistinguishable from a bot, I would *die* terrifically.

shealwaysreads

Fascinating to see a take on a post about the intrusion of ai tech into a creative community be so entirely focused on the self.

To clarify for anyone confused:

I made my original post because this is the first time I saw it happening, despite the fact we all knew this was coming as soon as midjourney landed in the art scene and we heard about the ao3 scrape.

While my writing is my own, and I’m secure and proud of it, I’m not under any self-congratulatory illusion that I was that good when I started. Many of the fics I’ve read by first-time writers are similar to what this bot produced, and those writers still deserve basic respect and civility.

Anyone working under the delusion that ai tech won’t get better at its manipulation of the data is sadly mistaken. If you haven’t been following the ai progress on visual art, you might have missed that you can now request pieces to be produced in the specific style of an established artist. And the bots can do that now! They can make visual pieces almost indistinguishable from the original artist’s style—no matter how unique, or weird, that original artist’s style is.

My post wasn’t about me, or my writing. It was about the encroachment of ai and the accompanying cultural devaluation of human artistic expression outside of the work-based capitalist model.

It was about the impact of wholesale thefts of a community’s collective work.

It was about the meaning and importance of people’s generosity in sharing their genuine creations.

It was about vulnerability and the creative process being more important than the ego.

thehoneybeet

Pulling this out of Tee's tags because it's brilliant:

I am interested in reflections on the human condition from other human beings. I am not interested in the guided narrative of a theft powered sophisticated averaging machine.

Thank you for saying this so powerfully @skeptiquewrites

entpscarleharrrr
princesssarisa

"Beauty and the Beast" and romantic love

Not too long ago, I read some remarks comparing Disney's Beauty and the Beast to the original tale – I already don't remember where – and arguing, as so many feminist critics do, that the original tale sends better messages to girls than the Disney version does. But this one made an argument I had never heard before.

This critic complained that not only Disney's version, but virtually all modern adaptations of the tale make Beauty/Belle's character arc revolve around falling in love with the Beast, when in Madame de Villeneuve's original story, Beauty doesn't fall in love with the Beast. She learns to love him platonically and realizes that he has the qualities that make a good husband; this critic argued that the difference between this arc and "falling in love" is essential. Villeneuve's Beauty falls in love with the handsome Prince in her dreams; her ongoing reluctance to marry the Beast despite all his positive qualities stems not only from his appearance, but from her romantic attraction to "another" man. Even after she realizes how much she cares for the Beast when he nearly dies and at long last agrees to marry him, in the original story she still remembers her love for the Prince and feels torn. (In this version the Beast doesn't instantly transform when she agrees to marry him, but only transforms the next morning after they chastely share a bed for the first time.) When the Beast changes back into the Prince, Beauty is effectively rewarded for choosing the worthy Beast over the dream figure she loves by having the Beast turn out to be her beloved.

The whole point, this critic argued, is that romantic love alone isn't a good basis for marriage. When deciding whether or not to accept a marriage proposal, a woman shouldn't just ask herself "Am I in love with him?" but first and foremost should ask herself "Is he a good person? Is he kind and gentle? Does he treat me with respect? Is he generous? Is he unselfish? Is he loyal?" The point of the original tale (they argued) is that Beauty learns to recognize the qualities of a good husband in the Beast, even though she doesn't have romantic feelings for him, and comes to realize that these matter more than her romantic feelings for the Prince. This critic argued that modern retellings like Disney's, which have Beauty/Belle fall in love with the Beast, strip the tale of its most important message.

That's an interesting perspective and one I never considered before. But do I agree with it it? I don't think so.

In the Disney version, at least, the message of "what makes a good husband or romantic partner" is still very present. Belle isn't just swept away by animal attraction (no pun intended) to the Beast! The importance of the Beast's kindness, gentleness, respect, generosity, and selflessness is made extremely clear! The only two differences from the original tale in that regard are that (a) the Beast learns those qualities thanks to Belle's presence instead of showing them from the start, and (b) Belle falls romantically in love with the Beast for those qualities, rather than learning to choose them over "another" man's good looks and courtly charms. It still sends just the right message to girls about what to look for in a partner! (And please don't respond by saying "The movie romanticizes abusers" – Belle can't stand the Beast when he behaves badly and only learns to love him after he becomes kind. But that's a different subject altogether.)

Besides, even if Villeneuve's original version is, in a way, against marrying "for love," consider its context! The original tale is an allegory for arranged marriage. It was written for 18th century French girls who would have no say in who they married, to prepare them to share their lives with men they almost certainly wouldn't love romantically. If Villeneuve really meant to teach her readers to view friendship and mutual respect as the ideal basis for marriage, not romantic love, while giving them the hope that once friendship and respect are established, romantic love can follow... well, she had practical reasons for doing so. Marrying "for love" simply wasn't an option for her young female readers and she wrote the story as a direct response to that fact.

Modern retellings of the tale generally have nothing to do with arranged marriage. Not should they, because in the Western world at least, most of the target audience will choose their own spouses, if they get married at all. While of course the message about the qualities of an ideal romantic partner is still as relevant as ever, I don't see any problem whatsoever with showing Beauty/Belle falling in love with the Beast for those qualities, rather than choosing to marry him out of platonic friendship and respect, then being rewarded with the reveal that he's actually the romantic suitor from her dreams. If she falls in love with him for all the right reasons, as Disney's Belle does, then how could anyone think the story encourages girls just to choose their partners based on superficial attraction?

Of course, it's so popular nowadays to argue that famous love stories "aren't really love stories." Especially among certain "feminists," who talk as if it's dangerous for girls to see any fictional female character have romantic feelings for a male character or be motivated by emotion and not pragmatism in any way. We see this with all the various anti-romance takes on Romeo and Juliet ("It's a satire," "It's a cautionary tale against teenage passion," "It's a trashy, immature play from before Shakespeare became a good writer," etc.), and in discussions of other love stories and fairy tales too. So I suppose it's not surprising that "Beauty and the Beast wasn't meant as a love story and most adaptations are bad for girls because they get it wrong" is an argument that exists. Personally, though, I can't bring myself to agree with it.

@ariel-seagull-wings, @superkingofpriderock, @themousefromfantasyland, @the-blue-fairie, @faintingheroine

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icarus-suraki

Important Announcement:

April Fools Day (April 1) is one week away. To that end, I just want it known now, well before the day, that this blog will NOT be posting any jump scares, fake announcements, freak-out posts, fake hackings, fake emergencies, fake news, and “gotcha!” stuff on April Fools Day. We’re staying safe and chill around here.

I’m honestly not into April Fools Day, really, unless the jokes are obvious and silly–like Rickrolls and Dad Jokes. Rickrolls and Dad Jokes are just traditional.