OP turned off reblogs so this is my post now. Behold, the "Objective quality vs. degree of ferality" scale

Here are a few of my own personal datapoints:

i have this disease called i will open your message and get distracted and forget to reply and then the notification will be gone so i will not have replied for ages and you will think i am ignoring you but. i am not. it’s incurable

Angry about Lore.fm the "AO3 Audible app"

For those who don't know, Lore.fm is an app that's advertised as "audible for AO3". It uses AI text-to-speech voices to read fics on an app completely separated from AO3 and creates a local copy of the fic audio on your device. It is stated to be non-profit.

1. It's opt-out not opt-in, that alone is a red flag and worthy of suspicion. The only way to not get your fic used without permission is to email them - it is unsafe and dubious to hand out personal email addresses to companies you don't know.

2. It takes engagement and agency away from the authors. Readers using this app don't even need to interact with the original AO3 post. Only a link is needed to generate the audio. An extension would've been significantly more ethical than an app.

3. Valid criticisms towards this project are labelled by the developer as "ableist and classist". Most devices and browsers already have FREE screen readers available. Especially for IOS (since this is mainly advertised for IOS), the existing built-in accessibility screen reader is very decent! I'd know cause I've been using it for more than a decade!

4. The developers show zero transparency. The devs listed for this app are also in a company that made an AI WRITING/STORYTELLING APP called Spinoff. The fact that this information is hidden on the appstore for Lore.fm tells me all that I need to know. This reddit comment provides the links if you want to dig a bit more. [link]

This whole thing pisses me off. Once again it shows that people don't respect and don't care about actual fic writers. I wish people would stop exploiting fanfiction authors under the guise of accessibility. Please think carefully if this is a company/project you'd want to support.

I don't usually post things like this on this blog, but I don't think a lot of people are aware of this situation on tumblr. Please feel free to add any information that I've missed. If this post comes off as aggressive, I apologise. I am just very frustrated.

With how their entire "team" has another app that's entirely AI generated fics read out by ai "voice actors"? i have 0 doubt thats EXACTLY what they're doing. user initiated scraping of popular fics to feed their branch of the model.

Did you see the review on the Unravel one? Almost like they need fics to scrape to improve the model 🙃

yep i did see that, hence my comment. its really obvious they're trying to scrape for "popular" fics to improve their model. (not that popular actually means "well-written" in some cases, but i'm not going to quibble over popularity as a valid metric, because it is a valid metric). and they keep claiming they're using "voice actors" but when its ai voiceover? theres enough voice actors out there who have protested against AI using their vocies that i can't possible believe them when they say they have permission.

Yup, and my guess is that they bought a generic license for commercial use that in no way adequately compensates the original AI voice actors. It’s predatory as fuck and has no place in fandom. Especially with their cynical spiel about author concerns being ableist and classist and the guilt trippy opt-out replies. As someone who is disabled and actually uses TTS, fuck her for using disabilities as a cover for her cash grab. We have it hard enough without that.

yeah if it were them actually making an accessibility tool, it probably wouldn't be gated to a single "input thing here, get audio file out" api on a phone. i know JAWS isn't gated to just its own environment, though it has its limitations (partly due to devs not actually labeling buttons in the UI so stuff ends up just read off as "button button button button")

and at every step of the way, their devs have acted shady. guilt trip automated emails to people opting out, for one, but even their TOS is full of them denying responsibility for data leaks. this is going to end up getting fic writers shut down, because someone without the understanding that fanfiction and fanworks in general kind of need to be kept on the down-low, is going to convert a fic and put it on instagram. or youtube, monetize it, and then the authors/owners of whatever IP the fic is of are going to sue for copyright infringement.

and i don't have the trust that it won't end up impacting the person who wrote the fic in that eventuality.

podfics at least have author permission and are hosted in non-monetized ways.

lovers of hardbacks, unite (or, more likely, divide)!

dear reader! hello! do you enjoy hardback books? do you love having opinions and pressing buttons on tumblr dot com?? then oh, boy, do i have just the poll for you!!

say you're reading a hardback book that comes with a dust jacket--a book you own, perhaps, or have borrowed from a loved one or lifelong rival or sworn enemy, or anywhere else besides the library (for the purposes of this poll, we must both Have and Be Able To Remove The Dust Jacket, i'm sorry, it's very important for Science™).

please answer for your IDEAL/MOST COMMON COURSE OF ACTION--weird exceptions need not apply (unless you want them to, or you want to holler about said exceptions in the tags/replies/reblogs. i don't know your lifestyle, but i DO want to know your polarizing opinions on the care and keeping of dust jackets) (you can also holler about why you chose what you did in general, even without weird exceptions. in fact, i look forward to reading this Discourse).

***this is SPECIFICALLY ABOUT HARDBACKS, please don't skew my science with paperback propaganda :( i myself tend toward a paperback way of being, but right now Inquiring Minds Need To Know About Dust Jackets and Dust Jackets Alone***

THEY DO NOT NEED TO BE NAKEY!!!!!!!!!!!

NAKEY RIGHTS

BETRAYAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but they wanna be nakey so bad... they try so hard..

they get cold :((((

@agardenandlibrary CARA WHAT THE FUCK.

You have to leave the dustjackets on so you can mark your place. Obviously.

i come from the 8tracks generation where you weren't allowed to just dump three and a half twee indie folk/tswift records into a fanmix and call it done. on 8tracks you had 8+ handpicked songs in rigid chronological order and an accompanying mission statement and thesis defence detailing exactly why each one applied to your derek x stiles coffee shop au AND cover/track-list art hodgepodged from stolen pinterest/tumblr aesthetic photography, and all of this was done under constant threat of death because it was the DMCA wild west and the site was in a constant state of gradual collapse.

this is advice I've given friends directly before and I've probably also posted it but I really like giving it so here it is potentially again: do not create something for an imaginary bad faith reader.

there will always be someone who finds fault in your work. there will be people who read the messages on it wrong. there will be people who will take every compelling aspect about your work off of it so they can put in their own.

you cannot make art for these people.

you will never write a story that is free from criticism. you will never draw a piece that everyone finds appealing. you will never compose a song that everyone enjoys hearing. you cannot, fundamentally, set out to create something and only think of how you can avoid someone not liking it.

because, and this is key, there will be someone who sees every angle of your story and feels its intent in their heart and gushes to their friends about it. you will draw someone's favorite art and they will make it their phone wallpaper because they want to see it every day. someone will fall in love with your song and loop it on their way to work because it gets them through the day. and THOSE are the people your work is for. THOSE are the people you have to care about, because they love what you make for what it is - because it's itself.

if you set out to create something and file off every sharp edge, prune every thorn, you will be left with something fragile and weak, and it will be fragile and weak for the sake of someone who does not exist but that you were scared of anyway.

sharing art is complex and tangled and powerful, and anything you care enough to create deserves to flourish as itself. get sillay.

go to pinterest and search:

thank you for the tag babes! @targaryenvampireslayer

tagging the lovelies: @softanon @soulores @fushic0re @galatially @inklore @cregan-starks @starryeyedstories @stargirlfics @stargazingcarol

Not quite a matching mix, but not terrible!

Tagging: @ohheyitsokay, @0celestialbitch0, @miceenscene, @pettyprocrastination, @cinewhore, @patternedlantern, @shirks-all-responsibilities, @isengards, @inspiringmelodrama

it's definitely almost something? this was so fun, thanks, dia!

tagging @0celestialbitch0 @ifimayhaveaword @eupheme @psithurista @writeforfandoms <3

Heheheh this was fun!

just curious as they're always things i've never questioned just doing but people in my life are often surprised that i don't mind doing them alone

🔁 pls reblog for sample size

Reblog to hug the person you reblogged this from and tell them that everything's going to be okay

Thinking of that line from Fantastic Mr. Fox when Felicity tells him “I love you, but I never should have married you.”

Anyway so about post-movie Frankie—

@elle-oquence

Frankie makes it a point to say how his woman doesn’t want him doing this kind of thing anymore, and it’s not said in the kind of uncertain terms people give when they think that’s what their spouse’s opinion is, it’s given as fact. The two of them have talked about it, with her making it clear to him what she thinks, and why shouldn’t she? If Santiago has asked them to do something like this before, regular recons and private mobilization, then she knows what it’s like to see him leave and come back and for her to not know anything in between. She’s seen him compartmentalizing and pulling away in the days leading up to a job he can’t talk about in a country he won’t say, she knows what negative space haunts their home in the days or weeks he’s gone, and she’s seen him when he comes back and spends a week not touching her because he’s still decompressing and compartmentalizing and packing whatever he did while he was gone into neat little boxes and stowing them at the back of his mind to make room for who he is as a civilian. She’s seen how the weight of his actions haunts him.

So she knows what it’s like to worry about whether or not he’ll come home at all, and to worry about what state she’ll get him back in

And now, with a baby in the picture too? It’s not just him he’s responsible for anymore. There’s insurance and vehicles and school districts to think about, better jobs to look for, addictions to control or kick for good. There’s an exhausted mother sharing his bed and getting up at all hours to care for a baby and trying to heal while he’s gone all day at work, trying to make and save enough to cover the bills while she’s on leave. There’s medical bills to pay for.

There’s longer hours to take at work, and cocaine to keep him alert while he’s there.

He knew the whole time he wasn’t supposed to listen to Santiago (he’s never supposed to listen to Santiago) but the promise of money to make a better life for her and his family, for all of them, was too much to pass up. He lost his license. He may have lost his job. He may not have told her about either.

But Frankie’s sharp. He knows his friend. And he also knows that if the rest of them are in, he’s got to make sure they’ll be able to get out.

So he says yes, despite the fact he probably knows right off the bat that Santiago is planning something else. If it’s just a recce and if they’re working with the agency in South America, why does Santiago need a pilot?

He doesn’t tell her that either, the same way he never tells her leading up to these things. Compartmentalize and provide her with plausible deniability, if it ever comes to that.

When he gets back, he’s worried this time it will. Tom’s dead after all. A weekend trip turned into ten days of radio silence and zero answers. Something happened and she knows it.

He can see it in her watery eyes when he does get back, jet lagged and haunted and with healing scars. It’s late when he pulls into the drive and makes it up to the house, praying his key still works in the lock.

She’s there in the foyer, on edge like an angry and terrified cat with circles under her eyes as dark as his. She’s across the room before he can blink, hissing his name as he closes the door behind him, and before he can finish saying her name she slaps him

Frankie’s head jerks to the side, surprised and angry on reflex. He grinds his teeth and forces himself to breathe instead of snap.

What surprises him more though is that she launches into him with her own arms wrapped fiercely around his neck and back, one hand digging into his shirt and the other into his hair. She’s shaking against him, her hard, shuddery sobs tight against his own chest as she clutches him like a lifeline. Frankie can feel her tears staining his skin, and he softens, holding her in return.

“I love you,” she whispers harshly against him. “But I never should have married you.”

Frankie sighs.

“… I know.”