A smattering of small things

Oct. 21st, 2025 03:35 pm
umadoshi: (autumn - bat art (insomniatic))
[personal profile] umadoshi
It was pouring rain when I woke up, and again, even if it didn't last long enough--I don't know what time it started, but it was pretty much gone by midmorning--it was appreciated. (Of course, I say that as someone working from home; one coworder who works onsite sometimes is in walking distance of the office, and walking to work today resulted in literally wringing clothing out in the kitchen sink upon arrival.)

That also meant it was dim enough at the start of my workday that turning on both strings of Hallowe'en lights in my office made actual sense! The purple/orange string around the edge of the ceiling is bright enough to be fun regardless, but the new string of ghosts around the window is backlit enough that actually turning the lights on makes little sense during the day. (And these years I spend so little evening time in my office, Dayjob crunches notwithstanding.)

I checked in on my freelance schedule yesterday and found out that things have been rearranged in a way that makes the rest of this month and November pretty light, early December a bit much (although some of the work due then can be done in November, theoretically), and January a bit of an onslaught. It should be fine! Just. Ooof. (At least January isn't a typical crunch time, although anything's possible.) This also gives me a bit more motivation to extend my vacation time after Christmas.

At some point today Pokemon Go rolled out its seasonal Hallowe'en skin, which inevitably charms me all out of proportion.

There were other things in my head this morning, but of course the Dayjob workday quietly wiped them away, so we'll call this a post.

Check In: Day 21

Oct. 21st, 2025 12:04 pm
glitteryv: (Default)
[personal profile] glitteryv posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Yays for a new opportunity to work on our fics!

Question: What's one piece of writing advice that sounds wild/silly but actually works for you?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4


Tuesday and I are

View Answers

...in good terms! (I wrote)
1 (25.0%)

...in friendly terms (I edited)
2 (50.0%)

...in acquaintance terms (I outlined/planned)
1 (25.0%)

...in rival terms (I daydreamed)
0 (0.0%)

...in full enemies terms (I rested/didn't write)
0 (0.0%)

darkjediqueen: (Default)
[personal profile] darkjediqueen posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Title: Once, Twice, Three Times
Rating: R
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Fandom: S.W.A.T.
Relationships: Donovan Rocker/Molly Hicks
Tags: First Time, Repeated Meetings, Discussion of Pegging
Summary: After three times, Molly gives into what the universe is telling her. Rocker is hers.
Word Count: 3,148


badly_knitted: (Rose)
[personal profile] badly_knitted posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks

Title: Out Of Their World
Fandom: The Fantastic Journey
Author: [personal profile] badly_knitted
Characters: Paul, Ben, Scott, Varian.
Rating: PG
Setting: Vortex.
Summary: Ben had said the Bermuda Triangle didn’t exist, but it seems he was wrong.
Word Count: 300
Content Notes: Nada.
Written For: Challenge 489: Amnesty 82, using Challenge 2: Triangle.
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Fantastic Journey, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
A/N: Triple drabble.





smallhobbit: (dragon)
[personal profile] smallhobbit posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Title: National Botanic Garden of Wales
Fandom: Original
Rating: G
Length: Collage of 9 photos plus 100 words introduction
Summary: Some of my photos from my recent visit to the National Botanic Garden of Wales

[admin post] Admin Post: Challenge 495: Amnesty

Oct. 21st, 2025 02:50 pm
china_shop: An orange cartoon dog waving, with a blue-green abstract background. (Bingo!)
[personal profile] china_shop posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Our new challenge is our eighty-second:

AMNESTY



During amnesty challenges, you can post works for any of the challenges we've had to date: Complete list of prompts )

See the Community Report for a sortable list of prompts.
Both reports have a random "Any Challenge" button, and the Creator Report also has a random "Unfilled Challenge" button.


Of course, you're always welcome to post multiple works to any challenge if you finish them before the challenge closes, but that isn't always possible. So dust off those unfinished works and half-formed ideas -- now is the time!

In amnesty rounds, include the challenge you are posting for in the subject line of your post (eg, Garden: The Untamed: Icons: Bunnies!).

Each work created for this challenge should be posted as a new entry to the comm. Posting starts now and continues up until the challenge ends at 4pm Pacific Time on Saturday, 1 November. No sign-up required.

Mods will tag your work with fandom, media and challenge. When you've posted entries to three consecutive challenges, you will earn a name tag, and we'll go back and tag all your previous entries with your name.

All kinds of fanworks in all fandoms are welcome. Please have a look at our guidelines before you play. If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to contact a mod. And if you have any suggestions for future challenges, you can leave them in the comments of this post.

You can view stats for [community profile] fan_flashworks entries and search and filter them via the Community Report and Creator Report. See our FAQ post for more details. Please let us know if you have any trouble accessing the reports.

Also, keep an eye out for the next [community profile] ffw_social post, which will go up in the next couple of days. If you haven't joined the comm yet, it's never too late to come and check it out. (Remember, posts are locked, which means you have to join to see them.)

Pinch Hits & Mid Sign-Ups Notes

Oct. 20th, 2025 01:31 pm
yuletidemods: A hippo lounges with laptop in hand, peering at the screen through a pair of pince-nez and smiling. A text bubble with a heart emerges from the screen. The hippo dangles a computer mouse from one toe. By Oro. (Default)
[personal profile] yuletidemods posting in [community profile] yuletide_admin
Sign-ups close at 9pm UTC 24 October. We're more than halfway through sign-ups - if you haven't signed up, get in quick! If you have signed up, we're glad to have you. Please check all your details are correct.

If your sign-up includes a letter link, please make sure that link works for all viewers! In particular, if your letter is on tumblr, please set it up to be viewable for people who do NOT have tumblr. If you're using Google docs, we recommend linking a web-published version of your letter.

Pinch hits

Pinch hits are a major part of Yuletide. Pinch hits are writing assignments that need to be claimed by volunteers, and pinch hitters are the writers who claim and fulfil them. Currently, we publish pinch hit details on [community profile] yuletide_pinch_hits, but we also send out notifications of new pinch hits to members of the Yuletide Discord server who have taken on the "yulephs" role, and to anyone subscribed to the Google Group for Yuletide pinch hits.

If you're interested in helping out by taking on extra assignments, please check that you're signed up to receive notifications by one of these methods! We'll send a test message out soon.

Sign-ups

We've introduced some new features this year! You can now request up to 8 fandoms, and you may fill out a form (linked from the sign-up form) if there are people you would prefer not to match to. Beginning in 2023 we have also included an additional tag checkbox where you can specify whether you want all of your requested characters to appear, or if you’d be happy with particular combinations you specify, or any combination your writer chooses.

If you have questions about any of these, please email us at yuletideadmin@gmail.com! We'd like to make sure things go smoothly for you.

Requesting characters can be a tricky aspect of Yuletide, so just in case, here's a refresher:

If you select 2-4 characters in a request, you can only match to someone who offers them all, even if you’ve indicated in the additional tags that you’re happy with any one of them. If there are 4 or fewer characters nominated, and you’d be happy with a story about any of them, selecting no characters gives you the widest range of matches.

If you select no characters in a request, that means your writer may write about any nominated character or about the fandom world in general. Please only do this when you'd genuinely be happy with a story about any nominated character, or the world.

Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app

Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.



umadoshi: (tomatoes 01)
[personal profile] umadoshi
Reading: As of midweek, I'd read nine novels (well, eight and a novella) this month, which is very pleasing given that I usually consider that a good number for a full month, never mind just about halfway through one. (Of course, for the last few days my brain's done an about-face and decided that I'm going to be just reading a cookbook now, thanks.)

Since my last accounting, I've finished KJ Charles' All of Us Murderers (gothic murdery queer romance), Freya Marske's Cinder House (which I wish I'd realized going in--or perhaps more importantly, when I bought it at full price--is a novella, although that didn't keep me from enjoying it quite a bit), Stephen Graham Jones' The Only Good Indians (very solid, but I feel I've met my quota for books with mutilation for a while), Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle (not so much my thing, maybe [whatever that is], but I sure see why it's a classic!), and E.K. Johnston's Pretty Furious (a satisfying "~good girls~ lash back at the fucking patriarchy and its associated bullshit" read).

Now I'm reading through the aforementioned cookbook, Bee Wilson's The Secret of Cooking: Recipes for an Easier Life in the Kitchen, which swiftly made its way onto the inherently-aggravating-but-complimentary list of cookbooks bought in ebook that I now want in hard copy.

Also, [personal profile] scruloose and I are...maybe a third?...of the way into Fugitive Telemetry (having decided to listen to Murderbot in chronological order rather than publication order).

Growing: In a shocking development, our Tiny Tim tomato plant (which we bought immediately before the drought turned unmistakable official, and therefore have since watered once or at most twice since putting it in) has produced a couple handfuls of ripe fruit! [personal profile] scruloose reports that they're tasty! We're over halfway through October!

Check In: Day 20

Oct. 20th, 2025 12:07 pm
glitteryv: (Default)
[personal profile] glitteryv posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
New day, new opportunities to work on our fics.

Is there something you like to do in order to get into a "writing mindset"? Do you review your draft? Check out Pinterest for more inspo? Chat with a friend abt what you want to do in the fic/chapter/draft?

POLL TIME!

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 6


I looked at Monday in the eye and...

View Answers

Then I wrote!
3 (50.0%)

Then I organized my notes/outline!
0 (0.0%)

Then I edited!
1 (16.7%)

Then I daydreamed/bounced ideas off with someone!
0 (0.0%)

Then I rested!
2 (33.3%)

AWS outage

Oct. 20th, 2025 10:11 am
alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance
DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.

no fandom : icons : brilliant gems

Oct. 20th, 2025 03:34 am
highlander_ii: ([ST-DSC] 001)
[personal profile] highlander_ii posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Title: brilliant gems
Fandom: none
Rating: G
Content notes: None apply
Summary: icons of gem stones


brilliant gems )
erinptah: (pyramid)
[personal profile] erinptah

Back in August 2024, Tyler James on ComixLaunch did a podcast episode about a rash of spam AI projects on Kickstarter. Campaigns with almost-identical templates, and an eerie lack of substance, where all the images look like Midjourney and all the text sounds like ChatGPT.

You can see him browsing them on-screen in the Youtube version. They don’t show up in Kickstarter’s own search results anymore, but I tracked down at least half of them.

(Here’s one of the project images. Fun game: guess which spam project title it goes with.)

Project image with text The Mountum Metropolils: A Fabtilch Vivibitie

These have almost exactly the same story sections, in the same order. (The last one screwed up their copy-pasting — they have the same headings in the text, they just pasted it all into a single section.) None of them have any actual comic pages, just 4-6 standalone illustrations, and most of them are clearly “six different responses Stable Diffusion/Midjourney came up with for the same prompt.”

Hilariously, “The Forgotten Realm” actually left a prompt in their campaign text: “An illustration featuring the archaeologist at the entrance to the hidden realm, surrounded by mythical creatures and ancient ruins, with a dark shadow looming in the background.”

They don’t even come up with their own image prompts! It’s just another point on the list of Things They Ask ChatGPT For!

Bot-generated image for that prompt

Tyler admits in the episode that he’s baffled about the point of the spam campaigns. Most of them have five-figure funding goals. If the idea is to swindle backers out of money, you have to make a campaign that can realistically get funded! Otherwise you’ll never get the money in the first place.

(Note, when I looked at the ones that are set to $5K — that’s The Enchanted Artifacts and Quantum Detective — I realized, the “Fundraising Goal” story section has a five-figure goal written. Whoever posted them, they changed the goal in one place, and didn’t proofread the rest.)

Here’s what I think he’s missing:

The goal is to swindle creators.

Somebody wants to do the crowdfunding equivalent of the “publishing startup” Spines. They want to post ads that say “Do you have a great comic idea that you want to sell on Kickstarter, but don’t know where to start? Hire ScamFunderCo! For just $4,000, we will use the power of AI to make the whole campaign for you!” They don’t actually care whether the project succeeds or not. All their profit comes from would-be creators, up front, a few grand at a time.

I’m guessing ScamFunderCo never got that far, because if ads like this were going around, the online comics community would definitely have been talking about it. Which suggests the spam campaigns were a proof-of-concept thing. ScamFunderCo was testing the waters, finding out if Kickstarter would clock them as spam upfront, or if their ChatGPT templates could get approved.

That explains the unreasonable funding goals, too. ScamFunderCo doesn’t actually want these to fund. That would obligate them to produce something! They just want a track record of “see, here’s our proof that we make real KS campaigns.”

A track record with a 100% failure rate won’t necessarily hurt them, either. For comparison, multi-level marketing companies are legally required to share income disclosure statements, which show 99% of their members lose money — then they go “but if you just work really hard, you could totally be one of the 1%! Aren’t you willing to work hard? Don’t you believe in yourself?” And some people still get conned into signing up.

ScamFunderCo could get awfully far by claiming “if your idea is better than these, your campaign could totally fund. Don’t you believe in your idea? Good, now hand over that $4K.”

In the ComixLaunch episode, Tyler reveals that he reported the spam projects he saw, and according to later episodes, he got encouraging responses. First, the campaigns were still up, but they started adding “AI usage disclosures”…which were clearly still fraudulent, and also ChatGPT-produced. (The Time Traveler’s Diary has an example.) Eventually, all of them got suspended by Kickstarter.

So I’m feeling hopeful about ScamFunderCo never getting off the ground.

“Here are the projects we’ve made, 100% of them flopped” could be explained to potential marks as Those Creators Just Weren’t Good Enough, You’re Different, You’re Special. “Here are the projects we’ve made, 100% of them got booted off the platform” is a lot harder to handwave.

Even if the scammers behind that first round of projects have given up, I’m sure new enterprising con artists will keep trying. I’m sure it’s taking some extra behind-the-scenes filtering effort from the staff at Kickstarter (and BackerKit, which has been more restrictive about bot-generated content from the start) to keep them at bay.

I appreciate the effort, and I hope they keep it up.

(I stand with Kickstarter United.)


china_shop: Jin Ah sneaking a peek around the corner, holding her phone to her chest. (Kdrama - PN peeking round the corner)
[personal profile] china_shop posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Title: Inventions, Invective, and Potential
Fandom: Bon Appétit, Your Majesty (mods: use the Kdrama category tag)
Rating: G-rated
Length: 2,530 words
Notes: Thanks to my partner, Andrew, for beta.
Tags: Jang Chun-Saeng (the inventor) & Yeon Ji-Young (the cook), Jang Chun-Saeng (the inventor) & Yi Heon (the king), Inventions, References to Time Travel, Political Upheaval, Yi Heon needs a good scolding, Missing Scene
Summary:

Inventions, Invective, and Potential )

Greek Myth: Fanfic: Equinox

Oct. 19th, 2025 08:44 pm
drabblewriter: (Epic - Troy Saga)
[personal profile] drabblewriter posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Title: Equinox
Fandom: Greek Myth
Characters: Apollo
Rating: G
Length: 100 words
Summary: Apollo celebrates the vernal equinox.

Read more... )

Torchwood: Fanfic: Open and shut case

Oct. 20th, 2025 09:49 am
m_findlow: (Ianto Jones)
[personal profile] m_findlow posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Title: Open and shut case
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 4,030 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 494 - Brilliant
Summary: Ianto thought he could tackle a simple cold case on his own.

Read more... )

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