(some links go to PF, because i wrote this post there and am cross-posting)

well, i'm bummed.

so you know how last year i participated in a publishing challenge and actually published (!) my first book (!!) thanks to it? well, it's a yearly event and i was really, really exciting to give it a go again. i had the signup date marked on my calendar and everything!

and now the mods have announced that they'll be using generative AI art covers this year.

like, good on them for announcing this a few months before the event. i'm glad they're transparent about this. but i am also bitterly disappointed, and i get more and more disappointed the more i think about. i guess i shouldn't be surprised: the mod responsible for making the covers is fully onboard with using AI art for book covers. 
they're still also going to do the full roster of book covers using stock art so people can choose not to get the AI art, they've said. that's like 100 covers, or possibly 120? i'm a bit confused.

for clarity, the event works like this:

100 people signup, and once signups close, a ranking spreadsheet is sent out and a site goes up with all the covers (at least 100, so everyone gets one) available. you rank the covers (ideally up to like 30 of them) and you'll be assigned one of the covers by the mods. you then must create a story based on that cover and publish it before the event deadline, or the cover rights revert to the organizers. it's an anon event, too, so you must use the pen name already on the cover (though you can change between a masc, fem name or initials) and you can not reveal who you really are until the event is fully over. it's also a no-spend event, so you're not allowed to spend money on anything. paid marketing graphics, paid beta readers, paid services etc is off the table. this is to give everyone in the challenge the same starting point.

up until this year, they used only stock art for the covers. mainly grandfailure, who is of course an amazing artist.

they've stated the reason for this shift as being because they're running out of grandfailure's stock art (120 covers a year (erring on the side of caution) * 5 years? 6 years? (the event has been running for a while) = 720 stock arts. grandfailure has like 2k images on shutterstock, though, so i think they're overreacting a bit too this.) and they don't trust other stock art because there's so much AI art on all those sites now anyway. so they might as well make the AI art themselves and they'll be sure which is AI!

which like. yeah. that's a stance you can take, i guess.

they also reuse a lot of the covers, though. like, last year only 38 or something of the 100 participants finished the challenge, and consequently i assume that like 70 of those covers should have gone back into the pool? that's how i understood it, and i know some of the covers have been in that pool for years. idk, maybe it's just me, but i think they're being a little bit pessimistic here about how quickly they'll go through grandfailure's art. idk, maybe they're combining images more than i thought? maybe they're discarding some covers? i truly don't know.

they keep saying in the discord server that they're open to alternatives, but every alternative presented gets rejected. like, it's very clear it's not open for debate this year. which, they can do that! it's their event! freedom and all that. but the tone is very defensive to me, and they definitly feel like they're trying to die on this hill.

they're going to make 100 stock art covers for this year, plus presumably 100 AI art covers. that's a lot of work if they're not a-okay with AI art.

so. i'm bummed.

i won't participate this year. i'm not okay with my writing being associated with AI art and more than that, an AI art positive event. even if i personally got a stock art cover, it'd still feel like i'm getting poisoned by association. i don't want to have my name connected to something like that. i don't want to support the authors that get the AI art covers, i don't want to hype an event that uses it, and i don't want to contribute to the prolification of AI art used for book covers in general.

i'll stick around in the discord server because i'm really, really curious how this will play out. last year, they got 100 signups within a single day. there's been quite a lot of people in the server announcing they won't participate due to the pro AI-policy being enacted, so i'm incredibly curious to see how many signups they get this year, and how quickly they'll hit 100. it seems like they don't think this will majorly effect the event, even if a lot of people leave. and it seems like they think there's quite a lot of people in server that are pro AI, more than there are people who are anti.

it's very 'well, they don't say they support generative AI-useage, but that's just because it's so frowned upon right now. i'm sure they're still here!' 

while some people have left, and told the mods they're disappointed and won't support this etc, quite a few people have also stated their support. and that they'll still participate. some of them said they'll just only rank the stock art and veto AI art (which the mods have said they'll consider that being an option), but imo that's weak fence-sitting.

i'm very bummed, and very bitter. and just honestly kind of sad.

 

well, i defaulted on fffx. i've just been unsure about my assignment from the very beginning. like i got it and was like, oops. maybe i should have actually checked the requests in the fandom before i offered it. orz. i totally missed the whole swap thing too, my brain was just full of fog. and with the check-in, yeah. i defualted. i feel bad about it, but it is what it is. at least i did manage to turn in something for ficinabox.

also, i'm working on putting together my holiday wishlist. i still don't have the courage to post it on holiday_wishes, so i guess this is a tradition at this point. it'll be much the same as usual, but also! i'm planning to add some bookbinding stuff to my throne wishlist (it's basically just an amazon wishlist, but more private so it doesn't give away my address). i've been getting really into it: i just finished a notebook in my bookbinding workshop class (separate post coming about that at... some point. orz.) and i definitely want to keep going with this. i'm gonna bind so many fanfics, just watch me.

but alas, i've also spent like 400 bucks on bookbinding tools and such this year (tbf, like a third of that was the laser printer) and i don't think i can afford to keep throwing so much money at it. but the pretty cloth...... temptation, i tell you. so much temptation.

anyway, more proper posts about the aforementioned hopefully coming soon(ish) <3

this year has just been health issue after health issue and it's been exhausting. i genuinely don't know how i managed to publish a book in the midst of it all, lol.

in the midst of the other issues, at some point over the last few months, i fell out of the habit of taking my vit D supplement, and it built and built and built until i was so exhausted i could barely get out of bed, much less focus, or be social, or remember that DW exists, etc. but i'm taking it daily again, and things are (slowly, mind you) improving.

i managed to get in part of my assignment for ficinabox, and defaulted on the rest. i'm super pleased with it: i feel like all i've done concerning exchanges this year is just default on them. and i still haven't read any of the gifts i've gotten since before battleshipex. so if you're waiting on a comment from me, rest assured: i have simply not read/listened to it yet. i sure do hope i can get to that at... some point in a reasonable time frame, but honestly i can't promise anything. (i should really double-check which exchanges are comment mandatory, so i don't mess things up even more for myself orz)

i am signed up for fffx and yuletide_admin, too. not sure how that's gonna go, but so far i haven't thrown in the towel.

also, in a fit of procrastination, i made a Compendium of Big Bangs on 10001 Nightmares Party. then i had the brilliant idea of browsing the collection page on AO3, filtering for 'big bang', and i got another 100+ bangs to add to the list, lol. so that's something to look forward to! (genuinely, it's fun!)

i've been really, really wanting to do a big bang. the only one i've ever done is smallfandombang, which was delightful but limited to small fandoms and had a minimum of 10k words. (i was seriously considering signing back up this year but then i blinked and two months had gone by and i'm still kind of sad about that.) and i want to do a BIG bang. like MEGA big. i'm talking like 50k+ words minimum word requirement. or at the very least, a 30k words requirement. i want to be pushed to write and actually complete a longfic.

also, i think it says something about my state of mind and health that i've only recently realized that i at some point fully forgot about tinyfandomflash. the last prompt was almost a year ago. sigh. i do feel bad about that. the fact that booknook is managing to keep up the RIP Wednesday posts without me is a blessing, and i'm so grateful people are comfortable stepping up. i wouldn't want that to fall to the wayside <3

in the vein of 'i'm slowly, slowly, oh so slowly starting to feel like a Real Person again', i've dropped a bunch of new prompts on smallfandomfest. prompting is open for like another week, if you've got something for it. there are 7k+ total prompts in the bag to pick from now! i am both in awe and delighted by that.

when it comes to DW, i have 2k+ unread items in my inbox. i think i need to stop tracking comments on booknook—i do so for moderation purposes, but honestly i'm not able to handle the deluge right now. like, i'm super happy it's so active and the comments are thriving! but i can't keep up, and then it just keeps building...

so if there are any problems with booknook, anything that requires mod/admin action, (harassment, rule breaking, etc.) you'll need to PM me, or i will likely not spot it.

Bookbinding is such a cool thing, and fanbinding especially so! I've been wanting to get into it for a long time, but there are so many moving parts and I've just been procrastinating... so much. But I finally went to a bookbinding for beginner's workshop! It was awesome! XD

It was only the first of several occasions, so we only got partway through. We got to the part of making the holes in the signatures (we SAWED them. I've been wondering you you do that, and it's a SAW, lol, that's fabulous) but the next one isn't for like a month (cry). I've also gotten OurHands' bookbinding kit, which I've not used yet, but it includes a instruction book with 3 different sewing methods.

And I finally got my grubby paws on a laser printer, so baby, we're in business.

I've got a little booklet now of a fic I adore :) The first attempt, I folded it wrong (quarto) and the middle sheet got all out of order. That could probably have been avoided if I used page numbers, lol. But it was only a first attempt, and I was using normal sewing thread to practice the technique, so I'm not fussed.

For the second attempt, I think I got the fold right and I used waxed thread, which looks very cool. Also darker cream paper, because I can't read on bright white paper without getting a headache. (A depressing amount of self-published prose fiction books use white paper instead of cream, which always gets me down. Especially now that I've moved away from Kindle and am only getting paperbacks of such books on Amazon.)

I'm really pleased! <3 So far I can only do booklets, but there are lots of short fics I'd love to have in my hands, and I'm excited to explore options for formatting. There's a few things I want to adjust for the next try, but I'm having lots of fun! I sort of get how to use bookbinder.js, too!

Next month, I'm definitively going to burn more money on tools, lol. (My poor budget.)

i have a cold and a fever, but i'm signed up to this years battleshipex so i'm focusing on the hype for that. also i still haven't started my justmarriedexchange fic but i'm not very worried about that. i feel okay with it.

i just finished a rewrite of a story, too, that i'm bonkers pleased with. the level of disatisfaction i had wtih the old version just rose and rose and rose, and now it's pretty functional! not perfect! definitely need polishing! i sacrificed artistry a bit in lieu of finishing it faster. but i'm pleased with it, and i'll take a little break and then edit it! :D

i'm currently reading Hero of the Imperium by Sandy Mitchell, which is the first Ciaphas Cain ominubus, and am greatly enjoying it. it's got tropes i just adore: accidentally accidenting your way into more and more power and respect, people mistaking your very selfish actions for selfless heroism, and trying to navigate a sitation your way out of your league with without letting anybody else (who has total faith in you!) finding out how your just bumbling ahead... yeah, it's great. and the prose is easy to read, and unlike Horus Rising, despite knowing nothing about Warhammer lore, i'm finding it easy to follow <3 cain is just a really fun character!

also! i've joined librarything! i've made multiple attempts with storygraph because it's like the most popular alternative to goodreads (at least in my internet sphere) but there's something about the visual designs that bother me. somehow it's all very off-putting to me. my main reading log is on bookwyrm which technically is a part of the fediverse, but i just ignore that and log my reads) and i'm not really looking for a replacement. but it does get a bit... isolated? so librarything. anyway, so far i really like it!