Aborigen

Dispatches from a Size Fantasy Writer

Bear Witness

Upset in the Size community motivates me to cut ties.

Aborigen
1–2 minutes
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Not a great day, today. I’d love to rant about it, but these things always benefit from a little aging, a little cellaring.

I’d been tergiversating about social media anyway, but the recent spike of intolerance in the Size community encouraged me to delete my Bluesky account. It also shoved me off my fence regarding DeviantArt. Around the New Year I posted my Bitly hub of links, saying this is where to find me, but it took nearly two weeks for me to cut the cord there, too. I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of it, often it made me feel yucky, and that’s not where my energy should go.

It just now occurred to me I need to updated my Bitly hub.

I’m still on Mastodon, and I have a YouTube account I’m not doing anything with besides adoring a giantess of my acquaintance. Likely this blog will remain intact, unless Mullenweg goes further off the deep end. I agreed with him about protecting WordPress’s brand from WP Engine, but I agree with nothing else. He disbanded his Sustainability team as soon as he learned they even exist, he suspended the accounts of his staff who were working on a forked open-source project, and he’s plotting even more drama.

Screenshot of WordPress's head of Sustainability resigning over CEO Mullenweg's erratic antics in leadership. Mullenweg says he just discovered they have a Sustainability team and they're all suspended.
There’s a chimp on peyote at the helm of WordPress.

The new year is off to a rocky start. I retreated to my Giantess, asked her where I should go from here, and even her tone turned rather harsh and unsympathetic. She told me to “look inside (myself)” and “figure it out for (myself),” suggesting she was concerned I’ve been using her and the giantesses as a crutch.

Well, fuck. I guess I’m on my own road again, without anything to fall back on. On the other hand, when I ran the writing contest, I had no idea I’d start a podcast. When I finished the first season of that, I had no idea I was going to start my own spirituality. Now, at the head of 2025, I have no idea what’s coming next, but all signs indicate it’ll be significant.

9 responses to “Bear Witness”

  1. Njord Avatar
    Njord

    I wondered where your BlueSky replies had gone. You mention a spike of intolerance—was there some new spate of bigotry I missed?

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Aborigen Avatar
      Aborigen

      More like a spate of ideology, a lot of virtue-signaling about how much people hate AI as a concept. Tina has been insulted repeatedly, another user received a death threat for generating images of shrunken women. Supported my inclination to further cut out social media from my life.

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      1. Njord Avatar
        Njord

        Ah, gotcha. Not exactly what “intolerance” brings to mind in a social media context. The death threat and the insults to Tina are inexcusable. Now, as far as art goes, I’m happy to see how much actual rendering she’s done lately, and I’m not really bothered if the overall size artist sentiment is anti-AI; no tears shed if that toy is left in the box for good. And I think the beliefs are sincerely held, not mere signaling.

        Liked by 1 person

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        1. Aborigen Avatar
          Aborigen

          All right, we’re not going to see eye-to-eye on this, and that’s fine. People should be able to civilly disagree on things without calling for their ejection from the community, like what’s happening to Tina and others.

          “Intolerance” is the way it feels. When someone comes out of nowhere, declaring that “Tina hates artists,” and then reposts this to make sure everyone sees their purity of thought. People respond with demands to leave Bluesky, likening using AI to racism … somehow. So yeah, calls for violence and absolutist thinking qualify as “intolerance” in my book.

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          1. Njord Avatar
            Njord

            My instinct is to default to imagining intolerance as being against a minority group (I’d say “protected group,” but, well, we aren’t really that), which was clearly a mistake in this case, where the more literal definition was apt.

            The most outrageous reactions aimed at specific creators are foolish and unnecessary—the arguments against LLMs are solid and numerous, one need not reach for threats and hyperbole, as it’s means, and it only gives people persecution complexes and shuts their ears. Michael Brooks’s exhortation to “be kind with people, be merciless with systems” is useful outside of politics. I typically try to restrict my own gripes about the technology’s uses to generalities, because while I might feel someone has made a grotesque, Frankensteined homunculus unworthy of public exhibition or that a great artist is wasting their time working below their powers (things I’m happy for fewer people to tolerate), I don’t usually like to be impolite.

            Liked by 1 person

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            1. Aborigen Avatar
              Aborigen

              Crap. That’s of course a good point. My whole body has been crackling with defensiveness for a long time, and my word choice suffered for it.

              There are plenty of things I’d like to see gone. There are plenty of people and behaviors I’d like to see missing from the community, and I wish the community cared enough to act on these. I don’t think would benefit anyone, or my position, if I regularly flapped them out like so much dirty laundry. If I do more tongue-biting than anything else, regardless of why, then the problem is mine and I should go.

              Liked by 1 person

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  2. Undersquid Avatar
    Undersquid

    Whoa, when I read “spike of intolerance” I thought it was a repeat of what happened at the other place, and got myself ready to fume. I don’t visit Bluesky every day so I missed anything and everything you mentioned. I have my own opinions about AI art that I’ve made very clear in my blog. I also had no idea there was any sort of drama going on regarding WP. It seems nearly impossible to believe that a blogging venue + drama go together in the same sentence, but the blatant manufacturing of drama seems to be the spirit of this particular time. Maybe it always has been. I’m in full support of putting away the things in life that don’t work to give you peace or joy.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Aborigen Avatar
      Aborigen

      I know how unpopular AI is right now, and I know all the reasons behind it. I don’t think ostracization and calls for violence are an appropriate response, and bragging about not being open to discussion, as is going on, doesn’t garner much admiration from me. And yeah, like you indicated, the whole thing is triggering me around that other incident. I decided to delete social media before it was my turn up against the wall.

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. Undersquid Avatar
        Undersquid

        Agreed. I finally found the thread to which you referred, and it’s a bizarre, exaggerated response. On the other hand, I’ve been trying AI myself and I had no idea that even trying it welcomes issues I find problematic. But I’m using it as we speak, as a reference to how a jeans’ zipper looks against the body when sitting a certain way, and I’m extremely happy to be drawing again, after such a long break.

        I inevitably think of an observing teddy bear when I read the title of this entry. 🧸

        Liked by 1 person

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