Note: I posted hundreds of AI-generated images of gay couples being affectionate that day.
Adventures du jour!
Yes, I am spamming everyone’s timeline across Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr with gorgeously tender pictures of men kissing. I generated the images using Midjourney AI this morning. I generated a LOT of them. I am not done. I am going to start including more LBGTQ+ prompts in all my work in general.
At first I was feeling hesitant and shy about posting these. But the more prompts I ran, the more I realized that the hesitation and shyness are someone else’s problem. I think they’re lovely and deserve not only to exist but to be seen and appreciated (and perhaps criticized for having too many arms and/or fingers).
I hope that you take the time to look at the images, until they don’t look like something you shouldn’t be looking at. You SHOULD be able to look at two men kissing tenderly without feeling like you’re going to get in trouble. Regardless of your orientation.
The lives of LBGTQ+ people depend on you, yes YOU, seeing us as being more normal, more wholesome, more beautiful, and more deserving of being purely SEEN than murderers and the people who allow us to be murdered. No, I’m not straight. I plan to be more open about my orientation, but that’s a discussion for another day. Feel free to message me about yours or about any questions.
Also, feel free to steal ALL of these Midjourney images. They aren’t under copyright, and even if they were I would give my explicit blessing. Let us make them flinch.
…
Yesterday Ray and I went to Pass-a-Grill beach south of Saint Petersburg. It was very nearly deserted, which is ideal, and was chilly and gray, also ideal. I love the Briny Beach from A Series of Unfortunate Events. I love the bright shiny summer beaches of Florida, too, but squinty gray days are even better.
Ray lost most of her sandwich to a seagull. I can barely write that sentence without cracking up. I’m not sure how we made it this long in Florida without our food–okay, lost it for a moment there–getting stolen. By. Yes, I can write this without getting totally derailed. Without our food getting stolen by seagulls.
THERE. Moving on. Hee hee hee!
Yesterday I was able to rest some. I finally got some decent sleep and released the level of anger that was causing me physical reactions: heart racing, dizziness, shortness of breath, etc. I’m still at a level of “bitch I might” today, though. The last time I was this bad (for anger) was 2016, when the assholes started emerging from my friends list.
Skipped yoga. Walked on the beach. NAPPED on the beach. It was excellent. Went grocery shopping and had to give myself a couple of minutes to calm down at Winn-Dixie and not lose my shit at people being rude and stupid: WHO FUCKING CARES ABOUT YOUR COUPON? NOT EVEN YOU, DOUCHEBAG.
I keep having to remind myself that that kind of anger is a distraction. It is a poison that drugs you until you can’t see clearly. These fucking fascists and murderers *worship* their anger. I will not embody that kind of anger. I will keep my anger close and use it to change the world as it comes into my orbit. I will not drive people off with anger unless they come after me first. I will drive them off–if I have to–with things that are so lovely it makes them fear for their eternal souls.
Got home, couldn’t focus, gave myself the rest of the evening off. Watched friends’ videos, listened to music, tested a number of songs to see if I could dance the Charleston to them (poorly), read some web comix, got to a point where my mind could let me rest, and slept hard.
This morning, slept in a little, did yoga, skipped walking. I had a call with an AI company about their text-based AI I’ve been trying out. At first I thought the response I was getting was nonsense. But the more I pulled it apart, the more I could see that the foundation of the responses were good–it was the methods of communicating the foundations that were at issue.
Stuff came up on the call that was mind-boggling.
I think those of us who are actually enjoying screwing around with AI right now are kind of acquiring AI-ish habits. For example, “I want to just put a bug in your ear” was something the person on the call said multiple times. When I called him on telling me stuff in an interesting way just so he could get interesting responses out of me on the next call, he just laughed and said “of course.” He also admitted that he’d been testing responses on his brothers versus the AI to see (informally) whether the AI or his brothers were paying more attention. You better believe I laughed my ass off AND started telling him things as prompts. I specifically mentioned how beneficial it would be if the AI could identify biases–not just large-scale biases (racism) but smaller ones, like when an article about money didn’t have dollar amounts. Both instances can lead to a company leaving money on the table, you know…
“Augh! It’s a good point! Now I have to look into ethics! AUGH!”
And we both laughed.
I’m still kind of freaked about the scene in the WIP coming up. It’s violent. I know this is the type of scene that goes here, but I also don’t want to write it. It won’t be pleasant, and to make things worse I keep anticipating criticism. “You can’t write that!”–I keep running into taboos in this story. And I keep going, “Real life is worse, and the only reason not to write about this is to make people feel comfortable with the status quo.”
Screw it. I’ll take it slowly and be careful with myself, and let other people manage their own reactions.
More gay kissing coming up.