Nightshade - Blog Posts
Cassie Velez! What's this? A new addition to our gang? Meet 12 year old Cas, a sweet and dorky young kid. She runs into Jin and James who are surprised to see she's made it this far. They soon learn this is due in part to her powerful mutation... The J squad happily adopts her into their duo as they are forced out of their safe camp and back into the fray.
James Rees!
A socially anxious 19 year old coping with the apocalypse the best he knows how. His pessimistic views are finally challenged once he meets Jin, a beacon of hope in a futile world.
Nightshade stuff part 2, electric boogaloo. James is often the "voice-of-reason" to Jin's impulsivity. Mr. Tall & Reserved. He's trying he best!!!
Jin Kurihara!
A reckless 20 year old facing the apocalypse with nothing but her strength and will alone. One day she encounters a young man named James, the first human she's seen in months. Together, the two of them figure out how to navigate a world infested with shadows.
NIGHTSHADE STUFFS UGHH This is one of the many animatorii stories™.
"Nightshade" is an idea I started for a webcomic (that is still out there if you know how to find it). I ended up burning myself out BUT I've learned a lot since then on art, writing, and time management. One day, I'd love nothing more than to raise it from the grave >:)
ARTSHIELD
Putting out another resource for people if their PC is too old to glaze or do their work on mobile platforms
Artshield works by digitally watermarking your art into tricking AI scrapers into thinking its also AI and thus excluding it from the pool of sampled images. Granted it's methods are not as potent as nightshade or glaze, but its browser based and fast so you can have at least some protection on your art rather than none.
Example of an un-guarded picture
Same image put through Artshield.
See any differences? no? Thats because unlike glaze or nightshade the process is a lot more simplistic and changes the art in more subtle ways, while that makes the protection a bit thinner the artifacting is much less noticeable. but dont worry, its there!
as you can see theres blurring and artifacting on anything an AI might look for, such as lines, changes in color, and background patterns. While its not much out of JPEG compression, its more than posting your work without any protection due to PC limitations.
It sucks as artists we have to jump through such hoops to make sure our livelihoods aren't stolen but there is hope that tools are being made to keep us safe, showing there are those that still stand with us against the fight on AI.
spread the word everyone!
Good news, fellow artists! Nightshade has finally been released by the UChicago team! If you aren't aware of what Nightshade is, it's a tool that helps poison AI datasets so that the model "sees" something different from what an image actually depicts. It's the same team that released Glaze, which helps protect art against style mimicry (aka those finetuned models that try to rip off a specific artist). As they show in their paper, even a hundred poisoned concepts make a huge difference.
(Reminder that glazing your art is more important than nighshading it, as they mention in their tweets above, so when you're uploading your art, try to glaze it at the very least.)
Book Review 2: Nightshade by Andrea Cremer
Being a wolf lover, I devour YA novels with wolves in it. I’ve done my research and watched documentaries (no one would be able to tell they’re my favorite animals. All the books, movies, and stuffed animals don’t give that away) so my expectations are high. Some authors like Tamora Pierce and Maggie Stiefvater make me very happy with how they write them, it’s clear they actually read up on things. With that rant over, authors like Andrea Cremer have much potential, but the execution makes me want to burn books (which I have sworn against).
Basically, it’s the usual plot of people who can turn into animals. A young girl is the “alpha” of her own pack and is supposed to marry another “alpha” to combine their packs. Naturally, she falls in love with a human boy and has to fight against her desire and duty.
Perhaps my dislike of this book is showing through, but I couldn’t take it seriously and only made it through because I wanted to see how much worse it could get. If Cremer made it clear that these were kids that could change to wolves but were still human, I could forgive it much more and lump it in with the mediocre of the YA genre. But I can’t do that.
Her writing, overall, is forgivable. It isn’t anything special but is bearable and probably the best thing about this novel. The plot is honestly not great, there are many plot holes, the main character is a cardboard cutout (cute, popular, the best in her “pack”, smart) and everyone else is nearly forgettable. I mean I couldn’t even find this book on wikipedia (no lie I spent an hour trying to find it, it’s not there).
Here’s where my rant really begins. It could be a good premise, wolves given powers to change by witches to serve as their protectors (or at least what I can remember of it) and they try to blend into the human world. Sadly, it doesn’t get close to that, and her “wolves” aren’t wolves at all. They’re hormonal teenagers that want to do everyone and have very little in common with a pack. Sure they change, but that’s the end of the similarities. I expected so much more on the wolf end. Like the concept of the alphas mating, fine I can handle it, but not when one of the two has been sleeping with human girls for years and his other members are coerced or genuinely love sleeping around. In a real pack, only the alphas mate in a pack, and only with each other. It’s for life Ms. Cremer!
That’s not even the end of my frustration with her “wolves”. But for some reason they can turn other people into wolves with a bite… Completely out of nowhere, and doesn’t make a lick of sense. Again another plot hole that I couldn’t look past.
I know these books are rather popular, but I loathe them. I see where it could be good; I tried looking at these books less criticality (hard to tell I know) as I know more in the writing world, but that just makes the writer in me more frustrated. It really had the potential to do well and fails in everything other than the writing itself. So I’m sorry if I’ve torn this apart or seem to not be giving it a fair review, but this really did come from a writer/editorial view point.
Perhaps they get better, but I don’t really have a care to give the series a second chance. If you feel differently, then please leave me a note with a fair argument and not looking for a fight.
Incorrect Quote
y/n - *walks into the nightshades hideout holding a lighter and some perfume with a shit eating grin* “want to see a cool trick?”
enid - “is that my perfume?”
wednesday - *stood next to y/n also sporting a shit eating grin having taught poor y/n said ‘trick’ * “yes”
bianca - “what trick?”
ajax - “yeah what’s your trick y/n?”
y/n - *sprays an unnecessary amount of perfume in the palm of their hand and flicks the lighter on, flames pouring out, then putting the flame over their hand, making the flame transfer to where the perfume was sprayed, setting their hand alight* “look” *holds hand up admiring the flames that emit from the perfume*
bianca - “what the fuck y/n!!” *runs over to the shorter teenager, throwing water on the fire in their hand*
Bonus
*not even five minutes after, bianca takes y/n to the nurses office and yoko storms in sporting a very pissed off look*
yoko - “who the fuck let my partner burn themselves?”
ajax and enid - *points to wednesday*
just y/n being a dumbass and Wednesday always setting them up. based on something I done a few years ago which made my friends think I was crazy. my girlfriend at the time didn’t even bat an eye at the fact my hand was on fire though.