Hi! I kind of need $30 by the day after tomorrow to pay for my website for another year, so... anyone want an art commission?

Exactly. And "slop" has gone the same way.

Exactly like that, yes!

If it had only been that I wouldn't have minded, but people are using "slop" for EVERYTHING, AI or not. It's becoming as meaningless as "Mary Sue".

That's a good point.

I think the word "slop" has been overused to the point where it doesn't mean anything anymore.

Thanks for the art share! My name is Dina, and... mmm... bunny girls, huh? I think I have a couple... and a few non-bunnies.

Kaa’s Complaint - The Art of Dina M Previous: Cavalcade of Chosen Ones Next: Sovanna's Lecture Erotic Adventures in Faerie: Kaa's Complaint A six-page story I drew as a response to what I saw as the over-use of Kaa in the hypno-art comm...

I did a comic a couple of years ago... Kaa's Complaint!

artofdinam.com/kaas-complai...

Trans Day of Visibility On TDOV, we celebrate the joy and resilience of transgender and non-binary people everywhere through elevating the voices and experiences of the trans and…

Happy Trans Day of Visibility!

Whatever Happened to Chibi-Dina? - The Art of Dina M Previous: Chibi-Dina's Hypnoween III Next: Lena Lustrous's Guide to Maid Recruitment The Chibi-Dina Chronicles: Whatever Happened to Chibi-Dina? Huh... Chibi-Dina has been missing since Halloween. Won...

Oh yes... Part 12 of Whatever Happened to Chibi-Dina is up on the site.

artofdinam.com/whatever-hap...

From the trailer, the series essentially looks like the movies... except cheaper, more drab, and with worse costuming and makeup. And featuring scenes from the books that were cut from the movies for a reason.

There's a limit to how many times you can do the same thing before people get sick of it.

HP can't be that. It's stuck telling the same story over and over again. The HBO series is the third time it tells the exact same story... fourth, if we count that blatant cash grab that is the full-cast audiobooks. There won't be any surprising new ideas. We all know what's gonna happen and why.

Not all Batman projects are successes, but that's really not the point. The thing is, Batman is a much more versatile character. Every version of him is different; new creators tell their own new and different Batman stories, or new and different takes on old Batman stories.

Is it, tough? I mean, it might be.. and the first seasonis definitely getting lots of views... but whether it can KEEP people's attention for a decade? That's not a given.

HP isn't the 100% surefire hit it once was. Just look at the Fantastic Beasts movies.

I'll be surprised it it ever gets that far. This series has the "super hyped to begin with and then the interest quickly drops until it's quietly cancelled around season three" vibe to me.

I don't think I saw that.

Yeah, they showed it on TV here when I was very little... Sometime in the 1990s. I just remembered the theme song. Found some episodes on YouTube when I was much older. Not sure if they're still there. It was a pretty old series even back then, wasn't it? Looked like it was rfom the 70s.

Wow, I haven't thought of that show for ages.

I was sure I'd written somewhere that even for the time the books weren't particularly progressive, but that might have vanished as I split everything up to fit into the posts. But you're completely right.

Good Omens and Sandman are both good, though they're based on Neil Gaiman books, which has its own set of problems.

True Blood is okay, in a "okay, what excuse are they gonna have for Sookie baring her tits in THIS episode?" way. The first season of the Witcher is good, but it goes downhill after.

Well, far be it from me to defend JKR, Seamus blowing stuff up is only in the movies, so that must be blamed on Steve Kloves who wrote the movie scripts.

Here on Bluesky, I think you're right. Elsewhere... I wouldn't bet on it.

I saw the first season and that was MORE than enough. Except for Lee Manuel-Miranda, every single actor played like they'd had been told "act like you've just been told your best friend died".

And NOBODY could just have a normal conversation.

But WE don't have to be stuck in the past. We can grow and evolve. And maybe use the lessons we DID learn from HP to do better.

But we're not doing any better by obsessing about that fucking cash grab HBO series.

...and that was all I had to say.

In some ways, the HP books were a good springboard for other, better things. Lots of kids' stories and even fantasy stories owe a lot to Potter. But the series itself is forever stuck in the past... a past where bigotry was more acceptable, long as you didn't want to KILL the inferiors or anything.

The only HP-related stuff I'll touch these days is LGBTQ-friendly fan works that have nothing to do with JKR. And even there I'm really picky. (Ugh, Dramione. And Indie!Harry who becomes more powerful than anyone ever. As if the books didn't worship Harry enough as it was.)

I wish my IRL friends wouldn't be buying HP merch even though they KNOW that JKR's using it to harm trans people. I wish I had the energy to tell them, and that their eyes wouldn't glaze over with "oh great, Dina's off on her rants again" whenever I tried. But I get TIRED when nobody listens...

Nope. I'm not excited for this series. I wish it wasn't happening. I wish JKR could just retreat to her castle and drink her wine and leave us alone. I wish Warner wasn't so wishy-washy. I wish fans cared more about trans people than about fucking Butterbeer and All Flavour Beans.

And that's one reason why a series that stays "truer to the books" is a terrible idea. The books are bigoted, hypocritical, mean-spirited and do not practice what they preach.

And with JKR so involved, the series will be just as bad... or worse, because now we can't say "it was a different time."

...the low-key misogyny, the classism, including the slavery apologia, the casual acceptance of bullying as long as the victim deserves it... yeah. These books weren't even that progressive for their time, we were just tricked into thinking they were because Hermione was Not Like Other Girls.