Can I steal that?
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Sure. Itâs a fun variation on how to explain why the dwarves and such all look vaugely human. Itâs not the case; itâs humans that look vaugely like the rest.
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It gets even better. Cos itâs a hattrick today.
Apex Legends got caught out with blatantly A.Iâd promo art (although thatâll be upper management/EA for sure, Respawn need to extract from that steaming mess, on god 
We might get TF3 that wayâŚ)
AND, as Peak Irony, Wacom of stupidly over-expensive DRAWING TABLET fame used A.I. trash for a promo image.
That⌠thatâŚ
Itâd be funny if it wasnât achingly sad and disgusting in equal measure.
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Donât forget that the newest versions of at least Photoshop from Adobe trains their own AI algorithm from whatever you create using their app 
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Is it in the license agreement? That kind of stuff sounds like it should be illegal without consent.
This is why, if you run proprietary software at all, you should run it in a sandbox with those and only those permissions that it needs for its core functionality. A graphics editor whose primary purpose is editing files on your computer shouldnât need Internet access at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_privilege
(Iâve never used Photoshop, myself, but then Iâm not an artist. The only proprietary software I run on my computer is games and strictly necessary game launchers like Steam and the Battle.net launcher.)
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Everyone thought Adobe couldnât get any worse, they were already gold-plated trashcan tier for anyone who didnât have to work with their stuff due to work/contracts etc.
Then they somehow got even worse.
Absolute hellscape out there, on god.
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While you can âopt-outâ I donât trust it at all considering how bs adobes been the past decade.
Blog post when they announced their dumb firefly algorithm
Yes but you can opt-out (lol, lmao). Any and all AI should be illegal unless you explicitly state you are ok with it, which I know most are not.
Unfortunately some apps and programs nowadays require an internet connection to function or in some cases for whatever reason you decided to save your project in the cloud.
Then thereâs having your workmates and colleagues having to send over files etc so yeah, you kind of need internet access if you do most creative fields in the modern world.
Dw I can tell, not meant in a negative way.
But yeah I am having an ElmoFire.gif moment everytime I consider opening any of my art related programs, including when I have to do my job (:
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Remember, kids: breaking always-online DRM is always ethical.
Actually, let me rephrase that. Breaking DRM is always ethical, period.
Mind you, I have a mild inferiority complex over that because it sometimes feels like artists compose the majority of the AD RP community.
In my setting, orcs are a solitary people who dwell in mountains far separated from rest of the world due to their difficult to pass mountain ranges and pathways, which made them effectively evolve separate from rest of the world. Theyâre a peaceful, spiritual people who revere their ancestors and live off the land.
The orcs believe that their name is their soul, and as such they often recycle names of their ancestors in the belief that the child is the reincarnation of that particular ancestor. Itâs not uncommon for an orc to be named Kurog VII as the seventh reincarnation of the honoured ancestor of that name.
When an orc commits a crime, the punishment is exile during which a symbolic funeral is held for the orc as though theyâre considered deceased in the eyes of the clan. Their name is stripped from them, and returned to the ancestors to be reincarnated, and the orc is cast out to wander the world as Soulless with a name like Maim, Feral, or other such descriptive name that matches the nature of their crime.
Thus the prejudice is perpetuated as the only exposure rest of the world has to orcs are their exiled criminals who often act the part.
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One thing I really have always disliked about a lot of settings, fantasy or otherwise, is how their different races are portrayed.
A lot of the times itâs basically just human anatomy + different head, a tail or skin/fur etc.
In the setting that I am building I have put a lot of care into designing the evolutionary tree and morphology of all the races and animals of the setting. For example, I have a race of crocolisk (though actually they are one of the early branches of draconidae, a lineage that includes all manner of dragon-species) like humanoids, that have 6 limbs instead of four.
Due to them having evolved into an upright stance, the necessity for the middle appendages gradually became lesser and lesser as they no longer needed to carry the weight of the body, which allowed the primary arms to gain more muscle anchoring points and mass. They still have the limbs, but they are small compared to the primary arms and are actually used by them for a lot of fiddly and precision work, while their primary arms are used more for leverage and strength based tasks.
Their skull has also shrunk down in length and jaw muscles to accommodate a larger brain, but they are still distinctly reptilian in features. This means their upper body has a lot of weight in proportion to the lower body, which leads them to have a tail to balance the weight.
They also have an innate ability to produce fire (though barely an ember) through breath, but itâs not nearly as sophisticated as many other true dragons in the draconidae lineage.
WoW is thankfully at least somewhat consistent with itâs races, with humans originating from titan ancestors, trolls (zandalari) likely sharing ancestry with a sabertusk loa like the quilboar do with Agamaggan, etc. It doesnât go as deep with the explanations as I do but thatâs fine.
Abhor the Abominable Intelligence.
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I have started playing FFXVI and my pet peeve is the voice direction for Clive.
Social outcasts who are treated poorly simply due to their nature, who are shunned from society because of bigoted preconceptions, no matter who they really are under the skin. A lot of people sympathise with this.
Not only that, but their nature means that a lot of them are inherently gifted and talented and far more capable than the standard person. Though they are maligned for being different, they are superior because theyâre different.
Theyâre also aesthetically very diverse and are often depicted as being unconventionally beautiful, attractive in an exotic and glamorous way that sets them apart from relatively plain humans and even elves.
So, tieflings can appeal to anyone who feels like a misfit, like an other who doesnât fit in among standard society. Because of the very differences that you are shunned for, you are cooler, stronger and more beautiful than all of the sheep who dared to cast you out.
For the reasons Iâve stated above, some queer people sympathise with tieflings and find playing tieflings to be an empowering experience. This has led to a lot of people to believe that tieflings as a whole are inherently queer-coded, which means that theyâre a metaphor for the queer experience.
Itâs less âqueer people are inherently demonicâ and more âqueer people are beautiful and powerful no matter what society thinks of them.â
But the whole problem with queer-coding is that there isnât a universal LGBTQ+ experience and youâre not any less of a lesbian because you donât feel represented by or connected to the same thing that other queer individuals have such a strong attachment to. You donât have to identify with tieflings if you donât want to, and other people sure as hell shouldnât view you through the lens of tieflings if you donât want to be seen that way.
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One day Iâll revisit my fantasy setting with fresh eyes and design sensibilities.
But since the topic of restricting races came up, it only had five - Humans (prolific), Mermen (a male-only race, born to humans), Aveni (bird people, connected to a Phoenix god), Dragonborn (dragon descendants, have their own dragon-run nation), and Genasi (an artificial race created by the evil empire coded magocracy as slaves).
The general idea behind the restriction was that a godswar some ~800 years before present day had ended up killing or banishing a bunch of gods, wiping them and all evidence of their existence from reality, which in turn deleted their creations - elves, dwarves, gnomes, and orcs included.
(or in other words, âbecause I say soâ)
Donât worry I am, afterall it is taking my job quite literally
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Thatâs the worst part, and most frustrating that people refuse to call it what it is âbecause A.I. is catchier, bluh bluhâ.
Itâs not a freaking A.I.! There is no Intelligence there, itâs a software that mulches up thousands, millions of things and then spits back an approximation! Itâs not sentient! Use the correct words, you ungrateful, ingrate, inbred spuds with limbs!!
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Me, making a Sci-fi setting, picking up any notion of something even close to âhumanâ: âYa-YEET!â
(Not saying no to bipeds, a lot of them are, but the closest to humanoid are broad, grey, and have chonky forearms and slab-foreheads.)
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Does your setting have humans at all, or is it just different kinds of nonhuman species?
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Yes it does- And they follow rather similar evolutionary history as our own species did (coincidentally since they are almost 1/1 to modern humans in physiology, so it felt only appropriate).
Much like us, they also still have some âcloselyâ (5-15 million years radiation) species around, such as trolls, which are another radiation of the great apes in my setting. They opted for gigantism like our distant relative Gigantholopithecus did, but unlike them, they are omnivorous.
They posses some basic human-like behavior, such as understanding how to create and maintain tools and even how to maintain fire. They mostly inhabit the frozen tundras, forests and wastelands of the northern hemipshere of my setting, but some radiations also live in jungles of the mainland of my setting.
They posses dense fur and pillar like, thick limbs and bones suitable to carry their weight. They mostly move on two legs, but can also run with their knuckles, giving them some extra speed if needed. Overall, they are much more similar to traditional potato-nosed and pot bellied trolls than WoW trolls.
In my setting, mammals are a thing but they inhabit niches not filled by others, outside of so far (two) humanoid races I am using. The most common lineages are giant amphibians, dragonidae, and birds, who fulfil the roles of things like whales in the oceans, large herbivores on land and so on.
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No, to be fair 
It purposefully has nothing thatâs really human-adjacent, no space-elf-alikes or whathaveyou.
A bunch of my fantasy writing does (in fact, on thinking, Iâm pretty sure all of that does) so this is the indulgent one heh.
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