elodtrebor

Feel like I've been ruined. I sit down to make a quick sexy pin-up

And then I start changing clothing, and background details to make it a complete scene

And suddenly there's an actual character with a story and a plot and what happened to my quick sexy pin-up?

Cool , now someone on FB posted one of my images and put their own damn watermark on it.

I'm not making any money from this. And I don't mind things being reshared, but...

Resharing with link to original: Awesome!
Resharing with no link: Acceptable. This is the internet.
Resharing after watermarking: That is some BS that approaches pissing me off.

Trying to turn over a new leaf here. Instead of spamming a hundred things, I am going to limit myself to a few that I feel are nearly perfect (I know, should have been doing that the whole time).

I am also working on shifting my images almost entirely to "Things that inpire hope". I'm tired of grimdark, and this is my way of fighting back against it.

Just started playing with Z Image today (not Z Image Turbo) and *wow* am I impressed. I hope you will be too.

Been thinking a lot about how superheroes--especially Kryptonians--have been presented in recent media, and why certain versions feel fundamentally *wrong*.

Take Zack Snyder’s Superman. His framing consistently emphasizes separation from humanity: godlike imagery, dark tones, alien textures, a sense that his arrival is destabilizing.

When people see Christopher Reeve’s Superman, the emotional reaction is “It’s okay now. He’s here.”

When people see Snyder’s Superman, the reaction is closer to “Oh shit, he’s here - this is going to get worse before it gets better.”

That difference matters.

Superman’s power should project through calm authority, not snarling or posturing. Rage and overblown aggression are signals of insecurity. Real power doesn’t need to prove itself - it defines boundaries.

The difference between:

“I will fight evil and destroy it at any cost,” screamed loudly while puffing himself up

and

“I am the line you do not cross. You will not harm these people," delivered calmly, like a simple statement of fact.

Snyder’s approach forces Superman into constant escalation--Zod, then Doomsday, then Darkseid. That speed leaves no room for Superman to be anything other than a wrecking ball. If every threat is existential, Superman is reduced to reactive force instead of preventative presence.

In doing so, modern takes often strip away hope, moral authority, and reassurance--the very things that make Superman *Superman* instead of just a strong guy in a costume. That doesn’t make him more realistic. It makes him *less*.

Superman is an aspirational hero, not a grimdark prop.

He shouldn’t have to punch everything in the face to matter. Bad actors should already know he exists and understand what that means. At his best, Superman functions like a fleet-in-being: a power whose presence alone constrains behavior, prevents escalation, and makes certain harms simply unavailable.

Superman’s job isn’t to win fights.

It’s to make them unnecessary.

One more thing that keeps getting missed: Superman *isn’t* a god. He’s meant to stand between humanity and the gods, and tell the gods “no.” When he is treated like a deity, fear becomes the natural reaction. But Superman works only when reassurance does. He isn’t here to be worshiped or feared. He’s here to make sure no one, no matter how powerful, gets to treat humanity - or a single human life - as expendable.

So far one of my favorite things come out about the upcoming Supergirl film is when James Gunn said it's not going to religiously follow the comic.

Give her a chance for growth, for hope, for being something other than a millstone Tom King grinds his torture fetish against.