(new anime? not until Saturday!)

The relative ease of customizing Stable Diffusion models means that thousands of people are stirring the pot and training their own. This is good, since the official models are biased and censored, but it’s also bad, because the derivative models are biased in different directions, and often over-trained to the point that they simply snap when you find their edges.

Most people don’t do their custom training against the base SD models; they layer their collection of picture/keyword pairs on top of one that’s already been “uncensored” or augmented in some way, with the two major anime branches being Illustrious and Pony. What this means in practice is that feeding the same settings to related models will often produce very similar results.

So, just how similar do they get?

I’ve been using SwarmUI’s grid feature to evaluate different models by passing them all the same prompt, seed, and settings.

For each set, I used a character LoRA (small patch model that can be used to add character/style/location data onto other models with varying success depending on heredity), and generated multiple pictures in my go-to model for cute-and-occasionally-naughty material, CAT - Citron Anime Treasures (Illustrious-based), until I found something that looked like a decent starting point:

Setting aside the boilerplate and the character trigger words, the prompt was:

laughing, standing with arms spread, head back, grounded stance, freedom in motion, outdoors, at Santorini, Greece

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Dear Tsundere Redhead Ponytail Busty Demon Gal, please ditch the hip protectors and order some gainax boosters. Remember, the OP promised us a catgirl and a Glasses Elf Mage Gal for the harem, and the web site is promising a sexy ogress to “negotiate” with, so get your tail in gear!

Verdict: oh, the show? yeah, um, something-something taken for granted yada-yada spread your wings boo-ya flawless victory! And the ED makes sure you didn’t miss the subtle hints about the redhead.

(Pixiv currently has four fan-art pics from this show; three of them are porn, none of them are any good, so here’s Much Better Best Gal Livia, from a show with curiously similar OP and ED songs, Nut Salad)

(also, how long do you think they’ll hold off the reveal of the glasses-elf gal, given that she’s in the OP and not on the character page? …)

File under ‘mildly terrifying’…

…that the Rory Mercury LoRA I found generates up to half a dozen of them at once, like a Babymetal cosplay convention…

(this one was my most successful 2.25x upscale from SDXL’s standard 1MP output; upscaling is… weird, sometimes performing flawlessly and significantly enhancing detail, sometimes generating mutant nipples all over the body; y’know, “AI”)

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Once you’ve asked chatbots for information a few times, you start to spot patterns. Here’s a perfect example: I asked Google about putting vanilla extract in tiramisu (something traditional recipes don’t do). High on the list of results was Spoonable Recipes, and every line screams generative AI:

Mascarpone cheese is the most popular ingredient in tiramisu dishes. In fact, over 80% of tiramisu recipes contain mascarpone cheese.

Softened is a frequent preparation for mascarpone cheese in tiramisu dishes.

Mascarpone cheese is often included in tiramisu dishes in amounts of 8 ounces, 1 pound or 1 cup.

Another popular ingredient in tiramisu is white sugar. From the recipes we’ve sampled for tiramisu, over 70% have white sugar.

Tiramisu dishes often call for white sugar to be granulated.

White sugar is often included in tiramisu dishes in amounts of 1 tablespoon, three quarters of a cup or a quarter cup.

…

Another popular ingredient in tiramisu is vanilla extract. From the recipes we’ve sampled for tiramisu, over 40% have vanilla extract.

Vanilla extract is often included in tiramisu dishes in amounts of 1 teaspoon or half a teaspoon.

In tiramisu recipes that contain vanilla extract, it is on average, 0.7% by weight.

In recipes for tiramisu, vanilla extract is often used with mascarpone cheese, ladyfinger cookies, confectioners sugar, chocolate and white sugar.

Potential substitutions for vanilla extract in tiramisu:
    pumpkin pie spice

Also, vanilla extract is not often used with flour, white chocolate, pumpkin and lemon curd.

And remember, that cream won’t whip itself!

(as investor-hungry “AI” companies frantically scramble for fresh content to build their next-generation engines with, they’re hoovering up previous-generation output like this “recipe analysis” and spreading the contamination. A lot of people doing text-to-image generation rave about Flux over Stable Diffusion XL, but the first time I tried it, I got even more fingers per hand; one poor gal must have had a dozen, and that’s enough ladyfingers for three full servings of tiramisu!)

Our All-Business Heroes have no time for doubts, second thoughts, or awkward crushes, because they’re throwing down with a literal Big Bad Wolf, and despite how powerful they’ve both been shown to be (with some of Sunraku’s tricks bordering on cheat powers), they do not have the upper hand here. This is the sort of thing where this show really shines, with even the exposition dumps and planning discussion made sensible by the decoy power introduced in a previous episode.

They’re giving it everything they’ve got, but there’s no sign that it’s going to be enough. Fortunately, help is on the way…

Verdict: ☝️ this, continued

Starting this week…

• Salaryman In The Demon King’s Army - (Wednesday) tsundere redhead demon gal.

• Solo Leveling 2 - (Saturday) how long will they make me wait for Esil?

• Magical Pixie Dream Homeless-Ninja-Gal (Saturday) - hopefully the eye candy compensates for the shouting.

(Anne never fought Onyxia, or she’d be wary of the tail swipe)

Fun fact: the prompt elements “Christmas” and “Santa Hat” have a powerful impact on the setting (strong bias toward indoors, decorated Christmas tree, boxed presents, fireplace with stockings hung), clothing colors (bright red and bright green), and skin tones (white Euro/American). I had to completely rebalance my skin-color wildcard file and add emphasis and throw in an extra “dark” and move it to the front of the prompt before even mentioning the girl.

And, no, I wasn’t going to add prompts that pulled in the bullshit derivative marxist mid-winter “harvest” festival invented by a convicted torturer as a “black christmas”. Because I really don’t want to find out what directions that would push the engine.

Anyway, the only other big change compared to the last gallery is that the naughty bits are covered. This required some emphasized additions to the negative prompt, and a fair amount of pruning.

(I used my usual “5-star deathmatch” method of repeatedly downranking 2/3 of the images until only 1/81 end up with 5 stars. I was able to do this quite quickly because it wasn’t like my vacations to Japan where I only have so many source images; at five seconds a pop to make more, I can be quite aggressive at discarding them in DarkTable)

Y’know the best part of generating cheesecake with “AI”? You can order it not to use a fucking wide-angle lens!

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He’s a knight who reincarnated as a baby behemoth after falling in battle, becoming a monster that could wipe out countries.

She’s a novice adventurer just starting off her career, whose armor budget just about covers a pair of hand towels.

Together, they fight monsters.

Okay, he looks like a helpless kitten and she looks like a pair of gigantic bouncing breasts attached to a pretty young elf gal. You are what you eat: he eats monsters, she apparently eats breasts.

After a hard day’s work in the dungeon, of course she has to drink heavily, get out of her sweaty clothes (such as they are), and take a nice long bath, bringing her new friend along for the ride. On top of that, she’s at least mildly catsexual when she’s drunk. And to put the icing on the cake, she’s got puffies.

(Soundtrack: Steve Miller Band, Abracadabra… 🎶 “black panties and an angel’s face…” 🎶)

Verdict: did they really have to end the full-episode intro with a title drop? Well, it is exactly what it says on the tin. Next week, a catgirl blacksmith who can’t afford a bra.

[as usual, based mostly on the available promo videos]

• Isekai Prime - where Amazon delivers to another world faster than to this one. Two jungle cat girls and a gainaxing guild gal are featured in the promos, so perhaps not entirely worthless, although how many “online isekai shopping” shows can you really make? Maybe

• A-Rank Adventure Harem - where he kicks himself out of hero-ish party and they realize he was the glue that held them together (sigh, again?), but the real twist is that dungeon crawls are live-streamed for entertainment, and his new party is easy on the eyes. Two cours, so someone thinks it’s got a chance. Maybe

• Trash Noble’s Magic Lessons - the trailers seem to assume you’re already sold on the idea. Pass

• Worthless Appraiser - oh, look, a loser gets special lessons in how not to suck, while a gorgeous busty blonde elf attaches herself to him for no particular reason. Pass

• Hammer Of The Guild Gal - she wanted a stable income and a clear work/life balance; her rage at being given overtime has driven the gods to make her a one-gal army. Yes

• Fruit Magic Hero - just No.

• Alchemy Hero - wow, this is really the season for hot blonde-elf companions. Pass

• The Apothecary Diaries 2 - ohthankgod for this oasis. Yesyesyes

• Premise Of Wizard - ah, this is one of those pointy-chinned-pretty-boy-harem shows. HellNo

• Fragmentary Lily -I’ve watched the trailer twice, and it appears to be livestreamed game footage from someone who skipped the story. No

• Magical Pixie Dream Homeless-Ninja-Gal - self-conscious wackiness with lots of shouting and screaming. Maybe, if I can survive the audio in the first episode.

• Literal Dream Girl Elf Waifu - she follows him home from dream to reality, but has more than a one-word vocabulary. Mone. Mone, mone. Maybe (classical reference, marred by use of dub cast)

• Okinawa Tourism Waifu Party - very shouty, and the entire premise is fish-out-of-water-boy can’t understand anything the locals say, especially the girl he immediately fell for. How they manage to make that funny in sub or dub, I have no idea, but it’s full of telegraphed wackiness! Pass

• Solo Leveling 2 - they did a decent job last time, and I’m glad the international release wasn’t burdened with the name and location changes they inflicted on the Japanese version to make it less Korean, but I’m really here to see Esil. Yes

• Salaryman In The Demon King’s Army - all I got out of the trailer was that there’s a severely tsundere redhead demon gal showing some skin, so Maybe.

• Super Sentai Isekai Time! - an off-brand power ranger lands in a fantasy world with his powers and attitude intact. More importantly, there’s a super-busty bouncing witch and a wild blonde forest elf gal wearing a bunny-ear headband, and everyone’s shouting, kind of like they’re in a sentai team. Break Glass in case of desperation

• Shangri-La Frontier 2 - continuing, currently doing what it does best. Yes

• Kitten-Smothering Blonde Elf - noob adventurer with ridiculously large honkers seeks cute kitten for future sexytimes; until then, he’ll protect and serve her as the knight he used to be while hoping she never finds out he’ll grow up to be a world-class monster. I read the light novels up to the point where it got cancelled, which I’m pretty sure had a lot to do with the author merging in the characters and story from his earlier failed cross-dressing isekai cheat harem save-the-world story. Fortunately they’re not going to get anywhere near that point in a single cour. Yes

Guess the theme…

These were generated with PVC Style Model - Movable Figure XL. Apart from my standard quality boilerplate, I did not specify style, looks, lighting, poses, or wardrobe, just a brief key phrase. I could have gotten much more specific results for each subject without any real effort, but this was largely an exercise in exploring the defaults trained into the model. And this one is very heavily trained; you can paste in a UUID as your entire prompt and still get a picture of a pretty girl wearing elaborately detailed clothing that shows off her cleavage.

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Not Safe For Isekai…

• In It To Win It: A Tentacle’s Tale

• Sent To The Reincarnation Waiting Room By A Dyslexic Truck-kun, My Fate Was Decided By A Powerful Doggess Who Loves To Chase Cars, Roll Around With Dead Things, And Dig For Bones, So Now I’m Scrambling To Survive A Zombie Apocalypse In The Body Of A French Poodle

• That Time The Goddess Of Isekai Resettlement Decided To Reincarnate Me As A Cute Little Femboy Goblin Slave In The Demon Lord’s Harem And Liked The Idea So Much That She’s Here Too So There’s No Chance I’m Escaping Any Time Soon

• My Cheat Power In This Horrifically Violent Dark-Fantasy World Is ‘Create Bubble Bath’, Which Only Works When I’m Alone With Married Women, Causing Me To Acquire An Ever-Growing Anti-Harem Of Cuckolded Husbands With Overpowered Magic Swords

“Did you get what you wanted this year?”

“Sorry, honey, I was talking to the tentacles.”

Stable Diffusion Fun Fact

Stockings often trigger a skin-color reset for the torso, so if you want your sexy green goblin gal (that’s “goblin, green”, not “Green Goblin™”) to stay green all over rather than have some really weird tan lines, put the skin color before the lingerie in the prompt. As with all LLM prompts, it’s a suggestion rather than an instruction, but it does help.

(“Nobody really objected when the alien invasion started in Canada”)