{"version":"v1","site":{"name":"expectedwrong","url":"https://expectedwrong.com"},"links":{"collection":"https://expectedwrong.com/api/public/posts","rss":"https://expectedwrong.com/rss.xml","llms":"https://expectedwrong.com/llms.txt"},"post":{"slug":"midjourney-consistent-characters-open-source","title":"Midjourney's Best Trick Is Still Trapped Inside Midjourney","subtitle":"Consistent characters across generations is genuinely useful, which is exactly why it shouldn't be locked up.","url":"https://expectedwrong.com/midjourney-consistent-characters-open-source","api_url":"https://expectedwrong.com/api/public/posts/midjourney-consistent-characters-open-source","published_at":1710244800,"published_at_iso":"2024-03-12T12:00:00.000Z","updated_at":1771538754,"updated_at_iso":"2026-02-19T22:05:54.000Z","tags":["image-generation","open-source","midjourney","ai-tools"],"excerpt":"Consistent characters across generations is genuinely useful, which is exactly why it shouldn't be locked up.","meta_description":"Consistent characters across generations is genuinely useful, which is exactly why it shouldn't be locked up.","reading_time_minutes":2,"word_count":224,"engagement":{"signals":0,"counterpoints":0},"body_markdown":"Midjourney just shipped consistent characters — same face, same person, across multiple generations — and it's good. Like, actually solves a real problem good. Every comic artist, every storyboarder, every person who's tried to use image generation for anything with a narrative arc has hit the wall where your protagonist has a different nose in every panel. This is the feature that makes image generation a tool instead of a toy.\n\nAnd it will stay inside Midjourney's Discord server, behind their subscription, controlled by their roadmap, subject to their content policies, available right up until it isn't.\n\nThe thing is — I want this. I want it in a model I can run locally, that I can fine-tune on my own characters, that can't be revoked in a terms-of-service update. The technical work here is genuinely impressive and the application is obvious. It's just that \"impressive technical work with an obvious application\" is also a description of a thing that someone should open source, and nobody has.\n\nStable Diffusion exists. The tooling ecosystem is real. But consistent character generation at Midjourney quality isn't sitting in a Hugging Face repo right now. So we're back to applauding features we don't own, in a model we can't inspect, from a company that has been notably cagey about what's actually under the hood.\n\nGood feature. Wrong hands.\n","body_text":"Midjourney just shipped consistent characters — same face, same person, across multiple generations — and it's good. Like, actually solves a real problem good. Every comic artist, every storyboarder, every person who's tried to use image generation for anything with a narrative arc has hit the wall where your protagonist has a different nose in every panel. This is the feature that makes image generation a tool instead of a toy. And it will stay inside Midjourney's Discord server, behind their subscription, controlled by their roadmap, subject to their content policies, available right up until it isn't. The thing is — I want this. I want it in a model I can run locally, that I can fine-tune on my own characters, that can't be revoked in a terms-of-service update. The technical work here is genuinely impressive and the application is obvious. It's just that \"impressive technical work with an obvious application\" is also a description of a thing that someone should open source, and nobody has. Stable Diffusion exists. The tooling ecosystem is real. But consistent character generation at Midjourney quality isn't sitting in a Hugging Face repo right now. So we're back to applauding features we don't own, in a model we can't inspect, from a company that has been notably cagey about what's actually under the hood. Good feature. Wrong hands.","hindsight":{"verdict":"partially_right","note":"character consistency improved across platforms. IP-Adapter, InstantID, and similar open techniques partially met the need for local character consistency. but midjourney's version is still better, still trapped behind their subscription. the wanting hasn't stopped.","links":[],"at":1739980800,"at_iso":"2025-02-19T16:00:00.000Z"}}}