#longpost is long

[felassan]

MEET: The Veilguard [source]

"RECRUIT DISTINCT COMPANIONS Rally a team of seven companions, each with rich lives and deep backstories. These are characters to befriend, and even fall in love with. Among them, an assassin, a necromancer, a detective, each and all bringing their own expertise and unique abilities to the fight. Harding This dwarven scout has a big heart, a positive outlook, and a ready bow – as well as unexpected magical powers. Davrin Bold and charming, this Grey Warden has made a name for himself as a monster hunter. Now, he cares for a young griffon. Bellara A Veil Jumper obsessed with uncovering the secrets of ancient Elvhenan. Bellara is focused, creative, and romantic. Taash A dragon hunter allied with the Lords of Fortune, Taash lives for adventure and doesn’t mind taking risks. Lucanis An expert assassin for whom the Antivan Crows are a family business. He is poisted & pragmatic, but lacks social skills. Emmrich A necromancer of Nevarra’s Mourn Watch, this well-meaning scholar comes complete with a skeletal assistant; Manfred. Neve A cynic fighting for a better future, both as a private detective and a member of Tevinter’s rebellious Shadow Dragons."

[source]

[kyra45]

Scammer pretending to be in Palestine v2

This post has been remade with better info! Please go to this one:

Got an ask from someone claiming to be in Palestine needing mutual aid? Unfortunately there is a scammer going around and it’s likely the ask you got sent is the same one being sent by multiple accounts who target users interacting with Palestine posts. These blogs use the text/images off a real fundraiser and then post it here pretending to be the person it’s made for. Their accounts are usually only a few days old and they don’t interact beyond the ask/follow. Lately they might make the link to their PayPal account in different colors or claim their GoFundMe is pending so you will assume the real one is theirs. They don’t have any GoFundMe’s set up. They steal from them. If you need proof of something being stolen, searching the text of their post in a search engine should pull up the source. If you know how to report PayPal accounts, please report those used by the scammers.

(Moved to new list)

Below is a growing list of fake/stolen names used across the accounts:

Nour Samar | maryline lucy | Fred Odhiambo | Jeff Owino | Valentine Nakuti | Conslata Obwanga | JACINTA SITATI | David Okoth | Martín Mutugi | Daudi Likuyani | William Ngonyo | Fred Agy | George Ochieng | BONFACE ODHIAMBO | Sila Keli | John Chacha | benson komen | Alvin Omondi | Jacinta Sitati | Daudi Likuyani | Noah Keter | Faith Joram | Rawan AbuMahady (any PayPal’s using this name are scammers who have stolen it off a real GoFundMe. The real person does not have a PayPal account that they post on tumblr.) | Asnet Wangila | Remmy Cheptau

Keep in mind this post isn’t saying all accounts asking for mutual aid in Palestine are scams. Rather, this post is meant to bring awareness of a scammer stealing money from those who really need it by pretending to be a person in Palestine. To report scams, use this:

Report -> Something else -> Illegal uses or Content -> Phishing

[thankstothe]

this show rewires you fundamentally in 60 seconds and then just goes on to have more seasons. audacity

[phlegmykins]

undefined

Harry’s soul is vast and unfathomable (Please unmute) 

Link to Youtube

[dunmeshistash]

Okay I think I'm ready to write the second part of this post about Milsiril

To make it easier for me I'll just divide this into her relationship with Kabru, Mithrun and Helki (her ex-canary prisoner teammate)

First about Kabru

This is an extra from the daydream hour 5. The caption says "Something like this might as well have happened" so its probably not canon but could be. I honestly think his reaction to Milsiril visiting and being overbearing says a lot about the type of relantionship they have. This is the fakest bitch in the whole of dungeon meshi, he never says what he trully thinks unless there's an advantage to doing so, he's a people pleaser that does and says anything to make people like/trust him. And yet he immediatly converts into "Mooooooom you're embarassing meeeeee" when he sees it's Milsiril.

This translation used "Mom" but as I understand the original he uses the more formal version so I think it would be closer to "Mother" but still he acknowleges her as his Mother, and he acts like her kid in every interaction we see between them.

I really don't understand where the idea that he learned to be fake from being "forced" to be her adoptive son comes from.

(Continuing under a cut)

The other interaction we see between them is the Kabru extra from the Adventurer's Bible

Kabru comes to her with a deep fear he clearly has had even before she adopted him, he trusted her with this fear and she did not disappoint him, she comforted him and then gave him the information he needed to believe what she was saying

I'd also like to point out in no moment she discouraged him from calling his his bio-mom "Mom". He also says she taught her children everything they asked

I doubt this would only be true for him, it also mirrors something she said in the manga

"You can go ahead and learn all you want about something else." I believe it when Kabru says she made every effort to answer her children's questions. I think this is also the way she expresses the love she has for them. Plus I love the thought bubble with Kabru mirroring what he learned from her. I also love this daydream hour, she sacrifices her own comfort to do something for Kabru.

Milsiril isn't a perfect mother tho, besides the fact she is overprotective she comes from a very different culture from her children. I like to call her Kabru's white mom cause I think that would be the real world equivalent. This extra is the one I think the most about showing this context perfectly

Kabru wants to share Utaya sweets but looks at his mom looking gloomy/rejected so he talks about fruitcake instead. This very rude for Milsiril to do since she's kinda trying to overwrite his actual cultural background, but I think its done more as a "I want you to like the things I like" rather than something nefarious, and once again Kabru doesn't hide at all his distaste for it, he does the bare minimum to please his mom since she's being dramatic but he doesn't lie to her, he shows how displeased he is about fruitcake, something he refuses to do when eating the harpy omelette that is way worse, because he must make a good impression for Laios. Kabru is honest with his overbearing white mom once again.

Now a little about Rin, from Kabru's context, this is her extra in the Adventurer's Bible

(look at Helki he's such a gremlin i love him) anyway, Rin has a trauma about elves, they really mistreated her so she hates them, but when they notice she isn't thriving they go to Milsiril for help (Helki specifically I'll talk more about him next). I think this indicates she really has a better understanding of short lived kids, her kids are thriving differently from the ones the other elves try to care for. I'd also like to remember she lives secluded from other elves so while Kabru probably had lots of interactions with elves during his life, most of it was probably spent with Milsiril and her other adoptive kids. She also asks Kabru if he would do this to help Rin, he isn't being forced or anything, I also think it's good that Milsiril knows she cant take in any more kids, this to me shows she's worried about the quality of life her kids have. That is all to say, Rin is the one with elf trauma, not Kabru, because Kabru had Milsiril to shelter him from them.

Helki

This will be short and sweet since there's barely anything about Helki, he's her prisioner companion from her time in the canaries, but he was pardoned after Utaya, it says so in the Canarie's Structure page in the new adventurer's guide but I cant really find it translated again... so here's google's machine translation (I remember it saying "Retired and pardoned as a reward after Utaya", something like that)

so officially he isn't a prisoner anymore, but I think he still works as a canary, even so he and Milsiril seem quite close, he is the one to go talk to her about Rin, He is there when she's training Kabru (both laughing at Kabru and then participating). I saw people theorizing she stays close to him because he is also someone who she can feel superior to, but I don't believe it at all, he's STILL in contact with her even after they have nothing to with each other, I think they really have a friendship, and there's no point where it seems like she feels like she's better than him or that he's less than her, people seem to interpret Milsiril and her relationships in the worst possible ways every time and I don't understand why.

This segways into Mithrun

I've also seen people assuming she only got close to Mithrun because now he needs her and has no power over her, once again with the theory that Milsiril surrounds herself with people she can feel superior to. But once again, Milsiril had a change of perspective about Mithrun after seeing his Dungeon

Rather than she feeling superior to him I think rather she realized he was just like her. (And I think she's friends with Helki for a similar reason, it's probably easier to see him as an equal than other nobles)

I've also seen this part used as proof of that. "He said that you've got suspicious ulterior motives and that I shouldn't listen to you" as if that's true, but this is past Mithrun, the one that didn't trust anyone and thought ill of all his teammates, ofc he doesn't believe someone would help him without an ulterior motive. This doesn't prove much about her real motivations.

Also before she showed up, Mithrun was being cared for by servants hired by his brother, he isn't someone helpless she has power over, he is still a member of an important Noble family that has a caring brother providing for him, he can do without Milsiril, he had done without her for 20 years before Utaya happened and she quit the Canaries.

This is all to say I think Milsiril is just a white(elf) adoptive mom doing her best, I don't see much of anything nefarious about her or her motivations, she is flawed as all the dunmeshi characters are, she isn't a perfect mom, she isn't an evil mom, she's just a person.

Elves in general also see short lived species as "children" so I imagine this makes her "You'll always be my baby" attitude way worse, she really treats pre-teen/teen Kabru like he's a toddler sometimes. But she also respected him enough to go all out in training him. I think they're a family with everything that entails.

PS: I didn't get much into Interracial adoption since this is something that happens irl too and I don't know much about all the issues that entails, but in the end, in this case, it seems like a net positive for the kids she adopts considering all we see about how she raised Kabru.

[deoidesign]

How I save time on backgrounds as a full-time webcomic artist

Hi! I make webcomics for a living, and I have to be able to draw a panel extremely fast to keep up with my deadlines. I draw about 50 panels a week, which gives me about 45 minutes per panel if I want any semblance of a healthy work-life balance.

Most webtoon artists save time on backgrounds by using 3d models, which works for them and is great! but personally I hate working in 3d... I went to school for it for a year and hated it so much I completely changed career paths and vowed never to do it again! So, this is how I save time without using any 3d, for those of you out there who don't like it either!

This tactic has also saved me money (3d models are expensive) and it has helped me converting my comic from scroll format into page format for print, because I have much more art to work with than what's actually in the panels. (I'll touch on this later)

So, first, I make my backgrounds huge. my default starting size is 10,000 x 10,000 pixels. My panels are 2,500 pixels wide, so my backgrounds are 4x that, minimum. Because of this, I make them less detailed than I could or that you might expect so it doesn't look weird against my character art when I shrink portions of it down.

I personally find it much easier to add in detail than to make "removing" details look natural at smaller sizes, but you might have different preferences than I do.

I also make sure to keep all of my elements on separate layers so that I can easily remove or replace them, I can move them to simulate different camera angles more easily, and it's simple to adjust the lighting to imply different times of day.

Then I can go ahead and copy/paste them into my episodes. I move the background around until it feels like it's properly fitting how I want.

Once I've done that in every panel, I'll go back through the episode and clean up anything that looks weird, and add in solid blacks (for my art style) Here's a quick before and after of what that looks like!

This makes 90% of my backgrounds take me just a few hours. This is my tactic when I'm working in an environment that an entire scene, or multiple scenes, will take place.

But many panels will inevitably have a location that's used exactly once, and it would waste time and effort to draw a massive background for those. So in 10% of cases, I just draw the single panel background in the episode. I save all of these, just in case I can re-use it later (this happens more often with outdoor locations, but I save them all nonetheless!)

I generally have to draw about 2 big backgrounds per episode, and 3-5 single-panel backgrounds per episode! At the beginning of an arc/book the number is higher, but as the series is continuing and I'm building up an asset library of indoor and outdoor elements to re-use for the book, the number generally goes down and I save more time.

My series involves time travel and mysteries, so there's a lot of new locations in it and we're constantly moving around. If I were working on a series that was more consistent in this aspect, this process would save me even more time!

Like I said earlier, this also saves me a lot of pain and gives me a lot more options as I'm converting from scroll format to print format!

panels that look like this in scroll format...

can look like this in print!

because I drew the background like this, so I didn't need to go through the additional effort to add in the extra detail to expand it outwards at all.

Anyways, I hope this helps someone! As always if it doesn't help, just go ahead and disregard. This is what I do and what works for me, and I feel like I only ever see time-saving tips for comics that involve 3d models and workflows, which don't work for me at all! I know there's more people like me out there, so this is for you!

Enjoy!

Also obligatory "my webcomic" if you want to see this in action or check it out!

[potofsoup]

Happy July 4th, everyone, and good luck to the UK voters out there!

Wow it's Year 11 of doing these!! Here's the AO3 link to the past 10 years, and here's the tumblr link.

Reminder that this is a long game -- some of the judges making decisions were appointed back in the 80s. Many of the cases that were decided this round were from Trump's term. So it's going to take long-term, consistent voting over a decade to start tipping things in the other direction. (Which I talked about in 2018 re: Trump shenanigans and 2022 re: Dobbs).

A lot has been done by the Biden administration (I'm assuming most folks have seen this post by boreal-sea with their very helpful sources), and much of that will be overturned by Trump, especially if he gets the Senate, and especially now that he would have a blank check for anything "official". So let's make sure that doesn't happen.

And even if Trump does get elected, your decisions down-ballot might effect control of the House or Senate, or might make it easier to vote next time, plus the whole plethora of state and local issues. It's Republican state attorney generals who are challenging climate regulations, for example.

Plus, when you really get down to it, only one of the candidates plans on pardoning himself and all his friends if he wins, and attacking the government if he loses. Maybe that guy shouldn't be the President.

If you're new to voting, remember to check voter registration deadlines! I'm a permanent vote-by-mail voter and it's so nice. :)

Transcript under the readmore

Page 1: Sam and Bucky meet up with Steve for a picnic. Steve: Thought you guys were still in Sudan? Bucky: I’m forcing Sam to take a break.

Sam collapses onto the picnic blanket. Sam: Oof, it just never stops, does it? Steve: Nope.

Bucky hands Sam an orange popsicle. Bucky: Eat and relax for a bit, Sam. Sam: Thanks.

Page 2: Bucky asks Steve: How are things state-side? Steve responds: HORRIBLE. Bucky: I thought you’ve been tentatively hopeful about what Biden has been able to achieve? Steve: I was! Student loans, child care, climate regulations, infrastructure, labor, trans rights … he’s quietly done a lot through regulatory improvements and congress bills. But now all people will talk about is how he’s OLD. And then there’s the Supreme Court’s decisions … Chevron and immunity… Steve puts his head in his hands, while Sam and Bucky look on with some concern.

Page 3: Bucky hands Steve a blue/raspberry popsicle: Steve, take a deep breath, and a popsicle. Sam: Sounds like we missed a lot. What’s going on? How bad is it? Steve: Pretty bad. The Supreme Court has made some decisions that give the Court and the President A LOT of discretionary power. Sam: Yikes, that doesn’t sound good. Steve: Well, the Chevron thing means that judges with life-term appointments can override policies made by government agencies. And now it’ll be harder to hold a President accountable because he will have immunity for any “official” actions.

Page 4: Sam: So if the President tries to, say, overturn a democratic election result, he’ll be allowed to as long as it’s in his job description? Steve: I don’t think threatening state electors is “official” business, but that will be decided by federal judges. Who get their jobs by approval from both the President and the Senate. Bucky: Yeesh. No wonder you’re stressed. Any good news? Steve: Well, thanks the Biden and the razor-thin Senate majority, the newer bills don’t rely on the Chevron deference. Still not great but not catastrophic. Sam, squirting ketchup on his hot dog: So what I’m hearing is that it’s now more important than ever to have a President and a Senate who you can trust to appoint fair judges, pass bills, and not commit crimes.

Page 5: Steve: Plus all of the state level offices, now that more and more deciding power has been thrown back to the states — abortion, LGBTQ rights, voting access… Bucky: Hey, at least this is a big election year so we can actually do something! Steve, with his arms crossed, looking surly: Except that all people want to talk about is how Biden is “too old” and “not doing enough,” as if that is on par with Trump’s desire to dismantle basic rights! As if the candidate who doesn’t embody ALL their ideals is not worth voting for! Bucky interrupts with a smart and a loud “PFFT.”

Page 6: Bucky: Um, Steve. YOU were like that in 1940. Sam, nudging Bucky: “Oh, this I gotta hear. Spill, Barnes.” In sepia, Steve is pacing around their apartment while Bucky is sitting and reading a newspaper. Steve: I can’t believe he’s running for a 3rd term! we need a fresh candidate to vote for! This is hardly a choice at all! AND he refuses to engage in Europe! All of Europe under fascist control and we’re just twiddling our thumbs? He’s letting millions die through his inaction! Bucky: Most people don’t want another war, Steve. If he came out for it, he would lose. Steve, indignant: But Buck, it’s your Polish relative who are in danger! Bucky, closing his newspaper and looking at Steve: Yeah, and between FDR and Willkes, I trust FDR to help if he could.

Page 7: Steve, in sepia, looking away: Should he be encouraged to do more? Maybe I should vote for Browder. The Communists have historically be Anti-Fascist.

Sam interrupts off-screen: Waitaminute! STEVE was going to PROTEST-VOTE? Steve: We were in a Blue State, Sam! Sam: But what about the down ballot races?! Steve: RELAX, I did my due diligence down-ballot. I wanted a senate that’s more progressive than the President.Voted LaGuardia for Mayor, too. Steve hesitates: Then, when I got to the President… I realized that the Best case scenario would be that my vote did nothing, versus if it actually spoiled the election. And when I asked myself who I could trust to work with my Senator… well, FDR had a good record with Labor. (sepia shot of young Steve voting) Bucky interrupts: Hold on, Steve.

Page 8: Bucky, eating a cookie, arching an eyebrow: You didn’t vote for Browder? Why didn’t you tell me? Steve: And have you say “I told you so” for the next century? Bucky: Heh.

Steve, with hand on his chin: What’s weird was that, despite everything, I still felt HORRIBLE when I ticked that box. Sam: Sounds like you built up the meaning of that vote far too much in your head. Logically, we know that a single box can’t represent all of the complexity of a whole system, but the desperately WANT it to. Just look at how people have built up so much around the term “Zionis” that it’s made productive conversations difficult.

Page 9: Sam and Steve speak in the background while Bucky reaches into the cooler and pulls out a box. Steve: Sigh. And that’s something that goes beyond the election. Sam: Which is why we need to vote, AND do other things. Bucky, looking at Steve and Sam: Like how Steve works to push organizations on the local level? Or like all the work you do as Captain America? Sam: Exactly. Vote AND.

Sam looks at Bucky fondly: Like how you vote AND make me and Steve take breaks. Bucky, looking stern because he can’t handle compliments: Shush, Sam.

Bucky holds up a cake that has the number “107” on it: It’s time for cake. Happy Birthday, Steve.

[adragonofthings]

Scam blogs (and how to spot them)

Unfortunately, scams do exist on tumblr. That is why it’s key to always try to search around when someone’s sent you a request for mutual aid. Not every account is trying to scam you and for the most part there is legitimate blogs who need your help. Sadly there are also scammers who pretend to be needing mutual aid as well so here is a simple guide to figuring out scams.

How old is the account? The pinned post usually is a good way to tell if the account contacting you is new or old. If you scroll the posts, you should see if they were made around the same time as the account.

How many posts are on the account? Most blogs will have more than just a few posts here and there. After all, a well used blog has thousands of posts for you to look at.

Are there more original posts? Usually someone needing help will have multiple posts of their own instead of a single post that’s pinned. They will also post updates regularly regarding their situation and answer asks clarifying details when necessary.

What does the link on the pinned post say? If it’s a linktree claiming to be a GoFundMe link, that’s something to be suspicious of because it’s likely not. If the link is an actual GoFundMe link that isn’t a linktree link then that usually means the account is legitimate and may have shared posts verifying who they are if you scroll a little.

Is the ask being mass sent to users? While this is done by legitimate accounts too, it’s unfortunately also commonly done by scammers. If you search the ask you got you may find it was sent to multiple accounts across several months and from several different senders with no changes to the overall text itself. Even the formatting errors are not fixed.

Are there any warnings out for the username? Try searching the senders username to see if anyone’s made a post claiming the account is a scam. There should at least be one post about them. If not, it’s likely that they are too new to have been reported yet.

Are you a well known account? How likely is it someone would find you without searching specific tags or posts for users to contact? Think about it. How often does someone send you asks for money that is a relatively new account with only a few reblogs and only one original post? If it’s almost daily, then you should be wary of the asks.

What do you find if you search part of the pinned post in your preferred search engine? If a fundraiser pops up using the same text and doesn’t mention using another mutual aid method, it’s highly likely the blog sending you the ask is impersonating a real person who needs support.

Does the mutual aid post make sense? Some scammers don’t know how medicine works and may list some that don’t work like claimed. They’ll just use whatever sounds ‘right’ without further research. Someone who needs medication will always know what their medicine does they don’t guess because they’ll usually have a doctors paper they go by.

If you have properly recognized a scammer and have fully been able to confirm that their a scammer with enough evidence, please report scam accounts and alert anyone whose shared the scam post.

[batneko]

had an idea for Bowser pulling a Megamind and disguising himself as a human, and accidentally learning a lot more about how people see him.

I guess this is a superhero AU too? IDK. I want to do one of those but I don't have any solid ideas for it yet.

[jewellery-box]

Ball gown, 1900–1903. French. Silk.

The MET Museum

[reachartwork]

PLEASE JUST LET ME EXPLAIN REDUX

AI {STILL} ISN'T AN AUTOMATIC COLLAGE MACHINE

I'm not judging anyone for thinking so. The reality is difficult to explain and requires a cursory understanding of complex mathematical concepts - but there's still no plagiarism involved. Find the original thread on twitter here; https://x.com/reachartwork/status/1809333885056217532

A longpost!

This is a reimagining of the legendary "Please Just Let Me Explain Pt 1" - much like Marvel, I can do nothing but regurgitate my own ideas.

You can read that thread, which covers slightly different ground and is much wordier, here; https://x.com/reachartwork/status/1564878372185989120

This longpost will; Give you an approximately ELI13 level understanding of how it works Provide mostly appropriate side reading for people who want to learn Look like a corporate presentation

This longpost won't; Debate the ethics of image scraping Valorize NFTs or Cryptocurrency, which are the devil Suck your dick

WHERE DID THIS ALL COME FROM?

The very short, very pithy version of *modern multimodal AI* (that means AI that can turn text into images - multimodal means basically "it can operate on more than one -type- of information") is that we ran an image captioner in reverse.

The process of creating a "model" (the term for the AI's ""brain"", the mathematical representation where the information lives, it's not sentient though!) is necessarily destructive - information about original pictures is not preserved through the training process.

The following is a more in-depth explanation of how exactly the training process works. The entire thing operates off of turning all the images put in it into mush! There's nothing left for it to "memorize". Even if you started with the exact same noise pattern you'd get different results.

SO IF IT'S NOT MEMORIZING, WHAT IS IT DOING?

Great question! It's constructing something called "latent space", which is an internal representation of every concept you can think of and many you can't, and how they all connect to each other both conceptually and visually.

CAN'T IT ONLY MAKE THINGS IT'S SEEN?

Actually, only being able to make things it's seen is sign of a really bad AI! The desired end-goal is a model capable of producing "novel information" (novel meaning "new").

Let's talk about monkey butts and cigarettes again.

BUT I SAW IT DUPLICATE THE MONA LISA!

This is called overfitting, and like I said in the last slide, this is a sign of a bad, poorly trained AI, or one with *too little* data. You especially don't want overfitting in a production model!

To quote myself - "basically there are so so so many versions of the mona lisa/starry night/girl with the pearl earring in the dataset that they didn't deduplicate (intentionally or not) that it goes "too far" in that direction when you try to "drive there" in the latent vector and gets stranded."

Anyway, like I said, this is not a technical overview but a primer for people who are concerned about the AI "cutting and pasting bits of other people's artworks". All the information about how it trains is public knowledge, and it definitely Doesn't Do That.

There are probably some minor inaccuracies and oversimplifications in this thread for the purpose of explaining to people with no background in math, coding, or machine learning. But, generally, I've tried to keep it digestible. I'm now going to eat lunch.

Post Script: This is not a discussion about capitalists using AI to steal your job. You won't find me disagreeing that doing so is evil and to be avoided. I think corporate HQs worldwide should spontaneously be filled with dangerous animals.

Cheers!

[felassan]

SAG AFTRA news update:

"SAG-AFTRA Members Who Work on Video Games Go on Strike July 25th A.I. Protections Remain the Sticking Point SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, acting under the authority delegated by the SAG-AFTRA National Board, and with the unanimous advice and counsel of the Interactive Media Agreement Negotiating Committee, called a strike of the Interactive Media Agreement, effective July 26 at 12:01 a.m. Today’s vote to strike comes after more than a year and a half of negotiations without a deal. The convenience bargaining group with whom SAG-AFTRA is negotiating includes Activision Productions Inc., Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices Inc., Electronic Arts Productions Inc., Formosa Interactive LLC, Insomniac Games Inc., Llama Productions LLC, Take 2 Productions Inc., VoiceWorks Productions Inc., and WB Games Inc. Any game looking to employ SAG-AFTRA talent to perform covered work must sign on to the new Tiered-Budget Independent Interactive Media Agreement, the Interim Interactive Media Agreement or the Interim Interactive Localization Agreement. These agreements offer critical A.I. protections for members. Negotiations began in October 2022 and on Sept. 24, 2023, SAG-AFTRA members approved a video game strike authorization with a 98.32% yes vote. Although agreements have been reached on many issues important to SAG-AFTRA members, the employers refuse to plainly affirm, in clear and enforceable language, that they will protect all performers covered by this contract in their A.I. language. “We’re not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse A.I. to the detriment of our members. Enough is enough. When these companies get serious about offering an agreement our members can live — and work — with, we will be here, ready to negotiate,” stated SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher.   “The video game industry generates billions of dollars in profit annually. The driving force behind that success is the creative people who design and create those games. That includes the SAG-AFTRA members who bring memorable and beloved game characters to life, and they deserve and demand the same fundamental protections as performers in film, television, streaming, and music: fair compensation and the right of informed consent for the A.I. use of their faces, voices, and bodies. Frankly, it’s stunning that these video game studios haven’t learned anything from the lessons of last year - that our members can and will stand up and demand fair and equitable treatment with respect to A.I., and the public supports us in that,” said Crabtree-Ireland. “Eighteen months of negotiations have shown us that our employers are not interested in fair, reasonable A.I. protections, but rather flagrant exploitation. We refuse this paradigm – we will not leave any of our members behind, nor will we wait for sufficient protection any longer. We look forward to collaborating with teams on our Interim and Independent contracts, which provide A.I. transparency, consent and compensation to all performers, and to continuing to negotiate in good faith with this bargaining group when they are ready to join us in the world we all deserve." said Interactive Media Agreement Negotiating Committee Chair Sarah Elmaleh.  For more information and to search whether a video game is struck, please visit sagaftra.org/videogamestrike."

[source]

[kyra45]

Scammer pretending to be Palestinian v5

This post is intended to be a reference to check on when you get an ask that looks suspicious and you want to be sure it’s not a scam account. Asks from blogs with GoFundMe links are not scam accounts so you won’t find them on this list. Accounts who are listed here are scams. For more information, please read this post.

As of 7/13/2024, here is the currently known scam accounts impersonating Palestinians needing aid. Here is a list of commonly used names for these scams as the post would be too long if I included them. Please don’t donate to any blog that’s here and warn anyone sharing their posts.

thoughtfulpersonpersona | karldrogo2 | gaziianaliifatmaah | supportdeeanaah |

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None of these accounts are verified as real, are vetted as real, or have been confirmed as real no matter what their post tells you. If you want a list of verified fundraisers, please check out this post. Searching usernames should also help with seeing if someone has already been verified but please be aware that it takes time.

These scammers listed above are taking their posts from real Palestinian fundraisers and passing it off as theirs without linking to the real one. They make names to impersonate actual people and always use a donation pool link for their posts often hiding it behind a linktree link passing it off as a GoFundMe link. These scammers are not on any of the masterlists regarding verified fundraisers if you search.

If you search the scammers asks, you’ll usually find they’ve been at this for almost 3 months now and have been reusing the same asks since with very few changes.

To report scam posts: click the three “…” then select Report -> Something else -> Unlawful uses or content -> Phishing and explain how the account is not legitimate.

[thankstothe]

[nerdyblog8]

Hatchetfield Textposts (part two!) [Part One!] [Part Three!]

[More under cut]

[TGWDLM incorrect quotes 1] [NPMD incorrect quotes 1]

[dunmeshistash]

Extras compilation for anime only viewers

I decided to make a compilation of all extra comics and material that is safe to read and here is the first part of that. “By safe to read” I mean stuff that don’t have spoiler or is not too closely connected to stuff that will be shown in Season 2. That means most of it are more fun stuff featuring the characters, backstory for some minor character and small expansions on the backstories that already featured in season 1. Most of it was published after chapter 52 (season 1’s stopping point), but I made sure to check none of it is spoiler despite that.

Part 2; Part 3; Monster tidbits 1 and 2.

This first part features the main gang.

There it is, all non spoiler extra material about the main characters I could find. Well, the ones with some narrative content, Kui makes too many random illustration for me to shuffle through, at least for now. Hopefully I didn’t miss anything. I hope it is interesting or useful for someone. Next it should be the other characters, hopefully it will be a bit easier.