#or his nose and like ??? those are specifically Hispanic features

[paintbrushnebula]

"Miguel O'Hara did horrible things and deserves to be dealt with" is a point that can be made without making fun off/blatantly insulting his ethnic/Hispanic features

[m-m-m-myysurana]

Hii how does art breeder work exactly? Your portrait of zev is unreal but idk what to click to get a realistic portrait like that?

Hey anon! 

Hm I’m not sure what advice to give, ArtBreeder is kind of tricky to use, and mostly just requires a lot of time to play around with and tweak until you get something you like. I use the mode which is just blending images to create a portrait. I should start by saying that after I got an image that I was fairly happy with, obviously I finished the rest with psd. I painted in his ears and tattoo, changed the colour of his eyes and I tweaked his nose and his cheekbones, so that image you’re seeing isn’t straight out of Artbreeder. I uploaded a couple of images to create my Zevran, one of which was a photo of the guy they initially modelled Zev’s face on, his name is Ricardo Montaban. It made it very tricky since the only images I could find of him young enough were black and white, but I really wanted him in it mostly for the chin and nose. I blended it with plenty of other images to get the hair and other features right. Another image I uploaded was of Zevran as he looks in game but I didn’t end up using that one, I thought it was worth a try but as I’m sure you can imagine it didn’t look quite right haha!  Basically the only real tip I can give you is that ArtBreeder is all about experimenting and adjusting until you get the image you like. To help an image be more specific though, the most handy part of art breeder is the “genes” settings where you can alter the image in a number format. Each setting is attached to an algorithm I guess and ArtBreeder will automatically look for images that work to blend with yours according to those settings. I used the genes settings to make his hair blond and to amp up the Hispanic genes a bit since adding in blonde took some of that away. Iirc, there are also settings in that section for whether or not you want the image to be more realistic or have more of a painted look.

I hope this all makes sense and helps! Honestly I have zero understanding of how the ArtBreeder algorithms actually work or anything like that, just that it takes a fair bit of time if you’re aiming for anything specific :3

[impatentpending]

Hey there!!! So I just finished reading up to date on your ‘Powerless’ fic and I am in loove. Its making me feel things. You made me stay up way too late reading your gorgeous fic oml. I got super inspired to make a thing, I was curious if you have any detailed designs for everyone??

Hey!  Thank you!  I’m so glad you like Powerless.  I have  ideas as to how they look, but I have no artistic skills whatsoever to actually have a visual reference. 

So, here we go, detailed design descriptions under the cut:

Virgil, my villainous son

- very tall - about 6′4″ - and super lanky

- seriously, he is all skin and bones (keeps spending days at a time in the lab and not eating :/).  Jutting hipbones, pointy elbows, sharp features, you name it

- trans dude, and wears a binder.  It’s more for mental security than anything else, but he still wants it

- He had dark brown hair at the beginning of the fic, but he dyed it the purple we see in Thomas’s videos after he blew up Roman’s statue

- His eyes are a really deep gray

- His hands (especially his fingers) are very thin and long, perfect for using delicate instruments.  He’s used to working with them for hours upon hours, so they’re very calloused, but graceful.  They’re also littered with tons of tiny scars and bruises from lab accidents or fights

- Pretty much his entire body has tiny scars from the lab

- His civilian outfit is pretty much his normal patchwork hoodie and some black skinny jeans

- HIS VILLAIN COSTUME ON THE OTHER HAND is super Emo and super aesthetic.  It’s a black coat that reaches down to about his mid-calves and has a hood.  This is the closest visual reference I could find, but picture it a bit more battered, without the stuff on the stomach, and with a Winter Soldier style half-mask he can pull over his nose and mouth.

- When he gets into The Savior mode, he has the hood and mask pulled up, and is usually found straddling his homemade hover-bike, which is equipped with all sorts of delightfully dangerous weapons

- He’s always wearing the exact same pair of scuffed black combat boots.  Fighting The Prince?  Wearing those boots.  Baking cookies with Patton?  Wearing those boots.  Kidnapping a man and cleansing his blood? Wearing those boots.  #justvillainthings

Roman, my heroic husband

- Hello friends it’s muscle time

- Not even kidding, this guy is practically made of muscle.  Not as extravagant as He-Man or anything like that, but typical Superhero physique.  Think Chris Hemsworth

- He’s literally larger than life at about 6′5″

- Also a Hispanic boi  (Cuban to be specific)

- His face is so perfect that it’s unfair.  Perfect square jawline?? Chiseled cheek bones?? Amazing, deep brown, wavy hair??  Soulful caramel brown eyes???  Perfectly even, tawny-brown skin tone???

- That being said, his body is so perfect that it’s almost unnerving.  Because he is literally invincible, he’s never bled or been cut so he has absolutely no scars or bruises

- ALTHOUGH let us never forget that, over his heart, he has tattooed a list of people that have died when he thinks he could’ve saved them / done something different so they weren’t in danger in the first place   :D

- His prince uniform is what we see in the current Sanders Sides episodes plus a pair of heavy black boots and minus the shoulder patch

- His civilian costume is a pair of dark blue jeans, a white t-shirt, black converse, and a red leather jacket

(I’m pretty sure you were just asking for Roman and Virgil but heck it, we’re getting the rest of them done too)

Patton, the genderfluid parent we all need

- He’s a baker.  He’s got a whole lotta chub

- Round is probably the best way to describe him.  He has a round face, a round body, and… okay the legs are more stretched out ovals than anything else but you know what I mean

- Thick thighs save lives, and you better believe he’s got wide hips and an amazing butt i mean what

- stretch marks for days

- He’s absolutely tiny compared to the boys; about 5′3″

- He dresses according to whatever gender he’s kinda drifted over to that day, lots of 50′s style skirts when feminine, typical polo and khakis when masculine

- All this being said, he definitely isn’t androgynous.  A large part of his internal struggle comes from being someone who is outside of the gender binary but very much looks male

- lots of freckles, perpetually sunburned shoulders, and Dimples

- sandy blonde hair and bright blue eyes

Logan, who is very done and DIDN’T ASK TO JOIN A REBELLION, KAIMI

- I purposefully left a ton of his visuals vague because I wanted everyone to be able to see him as any poc, but he’s Black

- Dark brown eyes

- Curly black hair

- Pretty tall, about six feet (he looks taller than Virgil a lot of the time though, because Virge slouches so much)

- He’s pretty lanky, but not so much so as Virgil

- He also has a bit of chub around the middle because Patton is baking him sweets 24/7

- A few scars and bruises, nothing too bad, but let’s be mean here and say he has a really faint burn scar on the back of his right hand from the night his mother was killed :D

- Nicely broad shoulders

- scientifically speaking, 87% legs

- standard clothes are a polo, skinny tie, and skinny jeans

(now i’m just being self-indulgent because HERE COME MY OCs; literally just ignore this if you want to)

Kaimi Alvi, who DIDN’T ASK TO JOIN A REBELLION EITHER, LOGAN, IT JUST HAPPENED; ITS NOT LIKE SHE WOKE UP AND WAS LIKE, ‘HEY, YOU KNOW WHAT SOUNDS FUN?? QUITTING MY JOB AN-

- Reasonably tall, about 5′5″

- Pretty trans gal

- “Pear-shape” body type

- Hijabi, and you better believe she’s got a million different hijabs in a ton of cute prints

- With it she usually wears jeans, flats, a t-shirt, and a cardigan

- Pakistani

- Medium brown skin

- light brown eyes

- scars from transition surgeries

- not really used to physical work so her hands are really smooth and well-kept

Calamity, who no one ever pays attention to

- hello friends it’s muscle time again

- not quite as insane a physique as Roman because she doesn’t have that Ability, but she works out and fights A LOT

- really nice arms

- basically no figure to speak of

- 5′9″ ish

- half El Salvadorian, half Filipina

- absolutely COVERED in scars and bruises  (vigilantism isn’t easy, y’all)

- really sharp features, always looks like she’s scowling for some reason

- not pretty at all tbh

- has a prosthetic leg that attaches right below the knee of her left leg (VIGILANTISM ISN’T EASY, Y’ALL)

- super calloused hands, works with guns a lot

- Calamity uniform is a cowgirl outfit.  (she doesn’t know either, she just has a southern accent and it works, okay?? kaimi, stop laughing)

- does not wear the hat though

- literally does not care what she’s wearing the rest of the time.  Does it cover her scars?? okay we’re good

- REALLY long dark brown hair, usually braided - braid goes past her hips

- hazel eyes

Missy Darnelle

-The Worst

Hope this helped!

(tagging a few friends who might be interested in this  @purplepatton @cashmeredragon @thecrimsoncodex @whatwashernameagain )

[nancydhooper]

Bloody Masks and Fevers on Shift: Immigrant Workers Face Abuse in Nebraska Meatpacking Plant

Last spring, as people across the globe raced to shut themselves indoors and shelter away from the threat of COVID-19, meatpacking workers in America suddenly found themselves exposed, vulnerable, and directly at the front line of the disease’s spread. By early April, the coronavirus was tearing through plants in states like Iowa, South Dakota, Texas, and Nebraska, infecting tens of thousands of mostly immigrant workers who’d been drawn to remote towns and cities by the meatpacking industry and its jobs.   Nervous health officials urged some hotspot plants to temporarily shut down, warning that crowded and enclosed processing rooms were vectors for the disease and were facilitating its spread into nearby communities. Recognizing the threat that the outbreaks posed to their operations – and their bottom line – some producers began implementing rudimentary protections for their workers including paid sick leave, on-site testing, and increased spacing on production lines.   Others, however, did little to protect workers, even after the scale of the danger they faced was obvious and undeniable. Noah’s Ark Processors, a plant operating in Hastings, Nebraska, is a glaring example of the dangerous and abusive treatment that meatpacking workers have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. This week the ACLU filed suit against Noah’s Ark, alleging that the company pressures workers to remain on shift even when they become symptomatic, isn’t replacing blood-stained masks during their long shifts, has done nothing to facilitate social distancing inside the plant, and is failing to provide onsite testing to identify emerging infection clusters.   “Noah’s Ark has refused to implement even the most basic protections against a coronavirus surge in the plant,” said Spencer Amdur, an attorney at the ACLU. “At this point in the pandemic, there is no excuse for failing to do even the bare minimum to protect workers and the surrounding community.”  Alma was one of the workers on the production line at Noah’s Ark and is a plaintiff in the ACLU’s lawsuit. After emigrating from Cuba in 2012, she was hired to work in the plant in late 2018. It was a tough job. Her hands and wrists often ached from grueling hours spent on the “kill floor” – an enclosed room where cow carcasses are butchered and prepared for cold storage – but it paid decently. She and her husband Antonio, also a Noah’s Ark employee, were raising four children, and the family needed the money. (Note: the ACLU is using pseudonyms for them due to their fear of retaliation by management.)   Like many meatpacking plants, the majority of the plant’s workforce were immigrants, and Isabel says that even before COVID-19 emerged she and Antonio were unsettled by the way management treated them. But things took a sharp turn for the worse when the pandemic began.   “People were scared, but [management] made it seem like it wasn’t a big deal,” she said. “The first thing they said was that nobody could miss work. They would say that [COVID-19] was just nonsense. Even when things got more serious, they didn’t care.”   Then, in late April, workers at the plant began to fall ill.

The Noah’s Ark Processing meatpacking plant in Hastings, Nebraska.

Calla Kessler for the ACLU

Antonio worked closely with a team of two other co-workers on the kill floor. During their shift, the three spent hours nearly shoulder-to-shoulder. After one contracted COVID-19 and had to be hospitalized, it wasn’t long before Antonio also became symptomatic.   “I told my supervisor that my eyes were hurting and that I had symptoms that were getting worse, and he basically told me to f-off and go back to work,” he said.   Feverish and ill, Antonio went back to the line and finished his shift. But that night, he grew sicker. To make matters worse, Alma had also begun to feel unwell. Noah’s Ark wasn’t providing COVID-19 testing for its workforce, but fortunately for the couple, they had a contact in a local clinic and arranged for a test on their own. The results came back positive for both.   For weeks, the couple battled the virus at home, moving into the basement so they could limit contact with their children.   “It was really hard because the kids were just upstairs, but we couldn’t touch them,” Antonio said.   His case was worse than Alma’s. At one point, he developed shortness of breath and went to a local hospital, but staff there told him that resources were limited and they could only treat the sickest patients. In all, the pair were out of work for seven weeks at home while they fought to recover.   When they returned to Noah’s Ark, they discovered they were only going to be paid for two of the seven weeks they were sick, and at a lower hourly rate. Later, they’d discover that other workers hadn’t been paid at all for the time they spent at home sick.    Since they’d been out, Noah’s Ark had hired a nurse to perform cursory temperature checks of workers, but there was still no on-site testing, even as it became clear that people without fevers could spread the virus. Workers in the cramped, stuffy processing rooms were given masks – but only one per shift. When the masks became soiled with blood and sweat, workers were forced to pull them down below their noses so they could breathe, or take them off altogether. In the windowless cafeteria/break room, they squeezed together at small tables separated by thin, flimsy nylon barriers that provided little protection.   The virus continued to spread among the workforce at Noah’s Ark through April and May. Still, working conditions didn’t get better.   Alma says that managers continued to send a clear signal to sick workers that if they missed shifts their jobs would be at risk. At one point in late summer, a colleague of hers was instructed to stay on the line despite a rising fever. When the woman missed the following two days due to her illness, she was nearly fired. Alma managed to convince her manager to keep her on, but it was a warning to the rest of the workforce. An older worker, who Antonio was close with, died of complications related to COVID-19.   “They think that we are like slaves, not workers,” Alma said. “You aren’t allowed to get sick.”   Noah’s Ark has a record of failing to follow laws meant to protect workers. In October 2019, a district court in Nebraska found the company in contempt for failing to comply with an order to negotiate in good faith with a local meatpacking union. In its ruling, the court said Noah’s Ark had illegally attempted to block workers from joining the union as it sought to slash benefits and workplace safety protections. And federal regulators fined the company in 2019 and 2020 for not paying sick leave or securing dangerous equipment.   “What they’re interested in is money,” Alma said. “They want the factory to produce and they don’t care about the cost.”   Nine months into the pandemic, and in the midst of another alarming rise in infections and deaths, little has changed at Noah’s Ark. Employees working on the production lines and kill floor remain packed together in close quarters, the company still does not have a testing program in place, sick-leave policies have not been publicly posted, and workers are given only one mask per eight-hour shift, even when it becomes soaked in sweat and spattered with blood.

Workers in the cafeteria (left) and kill floor (right) at Noah’s Ark Processing meatpacking plant in Hastings, NE.

“Our lawsuit seeks to establish that Noah’s Ark – just like all other plants – needs to implement basic COVID protections: distancing, masks, sick leave, and testing,” said Rose Godinez, an attorney at the ACLU of Nebraska. “By refusing even these most simple protections, the plant is a public nuisance that threatens to spread the virus throughout Hastings and the broader Tri-City community.” Godinez says she hopes the court will set standards that can apply to all meatpacking workers, adding that poor safety measures in the industry’s plants don’t just endanger those workers – they put the general public at risk. In fact, an analysis by The Guardian found that nearly half the counties in the U.S. with the highest per-capita infection rates featured an outbreak related to a meatpacking plant. And cases in Nebraska are rising fast – on November 17, the state recorded its highest single-day positive case count since the start of the pandemic.   Despite the risks posed to the wider community by plants like Noah’s Ark, it’s been difficult for the public to understand where the worst hotspots have been, or to ensure that workforce outbreaks are addressed before they get worse. In May, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts announced that the state would cease providing the public with data on infection rates at specific plants.  The vast majority of workers in Nebraska’s meatpacking plants are immigrants, following a long history that began near the turn of the century with an influx of emigres from Europe. According to statistics released by Nebraska’s Department of Health in July, despite only comprising 11% of the state’s overall population, people who identify as Hispanic accounted for 60% of coronavirus cases in the state — largely due to meatpacking plants’ immigrant workforce. “Prior to filing this lawsuit, we have advocated for workers at all levels of government, to no avail,” said Godinez. ”With both the private sector and our local, state, and federal officials refusing to enforce laws requiring a safe workplace, workers were forced to turn to the judicial system.”    Alma and Antonio worked at the plant through the start of Fall. But their working conditions continued to deteriorate.When Antonio took off Labor Day – a federal holiday – he was fired. By October, Alma had also had enough, and decided to quit. “There, holidays are not observed. When other companies aren’t working, this one has to work. There’s no law and order,” she said.   Both say they worry for the safety of their former co-workers at Noah’s Ark  – who regularly update them on what’s been happening since they left  – and are frustrated that federal agencies with a mandate to oversee meatpacking plants haven’t stepped in to help. Alma hopes her suit will hold the company’s owners accountable for their treatment of the plant’s workers during the pandemic.   “I hope things change and get better there,” she said. “Being an immigrant doesn’t make people animals. They are like you and me – they’re just trying to make a living.”

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/bloody-masks-and-fevers-on-shift-immigrant-workers-face-abuse-in-nebraska-meatpacking-plant via http://www.rssmix.com/

[racialanxietiesandtheories]

The challenges that come with being an Americanized Latina and visibly black

I often feel like a minority within a minority within a minority continued until it seems like I’m such a rarity that I must in fact be an alien.

I often grew up feeling awkward about the rareness of my visibly black phenotype, my slightly misleading mixed genotype (as exemplified by many of my family’s appearance), my level of education and Americanisms, and trying to embrace the label of being Latina. I wanted to feel like everybody else and not be singled out but it seems like it must happen inevitably so I had no choice but to embrace it. I really can’t tell whether a significant amount of people I come across have ever seen or even potentially relate to my struggle.

In my own family, even though I became more comfortable with English because I immersed myself with the language partly because I was able to discern that that was the language that offered more opportunities in learning and networking (may be a bitter truth for some Latinos to hear). Of course I was unconscious of that as a little kid but every kid gathers as much intuition as possible about how society works and the best ways to get ahead in it.

The other reason may be because of my background. My parents raised me in a complicated environment; different from other Dominicans. It was kinda borderline cultish actually. Really overprotective, Evangelical Christian, Dad was politically conservative, Mom would give in to his sexist ideologies, and I always saw their insecurities and their fighting. Although I loved them, I wanted to find a more secure and happy environment away from the chaos. I grew up dreamy and optimistic that things would get better with the help of God.

I’m not Christian anymore but I still believe in a higher power that provides justice and peace so I still retain that optimism but I’ve had to learn a lot about how imperfect and unstable my parents’ habits and philosophies were. But, apart from their peculiar beliefs/lifestyle, since my parents are immigrants that are cultural Latino, my Dad, while being visibly black, is a man, and my mom, while being female, is visibly more mainstream Latina, I don’t think they would ever understand the struggle of my intersectionality. I’ve often felt very alone in this as an only child (I actually have two visibly mainstream Dominican brothers that are way older than me, thus we never had a close relationship). No family in proximity to relate in my intersectionality to either.

This is why I take extra offense to certain Dominican individuals that speak to me in English exclusively, as if I were not Latina at all (although my Spanish is not perfect, I’m relatively fluent). The worst part is that some of my family partake in this too, perhaps oblivious to the fact that I hate it even though I speak it more comfortably but it almost feels like they’re discouraging me from learning Spanish). I also hate when certain people enthusiastically assert their opinion that I don’t look Latina/Dominican and that I look black (I also wear my natural kinky hair which has some influence in why they think that). I also don’t know honestly what to feel when they say I look Hispanic because while I have black features, it looks like it’s possibly influenced by other races (I’m mid-brown skin; dark caramel or milk chocolate with features that slightly resembles a South Indian’s like big eyes, a long pointed nose, full lips that aren’t that protruding or big, thick eyebrows and overall body hair, and thick, long hair). 

I say this because I’ve also heard people imply, directly or indirectly, that I can’t really be black or must be Dominican or mixed because I’m pretty. A long time ago, a sicker, more insecure version of myself used to pride herself in that but I have since have become “woke”, more educated about Pan-African topics, and have witnessed many gorgeous black people, from mixed up to pure African, which taught me that beauty is diverse and doesn’t require specific racial makeups. Overall, with learning about the history that isn’t often shared, I just feel legitimate pride about my roots now. It’s just really sad that so many of us express or internalize this kind of self-hate in some form or another and it’s something we have to eradicate. This is part of the reason why I’m wearing my hair natural. I don’t need to try to look more Indian or non-black in general just to make some ignorant Dominican people that think they’re smart accept me more as Latina. 

Anyway, I just feel like though I take pride in being different, it feels really bad when the people that I’m supposed to be calling my own make me feel like an “other” when I already have regular black people doing that with me. “Regular” black people (I’m including black Caribbeans in this), may or may not see me as black, and with the ones that don’t, the situation is dumb because in regards to phenotype, plenty of regular blacks look similar to me but it’s more of the fact that I wasn’t brought up or raised with those black cultures and see the Latina parts of me that apparently isn’t enough for some Latinos. Most of my knowledge about those black cultures has to do with media like the Internet, TV, books, etc. With my black friends in the past, they made me feel like I’m an expert on Dominican culture when the reality is that I struggle to learn because part of me subconsciously wants to give up on trying to fit in and wishes she could just pass for a simpler identity relative to her appearance, like a regular black American, African, or Caribbean (which of course, I can except something about my accent would always gives me away and I also hate to lie or feel inauthentic). it would be easier because at least those other black cultures are, on average, more prideful about their black identity.

Anyway, part of this rant may be influenced by social anxiety but I know that its base in the social problems of intersectionality related to blackness is very real. Perhaps some of my concerns may be slightly exaggerated because there’s always the possibility that they’re possibly envious of my English skills and want to impress me (especially with my extensive vocabulary and grammar) because, especially for immigrants or even first-generation Dominicans, they may go through a lot of trouble with that and fear the prospect of looking uneducated around more established Americans. Also they may want to make me feel more comfortable because maybe they can tell by the fluency of my speech that I’m more fluent in speaking English. The culture is really non-PC so most probably don’t understand the depth of my sensitivity. But part of my intuition also tells me that they might actually do it just to annoy me and remind me of my “otherness”. I just have to get used to correcting them and grow a tougher skin about the possibility that people may continue repeatedly (and thus, exhaustingly)  point out my black appearance to differentiate me. Especially with my family: if they prove that they can’t properly acknowledge my belonging in the Dominican community while embracing my black identity, then I clearly shouldn’t associate with their toxicity, blood ties or not.