#the program we use is... not the best

[inkandrhythm]

Today's joy: delicious coffee, feeling like a badass at work

[bearotonin-international]

Apex predator, my ass. I’m going to pet the dog 🐻🐻‍❄️🐼

perhaps now is a good time for some responsible bear programming to remind everyone that as cute and cuddly as they may seem, bears are lethal apex predators and should absolutely be treated accordingly if ever encountered.

DO

NOT

PET

[eggplantgifs]

Yuma Kagiyama: Werther » 2023 Grand Prix de France

[lady-harrowhark]

lol not me crying because someone from my program texted me to ask how i was doing and that they hadn't seen me around in a while

[tricksteroftheheart]

i really dont think qwel is racist/transphobic guys /srs

I've seen a lot of posts talking about how excited they are for Rox to be fired from the team, but also talking about how much they don't like Qwel for 1. defending him and also 2. some things stated in a doc about Qwel. I'll see if I can link the Qwel Doc, and you can read it over yourself of course, but I'm just going to give my own two cents as a grooming victim, a transmasc nonbinary individual, and as someone who read over the document.

I agree, Qwel should apologize for defending him for so long, however it is mentioned by both Qwel and inside the document that new information came out. It's not like Qwel had a sudden change of heart about what we already knew, but something else came out that we don't know about yet. However, please do remember that Rox was grooming not only people, but also their entire staff team, which very likely includes Qwel. You can be groomed as an adult, and while you should understand and apologize that what you did in that situation was wrong, she was very likely being manipulated.

EDIT: added this screenshot. Rox was indeed manipulating Qwel and lying to her for years. Also an apology, a short one but still an apology.

The Qwel document is very old, and the creator of the document themselves have put multiple notices and, at this point, completely moved the old doc around, in order for people to understand that it is old and not professionally created. That doesn't make the points in the document moot, but it does mean even the creator doesn't believe they're as important as people are making them out to be, and the creator also no longer, and has no longer, wanted to be involved in any of this.

This point is when I tackle the contents of the Qwel doc itself. I wish to note that while my tone may become less professional and potentially aggressive, I do not mean any harm to anyone involved in the doc or people who believe in the doc wholeheartedly. I am simply putting in my two cents. I will also be using the same codenames for people as they do in the document as well as color-coding them, for ease of reading. I will also be calling the creator A, again for ease of reading. Please, click the Read More link to read the rest of my thoughts.

EDIT: Also added more screenshots of Qwel being manipulated and lied to by Rox at the bottom. I believe Rox was grooming Qwel in order to keep the relationship they had and power he had in Blushcrush. This isn't about Rox, but Qwel, so I won't deep dive into that, but that is my belief from what we know.

The Qwel document is, at the very least, almost five years old now. I don't have concrete dates for anything else in this document besides the first event, so I have to assume everything else came out at around the same time. Qwel was, in these screenshots, fifteen years old. A lot can change in four/five years, including the way you respond to others, speak to others, and think of issues such as race and gender/sexuality. Even A themselves state to 'excuse the way they word things, as they didn't fully understand the LGBTQ+ community.'

A stated 'Qwel said I was acting like a creep for being friendly and clingy to Dark Pit' but has no examples, written or screenshots, of how exactly they were treating Dark Pit besides talking about them while they wasn't around, DMing them often enough to make them anxious, and become overwhelming for the people around them including Dark Pit. I don't want to shift the blame onto A, but talking about how 'cool' someone is and that alone doesn't seem like the same thing as what Qwel was describing in their talk. A also, in the screenshots, agrees that everything Qwel said was true to a point. This conversation doesn't seem like Qwel is trying to be manipulative or 'pushing A to admit their feelings,' as Qwel really only says 'hey what's going on with you two' and lets A explain themselves. Qwel had also spoken to Dark Pit beforehand about their crush, so A's behavior was obvious enough in that regard.

Dark Pit has anxiety, very bad anxiety, and that's stated multiple times throughout this part of the document. Dark Pit also has a fear of confrontation, to the point where they are scared of asking A to stop DMing them and 'being seen as mean.' Dark Pit and Qwel spoke together before Qwel spoke to A, so it's likely that Dark Pit was the one to tell Qwel to let A know that they weren't interested in a relationship. Qwel did say, jokingly, 'no one else is as strong a speaker as I am,' so that could be implying that Dark Pit asked her to tell him.

I don't think we have enough information about Sheik to say why exactly Qwel told Sheik about what happened, if she knew A didn't like them, or what, so while I can't say anything about this, I will repeat that Sheik apologized and that they are on better terms currently. I don't know why Qwel is acting like she doesn't know this person if they were/are truthfully 'best friends,' but we have no screenshots showing any of this and it could be that Qwel forgot about them. Also, I believe being fifteen is an alright excuse for mediating something that you arguably shouldn't have been involved in. You were young and dumb, and it's been five years. You make bad decisions when you're fifteen.

If A's actions were making Dark Pit and other users uncomfortable, and A wasn't understanding that in order to make it stop, then I can see why fifteen-year-old Qwel thought the best thing to do was make them talk to each other about their problems. A also states that Qwel got in between their relationship earlier, but then states that Qwel was forcing them to confront each other alone. The paragraph that A states Qwel 'made them believe they were a bad friend and forced them to apologize to her' has no dates, screenshots, or anything in detail to explain any of these claims. Qwel, very likely, did not mean to implant anxiety within their head about their friendships. While perhaps she did, we can't say as there are no screenshots or anything besides A's own words.

This next part is set in 2022. We do not know how much A and Mii Brawler spoke over the others in the voice chat, so I cannot say much about that situation. I will agree that calling someone autistic as an insult is not right. If this did happen, as Mii Brawler doesn't remember and there is a chance that A misheard, that was not right of Qwel. There is no proof of this occurring and only one person involved remembers it happening at all.

The following paragraph and screenshot are matters between Qwel and A and what I take as a misunderstanding. Qwel thought they gladly accepted the testing job, A only did for the money. Qwel thought they were still actively talking to each other, A says they only texted about work and the such. There is no proof to any of these claims besides the single screenshot of Qwel saying her own opinion on the matter. Qwel not trying to argue against the claims of being 'two-faced' doesn't really mean anything, I believe. It's an opinion, the document was small at the time and didn't really say much about that, there were more pressing matters to discuss. Not mentioning it does not mean she accepted the title.

This is when we get into the claims of racism/transphobia. Note that the Japanese GF and Mii Brawler are the same color, not the same person. I just ran out of colors to use.

I do not know if the Korean GF and the Japanese GF are the same person, considering Qwel mentions her GF being 'part Japanese,' so I will make two different assumptions depending on if they are or aren't. We do not know why Qwel decided to make a Japanese-themed stage for her girlfriend, how much her girlfriend was aware of it or gave ideas or what-have-you. However, if the Korean GF and the Japanese GF are the same person, this has no racial implications. And even if they aren't, you are allowed to enjoy the aesthetics of another race without it being racist. If the Korean GF likes Japanese aesthetics and themes, that is not racist. The 'waifu' line definitely sounds bad out of context, but there is a chance it was simply a joke. The entire tone of the screenshot seems kind of non-serious, with the 'crazy shit yo' and such. You can definitely argue that it's a joke in bad taste, for sure, but it doesn't seem like Qwel genuinely believed/believes her GF is actually a real anime girl or anything like that. Qwel is a lesbian. A lesbian, by definition, is a woman (or woman-aligned individual) who is exclusively interested in relationships with other women or women-aligned individuals. (This is a very complex conversation about gender and sexuality but I am trying to keep it simple to follow, please don't argue with me about this /gen.) If Qwel's partner at the time came out as nonbinary, and either of them didn't feel comfortable in the relationship due to Qwel's being a lesbian, that is not transphobic. We also don't know why they broke up, if that was even the reason at all. We don't know why Qwel unfriended Sheik, if that was related to their being nonbinary or not. These could be completely unrelated events. Qwel saying she 'doesn't understand nonbinary people' and not wanting to talk about it is also not proof of her being transphobic. The transgender umbrella, the transgender experience, and everything surrounding being transgender can be confusing, especially to cisgender people who aren't educated or didn't know much about it at the time. Every person's experience and view of it is different, as well. Being confused and not understanding something as vast as being transgender does not automatically make you transphobic.

The final paragraphs of this document are used as summarization, while also stating things that A said were probably accidental (the racism claim) as fact. I'm not going to tackle these, I've been working on this for hours and I don't even know if I will be able to get this to actually post. Please take care, take care of yourselves, and keep an open mind. Make sure to think over what you're given, and don't just repeat what you hear other people say.

EDIT: Qwel being manipulated by Rox. Btw, the definition of grooming is "when someone builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them." Adults can be groomed, as well. Just to make this clear.

[carcarrot]

i should also tell you that one time at work when takeout pizza was brought in for family meal lunch that it was absolutely awful. i work in manhattan

[pinkflipphonez]

art practice w my fave sag award winners + their marvelous dresses

[kennys-parka-jacket]

Only time yall will ever see me post about AI on this blog:

I'm glad that most people aren't treating Character.ai the same as something like Stable Diffusion. Online writers are way less protective of their work than digital artists. Maybe in individual cases there are exceptions, but by and large it is not the same at all.

With that said though, it always struck me as weird that fanfiction writers legally can not make money off their work, yet it *is* legal to use fics to train chat bots and then charge a fee to use those bots. Just incredibly weird.

[justalittlebluetiefling]

I haven't been involved with coaching for almost 3 months now and somehow I am still getting dragged into the drama.

[koishua]

growing up on diff kpop gens with my younger sister this is wild bc her le sserafim/nwjns/illit/kiof was my snsd/aoa/apink/girls' day/exid/gfriend/rv :( 4th/5th gen vs 2nd/3rd gen have CRAZY different energies it's fascinating

[silveredsticks]

x

[layalu]

WIP Thursday

got tagged by @greypetrel, @shivunin, and @daggerbeanart over the last couple weeks (thank you guys sm, even if i didn't post anything hjkfsdjdf) <33 Haven't gotten around to drawing much lately, but here's some WIP shots of the current prototyping progress, to hopefully motivate myself to work on it more x'D

I didn't make any of the models; my "main" job is doing textures but i've also been doing most of the engine work that isn't related to gameplay or game logic or Actual Programming, i.e. building the level and all that stuff. Honestly a lot of the work is just learning and trying things, cus this is my first time working with Unreal properly :') Textures are supposed to be stylised but i don't have the time to do proper hand painting, so i've been messing with filters in Substance to try n get something decent lol. Helps that most of the level will have dim lighting which makes everything look less blurry and more coherent xdd

tagging anyone who hasn't been tagged yet and has something to show off! :]

[mantisgodsdomain]

The real pain of Getting Into Fountain Pens is the fact that this is an item that is a Luxury Purchase in the higher-end forms, where the quality legitimately massively improves by putting more money into it, and we have personally experienced how much better a spendier fountain pen is compared to a cheaper one, but we are also the kind of person where everything over $10 gets sorted into the category of "major purchase" and the fact that there are people in the hobby who say that, like, three hundred dollar pens are must-haves is doing a process to our brain, and it is not a good one.

It is remarkably hard to comprehend that there are people who can just spend three hundred dollars on something. It is also remarkably hard to comprehend that we could spend three hundred dollars on something and it would not take out our entire food budget for all of that month. The government should give us money more often

[girlmetalsonic]

my boy silver he pick up the can sometimes

[landunderthewave]

Watched a video about these "AI assistants" that Meta has launched with celebrity faces (Kendall Jenner, Snoop Dogg etc.). Somebody speculated/mentioned in the comments that eventually Meta wants to sell assistant apps to companies, but that makes ... no sense.

If they mean in the sense of a glorified search engine that gives you subtly wrong answers half the time and can't do math, sure - not that that's any different than the stuff that already exists (????)

But if they literally mean assistant, that's complete bogus. The bulk of an assistant's job is organizing things - getting stuff purchased, herding a bunch of hard-to-reach people into the same meeting, booking flights and rides, following up on important conversations. Yes, for some of these there's already an app that has automated the process to a degree. But if these processes were sufficiently automated, companies would already have phased out assistant positions. Sticking a well-read chat bot on top of Siri won't solve this.

If I ask my assistant to get me the best flight to New York, I don't want it to succeed 80 % of time and the rest of the time, book me a flight at 2 a.m. or send me to New York, Florida or put me on a flight that's 8 hours longer than necessary. And yes, you can probably optimize an app + chat bot for this specific task so it only fails 2 % of the time. But you cannot optimize a program to be good at everything–booking flights, booking car rentals, organizing catering, welcoming people at the front desk and basically any other request a human could think off. What you're looking for is a human brain and body. Humans can improvise, prioritize, make decisions, and, very importantly, interact freely with the material world. Developing a sufficiently advanced assistant is a pipe dream.

[autisticlee]

how to make business plans: spend 2 weeks looking for a website to make a visual plan guide that you can collaborate with business partners, but you end up nowhere because all of them require paid subscriptions to do more than a few basic things. except you don't want to pay for these because you don't have a business yet and therefore no money!!!! but you need more than basic features (basically you can only put 50-100 items on your board with free account and i will definitely need more)