#y'all correct me if i said anything ignorant or misinformed

[a-dragons-journal]

Sorry that I'm so late in responding to this; it had apparently been just long enough that I'd stopped manually checking the post and I obviously didn't get a notification since it wasn't directly reblogged from me. I actually tripped on this while looking for something else on my blog and realized there was a reply from you, OP, that I'd never responded to, as well as a response thereof. Figured I'd fix that even if it's a bit delayed.

(Bolding of main-point sentences throughout the rest of this post is for both emphasis and readability, since sometimes it makes block paragraphs easier for people to parse.)

@ OP, I'm... honestly a little baffled by this response considering that, as crowpunkco noted and as was explicitly stated in my initial response, the criticisms of the term "alterbeing" itself were almost entirely beside the main point - which is to say, this definition of it is excluding a lot of people that, by the part of its definition stating that "Its a more species neutral term for alterperson/alterhuman", should be included.

My original point was that defining alterhuman, and thus alterbeing, as basically a synonym for "nonhuman" defeats its purpose and thus is a problem, one that the alterhuman community has faced since its inception and which apparently continues to plague the alterbeing community as well, and thus that this might not be a great resource to recommend to people if it can't get that pretty basic thing correct. That was my point, and I feel like it kind of got completely ignored in favor of focusing on the side note that was made about alterbeing as a term - probably because that's more of a hot-button issue, which is understandable, but still.

I'm also going to note before I go any further that I'm... pretty sure I remember there being other reblog chains of this post, but they're not showing up in the notes, so I only have this one to work off of as far as things you're referring to; as such, if I say I don't see something happening here that you say is happening, it might be because it's in a reblog I can't currently see.

That being said, crowpunkco already did a pretty good job of saying a lot of what I would have said, so I'll try not to repeat what it said too much:

Ppl claiming a stock image website is pushing an exclusive anti alterhuman agenda: oh deer

This one's worth repeating in slightly different words: I... honestly don't see anyone claiming that this site, or you, are pushing an "anti alterhuman agenda" here. Both of us alluded to the fact that the term "alterbeing" came out of people not liking the term "alterhuman" for a couple of reasons, but that... is a fact of where the term came from, and neither of us accused users of the term alterbeing of trying to push alterhuman out of existence or anything.

Crowpunkco already pointed out that the website being free doesn't mean it can't have exclusionary definitions on it; I would add that it also doesn't make it immune to criticism. Basically every website and other resource put out by alterhuman and alterbeing communities is going to be free and put together with stock images. We're a small subculture. That's kind of just how it is. We still have to hold each other accountable for misinformation and we have the right to politely raise a hand and say "hey, I think there's a problem here," which is all anyone here was trying to do.

I could go off and say theria- from theirans means theria as in placental mammals and therefore exclusive to reptile therians. Theyre making an exclusive term against reptiles. Thats how y'all be sounding.

...I don't... honestly see the parallel here? The hypothetical you're proposing is someone misunderstanding the root of "therianthropy" and extrapolating from it while ignoring how the word is defined. The scenario in front of us that you're making a comparison to is people looking at the definition being presented and responding to it. If you think that response is misunderstanding the intent, then that's fine, let's talk about that - but you haven't expressed that that's the case, you kind of just launched into insisting that it's not trying to replace alterhuman (which, again, was not the argument being presented; I can see where you might have read it out of "remake it on behalf of everyone else," but even if that was the intent of that phrase, that phrase was a side note to a side note).

Yall saying it's already used in research sounds like ur telling ppl "stfu our word is official (tm) so its more important (tm) so stop making things up and pressing ur comfort on others "

I'm pretty sure this is about someone else's tags, but - I understand how that might have read that way, but while I can't speak for them for sure, I think their point was more "for those who do want the whole community to switch over to alterbeing instead of alterhuman (because even though you've made it clear that's not your goal personally, and it may or may not be the goal of the person who made that website, I have met several who do actively advocate for that to happen), there's reasons that would cause problems and might be best avoided". That might not have been expressed clearly enough, but I don't think anyone was trying to assert label supremacy via academic citation, ha.

Tangentially, I do have to concur with crowpunkco that you're coming off a little condescending by telling us to "calm down" and "chillax" while, if I may be blunt for a moment, using a tone far more aggressive than anyone else has (at least whose responses I either can see or can remember well enough to remember the tone of). I understand where you're coming from and why this might be a topic that's hard to discuss without getting upset or angry, but - well, I can't speak for anyone else I suppose, but I at least was trying to open a polite discussion about the merits and flaws of a potential resource you were presenting (and, if you wanted, the merits and flaws of the term alterbeing itself), not start a fight. I apologize if I came off harsher than I intended, but I in turn want to politely point out how harshly you are coming off compared to the tone the rest of this conversation has had.

In total, I think we're talking past each other a little here - you seem to have come away with the impression that our main thesis was "alterbeings and this website specifically are trying to replace the word nonhuman and that's bad," when that wasn't the intended point at all; the intended points were a) "this website has some questionable-at-best information (ie, defining alterbeing as functionally synonymous with nonhuman) and thus recommending it as a resource probably isn't a great move" and b) "tangentially, this might be linked to some more general concerns about the word alterbeing often trying so hard to move away from the word "human" that it forgets it's supposed to include humans as well and thus becomes exclusionary of people it was originally meant to include". That is in some cases informed by the fact that some alterbeings do push for the word "alterbeing" to replace "alterhuman," ie, that's why sometimes the discussion takes the form of "I think this is why it hasn't really taken off in the community" or "this is why I refuse to switch over," but that's kind of beside the point.

ALTERBEING RESOURCE of the day:

[tari-aldarion]

Hi, I wanted to ask your opinion on the recent drama in the 911 twitter fandom following #BlackLivesMatter (from Oliver, to fans criticizing actors who haven't spoken up, to calling out the official 911 account, etc)

First off, I’d like to preface all of this by saying: I am white. I will never truly be able to understand the systemic racism and bigotry that Black people in America suffer through and as such, my opinion is never going to matter as much as my Black friends, neighbors, fellow humans who actually have to endure that shit. 

Okay with that being said:

- Oliver’s been super active with sharing, supporting, and using his platform to try to amplify Black voices and struggles and I’m proud of him for that. But he himself pointed out that this is just basic decency of pointing out injustice. We should all be furiously supporting our Black neighbors by sharing, donating, actively speaking out against racism and police brutality. This is the bare minimum. 

- Oh boy, Ryan’s IG live....look, I love Ryan. I relate to him in a lot of ways with some of the things he’s said, particularly about his personality and how he interacts with the world, but jesus christ. As I watched him talk on his IG live, I just kept thinking “no, stop it, what are you saying” because like. I guess I kind of get what he was trying to say?? But Ryan! Sweetie! No! Slurs are not cool!!! I don’t care who’s permission you think you have to say them! In my research, I found an op-ed article from the NYT that came out right after the whole Gina Rodriguez n-word mess about the Latinx community using the racial slur and how it’s REALLY NOT COOL. It’s short and I would recommend that you give it a quick read. There’s one particular part I’m going to quote from it though because I think it really applies here:

“But as public figures whose language choices affect a greater number of people with different experiences and perspectives, it reflects poorly. And each star failed to understand the gravity of the word and its relationship to black pain, responding in tone-deaf, defensive non-apologies.

There is no justification for any white or white-presenting Latinx person to continue dropping the N-word knowing how hurtful it still is to Afro-Latinx and black peers...”

I mean. I think that pretty much sums it up. I do agree with Ryan’s tweet that we need to focus on supporting the Black community in their rightly justified anger, and hey, that also means not using slurs. I feel like, again, that’s just basic shit. 

One more quote from this other op-ed that I think also applies:

“Growing up in a Black community is not a free pass. Having Black friends who use it is not a free pass. Only using it when singing or rapping lyrics is not a free pass.

If you’re a Latin individual, nothing serves as a free pass to say the N-word. Period.

A large number of Black individuals use this word in their conversations and music as a way of reclaiming and making the word their own — and if you are Latinx, this is not your word to take back.”

Okay that’s all I’ll say on Ryan’s front. 

- As for the rest of the cast: Aisha and Rafa (even though he’s 911 LS) have been fairly active on twitter and instagram with posting links, giving support, and donating. I haven’t heard or seen anything about the rest of the cast, but in my opinion if you have a platform, it should be used to yell Black Lives Matter while donating and giving as much support as possible to the movement. 

- The official 911 account for sure needs to say something, imo. I was proud when they shined a spotlight on the racism inherent in police precincts/officers so they should definitely be ones to speak out....right??? I mean. You would think. Their tweet about supporting the frontlines and including a picture of a police officer (even one like Athena) was deeeefinitely poorly timed. 

They have a platform. They should use it. Bare. Minimum.

All right, Nonny, that’s what I got. 

I’ve got a lot of anger. A lot of tweets. A lot of petitions. A lot of resources that I’m working my way through because I’ve realized how really fucking uneducated I was, despite my efforts to the contrary. And, y’know that stimulus check I got a couple of months ago that was just sitting in my savings account? That shit got separated out and donated to a whole bunch of organizations because fuck this system and fuck this injustice.

[seraxphim]

Supernatural 15x18, the misinformation and the truth.

Hi, this is a little informative thingy for people who haven't seen the episode/season and want to know what's true and what isn't. 

This is probably late, but better late than never, right?

A Quick summary, TLDR:

Jensen Ackles ISN'T homophobic

Cas DIDN'T get sent to super mega hell for being gay

Cas DID sacrifice himself for Dean

Cas is PROBABLY not perma-dead

The script is VERY vague on the meaning of can't.

Here's a cut, although, I’d recommend you read this if you have not seen the episode or want some Cas revival proof. That is unless you don't want spoilers, then just go watch the episode/season.

1. Jensen Ackles is...

Not homophobic. Shocker, I know. He has repeatedly shown support towards the LGBTQ+ Community, in fundraisers, his family, and even cons (at photoshoots there are some lovely stories). The fact that people are joking about him saying slurs and being homophobic is really stupid, please stop being assholes towards him, he as no control over the plot, and he’s not a scriptwriter.

Also all y'all never heard of micro expressing, Dean was in shock and I *personally* think Jensen portrayed it very well.

2. Castiel's 'permadeath', is it bury your gays?

Its probably not permanent, they know there's no way they can get away with it.

I highly doubt we'll see him in 15x19 but there's almost a 100% he'll be in 15x20*, Misha's mysterious disappearance from the cast lists seems like a similar tactic that I've heard teen wolf pulled with Stiles, although I haven't watched that show so correct me if I'm wrong.

We should reserve our judgement for when 15x20 airs, not before.

*Theres an image of him with Robert Wisdom (Uriel’s Actor) who we know has a scene with Cas from a tweet Misha put out in February of this year.

3. Super-mega-hell?

Nope. Don't know where this one came from, but Cas does not go to hell for being a homo, stop saying that.

Already said spoilers before the cut but here's another warning just in case.

Castiel's godson, Jack, dies, so he goes to heaven to get him back. An Entity called The Empty wants Jack because he's a Nephilim (angel/human hybrid), and it keeps all the dead angels and demons, its not like heaven or hell, its just Empty.

However Castiel (who's met with The Empty before, it does not like him) doesn't want Jack to die, and trades his life for Jack's. Dean was never told about this, and obviously tried to process both this and Cas’ confession.

Now, the Empty didn't want Cas immediately, it wanted him to be happy when it took him, to make it even more painful. Hence him professing his love to Dean as to summon the Empty, which would take death, who was after Dean.

Off topic, the 'fire gifs' are really, really dumb and mis-informative. The Empty is an oily black oozy jacuzzi of eternal nothingness, Angels and Demons literally just sleep there, its all they do. From what I know the fire gif was from some movie.

4. Well, it's still queerbait, right?

Hm, not necessarily, no. While the leaked script does say 'Dean can't reciprocate', that's very very vague wording. Can't and Don't are two very different things, Don't typically would be an end all be all "I don't love you" for example. Can't, however, is another story, "I can't love you" implies a reason, it implies a want, and something stopping it, it has layers that 'don't' just doesn't have. Wording is everything in writing.

'Dean can't reciprocate' implies he wants to, or at the very least isn't fully opposed, but everything happens so quickly that he just can't. As well as this, Misha bringing back 'You're not crazy' and a tweet from a fan asking him if its canon via likes, in his liked tweets, is saying something, and knowing what we do about Misha, well, we'd be remiss to ignore this obvious sign.

Of course, that last paragraph can be ignored if you believe it was simply platonic, which is completely valid :)

.

If I've missed anything out, or got anything wrong, comment it and I'll add it in a reblog/ edit! I'm not trying to start a fight or anything lol, just informing those who haven't or won't see the episode.

[s3dgy]

How to (Digitally) Find the Opposite of a Color

If you have the color's RGB VALUES—(Red, Green, Blue), all three numbers are between 0 and 255 inclusive—proceed with part A.

If you have the color's HEX VALUE—#RRGGBB, all 6 characters are digits 0-9 and/or letters A-F—skip to part B.

PART A. (RGB METHOD)

[A.1] Subtract the color's red value from 255 to find the red value of the opposite color. [A.2-3] Repeat A.1 with the color's green and blue values to find the green and blue values of the opposite color. [A.EXAMPLE] For the color RGB(255, 95, 127)—which is sort of a salmon-ish pink color—you would subtract 255 - 255 to find the red value of the opposite color, which would be 0; you would subtract 255 - 95 to find the green value of the opposite color, which would be 160; and you would subtract 255 - 127 to find the blue value of the opposite color, which would be 128. So, the opposite of RGB(255, 95, 127) is RGB(0, 160, 128).

PART B. (HEX METHOD)

[B.0] The process for this method is essentially the same as the process for finding the opposite color using RGB values, it just looks weirder/more complex than it is because letters have been thrown into the mix, as is typical of math. Think of each character in a color's hex value as corresponding to a number: 0 = 0, 1 = 1, and so on; for the letters, A = 10, B = 11, C = 12, D = 13, E = 14, F = 15. [B.1] Subtract the (corresponding) number of the first character of the color's hex value from 15 to find the first character of the hex value of the opposite color; keep in mind that, if the difference is 10 or greater, the character will be a letter instead of a number—refer to the list provided in B.0 if necessary. [B.2-6] Repeat B.1 with the (corresponding) numbers of the second through sixth characters of the color's hex value to find the second through sixth characters of the hex value of the opposite color. [B.EXAMPLE] For the color #FF5F7F—which is the same salmon-ish pink color I used for the part A example—you would subtract 15 - 15 for the first character of the opposite color, which would be 0; you would also subtract 15 - 15 for the second character of the opposite color, which would also be 0; you would subtract 15 - 5 for the third character of the opposite color, which would be A, since the difference is 10; you would subtract 15 - 15 (again) for the fourth character of the opposite color, which would (again) be 0; you would subtract 15 - 7 for the fifth character of the opposite color, which would be 8; and finally, you would subtract 15 - 15 for the sixth character of the opposite color, which would be 0. So, the opposite of #FF5F7F is #00A080.

Well, there y'all have it! I hope this information proves useful to whomever may require it. I'm afraid I cannot provide any assistance with colors expressed in HSL or HSV—I don't know what it is about those color spaces, but I have tried on multiple occasions to wrap my head around the concept(s) and fallen short every time.

I realize that folks with more digital art expertise might cringe at my ignorance/inexperience—my experience with digital colors pertains more to code writing—so if I've said anything that's misinformed or inaccurate, feel free to add on to this post and correct me; also, if anyone knows how to find the opposite of a color using its HSL or HSV values, feel free to add on to this post and share!