#note that no actual training is involved at any point in the process

[pleckthaniel]

The Midwestern philosophy of dog-rearing:

1. If my dog has bad manners, no he doesn’t.

2. If he does, he’s friendly and didn’t mean it.

3. If I can’t stop the unwanted behaviors, it’s because I’m training him.

4. If bad manners escalate into chasing, snapping and growling, he’s just curious/scared/annoyed (which makes it OK).

5. If he bites, body-checks or otherwise tries to fight, you probably provoked him.

6. Oh my God, my dog bit my baby’s face off?! But he was always so sweet!! Who could have seen this coming?!?!?

[linkyu]

tell me about your defense contract pleage

Oh boy!

To be fair, it's nothing grandiose, like, it wasn't about "a new missile blueprint" or whatever, but, just thinking about what it could have become? yeesh.

So, let's go.

For context, this is taking place in the early 2010s, where I was working as a dev and manager for a company that mostly did space stuff, but they had some defence and security contracts too.

One day we got a new contract though, which was... a weird one. It was state-auctioned, meaning that this was basically a homeland contract, but the main sponsor was Philip Morris. Yeah. The American cigarette company.

Why? Because the contract was essentially a crackdown on "illegal cigarette sales", but it was sold as a more general "war on drugs" contract.

For those unaware (because chances are, like me, you are a non-smoker), cigarette contraband is very much a thing. At the time, ~15% of cigarettes were sold illegally here (read: they were smuggled in and sold on the street).

And Phillip Morris wanted to stop that. After all, they're only a small company worth uhhh... oh JFC. Just a paltry 150 billion dollars. They need those extra dollars, you understand?

Anyway. So they sponsored a contract to the state, promising that "the technology used for this can be used to stop drug deals too". Also that "the state would benefit from the cigarettes part as well because smaller black market means more official sales means a higher tax revenue" (that has actually been proven true during the 2020 quarantine).

Anyway, here was the plan:

Phase 1 was to train a neural network and plug it in directly to the city's video-surveillance system, in order to detect illegal transactions as soon as they occur. Big brother who?

Phase 2 was to then track the people involved in said transaction throughout the city, based on their appearance and gait. You ever seen the Plainsight sheep counting video? Imagine something like this but with people. That data would then be relayed to police officers in the area.

So yeah, an automated CCTV-based tracking system. Because that's not setting a scary precedent.

So what do you do when you're in that position? Let me tell you. If you're thrust unknowingly, or against your will, into a project like this,

Note. The following is not a legal advice. In fact it's not even good advice. Do not attempt any of this unless you know you can't get caught, or that even if you are caught, the consequences are acceptable. Above all else, always have a backup plan if and when it backfires. Also don't do anything that can get you sued. Be reasonable.

Let me introduce you to the world of Corporate Sabotage! It's a funny form of striking, very effective in office environments.

Here's what I did:

First of all was the training data. We had extensive footage, but it needed to be marked manually for the training. Basically, just cropping the clips around the "transaction" and drawing some boxes on top of the "criminals". I was in charge of several batches of those. It helped that I was fast at it since I had video editing experience already. Well, let's just say that a good deal of those markings were... not very accurate.

Also, did you know that some video encodings are very slow to process by OpenCV, to the point of sometimes crashing? I'm sure the software is better at it nowadays though. So I did that to another portion of the data.

Unfortunately the training model itself was handled by a different company, so I couldn't do more about this.

Or could I?

I was the main person communicating with them, after all.

Enter: Miscommunication Master

In short (because this is already way too long), I became the most rigid person in the project. Like insisting on sharing the training data only on our own secure shared drive, which they didn't have access to yet. Or tracking down every single bug in the program and making weekly reports on those, which bogged down progress. Or asking for things to be done but without pointing at anyone in particular, so that no one actually did the thing. You know, classic manager incompetence. Except I couldn't be faulted, because after all, I was just "really serious about the security aspect of this project. And you don't want the state to learn that we've mishandled the data security of the project, do you, Jeff?"

A thousand little jabs like this, to slow down and delay the project.

At the end of it, after a full year on this project, we had.... a neural network full of false positives and a semi-working visualizer.

They said the project needed to be wrapped up in the next three months.

I said "damn, good luck with that! By the way my contract is up next month and I'm not renewing."

Last I heard, that city still doesn't have anything installed on their CCTV.

tl;dr: I used corporate sabotage to prevent automated surveillance to be implemented in a city--

hey hold on

wait

what

HEY ACTUALLY I DID SOME EXTRA RESEARCH TO SEE IF PHILLIP MORRIS TRIED THIS SHIT WITH ANOTHER COMPANY SINCE THEN AND WHAT THE FUCK

HUH??????

well what the fuck was all that even about then if they already own most of the black market???

[vitaminseetarot]

PAC Pick a Ride: Your Next Big Adventure 🌌🌠🌃

Thank you for voting in my latest poll! I'm surprised and glad to see that Next Big Adventure won by a landslide! Seeing as we have the New Moon in Sagittarius on the 12th, it makes sense that we are collectively interested in seeing what the next chapter has in store. Please note that some of these other topics mentioned in my polls may appear in future pick a card readings, so stay tuned.

So without further ado, let's get into our piles! Pretend as though you are a Knight from your favorite tarot deck about to embark on your next journey. Please choose your mode of transportation:

1 - Plane 2 - Ship 3 - Motorbike 4 - Train

Pile 1 - Plane

Cards: Re-Evaluate, Pencil Sketch, The Pilgrim, Ceres - Nurture, Patience, 26. Protection - Finding What's Important; I Magician, 10 of Pentacles, 4 of Pentacles, XIX The Sun Channeled Locations: Canada, Singapore, Morocco, Ukraine, Australia, Philippines, UK, New Zealand, NYC, South Korea

Hi pile 1, you've chosen to travel by air, bypassing all the long troublesome routes. After all, the sky's the limit! Isn't it nice to measure your distance by how the crow flies sometimes? You're ready to catapult yourself into the next big adventure; I can tell there's a lot of excitement to see what's ahead here. You'd rather get to the next phase of your life instantly yet with ease. This is likely the pile with big career goals, especially if moving or actual traveling will be in the big picture. Maybe you're dreaming of traveling by plane as part of your future dream job? You don't just want to get there, as great as that is--it has to be done with intention.

You're in the process of drawing out what your next life would look like. The future seems full of creative possibilities, but with Pencil Sketch next to Re-evaluate, you're being asked to pay attention to the details. How do you want things to go one month from now, and one year from now? As great as it would be to have an entire decade mapped out, it's unrealistic, but it doesn't mean you can't draft some concepts. You should have something in mind, though, instead of setting out with a knapsack and praying for the best. If your next career or long term project could be anything you wanted, are you going to hop into something for 10 years that doesn't end up panning out in your favor, or would you rather delicately test something for a year before diving in? Moving forward can be exciting, but if you're going by plane, you will need some coordinates.

I think your reading is super straightforward, pile 1. You've got a lucky edge going for you with the tarot cards here. Whatever kind of career goal you have in mind, you may have a chance to "make it big" at some point. That won't come without a lot of foresight and careful investment, however. Don't try to rush into any big decisions right off the bat. I occasionally see the Magician card as the one signifying "read between the lines". If any contracts get involved, be very careful and read thoroughly. Don't be afraid to ask questions or seek clarification. The ones giving you the contact would rather see you jump in it blind, but you've got the crafty Magician energy to help you out during this retrograde period.

As eager as you are to begin your next journey, you're being asked to consider what you want to grow over the long term. This reading wants to shift the focus away from the end goal, even if there's a message here about acting with intention. Setting intention doesn't mean straying away from the present moment to only consider what happens in the end. Part of paying attention to detail means being aware and present in what's happening around you. The present moment is a crucial aspect of your growth period, and it wants you to gently guard after and care for your goal as though it were a plant. You know the fruit of the plant will be ready to eat when it's there and fully ripened, but in the meantime you can enjoy its flowers and fresh budding leaves.

Enjoy the gentle growth process, because once you do start to take off, you may be shocked by how high you'll find yourself in mere seconds. The initial lift of the plane as it begins to run with the sky can give you a wonky feeling like your whole world is shifting and moving with you. Your sense of time can change, requiring adjustment. If you're unprepared, the change could feel overwhelming. Make sure that by the time you're ready for that big takeoff in your work or projects, you will have built up a solid foundation to ground you once you're ready to come back down to earth. That's how you'll build lasting success in your life's next adventure. Stay optimistic, because that positive shift could come sooner than you think!

Pile 2 - Ship

Cards: Limitless, Calla, The Alchemist, 10. Capricorn - Achieve, Express Love, 11. Invention - Burning with Passion; X Wheel of Fortune, 4 of Wands, VII Chariot, 10 of Swords Channeled Locations: India, Greece, Ethiopia, Thailand, Spain, Iceland, Turkey, Croatia, South Africa

The seas are calling you, pile 2, calmly asking you to take only what's truly needed with you. The water's may be choppy, but out in the expansive blue seas, you can feel connected to the coasts of the entire world. With a firm grasp of the ship's wheel, you designate yourself captain as you adjust your sails and set your sights for the hidden treasure that lies ahead--or perhaps beneath your anchor. You're entering your next big adventure lit up with grand ideas for what to do all laid out on your map. Over the vast horizon, anything could happen, and you could find yourself shaking hands with anybody new. This pile may be seeking proposals or offers of some kind, ones that will let you dream bigger than you have before. This pile likely has a good idea of where to go next, or at least some interesting things written down.

These cards ask you to make peace with some aspect of your past. It could be that whatever you had planned before didn't entirely work out in your favor. As much as the online community talks about how rejection is divine protection, sometimes having plans fall apart is not going to feel good, even when you're just glad it's over with. The worst thing can be the feeling of not knowing what to expect after a fall. But your next chapter is showing a lot of promise in things to come, so don't let your past be the omen of your future. The tides are turning right now, and if you can focus on what you'd like to accomplish next, you'll be able to shift those tides in your favor. The first step is to see that you've survived the bad times, and that in itself makes you a victor. With that, you can move ahead with more confidence than before.

That's the thing about Capricorn energy: it thrives in conditions that others would consider too harsh or demanding. It's the drive to take the roughest materials and make diamonds from them. Once you can decide to make peace with what you've gone through, you can take the nuggets of wisdom you've garnered to make a beautiful new path for yourself. You dissolve the worst of your experiences and bring them together to make it better, as the Alchemist card suggests. The difficult times and failed attempts were not for waste; you've gained a lot of valuable growth that will provide a smoother current toward success in your next endeavor. This could be the pile that wants to start a business. Please know that simply starting a business, or even taking the first steps to plan one, takes a lot of guts already. If you've managed to go that far, congratulations! It takes a lot of hard work for a new business to be survive the long haul. So celebrate your milestones, no matter how small they seem.

Part of what makes this next chapter so fortuitous for you is how the energy is transiting through. You could be hit with a wave of inspiration from out of nowhere. If you've been stuck in one place without any wind to carry you through the fog, be prepared for that big splash! All hiccups set aside, you're still brimming with a lot of zeal for your next idea. You may even receive a cascade of insight, so be sure to write these things down as they come. You never know if something silly and small could end up helping you out later on. Your next big adventure is going to put the spark back in you, with a feeling of having a second chance at life, as Calla lilies represent rebirth. Don't be afraid to get excited over what's to come, pile 2. Your faith that things will work out for the better is contagious, as is your gratitude for the accomplishments you've made so far.

Pile 3 - Motorbike

Cards: Breathe, Snowboard, The Heir (Rx), 5. Leo - Shine, Balance, 21. Resilience - Finding Your Limits; 6 of Cups, Queen of Cups, Page of Wands, XIII Death Channeled Locations: Mexico, Italy, Midwest US, France, Norway, Egypt, Chile, Brazil

Your pile is like the fiery passion of the wands suit. Independent and bold, you chose to take open road for your next adventure, blazing a new path in front of your very eyes. You have an eagerness to take the world by storm, going wherever your first impulse wishes to carry you. This pile has a lot of drive to move forward to the next chapter with as much speed as possible, optimistic to find that next golden opportunity. And you're not afraid of a little showboating along the way. You even have the Snowboard palette card, which is a sport involving nothing but speeding down slopes and catching incredible air. This pile is the most excited for their next adventure.

Except actually, pile 3, you're being asked to slow down a little bit. And I get it! I get that this message can be so frustrating when you see what looks to be an endless highway yet the speed limit says 55. That might be a good pace for many folks, but for this pile it's not nearly enough! The thing to keep in mind is that this process of moderating your pace is for your overall benefit. See, you have the only reversed archetype card in all the piles. The card speaks of untapped potential, which is still there. It's simply saying that whatever you're seeking to do next, you're not totally ready because there is too much you're still carrying with you. To go with the motorbike analogy again, any leftover baggage from your past is going to weigh you down so it's in your benefit to review what you have before you can move forward. The more you let it go, the faster you'll be able to pick up the pace.

You have a lot to be proud of with how far you've come already. This pile likely thrives on challenges and sees overcoming them as a big part of spiritual development. Which can be true in many cases, and you demonstrate clearly that you're not afraid of what's to come next. It may come as a shock to you that your next chapter might be a little more quiet than expected. This is likely because, if you've gone through a lot of growth in your last chapter, it makes sense to have some downtime to balance things out. The Queen of Cups can be introverted energy, but she knows how to use her alone time to replenish her soul with art and meditation. You may have more time to spend by yourself steeped in creative drive rather than trying to accomplish too many things in the outer world.

This is one of the more spiritually oriented piles; over this next big phase in your life, your creative skills may flourish and evolve to another level. Maybe for a while you've been inclined towards artistic pursuits, but feel a desire to expand upon what you're already doing. With this energy, you're in alignment to have more time and energy to devote towards passions like painting, sports, or music. In this way, you can take that immense enthusiastic drive from the Page of Wands and channel it into something constructive or purposeful, even if you don't intend to monetize it.

Your next big adventure is tackling the speed limits that exist within you: the self imposed beliefs that tell you how fast you can go or where you're allowed to proceed. Thing is, in your inner world, you have a lot more freedom than you would on any highway. You can choose for yourself how you wish to manifest your passions into the world, and you can decide how much or how little passion you put into your work. Things like imposter syndrome can be their own mountains to climb, and this time around you're more geared up than ever to take it on. Once the spiritual mountains have been overcome, you'll be able to top anything the next chapter in life brings you.

Pile 4 - Train

Cards: Nucleus, Billiard Green, The Gambler, 44. Sixth House - Sustainability, Trust, 1. Vision - Contemplating the Future; XVIII The Moon, 10 of Wands, 3 Cups, XV The Devil Channeled Locations: West US, Sweden, Japan, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Slovenia, China, Germany, Switzerland

You've picked the solid, earthy pile of moving forward to your next adventure by train. Locomotion is slow but it's steady and reliable with time. Fully embodying the principles of inertia, once it moves it keeps moving, but it takes a lot of initial effort to get things going. Something you've worked on is slow going, but you're close or nearing the finish line. Once this is accomplished, things will move much more smoothly for you without so much push. Your next chapter will be steady, but it will be easier than before because it's already in motion.

I find this pile intriguing, y'all. You have Gambler above the Billiard card, and the Devil card shows a casino as well. It's almost bringing to mind old train heist movies. There's action, adventure, mystery, and a lot of fun here in this pile. Your next big adventure could involve having more chances to go out and have fun with friends. You could meet new friends around this time who will have a lot of extra pep in their step. They'll get you out of your shell if you've been in one for a while. Alternatively, if you see yourself as a party loving daredevil already, this new friendship may slow you down and protect you a little, in a good sense. They'll either be the head to your heart, or the heart to your head.

This pile is definitely more inclined to go with the flow in the next chapter. I almost typed 'glow' on accident, so perhaps you'll also experience basking in a 'glow' of some kind. You could be overcoming a huge obstacle at this time and look forward to more unstructured down time. You're encouraged to take time to enjoy yourself before moving to the next phase, but to also balance it out by taking moments to see where you'd rather go next. It's easy, after a huge achievement, to lose pace once the "now what?" sign is reached on your path. Go-with-the-flow doesn't necessarily mean 'fuck around and see what happens', lol. Try to find a middle ground here between playing and planning.

Your work-life balance will likely have some kind of pressure valve released like steam. You've had to really push for what you wanted this year. When opportunities looked scant, you had to tap in to your own power and immense resources to pull through. You've done so in flying colors. So your desire for freedom and thrills after a hard chapter is totally understandable. If you're not finished with something, there's almost a temptation here to run from it now and deal with it later. This isn't recommended; push through to the end because soon you will find yourself on the other side basking in the glow, and relaxing will be so much easier once you're fully done.

There's also advice to not get too carried away with material desires here. Your next chapter may have your finances fluctuating up and down, so try to stay steady with investments. If a windfall comes in, don't spend it all in a day. The Trust card here is talking about how you trust yourself with your resources and energy. When you're able to carry a greater amount with more responsibility, more will be added to you in due time. You're being asked to make small and consistent investments with wherever you're putting your value and resources into. Nothing wrong with wanting to splurge on something nice of course, especially if you've been working hard and you want to reward yourself. This is more to do with long term investments over the next few years.

This reading has not been evaluated by the FDA to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease or infection. Please ask your physician before going online.

2023, @VitaminseeTarot ™

Decks Used: Tarotwave, Starcodes Astro Oracle, Citadel Oracle, StarDragons, Opal Oracle, Starlight Messages, Color Palette cards

[thispageisrendering]

Autistic Safe Spaces

If you own a business or a restaurant that serves the public, as the issue gets talked about more, you might be wondering how you can better help the neurodivergent community. Some places try to give spaces where autistic people can go to get their needs fulfilled, so if that is of interest to you, I've compiled a list of things we really enjoy.... made by an actual neurodivergent person.

NOTE: This is list is made by an adult, for adults and teens. The needs of children are slightly different, though similar, and would surely require a different list. 1. Silence - A lot of places, including malls, restaurants, and crowded stores, are overwhelmingly loud. The brains of autistic people process stimuli differently, and we can't "tune out" sounds in the same way neurotypicals can. Silence can involve the (seemingly) obvious things, like turning down music or reducing the number of people in an area, but a lot of things are loud to the point of pain that you might not think of, including metal silverware on ceramic dishware, shopping carts, doors opening and closing, and shoes on floors. A good rule of thumb is to think about how you would feel in a space if you had a migraine. This is easier in some places than others, but accommodations such as plastic dishware, softer floors, and carts left outside can make a big difference. 2. Stillness - I call the visual category stillness and not "blankness" or "simpleness" because that is simply not what I mean. A space can still be quite beautiful while not being overstimulating. We do not want ugly things, and you can still use style and color theory and design principles, but we do want walls without too much signage or distracting detail, floors and carpets without tightly repeating patterns or too much contrast (stripes and small tiles both bug me), and a visual block from the rest of the world, where things are moving like crazy.

3. Style - Because autism is often seen as a disorder than affects children, style can often be overlooked when designing materials and spaces for autistic people (although this, I would argue, is silly; many brilliant artists are / were on the spectrum, and a child, especially an autistic child, can enjoy beauty as much or more than you), and if you have the chance, I plead to you-- remedy this. Autistic people can appreciate detail and wonder in a way that is not concurrent with anything neurotypical people do, and along with having "icks", things we find particularly distressing, we also experience "glimmers", moments of unbounded joy over (possibly) seemingly ordinary things. I feel glimmers when shown any well-executed style; I feel glimmers in office buildings and abandoned neighborhoods and driving by courthouses... any style that is significantly different from my own, and significantly committed to the bit, so to speak, is a wonder to me. If you have the money and the resources, give us beauty, give us a an area that contains classy chic lounge or a medieval tavern or a vast, well-made mural of hyperfixations you polled from your own customers... pay craftsmen to give you a 20th century train station or a heist or an illusion floor in one area that looks as if dwarves are mining for gold hundreds of feet below you. You do not need to overwhelm us with detail-- this area need not be unusually large, or contain live-action roleplaying employees, or be loud or bright or over-the-top-- but you should also take the project seriously, bring people who love what they do and will truly take this opportunity with joy and a keen eye for style. 4. Solitude - I am a high-masking individual, which means that when I am being watched, I cannot "safely" relax; if you appear distressed, people sometimes talk to you, and ask if you are okay, which is a nightmare for me. I strongly prefer small, quiet spaces where I can be alone, about the size of a bathroom cubicle (which is where I do go to decompress a lot), where I can be unobserved and alone. It is a wonderful feeling-- it doesn't need to be (and shouldn't) be a perfectly soundproof room, but just somewhere I can be myself for a minute.

5. Snacking - Being autistic is exhausting. We process 42% more information than you all, and it really takes it out of us. Lots of people on all ends of the neurodiversity spectrum people have trouble waiting long hours between meals, but when a lack of snacks could mean a meltdown... please just let us eat our own food. At a sit-down restaurant, waiting for the food and not being able to eat anything until it comes is unbearable, I just get so hungry and frustrated, while being overstimulated and masking the whole time, and on top of that, because I cannot eat gluten, dairy, or much sugar / refined carbs, the appetizers are usually unappetizing or off-limits for me, and the food on the menu itself just as bad. I don't actually get much sustenance from meals provided and / or eaten in public, and a bit of acceptance around eating a couple pecans while you wait for you meal goes a long way. This is also true in stores, especially in malls, where food sold is usually not of much value to me, but there aren't great places to sit down and eat something. And, as a side note, if you want to sell food that appeals to people with autism, think Plain, Cheap, and Childish-- I mean this with absolutely no disrespect to autistic people, but I would never in a million years eat a fancy sharp cheddar (it tastes awful and gives me a headache), but I love the shredded colby jack from Costco. We like simple mac 'n' cheese, chicken nuggets, plain noodles, hot dogs... if a fancy chef would think it wasn't real food, it probably tastes amazing to us.

In conclusion: I don't know why I alliterated this list; I just started doing it, and I liked it. Many autistic people love life and everything in it, we just can't take it in all at once. Give us beauty. Give us the silence and stillness to appreciate it. And, overwhelmingly... leave us alone :). We love our solitude.

I have just been chatting in this post (I'm sure there are spelling mistakes please ignore them lol), so feel free to add if you have more ideas, fellow neurodivergents. POST SCRIPT: If you are doing anything similar to this, please talk to autistic people before embarking on a journey like this, and take in a wide bank of opinions. Don't worry, we like to answer honest questions, and we talk quite a lot if you let us. We love you guys. You got this.

[dawnfelagund]

This Week in Fandom, from a Small Site Owner's Perspective

This past week has offered an interesting example of synchronicity in fandom history. On 5 May, a comment on the Silmarillion Writers' Guild Discord about "AI fanart" prompted the mods to collectively make a uncomfortable noise like, "ummmm ..." and swiftly open discussion on whether AI-generated "fanworks" were actually fanworks. (We decided no.) The next day, 6 May, the OTW Signal highlighted the interview with legal chair Betsy Rosenblatt, where she expressed excitement for inclusion of fanworks in AI training and pissed off a bunch of fans. By this point, I'd mostly written the SWG's AI policy but was giving my comods the weekend for further research and discussion on the issue before turning the document over to them for comments and edits.

As a small archive owner, it is interesting to undergo this process, first with my comods and now with SWG members, at the same time as the OTW/AO3 is wrestling through theirs. Yesterday, my afternoon was spent researching and implementing, with the help of my co-admin Russandol, strategies to block as much AI scraping of the SWG as we can. In the aftermath of that work, I wrote this post about a small archive owner's perspective on the issue and how it has unfolded on the SWG vs. AO3.

Then, in a second instance of synchronicity, while I was writing this post, AO3 was clarifying their stance on AI. First, as a PSA to anyone reading this, AO3 does block AI scrapers and has since December 2022 (though I'll be petty and note that it doesn't seem that they've gone as far as the SWG in the tools they're using, at least based on this post). But AI-generated "fanworks" are allowed: "If fans are using AI to generate fanworks, then our current position is that this is also a type of work that is within our mandate to preserve." This is what I predicted in my [synchronous] post, and I was right.

Two big points emerge from my consideration so far of this issue and how it has been handled on a small site (mine) and AO3:

People want/need AO3 to be something it's not because there aren't any other options for the vast majority of fans. (Tolkien fans, you do have options. Not a lot, but trust that there are people in other fandoms wishing they had even the few small independent archives that we do.) OTW/AO3 need to take a principled stand that all fanworks deserve to be preserved. And fans often want spaces where all of the fanworks that ideal encompasses (like AI-generated ...) aren't included. Both are legitimate! But when AO3 is the only option for most fans, they turn their energy to trying to change a foundational value of the one option they do have, and that's fruitless and frustrating and contribute to the comments along the lines of "no one will listen or care."

Big organizations are big, and changing or responding to anything is like trying to port-round the Titanic: It's going to be slow and cumbersome and possibly involve catastrophic collisions with icebergs despite best intentions. In eight days, the SWG went from never having discussed AI formally to having a draft policy in front of members for comment and implementation of AI bot blocking. In the same span of time, OTW managed to rouse themselves to an apology that has been widely perceived as half-assed, and AO3 managed to inform people, after a week of worry, that they've been blocking most AI scrapers for months. This isn't a criticism of those organizations (really!) but an acknowledgement of the difference between big organizations and small ones and an argument for diverse options for archiving fanworks because both options have advantages to offer.

As I said above, I wrote much more about this here.

Of course, what should be done? The options are what they are, right? Right now, yes, mostly. That's the sad place where we've ended up, but we can reverse course. There was a time when many fandoms had dozens or even hundreds of options for archiving fanworks. Those small sites, archives, and communities died due to a variety of factors: closure of the platforms on which they were built (e.g., Geocities and Yahoo! Groups), low to no traffic (due to everyone reading and posting exclusively on AO3), and deteriorating software (e.g., eFiction ... and again at least partly due to low demand, again because everyone thought AO3 would be everything they ever needed).

However, there is hope that more options will become available (or already have).

Neocities is a resurrection of Geocities for personal homepages.

Bobaboard "lets you create moderated, privacy-oriented communities for all your fandom interests."

Dreamwidth is still around, fandom-positive, and underused.

eFiction is being rebuilt, ideally with the ability to host a site through their servers, much as you can build a Wordpress site without downloading Wordpress onto your own webspace.

Fandom Coders is a resource for educating fans who want to learn the skills to build and run website.

I'm working on a tutorial for how to build a fanworks archive in Drupal, the software we use on the SWG. I have the whole thing outlined and will be recording it this summer. Watch this space.

So what can you do?

If fanworks are hosted somewhere other than AO3: post there, read there, comment there, interact there, link there. I cannot overstate how vital this is for small sites.

Make sure your fanworks are archived someplace other than AO3 (like Dreamwidth), even if you're not getting clicks, comments, and interaction there ... yet.

Nearly all of the options for independent sites that I linked above accept donations toward their projects. eFiction is one where I know progress has stagnated due to a lack of funding.

So this turned into another tirade/plea for small sites, but it really is unfair to OTW/AO3 to ask them to be something they were never intended to be, and it's also unfair to fans that they don't have a place to put there work that they feel reflects their needs, wishes, and values.

[starrycrystals]

Here are some personal takeaways and analysis after watching episodes 1 & 2 of Disney's Percy Jackson series. I've made a previous post discussing the series here.

------SPOILERS for EPISODES 1&2 of Disney's PERCY JACKSON--------

First of all, the acting was bad and seemed restrictive and expressionless BUT that's probably because the director decided to take this approach (which I hate)

Actors I've liked so far are: Grover's, Clarisse's, Annabeth's (although we've hardly seen her so far) and of course Jason Mantzoukas. That's right not Walker, which is just disappointing. I've seen him in other projects and he does an alright job, this just confirms my suspicion that the actors are not bad they just have to work with a bad script and direction. Even Mantzoukas' acting seemed restrained at some points, truly a shame.

The pacing is bad and the editing between scenes seems a little choppy.

Some camera angles are so wide and static that they took me out of the story even in emotional scenes.

All of these choices (and some involving the writing which I'm gonna get to in a second) I feel like didn't allow me to connect with most of the characters and especially the show's protagonist Percy, which is a blaring sign that sth went wrong along the process of making this series.

Percy:

He's such a lovable character that he's had multiple book series written with him in the leading role. Even though he often fills the role of the "chosen one", he exhibits traits of cleverness and battlefield knowledge both of which are intuitive to him but also grow as the books progress.

However, in the show it feels like EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. he gets a chance to prove this it gets swept away from him and makes him seem like the overplayed Mary Sue character where everything is happening around him, every piece of information is handed TO HIM instead of him figuring it out.

Even the fight with the Minotaur (which could be used to show his inate fighting instincts and bravery) felt a little off to me when I realized that the horn is removed simply because of.. idek some kind of godly strength?? It seems very Superman-esque and you just threw away the chance to show his ability with a sword even with no prior training.

And this keeps happening, people keep handing him information and giving him chances to escape camp even (!) when he very well could have tried to gather information or leave camp himself. Even the quest is handed to him, all vital information included™ by Chiron of all people (Side note: if the Oracle doesn't play a major role in the series I might just quit the show all together)

Sally Jackson & Gabe:

I feel like they shifted the characters and their dynamic a bit. Gabe doesn't seem as abusive as in the books and Sally seems to be able to stand up to him with literally no consequence from him, he just caves and lets them go. This might have something to do with the series being Disney-fied but I'm curious how this will play out and reflect as the audience witnesses Gabe's ultimate fate. Overall it seems like a pointless change that might reflect more poorly on Sally as a character.

Grover:

Grover's portrayal is actually one of the enjoyable parts of the show for me but it gets ruined when I think of some scenes they gave him. First his "betrayal" of Percy is just sad to watch when you're used to seeing them as a BFF always-by-your-side duo, especially when it happens in the very first episode of the series that introduces these characters. So far we haven't seen any consequence for this betrayal either.

This seems to be a pattern so far for the series, characters do things and in return get no consequences even if they're "bad" decisions. Another example is when Grover interrupts Dionysus' and Chiron's meeting with Percy and immediately disobeys Dionysus orders by presenting Percy with even more information regarding his mother. To my shock and displeasure this AGAIN has had no consequences brought on Grover. Interrupting two very important people, one of which a god and disobeying their orders in the same breath should have SOME consequence, no? Dionysus even gives Grover a look of genuine disappointment and pity but literally nothing else happens.

---------------------

Now, I haven't watched episode 3 and the rest of the series hasn't aired as of yet. Therefore some of these things might change or develop.

Overall the series so far has left me disappointed and ultimately baffled at the lack of entertaining value it provided me. I felt like I sat down to watch some pretty scenery and graphics for almost two hours with no emotions involved whatsoever. It just wasn't ψυχαγωγικό for me.

[bigsnorp]

imo the recent wave of "ai art is valid actually" discourse often misses the point of the reaction against ai art. And I think the reaction is often reacting against the wrong thing too.

The end product is not the problem. Like it or not, AI generated art is now a valid subset of art. It makes something that wasn't there before, usually has some purpose or intent in the process, and it makes people feel something. Hating it is still something.

El problema, como siempre, es el capitalismo. Just like that old man said.

Creating an AI model always involves training it on a dataset. The bigger the better, every single time. How do you do that? You write a program to scrape everything from whatever you point it at, and run it through various levels of processing until your AI reliably spits out something you want to see.

This is hard to do, so there is a lot of monetary value in creating one, hosting it, and offering it to others. At no point do you have to create anything of value, you just have to take what other people made and extract surplus value from it. And you do this while interacting as little as possible with the art you've used for this massive dataset, or god forbid with the artists that made it.

In return these artists get nothing, usually. Not so much as a note of acknowledgement in the readme.

Human artists can and do steal from, plagiarise, and piss off other artists all the time. But they cannot do it at the scale of AI art, nor can they completely divorce the original art from its context. Even when this is done for financial gain, it's on an entirely different level, with entirely different stakes. I'm not talking about copyright law or intellectual property, I'm talking about large scale labour devaluation and deskilling for the sake of corporate capitalism which is an inherent part of most of the AI generative art tools that are used by people today.

There's a lot of cool possibilities and interesting thought-provoking questions that have become immediately obvious with AI art and it's not in any rush to go away. I think spending hours debating the artistic merit of the end product of AI generated art is the wrong thing to focus on right now. Humans also make art that is uninspired or derivative or mass-produced and it can still be artistically valuable. Look at Duchamp's fountain, literally mass produced and likely plagiarised from another artist, and one of the most valuable pieces of modern art history we have.

It's about the scale. The decontextualisation. The capital gain for a generally uninterested company seeking to extract surplus value from the unconsenting labour. The picture that gets generated at the end is kind of the least interesting part of the discussion.

[derekscorner]

Kurosaki Twin Conundrum

For the past few weeks I've been talking about Zanpakuto types, Ichigo's non-canon forms, or gushing about my Quincy Ichigo ideas but after finishing my part three to the zanpakuto types I was reminded of something; The Kurosaki Twins.

I used to have a post on them way back but now that the 'Thousand Year Blood War' is being animated with Kubo's noteworthy influence involved I'll tackle this topic again.

This isn't a post about their characters per say but about the nature of their abilities. There is no doubt they have some power but we don't know what kind of powers. Allow me to explain.

Masaki & White

Thanks to the TYBW anime any Bleach fan knows by now that Ichigo was so unique due to the incident involving these two. I'll skip the convoluted nature of Ichigo himself since the show explains already.

What's important to Ichigo's sisters is that White was not present when they were conceived and later born. By the time the twins were a thing in their mothers womb White had already merged with Ichigo and transformed into Zangetsu.

Like Ichigo, Karin and Yuzu are the children of a pureblood Quincy and a Soul Reaper from a very old clan. Unlike Ichigo, they did not inherit a hollow.

Another thing that should be noted is that the sisters are fraternal twins rather than identical ones. I do not know if this had an impact on their powers or not but it is something to keep in mind should the anime or Kubo make a statement in the future.

Either way, going by these sequence of events, you'd immediately assume that the girls are perfect hybrids of a quincy and soul reaper.

But I do not think it's that simple. For one, we know that mixed blood quincies (which the girls happen to be) need more work to awaken their full potential. There are even some abilities they'd have to work for that a purebred quincy would have at birth.

Ichigo himself never uses his quincy abilities consciously. It is Zangetsu who uses them and even then the full "flood gates" as it were did not open until Ichigo battled Quilge Opie. Yhwach clearly states that this battle and the cage Quilge trapped Ichigo in awakened his latent quincy power.

Yuzu nor Karin have had a teacher nor any circumstance strenuous enough to awaken those powers. Even when in the grip of a hollow and their lives threatened they did not awaken any abilities.

Of course, I must remind you, Ichigo is special. White became Zangetsu, Ichigo's quincy powers had taken on a mind of their own and could do these things.

Which brings us to our next point.

"Old Man" Zangetsu's Absence

Masaki's inner hollow, White, became Ichigo's inner hollow and then transformed into his zanpakuto. As flawed as it was compared to a true zanpakuto used by actual Soul Reapers it still existed.

The absence of White means that Yuzu & Karin do not have the special circumstances to have their own innate zanpakuto. The Soul Reaper powers they would've inherited have no way to manifest.

Although Soul Reapers have families, unique powers, magic, and knowledge they do not come into the world with a zanpakuto in hand. They only get that once they begin training and receive their "Asauchi".

The "asauchi" will bond to that Soul Reaper and eventually become the zanpakuto. It is a crucial element they'd need.

Their human forms may also hinder this process. Even Ichigo can't use his Soul Reaper powers without leaving his human body....although his son doesn't seem to have that issue but he's a headache we won't cover.

So where does that leave us?

Well, they have no hollow powers. White was already gone when they were conceived.

They should have latent Soul Reaper powers but being living humans and without Zanpakuto they can’t manifest.

They should have some degree of Quincy powers but they seem entirely dormant. Even Yhwach's Auswählen didn't target them nine years ago.

In essence, they're effectively human....but they're obviously not. Despite the lack of unique abilities both sisters show the ability to see spirits.

For Karin this is even more pronounced because she's fully capable of seeing Ichigo in his Soul Reaper form. She has the spiritual power to see and touch a Soul Reaper.

That is way more impressive than the series lets on. The Soul Reapers even refer to humans with this level of spiritual power as "High Spec" humans.

They're rare but they are not unheard of.

Although the anime makes her unable to see spirits it's a fact that Yuzu actually can see ghosts. She can only perceive a blurry image but she is spiritually aware.

She too has something innate even if it's just raw spiritual energy. Sadly, we see little of it save for anime filler which obviously do not count.

Between the two the series actually makes a bigger deal of Karin's powers especially for the year Ichigo was powerless:

She even goes to Urahara often to get items to ward off things like Hollows since she's essentially an easy target they can sense miles away.

You may wonder what my point is with all this when I systematically closed the routes of them having powers earlier. It's simple, they do have powers but we just do not know what form they take.

Even if you argue that Yuzu is effectively human it's obvious that Karin isn't. Without Ichigo's overwhelming spiritual pressure her own skyrocketed.

She has a power that's developing which is why this curiosity over the twins persists.

Hypothesis & Conclusions

In conclusion to all of this they should not have specific powers. Yuzu, in fact, seems to not have anything other than weak spirit perception. While Karin is obviously more than she seems even if she has no desire to explore what that power is.

And all though I shut down so many possibilities earlier there is things to consider;

For example, White may have been gone but it's possible remnants of it's spiritual power resided within Masaki. That would make it possible to one or both twins to have latent Fullbring potential.

There is always a possibility that their Quincy natures could awaken as well under a specific circumstance.

Then there's the Shiba clan their father comes from. It is one of the five founding clans of the Soul Society. It is a literal primordial bloodline and there's no telling what unique powers are latent there.

The reaper powers they did inherit would awaken should they get an asauchi and become a reaper. Or should someone grant them powers as substitute soul reapers.

I have no real answers to any of it but it is a topic still fun to talk about. I'd like to know what they could be even if they never go that route. Kubo is answering a lot of questions on his website these days so maybe we'll get one some day.

Either way, I'm done now. Bye~

[charmixpower]

You said you were happy to give more ,so I'm back for the sweet sweet child Valtor HC's (any plans for writing a fanfic? ). You've opened pandoras box and you can't close it now.

Muah! I'm so glad you're enjoying this little crack au that I got WAYYY to attached too and am now taking seriously XD

I could do like a one shot fic or something but my main concern rn is surviving s6-8 and wow

Anyways here's some SWEET headcanons

Not all of them are nice bc I cannot be dragged away from the angst but most of them are!!

Valtor is legally a ward of Light Rock and will be until he turns 18 and competes in his rehabilitation. I imagine that Light Rock is actually a nice place, the Trix just did not jive with it or the concept of becoming better people. He does therapy at the compound, and his favorite type is art therapy. Valtor really likes it there with his 76 well trained older brothers who are also technically guards

He picks up a bunch of different hobbies at Light Rock. He loves all the activities. They introduce him to theater and it goes exactly like you expect. He LOVES it, and invites the winx et al to all of his shows. He loves the costumes and dramatics about it, and eventually he's listening to Stella talk about types of stitches so he can make his own clothes too

You know those magic limiters the Trix wore on their foreheads at Light Rock? Valtor wears one but he can break it and take it off whenever they want. They're still trying to find a way to actually limit his magic, at some point Valtor got involved in the process

People were first really worried that Valtor could take off the magic limiter whenever he wanted but it slowly became clear that he's perfectly content to stay put so eventually no one cares. The Light Council even gives permission for Valtor to use his magic eventually, despite the fact he's supposed to be limited

Valtor was the one who told Bloom how to get to Obsidian. Like he was there when that happened and he spent all his time after the Ancestrals got trapped trying to get them out so he can just tell the Winx

He obviously doesn't go with them, just because he has the ability to use free will and the obedience built into his essence is now gone doesn't make him immune to mind control spells and he'd rather not. He also REALLY never wants to be face to face with Belladonna ever again, Icy was bad enough tbh

When Bloom puts her hacks powers back where they belong (in Domino) and becomes a normal ass (still stupid powerful, shes related to Daphne AND part of fire mixed with her magic at this point) fairy, she has to learn how to fight like a normal person instead of abusing the fact she doesn't get magic exhaustion. She spars with/around Valtor, primarily because as the Wizard of Magic he can tell her when she's getting exhausted bc she doesn't notice

When the Winx practice group combat they usually spar with Valtor too, who is ecstatic to spend time with the Winx AND use his magic, and they're all there like "if you didn't pull your punches for most the year and have an obvious exploit in your design (aka if you were a nomral born person) we would of never won."

Valtor is technically transformed 24/7 and can straight up die from magical exhaustion. Unlike other magic users who would just detransform, collapse, and pass out, he's far too sustained by his magic to survive without it. This is one of the said design flaws that could be used to defeat him, please note how both this and ripping his elemental components apart would both kill him

He's a kid but he's the WIZARD OF MAGIC, literally anything that's magic is under his domain and he absolutely treated their fights as games bc he COULD curve stomp anything. Belladonna wasn't fucking around when she created him

He still considers Bloom his sister after she gives up her HAXXS that makes her magic feel like his. Bloom thinks this is adorable and takes him out for family time. Valtor looks forward to whenever anyone comes to visit him, especially when he gets to leave the compound (it's nice there but he's used to having access to a lot more space) but especially when Bloom does it

Magic attaches to symbols easily, and Valtor made his mark to make really complicated magic (like Witch magic mind control and Fairy magic power boosting) easier on himself. He made the symbol at like 4ish and has been using it since. Sometimes he makes the symbol from his hands when he just shoots magic at the problem bc he thinks it looks cool

Eventually Helia takes over administration over RF from Saladin Valtor likes to hang around the place and he gets to help out with combatting magic lessons! Exciting for Valtor, terrifying for literally all the students. Riven and Diaspro tend to be around™ bc Helia harasses them into being around and they do not help the situation. The staff at RF uses Valtor to haze the freshmen. Valtor eventually notices this and is stuck between intentionally freaking them out and not wanting people to be afraid of him

Bby Valtor is Belladonna's biological son, no father. He's made from a combination of all the elements instead of just fire and his true form is more uncanny and otherworldly instead of chthonic looking. A very strong "I shouldn't be looking at this" energy, his appearance sets off the flight or fight response but it's not incomprehensible or anything. He's still humanoid it's just when you're a creature closest in make-up as all 5 of the gods of your world you end up looking weird. Still dragon looking tho

Nabu comes around often to just chat with Valtor about his magic. As a scholar Nabu is thriving asking questions about Valtor and Valtor loves the attention, everyone else is a little concerned if Nabu should be getting child that nearly took over the dimension thinking about how to use his magic more efficiently but it's fine. Valtor is a good kid now

Btw if the planet of Espero (where dimension wide government buildings are hosted, including Light Rock) was ever attacked....no it wouldn't be <3 Valtor would put an end to that shit so quickly it wouldn't even be a fight

[gtunesmiff]

4 Common Problems with the Creativity Process in Songwriting

(Edited from an e-mail...)

Impostor Syndrome

The problem: Living in constant fear of being found out, for someone to point at you and say "this person is an impostor! I bet he doesn't even know what notes an Ebmin∆7(#9#11) is made up of!"

The underlying mindset: Thinking that making songs is a skill that you either have or don't have, and that there will be a clear point in your life where you'll suddenly be able to do it.

What you need to realize: This moment where you suddenly feel confident in your work doesn't exist. Learning a creative skill is a continuous journey.

What to do: At any given point, do the best you can, and learn as much as you can. That's all you can do.

Writer's Block

The problem: You have stopped writing regularly, out of fear that nothing good will come out.

The underlying mindset: Thinking that creativity is "god-given", an external source that you have no control over. And when it doesn't come, all you can do is wait.

What you need to realize: Creativity is driven by you. See it like a working relationship you have with your muse: the more work you do, the more your muse will feel obliged to chip in. But your muse is lazy: If you work for a few hours in a row, she'll ignore that. Do it every day, and she won't be able to ignore you.

What to do: Write with the sole purpose of activating your muse. The goal is not to write something good, it's to communicate to your brain that you are in creative mode.

Stuckemia

The problem: You're writing a song, and you're not making progress.

The Underlying mindset: If I get stuck, I must not have the talent, or I'm doing something wrong.

What you need to realize: You are stuck for a very simple reason: You have encountered a specific problem you’ve never dealt with before, and you don’t know how to solve it.

What to do: Figure out exactly what the problem is and brainstorm solutions. It’s ok to go for the obvious solution if you can only think of one (“but that would be such a cliche!”), it's more important to get unstuck than to be brilliant. You can always rewrite later.

Perfectionitis

The problem: Not finishing your songs because you're "fixing" and rewriting your music over and over again.

The underlying mindset: I can't release anything less than perfect or people might think I'm lazy or dumb. But what I liked last week seems obvious or uninspired now.

What you need to realize: As long as you keep pushing yourself, you will always be better tomorrow. But that doesn't mean yesterday's songs aren't worth releasing! Songs are time stamps. See them as diary entries: This is what you believed or thought when you wrote that song. It's not your job to rewrite every song until you love it, it's your job to write the best song!

What to do: Jump into the mind of your past self. Figure out what you actually wanted to say or do with your song when you wrote it, and then make that as clear as possible.

An Observation

Something interesting happened after my last mail. I asked you where you struggle the most with your process, but most of the emails I got concerned skills: how do I write melodies to lyrics, how do I write better melodies or chords, etc.

None of these are about process.

That's not to say that you didn't listen, rather it seemed to me as though most of you don't even know what process means and why it's so important.

In other words, the problem is you don't even know why you struggle.

You think you need to learn how to write chords or better melodies, or produce better.

But the truth is that if you don't have a process, none of these will get you anywhere, except stranded in a pile of unfinished songs. 

All creative work consists of two big parts:

Skill: how good you are at writing melodies, producing music, ear training, coming up with engaging lyrics, etc. This is the stuff we mostly teach at Holistic Songwriting Academy, and it involves both study and practice. Very important, but useless without:

Process: how you actually write songs. Which instrument do you start with? How do you make sure you don't get stuck and what do you do if you do get stuck? How do you make sure your songs get finished, and that they're as best as they can be? How can you enjoy the creative process, and write more songs quicker? How do you make sure you don't drive yourself crazy? How do you deal with your ego, your perfectionism? How do you deal with tight deadlines?

~ Friedemann Findeisen || Holistic Songwriting

[vergess]

Oh yes, the "Lucy gets gangbanged correctively" is VERY popular in academia, just like it's popular to state that Harker fleeing from the sisters' fangs is "Male anxiety towards female sexuality". From the latest one I read":

The murderous phallicism of this passage clearly punishes Lucy for her transgressions of Van Helsing’s gender code, even as it reassures the threatened homosociality of these very anxious males... By disciplining Lucy and restoring to each gender its “proper” function, Van Helsing’s pacification program at once paralyzes the female, disperses a specifically homosexual threat, and consolidates the male homosocial community. Here indeed is a process “wherein male rivals unite, refreshed in mutual support and definition, over the ruined carcass of a woman.”

I love when academics say insanely dumb shit and then provide no explanation whatsoever.

If I tried to get away with that in class, or hell in a fucking shitpost, I'd be eaten alive.

Every single line of that needs to be its owe explanatory paragraph because otherwise they're just talking shit and expecting us to agree on reflex lmao

Like, I've got the training to see the point they were goeg for, but I shouldn't have to fix it for them, goddamn

The murderous phallicism of this passage > The wooden stake is a phallic object, and a large one at that. It is specifically given to Lucy's fiance, who sweatily heaves it into her body. In this way, the stake serves as symbolic of sexual penetration, eg, the penis.

clearly punishes Lucy for her transgressions of Van Helsing’s gender code > You saying "clearly" dosen't absolve the need for clarification. Who edited this? Why did you let the author publish this inanity? Anyway, Lucy is explicitly being SAVED in the scene, but if we pretend that being a vampire represents feminine empowerment, a hypothesis opposed and negated by the rest of the novel, then yes on could argue the staking counters that. One could emphatically NOT argue that it's because Lucy "violated VH's gender norms." Lucy adhered with perfection to those norms, and in fact it is specifically her passive acceptance of her fate, associated with womanhood and praised by VH, that allows her to die in her sleep, and avoid totau corruption.

even as it reassures the threatened homosociality of these very anxious males > IN! WHAT! UNIVERSE! DOES! THE! STAKING! SOOTHE! THEIR! ANXIETIES!! But anyway, let's pretend that actually happened, because that's clearly how this dipshit interpreted it. That has FUCKALL to do with homosociality. In real life, yes, any grouping ot men without women is a homosocial situation. BUT THIS IS NOT REAL LIFE. What in the name of fuck do

OH MY GOD IT'S BECAUSE JACK FINALLY BELIEVES VAN HELSING

I swear to fucking god, no one is allowed to talk about this novel until they write me a fucking letter by MAIL about how they love and respect every single character.

You wanna talk homosociality, talk about the way Jono is convinced to let Drac step on him. Talk about the crew of the demeter. TALK! ABOUT! THE STEAMSHIP AND HORSEBACK RIDING!

Or, you know, just make some drivel up. Yikes.

By disciplining Lucy > The bloofer lady is not Lucy and everyone involved is very explicit about this. It is Lucy's CORPSE.

and restoring to each gender its “proper” function > Mate, you're just projecting at this point. VH is about to call Seward his wife, and you think he's the arbiter of Extreme Gender Conformity Mutilation??? But anyway, sure, blame VH for your weird belief that this is restoring a natural order. Whatever.

And they say I'm projecting just because I write porn.

Van Helsing’s pacification program at once paralyzes the female > SHE! IS! DEAD! ALREADY!!! WHY ARE YOU SO DETERMINED TO EQUATE WOMANHOOD WITH A DEAD BODY BEING PUPPETED AROUND BY A MAN????

disperses a specifically homosexual threat > Ah yes, the homosexual threat of [checks notes] a 19 year old straight woman corpse on her, who has literally got baby fever.

and consolidates the male homosocial community > Author does not know what homosociality is. I give up.

Here indeed is a process “wherein male rivals unite, refreshed in mutual support and definition, over the ruined carcass of a woman.” > Listen at this point I have to assume this was written by a TERF somehow. The way the author keeps gagging on the dehumanization of Lucy by equating her life to the violent corrupt monster in her corpse is like.

So fucking.

IDK how to describe it, but if the author isn't a TERF, I still wouldn't trust them around any trans person. This is NOT a healthy realtionship to gender roles.

[soul-wanderer]

I'll admit that it took me almost seven years to both understand and appreciate Octavia as a character, and it's partially because of how she was initially portrayed, though in hindsight it makes a lot more sense now.

We get to know Octavia as the girl who had to hide for her whole life, who was punished for being born, and whose mother was floated for giving birth to her.

At first, Octavia seems to be this naive young girl who needs protection from her big brother. Then she becomes this defiant girl who keeps pushing the rules and boundaries, and truth to be told, this annoyed me at first, like "hey, your brother is trying to keep you alive, and you're just trying to make his life harder".

But then she progressively turns into that girl that desperately seeks connection and a place/people to belong to, but in the process of that search, she also turns into someone who, for one reason or another, starts killing people left and right. Especially when they're in the bunker, I started to question her motives, and at that point I was pretty much outright annoyed at her solving every problem through deciding that people needed to die. Back then, those actions made her character seem so flat and unlikeable.

But then I realized something - something very, very important: OCTAVIA WAS STILL ALMOST A CHILD.

Okay, yeah, that's slightly exaggerated, but does not make this any less true. Octavia is, canonically, anywhere between 16 and 17 when they get to earth. That girl's brain hasn't even fully developed yet, and she has already faced a lifetime of trauma and lack of social interaction/learning. But instead of this being a fresh start for her, it only turns into a brutal reminder of what she's been through and how much she doesn't belong. Of what she has missed out on. Of what ADULTS have put her through. She was punished for existing, and she realizes that she's done with them. She's not going to forgive them for what they've done and fuck, that is one of the sanest things we see on that show.

And it's one thing that she walks away - and a whole other to survive on earth without belonging to any group. But she somehow manages to find her people and quickly figures out how to survive - and she also learns that life on earth also often means death. And as a side note: Despite it being the norm that literal children are trained for war and death on earth, I will still criticise how easily Octavia was groomed for the role she would later take on. That girl was looking for family - not to be turned into a leader who had to decide over life and death. In a way, that does not make everyone involved any better than those who punished Octavia on the Ark, simply because Octavia had little to no saying in her own fate without severe repercussions.

And AGAIN, by the time she wins the conclave, she is still a minor! Freaking hell, an actual minor, no matter how mature she has to be, is supposed to decide the fate of all of humanity? I mean, what the hell, WHAT THE HELL? And she does an absolute remarkable job at it, too, and she does not nearly get enough credit for that.

It is only then that we actually see her struggling, like truly struggling, and saying that she doesn't want to be a leader to all those people. But does she have a choice? Of course not! Which, quite frankly, is not something I am willing to forgive those around her, no matter how extreme the circumstances might have been. So of course Octavia has to somehow figure out how to keep all those people alive and from killing each other, and honestly, that would have been a damn near impossible task for a grown ass adult. Instead, they put that burden on her, an almost child that grew up isolated and in fear and there is just. no. escape. I am honestly amazed we didn't end up seeing more psychological damage after all of this, though I am certain that girl didn't have a good night's sleep a single day of her life, so there's always that.

All that to say: Octavia was used and abused by everyone she was supposed to be able to trust. First she fell victim to laws on the Ark (laws she did not actively break) and then she was used as a chess piece in a seemingly never-ending war. She never got to just be herself, first she was the poster child of ruthless laws, then of ruthless wars and honestly, if she had one day snapped and killed every single person around her, I would have been fine with that, too. But she did not, and damn, what an incredible - though forced - strength she has shown, even after everything that's been taken from her and everything that's been demanded from her.

She is not this bratty, naive 16-year-old girl - she's always been this isolated, scared 16-year-old girl who has been asked to do things that no one should have asked of her to begin with, but she still rose to the occasion and somehow survived it all, which easily makes her the most compelling character on this show, and I'm sorry that I did not see that before

[thehiddenbaroness]

Baroness' General Writing Tips, Part II

Part I Here's Part II of my general writing tips I've started to compile of little (and big) things I've learnt over the 20+ years I've been compulsively recreationally putting one word in front of the other; I hope it's helpful or at least reassuring!

While much of this is slanted toward fiction, a lot of it applies to nonfiction as well. I've also gone for more general tips this go round. You're welcome to pick my brain about specific topics and I'll do my best to answer.

Again, the key thing to remember is that this is what I have personally found helpful; they may have more or less degrees of usefulness or relevance to you personally, but they can still serve as starting points.

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(12) Remember that your goal is a read-worthy narrative, not a product.

Not everything you write has to be published to be considered valid. Hell, not everything you write has to see the light of day. Your writing is for you. IMO it verges on a spiritual need and whatever actualization of it brings you joy is good and right. Don't let capitalism fool you into thinking all that matters is profitability and never let any kind of numbers dictate your self-worth or smother your creative spark.

(13) Embrace whatever keeps the flow going.

Placeholders are your friends. Write the ending first or start in the middle. Write a scene as a skeletal script to fill in later. Whatever gets the job done.

(14) If you need an outline, make one. If you don't, don't...

There's a lot of documented discussion about 'types' of writer -- you may hear terms like 'gardener' versus 'architect' or the like. Don't feel like you have to fall into one category only or remain the same for the rest of your life. You may find it helpful to do in-depth planning before you even get started, or you may prefer to wing it.

I also find that different projects require different approaches, and that actually the same project can require different approaches at different stages of development. The key thing is that your skills are going to carry over regardless the more you practice them.

(15) ...but keep notes for longer projects.

However, I heartily recommend keeping notes in some shape or form -- the more organized the better -- to help with consistency in longer projects. This will save you time and frustration, trust me.

(16) Keep a writing journal/workbook.

Writing is a mental muscle and part of exercising it is in changing how you process the world. Having a journal or workbook of some kind to jot down ideas for titles, character names, new projects, scene or dialogue snippets, and so on helps your brain learn to transform raw inspiration into new narrative, making it easier to get to work when you have time to sit down and actually write.

And no, you don't need fancy writing software or expensive notebooks. There is no 'doing this properly'. If it brings you joy to have an exceedingly organized writing journal bound in Italian leather, great, as long as you don't spend more time color-coding than you do writing.

(17) Find first readers you trust...

Not everyone has access to a writing group, but at some point you will need to find your first reader. Although I recommend finding one or two people to read your first draft, they can come in at the second, third, or final draft.

At some point you've stared at the project too long and you will be biased, no matter how trained of an editor you are. Fresh eyes will help spot both big plot holes and tiny typos. Find people you trust to give you balanced criticism, rather than just fluff your feathers.

(18) ...but limit access to drafts.

Too many cooks spoil the broth. If you involve too many readers at the drafting stage, you risk losing your own instincts or saturating the work trying to make everyone happy. It can simply lengthen the writing process unnecessarily, too.

Also, remember that some of these early-stage first readers may have been better suited as finished-work first readers; a first draft may put them off from reading the end result, however much it's changed and however much they love you. Curbing your enthusiasm now may yield greater rewards later, in other words.

(19) Remember to look after your physical wellbeing.

It's tempting to romanticize the writer who shuts themselves away in an attic for a week and doesn't eat or sleep until they emerge with a polished draft -- don't do it. Look after your posture, eyes, hungers, and thirsts. Get sleep. Move around frequently. Go outside. Check in with loved ones.

(20) Self knowledge is power...

Find what environment facilitates your best work. For me it's typically isolation, appropriate music, and evenings. Also note this may differ between when you want to write and when you need to edit. Equally, find what inhibits you. For me I know I can't read sink my teeth into a TV series or novel in the same genre and write original copy at the same time. I also find it hard to concentrate when I have paid projects on the books or my house needs cleaning.

(21) ...but accept that part of learning the discipline is being able to work in imperfect conditions.

See #2. By the time you found the right music for that one scene, you could have written the damn scene and half of the next. Often, we will never have enough time or the right time. Learn to work with what you have.

(22) "Write what you know" is generally bullshit...

If we only wrote what we knew, we would never have had Middle-earth, or Arrakis, or The X-Files, or the millions of folk legends that enrich our cultures. We would never have had infamous characters like Romeo or Juliet, Sherlock Holmes, or John Wick. Unless you are a world traveler, a daredevil, and omniscient to boot, writing only what you know leads to bland settings, cookie-cutter characters, and uncompelling narratives. The whole point is to reach and imagine.

(23) ...but be aware of your own biases, misconceptions, knowledge gaps, and unlived experiences, and take steps to correct them -- or accept that some things are not yours to tell.

As mentioned, we are in an ecosystem -- you have a responsibility to make use of it. If you're reading widely and deeply you'll be able to discern where you inevitably fall short. Don't interpret this as defeat or a flaw, merely something to be aware of (and in some cases, avoid perpetuating). You'll know what you have to research, whether that's more reading, listening to lectures/documentaries, visiting places, or talking to people directly involved.

However, there will be places where no amount of research can touch, nor -- in my opinion -- should it. For example, as a cis/het woman, no matter how much I research the lived experiences of the trans community in order to write a trans character, the fact remains that I personally have not lived it. So while I can include trans folks in my work, it will never be my place (again for example) to write their point of view of their transition. It is simply not mine to tell.

If you're passionate about something that isn't yours, it is then your responsibility to lift up the narratives and voices of those to whom it belongs.

[evelyne-am]

April 30, 2023

Day 47

I haven’t written in two weeks. And a lot has happened between then and now. There are parts of the inner process that I didn’t feel like documenting that’s one of the reasons, another reason is that it is time consuming every day to put in my thoughts especially after these long rehearsals which take up so much energy, The only reason is that truthfully I have missed my personal life a bit and the last blog post I wrote was April 13 and from April 14 onwards I did sort of get into my close friends social lives. The New Year’s celebrations, DC‘s birthday, Eid holidays, and I admit it’s been really nice but what has happened every single time is that I have enjoyed it while I’m in it but afterwards I regretted a little bit because it would pop me out of the play. One of the things that happened in the last couple of weeks is that M1 has been cut out of the play. We were supposed to do three stories of three women but I was bunch of things have happened over the last few weeks and one day it got to a point where it was really messy and our director made a difficult decision and said we will just focus on the two stories. So my speaking rule that was almost confirmed it was a short one in the middle of the play was an owl given to someone else. My being a little less mentally involved in that week I fear cost me that role, I mean it might have been given anyway because now the lead role from M one is doing it as she did not have a role in M2. But I had planned to put forth my audition for the last scene of M2 and never did. Yes definitely I didn’t prepare it so I wasn’t confident, but when my speaking role in the middle was cut I tried to see what the director was saying. The

Day it was cut, I did not blink not once when he said that it was given to someone else, not when I was showing the other person that Roll. I am a professional, and I am also an amateur here. So I have the merit to understand That people need time and experience to play main roles on stage. The same day the music people were there and Sir seemed really delighted because when we are there everything is in tune and tempo and the choreography works better. So if there was any disappointment in me it was off sided by the fact that everyone was delighted to have the music team there it was a brilliant rehearsal still in the middle of Ramadan where we all sat and ate together if you saw my stories.

Also I had mentioned we had four new boys join and one of them is the boys who mum who died on day two all day three and his brother. But of the four boys three of them didn’t stay barely did three or four rehearsals. It is tedious for the boys because their part is minimal and only the one person who Mum had died I mentioned he has stayed and he has taken that role of being says right hand like the other existing boys are making notes of the choreography and all the rules and so that’s that. But two big things that have happened is MONQ her mum got really sick and went to surgery and she missed a couple of rehearsals and one day she came and said that she can’t continue. Don’t want to say it derogatorily or judging Lee but she was not in the play as much as the rest of us probably because of her home situation so couldn’t really blame her. The director has actually predicted this a week before and we had done a couple of choreographies without her in it. It was a sad goodbye and we hugged and parted ways with her giving warm and tearful farewell to everyone in the group. But the other loss from the cast which was really unexpected was a former member, a trained member, who I suppose as a male role in the minimal male role was unable to keep his attention and his passion and focus where he was not playing anything significant. We did a run through one day and he must a fair bit and I suppose the director was more angry with him than others because he’s an old trooper and told him if he doesn’t want to be in the player he can leave. But he did which was an actual surprise and a big loss. I’ll do another update tomorrow or day after to catch up on the past couple of weeks but I did say in my stories today that I do actually have a speaking role after all that shall be revealed soon

[whentherewerebicycles]

good morning i already did my daily processing post but i also wanted to do some reflective writing and set some GOALS for this week.

what was hard / frustrating / challenging about last week?

general moving stress

general new job stress, especially info-whelm stress (too much info at once, presented in a disorganized/confusing way, without much guidance about how to engage with it effectively or make sense of it)

feeling disconnected from new colleagues and unsure about how to forge relationships at work (and just worried in general about whether remote work will meet my human contact needs) 

feeling a lot of uncertainty and anxiety about lack of structure and direction/oversight

feeling a general sense of dread/existential panic about whether this job will push me in any way or whether i’ll get stuck in a rut here doing work that is a lot less interesting to me than the previous rut i was stuck in

some of these will maybe resolve themselves in time! for instance moving will be over soon-ish and i will also eventually begin working on projects that will hopefully help me organize some of the new information and get a clearer sense of purpose. HOWEVER, i can also bolster my sense of agency/autonomy by taking action and building structures for myself to help anchor me in a period where i feel very adrift! i have decided that in the first six weeks of the job, i want to begin each week by setting 3-5 specific goals for myself on monday. these might be semi-related to actual work projects or responsibilities, but i really want them to feel more like big picture meta-level goals that are focused on making this job feel healthy, meaningful, and manageable for me, and that are also pushing me to develop specific skills i want to learn or improve at. i will set the goals each monday morning and then set aside time on fridays to assess whether i made progress towards those goals or not. if i did, then i will choose to consider the week a Success, even if there were other things i feel frustrated or unfulfilled or whatever about.

here are my goals for this week:

(1) I want to practice clearly communicating my needs and/or areas of confusion to my team lead instead of wallowing in what might be easily resolved stress. This week, I want to specifically bring at least ONE meta question to each of our daily tag-up meetings, and if the initial answer she gives is unclear, I want to keep asking questions or reframing the question until I get the answer I need. I might even practice sending her the question in the morning when we check in briefly on teams at the start of the day, in case giving her time to think about it gets me a better answer. Today’s question: I have been given hundreds of pages of dense information about agency structures, processes, etc. to read independently as part of my onboarding, but I do not have a clear sense of what I am reading this information for or how I will use it or how deeply I need to learn it (as opposed to a more surface-level “familiarizing myself with the content” kind of read). So my meta question for today is: Can we come up with some specific strategies for working through these materials in a way that is efficient and will set me up for project success? What I am really trying to understand here is the hierarchy of importance (which things I need to know urgently and/or need to know very deeply in order to complete project tasks... vs. the things that I should be loosely familiar with but can consult as resources if I’m working on a project that specifically involves training people in those processes.)

(2) I want to continue taking detailed notes on points of confusion & feelings I am experiencing throughout the onboarding and orientation process. Keeping a careful record of how info was introduced to me, how I tried to navigate it or make sense of it, and what feelings that experience stirred up in me will help me eventually propose a redesign of our onboarding process that better supports people in their first weeks.

(3) One of the confusing things about this job is that there are four million different offices and subdivisions within the larger agency i work for and the specific office I work within, and each has its own responsibilities and processes and chains of command. I’ve read a bunch of scattered information over the last week but am still really confused about what we actually do and where we fit into the larger organizational structure. Not having a clear organizational schema in my mind is also making it much harder for me to make sense of these dense onboarding materials, because I don’t have a framework to fit all of these disconnected pieces of information into. So, at some point this week, I want to sit down and use a big piece of paper to create a detailed, annotated organizational map by hand. Creating this map will help me practice recalling/reviewing all this new information, and it’ll also give me a physical resource I can tape up by my desk so that my eyes are passing over it multiple times a day (which I think will help me learn it more quickly).

(4) I want to make a point to make at least one personal connection with my team lead (or other people I meet with) this week. That might be asking them a question about their lives or sharing a small piece of information when we’re small talking at the beginning of the meeting or saying something funny or just, like, trying to convey that I am a human with a personality, and trying to get from the other person some sense of them as a human with a personality. Everyone seems to favor very terse, impersonal email exchanges here but I think meetings might be a chance to do a tiny bit of HELLO I AM A PERSON work with other people. (I also feel like studying the culture of communication in this organization could be a fascinating longer-term project... both interesting in its own sake and potentially a place where L&D could intervene to build a more collegial culture? But I don’t have enough info yet and haven’t met enough people to know if my initial impression of the place is correct or not.)

those are my goals! now back to reading one million insanely dense pages about federal budgeting!

[gascon-en-exil]

Did Agnea and Castti next.

Agnea

Both of these stories were very light on combat compared to the first four I did, with it only coming in during the dungeon segment. Agnea unsurprisingly gets a guest character to help her, although the new dancer ability that hits hard and always takes away a shield point helps her feel like less of a pure support unit.

Extremely low stakes here, with Agnea and her coworker/friend/sweetheart(?) fighting a giant boar to protect their town's festival and locating Agnea's missing sister in the process. Aside from that she's off to become a star, replete with a lot of wholesome tooth-rotting fluff. Someone's got to hit the lighter notes in this cast, though....

Apart from that, Agnea's sister brings up the sexual undertones of the dancer class despite the much more innocent setup in this game, which was inevitable since Agnea copies Primrose's allure ability - including the chance for it to fail and lower her reputation. (While I definitely don't mind it mechanically, I think it is a little funny that Agnea outright asking people to give her stuff at night is level-based and not percentage-based as well, as that seems pretty dubious in its own way.)

Appropriately for an area close to Partitio's, everyone in Agnea's village has a silly country accent. She does too, although it only comes out (i.e. the actor puts it on) when she's flustered since she's been training herself to sound like a city girl. Decent worldbuilding there. On the subject of language though, I wonder about Agnea's mother's song, which comes with subtitles but doesn't sound like any language I recognize. It could be Japanese and I probably wouldn't know, of course.

I did a little more extra exploring after the chapter, and found that there's at least four harbors where you can catch a ferry to other ports around the map. Crossing the ocean must open up more later in the game, based on the trailers.

Castti

Does not get a partner, shockingly, which forces you to be creative with her concoctions in the boss which consists two...poison...ape...things. Unlike Alfyn however, Castti starts off with a bunch of reagents so there's various options and you're actually encouraged to experiment as Castti is sturdy enough on her own but doesn't have a large range of damage options.

It seems like she'd get a partner in the form of a fellow apothecary, but it turns out that Malaya was involved in Castti's former life and so is undoubtedly going to turn up again with the whole amnesia-and-evil-apothecaries plot. There's not much I can say about Castti's story at the moment on account of the mystery, and unfortunately her Chapter 1 feels a bit bland as a result without something like Temenos's quirkiness to carry it.

Still, I like the atmosphere of her starting town, a quaint and faintly Mediterranean port with a large canal. She's also got the quickest access to the harbor system, so I imagine people who want to speedrun the demo may start with her.

Castti's nighttime ability is a bit weird; the game it out to be her innocently giving people medicine to put them to sleep...but it serves the same function as Hikari or Ochette beating them up or Throné knocking them out so she might as well be breaking out the chloroform rags in cases where it's not explicitly about treating sick people.