Just so we're all on the same page with the writer's strike.
If during the strike, it's announced about AI generated shows. We are not watching them. Not even out of curiosity. Let them fail every AI generated show they try make.
The human voice can not be replaced by AI. Don't let them try.
Anyway, fuck the CEOs and other execs. Support the strikers.
First humans ever to leave the solar system suddenly drop out of communications and the ship can't be found with any equipment. After one month of no contact their home countries start reluctantly holding funerals for the space heroes only for them all to turn up, healthy, well fed and extremely disoriented, in the middle of Tokyo, talking about alien abduction. Turns out that aliens found the poor humans straying out of their solar system, presumably lost, and took them to Alien Wildlife Rehabilitation before dumping them back in the middle of their native habitat.
I literally just googled "city with the highest population"
I’ll bet they have cool new tattoos that turn out to be tracking devices too. Just in case these spirited individuals try to make another break for it.
... do the tats make them stupid popular, like that time scientists gave birds tracker anklets and it accidentally made them ultra fuckable
Let’s say yes. Those alien scientists are learning so much, and none of it is accurate.
SAG-AFTRA is now on strike :). (means that actors in it can't do any promos or signings, some of Good Omens actors are members (I think that David, Michael and Jon are) :))
Giant moment of YIKES today: listening to a podfic on ao3, and then being smacked at the end with the podficcer's patreon advertisement, where folks pay to get access to podfic. Glancing at their works where this advertisement appears, it's all blanket permission stuff.
Folks getting into podfic: DO NOT DO THIS. First, advertising patreons on ao3 is a huge no go, even when you do it auditorily rather than via text. It is very much against terms of service, and puts the site at risk. Second, though: authors giving you blanket permission to podfic are not giving you permission to make money off their work. I can't believe I need to say this, but if you are going to record fic for money? You need that fic author's SPECIFIC permission. And you should probably be sharing any proceeds with them, though that is something you can negotiate individually. But taking something freely offered for free transformative use and making money from it? That is a huge violation of trust in the community, and could result in authors pulling their blanket permission.
But DG, you may say, I should get to turn my side hobby into a hustle just like fanartists do! Fine. If you are a skilled podficcer who produces high quality audio, you already have an option for that - go pick up work as an audiobook narrator on audible. It's not hard for a skilled reader to find ocassional gig work that way, and it's something I did years ago when I was poor and unemployed.
In summary: Don't put the whole podfic community at risk just to make a buck. Follow the rules of the sites you use, respect authors' rights, and look elsewhere for your side hustle.
oh we won, this is gonna be a cinematic event
So within two days of each other, Fox News writes an article comparing aromanticism and asexuality to pedophilia, and then Matt Walsh releases a video saying asexuality is a mental illness and asexuals are tricking teenagers into having depression.
Not sure what’s going on right now over in Conservative World, but it’s a hell of wild U-turn for them to suddenly switch from “Oh no! The left is sexualizing our children!” to “Oh no! The left is asexualizing our children!”
It’s a reminder, I guess, that they’re coming for all of us. The fash and the white supremacists will not make nice distinctions between the queers when they put us up against the wall. There is no gatekeeping, no label-policing, no purity-purging and no assimilation that any of us can do that will save us. They want us dead, and while they’ll start with whoever is most vulnerable at any given time, they’ll get around to all of us eventually.
Queer solidarity means all of us because the fash are coming for all of us.
All Dividers are Feds. Stand united or die separately.
ANYONE who is trying to divide our community is a fucking Fed. That includes other queers who like to argue about who is and isn’t “allowed” in our community.
Do we have a franz kafka diary entry for july 1st, i want to know what he thinks!!!
happy too tired July everyone
Yes, and, this? This is actually what an “if you liked that, maybe you’ll like this!” algorithm is trying to replicate, in its own clumsy way. The basic idea is that, if you like Thing X, then you may like other things that people who liked Thing X also liked.
Only the algorithm has no actual reasoning ability, or understanding of what it’s doing--it’s just wandering around bumping into things, looking for patterns that sorta match. Like a sack of ferrets tracking a scent trail through a department store, and the store is trying to tell you that the ferrets are highly skilled personal shoppers.
AO3, on the other hand, is set up so that you can find out directly from other human beings who like Thing X, what else they liked. It probably wouldn’t work in a department store--hence the sack-of-ferrets system--but fandom is a gift economy, so it does.
A further variant on this is to see who bookmarked the stories you love, and investigate their bookmarks. If they seem reliably appealing to you and they're being actively updated, you can also periodically check in on their bookmarks to see what's new.
[Image description: A Twitter thread by sen (@SenLinYuWrites) that reads “I have been reading fanfic for decades. I am going to tell you the secret to finding good stuff without an algorithm.
Today (June 26, 2023) is the 20th anniversary of Lawrence v. Texas, the most important Supreme Court case in gay history. It finally ruled that consensual sodomy cannot be a crime and all state laws criminalizing it are invalid.
People don’t realize how recent it was that cops could arrest you solely for having gay sex, in the privacy of your own bedroom. It was slowly decriminalized state by state, but like 1/3 of all states still had those laws in place until 2003.
It didn’t get nearly as much fanfare and recognition at the time as the 2015 decision that legalized gay marriage. But I think it established a far more crucial right.
Lawrence v. Texas was decided on the precedent of the 'right to privacy' - a right which isn't enumerated in the Bill of Rights, but which had been established by the Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case which declared laws restricting married couples from purchasing contraception in violation of the 'right to marital privacy'.
The Griswold v. Connecticut privacy precedent was cited in the arguments for Roe v. Wade which concluded that the Due Process Clause of the 14th amendment reinforced the 'right to privacy' established by Griswold. When Roe was struck down by Dobbs v. Jackson, Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion that "in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell", cases that ensure rights to marital privacy, consensual adult non-procreative sexual activity, and federal same-sex marriage. This reasoning would also challenge Loving v. Virginia, which declared laws banning interracial marriage unconstitutional and was also decided on the privacy precedent of the Due Process Clause.
The establishment reaction to this is to sing the same refrain as always: this is the fault of the people to not vote hard enough to ensure the safety of the Supreme Court. Besides the fact that because of the Electoral College, 4 of the 9 current justices were appointed by losers of the popular vote, it also reinforces the bankrupt idea that our best chance for liberation is through 9 unelected people sitting for life on an institution that gave itself the right to strike down legislation at will in Marbury v. Madison.
The fact of the matter is that when we rely on the Supreme Court to deign to give us quote unquote rights, we reify this most undemocratic branch of government which represents the highest level of a judicial system that from its very roots is at war against working class people, and especially the most oppressed members of that class, using all levels of law enforcement to inflict those laws with violence. We confirm the supposed validity of a system that says what the court giveth the court taketh away, and well, those are the rules. We accept the brittleness of narrow, limited demands geared towards being as palatable as possible to a fundamentally conservative institution. We accept the brutal limitations of the judicial system as it is and funnel all of our energy into pleading at its knees, lashing out at any mass movement that demands more out of fear that it'll jeopardize our chances of getting the pantheon of nine to gaze on us with favor.
Any right won through the courts, especially at its highest and least democratic level, gifts the racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-working class judicial system another knife to press against our backs. We only win true liberation through organized solidarity to fight for removing the power of these owning-class institutions.
90s queer activists used the slogan "Stonewall was a riot - now we need a revolution!" for a reason.
Hi Neil - I saw your response about how you believe that the writers' strike will impact negatively on the Good Omens S2 release. Which is totally understandable. First - I'd like to say that we really feel for you. To have 3 of your passion projects (GO, Anansi Boys and Sandman S2) impacted adversely must be really horrendous for you. Personally, I truly admire your integrity in holding the line. I'd also like to say that, while I can't speak for the entire GO fandom, certainly all the people I interact with are supportive of the strike, and of your personal stance. However, it would be logical to say that a drop in figures/ engagement for GO S2 could make it harder to get confirmation for GO S3. So ..we know that once the series is released the best thing we can do is watch 2.1 right through to 2.6 and then start all over again and encourage everyone we know to do the same.
But I was wondering ... is there anything else we can do? Specifically, will engaging with Prime SM posts about GO S2 - bumping up the figures on likes, comments, shares/ retweets/ reblogs - help? There are an awful lot of us out here. If swamping Prime posts with our love for the show will help, I'm sure many of us would be more than happy to find the time to do that. Of if you have any other thoughts, ideas, that you feel comfortable sharing (given the delicate situation with the strike), I for one would be happy to hear them Thanks for your time, Wendy
I guess the other thing you can all do is...
Spread the word.
Tell your friends to watch Good Omens, tell your enemies to watch Good Omens, tell those who passionately crave your company that your favours are entirely dependent on whether or not the lovelorn watch Good Omens, and if you happen to find yourself sole monarch of a small kingdom where they have television pass a law to make it compulsory to watch Good Omens.
Do it online, but do it in real life as well.
a study i did because i realized idk how to draw environments at all LMAO
[ID: A realistic painting of a bathroom, looking in from the open doorway. The bathtub/shower takes up the back wall, and the shower curtain is open showing the green tiling of the shower wall. A window with a potted plant is on the shower wall. Beside the shower, a dark green towel is hanging from the wall, and a matching dark green rug is on the floor. The floor is tiled a teal color. On the opposite wall is a mirror, and below that is a sink teal-tiled with white cabinets underneath. A paintbrush sits halfway off the sink. On the side of the cabinet facing the door are various smiley face and star stickers. Beside that, closest to the door, is the toilet, partially out of frame. End ID]
I hate the way yanks talk about people's teeth
yeah im not done actually. perfectly white straight teeth are deeply weird and should not be considered some kind of ideal in any way. braces arent useless but they’re for cases where genuine harm or pain is being caused not just aesthetics. teeth whitening is fucking evil. crooked teeth, yellow teeth, chipped teeth, they’re all literally fine. your row of porcelain fucking tombstones make you look like a goddamn mannequin. if you’ve ever made fun of someone’s else’s teeth i hope reality fucking rejects your existence
