This is my main & art blog. It’ll mostly consist of Dragon Age and as an extension fan content for Accursed Ones by thethirdamell (check out his work if you haven’t, it’s amazing). Other things that will pop up from time to time will be Jurassic Park, ESO, Pokemon and other various misc things.
Main Tags:
My Art (general)
Dragon Age
Anders
Accursed Ones
Halloween Vibes
Jurassic Park
Elder Scrolls Online
Pokemon
Other blogs:
Accursed Ones fan blog
Other places to find me:
Ko-fi
DeviantArt
I’ll change up this info as needed! This is also kind of a test to see how it works/looks.
It's been a while since I've posted updated ESO class-inspired designs to Tumblr, so here are the current design iterations in my shop! There are three sets and one single multi-class design.
Original posts here & here.
ESO Redbubble shop section is linked in the notes.
everyone go enable this immediately. it can be a bit hard to find because “visibility” is under blog settings instead of general settings or privacy. you have to do this individually for each separate side-blog
if you can’t find it on the app then the update probably hasn’t rolled out to you, and you’ll have to go through the web browser. what a truly wild way/time to implement this
Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states that “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”
There are no guarantees, but here's hoping that this can be honoured.
I'm kind of baffled bc everything I've heard about LLMs up to this point has been, "Once your data is in the set, it can't meaningfully be taken back out bc of how entangled everything is, and how the LLM works in a sort of katamari-like aggregate."
Are they lying to us now? Did something huge change? Was that never a good explanation?
go to settings > to the right, under "Blogs," pick the blog you want to change the settings of > scroll down to visibility settings > turn on "Prevent third-party sharing for [blog url]" > do this for each individual blog you have
Automattic will sign a contract with OpenAI for Midjourney to learn off of Tumblr and Wordpress
Hello! Automattic, Tumblr's parent company, will sign a contract with OpenAI and Midjourney so Midjourney can learn off of Tumblr's and WordPress' art and other user data. :) (The full text of this article is copy/pasted in the cut below). You can opt out! but I truly cannot imagine a more idiotic or out of touch decision on the part of Tumblr's CEO.
First thing's first: When/if this goes live, opt out of this immediately. Do this even if you're not an artist. The more people opt out, the less valuable this contract is to Midjourney. in an ideal world, literally all of the active users would opt out, but if we can even get to 50% that's pretty delicious.
Second: Contact Tumblr Support. It's vital that you do this politely. Tumblr staff is not responsible for this decision and the point of doing this is to show the userbase's unwillingness to be involved in this, not harangue Tumblr staff. (Seriously, stop haranguing Tumblr staff). Here's a script:
Hi, I'm writing in to express my disappointment in Automattic's pending contract with OpenAI to sell user data. Midjourney is already embroiled in copyright lawsuits, and it is not possible to train it without compromising copyright, including violating the IP of artists on this site. I strongly protest this contract and will opt out if it goes live. Depending on the privacy terms around what user data is sold to OpenAI and why, it is possible I will leave the platform entirely. Thank you for your time.
Third: Download Glaze and start poisoning them prompts, my friends
Fourth: Stare into the middle distance for a second with me because holy fucking shit? How stupid can one decision be?
Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals.
The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation we’ve reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platforms’ parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.
The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasn’t supposed to. It is not clear from Gage’s post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent.
Gage wrote:
“the way the data was queried for the initial data dump to Midjourney/OpenAI means we compiled a list of all tumblr’s public post content between 2014 and 2023, but also unfortunately it included, and should not have included:
private posts on public blogs
posts on deleted or suspended blogs
unanswered asks (normally these are not public until they’re answered)
private answers (these only show up to the receiver and are not public)
posts that are marked ‘explicit’ / NSFW / ‘mature’ by our more modern standards (this may not be a big deal, I don’t know)
content from premium partner blogs (special brand blogs like Apple’s former music blog, for example, who spent money with us on an ad campaign) that may have creative that doesn’t belong to us, and we don’t have the rights to share with this-parties; this one is kinda unknown to me, what deals are in place historically and what they should prevent us from doing.”
Gage’s post makes clear that engineers are working on compiling a list of post IDs that should not have been included, and that password-protected posts, DMs, and media flagged as CSAM and other community guidelines violations were not included.
Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states that “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”
404 Media has asked Automattic how it accidentally compiled data that it shouldn’t share, and whether any of that content was shared with OpenAI, but did not immediately hear back from the company. 404 Media asked Automattic about an imminent deal with Midjourney last week but did not hear back then, either.
Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?”
Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.” Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.
News about a deal between Tumblr and Midjourney has been rumored and speculated about on Tumblr for the last week. Someone claiming to be a former Tumblr employee announced in a Tumblr blog post that the platform was working on a deal with Midjourney, and the rumor made it onto Blind, an app for verified employees of companies to anonymously discuss their jobs. 404 Media has seen the Blind posts, in which what seems like an Automattic employee says, “I'm not sure why some of you are getting worked up or worried about this. It's totally legal, and sharing it publicly is perfectly fine since it's right there in the terms & conditions. So, go ahead and spread the word as much as you can with your friends and tech journalists, it's totally fine.”
Separately, 404 Media viewed a public, now-deleted post by Gage, the product manager, where he said that he was deleting all of his images off of Tumblr, and would be putting them on his personal website. A still-live post says, “i've deleted my photography from tumblr and will be moving it slowly but surely over to cylegage.com, which i'm building into a photography portfolio that i can control end-to-end.” At one point last week, his personal website had a specific note stating that he did not consent to AI scraping of his images. Gage’s original post has been deleted, and his website is now a blank page that just reads “Cyle.” Gage did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media.
Several online platforms have made similar deals with AI companies recently, including Reddit, which entered into an AI content licensing deal with Google and said in its SEC filing last week that it’s “in the early stages of monetizing [its] user base” by training AI on users’ posts. Last year, Shutterstock signed a six year deal with OpenAI to provide training data.
OpenAI and Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment.
Hi, Tumblr. It’s Tumblr. We’re working on some things that we want to share with you.
AI companies are acquiring content across the internet for a variety of purposes in all sorts of ways. There are currently very few regulations giving individuals control over how their content is used by AI platforms. Proposed regulations around the world, like the European Union’s AI Act, would give individuals more control over whether and how their content is utilized by this emerging technology. We support this right regardless of geographic location, so we’re releasing a toggle to opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use this content for model training. We’re also working with partners to ensure you have as much control as possible regarding what content is used.
Here are the important details:
We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from Tumblr and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner.
We want to represent all of you on Tumblr and ensure that protections are in place for how your content is used. We are committed to making sure our partners respect those decisions.
To opt out of sharing your public blogs’ content with third parties, visit each of your public blogs’ blog settings via the web interface and toggle on the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.
For instructions on how to opt out using the latest version of the app, please visit this Help Center doc.
Please note: If you’ve already chosen to discourage search crawling of your blog in your settings, we’ve automatically enabled the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.
If you have concerns, please read through the Help Center doc linked above and contact us via Support if you still have questions.
unfortunately, a lot of the userbase won't opt out. those who don't see this post, those who have posted to tumblr but don't anymore, users on older versions of the app who forget to opt out next time they're on desktop, etc. the point of making it opt-out is to take advantage of people who wouldn't have opted in but don't/can't opt out in time. automatically opting out people who have discouraged search crawling is a gesture that helps Tumblr look more kind, but from the fact that everyone else has to manually opt out, Tumblr is definitely not looking benevolent.
I wonder, will Tumblr/Automattic be selling images from deactivated blogs? I assume deactivated blogs can't opt out.
when will they start selling this data? Is it already too late to keep them from selling every image you've posted before you opted out?
and if they're especially malicious, I wonder if they could get away with saying "this image is from a blog that's opted out, but it was reblogged by a blog that hasn't opted out, so we're selling the image that's on that non-opted-out blog."
making users need to opt out to keep their images from being taken and sold is a shitty move that makes it clear Tumblr/Automattic don't respect our privacy, and @staff are really not giving us much info here to suggest otherwise.
Chapter 233 / ??? - From Kirkwall We Fled: Chapter 22
Fandom: Dragon Age (Dragon Age Origins: Awakening & Dragon Age 2)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Additional Tags: Blood Magic, Dark, Horror, Angst, Sexual Content
Main Pairings (M/M): Anders / Hawke, Anders / Amell
Summary:
“Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift, and turned it against His children. They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones. They shall find no rest in this world, or Beyond.” Anders knew the verse. Every mage did. But Anders was a runner. He ran from the Circle. He ran from the Templars. He ran from relationships. So what did he care? He was never going to rest anyway.
Chapter Excerpt:
“I can’t tell you how much usefulness weighs on me. I don’t think we should be useful. I think we should just exist. I think existence is a choice. I think we should be free to choose it. We can’t be one with the world while we’re worrying about what we have to offer it or what we owe it.”
Read More | Start From the End of DA2 | Start From Awakening