midnight to 3am

34 and I barely know how to use the internet. That's okay, I can bake. Queer, Jewish, American Woman You should look at this page too: http://firechiefcharlie.tumblr.com/

[depsidase]

[megpie71]

As a former humanities student, I feel it is my duty to reblog this one.

[bramblefrump]

A tech bro tried to convince me AI was amazing cause "you could make 30,000 screenplays in minutes" not realising that every single one would be shit, you'd have to sift through everything just to find some good bits, time wasted that could've been spent just writing a screenplay.

Technology Brothers know nothing about what goes into creating a work, other than the fact a work has been created to be exploited for cash. They see creativity as an investment opportunity, not a love for humanity.

[feminist-space]

Matthew Dow Smith: "Just remember: Arts & Humanities are so useless and pointless that Tech Bros were driven to spend billions of dollars to try and get a computer to do something that badly approximates something Arts & Humanities students could do half asleep and wired on coffee the night before the due date."

[shiropoint]

This is mesmerizing to watch.

[fuu-dog-treats]

actually physically painful to watch because you know months were spent masking all those frames for each of the kajillions of transitions in this

[ask-ickle-mod]

[griseldajane]

Glaze is out!

Tired of having your artwork used for AI training but find watermarks dismaying and ineffective?

Well check this out! Software that makes your Art look messed up to training AIs and unusable in a data set but nearly unchanged to human eyes.

I just learned about this. It's in Beta. Please read all the information before using.

[digitaldiscipline]

Art thieves already hate it:

[fierceawakening]

Dude, if you're stealing, you deserve to have the data poisoned. Because you could have asked and you didn't.

[spooky-octagon-deactivated20240]

The link is only in the original post inside an image, not as text, so here it is as plain text: https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu/ and the paper about how it works: https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.04222

[esoanem]

As links (because some of us are on mobile and can't easily copy and paste to our browser), those are:

https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu

&

GLAZE: Protecting Artists from Style Mimicry by Text-to-Image Models

Recent text-to-image diffusion models such as MidJourney and Stable Diffusion threaten to displace many in the professional artist community

[sliceosunshine]

A bit of a TLDR for some questions I saw in the notes:

The team that created Glaze is from the University of Chicago. Their names are each listed in full on the Glaze download website. (This group of students/professors did this for their SPRING BREAK 😱 so go give them some love lol)

It is free to download. No, they won’t ask for or raise money from/for this project.(stated by one of the lead professors of the project).

Glaze is designed to protect artists’ STYLE--which a bunch of ai people have been deliberately fine-tuning their models to mimic (and specifically of current living artists--small or big).

It currently does not protect against composition/trace-like theft (as seen when run through img-to-img) but that would be protected by copyright anyway while STYLE is not.

The University Team has stated that they are dedicated to continuing to improve the tool, like fixing bugs (like overheating older computers by taking up lots of energy when Glazing--it currently runs on CPU so they’re trying to change that to GPU, I believe) and expanding the type of protection given to artists (like working against img-to-img theft).

It currently only works directly on your computer (phones not advised due to current overheating issue, no tablets, or iPads, and no website runthrough since that would be insecure to breaches/scraping/hacks)

It currently works best on painterly artwork, but can still be used on other forms (team is working on improving this)

IT WORKS BY calculating the changes each image needs for the best protection against style theft by AI, and adds tiny changes throughout the piece, so that your style will, for example, confuse the ai into seeing van gogh. But the ai thieves will see a regular image in your style, feeding it into their model labeled as your work (thus starting the “data poisoning”).

Do not post the original unGlazed piece of your artwork after posting your Glazed version (obviously)

The Team worked directly with over 1,000 artists that were being impacted by the ai theft. Because the team listened to those artists, Glaze accounts for regular art thieves too (i.e. Glaze can’t be removed/cropped etc. like signatures or watermarks when reposted. It’s just part of the image, so even if it ends up on another site and scraped, the Glazing is still in effect)

When you run your artwork through Glaze, no information is sent back to the Team. (Aka, no scraping on their part. The app receives information from the Team (like updates) but no information from you is given to them through the app. Basically Team servers ---> You and NOT Team servers <--->You) One-way data street.

Brief misunderstanding happened over an open-source license for the front-end part of the app. (Used open-source coding for front-end, not knowing that code’s use-license states it is only for other open-source uses, not closed-source (the back-end code of the app is private to prevent counter-counter measure developments)). The Team took down the app until they replaced the front-end code with code written from scratch by the team. They are now not in violation of that open-source license since they are no longer using it. (you have 30 days to remedy a license breach once informed; they did so in 2)

The Team is currently in touch with Japanese artists to better expand the tool for use to protect their art styles

From what I understand of it, Glaze is an AI tool designed to be anti-AI (Think Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2: one Terminator robot vs. all the other Terminators 😂)

You can download it from their website and also contact them through email there with any questions, problems, or bugs. The website: https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu/

[locus-p0cus]

reblogging this every fucking time it comes across my dash

[the-yggdrasil-system]

They recently updated it btw. They're also expanding its capabilities, if you go on their site's page. Hell ye

[galvanizedfriend]

The US Copyright Office is opening a public comment period around AI

US Copyright Office wants to hear what people think about AI and copyright

People have until October 18th to comment.

American friends! The US Copyright Office (which we know exerts huuuge influence in how these things are treated elsewhere) wants to hear opinions on copyright and AI.

"The US Copyright Office is opening a public comment period around AI and copyright issues beginning August 30th as the agency figures out how to approach the subject."

We can assume that the opposing side will definitely be using all of their lobbying power towards widespread AI use, so this is a very good chance to let them know your thoughts on AI and how art and creative content of all kinds should be protected.

[ri-writing]

One of the things they’re asking for comment on is the use of copyrighted works to train AI.  The Copyright Office really will read what you write.  If lots of people write in that they oppose allowing generative AI to train on copyrighted works, that could encourage the Copyright Office to also find that using copyrighted works to train AI engines should not be allowed.  Courts routinely look at Copyright Office publications while interpreting the Copyright Act, so this is an opportunity to actually have a say in the issue. 

You might be wondering how you should express that letting AI train on people’s copyrighted works is bad in a way that the Copyright Office will take seriously.  The simple answer is: Be polite and be honest.  If you’ve been a victim, you can share how you felt when you discovered your work had been used to train AI without your permission.  If you think authors and artists deserve not to have their work used without their permission, you can say that.  Be truthful.  Don’t present something as a fact if it is not.  Avoid hyperbole, inflammatory accusations, and foul language.  It is okay to say you are upset, concerned, and/or hurt, but do it without calling someone else a “fucker.” 

If you have no idea what to say, but want to comment, I've got some suggestions on how to write a comment under the cut.

Part One - Thank the Copyright Office for seeking public comment:

Thank you for opening these important questions up for public comment.

Or

I appreciate the Office’s interest in this topic and its request for public feedback.

Part Two - Who you are and why do you care?

I am an author/artist whose living depends on my being able to monetize my work

or

I am a supporter of authors and artists, and recognize that it is important in a democratic society to support the creation of art.

or

I am an author/artist whose work appears on my website.

Part Three - there is a strong public policy in granting authors the exclusive right to their works for a limited time (ie during the copyright period)

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution requires Congress pass laws “ To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”  Permitting generative AI to train on copyrighted works without fairly compensating Authors for the Right to their Writings is inconsistent with the Constitution.

Or

There is a strong policy to promote art by allowing authors exclusive rights in their creative works during a set period of time.  While a work is under copyright, therefore, it should not be used without the author’s consent to train generative AI.  To do so would violate the author’s exclusive rights to control their work while copyright applies.

Or

The Copyright Act places time limits on when an author has exclusive rights in their creative works.  This balances allowing the author to promote their work and recover for their efforts against the public’s ability to use the work.  Applying this system to generative AI is fair - generative AI may be trained on materials in the public domain, but it would be a violation of an author’s exclusive rights in their works to train generative AI on the author’s work while it is under copyright.

Part Four - what do you want?

The Copyright Office should adopt positions finding that training generative AI on copyrighted works without the consent of the authors of those works violates the Copyright Act.

or

The Copyright Office should adopt positions that copyright infringement includes training generative AI on copyrighted works when it is done without the permission of the authors whose works are being used in the training.

Part Five - Thank you again for your time.

Thank you for considering these comments.

or

Thank you for your time and consideration in this important matter.

[muffinlance]

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! Please take a moment out of your day, on behalf of all authors, artists, and terrible bosses looking to replace human creativity with ultra-cheap good-enough alternatives to comment. And I don't generally ask for reblogs, but yeah. Do that too. But the most important part is commenting. Doesn't have to be perfect, just copy and paste from above if you want to, or write a heartfelt two-sentence "artists and writers should give consent and receive compensation to be included in a training set, and images and writing resulting from AI should not be eligible for copyright without significant further human manipulation/improvement of the generated image." Which is my own current stance on this issue.

I've seen two links floating on the reblogs for where to comment officially at, which is confusing

At regulations.gov: here

At the copyright office: here

BOTH OF THESE ULTIMATELY LINK TO THE SAME COMMENT FORM (on regulations.gov), so just to preemptively clear up that confusion, follow either link they're both fine

[duckprintspress]

Here's what I wrote on behalf of the Press:

While I think there are potentially useful applications of learned language model text and model-generated artwork, I think the current models built on unethically sourced content, in clear violation of the copyrights held by the original creators of the works, is the "poison pill" that destroys any utility these models might have had. Until models are ethically built, and the use of them a required disclosure (for example, articles must say "llms have been used to generate part or all of this text"), and the acknowledgement made that these model-generated creations are not art, cannot be copyrighted as art, and have no place being treated as a replacement for art (but rather as a supplement), there's no way llms and art generators can be allowed to grow. It's my opinion that the current existing models need to be destroyed, and replaced by models built using ethically sourced datasets.

We CAN have an influence on policy. MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD.

[unashamedly-enthusiastic]

I think to topple the devine rights of kings billionaires, we need to dispel the myth that they have that money because they are smart and worked hard and make good decisions

I think the zip ties on the submarine and the limited views on the advertising platform might begin to show them for what they are

They are not smarter than you. They are not better than you. And if you suddenly magically got all that money people would stop saying 'no' to you too. and that is not a good thing

[lg5]

It's crazy that these strikes are happening given that all the writers and actors are asking for is less than 0.3% of the revenue these studios make.

[rootbeergoddess]

This is what gets me. The writers and actors aren’t asking for much but these CEOs are digging their heels in

[vermilionstarlight]

It's because it sets a precedent that the CEOs are terrified to set. That they will acquiesce to worker demands if the workers are resolute enough.

Because in an ideal world for these rich fucks, the workers give up, and the CEOs win, and its reinforced in the collective public mindset that all a strike does is "disrupt the economy, deprive people of valuable products, and waste people's time". The goal is to maintain the assertion that Strikes Don't Work. I don't think they genuinely give a shit about 0.15% of their revenue. What they care about is the OPTICS.

They cannot back down, for the exact same reason that WORKERS cannot back down. Because if the workers win, it shows people just that bit more that The Poors have power and ultimately we can make the rich do what we want if we put our fucking minds to it. And that, to the rich, is bad news bears to the highest degree.

[onetwothreemany]

FEMA is doing an emergency alert test on all TVs, radios, and cell phones on October 4, 2023, at approximately 2:20pm ET.

If you live in the US and you have a phone you need to keep secret for any reason, make sure that it is turned off at this time.

Yes, I'm doing this months in advance, and yes, my blog has very little reach, but I figure better to post about it more than less.

Please reblog and add better tags than mine, I'm bad at tags.

[spinabifidaoccultist-deactivate]

OCTOBER 4, 2023

TURN OFF YOUR OTHER PHONE AND DO NOT TURN IT ON AGAIN UNTIL YOU ARE ALONE AND SAFE BECAUSE THE ALARM WILL COME THROUGH AS SOON AS THAT PHONE IS POWERED ON.

AGAIN I REPEAT:

OCTOBER 4, 2023

THE ALARM WILL COME THROUGH AS SOON AS THAT PHONE IS POWERED BACK ON.

SO ONLY POWER IT BACK ON WHEN IT IS SAFE TO DO SO.

OCTOBER 4, 2023

If this doesn't make sense, then good news it's not for or about you but still reblog it because you never know who may need to know this.

Reblog and add more tags.

[whatbigotspost]

There’s just a whole lot of reasons someone may need to be aware of/prepared for this, so boosting

[soberscientistlife]

[seymour-butz-stuff]

[fredd01]

Never quit never give-up!

[dduane]

It's really this. And some people (guess who) really hate it.

We have in this equation many, many people who, more than anything else, fear their own deaths... the final and most dreadful loss of control. After they die (and here comes their greatest terror!) the young will remake the world in their own image... there being no (putative) grownups any more to stop them.

So they're presently trying to alter political structures all over the planet in such a way as to prevent the Naughty Youngs from too quickly undoing everything their (theoretically Wise Old) elders have done. They're intent on running your lives by their rules for absolutely as long as possible, even after they're dead.

...Now. There's a lot of "Don't expect the young to save us!" stuff out there, and sometimes I half suspect those other People are behind that too. (Admittedly, it's too easy when you're young and busy to blink your eyes open after a long night out and mutter "Yeah, you made this mess, save yourselves!")

But there's a way in which this is also ridiculous. Because... honestly. They expect a generation (indeed, more than one generation) raised on Luke Skywalker to fall for that?

Pitiful.

There are way too many potential heroes out there. Likely enough you're one. You don't even have to blow up a fully operational battle station to manifest this heroism! Just vote. Or help someone vote. Or more than one someone. Help voters in your community to register. Help defeat obvious attempts to gerrymander voters out of control of their own districts. Do the little things. Enough little things can't be stopped by the forces that assume everybody else to be as lazy and selfish as they are.

You outnumber the fascists. Stand up and act like it. "Snowflakes", they call us? Get enough snowflakes together and you've got an avalanche. Tried standing in front of one of those lately?

Meanwhile, I for one have no problems with saying, loudly, "Save us, O Young! You're our only hope." (Imagine me as a holographic projection if you must.) :)

And for now, I'll be out there doing what one person can.

Please, you do that too!

[animentality]

[presidentalpaca]

[lauraannegilman]

TV Executives: “if the strike goes on, you won’t get new episodes of your favorite shows! You won’t get new movies you were looking forward to! Isn’t that terrible, what the writers are doing to you?”

Me: Bitch, that might have been an effective threat in 2007, but we have since survived a Covid shutdown and discovered ways to amuse ourselves while we waited, we can outwait this shit, too. I got a pile of shows saved I haven’t even watched yet, and a Mt. TBR waiting for me.

Compensate (and respect) your writers for their work, assholes.

[lauraannegilman]

And the thot plickens….

[bemusedlybespectacled]

HOLY FUCK

[amuseoffyre]

SAG-AFTRA = Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists

[madenthusiasms]

More info:

- The actors walk off at the end of June if the studios don’t sit down with the writers

- Rumor is directors will follow. This will grind everything to a halt.

- Nobody is asking for a boycott. Neil Gaiman has pointed out that making Good Omens S2 a huge hit actually puts more pressure on Amazon to negotiate with the writers

- This implies it’s okay to catch up on old streaming content without breaking the line too

- This is a screenwriter strike; books will keep coming out.

- Movies already made will keep coming out for months. Again, actors have not called for a boycott; you aren’t breaking the line if you go see a movie.

- I don’t know where this puts podcasts but none of them have studio funding or platforms so they’ll probably keep going.

- Substack/Tumblr book club are all public domain works and will keep going. In addition to Dracula Daily there’s Whale Weekly, Dickens Daily, My Dear Wormwood (The Screwtape Letters), Letters from Watson (Sherlock Holmes) and more.

- Your local library always needs love. With the Libby app you don’t even need to physically go there.

[star-anise]

When I was younger and more abled, I was so fucking on board with the fantasy genre’s subversion of traditional femininity. We weren’t just fainting maidens locked up in towers; we could do anything men could do, be as strong or as physical or as violent. I got into western martial arts and learned to fight with a rapier, fell in love with the longsword.

But since I’ve gotten too disabled to fight anymore, I… find myself coming back to that maiden in a tower. It’s that funny thing, where subverting femininity is powerful for the people who have always been forced into it… but for the people who have always been excluded, the powerful thing can be embracing it.

As I’m disabled, as I say to groups of friends, “I can’t walk that far,” as I’m in too much pain to keep partying, I find myself worrying: I’m boring, too quiet, too stationary, irrelevant. The message sent to the disabled is: You’re out of the narrative, you’re secondary, you’re a burden.

The remarkable thing about the maiden in her tower is not her immobility; it’s common for disabled people to be abandoned, set adrift, waiting at bus stops or watching out the windows, forgotten in institutions or stranded in our houses. The remarkable thing is that she’s like a beacon, turning her tower into a lighthouse; people want to come to her, she’s important, she inspires through her appearance and words and craftwork.  In medieval romances she gives gifts, write letters, sends messengers, and summons lovers; she plays chess, commissions ballads, composes music, commands knights. She is her household’s moral centre in a castle under siege. She is a castle unto herself, and the integrity of her body matters.

That can be so revolutionary to those of us stuck in our towers who fall prey to thinking: Nobody would want to visit; nobody would want to listen; nobody would want to stay.

[shieldmaidenofsherwood]

#it’s so so important to remember that representation is not one-size-fits-all#what is empowering to one person might be exhausting and oppressive to someone else#some people need stories about having the strength to save themselves#some people need stories about being considered worthy of being saved#some people need inspiration for their independence while others need validation that they don’t have to be able to do everything themselves#before you lash out against something PLEASE stop to consider:#is this inadequate and/or damaging representation?#or is it just something I don’t personally relate to? [X]

[star-anise]

It’s been half a decade and I still haven’t found an articulation of the complexity of “representation” as concisely and precisely mindblowing as @hungrylikethewolfie’s here.

[pr1nceshawn]

Parents Supporting Their LGBT Kids During Pride Month.

[i-deduce-skeletons-deactivated2]

Fuck spreading hate like wildfire, spread this! Compassion, love and pride during pride month!!

[pleasejustbenicetopeople]

Some poc parents showing their support because images like these are rarely shown and hard to find.

THIS IS IMPORTANT.

SPREAD THIS LIKE WILD FIRE.

[atlinmerrick]

PRIDE

[themirokai]

I got this comment on a story from my Other AO3 Account this morning.

(Info redacted because I prefer keeping these accounts separate but no one follows me on the side blog I have for that account.)

The story was posted almost a year ago and is relatively “popular” by my average statistics even though it has tropes and themes that are big turnoffs for a lot of people (hence separate accounts). This popularity is undoubtedly because it’s a Marvel Loki story and that fandom is massive.

So there is obviously an algorithm or a bot scrubbing ao3 statistics and leaving this comment on fics that meet a certain metric with the main character of the fic inserted into the comment.

I had a little time to kill this morning so I decided to investigate further. And y’all this is so predatory. Come on this journey with me. It made me mad. It may make you mad.

First, if you go to Webnovel’s website, you HAVE to choose between male lead or female lead stories before you can go any further. WTF?

And that’s weird, but this gets so much worse. This is basically a pay-to-read site that has different subscription models. Which… okay BUT! The authors don’t get paid! Look at that comment again. They’re promising a supportive and nurturing community, but zero monetary compensation. It’s basically, “post your stuff here so we can get paid and you can get… nice vibes?” I mean look at this Orwellian writing:

Using the phrase “pay-to-read model” in the same sentence as “qualitative changes in lifestyles for authors” deliberately makes you think that you can get paid and maybe even make a living on this website. But that’s not actually what it says and authors will not receive one red cent.

Oh but wait, the worst is still to come. In case this breaks containment (which I kind of hope it does) this is where I mention that I’m a lawyer in the US.

I don’t do intellectual property or copyright law but I do read and write contracts for a living. So I went to look at their terms of service. It was fun!

Highlights the first, in which Webnovel gets a license to do basically whatever they want with content you post on their site. This is how they get to be paid for people reading authors’ writing without paying them anything.

Highlights the second, in which Webnovel takes no responsibility for illegally profiting off of fan fic. This all says that the writer is 100% responsible for everything the writer posts (even though only Webnovel is making money from it).

Highlights the third which say that by posting, the author is representing that they have the legal right to use and to let Webnovel use the content according to these terms. So if a writer posts fan fiction and Webnovel makes money from people reading the fan fiction, and the House of the Mouse catches wise, these sections say that that’s ALL on the writer.

So that’s a little skeevy to start off with but the thing that is seriously shitty and made me make this post was that these assholes are coming to ao3. They are actively recruiting people in comments on their fan fiction. And they are saying they are big fans of the character you’re writing about and that they share your interests.

They are recruiting fan fiction writers and giving every impression that you can make money from posting fan fiction on their site and hiding the fact that you absolutely cannot but they can make money off of you while you try, deep in their terms of service which no one but a lawyer who writes fan fic and has some time to kill will read.

I see posts on here regularly from people who don’t understand how this stuff works, don’t understand that they (and others) can not legally make a financial profit from fan fiction. And there are tons of people who will not take the time to dig into the details.

Don’t deal with these bastards. Fuck Webnovel.

[dduane]

Dear sweet gods above and below and sideways. Where is my Nopetopus?!

Never ever EVER give anybody worldwide rights to anything of yours. EVER. Gaaaaaaahhhh.

(There are also about ten other things wrong with that contract that are BAD EVIL HORRIBLE NOISOME AND VILE. But if I get started enumerating them right now, before I do something about my blood sugar, it'll turn me into a pissed-off person for the rest of the day. Sweet THOTH on his e-bike but these people are fucking shameless.)

(starts rummaging around on the desk for the text of the Excommunication Curse against the Reivers to pronounce it against these schmucks)

..GAAAAAH. :/

[charlataninred]

Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.

[meraarts]

Might I add:

The defeat of the wizard who made people choose how they’d be to be executed

The woman who raised the changeling alongside her biological child

The human who died of radiation poisoning after repairing the spaceship

[eater-of-hopes-and-dreams]

The adventures of a space roomba

Cinderella finding Araura (and falling in love)

I don’t know a snappy description but the my nemesis cynthia story certainly lives in my head

[blitzlowin]

hilariously, these are almost all in my fic tag. so, a compiled list from the notes (and some extras):

The God of Arepo (graphic novel 1 / 2 / 3) (ebook)

The Monster of Sentan

The Witch’s Cat

Raise Both Children

Stabby the Roomba (honorable mention)

Cinderella Marries the Prince (comic)

My Arch Nemesis Cynthia

Pirates and Mermaid

Eindred and the Witch

The Demon King

The Cornerwitch

Grandmother Beetroot

Apocalypse Daycare Worker

Grandmother Accidentally Summons a Demon

New Year Saga

A Story About Changelings

Ranger in the King’s Forest

The Difference Between a Hare and a Rabbit

Goblin Men (Canines)

[charlataninred]

I am in love with you /p

[inkvoices]

Adding Faceblind Prince Charming and Cinderella

[inkvoices]

21. The human who died of radiation poisoning after repairing the spaceship

22. The defeat of the wizard who made people choose how they’d be to be executed

[lightningladybug]

adding the Doctors Without Borders one

[inkvoices]

I LOVE tumblr storytime, so here’s a bunch more your weekend reading. Enjoy!

24. The Queen with Three Cursed Children

25. Tiny Dragon with one coin hoard

26. Haunted house

27. Shark hero was about to go rogue

28. Grandma lives in the woods comic

29. A Different Aftermath comic

30. Battery (microstory but I love it so much)

31. It’s A Date comic

32. Supervillian kidnaps rival’s kid and they want to stay

33. Narrative Town

34. I have been hired to clean the wizard tower comic

35. Robot Apocalypse

36. The Statues That Do Not Weather

37. Kushiel

38. Tooth Fairy

39. Alien abduction

40. Felonious wish-granting

41. When humans met actual space orcs

42. Space cousins

[dannnnnnnnnnnnex]

WAIT REBLOG THIS VERSION INSTEAD

[rylyshar]

Reading list!

[atlinmerrick]

This site has gone through its “hellsite” phases, but beneath – like a river we’ve buried but not stopped – there has always been the storytellers.

Thank you all.

[the80s]

Which ones have you never ever, and how many points did you get?

[ionaonie]

Christ, I feel old

[bold-lip-as-seratonin]

welp. I've done 'em all.

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

[is-the-post-reliable]

requested by anonymous:

RATING: RELIABLE

The above is from this article from The Guardian.  The images are from MYA Network. The caption on their website reads:

Source: ‘When a sperm and egg get together, the body creates tissue in order to support the developing pregnancy.  Here are photos of that tissue from 5-9 week pregnancies.  This is called the gestational sac, and it’s like the “house” for the pregnancy. Inside this sac there are cells that have the potential to become a fetus but there is no visible embryo at this stage. We rinsed off the blood and menstrual lining (decidua) for these photographs.’

The published images sparked a lot of debate, leading to the story being picked up by other news outlets. For example:

Source: ‘Last week, the Guardian published images of pregnancy tissue after abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The small size and appearance of the tissue were shocking to many. We have all absorbed, knowingly and unknowingly, the pervasive anti-abortion narrative that a pregnancy resembles a tiny baby starting in the earliest weeks. Though an early embryo can be seen under the magnification of ultrasound, it can take months for it to be perceptible to the naked eye.’

Source: ‘People have responded in disbelief, citing the (magnified) images they’ve seen on ultrasounds. […] ”Think of the illustrations on pregnancy and medical websites. The Mayo Clinic, one of the preeminent medical organizations in the country, shows week-by-week illustrations of embryonic and fetal development without any context of scale, like the rulers in the MYA photos.’

As stated in the article, whilst people talk about a ‘heartbeat’ at 6 weeks, there is no heart developed at this stage - only a group of cells that will become part of the heart.

Source: ‘But what exactly do we mean when we talk about a “fetal heartbeat” at six weeks of pregnancy? Although some people might picture a heart-shaped organ beating inside a fetus, this is not the case. Rather, at six weeks of pregnancy, an ultrasound can detect “a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart of the baby,” said Dr. Saima Aftab, medical director of the Fetal Care Center at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami. This flutter happens because the group of cells that will become the future “pacemaker” of the heart gain the capacity to fire electrical signals, she said.’

It should also be noted that the images show an embryo, not a fetus, until the 9th week.

Source: ‘In human pregnancies, a baby-to-be isn’t considered a fetus until the 9th week after conception, or week 11 after your last menstrual period (LMP).’

The co-founders of the MYA Network responded in a New York Times article.

Source: ‘Many people, even those who support abortion rights, did not believe the photos were accurate. Some insisted we had deliberately removed the embryos before taking the photos. The images weren’t consistent with those often seen in embryological textbooks, magnified on ultrasounds or used in anti-abortion propaganda; these enlarged images are not what you see with the naked eye after an abortion. A Stanford gynecologic pathologist has validated our photos, but many people could not believe the pictures were presented unaltered.

[elamarth-calmagol]

I’ve never seen pictures like this.

[yesterdaysprint]

The Illustrated Book of Manners: A Manual of Good Behavior and Polite Accomplishments, 1866

[ashfae]

If the amount of happiness, immediate or ultimate, is increased by any costume, it is right to wear it.

[sockdreams]

THIS