To my german followers (or even european followers, if this is actually happening in your country too):
Netflix wants voice actors to sign new contracts, contracts that say, that if they agree and sign their voice will be fed to netflix‘s AI. Netflix then wants to generate voices to do the work in movies and series and pay the voice actor that way. I think we can all agree that this is very fishy and will for sure have negative repercussions in the future for various reasons. Most voice actors aren’t signing, which means that (maybe) in a few weeks or months already movies and series productions from netflix won’t have a german dub anymore. There’s already customers wanting to boycott if that becomes true.
There‘s a petition, that I’ll post below, which you can sign as someone from germany, to protect the art and work of voice actors. (Maybe there’s a petition for other european countries too, so I‘d recommend looking if there’s one).
Wir, die Unterzeichnenden dieser Petition, fordern eine umfassende und verbindliche Regulierung für den Einsatz von künstlichen Stimmen in d
People keep saying there’s a ceasefire but every single day we wake up to another explosion, another family destroyed, another name added to the list of martyrs. I’m writing this because the world thinks Gaza is “calm” now.
It’s not. The bombs didn’t stop. The drones didn’t stop. The funerals didn’t stop.
During this so-called ceasefire, dozens of people were killed. Homes were burned. Children were pulled from under the rubble. You’ll see the photos I’m adding below - all taken during the “pause”. This is what our reality looks like.
My own family is suffering too. We lost relatives. We lost our home.
312 Palestinians have been killed, entire families wiped out during a time that was supposed to bring safety.!
Here is the donation link for my family’s emergency fund:
i’m going to hold your hands when i say this and i am only going to be kind about it once: ai does not belong in fandom spaces, ever. not in writing, not in art, not in video, not at all. it does not matter how bad you want to see your favourite characters kiss, or how much you need a bit of help finishing a chapter, or whatever.
make friends with artists. commission somebody. learn to draw yourself. ask for a beta read. try a writing partnership. fandom spaces are communities, so engage with them! it is about the journey and the fact that we all love something enough to create and build together about that thing.
spending 30 seconds to kill a tree and get an AI to push out some soulless empty piece of “content” is antithetical to the entire point of being engaged with fandom, and if you’ve taken to doing this you should really reconsider if you belong in these spaces with the rest of us.
I actually had some unexpected free time today so I was able to create this a lot faster than I expected.
It isn’t perfect, but following the initial post I assigned each timezone one sun deity, so travelers know who they might pray to while exploring the world.
This was a lot of fun to create and to research mythologies from across the world, and I think I learned a couple of things doing so!
the nineties and the early aughts television landscape really was defined by long deployment of "will they won't they" dynamics people these days would not be able to handle network television writers' rooms teasing ships for multiple years only to more often than not be given the answer "they will not. <3 hope this helps"
Not everything after the ? those parameters also contain the playlist and starting timestamp for example, so you might want to keep those. As the post above says, delete the "si=..." up to the next & or the end of the url, whichever is first
This isn't just youtube btw. Anything after ? in a url is additional info that's passed to the web site and can be anything from the page number of a large collection to tracking data.
Sometimes the key name is obvious, like sort=ascending, or page=4. Often though, especially if the programmers don't want it to be obvious that it's for advertising or identification purposes, they'll call it by a single letter or abbreviation. Generally any value that's a long jumble of text/numbers is used for tracking purposes because it needs to be unique. It can (and should!) be deleted when sharing links.
Also, if you are copying and pasting a tumblr link and can take the time to delete the ?source=share from the end, please do, as it seems to make the link behave much better and avoid some of that "open in app" or "behaving like you aren't logged in" nonsense.
I just don’t understand where this concept of ‘fake geek girls’ came from. Like, AT ALL.
Cus when I look for fandom related stuff like 90% of the fan art and the fanfiction and the meta, zines, comics, etc. Like 90% of the shit that I’ve seen is created by women & girls.
And all that stuff take’s a lot of work and research and critical analysis and staring at reference photos for hours.
We are literally the most well versed and invested group in the fandom. So, like, What the fuck boys? You mad you can’t keep up?
I saw an argument, and I can’t find it now, but it totally made sense, that there’s a gender split in fandom. Male fandom tends to be a curator fandom; male fandom collects, organizes, and memorizes facts and figures. Male fandom tends to be KEEPERS of the canon; the fandom places great weight on those who have the biggest collection, the deepest knowledge of obscure subjects, the first appearances, creators, character interactions.
Female fandom is creative. Females create fanart, cosplay, fanwritings. Female fandom ALTERS canon, for the simple reason that canon does not serve female fandom. In order for it to fit the ‘outsider’ (female, queer, POC), the canon must be attacked and rebuilt, and that takes creation.
“Male” fandom devalues this contribution to fandom, because it is not the ‘right’ kind of fandom. “Girls only cosplay for attention, they’re not REAL fans!” “Fanfiction is full of stupid Mary Sues, girls only do it so they can make out with the main character!” “I, a male artist, have done this pin-up work and can put it in my portfolio! You, a female artist, have drawn stupid fanart, and it’s not appropriate to use as a professional reference!”
In the mind of people who decry the ‘fake geek girl,’ this fandom is not as worthy. It damages, or in their mind, destroys the canon. What is the point of memorizing every possible romantic entanglement of heterosexual white Danny Rand if someone turns around and creates a fanwork depicting him as a bisexual female of Asian descent (thus subverting Rand’s creepy ‘white savior’ origins)? When Danny Rand becomes Dani Rand, their power is lessened. What is important to them ceases to be the focus of the discussion. Creation and curatorship can work in tandom, but typically, in fandom, they are on opposite poles.
This is not to say that there aren’t brilliant male cosplayers or smashing female trivia experts, this is to say that the need of the individual fan is met with opposing concepts: In order for me to find myself in comics, I need to make that space for myself, and that is a creative force. Het white cis males are more likely to do anything possible to defend and preserve the canon because the canon is built to cater to them.
a lot of YA and fantasy stuff has always been a little cringe and silly but at least it used to be cringe from the heart instead of designed in a lab to get teens on tiktok to use a certain sentence from it
just watched The Archies by Zoya Akhtar and lemme tell you this is by far THE best iteration of the Archie comics. She stuck to the source material and despite the star kids cast, the actors were pretty good, and I loved the songs. Definitely give it a watch, also i am now obsessed with vedang raina my man is so fine
I’ve been thinking a lot about Shadow’s characterizations in the Project: Shadow fan film, SA2, Archie, Heroes, ‘06, Prime, and Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog and why they’re all considered among the best. And I’ve been thinking about his characterizations in IDW and Boom, how they’re considered among the worst, and how much they clash with the other portrayals. I think I’ve hit upon the number one quality that Shadow needs to have to be written well.
Loyalty.
I’ll explain below the cut.
The best Shadow is one who is loyal to someone or something. Maybe he’s not always loyal to the right someone or something, but he is loyal nonetheless. It’s a core part of his character. He is ride or die to the very end for whatever friend or cause he cares about. Shadow is always ready to kill or be killed for whatever or whoever matters to him most; it’s what sets him apart from the others. The others have limits on their loyalty. Sonic will help you out, but he’s not gonna kill a man for you. Shadow will. He doesn’t have that limit. If you are Shadow’s friend and you need him to kill for you, he will do it. Period.
Here’s a recap of Shadow’s loyalty:
In SA2 and the fan film, it’s to Maria, and to a lesser extent, Gerald.
In Heroes and ‘06, it’s to Team Dark.
In Archie, it’s to Team Dark, Hope Kintobor, and Commander Tower. Sometimes it’s even to his own values like when he goes against Rouge to help Blaze in Treasure Team Tango.
In Sonic X, it’s to Maria and later Molly. Maybe even to the universe, given that he’s ready to kill Cosmo to save it.
In Prime, it’s to Green Hill. And later on, Shadow is also loyal to Sonic despite the latter driving him crazy.
In Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, it’s to Amy.
And in his own game, Shadow can be loyal to Maria, Sonic and friends, Eggman (up to a point), Black Doom, or even Earth itself. Not all of those folks are worth his loyalty, but the fact is that Shadow still cares about fighting by their side. That key element of his personality remains.
And that’s what’s missing in Boom and IDW. Because in those, he isn’t loyal to anything. He isn’t ride or die for anyone. At least, not that we can tell. When you remove Shadow’s faithfulness to those he loves, you remove a lot of what makes him who he is and all that’s left is an edgy aesthetic that soon wears out its welcome because there isn’t anything to supplement it. And this is made worse by the fact that they’re never allowed to bring up or expand his backstory, so they can’t ever talk about why he’s like this.
I guess you could make the argument that Shadow is loyal to the world in IDW since he helps save it a few times, but he’s so mean and heartless to everyone in the world that it feels less like he’s fighting to protect other people and more like he’s just trying to save his own house so he still has a place to live. I mean, if he won’t help Rouge when she’s been kidnapped by Starline and he won’t help Omega when the latter has been smashed to bits and he won’t help the Chao get out of their cage and he actually has to be talked into saving a village from an avalanche and he seems to really dislike/be annoyed by everyone he comes into contact with…what exactly is he saving the Earth for?? It can’t be for the people living in it. He hates them. He doesn’t care if they need his help. So the only conclusion I can draw is that he’s just doing it to save his own skin. The only person Shadow shows even the slightest bit of loyalty to is himself.
And that makes him unrecognizable from the Shadow we know and love.
His loyalty is his greatest virtue, even when it’s misguided. Let him keep it.
kaledo-art
blakekathryn
dededos
baratheonpilled
