Reading the new checks that might come in due to the Online Safety Act in the UK and this is actually bullshit
[Image Transcript:
And how will I prove my age?
There’s a number of methods a site or app might use to ask you to confirm your age. They might do this check themselves or use another company to do the check. These methods include:
Facial age estimation – you show your face via photo or video, and technology analyses it to estimate your age.
Open banking – you give permission for the age-check service to securely access information from your bank about whether you are over 18. The age-check service then confirms this with the site or app.
Digital identity services – these include digital identity wallets, which can securely store and share information which proves your age in a digital format.
Credit card age checks – you provide your credit card details and a payment processor checks if the card is valid. As you must be over 18 to obtain a credit card this shows you are over 18.
Email-based age estimation – you provide your email address, and technology analyses other online services where it has been used – such as banking or utility providers - to estimate your age.
Mobile network operator age checks – you give your permission for an age-check service to confirm whether or not your mobile phone number has age filters applied to it. If there are no restrictions, this confirms you are over 18.
Photo-ID matching – this is similar to a check when you show a document. For example, you upload an image of a document that shows your face and age, and an image of yourself at the same time – these are compared to confirm if the document is yours.
End Transcript.]
Not only is this such a fucking breach of privacy, but this is going to hurt adults in vulnerable and abusive situations. Some adults don’t have bank accounts or credit cards or even a fucking phone. I’m one of them. I could not give half of this information even if I wanted to. What the fuck is this. Fuck the UK government. This isn’t going to protect kids, this is just going to hurt adults, and I know full well when they say “sites that allow pornography” they’re going to be going after sites that have huge amounts of queer content, like tumblr and Ao3. Queer kids are gonna lose their fucking communities because of this shit. Abuse victims are going to lose online support systems because of this.
I’m genuinely fucked off about this, and worried about whether I’m going to lose every single one of my online friends. Anyone in the UK, please email your MP and sign this petition. It needs to reach 100k signatures to pass through Parliament.
I’m only hoping the backlash will be big enough for them to stop implementing these measures.
We want the Government to repeal the Online Safety act.
Anything we Yankees can do to voice our displeasure at this? This absolutely is violating and it's creepy. It absolutely will be used as a test run for implementing something similar here if it doesn't get loud pushback, and even before it does, we all share the same Internet, so it will, in some way, affect us even across the pond.
As far as I know, the best thing non-UK people can do is simply share the petition around, because it’s not possible for anyone outside of the UK to sign it (otherwise the petition can be deemed invalid). But definitely keep your eyes on American laws, because it’s likely they’ll attempt to implement them there too. The UK itself is basically copying what Australia has been trying to do with their under-16s ban.
A few people have shown interest in replicating the pride backlighting I did, so hey, here’s a quick tutorial below the cut.
Enjoy, and happy Pride Month. 🏳️🌈
STEP 1 — SETUP
First thing you’ll want to do is find a suitably dark background to bounce the light off of. I use the White Screen housing item dyed Soot Black, available from the Housing Merchant or Apartment Merchant in any of the housing zones for 3000 gil.
I line up 2-3 of them for coverage, but one will do if you're trying to be frugal.
If you don’t have an apartment or an FC room to use, try asking friends, FC mates, or even folks you share a Discord server with. You might even find someone who already has a studio space set up and is willing to let you use it!
Lighting in your studio space should be 0 (though you might have success at 1 as well), so make sure to adjust that or ask the studio owner if they can make that change before you start posing.
STEP 2 — GPOSE
Position your character(s) just a little ways back from the edge of the screen. You want some space between them and the screen so that the lighting can float there without casting a weird circle on the wall.
Hop into /gpose and bump up the “Manual brightness adjustment” to about 120 or whatever level allows you to see your character well enough to pose them. Pose to your heart's content.
STEP 3 — LIGHTS
Here’s the fun part. In the Light tab of the Gpose menu, switch all of your Light sources to Type 1, which has the shortest falloff radius (meaning it doesn't reach as far as Type 2 or 3). I also set all of my lights to one strong color to differentiate them while I worked on lighting—red, green, and blue, all maxed out at 255 (for now).
Swing your camera (still on all default settings) around to your character’s back and up above their head a little ways. This is where Light 1 (red) will go.
Now pan your camera down at about mid-back height and set Light 2 (green) there.
Pan your camera down one last time until you have a nice shot of your character’s butt and set Light 3 (blue).
If you have "circles" that appear on the background behind your character, your lights are little too close to the backdrop. Pull your camera in towards your character just a bit more to reposition your lights. I recommend doing this at a Camera Position setting of 100 so that your sense of "close" and "far" aren't skewed by extreme Field of View (FOV). You can adjust that once you're happy with light positions.
Spin your camera back around and enjoy this nice little macaw-colored gradient.
STEP 4 — CAMERA
Set your camera angle.
The way FFIXV’s lighting works is partially dependent on how much light is in a shot. It will adjust a lot like your eyes do when you’re entering a dark room from a bright room, or vice versa. Your zoom level and camera angle are going to directly affect the lighting, so set this before you start messing with light strength and color. Sometimes this means weaker lighting will actually light your character better.
I ended up bringing my lights down to around ~160 and boosted the "Manual brightness adjustment" up quite a bit to get lighting I was happier with.
For a straightforward vertical shot, I like to have my Camera Position/FOV at 200 and of course my rotation is set to 90. Zoom in or out as needed. Remember to save your camera angle if you plan to pan around and fix things!
STEP 5 — COLOR
Make it ~queer~.
Take your flag of choice and pick out 2-3 “main” hues. Generally these will be the strongest hues in the flag, if not the only ones. Some flags, like the Pride/Progress/Intersex-Inclusive flag itself, are difficult to replicate for the sheer number of colors that are in it. You can loosely represent a rainbow with some adjustment to the RGB colors, if you’re determined to have a whole rainbow in there.
Shader Note: I recommend picking a shader preset that doesn’t mess too much with color so that colors are represented correctly. You may need to adjust light strength and “Manual brightness adjustment” to be compatible with your preset of choice. Bloom will also heavily affect the way your colors are showing up, so you may need to tone down the bloom FX or toggle it off entirely. This all depends on your preset, however.
If you’re not into RGB math, here are some cheat sheets! Not every flag is represented here of course, but I tried to cover as many colors as I could so that you could grab a color from another flag as needed! Please note that colors will need some adjustment for your own screenshot, presets, and preferences.
And that’s it, y’all! 🏳️🌈
(Open this image up in a new tab for more detail.)
These were taken using a heavily customized shader for that nice glowy effect.
A Bozjan native who once opposed the regime of the IV Imperial Legion as a fighter in the Resistance's rank. Misplaced faith, inaction, a betrayal of beliefs, or a twisted amalgam of the three branded the former firebrand a traitor and relegated her to the mercy of the gallows... For what is better suited to mete justice to one who abandons kin and country than the choking embrace of a hangman's noose?
A sadist by nature, this expat ( having escaped her doom ), plies her trade in dubious morals and matters of questionable ethics in the far sullied corners of Eorzea.
You'd best support her rights, and more importantly her wrongs.
Follow me here on bluesky as well!
I know not what it is you desire for yourself, nor what it was that first brought you to Eorzea, but I firmly believe that the power we possess was given to us for a purpose. Pray consider this when you give me your answer, Renoux.
One thing i really like in FFXIV is the characterization of Azem... a wanderer who travels far and wide, whose insatiable curiosity means they can't keep their nose out of anyone's business. someone who's always quick to offer help, no matter how insignificant or cosmically important the problem. fearless to the point of recklessness, up for anything but especially if its ridiculously dangerous. Driven by a desire to go everywhere, do everything, learn everything, make a friend out of everyone they meet. They even kind of incorporated the fact that the actions of a human-controlled character simply wouldn't make any sense when viewed from an in-universe perspective by making Azem this sort of whimsical and unpredictable character, someone whose opaque motives often confound and infuriate those around them even as they inspire fondness.
idk, as a characterization specifically of the player and their role -- a strange, capricious, joyful creature whose boundless love for the world and everyone in it draws them into story after story -- it's extremely affectionate and sweet, but still manages to ring true.
it just kinda makes me smile when i think about it.
also as a concept it's sort of like, "what if nyarlathotep was nice", which is very cute, also very accurate to RPG players, and extremely funny
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