The stagnation ending by forcing Pokémon to actually innovate and tell interesting story instead of trying to silence Palworld and similar projects (including fan projects that are love letters to their own franchise) AND Digimon reaching a wider audience so it can be appreciated would be both good outcomes NGL.
Today we are starting with three onions, six large potatoes, four big carrots, a slice from a small cabbage, two packets of chicken noodles, 150 grams of pre-cooked shredded chicken (optional), three cupped handfuls of rice (exact measures unclear, my boyfriend measures with his heart), and oregano, pepper, salt and bouillon cubes to taste.
Chop vegetables as illustrated. Find your biggest pot, fill it with water, and put it on a heat source (stovetop, open fire, idk how you live your life. do not microwave though, I will kill you). Put all ingredients save for noodles into the pot as the water heats to a gentle boil. Add the spices and stock cubes as you see fit. Let the soup boil for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Once 10 minutes are up (15 if the root vegetables are still tough instead of well-boiled), crush up the noodles and sprinkle them into the pot. Let cook for 5 more minutes.
People in this post really need to hear about Polish Cabbage soup.
BTW linked recipe is LYING the smoked bones are NOT OPTIONAL. If you can't get smoked (not additionally flavoured) pork ribs or bones use smoked bacon or polish kiełbasa.
This Classic Polish Sauerkraut Soup is so hearty and filling!
🔊🔊 END STAGE DISCOURSE!! END STAGE DISCOURSE!! WE HAVE ARRIVED AT "FICTIONAL SEX IS COERCIVE BECAUSE CHARACTERS ARE BEING FORCED TO DO THINGS BY THE AUTHOR"!!!! 🔊🔊
My favorite professor, shout out Glenn, would interrupt students who were saying "Well XYZ clearly felt--" and go "No, backtrack, scratch that. They are a character. Not a person. They don't have any thoughts other than what the writer clearly specifies on paper they have. Don't give agency to nonliving things, they are not real, they never were real, and it is dangerous to lose that line."
He was a sweet man and raised in the Midwest so interrupting people hurt his very soul, that's how dangerous he felt the idea of losing the line of fiction was.
He notably also taught a course called Bible in Lit which I took and those lines came back a lot.
Never write about something bad happening to your characters, as that is assault. To be frank, every novel is a hostage situation. Everyone please remain calm. The nonfiction section is that way, the police are en route.
I know that Tumblr doesn't care about Eastern Europe, but there has been a new, very concerning act of Russian aggression, this time on Poland.
Between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, multiple Russian drones entered the Polish airspace. Most of them were shot down in Eastern Poland, however two made their way far into the country. So far, no more drones entered the airspace.
The red dots are drones, the black one is the place they found remains of a projectile of an unknown origin.
Russia of course lies and claims that there is no proof that the drones are Russian, so they take no blame.
If you know anything about the history of relations between Poland and Russia, you know that Russia has been the greatest enemy and oppressor of Poland for literal centuries (they were mostly responsible for the Partitions of Poland, which led to Poland losing independence for 123 years. Yes, 123 years of occupation.) Russia has put claims on Polish land forever, which was a huge reason behind the Soviet Union invading Poland in 1939 and then refusing to leave, effectively starting another period of occupation that ended in 1989.
What happened now is another sign of Russia's intentions. They don't want to stop at Ukraine - they want the whole Eastern Europe. And they don't make little "mistakes" like that. The drones were likely a test to see if the West gives a fuck about what they do here, if there will be any attention and reaction. After all, the West has failed Poland in 1939 - they promised military assistance but never delivered it while knowing that Poland was not strong enough to fight against both the Third Reich and Soviet Union. Now Russia hopes for the history to repeat itself.
And the problem is that it's not looking very good for Poland. After the years of the West still trying to trade and get along with Russia despite the invasion of Ukraine, it's hard to actually believe that in case of invasion of Poland, there would be any help. What Westerners don't seem to understand is that there is no trading with Russia - they will never be satisfied. If you think that you can trade Ukraine, Poland and other Eastern European countries for safety for the West, you're an idiot. Russia won't stop.
Anyway. There isn't much more to say right now. I hope that it's only a one-time incident, and I don't want to fearmonger. But considering Russia's recent refusals to leave Ukraine in peace, the future of the whole Eastern Europe is looking bleak.
Please, don't stop talking about Ukraine and keep your eyes on Eastern Europe. What is happening here is not less important than other conflicts around the world, so please, just remember about us.
Always thinking about how black women originated the long acrylic nails look and were mocked and insulted for them for years, the look was called ghetto and disgusting... And now the same look is just the default fucking style of nail in middle class America lol
I know this happens with so many trends and styles that start in black communities but this one has always stuck out to me the most for how blatant and quick the flip was as soon as white girls started doing it, like within three years having long acrylic nails went from "ghetto" to chic
Not to completely hijack this post because the points on racism and this type of appropriation and acceptance are stark and should be brought into the light.
But I have always had a question for those who wear them:
Not long acrylic wearer but I sometimes keep my natural nails long and sharpened to almond.
You can get shit on your hand no matter what nail length you have.
We wash the hands after using toilet for a reason. The brushes so wash the nails exist for a reason. Soap and disinfectant exist for a reason.
It's also actually better to become comfortable with touching filth because you will at some point in your life have to deal with it one way or another and being squeamish about it will only prolong the situation that could be otherwise just a quick 'ah darn I will need to wash myself well after this'.
Main way of avoiding that would be using bidet or having your toilet close enough to shower to use it to wash yourself. It also is a big help during period or when very sick.
people act like 20-22 year olds are adults who should be fully responsible and knowledgeable and with it and it’s like have you ever been 20, 21, 22? i knew nothing, i woke up every day dumb as rocks and made every bad choice possible until i went to bed
another update: Amal El -Mohtar wrote a small article on her blog (https://amalelmohtar.com/i-tried-to-title-this-post-for-twenty-minutes-and-failed/), one which contains the words “[…] and the upshot of it all is that corporate marketing people at Simon & Schuster now know the name Bigolas Dickolas.”
I know it made it up to #6 at one point. Being a pre-existing fan of both Trigun and This is How You Loose the Time War made this especially enjoyable.
Teenagers/Young adults written to act like a commonly found irl dramatic emotion and hormone riddled people once again piss some people off lmao
It happened with Shinji Ikari when the internet for years made memes about a pussy cry baby protagonist, ignoring a teen being repeatedly put in traumatic experiences while already living in post-apo setting and reacting accordingly.
It happened in Guild Wars community when Braham acted accordingly like dumb 16 year old raised in culture that favours brash action that He was. But he was tall and muscled because his fantasy species is big and muscled so who cares, barely anyone knows He was 16 at his introduction. To this day He is hated for being just slight dumb, rash and experiencing grief and anger after the loss of His mother.
(In same storyline Taimi is hated for also acting Her age. She literally is a kid genius archetype and acts like skilled and academic person but still a kid. That's her sin. Being emotional. How terrible of Her.)
I could continue listing the examples. But this topic is already BORING and I spent my years in the trenches back in my Evangelion hyper focus days talking about this in more depth.
It's always dumb and always people act like it's suddenly a bad writing for young people to be at least slightly close to how they actually act irl or in general having characters that are flawed, making mistakes or are annoying in some way.
So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
My favourite AI promoting advertisement that I see ever since YouTube made me watch ads again definitely is one that compares current AI trend-chasing to industrial revolution and clothes produced faster while people that did not adjust went bankrupt.
Why I enjoy the fucking ad so much?
Because when I first saw it I was literally patching back together several clothes made thanks to the 'revolutionary' change including two shirts that were so flimsy their stitches were undone after one wash.
It's nice of them to compare mass produced slop to another slop.
(Not to mention how much of mass/fast fashion is just waste that ends on landfills. A lot of AI content is equally wasteful considering it's immediately discarded and how their data centres operate)
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