Fanfictions and fan theories for the books, manga, and anime this 21+-year-old inhales on a regular basis. Plus occasional posts about my own works, although I keep it vague on the original stuff. (main blog for sixfingersixtails and portalwalker)
A quick update on one of our priorities right now: Getting rid of spammy followers.
We’ve recently made a lot of headway, including shutting down several large spam rings that were responsible for most of these spammy follows.
We’re always improving our algorithms to catch these annoying bots, but one of the best tools we have are your reports. If you ever catch someone spammy following you, you can use this icon to report them:
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In a statement to The Post, a spokesperson for NBCUniversal claimed the tree work is simply an annual ritual at this time of year. “We understand that the safety tree trimming of the Ficus trees we did on Barham Blvd. has created unintended challenges for demonstrators, that was not our intention. In partnership with licensed arborists, we have pruned these trees annually at this time of year to ensure that the canopies are light ahead of the high wind season,” they wrote. “We support the WGA and SAG’s right to demonstrate and are working to provide some shade coverage. We continue to openly communicate with the labor leaders on-site to work together during this time.”
If those trees were pollarded annually, the cut areas would NOT look like that. There would be big knobs of old growth at the trimming sites. Not seeing any of that here. The way those trees were topped (not pollarded, which is a very careful process that has to begin when the tree is immature) is excellent way to kill them due to loss of hydration, open sites to infection and parasitism during the best time of year for both, lack of nutrition due to so little greenery and new budding growth being left, sunburn and other exposure damage, and a myriad of other possibilities. Plus, if they were topped annually, they would not have the lovely drooping branches seen in the other picture but would have tons of vertical suckers instead.
This is what an annually pollarded mature tree should look like:
If this was done by the city, the public works arborists should be protesting in front of city hall and screaming their heads off right now. I'm not hearing about that, so... Tree law!
As I'm sure many of you are already aware, Did You Know Gaming (who have been doing some really great investigative work lately) recently put out a video on canceled Sonic games. The whole thing's worth a watch, but I have to bring it up here specifically because they talk about the plans for Sonic Chronicles 2 with a LOT of new info directly from the lead designer.
The section on how the story of Sonic Chronicles 2 would have went starts at 9:45. It's very interesting! He outlines the whole plot, including the fact that they were going to end with ANOTHER obvious plot hook for a sequel in the hopes that they or some other studio could keep the Sonic Chronicles series going indefinitely. Sonic Team even claimed they were interested in using Chronicles characters like Shade in other games. It's crazy to imagine a timeline where this might have become a pillar of the franchise.
I refuse to mourn the loss of the sequel, though, because y'all saw me stream the original. It was miserable. And with the original game selling and reviewing decently well, they would have had little reason to go back to the drawing board and overhaul that game's bizarrely hateful design.
Of course, DYKG also had to talk about the reason why the game was canceled. I was dreading this because of how often people tend to get the basic facts of the Penders cases wrong or downplay the obvious Archie Knuckles inspiration in Chronicles. But no, they did their homework! And they got the details right in part because, well... they asked Penders for comment directly. And he sent them back a MASSIVE wall of text about the whole ordeal, including some fascinating details that I don't believe I've heard before!
You can go to 15:19 in the video and scrub through to read the many, MANY screencaps of their emails from Ken, but here are the most interesting and/or hilarious tidbits to me:
[ID] Klaudia Amenábar @kaludiasays on twitter says “in all seriousness SAD asking for no cosplay of characters from struck productions the week of SDCC is a really smart move. if people actually follow it in solidarity it will be a REAL disruption these companies don't want bc they rely on fans doing 90% of marketing nowadays.
[ID] Klaudia Amenábar @kaludiasays on twitter says “in all seriousness SAD asking for no cosplay of characters from struck productions the week of SDCC is a really smart move. if people actually follow it in solidarity it will be a REAL disruption these companies don't want bc they rely on fans doing 90% of marketing nowadays.
Even before the strike half the big companies werent doing big panels there anyway, relying on some actor promotion, their owned conventions and events, and [caps] FANS. [/caps] fans creating disruption as well to help the workers would be very visible as well.
and if it's for months and several conventions, and creators pivot their content away for long periods of time, it'll really make their pockets hurt bc they [caps] BARELY [/caps] pay for owned marketing anymore and again, rely on fans. [caps] DRAIN THEM DRY. [/caps]
for those asking about the source on cosplay, but also on past productions twitter.com/estarguarstia (...) [end ID]
[ID] quoted tweet from Estar Guars Tia @estarguarstia reads Ok guys I got a response.
Image: screenshot of an email from SAG-AFTRA reads Re: Further clarification for content creators.
We are asking folks not to do cosplay if it would promote struck productions. Yes, you can promote comics, books, and games, as this is not struck work. That being said, performers are being asked to refrain from promoting struck work, including past productions that would have been struck if produced today. [End ID]
[ID] Final image shows a screenshot from the SAG•AFTRA website
Am I allowed to promote struck work on social media as a fan and not in a paid capacity?
Influencers should refrain from posting on social media about any struck work regardless of whether they are posting organically or in a paid capacity.
Can I attend conventions as a fan as long as I am not being paid to promote anything?
You cannot participate in conventions such as Comic-Con on behalf of, or to promote, companies we are striking against- this includes appearances, panels, fan meet and greets, etc. involving struck work. You may participate in a convention in ways that are wholly independent of characters from struck work or sponsorship by struck companies. If you have any questions relating to this distinction, please contact SAGAFTRAstrike@sagaftra.org. [end ID]
These guidelines (#3 above) are confusing mess because there is no universal definition of what an "influencer" is. But as far as I can tell from reading them, they apply to union members and potential union members (i.e. anyone who may wish to become a SAG-AFTRA union member in the future) who use their social media influence to generate income, and who broker paid deals with sponsors to promote sponsors' products, and who would be participating in fannish activities as part of their business.
But someone really needs to step in and clarify before Tumblr gets overrun with "don't write meta / make fan art / write fanfic or you are in violation of the strike" posts.
1. If you are a member or ever want to be a member, follow the above guidelines.
2. If you are a paid influencer with a contract signed pre-strike to promote struck work, you will not be penalized for finishing out that contract but any new paid influencer contracts Re struck work puts you afoul off the union.
3. In solidarity if you are a fan who is not SAG or SAG adjacent, we would like you not to step into fill the promotional void left by the strike. Please use your best personal judgement and refrain from activities you would not normally do (e.g. don’t do extra fan stuff cause actors are quiet). The cosplay request is particularly important because cosplayers give the media something to show that isn’t us striking. Your regular fan activités are generally fine at this juncture as long as you are not a member and do not want to be one in the future.
4. There is no request for a consumer boycott of watching struck content at this time!!! Watch our shows, show they have value.
5. Yes the rules are different for SAG members, people who want to be SAG members and everyone else
6. This will all get clearer in the days to come. There’s a lot to do and this is the first major actors strike in the age of ubiquitous internet and fan content being understood as mainstream. Please be patient with us and each other.
(American) Tree Law is very satisfying because the cases often involve someone damaging trees that don’t belong to them, usually for an aesthetic, mercenary, petty, and/or spiteful reason. However, American tree law comes down like a HAMMER on such people, and they will get mighty fines. If the tree dies, in fact, they’ll be on the hook to replace the whole thing, and as it turns out, trees ain’t cheap. As the article above summarizes one incident in Reddit terms:
To rephrase it as an AITA post: am I the asshole if I cut down 32 trees on my neighbor’s property, but instead of just charging me a $32,000 fine, now they’re going to make me build a road and find transplanted, equally mature trees to replant?
Tree Law is perhaps one of the few branches (I didn’t even mean that to be a pun) of American law where self-entitled wrongdoers WILL face consequences. NBC Universal wants to maul a row of city-owned ficus trees to deprive striking workers of shade during a heat wave?Oh boy.
I hate the "Oh ur posting without tags? how is anyone supposed to find ur post🥺" warning shit tumblr does now. the hand of god will deliver me unto others
