3 Comments
Before I get started here, I want to be very clear — I will never use Generative AI images in any of my public creative projects. Any comic I write will be drawn by an artist (myself or someone else), every piece of official art for my non visual stuff (books and podcasts) will be created by a person. While I have used Generative AI images in thumbnails historically, I stopped that practice years ago after I learned more. The existing generative AI models for creating image and videos like Sora run on stealing copyrighted materials and use so much energy that they’re incredibly bad for the environment.
So let’s have that level set before we go forward and anyone gets mad at me for doing something I haven’t done and will never do.
But I’m going to admit to something here — it’s fun to play around with image generators to create fake photos of things that don’t exist. Like it’s fun to make a “photo” of your personal RPG characters. You can commission an artist for a drawing, and I find trying to recreate that kind of art with AI to be gross.
But it’s almost impossible to find someone able to make a perfect simulacrum of a photograph of your Halfling Thief drinking at a rooftop bar in Chicago. Like you could definitely do it — but as a person who literally COULD do that kind of photo manipulation work myself, the number of hours I’d have to spend on stock photo websites, morgue file, and doing original shoots is fairly prohibitive. There’s a reason I draw the original art for Stormwood instead of going down that route.
But all of that said, I don’t think it’s ethical to share those images publicly once I’ve made them.
First off, I don’t know where that training data came from. I can’t be sure that I’m not spreading something that was based on stolen work. Like in my own work I might test something out with a stock photo I haven’t paid for, but I make sure I go out and buy it before I put it out to the public. Not doing so is, in my opinion, theft. With that in mind, how can I see these images I’ve created any other way? I don’t know where the sources were scraped from.
(I know generative AI doesn’t directly use the elements of images from its training data, as it works from refining noise until it resembles the description of the image — but I feel like we’re still in the spirit here.)
So until one of these models can promise that every single element in its training data has been ethically sourced, I feel like we’re dancing that line and I’m not comfortable posting it even in situations where I would make no profit from sharing it.
Secondly, there is the environmental concern. Right now AI companies are shoving this stuff into everything they can. This ends up using a ton of resources, and it’s being subsidized by investors. Like until a lot of this gets fixed, I don’t feel good encouraging the use of AI.
In an ideal world, this would be a fun toy and I could guiltlessly share its output the way I would a meme.
But it’s not, and I hate it.
This is the sixth year that we’ve done this, and it’s just… nice? We spend the day sitting and staring at the lake from the porch in our nice reclining lawn chairs, and then when the sun goes down we watch old TV shows we have on Bluray and DVD.
Last night we finally finished our rewatch of the old British sitcom As Time Goes By. We literally started doing it years ago, but have only been watching episodes while on vacation, so it’s obviously taken some time to get through them all. Tonight we’ll start on Monarch of the Glen, and I expect it will take another three or four years to get through all of that and move onto something else.
Probably Hamish MacBeth, Ballykissangel, or Northern Exposure.
It’s just nice to be peaceful for a week. To let the mind rest for some time. I’ve been getting some writing done, but for the most part I’m just enjoying not having to think about a lot of my daily stresses. Internet coverage is spotty here, so I can’t even spend a ton of time online.
It’s pretty great.
Right now though, I’m going to put this laptop away, get out a good book, and read it on the porch while we stare at the lake. Life is pretty amazing sometimes when we are able to find the little moments of quiet in the storm.
So this situation just honestly amuses me so much that I had to share. It also requires a lot of background, so please bear with me as I try my best to explain.
I actually got this email a couple of weeks ago, but I needed to share it with y’all because… well, because. Unless this is your first time reading anything I’ve ever written, you probably know that I’m one of the people behind Nerd & Tie, which is primarily a podcast network these days. We also still dabble in convention news coverage, but between 2014 and 2018 we ran the “Mega Blog” on the site where we covered pop culture news. Was that a long time ago? Yes. Was that only for a brief period in the site’s twelve year history? Also yes.
But because of that our tips email has ended up in the hands of people who want to send out releases and blast every nerd news site they can find. Which is, y’know, absolutely fine. It’s a dedicated mailbox, and that’s literally what it’s for.
And most of the stuff that gets sent there is pretty typical and what you expect… and then, there are emails like this one.
Before we start, I want to mention something important: Nerd & Tie is a primarily queer run network. There are not an insignificant number of trans creators involved, and I personally am nonbinary. Anyone who has spent more than five minutes with our content would know this, and knows our current distaste for anyone supporting a certain wizarding franchise and its creator. Said wizarding franchise has a new TV adaption coming out soon, and they’ve done something which will always send the worst people you’ve met into a tizzy: they cast a non-white actor in a role that was white in the original version.
So yeah, the racists are losing their god damned minds — and they emailed us about it.
To be fair, this was clearly a form email they sent to a ton of folks, but since it wasn’t BCC’d, it means they thought of us specifically, and that makes it all the funnier. They’re really trying to sound formal and professional with this wacky-ass thing, so, with the subject line “Media coverage request: HBO Max controversy, #NotMySnape movement and the silencing of fan voices,” this is the email I got:
Dear editorial team,
I’m reaching out to draw your attention to a situation currently causing major unrest within the global Harry Potter fan community — a story I believe deserves media coverage.HBO Max previously announced a new Harry Potter TV series, claiming it would stay true to the original books by J.K. Rowling. However, over the past months, rumors surfaced about a casting direction focused on inclusivity, raising concerns about deviations from the canon.
A few days ago, HBO officially announced Paapa Essiedu, a Black actor, as Severus Snape — a character explicitly described in the books as “sallow-skinned” and “deathly pale.” The announcement was posted with comments disabled, preventing fans from voicing their reactions. As a result, the community rallied on other official pages (such as @hbo itself, @StreamOnMax and @HarryPotter on Instagram), giving rise to the #NotMySnape movement.
Unfortunately, HBO appears determined to silence dissenting voices by reporting comments as spam and ignoring legitimate criticism. Millions of fans feel unheard and censored, all in the name of a “woke” culture that should, in theory, embrace diversity — including diversity of thought and opinion.
I kindly ask if you could consider writing an article on this matter, highlighting the injustice and double standards in HBO’s handling of the situation.
Thank you for your time and commitment to independent journalism.
Best regards,
V.
This is, frankly, the funniest god damned thing I’ve ever read. From the word woke in scare quotes to the “diversity of thought and opinion” we are getting the dog whistles in full on symphonies. I like how they describe HBO deleting overt racism as an injustice.
Like imagine living in 2025 and this is your biggest problem.
The best part is, a lot of people on the left don’t want this show to exist at all, and think it’s weird they made the in-canon wizard-racist character black. Like that’s sort of problematic for a myriad of reason, but none of them are what these bozos are angry about.
And honestly I personally would LOVE IT if this show failed, so if the racists don’t tune in… and the leftists don’t tune in… that’s awesome. Good job Warner Bros, you really did it with this one.
The email also attached a bunch of screenshots of HBO social media, I guess to prove the censorship? I don’t honestly didn’t give a shit and ignored them.
To top it off, I got a second email about it a week later from another sender titled “Recast Snape! Not my Snape movement,” and it’s just as funny as it tries to argue about the casting with book quotes:
Dear people who care about our voices,
HBO has casted Snape as a version that doesn’t match the books entirely:
-“Snape’s sallow skin had gone the color of sour MILK.” From Prisoner of Azkaban, Chapter 14, page 285
– “Snape was hanging upside down in the air I…] revealing skinny, PALLID legs.” From Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 28, page 647
– “Voldemort, looking into Snape’s PALE face…” From Deathly Hallows, Chapter 32 page 655We are not racists who put our eyes on the actor’s race. What we deeply care about and is concerned is the film presenting the accuracy of the books. When HBO announced the remake, they promised that the main purpose to remake the series was to stick to the books as much as possible. However, the results are highly disappointing.
Also, HBO deleted ALL our comments on one of their posts about the remake (
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DI0fcvdPi8o/?igsh=MWkxdHdycTdkejI4eg==
), silencing over hundreds of voices from us. Not to mention they closed off comments of the post where they announced Snape’s cast. They are silencing over hundreds of our voices and refuse to listen nor communicate with us.Please, if you care about the voices and the freedom of speech of our people, report this and let more people know.
Thank you!
I’m just… I’m just laughing. “We’re not racist, but… it’s just super important to us that the character is white!” Like I could argue with this on the basis of adaptation, or that it’s not important to the background of the character — but who gives a shit? Imagine spending this much energy on fucking TV adaptation casting of the TERF-owned wizard franchise. Imagine sending this to me of all people an expecting a sympathetic ear. If you don’t like an adaptation choice, don’t watch it. Feel free to criticize it too — but to send things like this to me of all people… wow.
I wonder what living a life that privileged is like.
It just made me laugh.
My grandmother died last night. This wasn’t a shock or a surprise. Her health has been on the decline, and she’s been in hospice for the last month. She lived a long life, and in her final days she was surrounded by her three adult children.
My grandma was a kind woman. She wasn’t perfect, but I always felt loved in her presence. She was a retired kindergarten teacher, and was still working when I was a kid. I have so many happy memories sitting at her kitchen table, and I’m going to carry those with me for the rest of my life. She was also proof that anyone who claims that you get more conservative as you get older is full of shit, because she certainly didn’t.
I think it’s interesting how the body processes grief sometimes. I don’t know that I’ll cry, but over the past month, knowing this was coming, I’ve felt a tension in my gut. Now that she’s passed, instead of relief that tension is replaced by a sense of emptiness. That something is missing that should still be there. Something has been taken away, and I feel it.
Of course, as I wrote that, I immediately started crying… so I guess my body processes grief in pretty ordinary ways too.
I wanted to come up with something profound linking this to Beltane, which we sit in the middle of right now, but it just seemed hackneyed. Like I was trying to dig out some greater significance when the truth is death comes whenever it wants. The only predictable thing about it is that it’s the end of all of our journeys. I hope that when I pass I’m so lucky to have lived such a long life with people that I love around me in my final days.
For the record, I will be fine. I just needed to get these words out while they were still in my head. I don’t have some rousing conclusion or deep insight to tack on here at the end, just that gut feeling that something is missing.
Because it is.
On Monday night a storm rolled through town. It only took a half an hour for the rain and wind to hit and leave, but in that time a tornado passed by about fifteen miles south of where I live. It was one of four that hit Eau Claire county during that storm, but thankfully those tornados hit mostly unoccupied farmland.
While there was property damage, no one got hurt.
Besides a period of time where Crysta and I awkwardly stood by our bathroom so we could avoid windows, we were largely unaffected by the entire thing. It almost felt like a metaphor though for everything that’s happening in our lives right now. Bursts of chaos that we know will pass, but we can’t ignore them while they happen.
I don’t want to make it sound like everything is doom and gloom. There are definitely some bad things happening (like my nonagenarian grandmother being in hospice, and y’know, *gestures at the American government*), but I still find joy in what I’m doing. There was a rainbow after the storm passed, and the metaphoric rainbows are happening too.
I don’t know, when things get like this I get a bit fried. I’ve got so much writing to do right now and I’m weeks behind where I want to be right now on both Peregrine Lake scripts and the novel I’m working on. We’ll be going up to our annual week at the cabin soon, and I’m hoping to get some stuff words down then. It’s just hard to get work done when your brain is lit up like a Christmas tree.
On the upside, I’m super happy with how this month’s episode of BS-Free Witchcraft turned out. It was supposed to be a quick and dirty episode on the Pagan Invasion, a 90s piece of Evangelical Christian satanic panic era propaganda, but I ended up researching way deeper than I intended. I’m really happy with the way it turned out, and it’s one of the few episodes where I think the video version is genuinely a better experience than the audio only version.
I don’t know. We’re getting things done and moving forward. All storms eventually pass, and we will find the sunlight and pick up the wreckage afterwards. Find the rainbows where you can, and let’s keep moving.
![Nerd & Tie[dot]Social Forums](https://www.nerdandtie.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/natsocial-nicepreview-square-300x300.png)
