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.

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Right now I’m sitting in a cabin just outside Phillips, WI. Crysta and I are spending the week at the resort she went to growing up, just like we do every May to both celebrate her birthday and do something for our wedding anniversary (even if that part is a month early).

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.

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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 655

We 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.

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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.

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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.

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Even though I just got home, it’s time to hit the road again — as on Saturday (April 26th 2025) I’m going to be at Concinnity in Milwaukee, WI.

Concinnity is a one day con held at MSOE downtown. This is the con’s 25th year, and even though I’ve been doing Wisconsin cons since, well, before this con existed, somehow I’ve never ended up going to it until now. Largely this is because it fell so close to No Brand Con historically, so I was usually far too burnt out to do another event so close to it. But as No Brand is on hiatus, I figured it was about time I dipped my toe in and sent off a vendor application a while back.

I’m excited to finally go to this. I’ll have all my standard stuff for sale, so if you’re in town and feel like going to a little college show, stop on by and say hello. After this con though I’m going to take a well deserved rest. This much travel can take a lot out of me — we’ve only been home for a couple of days, and we’re immediately hitting the road again with this con.

In fact I should probably go to bed right now.

My next cons after this won’t be until this summer, with Big Minneapolis Anime in Minneapolis August 2-3, and then Anime 414 in Milwaukee August 9-10. The former of which I’ll be sharing a table with Peregrine Lake artist Ethan Flanagan. I’m slowly building up to a full schedule again this year, and I’m trying new stuff as much as I can.

Hopefully y’all come with me for the ride.

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So I just got home from traveling out to Maryland to visit my sister and her family for the Easter weekend. We got in the truck and drove the almost exactly one thousand miles to her home in Rockville, MD. It’s the second time we’ve done this, and we genuinely spend twice as much time traveling as we do actually spending time with family.

I genuinely love a good road trip, and the journey, which crosses through Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, is deeply satisfying. Almost exactly in the middle, of course, is Pokagon State Park in Indiana.

Searching through my blog, somehow I’ve never mentioned Pokagon by name here, though it has come up. We first went there almost ten years ago for our fifth wedding anniversary, and we fell in love with the place. Indiana has a historic inn system in its state parks, and Pokagon sits on a beautiful lake. I know Crysta doesn’t enjoy the traveling as much as I do, so I think visiting Pokagon is the only reason she hasn’t demanded we switch to flying out to Maryland when we make the trip.

I love the journey though, I really do. And I love seeing my family so much. It’s easy to feel isolated from them when we’re often so far away. It’s been an amazing six days. Besides my sister, her husband, and my two niblings, my parents, my brother and his long time girlfriend were also there. We won’t be together again until this summer, and that won’t come fast enough.

That said, it feels so amazing to be sitting in my own chair in my own home again right now. One of the best parts of a long trip like this is feeling yourself relax when your travels are over. Of course, we don’t get to relax for long with a con this weekend — but I’m going to take it where I can get it.

The world never stops.

This Saturday, April 26th, I’m going to be at Concinnity in Milwaukee, WI! Stop on by and say hi if you’re in town!

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One year ago, on April 16th 2024, the first page of Peregrine Lake went online. One year since we first met Bev as she drove through a snow storm and said the exact thing most of us have said in that scenario.

It took so long for Peregrine Lake to get off the ground. I first announced it back in December of 2019, and originally I was going to draw it. And then the world fell apart, and I found myself with zero ability to draw it anymore. I kept kicking the idea around, wanting to move it forward when in 2023 I jokingly suggested to my friend Ethan that they could draw the comic for me.

And they said yes, they’d love to, and I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

We then spent almost a year regularly meeting, talking about my plans for the plots, the world, the characters, and all the things that would have otherwise just lived in my head. I started scripting comics, and Ethan got to work on concept art. And for most of 2023 we planned and got ready, and we hit the ground running in 2024.

And now we’re here. Honestly, I love everything we’ve put out over the last year. Ethan’s art is incredible, and tells the story in a way that I’m not sure mine would have. I love this comic, I love that you all are reading it, and I’m excited to show you what’s coming next.

Because we’ve only just scratched the surface on how weird this is going to get.

On April 26th I’m going to be at Concinnity in Milwaukee, WI! Stop on by and say hi if you’re in town!

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Fandom is something we all get into because we, frankly, like something. I feel like that shouldn’t be something that I have to spell out, but every once and a while I find myself in a fandom space where that doesn’t seem apparent to someone.

I reblogged a post on Tumblr a couple of days ago which to explain fully to people who have never been in fandom spaces would take a lengthy explanation of “shipping” across multiple decades. But the cliffs notes version is that people who call themselves “antis” like to morally police the way people romantically pair fictional people.

In that reblog, the first poster (who is literally a teenager it turns out) puts together some bad faith suppositions about “proshippers,” and someone responds explaining how wrong they are. And I don’t want to discuss how self described “antis” weaponize accusations of pedophilia in these conversations, and we all agree that actual predators don’t belong in fandom spaces.

What I want to talk about is what I started with: fandom is supposed to be fun.

If people are engaging with a work in a way you don’t like? You don’t have to talk to them. If someone’s writing a fanfic that literally disgusts you? Don’t read it. If you don’t like a thing? Don’t engage with it. None of this is that difficult.

Like there was a lot of weird discourse in the Voltron fandom when the Netflix series was airing. Or at least that’s what I’m told. I honestly didn’t experience any of it — because while I loved the show and happily talked to friends about it, I didn’t engage with the folks who were making it weird. And guess what? I had a perfectly good time, and if the folks doing the stuff I didn’t like had a bad time it wasn’t because of me.

I know that tribalism has always been here — but “arguments” should be recreational. Like I enjoy arguing that Jason Todd should have stayed dead, and my friend Becca hates the new Star Wars canon — but conversations about this stuff are for fun.

If you’re spending all your time policing what other people are doing (that otherwise hurts no one) instead of doing the things you actually like… you’re not actually engaging in fandom, you’re just being a dick. And, like, I don’t think it should be controversial to say you shouldn’t be one.

Like the stuff you like, don’t engage with folks who like stuff you don’t like, and maybe mind your business sometimes. This is supposed to be fun, stop doing stuff that makes it not.

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So Meta/Facebook apparently used millions of books to train its AI model without the permission of the authors or publishers. These aren’t even books they purchased, but books they illegally downloaded. I’ve known about this for a few weeks (and apparently the story first broke back in January), but The Atlantic has a tool to see if a book has been stolen.

And lo and behold The Witch and the Rose is in there.

It’s honestly frustrating how a major company like this can just blatantly violate copyright law. It’s not only copyrighted content, but stolen copyrighted content. We spent the last several decades with major companies going after people for piracy, and a company run by a billionaire can just casually get away with it. And from all reports, this is something Zuckerberg himself authorized.

I am, frankly, deeply frustrated.

Look, I have a nuanced opinion on generative AI. I think there are good applications when its created using ethically sourced training data — but the fact is literally none of the commercial products out there right now are. People keep trying to use it for everything, and companies keep shoehorning it into every product. But, like, you should not be using ChatGPT to get “answers” to questions because generative AI doesn’t actually understand what its saying. Large language models are literally fancy autocomplete, and it can “hallucinate” some wild stuff. You cannot trust anything it produces.

I hate that it’s called “AI,” because it leads folks to think something deeper is happening behind the scenes. But its not. Image generation is more interesting on a technical level, but again — none of the image generators available right now are trained on ethically sourced data.

Frankly, generative AI in all of its forms is trained on other people’s work, so (what we’re pretending is) AI can never truly produce a real work of creativity. It’s all derivative schlock. And if we lived in a world where it was built honestly and ethically, it could be useful for things like rapid prototyping and brainstorming.

But we don’t live in that world.

So don’t use it.

And fuck Meta, Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg for stealing my book.

On April 26th I’m going to be at Concinnity in Milwaukee, WI! Stop on by and say hi if you’re in town!

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