#Web Accessibility Initiative

[bgs-cave-o-thots]

Hey. Artist that only has a phone or a simple computer. Did you know you can still Glaze your art??

While Glaze was initially computer-only, the team learned that many artists either have a computer not powerful enough to run glaze or don't have a computer at all. SO they've made WebGlaze!! (Read about it and get it here.) Basically you send over your art and they Glaze it over on their servers that are strong enough to do it for you. And yes, it's still free.

If you have a computer that runs the original Glaze program, it is highly recommended by the Glaze team that you continue to use it and not the website.

While the servers are very secure, it is still ideal to keep the unglazed art on your end only, and it will likely be faster on your own computer anyway since there's only your art being Glazed, unlike the servers which are glazing several people's at once. Currently I believe there is no web version of Nightshade, but they are working on adding it to WebGlaze last I heard. Check the Nightshade FAQ here for updates on that :)

Please feel free to reblog, I know there's a lot of artists out there without access to powerful CPUs and GPUs that would like to protect their art as well :)

[4mrplumi]

USED A SUA IMG IN ONE OF YOUR BATFAM POST imagine a luka reader. the family desperate to reach you and due to lack of memories of what You were like since they all neglected you, started just making shit up about you. yes, of course youre angelic, kind and so darling to them! youd never hurt a fly and your soul is such a forgiving one... until they look you up online properly and see you gay baiting someone to get them shot

- prologue

PAUSE anon you cooked, omg. (for those who don't know who luka is i've put a very small summary of his character right at the end.)

honestly i've just been using sua as a poster girl, but a reader with luka's characteristics is so interesting... after being relocated from your "father's" underground business dealings to gotham to live with your real family, it'd be natural to stay reclusive because of the change in atmosphere.

i imagine a luka-ish reader would try to socialise more with the family than the current insert, but their attempts would be unmeaningly unsettling. an innate feeling would rise in the batfam that didn't make them dislike you, per say, just unintentionally avoid you.

you can't be much bothered with it, since even in your previous living conditions, there'd be people who liked you, and people who didn't. you knew how to work around it

so you redirect your focus. you'd been treated like an adult as you were being raised, so you had your goals and motivations figured out at this age already. for a handful of years in the manor, you'd work to keep up the fame you'd built up with your old "father", fame that slightly dissolved after your sudden disappearance from the screens; your escape from the industry.

eventually, when you decide to move out to perhaps further your prospects and influence, there's a buzz in the media at the sudden reappearance of the angle-voiced child star who was taken off the big screens after their "father" got involved with court dealings.

this is probably what eventually alerts the family to your absence in the manor, and in the shame that they couldn't notice it without the help of a third party, they scrounge around in their memory for good exchanges with you. just to have some semblance of the kid who wandered around aimlessly in the house. the kid they shooed away without ever actually shooing them away.

when they find nothing; they try to make stuff up. "angle-voiced child star", so you must've been soft-spoken, sympathetic, angelic person too, right? yeah, yeah you must've been a darling... how could they be so ignorant of you?

their shame somewhat morphs their unease at your old attempts to talk to them, into a shy child's timid want to talk to a new family in a new area, without any help whatsoever.

oh you poor, poor little kid.

i imagine it wouldn't be too difficult for them to find content of you, since your net-presence sky-rocketed after returning to the music industry. but ohh just imagine their surprise when they get access to an underground website streaming some sick stage-show human trafficking project, and see you there?? whatever are you there for? doesn't your fame generate a fortune? what in the world would you need to be on this... show for?

idk how the "getting them shot" thing could play into any other place other than a dark-web game show tbh. maybe they don't initially recognise that the videos up there are for such a thing, only after seeing you walk away from an applauding audience, get surprised by the sound of a shot and the image of your opponent lying dead on the stage ground, do they bother to investigate the ordeal. but this time, as vigilantes, and not failed family.

they'll just... save you along the way, yeah? 'save' you.

luka is a character from a series called alien stage, and you can find the episodes uploaded on youtube by vivinos. luka's established as a well known, famous character within the alien stage 'tournament', who's participated in the whole thing before, and has a significant amount of aliens/audience rooting for him.

his character on it's own looks beautiful, and is dubbed "prince" by his fans, but on his first appearance in round 5, he is portrayed as somewhat unfeeling and manipulative.

better characterisation is provided on alien stage's official accounts, with comics and patreon uploads. the "father" i refer to in the above imagine is referring to luka's alien owner.

[screwitbaby]

cybergirl

hamzahthefantastic x reader (fic)

1.0

[part 2]

summary: hamzah’s a horny freak and you’re the lucky camgirl who gets to entertain him.

contains: smut with plot, essentially

wc: 2.1k-ish

~

It's that time of the night where Hamzah has finally completed all his daily tasks and he feels a familiar twitch in his pants. As an adolescent he never understood what people meant by "thinking with your dick," but that was before he had access to myriads of internet porn at the press of a button.

It was a fateful day when he masturbated for the first time. What was once just a pee stick attached to his body suddenly became so much more after stumbling upon his dad's porn magazine collection in the garage. That year was full of mysterious viruses on the family computer that seemed to appear from thin air and lots of trips to his friend's houses to share his findings.

Of course, there was the eventual graduation from magazines to videos to now, God's greatest act since turning water to wine: OnlyFans.

This time, he did not simply stumble upon such a vice. Instead, he was introduced to it through a time of desperation. Covid was at its peak and quarantine was doing a number on his mental state. Or, perhaps that's just what he tells himself to excuse what he did next.

He went to one of the many models he followed on Instagram and clicked the link in their bio.

It was all too enticing, too easy. A simple hop, skip, and entering of credit card information later and he was in—subscribed. This was the first taste of a delicious new drug he would no longer be able to live without. From then on, an addictive part of his personality would take over and he'd constantly want more, more, more.

No one knew about his dirty little secrets in the taboo corner of the internet where he could explore his greatest fantasies. He wasn't a virgin anymore, but a sexual deviant with a very bad spending habit. He'd learn more about himself in this time than any amount of puberty and social interaction could have ever made clear to him in his lifetime.

And that all brings him to the current time, 11:03 p.m. on a Wednesday night, alone as per usual. The saddest part was, the porn made him feel a little bit less lonely in the onset of isolation he was experiencing since his detachment to the world. The throbbing in his pants held a dull ache as he disrobed and laid in bed in only his boxers. He pried his laptop open and typed in his favorite web address, the gateway to his favorite girl in the whole world.

You were the perfect woman in Hamzah's eyes. You'd do anything for the right amount of pay, somehow keeping the mystique surrounding you prevalent and consistently having him crawling back for more. You had fuck me eyes and blowjob lips. And last, but certainly not least, the most mouth-watering pair of tits.

Though Hamzah thoroughly enjoyed these physical aspects of you, he also felt a deeper connection with you. There was something about you that caught his attention, made him unable to focus on anyone else. He'd often find himself daydreaming about you; thinking of your grocery list while at the supermarket and unholy things you could do to him when passing the neighborhood church on walks. He was enamored by your whole being.

He opened up Zoom and went to your usual meeting room, waiting for you whilst nearly bursting through the cloth of his boxers. You were always a little late, and even though he'd been paying for these sessions for a couple months now, he couldn't bring himself to care. You could keep him waiting until the daylight and he was sure he'd still be sitting in front of the camera awaiting your entrance, having a part in his own torture as he refused to please himself until you got there.

When the notification finally sounded that you had joined, it was 13 minutes past your initial meeting time of 11:05.

"Hi, Hamzah," your sweet voice rang, "were you a good boy for me?"

"Yes." He quickly nodded, his eyes unable to separate from your cleavage.

You teasingly pouted and crossed your arms, pushing your breasts up in the process. "You're never naughty... always trying to please me, hm?"

"Always," he breathed out.

"But I want to please you, too," you whispered.

You moved your laptop camera to expose the length of your body, fully bedecked in lilac-colored lingerie atop silky bedsheets. Hamzah's hand instantly reached to grab himself with a whine.

"So eager," you giggled. Your fingernails trailed down your sternum, tracing the bow on the center of your bra. "I love how you react to me."

"I'm already so hard," he said through a grunt.

"Show me," you ordered.

Hamzah hastily pulled his boxers off, freeing his erection from its confines. He spat into his palm and gripped his shaft, lips parted.

"I wish that was my hand," you sighed, eyeing the imagery unfolding in front of you. "Don't you?"

"I do," he replied with no regard as to how desperate he sounded. It just fueled the fire in his belly. "I nearly fucked a hole in my hand yesterday thinking about you."

"What were you thinking of?" you questioned, tossing your hair over your shoulder as you unclasped your bra and slid the straps down your arms. Hamzah watched in amazement, the friction of his hand making him speechless. "Was I blowing you? Riding you?"

"In the shower," he panted. "Your face pressed against the tiles—shit—while I fucked you from behind."

You hummed, pinching your nipples for a moment before your hand trailed further down, "all wet for you?"

"Soaked," he said, tossing his head back on the wall but keeping his eyes on you. "S-Screaming my name."

"Hamzah," you teased, "such a dirty mouth on you."

"Say my name again," he pleaded.

"Hamzah," you melodically repeated. "You're not gonna last long if you don't slow down."

He whined, knowing you were right. "So good...don't wanna stop."

"I know, baby," you murmured, running your fingertips over your wetness, "but don't you want to take your time with me?"

He watched as you slipped one finger in, then another, shielded by the fabric of your panties. He grunted in frustration, fisting his dick harder.

"Let me see you, please," he begged like the sight pained him, running his other hand through his disorderly curls.

You obliged, standing from the bed and turning so your ass was in the camera frame. You slowly pulled the laced bands down your hips, bending over as they fell down your legs and pooled at your ankles. Hamzah's breaths quickened as you kicked them to the ground, fully exposed to the camera.

"Fuck," he cursed, desperately reaching for his laptop to pull it closer and get a better view of you. "You're so..."

You crawled back onto the bed and parted your legs so you were out in the open for him, pussy glistening with your desire. Your fingers retraced their destined path as you reached down and spread your folds. He watched with hungry eyes.

"I'd kill to get a taste of you." He panted between his words.

You giggled and slipped teasing fingers in and out, never all the way. "Tell me how you want it, angel."

He moaned louder at the pet name. "All fours, p-please."

You flipped onto your knees, arching your back so your chest was touching the bed and you were looking over your shoulder at him.

"Touch yourself," he demanded.

Your cheek pressed on the mattress as you sunk your fingers deep within yourself, adding a third to fill you to the brim. Your mouth fell agape. The room filled with slapping sounds as you and Hamzah pumped your hands simultaneously.

"My god," he puffed out, his bare chest reddening with the fervor of his movements. "Just like that."

"So tight," you whimpered, feeling yourself clench around your fingers. "I'm dripping for you."

"I can almost f-feel you," he groaned as he pictured himself inside of you. "Fuck, the things I'd do to you..."

"Yeah?" You egged him on, getting restless. "Would you pound into me? Stretching me more than my fingers ever could?"

"Until you're bruised and sore," he promised breathlessly.

His hips began to lift from the bed as he fucked into his left hand, steadying himself on his right forearm. It was impossible for him to lift his jaw closed with the way he felt, his eyes nearly rolling back into the back of his head. Your free hand groped your breasts as your skin burned from his words.

"Are you close, Hamzah?" you asked, familiar with his signs. "Don't you dare cum yet, baby."

"I'm trying," he said through gritted teeth. "I never last long when you're l-like that."

"I love it," you gasped as shocks of electricity coursed through your veins. "Such a mess, all because of me."

"'Cause of you," he echoed, incapable of forming his own thoughts from the pleasure.

The both of your moans filled the air, pushing each other closer to completion. Hamzah's quivering voice, ever so expressive, shouted expletives as he slowly came undone. The pain in your neck went ignored as you took in the pathetic state of him, cumming into his fist and all over himself. His eyes were screwed up as his hips jolted in unison with every spurt of white that left his glossy tip.

Your climax took place soon after he came back down from the clouds, allowing him to watch as your thighs were saturated with your own arousal. He tirelessly pumped his shaft, wanting to ride out every last bit of satisfaction he could from you calling out his name. When your eyes opened and saw him, you shook your hips side to side, letting him ogle you a little longer.

You crashed to the bed and brought the laptop up so you could observe the way he cleaned himself up with a tissue from his nightstand. Your chests rose up and down, trying to oxygenate your lungs after being so breathless for so long. His happy trail was dampened, lying flat against his skin as he swiped away the last bits of moisture from his stomach.

Silently, you rose with trembling legs to grab the closest cloth to clean up your own mess. When you began wiping your inner thighs with your bunched up panties, Hamzah groaned. You bit your lip and bent over to shake your ass, your reddened pussy on display.

"Is it bad I wanted to lick my screen?" he exhaled as you sat back down, not bothering to put any clothes on.

"Stop," you giggled.

"Mail them to me."

"What?" You were still trying to catch your breath.

"Your...panties." The word sounded more obscene leaving his lips.

"I'll have to wash them first—"

"No." He shook his head, resting his hands on his sweaty torso. "Just send them."

"You're filthy," you gasped, grabbing the moisture-laden garment up from the carpet and holding it up. "What do you want them for?"

His cheeks suddenly flushed and you smirked, twirling the lace in your fingers. "You know."

A lazy smile spread across his face as he leaned his head to rest on his bicep, exhaustion beginning to hit him. It was a really fucked up ego boost—having him so obsessed with you—but up until then you’d never actually felt the rhythm of your heartbeat falter from his words. He didn’t know his words affected you that much, and even less did he know that he was the only client you actually managed to orgasm with.

“Five hundred.”

“Dollars?” Your brows shot up.

“No, pesos,” he joked, eyes half-lidded.

“Do you know the things I’ve done for that kinda money?”

“I don’t care.” He shrugged.

Behind a screen, he was different. Something like an alter ego would be unleashed, an audacious character he certainly didn’t behave like in public spaces. He didn’t have to worry about being found out because of his digital anonymity (as anonymous as you can be with your whole face and dick out). In the real world he was an introverted loner, but here, in the darkness of his room with only the LCD screen illuminating his figure, he was free to act as he pleased.

Besides, in the presence of you, he was basically a saint.

“Okay,” you finally said.

“Okay?”

“I’ll send them over.”

“Can’t wait.” There was a twinkle in his eyes from the acceptance of his offer.

“Try not to look so smug, angel.”

The call ended abruptly and as the light in front of him dimmed, he realized he was getting hard again in anticipation of receiving the parcel.

~

a/n: i’m realizing i can just post whatever i want on here so here’s this lil idea ive been hiding away for a while!! hope u enjoyed freaks <3

[ao3scrapesearch]

Hiya! I know it's been a little while but I just wanted to let you know I finally got around to making the web version of that fic poisoning tool I made about a month ago. It's at https://tricksofloki.github.io/ficpoison.html if you're interested :)

OHOHOHO!

Alright, I gave this a little test on my own fic over here. Quick little review/notes for anyone interested! (But the tl;dr is that I approve based on my initial review of the original code and based on using this web tool to automate running the code.)

This version is super easy to use. I'll be honest; I was struggling trying to figure out how to run the code locally before because that is not a coding language I personally use, and this website takes out all of the hard part of doing that. You need to do the one time task of creating a work skin to enable the "poison" CSS used, and you need to make sure that work skin is enabled for any work you're going to use this on. The code to put into your work skin is available at the link. If you already have a work skin you use, you can just add this class to it. (I think the tutorial I linked to does a good job walking you through how, but I'm open to doing a tutorial on this blog if anyone wants that.)

If you're poisoning an existing fic, first have a backup copy. Once you poison it, that copy is going to be annoying to UN-poison if you ever want to, so you should keep a private copy on your PC or phone or wherever so you have the unpoisoned version available. Once you do this, your copy on AO3 is poisoned, and it would take a fair amount of effort to unpoison as the author. Upside: as the author, you can see all the CSS stuff in the background, so if you really need to unpoison a copy as the author with full access to it, it's not impossible. Just really annoying.

For reference, here's what I can see as the author with access to the edit page:

I can clearly see where the poison is if I really wanted to go back through and unpoison.

And here is what I can see in a copy scraped with nyuuzyou's code:

You can definitely see it's messed up by looking, but you don't see an active callout to where exactly the poison code is. Keep in mind that not every scraper uses the same code as nyuuzyou, and more sophisticated code may pull something more sophisticated than the plain text from nyuuzyou's tool. Other scrapers may be pulling fics with the formatting and everything, and I don't know exactly what that output looks like. Depending on what their output is, if they can see the class for the poison, they can pretty easily code something to remove it. That's me being overly conservative, I suspect. I haven't heard of any scrapers who have bothered with anything more than plain text, and this isn't an issue unless they're grabbing the full HTML. (Translation: From what I know, this is NOT an issue. Yet. So this is not a weakness of the poison tool. Yet.)

Based on the output, anyone who's doing a half decent job of cleaning up the data they scrape would toss my fic out of the dataset. It's full of what look like typos because the poison got placed mid-word, so it looks like I just suck at writing. If your goal is to get tossed out of the dataset, this is perfect. If a scraper isn't paying attention at all, you can contribute some really terrible training data if they leave your fic in the set because your poisoned fic is going to be full or words that don't even exist thanks to the word placement.

As far as using the tool, I used an existing fic. I went into the edit page for the chapter, scrolled to the bottom and left the text editor on the default HTML mode. I copied everything in that box. (Easy method: click into the box where you can type out the fic, and press "Ctrl" and "A" to select all, then "Ctrl" and "C" to copy.) I went to the tab with all-hail-trash-prince's tool, and I pasted it into the box on the left.

I clicked "Apply poison" and the poisoned fic appeared in the right box. I copied the poisoned fic from the right box, went back to my fic on AO3 with my custom work skin already enabled, and I pasted the poison fic in place of the original fic. I clicked the preview button to make sure it would look normal, and it did. So I clicked to update the chapter with the poison block included.

I loaded the chapter with the default Microsoft screen reader turned on, and it didn't read any of the poison data, only the real fic that is visible on the screen, so success there.

So that brings us to applying this to a brand new fic. For those, you're going to go through the motions of posting a fic as usual, but instead of clicking post when you're done, you're going to swap that text editing mode over to HTML and copy everything in there. Take it to the poison tool, paste it in, and grab your poisoned copy. Go back to AO3, make sure your poison work skin is enabled, and then replace the original fic with the poison fic, making sure to stay in the HTML editing mode while you do.

(Sneaky quick edit after posting: sometimes the tool leaves you with a dangling <p> or </p> or <em>. Make sure you always preview the chapter after poisoning it, and you can go back in to the rich text editor to delete any of the floating tags that were accidentally put in by the poison.)

The last downside I notice is that your word count is immediately wrong. My 34k fic looks like a 43k fic after poisoning the first 16k words. Technically, you don't have to tell people the true word count of your fic but like. That feels a little rude to the reader, so I think it would be kind to briefly put the true word count either at the bottom of your summary or in your first author's note.

To me, the downsides of having to create a custom work skin (that trash-prince has kindly already written for everyone) and having the wrong word count displayed... are nothing. In comparison to having my fic be easy to scrape, I'll take those slight downsides any day. From what I know of the current scraping landscape, this is a reasonably effective way to make your fic useless to anyone who scrapes it because people are out there that will be scraping AO3 again.

I'm curious to hear anyone else's thoughts if they check this tool out or try it for themselves, so don't be shy! I'm one person, so maybe I can't catch everything. If you're seeing something that I'm not, I want to hear about it.

And if anyone wants a more visual step by step, you are welcome to yell my way. If this text post is clear enough for everyone, I won't bother, but if a more visual walkthrough will help anyone, then I'm happy to do it!

EDIT: Just tossing in a summary of feedback I've seen from others below!

The tool is pulling from a list of most popular English words, which means it may add inappropriate verbiage to G-rated fics. See this ask for info. trash-prince has made adjustments based on the initial words spotted, but please kindly report any other concerning poison words you find, particularly slurs and other wording that cannot be interpreted in a SFW way.

[iwillstabyou]

TMAGP 31 - A Computer Nerd’s Breakdown Of The Error Logs

It’s round 3, bitches! (tumblr crashed twice when I was writing this so I’ve had to start again multiple times. I do in fact see the irony, considering the subject matter)

I was listening to TMAGP 31 and as a computer nerd, oh my god those error messages just HIT DIFFERENT. There are so many subtle details hiding in those lines that a typical non-computery person would probably miss, so I feel it is my duty to explain them and their possible implications. So that’s why I’ve decided to fully break down each part of the error report, complete with what they could potentially suggest — think of this as “the TMAGP theorist’s guide to deciphering Chester’s yapping”

So without further ado, let’s get this party started…

(NOTE: lines from the transcript are in red, ‘translations’ are in purple, jmj specific stuff is is green, explanations are in black)

Starting off with Category: fatal programmer error, notice it says programmer, not program. There is nothing wrong with the code - the user has truly fucked up. Uh oh, Colin has made a big mistake…

Also, clever double meaning here with the word fatal. Obviously we know it was fatal to Colin (RIP king 🥲), but error logs also typically have a criticality level describing if immediate action needs to be taken. There are 6 commonly used levels, with the most critical being, yep you guessed it, ‘fatal’ - this means that whatever Colin was doing was a critical threat to the system. In other words, Colin had figured out the problem and was dangerously close to fixing it so Freddie just went “oh shit, we need to deal with this guy quickly or we are in serious trouble.”

Then we’ve got the next line, attempted host compromise (the Errno611 isn’t significant - error codes vary from system to system). When it comes to network terminology, a host is basically just any device on the network, so in full this line basically means “somebody’s tried to damage part of the network.” Importantly, “host” seems to suggest that the computers aren’t the source of this evil but merely a vessel for it. Freddie is just the mouthpiece for these supernatural forces - a bit like a non-sentient (as far as we know…) avatar. Whatever these forces are, they didn’t come from within/they weren’t created by Freddie.

(NOTE: I will come back to jmj=null in a bit)

The program traceback, Traceback <module> by extension BECHER, is rather interesting. A network extension is a way of providing network access to remote users (think along the lines of a VPN) by creating a personal direct ‘route’ to the network. Therefore if it’s the subject of an error report, it means there’s been an issue with data transmission along that path. So this bit means “there’s a problem with this specific network route that’s allocated to Colin.” However, the darker implication here is that Colin is an extension of Freddie. Although he wasn’t initially a part of all of this, he’s become tangled in the web (no pun intended) to the point that he and Freddie are inseparably intertwined. The OIAR employees may be able to quit their jobs, but they’ll still be a part of Freddie…

There isn’t much to say about Host=self.host in this context. It’s just convention when it comes to object oriented programming. Not important here.

Extension BECHER compromised isn’t just saying “there’s an issue here.” It’s saying “there’s an issue here that is a serious threat to network operation.” In other words, Freddie’s going “uh oh. Colin needs to be dealt with.”

The next bit is pretty self explanatory. I really don’t think I need to explain what <hardware damage_crowbar> means for you guys to understand. This bit made me laugh so hard. One thing that’s interesting though is that it gave it a DPHW, so Freddie processed this like it was an incident… Perhaps this fully confirms that the ‘thing’ controlling Freddie is of the same origin as the cases - it’s not something else entirely?

And now onto Administrator privilege revoked. This was the moment when I fully realised “oh no. Colin is fucked,” because any control that Colin may have had over the situation is now gone for good. Freddie’s basically just said “fuck you Colin. You’re not in charge anymore. I am.”

As you can probably guess, Unexpected data isolated/resolved just means that the crowbar’s been dealt with and the program can run as usual. Similarly, the Colin threat is fixed now he’s not an administrator i.e. he can no longer control the system. However, it then gets weird with Independent operation permissions revoked… It’s not saying Colin can’t use the network independently, it’s saying that Colin can’t be used independently of the network. Remember what I was saying earlier about Colin being a part of Freddie? Yeah, well now he purely is a part of Freddie. They’re turning our boy into data!

NOTE: I know in the audio it said everything was discarded but I’m going by the transcript. Idk why they’re different

You know it’s a bad sign when you hear Re config: self.host - Freddie’s evolving. The network is literally reconfiguring itself to now include Colin. And then Freddie goes through each of his alchemical elements one by one and fucking deletes them! How rude. You go and eat this man only to spit everything out!? I guess he’s feeling generous though, because he decides to keep the sulphur, which in alchemy, refers to the soul… If this isn’t just a coincidence, then that means Colin’s actual soul has been uploaded to Freddie. That could be really cool. And messed up. But mostly cool.

Starting with the final line, everyone knows what New administrator permissions assigned means, but we don’t know yet who they’ve been assigned to. Maybe it’s Gwen? Maybe it’s a new character? Maybe there is no system administrator anymore? It’s a mystery.

Now that’s out the way, let’s get on to the real juicy stuff…

The top few lines are pretty simple - it’s Freddie’s way of saying “Colin was a problem. We ate him. Now he’s not a problem anymore.” The next line, however, is a reminder that none of this is simple” - .jmj error not resolved. There it is again. The infamous jmj error. What does it mean? Jon? Martin? Jonah? Is that you???? Nobody knows. One thing we do know though is that jmj=null (from the start of the error log). Now when it comes to interpreting values, null is weird. It’s not zero, it’s not empty, it’s sort of nothing but it’s not nothing. It’s just null. It means no value, but it doesn’t mean that the variable doesn’t have a value (if that makes any sense to you guys???). Ooh I think I know how to explain it?? Imagine you’re Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute and you’re digitising some archived ID photos when you find one without a name. The recorded name in the database would be null - you can’t put anything in particular, but that doesn’t mean the person in the photo doesn’t have a name. I guess null means unknown or missing here. So basically, what jmj=null means is that the jmj is unknown and that is a problem because it can’t get ignored/it is important. So what it’s basically saying is that jmj is a mystery not only to us, but also to Freddie.

Take a look at Data integration cycle ongoing <0.02%> - Data integration is the process of combining data from multiple sources into a single source of truth. There are 4 stages: data ingestion, cleaning, transformation, and unification. Thanks to the whole Colin ordeal, I’m sure you are all quite familiar with these stages by now (and that, students, is what we call a case study!). The peculiar thing here though is that we’ve just witnessed most of the data integration cycle - surely it should be higher than 0.02%? Yes, that’s correct. It should be far higher than that. It makes no sense. UNLESS this isn’t about Colin. Most of Colin’s data has probably already integrated. This is something else entirely - something so much bigger and foreign than these computers were designed for (the only comparison I can think of is trying to run the sims 4 with all expansion packs on a 15 year old laptop. It really shouldn’t work, and it probably won’t, but it’s gonna try regardless). This seems to follow on nicely from the jmj=null comments above, because Freddie is clearly struggling to integrate something (hence System function margins down to 82%), and when you try to read data that hasn’t been fully integrated with the system, you end up with a lot of missing & unknown values. Sound familiar? Yep, that’s right - until more data is synchronised, many values will be null, like our good friend jmj. Why is it taking so long to integrate jmj? We don’t know. Perhaps its origins are so supernatural and otherworldly that it’s simply not tangible enough for Freddie to process it? That’s what I think at the moment, at least.

So yeah, that’s my line by line analysis done! Hope you found that helpful/interesting. This podcast is so well written I’m actually going insane! Jonny and Alex, you are the guys of all time! As I’ve already said, feel free to expand on any of this - I’d love to hear your theories

Signed, your friendly neighbourhood computer nerd who is very autistic about TMAGP :)

[novella-november]

Well. I have a feeling I'm about to have a million new followers. (March 31st, 2025; not an April Fool's joke, unless Nanowrimo has very poor taste and timing)

Here's a link that explains in long video format the whole entire thing in detail:

and to sum it up:

This blog was made as an Anti-Generative AI to Nanowrimo, as well as a way to actually build a friendly, low-pressure, helpful community of aspiring writers, without the hard-fast-do-it-or-die pressure brought on by nanowrimo.

There is no official "contest" -- only a community coming together to inspire each other to write, help out with motivation by setting community goals, keeping participation motivation via Trackbear.app, etc!

The most popular writing challenge is still November for most people, but I myself have also started to keep a year-round, daily writing goal of 444 via the website 4thewords, which has been an extreme help in getting me to write a little at a time.

This year has been very hectic for everyone what with the election results so I haven't been very active on tumblr (I think everyone can understand that) but I was originally planning on also having each month of the year being a different themed writing / art challenge but got a bit distracted real life.

So, what is the Novella November Challenge?

It's a fun challenge where writers come together to write 30,000 (or your own personal writing goal!) words in 30 days, sharing tips, writing advice, plot ideas, accessibility aids, and committing to having fun while explicitly fighting back against Generative AI by using our own words and disavowing the use of scraping and generating to take away the livelyhoods of artists of all spectrums, and proving everyone who insists "generative AI is an accessibility tool" wrong by committing to our creative visions and making it easier for everyone to find the tools they need to succeed by sharing tips, free programs, and finding a like-minded community to support you! 💙

There is no official website, there is no required place to show your participation, this is a community initiative that will never be monetized by predatory sponsors or dangerous moderators abusing their power.

This blog is here to inspire everyone, regardless of experience level, to write and create the story they want to tell, in their own words, while striving to remain a fun, low-pressure challenge that doesn't turn into a stressful spiral, like often happened with Nano.

Want to start writing but not sure how? Don't have money to spend on expensive writing programs? Have no fear!

LibreOffice: An always free, open-source alternative to Microsoft Word (and Microsoft's other office suits)

4Thewords: A website (both desktop and mobile web browser) that syncs your writing cross platform to the cloud, with built-in daily word goals, streak tracking, and you can fight monsters with your word count to game-ify writing!

Trackbear: A website dedicated to tracking your writing, setting custom goals, and creating leaderboards for community participation; you can join the year-long community leaderboard with the Join Code "f043cc66-6d5d-45b2-acf1-204626a727ba" and a November-limited one will release on November 1st as well.

Want to use Text to Speech to dictate your novel?

Most modern phones have a built-in option available on your keyboard settings which can be used on any writing program on your phone, and most modern PCs that allow a microphone (including headphone) connection has some kind of native dictation function, which you can find by opening your start panel and searching your computer for "Speech to text" or "voice to text".

Want to write while on the go, but don't want to / can't use the small phone keyboard to type, or speech to text?

You can, for as cheap as $40, buy a bluetooth keyboard that you can pair with your smart phone or tablet and use to write in any and all writing applications on your phone -- this allows you to write on the goal (especially using cross-platform websites or services, like 4thewords or google docs) , and the small screen can also help minimize distractions by muting notifications in your writing time.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

You can’t save an institution by betraying its mission

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in SAN DIEGO at MYSTERIOUS GALAXY on Mar 24, and in CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL on Apr 2. More tour dates here.

Paula Le Dieu is one of the smartest, most committed archivists I know. Many years ago, she shared a neat analogy with me about the paywalling of public archives, a phenomenon that has become rampant as public institutions have been pushed to seek private funding to close the gaps left by swingeing cuts.

Closing up these archives in order to give these new "investors" a chance to make their money back is pitched as just "good business." But – as Paula pointed out – this isn't how business works at all! If you are an early-stage investor to a startup, providing patient capital in its early stages, then later investors don't get to zero out your shares. If a museum or public broadcaster is a business, then the public is the early investor, and their share is access. Taking away free access is tantamount to wiping out our investment.

But of course, public institutions aren't businesses, and they don't exist to make profits. They exist to serve the public interest. If your public health system, public education system, public archives, public museum or public parks are making a profit, then something is desperately wrong.

Managers of these public institutions forget this lesson at their peril. Every public institution eventually faces an existential funding crisis, and when that crisis strikes, the only thing that will save you is public support. Back in 2014, I got to speak to a group of curators about this when I keynoted the Museums and the Web conference in Florence:

https://mwf2014.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/glam-and-the-free-world/index.html

Since then, I've had many chances to talk with Paula about her views on archiving in these apocalyptic times. She's come up with a crisp formulation of the point I tried to make in that speech – when archives trade access off for preservation, they sign their own death warrants. As I said in my speech, if you don't maximize public access to your archive, then there will come a day when they take away your funding and the public won't care because you locked them out of their own collection. When that happens, all your careful preservation work will be used to prepare the auction catalog for the sale of your collection to the "philanthropic" billionaires who insisted that you lock up the collection in the first place. Your meticulous documentation will become the manifest for a shipping container full of formerly public treasures that will henceforth reside in a lightless, climate-controlled warehouse in the Geneva Freeport.

My conversations with Paula came back to me this weekend when I listened to Corey Rubin talking with Brooke Gladstone on NPR's On the Media, about the universities that are seeking to avert Trump's attacks by sacrificing students and faculty who spoke out against Israel's genocidal attacks on Palestine:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/mahmoud-khalil-and-a-new-red-scare-plus-press-freedom-under-threat

From Columbia's complicity in the kidnapping of green card holder Mahmoud Khalil, a grad student now held in immigration detention in Louisiana; to Yale professor Helyeh Doutaghi, suspended because an AI-driven pro-Israel site hallucinated a connection between her and Hamas:

https://coreyrobin.com/2025/03/15/mccarthyism-at-yale-then-and-now/

These institutions – and others, like the LA Children's Hospital, which halted gender-affirming care for trans kids – aren't merely "complying in advance." They are betraying their mission in order to save their bacon:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-02-04/childrens-hospital-to-stop-initiating-hormonal-therapy-for-trans-patients-under-19

This will come back to bite them in the ass. This is like firefighters doing a bit of arson on the side to make ends meet, and thinking that the townsfolk will continue to vote to maintain their budget.

I get it: it's damned easy to convince yourself that you need to destroy the village to save it. By "living to fight another day," you will get more chances to serve the public. Rationalization is a hell of a drug:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Trump and his fascist movement wont't let up on their assault against institutions that support free inquiry, care, justice and openness. Rolling over for them now will not keep you safe tomorrow. But with every betrayal, these institutions alienate more and more of the public, without whose support they are ultimately doomed. Supporters will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no supporters.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/19/selling-out/#destroy-the-village-to-save-it

Image: Ajay Suresh https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajay_suresh/52009406881/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[rivkae-winters]

Edit: the app launched and Is down- I have the initial apology video in a post here and I’m working on getting a full archive of their TikTok up ASAP. I’m letting the rest of this post remain since I do still stand by most of it and also don’t like altering things already in circulation.

Warning for criticism and what I’d consider some harsh to outright mean words:

So I’ve just been made aware of the project known of as ‘lore.fm’ and I’m not a fan for multiple reasons. For one this ‘accessibility’ tool complicates the process of essentially just using a screen reader (something native to all I phones specifically because this is a proposed IOS app) in utterly needless and inaccessible ways. From what I have been seeing on Reddit they have been shielding themselves (or fans of the project have been defending them) with this claim of being an accessibility tool as well to which is infuriating for so many reasons.

I plan to make a longer post explaining why this is a terrible idea later but I’ll keep it short for tonight with my main three criticisms and a few extras:

1. Your service requires people to copy a url for a fic then open your app then paste it into your app and click a button then wait for your audio to be prepared to use. This is needlessly complicating a process that exists on IOS already and can be done IN BROWSER using an overlay that you can fully control the placement of.

2. This is potentially killing your own fandom if it catches on with the proposed target market of xreader smut enjoyers because of only needing the link as mentioned above. You don’t have to open a fic to get a link this the author may potentially not even get any hits much less any other feedback. At least when you download a pdf you leave a hit: the download button is on the page with the fic for a reason. Fandom is a self sustaining eco system and many authors get discouraged and post less/even stop writing all together if they get low interaction.

3. Maybe we shouldn’t put something marketed as turning smut fanfic into audio books on the IOS App Store right now. Maybe with KOSA that’s a bad idea? Just maybe? Sarcasm aside we could see fan fiction be under even more legal threat if minors use this to listen to the content we know they all consume via sites like ao3 (even if we ask them not to) and are caught with it. Auditory content has historically been considered much more obscene/inappropriate than written content: this is a recipe for a disaster and more internet regulations we are trying to avoid.

I also have many issues with the fact that this is obviously redistributing fanfiction (thus violating the copyright we hold over our words and our plots) and removing control the author should have over their content and digital footprint. Then there is the fact that even though the creator on TikTok SAYS you can email to have your fic ‘excluded’ based on the way the demo works (pasting a link) I’m gonna assume that’s just to cover her ass/is utter bullshit. I know that’s harsh but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s probably a duck.

I am all for women in stem- I’ve BEEN a woman in Stem- but this is not a cool girl boss moment. This is someone naive enough to think this will go over well at best or many other things (security risks especially) at worst.

In conclusion for tonight: I hope this person is a troll but there is enough hype and enough paid for web domains that I don’t think that’s the case. There are a litany of reasons every fanfic reader and writer should be against something like this existing and I’ll outline them all in several other posts later.

Do not email their opt out email address there is no saying what is actually happening with that data and it is simply not worth the risks it could bring up. I hate treating seemingly well meaning people like potential cyber criminals but I’ve seen enough shit by now that it’s better to be safe than sorry. You’re much safer just locking all your fics to account only. I haven’t yet but I may in the future if that is the only option.

If anyone wants a screen reader tutorial and a walk through of my free favorites as well as the native IOS screen reader I can post that later as well. Sorry for the heavy content I know it’s not my normal fare.

[mindblowingscience]

Plankton may be tiny, but they play an important role in the ocean. As the foundation of marine ecosystems, they support ocean food webs and help regulate Earth's climate by storing carbon. While lab studies have shown plankton can adjust their chemistry in response to environmental changes, a new global study reveals how these adaptations occur in the real ocean. The study will be published on May 23, 2025, in the journal Science Advances. Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), reanalyzed massive datasets of large-scale distributions of plankton-derived lipids in the ocean, which were initially published by WHOI in 2022. "This study shows the value of open science," says first author Dr. Weimin Liu from MARUM. "Using new methods on open-access data, we uncovered previously hidden patterns of plankton adaptation."

Continue Reading.

[atalana]

okay but also re: deltarune ch4 weird route, can we talk about whatever the fuck is going on psychically here?

like, a friend and i have been talking for a while about how ralsei loves to initiate susie cutscenes by just suggesting to kris that they close their eyes and think about susie, which like. one time that can come across as a narrative mechanism. when you use it this many times, and when ralsei really doesn't like when you say no to those suggestions, it makes you wonder what is actually physically happening there

and on my first (normal) playthrough of chapter 4, i was willing to chalk that up as a, okay ralsei knows EXACTLY what is happening in that cutscene due to the prophecy being a lot more detailed than we thought it was. and we do see that in other places (like ralsei is acting like a time loop protagonist at this point, im thinking in particular about once you get all the pieces to open the way to the gerson fight and susie's like 'did anyone hear that noise?' and ralsei goes 'sounded like a fireplace opening up!' and she's just like okay that was extremely specific)

but having more knowledge than you should isn't just a ralsei exclusive. because the weird route proves that we can hear noelle's thoughts? i always thought she was talking to herself when doing snowgrave back in ch2, but no, this route she makes it very clear by testing us that she is not saying those things out loud - we just have way more access to her mind than we do the other characters

and then you get to the culmination and the combination of the two - when ralsei in ch4 weird route tries to initiate the cutscene where susie goes and writes the music notes down

if you go along with ralsei setting up that cutscene then it happens as normal. if you say no, ralsei gets very off balance and tries to initiate it again. if you still say no a second time, then you get the option to think about someone else instead. if you pick noelle, then you get an extended cutscene of a black screen with a single red pixel moving slowly about the screen (worth noting - while the visuals representing you forcing the thorn ring back on are now a red web like shattered glass, according to the wiki in an earlier version of the game the visual for that was a single red pixel on a black screen)

and then after however long it takes doing that, there's some text that very slowly types out "thank you", before the entire screen flashes red and you get thrown back into the sanctuary with susie trying to wake you up - apparently she found kris just standing there with their eyes closed, then (presumably when the thank you happened) they started breathing really heavily and just passed out

(and ralsei was off somewhere presumably destroying more prophecy and god knows what else)

like. we do not have answers for what is up with noelle, what ralsei's still hiding, what carol holiday has to do with kris' whole soul situation, but we're getting to the point where susie is the only person left who hasn't experienced at least some weird psychic phenomena, and im fascinated to see what the deal is with all this

[sunlight-shunlight]

i realized i may be one of the only people on this webbed site who played both earthdawn and dragon age, so i thought i should share haha, i've never seen anyone else talking about the similarities.

earthdawn is: a tabletop rpg initially developed in the 90s and still publishing to this day. david gaider mentioned playing/running some campaigns of it. and the similarities are... very extensive and funny. let me go over them:

earthdawn is an apocalyptic high fantasy setting where every few thousand years, there's a cyclical, catastrophic event where monsters (both physical and astral) unstoppably ravage the world for centuries. this has led to loss of entire civilizations, and vast areas that are permanently tainted by their effects and are uninhabitable.

there's a small order of distrusted, secretive people, who take on an aspect of the monsters they're hunting, in order to more effectively track and kill them. this connection goes both ways, and the monsters can find and torment them in turn. regular people find this a bit scary. members of this order tend to not live very long (not like a physical limitation in their case, they just usually die on the job before they get old)

great dragons are very magically powerful, the oldest form of sapient life, and used to rule the world in a very bygone past era. they created immortal elves as servants, went into hibernation, and then their disaffected immortal elf lackeys rose up and killed some of them off to create their own civilization instead. there are some remaining great dragons, but they're reclusive. if needed, they can take on a humanoid form and blend into society and pull strings to influence various cultures. there are a few groups of people who live near the dragons and worship them, and the dragon protects them in return. there's also a bit about dragons possibly feeding people their blood in rituals as a way to create servants, or imbue people with power/greater lifespan, and thus influence entire noble lineages descended from there.

magic used to be far more powerful and prevalent, but has declined somewhat. there's an astral plane that reflects the real world. it's only easily accessible by mages, and can be entered physically, but that's very dangerous to the point of being usually fatal, and generally the astral plane is only perceived mentally while staying in the regular world. the astral realm is corrupted and dangerous, while also containing some neutral/friendly spirits. unwary mages can get possessed or killed by the monsters in the astral plane. spirits can manifest out of the astral plane and into the physical world voluntarily, or be summoned or bound for various tasks. this is controversial in the setting, as some people see it as fine, and others see it as forced servitude. some spirits are old and complex enough to clearly communicate with people and have their own full blown agendas and personalities, some are much simpler and only focused on a small domain of influence relating to a single trait they have.

blood magic is not as common in the area where the game is set, but...

there's a huge, decadent, ancient byzantium/rome themed blood magic empire, that runs on slavery and sacrifices. it used to have control over the entire map, but it was weakened by the apocalyptic event + various uprisings, so now its sphere of influence is much smaller. it still maintains slaving raids and tries to expand back into its old provinces. it was influenced very early on by weird shady mages who left the elven empire, and had convenient knowledge of the apocalypse before it happened. the empire has a much better scholarship around magic in general + the apocalypse than others, as well as a more "magic is indistinguishable from high tech" vibe to its standard of living. it has floating castles and fortresses that protect its nobility/can be deployed in warfare.

there's one underground dwarven kingdom remaining out of a few dozen that used to exist - all the others fell to infighting or the apocalyptic monster hordes. at the time of the setting, this kingdom is having a bit of a succession/legitimacy crisis with its monarchy. the dwarves are also a hub of trade and commerce bc their city was well-shielded from the apocalypse, so their language is the base of the common tongue and writing system everyone uses.

there's also an ancient elven empire that used to exist, but was also mostly lost in the apocalypse. currently, elves are mortal and about as magical as everybody else. there are some elves who are fully immortal, and still walk the earth - either gaining power and going through false identities to pose as normal rulers and maintain a vice-grip on elven society, or doing magical research and stuff to stave off more of the apocalypse, or doing centuries-long shadow warfare against each other/the dragons by using mortal kingdoms as pawns.

there's an elven pantheon of gods that everyone else adopted when the elven empire was bigger - it included a trickster deity who sealed themselves + two other gods into the Apocalypse Juice to try and partially nullify it, thus preventing the apocalypse from running over the whole area. unfortunately, this has corrupted all 3 gods who are marinating in that Juice, and now they generate madness and violence and despair in people they connect to.

[deadhands69]

Encyclopedia of the Apocalypse [2: Changing Seasons]

Toge Inumaki x Reader Zombie Apocalypse AU (Curseless)

Bombarded by zombies and plagued by recent experiences, you and your new found friend, Toge Inumaki, try to find more than survival in the remnants of civilization. this series contains: graphic violence, gory wound depictions, sexual assault (not Toge!!), angst/character deaths, mentions/thoughts of suicide, cussing.

[previous] [next] [series masterlist]

This place was probably nice, at some point. The kind of place people would spend hours, just walking around. 

Now, the once white walls are tarnished with months of unscrubbed rain, leaving them tinted in the same green-brown hue as the moss inhabiting the rooftops. It hasn’t even been a year, but the parking lot landscaping is beginning to take-over. Plants are pressing themselves through cracks in the concrete in the absence of cars, moving the surface to their will. Tiny trees are beginning to poke up in places you’d never imagine them surviving.

Life finds a way.

Toge walks just ahead of you, determined to check out what’s left of the bookstore. You, on the other hand, don’t care for malls. Even silly little strip malls in what once was the busy part of town. However, he is your apocalypse buddy and you’d rather go with him than let him explore alone. And you’ve said no the past three times he’s tried to visit somewhere like this, so it’s your turn to compromise. It’s not like there aren’t items you need too.

Knowing you're here voluntarily doesn’t stop your heart from pounding out of your chest as you pass through the barren lot. It feels wrong.

A few shotgun shells scatter the sidewalk. You kick them to the side, watching as they roll across the pavement. You want to hope whenever fired them off is long gone – somewhere safe, but unfortunately you know better than to believe that. 

Initially, your pages on guns were long and rambling, only to be ripped out and replaced with one single sentence: guns are useless; dangerous even. 

Of course, this was a learned experience. 

Months ago, for the first few weeks of this you were with a friend. Someone you'd known for years. Neither of you knew what to do in this situation, so you made some guesses. 

This led to the two of you doing what everyone does in zombie movies: stockpiling guns. One issue, this is not a movie. Guns are loud and silencers aren't silent. 

By the time you left the house, you learned that everyone had that idea though. Given that it was three weeks in, every sporting goods store and gun shop you came across had been thoroughly looted before you made it in. As time went on, it was easy enough to pick any firearm you wanted off the dead bodies you found. 

Which, in retrospect, should have been a sign.

Toge tries the doors of a chain bookstore, giving little tugs at each before finding them locked. The buildings connect from a shared space inside the mall though so if you find one way inside, you’re certain to find access to the rest of it. A general entrance two stores down has been smashed in. Carefully, you make your way there. As you reach the door, Toge’s hand gently holds your shoulder back. He shines a light around, checking for movement, reactions, anything. Coast is clear. 

As soon as you step a foot through, a low rattling noise captures your attention. One of the undead pulls itself from behind a trash can, body hunched over as it drags one of its feet in a slow stumble. You handle it quickly, in as few slashes as you can manage.The all too familiar pang of guilt hits as you do. 

Strange, you think, why didn’t it react to the light earlier?

Toge makes his way into the bookstore, through a wide open door. The window display is intact – fluffy plastic cobwebs are now coated in real spider webs to match. Tissue paper ghosts hang from strings, floating over monster-themed books. A few on zombies catch your eye, making you laugh. It was Halloween when this all started; it’ll be Halloween forever now.

The first and only shot you ever fired was enough to take the head off a zombie at close range. You were surprised to find the body still upright, still scraping its way towards you but that was easy enough to handle once the shocks subsided. You had a larger issue: even with a silencer, the sound attracted every other undead being in the neighborhood right to your doorstep. 

The two of you retreated back into the sporting good’s store you came from, seeking what little safety you could find. Using a few tables, you managed to barricade the windows and doors – for the most part. You watched in horror as the sheer number of the incoming hoard crushed through the glass door. The shattering glass along with the cracks of their bones is a sound that will haunt your dreams forever. Yet, even as their bodies broke they never slowed, still trudging forward as if nothing happened.

Not wanting to chance the gun again and draw in more, you grabbed bats and started swinging wildly. If you could take out the heads, the knees, anything that would keep them from walking, grabbing, biting, you could keep them at bay.

In reality, it was a lot less clean-cut than that. Limbs grasped desperately and you thrashed at anything you could hit. Limp flesh hit the ground only to be replaced with another. And another. You fought until the adrenaline wore off and your arms felt like jelly. Then you fought some more.

Eventually, they were subdued and unable to follow you.

You know it’s not the safest place to stay, but neither of you have it in you to pack-up and find another location for the night. In any case, the bodies are piled so high it would be difficult for any new ones to make it through the door without you noticing. There were worse places to be. 

Each of you settled into a display tent, collecting the amenities you needed from nearby aisles. Sleeping bags, chairs, everything you could think of was just a quick walk away. You notice your friend finding a small backpacking first aid kit to clean her wounds, a few large scratches running down her arm. At the time, you didn’t think much of it.

Of course you also saw how slow she was moving, how her tired limbs bounced back a little slower than they should have. It was obvious she was struggling, but she played it off as exhaustion and you entertained the idea. Maybe you both just wanted to believe it was all okay.

This is when you should have pushed to find antibiotics, you know that now. You know a lot of things now. Enough to resent the need to learn the hard way. No matter how many times you repeat it in your head that if you’d known to do better, you would have, it never quite sinks in. 

The bookstore is like everywhere: fairly demolished. Display cases have been toppled over in whatever frenzy occurred last year, leaving stray books and pages scattered over the floor. You’re getting used to that though. Toge comes back from a quick check around the space, all clear he signals you with the hand gesture the two of you came up with. Reaching over the window display, you pull out a book on werewolves. The prospect of reading about monsters you don’t have to encounter everyday sounds like a nice break from reality. 

He makes his way deeper into the store, eventually emerging with a big floppy book: Sign Language for Dummies. 

“Yeah,” you laugh at the name, “I’ll learn that with you. That’s a great idea.” He stashes it away in the side pocket of his backpack.

Checking a few more areas, you look for books you might find useful. Ones you haven’t read on first aid and survival. Almanacs and foraging. On-sight weather forecasting. Whatever you can find between the upturned shelves. Toge folds a giant map into a smaller square before stuffing it into his backpack. Somewhere in the wreckage, you find your favorite book. Or what used to be your favorite book, a lot has changed since the last time you read it.

Still, you tuck it safely into your backpack for later.

There are other nights when you lie awake wondering if you could have done better. Could have done more. Her fate was likely sealed before either of you could even think to do anything about it, but the thoughts never stop.

The two of you had a great evening, playing card games under the light of battery powered camping lanterns before you tucked in early to sleep. It was a good night, little did you know it would be her last.

The next morning, you woke up early, making breakfast from one of the stray bags of backpacking food you found in the mess. When you shook your friend awake in her sleeping bag, she didn't feel so good. Her forehead was hot, skin damp yet she complained of being cold. She played it off for a bit, saying it was from the stress. Maybe residual exhaustion that couldn’t be slept off. Whatever else there was to blame, but when she winced moving her arm, you knew what was happening. The wound had reddened overnight, slight streaks were already beginning to form. 

By the time you saw this, it was already too late. 

There’s another thing you wish you didn’t have to know.

As you leave, Toge throws a chunk of a shelf down the concourse to check for zombies. A few skitter out of the darkness to investigate. You shine a flashlight on a more distant wall as a distraction. Only two, the least decomposed of the bunch, jump at the light.

Fascinating. 

The two of you make quick work of them while you process what this means. If this is consistent, it gives you more information to work with on what to expect from the undead. The fresh ones can see, but it would seem that after some level of decay sets in, their retinas deteriorate to a point of uselessness. If this does end up being true, as fewer and fewer new zombies are being made from the humans that are left alive, you won’t have to worry so much about their ability to see you. That’s not relevant yet, but you make a mental note for years from now.

Years from now. You hope to be alive then.

At least you do most days. 

Toge runs ahead of you, through the opening someone smashed into the glass outside of another store. He waves you in. You’re hesitant and he notices that, coming back to walk with you. 

“Come on,” he mouths, pulling you by the hand. 

Once more, he throws something in the corner of the store and the two of you wait. 

After an awkward ten seconds, you decide the coast is clear. He continues to check around just to be certain, you do the same. Once you’ve determined you’re alone, you take a look around.

It’s a clothing store. Well, it was.

As reluctant as you were to be here, once more, you agree that it’s necessary.

First you gravitate to the area with socks and underwear. All of yours have had holes in them for far too long. You take off your backpack, pulling out items to trade for new ones. Everything you own has been hanging on by a thread.

Then, you look around some more. Leaving your pack near the exit, you hang your machete from a belt loop and continue with your flashlight. The lightness feels weird but it’ll be easier to look this way.

Grabbing a few items, some seem utilitarian. Others admittedly look more like apocalyptic video game skins which seems fitting at this point in your life. Toge skips past you, doing the same. His arms look more full than yours, but you still follow him to the changing rooms in the back with what you have. Each of you pulls back a curtain, stepping into your own spaces. 

You flash your light at a wall, allowing it to refract and fill the space. When you glance up at the mirror you barely recognize the person you see. You’ve changed. Your cheeks look more hollow, eyes distant. While you have taken the time to clean yourself and your clothing when the opportunity presents itself, you’re usually in too much of a rush to get a good look at the tatters that remain of what you’ve been wearing. Your shirt has been ripped at hastily mended multiple times. The pants you once loved hang loosely around your hips, also torn and patched more than they should have held up for. Your clothes have been with you so long that you feel like you’re leaving old friends behind. It’s time though.

Trying on the first outfit you brought in, you check in the mirror. The pants are tighter than the last – it’s better to have less for anything (or anyone) to grab. They also have more pockets. You’re not so sold on the shirt though. It looked nicer on the hanger but the closer you look, the less you actually like it on yourself. 

Toge knocks on the wall outside, having emerged from his own fitting room. 

He looks good. You’ve only seen him in the same ragged clothes he’s been wearing the entire time too, seeing him like this is almost shocking. And he seems to notice the effect he has on you, smirking slightly at your expression. Suddenly it occurs to you that you’ve been staring for too long. You’re glad it’s pretty dark in here because your face burns with embarrassment. 

“So,” you say, trying to change the subject to anything else. Unfortunately, nothing comes to mind. Toge walks around you, getting a better look at your choices. He points at the pants and gives you a thumbs up. 

“I don’t know about the shirt though,” you say, mostly to yourself. He holds his hand out at the rest of the store.

“I have a few more to try.”

Your next few options go better than the first. In all, you end up with two new shirts, the pants you’re wearing now, and a pair of shorts for summer. Also, you find a soft new sweater for the cold nights and a replacement jacket because you broke the zipper a few weeks ago. You’re almost ready to leave when Toge stops you. He holds one finger up for you to wait before running off towards the racks again. Shortly after, he emerges with a ridiculous gold jumpsuit and hands it to you.

“This?” you laugh.

He nods, disappearing into his own stall before you can say no.

The jumpsuit is ridiculous, as expected and you struggle to zip it while holding back laughter. When you emerge, he’s wearing a very uptight looking dress that bunches in all the wrong spots. The design doesn’t suit him, or likely anyone under the age of 70. 

“You look like you’re about to scold me for walking too fast in the library.” He laughs. Moments later, he ducks back into the fitting room for his notebook, writing “you look like you should be hassling snowboarders in a 90s ski movie.”

“Perfect, we can be pretentious together.”

The two of you spend the next hour or so finding the weirdest clothes you can for each other to try on. It’s fun. More fun than you’ve had in a very long time.

It’s days like today that give you a small break from survival and chance at life. The little things that help you build a new normal around the shit circumstances. 

It’s days like today that make it worth trying at all.

Maybe you weren’t wrong for keeping things normal for your friend’s last night.

[next] [series masterlist] [jjk masterlist]

taglist: @kennys-partner @moonstonejpg @wealltiredherelol @crowned-gemini @kitkat13001

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Reference: 5 Symbols

for your next poem/story (pt. 4)

CROW’S FOOT

The crow’s foot is also known as the Witch’s Foot, and was feared as an indicator of death, used in casting spells against enemies.

Crows, like ravens, were associated with the witches and warlocks who were believed to be able to transform themselves into these black birds so that they could travel unnoticed to their sabbats.

The name “crow’s feet” is also given to the lines that radiate around the outer corners of the eyes with the coming of age and the inevitable approach of death.

CRUX DISSIMULATA

In 3rd century Rome, early Christians were persecuted to such a degree that their lives were threatened and the symbols of their faith had to be disguised.

One of the ways they recognized one another was by the sign of the fish or ichthus; another way was to disguise the Cross cleverly as something else.

The meaning of Crux Dissimulata is “disguised” or “dissimilar” cross.

One of the more ingenious forms of this secret symbol, shown here, was the anchor. The top of the anchor is formed like a cross and, in addition, the anchor is plainly a symbol of stability. Because anchors are associated with the sea, too, the fish symbol could easily be incorporated into it.

The Crux Dissimulata was used as a secret symbol and a rallying call for adherents to the new and dangerous faith.

CRYSTAL BALL

Combining the sphere’s perfection and totality with the clarity and brilliance of crystal, the crystal ball is a part of the toolkit of the professional clairvoyant or seer.

The clarity of the crystal matches the “clear sight” of the psychic.

When used for scrying, the crystal ball acts as a focus for meditation, enabling the adept to access a place that is out of time in order to be able to see into the future.

This practice of scrying is carried out in various ways:

Instead of an expensive crystal, cheaper methods are apparently just as effective for the talented psychic.

A bowl of water, a mirror, a drop of blood, or a pool of ink can be used.

However, the glamor of the genuine crystal ball is hard to beat.

DOORWAY

The simple doorway—an everyday object that goes unnoticed most of the time—is symbolic of a transition between one world and the next.

Such a doorway may take different forms, as a dolmen, a torii, a gateway, but the meaning remains the same.

In C. S. Lewis’s Narnia novels, the wardrobe into which the children step to enter the magical world of Narnia is a good example of this symbol.

Both Heaven and Hell lie beyond gates or doorways, and the threshold of such a place is seen as the place where two worlds meet and sometimes collide.

Many rituals involve the initiate stepping through a doorway of some kind.

The vesica piscis represents a doorway where the world of spirit enters the world of matter.

DREAMCATCHER

The forerunner of the Dreamcatcher was a Native American spider’s web of feathers and beads, a simple little charm made from a small hoop of flexible wood, such as willow, with an interlacement of plant fibers designed to look like a cobweb.

Used particularly as a protection for babies and small children.

Hung over their cradles and beds, it was thought to entrap any negative spirits that came in the form of nightmares.

These malevolent entities, entangled in the web, were sizzled in the heat from the rising Sun.

The spider’s-web shape gave homage to Asibikaasi, the mythical Spider Woman, whose magical webs could catch anything.

The elaborate Dreamcatchers of today, an essential part of the kit for any self-respecting New Ager, were invented in the 1960s and ’70s as part of the resurgence in Native American culture and belief.

Source ⚜ More: On Symbols

[thecampbellclub]

I’m so glad they made Hughies assault into something serious instead of playing it off for jokes after the initial shock of the comedy.

He was very obviously disassociating as Ashley did things to him, especially when she wiped herself on his face and he thanked her hazily. He’s just trying to disconnect himself from the situation, something he’s done multiple times now. Most memorable, the whale. He just checked out for a minute.

Hughies dad dying directly followed by him being sexually assaulted and then told he was going to be cut open and raped by his favorite childhood hero, only to be laughed at. And man did it hurt hearing him beg by telling TK that he was his favorite.

Since he was in such a vulnerable position, and it seems Web-Weavers suit opens in the back end for web access (and other parts i assume), Hughie probably was thinking Tek Knight was going to assault him right there and then while he was still on the submission horse.

Let’s also not forget that Starlights favorite hero did the exact same thing to her the first time she met him. If not anyone else, Annie will understand him and his feelings about this.

[mareastrorum]

These are just initial thoughts, and perhaps I’ll learn something that changes my mind on it, but I’m glad to see Critical Role making the leap to their own subscription service with Beacon.

As a lead in: I’m an attorney that has some background in IP law, though it isn’t what I practice currently. I’ve kept in contact with several active practitioners, particularly those that represent small-time creators either in their own independent practice or via nonprofits. I do not have an extensive Rolodex of IP peers, nor do I spend the money to keep up on IP CLEs. I’m just someone who used to know a ton because I did heavy research and work in that space, and that hasn’t been the case for years.

So here’s my thoughts a bit on the IP angle:

The primary reason I’m happy to see this leap is that CR is taking active steps to keep control over its IP. It’s a boring thing to most people, but when I start paying attention to a specific creator (authors, directors, companies, etc.), I tend to be very attentive to how they use their IP. How freely do they license their marks to partner with other creators to make merch? How often do they allow others to make adaptations or derivatives of their copyrights? What is the quality of those products? What is the supply chain like? Are those third parties objectionable in some way? Were the other parties faithful to the original works or marks? Was this a cash grab or an earnest effort to make something worth the price tag?

Honestly, I like how CR run their business. They have a history of tapping fans and fellow small businesses when making new merch or spinoffs. They embrace the culture of fan-made derivative works, both by featuring fanart/cosplay and by sharing their success. Do you know how rare it is for a company to pay fan artists for their already-made and freely posted work and then sell books of it? Let me be clear: CR bought a limited license from each artist so they could print and sell each work in a physical book, then paid the cost of publishing that book with no guarantee that CR would make that money back, let alone profit. I have a copy of the collector’s edition art books: they’re actually very well made and the packaging definitely cost a pretty penny. That’s not a rainmaker idea, that’s genuinely risking financial loss to sell something people could access for free if they wanted to.

The art books aren’t a one-off either. Darrington Press is CR’s separate LLC for tabletop games. (It’s good business practice to split off companies that handle products in different industries.) CR has also made shows based on those games, and the Candela Obscura series has quite a dedicated audience. Everything about Candela belongs to them: the game itself, the rule book, all the art in the book, the web series based on the game, and merch. It’s so successful that they invested in scheduling a live show for Candela later this month. That’s HUGE.

Contrast that with the distribution of Campaign 1 and the first 19 episodes of Campaign 2. CR cannot host those videos themselves; Geek & Sundry still exists and still holds what I presume to be distribution rights (but I don’t have the contract to review). So G&S gets to host those videos on YouTube and reaps the advertising. I can’t speak to whatever share CR gets from that, but considering that CR is locked out of hosting their own copies of those videos, I doubt it’s much, if any, revenue. (If you’re wondering why CR just didn’t buy those rights back, I ask: what incentive does G&S have to sell something that’s making them money for no cost?)

Knowing that background about G&S, I was wary of CR choosing Amazon to host and distribute The Legend of Vox Machina. Originally, TLOVM was not the plan; CR had a kickstarter for an animated special based on C1. It was only because they blew past the goal that CR was able to make an entire season. The reasonable assumption is that choosing Amazon had to have secured CR additional funding for future seasons of the show, which seems evident from how quickly season 2 was announced, Mighty Nein Animated is also going to be a thing, and that season 3 of TLVOM is scheduled for fall 2024. CR had the option of just doing 1 season and keeping it purely in their control, but going with Amazon meant they could animate more of their works. Animation is expensive. I cannot stress enough how doubtful I am that CR would have been able to afford this many episodes and both campaigns if they had not gone this route. As wary as I was in the start, it paid off, and it’s going well—so far. Hopefully CR doesn’t regret that decision if Amazon tries something sleazy. But, as before, we don’t have the contracts and can’t know how secure CR’s position is if any dispute came up.

CR also partnered with Dark Horse Comics to make Vox Machina comics and Might Nein Origins comics. What’s especially surprising is that each of the cast had a hand in writing the MNO comics for their characters, with Matt listed for multiple. That isn’t very common with comic adaptations. Often times, IP owners let comic companies go ham with minimal oversight. Being listed as one of the authors comes with IP rights that have to be negotiated. That means that Dark Horse had to talk with CR about whether that warrants more or less revenue going to which party in exchange for that—or, alternatively, whether the comic gets made at all. That’s a ballsy move. You think people can just demand to write the comics that a publishing company is going to pay to print? Pffft. CR wanted some creative control, and that is a big ask. However, Dark Horse still has the distribution rights, both digitally and for physical copies. You couldn’t buy the comics from CR until they came out with the library edition, a book bound compilation of 4/8 comics. But the publisher is still Dark Horse; CR is just allowed to sell the book directly from their own site as well.

Contrast that with the novels about CR characters. CR partnered with Penguin Random House to publish novels about Vex and Vax (Kith & Kin), Lucien (The Nine Eyes of Lucien), and Laudna (What Doesn’t Break). Liam and Laura were vocal about having some say in K&K, whereas Madeline Roux said in an interview that she had full control over TNEOL. Both of those novels were narrated with CR voices, but narrating a book doesn’t come with IP rights, it just brings in a paycheck. There’s a lot less IP control in there compared to the comics, but this isn’t abnormal for book publishing. To be blunt, I doubt PRH would have agreed to publish the novels if anyone from CR had been a co-author or had heavy oversight over the author or the editing. I don’t think PRH even considered that as an option. Either an author that has already managed to sell X number of copies or nothing. Creative control over a book a huge ask, asks come with reduced revenue, and switching to books from a web series is already a leap. The fact that Laura and Liam had any say is surprising, really.

That was a long meandering tour of what we’ve seen CR do with its IP. The reason I bring up each of these things is that navigating the way to protect an IP in this space is rife with challenges. Different types of IP warrant different strategies because of the cost involved in creating each medium and the challenges placed by industries that have already sprung up around them. Any time that a third party is tapped to create an IP, it’s usually because they already have the funds and resources to create the work, and CR has to negotiate for revenue, creative control, distribution, and—the big one—who gets to be the owner. These are not easy, quick, or fun conversations, and CR is always going to be the smaller company at the table.

Knowing that, I’m not surprised or worried that CR is creating its own independent subscription service with Beacon. It tells me that they’re being careful with their IP whenever they can. A subscription service means they don’t have to trade away distribution rights or give up ad revenue to a third party. They’re in this for a long term investment, and that requires solid income not tied to third parties that can definitely outspend them in litigation in the event of a dispute. A subscription for bonus content is one of many parts in a diverse revenue stream.

(All that said, this isn’t meant to criticize creators that cant afford to do this type of thing. It took 9 years for CR to get to the point where Beacon is financially feasible and a desirable business decision. They have enough ongoing, popular content to warrant paying for a subscription, and they’ve built sufficient trust with their audience that more will be added. That takes time and an awful lot of money.)

As a final note, I take this step as a sign that CR definitely intends to stick around. This isn’t a move people make when they plan on ending the business after the current campaign. I’m glad to see CR is taking steps to secure their foundation and keep making new content.

I’m sure people will chime in on other issues (cost, content exclusivity, etc.), but I hope my perspective gives an idea of why this sort of thing is good for business generally and why it would be good for CR.