#that would take even longer to do. so i just do binary tool

[retiredcultistredux]

((when you can't draw circles but literally every character you ever draw has at least one circle in their design so you end up with circles with the most wobbly fuckin lines ever. also read the tags pls))

[jrwiyuri]

My teacher said I should try making some of the symbolism in my art less obvious but like.. idk how? Or how that would benefit it?

[thinplacesradio]

stacked sound equipment and a radio with glowing green numbers. the image is distorted by VCR static. white text reads:

[026] THE SEEKER... A CALLER WAITS. THE SEEKER HEARS A VOICE ON THE RADIO.

listen here, or anywhere you find your podcasts. transcript under the cut:

[static, radio tuning]

[traveling sales rep: don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right b-]

[a high-register voice, not the Host’s:]

Car radio, yet again. Fixed, for now. It’s from a 2005 Honda CR-V, which I know is old, but, as you know, it’s been acting up for months now, um, and it finally just gave out on me. I don’t even know what worked to resurrect it here, but, well. [tools moving] The mystery of life, I guess. I’m sure it’ll start jumping stations again any day now.

[beep]

I could use a distraction so we are back to the transmitter. I’m building it from scratch instead of from a kit, uh, which basically means I’m just buying the parts that would have been in the kit separately, so I don’t really know if I’m saving money here or losing it. [tools clink] It’s pretty much kid stuff, but hey. It’s nice to go back to the basics sometimes, I guess. I think just to make it interesting I might take one of the old desktops to see if I can link it to some visuals? With different colors representing, I dunno, different letters, maybe? Maybe… make it so the words will show up as you tap the code in? Or I could just leave it with the binary, do kind of a black and white thing. I don’t know. [sigh] I don’t know.

[beep]

[phone ringing] [voicemail]

Hey, it’s me, you know what to do!

[beep]

[phone ringing] [voicemail]

Hey, it’s me, you –

[beep]

No one knows where she is, why does nobody know where she is. I - I think there’s something wrong.

[beep]

[phone ringing]

We’re sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected, or is no longer in service. To -

[beep]

I didn’t quit my job today. This isn’t really a project log, but I almost quit my job today, and I didn’t, and I, I think that deserves to be noted down, somewhere. I love what I do. But - doing it doesn’t seem as important anymore when I could be looking for her. I know I haven’t found a single thing, but that’s no reason to stop. I - [sigh]

I don’t know why I’m talking around it like this. Someone that matters to me is gone, and no one knows what happened, or why, or if - 

I wish she was just ghosting me, specifically. Like, that’s not something I want, at all, but I would take it if it meant that she was safe, living her life somewhere else. [sigh]

I don’t. I don’t think she’s dead. I really hope she isn’t dead. Sometimes I’d be at work glancing at the chat and there would be no new messages. Or at home with my phone on the table building myself a new desktop, and there would be no new messages. But I could still feel her on the other side, connected to me with that, I don’t know, electronic tether. Even when she wasn’t there, it helped knowing that she was somewhere.

That’s how it feels, still. I think she’s somewhere. I just don’t know where.

[voicemail]

Hiiiii, iris! Hi-riss! That’s nothing, sorry.  I texted you but I guess you must’ve lost track of time? I’ll just scale the building here and crawl in the IT window - you guys have windows, right? I feel like I imagine you in like a scifi basement most of the time. Anyway. I’m here, I’ll see you soon. Get down here before I bribe the security guard to let me in. I... yeah. See ya. I’ll be here.

[beep]

[morse code beeping] 

T-E-S-T. S-O-S. [pause] Where… are… you? 

Stupid, Iris. Just, stupid.

[beep] [equipment rustling, clinking, scraping]

It was, um, same company, different cities. I called her on the phone before I ported in to fix her computer, and she was – warm? Tired. Not exactly funny, but trying to make me laugh. I didn’t, but I thought about it, just to see if she’d laugh back? She messaged me on the company chat after, to thank me, and sent me a link to an article we’d been talking about while I worked on her desktop. I don’t remember what it was about even though it feels like I should. There are a lot of things I’m already forgetting. But I messaged back, and then we didn’t stop messaging. Until eight months ago.

I always want to know more about everything. Too much, probably. I can never stop digging. But she was the only one who really wanted to know more about… me.

I’m glad I got to meet her, but - I was supposed to keep meeting her - I - 

[beep]

[morse code beeping]

Don’t… be… dead.

[beep] [equipment moving aggressively]

Rob told me today that if I’m not going to go out for drinks with them after work anymore my only hobby can’t be looking for someone who’s been missing for a year. Really kind of insensitive, honestly. [huff] But I have been reading too many police reports, so today I will be starting a new project altogether.

[beep]

It’s the car radio, again, always the car radio. I should just buy a new one at this point, but then I’d never find out what was wrong with this one. Alright, okay, we’re trying scanning again, here we go.

[channels scan] [we hear the Sales Rep, and then the Host, cutting in and out:]

- Thank you for - feel - on - as always, our number is 71–

[Iris scrambles to stop the station but misses it. She tries tuning it back.]

Wait, wait wait wait wait. W-wait wait wait. 102 point 1. Oh my god. Oh my God. Wait. Hold on. 102 point - Wait, come back. Come back. 

I don’t – I don’t understand – [the road prov-] that’s Ha -

[beep] [keyboard clacking] 

I’m not the only person who’s heard her. There are people on subreddits talking about catching a radio call-in show on one frequency, exactly when they needed to hear it, but then not finding it again when they look for it, but just - How do I not need to hear it?

Here’s what I know about “the Host,” from what they know about the Host. Um, she’s always moving somewhere. She cares about her listeners. She’s experiencing impossible things, and so are the people calling in. And there’s a number.

Here’s what I know about my friend. She listened. She hated her job and always wanted a longer break. She loves pigeons and thinks that if aliens exist they’re single celled and acidophilic. She misses her mom. She was always reaching out for something. She was my friend.

[frantic music begins]

I know her voice, even if I haven’t heard it again. I know it was her, and I know I’m going to hear it again. I’m going to find the station. I’m going to find her.

[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides - the - road - provides -]

Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. 

The voice of Iris is Kaitlin Bruder. 

The voice of H[static] is Kristen O’Neal. 

Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music track you heard in tonight’s episode is: Junoon by RANA. If you have a question to ask, a story to tell, or a suggestion for the host, give us a call at ‪(717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.

[Junoon plays]

[rusty-jester]

QSMP x PORTAL AU

ok ok, so hear me out ^ both aperture and the federation have vvery similar vibes, with the white walls, extremely dubious morality and silly little creatures that they employ. (theres even this beta intro that is some disfruta la isla type shit, like; a fake island? that fits so well) Aperture is still called Aperture, but there's a subset within Aperture called the Federation! The Federation controls mostly managerial work and Human Resources, their manager is The Duck/Pato, and although they are indeed an AI, they are not the GLaDOS of this au! :D The EGGS (Encouragement for Generalized Groups) are part of a new joint testing initiative, where they try and motivate you to test by making it so that if you don't complete 3 tests a day, your Robo-Child might die! Egg partners all get a unique gun and or tool along with a portal gun to make all of their tests unique! (Such as Slime & Mariana having a Gel Gun and a Portal Gun & Roier and Jaiden having a portable Excursion Funnel and Portal Gun) the GLaDOS of this au is called BLUEBRD (Biotechnical Logic Upload (with a) External Branching Research Database) and you can probably guess who it is just by the name lol. I wanted Jaiden to be the GLADOS solely because of the 'Welcome back' scene and how in the opening of portal 2 the facility is in such disrepair, and i think it would be neat if the BLUEBRD chassis is empty at the start :) Cellbit would be Rattmann ofc, maybe Romero Richas could handle the more artistic side of Rattmann? (or being the oracle turret!) I'll ramble on a bit more abt this stuff under the cut, but hoo boy i have a lot of ideas

The Island: The Island was their starting chambers all clumped together, hosted on a fake island with a fake sky/biosphere. The Wall is a huge chunk of testing rooms splitting the biosphere in half. The islanders take a little longer to break the wall in this one, having been paired off and given the eggs early. They could sometimes do double tests and could talk to eachother through the panels though :) Brazilians were a chunk of subjects that accidentally crashed into the side of the biosphere? unintentional but it opened the facility up for all the other residents for them to explore, although The Island is often the main meetup point and is one of the safest places in the facility. The French were a group of subjects that were intentionally dropped through the top of the biosphere by the Feds. and the most recent batch of frozen islanders were stored in one of the Old Aperture vaults, probably a ways away from The Island. Being so close to the depths of aperture also brought on the Codes. Mobs are still a problem on the Island, being modified wildlife that has grown within the sphere, or sometimes being entirely artifical creations. Their parts are useful for jerryrigging gear and such, but they're dangerous. The rain is sprinklers :) Codes / Binary Entities: The Codes usually reside in Old Aperture and are far more common down there. They're mishmashed amalgamations of broken screens displaying binary and wires, usually using a husk of a mob (or prototype egg/egg) as a shell and or protection. Its unclear if they were a Aperture experiment went wrong, a worm/virus that has spread itself too far or a old security measure. They have been slowly making their ways upwards from OA, disturbed by all the commotion of the feds and islanders, slowly becoming more and more of a problem. Some of them have been hijacked by the feds, but it's hard to tell between them and the more feral codes. thats all i have for rn but im still cooking.. neurons are firing monkeys on typewriters type beat

[dawnexpanse-central]

Infrequently Asked Questions

What is the Dawn Expanse, and why does it exist?

The Dawn Expanse is an aroaceagender worldbuilding project created by @roguetelepaths.

It can best be described as an act of radical imagination— if we only ever see ourselves as outsiders in an allonormative, amatonormative, binary world, then we have no choice but to accept our marginalization. If we build worlds with ourselves at the center, we can become confident enough to center our own needs and aims in this world.

Queer worldbuilding projects of all kinds are important and often neglected tools of empowerment, and this blog would love to connect with others running similar projects.

What do you mean, "aroaceagender worldbuilding project"?

The Dawn Expanse can be loosely compared to Aristasia (though without the reactionary and imperialistic overtones of that project) — a femme lesbian subculture based around a fantasy country where femininity and relationships between women were considered not just default, but a fundamental law of nature. I should note that while this subculture has been made up of people with varying and often abhorrently conservative political positions, it no longer really exists and those I've seen talk the most about it these days are mostly left-leaning trans women. There is no real-world subculture based around the Dawn Expanse, or at least, there isn't one yet, however, the basic principle is the same. The Dawn Expanse is a world in which everyone is aroaceagender. More precisely, it's a world in which gender, sexuality, and romance never had a reason to exist, and therefore do not. The project aims both to provide comfort to those who have the specific experience I'm representing here and to explore the unique social structures of such a world.

So do you hate gender/sex/romance, or people for whom those things are important?

If this blog was devoted to cat videos, would you ask me if I hated dogs?

I'm not aro, ace, and/or agender. Can I read this?

I'm not a cop.

I'm not aro, ace, and/or agender. Will I enjoy this?

I don't know. Will you?

Are you some kind of aroaceagender separatist?

No. The number of different experiences under each of those labels, the incredibly small subcategory of people who fit into all three, and the even smaller fraction of that group that experiences their identities in the same way I do would make an honest to goodness real-world "aroaceagender separatist" position both a laughable one to take and an impossible one to execute.

I am, however, an aroaceagender person who prioritizes my relationships with those who either share my experience or are willing to show that they respect and affirm it.

If the Dawn Expanse doesn't have 🌶️🌶️ spicy romance 🌶️🌶️, what does it have?

Literally everything else? Idk man, is your world so narrow that you think a piece of art has to have that to be interesting? You've got BookTok, 99% of AO3, and many, many sites specifically devoted to written erotica if that's what you're after. Let the rest of us have one thing.

But to answer the question in more detail, the tone of the Dawn Expanse aims to be tonally similar to animated series such as Steven Universe, The Owl House, or She-Ra and the Princesses of Power in its approach to balancing interpersonal conflicts with higher stakes world events. Thematically, it aims to explore community bonds, sense of place or lack thereof, and the false dichotomy of order and entropy.

Can I write my own stories in the Dawn Expanse setting?

Yes! I'll be writing a more detailed post about what to consider when doing this at some point.

Can I run a tabletop campaign in the Dawn Expanse setting?

Absolutely. In fact, one of my eventual goals for this project is a system-agnostic RPG setting guide. (Though, knowing me, it'll probably be biased towards the Cypher System, my favorite do-it-all RPG ruleset.)

You're really mean in some of the replies to these imaginary questions. Why?

I'm tired. That's why. The good news is that if you actually take the time to talk to me in good faith, I'm not nearly this much of an asshole. So the rudeness is probably not directed at you.

[mineofilms]

0

Okay… Let’s get real and let’s get dark… Isn’t that what “horror” is all about?

I am taking an extended break from politics/social media. I will still be here, but I am done defending both sides of this BS. We're not getting anywhere anymore. Both sides are terrible. What we all actually argue over -is over the concept of "less bad." Not which one is better, but rather which one is “less-bad.”

That isn't the way to be.

I am considering not even voting now I am so disgusted and mentally exhausted from this struggle. Probably fabricated by a few different groups of rich assholes on both sides. I might write one more essay on the topic of political theater because I have one started and a lot of notes on the topic. After that, I am making a very considerate effort to ignore both sides moving forward.

I realize I have said that before, a few times I can actually recall. I realize this. I am aware. My failures are obvious.

I am also finally shifting my writing focus to horror/science fiction, telling stories, freaking people out, maybe do something cool, and creating characters over dealing with think-tank BS for Rich Assholes and Intellectually Challenged Groups of People or ICGPs...

We all get sucked into this bullshit and I am just done allowing this to affect me.

I ain't nobody's tool or puppet.

People want to know what I am all about. I am a decent, too honest for my own good, dude who suffers greatly for a long periods of time. I am brilliant when I write, while sounding like an idiot when I speak live, in the moment. Scatterbrain is an understatement when talking live. That is why I write long-format, to begin with. So that I can slowly break down, disseminate and assimilate information. I know nothing else. My brain literally works different and connects dots to things in different ways that NONE OF YOU CAN UNDERSTAND. Most of you do not even try. I notice… The only thing that motivates me to be this way is spite.

I have a tendency to push buttons, do things to make others upset with me because I am addicted to the reaction of knowing I made someone so mentally-off their rocker, that they cannot function till I am no longer included in whatever activity we were in. I am more addicted to that in recent years than sex. I literally look at this feeling of spite as something better than sex. I know it isn’t right. My wiring is off. Been saying it, few listened, I am fine with it. That is why I try to stay away from most things or just make fun of everything, or bring some lighter humor to it. I realize it’s only funny if one is a cynical nihilist, like myself. I know most of you probably are not. I will lean with probability on that one. I will assume most of you are not.

So yeah. I hear that. I can lighten up. I can do that. However, if I pee my pants-laugh, I am posting it… I only really care about showing how both sides are fundamentally wrong. That this is a big illusion. We act like reality is supposed to be in a binary world but we're not. We as a species do not understand nor respect 4D… Politically; we get ‘terrible’ and ‘not-as’ terrible, piss/poop. You have to choose which one you want. I want neither, most would never want piss and/or pooh, ever... Yet, here we are. We are supposed to choose one. Now, that to me… Those are the dummies. The ones that concede to this, accept this and vote anyway for piss or pooh. No winner can exist under those conditions and here we are.

If you want to explain your side of that or want to prove that wrong, please, do so. I'd invite anyone to do that. I wrote this as a response to someone who wanted me to look into something political from the right and make a judgment on that.

This isn't a peer review… We are not peers... We are friends... Remember that…

I am too FK’n good for this and so are all of you…

I am sorry this is the world we live in.

This is why I plan to punch God in the dick the first chance I get.

Not kidding…

Nihilists don't believe in belief as the main attribute to make a thing real.

What is seen and inferred by the observer is.

We all should be working to get away from negativity. Not attract it. If these things in reality that macroscopically you cannot affect bug you so much.

Unplug…

I do it...

I am doing it again…

Granted not at the level I should. However, I will start with this and see how it goes. If I feel I need to completely unplug, I will do so.

I have spent the last two weeks working on fiction rather than talking shit about politics that I have no control over and just giving my opinion based on what little I infer from. During some downtime I’d made up memes because they made me laugh. Yes... I am that guy that will straight-up laugh at others' misfortune. I won't apologize for that.

I sin… I sin with intention to sin… I am the worst kind of sinner. I sin because others expect me to be the opposite. Who are they? Nothing and no one... That is the real reality out there.

Do what you love with who you love because, after all this suffering, yours, mine, our impact on the universe is zero... This is a real science theory; known as the Zero-Energy Universe Hypothesis. It suggests that the universe's total energy is zero, with the positive energy of matter balanced by the negative energy of gravity, making everything ultimately cancel out.

Let that sit in for a minute…

Everything you do, and affect in reality will at any given moment of the Universe’s everlasting timeline will equal ZERO. You do not affect Jack… Nothing you do matters from this Point of View. This does not include the fraction of time you do exist in. You affect reality as long as your energy can. Once it changes back to/from/whatever/wherever/everywhere/all at the same time, the influence and evidence of that effect drops to zero. If you are an above-average human, it might last longer. Look at David Bowie. How long do you think some entity, anywhere will be able to know what Bowie did and created? It only lasts as long as it lasts, after that, good luck trying to convert that energy back to its original form.

Reality is never perfect in the concept of what we humans think of as perfection. In reality perfection and infinity are one-in-the-same. That; “on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.”

Remembrance of Earth's Past or known as (The Three-Body Trilogy) by Liu Cixin • Book 2: The Dark Forest

This series is sometimes referred to as “existential horror.” You get lost in the concept of “what if” this could all be at play at some point in Humanity’s near or perhaps distant future. That “what if” this is all some sort of simulation or video game where the plot is so fixed that any choice you make has no impact, imprint or evidence on the outcome of the game. That no matter what you do in the game; you end up at the same boss fight at the end, with the same life, the same weapons, the same everything. It's these types of environments where the lack of realism is felt and where we eventually realize that something is not right with said reality. Human beings possess a kind of intuitive alarm in our minds. I hear my father’s voice, as loud and clear in my mind. I know that voice. He is no longer with us. I hear a voice that isn’t a voice. It is a thought, but we describe it to others as a voice. Others do not hear what you heard. They only know of it because you described it to them. However, they do not actually know for themselves. Another example would be; we trust when we look up at the Moon that it is there, but you, I, most, have never been there to touch, see, step foot on it to know it if is actually there or not. Granted, we do know that it is there. We see it from Earth, we see its impact on the tides. We feel its gravity. Our mind alerts us when something doesn't feel real. That is usually how we know we are in a dream. Some things seem real, some seem normal and then you see a giant spider with I Heart Mum tattoos on all its legs in the sky where the Sun should be. Eventually, the brain will tell you what is real and what is not real. It is when our realities are flipped upside down and inside out, like a tesseract, that feelings on reality become existential horror. If we were in a simulation of reality and everything was so perfect that we’d begin to perceive the artificiality of our surroundings. We already do this. Social Media… It is plastered everywhere on our social media. No shit…

Apply all that to your common sense. How does reality feel right now? Especially with the political arena we are in. Something ABSOLUTELY does not feel right here… Yeah, we mean nothing. God cares not for you, me, your kids, your freedoms, their suffering, your suffering, and mine.

With all that...

All we have are those moments of love with those we love the most.

Become obsessed with that!!!

Not this Bull-Ass-Shit and it totally is.

It doesn't matter who we vote for.

We all lose…

It's ALWAYS been that way…

Love, Respect but even this is fueled by spite more than those other two put together.

That is my great addiction, SPITE…

0 by David-Angelo Mineo 7/25/2024 1,706 Words

[redbusters]

mutuals in law or something arguing about what Amount of transmasc you can be to be a lesbian, and instead of taking a hostile approach i'm going to try to articulate my points from an educational perspective, because i believe we all have the opportunity to learn if we so choose, and maybe I can direct people to this post when i see this discourse inevitably pop up again.

even without getting into how ahistorical it is to entirely exclude transmasculinity from lesbianism, which is ground covered many times but it's at this point that i would recommend those confused by transmasculine lesbians to delve into the history of lesbianism, stone butch blues being a good start,

it doesn't invalidate trans men or lesbians to acknowledge that sometimes gender identity and sexuality are complicated experiences that don't neatly fit into a box or definition. the more you interact with lgbt people in real life the more you understand that the experience of gender and sexuality is not just more diverse than the cishetero norm, but more diverse than the western definitions we have can describe, because the labels we have are just terms. important terms, yes, because they connect us to our history and are a useful tool for political advocacy, but when it comes to self identification and our relation to other queer people we don't need to neatly fit our experience into a box.

i'm a genderqueer transmasc lesbian right. i am also a butch lesbian. these ARE separate ideas to me, because not all butches are transmasc and not all transmascs are butch. im not a "binary trans man" but what makes me that, specifically? is it not getting surgery or being on hormones? how are we defining binary? when you start making these kinds of divides you're inevitably going to lend yourself to making inherently transmedicalists arguments, because otherwise what's the difference?

when i began to realize I was transmasc, the first thing i feared was that i would no longer be "lesbian enough". i'm very lucky that my girlfriend was attracted to me either way, whether i was binding and presenting more masculinely or not. i wouldn't have been offended if i had began to medically transition and she was no longer attracted to me, but again, because human sexuality is complicated, in this scenario she wouldn't have been less of a lesbian if she was, because the rest of their experience in the world has been being attracted to women and not attracted to men. and because it would be our relationship, it would be none of anyone else's business! i could be as "binary" of a trans man as you could get and i would still be a lesbian, because lesbianism is the lens through which i experience the world and always have. lesbianism has always brought me comfort, always been an idea i resonated with, even been a word used to disparage me as a masculine presenting girl in school. trans men are not forcing themselves onto lesbians that aren't attracted to them, and this is where i will bring up a specific aspect of the post i witnessed, because i find it disgusting and cruel.

again, no trans man is forcing you to be attracted to them. this reeks of the argument often used to keep trans people out of sexuality in general, frequently against trans women, where cis people think they shouldn't "have" to be attracted to a trans woman. the argument that trans people are just as bad as cisgender men who want to force themselves onto us, "fix" us, and frequently sexually assault us, is transphobic and disgusting, and regardless of your opinion on this discourse you should be ashamed if you've ever made an argument like this. i don't care what your opinion is, it's in poor taste.

i would also like to question what "spaces" we are keeping transmasc lesbians out of. what real life lesbian only spaces do you occupy? clubs? bars? meetings? your local knitting circle? the dating scene of your city? what are "lesbian spaces"? the reality of lgbt centered spaces is that most often you cultivate them around you, and the only time i ever see "lgbt spaces" as an argument is typically referring to online spaces, which isn't to say that everyone making this argument is referring to that, but i have yet to see evidence to the contrary most of the time. because again, in real life, people who disagree with you largely don't bother you. you cultivate your social circle, your dating life, etcetera. how dangerous is it, really, that trans men identifying as lesbians are your mutuals twice removed on tumblr?

i don't ask this question to mock, i ask anyone thinking like this to reexamine the anger and whether it's directed in the right place. we're infuriated because we want to be taken seriously right? because we want our identities to be taken seriously. but the reality is that the group of people who identify in a way that's confusing to us is smaller than we think, and those voices are amplified by the insular nature of tumblr. the truth is lesbianism is not harmed by trans men identifying as lesbians, or transmasculine nonbinary people identifying as lesbians, or trans women and transfems identifying as lesbians, regardless of any of these groups' points in transition. nobody is asking you to be attracted to anybody, nobody is even asking you to understand, but what i am going to challenge everyone reading this to do is to have compassion for people that don't make sense to them and remember we all exist in the same fight. all across the globe transgender people are being erased and having their rights taken away. i had to learn from my mother that after the election of donald trump in america, my little sister, a trans girl, basically cried all day out of fear that she wouldn't be able to live as herself. she's 16. that is our enemy. it's the people who are trying to wipe our communities off the face of the map. if you care about trans people, and about lesbians, and about the lives of lgbt people as a whole, get involved in local advocacy. read books about gender and sexuality, if you're in college right now take a class if it's available. don't let transphobic rhetoric distract you from what's happening to us. instead of acting out of misunderstanding and frustration, act out of compassion.

the thing about lgbt tumblr discourse is this shit does not matter

[the-fallen-blue]

Thinking about a conversation I had with @01d55 like ten fucking years ago about Legion and geth communication, and it occurred to me that Hanar politeness is actually, accidentally, a really good piece of world-building.

So, the gist of the original conversation was that Legion says geth communicate in binary because it's "faster" and that's fucking stupid, because sending one bit that says "7" is infinitely goddamn faster than sending three bits that say "111".

And what our dear jigglypuff pointed out that was really fascinating is that language is, essentially, a compression algorithim. We take an incredibly broad, complicated group of a thousand subtly different but connected things, and group them up into a single word, like "tree" or "anger" or "drink", and that allows us to convey an enormous amount of important information in, actually, a very small amount of raw data. And this is pretty important because despite the absolutely incredible range of the human vocal apparatus, augmented by the incredible flexibility and dexterity of our bodies, there are still a quintillion more concepts that we might need to be able to talk about or convey to each other than we have the ability to create a specific combination of noise and gesture for.

Now, like all compression algorithms, language is lossy. This works because we don't actually care about the information we lose. 90% of the time when I'm talking about a tree, it doesn't matter if it's a maple or a poplar or an ash. Where specificity is necessary, we can reduce compression in order to preserve more data; instead of just leaving it at the short and sweet "I'm angry," I can elaborate with the longer, more evocative "I'm so angry my eyeballs hurt" in order to distinguish within the category of anger against "I'm angry enough to complain about this once and then never think about it again." Misunderstanding due to lossiness is of course absolutely possible - particularly with metadata, like "how does the speaker feel about this topic" (in English, largely conveyed by imprecise information like tone and body language) or "what social categories are involved in this conversation" (the gender of a speaker or subject, whether an object is inanimate, whether the speaker is of higher or lower social class than the listener, can all be conveyed or obscured depending on a language's use of formal or gendered conjugation) - but  humans are actually really good at minor deescalation within our social groups, so these kinds of data transfer failures are an acceptable trade-off for the efficiency of our compression.

But of course, all of this is entirely cultural. Every language makes sacrifices, but which ones and how many depends entirely on what the people who use that language value, and what tools they use to convey metadata that the language doesn't. If you are a giant fucking language nerd, like, say, THE giant fucking language nerd, Tolkien, you might even conceive of a culture with linguistic priorities unlike any other on earth. For example, if you have a group of living trees, who are big goddamn trees and therefore don't have to do anything in a timely manner ever, they might develop a language that is barely lossy at all. You can take six days to say one very precise sentence if you don't need to move in the next six decades.

So what does this mean for Mass Effect? Well, the first thought is that the geth should actually be the opposite of Legion's claim; they should value not efficiency, but precision. Efficiency is important for humans, because speech is slow. Words take time to form and push through the voicebox. Sound takes time to travel. Words take time to decode (or for our purposes, decompress) in the brain once heard. Sign language and writing are not exempt; vision is faster than sound, sure, but the processing time doesn’t change. Geth don't have that problem; assuming they communicate by EM radiation, because why in God's name would they do anything else, they can speak as quickly as their instrumentation can perceive, and here in the real world we've had machines that could produce and detect light faster than any organic creature can distinguish for generations already. And they don't have any good way to send metadata outside of a communication burst itself; their body language is so limited as to be nonexistent, and EM modulation doesn’t have tone. All information would have to be in the language itself, and it would be able to be extremely precise, because they can send a huge amount of it very quickly and sacrifice almost no time to gain that precision. Plus they're robots; one imagines they were given, originally, very limited interpersonal capability (why would they need it?), and in human experience, AI generalizes and categorizes very poorly, so specificity would be extremely important. Geth language is probably actually like Ent language at 10000x speed.

But the second thought is, the hanar don't speak. Their language is entirely visual, comprised of patterns of light and color autonomically projected across their bodies. We don't know what their visual speed is, but we can watch them "talk" and we can see it's quite fast; we also know most of it is toward the UV end of the spectrum, invisible to humans. Since it's patterns, they're not limited to one phoneme at a time, and they could conceivably dump essentially a whole phrase in a single, one-second light cycle. By all indications, this language is very fast. Which means that, like the geth or the Ents, it can afford to be very precise. Much like the Elcor with their scent, there's probably an enormous amount of metadata in every conversation that's just totally invisible to the verbal species like humans and asari.

So what do you do when you're talking to someone and you're used to every single thing you say making it completely clear that your attitude toward them and the conversation is appropriate, and then suddenly that's not available at all and you have no way whatsoever to know how they're going to take things? Well, on the internet, we all created a whole new grammar by using case and punctuation differently in order to convey tone. The elcor decided to start prefacing every single thing with a word indicating their attitude. And whoever wrote the translation software for the hanar just rigorously overused the few limited lexical indicators that verbal languages have for politeness.

[wiltkingart]

hi wilt, sorry if this is a weird ask, but do you have any advice on working faster? ive been drawing for a while, but i feel like even relatively simple things take me a long time to do well compared 2 other people. But whenever I try and force myself to work faster, i think my art suffers for it. I'm just drawing for myself rn, so there's no outside pressure or anything, im just unsure how to draw/paint faster without sacrificing the quality of what i'm working on.

i can speak from my personal experience, at the very least!

first off i want to preface that taking longer than other people to make art isnt a bad thing at all. some artists that i admire a lot have said that they take days or weeks or even months to make a single art piece. the fast paced pressure of being a modern ‘social media artist’ does us more harm than good, i think. and there’s really nothing wrong at all about taking your time, especially if you like your art better when you go at your own pace.

personally i have gotten significantly faster at art over the past 3 years, but that wasnt ever actually my intention. in fact my goal was just to simplify my sketches to make the whole process easier on my hand. but by simplifying my sketches, i ended up cutting back severely on the amount of time it would normally take to overwork and cleanup my sketches, as well as reducing the amount of time i needed to clean up my work while coloring. so it became a positive side effect of my original goal, rather than my main focus.

for example, this is what my sketches looked like in 2016

i would spend so much time and effort on them that i would often end up just using the sketch as lineart and coloring underneath.

lots of artists do this, and it isnt bad at all! but this was very stressful on my hand. i literally got tendonitis so bad i had to see a physical therapist and rethink my whole life, and i was hardly able to make actual paintings because it would take so long and the rendering/cleanup process was hell. in 2017 i tried to mitigate the problem by letting myself be messy in both the sketch + painting process. thus the start of the wiggly era.

but it wasnt enough. i still didnt like how much time i was spending on cleanup/rendering. so began my 2018 journey to simplify my sketches and i forced myself to do this by completely removing my ability to use pen pressure by using the binary tool. i also started laying down silhouettes first, which is something i still do to this day.

i’ll admit it was a rough period of time, but i kept at it! i liked how i had more freedom and maneuverability with the painting phase. and eventually i adapted to it and became more comfortable with it and my art started to look and feel decent again.

i became so comfortable with it that i decided it was time to set aside the binary tool and go back to my good old friend the marker tool, because i missed having the ability to make sketches that looked good on their own too. but by now i had the ability to quickly and effectively make sketches that held the bare minimum information i needed to work with.

and right now im really happy with my current art process. its super flexible and im satisfied with splitting up my time as 10% sketch 90% color/painting. plus my hand pain is at an all time minimum! so i guess what im trying to say with all this is that as long as you’re happy with your process and your art, it doesn’t matter how slow or fast you are. if you’re not happy with your process, then by all means try new things. but i dont think speed is in any way an indicator of skill.

“im just unsure how to draw/paint faster without sacrificing the quality of what i'm working on.”

if you dont want to change the way your art looks then there’s no need to force the issue. but if you are still interested in trying to speed up your work, there will most definitely be a dip in quality for a while while you figure things out and learn new techniques, as i think ive shown with my journey. but that dip will be temporary.

as far as how to speed up your work, ive only shown my approach to it and there’s dozens of different ways to do it. some people force themselves to do 5 min / 1 min / 30 second figure studies. other people use multiply/overlay effects to speed up the coloring process. its a highly personal matter and i would recommend asking other artists or looking up tutorials! best of luck and i hope this helps in some small way.

[genuineformality]

I have no idea if this answers @paperprinxe's question or not, but ask me questions and get essays in response.

When it comes down to it, the Grishaverse isn't exactly groundbreaking when it comes to gender identities that are somewhere beyond the binary. Even LB's flirtation with trans characters speaks to a very binary trans experience: if one is not a woman, one must be a man.

There's a longer conversation to be had about gender in the Grishaverse (and several really excellent authors have written some incredible trans versions of these characters, which does provide some great fodder for said conversation), but my self indulgent, whump-fest where I challenged myself to madly extemporize a more or less cohesive story from spare parts isn't really the place for it, nor do I want that to be the place for it.*

So why have a nonbinary character at all?

The Doylian answer is more or less what I previously said: I, the author, decided midstream to make the character nonbinary largely because there was no reason not to. In magic Grishaverse Fanfiction Land, where I make the rules, the not-kid is nonbinary and everyone got on board with it because I said so. A scene where we negotiate pronouns with the person we're torturing is tedious, so I didn't bother addressing it.**

I suspect what you're asking is for a Watsonian expanation, and I have been thinking it through. So far the one I like the most is that Kerch language in my version of Grishaverse Fanfiction Land actually doesn't use gendered pronouns***, leaving me as the translator in the Tolkien tradition, struggling with imperfect tools and English pronouns to express something that the Kerch take for granted.

But really, the answer can be whatever you want it to be. You have as much right to make up the answers in Grishaverse Fanfiction Land as I do.

*Despite the fact that nonbinary people are politicized just for existing, so it would not be unreasonable for that. But frankly, I don't wanna. I'm tired.

**Having that conversation in general is tedious, and if I never had to answer another question about my pronouns, it would be too soon.

*** Huge fan of the Imperial Radch novels, where Ann Leckie used feminine pronouns through the entire thing to express nongendered pronouns within the language and boy howdy did we learn a lot about the universe of the Imperial Radch and also a lot about the people who read that and had Big Fucking Feelings about it.

You know the story you have in ao3 about Kaz whump? Is the grisha kid from it non-binary bc they’re referred to as they/them throughout the story or is that just because nobody’s figured out their gender besides half rabid demon child?

The original intention was gender-nonspecific, but then I decided that the grishaverse needed more nonbinary characters and just went with it.

(Diversity win! The nonbinary kind-of child is also a massive jerk!)

[passable-talent]

How about something with suitless Vader? Honestly I find dark Anakin with yellow eyes very attractive (even more than Jedi Ani!)🚶‍♀️

ooooh girl me 2

gun to my head, it’s Jedi Ani. but holy shiiittt sith anakin,,,,

At nineteen, you married Anakin Skywalker. That’s where our story begins. 

You were a Jedi, just like him. You were made a knight too early, so that you could fight in the Clone Wars, just like him. The two of you walked through life side by side, from the moment you met. 

And so, you forged a bond in the Force. 

It wasn’t strong. You couldn’t communicate thoughts, and certainly couldn’t transport matter. But you could feel each other’s presence, you could feel the other’s emotion. 

It was a tool, and you used it, both in your marriage and on the battlefield. Like no other Jedi you were a team, rivalled by no one. 

Such a bond allowed Anakin a disturbing vision. 

He would wake up in the dead of night, hearing you scream. He felt the grief deep in his stomach, and even through the haze of sleep knew what it meant- he knew that you were meant to die. 

He confided this fear to Chancellor Palpatine, who took advantage of it. You know the rest- his fall to the dark side in order to keep you safe. 

The moment Anakin sliced off Mace Windu’s arm, you fell to the ground in the middle of a battle. Your legs couldn’t hold you- there was pain throughout your body, so intense, so deep, you could barely move. It forced all of your muscles to lock and tighten, as though you were subconsciously trying to force it away. You curled up, and when your will failed, you began to scream. You feared you’d never stop. 

It was pain, anguish, horror. Grief and sadness and rage. All of them, so tangled up underneath your ribcage, and you held your fist against it. You didn’t know what it meant, it was too violent to make sense of, and you couldn’t much focus anyway. 

Luckily, Obi-Wan was there. He got you to safety, and you curled up in a bed in a ship. 

For weeks, you just tried to survive. The pain never ebbed, in fact, it got worse, but slowly you were going numb. You had escaped to Tatooine with Obi-Wan after the Clones turned on the Jedi, and he let you be. Your pain combined with your grief, for Anakin had been killed- you couldn’t imagine what had taken him down. You just had to hope it wasn’t Rex. 

Not far from Anakin’s family’s home, you lumbered around with phantom pains, barely eating, never sleeping. The intensity of it had become your normal, eyelids always heavy, muscles always locked. 

You trembled with every step, and your lips were constantly bleeding, from when you’d bitten and been unable to let go. There was a line of scar tissue bisecting each palm, where your nails had ripped them open, again and again. You lost weight, rarely eating, and so looking so sickly, your muscle still toned from constant tensing standing out underneath paled, tight skin. It wasn’t a good look, and so you’d stopped looking in the mirror, not wanting to see the ghost of a Jedi, the one who hadn’t even tried to help in the final days of the Clone Wars, the one whose skin had sunken in around their eyes and cheeks.

“Have you gotten any better?” Obi-Wan asked, bringing you a meal. You were watching the binary sunrise, trying to meditate- it was how you spent a lot of your time, now, fists clenched under your chin, biceps tight, but your mind as clear as it could be. You tried to reach out to Anakin through the Force, hoping your husband could give you even the slightest bit of encouragement, and to the Jedi who’d been lost, and even to Shmi. It never worked. You had to assume that the grief and rage coiling in your stomach kept you barred from the Force.

“No,” you replied dryly, opening your eyes. “I don’t think it’s ever going to let up. Not until I die.” 

“Or Vader dies,” Obi-Wan said, a small smile on his face as though he was joking. 

But what in the world did that mean?

“Why would Vader have anything to do with this?” You asked, and though you couldn’t see it, you suddenly sensed Obi-Wan begin to feel anxiety. 

“I- He doesn’t. I meant that his death might bring you a little reprieve, him being a Sith and all.” 

“No,” you said, slowly rising to your feet, your fists held at your side, but now there was suspicion in your voice to match them. “You meant, somehow, that all of this is connected to Vader. Like this is-” Your words dropped off, as you considered what it could have meant. 

You had a Force connection with Anakin. Obi-Wan carelessly joked that this pain had to do with Vader, which would mean you had a connection with Vader. 

Which would mean that Anakin was Vader. 

“You told me Anakin was dead,” you growled, and now all of the rage in your stomach felt your own. “You told me you watched him die!” 

It all made sense. Obi-Wan taking you away, never looking back. The time you spent on Mustafar, curled up on the floor of his ship, not knowing what he was doing. The way the pain got worse as time went on. His choice to bring you to Tatooine, where Anakin was born, where his mother died, where he would never willingly return to.

“He is!” Obi-Wan insisted, taking a step back. “Anakin Skywalker is dead!”

“No!” you shouted, and reached out, calling your saber to you. You hadn’t used the Force in so long. “He’s alive! And all this time, all this grief I’ve been feeling- he was grieving for me!” You shoved back Obi-Wan, to the door of his home. “How could you keep this from me?” The pain was familiar, and now, it was all your own. 

“Y/N, wait!” By the time Obi-Wan caught you, you’d stolen his ship. 

Now knowing exactly what you felt, you could open yourself to it. Sure, it hurt, it made the pain so much worse, but only by opening yourself to the anguish would you begin to feel Anakin behind it. 

For the first time, you started to sort through it all. 

Anger. Fear. Hatred. Grief. Sadness. And all of it- all of it was because Obi-Wan had kept you from him. Obi-Wan had known Anakin was alive, and he didn’t tell you. He didn’t trust you enough, didn’t trust Anakin enough, to let you meet. It was all Obi-Wan’s fault that you’d become so ill, that you’d been in this much pain for this long. He kept you weak. Anakin probably didn’t even know you were alive!

Returning to like Coruscant was like returning home. It had been so long since you’d seen the beautiful, sparkling skyline as it stretched on towards the horizon under a golden sky. You touched down your ship onto the Senate’s landing platform, and strapped your saber to your waist before stepping outside. 

A droid was there to greet you. 

“What’s your name?” The stupid tube of wires asked, and you turned your face toward it with a glare. Your head hung low, and your breaths were irregular, forced out with the tensing of your diaphragm as you moved through waves of anguish that haunted your every step. 

“I’m (F/N) (L/N),” you said, “And you will tell Lord Vader that I am here to see him.” 

“Uh, I don’t think I-” the droid got no further before you ignited your saber and bisected it with all the contempt of a General of the Clone Wars. You turned to the next droid, voice even more commanding, even more angry.

“You will tell Lord Vader that I am here to see him.” Thoroughly threatened, this droid did as you asked. 

You stood on the landing platform, waiting, and the longer you waited, the more it hurt. The more it got to you. You started curling, as you always did, pressing your forearms into your stomach, your spine hunching over. 

And then it disappeared. 

It took you a moment to realize the way the pain vanished, your muscles so tight, so you slowly uncurled, more confused than relieved. You looked at your hands, and shifted your legs, not having felt this light, this free, since... since you’d seen Anakin last. Did that mean...?

You looked up to where the droid had disappeared to, and there he was. 

“Anakin.” Your voice was soft, in a way you hadn’t heard it in a long time. Suddenly you had all of the grace and lightness you’d once been proud of, and you ran to him, jumping into his arms. He caught you, like he always does, and spun you as he lowered you, and the hug was so tight, you’d never let go. You curled your fingers into his robes, and he surrounded you in them, enveloped you, his flesh hand bringing his fingers into your hair. You held his neck like it held your life, keeping him as close to you as you could. 

“You’re alive,” he whispered into your neck, sounding emotional. You probed into him and felt it, too, pure relief and happiness invading the Force anywhere near him. And after weeks of nothing but pain, it was sweet like nothing else in the galaxy. 

“You’re alive,” you responded, pressing your whole body deeper into him. “I thought- Obi-Wan told me-”

“Obi-Wan wants to destroy us,” Anakin said, cutting you off. “He ambushed me on Mustafar and tried to kill me.” He pulled his chest away just far enough to press his forehead to yours. “I’m sorry you had to survive being with him. If I had known- I’m so sorry.”

“You couldn’t feel me?” You had felt his pain so clearly, even if you hadn’t known it was his. Why couldn’t he feel yours?

“No, I...” he lowered his head to kiss you, briefly, and you chased his mouth as he left. Like you were teenagers hiding in the hallway of the Jedi temple, you tried to speak in between the kisses, in the moments where you repositioned or pulled away to breathe. “I must’ve-” he lifted you up, holding you against him, hands pressing and holding all over you before moving on, as though he were checking that every bit of you was still there. “I must’ve been too focused on my own grief.” You pulled away for just a moment, cupping his face. 

“It’s okay,” you breathed, “I’m here now. We’re here- we’re okay.” Only now did you notice the gold in his eyes, but it complemented the way he looked at you, and you sank back down into another kiss. 

He took you inside, and you couldn’t be damned to notice anywhere he carried you. You just rested your body on top of him, pressing your lips to his neck every once in a while, feeling content like you hadn’t since... probably since you were married, before the Clone Wars began. 

Wherever he’d taken you seemed to be his home, based on the way the bed was unmade. He always left the sheets scattered. He sat, setting you into his lap, and you once again let your hands come to his face, your fingers slipping into his hair, your thumb running over his scar, staring into golden eyes. You missed the blue- but the gold made you shiver. He cupped your face to match, and you pressed your cheekbone into his flesh hand. 

“What happened to you?” He asked, rubbing his thumbs along the dark skin under your eyes. 

“I haven’t been sleeping,” you admitted, letting out a breath. 

“I don’t blame you,” he said with a small smile, “Obi-Wan hovering over you, and all. Luckily-” With a twist of his hips he tossed you onto the bed, and followed, crawling over you, caging you in with his arms. “We’ve got a bed right here.” 

Laying on your back, you looked up at him, and this view was so familiar, it ached deep in you to see it again. The corner of your mouth turned up in a smirk. 

“Are you actually going to let me sleep?” His eyes flicked over you for a moment, considering. 

“No, I don’t think so.” 

~~~

With Anakin by your side again, you regained your strength. With you strength, you began training. With your training came anger, with anger came rage.

You’d been left to waste away for nearly a month, because Obi-Wan was too afraid of Anakin. Afraid of you! He feared what you could become if you returned to your husband, and he was right to. You, like Anakin, felt more powerful than you ever had before. With you alive, and by his side, he felt no anguish, you felt no pain, and so you could jump higher, strike faster, the Force flowed through you like wind, guiding you toward a mountaintop. Your saber skills were stronger than they’d ever been, you were faster, your focus clearer. 

And your latest focus had been one Emperor Palpatine. 

He was... a character, that’s for sure. You didn’t hold malice toward him, not the way you did Obi-Wan, but his choices in the past certainly were questionable. Maybe he needed to get into power, and maybe he needed to start a trade war to do it, but he certainly didn’t need to put Padme in danger. 

You had a number of small grievances with him, but there was one major issue. 

He sat in a throne clearly meant for Anakin. 

Anakin was the chosen one, meant to bring balance, and he had. Anakin had ended the war when he destroyed the Separatists and he’d brought down the oppressive, misguided Jedi order. Anakin was the most powerful Force user in the galaxy, it was plain to see. Palpatine was just a manipulative politician who hadn’t realized the full extent of the Sith teachings- that the master was meant to die. The student was meant to kill. If anyone was meant to rule the galaxy, it was Anakin! He was meant to bring balance, and had learned from the dark and the light side of the Force. That was certainly more than Palpatine could claim!

You’d spent your time around politicians. You knew how they think. You’d spent time around Sith, and knew what they valued. 

Which made Palpatine was easy to read. 

“You want to kill me,” you stated, one night, when you’d gotten him alone.

“My friend-”

“You know that I’m the one thing that keeps you from controlling Anakin completely.” Sidious didn’t respond, knowing he was caught. “And you need to control him, because you know he could destroy you, if he wanted to.” 

“That’s fine, I respect that,” you said, a nonchalant shrug to your shoulders. Anakin’s pain had been such a raw, burning feeling, for so long, that nothing affected you anymore. “Just know that if he knows you’re involved in my death at all, he’ll turn against you. Know that I won’t die without a fight- and the louder a fuss I make, the less he’ll trust you.” You turned from him without being excused, and approached the door, stopping within its frame to add one more thing.

“He’s smarter than you give him credit for,” you said, a threat in your tone. 

Palpatine had told Anakin that you were dead, that day. So now, he knew that Sidious was willing to lie to him. 

Anakin doesn’t take to deceit very nicely.

So, not long after the very nice conversation you had with Sidious, the throne and title of Emperor belonged to Anakin Skywalker, Emperor Vader. 

The details of how such a change happened don’t matter to much. Palpatine was very old, you see, he’d lived quite a long and successful life...

The grandest achievement of it, of course, the Galactic Empire, was passed on to his once-pupil to rule as he saw fit. 

And damn, did it look good on him. 

-🦌 Roe

[whatudottu]

Okay here’s part 2 of my colour scheme/altmode ramblings, now featuring the Decepticons. Since I am generally vehicle illiterate (ESPECIALLY jet illiterate) I consulted my jet nerd friends to identify what aircraft each of the Decepticons are (and I suppose what armoured truck Breaky is) to help find some colours.

The Autobots

The Decepticons Part 1 (you are here)

The Decepticons Part 2

Once again in order of notes, we start off with Starscream. I’m not entirely sure what to do with this boy, in canon and most of what I’ve seen he’s a very contradictory character (not to say it’s a bad thing, it’s actually quite nice) so I don’t know which parts to shatter and to keep the same. Perhaps in the same vein that SG!Ratchet is now super ‘happy’ but really spiteful, Starscream could be normally scared or nervous, but under pressure he toughens up and regains his confidence. Crouching moron, hidden badass kind of vibe but... well... more like balled-up coward in this case.

I like to think that Starscream defaults to using titles and formalities, in rather stark contrast to canon (i.e. Doctor Knock Out, Lieutenant Dreadwing yada yada). He may have accidentally slipped up and called Megatron ‘lord’ or ‘master’ or any close relative of those and he immediately stopped at the reaction, definitely realising that something was wrong.

For his colours, ironically it comes from this remote controlled F-16 (maybe he got caught on camera randomly and that was just some quick excuse haha) and I think it’s pretty nice.

Second to Starscream, as he seems to always be rank wise, is Soundwave. Of course I’m going to go the radio route for this mech a la movieverse Bumblebee, and despite this, he is quite the chatter. Even when he’s not talking, he ‘mumbles’ with incomprehensible beeps and blips (not actual binary, con nor bot) and frequently places human radio, just so long as it doesn’t inhibit productivity.

As for his stance on Megatron? Though they both had to crawl to where they are today, Soundwave constantly challenges his leader’s commands... in a good way I promise. It’s no longer blind loyalty this mech holds on to, and he isn’t afraid to go against Megatron’s wishes to get his desired information (sending Makeshift to hide within the Autotroopers was one such plan, and oh how it backfired BAD). Speaking of, Soundwave is the only mech to have ‘physical’ records of Makeshift as a reassurance to both that he wouldn’t be at risk of discovery via attack on the Decepticon records.

Because MQ-9 Reapers don’t come in fancy transformers colours, I cheesed the search a little by using the lighting effects as colours. This is clearly approaching dusk but, these colours look really sweet. Also, not that you could see, but his optics would probably be yellow.

Next on my secret list (that I am slowly revealing) is... Shockwave? Sure, why not. Once this thought entered my head it never could leave me and I lived in constant fear and pain. What if Shockwave is gremlin?

Hear me out! What I’m thinking is, though he still preaches the word of logic as if it were a fabled legend, he snarls, he growls and he’s overall more feral than logically dictates this blank canvas. This Peridot from Steven Universe if you will, because I’m insane and have something wrong with me (okay maybe I’m taking this too far). So anyway, I just love the idea that Shockwave acts more like an animal than ANY of the predacons (I’ll get to them, don’t worry).

As for alt, I’m thinking he undergoes a reformat because his arm gets torn off (he still makes the dinobots because, idk unethical senator/blackmailing counsel wanting powerful tools kinda stuff) and he’s probably not interested in getting a gun arm as a less... outright violent kind of mech? So instead of a Cybertronian tank, he can have an alt that’s similar, if not directly, a Tucker Sno-Cat (often used by researchers in Antarctica see how that fits hahaha).

And finally, after 3 Decpticons, it’s Megatron’s time to shine. Let’s see, he’s a passionate leader and listens to the vehicons... it’s a little easier presently now that many of the numbers have dwindled, but he still attempts to put a face... or perhaps a paint job to the mech.

Though he can loudly broadcast a speech barely practiced and hardly written to a sea of strangers, he’s a little awkward in day to day conversation. You know what, it’s sorta like TFA Optimus if you think long and hard about it, but I suppose his speeches can get rather grave if he’s not in the right mindset. Remember when I said that Megatron had a bad reaction to being called ‘lord’ or ‘master’? Well, he doesn’t beat Starscream over it, just feels really icky when those titles are directed to him. If you MUST call him something, Commander or General is fine, but please, call him Megatron.

Not say he’s taken up a human altmode (I’d think it’d be a cool contrast to canon megan) but I found this image of a SU-47 Berkut that would help this Megatron uh... put real meaning in ‘robots in disguise’.

Though I’ll be moving onto the twins, I’ll start off with Skyquake because, while they do have the same altmode, I thought it’d be fun to have different origins.

We all know canon Dreadwing to be the stoic and maybe elegant type, if Wheeljack complimenting his bomb-work as artisan says anything. Skyquake, being his brother, has fanonically been quite the opposite, which I absolutely love. So, with that being said, I’m just going to go all out and make Skyke a child at spark and generally a rather positive mech in this shattered reality. Sure, there’s a time and a place for everything, that’s what carries over from the original (I mean I think, it’s not like he lived past his first episode) but he’s always got the crew’s morale in mind. Also he definitely hangs out (messes) with the Vehicons a lot.

In order to reflect this characterisation, I wanted to go with a Thunderbirds aesthetic with his F-35 alt, with the black wing designs included. I’d think it’d be fitting to have this brother based off of an airshow jet so, there.

In contrast to his loud and sometimes (often) immature brother, Dreadwing is still rather quiet, but less of the strict kind. Sure, he’s hardened after spending so much time of his recent time in the war without his brother, Drwing has that tiny bit of shyness.

Of course, when it comes to fighting he’s not afraid. Maybe cautious about the situation around him, but he’s not going to go into a panic unless something REALLY goes wrong. But he doesn’t particularly find it all to easy to speak to his fellow mechs, probably because he really only really relied on his brother for so long. Don’t worry, he’s gotten better at speaking, but aside from the off-comment remark that he’s relieved that Skyquake is okay (Dreadwing ever the protective older twin) he’s not one for opening up. Too bad that leaves him vulnerable to Skyke’s teasing but whatever, he missed that too.

With that, I think it’d be interesting if I gave him a more militaristic paint job, and this image I found works both because it’s, colour scheme wise, quite the opposite to Skyquake and isn’t just plain old black so we got a little bit of an accent colour going on.

Oh joy an image limit. It seems I might need to reconsider how to balance the two teams out...

[greenscreener]

I decided to write down the entire process on how I cracked the thing, but first, we’re actually going to have to explain some concepts from cryptography and after reading this, you might know how to break many of the simple ciphers people online tend to use. (Even though this stuff is only useful for ciphers that haven’t been used in actual cryptographic practice since the 1800s)

We’re going to start with some of the most well known ciphers: Caesar’s cipher. For those who don’t know it, it works by shifting each letter by usually 13 letters in the alphabet, that’s why it’s also known as ROT13. So A becomes N, B becomes O and so on. The word SECRET becomes FRPERG.

Another example might be Atbash, which just flips the alphabet around, so A becomes Z, B becomes Y.

Both of these are monoalphabetic substitution ciphers (this is an important magic word!). Substitution here means we replace one letter with another. (in general there are substitution ciphers that replace larger groups than letters at a time, but we’re not talking about these now). Monoalphabetic means it only uses a single alphabet for the substitution. Now how do we use an alphabet for substitution? We usually create a table, with the normal alphabet at the top and some shuffled alphabet at the bottom. Such table for Ceasar’s cipher might look like this:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ NOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLM

Now, since the top line is always the same, we can just use the second line, as the “key”, that’s why we only need a single “alphabet”. When we want to encrypt something, we take each letter, find it in the top row and then replace it with the letter in the bottom row. For decrypting we find the letter in the bottom row and replace it with the one in the top row.

A generic substitution cipher has the bottom alphabet randomly shuffled. You might assume that such cipher might be unbreakable, since there are 26! (twenty-six factorial, equal to 403291461126605635584000000 (about ten thousand times the number of atoms in a drop of water)) options on how to shuffle such alphabet, trying them all would take millions of years.

But such a cipher does reveal some information about the original text, for instance, character frequencies. If we go back to the ROT13 example of SECRET, we know there are two Es, and the resulting encrypted FRPERG contains two Rs. Every language has a very specific frequency of each character, the longer the text, the closer these frequencies get to the average distribution.

These frequencies are usually used as the starting point in trying to crack a monoalphabetic substitution. Since we know E is the most common letter in the English language, we can start building our substitution table by replacing the most common letter with E and so on. Many frequencies are too similar to be useful in this way however, so we need to do something smarter.

The easiest thing to do automatically with a computer is bigram analysis. Instead of counting the frequencies of individual letters, we count frequencies of bigrams – pairs of consecutive letters. This can be usually quite good at recovering even fairly short encrypted texts.

What can usually be done manually is trying to find some recognisable words in the partially decrypted text and slowly getting more and more letters.

Now, after a whole lot of theory, let’s get our hands dirty

I used CyberChef, which is a great tool for deciphering various weird things.

If you want to follow along with me, you can use this link.

Here are first few lines of the encrypted text:

-000 001 011--000 100 001--000 101 101- -000 000 000--000 011 100--000 001 011- -000 100 001--000 001 101--000 100 001-

I immediately assumed these are letters turned into binary in some way. The most obvious way is ASCII, but characters in ASCII are usually 8 bits (ones or zeros) and letters start with 01. I also assumed that each character is represented by nine bits, not three, because there are only eight possible combinations of three bits, which isn’t enough to encode all letters. I also noticed that nine zeros are probably a space.

I wanted to do some analysis on the text, so first, I turned each group of nine bits into a single character. I then had to do some magic with the text to replace the weird control characters into letters, because most analysis tools work only with letters.

After running frequency distribution calculation on the text, it did look vaguely human-language-ish to me, so I ran another test, the index of coincidence test. This is a single number, which roughly represents how random the text is. If it is only made of a single character, it has IoC of 1, not random at all, if the text is entirely random (or encrypted well), it has IoC of 0. English text generally has an IoC of between 0.67 to 0.78. The IoC I calculated fell generally in the range of English text, which confirmed we’re most likely dealing with monoalphabetic substitution.

To start deciphering, I first used this generic substitution autosolver. It didn’t work quite right, because it is by default case insensitive (doesn’t know the difference between lowercase and uppercase letters), which breaks on my text where upper and lowercase letters encode a different letter.

her there one known as the seoond itsttor rom oant read thts and ty rom oan thatd ke arettr tiaresstie aotmallr haie a mood dar or else

It got enough of the letters right to make some parts of the text recognisable, mainly the recipient’s username “the-second-visitor”.

So I went back to CyberChef and started pasting individual words of the ciphertext with the corresponding words of the plaintext into a substitutor and uncovered the rest of the text manually.

Sorry if I've maybe uncovered a bit of the "magic" behind this, but I hope in turn, you've learnt something cool.

-000 001 011--000 100 001--000 101 101- -000 000 000--000 011 100--000 001 011- -000 100 001--000 001 101--000 100 001- -000 000 000--000 011 011--000 010 100- -000 100 001--000 000 000--000 101 010- -000 010 100--000 011 011--000 011 101- -000 010 100--000 000 000--000 000 011- -000 010 101--000 000 000--000 011 100- -000 001 011--000 100 001--000 000 000- -000 010 101--000 100 001--000 010 010- -000 011 011--000 010 100--000 011 001- -000 000 000--000 101 100--000 010 011- -000 010 101--000 010 011--000 011 100- -000 011 011--000 001 101--000 000 000- -000 101 101--000 011 011--000 100 100- -000 000 000--000 010 010--000 000 011- -000 010 100--000 011 100--000 000 000- -000 001 101--000 100 001--000 000 011- -000 011 001--000 000 000--000 011 100- -000 001 011--000 010 011--000 010 101- -000 000 000--000 000 011--000 010 100- -000 011 001--000 000 000--000 010 011- -000 101 001--000 000 000--000 101 101- -000 011 011--000 100 100--000 000 000- -000 010 010--000 000 011--000 010 100- -000 000 000--000 011 100--000 001 011- -000 000 011--000 011 100--000 011 001- -000 000 000--000 001 010--000 100 001- -000 000 000--000 100 011--000 001 101- -000 100 001--000 011 100--000 011 100- -000 101 101--000 000 000--000 010 011- -000 001 100--000 100 011--000 001 101- -000 100 001--000 010 101--000 010 101- -000 010 011--000 101 100--000 100 001- -000 000 000--000 000 011--000 010 010- -000 011 100--000 100 100--000 000 011- -000 000 101--000 000 101--000 101 101- -000 000 000--000 001 011--000 000 011- -000 101 100--000 100 001--000 000 000- -000 000 011--000 000 000--000 000 100- -000 011 011--000 011 011--000 011 001- -000 000 000--000 011 001--000 000 011- -000 101 101--000 000 000--000 011 011- -000 001 101--000 000 000--000 100 001- -000 000 101--000 010 101--000 100 001-

:)

Does anyone here speak computer? @greenscreener?

[redhandopen]

{A} Creation — Examining Myth

As mentioned earlier, much of what will be posted here — especially in the beginning — will be borrowed from a treatise I was working on before the creation of this blog. What follows is an example of such excerpt written some time ago and which any additions or clarifications are made will be made in the same style as this foreword.

To position this analysis, it follows {A} Creation as presented in {A} Creation — Revisited, comprising its own "chapter" or section. The introduction reminds the reader that Truth is not what is being conveyed, but rather truth as medium for understanding and situating these figures in "their Universe." Remember, the relation of these Forces is the focus, not the act itself. This story is not meant to be a Genesis or a Big Bang, it is a creation, not the Creation.

In the Time-Before-Time, there was Nothing: no light, no warmth, no substance, no energy, no order, no chaos.

And then there was.

From Nothing — quite spectacularly and without explanation — borne was Everything... but not as we know it now. All was One — each State, each thought, each possibility — and her name was MĀ.

In coming to Be, MĀ had distinguished herself from the Nothing that surrounded her and thus defined herself in relation to it. To the Nothing, She gave the name: OMĀ, the First Mother, who is only in that she is not.

Here, we are introduced to two Forces — or rather, one Force as it relates to its negative/complement. This is the “birth” or conception of MĀ from Nothing, or OMĀ. Existence born from non-existence both “spectacularly” (or perhaps “miraculously”) and “without explanation.” This is the introduction to a binary that later in this work will become more complex: the relation between Existence and Non-Existence. What can be said here is that from one is born the other and the limit separating each is not as defined as what might be expected.

A mention was made in "Some exposition" of Daoism. While not a direct correspondence, one could conceive of the distinction of MĀ from OMĀ as yang from yin. Of course, according to Laotzi, the Dao comes to us as and from darkness, not light. Here, the second stanza suggests that MĀ might be thought of as light in response to no-light, but such I think is too literal an interpretation. It is not a matter of MĀ being conceived of as light or as dark, only that her "birth" distinguished one from the other. OMĀ, then, could be said to represent a state with no distinction. Where all things co-exist and equally co-nonexist at once, a truly equal but null state.

A further qualifier present in stanza three states that the initial phase of Existence is/was different from the Existence we know now: a Being defined by separation, distinction, where things exist in regards to and in combination with other things. In this “time,” the singular distinction was between existence and non-existence: the former possessing all that “was, is or could-ever-be.” Every possibility. Every eventuality. All was One, All is One: a concept that will be discussed later in this analysis.

This was how Existence came to be. And for an undetermined amount of “time,” MĀ stayed in the company of OMĀ, speaking without being heard, being without being seen. This sort of being did not bother MĀ, however, for she contained within her every eventuality. When one is Whole, there cannot exist loneliness and so she was content with existing as she did for she did not yet know differentiation.

This, however, would not last.

Though she contained all that was, is, and could-ever-be, MĀ had not yet considered applying this Wisdom. Existence up until then was Blissful, Tranquil, All-Potential. It was enough simply to Be — Unconsciously. But eventually, what was “enough” was no longer. MĀ had a Thought/Dream and that Thought/Dream was action instantaneous. With the swing of Her blade, MARAKALA beheaded MĀ to bear Herself.

Several concepts are introduced here: the notions of Perception, Wholeness, Wisdom, and, most importantly, Consciousness vs. Unconsciousness.

Perception — or the lack thereof — is applied to OMĀ as MĀ is “speaking without being heard, being without being seen.” This, too, defines the Time-Before-Time as a state where Perception cannot exist and whereby MĀ has not yet developed the concept of Self outside of her relation to OMĀ. MĀ exists, but she is an existence without Consciousness, an existence that cannot be Perceived as Perception is reliant upon differentiation: differentiation of Self from Other; sense from sense; distinctions which exist within MĀ, but are not yet understood to her. This state is described as being one of “bliss,” “tranquility,” “all-potential” — it is a state of Ignorance (v. Wisdom), yes, but brimming with potential. It is the Unconscious state which will only be defined by that which comes after it: the violent birth of Consciousness, MARAKALA.

And so begins the process of differentiation. At this stage we begin to see new concepts introduced which come to define themselves in relation to their “opposites:” consciousness vs. unconsciousness; ignorance vs. wisdom; self vs. other; peace vs. violence.

Though I used "'opposites'" here, a better word might be "complements."

MĀ suffers a Thought/Dream and this period — defined by “bliss” and by ignorance — ends with violent dismemberment: Consciousness distinguishes itself and so distinguishes everything from everything. MARAKALA is born instantaneously: she is the Thought/Dream, she is the Head of MĀ severed from its body; she is the All-Potential now aware, now discerning and now possessing the tools by which to transform the potential into the kinetic. She is MĀ when MĀ becomes aware of herself, aware of every eventuality expanding infinitely inward and — soon — outward from the Source, her body.

In birthing herself from the Head of MĀ, Consciousness was born, was preserved, and MARAKALA Knew what she was meant to do. She took up her blade again, hacking at the headless MĀ: she cut Her just under the ribs, then just below the knee.

These three pieces took new shape: from MĀ’s feet formed was AAXASA, who is and rules over all which is Solid; from MĀ’s midsection formed was LUDIŽA, who is and rules over all which is Liquid; and from MĀ’s arms and chest formed was HEHENA, who is and rules over all which is Gaseous.

This was what had been ordained.

In this section, we are introduced to three new Forces: AAXASA, LUDIŽA and HEHENA — hereafter referred to collectively as the Three Sisters. The states of matter are divided between them, representing their “physical” dominions. These ownerships — along with the sections of MĀ’s body which produces them — are the first correspondences for the Three Sisters we have available: AAXASA is composed of MĀ’s feet and given ownership of that which is solid; LUDIŽA is made of MĀ’s midsection and given dominion over the liquid state of matter; and, finally, the HEHENA is portioned from MĀ’s arms and chest, ruling over the gaseous state. Though not said explicitly, these “ownerships” are a testament to each Sister’s character. Following in “birth” order and as they approach the realm of humanity, they take on further characteristics:

AAXASA is stubborn, unyielding, firmly planted; she is the eldest (after MARAKALA) and is quick to take leadership over her Sisters.

LUDIŽA is second-eldest, though is not one to commandeer as might her elder Sister; akin to the state over which she is assigned ownership, LUDIŽA is fluid, malleable, but typically of a reserved humor. She is comprised of MĀ’s midsection and deals in — where humanity is concerned — emotionality and appetites of varying sorts.

HEHENA is the second-youngest and the most “liberated” of the Three Sisters; she is unbound, the most easy-going and so, too, the most flighty; she can be difficult to pin down and bucks imposition.

Those familiar with the classical elements and their characterizations will surely recognize a congruence here whereby the Three Sisters represent Earth, Water and Air respectively. These interpretations can be useful in grappling for a fundamental understanding of their character, but should be considered neither wholly representative nor perfectly analogous. In fact, even their ownership of their respective states only hints at their character and does not and could not capture the vastness and contradictions that exist within each Sister, much less between each.

[A reminder: these Forces, though referred to by name, in the singular and in the feminine, exist far beyond comprehension. They exist beyond elements, beyond states, beyond character and correspondence. These are things that must be applied to them for our collective understanding. These are things we will explore in greater detail later in this work, but it bears repeating here at their introduction.]

A final concern for this passage is the ultimate line: “This was what had been ordained.” We are witness to MARAKALA’s dismemberment of the body-MĀ. She is shown hacking, severing, creating Many from the One, which we will see repeated later. At this juncture, the Sisters are the most Whole, divided only into three (and four, if counting MARAKALA). But this final line tells of a plan, a Fate or Destiny for All that has been created. There is Reason, even if we — reader and writer alike — are not privy to it. There is method to madness, order to chaos, creation from destruction: all made real by MARAKALA’s mind and blade.

But MARAKALA was not finished. It was with MĀ’s hands that MARAKALA had dismembered Her, and, as such, they belonged to MĀ and MARAKALA in equal measure. MARAKALA used the blade first to sever the left hand and borne was RAKALA, who is and rules over Change and Transformation. Understanding Her Purpose right away, RAKALA stole the blade from MARAKALA’s right hand and severed it at the wrist. This hand, too, RAKALA claimed for Herself.

Finally, what parts remained of MĀ — her shed Blood, the Mysteries — MARAKALA devoured for fear that those Great Secrets might escape into the Nothing. To ensure this would never happen and that MĀ could not be Reunited ahead of the Thought/Dream’s conclusion, MARAKALA sealed up Her mouth never to Speak again. Thus, MARAKALA is the Keeper of the Mysteries and the one who ensures that their powers are kept in check by wielding them with Omniscience.

There is much to unpack in this passage, as both stanzas explore the multi-faceted nature and unknowable knowledge possessed by MARAKALA:

Firstly, born is the “first” and final Sister: RAKALA, given dominion over “change and transformation.” She is the Hands of MĀ which MARAKALA uses to “birth” the Three Sisters and all differentiation following her own. RAKALA is born equally of MĀ and MARAKALA, for her “true” birth was at the conception of Consciousness when MARAKALA took ownership of MĀ’s hands. She was only made distinct, however, when MARAKALA severed the Left Hand which then took for itself the Right. Her birth is testament to her nature as disciple of Consciousness, the Intercessor. She and MARAKALA are inextricably linked, whereby MARAKALA is the All-Potential and RAKALA the All-Kinetic. RAKALA is the Hand and MARAKALA its phantom-mover. It is due to RAKALA’s connection to MARAKALA that she is often "despised" by her Sisters and which informs her nature as Trickster — a topic that will, of course, be discussed in greater detail later.

In the second stanza, we are introduced to the Mysteries — or those things which defy categorization at the time of Creation. They are represented as MĀ’s “blood” and devoured by MARAKALA so as to prevent the disparate elements now-created from reuniting and returning Existence to Oneness. This implies — and it is shown later in the myth — that despite their forced separation, the pieces of MĀ by their very nature long to return to Oneness, to be Whole. If allowed to do so, though, the Thought/Dream would not reach its “conclusion.” The nature of that conclusion is unknown and unknowable, but as already established, there exists Reason for separation: even if that separation is more imagined than real.

Given their respective functions, MARAKALA and RAKALA exist omnipresently: the former being the Laws which govern existence and the latter the one who executes those same Laws. Even the smallest particles could not move without RAKALA’s intercession; without her all is Static; she is energy and all is energy. She and MARAKALA underlie all of existence and are thusly blind to the Illusion of separation, if even it is their role to maintain it.

Lastly, MARAKALA is assigned (or assigns herself) the “Keeper of the Mysteries.” The first mention is made regarding her Omniscience, but such follows directly the act of MARAKALA sealing her mouth so as never to “Speak again.” This is another testament to MARAKALA’s nature: she is the God-Conscious, “Keeper of the Mysteries,” who presides over and comprises the laws which govern the Thought/Dream/Illusion — and she is Silent. Again, this frames RAKALA’s function as Intercessor. Though not omniscient like MARAKALA, RAKALA is most closely aligned (and even entangled) with MARAKALA. While none might commune (directly) with MARAKALA, by nature of her station, RAKALA is closest of all forces to Omniscience due to her proximity to and interconnectedness with MARAKALA. As stated earlier, “RAKALA is the hand and MARAKALA its phantom-mover.” But the hand is a curious thing, is it not? In working, it is never long before the Hand learns to move without Conscious-instruction, to complete what-is-to-be-completed without Thought.

The Three Sisters, newly born yet fully formed, were filled with anguish and terror: they had never been apart and the space between them felt untenable. Each reached out a Hand for Her Sister, but when they touched, MARAKALA spoke through RAKALA and the cacophonous force shook their every fiber. Each was broken into innumerable pieces, all of which were sent careening into the arms of OMĀ.

In the Nothing, those pieces clung to one another, taking on new, collective shapes. In time, the Sisters forgot they had been thrown apart, for they found elements of one another and began to feel Whole again. But neither MARAKALA or RAKALA felt detached like the others, for they are One and they exist in the interstices of All.

And concerning the Sisters, their pieces made so many beautiful and terrible things.

Again, the desire of disparate Forces to return to Oneness is on display: the Three Sisters reach for one another and are met with violence. Each of them is shattered and sent “careening into the arms of OMĀ” by MARAKALA who “spoke through RAKALA.” This touches again on the dynamic entanglement of RAKALA and MARAKALA, but such has been suitably explored already in this introduction.

What is more interesting here is the violence with which the Sisters are dispatched. Conscious-creation (as opposed to the Unconscious-creation of MĀ from the Nothing) is framed as a destructive force. MARAKALA’s inception was the Thought/Dream and instantaneous action of beheading MĀ/herself, followed by the swift dismemberment of what remained. Thus far, Creation has meant division, but this begins to change in the second stanza:

The Sisters — “shattered into innumerable pieces” — are at last given the opportunity to reunite. They cling to one another, group, create new things all in accordance with the Laws of MARAKALA and by the Hand of RAKALA. This is a more familiar type of Creation: one which is additive and where things we might begin to recognize can and do take shape. The Sister-pieces join to create “many beautiful and terrible things” and so the Universe-of-Substance is born.

It is of them We are made. And the Earth, the Sun, the Moon: They are All things and MARAKALA unites them as Head of MĀ. This is how Everything came to be not as a singular One, but One divided — interconnected by Dream, by Thought, by Fate, but such is a reality often forgotten by those and that so far removed from Creation.

The final stanza builds upon what was established in the earlier selection:

By way of joining pieces, the Three Sisters, RAKALA and the Mysteries (though such is not expressed directly) compose our Universe-of-Substance: atoms, elements, etc. All is MĀ: divided, yet ever-interconnected: a concept which will be explored later in this work upon a closer examination of the figures/Forces introduced here. Even still, I am sure it will fail to capture the complexity and mystery of this concept. I cannot provide all the answers because I have not been given them, I have not been shown them: such is why I am writing this, to pique the interest of fellow-seekers who might explore further or in ways I neither could nor would.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

UEFI hacking malware

Security researchers are alarmed: the already-notorious Trickbot malware has been spottied probing infected computers to find out which version of UEFI they're running. This is read as evidence that Trickbot has figured out how to pull off a really scary feat.

To understand why, you have to understand UEFI: a fascinating, deep, philosophical change to our view of computers, trust, and the knowability of the universe. It's a tale of hard choices, paternalism, and the race to secure the digital realm as it merges with the physical.

Computers were once standalone: a central processing unit that might be augmented by some co-processors for specialized processes, like a graphics card or even a math co-processor.

These co-pros were subordinate to the CPU though. You'd turn on the computer and it would read a very small set of hardcoded instructions telling it how to access a floppy disk or other storage medium for the rest of the boot sequence, the stuff needed to boot the system.

The hardwired instructions were in a ROM that had one job: wake up and feed some instructions to the "computer" telling it what to do, then go back to sleep. But there's a philosophical conundrum here.

Because the world of computing is adversarial and networked computing is doubly so: there are people who want your computer to do things that are antithetical to your interests, like steal your data or spy on you or encrypt all your files and demand ransom.

To stop this, you need to be able to examine the programs running on your computer and terminate the malicious ones. And therein lies the rub: when you instruct your computer to examine its own workings, how do you know if you can trust it?

In 1983, Ken Thompson (co-creator of C, Unix, etc) was awarded a Turing Award ("computer science's Nobel Prize"). He gave a fucking bombshell of an acceptance speech, called "Reflections on Trusting Trust."

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf

Thompson revealed that he had created a backdoor for himself that didn't just live in Unix, but in the C compiler that people made to create new Unix systems.

Here's what that means: when you write a program, you produce "high-level code" with instructions like "printf("Hello, World!");". Once your program is done, you turn it into machine code, a series of much shorter instructions that your CPU understands ("mov  dx, msg" etc).

Most programmers can't read this machine code, and even for those who can, it's a hard slog. In general, we write our code, compile it and run it, but we don't examine it. With nontrivial programs, looking at the machine code is very, very hard.

Compilers are treated as intrinsically trustworthy. Give 'em some source, they spit out a binary, you run the binary. Sometimes there are compiler bugs, sure, and compiler improvements can be a big deal. But compilers are infrastructure: inscrutable and forgotten.

Here's what Thompson did: he hid a program in his compiler that would check to see whether you were compiling an operating system or a compiler. If you were compiling an OS, it hid a secret login for him inside of it.

If you were compiling a compiler, it hid the program that looked for compilers or operating systems inside of it.

Think about what this means: every OS you compiled had an intentional security defect that the OS itself couldn't detect.

If you suspected that your compiler was up to no good and wrote your own compiler, it would be compromised as soon as you compiled it. What Thompson did was ask us to contemplate what we meant when we "trusted" something.

It was a move straight out of Rene Descartes, the reasoning that leads up to "I think therefore I am." Descartes' "Discourse on the Method" asks how we can know things about the universe.

He points out that sometimes he thinks he senses something but is wrong - he dreams, he hallucinates, he misapprehends.

If all our reasoning depends on the impressions we get from our senses, and if our senses are sometimes faulty, how can we reason at all?

Descartes wants a point of certainty, one thing he *knows* to be absolutely true. He makes the case that if you can be certain of one thing, you can anchor everything else to this point and build up a massive edifice of trustable knowledge that all hangs off of this anchor.

Thompson is basically saying, "You thought you had descartesed your way into a trustable computing universe because of the axiom that I would never poison your lowest-level, most fundamental tools.

"*Wrong*.

"Bwahahahaha."

(But, you know, in a nice way: an object lesson to serve as a wake-up call before computers fully merged with the physical world to form a global, species-wide digital nervous system whose untrustworthy low-level parts were foolishly, implicitly trusted).

But processors were expensive and computers were exploding. PCs running consumer operating systems like Windows and Mac OS (and more exotic ones like GNU/Linux and various Unices) proliferated, and they all shared this flawed security model.

They all relied on the operating system to be a faithful reporter of the computer's internals, and operated on the assumption that they could use programs supervised by the OS to detect and terminate malicious programs.

But starting in 1999, Ken Thompson's revenge was visited upon the computing world. Greg Hoglund released Ntrootkit, a proof-of-concept malware that attacked Windows itself, so that the operating system would lie to antivirus programs about what it was doing and seeing.

In Decartesspeak, your computer could no longer trust its senses, so it could no longer reason. The nub of trust, the piton driven into the mountainface, was made insecure and the whole thing collapsed. Security researchers at big companies like Microsoft took this to heart.

In 2002, Peter Biddle and his team from Microsoft came to EFF to show us a new model for computing: "Trusted Computing" (codenamed "Palladium").

https://web.archive.org/web/20020805211111/https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2002/jul02/0724palladiumwp.asp

Palladium proposed to give computers back their nub of Descartesian certainty. It would use a co-processor, but unlike a graphics card or a math co-pro, it would run before the CPU woke up and did its thing.

And unlike a ROM, it wouldn't just load up the boot sequence and go back to sleep.

This chip - today called a "Secure Enclave" or a "Trusted Platform Module" (etc) - would have real computing power, and it would remain available to the CPU at all times.

Inside the chip was a bunch of cool cryptographic stuff that provided the nub of certainty. At the start of the boot, the TPM would pull the first stages of the boot-code off of the drive, along with a cryptographic signature.

A quick crypto aside:

Crypto is code that mixes a key (a secret known to the user) with text to produce a scrambled text (a "ciphertext") that can only be descrambled by the key.

Dual-key crypto has two keys. What one scrambles, the other descrambles (and vice-versa).

With dual-key crypto, you keep one key secret (the "private key") and you publish the other one (the "public key"). If you scramble something with a private key, then anyone can descramble it with your public key and know it came from you.

If you scramble it *twice*, first with your private key and then with your friend's public key, then they can tell it came from you (because only your private key's ciphertexts can be descrambled with your public key).

And *you* can be certain that only they can read it (because only their private key can descramble messages that were scrambled with their public key).

Code-signing uses dual-key crypto to validate who published some code.

Microsoft can make a shorter version of its code (like a fingerprint) and then you scramble it with its private key. The OS that came with your computer has a copy of MSFT's public key. When you get an OS update, you can descramble the fingerprint with that built-in key.

If it matches the update, then you know that Microsoft signed it and it hasn't been tampered with on its way to you. If you trust Microsoft, you can run the update.

But...What if a virus replaces Microsoft's public keys with its own?

That's where Palladium's TPM comes in. It's got the keys hardcoded into it. Programs running on the CPU can only ask the TPM to do very limited things like ask it to sign some text, or to check the signature on some text.

It's a kind of god-chip, running below the most privileged level of user-accessible operations. By design, you - the owner of the computer - can demand things of it that it is technically capable of doing, and it can refuse you, and you can't override it.

That way, programs running even in the most privileged mode can't compromise it.

Back to our boot sequence: the TPM fetches some startup code from the disk along with a signature, and checks to see whether the OS has been signed by its manufacturer.

If not, it halts and shows you a scary error message. Game over, Ken Thompson!

It is a very cool idea, but it's also very scary, because the chip doesn't take orders from Descartes' omnibenevolent God.

It takes orders from Microsoft, a rapacious monopolist with a history of complicity with human rights abuses. Right from that very first meeting the brilliant EFF technologist Seth Schoen spotted this (and made the Descartes comparison):

https://web.archive.org/web/20021004125515/http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/2002-07-05.html

Seth identified a way of having your cake and eating it too: he proposed a hypothetical thing called an "owner override" - a physical switch that, when depressed, could be used to change which public keys lived in the chip.

This would allow owners of computers to decide who they trusted and would defend them against malware. But what it *wouldn't* do is defend tech companies shareholders against the owner of the computer - it wouldn't facilitate DRM.

"Owner override" is a litmus test: are you Descartes' God, or Thompson's Satan?

Do you want computers to allow their owners to know the truth? Or do you want computers to bluepill their owners, lock them in a matrix where you get to decide what is true?

A month later, I published a multi-award-winning sf story called "0wnz0red" in Salon that tried to dramatize the stakes here.

https://www.salon.com/2002/08/28/0wnz0red/

Despite Seth's technical clarity and my attempts at dramatization, owner override did not get incorporated into trusted computing architectures.

Trusted computing took years to become commonplace in PCs. In the interim, rootkits proliferated. Three years after the Palladium paper, Sony-BMG deliberately turned 6m audio CDs into rootkit vectors that would silently alter your OS when you played them from a CD drive.

The Sony rootkit broke your OS so that any filename starting with $SYS$ didn't show up in file listings, $SYS$ programs wouldn't show up in the process monitor. Accompanying the rootkit was a startup program (starting with $SYS$) that broke CD ripping.

Sony infected hundreds of thousands of US gov and mil networks. Malware authors - naturally enough - added $SYS$ to the files corresponding with their viruses, so that antivirus software (which depends on the OS for information about files and processes) couldn't detect it.

It was an incredibly reckless, depraved act, and it wasn't the last. Criminals, spies and corporations continued to produce rootkits to attack their adversaries (victims, rival states, customers) and trusted computing came to the rescue.

Today, trusted computing is widely used by the world's largest tech companies to force customers to use their app stores, their OSes, their printer ink, their spare parts. It's in medical implants, cars, tractors and kitchen appliances.

None of this stuff has an owner override. In 2012, I gave a talk to Google, Defcon and the Long Now Foundation about the crisis of owner override, called "The Coming Civil War Over General Purpose Computing."

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/08/23/the-coming-civil-war-over-general-purpose-computing/

It proposed a way that owner override, combined with trusted computing, could allow users to resist both state and corporate power, and it warned that a lack of technological self-determination opened the door to a parade of horribles.

Because once you have a system that is designed to override owners - and not the other way around - then anyone who commands that system can, by design, do things that the user can't discern or prevent.

This is the *real* trolley problem when it comes to autonomous vehicles: not "who should a car sacrifice in a dangerous situation?" but rather, "what happens when a car that is designed to sometimes kill its owner is compromised by Bad Guys?"

https://this.deakin.edu.au/self-improvement/car-wars

The thing is, trusted computing with an owner override is pretty magical. Take the Introspection Engine, a co-processor in a fancy Iphone case designed by Edward Snowden and Bunnie Huang. It's designed to catch otherwise undetectable mobile malware.

https://www.tjoe.org/pub/direct-radio-introspection/release/2

You see, your phone doesn't just run Ios or Android; the part that interfaces with the phone system - be baseband radio - runs an ancient, horribly insecure OS, and if it is infected, it can trick your phone's senses, so that it can no longer reason.

The Introspection Engine is a small circuit board that sandwiches between your phone's mainboard and its case, making electrical contact with all the systems that carry network traffic.

This daughterboard has a ribbon cable that snakes out of the SIM slot and into a slightly chunky phone case that has a little open source hardward chip with fully auditable code and an OLED display.

This second computer monitors the electrical signals traveling on the phone's network buses and tells you what's going on. This is a user-accessible god-chip, a way for you to know whether your phone is hallucinating when it tells you that it isn't leaking your data.

That's why it's called an "Introspection Engine." It lets your phone perch at an objective remove and understand how it is thinking.

(If all this sounds familiar, it's because it plays a major role in ATTACK SURFACE, the third Little Brother book)

https://attacksurface.com

The reason the Introspection Engine is so exciting is that it is exceptional. The standard model for trusted computing is that it treats everyone *except* the manufacturer as its adversary - including you, the owner of the device.

This opens up many different sets of risks, all of which have been obvious since 1999's Ntrootkit, and undeniable since 2005's Sony Rootkit.

I. The manufacturer might not have your interests at heart.

In 2016, HP shipped a fake security update to its printers, tricking users into installing a system that rejected their third-party ink, forcing them to pay monopoly prices for HP products.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

II. An insider at the company may not have your interests at heart.

Multiple "insider threat" attacks have been executed against users. Employees at AT&T, T-Mobile, even Roblox have accepted bribes to attack users on behalf of criminals.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj4ddw/hacker-bribed-roblox-insider-accessed-user-data-reset-passwords

III. A government may order the company to attack its users.

In 2017 Apple removed all working VPNs from its Chinese app stores, as part of the Chinese state's mass surveillance program (1m members of religious minorities were subsequently sent to concentration camps).

Apple's trusted computing prevents users from loading apps that aren't in its app stores, meaning that Apple's decisions about which apps you can run on your Iphone are binding on you, even if you disagree.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-vpn/apple-says-it-is-removing-vpn-services-from-china-app-store-idUSKBN1AE0BQ

IV. Third parties may exploit a defect in the trusted computing system and attack users in undetectable ways that users can't prevent.

By design, TPMs can't be field updated, so if there's a defect in them, it can't be patched.

Checkm8 exploits a defect in eight generations Apple's mobile TPM. It's a proof-of-concept released to demonstrate a vulnerability, not malware (thankfully).

https://checkm8.info/

But there have been scattered, frightening instances of malware that attacks the TPM - that suborns the mind of God so that your computer ceases to be able to reason. To date, these have all been associated with state actors who used them surgicially.

State actors know that the efficacy of their cyberweapons is tied to secrecy: once a rival government knows that a system is vulnerable, they'll fix it or stop using it or put it behind a firewall, so these tools are typically used parsimoniously.

But criminals are a different matter (and now, at long last, we're coming back to Trickbot and UEFI) (thanks for hanging in there).

UEFI ("You-Eff-Ee") is a trusted computing that computer manufacturers use to prevent unauthorized OSes from running on the PCs they sell you.

Mostly, they use this to prevent malicious OSes from running on the hardware they manufacture, but there have been scattered instances of it being used for monopolistic purposes: to prevent you from replacing their OS with another one (usually a flavor of GNU/Linux).

UEFI is god-mode for your computer, and a compromise to it would be a Sony Rootkit event, but 15 years later, in a world where systems are more widespread and used for more critical applications from driving power-plants to handling multimillion-dollar transactions.

Trickbot is very sophisticated malware generally believed to be run by criminals, not a government. Like a lot of modern malware, there's a mechanism for updating it in the field with new capabilities - both attacks and defenses.

And Trickbot has been observed in the wild probing infected systems' UEFI. This leads security researchers to believe that Trickbot's authors have figured out how to compromise UEFI on some systems.

https://www.wired.com/story/trickbot-botnet-uefi-firmware/

Now, no one has actually observed UEFI being compromised, nor has anyone captured any UEFI-compromising Trickbot code. The thinking goes that Trickbot only downloads the UEFI code when it finds a vulnerable system.

Running in UEFI would make Trickbot largely undetectable and undeletable. Even wiping and restoring the OS wouldn't do it. Remember, TPMs are designed to be unpatchable and tamper-resistant. The physical hardware is designed to break forever if you try to swap it out.

If this is indeed what's going on, it's the first instance in which a trusted computing module was used to attack users by criminals (not governments or the manufacturer and its insiders). And Trickbot's owners are really bad people.

They've hired out to the North Korean state to steal from multinationals; they've installed ransomware in big companies, and while their footprint has waned, they once controlled 1,000,000 infected systems.

You can check your UEFI to see if it's vulnerable to tampering:

https://eclypsium.com/2019/10/23/protecting-system-firmware-storage/

and also determine whether it has been compromised:

https://eclypsium.com/2020/10/14/protecting-your-organizations-from-mosaicregressor-and-other-uefi-implants/

But this isn't the end, it's just getting started. As Seth Schoen warned us in 2002, the paternalistic mode of computing has a huge, Ken Thompson-shaped hole in it: it requires you trust the benevolence of a manufacturer, and, crucially, they know you don't have a choice.

If companies knew that you *could* alter whom you trusted, they would have to work to earn and keep your trust. If governments knew that ordering a company to compromise on TPMs, they'd understand that their targets would simply shift tactics if they made that order.

Some users would make foolish decisions about whom to trust, but they would also have recourse when a trusted system was revealed to be defective. This is a fight that's into its third decade, and the stakes have never been higher.

Sadly, we are no closer to owner override than we were in 2002.

[g-perla]

The ACOTAR Series is a Romantic/Gothic Horror Stage and Only Nesta Got the Memo

Not even SJM knows what’s going on.

Ok, this is going to seem off the rails but bear with me.

So I'm a big fan of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (top 5 books and all that jazz) and I was thinking about it because it deals with themes of the Other and the supernatural, Nature as Character, the overlap of the animalistic and human, blurring of established binaries...fun, Romantic shit like that. Interestingly, this overlaps with how SJM illustrates her world and characters a lot of the time, hence why I was considering it while working on my Nesta project. I’ve mentioned before that Nesta really gives me Byronic heroine vibes and that’s a character construct of precisely this literary tradition.

I started thinking about Heathcliff and Cathy and how they're ridiculously extra and just feel the most intense emotions towards each other but also towards literally everything (nothing half-assed ever, this is a Romantic novel after all). I then remembered how so many people ship them, but like in earnest, in a totally aspirational way. It's not a #cursed ship to them at all. It's...romantic to them not Romantic. I even read often that people quote it at their weddings, specifically the infamous "two souls" quote.

Then I had an epiphany. I was like "wait, what if SJM is one of those people?? What if she has the energy of a Cathy/Heathcliff earnest shipper and that's why all her ships are messy??" Because if that is the case, my friends, oh boy oh boy would it explain so much. I will post some sections from Wuthering Heights:

Doesn’t the acotar series seem like a 1/50 dilution of that energy?? And that is barely a taste of all the spiciness this book has to offer. To illustrate further: SJM gave us the F/eysand suicide pact and the near-death battlefield Nessian scene. One is certainly more outlandish than the other, but both are the result of intense emotions. To that Emily Brontë raises the following: Heathcliff asking the sexton to dig up Cathy’s grave to see what’s up because her ghost has been haunting him since he personally dug up her grave 18 years prior and she has been haunting him ever since. He later demands to be buried in the same exact grave when he dies so they can decompose together. They both married other people though which only adds to the mess. (I am not lying to you the Romantic tradition really gave us these gems lmao. As an aside, Mary Shelley was also a writer of the Romantic tradition and she confessed her love to husband Percy Bysshe Shelley on her mother’s grave. Her mother was liberal feminist icon Mary Wollstonecraft by the way which only makes this even more amazing. Additionally, biographers believe that the Shelleys also had sex there. Talk about Romantic 😉.)

Then I had ANOTHER thought! (Dangerous)

If we read the series from the point of view of just another YA high fantasy things might get a bit boring because the world-building is honestly lazy and the magic system is pretty soft, which isn’t a pre-requisite in high fantasy (The Lord of the Rings has a soft magic system) but it's not the norm and it doesn't pay off in this series. Not to mention that the plot is pretty lackluster and derivative. To add to that the romantic and sexual relationships are questionable in their healthiness and consequently are the source of much argument in the fandom. 

But, dear reader, if we think about the ACOTAR series as being a sort of thematic and ideological 21st century YA homage to the Romantic tradition of the 19th century (within which Gothic Horror also lives), things get REALLY, REALLY SPICY.

No longer do we just have a romance fantasy with messy, hyper-emotional, animalistic characters who constantly partake in morally grey situations rife with dubious dynamics. No longer does plot really matter. No longer do we require quasi-scientific descriptions of the world and the magical system. No! All that matters now are the characters and the mood. Now we have potential! Add a lot of Nature ambiance: expanses of dark woods, great mountains, the unknowable and sublime energy of the ocean, a violent rainstorm/hurricane/tsunami, an impending snowstorm whose intensity reflects the growing emotional intensity of the characters as the story goes along (I’m looking at you impending snowstorm in acofas that curiously matches the growing complexity of Nesta’s emotional state). Blur the lines between any imaginable category: life and death, human and animal, known and unknown, Self and Other, beautiful and monstrous, good and evil, masculine and feminine, the list goes on. Most importantly make your readers uncomfortable by frustrating their desires to sort things into easy binary categories and don’t apologise for making them question their assumptions about the world, morality, gender, and any other kind of previously constructed Order. 

Basically write the story with Dionysus-in-a-Greek-tragedy energy and bring to us mere mortals artful Chaos.

Once that is done we can have a literal Romantic/Gothic Horror story.  The Acotar series could have been this unapologetically, with the added element of being told through the eyes of the "Cathy" character instead of through the lens of a third person getting second-hand accounts about what went on. This whole series is honestly enough of a chaotic mess of Byronic-like heroes and heroines and cursed familial relationships that it could have been that. That alone is peak entertainment. The problem, however, and the main reason why I can’t really say that this series truly delivered this wackiness is that SJM committed the act of not fully committing to the bit (very un-Romantic of her, I know). Now, I am not saying that SJM actually intended this. I’m just saying it really could have accidentally been this genius with some tweaks. Unfortunately, she made the crucial mistake of trying to justify too much, trying to make things too neat, too tidy, too sensical (in other words: the reason we really can’t have nice things). 

I could end this here, lamenting the potential of what SJM had set-up for us were it not for one element, one gift:

Nesta 

OHOHOHO DO THINGS GET GOOD HERE SO BUCKLE UP

Most of the characters refuse to fully commit to the bit in their desire to satisfy modern sensibilities, by which I of course mean they want ridiculous things like political power, to conquer lands, to be a Girl Boss, to get married, have kids, celebrate holidays, converse about mundane things, be relatable, etc. You know, pretty pedestrian stuff that only requires a bit of genetic luck, a sprinkle of energy, and the right circumstances within the world of Acotar. I would like to reiterate the beginning of this paragraph: most of the characters. 

Let’s say you’re stubborn and you decide to still read the series through the lens of the Romantic/Gothic tradition, what happens then? 

The most hilarious thing (for the Nesta stans that is. The antis would probably hate this)

Nesta, based on what we know about her through Feyre and the limited amount of other scenes, is the only character who really takes the performance seriously. She's the only one that SJM hasn't managed to confine through justification. Nesta just shows up and simply refuses to make sense (her POWER what a queen 👑). She is endlessly fascinating because she just exists in her world on her terms, established categories be damned, and in this manner she frustrates not only the sensibilities of the characters in the stories but those of the reader as well. This double duty is, I suggest, the result of the other characters not fully inhabiting the nebulous world of Romantic characters and thus being a little too plausible and understandable even if they are not justifiable. 

Ok, you may say, but I relate so much to Nesta. I do understand her. I don’t justify all of her actions, but I understand where she is coming from. (You’re not alone, friend. I like to think these things too. Alas, we are but plebs).

To that I reply; Nesta does things, certainly, and we can spend hours trying to explain through extrapolation, educated guesses, and personal experience why she did those things, but the fact is we really don't know why. We are never explicitly told. Our insight into who she is and her motivations comes predominantly from the understanding of her youngest sister and from our own interpretation of the actions she takes. I must make clear that our own interpretations are rooted in pre-established assumptions about what is sensical and orderly in our own world and in our own lives. We cannot interpret with the tools available to us that which may be, by definition, unfathomable. It is simply paradoxical. Nesta, as we currently know her, is a construct derived from a limited number of scenes and our interpretations and projections of these scenes. Even the scenes where we get third person narration don’t explicitly tell us her motivations and her logic. For all we know there really is no comprehensible reason for her actions and that is endlessly amusing to me in how utterly Romantic it is. Acosf may and likely will change this of course, but as it stands, Nesta is a whole Romantic character. Her divisiveness in fandom and in the narrative could be due in part to her refusal to fit the discrete categories available in her world and ours. 

Isn’t that wonderful?

To illustrate this a bit more I will share some details SJM gives us about her/ elements she sets up that fit in with the characteristics of the Romantic tradition (these are not exhaustive by any means):

The absolute pettiness (and extra-ness) of being so angry at her father’s inaction that she is willing to starve to death to see if he does something.

How in Acowae she is described as shifting between emotions as if she were changing clothes and feeling everything too strongly (probably to the point of destruction)

She is constantly being compared to animals, even when she is still human. Granted, SJM compares everyone to animals, but that strengthens the blurring of lines between usually discrete categories. It is still most powerful when used as a comparison when she is human because it dehumanises Nesta.

Often, SJM describes her characters as forces. Forces of nature, for example. Acofas is full of details like this in relation to Nesta. There is a storm brewing leading up to the solstice party and it is in full swing when she arrives at the townhouse. The language used there suggests that Nesta herself may be the storm (against the onslaught of Nesta). It really adds to the Maleficent energy tbh.

She is often associated with death post her transformation

She is Other even to Others. She was Made like Elain, Feyre, and Amren in a sense, but the process of her specific transformation differentiates her greatly from the others. As it is, she doesn’t fit in anywhere

Her intense attachment to her femininity and its expression are at odds with the ideas and assumptions about the performance of womanhood and a woman’s role in her world and even in ours. She is unapologetically feminine in her physical presentation, but her character, her thoughts, and possibly even desires transgress the unwritten rules of acceptable femininity (unfortunately there still are abject expressions of femininity in our ‘”progressive” mileux

She displays in many of her actions a disrespect towards authority and to the status quo. This is particularly notable when her intensely polarised sense of right and wrong is aggravated.

Her self-destructiveness. This is referred to most strongly in Acofas, but I would say she was remarkably blasé about self-preservation in Acowar as well

She is described as intelligent, cunning, ruthless, attractive, and prone to debilitating extremes of emotionality. All of these are characteristics of Byronic heroes, a subtype of the Romantic hero

Here are a bunch of quotes that touch on many of the elements that I have discussed above:

“I looked at my sister, really looked at her, at this woman who couldn’t stomach the sycophants who now surrounded her, who had never spent a day in the forest but had gone into wolf territory...Who had shrouded the loss of our Mother, then our downfall, because the anger had been a lifeline, the cruelty a release. But she had cared--beneath it she had cared, and perhaps loved more fiercely than I could comprehend, more deeply and loyally.” 

--Acotar, emphasis mine, note the strong emotions. This is a recurring element for Nesta.

“Cassian’s face went almost feral. A wolf who had been circling a doe...Only to find a mountain cat wearing its hide instead.” 

--Acomaf, animal comparison

“Nesta is different from most people,” I explained. “She comes across as rigid and vicious, but I think it’s a wall. A shield--like the ones Rhys has in his mind.” “Against what?” “Feeling. I think Nesta feels everything--sees too much; sees and feels it all. And she burns with it. Keeping that wall up helps from being overwhelmed, from caring too greatly.”

--Acomaf, emphasis mine

“I knew that she was different [...] Nesta was different [...] as if the Cauldron in making her...had been forced to give more than it wanted. As if Nesta had fought after she went under, and had decided that if she was to be dragged into hell, she was taking the Cauldron with her.”

--Acomaf, Nesta had her own plans for the Cauldron what a queen

“Something great and terrible.”

--Acowar, referring to her eyes. Oooh, spooky Nesta 👻

“The day she was changed, she...I felt something different with her [...] like looking at a house cat and suddenly finding a panther standing there instead.”

--Acowar, a two in one here: difference + animal comparison. Boy does SJM really go heavy when establishing Nesta as Other.

“‘Not in flesh, not in the thing that prowls beneath our skin and bones...’ Amren’s remarkable eyes narrowed. ‘But...I see the kernel, girl.’ Amren nodded, more to herself than anyone. ‘You did not fit--the mold that they shoved you into. The path you were born upon and forced to walk. You tried, and yet you did not, could not fit. And then the path changed.’ A little nod. ‘I know--what it is to be that way. I remember it, long ago as it was.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’“

--Acowar, show don’t tell gets thrown out the window here, but it is useful for the present purposes

“What if I tell you that the rock and darkness and sea beyond whispered to me, Lord of Bloodshed? How they shuddered in fear, on that island across the sea. How they trembled when she emerged. She took something--something precious. She ripped it out with her teeth. What did you wake that day in Hybern, Prince of Bastards?

What came out was not what went in [...] How lovely she is, new as a fawn and yet ancient as the sea. How she calls to you. A queen as my sister once was. Terrible and proud; beautiful as a winter’s sunrise.”

--Acowar, who knew rocks, darkness, and the sea were such gossips, but look how many connections to nature! To be compared to the sea, a significant example of the sublime, is peak Romanticism. If any of you have read Moby Dick, think about what the ocean and the white whale might have represented there and how that might relate to Nesta.

“I think the power is death--death made flesh.”

--Acowar, Feyre referring to the possible nature of Nesta’s power. Alluding to her powers possibly being related to death is quite significant because that is something most of us cannot comprehend, nor can most of the characters. For Nesta, a “reborn” but very much living character to have death associated with her is a strong blurring of the lines. The case of her being labelled a witch is similarly significant as it solidifies the elements of the supernatural while simultaneously comparing her to pretty much the only exclusively female-coded monster in western pop culture. I will touch more on this when I do my study of Nesta through the framework of Barbara Creed’s Monstrous Feminine.

“I am not like the others.”

--Acowar, we love a self-aware queen.

“Nesta took in his broken body, the pain in Cassian’s eyes, and angled her head.

The movement was not human.

Not fae.

Purely animal.

Purely predator.”

--Acowar

There are a lot more details and quotes that support this interpretation, but I didn’t write them all down in my archived notes. This post is obscenely long, however, so even though there is more to be said, I’ll leave it for another day. If you made it this far you really are an MVP and probably love Nesta to a concerning degree like me. Please rest your eyes if you’re actually reading this 😂

I’d love to read about any other takes and thoughts that might have come to your minds after reading this monstrosity,

G