#[ 2023/09/12 - graphic added :D ]

[fluxrspar]

Pinned

fluxrspar - Selena of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. adored by kano (they/it/he)

mobile header and pinned post graphic by the beloved elysia!!

Mobile Links:

muse / mun / stats / interview / affiliation

Other Muses:

linhardt (@pridelessdaydreamer) / valter (@knighteclipsed)

Portrayal Notes:

Selena is taken from after the events of Sacred Stones. She died in Chapter 13 of Ephraim’s route, and this troubles her greatly.

(READ THE BELOW BULLET POINT) She is an unaffiliated magic instructor, but she’ll most often be acting as a substitute teacher rather than an instructor of her own. If a student needs extra assistance/tutoring though, she is more than happy to help, regardless of whether they’ve met before.

UPDATE AS OF 2024/03/25: Selena is currently a Golden Deer professor, and although she will still fulfill the roles of substitute, tutor, and seminar-giver as necessary, she does full-on have her own classes now and will be handling that work primarily. Leaving the old bullet point as reference for older interactions + transparency with regards to her history here, but it is no longer accurate to the present.

While her internal monologue will still include it (and she will respond to anyone who refers to her as such), Selena will not be telling new people about her former Fluorspar title or that she was once a highly-ranked general. No longer serving Emperor Vigarde, she doesn’t quite feel like she deserves it.

On a similar note, anytime Selena speaks of her military history, the details will be kept non-specific. She was commander for a while in a nation overseas, yes, but she won’t admit to being of the most competent and/or well-known.

Oh, and she's a trans lesbian. Forgot to include this at first haha.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A year in illustration, 2023 edition (part one)

(This is part one; part two is here.)

I am objectively very bad at visual art. I am bad at vision, period – I'm astigmatic, shortsighted, color blind, and often miss visual details others see. I can't even draw a stick-figure. To top things off, I have cataracts in both eyes and my book publishing/touring schedule is so intense that I keep having to reschedule the surgeries. But despite my vast visual deficits, I thoroughly enjoy making collages for this blog.

For many years now – decades – I've been illustrating my blog posts by mixing public domain and Creative Commons art with work that I can make a good fair use case for. As bad as art as I may be, all this practice has paid off. Call it unseemly, but I think I'm turning out some terrific illustrations – not all the time, but often enough.

Last year, I rounded up my best art of the year:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/25/a-year-in-illustration/

And I liked reflecting on the year's art so much, I decided I'd do it again. Be sure to scroll to the bottom for some downloadables – freely usable images that I painstakingly cut up with the lasso tool in The Gimp.

The original AD&D hardcover cover art is seared into my psyche. For several years, there were few images I looked at so closely as these. When Hasbro pulled some world-beatingly sleazy stuff with the Open Gaming License, I knew just how to mod Dave Trampier's 'Eve Of Moloch' from the cover of the Players' Handbook. Thankfully, bigger nerds than me have identified all the fonts in the image, making the remix a doddle.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/12/beg-forgiveness-ask-permission/#whats-a-copyright-exception

Even though I don't keep logs or collect any analytics, I can say with confidence that "Tiktok's Enshittification" was the most popular thing I published on Pluralistic this year. I mixed some public domain Brother's Grimm art, mixed with a classic caricature of Boss Tweed, and some very cheesy royalty-free/open access influencer graphics. One gingerbread cottage social media trap, coming up:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

To illustrate the idea of overcoming walking-the-plank fear (as a metaphor for writing when it feels like you suck) I mixed public domain stock of a plank, a high building and legs, along with a procedurally generated Matrix "code waterfall" and a vertiginous spiral ganked from a Heinz Bunse photo of a German office lobby.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/22/walking-the-plank/

Finding a tasteful way to illustrate a story about Johnson & Johnson losing a court case after it spent a generation tricking women into dusting their vulvas with asbestos-tainted talcum was a challenge. The tulip (featured in many public domain images) was a natural starting point. I mixed it with Jesse Wagstaff's image of a Burning Man dust-storm and Mike Mozart's shelf-shot of a J&J talcum bottle.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

"Google's Chatbot Panic" is about Google's long history of being stampeded into doing stupid things because its competitors are doing them. Once it was Yahoo, now it's Bing. Tenniel's Tweedle Dee and Dum were a good starting point. I mixed in one of several Humpty Dumpty editorial cartoon images from 19th century political coverage that I painstakingly cut out with the lasso tool on a long plane-ride. This is one of my favorite Humpties, I just love the little 19th C businessmen trying to keep him from falling! I finished it off with HAL 9000's glowing red eye, my standard 'this is about AI' image, which I got from Cryteria's CC-licensed SVG.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Though I started writing about Luddites in my January, 2022 Locus column, 2023 was the Year of the Luddite, thanks to Brian Merchant's outstanding Blood In the Machine:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

When it came time to illustrate "Gig Work Is the Opposite of Steampunk," I found a public domain weaver's loft, and put one of Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes in the window. Magpie Killjoy's Steampunk Magazine poster, 'Love the Machine, Hate the Factory,' completed the look.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/12/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk/

For the "small, non-profit school" that got used as an excuse to bail out Silicon Valley Bank, I brought back Humpty Dumpty, mixing him with a Hogwartsian castle, a brick wall texture, and an ornate, gilded frame. I love how this one came out. This Humpty was made for the SVB bailout.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/23/small-nonprofit-school/#north-country-school

The RESTRICT Act would have federally banned Tiktok – a proposal that was both technically unworkable and unconstitutional. I found an early 20th century editorial cartoon depicting Uncle Sam behind a fortress wall that was keeping a downtrodden refugee family out of America. I got rid of most of the family, giving the dad a Tiktok logo head, and I put Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes over each cannonmouth. Three Boss Tweed moneybag-head caricatures, adorned with Big Tech logos, rounded it out.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/30/tik-tok-tow/#good-politics-for-electoral-victories

When Flickr took decisive action to purge the copyleft trolls who'd been abusing its platform, I knew I wanted to illustrate this with Lucifer being cast out of heaven, and the very best one of those comes from John Milton, who is conveniently well in the public domain. The Flickr logo suggested a bicolored streaming-light-of-heaven motif that just made it.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/01/pixsynnussija/#pilkunnussija

Old mainframe ads are a great source of stock for a "Computer Says No" image. And Congress being a public building, there are lots of federal (and hence public domain) images of its facade.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/04/cbo-says-no/#wealth-tax

When I wrote about the Clarence Thomas/Harlan Crow bribery scandal, it was easy to find Mr. Kjetil Ree's great image of the Supreme Court building. Thomas being a federal judge, it was easy to find a government photo of his head, but it's impossible to find an image of him in robes at a decent resolution. Luckily, there are tons of other federal judges who've been photographed in their robes! Boss Tweed with the dollar-sign head was a great stand-in for Harlan Crow (no one knows what he looks like anyway). Gilding Thomas's robes was a simple matter of superimposing a gold texture and twiddling with the layers.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/06/clarence-thomas/#harlan-crow

"Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in wage-stealing Skinner boxes" is one of my best titles. This is the post where I introduce the idea of "twiddling" as part of the theory of enshittification, and explain how it relates to "reverse centaurs" – people who assist machines, rather than the other way around. Finding a CC licensed modular synth was much harder than I thought, but I found Stephen Drake's image and stitched it into a mandala. Cutting out the horse's head for the reverse centaur was a lot of work (manes are a huuuuge pain in the ass), but I love how his head sits on the public domain high-viz-wearing warehouse worker's body I cut up (thanks, OSHA!). Seeing as this is an horrors-of-automation story, Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes make an appearance.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Rockefeller's greatest contribution to our culture was inspiring many excellent unflattering caricatures. The IWW's many-fists-turning-into-one-fist image made it easy to have the collective might of workers toppling the original robber-baron.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

I link to this post explaining how to make good Mastodon threads at least once a week, so it's a good thing the graphic turned out so well. Close-cropping the threads from a public domain yarn tangle worked out great. Eugen Rochko's Mastodon logo was and is the only Affero-licensed image ever to appear on Pluralistic.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how-to-make-the-least-worst-mastodon-threads/

I spent hours on the sofa one night painstakingly cutting up and reassembling the cover art from a science fiction pulp. I have a folder full of color-corrected, high-rez scans from an 18th century anatomy textbook, and the cross-section head-and-brain is the best of the lot.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

Those old French anatomical drawings are an endless source of delight to me. Take one cross-sectioned noggin, mix in an old PC mainboard, and a vector art illo of a virtuous cycle with some of Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes and you've got a great illustration of Google's brain-worms.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/

Ireland's privacy regulator is but a plaything in Big Tech's hand, but it's goddamned hard to find an open-access Garda car. I manually dressed some public domain car art in Garda livery, painstakingly tracing it over the panels. The (public domain) baby's knit cap really hides the seams from replacing the baby's head with HAL9000's eye.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

Naked-guy-in-a-barrel bankruptcy images feel like something you can find in an old Collier's or Punch, but I came up snake-eyes and ended up frankensteining a naked body into a barrel for the George Washington crest on the Washington State flag. It came out well, but harvesting the body parts from old muscle-beach photos left George with some really big guns. I tried five different pairs of suspenders here before just drawing in black polyhedrons with little grey dots for rivets.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/03/when-the-tide-goes-out/#passive-income

Illustrating Amazon's dominance over the EU coulda been easy – just stick Amazon 'A's in place of the yellow stars that form a ring on the EU flag. So I decided to riff on Plutarch's Alexander, out of lands to conquer. Rama's statue legs were nice and high-rez. I had my choice of public domain ruin images, though it was harder thank expected to find a good Amazon box as a plinth for those broken-off legs.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/14/flywheel-shyster-and-flywheel/#unfulfilled-by-amazon

God help me, I could not stop playing with this image of a demon-haunted IoT car. All those reflections! The knife sticking out of the steering wheel, the multiple Munsch 'Scream'ers, etc etc. The more I patchked with it, the better it got, though. This one's a banger.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

To depict a "data-driven dictatorship," I ganked elements of heavily beribboned Russian military dress uniforms, replacing the head with HAL9000's eye. I turned the foreground into the crowds from the Nuremberg rallies and filled the sky with Matrix code waterfall.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/26/dictators-dilemma/#garbage-in-garbage-out-garbage-back-in

The best thing about analogizing DRM to demonic possession is the wealth of medieval artwork to choose from . This one comes from the 11th century 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros.' I mixed in the shiny red Tesla (working those reflections!), and a Tesla charger to make my point.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

Yet more dividends from those old French anatomical plates: a flayed skull, a detached jaw, a quack electronic gadget, a Wachowski code waterfall and some HAL 9000 eyes and you've got a truly unsettling image of machine-compelled speech.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

I had no idea this would work out so well, but daaaamn, crossfading between a Wachowski code waterfall and a motherboard behind a roiling thundercloud is dank af.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/03/there-is-no-cloud/#only-other-peoples-computers

Of all the turkeys-voting-for-Christmas self-owns conservative culture warriors fall for, few can rival the "banning junk fees is woke" hustle. Slap a US-flag Punisher logo on and old-time card imprinter, add a GOP logo to a red credit-card blank, and then throw in a rustic barn countertop and you've got a junk-fee extracter fit for the Cracker Barrel.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

Putting the Verizon logo on the Hinderberg was an obvious gambit (even if I did have to mess with the flames a lot), but the cutout of Paul Marcarelli as the 'can you hear me now?' guy, desaturated and contrast-matched, made it sing.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/10/smartest-guys-in-the-room/#can-you-hear-me-now

Note to self: Tux the Penguin is really easy to source in free/open formats! He looks great with HAL9000 eyes.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

Rockwell's self-portrait image is a classic; that made it a natural for a HAL9000-style remix about AI art. I put a bunch of time into chopping and remixing Rockwell's signature to give it that AI look, and added as many fingers as would fit on each hand.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

(Images: Heinz Bunse, West Midlands Police, Christopher Sessums, CC BY-SA 2.0; Mike Mozart, Jesse Wagstaff, Stephen Drake, Steve Jurvetson, syvwlch, Doc Searls, https://www.flickr.com/photos/mosaic36/14231376315, Chatham House, CC BY 2.0; Cryteria, CC BY 3.0; Mr. Kjetil Ree, Trevor Parscal, Rama, “Soldiers of Russia” Cultural Center, Russian Airborne Troops Press Service, CC BY-SA 3.0; Raimond Spekking, CC BY 4.0; Drahtlos, CC BY-SA 4.0; Eugen Rochko, Affero; modified)

[felixblankspace]

〔» •••〕 ↷ ❝ The Time Difference Saga ❞ ↺

────── ── ─ 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭 ψ(｀∇´)ψ ── ─ ──────

Summary:

Time Difference is going to be a series of fanfic(s) about (Rise) Leonardo Hamato / (UY) Miyamoto Usagi telling the story in two separate lines; Present, Future and a little twist. Present is more of a love story with a lot of fluff and a bit of angst. While Future is a more bittersweet love story with no emotional maturity to be reasonable and open with your feelings (?) In total the saga is going to have 3 fanfic(s) + extras and each fic is going to have a different content and is not going to be for everyone. I really like leosagi in the Miyamoto / Leonardo way and I will try to make the characters less ooc possible taking in consideration than this is a Rise oriented adaptation. I'm reading Usagi Yojimbo, theres changes in the canon timeline and basically de-age Usagi in order to make him more appropriate but, I make him live his early history at the age of 15 - 16 and in the present timeline he is 17 years old + he is a teen dad (and he does not know-) (he have his affair with Mariko post- adachihara btw) I really like how Usagi is in the comics and is gonna keep a lot of that. All TW and Ratings will be put in the respective fic but as a general recommendation please be at least 16 before reading the SWF fic and only +18 for anything else. This also will be in Spanish and English :D

── ─ ── ─ ━━━━━━━━╰☆╮━━━━━━━━ ── ─ ── ─

────── ── ─ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐜(𝐬)(❁´◡`❁) ── ─ ──────

Now we move to the fanfics and its states of progress （￣︶￣）↗　

This is work in process please be patient with me (?

Time Difference - Diferencia Horaria

Status: Published - COMPLETED (unedited)

Rating: Teen And Up Audience ( +16 Recommended )

Art: TDS Art - Tag

(*) More Tags Will be Added

Chapters:

01 .- A New Place - Un nuevo Lugar 02.- The Turtle and The Rabbit - La Tortuga y el Conejo 03.- Meditation - Meditación  04.- You Need to Sleep! - ¡Necesitas dormir! 05.- Meeting the Family - Conociendo a la Familia 06.- Pizza! - Pizza! 07.- Samurai Tourist (or something like that) - Samurai Turista (o algo así) 08.- Being Together - Estando Juntos 09.- Not so Many Explanations - No hay Muchas Explicaciones  10.- Usagi Adventures (and Drunken Fellings)  - Aventuras con Usagi (y Sentimientos en Alcohol) 11.- I missed you  - Te extrañe 12.- Us and I - Nosotros y yo  13.- A Glimpse into the Past (or the Future, it's up to you) - Un vistazo al Pasado (o al futuro, depende de ti) 14.- Shared Feelings - Sentimientos Compartidos 15.- As you Are - Tal y como estas 16.- Our life Together - Nuestra Vida Juntos 

Extras (It can have explicit content, please read the tags):

1.- I Waited a Lot - Espere Demasiado 🔞

If One Of Us Die - Si Uno de Nosotros Muere

Status: In Process (unpublished)

Rating: Explicit (+18 Only)

TW: Graphic Depictions Of Violence - Canon Major Character Death - Explicit Sex Descriptions

· · ─────── ·No Fic for now· ─────── · ·

Chapters:

In Process

Horny Extras:

In Process actually (?

Ready Now - Estamos Listos

Status: Not Started (in planning)

Rating: Mature & Explicit (in a more funny manner idk) (+18 Only)

TW: Explicit Sex Descriptions

· · ─────── ·No Fic for now· ─────── · ·

Chapters:

Nothing for Now... (∪.∪ )...zzz

────── ── ─ This is Over for Now ── ─ ──────

Latest update: 03/09/2023

[mwsa-member]

Dispatches Magazine, Request for Quote (RFQ) September 2023

MWSA is seeking viable candidates for copyediting and layout services for the 2024 editions of Dispatches magazine. See the details below.

The Military Writers Society of America (MWSA) is soliciting price quotes for Dispatches magazine

Opening Date: 09/05/23 | Closing Date: 10/14/23

Scope of Work: Scope of Work: MWSA Dispatches Magazine: Copyediting, Layout, Design, Publication, Distribution, and Marketing Support.

Period of Performance: 10/16/2023 – 11/20/2024. This includes four issues of the magazine to be published: 04/15/2024, 07/15/2024, 10/15/2024, and 01/15/2024.

Option Years. At the Sole discretion of the MWSA Board of Directors, this contract may be extended for a total of not more than three option years. If an Option Year is exercised, it will include a maximum of a 2.5% inflation rate.

    Option Year 1: November 2024 – November 2025

    Option Year 2: November 2025 – November 2026

    Option Year 3: November 2026 – November 2027

 About MWSA

MWSA is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation to support military writers. The purposes of the organization are to help military service members, veterans, their families, supporters, and historians record history and the complexities of military life, and to encourage writing as therapy. The organization focuses on using the writing of MWSA members to educate the general public, students, and the military community.

Contract Performance Work Statement for MWSA Dispatches Magazine

This MWSA Request For Quote (RFQ) seeks a Price Quote and relevant experience qualifiers from knowledgeable individuals and businesses to become a compensated provider, working with MWSA volunteers to provide services to compile, format, edit, publish, and market MWSA 2024 Dispatches magazines. Specific services will include:

1.     Work with the MWSA Publication Chair/Editor-In-Chief and other volunteers to produce the MWSA quarterly Dispatches magazine. 2.     Produce magazine softcopy, providing copyediting and layout and design services 3.     Provide eMagazine layout and design 4.     Provide eBook layout and design (as needed) 5.     License and supply graphic content (as needed) 6.     Photo restoration (as needed) 7. High-resolution image conversion (as needed) 8.     Provide cover art design for MWSA approval. 9.     Supply complete versions for review and approval to MWSA Publications Chair a.      PDF for print version b.     PDF for eBook w/embedded cover version (as needed) c.      PDF w/cover for eMagazine version 10.  Provide upload to the Print house for distribution. a.      Amazon/KDP b.     Ingram (as needed) 11.  After Publication Marketing a.      Provide cover art jpgs of hi-res and web for MWSA IT/Social Media b.     Supply designs, jpgs, pngs, PDFs as requested for marketing via IT/social media marketing 12.  Set up MWSA sales account through Print house. a.      Ensure all sales royalties are paid directly to the MWSA Treasurer b.     Ensure all ad royalties are paid directly to the MWSA Treasurer c.      Ensure control by MWSA board over title (active or retired) d.     Changes to document (as needed) in case of misprint or error 13.  Provide quarterly royalties statements to MWSA Treasurer as requested. a.      Note: No royalty or administrative costs will be retained by the contractor. All proceeds from sales after print cost will be paid directly to MWSA. Contractor will provide documentation of such upon request. 14.  Offerors will provide all names of individuals who will support this effort. Updates to names shall be provided to the MWSA Publications Chair throughout the period of performance. 15.  This effort can be canceled at any time for the good of MWSA. Offerors may terminate after thirty days’ written notice.

Please provide Price Quote for this project including the following:

16. Examples of experience with similar projects in the past five years.

17. Two work reference points of contact (name, email, and phone number).

Email proposals to the MWSA Contacts listed below by 10/14/23.

MWSA Contact:

Gary Zelinski, MWSA Publications Chair. communications@mwsa.co