#DEF CON

[mikalkhill]

I was thinking about it earlier and I have contributed music (either as a performer or producer) to every soundtrack since DEF CON 24. Some songs are only available on those soundtracks, but I've compiled the fourteen that are available on streaming here:

[dataframe-daze]

Won a Katawa Shoujo art book on eBay plus pins. Was bidding on it in the middle of Hacker Jeopardy at Def Con LOL

[bleghablah]

damn, the badge drama. not that I've ever been able to afford a def con badge, but now I can say I don't have one with a sense of moral superiority instead of disappointment lol

[robpegoraro]

Weekly output: Windows apps on ARM chips, Zoom terms of service, Google upgrades RCS encryption, DARPA AI Cyber Challenge, Defender-Pretender hack, Tesla seat-warmer hack, CISA security advice, This Week in Tech

In an alternate universe, I could have had another two or three posts with Las Vegas datelines on this list. But I opted not to stick around the city for DEF CON after wrapping up my Black Hat coverage Thursday night–in part because the cost for the badge hit $440 this year, but also because I didn’t want to delay downtime with my family in the Bay Area. Speaking of that information-security…

[valkyrie364]

MONSTER CON CAME OUT!!! Heres a doodle of Zoe dressed as Chilchuck cause same va :)

[milkbreadtoast]

idk how i want to draw him yet and not ready to make a srs attempt but here's a bad kdj phone doodle lol🚶🏻

[pianta]

“no challenge can stand up to Adalia de Volador!” ⚔ en garde! is out now on steam!! 🤺💕

[alicenpai]

my first time ever drawing zelda i think!!! apparently i never uploaded these here and i needed to remedy that. zoldo doodlz from 2021

this was the original pic posted on twitter 2 years back. when i was inactive on tumblr. smh. i didnt know whether or not the same formatting was better, but i decided to separate the 2 zoldos so that you could see the details better up close idk.

[neatnete]

THINKING ABOUT SHIZUN.........

[zephyrine-gale]

Hello, dear zephyrine! I really love your art and style, thank you for existing (つ･･)つ

I wanted to know if you are familiar with the musical Epic?"

omg?? you've activated a sleeper agent bc epic the musical was my most played playlist on spotify last year im so normal for epic

I have a whole playlist of favorite animatics... and circe and thunder saga are my favs!

[maalidoesart]

mdzs bunnies!!! part 1

[mikalkhill]

I had to cancel my trip but I'm there in spirit as the new DEF CON soundtrack is out and features myself and Dual Core's int eighty (The TroubleShooters). The song is from our album Production and available on Bandcamp or wherever you stream or steal your music. Check it out and add us to your hacking playlists, plz.

[grey-tones]

Plant makeup test 🌿✨️

[muxas-world2]

MOTHER IS SERVING

[vynxwave]

12 for Soundwave, 25 for Starscream?

[Ask Game!]

12. If you could write effortlessly and as much as you wanted, what stor(y/ies) would you write for this character?

Glancing at my notes, I apparently have more art ideas than writing ideas that could be shared here.

For Soundwave, in general, I think it'd be interesting to delve into his surveillant nature — as in, his monitoring of others and keeping of secrets/information and the way he does all this to his own benefit (including manipulating and deceiving others). If he's not the POV character but another Decepticon is, it'd be cool to lean into a more unknowable, inscrutable portrayal of him — dig into the way other Decepticons fear/dislike him and their paranoia of his surveillance (maybe almost as if he's like some kind of bogeyman of the Decepticons).

Most stories I think of with Soundwave also involve Megatron, due to me shipping them. Most would likely be reflective of how I described them here.

For EarthSpark MegaSound, I seem to quite like delving into Soundwave's anger/embitterment over Megatron switching sides. The premise for that I definitely shared here — that writing in particular I doubt I'll finish due to wanting to rewrite/revise a lot of it (and it's like 10k words), so I'll more than likely just move onto other things xD. One thing I might be interested in is lovers to enemies (read: word order) although I've never really read much fitting this or written for it — by this I mean love progressively decaying into genuine hatred for all the other stands for, with no warmth left. The linked writing, although I never finished writing it proper, would not end with Soundwave accepting Megatron for who he is now x). (I do have a couple of endings roughly written, but they'd only feel right with the context of the full writing haha.)

I glanced over my Google Docs and apparently I've written like 5ish different things with Soundwave (although all incomplete, with the longest being 13k words and others being much less than that) (next things aren't those).

I've thought of a short story following the Decepticons winning a battle against the Autobots, but it's too bare-bones of an idea to share much of.

I've thought of a vampire-inspired story with Soundwave and Megatron, though neither would actually/literally be vampires (just one in one of their dreams). It'd delve into the uncertainty or perhaps subconscious fear Megatron has for having someone in his confidence as the Decepticon commander (a position that's highly coveted), yet despite this uncertainty Megatron still feels inexplicably drawn to Soundwave's companionship. With Soundwave being an incredibly dangerous Cybertronian in his own right... what's there not to admire and respect as a fellow Decepticon? Soundwave, of course, could never wish him ill, but being able to inspire such awe in Megatron, knowing Megatron only allows himself to have this uncertainty because he values Soundwave so much, Soundwave may secretly be flattered by such an intrinsic recognition of his skills/danger hah. I just love gothic lit... I recently finished reading Dracula (I caved and made a GoodReads account... I think it'll help me read faster).

In general... I really wanna write Soundwave doing some evil badassery or whatever xD. (Maybe I should start looking at some Autobots or Decepticons for him to be evil to...)

25. What kind of fanfiction do you read about this character? If you don’t read fanfics about them, why not?

I hardly ever read fics about Starscream, honestly. I have no interest in trine fanon at all and I often find his top two ships boring (or, they just don't appeal to me) xD. I also am not interested in him getting redeemed or him as a woobie... I like him proudly nasty and sadistic! "Nasty and sadistic" is the whole reason I like Decepticons so much haha.

Of him and the Seekers, I quite like pretty much every canon angle... I think Dreamwave here proposes one of my favorite angles to their dynamic. I just really like the idea of his subordinates actually quite disliking him because of how inconsiderately egocentric he is.

Often in fanfics Skywarp and Thundercracker are written as if they're his brothers and this really doesn't interest me... also Slipstream is never included 💔. "Seeker culture" or "Vosian culture" fanon always reads as quite weird to me.

I think Starscream is often written as too obviously unreasonable to me? And there'll be non-TFP fics I read and think "he reads like TFP Starscream" (that is, where the narrative posits him as inferior to others and has a heavy emphasis on his flouncing). I yearn to see him do evil and manipulate and whatever xD (guess I should write something myself then, eh?).

[violinist-rachel]

A Farewell

Hello, hello! It's been a bit since I've made a post like this, and as the title suggests, I'm afraid this update will be a sad one.

Before anything else, I do want to say that I know there's still questions I haven't answered yet, but I promise you I will be answering each and every one of them before the blog comes to a close! However, I will be closing my asks and submissions so that I don't receive anymore moving forward.

Although running this blog has been loads of fun, I don't think I'll be able to continue it for too much longer. It makes me sad to announce this because there was a lot I wanted to do with the story I created for Rachel, but life's just a little too much right now and I just don't see it getting any less hectic in the future for a variety of reasons.

That aside, a giant thank you to everyone who interacted with this blog and read my silly little comics! This has been a fantastic experience and I've learned a lot from maintaining it. Although the chances of me coming back to this blog is very slim, I hope to see you all again some day :]

P.S. If you'd like to read everything in chronological order, you can do so here: Violinist Rachel / #all (tumblr.com)

If the text on this blog's a little too small, I encourage people to use the browser's zoom tool (CTRL + Scroll up/down)!