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donjuaninhell · 1 year ago

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How I ditched streaming services and learned to love Linux: A step-by-step guide to building your very own personal media streaming server (V2.0: REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION)

This is a revised, corrected and expanded version of my tutorial on setting up a personal media server that previously appeared on my old blog (donjuan-auxenfers). I expect that that post is still making the rounds (hopefully with my addendum on modifying group share permissions in Ubuntu to circumvent 0x8007003B "Unexpected Network Error" messages in Windows 10/11 when transferring files) but I have no way of checking. Anyway this new revised version of the tutorial corrects one or two small errors I discovered when rereading what I wrote, adds links to all products mentioned and is just more polished generally. I also expanded it a bit, pointing more adventurous users toward programs such as Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr and Overseerr which can be used for automating user requests and media collection.

So then, what is this tutorial? This is a tutorial on how to build and set up your own personal media server using Ubuntu as an operating system and Plex (or Jellyfin) to not only manage your media, but to also stream that media to your devices both at home and abroad anywhere in the world where you have an internet connection. Its intent is to show you how building a personal media server and stuffing it full of films, TV, and music that you acquired through indiscriminate and voracious media piracy various legal methods will free you to completely ditch paid streaming services. No more will you have to pay for Disney+, Netflix, HBOMAX, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Peacock, CBS All Access, Paramount+, Crave or any other streaming service that is not named Criterion Channel. Instead whenever you want to watch your favourite films and television shows, you’ll have your own personal service that only features things that you want to see, with files that you have control over. And for music fans out there, both Jellyfin and Plex support music streaming, meaning you can even ditch music streaming services. Goodbye Spotify, Youtube Music, Tidal and Apple Music, welcome back unreasonably large MP3 (or FLAC) collections.

On the hardware front, I’m going to offer a few options catered towards different budgets and media library sizes. The cost of getting a media server up and running using this guide will cost you anywhere from $450 CAD/$325 USD at the low end to $1500 CAD/$1100 USD at the high end (it could go higher). My server was priced closer to the higher figure, but I went and got a lot more storage than most people need. If that seems like a little much, consider for a moment, do you have a roommate, a close friend, or a family member who would be willing to chip in a few bucks towards your little project provided they get access? Well that's how I funded my server. It might also be worth thinking about the cost over time, i.e. how much you spend yearly on subscriptions vs. a one time cost of setting up a server. Additionally there's just the joy of being able to scream "fuck you" at all those show cancelling, library deleting, hedge fund vampire CEOs who run the studios through denying them your money. Drive a stake through David Zaslav's heart.

On the software side I will walk you step-by-step through installing Ubuntu as your server's operating system, configuring your storage as a RAIDz array with ZFS, sharing your zpool to Windows with Samba, running a remote connection between your server and your Windows PC, and then a little about started with Plex/Jellyfin. Every terminal command you will need to input will be provided, and I even share a custom #bash script that will make used vs. available drive space on your server display correctly in Windows.

If you have a different preferred flavour of Linux (Arch, Manjaro, Redhat, Fedora, Mint, OpenSUSE, CentOS, Slackware etc. et. al.) and are aching to tell me off for being basic and using Ubuntu, this tutorial is not for you. The sort of person with a preferred Linux distro is the sort of person who can do this sort of thing in their sleep. Also I don't care. This tutorial is intended for the average home computer user. This is also why we’re not using a more exotic home server solution like running everything through Docker Containers and managing it through a dashboard like Homarr or Heimdall. While such solutions are fantastic and can be very easy to maintain once you have it all set up, wrapping your brain around Docker is a whole thing in and of itself. If you do follow this tutorial and had fun putting everything together, then I would encourage you to return in a year’s time, do your research and set up everything with Docker Containers.

Lastly, this is a tutorial aimed at Windows users. Although I was a daily user of OS X for many years (roughly 2008-2023) and I've dabbled quite a bit with various Linux distributions (mostly Ubuntu and Manjaro), my primary OS these days is Windows 11. Many things in this tutorial will still be applicable to Mac users, but others (e.g. setting up shares) you will have to look up for yourself. I doubt it would be difficult to do so.

Nothing in this tutorial will require feats of computing expertise. All you will need is a basic computer literacy (i.e. an understanding of what a filesystem and directory are, and a degree of comfort in the settings menu) and a willingness to learn a thing or two. While this guide may look overwhelming at first glance, it is only because I want to be as thorough as possible. I want you to understand exactly what it is you're doing, I don't want you to just blindly follow steps. If you half-way know what you’re doing, you will be much better prepared if you ever need to troubleshoot.

Honestly, once you have all the hardware ready it shouldn't take more than an afternoon or two to get everything up and running.

(This tutorial is just shy of seven thousand words long so the rest is under the cut.)

Step One: Choosing Your Hardware

Linux is a light weight operating system, depending on the distribution there's close to no bloat. There are recent distributions available at this very moment that will run perfectly fine on a fourteen year old i3 with 4GB of RAM. Moreover, running Plex or Jellyfin isn’t resource intensive in 90% of use cases. All this is to say, we don’t require an expensive or powerful computer. This means that there are several options available: 1) use an old computer you already have sitting around but aren't using 2) buy a used workstation from eBay, or what I believe to be the best option, 3) order an N100 Mini-PC from AliExpress or Amazon.

Note: If you already have an old PC sitting around that you’ve decided to use, fantastic, move on to the next step.

When weighing your options, keep a few things in mind: the number of people you expect to be streaming simultaneously at any one time, the resolution and bitrate of your media library (4k video takes a lot more processing power than 1080p) and most importantly, how many of those clients are going to be transcoding at any one time. Transcoding is what happens when the playback device does not natively support direct playback of the source file. This can happen for a number of reasons, such as the playback device's native resolution being lower than the file's internal resolution, or because the source file was encoded in a video codec unsupported by the playback device.

Ideally we want any transcoding to be performed by hardware. This means we should be looking for a computer with an Intel processor with Quick Sync. Quick Sync is a dedicated core on the CPU die designed specifically for video encoding and decoding. This specialized hardware makes for highly efficient transcoding both in terms of processing overhead and power draw. Without these Quick Sync cores, transcoding must be brute forced through software. This takes up much more of a CPU’s processing power and requires much more energy. But not all Quick Sync cores are created equal and you need to keep this in mind if you've decided either to use an old computer or to shop for a used workstation on eBay

Any Intel processor from second generation Core (Sandy Bridge circa 2011) onward has Quick Sync cores. It's not until 6th gen (Skylake), however, that the cores support the H.265 HEVC codec. Intel’s 10th gen (Comet Lake) processors introduce support for 10bit HEVC and HDR tone mapping. And the recent 12th gen (Alder Lake) processors brought with them hardware AV1 decoding. As an example, while an 8th gen (Kaby Lake) i5-8500 will be able to hardware transcode a H.265 encoded file, it will fall back to software transcoding if given a 10bit H.265 file. If you’ve decided to use that old PC or to look on eBay for an old Dell Optiplex keep this in mind.

Note 1: The price of old workstations varies wildly and fluctuates frequently. If you get lucky and go shopping shortly after a workplace has liquidated a large number of their workstations you can find deals for as low as $100 on a barebones system, but generally an i5-8500 workstation with 16gb RAM will cost you somewhere in the area of $260 CAD/$200 USD.

Note 2: The AMD equivalent to Quick Sync is called Video Core Next, and while it's fine, it's not as efficient and not as mature a technology. It was only introduced with the first generation Ryzen CPUs and it only got decent with their newest CPUs, we want something cheap.

Alternatively you could forgo having to keep track of what generation of CPU is equipped with Quick Sync cores that feature support for which codecs, and just buy an N100 mini-PC. For around the same price or less of a used workstation you can pick up a mini-PC with an Intel N100 processor. The N100 is a four-core processor based on the 12th gen Alder Lake architecture and comes equipped with the latest revision of the Quick Sync cores. These little processors offer astounding hardware transcoding capabilities for their size and power draw. Otherwise they perform equivalent to an i5-6500, which isn't a terrible CPU. A friend of mine uses an N100 machine as a dedicated retro emulation gaming system and it does everything up to 6th generation consoles just fine. The N100 is also a remarkably efficient chip, it sips power. In fact, the difference between running one of these and an old workstation could work out to hundreds of dollars a year in energy bills depending on where you live.

You can find these Mini-PCs all over Amazon or for a little cheaper on AliExpress. They range in price from $170 CAD/$125 USD for a no name N100 with 8GB RAM to $280 CAD/$200 USD for a Beelink S12 Pro with 16GB RAM. The brand doesn't really matter, they're all coming from the same three factories in Shenzen, go for whichever one fits your budget or has features you want. 8GB RAM should be enough, Linux is lightweight and Plex only calls for 2GB RAM. 16GB RAM might result in a slightly snappier experience, especially with ZFS. A 256GB SSD is more than enough for what we need as a boot drive, but going for a bigger drive might allow you to get away with things like creating preview thumbnails for Plex, but it’s up to you and your budget.

The Mini-PC I wound up buying was a Firebat AK2 Plus with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. It looks like this:

Note: Be forewarned that if you decide to order a Mini-PC from AliExpress, note the type of power adapter it ships with. The mini-PC I bought came with an EU power adapter and I had to supply my own North American power supply. Thankfully this is a minor issue as barrel plug 30W/12V/2.5A power adapters are easy to find and can be had for $10.

Step Two: Choosing Your Storage

Storage is the most important part of our build. It is also the most expensive. Thankfully it’s also the most easily upgrade-able down the line.

For people with a smaller media collection (4TB to 8TB), a more limited budget, or who will only ever have two simultaneous streams running, I would say that the most economical course of action would be to buy a USB 3.0 8TB external HDD. Something like this one from Western Digital or this one from Seagate. One of these external drives will cost you in the area of $200 CAD/$140 USD. Down the line you could add a second external drive or replace it with a multi-drive RAIDz set up such as detailed below.

If a single external drive the path for you, move on to step three.

For people with larger media libraries (12TB+), who prefer media in 4k, or care who about data redundancy, the answer is a RAID array featuring multiple HDDs in an enclosure.

Note: If you are using an old PC or used workstatiom as your server and have the room for at least three 3.5" drives, and as many open SATA ports on your mother board you won't need an enclosure, just install the drives into the case. If your old computer is a laptop or doesn’t have room for more internal drives, then I would suggest an enclosure.

The minimum number of drives needed to run a RAIDz array is three, and seeing as RAIDz is what we will be using, you should be looking for an enclosure with three to five bays. I think that four disks makes for a good compromise for a home server. Regardless of whether you go for a three, four, or five bay enclosure, do be aware that in a RAIDz array the space equivalent of one of the drives will be dedicated to parity at a ratio expressed by the equation 1 − 1/n i.e. in a four bay enclosure equipped with four 12TB drives, if we configured our drives in a RAIDz1 array we would be left with a total of 36TB of usable space (48TB raw size). The reason for why we might sacrifice storage space in such a manner will be explained in the next section.

A four bay enclosure will cost somewhere in the area of $200 CDN/$140 USD. You don't need anything fancy, we don't need anything with hardware RAID controls (RAIDz is done entirely in software) or even USB-C. An enclosure with USB 3.0 will perform perfectly fine. Don’t worry too much about USB speed bottlenecks. A mechanical HDD will be limited by the speed of its mechanism long before before it will be limited by the speed of a USB connection. I've seen decent looking enclosures from TerraMaster, Yottamaster, Mediasonic and Sabrent.

When it comes to selecting the drives, as of this writing, the best value (dollar per gigabyte) are those in the range of 12TB to 20TB. I settled on 12TB drives myself. If 12TB to 20TB drives are out of your budget, go with what you can afford, or look into refurbished drives. I'm not sold on the idea of refurbished drives but many people swear by them.

When shopping for harddrives, search for drives designed specifically for NAS use. Drives designed for NAS use typically have better vibration dampening and are designed to be active 24/7. They will also often make use of CMR (conventional magnetic recording) as opposed to SMR (shingled magnetic recording). This nets them a sizable read/write performance bump over typical desktop drives. Seagate Ironwolf and Toshiba NAS are both well regarded brands when it comes to NAS drives. I would avoid Western Digital Red drives at this time. WD Reds were a go to recommendation up until earlier this year when it was revealed that they feature firmware that will throw up false SMART warnings telling you to replace the drive at the three year mark quite often when there is nothing at all wrong with that drive. It will likely even be good for another six, seven, or more years.

Step Three: Installing Linux

For this step you will need a USB thumbdrive of at least 6GB in capacity, an .ISO of Ubuntu, and a way to make that thumbdrive bootable media.

First download a copy of Ubuntu desktop (for best performance we could download the Server release, but for new Linux users I would recommend against the server release. The server release is strictly command line interface only, and having a GUI is very helpful for most people. Not many people are wholly comfortable doing everything through the command line, I'm certainly not one of them, and I grew up with DOS 6.0. 22.04.3 Jammy Jellyfish is the current Long Term Service release, this is the one to get.

Download the .ISO and then download and install balenaEtcher on your Windows PC. BalenaEtcher is an easy to use program for creating bootable media, you simply insert your thumbdrive, select the .ISO you just downloaded, and it will create a bootable installation media for you.

Once you've made a bootable media and you've got your Mini-PC (or you old PC/used workstation) in front of you, hook it directly into your router with an ethernet cable, and then plug in the HDD enclosure, a monitor, a mouse and a keyboard. Now turn that sucker on and hit whatever key gets you into the BIOS (typically ESC, DEL or F2). If you’re using a Mini-PC check to make sure that the P1 and P2 power limits are set correctly, my N100's P1 limit was set at 10W, a full 20W under the chip's power limit. Also make sure that the RAM is running at the advertised speed. My Mini-PC’s RAM was set at 2333Mhz out of the box when it should have been 3200Mhz. Once you’ve done that, key over to the boot order and place the USB drive first in the boot order. Then save the BIOS settings and restart.

After you restart you’ll be greeted by Ubuntu's installation screen. Installing Ubuntu is really straight forward, select the "minimal" installation option, as we won't need anything on this computer except for a browser (Ubuntu comes preinstalled with Firefox) and Plex Media Server/Jellyfin Media Server. Also remember to delete and reformat that Windows partition! We don't need it.

Step Four: Installing ZFS and Setting Up the RAIDz Array

Note: If you opted for just a single external HDD skip this step and move onto setting up a Samba share.

Once Ubuntu is installed it's time to configure our storage by installing ZFS to build our RAIDz array. ZFS is a "next-gen" file system that is both massively flexible and massively complex. It's capable of snapshot backup, self healing error correction, ZFS pools can be configured with drives operating in a supplemental manner alongside the storage vdev (e.g. fast cache, dedicated secondary intent log, hot swap spares etc.). It's also a file system very amenable to fine tuning. Block and sector size are adjustable to use case and you're afforded the option of different methods of inline compression. If you'd like a very detailed overview and explanation of its various features and tips on tuning a ZFS array check out these articles from Ars Technica. For now we're going to ignore all these features and keep it simple, we're going to pull our drives together into a single vdev running in RAIDz which will be the entirety of our zpool, no fancy cache drive or SLOG.

Open up the terminal and type the following commands:

sudo apt update

then

sudo apt install zfsutils-linux

This will install the ZFS utility. Verify that it's installed with the following command:

zfs --version

Now, it's time to check that the HDDs we have in the enclosure are healthy, running, and recognized. We also want to find out their device IDs and take note of them:

sudo fdisk -1

Note: You might be wondering why some of these commands require "sudo" in front of them while others don't. "Sudo" is short for "super user do”. When and where "sudo" is used has to do with the way permissions are set up in Linux. Only the "root" user has the access level to perform certain tasks in Linux. As a matter of security and safety regular user accounts are kept separate from the "root" user. It's not advised (or even possible) to boot into Linux as "root" with most modern distributions. Instead by using "sudo" our regular user account is temporarily given the power to do otherwise forbidden things. Don't worry about it too much at this stage, but if you want to know more check out this introduction.

If everything is working you should get a list of the various drives detected along with their device IDs which will look like this: /dev/sdc. You can also check the device IDs of the drives by opening the disk utility app. Jot these IDs down as we'll need them for our next step, creating our RAIDz array.

RAIDz is similar to RAID-5 in that instead of striping your data over multiple disks, exchanging redundancy for speed and available space (RAID-0), or mirroring your data writing by two copies of every piece (RAID-1), it instead writes parity blocks across the disks in addition to striping, this provides a balance of speed, redundancy and available space. If a single drive fails, the parity blocks on the working drives can be used to reconstruct the entire array as soon as a replacement drive is added.

Additionally, RAIDz improves over some of the common RAID-5 flaws. It's more resilient and capable of self healing, as it is capable of automatically checking for errors against a checksum. It's more forgiving in this way, and it's likely that you'll be able to detect when a drive is dying well before it fails. A RAIDz array can survive the loss of any one drive.

Note: While RAIDz is indeed resilient, if a second drive fails during the rebuild, you're fucked. Always keep backups of things you can't afford to lose. This tutorial, however, is not about proper data safety.

To create the pool, use the following command:

sudo zpool create "zpoolnamehere" raidz "device IDs of drives we're putting in the pool"

For example, let's creatively name our zpool "mypool". This poil will consist of four drives which have the device IDs: sdb, sdc, sdd, and sde. The resulting command will look like this:

sudo zpool create mypool raidz /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde

If as an example you bought five HDDs and decided you wanted more redundancy dedicating two drive to this purpose, we would modify the command to "raidz2" and the command would look something like the following:

sudo zpool create mypool raidz2 /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde /dev/sdf

An array configured like this is known as RAIDz2 and is able to survive two disk failures.

Once the zpool has been created, we can check its status with the command:

zpool status

Or more concisely with:

zpool list

The nice thing about ZFS as a file system is that a pool is ready to go immediately after creation. If we were to set up a traditional RAID-5 array using mbam, we'd have to sit through a potentially hours long process of reformatting and partitioning the drives. Instead we're ready to go right out the gates.

The zpool should be automatically mounted to the filesystem after creation, check on that with the following:

df -hT | grep zfs

Note: If your computer ever loses power suddenly, say in event of a power outage, you may have to re-import your pool. In most cases, ZFS will automatically import and mount your pool, but if it doesn’t and you can't see your array, simply open the terminal and type sudo zpool import -a.

By default a zpool is mounted at /"zpoolname". The pool should be under our ownership but let's make sure with the following command:

sudo chown -R "yourlinuxusername" /"zpoolname"

Note: Changing file and folder ownership with "chown" and file and folder permissions with "chmod" are essential commands for much of the admin work in Linux, but we won't be dealing with them extensively in this guide. If you'd like a deeper tutorial and explanation you can check out these two guides: chown and chmod.

You can access the zpool file system through the GUI by opening the file manager (the Ubuntu default file manager is called Nautilus) and clicking on "Other Locations" on the sidebar, then entering the Ubuntu file system and looking for a folder with your pool's name. Bookmark the folder on the sidebar for easy access.

Your storage pool is now ready to go. Assuming that we already have some files on our Windows PC we want to copy to over, we're going to need to install and configure Samba to make the pool accessible in Windows.

Step Five: Setting Up Samba/Sharing

Samba is what's going to let us share the zpool with Windows and allow us to write to it from our Windows machine. First let's install Samba with the following commands:

sudo apt-get update

then

sudo apt-get install samba

Next create a password for Samba.

sudo smbpswd -a "yourlinuxusername"

It will then prompt you to create a password. Just reuse your Ubuntu user password for simplicity's sake.

Note: if you're using just a single external drive replace the zpool location in the following commands with wherever it is your external drive is mounted, for more information see this guide on mounting an external drive in Ubuntu.

After you've created a password we're going to create a shareable folder in our pool with this command

mkdir /"zpoolname"/"foldername"

Now we're going to open the smb.conf file and make that folder shareable. Enter the following command.

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

This will open the .conf file in nano, the terminal text editor program. Now at the end of smb.conf add the following entry:

["foldername"]

path = /"zpoolname"/"foldername"

available = yes

valid users = "yourlinuxusername"

read only = no

writable = yes

browseable = yes

guest ok = no

Ensure that there are no line breaks between the lines and that there's a space on both sides of the equals sign. Our next step is to allow Samba traffic through the firewall:

sudo ufw allow samba

Finally restart the Samba service:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

At this point we'll be able to access to the pool, browse its contents, and read and write to it from Windows. But there's one more thing left to do, Windows doesn't natively support the ZFS file systems and will read the used/available/total space in the pool incorrectly. Windows will read available space as total drive space, and all used space as null. This leads to Windows only displaying a dwindling amount of "available" space as the drives are filled. We can fix this! Functionally this doesn't actually matter, we can still write and read to and from the disk, it just makes it difficult to tell at a glance the proportion of used/available space, so this is an optional step but one I recommend (this step is also unnecessary if you're just using a single external drive). What we're going to do is write a little shell script in #bash. Open nano with the terminal with the command:

nano

Now insert the following code:

#!/bin/bash CUR_PATH=`pwd` ZFS_CHECK_OUTPUT=$(zfs get type $CUR_PATH 2>&1 > /dev/null) > /dev/null if [[ $ZFS_CHECK_OUTPUT == *not\ a\ ZFS* ]] then IS_ZFS=false else IS_ZFS=true fi if [[ $IS_ZFS = false ]] then df $CUR_PATH | tail -1 | awk '{print $2" "$4}' else USED=$((`zfs get -o value -Hp used $CUR_PATH` / 1024)) > /dev/null AVAIL=$((`zfs get -o value -Hp available $CUR_PATH` / 1024)) > /dev/null TOTAL=$(($USED+$AVAIL)) > /dev/null echo $TOTAL $AVAIL fi

Save the script as "dfree.sh" to /home/"yourlinuxusername" then change the ownership of the file to make it executable with this command:

sudo chmod 774 dfree.sh

Now open smb.conf with sudo again:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Now add this entry to the top of the configuration file to direct Samba to use the results of our script when Windows asks for a reading on the pool's used/available/total drive space:

[global]

dfree command = /home/"yourlinuxusername"/dfree.sh

Save the changes to smb.conf and then restart Samba again with the terminal:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

Now there’s one more thing we need to do to fully set up the Samba share, and that’s to modify a hidden group permission. In the terminal window type the following command:

usermod -a -G sambashare “yourlinuxusername”

Then restart samba again:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

If we don’t do this last step, everything will appear to work fine, and you will even be able to see and map the drive from Windows and even begin transferring files, but you'd soon run into a lot of frustration. As every ten minutes or so a file would fail to transfer and you would get a window announcing “0x8007003B Unexpected Network Error”. This window would require your manual input to continue the transfer with the file next in the queue. And at the end it would reattempt to transfer whichever files failed the first time around. 99% of the time they’ll go through that second try, but this is still all a major pain in the ass. Especially if you’ve got a lot of data to transfer or you want to step away from the computer for a while.

It turns out samba can act a little weirdly with the higher read/write speeds of RAIDz arrays and transfers from Windows, and will intermittently crash and restart itself if this group option isn’t changed. Inputting the above command will prevent you from ever seeing that window.

The last thing we're going to do before switching over to our Windows PC is grab the IP address of our Linux machine. Enter the following command:

hostname -I

This will spit out this computer's IP address on the local network (it will look something like 192.168.0.x), write it down. It might be a good idea once you're done here to go into your router settings and reserving that IP for your Linux system in the DHCP settings. Check the manual for your specific model router on how to access its settings, typically it can be accessed by opening a browser and typing http:\\192.168.0.1 in the address bar, but your router may be different.

Okay we’re done with our Linux computer for now. Get on over to your Windows PC, open File Explorer, right click on Network and click "Map network drive". Select Z: as the drive letter (you don't want to map the network drive to a letter you could conceivably be using for other purposes) and enter the IP of your Linux machine and location of the share like so: \\"LINUXCOMPUTERLOCALIPADDRESSGOESHERE"\"zpoolnamegoeshere"\. Windows will then ask you for your username and password, enter the ones you set earlier in Samba and you're good. If you've done everything right it should look something like this:

You can now start moving media over from Windows to the share folder. It's a good idea to have a hard line running to all machines. Moving files over Wi-Fi is going to be tortuously slow, the only thing that’s going to make the transfer time tolerable (hours instead of days) is a solid wired connection between both machines and your router.

Step Six: Setting Up Remote Desktop Access to Your Server

After the server is up and going, you’ll want to be able to access it remotely from Windows. Barring serious maintenance/updates, this is how you'll access it most of the time. On your Linux system open the terminal and enter:

sudo apt install xrdp

Then:

sudo systemctl enable xrdp

Once it's finished installing, open “Settings” on the sidebar and turn off "automatic login" in the User category. Then log out of your account. Attempting to remotely connect to your Linux computer while you’re logged in will result in a black screen!

Now get back on your Windows PC, open search and look for "RDP". A program called "Remote Desktop Connection" should pop up, open this program as an administrator by right-clicking and selecting “run as an administrator”. You’ll be greeted with a window. In the field marked “Computer” type in the IP address of your Linux computer. Press connect and you'll be greeted with a new window and prompt asking for your username and password. Enter your Ubuntu username and password here.

If everything went right, you’ll be logged into your Linux computer. If the performance is sluggish, adjust the display options. Lowering the resolution and colour depth do a lot to make the interface feel snappier.

Remote access is how we're going to be using our Linux system from now, barring edge cases like needing to get into the BIOS or upgrading to a new version of Ubuntu. Everything else from performing maintenance like a monthly zpool scrub to checking zpool status and updating software can all be done remotely.

This is how my server lives its life now, happily humming and chirping away on the floor next to the couch in a corner of the living room.

Step Seven: Plex Media Server/Jellyfin

Okay we’ve got all the ground work finished and our server is almost up and running. We’ve got Ubuntu up and running, our storage array is primed, we’ve set up remote connections and sharing, and maybe we’ve moved over some of favourite movies and TV shows.

Now we need to decide on the media server software to use which will stream our media to us and organize our library. For most people I’d recommend Plex. It just works 99% of the time. That said, Jellyfin has a lot to recommend it by too, even if it is rougher around the edges. Some people run both simultaneously, it’s not that big of an extra strain. I do recommend doing a little bit of your own research into the features each platform offers, but as a quick run down, consider some of the following points:

Plex is closed source and is funded through PlexPass purchases while Jellyfin is open source and entirely user driven. This means a number of things: for one, Plex requires you to purchase a “PlexPass” (purchased as a one time lifetime fee $159.99 CDN/$120 USD or paid for on a monthly or yearly subscription basis) in order to access to certain features, like hardware transcoding (and we want hardware transcoding) or automated intro/credits detection and skipping, Jellyfin offers some of these features for free through plugins. Plex supports a lot more devices than Jellyfin and updates more frequently. That said, Jellyfin's Android and iOS apps are completely free, while the Plex Android and iOS apps must be activated for a one time cost of $6 CDN/$5 USD. But that $6 fee gets you a mobile app that is much more functional and features a unified UI across platforms, the Plex mobile apps are simply a more polished experience. The Jellyfin apps are a bit of a mess and the iOS and Android versions are very different from each other.

Jellyfin’s actual media player is more fully featured than Plex's, but on the other hand Jellyfin's UI, library customization and automatic media tagging really pale in comparison to Plex. Streaming your music library is free through both Jellyfin and Plex, but Plex offers the PlexAmp app for dedicated music streaming which boasts a number of fantastic features, unfortunately some of those fantastic features require a PlexPass. If your internet is down, Jellyfin can still do local streaming, while Plex can fail to play files unless you've got it set up a certain way. Jellyfin has a slew of neat niche features like support for Comic Book libraries with the .cbz/.cbt file types, but then Plex offers some free ad-supported TV and films, they even have a free channel that plays nothing but Classic Doctor Who.

Ultimately it's up to you, I settled on Plex because although some features are pay-walled, it just works. It's more reliable and easier to use, and a one-time fee is much easier to swallow than a subscription. I had a pretty easy time getting my boomer parents and tech illiterate brother introduced to and using Plex and I don't know if I would've had as easy a time doing that with Jellyfin. I do also need to mention that Jellyfin does take a little extra bit of tinkering to get going in Ubuntu, you’ll have to set up process permissions, so if you're more tolerant to tinkering, Jellyfin might be up your alley and I’ll trust that you can follow their installation and configuration guide. For everyone else, I recommend Plex.

So pick your poison: Plex or Jellyfin.

Note: The easiest way to download and install either of these packages in Ubuntu is through Snap Store.

After you've installed one (or both), opening either app will launch a browser window into the browser version of the app allowing you to set all the options server side.

The process of adding creating media libraries is essentially the same in both Plex and Jellyfin. You create a separate libraries for Television, Movies, and Music and add the folders which contain the respective types of media to their respective libraries. The only difficult or time consuming aspect is ensuring that your files and folders follow the appropriate naming conventions:

Plex naming guide for Movies

Plex naming guide for Television

Jellyfin follows the same naming rules but I find their media scanner to be a lot less accurate and forgiving than Plex. Once you've selected the folders to be scanned the service will scan your files, tagging everything and adding metadata. Although I find do find Plex more accurate, it can still erroneously tag some things and you might have to manually clean up some tags in a large library. (When I initially created my library it tagged the 1963-1989 Doctor Who as some Korean soap opera and I needed to manually select the correct match after which everything was tagged normally.) It can also be a bit testy with anime (especially OVAs) be sure to check TVDB to ensure that you have your files and folders structured and named correctly. If something is not showing up at all, double check the name.

Once that's done, organizing and customizing your library is easy. You can set up collections, grouping items together to fit a theme or collect together all the entries in a franchise. You can make playlists, and add custom artwork to entries. It's fun setting up collections with posters to match, there are even several websites dedicated to help you do this like PosterDB. As an example, below are two collections in my library, one collecting all the entries in a franchise, the other follows a theme.

My Star Trek collection, featuring all eleven television series, and thirteen films.

My Best of the Worst collection, featuring sixty-nine films previously showcased on RedLetterMedia’s Best of the Worst. They’re all absolutely terrible and I love them.

As for settings, ensure you've got Remote Access going, it should work automatically and be sure to set your upload speed after running a speed test. In the library settings set the database cache to 2000MB to ensure a snappier and more responsive browsing experience, and then check that playback quality is set to original/maximum. If you’re severely bandwidth limited on your upload and have remote users, you might want to limit the remote stream bitrate to something more reasonable, just as a note of comparison Netflix’s 1080p bitrate is approximately 5Mbps, although almost anyone watching through a chromium based browser is streaming at 720p and 3mbps. Other than that you should be good to go. For actually playing your files, there's a Plex app for just about every platform imaginable. I mostly watch television and films on my laptop using the Windows Plex app, but I also use the Android app which can broadcast to the chromecast connected to the TV in the office and the Android TV app for our smart TV. Both are fully functional and easy to navigate, and I can also attest to the OS X version being equally functional.

Part Eight: Finding Media

Now, this is not really a piracy tutorial, there are plenty of those out there. But if you’re unaware, BitTorrent is free and pretty easy to use, just pick a client (qBittorrent is the best) and go find some public trackers to peruse. Just know now that all the best trackers are private and invite only, and that they can be exceptionally difficult to get into. I’m already on a few, and even then, some of the best ones are wholly out of my reach.

If you decide to take the left hand path and turn to Usenet you’ll have to pay. First you’ll need to sign up with a provider like Newshosting or EasyNews for access to Usenet itself, and then to actually find anything you’re going to need to sign up with an indexer like NZBGeek or NZBFinder. There are dozens of indexers, and many people cross post between them, but for more obscure media it’s worth checking multiple. You’ll also need a binary downloader like SABnzbd. That caveat aside, Usenet is faster, bigger, older, less traceable than BitTorrent, and altogether slicker. I honestly prefer it, and I'm kicking myself for taking this long to start using it because I was scared off by the price. I’ve found so many things on Usenet that I had sought in vain elsewhere for years, like a 2010 Italian film about a massacre perpetrated by the SS that played the festival circuit but never received a home media release; some absolute hero uploaded a rip of a festival screener DVD to Usenet. Anyway, figure out the rest of this shit on your own and remember to use protection, get yourself behind a VPN, use a SOCKS5 proxy with your BitTorrent client, etc.

On the legal side of things, if you’re around my age, you (or your family) probably have a big pile of DVDs and Blu-Rays sitting around unwatched and half forgotten. Why not do a bit of amateur media preservation, rip them and upload them to your server for easier access? (Your tools for this are going to be Handbrake to do the ripping and AnyDVD to break any encryption.) I went to the trouble of ripping all my SCTV DVDs (five box sets worth) because none of it is on streaming nor could it be found on any pirate source I tried. I’m glad I did, forty years on it’s still one of the funniest shows to ever be on TV.

Part Nine/Epilogue: Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr and Overseerr

There are a lot of ways to automate your server for better functionality or to add features you and other users might find useful. Sonarr, Radarr, and Lidarr are a part of a suite of “Servarr” services (there’s also Readarr for books and Whisparr for adult content) that allow you to automate the collection of new episodes of TV shows (Sonarr), new movie releases (Radarr) and music releases (Lidarr). They hook in to your BitTorrent client or Usenet binary newsgroup downloader and crawl your preferred Torrent trackers and Usenet indexers, alerting you to new releases and automatically grabbing them. You can also use these services to manually search for new media, and even replace/upgrade your existing media with better quality uploads. They’re really a little tricky to set up on a bare metal Ubuntu install (ideally you should be running them in Docker Containers), and I won’t be providing a step by step on installing and running them, I’m simply making you aware of their existence.

The other bit of kit I want to make you aware of is Overseerr which is a program that scans your Plex media library and will serve recommendations based on what you like. It also allows you and your users to request specific media. It can even be integrated with Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr so that fulfilling those requests is fully automated.

And you're done. It really wasn't all that hard. Enjoy your media. Enjoy the control you have over that media. And be safe in the knowledge that no hedgefund CEO motherfucker who hates the movies but who is somehow in control of a major studio will be able to disappear anything in your library as a tax write-off.

#long post #streaming #plex #tutorial #linux #piracy #major works

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utopicwork · 1 year ago

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Happy pride! As some of you know I'm working on a hardware level (through LoRa primarily at the moment) decentralized internet primarily for trans women to stay connected under increasing censorship of our lives:

This month I'll be pushing hard on this, I've got hardware to test, math to learn, algorithms to write and architecture to invent.

What I'd like is if people could follow me here or bookmark the PierMesh site primarily. In addition spreading the word about this project is extremely helpful. We're also looking for people who want to help from many fields but primarily programming, translation (for UI), law (for a number of questions we have on tech law) and grant writing. You can also help by funding us, either through the links on PierMesh's site or if you want to support us in a consistent way reach out to us at [email protected].

Please help some trans women put in the work to make a better world!

#lgbt #trans woman #trans #webdev #decentralized #new internet #piermesh

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months ago

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Twinkump Linkdump

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

I have an excellent excuse for this week's linkdump: I'm in Germany, but I'm supposed to be in LA, and I'm not, because London Heathrow shut down due to a power-station fire, which meant I spent all day yesterday running around like a headless chicken, trying to get home in time for my gig in San Diego on Monday (don't worry, I sorted it):

https://www.mystgalaxy.com/32425Doctorow

Therefore, this is 30th linkdump, in which I collect the assorted links that didn't make it into this week's newsletters. Here are the other 29:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

I always like to start and end these 'dumps with some good news, which isn't easy in these absolutely terrifying times. But there is some good news: Wil Wheaton has announced his new podcast, a successor of sorts to the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. It's called "It's Storytime" and it features Wil reading his favorite stories handpicked from science fiction magazines, including On Spec, the magazine that bought my very first published story (I was 16, it ran in their special youth issue, it wasn't very good, but boy did it mean a lot to me):

https://wilwheaton.net/podcast/

Here's some more good news: a court has found (again!) that works created by AI are not eligible for copyright. This is the very best possible outcome for people worried about creators' rights in the age of AI, because if our bosses can't copyright the botshit that comes out of the "AI" systems trained on our work, then they will pay us:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-appeals-court-rejects-copyrights-171203999.html

Our bosses hate paying us, but they hate the idea of not being able to stop people from copying their entertainment products so! much! more! It's that simple:

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

This outcome is so much better than the idea that AI training isn't fair use – an idea that threatens the existence of search engines, archiving, computational linguistics, and other clearly beneficial activities. Worse than that, though: if we create a new copyright that allows creators to prevent others from scraping and analyzing their works, our bosses will immediately alter their non-negotiable boilerplate contracts to demand that we assign them this right. That will allow them to warehouse huge troves of copyrighted material that they will sell to AI companies who will train models designed to put us on the breadline (see above, re: our bosses hate paying us):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/13/hey-look-over-there/#lets-you-and-he-fight

The rights of archivists grow more urgent by the day, as the Trump regime lays waste to billions of dollars worth of government materials that were produced at public expense, deleting decades of scientific, scholarly, historical and technical materials. This is the kind of thing you might expect the National Archive or the Library of Congress to take care of, but they're being chucked into the meat-grinder as well.

To make things even worse, Trump and Musk have laid waste to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a tiny, vital agency that provides funding to libraries, archives and museums across the country. Evan Robb writes about all the ways the IMLS supports the public in his state of Washington:

Technology support. Last-mile broadband connection, network support, hardware, etc. Assistance with the confusing e-rate program for reduced Internet pricing for libraries.

Coordinated group purchase of e-books, e-audiobooks, scholarly research databases, etc.

Library services for the blind and print-disabled.

Libraries in state prisons, juvenile detention centers, and psychiatric institutions.

Digitization of, and access to, historical resources (e.g., newspapers, government records, documents, photos, film, audio, etc.).

Literacy programming and support for youth services at libraries.

The entire IMLS budget over the next 10 years rounds to zero when compared to the US federal budget – and yet, by gutting it, DOGE is amputating significant parts of the country's systems that promote literacy; critical thinking; and universal access to networks, media and ideas. Put it that way, and it's not hard to see why they hate it so.

Trying to figure out what Trump is up to is (deliberately) confusing, because Trump and Musk are pursuing a chaotic agenda that is designed to keep their foes off-balance:

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-donald-trump-chaos/

But as Hamilton Nolan writes, there's a way to cut through the chaos and make sense of it all. The problem is that there are a handful of billionaires who have so much money that when they choose chaos, we all have to live with it:

The significant thing about the way that Elon Musk is presently dismantling our government is not the existence of his own political delusions, or his own self-interested quest to privatize public functions, or his own misreading of economics; it is the fact that he is able to do it. And he is able to do it because he has several hundred billion dollars. If he did not have several hundred billion dollars he would just be another idiot with bad opinions. Because he has several hundred billion dollars his bad opinions are now our collective lived experience.

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-underlying-problem

We actually have a body of law designed to prevent this from happening. It's called "antitrust" and 40 years ago, Jimmy Carter decided to follow the advice of some of history's dumbest economists who said that fighting monopolies made the economy "inefficient." Every president since, up to – but not including – Biden, did even more to encourage monopolization and the immense riches it creates for a tiny number of greedy bastards.

But Biden changed that. Thanks to the "Unity Taskforce" that divided up the presidential appointments between the Democrats' corporate wing and the Warren/Sanders wing, Biden appointed some of the most committed, effective trustbusters we'd seen for generations:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

After Trump's election, there was some room for hope that Trump's FTC would continue to pursue at least some of the anti-monopoly work of the Biden years. After all, there's a sizable faction within the MAGA movement that hates (some) monopolies:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/24/enforcement-priorities/#enemies-lists

But last week, Trump claimed to have illegally fired the two Democratic commissioners on the FTC: Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter. I stan both of these commissioners, hard. When they were at the height of their powers in the Biden years, I had the incredible, disorienting experience of getting out of bed, checking the headlines, and feeling very good about what the government had just done.

Trump isn't legally allowed to fire Bedoya and Slaughter. Perhaps he's just picking this fight as part of his chaos agenda (see above). But there are some other pretty good theories about what this is setting up. In his BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller proposes that Trump is using this case as a wedge, trying to set a precedent that would let him fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-trump-tried-to-fire-federal-trade

But perhaps there's more to it. Stoller just had Commissioner Bedoya on Organized Money, the podcast he co-hosts with David Dayen, and Bedoya pointed out that if Trump can fire Democratic commissioners, he can also fire Republican commissioners. That means that if he cuts a shady deal with, say, Jeff Bezos, he can order the FTC to drop its case against Amazon and fire the Republicans on the commission if they don't frog when he jumps:

https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/trumps-showdown-at-the-ftc-with-commissioner

(By the way, Organized Money is a fantastic podcast, notwithstanding the fact that they put me on the show last week:)

https://audio.buzzsprout.com/6f5ly01qcx6ijokbvoamr794ht81

The future that our plutocrat overlords are grasping for is indeed a terrible one. You can see its shape in the fantasies of "liberatarian exit" – the seasteads, free states, and other assorted attempts to build anarcho-capitalist lawless lands where you can sell yourself into slavery, or just sell your kidneys. The best nonfiction book on libertarian exit is Raymond Criab's 2022 "Adventure Capitalism," a brilliant, darkly hilarious and chilling history of every time a group of people have tried to found a nation based on elevating selfishness to a virtue:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/14/this-way-to-the-egress/#terra-nullius

If Craib's book is the best nonfiction volume on the subject of libertarian exit, then Naomi Kritzer's super 2023 novel Liberty's Daughter is the best novel about life in a libertopia – a young adult novel about a girl growing up in the hell that would be life with a Heinlein-type dad:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/21/podkaynes-dad-was-a-dick/#age-of-consent

But now this canon has a third volume, a piece of design fiction from Atelier Van Lieshout called "Slave City," which specs out an arcology populated with 200,000 inhabitants whose "very rational, efficient and profitable" arrangements produce €7b/year in profit:

https://www.archdaily.com/30114/slave-city-atelier-van-lieshout

This economic miracle is created by the residents' "voluntary" opt-in to a day consisting of 7h in an office, 7h toiling in the fields, 7h of sleep, and 3h for "leisure" (e.g. hanging out at "The Mall," a 24/7, 26-storey " boundless consumer paradise"). Slaves who wish to better themselves can attend either Female Slave University or Male Slave University (no gender controversy in Slave City!), which run 24/7, with 7 hours of study, 7 hours of upkeep and maintenance on the facility, 7h of sleep, and, of course, 3h of "leisure."

The field of design fiction is a weird and fertile one. In his traditional closing keynote for this year's SXSW Interactive festival, Bruce Sterling opens with a little potted history of the field since it was coined by Julian Bleeker:

https://bruces.medium.com/how-to-rebuild-an-imaginary-future-2025-0b14e511e7b6

Then Bruce moves on to his own latest design fiction project, an automated poetry machine called the Versificatore first described by Primo Levi in an odd piece of science fiction written for a newspaper. The Versificatore was then adapted to the screen in 1971, for an episode of an Italian sf TV show based on Levi's fiction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tva-D_8b8-E

And now Sterling has built a Versificatore. The keynote is a sterlingian delight – as all of his SXSW closers are. It's a hymn to the value of "imaginary futures" and an instruction manual for recovering them. It could not be more timely.

Sterling's imaginary futures would be a good upbeat note to end this 'dump with, but I've got a real future that's just as inspiring to close us out with: the EU has found Apple guilty of monopolizing the interfaces to its devices and have ordered the company to open them up for interoperability, so that other manufacturers – European manufacturers! – can make fully interoperable gadgets that are first-class citizens of Apple's "ecosystem":

https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-ordered-by-eu-antitrust-regulators-open-up-rivals-2025-03-19/

It's a good reminder that as America crumbles, there are still places left in the world with competent governments that want to help the people they represent thrive and prosper. As the Prophet Gibson tells us, "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed." Let's hope that the EU is living in America's future, and not the other way around.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/22/omnium-gatherum/#storytime

Image: TDelCoro https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomasdelcoro/48116604516/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

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changes · 2 years ago

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Tuesday, October 17th, 2023

🌟 New

We’ve got some spooky new blog badges in TumblrMart! Check ’em out. 👻 ☠️

We’re rolling out some updates to how post information is displayed in feeds, mostly consolidating interface elements into the header of each post. These changes include removing the “floating” avatar on web and moving it into the post header, moving post info like “Pinned” and “Based on your likes” into the main header instead of an additional header, removing duplication of blog names and Follow buttons, and other small visual design refreshes.

We’re also rolling out a change to the iOS and Android apps that lets you use the hardware volume buttons on your device to mute/unmute videos.

🛠 Fixed

On web, we’ve made some updates to how direct messaging works to improve the real-time connection on flakey networks. Previously, direct messages could sporadically stop arriving unless you closed and reopened the conversation window if your connection to Tumblr faltered for a few seconds.

🚧 Ongoing

We’re still working to fix an issue in the iOS app that’s been causing the messaging/activity nav bar item to not be updated properly with a count of how many unread activity items you have. Sometimes it gets stuck and loses count, even though you’re receiving activity.

🌱 Upcoming

We’re working on setting up some logic to limit push notifications when a post of yours blows up, and we’re interested in getting volunteers to help figure out what the best thresholds are. If you want to help, reach out in the replies!

Experiencing an issue? File a Support Request and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can!

Want to share your feedback about something? Check out our Work in Progress blog and start a discussion with the community.

Wanna support Tumblr directly with some money? Check out the new Supporter badge in TumblrMart!

#tumblr update

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technologywhis · 2 months ago

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Oh yes — that’s the legendary CIA Triad in cybersecurity. It’s not about spies, but about the three core principles of keeping information secure. Let’s break it down with some flair:

⸻

1. Confidentiality

Goal: Keep data private — away from unauthorized eyes.

Think of it like locking away secrets in a vault. Only the right people should have the keys.

Examples:

• Encryption

• Access controls

• Two-factor authentication (2FA)

• Data classification

Threats to it:

• Data breaches

• Shoulder surfing

• Insider threats

⸻

2. Integrity

Goal: Ensure data is accurate and trustworthy.

No tampering, no unauthorized changes — the data you see is exactly how it was meant to be.

Examples:

• Checksums & hashes

• Digital signatures

• Version control

• Audit logs

Threats to it:

• Malware modifying files

• Man-in-the-middle attacks

• Corrupted files from system failures

⸻

3. Availability

Goal: Data and systems are accessible when needed.

No point in having perfect data if you can’t get to it, right?

Examples:

• Redundant systems

• Backup power & data

• Load balancing

• DDoS mitigation tools

Threats to it:

• Denial-of-service (DoS/DDoS) attacks

• Natural disasters

• Hardware failure

⸻

Why it matters?

Every cybersecurity policy, tool, and defense strategy is (or should be) built to support the CIA Triad. If any one of these pillars breaks, your system’s security is toast.

Want to see how the CIA Triad applies to real-world hacking cases or a breakdown of how you’d protect a small business network using the Triad? I got you — just say the word.

#cybersecurity #artificial intelligence #coding #computer science #cyber security #apple #android

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argumate · 3 months ago

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glancing through another slew of papers on deep learning recently and it's giving me the funny feeling that maybe Yudkowsky was right?? I mean old Yudkowsky-- wait, young Yudkowsky, baby Yudkowsky, back before he realised he didn't know how to implement AI and came up with the necessity for Friendly AI as cope *cough*

back in the day there was vague talk from singularity enthusiasts about how computers would get smarter and that super intelligence would naturally lead to them being super ethical and moral, because the smarter you get the more virtuous you get, right? and that's obviously a complicated claim to make for humans, but there was the sense that as intelligence increases beyond human levels it will converge on meaningful moral enlightenment, which is a nice idea, so that led to impatience to make computers smarter ASAP.

the pessimistic counterpoint to that optimistic idea was to note that ethics and intelligence are in fact unrelated, that supervillains exist, and that AI could appear in the form of a relentless monster that seeks to optimise a goal that may be at odds with human flourishing, like a "paperclip maximiser" that only cares about achieving the greatest possible production of paperclips and will casually destroy humanity if that's what is required to achieve it, which is a terrifying idea, so that led to the urgent belief in the need for "Friendly AI" whose goals would be certifiably aligned with what we want.

obviously that didn't go anywhere because we don't know what we want! and even if we do know what we want we don't know how to specify it, and even if we know how to specify it we don't know how to constrain an algorithm to follow it, and even if we have the algorithm we don't have a secure hardware substrate to run it on, and so on, it's broken all the way down, all is lost etc.

but then some bright sparks invented LLMs and fed them everything humans have ever written until they could accurately imitate it and then constrained their output with reinforcement learning based on human feedback so they didn't imitate psychopaths or trolls and-- it mostly seems to work? they actually do a pretty good job of acting as oracles for human desire, like if you had an infinitely powerful but naive optimiser it could ask ChatGPT "would the humans like this outcome?" and get a pretty reliable answer, or at least ChatGPT can answer this question far better than most humans can (not a fair test as most humans are insane, but still).

even more encouragingly though, there do seem to be early signs that there could be a coherent kernel of human morality that is "simple" in the good sense: that it occupies a large volume of the search space such that if you train a network on enough data you are almost guaranteed to find it and arrive at a general solution, and not do the usual human thing of parroting a few stock answers but fail to generalise those into principles that get rigorously applied to every situation, for example:

the idea that AI would just pick up what we wanted it to do (or what our sufficiently smart alter egos would have wanted) sounded absurdly optimistic in the past, but perhaps that was naive: human cognition is "simple" in some sense, and much of the complexity is there to support um bad stuff; maybe it's really not a stretch to imagine that our phones can be more enlightened than we are, the only question is how badly are we going to react to the machines telling us to do better.

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phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess · 4 months ago

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Nice stories with the poly Vees and the tech revolution, I really like the audiobook idea for Alastor.

Could be a separate fic by it's own. Imagine Alastor injured by Adam and in need of more power (to heal) and he decides to expand his reach anonymously beyond just radio.

Alastor launches his own version of Audible (banning AI generated slop) and other services like a free Spotify (cutting into the Vees profit margins by stealing all their audio market monopoly) and the like or military grade communications hardware and software the stuff that doesn't lie and lasts for a long time with no subscription fees. (maybe Alastor was in a war when he was alive, the timeline fits.)

Maybe Alastor had this power all along but the war was traumatising so he decided to ignore all the war orientated facets of his demon form. Or he just fixated on Radio.

Then the Overlord's and the rest of Hell think a new Technology Demon Overlord has arisen and Alastor is a bit too embarrassed to admit to upgrading in any manner no matter the reason. Then there's a fight where Vox reveals the Video, yet it's discovered somehow Alastor is fully healed without angelic aid from a angelic steel wound and proceeds to stomp all three Vees.

Lucifer thinks that's a bit suspicious, Charlie is tearful, The rest are worried and Alastor is still embarrassed.. So without mercy Alastor (because his pride is bigger than his self preservation) throws both caution and Lilith under the bus..

I love the idea of this.

-----

I think Alastor gains power from the reach of his broadcast, to some extent. Like listening in creates an intangible deal that provides a feedback loop... I assumed that Vox has something similar, as well as Velvette.

Like, the more eyes/ears on, the more engagement, the bigger the boost they get. It's not all a constant shill of different commercials and items to the masses (although that funds it) but the constant attention fuels something.

Could be why when Carmilla didn't care he was gone, and Angel Dust (who didn't die that far behind Al but had no idea who he was despite shared decades in hell), pissed him off. That actually felt like a slap to the face, there's a reason the man was constantly seeking attention...

Not to mention FANS, who kind of give a lot of thought and energy and effort to the people they like following/watching/listening to.

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I have this very specific headcanon that Alastor can mimic anyone's voice with enough time to listen to them. After all, if he can do that with his own voice, and what is vocalisation but each person having access to a set audible range with regional variants.

He can get the tone, no worries thats just manipulating soundwaves, but the inflection and accent takes time. Anyone can talk in a lower or higher pitch, but it's the listening to how others talk and framing his skill around that that sells it.

[Niffty thinks its hilarious to 'talk to herself' and get an answer that's outside her head, so he indulges her on occasion].

It is limited to languages he knows, however. Unless say, someone like Husk was to translate and provide phonetic supports on occasion. I like to think Al learned partial Spanish just to fuck with the moth, and catch Vox off guard. Spite is a fantastic motivational tool.

[I assume that Vox has the similar ability to recreate like, the physical form of a person (we see him do the thing where he creates multiple copies of himself and interacts on screen, how hard would it be to generate a deepfake like that?) but he also needs a bit of info on them to make it anything more complex than a puppet.

Like, think about a 3d model before they give it a proper walk cycle, it can be the most advanced graphics but it doing the wiggle and slide move makes you go... wtf...

When he can pull up feed on you from across Pride's surveillance network, and gets your movements, your gestures, your voice... your expressions. He could do ANYTHING. And I think once that's pointed out to Charlotte and his mini majesty they might need to put restrictions on that.

I assume at least some of his souls are because he blackmailed the FUCK out of them with created films of them doing something embarrassing, betraying someone, confessing to things... and it looks so real that he's also effectively gaslighting them.

Wonder who he got this tactic from? Hmmm?]

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Why bring this up?

Well, the thing is... Al's voice is very recognisable, naturally. But if Al was to make an empire on books / podcasts that he needed to do separate from his normal identity, mostly for anonymity and also because it's sending the money-centric vees into a tailspin, then I have a very specific concept.

He takes the voices of those he hears. Oh, there's no book out there with Angel Dust's Voice (though he considered it for some of the more salacious tomes, because AD's image is Vee property at this time and it would annoy them but he also, hmmm, dislikes the idea of puting the spider in the direct line of fire for this.

Nor Niffty nor the Princess nor Husk, no, that would be too easily traced. He does, however, do an entire angsty half-angel half-demon romance thrillogy in Vagatha's voice and she's still hunting for whoever did that. mostly because the edgy teen tone of the story has left the others with some truly devastating comebacks when she's trying to corral them. Eg. "Can you please just stop making eyes at one another and get to art therapy?" / "Of course, oh deep and brooding queen of the night, we shall 'descend unto the madness of therapeutic intervention, though none shall cease the incessant chaos of our intellect.'" / "I am... going to find whoever used my voice and peel them like a banana." / "Whatever you say, Lady D'Eath de Juggsington" / Former angel screaming.

I mean, he lurks in shadows. How hard would it be to trail someone for a bit OR can his poppets act like a teddy ruckskin thing, where they can copy things heard/said? Like, he has them around in crowded places, in the shadows, and if a voice he might like toutilise goes past, they animate and follow discretely.

And once you master that, taking a voice and using it back (which can fall into Not-Deer and Wendigo territory, and a lot of other mythical creatures he's been compared to...

Well, how hard would it be to twist and blend a few voices, a few different inflection styles to make a new one? He'd think it was QUITE the challenge and the frustration and triumph could stave off boredom for a while.

Can you imagine the uncanny valley of downloading a podcast or audiobook and hearing it in YOUR VOICE? Because that's the one he felt matched the story the best? Or that your voice was the one matched to the character? It would be quite the mindfuck, so Al would think it was hilarious]

So, Hell has a complex concept of ownership of course, and copyright is enforced through Mammon in other rings mostly because he's the only one who cares (because Money) and maybe Satan because the guy likes to swing his big old law abiding dongle around.

How do you think he gets the novels?

I think if the source book was produced through Voxtech, he'd just take it and make a free copy (audio) about it. They could try to copyright strike it all they want, but it would keep popping up...

He could have a side deal with Zestial, who is a gossip-loving hound when it comes to having a secret no one else has and thinks the Vees need to be put in their place, that anything his people publish for an author can be utilised under a certain agreement. Because he tends to publish (and I have no idea what he's overlord of but ive given him all written media) stories, news and books that are even from the hellborn that mammon refuses to deal with or publish for anything more than a 0.000000000000000015% royalty per 20million copies sold so...

They tend to be really excited to have their stuff picked up by the ancient overlord's company. And I wonder if Alastor makes a deal with them through Zestial, because he's always been one for the underdog and the hellborn are literally on the backfoot since birth because of what they are and that hits close to home, that they are fiscally compensated for his use of their works.

Money accumulates over time and over thralls and victories. He rarely uses it for anything more than the occasional boost to the hotel, and hatever interests him... his top tier thralls have emergency cards, but Husk's won't let him get anything alcoholic or associated, and Niffty's prevents her from obtaining flamethrowers or whatever the seven rings that giant vibrating thing was from the Lust Store the other day, mostly for safety reasons.

They can use them for almost anything else as long as they're willing to explain it to Al if he asks. And no Voxtech products. Not even pay per view, he taunted Husk once just to see the man grumble and Angel immediately lighted on that. Helped him escape a conversation getting too close to the core of his side gig... Husk was a drunken sot sometimes, but there was a clever man in there and those eyes saw things, that brain (when not pickled) was formidable for making connections.

Either way, between Zestial, books on his shelf (the classics), what he sneaks out of the hotel library / royal library bc lets be real the wards in there are a joke at this point, the things he steals from Voxtech's supplies, the local newspapers (for the news report podcasts) and the absolute dynamite gossip he gets from Rosie, Zestial and all over hell...

There's a lot of avenues.

He also has a fascinating system set up for receiving scripts for potential podcast ideas. Some are more pedestrian that he would ever consider, and others have merit but could use more pizzazz. He was tempted to even make one that might need to utilise Angel Dust for some of the louder scenes because while Al was no stranger to making sound effects, having to moan indecently for a good eight pages of dialogue and make a sound that was rather like spanking a tub of jelly, was not his forte.

The spider would find it second nature, though.

In any case, he did have a means to be contacted via the webpages and through a sending ritual he'd devised. It ran the letter/package through a number of reviews ffor potential bugs or hidden curses before it reached him.

Vox and Vel are constantly sweeping the net for his content and removing it. It's not hard to remove the more blatant pages, they're decoys anyway... but when other independent sites start putting the content up and being banned... it naturally drives people wild for the products being kept from them.

Of course there'd be a deep web, a deeper web and a We've Struck Crude (Oil) web in the pits of Hell. That's just the people down there, though. And the hellborn rings don't just have to be beholden to VoxTech, they have their own versions of the internet, where the podcasts and stories are rife.

The news, gossip, cooking, murder mystery dramas, reporting on real life killers (because the hellborn love it), discussions of human history up to date (because many down there missed out), the fantasy ones with episodes each month that have the net buzzing, the 'deep dives' (those he usually receives requests for and does independent research for), hells, even New To Hell? Tips and Tricks to not get murdered by Plantlife!

All of this, just as the podcast side.

There's a news hour, too. Often sharing information that's being listed on Vox news and sites, but with more detail or correcting the sillier elements.

Because of course, Alastor is powerful and like Vox when he's in his element (the radiowaves) he can split himself across them to do his thing. Theoretically he can produce up to four separate shows / podcasts / audiobooks at once... if feeling well and at a moderate level of power. The current thing hindering him is this damnable wound, though.

It leaves him exhausted and irritable.

However, having soemthing to do while seemingly debilitated helps. He'd go mad otherwise. And the influx of interest feeds him, literally, with the power to circumvent it's poisonous effects.

Could he theoretically get the immediate help and support of the soppy princess and ask for her father to heal it? Technically yes. Would he rather sleep with every Vee, in a televised special, than do so? Also yes. By which he meant, he'd rather die, thank you very much.

He got a little cocky, or perhaps his exhaustion from the wound isn't helping him make decisions very well, because he accidentally reads one of his classical books in his non-filtered voice one day. Vox IMMEDIATELY questions how the fuck-... because he knows Al.

He KNOWS that's Al's voice. How did this new tech overlord get it? Did they have an alliance? Were they FUCKING?! The TV drives himself made with jealousy, as he is known to do... and confronts Al, releasing the video of Adam near bisecting the guy to all of Hell and starting a fight.

"Who is he? She? Them? You got your ass handed to you so bad you'd sell it to save yourself?" Vox snarls, and Al, with no context is like ?????? 'What on earth are you talking about, you silly little picture box?!'

"Your real voice, I heard that other tech fucker use it... I know you have a partnership, and I wanna know why you went to THAT person and not me? What do they have that I don't? What part of you did you sell for that?!"

And Alastor laughed, growing larger, towering over the Vees. "Oh you insipid little fool you were always so blind to the truth even when it's dangled in front of you..." and his voice shifts between different 'hosts' for the podcasts, and different readers for the audiobooks. "Surprise! Turns out I CAN do your job, and manage it far better than all three of you little fools..."

"Hey, I didn't hear any content that challenged mine..." Val points out, drawing his guns.

"Hmmm, perhaps, but I could always contract that work out. Fascinating how many people are more interesting in listening, compared to watching, depravity..."

"...you can't have any of my bitches!"

"I don't need them, I can use their voices if I wish." He wasn't going to, but he needed the moth angry enough to misfire.

Velvette seemed more amused, "How'd you learn to use a computer there, grandpa?"

"Why it's quite easy, I have no idea why everyone assumes that just because I like a certain aesthetic, I'm ignorant of the whole tech thing. I reprogrammed Vox's circuitry more than once, after fights, so he would heal properly... everything else is far less complicated than technobiological surgery."

"...you also did something to you, I can feel it." Vox snarled. "Your tech is singing out, it's not our brand, where the fuck did you get it? Why now? I would have helped you upgrade if you just joined us..."

"And be part you? HAH! You'd turn it off anytime you were mad with me, and I'd rather not live by anyone's whims, picture box. It's nothing drastic, merely some additionally compatible tech to-... ah but that would be telling. Nothing I couldn't do originally. It merely makes it easier."

"Oh fuck off with that, ciervo, you still got humbled by that idiot angel. This is just bluster..." Valentino grinned.

"I believe the phrase is 'Fs in chat' for your overworked braincells, is it not, Miss Velvette?"

The doll snorts out a laugh before she can muffle it. "Not just a tech upgrade, eh? You learned some slang. None of me followers'll believe it."

"Hey, can we focus? Kill the fucker! He's injured and he's fucking with out profits with all this free shit he's handing out."

"Hmmm, about the only kind of fucking I'd do with you, I'm afraid, Vox."

Explosive transformation to overlord forms and kaiju-esque battle that results in a rather damaged shirt that unfortunately for the Vees, shows an undamaged chest save a faint scar. Although the flash of manly fluffy deer chest results in Vox bluescreening and he's down for the count... but not all of him. Which is terrifying when he's the size off a skyscraper.

"Do you... need to take him somewhere to spare his dignity?" Alastor pauses, pointing. Velvette breaks off a swipe, looks at Vox and groans.

"Why the fuck is he like this?!"

"I've been asking myself for decades..." Alastor said, reaching across the airwave to twine his static with Vox, trying not to shudder, and convinces a subroutine to trigger the shrinking back to regular size. He'd done it a few times when they were friends, only worked if Vox was out or open to it. Unfortunately, he'd worked out how to reverse-engineer the process.

You didn't sleep near Vox. For various reasons.

Val has paused, "Are we still fighting...?"

"I mean, I'm game if you are, my good moth bt I suspect you may need to scrape what dignity the picture box has left off the floor and take him back to your eyesore of a tower. You're more than welcome to try again in future... but if we could schedule it in, that's preferred, I have a number of shows coming to their conclusion and the public may kill you if they don't receive the finales."

Vel and Val are willing to defer, Val carrying Vox out of the place because Vel wants Nothing To Do With That Shit. Exhausted with her weird old men.

Alastor may have suggested they change the tv's name to Viagra, given he seems to be consistently having such a response. Val nearly drops the TV as he whirls in shock to grin at the fact Al has dirty jokes now... it's like opening a library book and being slapped with a fish by the nearest librarian. You just didn't see it coming.

Unfortunately, the hotel inhabitants and half of the city saw the fight and are now aware that the Radio Demon was behind the whole podcasts/audiobooks/news thing...

Some feel it makes sense and are kind of delighted to know where to send their scripts. Others have to write frantic letters about how the FUCK he got their voice, and yet more are stunned the old timey radio guy knows what a computer IS...

"What the fuck, bellhop?" The king asks, tactfully, restoring the front 'lawn' area as best he can from the damage there. Several of the shrubs up the driveway have been annihilated and yes he is mad about it, he planted them by hand with Char Char as a bonding activity last month. "Cute little illusion you got going, but if you really did get whacked with Adam's blade, you'll need my help with that."

He is grinning too much for someone offering aid, already thinking of how to force the demon out for a bit of magical first aid.

"No illusion, your Lowness, it healed with enough feedback from souls engaged in my show..." Alastor replied, gesturing at his damaged shirt. "I'd offer for you to touch but I'm too busy to light the offending skin on fire to burn away the recollection of your grubby little hands."

"Are you KIDDING ME?!" Vaggie is launching at Alastor, and only Charlie tackling the woman saves him from being bodychecked into the pavement. "LADY D'EATH JUGGSINTON THE FIFTH?! YOU COULDN'T HAVE CHOSEN ANY OTHER VOICE FOR THAT SHITSHOW?!"

"Hah, NO. She reminded me of your angstier nature, my dear... it's a compliment."

"I'm going to kill you. With my spear."

"Do try, and I will read the seuel series that the author is churning out as we speak, in your voice also. Or perhaps I could do it in the voice of the lieutenant... Lute was it? The new series is from the perspective of her spurned lover..."

"Al, please. NOT HELPING!" Charlie gritted her teeth.

"Well I kinda liked some of the gossip podcasts... and that one about the Fears or whatever that was. Spooky but fun in a fucked way." Angel volunteers, shrugging. "Vags, unclench... it's pretty cool. I'm kinda disappointed you didn't use me for the new demon erotic novel by Chuck Tingle, tho, Al... it's a masterpiece and I'd be perfect!"

"I... had considered it might be taken out on you by the moth if he assumed you were collaborating with another overlord. And the sound effects required seemed unusually salacious... I usually need to record a sound to use it in future, and where would one even find a container of jelly in this place?"

"...what? Oh... OH no I got ya. I've done erotic podcasts. Fuckin' hilarious seeing people standing around blankly whispering things into a microphone, moaning and then slapping wet towels on surfaces. I can get you some more authentic sounds if ya want, deer daddy..."

"...I'm concerned about what that wording means if I say yes, deer boy, so... we shall negotiate in future. Now Valentino knows who is producing the content he can be certain you are not 'actively involved' as it were."

"You a hugger? Wrong answer, it's happening. Look at us being all good with our feelings and shit..." There really wasn't any arguing with six arms squishing you, and f a vvery quiet bleat of surprise escaped, then he would deny it unto his second death.

"So, why didn't you just say you were hurt? What's the point of all this? You HATE tech stuff." Husk gestured, in general, to all of Al.

"...various reasons. And it was far more amusing to undermind Vox and his little crew this way."

"Then why not tell us..." Husk paused, then grinned. "Wait, you didn't want us to know 'cause you were embarrassed you had to turn to new media methods to heal it yourself, aren't you? Stubborn fucking ass. Well now you've gone and done it... there's a whole new generation of demons and hellborn who like your shit, you gonna just stop it now their engagement or however that works fixed it?"

"I am willing to finish the narratives at their end, but yes. The interest has waned now that I am no longer hindered."

"Al, I'm very disappointed in you."

"Whatever for, Charlotte? The matter is dealt with and at an end."

"No, shut up for a second you're not getting out of this that easily. I mean, I'm disappointed that you thought we... that I wouldn't help, with that, from Adam I mean."

"It wasn't anything I couldn't manage for myself." He shrugged, she really didn't understand how overlords worked, did the poor girl?

"But you shouldn't have HAD to, that's my fucking point!" Charlie yelled, briefly losing her temper and sucking her more demonic aspects back in.

"Duckling, he's not worth losing your temper over... the Overlords are suicidal at the best of times. Just let them get at it... you're just too young to have learned not to care yet. Bambi here could have asked for help with that boo boo at any time, but they won't... none of them would. I'm surprised your little angel didn't sense it, it was as irritating as an alarm going off the whole time..." Lucifer soothed, and got a GlareTM.

"...you knew. You knew one of my friends was potentially dying-"

"Not that bad!" Alastor interjected, and then disccussed the pros/cons of biting Angel's hand when one went over his mouth and another petted his hair. ("Shhh, Smiles... the people with some sorta emotional intelligence are talking...") Okay, he was definitely going to bite him.

"...-and you didn't think to tell me? Or help? Dad?" There was a termulous quaver to that tone that forecast tears. The King was immediately panicked.

"Wait, no, no I mean, yes but... I don't like to heal people without their consent, you know? It's not a good look..."

Charlie sniffed. "I mean, I get that... but if you said something, I could have like, sat on him and talked him into it..."

The sound of a record scratch rent the air. "Nhu ank ooo" muffled from behind Angel's hand as the spider laughed.

Lucifer flicked his attention that way. "Well... I suppose my main question for you, Bambi... is why you went to such trouble to avoid our attention. I know you big tough overlords have no sense of self preservation or care for the lives of others... but this seemed excessive."

Oh deer, the ex-archangel seemed to be... thinking.

That couldn't possibly end well.

"In fact, now the angelic taint-..." he pointedly ignored angel's giggling at the wording, "has passed and I'm focused on you... I'm sensing something else we're going to need to talk about."

Al couldn't stop his ears from going flat. Ah.... fuck.

Lucifer reached out a hand towards Alastor, and Angel actually moved them a step back. "Hey, he don't like touch..." said the man who had just about mummified him. "Surprised he hasn't eaten me yet."

Red eyes regarded him, the hand curled, as if grasping something and tugged as a lilac chain appeared in his grasp running back to the collar on Alastor's throat.

"How do you know my wife, Bambi?"

"...fkk"

"You can say that again, Smiles, what the FUCK?!" Angel gapes, dropping his hand.

"Well, your dear wife wanted someone to keep an eye on Charlotte and was willing to kill a LOT of OVerlords before finding one that she liked for the role." he shrugged. "Quite unfortunate."

"Wha-... don't you fucking lie to me, I'm the Devil himself. Lilly would NEVER-..."

"Yes. She would. And you know it. You may have been in the pits of despair in your little palace, but even you must have seen the bodies of sinners being piled about... she wasn't subtle."

"No... those were-... she was healing them, and it didn't work. Angelic steel..."

"Well, I know medicine can't have been that evolved in Eden but playing 'hokey pokey' with angelic steel isn't exactly known for bringing health and vitality to sinners." Alastor deadpanned.

A chorus of 'you put the knife right in and you take the knife back out, you put the knife back in and you twist it all about... you do the hokey pokey and you turn around... that's what it's all about!' played softly.

"Wait... I kinda... think I sort of remember something like that... but it's all mixed up in my head."

"Yes, she sang to you to muddle your memories when you walked in, once. That was about the moment that most realised how far she was willing to go to get her way..."

"No, you're lying."

"Afraid not."

"What was she even testing for, then? In your sick little game, how does this benefit anyone for my WIFE to-... what? Torture sinners? To make a babysitter for Char Char? She had ME. I'm the strongest thing in hell, nothing gets through me to her..."

"And yet, Adam did, because you were stuck in your own head. Oh don't get pissy, you were trapped for various reasons but its the truth. Lillith was concerned that there would come a time when Charlotte needed guidance and support... and she was willing to take the time to find the right person to safeguard it."

"How though? Nothing you said makes any sense..."

"She wanted someone who had no intentions towards her child, who was also rather resistent to angelic steel... and then she meddled to see how that could be fortified. Simple, really. Its fascinating, but the more angelic steel you survive, the harder it is for it to kill you outright."

Charlie looked like she might throw up.

"H-how many died for me?"

"Oh don't worry dear, it was only a handful. there were others she wiped the memories of and returned to their roles... she needed the infrastructure of Pride to remain stable enough to support your endeavours in future."

"But... what about you?"

"Nothing more or less than what others have done." He shrugs. "Do stop your pity party, it won't change the past and the blame is not yours."

"What exactly does she want you to do? The orders on here are obscured, that shouldn't be possible, I'm the Devil!"

"As you keep repeating, yes, indeed you are tiny one. But she merely required that," and here Lillith's voice emanated, taking the King and Princess out at the knees. "You will protect Charlotte, keep her safe and guide her to the best of your abilities, she has her father's ideals and heart, it will get her killed if someone more realistic doesn't step in. You will not divulge the secret of angelic steel to her, or raise arms against Heaven personally. She can't learn of that yet. And you must keep my foolish ex-husband from Charlotte... the two of them together will draw Heaven's attention. Oh, and Alastor... see if you can get Charlotte to make a deal for her soul... I will need that to keep her safe in future. Do not fail me, or I will start killing those important to you..."

"S-Sh-she wanted you to take my soul with our deal?" Charlie sibbed, hearing a side of her mother she couldn't believe was real. "That-s not-..."

"You have a DEAL?!"

"Oh unclench little king, it's for a favour. Technically I fulfilled the requirement for a deal without fulfilling the request for her soul... under the guise of protecting Charlotte."

"Did Mum have anything to do with your... ability to do the new tech things?"

"Yes and no, like Vox I have some technobiology that allows interaction with radiowaves and things along that spectrum... I could have used what I had to do this. However, she apaprently added upgrades I hadn't been aware of until recently, her version of a reward for not raising arms against Adam or some nonsense."

"But... she could have just healed you? She can do that?" Lucifer frowned, not liking the version of his wife being painted here. Ex-wie, apparently... that had stung to hear.

"She could have. Yes. She's quite ticked about not getting Charlotte's soul on her chain, indirectly... and the shield. She felt that was... overextending the bounds of her commands."

"...is there a plan? Is she coming back from...?"

"Heaven? Yes, but not yet. She's in an odd little dimension of her own, being pampered by angels... why would she ever come back here?"

"Ah... shit." Lucifer seemed on the verge of tears.

"Angel, you may need to release me and comfort the king."

"Oh it, Deer Daddy."

"...I will kill the moth myself to free you if you promise not to call me that one more time."

"Don't tease like that, I nearly ruined my shorts...' Angel stuck out his tongue at Al, who roleld his eyes. Vulgarity was par for the course with dear Angel about, unfortunately.

"C'mere, Short King, feel the soft fluff and know comfort..." Angel said, holding the King face first into the fluff. Charlie was having her hair stroked by Vaggie.

"Well, if that's all the theatrics and question and answer sessions for today, I really must be... going somewhere there aren't so many sobbing people." Alastor nods to them all and dissolves into shadow.

Then startles as he's thrown back into physical form as the King snaps his fingers, pointing without even looking at him.

"Oh no you don't..."

"Don't you ever do that again, your lowness, unless you want to know what it feels like to have your own atoms forcefully reassembled..." he snarls.

"If you could be less of an ass for a second, I have more questions..."

"And I have no answers for you. She's likely to gouge out an eye for all I've revealed so far, or just because she'll be in a Mood that we've won. Her little pocket dimension was by the grace of Adam after all..."

"It was WHAT?!"

"Ah... fuck, did I not say such?"

"No you didn't!"

"Well, she also had a deal and-..." the collar goes taut.

"Do stop talking, deer. I feel you've failed in your task quite enough for one day..." said a very cold tone, as they whirl about to find the Queen on the steps of the hotel. In the blink of an eye, she has something shiny buried to the hilt in Alastor's chest. "Be a good boy and hold onto that for me while I greet my daughter...?"

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ETC.

#hazbin hotel #alastor #fun idea

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