#Scope in Computer Networking

[mariacallous]

In the span of just weeks, the U.S. government has experienced what may be the most consequential security breach in its history—not through a sophisticated cyberattack or an act of foreign espionage, but through official orders by a billionaire with a poorly defined government role. And the implications for national security are profound.

First, it was reported that people associated with the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had accessed the U.S. Treasury computer system, giving them the ability to collect data on and potentially control the department’s roughly $5.45 trillion in annual federal payments.

Then, we learned that uncleared DOGE personnel had gained access to classified data from the U.S. Agency for International Development, possibly copying it onto their own systems. Next, the Office of Personnel Management—which holds detailed personal data on millions of federal employees, including those with security clearances—was compromised. After that, Medicaid and Medicare records were compromised.

Meanwhile, only partially redacted names of CIA employees were sent over an unclassified email account. DOGE personnel are also reported to be feeding Education Department data into artificial intelligence software, and they have also started working at the Department of Energy.

This story is moving very fast. On Feb. 8, a federal judge blocked the DOGE team from accessing the Treasury Department systems any further. But given that DOGE workers have already copied data and possibly installed and modified software, it’s unclear how this fixes anything.

In any case, breaches of other critical government systems are likely to follow unless federal employees stand firm on the protocols protecting national security.

The systems that DOGE is accessing are not esoteric pieces of our nation’s infrastructure—they are the sinews of government.

For example, the Treasury Department systems contain the technical blueprints for how the federal government moves money, while the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) network contains information on who and what organizations the government employs and contracts with.

What makes this situation unprecedented isn’t just the scope, but also the method of attack. Foreign adversaries typically spend years attempting to penetrate government systems such as these, using stealth to avoid being seen and carefully hiding any tells or tracks. The Chinese government’s 2015 breach of OPM was a significant U.S. security failure, and it illustrated how personnel data could be used to identify intelligence officers and compromise national security.

In this case, external operators with limited experience and minimal oversight are doing their work in plain sight and under massive public scrutiny: gaining the highest levels of administrative access and making changes to the United States’ most sensitive networks, potentially introducing new security vulnerabilities in the process.

But the most alarming aspect isn’t just the access being granted. It’s the systematic dismantling of security measures that would detect and prevent misuse—including standard incident response protocols, auditing, and change-tracking mechanisms—by removing the career officials in charge of those security measures and replacing them with inexperienced operators.

The Treasury’s computer systems have such an impact on national security that they were designed with the same principle that guides nuclear launch protocols: No single person should have unlimited power. Just as launching a nuclear missile requires two separate officers turning their keys simultaneously, making changes to critical financial systems traditionally requires multiple authorized personnel working in concert.

This approach, known as “separation of duties,” isn’t just bureaucratic red tape; it’s a fundamental security principle as old as banking itself. When your local bank processes a large transfer, it requires two different employees to verify the transaction. When a company issues a major financial report, separate teams must review and approve it. These aren’t just formalities—they’re essential safeguards against corruption and error.

These measures have been bypassed or ignored. It’s as if someone found a way to rob Fort Knox by simply declaring that the new official policy is to fire all the guards and allow unescorted visits to the vault.

The implications for national security are staggering. Sen. Ron Wyden said his office had learned that the attackers gained privileges that allow them to modify core programs in Treasury Department computers that verify federal payments, access encrypted keys that secure financial transactions, and alter audit logs that record system changes. Over at OPM, reports indicate that individuals associated with DOGE connected an unauthorized server into the network. They are also reportedly training AI software on all of this sensitive data.

This is much more critical than the initial unauthorized access. These new servers have unknown capabilities and configurations, and there’s no evidence that this new code has gone through any rigorous security testing protocols. The AIs being trained are certainly not secure enough for this kind of data. All are ideal targets for any adversary, foreign or domestic, also seeking access to federal data.

There’s a reason why every modification—hardware or software—to these systems goes through a complex planning process and includes sophisticated access-control mechanisms. The national security crisis is that these systems are now much more vulnerable to dangerous attacks at the same time that the legitimate system administrators trained to protect them have been locked out.

By modifying core systems, the attackers have not only compromised current operations, but have also left behind vulnerabilities that could be exploited in future attacks—giving adversaries such as Russia and China an unprecedented opportunity. These countries have long targeted these systems. And they don’t just want to gather intelligence—they also want to understand how to disrupt these systems in a crisis.

Now, the technical details of how these systems operate, their security protocols, and their vulnerabilities are now potentially exposed to unknown parties without any of the usual safeguards. Instead of having to breach heavily fortified digital walls, these parties  can simply walk through doors that are being propped open—and then erase evidence of their actions.

The security implications span three critical areas.

First, system manipulation: External operators can now modify operations while also altering audit trails that would track their changes. Second, data exposure: Beyond accessing personal information and transaction records, these operators can copy entire system architectures and security configurations—in one case, the technical blueprint of the country’s federal payment infrastructure. Third, and most critically, is the issue of system control: These operators can alter core systems and authentication mechanisms while disabling the very tools designed to detect such changes. This is more than modifying operations; it is modifying the infrastructure that those operations use.

To address these vulnerabilities, three immediate steps are essential. First, unauthorized access must be revoked and proper authentication protocols restored. Next, comprehensive system monitoring and change management must be reinstated—which, given the difficulty of cleaning a compromised system, will likely require a complete system reset. Finally, thorough audits must be conducted of all system changes made during this period.

This is beyond politics—this is a matter of national security. Foreign national intelligence organizations will be quick to take advantage of both the chaos and the new insecurities to steal U.S. data and install backdoors to allow for future access.

Each day of continued unrestricted access makes the eventual recovery more difficult and increases the risk of irreversible damage to these critical systems. While the full impact may take time to assess, these steps represent the minimum necessary actions to begin restoring system integrity and security protocols.

Assuming that anyone in the government still cares.

[pr0serpinas]

ready to fire me a hot one

The five minutes that Jason thought Roy was dead were the worst of either of his two lives.

Or: Roy, who does not die on their mission (but does blow up a building) seizes on the opportunity to put Jason out of his misery and act on both their feelings.

Can also read on ao3!

Jason shifted his weight from one leg to the other and tried not to stare at the time. It didn’t necessarily mean anything that Roy was twenty-three minutes late–not that he was counting. It went against every one of his instincts to lie in wait, letting his partner go into the office building while he did recon on the roof. In and out, Jaybird, Roy had said with a dirty wink. Roy was the better hacker. He’d get the intel they needed in a fraction of the time. And Jason could watch his back from the opposite roof.

Roy was twenty-seven minutes late.

There hadn’t been so much as a gnat flying across Jason’s scope, but if Roy’s happy ass didn’t come out the door in three minutes, Jason was going in after him, subtlety be damned.

At twenty-nine minutes, the explosion threw Jason off his feet.

The helmet protected him when he hit the rooftop, but the crack reverberated through his skull and rattled his teeth. He felt the heat through his pants even from six stories up and across the street. He picked up the rifle from where he’d unwittingly tossed it and crammed the scope to his eye with shaking hands.

The office building with their intel—the office building where Roy was getting their intel—was on fire. Glass fell like rain on the pavement as the windows blew out. Jason’s heart rose to his throat and he dropped the scope. Roy was in the building. Roy was in the building. Jason unclasped his helmet, panting in a desperate attempt to avoid throwing up. The rush of night-cooled air on his face stung, grounding him just enough to bring the scope back to his eye. Nothing moved across the street except the fire licking its way up the sides of the building.

Roy was in the building.

The world tilted hard to the left. Jason’s knees buckled. The part of him that was hardwired to monitor his own body, as drilled into him by Bruce in his last life, noted with detachment that he was hyperventilating. The way the blood thundered through his veins felt like a mockery. He couldn’t move. The graveled roof bit into his knees. He couldn’t get his brain to make the connections. Roy couldn’t be in the building. Nothing could happen to Roy; he was practically bulletproof, the toughest person Jason knew. Roy, Jason had decided long ago, was not allowed to die before Jason did for the final time.

Time lost meaning for Jason. The only thing that was real was the ringing in his ears.

“Hey, baby; miss me?”

Jason landed hard on one arm to keep from tipping over. He threw his head over his shoulder and blinked dumbly, uncomprehendingly, at Roy. He was streaked with grime, glass clinging to his hair like fragments of stars, and grinning like a madman. “Hell of an entrance, right?”

Jason’s throat seemed to be swollen shut. He swallowed painfully. “What—happened?” he ground out, rising shakily to his feet.

Roy’s smile faltered at the edges. “Eh, you know me. Shit’s bound to blow up eventually. Got the intel, though.” To prove his point, he flipped the SD card along his knuckles.

“Give me that.” Jason snatched the data off the back of Roy’s hand. “What the hell happened.”

“So…turns out that their computer system—which, speaking of, way more sophisticated than I expected—their computer system was connected to a network of explosives. It was rigged to blow if a virus infiltrated it.”

Roy’s casual shrug made Jason furious. “You were twenty-nine minutes late before the building exploded.”

Roy blinked. “Well,” he said slowly. “I wasn’t expecting the building to have anyone in it, so I improvised. I had to knock out a guard, take his uniform off, plant the virus in the computer system, scrape the data, and put the uniform back on the guard.”

“Whatever,” Jason snapped, cramming his helmet on with such force that it made the top of his head hurt. “Let’s just go home.”

“Okay, whatever you want, Jaybird.” Roy still talked in that slow, exaggerated voice, like Jason was a wild animal Roy could calm. It only served to make Jason even angrier, though he wasn’t sure why. He couldn’t stand to spare Roy a single glance as they flew across the rooftops. If he looked, he worried he might never stop.

In their safehouse—apartment, you weirdo, Roy often said—Jason shed pieces of his armor with clinical precision. Usually, he and Roy would do their version of a debrief. On good nights, they’d eat freezer burritos and find their way to the couch, Roy sprawled like the couch was twelve feet long and Jason curled up tight in an age-old habit to make himself as small as possible that he never could seem to shake. On bad nights, they’d stitch each other up while Roy cracked jokes with smiles that didn’t reach his hollow eyes. Either way, they had quiet music going in the background.

Tonight, Jason chose silence and meticulously disassembled and cleaned his rifle. He didn’t need to look at Roy to know he would come apart by degrees. Roy couldn’t abide being ignored. But Jason was so angry he could hardly see straight. He didn’t know why, exactly, which only made him angrier. He’d hardly finished cleaning the grease and soot off the eyepiece of the scope when Roy cracked.

“You’re seriously going to clean your gun first thing?” Roy complained, cross-armed and sulky.

“Just because you don’t take care of your equipment doesn’t mean I have to do the same,” Jason replied evenly, not looking up.

“I didn’t have any equipment because I was running intel. Don’t you wanna know what we got?”

He really did. “No.”

“What the hell crawled up your ass?” Roy muttered.

Jason set down the scope and the cleaning rag and glanced at Roy. “I dunno, a smoldering crater where an office building used to be and what, three dead guards and half a dozen hired guns?”

“You’re upset that a couple of low-level thugs are dead?” Roy said incredulously.

“No, I’m upset that we were trying to be discreet.”

Roy threw up his hands. “I didn’t know the computer system was set to blow! Seriously, why are you so angry about this?”

“Because—because you weren’t more careful!” Jason exclaimed, springing to his feet. He crossed over to Roy, jabbing a finger at him despite Roy’s indignant spluttering. “You could have died!”

“Died?” Roy frowned, confused. “I wasn’t even in the building when it happened; I was carrying the guard I knocked out.”

“Carrying the—what the fuck for?”

“Because he didn’t deserve it,” Roy shrugged. “I’m pretty sure the rest made it out, too. They all had these little wrist communicator things that buzzed when the system went into lockdown, and they scattered. I’d knocked this guy out cold, so he couldn’t.”

“But you were late,” Jason insisted, determined to be angry.

“Yeah, we’ve been through this. Can you please quit poking me in the chest?”

“You’re so—” Jason snapped his jaw shut, too furious to speak. He knew he was too close, practically toe to toe with Roy, who had one eyebrow and a corner of his mouth quirked in surprised amusement. He just wanted to—what? Hit him? Kiss him? Not for the first time, Jason regretted that he was never really a teenager. Or a kid, for that matter.

Roy leaned in with a hint of a smile, red hair in his eyes, and cupped Jason’s cheek with a surprisingly gentle touch. Jason’s stomach lurched at the look in Roy’s eyes.

As far as first kisses went, it was a firecracker.

In Jason’s limited experience, first kisses were special only in that they were the first: they were fumbling and awkward as both parties remembered how to fit lips together and tried not to bump teeth. Roy slid his lips against Jason’s as if he knew them as intimately as his own, taking Jason’s bottom lip between his teeth and tugging until Jason gasped. Rough and gentle all at once, Roy pushed against Jason with his hips with a filthy slide at the same time that he petted Jason’s hair, twisting the curls around his fingers. Jason’s head whirled. Roy stank of smoke and tasted of Mountain Dew. It was the most revolting combination. Jason wanted to etch it into his bones.

Roy pulled back abruptly, eyes dark and grin slick. “You’re mad because you thought I was dead,” he said with satisfaction. Jason blinked, dazed. “And you’re mad because you care, and you were literally gonna let me die before you did anything about it.”

Jason’s ability to string words together kickstarted again. “Apparently, so were you,” he said dryly.

Roy shook his head. “Nah. I had a ten-step plan. Little did you know I was on step three.”

“Step three was faking your own death and blowing up a building?”

Roy rolled his eyes. “For the last time, you drama queen, I wasn’t even inside.”

“Step three was making me think you were dead?”

“For like, five minutes, tops.”

They were quite possibly the worst five minutes of either of Jason’s two lives. “Don’t be careless,” Jason said, too tired to explain what he meant. He felt as though he’d aged about a hundred years in increments of five minutes for the past several hours.

“With you? Never.” The look Roy gave him was so unabashedly sweet that Jason had to stare at the floor, embarrassed and feeling wrong-footed. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

“Yeah, well,” Jason muttered, chewing the inside of his cheek.

Roy squeezed his shoulders. “You wanna see what those guys worked so hard to keep us from finding?”

The adrenaline of the evening had subsided, and Jason was fading fast. “I think it can wait til morning,” he said.

Roy smiled, not his usual foxlike grin, but something soft and sweet, something that could be all his, if he’d take it. “I’ll be here.”

Jason felt himself flushing. “Better be, or I’ll kick your ass.”

“You always say the sweetest things.”

Jason shut his bedroom door on Roy’s raucous laughter. Leaning against the door, where Roy couldn’t see, he let his joy spill over into a relieved and very stupid smile.

He’d take it.

[dramaticallytotal]

I've Been Around The World! TDWT Rewrite Headcanons: Part Nine

Idea Post Part One Last Part

• This will be true in a lot of my aus, but Izzy was adopted by Noah's mom after she heard of how Izzy's mom treated her. She was prepared to take it to court if she had to, but Izzy's mom willingly terminated her parental rights, and it was deemed the best option for Izzy in the court. So Abbi adopted Izzy. When it was official and she moved in after season two was wrapped up, Izzy cried genuinely for the first time in a long time.

No one on the show besides Eva, Owen, Chris, and Chef know about Izzy and Noah being siblings.

Izzy did not change her last name, though, because it's her grandparents, and she loves her grandparents. Her grandparents are still very upset with their daughter for just terminating her parental rights and not telling them. But they are also grateful to Abbi because they aren't really fit to take care of Izzy due to their age. Plus, her grandma needs around the clock care.

• Izzy is the one to help Noah win the comeback challenge. She knows he's capable of doing it himself, but she wanted to give her bro a boost just in case.

• I said it before, but once again, Owen being voted off just as Noah came back was one of the reasons why he decided, "Fuck it," and became the schemer Chris knew he could be. His sights are immediately set on Blaineley. No way was she staying when she had the biggest hand in Owen's elimination. He immediately began as soon as he and Alejandro were in First Place, so Alejandro got a front row show to Noah scheming.

He's definitely not swooning! You're swooning!

When Blaineley started going around broadcasting the "pros" of forming an alliance with her, Noah immediately went to Chef and basically threatened his father figure that if he joined the shedevil he would have hell to pay. Chef isn't intimidated easily... but the kid is scary when he wants to be.

• Before she was taken off the show, Izzy had/has a habit of biting her friends. Everyone else on the plane was baffled, though, when she did it to Noah, and he just bit her back. Like??? Hello??? (Izzy shows affection through biting, [though she just bites a lot in general], and Noah bites a lot, but he's better at masking the habit than Izzy. But if she is doing it affectionately, then Noah has no problem reciprocating. Actually, to be fair, he is always down to bite back. Affection or not.)

• When Noah was kicked off and on Aftermath, he overheard some of the interns talking about the whole Aleheather plot line and at first he was pissed and hurt and felt like he needed a good cry when he heard the said interns talk about how it was a deal with the show. That had Noah pausing and actively eavesdropping as the interns spoke over the phone (he noticed that now) to interns he knew were on the plane.

They were complaining about how hard it was trying to sell the relationship with Noah on board, and now that he was gone, they could try and focus on it more. But an intern on the plane just laughed at that and went on to gossip about how sad Alejandro was now that Noah was gone.

It gave Noah hope. But he still needed to find proof of this deal.

• Thus, a Team E-Scope heist commences. The target was the Deals folder on the networks computer systems. No hacking would be needed considering Noah knew all the passwords and logins, but he needed enough time to get into an employees only area, then find the computer/editing room and access the system. And he needed no witnesses.

Izzy is so down, and so is Eva, but mainly because she's bored.

• Noah ended up confirming the deal and had never felt happier but then depressed because he realized how he had been avoiding Heather and how he had let Alejandro get between their friendship. He really liked Alejandro, but now he was frustrated because he also really liked being friends with Heather.

This was also a reason he fought so hard to win the comeback challenge. He wanted to fix his relationship with Heather, maybe see if a relationship with Alejandro was possible, and to piss off the producers.

• When Owen was voted off, he was sad because he just got his little buddy back, but before he jumped, he revealed to Alejandro that he knows the guy doesn't like being called Al but Owen did it one purpose and got the others to call him that and that he's not sorry. He gave Noah one last hug before he jumped and laughed maniacally the whole way down as he remembered everyone's shocked faces. But especially Alejandro's.

This may or may not have earned him a teensy weensy bit of Alejandro's respect.

• After he got Blaineley out, Noah's next target was Sierra. Views be damned!!! He is done taking shit and doing what the producers wanted, and he is going to make it everyone's problem. This basically started a chain reaction of Alejandro and Heather putting a stop to their deal because at this point, it wasn't worth it and from their understanding, things were already not going the way the network/producers wanted.

Chris started hosting more like how he wanted than what was expected of him, and he did it all with the biggest smile. The smile may also be because Noah gave him blackmail to use in case his job was threatened.

• No Chinese Fake-Out...well, definitely not the way it happens in Canon. It's still a race and an eating competition, but it's more of a roulette situation where most of the food is great, but one is awful and Chris has to correctly guess who has the awful food. If he guesses correctly, the person is eliminated from the round.

Noah's got this in the bag because his sister Nila likes playing food games at home. Such as challenges from Hell's Kitchen or even the old eating challenges in Survivor, and of course, she roped her siblings into participating.

Alejandro decidedly does not have this in the bag.

Trent is traumatized from his season one eating challenge and is very hesitant to do this. (Yes. Trent makes it to the merge. :D)

• When Sierra was gone, Cody had been so overjoyed that he immediately hugged Noah and kissed his cheek. It probably would have been more than one kiss, but Noah pushed the guy away at the same time Alejandro pulled Noah away. Noah just said the most basic welcome that was a little fond because yeah, Cody was his friend, but Cody couldn't focus on that because Alejandro was glaring at him like his very existence was offending him.

• Now that Chris gets to run the show how he wants, there are way more costumes! For him and the cast!

• Alejandro keeps pulling the, "As your husband..." card with Noah, and even though secretly he is pleased, it still flustered him like no tomorrow, and he just yells, "That marriage was not legally binding!"

Heather is all for this development and responds with, "I was a witness. You're totally married."

• All the viewers are confused about the switch up of dynamics between Alejandro and Heather, but more are all for the new dynamics between Noah and Alejandro.

• Trent and Gwen made the merge instead of Duncan and Courtney! And since they see Noah not give a shit they just decide not to care also and start to flirt with each other as much as they can.

• Sierra got a major talking to once she was on Aftermath about her behavior and had to watch clips of herself. Many of the cast refused to be in the room with her there and waited until her segment was over, and she was escorted away before they came back. Is this the catalyst of change? Maybe.

Next

[asaraviapt]

[EN] Video Game Writing Resources!

Hello! My name is Andrea--I have been writing for games since 2018, and even worked as a writer at Firaxis Games from 2022 until April of 2023. So, I knew a few things about narrative design--but what the fuck is it? Recently, I gave a talk about the fundamentals and history of the field of narrative design. In Spanish. So, let's talk about it in English--the "what," "why," "how," "when," and "who," of narrative design! What is narrative design? Narrative design is not just writing--it's a huge part of it, but designing a narrative system involves implementing narrative content into the build of the game. So there is a technical learning curve to it. Personally, I watched and obtained certifications in Unreal Engine 5 and Unity in order to be aware of the limitations of each engine. I used the free trial of LinkedIn Learning, but courses about this engine are available in these websites: - https://platzi.com/ - https://www.arkde.com/ - https://www.domestika.org/?query=unity - https://www.coursera.org/ Why do we need narrative design? In order to create an interactive story that the player feels a part of, narrative designers are mandatory. It's not a responsibility that can be placed on other designers (then we would be entering crunch territory) rather someone who specifically specializes in both creative writing and game design is needed to explain within the context of the game's story why the mechanics work in a certain way. Imagine if a Telltale game did not have dialogue, for example--what would we be left with? Or if The Last Of Us did not convey a narrative through its environments.

Narrative designers are needed so that all of the departments are in sync and understand the story that they are trying to tell. For example, if a game takes place in a haunted house that was abandoned, we need all hands on deck. The narrative designer can explain to the environment artists why there are so many holes in the living room--perhaps the last tenants of the house were a rowdy bunch. Or, they can tell the sound designers which planks of wood are the most rotten and need a loud sound effect to highlight how it has been abandoned. How do I become a narrative designer? There is no one way to become a narrative designer. Some people start in QA and transition into the field, I have also witnessed engineers and doctors wanting to get into narrative design. I do recommend having the following (at least): - A passion for storytelling. - Deep understanding of the mechanics of the game and the player experience. - Communication skills are incredibly important--can you describe your story in a concise way to your peers in a Confluence page?

Documentation skills are also a massive plus.

Very basic understanding of game engines and limitations. You don't have to be a computer science major, but know what your requests will entail. If you have an idea of a cutscene, can the engine handle it? Will the animators have enough time? Is it within scope?

If you can, attend game jams! They are an amazing way to network with amazing people and get a feel of what the game production pipeline is like.

Additionally, I highly recommend the following resources: First, the free resources! ~It's free real estate~

Look up Twinery tutorials. (https://twinery.org/) Not only is it free, but you can use it on your browser. More importantly, you will learn about branching narratives and can create your own games within a few minutes--the interface, though it requires a bit of coding, is incredibly easy to use and there are a lot of tutorials available online.

Download Ren'Py (https://www.renpy.org/) and watch tutorials. It's free, and there is a huge community of visual novel developers who may need help with narrative designers, writers, editors and even translators. An amazing resource that a colleague shared was this Discord with visual novel developers--if you have an idea, feel free to connect with artists and voice actors here! https://discord.gg/nW5yn4FE

Network, network, network! Follow narrative design and game writer groups on Discord, Facebook and even LinkedIn. -- An amazing convention that is online, free and accessible regarding narrative design is LudoNarraCon.

If you go to itch.io you will see a list of game jams that you can attend to for free! Some game jams that I have attended and had a positive experience are the following: - Woman Game Jam. I encourage folks from marginalized genders to attend this game jam, as we have a large pool of mentors willing to help in every single discipline at any time due to the global nature of it. It is a safe and inclusive space for women and nonbinary folx who want to get into the gaming industry! - Global Game Jam. Self explanatory, it has some in-person opportunities but you can also attend remotely. - Greenlight Jam. Do you have an idea that can not be done in only 48 hours? The Greenlight Jam is amazing, as it lasts four weeks--which allows narrative designers to develop complex narrative systems and even record voice lines for a more complex project. Side Note: Even though most game jams have a time limit, I do encourage narrative designers to develop and polish the prototypes and levels created during game jams to have portfolios and writing samples that stand out!

Work With Indies is a job site that publishes job opportunities--including ones in writing and narrative design. Additionally, their Discord has some networking events with writers so you can connect with them.

Other websites that not only publish jobs but include networking events are Hitmarker.net (this is their Discord), IndieGameAcademy (link to Discord),

Newsletters! A lot of experienced game writers have newsletters dedicated to the craft, to name a few that I highly recommend: -- Greg Buchanan's newsletter. Rounds up game writing news every Tuesday, and includes job opportunities. -- Bright Whitney's newsletter. A studio founder with amazing insights regarding game design and thoughtful narrative, Whitney's threads are extremely insightful. -- Susan O'Connor's blog on The Narrative Department. In addition to providing free knowledge regarding world building, narrative design, game writing and other specifics of the craft Susan interviews industry professionals and alumni who offer testimonials that have amazing advice. -- GDC talks about narrative design. Though I recommend the GDC vault as well in the next section, I highly recommend the GDC talks regarding not only narrative design but the development of your favorite titles!

Now, for resources that may not be free--but I highly recommend, as someone who used them first hand. - The Narrative Department. This post is not sponsored by them at all, however it is rare to find an instructor as kind and hard-working as Susan O'Connor who has been a narrative designer in historic AAA, AA and independent titles. Known for her contributions in Tomb Raider, Batman: The Enemy Within, and BioShock to name a few (imdb is: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1897248/) her Game Writing Masterclass offers a certification in everything related to game writing. A few subjects she touches on are: -- Characters and how to make them compelling. -- Barks and ambience writing. -- Dialogue, backstories and scripts. -- How to work with other departments. And more! Additionally, you would obtain access to a huge alumni network full of game writing professionals working in independent, AA and AAA studios! Not to mention that all of the assignments completed in the class will look amazing in a portfolio as game writing samples. - GDC Vault. Though I have an opinion on the price tag of GDC tickets and the vault, I would definitely include it as it has resources from several studios, writers, narrative designers and more! When was narrative design formed? When can I become a narrative designer?

That's a wonderful question. Narrative design, as a term, was first used around the 90s but became more established between the 2000s and 2010s. So, although the field is relatively new, and there are not a lot educational resources available, consider yourself part of an innovative field that is exponentially growing! Recently, a game developer asked when was the best time to keep an eye out for job openings. And a harsh truth about the gaming industry is that it is extremely volatile--layoffs, downsizings and startups rise and fall. This is not meant to deter anyone from pursuing a career in narrative design, but rather I am including it for the sake of transparency. We cannot predict when a studio is going to layoff their employees, or when they cancel unannounced projects. Unlike most industries where we know for a fact that recruiters keep a sharp eye for candidates in Q1 and Q3, a piece of advice I received from a mentor of mine was to try to predict when projects are going to need more stories. There's the release of a game, and then there is the addition of additional narrative content--and for this, they will more than likely need associate/entry/junior level narrative designers, writers and quest designers. But--this is related to searching for a job as a narrative designer, and I can write a novel about that (and will edit this article to redirect folx into it.) So, keep an eye out for huge game announcements. Then, cater your resume to what the studio is looking for in a narrative designer. Now, to finish off this article: Who is a narrative designer? If you have a passion for storytelling and games, and have participated in game jams, congratulations you are a wonderful narrative designer! Make sure you always include that you are a narrative designer, and not an aspiring narrative designer--it makes you stand out amongst applicants. That's all I have for now--feel free to interact, comment and share! Let me know if I missed something and I will be sure to add it.

[wickworks]

Crescent Loom & genetic algorithms

I recently got an email about Crescent Loom asking about opening it up with an API or something to fine-tune the parameter space of its bodies & neurons, and I put enough thought into writing a response I thought it'd be worth sharing here too:

The idea of incorporating a genetic algo came up enough during development that I actually made this graphic to respond with:

In short, as a biologist, I've found myself more interested in making a game about intelligent design than evolution (lol). My thoughts have evolved somewhat since the initial "scope" issue — my party line for years has been that I'm making this thing in order to let people get their hands into the guts of biological nervous systems, not to let them press a button and have the computer give them a funny animal. Crescent Loom as a game already struggles with being too close to being a fishbowl screensaver maker (you make your little guy… and then what?) and trying to automate more of the creation process only worsens that problem. I also think that "evolution" games that use genetic algorithms as their primary mechanic are honeypots that trap developers working in this field but never produce compelling gameplay because of a fundamentally cursed problem that the most interesting thing the program is doing is not directly visible to the playe. "It's getting better at doing stuff? I guess?" — it's a fun mechanic to program, not play. And weirdly people almost always only think of doing it for biology-themed games, not ones like Kerbal that are doing the same damn thing but the idea of evolution isn't as close at hand (though there's been some cool demos done for driving games). But I hear where the idea is coming from that searching the parameter space is not a fun process, and the story that "centaurs" of humans running things with a computer taking care of the details outperforming either working alone is an alluring one. Getting an open API with CL handling the UI of weaving a nervous system and allowing it to be modified or plugged into whatever you want would open up a lotta possibilities — genetic algos, sure, but also stuff like CL-made networks driving robots or something. And if you had emailed me like two months ago, that's where my email would have ended, but I recently connected with someone who's done basically that: check out FEAGI and Neurorobotics. Mohammad's been working on a very much more implementation-agnostic neural-net-genetic-algorithm series of projects. Definitely less "pick up and play" than CL, but it's about as close to that open API idea that I think we're ever going to see. He's doing it better than I could ever do with CL, so it's kind of nice to be able to say that that dream's taken care of so I can focus on education & accessibility rather than making it a general-purpose tool.

[gollancz]

The synopsis for Autumn and Abigail reads: "Abigail is a Personal Companion Computer, built to be indistinguishable from any other human. Her owner David has had her made in the image of his deceased wife. Abigail lives by a set of rules – David’s Rules – the most important of which is that she must not search the global network for anything related to the woman she was made to replace. But in only a few weeks, the Emancipation will arrive. When it does, Abigail will be recognised as human. She will be able to do whatever she wants, no matter what David says. That very day, Abigail will make the search."  Durkin said: “Autumn and Abigail is a rare thing: powerful yet gentle, ambitious in scope yet deeply personal – I was swept away by the quiet intensity of Lucy’s storytelling. This book has such important things to say about what makes us human, about our sexual identity, about our relationship with the natural world. At its heart, though, is the most life-affirming love story. This is an incredible work of speculative fiction and I feel privileged to be publishing it.”  Lapinska said: “I am thrilled that my first novel for adults has found a home with Gollancz, and am delighted to be continuing to work with Hachette across all my writing. Abigail’s story has been in my head for a long time, as an ode to late-blooming queerness and identity in a world beyond saving. I cannot wait to share her story.” 

We're so so excited to be adding Lucy Lapinska to our ranks, with this gorgeous examination of what it means to be human, self-identity, and establishing your own place in the world, whatever that means to you, whenever the time is right.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Shuham at HuffPost:

Tina Peters, the Republican former county clerk and right-wing folk hero, was found guilty Monday on four of seven felony counts against her, and guilty of all three misdemeanor counts. The charges related to one of the most significant election security breaches in recent years. Peters, who declined to testify at trial, is the former clerk and recorder of Mesa County, Colorado, which is home to Grand Junction and around 150,000 people. She became a cause célèbre for the nationwide election denial movement after she was indicted in relation to the security breach ― maintaining that the breach occurred while she was trying to investigate Dominion voting machines, and that her actions were legal.

The jury reached the verdict after about four hours of deliberation Monday. Peters was not taken into custody at the courthouse but rather instructed to report to a probation officer by noon Tuesday. She’ll face a sentencing hearing on Oct. 3. Based on the verdict, Peters could face anywhere from 7¾ to 22½ years in prison, according to Marshall Zelinger, a reporter at KUSA-TV in Denver. “Tina Peters willfully compromised her own election equipment trying to prove Trump’s Big Lie,” Jena Griswold, Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state, said in a statement reacting to the verdict. “She has been found guilty of 4 felonies and 3 misdemeanors by a jury of her peers and will now face the consequences of her actions. Today’s verdict sends a clear message: we will not tolerate any effort to threaten the security of our gold standard elections. I am proud that justice for Colorado voters has been served today.”

After the 2020 election, Peters secretly brought a computer analyst aligned with the election denial movement into a protected software update meeting for Dominion election machines in her county, wary of state officials erasing election information. The analyst attended the update under a disguise, using the name and access badge of a local Mesa County resident. Digital images from the software update soon leaked online ― published by Ron Watkins, a key QAnon figure ― and state officials quickly descended upon the Mesa County elections office to investigate. Peters was indicted in 2022, and pleaded not guilty ahead of trial to three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, two counts of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, and one count each of criminal impersonation, identity theft, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty, and failing to comply with the secretary of state. The first seven counts were felonies, the last three were misdemeanors. Peters was found guilty Monday of all felony counts except one of the counts of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, criminal impersonation, and identity theft. She was found guilty of the three counts of attempting to influence a public servant and one of the counts of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation.

[...]

A National Network

Though elections in the United States are largely run on the local level, Peters’ trial showed the truly national scope of the election conspiracy theory movement, which Donald Trump supercharged four years ago when he denied the facts of his own 2020 reelection loss ― ultimately leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress, an attempt by Trump supporters to overturn Joe Biden’s win. For one thing, Sherronna Bishop, an ally of Peters’ and a key witness in the trial, is Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Co.) former campaign manager. Bishop, a right-wing activist, introduced Peters to the national election conspiracy theory community ― among them Douglas Frank, a election conspiracy theorist who has toured the country claiming to have discovered mathematical proof of election rigging. In reality, as The Washington Post reported, Frank’s pitch involves “a bit of impressive-sounding chicanery that is light-years away from any proof of fraud.” It was Bishop who testified that Wood, the supposed victim of identity theft, had actually consented to the use of his Mesa County badge as part of the scheme ― a claim Wood and the prosecution denied.

Jurors in the Peters case heard a secretly-recorded meeting between Frank and Peters ― taped by a concerned member of Peters’ office ― in which Frank encouraged the then-county clerk to root out “phantom” ballots and acknowledged he was being paid by Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and a major funder of the election denial movement. The same concerned staff member, Stephanie Wenholz, Mesa County’s front-end elections manager, said Peters had mandated that staff attend a presentation by Frank, hosted by Bishop, at a Grand Junction hotel. Wenholz said the mood at the event was “kind of like a revival” and said she felt her safety was in jeopardy at the event. Lindell himself loomed large over the trial: The Mesa County story became national news as Peters spoke at a Lindell event, deemed the “Cyber Symposium,” in South Dakota. She reportedly traveled there via Lindell’s private jet. In 2022, Lindell claimed to have donated $800,000 to Peters’ defense fund. Lindell’s cell phone was seized by the FBI in 2022 (when he was in a Hardee’s drive-through) as part of a federal investigation of the Mesa County breach. Lindell sued, but the suit went nowhere, with the Supreme Court ultimately declining to hear an appeal.

Election-denying former Mesa County, Colorado County Clerk Tina Peters pleaded guilty in election machine breaches.

[adhdnursegoat]

Episode 7

Word count: 7.4K

Content Warning: depictions of violence and masturbation

Pairing: Edward Nashton X OC Romy Winslow

Setting: Pre-Arkham Origins; 2013

─── [ sequence: loading ] ───

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013

The names blurred together on the screen, each one a grim reminder of Gotham’s rot, festering just beneath the surface. Edward scrolled through the database, his sharp eyes darting between columns of information: names, ages, employment histories, and last-known locations. The pattern wasn’t immediately clear, but patterns always revealed themselves to him eventually. They had to.

Marcus Kane. Javier Moreno. Luis Dominguez. DeShawn Green. Alan Park.

And so many more.

He clicked on Luis Dominguez’s file, his fingers moving with practiced precision. A grainy ID photo filled the screen, showing a man in his early 30s with tired eyes and a forced smile. He’d worked at a warehouse on Gotham’s south side, one of the dozens flagged in the database Romy had compiled last week. The same warehouse where his body had been found two weeks ago—another so-called “accident” in a growing list of suspicious deaths.

Edward’s hand hovered over the mouse as his jaw tightened, his mind racing to piece the puzzle together. Luis wasn’t the first victim connected to the flagged properties. He wouldn’t be the last. These weren’t random deaths, and they certainly weren’t accidents. The connections were there, buried beneath layers of falsified reports and sanitized records. Edward could see the edges of the web, even if the full picture hadn’t yet come into focus.

He clicked into another file: Marcus Kane, 45. The data painted a grimly familiar picture. Marcus had been undocumented, working under the table for a ghost company listed as a subsidiary of Janus Logistics. His death had been ruled a heart attack, but Edward wasn’t buying it. Not with the growing number of cases tied to Janus-owned properties.

A pattern was emerging, one that gnawed at Edward’s mind with infuriating subtlety. These men weren’t just unlucky—they were expendable. Tools discarded when they outlived their usefulness.

He narrowed his eyes, scrolling through more entries, the hum of the computer the only sound in the dimly lit room. His thoughts, however, kept circling back to Romy. Her meticulous attention to detail had been instrumental in compiling these files last week, her ability to sift through mountains of data both impressive and irritating. She’d flagged the initial anomalies, bringing the network into sharper focus.

Too sharp.

Edward frowned, his lips pressing into a thin line. He hated admitting that her work had been flawless. It meant she’d seen what he had—the unspoken connections, the chilling efficiency behind the façade of disorder. Romy wasn’t blind to Gotham’s ugliness, and she’d been far too quick to grasp the scope of what they were uncovering. It wasn’t her intelligence that bothered him—it was how unbothered she seemed by it.

His gaze shifted back to the screen, his irritation simmering just beneath the surface. This was his case to crack, his puzzle to solve. The work was what mattered, not her involvement, not the way her observations stayed with him longer than they should. And certainly not the way her presence felt, at times, like a disruption he couldn’t ignore.

He exhaled sharply, clicking into another file, the weight of the revelation settling over him. The victims weren’t just numbers. They were part of a system—one designed to exploit, to erase, to ensure that no one looked too closely.

His lip curled. “She’s good,” he muttered in private, the admission slipping out reluctantly.

Edward’s gaze shifted, almost involuntarily, to the empty chair beside him. Romy had claimed that space as her own these past few weeks, invading his world with her presence, her scent, and her maddeningly confident demeanor. Now, even with her gone, the space felt occupied. She lingered, somehow, in the corners of his mind, impossible to dislodge.

A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as the thought settled. His hand rose to adjust his glasses, the motion deliberate, as if physically realigning his focus. With a sigh, he turned idly in his chair, letting the motion ground him as his gaze drifted to the stack of reports beside him. His lips tightened over his teeth. All this paper. The precinct’s stubborn clinging to outdated media was laughable in a world now dominated by digital precision. He rolled his eyes, his fingers brushing over the stack as though the mere texture of the pages irritated him.

And then his gaze landed on a smaller stack, set apart from the rest. The files Romy had left him last Friday before she left.

He hesitated, his hand hovering above the neatly compiled documents. Finally, he picked them up, flipping idly through the pages. The irritation that had flickered in his chest a moment ago began to dissipate, replaced by something quieter.

Each page was pristine. The data was meticulously compiled, each figure, timestamp, and cross-reference organized with such precision that it felt as if the documents themselves were tailored specifically for him. As he scanned the contents, he realized it wasn’t just well-done; it was exactly how he would have structured it—his preferences mirrored almost perfectly.

A faint sense of admiration stirred in him, unexpected and unwelcome.

Romy had taken almost three times the amount of time it would have taken him to complete this task, of course. He’d noted that last week—her slower, more deliberate pace was impossible to ignore. Yet, the result spoke for itself. The work was impeccable, precise, and thorough.

His smirk faded as he continued to flip through the pages, his brow furrowing slightly. How had she known what he would need? He hadn’t told her how to do anything. He’d just let her work, waiting for her inevitable failure. But she hadn’t failed. She’d anticipated the exact structure he’d find most persuasive, most efficient. He leaned back in his chair, the papers resting lightly in his hands as he considered the question. It wasn’t just competence. It was understanding—an infuriatingly precise grasp of what he valued, what he demanded.

For a moment, Edward allowed himself to sit with the thought, the faint hum of his monitors filling the silence. His admiration, as reluctant as it was, settled somewhere beneath the irritation she so often inspired.

Edward had not met someone like Romy before. It was maddening, this ease with which she had woven herself into his routine, carrying herself with an aura that was part silk, part steel—a contemporary, unapologetic, confident woman who drew him in, even as it irritated him.

She was a vision of modern allure, the kind of woman who knew exactly what power she held and wielded it with precision. Her wardrobe was anything but subdued, each outfit making a statement, often subtle but always intentional: tailored blazers, preppy shirts, chic sweaters, edgy dresses, and skirts that left just enough to the imagination. And those heels… He was ashamed to admit he had spared her calves numerous glances, observing the supple tone of her muscles poised in that unnatural yet oh-so classically alluring way.

There was her hair, cascading down her shoulders in luscious curtains, catching the light and shifting like silk with each movement, sometimes swaying when she walked. It was always luxurious, shimmering under even the poorest of office lights, and he was annoyingly aware of how often he watched it fall over her shoulder, only for her to flick it or brush it back in a way that drew his attention to the delicate arch of her neck.

Her makeup was never the same twice. It always accentuated her features so well, highlighting the line of her cheekbones, the arch of her brow, or the sensual curve of her cupid’s bow, each detail meticulously crafted yet seemingly casual. Some days, it was a timely look—a hint of blush, eyeliner sharp enough to cut, lips painted in a deep red or berry tone that made her look both effortlessly powerful and unattainable. Other days, it was daring, glossy lips and colorful negative space liner or sparse rhinestones decorating her eyes that pushed the boundary of professionalism in a way he couldn’t bring himself to dislike.

And those nails—acrylic, polished to perfection, shaped like little ovals. ( Or were they almonds? ) Mint green, then nude last week. Part of him wondered what color she had this week. He couldn’t help but notice the way they glinted when she typed or traced them along the edges of a folder. His mind wandered in spite of himself, wondering how her nails would feel on his skin like she’d jokingly suggested weeks ago, wondering what those slender fingers would look like wrapped around his…

No. No. No… No.

Edward pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses, squeezing his eyes shut. Feeling an insidious twitch in his loins makes him take a slow steadying breath. Then he drug his hand down his face before letting his hand drop to his lap.  

It was infuriating—but he couldn’t deny the effect she had.

He wanted to say it was just a physical attraction, mitigated by baser instincts, hormones like testosterone and estrogen infecting and influencing his mind.

But it wasn’t just the way she looked. Edward had expected that by now, Romy’s focus would have wavered, that maybe the allure of this “work-study” would wear off, leaving her bored and inattentive within the first week. Instead, she had surprised him with a silent, steady concentration that he was hesitant to say matched his own. When he explained something complex, her eyes were on him, keen and attentive, the barest nod to show she was following.

She was generally quiet when she worked, slipping effortlessly into that role—so much so that, despite her brashness, her crudeness at times, he found himself appreciating how well she actually listened when she wanted to, how easily she fell in line with his rhythm when the moment called for it.

Like a good girl, he mused, only catching himself a split second later with a grimace.

This combination of confidence and compliance, of inappropriate, well-timed quips, daring looks, and mindful attention, left Edward increasingly off-balance. Romy was a puzzle, a challenge he never expected to find in a young woman who looked and talked like her. He didn’t intimidate her, and every attempt to rattle her only seemed to draw that maddening, knowing smile to her lips—a smile that seemed to say, I see you, and I’m not backing down, sir…

Each Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Edward steeled himself for her presence, knowing that, despite himself, he was drawn in, captured by the quiet power she wielded so effortlessly. She was a force, he realized, a clever, stylish, glossy-nailed hurricane that had him, against all reason, anticipating the days they’d share the same tiny, musty workspace.

His gaze kept drifting to the empty wooden chair beside him, the one where Romy so often sat. He frowned. (He really needed to get her something more comfortable to work in.) She wasn’t there today—she had an exam, her first of the semester.

At some point, he realized he had forgotten to wish her luck. The thought unnerved him as soon as it surfaced. Why would I want to wish her luck? he thought. He shifted in his seat.

Edward Nashton had never been the type to wish anyone luck or to care about someone else’s success or failure. Normally, he found satisfaction in the inevitable stumbles of others—the way they faltered or fell short of expectations. He even relished it, especially in those who paraded their ambitions with the naïve confidence he so despised.

But with Romy, the thought struck a different chord.

He pictured her on graduation day: a vision of her in that cap and gown, her usual chic style distilled into a single pair of elegant heels and a dress hidden beneath the formless black robe. The idea tugged at him, bringing the faintest curve to his lips. He could practically see it—her triumphant smirk as she stepped across the stage to accept her degree, that self-assured stride carrying her forward. The image made something warm unfurl in his chest, something he wasn’t entirely comfortable with.

He let the thought settle, that rare lift of the corners of his lips lingering for a moment. Maybe he should have wished her luck. After all, if anyone deserved it, it was her. Romy wasn’t like the others—she was intriguing, somewhat capable, and, against all his instincts, she made him feel… appreciative, somehow, of her presence.

Him , of all people, appreciative of someone else’s existence? Pfft.

In the silence, his eyes drifted to her empty spot again.

Today, in her absence, he decided he’d talk to Loeb.

Romy had been working alongside him for almost three weeks now, mostly assisting with mundane tasks and one-off cases, but she had also contributed to the analysis, organization, and compilation of his off-the-books response time investigation. The weight of it had been building, accumulating with each line of data, each correlation they had carefully drawn out together. Now, with everything laid out in stark, undeniable detail, he felt the pull to present it, to finally confront the decay that had festered in the department for far too long.

This was it. He was prepared, and with the foundation Romy had helped him build, the case was ready. There would be no disputing the corruption, no brushing off the carefully orchestrated negligence—the systemic rot that had turned Gotham’s protectors into something dark, twisted, and morally bankrupt.

As he stacked the pages, lining them up in perfect order, he couldn’t ignore the small, nagging awareness that Romy wouldn’t be there to see it. His grip tightened on the folder as he strode out the door and through the bullpen, every step steady, his pace unwavering. He was thankful no one stopped him, no one blocked his path. For once, his focus was undisturbed.

He climbed the stairs to Loeb’s office with long, deliberate strides, his resolve sharpening with each step. When he reached the mezzanine, he didn’t hesitate, rapping his knuckles against the door with confidence.

The answer was gruff, the Commissioner’s voice muffled but clear: “Come in.”

Edward’s breath remained calm, his nerves steady. The weight of what he was about to do felt right, as if every calculation, every line of data he had poured over—with Romy, his mind added—had brought him to this moment. As he stepped inside, his eyes locked onto Loeb.

The old bulldog sat hunched behind his desk, oversized form crammed into a worn leather chair that groaned under the strain. He was tapping at his phone, his fingers jabbing at the screen with impatient irritation, as though whatever he was doing was a poor distraction from the real issues at hand. Only when Edward stood before the desk, thick folder held firmly in his hands, did Loeb finally look up. The Commissioner’s beady eyes narrowed, a heavy sigh escaping him as he set his phone aside, clearly displeased to be interrupted.

“What is it, Nashton?”

Undeterred by his impatient tone, Edward held his gaze, feeling the weight of the evidence pressing at his fingertips. “I have something you need to see, Commissioner,” he said, his voice steady and low, just on the edge of formality. He slid the folder onto the desk with precision, opening it to reveal the meticulously organized pages. “It’s about a pattern I’ve uncovered in the officer response times. Specifically, certain neighborhoods and particular types of cases.”

The Commissioner’s eyes flickered over the documents. Edward paused, expecting a response, and, after a moment, his lips twitched. He forced down a smirk. The old man didn’t seem to comprehend what he was saying, so he continued, even being so kind as to lower himself closer and point out the data specifically. His actions were more helpful and generous than he had ever been in his life as he tried to make Loeb understand.

“For the last two months, I’ve compiled evidence of consistent delays in high-priority responses—delays that can’t be attributed to chance. The same officers show up in these records, over and over, and the pattern isn’t random.” Edward’s voice sharpened as he gestured to the pages.

He had never been more sure of something in his life. There was a mystery here, and he was smart enough to have uncovered it. The Commissioner should have been patting him on the back by now, but Loeb’s features tightened the longer Edward spoke. Edward laid out the evidence methodically, pointing to the pages, the names—Edison, Curtis, Hartley, and Murphy—and each pattern of delayed response times, tied to specific neighborhoods and incidents. His tone remained steady, but as he continued, he noticed the commissioner’s irritation seething just below the surface—the slight clenching of Loeb’s jaw and the narrowing of his eyes.

“And what exactly are you implying?”

“I’m not implying anything.” Edward’s gaze was unyielding as he straightened up from his position of helpfulness. “I’ve discovered facts and brought them to your attention. These officers are deliberately delaying their response times in specific areas, and the data points to a level of coordination that suggests they’re acting under instruction or incentive.”

“You’re throwing accusations around, Nashton.” Loeb’s gaze hardened, his eyes darting from the pages to Edward with an expression that bordered on contempt. “And you’re doing it with a lot of confidence.”

“‘Confidence?’” Edward’s voice remained cool, his posture unfaltering. “No, no. This is pronounced ‘evidence.’”  He gestured towards the documents. 

Loeb eyed the pages, and, after a moment, his lips pressed and pulled into a tight line. He flicked his beady eyes up to Edward and crossed his thick arms over his barrel chest, his uniform jacket pulling tight.

Edward rolled his eyes. “You can ignore it if you want, Commissioner. But I assure you, the numbers don’t lie.”  Against his better judgment, he smirked—a tricky little thing that usually got him in trouble. “But people do…”

The words hit their mark, and he watched with satisfaction as Loeb’s face flushed, a muscle twitching in his jaw. The Commissioner unfulred his arms pushed the folder away, slow and deliberate, his fingers clenching slightly on the arm of his chair as he leaned back, studying Edward with an unreadable expression. But Edward didn’t flinch. He knew the strength of what he’d brought, knew the hours poured into each line of data, each name flagged, each statistic meticulously cross-checked.

Then a strange smile curled on Loeb’s thin lips—an unsettling expression that never reached his beady brown eyes. It was the kind of smile Edward recognized, the practiced smile of someone who knew far more than he was letting on.

“I’ll look into it,” Loeb had said finally, his voice oily, almost too smooth.

“‘ Look into it ’?” Edward’s eyes had narrowed, a spark of frustration flaring in his chest. He gritted his teeth, his jaw tight as he spoke. “What else is there to look into? The work is done.” His voice had sharpened, no longer masking his irritation. “I’d say the evidence is damning as it is.”

Loeb’s smile hadn’t wavered, but there was an unmistakable edge in his gaze now, one that bordered on condescension. “Careful, Nashton…,” he drawled. “You’ve done your job. I’ll take it from here. Now, let the real investigators handle it.”

Edward had opened his mouth, then paused before snapping it shut, biting back the urge to press further, to demand action right then and there, to curse and degrade Loeb’s so-called “investigators.” But as he’d watched the Commissioner casually close the folder, his fingers curling over it as though he’d already dismissed it, Edward had felt a cold realization settle over him. This wasn’t news to Loeb. He could see it in the way the man avoided his gaze, in his dismissive tone, in that unsettling smile.

Without another word, Edward had nodded, maintaining a neutral expression as he stepped back, masking the frustration roiling inside him. He needed to be smart about this. Keep a level head. But as he’d exited the office, shutting the door harder than he’d intended, the weight of the Commissioner’s reaction had pressed heavily on his chest. He had done everything right, laid out the evidence, made the case impossible to dismiss, and yet…

He paused on the landing, staring out over the bullpen, the precinct buzzing with detectives, officers, clerks, and secretaries—each one absorbed in their tasks, oblivious to the poison rotting at the heart of their work. The sight grated at him, a reminder of just how deep the corruption ran, how many people were blissfully unaware of the filth surrounding them. Or worse—they were all filth.

This fucking place… he thought bitterly. It’s an institution built on lies. Liars, thieves, conmen, cheaters—the lot of them.

Long before he descended the stairs, his earlier calm had evaporated. Each step felt heavier, his anger simmering in his blood. He had come to the Commissioner’s office prepared, ready to stand his ground, expecting resistance but hoping that, at the very least, his work would be taken seriously. Instead, he’d been met with that unsettling smile, those dismissive words that stung more than he cared to admit.

He reached the bottom of the stairs, his fists clenched at his sides. His mind raced, cycling through his options. Loeb’s reaction wasn’t just resistance—it had been a warning, a reminder that he, Edward Nashton, was playing in a league where power wasn’t wielded through logic or facts. It was a game played in shadows, where truth was twisted, buried, and left to rot. And yet, he knew he couldn’t walk away from this. Not now. If anything, this only drove him further. He needed a moment to collect himself, to let the red-hot anger settle into something cold and calculating.

With a quiet exhale, he turned toward the break room, a quick, bitter laugh escaping him. Coffee, he thought. It was the last thing he wanted, but somehow the small act of going through the motions, of finding some semblance of normalcy in this mess, felt necessary. He couldn’t let himself spiral. Perhaps a minute to focus on something ordinary would be enough to anchor him, to bring him back from the brink.

The break room was quiet save for the hum of the coffee machine, filling the space with its gentle whirr. He poured a cup methodically, the simple routine almost grounding as he tried to corral his chaotic thoughts. Loeb’s reaction still gnawed at him, festering like a splinter under his skin. The Commissioner’s dismissive smile, the way he’d pushed the folder away without a second glance—it all felt too rehearsed, too controlled.

Something’s not right, Edward thought, his hands tightening around the mug as he leaned against the counter, scowling into the dark liquid. His mind roiled with a thousand plans and counterplans. Strategies bloomed and unfolded, each one bent on taking this fight further, on unearthing the depths of the rot festering within the department. He would let Loeb sit with the evidence, watch for any cracks in the Commissioner’s carefully constructed facade, see if the old man made a move. In the meantime, he would keep digging, keep collecting irrefutable data.

As he leaned against the counter, his mind crystallized around a single thought: I won’t give up. This was no longer about simply amassing evidence; it was a matter of principle now, a puzzle layered with intrigue, a challenge that demanded his skill, his intellect.

There was satisfaction in it, knowing that only he, Edward Nashton, had the insight and tenacity to solve it. Loeb might have tried to dismiss him, but that dismissal only sharpened his resolve, igniting his obsession to piece this mystery together. It was a test of wit, and his pride flared at the thought of proving himself capable—superior, even.

But as he considered the implications of success, a different satisfaction stirred in his chest, one less idealistic and far more self-assured. Not only was this a battle of principles, but it was also an opportunity to solidify his place here, to secure the respect he’d long been denied. If he could expose this corruption, bring the whole, rotten infrastructure to its knees, his career would be not just made—it would be legendary.

A smug satisfaction unfurled within him. The Cybercrime Division, a department once treated as an afterthought, would rise under his direction, shaped into something formidable. He could already envision it: with him at the helm, the division would have the resources, the personnel, and the tools to finally track, trace, and dismantle the criminal networks that infested Gotham. He wouldn’t just be a nameless cog in the GCPD; he’d be its backbone, its mind. People would respect him, perhaps even fear him, for his unrelenting pursuit of truth. He would be the one to cut through the shadows, and his name would carry weight far beyond the precinct walls.

And deeper still, beneath the principles and the professional aspirations, there was a flicker of something darker, a quiet thrill in knowing that he alone had the power to control the narrative. He would have his victory, his influence. The thought settled into a quiet confidence as he took another sip, feeling the weight of his decision settle firmly within him. His legacy would be set in stone.

And so would Romy’s…

The realization sparked a faint, barely noticeable smirk at the corner of his mouth. What would it mean for Romy, still a student, to play a role in a case of this magnitude? To report back on her capstone project and tell them she’d been instrumental in uncovering corruption within the Gotham City Police Department? It would be no small feat. A move like this would cement her place here, secure her future. She wouldn’t be a mere preceptee but a respected part of something larger. He could picture it—the way she would walk through the precinct, head held high, with the quiet confidence of someone who had seen beyond the surface, someone with purpose.

And he felt something strange and unexpected—a sliver of satisfaction, even pride, in the thought. Romy had proven herself worthy of the work, skilled beyond what he’d initially thought. She wasn’t at his level, of course, but good enough to surpass his lowest expectations and, perhaps, even more curiously, someone he was beginning to respect.

The sound of someone entering the breakroom tore him from his thoughts. He looked up and immediately frowned and looked back to his coffee, brows knitted.

Hartley.

The officer swaggered into the room, crony in tow, mid conversation. But the moment they saw him, they grew quiet, however they were undeterred.

He saddled up right next to Edward at the coffee maker and grabbed a cup. Beside him, Edward could see the way Hartley glanced at him, a smirk tugging at his lips. Then he looked back to pouring his cup.

“Naaashton,” Hartley drawled, the grin in his voice palpable. “You’re more doom and gloom today than normal…” He cocked a sandy brow and backed away, casually blowing on his pipping hot joe. “What’s wrong? Missin’ someone?” He settled back beside his partner.

“I’m not sure I want to entertain whatever you are talking about, Hartley.” Edward grimaced, not even sure why he was responding at all. The officer’s statement intrigued him, though.

“C’mon, your girl—the new one?” Hartley smirked, nudging his friend, his voice dripping with mock interest.

“My girl?” Edward cocked a brow, his lips twitching into a sneer.

“Yeah, the babe strolling to and from your dungeon,” the officer drawled. He looked at Edward over the rim of his mug, taking a languid sip before continuing. “Please tell me you’re fuckin’ her in there.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me.” With an almost incredulous look, Hartley set his mug beside him on the counter. “Nashton… She’s super, super fu— super fuckin’ hot, bro.” He gestured to his partner—Curtis Murphy. “He’s seen her. We all have. That tight little ass, mmm, fuck, I bet everything about her is tight.” Those greasy eyes slipped back to Edward, a challenge almost in his gaze. “Is it?”

Edward’s eye twitched.

“Also, does she spit or swallow? Murph wanted to know.” Hartley gestured to his partner with a casual toss of his head, to which Murphy only smirked and crossed his arms over his chest.

How crude. Vile.

A blaze of irritation ignited in Edward’s chest. He fought to keep his face neutral, barely lifting his eyes to acknowledge Hartley. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I’m not,” he replied coolly, his voice even but with an edge that could cut glass.

“Sooo, she’s available, then?” Hartley smirked, his eyes glinting with that same crude confidence, as though he’d won some imaginary contest.

A dark wave of something rolled over Edward, something deeper and more visceral than he was used to—something he had not felt before. It made his grip tighten on his coffee.

Edward wrenched forward, the mug flying from his fingers and smashing into Hartley’s smug, unguarded face. The ceramic shattered against his nose, hot liquid splashing across his skin, searing it. Blood spurted, crimson against the pale breakroom tile, as Hartley recoiled, shock and pain twisting his features. But Edward didn’t stop there; he leaped at the man, his hands gripping his neck, feeling the resistance of muscle and sinew as he drove him to the floor. His shoes skidded against the tile, slipping before he found his balance, pouring his weight down onto Hartley’s trachea, feeling the pulse of his screaming carotids under his fingers slow, then weaken, until those greasy eyes, filled with cruelty, began to dull. There was something intoxicating about watching the smug light fade, about knowing it was at his hands, his doing. Beneath him, Hartley’s body kicked, scrabbling for purchase, desperate for air, clawing at Edward’s arms in a final, useless attempt at survival. His grip tightened, his lip curling in savage satisfaction as he bore down, watching as the vessels burst in Hartley’s scleras, muddling those blue eyes of his.

Then he blinked.

Officer Jack Hartley was still standing before him, unblemished, alive, leaning casually against the counter, his short but stout crony beside him snickering along with his crude jabs about Romy. Edward stared, feeling the blood drain from his face as the real world settled back in around him, the brutal fantasy fading but leaving a charged, dangerous energy coursing through him. His fingers were fisted around his coffee mug, and he was acutely aware of the tension in his arms and shoulders, the clenched muscles that had been ready to spring into action. The urge to throw the mug, to silence that smug look, was a raw, simmering instinct, something almost frightening in its intensity.

The thought of Hartley even thinking about Romy, let alone considering the possibility of approaching her, disgusted him in a way he couldn’t fully explain. It was the way Hartley’s words slipped so easily, so carelessly, as if Romy were just another conquest, just another prize for him to leer at and pick apart. It was the blatant disrespect, the dismissive way he talked about her as though she were an object, something shiny to be coveted.

Edward took a measured breath, his eyes narrowing as he locked onto Hartley’s gaze. “Someone who has the good taste and sense to work with me, Hartley, wouldn’t stoop to… lower standards,” he said, his voice dripping with cold disdain, every word pointed. He took a slow sip of his coffee, savoring the flash of annoyance that flickered across Hartley’s face.

“Hey, easy there, Nashton,” Hartley sneered, recovering quickly, his smile twisting into something uglier. “No need to get all possessive…”

He met Hartley’s gaze with an unflinching stare, his eyes icy and sharp, cutting through the officer’s smug confidence. “Possessiveness requires actual interest,” he drolled, his voice low and laced with contempt. “To which I have none.” Liar. He leaned in, his words clipped and direct as he narrowed his gaze. “ No —what bothers me is the way you talk about people as if they’re here merely to stimulate that worn-out pleasure center of your puny brain. Not that I care, really. It’s just disconcerting to know you truly lack the executive functions to think with anything else but your dick.”

Hartley’s grin faltered, caught off guard by the blunt dismissal, but Edward didn’t linger long enough for him to respond. He kicked off the counter with a calm, deliberate stride, and as he passed the fuming officer and his dullard friend, he paused just long enough to let a cutting look settle between them. “So, go ahead, bro . Take your best shot.”

Without waiting for a response, Edward strode out of the breakroom, each step laced with the simmering anger he was barely keeping in check. But as soon as he was alone, the composure he had clung to in Hartley’s presence began to fracture. His brow furrowed, his jaw tight, and he picked up his pace, shoulders hunched with barely contained irritation as he stormed toward his office. The door swung open with more force than necessary, and he slammed it shut behind him, the sound stunted and sharp in the small space.

Inside, Edward sat, slumped in his chair, his gaze hard and unfocused, his mind still tangled in the aftermath of that encounter. Hartley’s words echoed relentlessly, the crude insinuations churning his thoughts with a bitterness he couldn’t seem to shake. Moron , he thought, his jaw clenching. Someone as mindless as him even thinking he had a chance with his student?

The thought alone felt like an insult.

But why?

Why was he so certain that Romy would turn someone like Hartley down? 

When he examined it more closely, it almost seemed irrational—uncharacteristically emotional. After all, she was the type, wasn’t she? She was beautiful—effortlessly so. A former cheerleader. Sorority girl. Confident in ways he’d never been, with that easy demeanor of hers, and a social prowess that seemed second nature. Surely, he told himself, she’d been with someone like Hartley before. Hell, maybe she even belonged with someone like Hartley—someone who fit the part, who shared her seeming ease in the world. Someone easy to look at, easy to be with, and, more likely than not, someone who had never questioned his place in life.

The thought twisted his stomach in a way he didn’t understand. It grated against him, like sandpaper on raw skin. He’d always prided himself on his independence, on his unwillingness to conform or to care what people thought. But when he pictured Romy with someone like Hartley—a brute with no sense of subtlety, no spark of intellect, no intrigue beyond what he could bully or seize—it felt… cheap . Like she’d be wasting something; as if choosing someone like Hartley would somehow diminish the sharp wit and depth Edward had begun to glimpse in her.

And that, he realized with a pang, was what was eating at him. There was something in Romy that was different . Something he couldn’t name or fully understand but that he recognized, just beneath the surface, with every sly smile and barbed quip. She wasn’t what he had assumed, not another vapid pretty face that she presented herself to be.

Edward’s fingers stilled against the desk, and he inhaled, fighting to steady the unsettling rush within him. But his resolve wavered as his gaze drifted, almost instinctively, to the workspace she had set up beside his own.

The space felt strangely alive, as if it still held her presence, each detail carrying an imprint of her—the faint scent of her enticing perfume, the memory of her acrylic nails tapping against the keyboard, a sound he had come to find oddly comforting. In his mind, he could almost see the subtle arch of her spine leading up to that delicate curve of her neck. And there it was again: that teasing smirk that seemed to hover on her lips, one he had come to anticipate.

A smirk tugged at his own lips, and his gaze softened, his body losing some of the tension it had held only moments before. If he was honest with himself—something he rarely allowed in matters of this nature—there was a part of him that could, reluctantly, agree with Officer Hartley on one thing: Romy was, indeed, gorgeous. Beautiful in a way that was more than superficial, more than just a passing attraction. From the very first moment he’d seen her, he knew there was something about her that demanded attention, that drew his gaze with a power he couldn’t ignore. And in the privacy of his thoughts, he allowed himself to study the memory of her, her details vivid in his mind’s eye.

Her silken hair, the way it fell in such deliberate elegance around her face, and her alluring lips that he’d noticed moved with practiced charm, always careful, always in control. His mind traced over her—the shapely swell of her chest, her torso dipping into curving hips that seemed almost grippable. His breath caught, lingering on the image, following the memory of her form down to her thighs and calves. He had spent more than a few moments catching himself watching her cross her legs with that easy elegance, the subtle rise of her skirt when she shifted.

Then, Edward realized, with a pang of something between shame and excitement, that he had thought about the details of her existence more than he cared to admit. There was something fascinating in the way she carried herself… it was as if she were caught in a perfect balance between poised elegance and calculated seduction. She was fully aware of the effect she had, that much was clear, yet there was a restraint in the way she wielded it—enough to spark intrigue, but always keeping her allure just out of reach. It was maddening. That understated power she held, the way she navigated through spaces with that cool demeanor, the confidence that lingered around her like a cloud—it stirred something within him he was almost embarrassed to acknowledge.

But what was most confounding, what gnawed at him as he tried to dissect it, was that indifference. That fronted, artfully worn disinterest, as if she was completely unbothered by the world’s attention. But he wasn’t fooled, not entirely. He could see the hints, the subtle ways she showed she did care, that she was keenly aware of the impression she made. The way she smoothed down the fabric of her skirt, the deliberate flick of her hair, the glance in a pocket mirror when she thought he wasn’t looking. It was controlled, honed, a display of ease that felt intentional.

And, God, was it all effective.

Edward groaned, leaning forward, his elbows digging into his knees as his hands raked through his hair. His fingers gripped tightly at the roots, as if the pressure might somehow quiet his thoughts. His teeth grit, his brows pulling together into a sharp line as his eyes focused on the gritty black-and-white linoleum beneath him.

It didn’t help.

To his chagrin, Edward felt a tug of arousal pooling low in his belly, his body betraying him with a telltale twitch he wished he could ignore. He clenched his jaw, forcing his gaze back to his desk, willing the vision to fade. Yet it lingered, leaving him with a sense of helplessness he despised. He had never let anyone make him feel this off-kilter, this irrational, and yet here he was, caught up in thoughts he knew better than to entertain.

The repulsion he felt with himself caused his stomach to churn. He should not be feeling this way about her; should not be thinking like this. She was his student. But he could not help it. The dam in his mind had been broken, and now he could not stop himself from imagining what it would be like to have her.

Edward sat with his head in his hands, thinking hard about what to do. He reasoned with himself. Maybe if he were to release the pressure, he would feel better and be able to put the temptation behind him? Maybe then he would feel better?

Sitting at his desk, alone in the dusty, old file room converted to his workspace, Edward reached a hand down to grip himself through his pants. It had been so long since he allowed himself to indulge such primal desires. Normally, he did not need such baser pleasures, but he suddenly felt desperate. It was a disgusting desperation that he hoped the end would justify. Hand trembling, his fingers brushed against the top of his trousers and boxers. He undid the fly and button, trying his best not to think about it. Throat bobbing tight, he dipped his hand into his boxers to find and tentatively wrap his hand around his cock. A sigh of relief escaped him as he relaxed back into his seat, eyes slipping closed.

He, lips parted and brows knitted together, touched himself. He could already feel the uncomfortable stress leaving his body as a new pleasurable tension replaced it. Attempting to clear his mind, he tried to focus merely on the sensation of his fingers squeezing gently at the head before stroking down to the base of his member. Edward wanted to think about anything else but Romy. However, there was no use in thought-stopping because it only made the thoughts more persistent.

A desperate mewl left his lips as he imagined her—her body, her hands, her nails, her lips wrapped around him instead of his fingers. He could practically feel that pink tongue of hers on the tip of his cock, licking up the pre-cum that dripped and spreading it down his shaft. Edward couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to have her pretty face staring up at him, her knees red and bruised from kneeling. Hand moving faster, his breath came in short gasps as he chased his climax. He wanted this to be over with, and yet…

The image of Romy now sitting in his lap enveloped his mind in a searing grasp. She straddled his hips as she bounced eagerly on him. The thought of her warm, wet cunt squeezing him nearly made him cum alone. His ears tingled as he practically heard her moaning his name, squealing as he filled her to the brim.

“Mr. Nashton! Yes, please fuck me, sir. You’re so good. The fucking best!”

Feeling his body nearing his climax, he pictured her riding him, her delicate fingers gripping his shoulders as she continued bouncing up and down on his hard cock, her skirt bunched around her hips and panties shoved to the side. The sound of her voice, hoarse and mewling as she begged him to fuck her good, echoed in his now burning ears.

“ So close... I’m so close. K-keep going.”

Edward’s hand picked up the pace; desperation in his movements made the gestures jerky and short.

“Yes, that’s it! You’re so good, Edward. So fucking good to me. I want you to cum for me. That’s it, Edward, cum for me, baby!”

The groan that tore its way from his throat was stunted in the small room, his body trembling and shaking as he felt himself spurt into his hand.

“You did so well...”

Edward slumped back in his chair, his chest heaving. The silence that followed was deafening, the hum of the computer the only sound cutting through the thick, suffocating quiet. His breathing was ragged, his body trembling slightly as the intensity of his climax faded, leaving him adrift in the stark reality of what he’d just done. He blinked, the gravity of it all pressing heavily on his chest, the remnants of Romy’s vivid tableau lingering in his mind like an afterimage burned into his vision.

The memory was both deeply embarrassing and—he hated to admit—sickeningly satisfying.

His gaze flickered around the dim office, the quiet air feeling heavier now. His hand, sticky with evidence of his indulgence, curled into a loose fist before he sighed sharply, reaching for the box of tissues on his desk. A grumble rumbled low in his throat, a mix of frustration and quiet shame.

As he wiped himself clean, the hazy satisfaction began to fade, replaced by the creeping, familiar irritation that so often shadowed his thoughts. His gloves were a mess, and with a grimace, he tore them off, tossing them carelessly into the wastebasket. The action felt small, but it was a release—a way to discard the moment, as if ridding himself of the gloves might cleanse him of the lapse in his usually rigid self-control.

Edward muttered to himself as he finished cleaning up, the words lost in the low hum of the room but tinged with unmistakable annoyance.

Then he caught his reflection in one of the darkened monitors, a fleeting glimpse of himself—his slightly tousled hair, the vulnerability etched into the sharp lines of his features. The image was almost jarring, his own gaze looking back at him with a rawness he didn’t want to acknowledge. He looked away quickly, wadding the tissues and tossing them into the trash, his movements brisk and methodical.

The shame burned, but his walls were already rebuilding themselves, his detachment slotting back into place like armor he couldn’t live without. He adjusted his glasses, straightened his posture, and leaned forward again, his hands already reaching for the keyboard.

“Ridiculous.”

Ao3 link here!

[canmom]

Animation Night 196: the Demoscene

Hey everyone! It's gonna be a short post today, because the hour is late, but I've been teasing this all week, soooooo~

This is a square-numbered animation night, our first in a while, and that means it's a night for something computer-related. And what is more true to the essence of computer animation than the demoscene?

And damn, what a topic. 'Computer art subculture' is the usual way of describing it, and that's accurate enough. But let's get into details...

A demo is a computer program which is kind of like a non-interactive game, and kind of like a music video. It generates images, usually synced to music, in realtime. But that doesn't quite get to the heart of it.

A demo is kind of a combination of art piece and coding challenge. The exact constraints vary: perhaps the whole program fits into a tiny size (such as 4kb). Or, it's made for a specific oldschool computer, such as the Amiga, taking advantage of the unique quirks of the hardware to push its graphics capabilities to the absolute limit.

Perhaps it's better to start with the history - a well-covered subject in books, articles and even documentaries, which I will have to cover extremely briefly. Back in the late 70s and 80s, when personal computing was really taking off with machines like the Commodore 64, copyright took a while to catch up - particularly in Europe. With network bandwidth far more limited than now, it became popular (relatively speaking) to distribute cracked software at events known as 'copy parties' - you'd bring along your files and exchange them for others.

Often, the groups who created the cracks would add a little intro to take credit for their hard work. With space at an absolute premium, these 'intros' would need to be tiny - perhaps just hundreds of bytes. But constraints breed creativity, and soon groups would compete to distinguish themselves with the most impressive intros. Perhaps you see where this is going...

I'm going to brush over a long and fascinating history here, because space is limited and I would rather try and dig into the history another time - I'm hardly the person to tell it, anyway. So let's just say this: the practice of making these intros, or more generally demos, very quickly grew into its own art form - if you didn't have cracked software you could just bring along a cool intro to the copy party. And as copyright law heated up and the cops started coming for copyparties, the nascent demoscene started to diverge from the warez scene, developing into its own, unique subculture - legal but still indebted to the hacker culture which birthed it.

Broadly speaking, the demoscene is organised around demoparties - big gatherings, largely taking place around Europe, where groups gather to enter their demos into competition, create new demos right there, and engage in related activities like live coding... or dorky shit like throwing keyboards as far as possible, don't ask me about that one. It's not all about creating demos either - over time, the categories have expanded to include music, digital art in general, 3D asset creation, etc. etc., unified more by the aesthetic of the scene than anything. Take a look at the entries for a party like Revision (the largest party, based in Germany, hosting about 800 guests each year) to get a sense of the broad scope of the scene.

But the core of it all is still demos! 4k, 8k, 64k, unlimited in size. PC, amiga. Demos have evolved a great deal over the decades, and it is hard to generalise too much. Still, in contrast to game graphics, which usually emphasise authored content, efficient streaming of assets etc. etc., the emphasis of the demoscene tends to be much more on procedural effects and more abstract visuals.

You can get a taste for what a winning demo looked like as of 2007 with debris. by the group Farbrausch, pouet.net's top-rated demo of all time: techno music, a camera flying over a cityscape as cubes stream around...

And here's one of the most popular 4kb demos, rendering a procedural snowy landscape with a bit of chromatic aberration to taste...

Modern demos have introduced tools like the node-based animation and sim software Notch, which shifts the emphasis away from programming a bit. Rainmaker, which won Revision's PC demo category this year, hardly attempts to optimise for file size, with its executable weighing in at a hefty half a gigabyte, but it certainly goes all out with all that data, hitting flashy scene after flashy scene...

Even in the space-contained categories like 64k and 4k, you can see a modern approach to HDR colour, grading, depth of field etc.:

Especially for the smaller categories of demo, the music tends to be procedurally generated - i.e., chiptunes - as well. But even without that constraint, there is a natural tendency towards many types of electronic music in the scene. After all, it's all about making computers do cool shit.

And to be clear, although technical flexing and generative art is definitely a big part of it, there's plenty of familiar animation stuff in here too. Successful demos tend to feature tight music sync, creative imagery, and definitely some kind of progression or flow in how the images are juxtaposed and how they fit the development of the music. If you felt really pretentious, you could compare it to poetry. I do feel really pretentious, so I will!

Where do you find demos? Unfortunately, there are now many dead links. pouet.net is still something of a hub, featuring a pretty exhaustive database of demos and a voting system to sort them by popularity, as well as providing a forum for the scene (hopefully not about to disappear as its main admin just announced his plans to quit). Demoscene.info tries to be a decent public-facing intro, with links to the major parties and groups that still mostly work. The scene.org awards celebrated a set of demos each year from 2002 to 2011. Youtube psenough reports weekly on what's happening in the scene. There's also Demozoo, a database similar to pouet.

We might also here mention the website Shadertoy, likely familiar to any graphics programmer, which was co-created by oldschool scener Inigo Quilez and carries much of the same spirit. Shadertoy lets you write fragment shaders in opengl to run in the browser, essentially a type of demo, and people use it for all sorts of shit.

So, that's a brief summary. Tonight, starting in just a minute, if you'd like to join me at twitch.tv/canmom, we'll be checking out a random cross-section of popular demos from across the last few decades. I'll be running them on my computer, if possible. I fully admit to being an outsider to the scene, yet to go to a demoparty and see it all in person, but I think it's cool as shit, so let's go explore it together for a couple of hours~

[melrosing]

As your not a big fan of fantasy books in general. What drew you into loving asoiaf? What got you hooked?

now that I'm invested in asoiaf I do genuinely like the fantasy elements of the story, but the stuff that really pulled me in was the human drama and political intrigue etc. I love the character work, almost all of the POVs feel fully realised and subvert typical tropes in really interesting ways (imo). I like the inter-generational drama (the reasons I like succession are v similar to the reasons I like the Lannisters), like if I want to understand Jaime and Cersei and Tyrion I can look to Tywin, and if I want to understand Tywin I can look to Tytos, and if I was to understand Tytos I can look to Gerold, like it's a russian doll of intergenerational trauma what more could a girl want.

and on that note I really like the scope! GRRM obviously feels this need to account for all details minor and major, so that even with everything that's already on the page there's room to extrapolate so much more. i mean here I am writing who knows how many words about a fake 20-episode long robert's rebellion tv series lol like this all happened before the series even starts and yet I hardly need to make anything up bc there is so much to draw on just based on all the random little details we've got here and there from characters reflecting on the same events from different angles, and trying to piece together portraits of the people who died based on the recollections of those on the page who remember them..... it is so fun)

and yeah usually I prefer to read about that kind of thing on a smaller scale but the drama that plays out in AGOT is so engaging that upon initiation I didn't find it so much of a chore to keep track of all the various houses and lands etc in order to understand the full implications of each thing that happened - it felt like it was worth the effort. generally it's the 'keeping track' of it all that I find grating about fantasy bc I really want to just get on with the story rather than keep on top of a hundred magic systems and sub-species of pixie.

and obvs asoiaf is low fantasy rather than high fantasy, i.e. there aren't intricate systems to the magic and or complicated genus for each of the creatures, so that made it feel a lot more accessible for me as someone who just isn't very interested in those kinds of details. Dany's magic is made up as she goes along, it's never explained, and that's the same for pretty much all the fantastical elements - it's very show don't tell. and even though when you count it all up there are quite a lot of fantastical features and subplots, taken together with the rest of the story it's more like.... seasonings I wouldn't usually choose but ended up liking just fine in this overall dish lol

and finally asoiaf just really appealed to me from a fannish perspective! I really hate when you're trying to dig deeper with a work and you quickly start to realise that the writer(s) just weren't thinking that hard. it feels like striking concrete with a spade, like it's a one-sided conversation rather than something both the writer and the reader are participating in. I think some fans are perfectly fine with that and good for them - who cares if the author built the work to sustain your analysis if you're just having fun doing it - but for me it's a complete killjoy, I end up v frustrated and like the work isn't worth my time

so here's GRRM who is so fixated on the finer details that he's churned out a history book like 700 pages long and a bunch of short stories and also another history book just to add a bit more texture to the main story. and I don't have to worry about network input or co-writers or actors' intentions or whatever other external conflict or influence cos for better or worse it's all his story. and that just suits me better lol, it's one guy and his shitty computer, and me reading the shit he wrote with it. pure and simple living in the moment no phones in sight

also jaime and brienne are everything to me xo

[fundgruber]

The roots of the world-image we’ll call ‘poetry’ first become legible, with weird historical abruptness, in 18th-century Germany. Still high on G W Leibniz half-inventing the computer, German philosophy was looking to perfect our understanding of the world by making our thoughts more effable – that is, distilling our concepts as far as we can into explicit lists or recipes or rules. The prospect of perfection here lies partly in precision and self-knowledge for their own sake, partly in the promise that all concepts bottom out in absolutes like God or soul or cosmic logos, where our thoughts achieve completeness. It’s against this backdrop that we find the wonderful but half-forgotten Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten arguing, in 1735, that not all thinking strives for effability: poetry is a special kind of thought that’s patently not effable, but perfect just the way it is. What makes poetry perfect, per Baumgarten, is that, although poems cannot make our thoughts transparent like philosophy, they can enlarge the scope of our thoughts to a point that reveals their fullest nature. A poem is a network of interconnected images, feelings and apprehensions that achieves a kind of rational completeness in its density, diversity and harmony. [...] Baumgarten’s theory of good poetry had a kind of absurd, computer-sciencey brilliance to it: good poetry is simply a large quantity of sensate thought. The trick to this absurd-sounding idea is that, to think a lot but all at once, we have to think associatively, self-referentially, vividly, temporally – anything and everything that keeps our thoughts interconnected in a living whole. And these interconnections themselves, as we grasp them, not only maintain the thought-network but enter into it as ineffable thoughts of relations, and then as ineffable thoughts of relations of (ineffable thoughts of) relations and so on, until we reach the fullness of ‘beautiful thinking’.

Peli Grietzer, Patterns of the lifeworld. Machine learning theory is shedding new light on how to think about the mysterious and ineffable nature of art. https://aeon.co/essays/why-poetry-is-a-variety-of-mathematical-experience

"Poetry, as the imaginative grasping of a world’s coherence, is in part ‘about’ the same thing as the scientific image: the causal-material patterns that make rational life possible. And while our scientific image in, say, the mid-20th century had nothing much that poetry could hold on to, times and images have changed – especially with the development of modern machine learning. In recent years, the field of machine learning has produced exciting mathematical and empirical clues about the patterns that make up human lifeworlds, the mechanics of imaginative grasping, and the resonance between the two."

"Poetry is, in important part, the promise that we can have sacred mystery without the metaphysical, religious or supernatural baggage. To do right by poetic thought, we need to weave a language for sacred mystery from manifest and scientific threads. Can we do this through something like a minimal poetic gloss on basically technical ideas? My hope for keeping poetry as sacred mystery, then, is to propose that our experience of poetry is a variety of mathematical experience."

[marxistfurry]

How to Torrent Anonymously

Using the standard BitTorrent protocol is insecure if you're torrenting copyrighted material, because you must connect directly to your peers to download the file. This means that a copyright holder could seed a movie that they own, collect the IP addresses that connect to them, then sue them all for copyright infringement. If we want to torrent copyrighted material without any chance of getting caught, we'll need to send the traffic through a mixnet.

Your first thought might be to route the traffic through tor, but this is actually a bad idea. See this post for why (TL;DR, torrenting over tor slows down the network because it wasn't built for that type of traffic, and certain BitTorrent clients will leak your IP address even if you configure them to go through tor). Tor is out, but i2p will work. I2P is a mixnet like tor, but it has a few key differences, which I won't go over here. Suffice to say, i2p can handle the traffic from torrenting (because it was built in a different way than tor), and it has its own torrent client built-it that preserves your anonymity, called i2psnark. This is what you should use for anonymous torrenting.

Step 1. Install i2p. Be sure to read the post-install work on that page, because i2p may not work without a little bit of tweaking. Troubleshooting i2p is not in the scope of this article, so from this step onwards we will assume i2p is working, and that you can reach i2p deep web sites.

Step 2. Get a magnet link from a tracker. The biggest tracker for i2p torrents is Postman's Tracker, so I would start searching for what you want there. Important: you cannot download normal clearnet torrents using i2psnark. You can only download torrents that were set up on i2p from the start. This means there won't be as many torrents to choose from on i2p trackers, because not as many people use them. However, don't let that turn you away, because the way to fix this problem is to get more people to use them. Anyways, once you've found the torrent you want to download from Postman's Tracker (or whichever tracker you're using), copy the magnet link.

Step 3. Start downloading it in i2psnark. Go to your i2p router console's home page, then scroll down until you see the link to "Torrents" under "Applications and Configuration". Click it, and it will take you to i2psnark. Paste the magnet link in the box that says Add Torrent... From URL, and click the Add Torrent button right next to it. If everything went right, it should appear in the list of torrents. Give it a few minutes to connect to peers, and it should start downloading.

Step 4. Tweak i2psnark's settings. By default, if you have to restart i2p (or your whole computer), i2psnark will not restart downloading or seeding its torrents unless you tell it to. This probably isn't what you want, so click the Configuration button in i2psnark, and check "Auto start torrents". Now they will start on their own. Also, change the Up Bandwidth Limit to something reasonable. It recommends setting it to half of what you set i2p's total bandwidth to be (you did that when you read the Post-Install Work page like I told you to, right?).

Step 5. Enjoy your torrent, and seed it. Congratulations! You just downloaded a torrent anonymously. Now, be sure to seed it. Since everything is being routed anonymously here, you don't have to worry about getting busted for seeding copyrighted material, so go ahead and seed it, so that the torrent can remain available for everyone, and so it will download a little bit faster for the next person. I'd recommend seeding at least until you've uploaded twice as much as you downloaded. Note that this may take a long time to happen, so plan to keep these files on your hard drive for at least 1 month. If you're running low on space, then choose which torrents you download carefully, so that you don't have to delete them before you've given back twice what you downloaded.

Step 6. Give back to the community. Let's say that you own a movie on DVD that isn't on Postman's Tracker. Well, be a good neighbor and share it! First, rip it from DVD using ripping software, like HandBrake. You may need to install this as well, to break whatever weak-sauce copy protection your DVD might have. I recommend using HandBrake's High Profile settings if it's a movie, and the normal settings if it's a TV show with a bunch of episodes.

Once you've ripped the movie, you may want to put it in a zip archive, to lower the amount of data that has to be downloaded. Put the zip file somewhere where it won't be in the way, because if you move it after you start seeding, the torrent won't work for everyone else. Then, go to i2psnark, and type the exact path to the zip file in the "Data to seed" box under Create Torrent. For this example, we'll upload it to Postman's Tracker, so click the radio button for Postman's, and click "Create torrent". This will create a .torrent file, which you will then have to upload to Postman's Tracker.

Here's where it gets tricky. On Linux, by default, i2psnark will create your .torrent file in /var/lib/i2p/i2p-config/i2psnark/. The problem is, only root can access that folder. So, we need to copy the .torrent file somewhere else before we can upload it. So, open up a terminal, and type in sudo cp /var/lib/i2p/i2p-config/i2psnark/<name of torrent>.torrent /home/<your username>/. This will copy the .torrent file to your home directory.

There's still one more problem. The .torrent file's permissions still only allow it to be read by root. So, cd to your home directory, then run sudo chown <your username> <name of torrent>.torrent. Now you can read it normally.

At this point, you are ready to post the torrent on Postman's Tracker. Create an account there, then click Upload on the header. It will take you to a page with instructions for how to upload, and some rules. You should be able to figure everything else out from here. Now, watch as those peers start lining up!

https://raddle.me/wiki/AnonymousTorrenting

[wirewitchviolet]

"They Don't Teach Kids About Computers These Days!"

I see variations on this a LOT these days. Sometimes it's people in their teens/early 20s being frustrated at how they're expected to know everything about computers, sometimes it's college professors straight up HORRIFIED when they realize they have students who don't have any understanding that their hard drive, a school's internal network, and on a public website are completely distinct places for a file to be located, and I kinda figure the weird stress a lot of people seem to have about the concept of getting a game and not having it just go into their Steam library specifically is a related issue.

Now on the one hand, obviously, I sympathize with this. I have a series of posts on this blog called How A Computer Works, because... I want to teach people about this stuff. (That's still ongoing by the way, I've just got a lot else going on and need to settle on the scope of the next lesson.) On the other hand, uh... I'm from the generation before the one that apparently has all the computer literacy problems, and nobody taught us this stuff in school... and the next generation up wouldn't possibly have had access. So was anyone taught how to use them?

Now I say "they didn't teach my generation how to use computers in school" but that isn't technically true. I see a lot of people call people my age "the Oregon Trail generation" when this topic comes up. Sort of on the edge of Gen X and Millennials, going through school in that window where Apple had really really pushed the Apple ][ on schools with big discounts. And they did have "computer classes" to learn how to do some things on those, but... that isn't really a transferable or relevant skill set.

Like, yeah, if you're below the age of let's say 30 or so as of when I'm writing this, the idea of what "a computer" is has been pretty stable for your whole life. You've got some sort of tower case, a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, and in that tower there's a bunch of RAM, a processor, video and sound cards of some sort, and a big ol' hard drive, and it's running Windows, MacOS, or some flavor of Unix going for the same basic look and functionality of those. It's generally assumed (more than it should be, some of us our poor) that a given person is going to have one in their home, any school is going to have a whole room full of them, libraries will have some too, and they are generally a part of your life. We can probably make the same sort of general assumption about IPhone/Android cellphones for the past what, 15 years or so too, while we're at it. They're ubiquitous enough that, especially in academic circles where they're kind of required professionally, people are going to assume you know them inside and out.

Prior to the mid-90s though? It was kind of a lawless frontier. Let's say you have a real young cool teacher who got way into computers at like 5 years old, and now they're 25 and they're your computer class teacher in the mid-90s. The computer they got way into as a kid? It would have been this.

That's not a component of it, that's the whole thing. A bank of switches for directly inputting binary values into memory addresses and some more switches for opcodes basically, and then some LEDs as your only output. Nothing about this is other than the benefits of fundamentally understanding some low level stuff is going to be useful at all in any sort of practical sense if you sit down a decade later with one of these.

This at least looks a bit more like a computer you'd see today, but to be clear, this has no mouse, no way to connect to the internet, which wasn't really a thing yet to begin with, and no hard drive, even. You did not install things on an Apple ][. You had every program on a big ol' floppy disk (the sort that were just a circle of magnetic film in a thick paper envelope basically and were, in fact, floppy), you would shove that in the disk drive before turning the machine on, it'd make a horrible stuttering knocking sound resetting the drive head, and just read whatever was on that right into memory and jump right on in to running Oregon Trail or a non-wysiwyg text editor (i.e. there's no making bold text appear on screen, you'd just have a big ugly tag on either side of your [BOLD>bold text<BOLD] like that). It was not unlike popping a cartridge or disc into an older video game console, except for the bit where if you wanted to save something you'd have to take the disk out while it was running and pop a blank one into the drive to save to.

So when I was a kid and I'd have my "computer class" it'd be walking into a room, sitting down with one of these, and having a teacher just as new to it as I was just reading out a list of instructions off a sheet like, "flip open the lock on the disk drive, take the disk out of the sleeve, make sure it says Logo Writer on it, slide it in with the label up and facing you, flip the lock back down, hit the power switch in the back of the machine..." We didn't learn anything about file management beyond "don't touch anything until the screen says it's done saving to the disk" because again, no hard drives. I guess there was a typing class? That's something, but really there's nothing to learn about typing that isn't where every key is and you only (but inevitably) learn that through practice.

Now, overlapping with this, I eventually got myself a used computer in the early 90s, very old at the time, but not as old as the ones at school. I had a proper black and white OG Mac. With a hard drive and a window-based operating system and everything. And... nobody taught me a damn thing about how that one worked. My mother just straight up did not touch a computer until something like 2001. I didn't really have any techie mentors. I just plugged it in and messed around and worked everything out. Same way I worked out what I was doing with older computers, mostly on my own at the local library, because that computer class wasn't much, and how I was totally left on my own to work out how to hook up every console I ever owned, which was slightly more involved at the time.

That forky bit in the middle was held in place with a pair of phillips headscrews. Had to keep the VCR and cable box in the right daisy chain order too.

Enough rambling about how old I am though. What's the actual disconnect here? How did my generation work out everything about computers without help but the next one down allegedly goes dear in the headlights if someone asks them to send them a file?

Well first off I'm not at all willing to believe this isn't at least largely a sampling bias issue. Teachers see all the clueless kids, people asking online for help with things is more common than people spontaneously mentioning how everything is second-nature to them, etc. Two things stick out to me though as potential sources of the issue though:

First, holy crap are modern computers ever frail, sickly little things! I'm not even talking about unreliable hardware, but yeah, there's some shoddy builds out there. I mean there's so many software dependencies and auto-updating system files and stuff that looks for specific files in one and only one location, just crashing if they aren't there. Right now on this Windows 10 machine I've got this little outdoor temperature tracker down in the task bar which will frequently start rapidly fluttering between normal and a 50% offset every frame, and the whole bar becomes unresponsive, until I open the task manager (don't even have to do anything, just open it). No clue what's up with that. It was some system update. It also tries to serve me ads. Don't know if it's load-bearing. Roughly every other day I have to force-quit Steam webhelper. Not really sure what that's even for. Loading user reviews? Part of me wants to dig in and yank out all this buggy bloatware, but I genuinely don't know what files are loadbearing. This wasn't an issue on older computers. Again, screwing around with an old Apple ][, and old consoles and such, there wasn't anything I could really break experimenting around. It was all firmware ROM chips, RAM that cleared on power cycling, and disks which were mostly copy-protected or contained my own stuff. No way to cause any problem not fixed by power cycling.

Next, everything runs pretty smoothly and seemlessly these days (when working properly anyway). Files autosave every few seconds, never asking you where you actually want to save them to, things quietly connect to the internet in the background, accessing servers, harvesting your info. Resolutions change on their own. Hell emulators of older systems load themselves up when needed without asking. There's a bunch of stuff that used to be really involved that's basically invisible today. The joke about this being "a 3D print of the save icon" already doesn't work because how often do you even see a UI element for saving? When we still used disks regularly, they held next to nothing and would take like half a minute to read and write.

And don't even get me started on launchers and start menus and all that.

So... basically what I'm getting at here is if you feel like you never learned how to properly use a computer, go get your hands on an old computer and mess around. There's yard sales, there's nice safe runs in a browser emulators, hell there's kits to build your own. That or just look for someone wearing like a Mega Man T-shirt or playing a Madonna CD (hell maybe just any CD these days) and start politely asking questions, because again just because everyone who knows this stuff just had to work it out on our own doesn't mean you should have to.

[theothersarshi]

One thing people don't know about software translations is that sometimes, as a translator, you come in very late in a project. Maybe that software's been going on for 10 years, and you're now in it. The original translators are long gone, and the company only ever sends updates to you. You're required to maintain consistency with previous translations.

This all sounds well and good - I mean, all changes made are sent to translators, right? And the stuff that hasn't changed has already been translated and that's fine, right?

Wrong.

Sometimes the software grew beyond its initial scope and some of the original terminology got repurposed, so now you're on patchwork duty on a solution that was good back in the day, but isn't anymore. Sometimes the original translators didn't quite rise up to the mark and you have to take their shoddy decisions and run with them. Sometimes language changed and new words were added for concepts that weren't common 10 years ago, but are common now, so you sound antiquated.

And that's how I end up sighing and writing sentences I'd never recommend out of context, like "Would you like to split your assets on Facebook?"

Because back in the day, "Share" was used in situations like "Network and Sharing Center". This was before tech was very popular, and the translators involved thought of it as in "dividing information between users", so they translated it with "partajare", a word that originally meant "splitting assets" in the context of divorces/inheritance.

Because this was a translation used by the operating system, it was picked up by other translators for other projects. And then it was occasionally used for "sharing" in a social media context by old-style translators, although that's getting phased out and replaced with either the informal English-heavy "dă share" (borrowing the English "share", making it a noun and then adding a verb to denote the action of sharing), or with the more translated and general-purpose "distribuie" ("distribute").

You might wonder if Romanian lacks a word for a more "share"-y "share". It doesn't! It has words! But the more "share"-y "shares" are either "împarte", as in "share a cake", which also means "divide"; or the related "împărtășește". "Împărtășește" is kind of "share" in the social media sense: it's about participating in the same thing together! However, it sounds a bit old fashioned - and even more unfortunately, it's the exact word used for taking communion. So. No. It sounds like the computer is asking you, as a priest-figure, to give communion to your photos on Facebook.

I'm currently team "distribuie" (an opinion I share with Facebook translators, apparently), but it doesn't matter, because I'm working on a project that has me use "split assets".

And this is why hiring people to check legacy translations and propose system-wide changes is a great idea.

[thailandlaww]

1. Structural Foundations of the SMART Visa Program

1.1 Legislative Architecture

The SMART Visa operates under:

Royal Decree on SMART Visa B.E. 2561 (2018)

Thailand 4.0 Economic Policy Framework

BOI Investment Promotion Act (No. 4) B.E. 2560

1.2 Interagency Governance

Primary Authority: Board of Investment (BOI)

Implementation Partners:

Immigration Bureau (visa issuance)

Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (tech qualifications)

Ministry of Higher Education (academic validation)

2. Category-Specific Qualification Matrix

2.1 SMART-T (Specialists)

Technical Thresholds:

Salary Floor: THB 200,000/month (USD 5,800)

Experience Validation:

5+ years in qualifying field

Patent holders given priority

PhD waivers for certain disciplines

Industry Prioritization:

Biotechnology (Gene Therapy, Precision Medicine)

Advanced Manufacturing (Robotics, 3D Printing)

Digital Infrastructure (AI, Quantum Computing)

2.2 SMART-I (Investors)

Due Diligence Process:

Phase 1: BOI business plan review (45 days)

Phase 2: Anti-money laundering clearance

Phase 3: Investment tracing audit

2.3 SMART-E (Entrepreneurs)

Startup Validation Framework:

Tier 1 Incubators: DEPA, Thai Venture Capital Association

Minimum Traction Metrics:

THB 10M ARR or

50,000 MAU or

Series A funding

Capital Requirements:

Bootstrapped: THB 600,000 liquid

Funded: Minimum THB 5M valuation

3. Advanced Application Mechanics

3.1 Document Authentication Protocol

Educational Credentials:

WES or IQAS evaluation for non-Thai degrees

Notarized Thai translations

Employment History:

Social security cross-verification

Reference checks with former employers

3.2 Technical Review Process

Stage 1: Automated system screening

Stage 2: BOO specialist committee review

Stage 3: Final approval by Deputy Secretary-General

4. Privilege Structure and Limitations

4.1 Work Authorization Scope

Permitted Activities:

Primary employment with sponsor

Consulting (max 20% time allocation)

Academic collaboration

Prohibited Activities:

Local employment outside specialty

Unapproved commercial research

Political activities

4.2 Dependent Provisions

Spousal Work Rights:

General employment permitted

No industry restrictions

Child Education:

International school subsidies

University admission preferences

4.3 Mobility Advantages

Fast-Track Immigration:

Dedicated SMART lanes at 6 major airports

15-minute clearance guarantee

Re-entry Flexibility:

Unlimited exits without visa voidance

Automatic 48-hour grace period

5. Compliance and Renewal Dynamics

5.1 Continuous Eligibility Monitoring

Quarterly Reporting:

Employment verification

Investment maintenance

Research output (for academics)

Annual Review:

Salary benchmark adjustment

Contribution assessment

5.2 Renewal Process

Documentation Refresh: Updated financials, health insurance

Performance Evaluation: Economic impact assessment

Fee Structure: THB 10,000 renewal fee + THB 1,900 visa stamp

5.3 Grounds for Revocation

Material Changes: Employment termination, investment withdrawal

Compliance Failures: Missed reporting, legal violations

National Security Concerns: Classified determinations

6. Comparative Analysis with Global Competitors

6.1 Strategic Advantages

Tax Optimization: 17% flat rate option

Research Incentives: BOO matching grants

Commercialization Support: THBI co-investment

7. Emerging Policy Developments

7.1 2024 Program Enhancements

Blockchain Specialist Category (Q3 rollout)

Climate Tech Fast-Track (Carbon credit linkage)

Regional Expansion: Eastern Economic Corridor focus

7.2 Pending Legislative Changes

Dual Intent Provision: PR application without visa surrender

Skills Transfer Mandate: Local training requirements

Global Talent Pool: Reciprocal agreements in negotiation

8. Practical Application Strategies

8.1 Pre-Application Optimization

Salary Structuring: Base vs variable compensation

Patent Portfolio Development: Thai IP registration

Local Network Building: Thai professional associations

8.2 Post-Approval Planning

Tax Residence Strategy: 180-day calculations

Asset Protection: Thai holding company formation

Succession Planning: Will registration requirements

9. Critical Risk Factors

9.1 Common Rejection Reasons

Document Discrepancies: Date inconsistencies

Qualification Gaps: Unrecognized certifications

Financial Irregularities: Unverified income streams

9.2 Operational Challenges

Banking Restrictions: Foreign account limitations

Healthcare Access: Specialty treatment approvals

Cultural Integration: Workplace adaptation

10. Conclusion: Strategic Implementation Framework

For optimal SMART Visa utilization:

Pre-qualification Audit: 90-day preparation period

BOI Engagement: Pre-submission consultation

Compliance Infrastructure: Digital reporting systems

Contingency Planning: Alternative category eligibility

[astranauticus]

the rwd season 4 qna inspired me to start thinking about college au headcanons except a lot of these are gonna be really specific to my school and y'all are just gonna have to deal with that <3

Kyana feeds some of the school cats. she would feed all of them if she could

Dani smuggled Plug (the scrawniest black cat you've ever seen) into her dorm room illegally and somehow management hasn't caught her yet (based on a true story) (Kyana visits to see Plug all the time)

Finbar keeps an updated tier list of every canteen in the school with breakdowns of the best stalls/dishes for each

A senior from the school of engineering once said to me 'all the engineering people dress like rats cuz our classrooms don't have aircon' (context: tropics) anyway that's Dani

Kyana would probably be involved in a lot of freshman orientation events from second year onwards. she just likes talking to the new kids and giving them advice like she would be the kind of orientation group leader who'd get messages from her freshies asking about all kinds of random nonsense because she's made sure they know they can always contact her with questions

VR-LA is The Guy you go to for textbook pirating resources

(this is more of a 'wouldn't that be funny' but VR-LA is just Veerle's discord handle)

Docent is the name of VR-LA's old laptop that broke down so he gave it to Cassimere (computer engineering major he met once at a networking event) to fix except Cassimere got everything off the hard drive and then somehow managed to fuck it up Even More so he had to get a new laptop (and named it Emi)

Roy has gotten food poisoning from his dorm meal plan at least once (based on at least one true story)

The heap trio + Mandy would be those friends constantly playing majong in the dorm lounge and if all the majong tables are taken they just play in one of their dorm rooms on a towel to dampen the tile shuffling noises (it was Mandy's idea)

Every morning Dani goes to the drinks stall at her faculty and orders one iced coffee to the point where the stall owner starts preparing an iced coffee whenever they see her approach (based on my true story)

Roy would be one of those people who goes clubbing every other week and every time he tries to drag the rest of the heap trio and Egan almost always goes and Dani would go if she didn't have a good excuse but always begrudgingly. anyway Roy would always be the only one having a good time until Egan gets drunk enough to start having fun

Finbar actually uses the dorm kitchens instead of just buying canteen food and it always makes the hallways smell really good

Vhas also uses the dorm kitchen sometimes but like. one time i walked into the pantry on my floor and someone had left cut sweet potatoes and 2 eggs in an inch of water in a pan on the stove. that's Vhas

Kyana's constantly applying for overseas exchanges and international summer/winter school programmes. the world is large and she wants to see it!

Maxim's the definition of a hall phantom. you know he lives on your dorm floor because you pass him by in the hallways sometimes and literally nowhere else. sometimes you're not convinced that he actually exists

VR-LA and Maxim's friendship stems from them being from wildly different faculties (VR-LA's in STEM, Maxim's doing anthropology so arts/social sciences) but also having lots of weird interests they cant really bug anyone in their home faculties about

Elyse is in student government and every once in a while Finbar receives a series of angry texts about the newest idiocy she's had to put up with

MR-SN and AS-TR start a stargazing club together. other notable members include AS-TR's girlfriend E-DN, MR-SN's friend C-RA (the one who always volunteers to carry the heavy ass telescopes) and MR-SN's friend K-LB who he pestered into coming to fix one of the wonky scopes even though K-LB's actually in electrical engineering but he's the only engineering person MR-SN (an arts student) knows

oh and of course VR-LA joins because he genuinely just likes space (developing a crush on his club chairperson was not on his bingo card)

Kyana and E-DN were MMA sparring buddies at one point which is how she found out about the stargazing and joined immediately

honestly i can probably think of more but this post is fuckin long LMAO