#but you can't use them in official spaces that's illegal'

[linkyu]

tell me about your defense contract pleage

Oh boy!

To be fair, it's nothing grandiose, like, it wasn't about "a new missile blueprint" or whatever, but, just thinking about what it could have become? yeesh.

So, let's go.

For context, this is taking place in the early 2010s, where I was working as a dev and manager for a company that mostly did space stuff, but they had some defence and security contracts too.

One day we got a new contract though, which was... a weird one. It was state-auctioned, meaning that this was basically a homeland contract, but the main sponsor was Philip Morris. Yeah. The American cigarette company.

Why? Because the contract was essentially a crackdown on "illegal cigarette sales", but it was sold as a more general "war on drugs" contract.

For those unaware (because chances are, like me, you are a non-smoker), cigarette contraband is very much a thing. At the time, ~15% of cigarettes were sold illegally here (read: they were smuggled in and sold on the street).

And Phillip Morris wanted to stop that. After all, they're only a small company worth uhhh... oh JFC. Just a paltry 150 billion dollars. They need those extra dollars, you understand?

Anyway. So they sponsored a contract to the state, promising that "the technology used for this can be used to stop drug deals too". Also that "the state would benefit from the cigarettes part as well because smaller black market means more official sales means a higher tax revenue" (that has actually been proven true during the 2020 quarantine).

Anyway, here was the plan:

Phase 1 was to train a neural network and plug it in directly to the city's video-surveillance system, in order to detect illegal transactions as soon as they occur. Big brother who?

Phase 2 was to then track the people involved in said transaction throughout the city, based on their appearance and gait. You ever seen the Plainsight sheep counting video? Imagine something like this but with people. That data would then be relayed to police officers in the area.

So yeah, an automated CCTV-based tracking system. Because that's not setting a scary precedent.

So what do you do when you're in that position? Let me tell you. If you're thrust unknowingly, or against your will, into a project like this,

Note. The following is not a legal advice. In fact it's not even good advice. Do not attempt any of this unless you know you can't get caught, or that even if you are caught, the consequences are acceptable. Above all else, always have a backup plan if and when it backfires. Also don't do anything that can get you sued. Be reasonable.

Let me introduce you to the world of Corporate Sabotage! It's a funny form of striking, very effective in office environments.

Here's what I did:

First of all was the training data. We had extensive footage, but it needed to be marked manually for the training. Basically, just cropping the clips around the "transaction" and drawing some boxes on top of the "criminals". I was in charge of several batches of those. It helped that I was fast at it since I had video editing experience already. Well, let's just say that a good deal of those markings were... not very accurate.

Also, did you know that some video encodings are very slow to process by OpenCV, to the point of sometimes crashing? I'm sure the software is better at it nowadays though. So I did that to another portion of the data.

Unfortunately the training model itself was handled by a different company, so I couldn't do more about this.

Or could I?

I was the main person communicating with them, after all.

Enter: Miscommunication Master

In short (because this is already way too long), I became the most rigid person in the project. Like insisting on sharing the training data only on our own secure shared drive, which they didn't have access to yet. Or tracking down every single bug in the program and making weekly reports on those, which bogged down progress. Or asking for things to be done but without pointing at anyone in particular, so that no one actually did the thing. You know, classic manager incompetence. Except I couldn't be faulted, because after all, I was just "really serious about the security aspect of this project. And you don't want the state to learn that we've mishandled the data security of the project, do you, Jeff?"

A thousand little jabs like this, to slow down and delay the project.

At the end of it, after a full year on this project, we had.... a neural network full of false positives and a semi-working visualizer.

They said the project needed to be wrapped up in the next three months.

I said "damn, good luck with that! By the way my contract is up next month and I'm not renewing."

Last I heard, that city still doesn't have anything installed on their CCTV.

tl;dr: I used corporate sabotage to prevent automated surveillance to be implemented in a city--

hey hold on

wait

what

HEY ACTUALLY I DID SOME EXTRA RESEARCH TO SEE IF PHILLIP MORRIS TRIED THIS SHIT WITH ANOTHER COMPANY SINCE THEN AND WHAT THE FUCK

HUH??????

well what the fuck was all that even about then if they already own most of the black market???

[jiminsass-istant]

tae already asked them to get out of their imagination

Then the next day he regretted it and tell them that jk is sleeping next to him

And who told you that he regretted it? Or did you come to that conclusion yourself?

Thanks for your ask anon. I've been thinking of doing a deep dive on Tae's personality for some time now.

IS TAE-A-KOOKER?

How is Tae telling them to get out of their imagination and telling jk is sleeping next to him related?

If he calls tkker's to get out of imagination, doesn't that already establish that jk is his bro and friend? Have we not seen jk and tae sleeping next to each other on camera before?

Do you think Tae, jimin and jk have the time to do the mental gymnastics shippers do?

When Tae kept Jimin around for more than half of his fan meet, was he promoting Vmin then? He made Jimin sit down in front of the whole crowd and made everybody sing HBD. If I didn't know they were friends, I would think it was boyfriend behaviour. And mind you, Vmin is a more significant ship than TK in Korea.

🔆Do you think Tae reads the multiple delusional threads in english on insta and twitter? He can't read medium to advanced level English, period.

🔆Tae has always been an impulsive person since the beginning. Be it interviews, saying unhinged stuff, being romantic towards members for no reason, revealing jk-jm are hanging out in the dead of the night. Entering jk's room during a live when JK was naked in Osaka. Asking James Corden to touch Jimin's thighs on national television, no..INSISTING on it multiple times while RM just sat there embarassed. You forgot when he went live while being drunk with Jimin, WHILE JK was already live? Hybe intern must have pulled their own hairs when that happened.

_🔆The taekook page Tae recently posted from has military pics from private sources, completely illegal to be posted in public. While Tae and the members clearly do not want their privacy invaded during military. (Hybe almost sued camp app). If Tae had checked the page once, he wouldn't have posted. But man has no media training recently, so he posted without even checking the source. The same way he posts from fansites, airport pics, posts AI pics etc.

Can you imagine any other BTS member being that impulsive? Apart from JK? No. That's why they are 'partners in crime'. Always getting scolded together.

You need to understand the dynamics members have with each other from official content. Not from shipping spaces or solo spaces.

Now, let's look at some of the early impressions of Tae on the members -

- 'alien','we used to fight a lot' in Jimin's words

-'i knew he wouldn't listen to me' - RM when he met V

-'difficult to understand' - Suga

- ' in his own world' - Jin

But Jungkook -

' helped me get out of my shell'

And finally me-

" Tae reminds me of my cousin who people around me used to think was a 'special kid' because of his weird behaviour, but he was perfectly normal, just different "

And let's not forget this reaction by knetz when V was singing along to a song of a group he liked during an encore. People accused him of making fun of the song, when it was actually one of his favourite songs. He was just so lost in singing with exaggerated expressions,that too on national tv, on stage- that people mistook it for rude behaviour and he was harrased by netizens.

I cannot count the no. of times Tae has been misunderstood at this point.

Why is Tae like this?

Would jhope post from a random account without checking? Would RM? Would Jimin ever do that?? No. They are the real adults of the group. Taekook are the children. Tae - the prime trouble maker, Jungkook who gets in the flow with him.

I unfortunately also have to remind you of the durag incident Tae had during his live. Do you think he did that to offend a community? He is simply ignorant. (Which is a problem). Isn't that a much more scandalous thing than posting from a shipper account? Just because he makes mistakes, doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable. And i do INSIST that his manager needs to organize media lessons for him ASAP.

FINAL THOUGHTS-

It is clear as day, he's just impulsive and doesn't have the intentions you are making up in your head. Stop behaving like tkkers, anon. They are the worst breed, don't stoop to their level.

The members took their time to understand him, and so should you. No one is a saint, but Tae has never come across as a vile person who would sabotage his own group member. He's impulsive, mischievous, different, creative and very talented.

In suga's words from suchwita-"Taehyung would sulk when he's not given what he wants, so we started fulfilling all his wishes".

Why would he want people to hate on Jimin, lol? It's so funny to even think of that. Haven't you seen their love for each other throughout the years? It honestly surpasses TK bond. Infact do you know why V said ' i only have you' and ' you were the one who cried with me' to Jimin? Because jimin understands him. Even better than jungkook. I have even seen instances when Tae is ignored during conversations, but then jimin is listening to him, drawing everyone's attention to Tae. Jimin is precious to Tae, ngl.

And why would he want beef with Jimin when they all want to get back together in 2025? If they had some issues, wouldn't RM interfere first, as the leader? Why the hell is Tae always texting jimin, searching up Jimin AI pics, asking to be in a reel with Jimin? Drinking with Jimin? Why does Jimin want Tae at his own fan event? Why is Jimin feeling up Tae's torso when he learnt he's working out? There's literally no evidence of Tae being vile to Jimin. You think they are that good actors?

Believe me, vminkook don't give a fuck about the delulu shipping discourses or vile shippers. You know why? Because they are not the ARMY that they recognize. Hybe or the members will never address shippers. They will show bromance for sure, but no direct call outs.

But you know who directly addressed shippers? The only one to ever do that? KIM TAEHYUNG.

And he had shut them down!

[taggedmemes]

SENTENCE MEME ⟶ PRYCE AND CARTER'S DEEP SPACE SURVIVAL PROCEDURE & PROTOCOL MANUAL / PAGE 861 - 936 tenses and wording may have been altered slightly for ease of sending! always feel free to tweak the sentence to fit your muse.

'fainting is a bad sign.'

'there are times you get to have a magic sword, and there are times you need to throw it into a lake.'

'you can't spell "ignorance" without "a goner". be aware and informed at all times!'

'repairs are only possible when personnel are alive to make them.'

'in case you were wondering, mister nice guy(tm) was an experimental hr program piloted in the early '80s and has since been retired.'

'REGULATIONS, SHMEBULATIONS.'

'you will be shocked - /shocked!/ - to learn that /illegal/ gambling is impossible in a place where there's technically no human jurisdiction.'

'consider this a friendly reminder to not bet anything that isn't yours to lose.'

'mercury isn't in retrograde, it's in celsius.'

'incidentally: humans are a fantastic source of protein.'

'in a tight spot, remember: statistically, most things are afraid of the dark.'

'"minor complication" is the suggested alternative to the term "active catastrophe".'

'extremes of pressure are always detrimental to your health.'

'BEWARE THE PERILS OF CROWDFUNDING.'

'there is a line when it comes to being "dangerous". your job is to get as close to that line as you can without touching it.'

'jokes and horseplay are permitted on a "don't ask, don't tell" basis.'

'in a pinch, you can use a dollar to write a note, absorb spills, and practice the noble art of origami.'

'early adoption can lead to beneficial manipulation.'

'few things will get you through as many situations or dangerous situations as a good sense of humor.'

'if you think sunburns on earth are bad, just wait until you get one in space.'

'don't think you're better than them. you've been washing your hands wrong for years.'

'attachment to one's own hair is a liability.'

'WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? PUT THAT DOWN IMMEDIATELY!'

'you must always be in control of your attitude.'

'rapidly typing instructions on your keyboard is distracting and rarely useful.'

'the best /ist/ to be is a completionist.'

'space is like jazz: it's all about the places you don't breathe.'

'not a great time for pros and cons lists.'

'good things come to those who wait, but great things come to those who waste no time in getting back to work.'

'go back to your room and change.'

'a little extra butter never killed anyone. officially.'

'temperature control is a privilege.'

'always pay attention, but do not look too closely.'

'triangles are the strongest shape and the weakest musical instrument.'

'half of leading is acting.'

'there is a rule to every exception.'

'be ready to be spartacus. you might have to be.'

'survival is futile.'

'survival is a fiction.'

'once an idea exists outside our head, can it really ever die?'

'do /any/ of us ever really die?'

[melanielocke]

The Stars Collide - Chapter 34

Sorry for being late with posting, I haven't made much progress with writing the Stars Collide. I'm finding it difficult to write now that Alastair and Thomas are not in the same place anymore and I can't just focus on the romance and for some reason I struggled with this chapter especially. I haven't written the next chapter yet but I hope I can post it sometime next weekend.

Grace Blackthorn’s apartment was empty of anything remotely personal. It was small, one bedroom, one bathroom and a living room and kitchen in one, but even within the limited space there was very little placed. No pictures, no decoration, no books. The only thing Thomas could find after he and Cordelia spent an hour searching the place was a book on magic technology that was written in Edom, placed somewhere in a drawer out of sight. Edom did not have the same technology Henry had invented here, the ability to read magic the way he did, but it seemed like they had done different experiments. Henry’s invention had been a missing link for them, but the knowledge in here was restricted to those outside Edom.

‘This is too difficult for me,’ Thomas said. ‘But to Christopher this will be invaluable.’

‘We need to find Alastair though,’ Cordelia said. ‘How is Edom technology going to help us do that?’

‘Christopher is trying to find a way to track Alastair based on the reading of his power,’ Thomas said. ‘No guarantees, but perhaps there’s something in this book that will help him.’

‘I’ll look around one more time,’ Cordelia said. ‘And then we’ll meet up at Lucie’s rooms, she’s trying to use her magic to locate Alastair.’

Thomas went to the lab first, where Christopher was busy typing behind his computer.

‘Did you eat anything?’ Thomas asked.

Christopher considered for a few moments, then shook his head.

‘Alright. Dinner at seven at my place, okay?’ Thomas said. ‘Alastair wouldn’t want us all to starve for his sake. We went to Grace’ place, and there wasn’t much there, except this book. It’s a book on Edom magic technology.’

Christopher’s eyes went wide. ‘Really? That sort of knowledge is heavily restricted. We tried to hack their database, but it’s too well protected. I’ll start reading straightaway.’

Thomas raised an eyebrow. ‘You tried to hack Edom?’

Thomas knew he shouldn’t ask. He never quite knew what Christopher got up to, and if it was anything illegal, he didn’t want to know about it. He was an official diplomat now, he needed plausible deniability when it came to these things.

‘It was all in vain,’ Christopher said. ‘I’m not a good enough hacker. Grace claimed she’d lost access too after moving, but apparently she was at the forefront of Edom’s research. Oh, this is fascinating.’

‘Seven,’ Thomas repeated. ‘Dinner. If you do not eat, I will force you.’

One of the reasons Thomas had been successful in getting Alastair to eat three meals a day was past experience with Christopher. He’d always made sure Christopher ate regularly, especially during their time at university. When Kit had still lived at home, he’d have to come eat dinner with his parents at least, but as a student and left to his own devices, Christopher had soon lost his eating schedule. He’d lost so much weight his parents had worried he’d developed an eating disorder, until they’d realized it was scheduling Christopher struggled with. He got so caught up in work he barely noticed time pass him by, and he did feel hunger the way most people did. Thomas had taken to making sure he ate and slept at healthy times, and now he’d done the same for Alastair.

He walked to Lucie’s rooms and knocked on the door. Cordelia opened, rushing him inside. Lucie’s rooms weren’t so different from his own in size and decoration, except that Lucie had even more bookshelves. There were bookshelves everywhere Lucie had space left, and her parents had even more space for books. It was as if they lived inside a library.

Lucie was seated on the sofa, sorting through sea shells, pinecones and autumn leaves.

‘I��m not getting anything specific,’ Lucie said. ‘All I can tell so far is that Alastair is still on the planet, but that’s not specific enough. I need to narrow it down, but I can’t figure out how.’

Thomas sighed. It was a good thing that Alastair was still on Fair, and he guessed there had to be another underwater lab somewhere. But there was so much ocean on the planet, they could be anywhere shallow enough. Or perhaps he was on a submarine that wasn’t anchored to the bottom of the sea, if that were the case they could truly be everywhere.

‘How does it work exactly?’ Thomas asked.

Lucie handed him a seashell stuffed with torn up pieces of maple leaf. ‘This is the best one I made. You have to hold it in both hands. Cordelia got some of Alastair’s hair from his hairbrush, you need a piece of someone to track them. Blood is a lot more potent but you rarely have more than some hair.’

Thomas tried to think, but it was really unlikely they’d find any blood or different parts of Alastair than hair. He held the charm in both hands, trying if he could feel anything. He should, Lucie was the only one who could make it so easily, but anyone could use it. He felt the magic within the charm, and let it guide him to Alastair. He was on Fair, that much they knew, but he needed more. More, he begged of the charm. And he could feel more. Alastair was south. South of here, which left about half the planet. It still wasn’t enough, but it was progress.

‘South,’ Thomas breathed. ‘Alastair’s to the south somewhere. I can’t get it more specific than that, but if I keep trying perhaps we can narrow it down further.’

It would be a long time until he could narrow it down to a searchable area like this, but perhaps combined with what Christopher could do… It would take time, and yet they had no time to waste. Thomas couldn’t bear to leave Alastair alone out there. Where was he? He had to be so scared. Did he know Thomas was looking for him? Likely, Alastair had no reason to believe Thomas would find him.

‘How did you get it more specific?’ Lucie asked. ‘I’d been trying for an hour already.’

‘I don’t know,’ Thomas said. ‘I had to force it a little, but I did nothing special.’

Lucie furrowed her brows, considered for a moment before handing Thomas a necklace with a series of seashells dangling from it. ‘Thomas, try this charm. Put it around your neck.’

Thomas put it around his neck. It wasn’t exactly his style, but seashells were one of the most common ingredients in witch charms on this planet.

‘Anything?’ Lucie said and her voice was so loud Thomas instinctively covered his ears as she spoke.

‘Stars, Lucie, you’re making my ears bleed.’

‘Take it off.’ Despite Lucie whispering, she was still plenty loud for Thomas to hear.

Thomas took the charm and his hearing returned to normal. ‘What exactly was the point of that?’

‘It’s supposed to increase hearing just a little bit,’ Lucie said. ‘Your hearing was increased so much my normal voice was too loud for you.’

‘So?’

‘You’re far more sensitive to magic than other people,’ Lucie said. ‘I suspected when you rescued Alastair at the beach. I gave both you and Cordelia a charm that would help you extend your breath underwater, but you didn’t have to breathe at all.’

‘No, I thought that was the point,’ Thomas said.

‘My magic isn’t that strong,’ Lucie said. ‘That’s the thing with witch magic, I can do a lot of different things, but they’re all small benefits. It’s quite different from what Alastair can do, his magic is related to one domain but it’s very strong. I could enhance your memory too, but nothing to the extent Alastair can do.’

‘So then what does it mean that I could breathe underwater with your charm?’

‘I think you’re far more sensitive to magic than other people,’ Lucie said. ‘That might also mean you’re more easily harmed by it, but my charms have a much stronger effect on you. That’s interesting.’

Thomas didn’t know what that meant exactly. More sensitive to magic made sense, he guessed, maybe that’s why he was drawn into Alastair’s memory so easily. Perhaps that meant there was a way for them to establish a connection through Alastair’s memory even over this distance.

‘Is there anything you could do to enhance my sensitivity to Alastair’s magic?’ Thomas asked. ‘If he could reach me, maybe he could show me where he is.’

Lucie considered for a moment. ‘Maybe. Alastair would have to try to reach you.’

‘It must also help to close the distance between us and Alastair,’ Cordelia said. ‘I can fly us south, and see if we can narrow down Alastair’s location.’

‘The tracking charm is reusable,’ Lucie said. ‘We should bring Alastair’s brush with his hair just to be sure.’

Thomas nodded. ‘We’ll leave after dinner. I invited Christopher and I’ll want to discuss with him before we leave.’

Thomas didn’t spend as much time on cooking as he usually did, the stress of missing Alastair was too much and he couldn’t concentrate. He ended up making a simple pasta with tomato sauce and some leftover spinach. Christopher arrived a little late, and ate what remained of the pasta. Thomas suspected it might be the first thing he’d eaten all day.

‘Did you make any progress in the book?’

‘I haven’t finished it yet,’ Christopher said. ‘But it confirmed that Edom citizens aren’t born with magic. What it makes it very weird is that this changes after Edom conquers a planet. Even if a planet had born magic users before, no more were born after the conquering.’

‘That makes no sense,’ Thomas said.

‘Not unless there’s something about Edom that stops magic users for being born,’ Christopher said. ‘The book doesn’t mention the emperor, but there’s an implication that he does use magic. And there was a whole program in giving children and teenagers powers in Edom. I haven’t really gotten to that yet.’

‘I imagine that technology didn’t work as well as they wanted,’ Cordelia said. ‘Otherwise why would they need Henry’s technology or Alastair?’

‘No, I imagine not,’ Christopher said. ‘Without being able to read magic, whatever they did was a shot in the dark, they wouldn’t have been able to nestle power properly into someone’s brain. Even with Henry’s technology, I wouldn’t trust to try that.’

‘They tried it with Charles and it was what killed him,’ Thomas said.

‘I haven’t gotten into the details of the Edom experiments yet, but it does seem like a lot of the subjects died,’ Christopher said. ‘I’m not yet sure if any ended up with powers, and if so, the intended powers.’

‘Keep us informed,’ Thomas said. ‘We need to get closer to Alastair if we want to track him, so we’re leaving.’

Christopher tilted his head. ‘Then I’m coming with you,’ he said. ‘Henry just finished making a portable version of his machine. I’m sure he’ll let us borrow it if it’ll help find Alastair.’

Thomas hadn’t thought that possible, but it might become an important asset, especially combined with his sensitivity to magic. Did it work with all magic or just Lucie’s? Alastair had never said there was a difference but his magic had been different than he was used to for him too. He had drawn in Thomas rather easily and unintended, it was possible.

‘I’ll start readying the airship,’ Cordelia said. ‘Pack whatever you need, but be fast. We can’t let Alastair and Rostam wait.’    

@alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @astriefer @justanormaldemon @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @amchara @all-for-the-fanfiction @imsoftforthomastair @ddepressedbookworm @queenlilith43 @wagner-fell @cant-think-of-anything @laylax13s @tessherongraystairs @boredfangirl16 @artist-in-soul @bottomdelioncourt @ikissedsmithparker

[aishathetaurus]

This episode... First of all, I predicted, like a lot of us, this kind of episode. She was feeling contractions in the last episodes, so of course she's gives birth in this one.

Usually I have a thinkpiece after every episode (and I'll still manage to write one regardless), but I don't even know what to say? June is far more forgiving and graceful than I'll ever be.

If I was June, with everything she went through, I would've left Serena for dead. I can't imagine leaving the baby as they're an innocent party, but I would've let Serena die.

Serena was so worried about the Wheelers finding her she didn't think about immigration coming after her ass the second she stepped foot in that hospital... I didn't either. It seemed obvious as soon as Luke said he called them. Of course, she would have to deal with immigration whether Luke called them or not. She left the little area that was considered Gilead, so of course, there's consequences. Its not like as a citizen of Gilead she was ever allowed to roam free.

A part of me expected she'll be able to seek refuge, but her staying in that... embassy/fertility clinic/with the Wheelers was her only hope. This reality makes far more sense than the one I imaged... There's no way Canada would ever accept a literal war criminal in their graces... especially when they're exiting and entering the country illegally when she's barely welcomed in the country in the first place. Besides, when seeking refuge they ask "will you be prosecuted for being a woman?" and as a wife, a widow with a baby to be specific, I don't think she could've answered honestly? She would've had to lie to access the refugee status. Which would've been silly considering who is she is and how wives are treated is generally known, at least amongst those who put in the time and energy to study Gilead and government officials.

Anyway, hearing that her child being taken from her would've been good enough for me. Luke did the right thing calling immigration. I also understand why June was looking at the situation confused on how to feel. Its complicated. All of this is partially Serena's fault, but she was so a woman in Gilead... its complicated. I kinda get it.

Though the killing of Commander Putnam was pleasing... I will say this is one of the better episodes so far. Everything felt so subtle and calm, but so much was said and represented in this one episode. The level of empathy... unbelievable... astonishing. I think the child's name being Noah is foreshadowing. Maybe his birth and the situation Serena is in will be what brings these two countries together, possibly for the worst. Anyway, the way they were able to make Serena having her baby taken away into a sad horrible moment after there was so much hope... wow...

Also, I'm predicting some Luke hate for this episode... just like any episode where Luke shows up... I genuinely feel like the show's refusal to truly address race in all of this has led to a harsh and kinda racist fandom. I think a lot of you, who I'm assuming are mostly white women, have no idea what kind of fear Luke, a black American man, must be living through during all of this.... Keep in mind, Gilead is racist. Its been hinted a few times in the show, but in the book... Gilead is violently racist... Black and nonwhite women aren't wanted as handmaids. They're killed or sent to the colonies. I feel like that's implied whether it was touched on in the show or not, but it must be said. There are so few black men in the show, because they're just killed. Do you understand?

He called immigration, because it was the right thing to do. He didn't come in and ruin everything because that's just what he does. He was doing the right thing based on the information he had, and even if he had more information he still did the right thing. He has never had the time or space to be gentle with his wrongdoers the way someone like June or Serena has... This being a hard time for women, doesn't erase the reality of how black people are treated. Imagine the reality black handmaids are going through. More than one reality can be true at once. Women being treated like slaves doesn't change the fact the country Gildead was built on was built on race based slavery. The hints are few and far inbetween, but the show has made is clear the nonwhite people are still not welcomed in Gilead. They casually glossed over a family requesting only white handmaids a few season back. Racism is still a thing. Brutality based on race didn't change. Luke is doing everything he can in a world that was literally built to be against him. He's doing great.

Obviously, there was context there that would show that the situation isn't what he thought it was, but why the fuck would he pause and consider the possible context when the woman that helped imprison, enslave, and rape his wife is literally sitting around waiting to be plucked? He did the right thing. Get a grip.

[transmasc-wizard]

Would you like to talk about mack?? :D

i WOULD

unfortunately, this will not be :D . this will be D:

tw : familial abandonment, drug use & dealing (doesnt go into huge detail but its mentioned), manipulation/shitty friends, depression, self-worth issues, self-destructive behaviour

so mack (it/any btw) is a character who is very convinced he has already gone through his Character Arc(TM) and doesn't need any more help with his issues. and like, he absolutely got over a lot of issues he used to have, but a lot of other ones were just... pushed down to a place where it can pretend those problems don't exist anymore.

mack was shunned by its whole family when they were turned into a vampire at 15 by their manipulative and shitty vampire "friends", and ran away shortly after. they almost immediately fell into a group of shady people, since that was what it was used to. mostly, these people broke a lot of laws to have a lot of quite-dangerous-in-retrospect parties. illegal fireworks, irresponsible drug use, dares like "play chicken but with cars instead of swings", that sorta thing. mack knew at least 2 people who died at these things and it was not uncommon for them to wake up six blocks away with a memory gap of several hours

this went on for 2-3 years, im not quite sure, until one day mack watched One More person die at a party and was like . hey . maybe this isn't a good use of my life. and he just... ran away again? not in the same way, but he just ghosted everyone she knew and had to start over. it had a lot of shady/sneaky skills from times it used to help w drug dealing, so it put those skills into working on not-super-legal issues but in a significantly safer context (essentially scamming billionaires).

at this time, around age 18 or so, Mack was also loitering a lot at a cafe frequented by university students. at this spot was where Mack met the then-20 and extremely optimistic (lmao) James, a first-year theoretical physics major. when James (Sufferinf w/ rent) realized mack was homeless, he offered to let it stay with him, and mack then officially had a living space ! hurrah. this was the point where mack went "okay so clearly i am now okay. i have a house, food, a less-illegal-than-before job, and am not actively and dangerously using drugs or doing horrifically reckless things. im normal!" and shoved all their issues under the rug

those issues included the fact that by this point mack was just. incapable of showing negative emotions, bc they thought no one would love them if they did bc they'd be too much of a burden. (this is heightened by the fact their chronic pain started at 17.) then there's also the insistence that their constant exhaustion, apathetic feelings, and deep fear of getting close to people is Normal And Fine, their fear of any person who presents themself as a parental or otherwise familial figure, their feelings that it's not worth anything if it can't make others constantly happy, and her inability to cope with anything that she doesn't know how to bullshit through.

by the time the story starts, Mack and James have collected 2 more roommates (Leah and Spacey) (and they will get Val next ofc). James is... significantly more tired and significantly less optimistic, which also makes Mack feel more like she's in control (like, see, even JAMES is doing bad! so surely it's just the average stress of life. i'm ok. never once does he consider James is just also crumbling till like halfway through the book, and that is actually a tense side of their friendship). mack is very very convinced that since it's not actively putting itself in danger twice a week, it's FINE, and no one has to WORRY, and--

then val comes along and kinda. forcibly makes him realize he is not ok. and funky story things ensue :3

[clock-corpse]

How does one get into TouHou enough to rp? I love the designs I just dk where to start

Okay so, this is going to be a long answer. I would like to say that it's a simple one, but it really isn't given just how old the Touhou series is and how much media there is surrounding it both official and fanmade. So hopefully I can help walk you through things.

More under the readmore.

So, you say that you like the character designs. Which one? I think this is an important question to ask first. Which character is it that draws your attention? Because if you can figure that out, then it'll become easier to get into the series.

Touhou is a 25 year old series with 20+ games under its belt, not to mention the manga, novels, and independent music soundtracks. While this sounds incredibly daunting, I promise you that getting into the series isn't that bad if you start small. And there's absolutely no rush to learn everything about the official lore before you start RP'ing.

See, Touhou is very much kept afloat by its fanbase that creates numerous types of fanworks ranging from doujinshi manga, games, fanfics, fanart, and just about anything else you can think of. Due to the vagueness of the writing in Touhou, this usually leads to the fans filling in those holes with their own headcanons which the creator ZUN, is 100% supportive of as long as you follow his guidelines.

(The guidelines are real simple. Just don't post video game endings, or create fanworks that depict stuff that could be considered illegal in a real life situation.)

Anyway, because a lot of fanmade Touhou content runs on fanon, it's perfectly fine if you can't get the character down to canon in your first RP experience. Touhou fans are usually laid back about that kind of stuff, and if they're not, ignore them. Explore Touhou in your own time and use your own judgement when creating your character.

So, now that I've told you all this I want to go back to my original question. Is there a character you like? Because if there is, then my best advice would be to hop on over to the Touhou Wiki to look them up and see what official sources they appear in.

Of course it never hurts to also look at fanworks for inspiration, but I must warn you. If you're new to the Touhou fandom and are coming from another Western fandom then you may be a bit shocked. Some people can be into some... things you may not like.

It's an unfortunate fact of being a Touhou fan that you're going to run into unfavorable stuff when searching for fanworks on image boards and the like. It may take some time to learn how to avoid them but it's really easy to figure it out and curate your own space.

The main thing to remember when you run into something that you think might be gross or uncomfortable is to stop, don't freak out, and click off the page.

In the end, Touhou is about creativity freedom and that pretty much extends to everyone who's interested in the series. So don't stress too much about trying to get the character 100% right on your first try. For the most part you can meet people will be supportive of your portrayal and continue to be as you improve.

I hope any or all of this helps! Happy RP'ing! o/

[hypnoticcastiel]

currently watching 1899: ep 5

so my theory after watching 1899 1x5, 'The Call', is...SPOILER WARNING; READ ONLY IF YOU OK WITH SPOILERS:

The place is real, the time is real, but ONLY in combination of the future tech on the ship and in the lab of Maura's mad scientist dad with the state of hypnosis that is different for each of the lab rats, oh i mean passengers. So basically it can be 2050 and either a government or Maura's dad's psy-science org is searching for psychically evolved individuals, similar experiments were done in the 1950s or in any decent scifi comic. problem is that such work might be illegal in most countries, so it's done on ships in international waters without police nearby. the lab rats are manipulated into thinking that it's the year 1899, and a lot of them go through a trauma. one way to handle trauma is to move, literally move on to new grounds. the trauma triggers chemicals in their brain which is needed to access, train or abuse any dormant psy-powers which Maura's dad seeks to use for a yet to be releaved endgame. the thing with the unexplained tunnels might be rather boring. they're either future tech teleporters made by Maura's dad/the org or natural rifts in the fabric of space or whatever, just like the reports about people or ships vanishing, not just in the Bermuda triangle but also at other locations on earth. the tunnels AND the places they lead to can't be halucinations bc in ep 4 Maura is able to enter the place in the captain's past with him.

One more thing of high interest to me is the stranger who is even willing to take a bullet for Maura, and who is doing as much of scifi-computer work as the captain's second in command (the red bearded man). both the stranger and the read bearded guy are from my alleged 2050 and the stranger at one point decided to betray Maura's dad bc mass brain-psy control bs of humans isn't ethically ok. he knows the tech, he knows the purpose of the ships and he even FEELS connected to Maura. he can't be her brother, bc she would recognize him, but Maura says that her dad erased her memories after she found out what he is doing. so mr stranger is either the mysterious brother or her boyfriend. the mysterious boy might be the golden lab rat. the best psy-powers individual and a group around Maura and her brother tried to free him and the other 'passengers'. it went wrong but the kid was able to steal the black little pyramid which is used to focus whatever he can do or the command codes for the nano-robot insects. that's why mr stranger and mystery-kid both can use the nano-robot insects, in contrary to the evil red bearded guy who uses only the official ship's hidden computer and small keyboard thing. the rebels use the nanobot insects. and the thing with the little girl dying from contact with the stranger is just that she was woken up?! but if the people are as real as the place/ship, it's not just a mental image or projection that stopped to exist, so she died for real?!

[the-stars-guide-me]

Intro:

* Mod is 18

* Mod is a bio female, no weird asks or anything for me specifically

* This is an RP blog for my Honkai OC Astralon Orion, aka Astra. I'll make a full blown lore post some time.

*my main blog is @the-void-via so i'll follow from there! I also post a lot about Astra there, too. I might start reblogging my posts onto here but I need to think about it still.

Character Info:

Astralon is a being made of the stars, born with the fabric of space weaved into their blood, as they would say. Their gender is malleable, they can quite literally change physical genders at will.

They go by they/them pronouns, no matter what body type they have.

There are some subjects that they are very, very touchy with...but they don't like to talk about it. If you're brave enough, you may try to talk to them about it.

Link to the official Astra fic I'm writing! The Moon Will Sing

Relationships:

Astral Express:

Trailblazer (Caelus/Stelle), good friends, they met them during their 'visit' to the Xianzhou

March 7th, also good friends, but she's a little hyperactive for them

Dan Heng, friends. They don't know much about him yet.

Welt Yang, acquainted. They hold him in respect due to their knowledge and age.

Himeko, also acquainted. She reminds them of their 'mother'.

PomPom, they love them. They always give them a hug every time they're on the Express.

Jarilo-IV:

Ahanon, friends with them. Hasn't spent too too much time together but they're fond of them

Gepard, somewhat friends. He's helped them many times when getting lost outside of Belobog

The Xianzhou Alliance:

Jing Yuan, very good friends. They hold deep respect and attraction for him, as he was one of the first people to help them adjust to the physical plane.

Bailu, best friends. She was the first to find them after the fall, and the one who healed them and watched over them during their first week. They love her, platonically of course.

Jiaoqiu, good friends, they also hold attraction for the cheeky Foxian. They love the food he makes, but they can't handle spice all that well

Feixiao, friends. They've talked with her many times for many different matters, and she always seems willing to lend an ear.

Moze, friends. They're starting to warm up to him and finding, yet again, some attractions to him. It will take a little bit to get used to his strange nature though

Yanqing, friendly but not quite friends. The young boy can tell how much they like Jing Yuan, and he won't make it easy to get his blessings. Astra sees him as Jing Yuan's son, so they go along with his 'tests'

Tags:

#☆° friendly chat = talking to someone

#☆°stars collide = answering an ask

#☆°starry-eyed = excited about something

#☆°starlight interview = speaking out of character

#☆°star-crossed lovers = ships

#☆°stories the stars tell = lore related posts

#☆°under the same stars = role-play scenarios

#☆°fair warning = post contains triggering topics

#☆°across space = re-blogs of posts from my main account

#☆°full moon = posts that contain any NSFW, mostly will be reblogged writings about Astra from my main account

#☆°starry visage = any art of Astra, no matter if I draw it myself or if I get fanart! If you want to draw fanart, just dm me :3

More to come as I get asks!

Character Tags:

#☆°the masked actor - interactions with/about @actorsmask

#☆°kind astrologer - interactions with/about @astronomyloveraster

#☆°the esteemed doctor - interactions with/about @veritas-ratio-rp

#☆°cheeky foxian healer - interactions with/about @just-a-healer

Rules:

Please be respectful and remember that this is an OC of mine. I do mainly ship them with Jing Yuan, Jiaoqiu ans Moze (yes in a poly relationship and out of one) but other shipping is allowed, if it's not problematic and/or illegal.

Feel free to interact as your OC, too! Astra is a very kind person.

[nexthitjcink]

trainee code of conduct

since i can't get enough of the in site lore, under the cut we have the trainee code of conduct/contract that all of our characters would have read and signed before their first day of training. being caught not adhering to these guidelines will result in punishment, and in excess or extreme cases termination of their trainee contract. please keep them in mind while building your muse and writing their activities! as the roleplay progresses we may venture into punishing characters for blatant disrespecting of the rules and expectations laid out in this code. also, this is a living document that may be edited or added to as issues (ic) arise.

basically: follow these to keep your muse safe & progressing, break them to add some extra spice!

GENERAL CONDUCT

While still private citizens, trainees should conduct themselves in a respectful and mature manner while under NH. Behave appropriately in all aspects of life, but especially while studying under and representing NH.

Drug use is expressly banned and any trainee found consuming illegal drugs will have their contracts terminated. Alcohol use is permitted for trainees , but should never be done on NH property (including the dorms) and trainees are still expected to act responsibility and maturely.

All information shared with trainees should remain confidential unless stated otherwise. Trainees should keep their status as a trainee private from the public unless NH has the trainee go public (via survival shows or other public shows). Trainees are required to private all personal social media accounts and should never share their trainee status on anything but official NH accounts. Sharing or discussing non-public information with media or people outside of NH is grounds for immediate termination.

SCHEDULE

Trainees are expected to train from the hours of 5pm - 11pm Monday-Saturday. They are given every Sunday off, unless there is a special schedule that requires them. Trainees are expected to be on time to all of the following lessons:

5:00 PM - 5:10 PM: Check-in at NH and opening meeting (includes announcements) 5:15 PM - 5:55 PM: Workout Warm-Up/Free Gym Time 6:00 PM - 7:25 PM: Lesson #1 (Idols: Vocal/Rap, Actors: Vocals/Musical Performance, Models: Design, Producers: Engineering) 7:30 PM - 7:55 PM: Lesson #2 (All: Media Training) 8:00 PM - 8:25 PM: Dinner 8:30 PM - 9:55 PM: Lesson #3 (Idols: Dance, Actors: Acting, Models: Modeling, Producers: Songwriting) 10 PM - 10:50 PM: Lesson #4 (Idols: Variety/Performance, Actors: Writing/Directing, Models: Marketing, Producers: Dance/Choreography) 10:50 PM - 11 PM: Ending meeting/clean-up 11 PM - 12 AM: Free Practice (Coaches leave and trainees allowed to go home, but encouraged to practice if needed)

During Lesson #2, trainees may be pulled by coaches for extra practice in an area they are particularly struggling in. These schedules may change given any company wide events/opportunities, but those changes will be announced to trainees.

FACILITIES

As a trainee under NH (and it's subsidiaries) you have access to all of the following facilities and amenities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Practice studios (dance & vocal + instrument)

State of the art fitness center (ref)

Cafeteria: hot meals served at 2pm and 8 pm every week day, cold grab & go refrigerators open 24/7 (ref), there are also healthy food vending machines scattered throughout the headquarters so trainees can stay well fed during trainee hours.

Rooftop Garden (ref)

During the weekends (Saturday and Sunday) and week days after 6pm, these facilities are locked for safety concerns, with trainees able to access via keycard access embedded in the NH ID badge all trainees receive during onboarding. Trainees are expected to act as adults and respect these spaces as a privilege, not a right.

EVALUATIONS

Every month, on the last Saturday of every month, trainees will give a performance to demonstrate their learning from the past month. Idol trainees will perform a song, actors at least a scene at least 3 minutes long, models will give a catwalk and give a test ad read, and producers will submit any songs written/composed, as well as journals and notes from that month's lessons. These will be evaluated by their coaches and trainees are given feedback the following weekday on their performance, as well as what they should improve on in the following month.

Trainees are allowed to complete these evaluations individually or pair up in groups of no more than 4 of their fellow trainees. For idol and actor trainees, they may select any song/scene they wish to complete their evaluation, submitted to their coaches before the evaluation day. Coaches and/or executives may group trainees together and assign them in order to test trainee's chemistry/proficiency in a certain concept.

EDUCATION & EMPLOYMENT & COMPENSATION

Any trainees of schooling age are required to go to school while training at NH and their schedules are set up to allow for them to attend classes regularly. NH also requires that students enrolled maintain passing grades. After graduating high school trainees may also enter university if they so choose. NH encourages trainees to attend/transfer to performing arts schools/programs of study, where training can often count for class credit. Trainees are allowed to have part time jobs outside of training, but must with their employer so their schedule allows them adequate time for training.

At NH, trainees do not accrue debt and are not expected to pay for any of the services and amenities given. For any activities completed through NH as a trainee, there is 50/50 pay split between company and trainee. If your trainee books a commercial, photoshoot, acting gig, or any other activity through NH, 50% of the income generated will go to the trainee and 50% to NH. NH does not provide any other funds outside of the amenities, but does have resources for trainees that may be struggling financially.

HOUSING

NH provides housing for trainees that do not have access to housing in Seoul, specifically for trainees that are from foreign or rural communities. Dorms are located a five minute walk from NH headquarters and each have two managers living with trainees at all times (one for the boys and one for girls). Guests must be pre-approved by the manager for safety of all residents. In the dorms there is a curfew of 11 pm, but that can be extended by permission of the manager if the trainee is practicing or an emergency occurs. During allowed vacation time, trainees must inform manager if they are leaving the dorms during the vacation.

DATING

Trainees are encouraged to focus on training rather than dating life, but there is not official "dating ban." NH runs basically on a don't ask, don't tell policy. Dating should never interfere with training though, if such issues arise there may be consequences.

_______________________________ _____________________________________ Hwang Yoojin, Head of Training Trainee Signature

and that is everything for this preview! let me know if there are any lingering questions about trainee life/NH's expectations of training! as stated in the intro blurb, this is a living document so it may be added to as issues in-character arise and are addressed by in-character executives! also--a sneak at everyone's boss: hwang yoojin! she's been with next hit since 2020 and was SAGA's head manager before becoming head of the training division.

[travel-voyages]

Jun 5, 2013 Google Earth file download: 

A Road that You Can't Cross(Peace Arch & Point Roberts)

A Road that You Can't Cross (Peace Arch & Point Roberts)  50,654 views May 30, 2021 Just south of Vancouver, Canada, there is a road that was illegal for you to cross at the time of the filming of this video. And yes, you could still do that, but breaking the law does not bring severe ramifications (it seemed like). I will take you to Peace Arch's 0th avenue and Point Roberts across Boundary Bay to show you how the COVID-19 brought severe issues to the border between United States and Canada.

https://youtu.be/B04W6mQXt1w  Script

Canada and the United States share the longest, straightest, possibly boringest border in the world. But, look closer, and there's plenty of bizarreness to be found.

While these sister nations get along fairly well, they both want to make it really clear whose side of the continent is whose. And they've done this by carving a 20-foot wide space along the border. All five and a half thousand miles of it.

With the exception of the rare New England town that predates national borders or the odd airport that needed extending, this space is the no-touching-zone between the countries and they're super serious about keeping it clear. It matters not if the no-touching-zone runs through hundreds of miles of virtually uninhabited Alaskan / Yukon wilderness. Those border trees, will not stand.

Which might make you think this must be the longest, straightest deforested place in the world, but it isn't. Deforested: yes, but straight? Not at all.

Sure it looks straight and on a map, and the treaties establishing the line say it's straight... but in the real world the official border is 900 lines that zig-zags from the horizontal by as much as several hundred feet.

How did this happen? Well, imagine you're back in North America in the 1800s -- The 49th parallel (one of those horizontal lines you see on a globe) has just been set as the national boundary and it's your job to make it real. You're handed a compass and a ball of string and told to carefully mark off the next 2/3rds of a continent. Don't mind that uncharted wilderness in the way: just keep the line straight.

Yeah.

Good luck.

With that.

The men who surveyed the land did the best they could and built over 900 monuments. They're in about as straight as you could expect a pre-GPS civilization to make, but it's not the kind of spherical / planar intersection that would bring a mathematician joy.

Nonetheless these monuments define the border and the no-touching-zone plays connect-the-dots with them.

Oh, and while there are about 900 markers along this section of the border, there are about 8,000 in total that define the shape of the nations.

Despite this massive project Canada and the United States still have disputed territory. There is a series of islands in the Atlantic that the United States claims are part of Maine and Canada claims are part of New Brunswick. Canada, assuming the islands are hers built a lighthouse on one of them, and the United States, assuming the islands are hers pretends the lighthouse doesn't exist.

It's not a huge problem as the argument is mostly over tourists who want to see puffins and fishermen who want to catch lobsters, but let's hope the disagreement gets resolved before someone finds oil under that lighthouse.

Even the non-disputed territory has a few notably weird spots: such as this tick of the border upward into Canada. Zoom in and it gets stranger as the border isn't over solid land but runs through a lake to cut off a bit of Canada before diving back down to the US.

This spot is home to about 100 Americans and is a perfect example of how border irregularities are born:

Back in 1783 when the victorious Americans were negotiating with the British who controlled what would one day be Canada, they needed a map, and this map was the best available at the time. While the East Coast looks pretty good, the wester it goes the sparser it gets.

Under negotiation was the edge of what would one day be Minnesota and Manitoba. But unfortunately, that area was hidden underneath an inset on the map, so the Americans and British were bordering blind. Seriously.

They guessed that the border should start from the northwestern part of this lake and go in a horizontal line until it crossed the Mississippi… somewhere.

But somewhere, turned out to be nowhere as the mighty Mississippi stops short of that line, which left the border vague until 35 years later when a second round of negotiations established the aforementioned 49th parallel.

But there was still a problem as the lake mentioned earlier was both higher, and less circular than first though, putting its northwesterly point here so the existing border had to jump up to meet it and then drop straight down to the 49th, awkwardly cutting off a bit of Canada, before heading west across the remainder of the continent.

Turns out you just can't draw a straight(-ish) line for hundreds of miles without causing a few more problems.

One of which was luckily spotted in advance: Vancouver Island, which the 49th would have sliced through, but both sides agreed that would be dumb so the border swoops around the island.

However, next door to Vancouver Island is Point Roberts which went unnoticed as so today the border blithey cuts across. It's a nice little town, home to over 1,000 Americans, but has only a primary school so its older kids have to cross international borders four times a day to go to school in their own state.

In a pleasing symetry, the East cost has the exact opposite situation with a Canadian Island whose only land route is a bridge to the United States.

And these two aren't the only places where each country contains a bit of the other: there are several more, easily spotted in sattelite photos by the no-touching zone.

Regardless of if the land in question is just an uninhabited strip, in the middle of a lake, in the middle of nowhere, the border between these sister nations must remain clearly marked. Credits:

Nick Vernon, Mike Baird, Agência Brasil, philippeguillaume, jimleach89, npswear, riebart, mrickard5, nelights, brendankj, fdecomite, cliche, wwworks, albaraa, bsmity13, Mark Stevens, drtobster, bsmity13 & music by Kevin MacLeod

[melinshoot]

I try to keep my commentary on Twitter, my designs on Tumblr, stream my long form thoughts on YouTube, and am considering moving back to twitch for gameplay and karaoke. My shower thoughts go on tiktok. I've would use insta as a photo album. But I was chastised by a concerned parent that, as a woman, I shouldn't influence children to use insta, because it's hazardous for them.

I use truth for conservative shit posting. And I read Facebook to keep up with my friends and family. But I dunt post there often, too keep work separate, you know?

I have a LinkedIn account where I try to stay professional, but it's so stuffy and boring there...

We really need a more centralized account so we can join virtual spaces easily, with the option to browse anonymously.

Anyway, I started thinking, how do I know which media I'm consuming is a police report, or other official report, investigative journalism, news, commentary, entertainment..?

I enjoy the daily show, so I enjoy my news fed to me in an entertaining fashion, so that kinda blurs the lines. But, how can we, as citizens, separate all this crap, all this information, if we don't even have control of the tools?

I've seen civilians do much better data analysis in football and video games. And yet, we're prevented access to the raw data, in order to develop tools for stuff that actually matters?

Is it any wonder why the world is confused? It's not that Facebook and Twitter are controlling the narrative, it's that they have so much data, they can't help but leave important bits out.

Important bits, the American People should have access to, AND be able to create tools and interfaces for themselves. AND, if they choose, profit off the fruits of their labor building those tools and analysis'.

But, it's currently illegal. Instead, we have to wait for big companies to buy the data and then feed it to us...

That's really dumb.

We need systems in place to allow people, journalists, scientists, and even plumbers to sort through the data that affects them and their jobs. So they can live and work more efficiently.

Old People: you don't even understand what I'm talking about. And thats part of the problem, but the young ones around you, they do. They understand because they've been studying, and living with this tech that you've been ignoring.

So when you say, "I don't understand how NFTs can be used to fix our problems. " it's time for you to resign. Because you're technologically illiterate. And your illiteracy is making us look bad.

[littlebigmouse]

Between Vee eating cards to fuel her magic and there literally being a cardgame called Magic the Gathering, how long until Gus and Hunter end up at the local nerd/game/comic store, getting increasingly frustrated as the attendant patiently tries to explain the rules of the game but the boys can't figure out how to activate the human magic glyphs and the attendant can't figure out why the two kids keep trying to fight them on the rules.

[sailorhyunjinz]

What do you mean you're not telling is more?? You can't say that and then not tell us more 😭 what does that mean? What signatures did you analyse and how the hell does one analyse signatures? Anyway, good for ji, he should be confident because he's perfect

- horny! jisung is valid

im a nerd when it comes to like stuff that can analyze a person or a situation i.e tarot cards, astrology, numerology AND MY FAVORITE; graphology.

IM NOT GONNA LIKE point too much stuff out cause its probably gonna annoy the shit out of some and i dont wan by inbox exploding with angry people soooo,,, BUT the ones that kinda,,, raise concerns with me is chans, seungmins and hyunjins. AND JEONGINS IS V V FASCINATING IM TRYING TO PUZZLE TOGETHER WHAT IT CAN MEAN but lemme show you

this is chans signature and also i wanna talk about the text written at the bottom on the second picture SINCE ITS SO FASCINATING AAAA I LOVE STUFF LIKE THIS YALL ok the signature in itself in these two examples are written straight which is great, in some ive seen inclining and reclining slants which shows that he changes mood in a healthy manner. the two first letters are big which speaks for him wanting to show a very strong side and confident side when met with new people or just media in general, he wants people to see him as confident and he wants to be respected but you see how the text suddenly gets illegible after the two first letters and they shrink in size? its a facade. deep down he's insecure, he carries them deep down and he hides them very well also HUUUGE insecurity loop in the letter "h". the line is what concerns me the most, the line that goes over his signature. you see how its going forward and then backwards and then forwards again? he's stuck in the past. he often thinks back on his childhood or previous experiences, overthinking them and he just finds comfort being in the past. OH AND the text at the bottom says "i'll eat well, very delicious" and you see how theres space between the words and its a normal distance, maybe leaning towards a bigger one but still considered "normal" which means that he has a healthy distance to people WHICH GREAT but when he writes "stray kids" theres no space. he cares so much about the rest of the group and he wants to keep them close, this small detail shows how much he cares AND I JUST FOUND IT VERY COOL OK MOVING ON

this is hyunjins signature! its illegible pretty much or maybe i cant read like i see an "h" but yeah his signature is big which indicates that he's not afraid to take place in whatever setting it might be but the illegible signature or legit any siganture that you cant see WHATEVER THE FUCK ITS SUPPOSE TO SAY shows that he's secretive and likes the game of having people guessing about who he is and what he's gonna do next. like looking at his siganture i just see a huge "h" which also shows me that he's scared to show his full potential. if you have a signature that only states your first name can mean that maybe you arent so close to your family but in this case he just diminishes himself to one single letter which is once again an insecurity trait and i would more say that this is like an insecurity to show potential yk? he's comfortable with who he is rn and such but maybe a bit hesitant to try something new in fear of criticism. he's a very friendly person tho v v friendly but maybe a bit secretive~ once again the line is very concerning since this one, in comparison to chans is going downwards signaling pessimism that can maybe keep him back sometimes but AH PROTECC HIM <33

this is seungmins signature and OH ALSO disclaimer here!! im sure that this isnt their like "official" signatures, this their autographs aka when they live up to their career and maybe not their signature when it comes to official documents yk since we tend to change them depending on the situation but yeah- this one is legible to some degree,,, the very high i-dot is ahshash mf has confidence. like ive said earlier the line over the signature throws me off but from what i have seen sometimes the line goes above his signature which is like a V V HIGH CONFIDENCE like almost a bit too much so im not as concerned for seungmin as i am for chan and hyunjin since their lines always happen and its always over the entire signature yk?

THIS SIGNATURE IS SO INTERESTING TO ME since i havent seen anyone that has this type of signature. he always draws the fox which signals playfulness but the rest is just a line which,,, like its not even "J" or anything, it looks like a flipped "s" which is a huge sign that he craves anonymity? sure he is an idol and its a job that doesnt allow that ALMOST LIKE DAMN but if we were to remove the fox and just look at the line we wouldnt know that it was written by jeongin? which like hyunjin, v secretive almost wants to be unknown? he doesnt want his idol life to mix with this personal life at all cause i doubt that this is his "official" signature. very straightforward, "im here cause im here bitches" type of attitude judging by the size and the lack of tilt

ok i said i wasnt gonna give out too much and i did but SHUUUUSH DONT-

and i dont wan people attacking me rn like if yall dont believe in graphology thats fine, move right along but i like it and WELL IF YOU DONT THEN DONT AIGHT OK <333

[amongwd]

Why you don't need WinRar on Windows 11

Let's find out what analog you can use instead of buying paid WinRar.

Why is it so popular?

It has been long time and a lot of Windows users got used to this application a lot. Since filesharing sites epoch, you know - those that let you upload a file up to 100 mb and then asking for a money to download it in higher speeds. I guess we all are happy that those sites are almost not used now during to clouds and the free space in clouds also has grown up to 50GB on some services and even more!

Though this doesn't mean that you don't need to be able to open archives in different formats nowadays. So, unfortunately, a lot of cloud shared files or old music archives that you probably have somewhere are in RAR format.

Is this format obsolete? Well, yes and no. This archiver is not Free and even if you can use it without any limitations to open files and just ignore the 40 day expired trial warning, it is almost ok, but that means that you actually do illegal thing! So, that means that you should decide if you want to buy WinRar or no after 40 days of usage, and, if you decided not to buy - just uninstall it. This will give you karma.

So, as it goes to the RAR format, it is old but WinRar is always updated and there are new formats available now - RAR4 and RAR5 (RAR5 is actually RAR4, which was old and replaced and renamed to RAR4).

Free analog

And that means that you actually need WinRar... or wait a minute - isn't there a free software to open all these stuff? Well, actually it is and for some reason reason many people don't know about it. It is called 7-zip (seven zip) and can be downloaded on official site.

So, I suggest to download the stable version though if you want to have more format support it is definitely better to download the newest possible.

Look, it even has version for Mac OS X! But it is only console version (on the screenshot). If you want GUI version, you can go ahead with Keka

It is the same 7zip console version that just has beautiful interface.

So, is 7zip better than WinRar? It is actually a difficult question, on the one side we have opensource archiver which will not have any problems with support as any developer can take the source code and compile a new archiver app. But on the other hand we have pros of WinRar - nice icons (custom themes can be downloaded) and the most important - performance. Well, 7zip is effective but slower than WinRar, but does it really matter today, when HDD prices are too low? Probably not, at least if you create backups a lot and open a lot of rar archives. This is not the case of most of the users today.

And about compression, let's perform a test: download the world's largest text file - "Leo Tolstoi - Wolrd and War" and try to archive it.

So, the original file size was 3.6 MB, and default zipped file is 1.4 MB, which is the worst out of the archivers. For 7zip filesize on Ultra comression is 1 MB, so we gain almost 4 times for disk space here. And rar4 and rar size is almost the same, it differs only in few kilobytes and actually the size of 7z is the smallest here, though the difference between 7z and rar4 is just a 70 KB, it is not the main pros for the WinRar - let's say we compress 460 MB of text files with 7zip. It took 1 minute and 08 seconds for me to add text files to archive. Result file was 1.6 MB. But WinRar with rar4 compressed the same directory just in a 3-5 seconds! Blazing fast, and the size was 2.3 MB. Slightly more, but much much faster.

Conclusion

WinRar pros:

Fast

Pretty icons

Everybody get used to it

Opens pretty much every archive formats

WinRar cons:

Not free

No binary for linux/mac

Can't create archives in xz, tar and etc.

7zip pros:

Free (Open Source project)

Opens a lot of formats (including rar)

Can create linux format archives

Available on Linux and Mac (as a p7zip packages for each distro)

High compression rate

7zip cons:

Can't create rar archive

Slower compression/decompression speeds

Summary: WinRar is good when you use it a lot for purpose (creation of archives). But if you are just a casual computer user and surfing internet it is better to use 7zip because it is free and powerful.

P.S:

Not all the files are compressed equally well. The best compression is done for text files, but if you will try to compress a docx file - the size of result will be the same because docx is actually a zip archive (really, just open it with 7zip). Also, video, audio and pictures (jpg) also have their own compression applied already, so adding them to a rar/7zip archive will do nothing for them. Though, for example, TIFF files can be well compressed to rar/7z with lossless quality (it is good for high resolution scans - saving space and not losing quality).

P.S.S:

And for experiment purpose I'll write here my configuration: Ryzen 5900x (stock) with DRAM 2666mHz (stock) and all the actions were done in a ramdisk, so we don't have a disk bottleneck in this experiment and also I created the archive 2 times. When Windows reads a file for the first time and if there is some room in RAM, the file will be COPIED to RAM and the second read of the same file will be done directly from RAM. That means that you DO really use all of your PC ram, so more ram is always better.

[phantombmoll]

## I don't know what this is, I don't know where it came from but here's a thing I just randomly started and will probably continue. I don't even know where it's going yet apart from some romance becccaaauuuusssseeeeee..... yeahhhh.... anyway

it doesn't even have a name yet hahaha! ##

Ted Hastings x OC - Part One

"I don't think this is the drink I thought it was going to be." Ted said watching Peggy's face as she took in their surroundings.

"Ted, that ball is well and truly in your court. I'm not the sort to come begging. Besides if you want that kind of drink I expect somewhere a bit nicer." Peggy replied taking a sip from her drink and locking eyes with him for a moment.

Ted held her gaze before he sighed, shifted in his seat and wrapped his hands around the pint in front of him.

"I am sorry about your dad." He broke the silence. "He asked to see me, I was caught up with something but I thought he had more time."

"He did." Peggy said and from the tone in her voice Ted realised this definitely wasn't the drink he'd thought it was.

It must have been at least 10 years since the Ackley Sens case, 10 years since they'd worked closely. 10 years since he'd been tempted but not acted on feelings that had been growing. The kind of intense warmth that starts as a campfire but left uncontrolled could burn down the whole forest.

Years moved between them before he ended up needing her help with something. It was after Roisin had officially left him, when he'd still been residing in the space of hoping to get his marriage back on track.

Peggy had asked him for a drink once. Ted had turned her down.

They'd almost kissed once, late in the office. Ted had moved away. Peggy had let him go. No questions, no protests. Just let it go and continued working like nothing had happened.

Now here they were. She'd asked him at the funeral if he wanted a drink and Ted had agreed. Even without the warm embers they were still friends. Though he couldn't deny he'd hoped for something more.

Peggy glanced around before leaning forward. She was an archivist at the station. One of the best around. Ted remembered her starting, only getting the job because her old man had been a barrister with some sway, keeping it because she was excellent at it. Over the years she'd become one of AC-12's go to people, especially when it came to historical data.

"When my dad retired he started working on something." She said wrapping her hands tightly around the glass in front of her. "Historic, given I have access to most files that come through the station, especially historic ones. I was helping him."

"Peggy I don't know if we should-"

"I haven't done anything illegal. Like my dad would let me." Peggy stated. "I have an eidetic memory Ted. Which means I never took anything home, I never gave my dad anything, I never let him see any files." Peggy swallowed. "There's a club of men and women, dating back to the early forties, in positions of authority that are using the system for their own gains."

"Peggy-"

"Police Officers included. Doctors, lawyers, firemen, police officers, care workers the list goes on. Money, power, sex, all the usual motivations. They are a close knit group. Secret handshakes, messages, symbols, forged documents-"

"Peggy." Ted said more firmly that time. "Now I had a great deal of respect for your father but everyone knows he wasn't well. His refusal to admit that to himself seems to have got him killed."

"This isn't some wild conspiracy theory." Peggy swallowed, frustration etched along her face.

"Then why didn't he bring it to AC-12 if he suspected Coppers were involved?" Ted leant forward his voice quiet but firm and now he was the one checking around them.

"My dad was a lawyer for a long time. He worked with you enough times to know as soon as he brought it to you or AC-12 and it became official, the cat would be out of the bag. This is a big operation and he wanted to get all the evidence he could before he took it anywhere. Especially given the nature of the people with access to this information."

"Peggy, do you know how this sounds?"

"I'm perfectly aware Ted. I've seen it myself though."

"You put your career at risk for the ramblings of a man with dementia and now you're bringing it to me expecting what?"

"He didn't have dementia, he had a tumour Ted and he was of sound mind. I haven't put my career at risk, everything I've done has been above board. I haven't accessed anything I'm not supposed to, I haven't been through evidence I'm not allowed to see."

Ted watched her for a moment before rubbing his forehead. There was a conviction in Peggy's face that made his gut turn with the feeling that this was a thread worth pulling at. He needed to be careful though. It could just be the case that she believed her father implicitly and why wouldn't she. The last time Ted had spoken to him he'd seem fine, cognizant, appearances could be deceptive though.

"He didn't know who he could trust. I think there was more going on then he even told me. I think someone else found that out."

"Peggy do you know what you're saying?"

"I'm saying I think someone killed my dad, I'm saying there's a ring of criminals acting from some of the most influential places within society and I'm saying that some of those are or were serving police officers." Peggy paused. "I know how it sounds, don't you think I've been over that in my head? Grieving daughter can't handle her fathers death so she finds something else to blame it on. That's not what this is though. Please just take a look at the files he put together."

"I thought you said you didn't take any files."

"I didn't. I have an advanced eidetic memory Ted. I can recall things I've seen and read years after in almost complete detail. I didn't need to take the files home because I pretty much was a walking file. Dad told me what he needed I sifted through information, found it and relayed it. A lot of the stuff he got was through public record or archives of his own, from the firm."

They were quiet for a moment and Ted sifted through regulation in his head trying to figure out if Peggy had broken any.

"Just come and look, if you think it's all poppycock I've bought into because there's been no objectional third party, I'll throw it all out. Forget about it."

"Alright, I'll come and look." Ted nodded and leaned back as he took a drink from his pint.