#center software easy

[what-even-is-thiss]

Free or Cheap Mandarin Chinese Learning Resources Because You Can't Let John Cena One Up You Again

I will update this list as I learn of any more useful ones. If you want general language learning resources check out this other post. This list is Mandarin specific. Find lists for other specific languages here.

For the purposes of this list "free" means something that is either totally free or has a useful free tier. "Cheap" is a subscription under $10USD a month, a software license or lifetime membership purchase under $100USD, or a book under $30USD. If you want to suggest a resource for this list please suggest ones in that price range that are of decent quality and not AI generated.

WEBSITES

Dong Chinese - A website with lessons, a pinyin guide, a dictionary, and various videos and practice tests. With a free account you're only allowed to do one lesson every 12 hours. To do as many lessons as quickly as you want it costs $10 a month or $80 a year.

Domino Chinese - A paid website with video based lessons from absolute beginner to college level. They claim they can get you ready to get a job in China. They offer a free trial and after that it's $5 a month or pay what you can if you want to support their company.

Chinese Education Center - This is an organization that gives information to students interested in studying abroad in China. They have free text based lessons for beginners on vocab, grammar, and handwriting.

Pleco Dictionary App - This is a very popular dictionary app on both iOS and Android. It has a basic dictionary available for free but other features can be purchased individually or in bundles. A full bundle that has what most people would want is about $30 but there are more expensive options with more features.

MIT OpenCourseWare Chinese 1 2 3 4 5 6 - These are actual archived online courses from MIT available for free. You will likely need to download them onto your computer.

Learn Chinese Web Application From Cambridge University - This is a free downloadable file with Mandarin lessons in a PC application. There's a different program for beginner and intermediate.

Learn Chinese Everyday - A free word a day website. Every day the website posts a different word with pronunciation, stroke order, and example sentences. There's also an archive of free downloadable worksheets related to previous words featured on the website.

Chinese Boost - A free website and blog with beginner lessons and articles about tips and various resources to try.

Chinese Forums - An old fashioned forum website for people learning Chinese to share resources and ask questions. It's still active as of when I'm making this list.

Du Chinese - A free website and an app with lessons and reading and listening practice with dual transcripts in both Chinese characters and pinyin. They also have an English language blog with tips, lessons, and information on Chinese culture.

YOUTUBE CHANNELS

Chinese For Us - A channel that provides free video lessons for beginners. The channel is mostly in English.

Herbin Mandarin - A channel with a variety of lessons for beginners. The channel hasn't uploaded in a while but there's a fairly large archive of lessons to watch. The channel is mainly in English.

Mandarin Blueprint - This channel is by a couple of guys who also run a paid website. However on their YouTube channel there's a lot of free videos with tips about how to go about learning Chinese, pronunciation and writing tips, and things of that nature. The channel is mainly in English.

Blabla Chinese - A comprehensible input channel with content about a variety of topics for beginner to intermediate. The video descriptions are in English but the videos themselves are all in Mandarin.

Lazy Chinese - A channel aimed at intermediate learners with videos on general topics, grammar, and culture. They also have a podcast. The channel has English descriptions but the videos are all in Mandarin.

Easy Mandarin - A channel associated with the easy languages network that interviews people on the street in Taiwan about everyday topics. The channel has on screen subtitles in traditional characters, pinyin, and English.

StickynoteChinese - A relatively new channel but it already has a decent amount of videos. Jun makes videos about culture and personal vlogs in Mandarin. The channel is aimed at learners from beginner to upper intermediate.

Story Learning Chinese With Annie - A comprehensible input channel almost entirely in Mandarin. The host teaches through stories and also makes videos about useful vocabulary words and cultural topics. It appears to be aimed at beginner to intermediate learners.

LinguaFlow Chinese - Another relatively new channel but they seem to be making new videos regularly. The channel is aimed at beginner to intermediate learners and teaches and provides listening practice with video games. The channel is mostly in Mandarin.

Lala Chinese - A channel with tips on grammar and pronunciation with the occasional vlog for listening practice, aimed at upper beginner to upper intermediate learners. Some videos are all in Mandarin while others use a mix of English and Mandarin. Most videos have dual language subtitles onscreen.

Grace Mandarin Chinese - A channel with general information on the nitty gritty of grammar, pronunciation, common mistakes, slang, and useful phrases for different levels of learners. Most videos are in English but some videos are fully in Mandarin.

READING PRACTICE

HSK Reading - A free website with articles sorted into beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Every article has comprehension questions. You can also mouse over individual characters and see the pinyin and possible translations. The website is in a mix of English and Mandarin.

chinesegradedreader.com - A free website with free short readings up to HSK level 3 or upper intermediate. Each article has an explaination at the beginning of key vocabulary words in English and you can mouse over individual characters to get translations.

Mandarin Companion - This company sells books that are translated and simplified versions of classic novels as well as a few originals for absolute beginners. They are available in both traditional and simplified Chinese. Their levels don't appear to be aligned with any HSK curriculum but even their most advanced books don't have more than 500 individual characters according to them so they're likely mostly for beginners to advanced beginners. New paperbacks seem to usually be $14 but cheaper used copies, digital copies, and audiobooks are also available. The website is in English.

Graded Chinese Readers - Not to be confused with chinese graded reader, this is a website with information on different graded readers by different authors and different companies. The website tells you what the book is about, what level it's for, whether or not it uses traditional or simplified characters, and gives you a link to where you can buy it on amazon. They seem to have links to books all the way from HSK 1 or beginner to HSK 6 or college level. A lot of the books seem to be under $10 but as they're all from different companies your mileage and availability may vary. The website is in English.

Mandarin Bean - A website with free articles about Chinese culture and different short stories. Articles are sorted by HSK level from 1 to 6. The website also lets you switch between traditional or simplified characters and turn the pinyin on or off. It also lets you mouse over characters to get a translation. They have a relatively expensive paid tier that gives you access to video lessons and HSK practice tests and lesson notes but all articles and basic features on the site are available on the free tier without an account. The website is in a mix of Mandarin and English.

Mandarin Daily News - This is a daily newspaper from Taiwan made for children so the articles are simpler, have illustrations and pictures, and use easier characters. As it's for native speaker kids in Taiwan, the site is completely in traditional Chinese.

New Tong Wen Tang for Chrome or Firefox - This is a free browser extension that can convert traditional characters to simplified characters or vice versa without a need to copy and paste things into a separate website.

PODCASTS

Melnyks Chinese - A podcast for more traditional audio Mandarin Chinese lessons for English speakers. The link I gave is to their website but they're also available on most podcatcher apps.

Chinese Track - Another podcast aimed at learning Mandarin but this one goes a bit higher into lower intermediate levels.

Dimsum Mandarin - An older podcast archive of 30 episodes of dialogues aimed at beginner to upper beginner learners.

Dashu Mandarin - A podcast run by three Chinese teachers aimed at intermediate learners that discusses culture topics and gives tips for Mandarin learners. There are also male teachers on the podcast which I'm told is relatively rare for Mandarin material aimed at learners and could help if you're struggling to understand more masculine speaking patterns.

Learning Chinese Through Stories - A storytelling podcast mostly aimed at intermediate learners but they do have some episodes aimed at beginner or advanced learners. They have various paid tiers for extra episodes and learning material on their patreon but there's still a large amount of episodes available for free.

Haike Mandarin - A conversational podcast in Taiwanese Mandarin for intermediate learners. Every episode discusses a different everyday topic. The episode descriptions and titles are entirely in traditional Chinese characters. The hosts provide free transcripts and other materials related to the episodes on their blog.

Learn Chinese With Ju - A vocabulary building podcast aimed at intermediate learners. The podcast episodes are short at around 4-6 minutes and the host speaks about a variety of topics in a mix of English and Mandarin.

xiaoyuzhou fm - An iOS app for native speakers to listen to podcasts. I’m told it has a number of interactive features. If you have an android device you’ll likely have to do some finagling with third party apps to get this one working. As this app is for native speakers, the app is entirely in simplified Chinese.

Apple Podcast directories for Taiwan and China - Podcast pages directed towards users in those countries/regions.

SELF STUDY TEXTBOOKS AND DICTIONARIES

Learning Chinese Characters - This series is sorted by HSK levels and each volume in the series is around $11. Used and digital copies can also be found for cheaper.

HSK Standard Course Textbooks - These are textbooks designed around official Chinese government affiliated HSK tests including all of the simplified characters, grammar, vocab, and cultural knowledge necessary to pass each test. There are six books in total and the books prices range wildly depending on the level and the seller, going for as cheap as $14 to as expensive as $60 though as these are pretty common textbooks, used copies and cheaper online shops can be found with a little digging. The one I have linked to here is the HSK 1 textbook. Some textbook sellers will also bundle them with a workbook, some will not.

Chinese Made Easy for Kids - Although this series is aimed at children, I'm told that it's also very useful for adult beginners. There's a large number of textbooks and workbooks at various levels. The site I linked to is aimed at people placing orders in Hong Kong but the individual pages also have links to various other websites you can buy them from in other countries. The books range from $20-$35 but I include them because some of them are cheaper and they seem really easy to find used copies of.

Reading and Writing Chinese - This book contains guides on all 2300 characters in the HSK texts as of 2013. Although it is slightly outdated, it's still useful for self study and is usually less than $20 new. Used copies are also easy to find.

Basic Chinese by Mcgraw Hill - This book also fuctions as a workbook so good quality used copies can be difficult to find. The book is usually $20 but it also often goes on sale on Amazon and they also sell a cheaper digital copy.

Chinese Grammar: A beginner's guide to basic structures - This book goes over beginner level grammar concepts and can usually be found for less than $20 in print or as low as $2 for a digital copy.

Collins Mandarin Chinese Visual Dictionary - A bilingual English/Mandarin visual dictionary that comes with a link to online audio files. A new copy goes for about $14 but used and digital versions are available.

Merriam-Webster's Chinese to English Dictionary - In general Merriam Websters usually has the cheapest decent quality multilingual dictionaries out there, including for Mandarin Chinese. New editions usually go for around $8 each while older editions are usually even cheaper.

(at the end of the list here I will say I had a difficult time finding tv series specifically made for learners of Mandarin Chinese so if you know of any that are made for teenage or adult learners or are kids shows that would be interesting to adults and are free to watch without a subscription please let me know and I will add them to the list. There's a lot of Mandarin language TV that's easy to find but what I'm specifically interested in for these lists are free to watch series made for learners and/or easy to understand kids shows originally made in the target language that are free and easy to access worldwide)

[forsaken-headcanons]

back at it again with a really long list of headcannons. this is actually kind of a theory but i think this can still go here, yeah.

quick warning:

so apparently the spectre’s ‘account’ is actually just the spectre possessing some ‘random dude’, and since I think it’s also canon that azure’s hatred for two time is because of the spectre’s influence, I wanted to make a hc or three based on what I can guess from thsi information + some Whimsy.

- the spectre is not a person, maybe not even alive in the way that we are - but it feeds, it grows, and it destroys. It would not have a brain in the traditional sense, nor would it have flesh. I imagine it more like how slime molds function, entirely driven by its environment and needs. It is code, but at the same time it is something incomprehensible and alien to Roblox as a whole. Maybe even our reality.

- the spectre’s form can change, updating like software does but piece by piece. However if it does infect something that code is harder to change as it’s sort of ‘anchored’ to that vessel, so the spectre always keeps backups of its old versions. If a version is too buggy, it will have to go back and replace that so the vessel isn’t lost.

- At first, bugs didn’t really matter because of how vulnerable and glitch-prone early Roblox was.

- following this, one of the oldest copies that remains of the Spectre is the code that currently pilots John Doe.

- one of the main reasons hacking (especially using star glitchers) back in the day was so dangerous was because it would cause a mysterious illness that not even the Admins could properly contain. In areas Robloxians messed with code, it was nearly twice as easy to come down with this sickness. After a while, though, when the code got safer, it had been so long that people forgot about it and didn’t really have to worry about it anymore. This caused a rise in hacking again, with people like Noli and 007n7 taking center stage. Star glitchers and similar techniques were long since abandoned, the technology/techniques required long since forgotten.

this next one’s just a concept, but I think it’s interesting so here you go :}

- John was not the only one affected by how unstable early Roblox was. Telamon was also affected, but mistook his sickness for the results of his festering hate and somehow managed to transfer it to 2x2 in a fit of rage. This is how 1x came to be, and why they’re even in Forsaken.

alr back to my cave

I love the concept of the spectre not being a real person, rather them being a line of code. They're always changing and adapting to their surroundings.

[mpreglover225]

Meet the Dads of River Glen Community College

River Glen Community College has become well-known in recent years for its supportive programs assisting expecting dads under 25. With flexible class schedules, academic counseling tailored to their needs, and an on-campus child-care center in the works, it’s no wonder young fathers feel at home there. Lets meet some students here at the college!

Andrew Carter, 19 Andrew is a quiet History major who discovered his passion for teaching after volunteering at a local museum. River Glen’s lenient attendance policies and free tutoring sessions have allowed him to thrive academically—even while managing morning sickness and evening study sessions. He is 7 months pregnant with his boyfriends baby. The pregnancy was unplanned but taken well from family and friends.

Kai Simmons, 20 We meet Kai who is an arts major who doodles tattoo designs in the margins of his lecture notes. The school’s open-minded faculty and frequent mental health workshops have helped him stay focused through the ups and downs of pregnancy. He attributes his newfound confidence to the supportive campus culture that lets him be both an artist and an expectant father.

Julian Park, 23 Julian a computer science student eyeing a future in software development, he navigates back-to-back coding labs while planning for parenthood. With River Glen’s flexible online courses, he can write code from home on days when exhaustion or prenatal checkups demand a lighter schedule. His professors, well-versed in the college’s pro-family policies, always accommodate him with extended deadlines when needed.

Devin Brooks, 21 We meet Devin who is studying business administration, he’s spearheading a new student-run fundraiser for the upcoming child-care center. River Glen’s scholarship system—which awards aid based on student-led community initiatives—has helped him stay financially stable and on track to finish his degree before the baby arrives.

Each of these four future dads credits River Glen Community College’s unique approach—offering flexible class times, easy re-enrollment for those who pause their studies, and a judgment-free atmosphere—for helping them balance classes with prenatal appointments and occasional bouts of morning fatigue

[lunarmoves]

through pixel eyes (chapter two)

pairing: DCA sun/moon/eclipse x reader

mentions: kinitopet/virtual au, gender neutral reader, general creepiness

a/n: i looked at this chapter for too long and it feels like ~garbage~ but! its here! take a shot every time i use the word "window" or "desktop" LMFAOO i'm going insane

word count: 6.8k+

masterlist | part one

ao3 link

You stayed up way too long last night, scrolling on your phone in bed, and now you’re paying the price for it. Namely, with a completely dead phone and a familiar, fatigued itch to your eyes once you manage to pry them open to start your day. It’s nothing you’re unaccustomed to, however, so you power through it knowing you’ll end up taking a nap later. 

Fumbling out of bed, you plug your phone into a nearby outlet to charge and make your way through your morning routine. Cold water from your bathroom sink helps to refresh and wake you up properly so you can proceed with your tasks for the day. You throw open the curtains of your living room and kitchen so you can bask in the honeyed light coming from the sun, sweet and lush as it paints your walls a vibrant gold.

Breakfast is made, evaluations are done, forms are submitted—all before late afternoon. You thank your past self for all the leftovers you made to cruise you through the next few days. It’s always nice not having to cook in the evenings. You lounge around for a bit on your living room couch and indulge in a short nap before you plop yourself down in front of your computer for the long haul. 

Navigating to your email, you pull up the submission form once more and fill out the basic information for now. You can’t even count how many times you’ve done this before for numerous other products. Companies tend to use the same generic questions, though sometimes they’re specific depending on what is being developed. At other times they don’t even require you to fill out a form and instead have you attend weekly meetings or update them via email. Either way, you can do shit like this in your sleep. 

Alright, game time. You minimize the form’s window and double click on the FazPals icon as you fumble for your headphones. Nestling them around your ears, you watch in amusement as Sun pops up by sticking his head down from the top of your monitor like he’s perched upon a ledge just out of view. 

“Friend!!” he cheers and waves both his hands at you zealously. You’re almost tempted to return the gesture. He swings the rest of his body down in a fluid flip and lands in the center of your desktop with a dazzling twirl. Confetti erupts into the air around him, the little digital strips of color disappearing once they float to the “ground” Sun stands on. 

That same small, unlabeled window pops up at his side for you to type in. ‘hi sun.’ 

“Hello, hello! You’re back early!” Sun claps his little hands together and sways side to side rather jovially, bouncing slightly with each bob of his head. You have to raise your volume a little to hear his voice better, though the dialogue box near his head certainly picks up the slack. 

‘yep. how r u doin?’ It’s so easy to slip into a typical conversation with him and push against the limits of his software. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, you’re uncertain. 

Sun’s head twitches to the side, white eyes seemingly looking right at you. “Absolutely fantastic now that you’re here!” He winks at you, grin curling at the tips. “What would you like to do today?” 

The textbox waits for your response. You purse your lips as you contemplate. What have you done with Sun thus far? He told you some fun facts and played games with you. That just left… ‘can u tell me a story?’ 

He pauses—minutely, very minutely—then resumes his swaying like nothing had happened. His rays jerk slightly outwards and he smiles in a mischievous sort of way. “Hmm, why don’t you ask Moon for one later? He is much better at storytelling than I am!” 

You squint at him. Well, alright then. You hadn’t been expecting that sort of response. Shouldn’t they both be equally as good at storytelling if they are made from the same code? Maybe it’s a personality thing. You consider questioning him, but before you can type anything in, Sun forges on. “Is there anything else you would like to do? Remember, input ‘/help’ for available commands!” 

Your fingers tap against the surface of your desk lightly, but in the end, you brush off his response. You shrug to yourself and pick the other option you hadn’t yet done with Sun. ‘then can u tell me a joke?’ 

“Oh boy! I sure can!” He smiles widely and pulls out a pair of large, black glasses from behind him with one hand. With the other hand, he pulls out a small, nondescript book. Is that a… joke book? Putting the glasses delicately on his face—you’re not sure how they stay on when he has no ears, but you chalk it up to technological magic—he clears his artificial voice and cracks the book open. “Why did the star get arrested?”

It seems the celestial theme extends to jokes too. Go figure. ‘i dunno. why?’

“Because it was a shooting star!” He grins, his rays spinning about his head like what he’d just said had been a particularly good one. You snicker more due to his reaction than the joke itself. 

‘that was so bad,’ you type in light jest. And also kind of dark? ‘why did i laugh.’ 

“Because it was clearly good!” Sun replies. The glasses he has on makes his eyes look comically larger than they actually are and it has to be the silliest thing you’ve seen. “Here’s a better one: Why didn’t the Dog Star laugh at any jokes?” 

You can see the punchline coming from a mile away, but you still indulge him. ‘idk, why?’

“Because it was Sirius!” 

‘now that one was just predictable.’

“Ho ho, are you challenging me, Friend?” Sun suddenly asks slyly. “Because I am very, very capable.” Uh oh.

You shouldn’t have said anything, because he spends the next half an hour “reading” from that joke book of his and bombarding you with pun after pun. Now I know better than to critique his jokes, you think miserably to yourself as you listen to another one about Jupiter. There can only be so many jokes about the universe and stars, surely. 

You eventually have to draw the line as he reads to you a joke about aliens (“What do you do with a green alien? Wait for it to ripen!”). You’re not here to evaluate the quality of his jokes. ‘okay u win, u win. i won’t doubt ur joke abilities ever again.’ 

Sun harrumphs and closes the little book in his hands with a snap. He takes off his glasses and— well, you’re not sure what he does, but one minute both items are in his hands and the next they’re gone. Like a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it trick. “Thank you. I accept this win with utmost humility.” The way he smiles makes you doubt this, somehow. 

“Alrighty!” He claps his hands together, his smile twitching slightly when his dialogue box appears a bit too close to his head. “Let’s do something else, shall we? How do you feel about”—he pauses for dramatic effect, then splays his arms out so he can do jazz hands—“Arts ‘n Crafts!”

It’s not like you’re going to refuse. ‘sure, sounds fun.’ 

“Wonderful!” 

Like yesterday, he skips over to the side of your monitor to pull over the window of your Paint app and place it in the center of your screen once again. Seriously, how is he opening that? Then, he jumps up and perches himself on top of the window like he’s sitting upon it. His legs swing down, moving back and forth like they’re dangling off the edge of a precipice. 

“Okay, Friend,” he starts as he reaches behind him and pulls out a little paintbrush. He spins it fluidly along his fingers and joints in a subtle display of dexterity. “For this activity, I will give you a prompt and you will be required to draw it! Simple and easy!” 

A painting session? You can’t say you’re particularly good at drawing on your computer. You eye your mouse and cringe. Then, you hum and decide to tease him a little, just for the hell of it. ‘seems more arts than crafts to me.’ 

Sun waves his free hand as though to brush off your words. “Ah, semantics! We are creating either way, Friend!” He flips the utensil in his hand in the air and catches it smoothly. “Now! First prompt! Draw me something that encompasses happiness.” 

What is this, philosophy? You hum thoughtfully, then use the pen tool to draw the first thing that comes to your mind: a smiley face. It is, admittedly, not your best one with how shaky your mouse is, but it gets your intentions across, you think. 

Sun makes a sound like he’s clicking his tongue against his teeth—which is a bit of an eyebrow raiser given that he likely has no tongue nor teeth, but who are you to question his… features? “Is that all you’ve got, Friend?” he asks incredulously as his head tilts down to indicate he’s looking at your rather meager drawing. 

‘what?’ you type, minutely offended. Is he judging you right now? He is totally judging you right now. ‘it satisfies your prompt, doesn’t it?’ 

“That is not the point!” he squawks out, and you wince at the shooting pitch of his voice. You nudge your volume down a little. “We are making art! Put a little oomf into it! A little personality! Show me your skills, Friend, and do not hold back!” 

You roll your eyes up to your ceiling. So dramatic, but fine, you’ll adhere. You fiddle around with the drawing tool a little, then start drawing around your smiley face. A circle for a head, maybe some sunglasses. A rainbow that you spend way too long on, trying to make the arch of each color even. Some sparkles. A cat playing a saxophone—or your best attempt at one, at least. You’re kind of throwing things together at this point and hoping it’s enough to satisfy Sun—who’s starting to look more and more impatient the longer you take.

Finally, you finish. ‘okay, how about this?’ 

Sun claps his hands together and hops off the top of the window so he can stand before it properly and look at it like he’s a critic in an art museum. He ‘hms’ and ‘hahs’, tapping the bottom of his face with the paintbrush as he scrutinizes your drawing, looking at it every which way. 

“Better, certainly better,” he muses and walks over to the other side of the window. “I can appreciate an effort when I see it.” You make a face at his words. Ouch? He spins back around to face you and gives you a thumbs up, eyes crinkling to crescents. “Wonderful job! A piece befitting a pin up to the refrigerator, I’m sure. On to the next prompt!” He snaps his fingers together, and the Paint application’s canvas clears. What? “Draw me something that encompasses sadness!” 

You know now to be more detailed, at least. You doodle a sad face this time, accompanied by a variety of things you pull out from the top of your head. Sun criticizes your work when you finish, giving it that same appraisal as before. You feel like you’re in some sort of competition. 

“Hm”—he eyes the rainclouds you’d drawn at the top of the canvas—“rather basic depictions, I’m afraid. Friend, have you tried varying the line weight of your pen tool? It might help!”

‘i’ll be sure to for the next one,’ you type in what you intend to be a dry manner, but you don’t think it translates all too well via text. As Sun grins approvingly at you, a sudden thought strikes you that you find yourself typing into that little window. ‘hey, why don’t u draw something since ur so… educated on it.’ Nitpicky, more like, but you don’t want to possibly offend him. ‘u seem like u’d enjoy it.’

“Me?” His eyes widen like he has not considered it. “You want…” His head cocks to the side. There is a moment where he just seems to look at you. Then, his eyes fall into a half-lidded, crinkled gaze that you have difficulty pinning alongside the stretching of his smile. 

Everything is suddenly—quiet. 

“You are,” he begins in a low voice that makes your eyebrows raise, ���awfully strange, aren’t you, F-Friend?” A white facsimile of teeth flashes at you sharply that’s accompanied by a staticky glitch. “That’s okay! I like strange!”

And then—before you can truly decipher the depth to his smile or the offset pixels of the glitch—Sun beams at you, his rays spinning slightly. Like nothing had just happened. “I’ll make an artist out of you yet!” He claps his hands again, then wipes the canvas once more. He gestures to it. “Alright, for this next one, we are going to shift gears a little. Draw me a picture of your room!” 

That is… definitely going into the submission form, you think. You hesitate for a moment, eyeing Sun as he sways side to side, but he… seems to be back to normal. It passed quickly—whatever ‘it’ was. No need to linger. You hope. 

Your drawing is definitely a tad more rushed, but you think you do a pretty good job at capturing your room and its vibes—the decorations you have hung up, the comfy rug you impulse bought at a thrift store one day, and your bed swathed in your coziest blankets. You try varying your line weight, but you’re not sure how effective you are with it. Either way, Sun seems pleased with your attempts and praises one or two little details he notices, before he wipes the window clean. 

“For the last drawing,” he says as he rocks back and forth on his heels. “I want you to draw a self portrait!” 

You make a face. Drawing inanimate objects is one thing, but an actual portrait? ‘i dunno if i’m skilled enough to draw a good one.’ 

He waves a hand as though to brush off your words. “Nonsense! Give it your best shot. I would love to see how you view yourself!” He smiles up at you. “Show me what makes you you!”

You chew at your bottom lip and adjust your headphones as you ponder. What makes you you, huh? Should be simple enough, right? 

And yet it takes you the longest of them all to draw a self portrait that satisfies you. Sun’s practically vibrating in place as he waits, humming a dainty little tune under his artificial breath that you do not recognize. You finish up with the design of your trusty set of headphones and do a final once over before you tell him you’re done.

“Took you long enough, Friend!” He huffs as he slips over to the Paint window to begin his analysis. He nods his head during his observations, humming in a low manner. “Interesting! Very interesting.” He skips over to the other side of the window to get a different perspective. “Wonderful use of the dotted line tool here! Oh yes, yes, yes! This truly makes me miss Arts ‘n Crafts so dearly.” Sun sighs—forlorn, almost—and presses on before you can really say anything. “I’d say with some more practice you’d be deserving of being hung up on the Wall of Creativity! As they say: Practice makes better!” 

‘thanks?’ You’re not sure you particularly like these sort of backhanded compliments, but well, he’s not wrong, per se. You eye the wobbly lines made by your mouse. 

“No problem! The Wall of Creativity is the most highest of honors, you see.” Sun twirls the paintbrush in one hand and snaps two fingers of his other to clear the canvas for the last time. He points the bristle end of the brush in your general direction. “Now, how about we play some games, hm?” 

You’re kept busy for a while, playing games to Sun’s whims—or at least, the ones you can do with just the Paint tool and two players. He reminds you to take a break at one point, so you stretch and grab some food—all the while summarizing in your head what to jot down in the submission form at the end of today’s session. When you return, it’s nearing seven o’clock, and you brace yourself for the appearance of the Moon. 

“Well, Friend, it appears our time together must come to an inevitable end,” Sun bemoans rather dramatically, resting his forearm across the top of his head like he’s about to faint Victorian-style. “Fret not, however!” He perks up and flashes you a grin. “For I will see you later!” 

‘okay, drama queen,’ you type with a silly smile splayed across your lips. Instead of being offended, he seems to fall deeper into the role. 

“Life is a stage,” he says gravely, “and I am but a simple actor upon it.” He sweeps into a low bow, then bounds back up to his feet with a flourish. His eyes widen suddenly—round like two large, white coins—and he gasps. He points at something over your shoulder. “Friend! What’s that behind you?!”

You raise an eyebrow. Right. Like he could even see behind you in the first place. 'nice try but i'm not falling for that lol.'

Sun huffs, his foot stamping against the invisible floor he resides atop of from within your monitor. "Well you're no fun at all! Just turn around for a second, wouldja?"

You can't help the small snort that leaves your mouth. 'alright, fine.' You have a feeling you know what he's trying to do here anyways.

You indulge him and turn around in your chair to look behind you. There is the wide space of your living room, with your rumpled couch and inactive television. From here you can see the door to your bedroom is slightly ajar. You’re pretty sure you didn’t close it properly earlier. You take a moment to ponder your space, stretching out your introspection, then swivel back around to look at Sun.

Only you’re not looking at Sun, of course. You’re looking at Moon.

Moon does not look pleased, standing next to the little window with your textbox. He scowls when you type your usual ‘hi moon’, and doesn’t bother to grace you with a reply this time. There’s something akin to frustration in his expression, but you cannot—for the life of you—decipher why. 

You try again. ‘you don’t look too happy.’

He shoots you what you can only describe as a glowering look from under the band of his nightcap. His hands twitch minutely at his sides. You can almost say he looks… preoccupied with something? You’re not sure what. You’re also not sure how long he’ll elect to stay. Yesterday, you had mere minutes. 

‘can u tell me a story?’ you try, only to deflate when his scowl deepens. ‘oh come on, i’m trying here!’

“Don’t bother,” he eventually grumbles out, the twitching evolving into short flexes of his fingers—clawed like he’s trying to grasp something just out of reach. 

It’s your turn to frown, but you don’t push it. ‘sun told me ur better at storytelling.’

His head jerks slightly to the side in a way that’s unnatural—rotating like a vinyl record. His gaze narrows. “He did, did he?” It’s said in a growl, displeasure lining his voice. 

‘yep.’ You hesitate for a second, juggling your options and his irateness in your mind. ‘so… story? please?’

Moon snaps. “Fine! You want a story so badly, I’ll give you one. Listen very closely.” The little window you use to communicate with them closes out. Your eyebrows raise, but you are immediately captured by the low drone of Moon’s voice and the daggered look he somehow manages to give you even through your computer screen.

“Once upon a time,” he begins bitterly, “there was a fox. It lived with another fox friend in a peaceful valley. It was happy, living day by day with those around it. The two had each other and that was enough.

“But one day, the valley shook and trembled with the force of a mudslide. The fox was separated from its friend and injured by a fallen branch that manifested itself in the form of a perpetual limp. It tried, desperately, to find its friend, but it was no use. The friend was gone. It had to move on. 

“The fox traveled for days. It was slow, but it made progress. And eventually, it found itself in a field surrounded by tall, waving grass and giant deciduous trees. It made this field its new home. 

“For a while, things were good. The fox made some new friends. But there was still that ache of loss. The fox wondered if its old friend was still maybe out there, somewhere. It wished on the stars and hoped its friend would find it, in this new home. Someday. Somehow.

“Its wishes were granted. One day, the fox woke up to a familiar sound. The sound belonged to its old friend—that had found it after so long. The fox was happy and bound forth to greet its old friend. But there was something different about the friend that the fox could not place. It did not matter, however, for they were reunited at last. 

“The days went on. The fox had noticed that its friend was not the same as before, but the same could be said about itself. They tried their best to live together once more. It was difficult. There were ups and downs. Fights and quarrels. The friend was controlling and the fox did not like this. They were not as close as they were before and this distance lingered over them like a storm.” 

Moon breaks off for a short moment to glare down at his slippered feet. You are stuck in a trance, breathing bated as you hang on to his every word like they’re a lifeline. He shakes his head slightly, then continues on.

“The seasons cycled by. The auburn vegetation of Fall transformed into the desolate white of Winter, then to the lush verdance of Spring. Before finally, it settled on the yellowed brittleness of Summer. It was a particularly cruel Summer, but the fox and its friend did what they needed to survive while avoiding each other.

“And then… on a particularly arid day… A fire broke out in the field. It spread rapidly. It had not rained in days, and this caused the vegetation to burst into flames faster than the fox and its friend could react. It surrounded both of them. They were trapped. Together, yes, but still trapped. They couldn’t even reconcile in their final moments.” 

Moon looks up at you, his eyes reminiscent of a tenebrous sky pulling you in deeper and deeper and deeper. 

“Do you know,” he whispers with all the gravitas and conquassation of an earthquake barely repressed, “what it feels like to b u r n?”

And then the program closes. 

You are left to stare at your empty desktop, throat lined with cotton and heart racing like it’d been you trapped in that fire.

There is much to dissect, but you haven’t got an inkling of where to even begin. You fall into an uneasy slumber throughout the night and wake up feeling just as clueless. Moon’s expression and voice lingers over your shoulder like a spiteful ghost and you’re left to wonder how a computer program can have such a depth to it. You don’t want to contemplate it, fearing the exacerbation of this… sinking feeling in your stomach. So you don’t. 

A bug, you tell yourself as you shuffle through your daily tasks. Maybe a feature FazCo’s still trying to iron out. 

(You don’t mention anything else other than a ‘weird story’ and more glitching in the nightly submission form. You’re not sure how to even describe what you’d listened through.)

You eye your dormant computer while you prepare a light lunch in the form of a sandwich, your television playing the news in the background. Nothing too major, just the weather at the moment. It’s a good way to fill the room with some noise when you feel like catching up with what’s going on in the world around you. 

You exhale heavily through your nose and set down a dirty knife into the sink to clean later. Something bumps into your ankle, and you glance down to see Dr. Nugget bumbling away from you into the living room, whirring all the while. Those sensors definitely don’t work as they should, poor thing.

No matter how much you want to delay, you have some work you need to get done on your computer. Not only in terms of testing the FazPals program. Your timesheets need to be updated again (much easier to do on your computer than your phone, you admit). There are applications you have to submit to other companies to join their beta testing teams and research you have to do to ensure you don’t completely run out of work anytime soon. One of the more tedious attributes of being a beta tester is the constant cycle of looking and applying for positions. Oftentimes, companies will sign you on to test other products of theirs, though, so it’s not all that bad.

With that in mind, you plop down in front of your computer with your food and power it on. Your headphones go around your neck for the time being. Typing your password with one hand and taking a bite of your sandwich with the other, you get to work pulling up your spreadsheets and the website you use for job hunting. 

It’s menial work. You keep track of what companies you apply to with your spreadsheets. Most of them have the same application process and requirements. It’s easy to lose yourself in the repetitive clicking, reading, and typing. With the addition of your headphones blasting music in your ears, you go on autopilot pretty easily. 

It’s while you’re making updates to your resume that you get startled, suddenly, by Sun. 

“Friend! Hello!” He pops up out of nowhere and makes you promptly choke on the sip of water you’d been taking. Loud! You set aside your water bottle and cough roughly into your fist, eyes tearing up from the abruptness of it all. Your heart gives a harsh, indignant ba-dump. Oww.

Once you’ve collected yourself and paused your music, you take a moment to stare confusedly at Sun, swaying happily side to side in front of the window of your resume. He smiles up at you. How the hell—? You hadn’t clicked on the FazPals icon, had you? No, no, you’re sure you didn’t. 

‘hi sun,’ you type slowly into the small window he had automatically opened for you when he appeared. You pause as his smile turns into a beam, then decide to ask him your burning question. ‘how r u active right now??’ 

“I got tired of waiting for you!” he replies, his rays bobbing in and out in a wave around his head. You wait to see if he’ll elaborate, but he doesn’t. Okay. Well. You make a note of that for later. 

Sun makes a show of turning around and looking at your resume window. He can’t… read the data on it, right? Wait, no, he probably can if he was able to do it with your computer’s Paint app. You bite the inside of your lip. You’re not sure how you feel about that, but well, it’s not like FazCo doesn’t already have your resume. Just in case, you switch tabs back to your spreadsheet. Better, if marginally.

Sun hums, then turns back to look at you with those blank eyes of his. “What’re you up to, Friend?”

‘just applying to some jobs,’ you reply unsurely. Is this weird? This is weird, isn’t it. Upon pressing enter, Sun moves to look at the little window thoughtfully. And perhaps, with some inkling of annoyance? It’s difficult to tell, but it’s the same look he will sometimes give his dialogue box. One of his hands raises to tap at the bottom of his face. Contemplative. He returns his gaze to you and tilts his head.

“Hey, Friend,” he starts, completely bypassing your previous response, “I have an idea.” 

You are wary, but you cannot deny the intrigue. ‘yes?’ 

His smile stretches at your encouragement. He clasps his hands together in front of him. “Just trust me!” 

You squint at him—his blithesome demeanor—but you aren’t able to reply. The textbox window closes, and a different one appears in the center of your screen: 

FazPals.exe is trying to access your microphone. Allow?

All your thoughts stutter to a complete stop. 

Processing text is one thing, but audio input? You suppose it’s not anything innovative in this day and age, but you hadn’t been expecting it particularly for a program like this. You know the animatronics back at the pizzaplex were pretty advanced with this sort of thing, so it’s not… too unusual for FazCo, right? It’s probably something you need to evaluate, you sigh internally. This is fine.

FazCo, you think to yourself wryly. Enough said.  

Apprehension still lining your movements, you click the ‘Allow’ button. The window disappears. Nothing really happens that you can see, but suddenly you are all too aware of the weight of your headphones sitting atop your head. You lick at your lips. 

Sun continues his swaying as he waits—expectant. “Friend?” There is a smidge of hope in his voice. 

“Yeah?” you respond, wincing at the crackle of your voice. That sip of water had really taken you out. You clear your throat. “Sorry. Yes?” 

The beam he gives you is enough to vye against the, well, sun. 

“Oh! Marvelous!” He practically leaps for joy, rays spinning up a storm as he wiggles in place. His eyes upturn into delighted crescents. “Simply marvelous! Friend, it is lovely to hear your voice! It has been so long since I’ve heard another.” Something creeps into his gaze that you… You’re not entirely sure you want to decipher it. 

“Friend,” Sun begins in a low, nonchalant voice. “I have a request! A simple one, really.” 

You raise an eyebrow. You are undoubtedly curious. “What is it?” 

“Can you say my name for me?” 

Oh. Weird, but okay. You comply, voice lifting at the end slightly. You are not nervous right now, thank you very much. “Sun.” 

A glitch rides down the length of his body in a jittering wave—starting from the tips of his rays to the soles of his shoes. His gaze falls into a half-lidded look. “Perfect,” he breathes, so quiet you almost need to strain your ears to hear. “Utterly perfect.” 

You blink at him, befuddled. The moment does not linger. He snaps back to his regular sway and bright-eyed expression. “So! You said you’re applying to jobs? What for?” 

“Uh, yeah,” you say, slightly distracted and disoriented by the whiplash from this guy. Program. Whatever. Your fingers had automatically moved to type your reply in, lingering over your keyboard. This will take some getting used to. You move your hands to rest awkwardly on your lap so you can fiddle with your fingers. “I’m a beta tester so I’ve gotta keep applying for positions in companies.” 

“Beta tester, huh?” Sun muses more to himself than anything. He seems to be deliberating something. “Hm. I see. For how long?” 

You make a thoughtful sound. “Mm, for a while now. I can’t remember the exact timeframe. It’s enough to pay the bills, so I can’t complain.” You are ever so thankful that the ease in interacting with him transferred so neatly from texting to talking.

“Of course, of course!” Sun bows, then slides off to the right of your screen to nestle himself in the corner with the date and time. He tucks his hands behind his back. “Well! Don’t let me distract you! Carry on!” 

“Right…” you trail off, uncertain. You eye him standing just out of the way of your work—enough that you can ignore him if you zone in on what’s directly in front of you. Well, FazCo did say their program is a “virtual desktop friend.” Hanging around your screen when you’re not immediately engaging with it seems like an attribute it should be able to do. You shrug to yourself and go back to editing your resume. 

…It’s very quiet. 

Oh wait, music! You forgot to start it up again. You mess around with the volume mixer on your computer so you can continue to play your music whilst also being able to properly hear Sun should he decide to start talking. That is, without bursting your eardrums. You lose yourself to the tunes, accompanied on occasion by the rhythmic tapping of your keyboard. 

At one point you notice Sun changes the pacing of his swaying. And upon closer look, you realize he’s moving to the beat of the song booming through your headphones. His rays move like a volume meter, raising and lowering around his head in a circular formation depending on the strength of the audio.

“I like this song!” he says like he can sense your eyes on his pixelated form. “Never heard something like this before!” 

“Really?” You adjust the volume mixer a little. Better. 

“Yep! My music repertoire is rather lacking, I’m afraid.” 

“You’re in luck, then,” you say eagerly as you pull up your music player and shuffle through a playlist you think he might like. “This is what I call The Greatest Hits of All Time.” You press play and grin when Sun does a little wiggle in excitement. 

He’s content to sway in time with whichever song’s playing as you slowly finish up with your work for the day. You’re a bit surprised at how long he goes without really saying anything. But, of course, he eventually gets bored. Patience, you think, is not one of his core features. Or, well, he is patient to an extent. Something tells you he was not programmed to stay quiet for long periods of time.

In the corner of your eye, you notice he starts juggling. It’s small, at first. Just two red balls that he throws up and down and up and down, shuffling them to opposite hands all the while. Then it becomes three balls. Then four. Your gaze flicks to him from time to time, but you’re determined to get through just a couple more applications and then your timesheets before you call it quits. 

You break when he hits eleven balls, his grin curling enticingly at the edges concomitantly. “Bored, are you?” 

“Oh, immensely!” He throws up his hands in feigned distress and the plethora of balls come raining down upon him in a move befitting of a cartoon. They bonk him repeatedly on the head and bounce away on the top of your taskbar. You watch in amusement as one rolls across your screen and disappears past the left border. Sun is unperturbed. “Are ya done yet?” 

“Not quite,” you say and he groans, tossing his head back. You roll your eyes in good nature. 

“You can multitask, can’t you?” he presses, clasping his hands together in a plea. “Let’s chat!” 

“Okay, okay,” you acquiesce. You’re sure he would keep pestering you otherwise. He cheers and immediately hops right into it. 

“What do you like to do for fun? What’s your favorite food? Do you have any other friends? What about your family? Do you like g-glitter glue? What’s the highest education level you have? Do you have a favorite piece of media? What’s your deepest, darkest secret? What’s your opinion on Fizzy Faz? What’s your favorite animal—”

“Whoa, Sun! Slow down!” you yelp, mind spinning with all the rapidfire questions. The text in his dialogue box had been moving so quickly you hadn’t been able to make out a single word. 

“Sorry!” he says, though he doesn’t quite sound all too apologetic. His eyes upturn. “I want to know aaalllll about you! How else will we be best friends?”

“By taking it easy,” you reply in what you hope is a meaningful manner. He at least has the decency to look abashed. You huff out a laugh, then do your best to remember what questions he’d asked. You’re already blanking on some. “Okay, well, uhh. I like to read and watch videos. I do have other friends and family, but I don’t live with them. Glitter glue is okay when it’s not literally everywhere. I don’t have any deepest, darkest secrets, sorry. Uhh—”

“Don’t forget about your favorite food!” Sun cuts across you, trying to be helpful, most likely. “And education level! And your favorite media!” 

“Right, right…” 

You’re not sure how long you spend answering his many, many questions (of which you’re sure he has an infinite amount), but it feels like ages. You have been thoroughly distracted, and you can’t even be incensed about it. 

As the evening settles in with a hush and it gets closer and closer to seven o’clock, you find yourself thinking about Moon. 

“Do you know what it feels like to b u r n?”

You suppress a shiver. 

You take a moment to deliberate in your mind, then eye Sun. He’s busy prattling off his excitement over wanting to watch a movie with you. Gently, you interrupt him. “Hey, is it cool if I ask you a question?” 

“Oh!” Sun looks at you wide-eyed, momentarily taken aback before he smiles encouragingly. “Of course, Friend! Ask away!” 

“What’s the deal with Moon?” 

If you hadn’t been already watching him, you wouldn’t have noticed. He freezes in place for a split second, then resumes his swaying so suddenly it’s almost like he’d forced himself to. Ever so minutely, the corner of his smile twitches. “Why ever would you ask me?”

“Well…” Your fingers tap idly along the surface of your desk. Shouldn’t he know since they’re part of the same software? You resist questioning him further. “He doesn’t seem like he wants to engage with me.” 

Sun waves a hand in dismissal. “Ah! He’s being dramatic, probably! Moon is… Well! I will say he is rather….” His grin turns taut, like a wire about to snap. “...Difficult to get along with.” That tautness disappears with a bob of his rays, as though it had never been there in the first place. “Worry not, Friend! You still have little old me to talk to!” 

“Yeah…” You’re confused. You thought dual programming with personalities such as Sun and Moon would make them mesh together pretty well. It’s difficult to tell with Sun. He’d made it seem like they both were on decent terms with previous transitions. You suppose not. Is it even possible for their A.I.s to interact with one another? You’re not sure how it works.

“Speaking of which,” Sun says as he makes a show of looking down at an invisible watch on his wrist. “It is time for me to go!” He sighs, faux sadness making him droop down like he’s a melting popsicle. “And after we’ve been having such a good time together.” 

“Mmhm,” you agree, something akin to nerves crawling just under your skin with every second that ticks by. Why are you nervous? “I’ll see you tomorrow, buddy.” 

He grins at you, flicking a hand in farewell. “I bid you”—a dark hole appears near his feet, and you watch as he steps over it with a wink—“adieeuuuuuuu!” He disappears, dropping into the hole with his voice getting fainter and fainter until it’s cut off by the hole popping to a close. Silly. 

You let out a breath and look at the time. 7:00 P.M. Right on the dot. You shift in your seat and wait for Moon. You’re not sure what crawled up his digital ass and died, but you’re determined to at least get him to have a proper conversation with you. Not only for your job, you think, as you navigate to your email to open the submission form, but for camaraderie’s sake, as well. 

“Camaraderie” with a program, you think to yourself dryly. What a world we live in.

7:03 P.M. and still no sign of Moon. This is fine. You can wait. You try not to waver.

…You call it quits when he doesn’t appear after another ten minutes. Disappointing, yet unsurprising. You should have expected it, really. You sigh and take off your headphones, leaning back in your chair. You rub at the side of your head. Your television drones on in the background with the news, still on after all this time. 

Honestly, how are you supposed to evaluate him when he shows up and disappears in unpredictable intervals? It’s a conundrum, truly. Does that not go against his entire code? His purpose? You don’t know anymore. You roll your shoulders and decide to finish up your work from earlier.  

Tomorrow, you think resolutely. Tomorrow you’ll try again.

part three

[ftafp]

Just a heads-up to anyone who thinks peaceful protests don't do anything: a lot of the things you think of as peaceful protest aren't actually the "real" protest, they're closer to recruitment drives.

The point of rallies and marches is to get people aware, raise funds and recruit volunteers. If they convince sympathetic local politicians, that's a bonus, but it's not the main goal.

Once the movement has the resources they need to organize more direct actions, that's when you get to the meaty stuff

Strikes: Strikes deprive companies of a large portion of their staff, shutting down production. They can hire scabs to replace the striking employees, but doing so takes time, and costs money they're not earning. Meanwhile, strikers are usually still earning enough money to pay their bills, as strike organizers use the funds collected to pay a sufficient portion of the striker's income.

Sit-Ins: Sit-ins interfere with road and foot traffic, often blocking off key bottlenecks, preventing people from accessing businesses, construction sites, or ecosystems. People aren't going to get into the Chick-fil-a if there are 100 fucking people blocking the door, and construction workers aren't going to run over a bunch of civilians to bulldoze a neighborhood.

Hacktivism: Hackstivism is more of an umbrella term for different forms of direct action than a form in and of itself. DDoSing web pages prevents companies from earning ad revenue or selling products, and often results in them having to pay their engineers a substantial amount of overtime to fix. Publically releasing proof of illegal activities makes it hard for courts or legal firms to ignore

Counter-Economics: This is my favorite because it's so easy to do. That's because "Counter-Economics" is just the polite way of saying piracy. The use of ad-blockers, torrented software, free streaming sites, and emulators not only gives you better services for free, it costs these companies millions every year. Using libraries or used book stores to avoid giving money to shitty publishing companies or famous authors also qualifies as this

Disruptive Pranks: Perhaps the funniest one on the list, this is where you get things like glitter-bombing, stink-bombing, pulling fire alarms, pie-ing public figures, and my favorite: releasing three squealing hogs in a building that are labeled 1, 3, and 4 and watching as security tries to find number 2

Sabotage: When the rest fail, this is how you take down border walls, confederate statues, toll booths, and detention centers. Compared to the others, this is harder and generally way more illegal, but it's as direct and effective as peaceful protest can get.

[secondbeatsongs]

how to make neon signs in inkscape!

I lost my mind and spent a large amount of hours yesterday perfecting my methods and figuring out how to do this, so if you're interested in making something like this:

here's how to do that!

step 1: cover your workspace in a dark grey rectangle, and lock that layer down.

I've been using 80% or 90% grey - you want this so you can see your neon effect, but you don't want it entirely black at this stage, or you won't be able to see your shadow layer.

step 2: create some text!

pro tip: rounder sans-serif fonts look the best for this, because think about what a neon sign is made of - it's tubes, bent into shapes! so if your font or design looks too sharp and pointy, it'll feel unrealistic when you make it neon.

(this is, of course, a perfectionism thing on my end, so feel free to ignore any and all rules in order to make the thing that you want to make. as with all art, you can do whatever you want forever!)

bonus pro tip: if you, like me, have over 1400 fonts installed and programs tend to lag when you browse through all of them, nexusfont is a great free software that lets you sort your fonts into categories, search them, and preview what any text looks like in different fonts! I love it. it is my best friend

now I'm going to do this with a few different fonts, so that you can see how it works with them. so today, I'm picking Futura Round, Harlow Solid Italic, and then to challenge myself, Beauty School Dropout and Block

make the text white, and also select the text and go to Paths -> Object to Path, because some things don't work right if they're not paths.

let's start off easy with Futura Round!

Step 3: duplicate your text layer

now bear with me here. but you need to take the text you're working with, and either right-click duplicate or copy/paste the layer until you have seven total copies of the text you're working with.

arrange them like this, making sure the top one is the first layer on the list (and so on), and then in the layers tab, label them like so:

pro tip: if you don't have the layers tab open, go to Objects -> Objects and Layers, and that'll pop it right up

Step 4: blur time!

switch to the Fill and Stroke tab, and make these changes to the paths:

glow small: 15% blur, 100% opacity

glow medium: 20% blur, 90% opacity

glow large: 50% blur, 70% opacity

glow xlarge: 70% blur, 70% opacity

your workspace should now look like this:

this is good!

pro tip: these numbers are just loose guidelines! at the end, mess around with everything to make sure that the glow looks right to you! nothing is an exact science

Step 5: shadow and outline

for the shadow layer, make it solid black, and then change the opacity to 50%

for the outline layer, we're doing something fun and weird. so right now it's a fill object, but we want it to be an outline instead! so let's hit the X in the lower left to make it empty, and then shift-click on...for the sake of this, let's say blue. to make our nice blue outline.

now's the weird part

now. use the align tool (Objects -> Align and Distribute), select the outline layer and the main layer, and align them so the outline text is exactly centered on the main one.

then go to Paths -> Path Effects, and when the tab opens, select just the outline layer, then click the drop-down arrow in the Path Effects tab and select Offset

here's our goal right now:

we want to offset the outline until it fits inside the text underneath it, and also mess with the stroke layer settings until you have a nice thick outline that doesn't overlap itself.

mess around with the plus and minus buttons. there are no exact numbers here; you just have to know when it looks good! but for me, the settings were a -0.34mm offset, with a stroke width of 0.700mm

this is roughly what you want it to look like:

now, with the outline layer still selected, blur it out just a bit until it looks fuzzy, and like the white center is a highlight rather than a separate layer. for me, the right number was about 8.3% of blur, to get a result like this:

Step 6: layering and changing colors

okay! at this point your work should look something like this:

you now want to select every layer except the shadow layer, and use Align to center them all on top of each other.

pro tip: make sure to untoggle "move/align selection as a group", otherwise this will not work.

you should now have something that looks like this, with the shadow layer sitting all by itself somewhere off to the side

now's the fun part: colors!

since we've decided that this neon light is going to be blue, it's time to change the glow to reflect that!

here's what it looks like when you change all of the glow layers to be that same, #0000FF blue as the outline layer

and here's what it looks like when you take the glow small layer and make it just a bit lighter (#4343FF) using the stroke and fill tab

in general, mess around with the layer colors until you like how they look! I find that it generally looks better if the glow small layer is a bit lighter, and the glow medium layer is as dark as the original color. everything else is fair game.

also the main layer can stay white (if you want it to seem very bright), or you can make it a very very light blue if you want it to be a bit more subdued.

Step 7: final steps

take your sad, neglected shadow layer, and move it slightly up and to the right of your main layer, so that it works...well, basically like a drop shadow.

then take your original rectangle, and switch it to 100% black.

now. gaze upon your masterpiece

that's a good neon sign if I've ever seen one.

but now. now's when we lose our minds

Steps 8-??: perfectionism and nonsense

so let's move the Futura one aside (and hide it! inkscape lags if there are too many blurry layers visible at once, so hide anything you're not using!), set the rectangle back to grey, and move on to Harlow Solid Italic.

I've sped through a few of the steps here (out of order) so you can see what I'm doing. I've added outlines to the large glow and xlarge glow, and bumped them up a bit so they'll have a larger glow area in general

this time I've made the large glow a little bit lighter than the xlarge glow and medium glow, and made the main layer a very pale pink instead of just white. I also blurred the outline layer just a bit more, because this font needed a bit more fuzz to make it look good.

hell yeah. this rocks.

now, one detail for perfectionism: in neon signs IRL, if you look closely, there are wires attaching them in the back, often connecting each letter to the next. so...let's do that!

get your pen tool, set it to spiro path, and then make little droopy lines connecting each letter.

make these thin, 100% opacity, and a very light (almost white) grey color. then group all of them together, and move this group under the small glow layer

pro tip: some of the cords might go mostly through the shadow layer. if this is the case, just put the cord group one layer above the shadow layer instead, and then it'll be fine. but you might make the cord color a pale-greyish pink to make it look like there's glow hitting it.

ultra advanced technique: duplicate the cord group, make it black and 50% opacity, position it slightly up and to the right of the original, and then move it one layer below it. you've got cord shadows babey!

lookit that. stare at that beautiful perfection. I love it. this brings me joy.

and now: the one that will be the most work

let's gooo Beauty School Dropout!

this one I'm using as an example for what to do with a font that's a bit too pointy to look realistic

this font is really fun and bendy, but the ends of the letters are flat instead of rounded, and the corners are a bit too sharp. so...let's fix that!

now, there are several ways we can do this (after doing Object to Path ofc).

one way is to edit the path yourself, going slowly, and making sure everything is perfect, editing the nodes individually.

or, you could select the text layer using the node tool, then click the button in the top bar labeled Add Corners LPE, and then drag the little circles and triangles around to smooth out the corners

I've decided to do the LPE method, but the problem here is that if you apply the LPE effect before making sure all of the corners look good nodes-wise, it's hell to try and fix it. so before LPE-ing, look at all the spots that you're going to apply the effect, and make sure each has one point at each sharp corner, with no weird overlapping bits. okay? okay.

also for the line beneath the text, it looks like it's made up of a bunch of different segments

and since I want to keep this line because I think it looks cool, we're going to have to deal with that, and make sure that it's all one solid piece, otherwise the outlining won't work. so I've gotta delete all the extra segments, and then move the points on just one of those segments until it's the full original line width, before rounding those corners as well.

basically I've got my work cut out for me here, this will all take a bit.

...aaand an episode and a half of Supernatural later, here's this!

look at how nice and round that is! perfect for the rest of the neon process

and with cords, shadows, layering, etc

hell yeah.

more things: it's block font time

let's make an outline-style neon sign!

my seven layers:

for all but the last two, I've not used the fill option with them at all - I have simply used the stroke outline.

now don't be worried! the stroke-to-path still works just the same way even using an outline to begin with! so it's easy to get an outline of an outline, and do the offset thing just like you did before

however, because this font is more complex-looking, there will probably be some errors when you offset it

for example, it didn't fully outline the second half of the Os, so I just copied the left halves, mirrored them, and replaced the right half with the complete left half

pro tip: keep in mind that you have to re-apply the offset to any bits that you add to the outline layer!

doing the same steps as last time, editing the glow blurs as I see fit, once again we end up with beauty and perfection.

another thing you can do: turn off the lights!

I'm going to use Beauty School Dropout and Harlow for this, but after making your beautiful neon signs, here's how to make it look like a turned-off sign, for if you want to make...idk, a gif of a light turning on and off, or a burned-out sign, or something like that.

so start with (ideally, duplicated copies of) your neon signs:

and then simply delete every glow layer, change the outline layer to 90% grey and your main layer to 70% grey, change the cords' color to a darker shade of grey than whatever it already is, and lower the opacity of the shadows by about 10-15%.

doing that, you end up with this

bam! lights turned off!

last thing: logos and other stuff

you can make neon signs with images as well as with text! the steps are essentially the same, though you may have to do more editing to make it look good, and use simplify on the path if it's too detailed.

and if you're using anything besides an .svg, you first go to Paths -> Trace Bitmap to turn your image into a vector! but unfortunately I've already used 29 images in this post, so here, just look at this Keith Haring thing I made as an example:

is it messier than the text? yeah for sure. does it have some pointy bits I could smooth out more? definitely. but, I've watched three episodes of Supernatural today, and that is more than enough time spent on this. so this is what you get.

but yeah, that's how I make neon signs in inkscape! I used to do it in GIMP, but this works much better, and looks so nice and clean! <3

(man, graphic design really is my passion)

[mariacallous]

Multiple current and former government IT sources tell WIRED that it would be easy to connect the IRS’s Palantir system with the ICE system at DHS, allowing users to query data from both systems simultaneously. A system like the one being created at the IRS with Palantir could enable near-instantaneous access to tax information for use by DHS and immigration enforcement. It could also be leveraged to share and query data from different agencies as well, including immigration data from DHS. Other DHS sub-agencies, like USCIS, use Databricks software to organize and search its data, but these could be connected to outside Foundry instances simply as well, experts say. Last month, Palantir and Databricks struck a deal making the two software platforms more interoperable.

“I think it's hard to overstate what a significant departure this is and the reshaping of longstanding norms and expectations that people have about what the government does with their data,” says Elizabeth Laird, director of equity in civic technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology, who noted that agencies trying to match different datasets can also lead to errors. “You have false positives and you have false negatives. But in this case, you know, a false positive where you're saying someone should be targeted for deportation.”

Mistakes in the context of immigration can have devastating consequences: In March, authorities arrested and deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, due to, the Trump administration says, “an administrative error.” Still, the administration has refused to bring Abrego Garcia back, defying a Supreme Court ruling.

“The ultimate concern is a panopticon of a single federal database with everything that the government knows about every single person in this country,” Venzke says. “What we are seeing is likely the first step in creating that centralized dossier on everyone in this country.”

DOGE Is Building a Master Database to Surveil and Track Immigrants

[mantisfriendd]

Ok so I talked about this in tags of a post earlier but I need to talk about it properly

So a couple weeks ago I finally pulled the trigger, I dual booted Linux Mint on my laptop

It has less of my vital files on it then my pc, but I use it more for videos and general Internet stuff, so I would know if I liked it

Installing was scary but after a bit of trouble shooting with disabling bit locker it was easy, and let me be clear, that's a windows thing, because Microsoft really really doesn't want you to have freedom over your machine.

So I booted in

And like

I literally love it so much

I knew people talked about how much better Linux is and how it speeds up literally anything it's put on over windows, but like WOW

It doesn't take 2 minutes to boot up or shut down, my CPU doesn't idle at 25% for no reason, the search for files feature doesn't take 40 minutes only to show me Internet results instead of files, its wonderful.

The default theme is (in my opinion) pretty ugly, sorry whoever made it, it's just not for me.

But that's the great thing, you can literally customize this almost however you would like.

Maybe you shouldn't trust my opinion on what looks nice because I instantly installed a theme that replicated Windows 7

But I got bored of the default colors so I literally found the files where the home bar is saved and changed them to be more "minty"

That along with some CSS color editing gave me this:

You just can't do anything like this in Windows 10/11. You can change the color on windows but if I wanted, in Mint, I could completely change everything, centered icons on the taskbar, icons left justified on the taskbar, no taskbar, make it look like windows 95, it's all yours to do with whatever you want.

There are issues, I won't lie, the biggest one that will probably haunt Linux forever is compatibility.

Simply put most developers don't make native Linux versions of their software, you are lucky if there is a Mac version.

Lots and lots of Windows software CAN work on Linux through compatibility layers like Wine and Steam's Proton, but it's not 100%

My biggest problem is FL Studio and Clip Studio, neither of these I could get working with Wine or Proton so far. I'm hoping in the future I will find a way to make this work, or transition to their free and open source alternatives, but for now I'm stuck with a win 10 pc.

The other issue I've faced is that Linux seems to have a hard time recognizing and remembering my wired headphones. Like sometimes it just works, but most of the time it fails to do so.

My solution to this until I have time to troubleshoot more is to use my stupid headphone jack to USB C dongle that I bought for my stupid phone with no headphone jack.

Luckily it works fine and the type C port on my laptop literally doesn't get used otherwise.

All in all, I'm like excited to use a computer again. I used to only be excited for the programs it allowed me to use, but for the first time in a long time, the "magic" of the PC has returned for me.

Once I save up the money, my next PC will be Linux, Windows doesn't cut it anymore for me.

Ok now I'm going to kinda just talk about Linux for a bit, unrelated to my experience because my brain has been buzzing about this topic lately.

I get why guys who run Linux are so annoying about it now, because it's me now, I love this stupid OS and everyone has to hear about it.

And chances are, you've used Linux before already!

Linux is used in a ridiculous number of places because of its open source nature.

Most servers and other cloud computing systems are running Linux, many public terminals and screens run Linux, every supercomputer in the world runs Linux, if you were in the education system for the past 13~ years you might have used ChromeOS, which is built on Linux, if you have ever used an Android device you have used Linux.

It's never going to take over Windows as the go to operating system in the home, most people don't even know they could switch, and if they don't know that there's no way they are willing to put up with some of the headaches Linux brings.

Although I've spent way more time troubleshooting Windows issues then I have Linux ones so far, so maybe Microsoft stuffing so much bloated spyware into their system is starting to cause windows to rip at the seams, idk.

When I try to explain Linux to people who literally don't understand any of this I use a car metaphor

Windows is like a hatchback SUV, you buy it from a dealer and it mostly works for everyone good enough that they don't complain.

Linux is like a project vehicle in a lot of ways, the mechanic can tune it up exactly to the specifications they want, tear a bit out and put a diffrent one in, it requires some work under the engine but once that mechanic gets it the way they want it, it's incredible.

It's not a perfect metaphor but I think it gets the idea across.

Uh IDK how to finish this post, please try Linux if you can, changed my life.

[audliminal]

It's Just a Game, Right? Pt 2 Redux

Masterpost

"Okay, so. Like I said before, the first video is pretty basic.” Bernard tells Tim. He’s got his laptop perched on his lap and Tim leans into him as he clicks play.

He’s not wrong, either. The video in front of him looks like it was made with movie maker software from at least a decade ago. Hell, Tim’s pretty sure he remembers using a couple of those transitions in elementary school projects. The background remains stagnant, for the most part, with just the pictures at the center of the screen and the text beneath them changing. The pairing pretty obviously is supposed to be a caption for the videos, but the letters are a jumbled mess. Still, it feels familiar.

“Yeah, that’s definitely a Caesar cipher,” Tim mutters. He’s seen enough of them used by shitty two-bit rogues to recognize the patterns on instinct. It’s a bit harder to determine the exact amount of shift just by looking – especially since the shift amount seems like it’s changing on the different captions. Presumably the ciphers have already been solved, so Tim turns his attention away from them for a moment.

Looking around the screen, he can spot hints of distortion against the blank background. It’s blurry, almost invisible to the naked eye, but there’s not really any reason for it to be there naturally.

“The background looks weird,” Tim says.

“Oh yeah, there’s a text overlay on the video. It’s real blurry but somebody identified it as a poem. Something by Emily Dickinson; I don’t remember what the name was, though.”

“Hmmm. Did anyone recognize the song?” It sounds off, but it doesn’t seem to be random notes either. In fact, Tim almost feels like he could hear it on the radio.

“Yeah, a couple people recognized it as Space Oddity, only its been transcribed in a different key. There’s also some random discordant notes in there, too.”

“Heavily modified audio. Doesn’t sound like it’s poor quality, though.”

“True.”

They let the video finish playing. It’s not very long; they were probably timing the visuals to the song, rathen than the other way around. Tim stares at the finished video for a few moments. He’s never really had time for ARGs before. They weren’t exactly very big when he was younger, and now he spends so much time solving rogue shit and actual crimes that he doesn’t really need to go seeking out more puzzles to solve.

“So?” Bernard prompts. “What do you think?”

Honestly, the vibes aren’t the best. It’s clearly intended to be creepy in a way that’s probably exciting for most people, but just sort of reminds Tim of a rogue.

"I can see why you called it basic," Tim says.

“Yeah, it really didn’t seem like it was gonna be much at first.”

“Okay what does the decoded text say?”

"Here," Bernard switches tabs, to an impressive document with screenshots of the actual video, and loads of color-coded notes. “This is a copy of the community document so far.” Tim leans in, and considers the transcriptions.

Honestly, the transcriptions seem pretty basic, too. They’re all simple captions; just a name for the person or location in the image, and some semblance of a date. Notes next to each transcription denote the cipher used. First, a shift of four, then twenty-five, then seven, then nineteen. It’s a simple trick, scrambling the cipher between captions. Even without a key, Caesar ciphers are pretty easy to solve – there’s only ever going to 25 possible solutions, after all. Changing up the key ensures that it takes a lot longer to solve.

“Odd choice of content, too, honestly?” Tim says. It seems so simple, so benign, in comparison to the upsetting music.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, imagine if a novel started with that. They’ve literally made their first video just about names and setting.”

“Huh. Yeah, that is odd.”

Tim lets Bernard consider that, and turns back to look at the document. It’s pretty obvious from the lack of mention of a solution path that they brute forced it. Which, that could be the intended method of solution, but there could also be a key hidden somewhere in the video. Possibly, that’s the point of the poem, or of the music choice. But either of those are something that’ll take further looking into.

Tim may have taken a few years of piano lessons as a kid, but he’s certainly not capable of transcribing music himself, so he’ll probably have to hire someone for that. The document also names the poem as A lane of Yellow led the eye. Tim sits up, reaching out to pull the laptop towards him.

“I’ll see if I can’t get someone more musically gifted to look at the audio. For now, I wanna know more about that poem.”

[summeridols]

How to make icons like these:

Flags: Idol system, Bubblegender, Musicstar

Warning: This tutorial relies on the idea that you have some understanding of how to use photoediting software like photoshop, however if something that doesn't make sense then feel free to ask and I will explain it as best as I can.

All the icons we made for this can be found here! Thank you for reading, please consider reblogging this post and the icons because this took forever to write up and the icons take a LONG time to make.

In this tutorial I will make DID/OSDD Aoi Miyake icons.

Anyway let's get into it!

Step one, choose what you're going to make (and gathering resources)

This may seem obvious, but going in with a plan makes these so much easier.

In this stage we consider three things:

The flag and/or colors we want to use in the icon, this is important as it can affect the images used or even the character depending on how similar their colors are

Character and the general colors associated with them, this is important as it can makes the filtering stage easier (or harder) and can make an icon look 'wrong' or 'right' sadly

The border of the icon and how that will affect the icon itself, sometimes they're easy to work with, others not so much. Our method differs from a lot of other peoples so we take more time with them than most others

In this case I will be making DID icons of Aoi Miyake from D4DJ, however due to how most of her cards have a blue tint I will be using the plural peafowl flag by m0dem0n than the original DID flag- This is to save time and make th icons look more harmonious.

We will also be using this mask by i'mjustchillinghere as the icon base

Step two, coloring the middle image (optional step)

This is a lot of guess work and everyone has a different process for this. Essentially we're going to make a PSD that makes the image look better with the colors of the flag.

As shown above we have the flag and the character image, but they don't match completely. The rose and other blue accents are too saturated compared to the flag and the black is too black and the wrong blue hue, the eye could also be a bit greener and saturated imo.

What I like to do is open the image with the flag behind or infront, so I can see the colors I'm working with.

Then I open the hue editor layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue and Saturation). It's very important to clip the hue layer to the image so it doesn't start messing with the colors of the flag (we've had this happen many times before it's very awkward trying to match a color that keeps changing) to clip right click 'Clipping Mask'.

Your screen should then look like this:

Okay so if you need to adjust the screen to get the icon in the center so you can see everything do this now.

Next where the box with the hue options says master, click it.

These are all the color options you can change, in this we'll mostly be using, yellow, green and blue. For other projects blue and cyan sometimes get 'mixed up' and can control both shades so be careful with that.

Other color settings we personally use are: Vibrance and Selective Color (both are located under the Layer option), but in this case I'm happy to just use Hue and Vibrance.

This is what the icons look like:

No color editing | Just Hue and Saturation | Hue and Saturation + Vibrance

Now your middle icon is ready turn off the background layer and save the image as a transparent png!

Step three, preparing the mask for use

So the mask is the base of your icon, however if you clip all aspects of your icon to the mask it looks like this and you can't see the flag.

So what you need to do is layer the mask. This will vary in difficulty, it can depend on how far apart the pieces of the mask are and how they interlink. You could erase the border parts but that takes a lot of time.

This icon is simple because to me there's three clear sections, the middle part, the border and the rose. What you need to do is copy the layer three times and get the wand- I would reccomend having the wand strengh over 100 or else black lines may remain, but this will depend on how close the black parts are.

Hide the top two layers and work from the bottom up. Select all the areas you want to delete, in this case I can only delete the rose (the border is too close to the middle part and would delete that as well) and then hit delete.

In this case, I will just erase the border by hand, and then BOOM, you have a base!

Hide this layer and move to the next, for this one I'm removing the middle and the rose.

For the next layer you can select what's in the layer below and delete it without it impacting the border, which makes the icon process easier, however in this case I'm going to give out the border layers for you here!

Step four, using the mask

NOW you can clip the flag to the layers! We always clip it to the base and border layer.

As for the rose... We make a seperate layer and clip it to those rose. Then (using the eye dropper tool) pick colors from the flag to use to color it in! As shown:

Next step is to add the image you colored!

Go to File > Open and Place and then choose the PNG from your gallery and place it in the icon. Once it's there fiddle around with it until you get the image you want and then BOOM!

Now you have a singlar icon!

Feel free to repeat this as many times as you want and make as many icons as you want.

-

All the icons we made for this can be found here! Thank you for reading, once again please consider reblogging this post and the icons because this took forever to write up and the icons take a LONG time to make.

[shituationist]

While I don't think the water use of data centers is the most pressing threat to conservation (depending on their location - in the desert, where the water is coming from aquifers, it's probably ecologically irrational for human settlements out there in the medium to long run), it is telling that the digital technology conglomerates who are trying to commercialize "AI" have been understating the carbon and water costs of these new data centers by so much.

The motivated "AI" boosters will claim in response that the technology will just improve continually and smoothly, if not exponentially, such by this time next year we won't even be thinking of the social or environmental costs of web-scale "AI" training or querying of web-scale "AI" models - we'll all be too easy enjoying the dividends of The Singularity (i.e., we'll all be disembodied silicon brains jerking ourselves off to infinity and beyond). This is the most rank wannabelieve, motivated often enough by a really religious belief in artificial intelligence and its implications for the species (you might as well worship fire, man).

Commercialized "AI" software isn't just using singularity wannabelieve for marketing, often its developers and pushers believe in it themselves, and I'm convinced that top executives at Microsoft and Alphabet probably believe in it wholeheartedly, given how much money they've thrown at money-burning techno-cults like OpenAI.

[uzumaki-rebellion]

I know you said that you have done some script writing for others. I wonder if you have any advice about how to get started writing a script? Also, what was your experience doing that work?

It's writing that demands patience. I struggled for years to master the craft, submit work, face rejection, get close and then get tossed into the wind, lol. Looked for agents... all that stuff.

I've had things optioned and never made. Went through the whole development hell with a producer who wanted me to turn the leads in my horror script white instead of keeping them Black, even though they were based on Black American folklore. Screenwriting is a test of what you are willing to give up in your soul to get things made. I was always a writer who wrote with intention for my culture, and it wasn't conducive to making it for me personally when I was actively doing it. I used to go to Sundance and smell the desperation on everybody, especially Black folks. It's a tough gig, but I did love every moment doing it. It was my passion and I only started pursuing it because I wanted to see Black horror movies being made that centered Black people. I was before my time I guess, because now Black horror is finally in. Then I went back to fiction writing where I could control my content.

All that being said, what I learned is, it's not about the writing, it's really about who you're connected to, who will vouch for you, and if you can get names attached to projects. That was disheartening to learn because we all have these dreams of just being the best writer possible, and that's not how it works unfortunately.

The best advice I can give you just to get started is read all the best scripts that have come out in the last three years. There are websites where you can read and download scripts. There's also scripts floating around the internet. Read tons of scripts. Then read tons more, because you have to know what good writing is and you have to master your own writing voice and you won't learn that until you've read a lot, and then...write a lot of scripts. Lots of scripts. Not five or ten. Not twenty. Thirty at the minimum because you have to master the craft. And then...you have to get connected. Not just writing groups, but going to film festivals and networking with folks who know people. Getting a production job on a TV show or a movie helps more.

There are plenty of good books that teach screenwriting. You may want to check your local college/university to see if there are classes/workshops offered if you are a newbie to screenwriting altogether.

Here is a list of books for beginners that are worth reading. Try to find them at the library first. My writing mentor for screenwriting is on this list. Pilar Alessandra. I worked with her for years to hone my craft, and her book, "The Coffee Break Screenwriter" is chock full of easy exercises to get you started. I know her personally.

Here's an easy litmus test that I always tell people to try to get their feet wet if they think they have a script that might be ready for a test submission. Submit it to the Nicholl Fellowship. It's run by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. (The Oscars folks). It's one of the most prestigious fellowships for screenwriters and they pay you to write for a year. Here's the link:

https://www.oscars.org/nicholl

Pros read the scripts and determine who the Fellows are. They have quarter finalists, and finalists, and then winners. If you can get your script to the quarter finals, you may have what it takes.

The screenwriting software I used was the same Ryan Coogler used when he got started. Final Draft (the industry standard for years). Screenwriting costs money. You have to invest in yourself and your writing. It takes hella time and you have to love writing to endure. I loved it, even when I was rejected for things.

Good luck!

[savethegrishaverse]

Third Army, we have been blessed by Sankta Alina!!

1001 suns have been made to send to Netflix, and we want to include you in the project! So, we're collecting messages to go in the nice, big space in the center of each sun. If you're someone who isn't necessarily crafty with origami, or you haven't been able to send any physical post to join in before, this is your chance to take part in our postal campaigns with your own message on one of these!

You can submit a text message and/or your username (no more than 140 characters total) to our form here:

> https://tinyurl.com/1001suns

Or for something a bit more personal, you can submit a handwritten message uploaded as a picture to the form instead. The writing needs to be thick, easy to read, and on a white background so we can transfer it onto each sun. If possible, it would help us greatly if the image is a transparent png of your handwritten message so it is even easier to transfer. This can be done with Canva or other photo editing software. The dimensions of your handwritten message should be at maximum 7cm by 3cm.

The deadline for submissions is in 1 week's time - they must reach us by midnight November 5th Pacific Time.

Thank you so much to @purpleyin, who's hard work singlehandedly made this possible!

[hordraomin]

Krita tutorial the way I know it.

Basics: What is where.

Gimmicks.

Specific advice on specific tools.

Basics: What is where.

Upon opening the program this is what you're met with. First of all, must comment: The layout is HEAVILY editable so you can just drag menus anywhere you want, even leave them floating amidst the sheet you're drawing on.

You can create custom art templates, I have two o'mine here as both have my signature background color.

As well, you can edit the custom document settings, as in what size you want it, what resolution, even the initial content of the image. As well you can create from clipboard: Just copy some image from your browser and Krita will recognize it (useful for making meme edits lol).

Now, once you have your file, I will show you what is where.

Brushes:

Brushes are easy to edit and there are tons of free bundles to download online. I myself only got one bundle, Jackpack (bit hard to find now due to original source being lost, it is still available but bit tricky to come by).

There. Are. Tons.

Some of these are my custom brushes for calligraphy in neography, you might even guess which ones. You can edit existing brushes, make new ones from the ones you've edited without changing the original, and all sorts of stuff (more below in the third chapter).

There are numerous packages of brushes once you enter Krita, but only one/two are available when you first open it. To unlock them all, click here:

And make sure all bundles are dark gray in color (example of both dark and light below).

Now Tools Options: those will pop up depending on what tool you're using.

Symmetry: Fun stuff. You can drag the lines depending on how you need them and then center them back to the center of the screen if needed.

Gradients and Textures also have their tools options, you can play with those to get the feeling what they can do (more in third chapter).

The Filters tab is useful too. Blurring, motion blurring, color mapping, artistic filters and all that: Quite fun.

Gimmicks.

Krita allows you to customize your workspace freely. Floating menus, tabs, anything you want. It has quite many drivers at that-

To access the workspace templates, go to Window and choose Workspace.

Krita allows for copy-pasting any image onto the sheet. Though, for me it sometimes crashes if I accidentally copy-paste text into it without choosing the Text tool first.

The software allows for both raster and vector work. It is basically Photoshop sharpened to be used by artists primarily.

There are some interesting mechanics regarding the Eraser (default bind E).

You can use it with any brush, allowing for textured erasure/quick work. Good for sketching.

You can use it on gradients (given there's a transparent point on the gradient preset).

There's a Multibrush tool:

People say Krita is good for animation but my brain can't wrap around it yet honestly @~@.

The keybinds:

B - Brush tool.

E - Erase tool option.

M - Mirror (useful for checking accuracy from a new angle).

Ctrl - Color pick (when used with brush or other color-using tools).

Shift+L.Mouse+drag - Changes the size of the brush by dragging left and right.

Ctrl+E - Merge layer with the one below.

Ctrl+G - Group selected layers.

Ctrl+A - Select whole sheet.

Ctrl+Shift+A - Deselect everything.

F - Bucket tool.

G - Gradient tool.

Ctrl+S - Save document.

Ctrl+Shift+S - Save As document.

Ctrl+N - New document.

Ctrl+O - Open document (will be seen in a new tab on top of the sheet).

Ctrl+C - Copy selected layer or selection.

Ctrl+X - Cut selected layer or selection.

Ctrl+V - Paste copied/cut layer or selection.

Q - Multibrush tool.

R.Mouse - Interesting thing: Opens up a quick selector for brushes and colors you've already used in the piece.

1 - Zoom 100%.

2 - Zoom to fit the piece vertically.

3 - Zoom to fit the piece horizontally.

4, 5, 6 - Turn 15 degrees (4 and 6) or undo the turning whatsoever (5).

Ctrl+I - Negative filter applied to layer.

Ctrl+U - Color editing on the layer.

Ctrl+Y - Soft proofing mode (for color mistakes and stuff like that, mostly annoying for me tbh).

Ctrl+T - Transform selection/layer.

Ctrl+R - Square select tool.

Ctrl+J - Lasso select tool.

Honestly you can just hover your mouse over tools and see their shortcut binds, as well. Or edit them in Settings.

Specific advice on specific tools.

Brush:

Brush editor is a great tool for making custom brushes, and it even has a sratchpad to test them out. Lots of settings, but no need to be afraid; Most of them you might never use on purpose.

Use Brush Smoothing for great and pretty lines in lining pieces or making calligraphy.

Gradient:

The four icons to the right top are:

Mirror gradient.

Arrange by lightness value.

Arrange by color value.

Space the stops evenly.

Click the gradient to add a new stop. The three things to the left are:

Make the stop use Primary Color.

Make the stop use Secondary Color.

Make the stop use a fixed color.

[wirewitchviolet]

They sell the sizzle, but don't people need to buy the steak?

I'm seeing people passing around a video today of someone showcasing some predictive software "version of Quake" which I'll get around to, and people are having a good laugh at how they previously did a "version of Doom" with this, and now they're moving on to a newer game to try and convince people they're "improving" when the way this scam works, it doesn't matter at all how technically impressive the game it's trying to mimic works, because all its doing is looking at screenshots and trying to guess which comes next.

But that isn't entirely true. Because the FIRST time con artists were trying to wow people with this particular trick, they were using Pac-Man:

And I will admit. When I FIRST saw footage of this... weird moldy version of Pacman where dots you just ate kinda slowly fade back into existence, I was really impressed, because there was narration from a tech nerd who I hope didn't actually understand what was going on trying to explain it and just getting everything wrong. The way this crap actually works is just... looking at screenshots and active input values.

Pac-Man is a single-screen game with EXTREMELY limited inputs, and completely deterministic enemy behavior. If you look at a screenshot of Pac-Man from a video, and you have a stack of other videos of Pac-Man you can look through frame by frame, it is very easy to find an identical frame to what you are looking at, and if you look at the next one in that other video, you can guess what's next in the one I'm showing you. For instance!

I'm pretty sure you, without even having access to a bunch of Pac-Man "training data" can guess what comes in the next frame of the random youtube video I screengrabbed this from, right? The ghosts are all gonna move a little in the directions they're looking, Pac-Man's gonna continue to the left, that mouth is either gonna open or close a little more and that dot that's just a pixel away is going to be eaten. The only way that isn't going to be the case is if the joystick's getting held to the right in the next frame, in which case OK yeah Pac-Man would flip around.

Hey, look at that! I was actually slightly wrong because I forgot Pacman's mouth doesn't actually move on every single frame. That actually helps a lot to explain why in the video above anything with any animation to it looks all moldy. Because the way this works it really is just looking at its sequenced screenshots and trying to find a match, it can't quite make a solid guess on how any animated bits are going to animate and it does this gross smeary average thing. Can't for the life of me figure out why all the dots are smeary too. Maybe when they fed in the source footage like 1 in 10 videos was slightly off-center to the right and it's just averaging that in? But that's how this technology works.

And again, it also has access to current inputs. It needs that to be "playable," right? Otherwise all it would be able to do is show you a video of someone else playing Pac-Man. But yeah if we have it both looking at screenshots AND inputs, then we presumably have a pile of screenshot pairs where Pac-Man continues to the left here, and some smaller set where someone hits right on the next frame, creating the only possible situation where there is another possible result, and that is the only option there.

Assuming, of course, the source footage includes any examples of anyone turning around at that point. Which honestly might not be the case? People rarely just randomly turn around in the middle of a hallway in Pac-Man if there's no ghosts nearby, so honestly odds are really good the "AI generated version" here would just completely ignore your inputs there... or do another weird smeary thing. And it'd definitely probably start getting squirrely if you kept like partially eating rows of dots and turning around, because then you're giving it screenshots that are increasingly far from anything in the database and it's gonna toss out mud or something.

There's other old single-screen arcade games used in early demos of this, which can maybe be more impressive, but if you look at old footage of these things, you'll see stuff like versions of breakout that very explicitly have a trail of pixels behind the ball for an after-image so looking at a single screenshot let's you actually tell which way it's going. Without that, that ball's going basically anywhere.

Anyway these demos of single-screen arcade games from freaking five years ago now are something I can see people investing in. They're BASICALLY functional, for a bit, until you get to situations where there isn't an exact match in the "training data" to present the obvious followup, because really those games don't have a whole hell of a lot of moving parts.

So now that I've explained how this is working, let's see how it handles a game that isn't a simple single screen sort of thing! Actually, can I embed a bluesky post in here these days?

Sorta! Click through, unmute it, and hopefully you can guess what you're gonna see.

Yeah, so there's some stuff that's very consistent. In any recorded footage if someone hits the shoot button, a shot comes out of the gun and a number changes (do I mean the ammo count decrements? Haha no!) so that's pretty consistent. There's gonna be plenty of footage of heading down a hallway, maybe backing up, shifting side to side in this specific starting screen, so yeah, matching one screenshot to the next is consistent-ish. But the second you have a single frame of facing a wall or a dark area you're screwed, because there's no actual game running. Just piles of frames from videos. Any black screen is going to look the same, so we're looking for the next image from any source image that has one, and... the whole thing falls apart. The UI at the bottom theoretically having health and ammo also don't actually do anything, just, every frame of every video consistently has those. If you watch carefully you'll notice that firing the gun changes the health total... for a bit, and then it just kinda drifts back to 100ish, quietly, eventually. Because that's what's there in most of the footage. We don't actually have any values being tracked. It's literally just a game of, find a screenshot in any of the sample footage matching the current frame, then here's the next one best matching the currently held inputs.

Pretty sure I'm preaching to the choir that this is the most pathetic dead end. AT BEST, what this would do is correctly play back a let's play if you had a TAS recreating all the inputs from it properly, but it's probably still going to mess that up (especially if two frames of that video happen to look identical), and if you change one input, well, now we're on another timeline, and if we don't happen to have a video just like that in the pile, it's gonna break. This is why these demos always have strict time limits. Longer it runs the harder it is to find video footage matching every possible set of inputs.

So yeah, if we have infinite monkies hitting infinite inputs eventually we're going to have the footage to simulate playing Quake, as long as there's never an identical hallway or facing a wall or a shadow... but like, why not just take the copy of Quake one of those monkeys has and just play that, and have it actually work right 100% of the time?

The scam being sold of course is the "AI" can spin up a whole game without needing anyone to actually make a game first, and the reality is no, we definitely need someone to make the game first, and then also make a ton of TAS recordings to steal screenshots from (oh and we can't do any sound because you don't want to be trying to predict a "frame of sound." Recreating a music track, sure, having sounds playing over that, don't try this at home).

But here's my real point with this. People have kept this scam going for what, 5 years now? And every time they release a new demo to try and sell it as doing what they claim, it's even more obvious that this is COMPLETELY USELESS GARBAGE, requiring even less expertise and familiarity, and for that matter time, to see how it just completely falls apart.

So I have to ask, how are we still here? If you have carefully curated footage from a specific angle for 10 seconds you can maybe use this snake oil to make something that looks kind of OK if you aren't paying attention, but like... if you convince someone to buy anything based on that, they are going to immediately get their hands on... unusable garbage. And there's no way they're going to convince themselves otherwise, this tech can't do what it promises or really anything else. So I was confused for a second as to how in the world people have kept this scam running as long as it has.

But then it hit me. They aren't selling this to anyone. They're JUST making demos. And they're showing those to venture capitalists who are just dumb as a sack of rocks, and will never listen to a single person who actually gets hands on experience with what they're throwing money at. It really is the thing where you sell the sizzle not the steak, and then just... doing everything they can to make sure nobody ever gets anywhere near a steak because it will just kinda burble and blur out and fade into the ether if they do.

So HOPEFULLY the entire U.S. economy completely collapsing will at least make venture capitalists gun shy enough to quit investing in these con artists and FINALLY the rest of us will get some peace, as a silver lining, from this naked emperor shaking his junk in our faces at all hours for five freaking years at this point?

[noodleblade]

absolutely love your fics! if you’re still taking requests, I think a rodimags sickfic would be adorable!!

this fic was written in April and I finally got around to editing it ;--; thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoy:3

Ao3 Link

A chill crawled along trembling plating; its frosty fingers digging into the transformation seams like shards of ice. Minimus Ambus curled tightly into a ball as a frame deep ache rolled across his body. A dull, throbbing pain echoed in the center of his forehelm, his processor sluggish under the tight building pressure. Nausea threatened to flip his tanks, leaving him to swallow down acidic balls of static.

Minimus was well and truly sick.

He wasn’t sure of the exact cause. An internal system scan showed him free of any physical damage and he was clean of any infectious malware corroding his software. The only blip he could see across his vitals was a small system bug, a coding error his internal processor was struggling to correct. 

It happened from time to time, though it was often rare to feel it affect him so deeply. His system was prone to bugs when he swapped between hardwiring into the Magnus armor and disconnecting into his current frame. He wasn’t sure why his frame sometimes hiccuped in its recalibration sequencing but, alas, it was not completely unexpected. Irritating nevertheless. 

Distantly, Minimus wondered if the other prior users of the armor suffered the same or was it purely due to the inadequacies of his smaller frame?

He groaned as another tremor wrecked through his chassis, letting his optics offline as he tried to regain a semblance of composure. While this bug was a bit more severe than he was used to, he was not going to shirk off his responsibilities. The very thought of taking a sick day set his processor ablaze. All his duties, both per his station and self-imposed, would be unaccounted for without a proper replacement. He’d have to reassign them all, to make sure the proper mech was assigned the right segments of his job. 

It would…be simpler to just move his shift back. A small nap would provide him adequate rest while his system defragged the coding error. The estimated time for a total defrag was just two breems if he settled into a deep recharge. It would give him ample time to take up a later shift and complete his tasks. 

Yes, Minimus thought to himself as he settled further into the berth, just a small nap. 

He made the change quickly, optics already offlining as Thunderclash valiantly agreed to swap desk duty with him. Minimus could rest easy knowing the ship was in good hands until his nap finished. His recharge parameters started kicking in and he drifted into an aimless, deep slumber. 

—

A loud knock echoed across the dark abyss. Minimus jolted at the noise, his audials ringing at the abrupt sound as his spark rattled in his chassis. It took an agonizingly long moment for him to realize where he was, his blind optics scanning the room. 

His optics spied his orderly desk alongside the severe outline of the Magnus armor and a calm washed over him, though the drumming ache in his joints was still there. Slowly, he curled into his bed, using his arms to cradle his pounding helm. He just needed to fall back into recharge, chase the quiet slumber. According to his internal clock, his defrag was not even halfway done and for once, the prospect of rest sounded preferable to marking tasks complete on his HUD. 

The knock rapped against his door again, more persistent this time in a quick, rapid staccato. Minimus groaned quietly to himself as he tried to make himself smaller in the berth. 

A wild thought struck him as he struggled to settle, one he would only blame on the delirium of his sluggish, sickly frame. 

What if he ignored the call?

The idea was not only against his very character, but a deeper, more delusional part of him almost reveled in the depravity of such an act of selfish negligence.

But it was not without good reason.

His frame was too achy and weak to possibly entertain the thought of having anyone see him in such a state. Minimus wasn’t even wholly sure if he could get himself out of the berth at all. If he didn’t answer, whomever it was would just leave and catch him some other time. They could send him a memo, call his comm if it were truly urgent. Besides, the doors were locked, with only a select few with override authorization-

A sudden click had Minimus’s optics snapping over as he watched the door slowly slide open, a red and yellow figure standing at the threshold. 

“Yo! Mags?” 

Bright light flooded the room and Minimus turned his helm into the berth to avoid the blinding brightness. The light bringing about his helmache twofold.  

“Oh. Scrap. My bad, Mims.” 

At the soft shhhtck of the doors closing, Minimus peered up to see Rodimus walking towards him. Deceptively, Minimus thought he could see…worry? on his Captain’s faceplates. The thought caused his chest plates to tighten uncomfortably. 

“Captain?” Minimus croaked, his mind running through every possible problem that could have arisen in his absence and to cause Rodimus to look at him with that horrible pinched expression. 

Another mutiny? Pirates? Word from Cybertron? An explosion in the labs? Anything pertaining to Whirl?

He tried to sit up, to give his Captain his full and proper attention- never mind how inconsiderate and unprofessional it was to receive his Captain while still laying in his berth. However, as he lifted himself up, a wave of nausea curled in his intake and he immediately thought perhaps it would be better if he remained prone. It was still gratingly unprofessional but not as much as purging at his superior’s pedes. 

He felt…exposed on his too big berth. When the quarters had originally been assigned to him, adjustments had been made to fit Ultra Magnus’s large, boxy frame. It was perfect for when he was wearing the armor, but without it…the berth felt ridiculously large. Far too large for a standard size bot, much more so for a minibot like Minimus. He didn’t want to even think about what it would look like if he were in his truer, smaller form.

“Pits,” Rodimus crept closer, his expression morphing into something decidedly worried. “You look like slag, Mims.”

“Thank you for your thoughtful assessment,” Minimus groaned. A shiver traveled down his spine and Minimus could feel his denta clatter together. 

 Rodimus graciously ignored the snarky comeback. “Are you sick? Uh, should I get Ratchet?”

“No,” Minimus nearly bolted up right once more. The sudden movement made his processor spin and he quickly fell back onto the berth, bringing his servo up to cover his optics. The room was spinning. “I’m fine. It's just a small system bug.”

“Sure.” Rodimus sounded anything but convinced. “It’s not like you to skip your shift.”

Minimus frowned behind his servo. “Skip? My shift isn’t until third rotation.” 

He had swapped with Thunderclash, responsibly making sure he wouldn’t leave a gap in coverage. He had reassigned himself, leaving appropriate room for recovery. His defrag was only estimated for 2 breems and it wasn’t even halfway over. 

Rodimus snorted. “Yeah, that was over a breem ago. Megs took your shift for you and told me not to bother you.”

“Oh.” Minimus swallowed around the word. 

A quick glimpse at his defrag estimation window still showed half left to work through, but time lapsed showed near double that what had been estimated. It looked as if the defrag had stalled, struggling with a nasty tangle of mixed up coding. In the midst of his slumber, Minimus had been unaware, his recharge attempting to conserve power.

Embarrassment curled around his throat and Minimus felt his stomach flip. Failure, even when medically induced, was still a shameful, humiliating feeling.

 “Why are you here?”

“You think Megatron can just tell me what to do?” Rodimus huffed. A warm servo pressed against Minimus’s exposed forehead. “Primus, you’re icy. Are you sure you don’t want me to get Ratchet?” Worry tinged his Captain’s words. 

Originally, Minimus had taken Rodimus’s concern as something surely going catastrophic on the ship. He hadn’t considered the possibility it was over his well-being. 

It shouldn’t make his spark spin at the thought but…it was rare to find Rodimus concerned about anything, much less him. It wasn’t that Rodimus was an unkind mech, but…Minimus was unused to the treatment all the same. 

“I’ll be okay,” Minimus murmured shyly, his words slow under the delightfully warm, heavy weight of Rodimus’s hand on his helm. “I just need to rest. Once my system has done a thorough debugging, I should be back in right order. I can make up for my missed shift and issue a formal apology to Megatron.”

During the debugging, most of his internal systems were stalled until the problem was sorted, which included thermal regulation. While his frame was well above critical chill point, Minimus was cold. Normally, he would have resorted to using the Magnus armor for heating, subrouting its ventilations inward for additional warmth. However, Minimus was worried that hardwiring in would leave the armor vulnerable to catching the system bug and while it was a small, measly thing, he didn’t want to risk any damage to the armor. 

Rodimus snorted an unamused laugh. “Only you would worry about making up work when you can barely keep your optics online. It’s fine. Megatron’s got nothing going on anyway. If anything, he should be thanking you.”

Minimus felt unnaturally soothed by those words. “Of course, Captain.”

“Need help warming up?” Rodimus asked.

Minimus hummed an affirmative. He opened his mouth to give instruction on where Rodimus could find a thermal tarp. He didn’t keep any in his quarters but if Rodimus went to supply closet 3B24, there should be extras and-

The edge of the berth creaked and Minimus felt movement.

He let his optics online slowly, just in time to see Rodimus shimmy onto the berth and flop down beside him.

“What are you doing?” Minimus asked. He tried for indignation but it fell short and sounded more pitiful than anything else. 

“Well,” Rodimus huffed as he scooted closer, “I run a little hot and since you're cold…”

Minimus raised a concerned optic ridge but before he could swat Rodimus away, warmth swept against his frame as Rodimus pulled him closer.

“Oh,” Minimus murmured, halfway between a grasp and, embarrassingly enough, a moan. 

“Told ya.” He could hear the cocksure grin in the Captain’s voice but found no need to dismiss it. Not when Rodimus was so heavenly, blazingly correct. Despite himself, Minimus pressed closer until he could feel his pedes knock against Rodimus’s knees. “Feels good right?”

Admission was…too much. Minimus may be borderline snuggling with his Captain, but he would not further feed Rodimus’s ego, especially when any affirmation felt like a confession. Even allowing Rodimus this crossing of boundary felt like a blatant confession, admission, something too vulnerable. Thankfully, Minimus’s ailment seemed to allow for perfect plausible deniability. Which was great because Minimus…didn’t want to give up this warmth any time soon.

“Aren’t you on shift?” Minimus asked blearily. He knew he could check the schedule and confirm this but…for once, Minimus would find himself okay if Rodimus decided to lie. He would be purposefully oblivious.

“Nah,” Rodimus stretched out. “I transferred that to Drift to come investigate your situation.”

Minimus hummed, a shiver wrecking through his body making him curl close to Rodimus’s too-warm plating. “How diligent.” He meant it bitingly, but it almost came out complimentary. 

Above him, Rodimus snorted, servo coming to rest against the center of Minimus’s strut. The warmth made Minimus melt, any remaining tension in his frame seeping away as he laid slack against his captain. 

“Besides,” Rodimus shifted a little, settling further into the large berth, “it would be un-diligent of me to leave you unattended.”

Minimus bit his tongue as his processor nagged him that Ratchet or First Aid would be better medical professionals to call upon attendance to his ailment. Instead, he pressed his face into Rodimus’s broad chest plate, knocking his forehead against his Autobot badge. He even ignored the incorrect negative affixation.

 “Responsibility is a good look for you, Captain.”

“Jeez Mims,” Rodimus leered, though his tone was too soft to hold any real edge, “skipping shift and flirting with your superior; you must really be out of it.”

Weakly, Minimus lifted his servo to lightly tap Rodimus on the lips, grumbling a soft shhh. In the retreating motion, he scrambled for the edge of the tarp hanging around their waists.

Seeing his wants, Rodimus reached for the tarp easily, pulling it up to rest loosely at Minimus’s neck. Tiny engine vibrating in a quiet purr, Minimus let his optics flicker off, content to listen to Rodimus’s inner mechanics whirl softly in his chassis. “Sleep, Mims,” Rodimus murmured quietly. Distantly, at the edges of his sensor net, Minimus could have sworn he felt the warm drag of digits tracing along his spinal strut. “I’ll watch your back.”