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numbpill · 3 months ago

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[tutorial: build your own neocities/nekoweb page]

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a beginner's guide for making your very own home on the indie web—retro, personal, weird, and 100% yours.

this ain’t an average wix, squarespace, or tiktok aesthetic.

we’re talking full html/css with soul and attitude.

[ prerequisites ]

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> an idea

> basic text editor (vscode, notepad++, or even notepad)

> account on https://neocities.org or https://nekoweb.org

> some gifs or tiles you love (dig deep or make your own)

> optional: image host or gif repo (or self-host everything)

[ feeling overwhelmed? read this. ]

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you do *not* need to know everything.

html is not a mountain. it's a garden.

you plant one tag. then another. then a style. then a button.

you can build your site piece by piece.

and every piece is a portal to somewhere personal.

you are allowed to make broken pages.

you are allowed to use templates.

you are allowed to start over as many times as you want.

this is *your* world. you control the weird.

[ step 1: create an account ]

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> neocities: https://neocities.org

> nekoweb: https://nekoweb.org

this is where you upload your files and see your site live.

[ step 2: your first file - index.html ]

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make a new file: `index.html`

basic starter:

<html>

<head>

<title>my weird little corner</title>

</head>

<body>

<h1>welcome to the void</h1>

<p>this is my page. it’s strange. like me.</p>

</body>

</html>

> upload to the dashboard

> boom. you’re live at

https://yoursite.neocities.org

or https://nekoweb.org/u/yoursite

[ step 3: add a style sheet - style.css ]

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create a file called `style.css` and upload it.

here’s some nostalgic magic:

body {

background: url('tile.gif');

color: lime;

font-family: "Courier New", monospace;

text-shadow: 1px 1px 0 black;

}

img {

image-rendering: pixelated;

}

marquee {

font-size: 20px;

color: magenta;

}

link it in your html and the vibes activate.

[ step 4: decorate it like a haunted usb ]

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> use <marquee> for chaos scrolls

> embed gifs from https://gifcities.org/

> steal buttons from https://cyber.dabamos.de/88x31/

> set up a guestbook at https://www.smartgb.com/

> loop audio with <audio autoplay loop>

> add fake errors, 90s web lore, random link lists

[ step 5: resources, themes, and comfort ]

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> templates & layouts: https://numbpilled-themes.tumblr.com

> glitchy gifs & buttons: https://glitchcat.neocities.org/resources

> layout builder: https://sadgrl.online/projects/layout-builder/

> free tiled backgrounds: https://backgrounds.neocities.org/

> beginner html intro: https://www.w3schools.com/html/

> pixel fonts & cyber assets: https://fontstruct.com/

remember:

you don't need to know js. you don't need to be a coder.

you just need a mood, a direction, a dream.

the html will follow.

[ bonus concept: shrine pages ]

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> a page just for one character you love

> a room to house digital fragments of your identity

> embed quotes, music, images like altars

> call it shrine.html and link it from your homepage

[ closing mantra ]

------------------

you are not here to be optimized.

you are not a brand.

you are a ghost inside the machine,

carving your initials into the silicon void.

welcome to Your website.

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not-terezi-pyrope · 1 year ago

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Often when I post an AI-neutral or AI-positive take on an anti-AI post I get blocked, so I wanted to make my own post to share my thoughts on "Nightshade", the new adversarial data poisoning attack that the Glaze people have come out with.

I've read the paper and here are my takeaways:

Firstly, this is not necessarily or primarily a tool for artists to "coat" their images like Glaze; in fact, Nightshade works best when applied to sort of carefully selected "archetypal" images, ideally ones that were already generated using generative AI using a prompt for the generic concept to be attacked (which is what the authors did in their paper). Also, the image has to be explicitly paired with a specific text caption optimized to have the most impact, which would make it pretty annoying for individual artists to deploy.

While the intent of Nightshade is to have maximum impact with minimal data poisoning, in order to attack a large model there would have to be many thousands of samples in the training data. Obviously if you have a webpage that you created specifically to host a massive gallery poisoned images, that can be fairly easily blacklisted, so you'd have to have a lot of patience and resources in order to hide these enough so they proliferate into the training datasets of major models.

The main use case for this as suggested by the authors is to protect specific copyrights. The example they use is that of Disney specifically releasing a lot of poisoned images of Mickey Mouse to prevent people generating art of him. As a large company like Disney would be more likely to have the resources to seed Nightshade images at scale, this sounds like the most plausible large scale use case for me, even if web artists could crowdsource some sort of similar generic campaign.

Either way, the optimal use case of "large organization repeatedly using generative AI models to create images, then running through another resource heavy AI model to corrupt them, then hiding them on the open web, to protect specific concepts and copyrights" doesn't sound like the big win for freedom of expression that people are going to pretend it is. This is the case for a lot of discussion around AI and I wish people would stop flagwaving for corporate copyright protections, but whatever.

The panic about AI resource use in terms of power/water is mostly bunk (AI training is done once per large model, and in terms of industrial production processes, using a single airliner flight's worth of carbon output for an industrial model that can then be used indefinitely to do useful work seems like a small fry in comparison to all the other nonsense that humanity wastes power on). However, given that deploying this at scale would be a huge compute sink, it's ironic to see anti-AI activists for that is a talking point hyping this up so much.

In terms of actual attack effectiveness; like Glaze, this once again relies on analysis of the feature space of current public models such as Stable Diffusion. This means that effectiveness is reduced on other models with differing architectures and training sets. However, also like Glaze, it looks like the overall "world feature space" that generative models fit to is generalisable enough that this attack will work across models.

That means that if this does get deployed at scale, it could definitely fuck with a lot of current systems. That said, once again, it'd likely have a bigger effect on indie and open source generation projects than the massive corporate monoliths who are probably working to secure proprietary data sets, like I believe Adobe Firefly did. I don't like how these attacks concentrate the power up.

The generalisation of the attack doesn't mean that this can't be defended against, but it does mean that you'd likely need to invest in bespoke measures; e.g. specifically training a detector on a large dataset of Nightshade poison in order to filter them out, spending more time and labour curating your input dataset, or designing radically different architectures that don't produce a comparably similar virtual feature space. I.e. the effect of this being used at scale wouldn't eliminate "AI art", but it could potentially cause a headache for people all around and limit accessibility for hobbyists (although presumably curated datasets would trickle down eventually).

All in all a bit of a dick move that will make things harder for people in general, but I suppose that's the point, and what people who want to deploy this at scale are aiming for. I suppose with public data scraping that sort of thing is fair game I guess.

Additionally, since making my first reply I've had a look at their website:

Used responsibly, Nightshade can help deter model trainers who disregard copyrights, opt-out lists, and do-not-scrape/robots.txt directives. It does not rely on the kindness of model trainers, but instead associates a small incremental price on each piece of data scraped and trained without authorization. Nightshade's goal is not to break models, but to increase the cost of training on unlicensed data, such that licensing images from their creators becomes a viable alternative.

Once again we see that the intended impact of Nightshade is not to eliminate generative AI but to make it infeasible for models to be created and trained by without a corporate money-bag to pay licensing fees for guaranteed clean data. I generally feel that this focuses power upwards and is overall a bad move. If anything, this sort of model, where only large corporations can create and control AI tools, will do nothing to help counter the economic displacement without worker protection that is the real issue with AI systems deployment, but will exacerbate the problem of the benefits of those systems being more constrained to said large corporations.

Kinda sucks how that gets pushed through by lying to small artists about the importance of copyright law for their own small-scale works (ignoring the fact that processing derived metadata from web images is pretty damn clearly a fair use application).

#not-terezi-speaks #ai #nightshade

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the-midnight-blooms · 8 months ago

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SHAMELESS WOMAN | smg

PROLOGUE

pairing: ghostface!song mingi x reader (ft. ghostface!jeong yunho) AU: modern au word count: 3.2k warnings: yandere themes, stalking

masterlist

A/N: I've never actually watched Scream but I love the concept, so general ideas revolving around the character will be used here (i also saw yungi!ghostface fanart, which i am OBSSESSED with).

A chat room is an online platform that enables users to communicate with each other in real time. Chat rooms are typically hosted on a server with an internet connection, enabling members from around the world to hold conversations about various topics.

Upbeat 80s rock music reverberates of the four walls of her room, the pen nib scratches, furiously, across the thin lined paper as her mind spills the plethora of knowledge that's locked up within it. Dropping the pen to the side, a long groan escapes her lips in tiredness the bright light of the computer screen gnawing at her attention. As she flicks between the several open tabs on her web browser, loitering in the far corner is an underground chat room for ‘conventional losers’, i.e. nerds, geeks, freaks, goths and emos and every other ostracised sub-cultural group you could think of. The thought itself was quite fascinating to her, which one was she? Or rather, was she the pretentious introvert who thought herself higher than those who defied society's conventional train of thought and aligned herself with the populars?

Snapping her book shut, she closed several of the academic pages she had open; leaving her with the final one: the infamous chat room. She’d already logged in, curiosity masticating her rationality and browsed a few pages, sent a few quick messages to people the website had recommended based on her “favourite topics”.

Her eyes glance carefully across the blaring screen, the blue light penetrating into her steady gaze as she reads the username that steals her undivided attention.

@ pyscho.killer

A snicker escapes her lips, she surfs their profile finding very little information about them, other than ‘Fix on’. Goodness, is she really going to talk to this person just because he too enjoys listening to Modern Talking? Her lips purse in contemplation as she clicks on ‘Message’, there’s no harm in conversing with someone you don’t know. Right?

modern-division: Fan of the Talking Heads much?

She prides herself on her nonchalance, if he wasn't to respond she really wouldn't care. After all, Yeji had invited her to join a number of societies at university and despite the fact that none of the them seemed particularly interesting to her; there was no harm in joining at least one or two if the outcome was a few friends to make her strenuous four years more bearable.

Ping. Her head snaps back to computer screen as she shoves all of her pens back into the pencil case; a dirty habit from childhood to spread all of her things across the table and then spend five minutes, impartially, cleaning everything up.

psycho.killer: Psycho Killer, Qu'est-ce que c'est?

modern-division: Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, better

psycho.killer: Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away,

psycho.killer: I think I have met my match. To whom do I now call mine?

A childish giggle escapes her, she leans back in her seat in a knowingness that she may now actually enjoy being on this sketchy platform. Careful, yet. She doesn't actually know this stranger.

modern-division: AHAHA you’re funny, Mr Fix On (what does that even mean?)

psycho.killer: that’s not for you to know, darling.

psycho.killer: let me guess…you like joy division and modern talking?

modern-division: what gave it away?

psycho.killer: I guess you’re pretty funny too

It's quite absurd to believe that a famous hit song by the 'Talking Heads' is what got her, her new best internet friend yet the notion is very much a fact. So much so, her life is now consumed by the chat rooms she used to look down on. Social media is very much a vortex, or vacuum of some kind, sucking one in; leaving them void of humanity, stripping them down of some yearning for human interaction. Or at least that's what it did to most. After a long day of lectures, she found herself wanting to be able to see 'Mr Fix On' in person, talk to him in person, be able to stare into his eyes.

Speaking of. As a matter of fact, she didn't even know what he looked like. Just that he was South Korean, had short black hair and brown eyes. She too allowed herself to share the same amount of information that he provided. Mum did say not to go around talking to strangers, and even if she was doing just that; she was not dim enough to start revealing absolutely everything about her identity.

The autumn leaves sway softly with the gentle breeze, a waft of biting air floods over her sending a ripple of goosebumps over her supple skin. Her shoes crunch the delicate leaves, that pave the way to her home, yet she feels a daunting figure stalk after her. For a split second, she believes herself to be hallucinating as she takes a daring look behind her shoulder to find the street behind her, empty.

A tall figure strolls after her, picturing landmarks that carves the path to her home. His soft dark brown hair tousles with the wind, the cold forging a pink blush over his cheeks; sinking his long nose into the woollen scarf his movements come to an abrupt halt as his heroine plunges her eyes into his.

God, she's fucking pretty.

They move over his, hastily, as to her he's simply rifling through his bag for a wallet in line for an expensive coffee alongside a couple of old-age pensioners.

Conclusion: She is paranoid, there is no one after her. Yet as it is autumn in her unsafe town, its better to be cautious than to walk across the surface of the earth with no walls at all.

psycho.killer: wanna join a gc with my friend? he likes some of the same music as us.

psycho.killer: plus, he's a compsci loser who needs a friend

It's been at least a month since she had began talking to 'psycho.killer', who she had learnt his name is: Mings. Or rather its a shorthand version of his forename that he is weirdly reluctant to disclose, as he insists on her calling him 'Min' or "darling, my lover, husband- whatever floats your boat." He is truly charismatic, his charms are perceived from the other end of the screen. She wonders what it would be like to see him in real life. Is he truly as amiable as he reads?

modern-division: haha, i don't mind. what's his @ ?

psycho.killer: its @ killed.theradio.st4r

modern-division: you guys are my people

She hums the tune to 'Video Killed the Radio Star." Her mother's soft laughter pervades her way into her room; the older woman places her washed clothes on the Chester drawer wondering how the younger generation manage to get invested in the songs of the past.

[psycho.killer added you to 'two losers and a hot nerd']

killed.theradio.st4r: helloo, i'm yuyu :)

modern-division: hi!

modern-division: also, who's the hot nerd?

psycho.killer: me.

killed.theradio.st4r: lmao. its you, doll.

Does Mings just refer to me as, Doll to everyone he speaks to?

modern-division: you don't even know what i look like

killed.theradio.st4r: guess we just know you're a hot girl by intuition

modern-division: what if i'm a man? ever thought about that?

psycho.killer: your bio literally states that you're a girl

psycho.killer: not-so-mysterious babe

It wasn’t so bad for someone online to know your gender, it was just ensuring that your femininity wasn’t exploited. She knew they would never ask her to share explicit content nor would they force her to engage in it, though talking to the pair of ‘Killers’ preserved an ominous feeling in the airs. She couldn’t tell if at any point, she really felt comfortable talking to either of the two.

To begin with, Min was always trying to call her. Ask her where she was, what she was doing, if she had she eaten, what time she was going to bed. He asked about her day, and if anyone bothered her in particular. To any other he may have seemed like a kind-hearted boyfriend yet to her it felt like an intruder had permeated into the walls of her bedroom and dominated her life. Then you had his esteemed friend, Yun. He was always deeming her the most beautiful being he had ever seen. She could see within his words the robust desire he had manifested from her words, the way he had subtly requested for her photos in order to fuel the raging fires burning in her absence.

He wanted her. Physically, to put it lightly. Indeed, she was a doll to him and to have her in his arms would purify him of all his sinful thoughts. Yun always brought it up with his friend, who had simply told him to put out those fires. (For the time being).

“Have you heard of ‘Ghostface’?” Her head snaps up from her workbook, in the library where one of her closer acquaintances sits opposite playing with her water bottle. A newspaper article sits in front with the notorious blurry image of a man with a ghost mask roaming around town.

“This is the first I’m hearing. I mean it’s Halloween soon, so it’s probably some idiot roaming around town.”

“An idiot? I don’t think so, ma’am. Read on, he’s been going around stalking people in his costume.” She raises her eyebrows, nimbly scanning her eyes over the text before returning back to her work. Though she cannot help but stare back at the blurred image of the figure. “I bet there’s a sexy man under all that.” Scowling at her friend, she sends a dirty look.

“You have got to be kidding me. A ‘sexy’ man. You said it yourself, he’s stalking people.”

“Yeah but, one of the girls from Art said he was mad tall and had this deep, attractive voice.”

“Yes, I bet he goes: ‘come here babe, let me kill you’ in his husky voice and you all go running to him because you have no morals.” Once again, she rolls her eyes whilst her friend merely giggles as if she is just pleasantly awaiting to be a victim. She rarely meets women who have an ambition for a victim complex, yet those she does: she steers away from.

“I’m only joking, but be real. Have you never heard a guy with a deep, attractive voice?” Her friend questions, making her pause her writing. In fact, she has. Mins’ voice has a sent over her railings during their late night calls, there’s something so potent residing within it. Intoxicating. It almost has her want to do everything he asks.

He is too, tall with a deep voice but there must be so many like him in this world.

The thought is dismissed and she shoos away her friend to allow herself to prioritise the exam that’s pending in two weeks time.

modern-division: have you guys heard of ghostface?

killed.theradio.st4r: why?

modern-division: just asking, apparently some loser is dressing up in a ghost mask and stalking people. idk if it’s just halloween round the corner though

killed.theradio.st4r: oh no :(

killed.theradio.st4r: could just be a halloween thing

modern-division: yeah, I think so too.

“So you like the librarian?”

“Mhm.” She steals her longing gaze away from him towards Yeji, who sends a vicious smirk her way. A blush taints her cheeks, knowing that Yeji will never live it down now. “I’m not gonna deny he’s pretty good looking.”

“Pretty good looking? He’s gorgeous as fuck. He’s not a want, he’s a need.” Playfully, she bites her lip suppressing a fit of giggles by burying her face into the textbook. A few others send irritated looks from across the room, which has the pair sinking in their seats. “You think a guy like him is single?”

“Absolutely not. If I had the chance, I’d snatch him up right away.” Her eyes flicker back to the tall man who catches her stare in an instant, he holds it before moving back to surf through the books on the trolley.

A low beat surfaces along the posters, her phone is sandwiched between her shoulder and cheek as she trudges furiously around the room looking for her scarf. Min's voice permeates her ears delicately, despite the alarming sentences he speaks; he converses in length about human anatomy saying that raw flesh must be easier to study than cadaveric tissue. As much as she agrees, just to play devil's advocate she will never admit that.

“I love your voice, Mings. It’s so deep, but like in a comforting way. As if you can protect me.” The declaration escapes her mouth before she can even stop it.

“Do you want to be protected by me, or from me, doll?” A pause lingers in the air, before he lowly chuckles—one that forces her to laugh with him though an uneasy feeling resides within her bones.

“By you, preferably.” She jokes, playing with the pendant of her necklace. A shadow looms by the open doorway, obscuring the stream of light that spills in from the hallway; the deafening silence panics her. “Mum!” She shouts, discarding the phone to the side in a frenzy.

“Yes! I just had a cup of tea for you, were you not studying?” The door is pushed open by nonetheless, her mother who waddles across the carpeted floor to settle the hot beverage down on the table.

“I was, I’m just tired now. Maybe I’ll come back to it later.”

“No, no. Go to bed, dear. I’m off to work, make sure you’re outside by 8, I’ll drop you.” A soft kiss is placed on her forehead, she is calmed by the maternal affection seeing her mother to the door before she dashes back into her room to find her phone.

The call must have been disconnected in the process of her flinging it elsewhere, her hands shake violently as she’s, pathetically, unable to hold the phone steady in her grasp. Mings has spammed her several times with messages, she doesn’t bother to read any of them.

modern-division: i’m tired, going to bed.

psycho.killer: goodnight, babygirl

In the midst of wandering through the aisles of the library, seeking books two shelves above her head, it instantaneously occurs to her that she’s never actually paid much attention to Yuyu and Mings’ pet names that they have for her. Doll, babygirl, darling, love, honey, etc. The list seems to never end yet she ponders the primary reason they get so comfortable around her is because she has never actually given them a reason to stop being so affectionate.

A cascade of books tumble down from the shelf, hitting the floor with a powerful slam—jumping backwards on instinct, she grimaces reaching down from them as a few pairs of eyes stare at her from their tables. Her face heats red in embarrassment, until another pair of hands comes to assist her.

"Goodness, how did you manage this?" Her eyes gleam up into another's; words lodge in her throat upon realisation of the being in front. It's the 'hot librarian', as her and Yeji have trademarked.

"Oh, I—they just fell." He raises his eyes at her.

"They just. Fell." A mischievous smile is sent her way as he stacks the books back onto the shelf, that's too high for her to reach anyway. "We'll call it the force of gravity then, shall we?" Shyly, she nods, handing him the last of the books. Her eyes reel in the name scrawled across the name tag. A thought Yeji will be pleased to hear drifts into her mind.

“I’m Yujin, by the way. I’m always at the help desk if you need to me to stack books that randomly fall off the shelf again.” Her eyebrows furrow in confusion. It clearly says ‘Yunho’, on his name tag. He stalks off in the opposite direction before she can question him, leaving her abandoned in the desolate aisle.

modern-division: the hot librarian lied about his name.

modern-division: I wonder why

Paranoia is no longer a delusion. It must be very true that someone is following after her.

Under the banner of the night, herself and Yeji walk back home after a long day of studying. They amble down the cobbled roads, yet her eyes cannot help but glance over her shoulder. There must be a man of some sort following them, his long calculated strides send a wave of fear pummelling through her. Instantly, she grabs Yeji’s hand dashing down the road towards the convenience store.

The dim lights flicker upon their arrival, she cowers behind the large aisles; ignoring her friend’s imperatives watching as a tall figure saunters into the store.

It’s him.

Jeong Yunho, the Librarian.

Or ‘Yujin’ as he addresses himself for reasons she assumes she will never know why.

Is he her stalker?

“I thought there was someone stalking us. There was a guy who walked all the way from the library to the road we just crossed behind us. I took a detour as well and he kept following.” She breathes out, leaning her head against the shelf.

“Are you kidding? Why didn’t you tell me?” Yeji squawks.

“I didn’t want him to suspect that I knew he was following.”

Her eyes sought ‘Yujin’ who gives her a sincere smile before he makes his way to the exit.

modern-division: I think there was someone following me

psycho.killer: ??? are you home? are you safe now?

modern-division: yes, but shit that was scary.

psycho.killer: let me call you bbg, I’ll help get your mind of it

Her phone vibrates in her hand, her finger traces over the red button before she lifts the device to her ear. His smooth tone infiltrates her ears again, easing the anxiety prevalent in the fibre of her muscles. She doesn’t know how Min does it. He helps her forget all about her problems, it’s as if he himself is the cure.

“Oh hey, baby. There was something I wanted to ask.” He pants slightly, the distant sound of leaves crunching drifts from the other end of the line.

“Are you outside?” He laughs.

“Yeah I’m walking home.” His hasty breaths pervade the line. One after another, a series of profane thoughts enter her mind. She is so disappointed in herself. “So, you got a boyfriend?”

“Why? Do you wanna ask me out on a date?” She teases, a lock of hair curls around her forefinger, the vibrato of his voice truanting into her ears, exhilarating her core as rush of certainty floods into her.

“Maybe, do you have a boyfriend?” He piques, she cannot help but grin at his words as if they are both playing a dangerous game of seduction, one she has never played before and one he has won a countless number of times.

“No.” Her truthful answer is not one that hurts her, though she says it as if she’s lying and has had countless lovers before in the past. Perhaps this is the persona that will have her enigmatic paramour crawling towards her.

“You never told me your name.” He acknowledges, 'Mings' has only ever called her 'doll'. Her moves are careful as she continues her cyber relationship with this unknown man, there's a reason she's at the top of her class—he thinks. A thread of messages enter from another chat room, his sharp eyes reeling in the words of his partner.

“Why do you wanna know my name?” Sheer curiosity. Yes, he told her he’s called ‘Mings’ but it’s just a silly nickname used to gain her trust. What is it really short for: Mingi? Mingyu? And Yuyu? Is it possible that he is Yunho? A foreign uneasiness rushes into her skin, she’s cautious as she sits up in her desk chair.

A bad feeling, an intuition of some sort.

He’s going to tell her something she doesn’t want to hear.

“I wanna know who I’m looking at.” Her finger immediately presses, harshly, onto the red button throwing her phone onto her desk. Her body jumps up from her seat, heart pounding furiously against her chest. With her body leaning closer to the window, her eyes outcast the front lawn in which a slender figure stands outside. A ghosts mask rests upon his face, his lanky frame is shrouded in a loose black cloth concealing the shape of his body. A large brick phone is held up against his ear, when he catches her staring down at him, his head cocks eerily to the side.

psycho.killer: Pick

psycho.killer: Up

psycho.killer: The

psycho.killer: Phone

psycho.killer: Doll.

•••

DO NOT REPOST, TRANSLATE, REPURPOSE, OR PLAGISRISE ANY OF THE WORK HERE

A/N: happy 'late' Halloween! my timing is atrocious, but here's a 'small snippet' of a fic i may continue if my writing schedule allows. atm its a one-shot. What's your favourite scary movie? 👻

let me know if you’d like to be added to the tag list for any future fics I post!

tag list: @n0v4t33z @potatos-on-clouds @jjongwho

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taffywabbit · 10 months ago

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"why not just make your own website?"

with the announcement of cohost's death and amidst all the other tumultuous shit currently going on with social media as a concept (i am AMAZED twitter has survived this long given the circumstances), one suggestion that i've been hearing a lot is "we should just go back to the good old days of personal websites. let's all just make neocities pages!!"

(this is gonna be a long one sorry)

and like. idk! it's certainly something i've considered, i think it would be a fun thing to have, but it also feels like the equivalent of "capitalism sucks so let's all just run off into the woods and live in a cabin outside of society" to me. like it would be nice, it would be fun, but it doesn't ultimately solve the actual problems that are present with the modern internet, it just evades them. more importantly in my case and many others, it does not really help people who rely on the modern internet and the connections they're able to make there for their income. sure i can make a website and host my art and blog posts there, but who's going to see it? i can't build a consistent audience and make a living off of random passersby who peek at my website once, say "huh, neat!" and MAYBE add it to an RSS feed or whatever if they really like it. there's minimal potential for meeting and impressing new people outside my existing circles if i don't ALSO still have some manner of social media platform to promote the website on.

a lot of the "solutions" i see people proposing for the slow, painful decline of social media as a user experience keep coming back to old-fashioned, more isolated/insular systems. we miss forums, we miss personal webpages, we miss newsletters, etc etc. but like... those things were ideal in the "old web" because the old web was more about sharing hobbies and interests with whoever happened to pass by and check them out, and even just USING the internet was a niche hobby in and of itself for a lot of people. if you wanna be kinda cynical about it (and not unjustifiably so), web 2.0 is much more blatantly business-oriented, and its algorithms and carefully crafted UX's are primarily meant to funnel you towards viewing ads and spending money on products. looking at it that way, it sure does suck and Everything Was Better Before! but the modern web is ALSO more powerful than anything before it for just like. connecting people. spreading information and news. showing your art/music/writing/thoughts/etc to strangers who never knew you existed an hour ago. putting the tools to reach out to someone and tell them you think they're cool right there on the same website where their art is hosted, just a comment or a message away.

if you're able to avoid patterns of engagement-bait and obsessing over follower counts as a measure of self-worth (a big "if", i realize, but i view it like installing an adblocker - it's just kind of a basic prerequisite for modern internet safety and survival), a lot of these systems can genuinely be really positive and life-changing in ways that were simply not possible 20 years ago! almost all of my current closest friends are people I met through sharing our art on platforms like Twitter who were complete strangers at the time. all of the art clients that regularly pay my bills and support my work came from places like that too! the "social" part of "social media" is really what makes it ultimately worth keeping around in any form, and makes the pursuit of a Good social media platform still valuable.

there's a lot to love about the old web - its aesthetics, simplicity and freedom for personal expression - but every time someone says "just delete your socials and make a personal website" i am forced to confront the fact that i could never do what i currently do or be the person i am on the old web. if i was stuck hanging out in my own little space and only ever interacting with people who openly and loudly share my interests, i couldn't support myself with art full-time, i probably would never have met the kind and quiet strangers who are now my best friends and have made me who i am, and i'd just generally get a lot less insight into the vast range of experiences and perspectives that exist outside of my own. my life would be on a fundamentally different trajectory in countless ways without the advent of web 2.0.

and that's not to say "well twitter and facebook and tumblr all suck but you kinda still have to hand it to them" cuz you don't, obviously. they're corporations, and their job is to take the personalities and thoughts and art of the people who use their products and try to scrunch it all into something uninform and marketable that generates profit and pleases their shareholders. but like, you CAN still make a good thing out of them! these websites are tools just as much as geocities or myspace or IRC used to be. and the one thing these newer tools are pretty much all REALLY good at is discoverability. if you're just a hobbyist at the things you wanna share on the internet, then you likely don't have a lot of use for those tools, and perhaps you WOULD genuinely be happier just keeping a personal blog site or hanging out in private groupchats or sticking to specialized federated Mastodon instances or whatever. it just isn't feasible for me, and there are a LOT of people in my same situation. my entire industry of online freelance artists barely existed 20 years ago, and the web culture of that era is largely incompatible with my continued survival in the mid-2020s. i would LOVE to run off and live in the woods in concept, but all my survival skills are adapted for city living and i would just eat the wrong berry and die out there. i want- i NEED people to try and improve the spaces we're in, and support better forms of social media (like what cohost was trying and largely succeeding to do!) instead of just complaining that it all sucks, everything was better when we were kids, and digging ourselves little holes to hide in. much like all the other problems and frustrations and systemic issues of the world we live in, the modern web isn't going to go away if you just ignore it, so we may as well try to make it better for everyone.

anyways tl;dr i probably WILL make a neocities at some point. it could be fun, even if it doesn't help my career stability or whatever. but i do also need ALL THE SOCIAL PLATFORMS I USE FOR MY JOB TO STOP EXPLODING PRETTY PLEASE, and failing that, some actual half-decent alternatives that aren't going to fizzle out in a month would also be great thanks ✌

#buny text #webbed site #long post #sorry this one got embarrassingly long and i probably repeated myself a lot #i've just essentially had this same conversation like 8 times in the past 24 hours and wanted to actually put my thoughts somewhere public #i hope it doesn't come off like i'm snapping at anyone either. i know this suggestion is always made out of a desire to be helpful #and i do appreciate it and have given it no shortage of thought #i just needed to explain why it isn't a viable solution for everyone and why actual good usable social platforms are still important

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the-conspiracy-board · 2 months ago

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Thinking about the Magnus Archives Fears and how I don't think they'd have any success in Night Vale. Just imagine the Fears trying to establish themselves there, and how Night Vale already has them all covered...

- The Eye, that sees and knows everything? You mean like Cecil Palmer, the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home, the Sherrif's Secret Police?

- The Buried, that cloying claustrophobia, feeling the weight of all of the earth above you and not being able to flee from it? Well, Night Vale has houses that collapse into sink holes, and giant purple worms that burrow under the ground and emerge in a dust storm, and a miniature city under lane five at the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, so burying as a concept is a little... been there, done that.

- The Slaughter, that sees you mindlessly, erratically destroy everyone and everything? Night Vale got that covered in the Blood Space War, in the fight against that miniature city, in any of countless battles.

- The Web, that plots and spins its own machinations and taunts you with them? You mean the People's Church of the Smiling God, Station Management, government officials, the Labyrinth, whatever Big Rico is up to in that basement?

- The Vast, an endless expanse that you can never escape? Did you mean the Desert Otherworld, Night Vale itself, or looking up into the Mysterious Lights that Flash Overhead While We All Pretend to Sleep?

- The Stranger.... also known as anyone the town chases away with cries of 'Interloper', or the Appalachian Tracker (who's really just a super racist white guy in a Native American headress who speaks in Russian), or the Man in the Tan Jacket, or the Man Who is Not Tall and his companion, the Man Who is Not Small?

- The Spiral and all it's many Distortions? You mean like the mysterious corporation whose logo is a literal labyrinth, or that house out on the edge of town that leads to the Desert Otherworld, or Khoshekh?

- The Dark... well, that doesn't do a whole lot when there's a void in the Dog Park that people are NOT allowed to go into, when there's an infinite black above that is lit only by the Lights Above the Arby's.

- The Corruption, and it's sicknesses and plagues? Mm, well Night Vale outlawed Wheat and Wheat By-Products when the wheat turned to snakes, and there's a well established plague of Throat Spiders, and every single soul is corrupt in one way or another.

- The Lonely can't really get its legs underneath it when everyone is suspicious of their neighbours, when the Numbers Station is hosted by a woman who doesn't know herself, when Cecil Palmer doesn't remember who he was and all of the things that happened in his past, when the Condos exist as they do, when there are Angels (all named Erika) who DO NOT EXIST and cannot be known.

- The Hunt hasn't got anything to go off when Murder Night in Blood Forest is coming to a town near you, when Kevin and Lauren are popping into town to recruit for their malevolent Smiling God, when the Librarians will eat you if you linger too long.

- The Desolation and how it brings destruction and so much personal loss... well Carlos was trapped in that Desert Other World all that time, and Cecil doesn't remember much of his mother, and time and the fates force lovers to seperate.

- The Flesh will only be celebrated in a town that plays host to Torniquet (the best restaurant in town!) and wears Soft Meat Crowns to celebrate the founding of the town itself, and has Josh who changes their form at will.

- And the End.... well, the end doesn't really exist in Night Vale, not when there's ghosts who drive the taxi's, when Cecil Palmer's predecessor still shares his broadcasts from an Other Place, when death is well established to be a temporary affair.

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gurlu · 3 months ago

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You people like that worldbuilding post huh

Tumblr seemed to have loved my worldbuilding post, people want me to post the spreadsheet and spread the lore now. And I would really love to ! But it's a bit old, rough and definitely unfinished magic system so I would like to adjust some stuff, like the naming. It also completely lacks an actual game system to rely on, so the concept of "mana points" and "status effect" are kinda floating in a vacuum rn. I knew very little to nothing about DnD's systems prior to a month ago when playing Baldur's Gate 3 basically made me think "hold up, this is literally my magic system wth". So now I wonder if I should make the system rely on a tabletop context or videogame context. It's an important question because it changes how randomness and resources can be handled, and I gotta admit that as much as tabletop is tempting, luck is is not my cup of tea. I could try to tweak BG3's system since it's a videogame adaptation of DnD 5e system ; but ngl I would probably prefer making my own system, if I had the time to do so at least. I would like to at least actually make the wiki but I don't know how to proceed. I tried making my own website myself since I know how to make them, but the task is too gargantuan now. I tried using Obsidian instead and it's great but afaic you can't publish it online for free (there is Quartz yes but you still have to host it) If any experienced worldbuilder knows a free way to make and publish a wiki to the web, in possibly two languages even, that would be great ! I could batter on and on about stuff I make but this post is getting long already, so I'm just gonna say thank you because you people interest towards this reignited my will to continue the wiki >:]

#worldbuilding #lore

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johnnylandslide · 7 months ago

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WoL Magic Cards Tutorial!

I'd made a custom Magic: the Gathering card of Johnny recently, and shared it in the Seafloor discord, and since there was a lot of interest in the concept I figured a tutorial might be nice so we have something to do while we wait for plugins to come back. Here goes!

Download CardConjurer This is the tool I use to make custom cards. It's just a web app developed by a college student; he got DMCA'd by WOTC so it's not hosted on the internet anymore, but you can still run it locally.

Just unzip the contents somewhere, and then run launcher.exe when you're ready. It should open up the app in a browser tab.

2. Navigate to the Card Creator

3. Pick out a Frame

Enter this search box on the right. We're going to be using the Nickname ("Godzilla") frames. These give us a small subtitle box below the card name that indicates what the Magic card's actual name is.

If you want to create a custom card instead, use the Borderless frames.

In the menu below, you should see the different colors of the borderless frames. You'll have to add three of these elements to the card: the text box, the card name, and the power/toughness box. Do them in that order, by clicking each element and then Add Frame to Card. If your card is legendary (or if you feel like it), use the Crown option rather than just Title.

You'll have to choose the correct color. If your chosen card is monocolor or >=3 colors, this is very easy since you can just choose that color or gold, but for two-color cards the process is slightly more involved. First, add the color that goes on the left using the Add Frame to Card button, and then add the right color using the Add Frame to Card (Right Half) button. Use the gold power/toughness box.

If any of the card elements get out of order, you can reorder them using the layers controls at the bottom of the page.

4. Import the card text

Navigate to the Import/Save tab, and type in the name of the real card you're putting your OC over. Select the specific version of it using the dropdown afterwards.

(For some reason, Firefox suggests completing this field with my credit card information. I think it knows more about Magic than it's letting on.)

After the card is imported, navigate back to the Frame tab, and click Load Frame Version. This will force the text on the card to fit into the frame set that's currently selected in the bar on the right, which should still be the Nickname ("Godzilla") from earlier.

We should have something closely resembling the real card in the editor, now.

5. Make it yours!

First off, go to the Art tab, and upload your image. Once it shows up, you can adjust it by clicking the actual card in the editor. Clicking and dragging pans it around, shift+clicking scales, and ctrl+click rotates.

Next, pop over to the Set Symbol tab and remove it, since this is your own card and isn't from a Magic set.

And now, go over to the Text tab to finish this off! Start by entering your card name into the Nickname tab.

If your chosen card name is too long and ends up clipping the mana cost, you can reduce the width of the text box with the Edit Bounds menu until it fits.

Next, go to Rules Text to update the name if the card refers to itself. I changed all instances of "Vadrik" to "Johnny". Since this card is really just to look at and not to play with, I also renamed the Day/Night mechanic to fit the Black Mage flavor even better. Feel free to get creative!

You can use {flavor} to add flavor text as well. I added the {lns} commands after some words to add line breaks to make the text blocks look better.

You can also edit the typeline in the Type tab, if the creature type doesn't match your WoL. Johnny is already a Human Wizard though, so I didn't have to do that. Technically this would be a mechanical change of the card, but since these aren't real cards anyway I think it's a valid concession to make. Just don't go abusing it if you actually end up printing these out LOL

6. Download the card image

Finally, head back over to Import/Save, scroll all the way to the bottom, and hit Download you card.

And you're done! There's obviously a lot more that's possible with CardConjurer, and tons of avenues for creativity. If you end up following this tutorial, or creating any other FFXIV-related MTG cards, I would really love to see them!

#ffxiv #gpose #mtg #tutorial #please feel free to tag me with your creations!

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bogleech · 1 year ago

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With most insects and things I can understand that they have a place in the ecosystem, but I have trouble understanding the same thing with bed bugs. Are they just like. Kind of domesticated ticks? How did they end up almost solely indoors (to my understanding)? I had them in my apartment a while back and it was a pretty traumatizing experience. I know they don’t carry diseases like mosquitos and are really more mentally/emotionally harmful than physically harmful.

I saw your post about how we should be thankful the world isn’t so sterile that there’s no living thing left to harm or inconvenience us. And I do agree! But I think bedbugs are the one thing that I have trouble fully grasping that concept with. It’s harder to see the bigger picture with something that occurs in such a small and personal space, I suppose.

I can't find the post where I launched into this before but tiny bloodsucking animals ("micropredator" is growing as the preferred term over lumping them in with "parasites" per se!) exert a lot of important pressures on their host animals; everyone knows predators change how animals eat, sleep, mate, nest together and migrate, but so do the things that just "annoy" them, like having fleas! Additionally "micropredators" work together with predators and diseases in regulating population balance, and by taking nutrients non-lethally from their hosts, they help redistribute energy back into circulation! A little flea or tick or bed bug collects a little blood protein from a bear, it gets eaten by a spider or it dies and rots, and now that bear's protein energy is back in the food web well before the bear has passed on! All throughout that bear's life, its blood is "becoming" all these little pesky bugs that then become food for other things! When it comes to bed bugs, which are closely related to stinkbugs, assassin bugs, aphids and other "true bugs," they adapted to live in bird's nests, bat caves, rodent dents, anywhere juice-filled vertebrates come home to and rest, and the ones that feed on us are so closely related to a bat-specialized species you can only barely tell them apart:

The "bat bug," however, can't utilize human blood well enough to maintain an infestation on human hosts alone! They fully require bats!

We aren't sure when some bat bugs branched off and started traveling with humans, but we do know that they used to be MUCH MUCH EASIER to deal with. Perfectly ordinary pesticides used to clear up a bed bug problem just fine. That changed when we invented DDT and tried to use it to wipe them out altogether. It's one of the harshest synthetic poisons ever developed, and it kills through just an ion channel in the animal's nervous system. By drenching North America in DDT for years on end, we "seemingly" wiped out bed bugs and a few other things, but really all we did was give a few generations of human beings a bunch of new chronic illnesses and give a few generations of insects a mutation that makes them resistant to not just DDT but lots and lots of other poisons.

Bed bugs basically destroy people's lives but never naturally evolved to be that good at it; it's just another result of capitalism ignoring the warnings of the scientific community. People died rich off DDT before they ever had to care about its after effects.

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fracturepoint · 2 months ago

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Fracturepoint: A Murder Drones AU

JOIN THE FRACTUREPOINT UNIVERSE

Are you a Murder Drones creator with your own AU or characters? I'm inviting you to become part of something bigger! The FRACTUREPOINT storyline offers the perfect opportunity to integrate your unique Murder Drones universe into this cross-timeline adventure.

N has been thrown into an unknown reality where Tessa hunts for Solver hosts across multiple universes. Her ultimate goal? To locate the canon timeline and destroy it-a drastic attempt to collapse the entire multiverse and eradicate the Solver once and for all. This is where YOUR characters and YOUR stories can enter the narrative! Whether you have established drone OCs, a developed alternate universe, or even just concepts you've been wanting to explore-they can all become part of this collaborative multiverse.

How might your characters react to a desperate N appearing in their world? Would they help him, hunt him, or be hunted alongside him? Perhaps your universe contains vital clues about what Tessa is truly seeking, or maybe your characters have encountered similar timeline fractures before.

If you're interested in joining this collaborative storytelling experience, drop a comment or message me! Share a brief overview of your AU/characters and how you envision them interacting with the FRACTUREPOINT narrative. Together, we can build an intricate web of connected stories that expands the Murder Drones multiverse in exciting new ways!

Let's create something amazing together. The fracture is spreading-will your drones be part of what comes next?

(Ran by and created by @thecynner )

#murder drones au #murder drones #murder drones cyn #murder drones tessa #murder drones n #murder drones uzi #md uzi #md uzi doorman #md v #md j #md n

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the-nox-syndicate · 2 months ago

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SysNotes devlog 1

Hiya! We're a web developer by trade and we wanted to build ourselves a web-app to manage our system and to get to know each other better. We thought it would be fun to make a sort of a devlog on this blog to show off the development! The working title of this project is SysNotes (but better ideas are welcome!)

What SysNotes is✅:

A place to store profiles of all of our parts

A tool to figure out who is in front

A way to explore our inner world

A private chat similar to PluralKit

A way to combine info about our system with info about our OCs etc as an all-encompassing "brain-world" management system

A personal and tailor-made tool made for our needs

What SysNotes is not❌:

A fronting tracker (we see no need for it in our system)

A social media where users can interact (but we're open to make it so if people are interested)

A public platform that can be used by others (we don't have much experience actually hosting web-apps, but will consider it if there is enough interest!)

An offline app

So if this sounds interesting to you, you can find the first devlog below the cut (it's a long one!):

(I have used word highlighting and emojis as it helps me read large chunks of text, I hope it's alright with y'all!)

Tech stack & setup (feel free to skip if you don't care!)

The project is set up using:

Database: MySQL 8.4.3

Language: PHP 8.3

Framework: Laravel 10 with Breeze (authentication and user accounts) and Livewire 3 (front end integration)

Styling: Tailwind v4

I tried to set up Laragon to easily run the backend, but I ran into issues so I'm just running "php artisan serve" for now and using Laragon to run the DB. Also I'm compiling styles in real time with "npm run dev". Speaking of the DB, I just migrated the default auth tables for now. I will be making app-related DB tables in the next devlog. The awesome thing about Laravel is its Breeze starter kit, which gives you fully functioning authentication and basic account management out of the box, as well as optional Livewire to integrate server-side processing into HTML in the sexiest way. This means that I could get all the boring stuff out of the way with one terminal command. Win!

Styling and layout (for the UI nerds - you can skip this too!)

I changed the default accent color from purple to orange (personal preference) and used an emoji as a placeholder for the logo. I actually kinda like the emoji AS a logo so I might keep it.

Laravel Breeze came with a basic dashboard page, which I expanded with a few containers for the different sections of the page. I made use of the components that come with Breeze to reuse code for buttons etc throughout the code, and made new components as the need arose. Man, I love clean code 😌

I liked the dotted default Laravel page background, so I added it to the dashboard to create the look of a bullet journal. I like the journal-type visuals for this project as it goes with the theme of a notebook/file. I found the code for it here.

I also added some placeholder menu items for the pages that I would like to have in the app - Profile, (Inner) World, Front Decider, and Chat.

i ran into an issue dynamically building Tailwind classes such as class="bg-{{$activeStatus['color']}}-400" - turns out dynamically-created classes aren't supported, even if they're constructed in the component rather than the blade file. You learn something new every day huh…

Also, coming from Tailwind v3, "ps-*" and "pe-*" were confusing to get used to since my muscle memory is "pl-*" and "pr-*" 😂

Feature 1: Profiles page - proof of concept

This is a page where each alter's profiles will be displayed. You can switch between the profiles by clicking on each person's name. The current profile is highlighted in the list using a pale orange colour.

The logic for the profiles functionality uses a Livewire component called Profiles, which loads profile data and passes it into the blade view to be displayed. It also handles logic such as switching between the profiles and formatting data. Currently, the data is hardcoded into the component using an associative array, but I will be converting it to use the database in the next devlog.

New profile (TBC)

You will be able to create new profiles on the same page (this is yet to be implemented). My vision is that the New Alter form will unfold under the button, and fold back up again once the form has been submitted.

Alter name, pronouns, status

The most interesting component here is the status, which is currently set to a hardcoded list of "active", "dormant", and "unknown". However, I envision this to be a customisable list where I can add new statuses to the list from a settings menu (yet to be implemented).

Alter image

I wanted the folder that contained alter images and other assets to be outside of my Laravel project, in the Pictures folder of my operating system. I wanted to do this so that I can back up the assets folder whenever I back up my Pictures folder lol (not for adding/deleting the files - this all happens through the app to maintain data integrity!). However, I learned that Laravel does not support that and it will not be able to see my files because they are external. I found a workaround by using symbolic links (symlinks) 🔗. Basically, they allow to have one folder of identical contents in more than one place. I ran "mklink /D [external path] [internal path]" to create the symlink between my Pictures folder and Laravel's internal assets folder, so that any files that I add to my Pictures folder automatically copy over to Laravel's folder. I changed a couple lines in filesystems.php to point to the symlinked folder:

And I was also getting a "404 file not found" error - I think the issue was because the port wasn't originally specified. I changed the base app URL to the localhost IP address in .env:

…And after all this messing around, it works!

(My Pictures folder)

(My Laravel storage)

(And here is Alice's photo displayed - dw I DO know Ibuki's actual name)

Alter description and history

The description and history fields support HTML, so I can format these fields however I like, and add custom features like tables and bullet point lists.

This is done by using blade's HTML preservation tags "{!! !!}" as opposed to the plain text tags "{{ }}".

(Here I define Alice's description contents)

(And here I insert them into the template)

Traits, likes, dislikes, front triggers

These are saved as separate lists and rendered as fun badges. These will be used in the Front Decider (anyone has a better name for it?? 🤔) tool to help me identify which alter "I" am as it's a big struggle for us. Front Decider will work similar to FlowCharty.

What next?

There's lots more things I want to do with SysNotes! But I will take it one step at a time - here is the plan for the next devlog:

Setting up database tables for the profile data

Adding the "New Profile" form so I can create alters from within the app

Adding ability to edit each field on the profile

I tried my best to explain my work process in a way that wold somewhat make sense to non-coders - if you have any feedback for the future format of these devlogs, let me know!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Disclaimers:

I have not used AI in the making of this app and I do NOT support the Vibe Coding mind virus that is currently on the loose. Programming is a form of art, and I will defend manual coding until the day I die.

Any alter data found in the screenshots is dummy data that does not represent our actual system.

I will not be making the code publicly available until it is a bit more fleshed out, this so far is just a trial for a concept I had bouncing around my head over the weekend.

We are SYSCOURSE NEUTRAL! Please don't start fights under this post

#sysnotes devlog #plurality #plural system #did #osdd #programming #whoever is fronting is typing like a millenial i am so sorry #also when i say “i” its because i'm not sure who fronted this entire time!#our syskid came up with the idea but i can't feel them so who knows who actually coded it #this is why we need the front decider tool lol

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alice-after-dark · 11 months ago

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A Dark Web Romance (Concept)

Just a fun concept that has been sitting in my drafts for a while.

@hiemaldesirae hope you feel better :)

TW for violence, abusive relationships, vaguely implied sexual abuse, cannibalism, gore, murder, implied NSFT, and other canon-typical triggers. Contains abusive StaticMoth.

Vincent Haynes, who goes by the online name "Vox," is an elite hacker who makes his money on the Dark Web doing jobs for the worst of the worst. It is through this work that he becomes acquainted with a user known as TheRadioDemon, a cannibalistic serial killer who hosts a podcast. Vox has never missed a show since discovering him and has developed a crush on the man. Sure, he may not have any interest in which parts of the human body are best suited for a stew, but he is more than willing to listen to that gorgeous voice explain it to him in graphic detail while he carves said flesh off his screaming victim.

When the host expresses difficulty with his website, Vox jumps at the opportunity and soon the two are exchanging private messages daily, even long after the problem has been fixed.

One day months later he meets Alastor Bourreau, a new resident in their apartment complex who has moved into the apartment across from Vox. Hailing from New Orleans, he has come to New York City for a change of scenery, a "change of flavor" as he puts it.

There is something...familiar about the man, but Vox can't put his finger on it.

Vox and Alastor become fast friends, something Vox's boyfriend, a jealous and unstable pimp named Valentino, does not approve of. Their relationship began after Valentino hired Vox to do some work for his snuff website and now Vox is trapped in Valentino's never ending cycle of love-bombing and abuse. He is too scared to leave the pimp, knowing full well that Valentino could have him killed if he wanted to.

He expresses these fears to TheRadioDemon during their nightly chat after a particularly bad fight that leaves Vox with two broken ribs and a sprained wrist.

And suddenly Valentino stops calling him. He stops showing up at his apartment unannounced over some perceived slight or another. He stops contacting him altogether. It's strange and confusing and Vox doesn't know what to make of it. Valentino won't answer his calls. In fact, they all go straight to voicemail until finally the inbox is full and he can't leave any more.

He decides Valentino is probably on another one of his binges and that he'll hear from him eventually.

But he doesn't. What he gets instead is a link to a livestream sent to him from TheRadioDemon. That's...strange. TheRadioDemon has never been a visual person, always sticking to his podcast format. Still, he clicks on it without hesitation.

Front and center is Valentino.

The man is strapped into a medical chair with his chest cut wide open. Vox can see the rise and fall of the man's lungs. A message pops into his inbox.

Do you like it, darling? He broke your ribs, so I took his. I also took the liberty of removing that foul tongue of his.

Another message.

What should I take next?

Vox already knows what he wants before the question even comes.

Cut off his fucking dick.

It's three hours before the video ends, the main chat alight with suggestions and comments. The video goes dark every time TheRadioDemon acts, broadcasting Valentino's agonized gurgles and wails and cutting back on to reveal the new damage done. Vox says no more, simply sits back and watches the show.

He is only half watching Valentino though. Instead, his gaze is constantly being drawn to the small red fawn plush sitting on the metal table, starkly innocent beside the bloodied instruments of torture and placed so purposefully.

He knows that plush. He bought that plush.

Moments after stream ends finds him in front of Alastor's door. He's barely had time to knock when it opens and he is yanked inside and subsequently slammed up against the door and kissed.

"I was so hoping you'd catch on," Alastor mumbles against his lips. "I've had my eyes on you ever since you first tuned into my broadcast. I could hardly contain myself when I finally found you. You looked so delicious."

Vox isn't sure if he means that literally or figuratively and he doesn't care. It might be both. It's probably both. He's okay with that.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin vox #hazbin alastor #radiostatic #alice rambles #hazbin hotel vox #vox hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel au #human vox #human alastor

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homestuckreplay · 11 months ago

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Webcomic 'Homestuck' Canceled For Promoting Bad Password Security

(page 456-459)

8/10/2009 Wheel Spin: Parent Bad :( Verdict: INCORRECT

8/11/2009 Wheel Spin: being silly :3c Verdict: CORRECT, but behind at least 10 layers of irony

In the far future, somebody might call this update a time capsule of the 2000s. If computers change significantly, or something. page 456 comments on Dave's bro's computer being password protected, suggesting that this isn't a cultural norm - the newly-released Windows 7 still doesn't require user accounts to have a password. In Homestuck, the password is used to protect 'incredible top secret shit,' so password protecting a personal home computer might be associated with shadier online behavior.

Bro's password is six characters, and is 'the most awesome thing it can be' according to Dave and his bro, so it's probably lilcal. (It could also be puppet, but personally my passwords are always specific characters, song titles etc, not general concepts. I don't know if other people are different. for what it's worth lilcal is also a slightly more secure password than puppet which is A SINGULAR DICTIONARY WORD). Bro also trusts Dave with his password - either because he doesn't think Dave will do anything to mess up his computer, or because he's daring Dave to use it, similar to leaving the Xbox switched on mid-game.

On page 457 we see Bro's desktop, which we can compare to Dave's desktop on page 323. They both have wallpapers from And It Don't Stop, showing us a chain of game recommendations from Bro -> Dave -> John. Dave, like Rose and John, has some character in the names of his desktop folders, while his bro has seven identically named New Folders scattered around the screen. This adds to the sense that Bro is paranoid about people looking at his computer - he's purposefully making it impossible to navigate. The hidden-identity hat and dark glasses iconography on the password entry screen has the same effect.

Bro also has a program called Delirious Biznasty, which has a rad skater dude for its icon. This could be a web browser, but I think it's more likely some kind of torrenting application, I think that'd fit his vibe. The web browsers we know are Typheus, Cetus and Hephaestus, which are all Greek mythological references with cartoon-styled icons, and Delirious Biznasty doesn't fit the pattern. Based on Dave's relationship to his bro, Bro probably uses Hephaestus too and just doesn't have a desktop shortcut.

Dave and his bro both use the Complete Bullshit content aggregator, which we are forced to witness on pages 458 and 459. Content aggregators are pretty common customizable feeds that people use to keep up with a lot of websites at once, when checking 20+ separate sites a day gets too time consuming. RSS readers are a common form of this that can host a lot of different types of content, but there are also aggregators specifically for webcomics. These are controversial - they're generally well intentioned projects made for free by webcomic fans who want to check for updates easily and keep up with a lot of stories, and want to help other fans do the same. However, they can redirect traffic away from actual sites that host webcomics, meaning that independent webcomic artists might miss out on ad revenue or merch sales, or are less likely to sell ads because their sites don't look as well-trafficked as they are. I don't know if Andrew Hussie has a strong opinion on comics aggregators, but it's possible this terrible to use, unstable and unreadable version is a criticism of the concept.

Complete Bullshit also feels like Dave's bro's equivalent of Serious Business, as they're both digital programs with adjective-noun titles. I wonder if Rose's mom will get her own software.

It's sweet that Bro keeps up with Dave's projects, including Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff and his GameBro review blog. It shows that their relationship isn't 100% one sided, Bro cares for Dave and/or thinks he's cool at least a little bit. It's also fun that Dave is checking to see if his own webcomic has updated, which could be bad memory due to having a lot of projects on the go, or could be Dave checking to make sure his update has gone through and posted successfully. Very reasonable, as it must be a challenge to upload such high quality images.

I will probably make a post digging into Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff at some point, but I'm still peeling the onion of its irony right now so I'll just say: when exactly did Dave find the time to make these comics?

#homestuck #reaction #i actually have a deep curiosity abt other peoples passwords but it is an incredibly suspicious question to ask anyone #chrono

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jointhefediverse · 8 months ago

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💫 Join the Fediverse! 💫

Greetings, fellow bloggers! We welcome you to join us in discovering, honoring, and promoting the potential future of social networking—commonly referred to as the "Fediverse."

The Fediverse, or Federation Universe, refers to a collective of online platforms that utilize the web protocol known as ActivityPub, which has set a standard of excellence in regards to both protecting and respecting users' online privacies.

There's a good chance in the past few years that you've caught wind of the fedi family's critically acclaimed Mastodon; however, there are many other unique platforms worth your consideration...

✨ Where To Begin?

Conveniently enough, from the minds of brilliant independent developers, there already likely exists a Fediverse equivalent to your favorite socials. Whether it's an opinion from the critics, or from the community alike—the following popular websites are commonly associated with one another:

Friendica 🐰 = Facebook Mastodon 🐘 = Twitter Pixelfed 🐼 = Instagram PeerTube 🐙 = YouTube Lemmy 🐭 = Reddit

It's worth mentioning, too, a few other sites and forks thereof that are worthy counterparts, which be: Pleroma 🦊 & Misskey 🐱, microblogs also similar to Twitter/Mastodon. Funkwhale 🐋 is a self-hosting audio streamer, which pays homage to the once-popular GrooveShark. For power users, Hubzilla 🐨 makes a great choice (alongside Friendica) when choosing macroblogging alternatives.

✨ To Be Clear...

To address the technicalities: aside from the "definitive" Fediverse clients, we will also be incorporating any platforms that utilize ActivityPub-adjacent protocols as well. These include, but are not limited to: diaspora*; AT Protocol (Bluesky 🦋); Nostr; OStatus; Matrix; Zot; etc. We will NOT be incorporating any decentralized sites that are either questionably or proven to be unethical. (AKA: Gab has been exiled.)

✨ Why Your Privacy Matters

You may ask yourself, as we once did, "Why does protecting my online privacy truly matter?" While it may seem innocent enough on the surface, would it change your mind that it's been officially shared by former corporate media employees that data is more valuable than money to these companies? Outside of the ethical concerns surrounding these concepts, there are many other reasons why protecting your data is critical, be it: security breaches which jeopardize your financial info and risk identity theft; continuing to feed algorithms which use psychological manipulation in attempts to sell you products; the risk of spyware hacking your webcams and microphones when you least expect it; amongst countless other possibilities that can and do happen to individuals on a constant basis. We wish it could all just be written off as a conspiracy... but, with a little research, you'll swiftly realize the validity of these claims are not to be ignored any longer. The solution? Taking the decentralized route.

✨ Our Mission For This Blog

Our mission for establishing this blog includes 3 core elements:

To serve as a hub which anybody can access in order to assist themselves in either: becoming a part of the Fediverse, gaining the resources/knowledge to convince others to do the very same, and providing updates on anything Fedi-related.

We are determined to do anything within our power to prevent what the future of the Internet could become if active social users continue tossing away their data, all while technologies are advancing at faster rates with each passing year. Basically we'd prefer not to live in a cyber-Dystopia at all costs.

Tumblr (Automattic) has expressed interest in switching their servers over to ActivityPub after Musk's acquisition of then-Twitter, and are officially in the transitional process of making this happen for all of us. We're hoping our collective efforts may at some point be recognized by @staff, which in turn will encourage their efforts and stand by their decision.

With that being stated, we hope you decide to follow us here, and decide to make the shift—as it is merely the beginning. We encourage you to send us any questions you may have, any personal suggestions, or corrections on any misinformation you may come across.

From the Tender Hearts of, ✨💞 @disease & @faggotfungus 💞✨

#JOIN THE FEDIVERSE #fediverse #decentralization #internet privacy #social media #social networks #FOSS #activitypub #mastodon #fedi #big data #degoogle #future technology #cybersecurity #technology #essential reading

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