#CHARTER.

[arcadechan]

The Fool Supreme, Witch at the Open Door; Greased Hinge, Charter Delgado. She's partially blind, has a magical affinity for doorways, and is t4t married to a woman named Willowjay Utah. She serves the coven of M.F. Dogwood, home of the Fool.

[mrs-gauche]

The Dread Wolf Take You (Part 1)

~~Link to the complete 31 page comic here~~

"Imagine that, overlooking the god in your mids!"

May I present, my attempt at illustrating the last four pages of Tevinter Nights. 😁 (Also, the first time I'm posting art on here!)

As the whole thing was quite literally too long to post on tumblr, I uploaded the full version on a customized site made for reading webcomics (via ComicFury). Feel free to check out the link above if you like to read the rest! Also, if you're on mobile, there's a "Scroll View" option for easier navigation. :)

And, obviously, HUGE spoilers for those who haven't read Tevinter Nights!!

On a personal note though, I can't believe I actually finished it... As it had been a *very* long time since I drew (and finished) anything, let alone a 31 page comic and reading Tevinter Nights again finally sparked my motivation (and the courage to post it lol). So I want to thank Patrick Weekes for helping me overcome this massive art block and over two decades of Case Closed mangas for inspiring me how to draw an overly dramatic "exposing the imposter" moment. 😂 I tried my best to be as faithful to the book as possible and it took me forever, so... hope you like it! :D

[bitchslapblastoids]

did sister daniel have a lesbian situationship at her christian all girls school?

she fuckin ran through that thing like a train, you have no idea. there was nothing left.

……….my all-girls-catholic-high-school-lesbian-romance-having ass is listening intently

[dragonagegallery]

Potential Story Beats After Inquisition

[visenyaism]

genuine question why are charter schools to blame for decreased literacy in your opinion? Because of the remote learning aspect or smth else also?? I went to one & honestly did better with it than traditional hs but I had very high reading comprehension already, had no busses in my area & no parent that could drive me to school so it was a pretty specific situation where that environment worked out better for me

Well I’m glad it worked out for you but institutionally charter schools are so detrimental to public education. Let me explain why:

The principle behind charter schools, that increased competition will force public schools to be better, frames education as a product rather than a public utility. If education quality is determined by the free market, the winners and losers are children, which is just a morally unacceptable outcome to me.

Shouldn’t ignore that the school choice movement started as a way to advocate for the perpetuity of segregation. On average charters are more racially segregated than publics.

The way in which public schools receive funding varies state to state, but most states do some amount of funding per pupil. What that means is that when students switch from public schools to charter schools they take that per people funding with them if you’re leaving an underperforming public school that’s underperforming because it’s underfunded you are making the problem worse. Not everyone can leave.

Charter schools can legally kick students out if they want to. This means if students stop performing well, or if disabled or english-language learner students need extra support, they can just be removed. A lot of “charters have higher test scores” is just charters only admitted high-performing and low-need students, which puts even more of a strain on public schools.

They are really unregulated. Many “charter-friendly” states have minimal accountability measures for charter schools in a way that leads to many running the gamut between negligence to committing literal fraud instead of providing free and appropriate public education. Charter networks are multibillion dollar businesses this system gets exploited by private equity all the time.

That lack of regulation or accountability also shows up in disciplinary outcomes. The school to prison pipeline is already unforgivably bad in a public environment, but unregulated charter schools often implement draconian “zero tolerance” policies that result in black and brown students getting treated like they’re in a police state. Public schools can’t suspend or expel you or call the cops on you for how you wear your hair. They can’t escalate to dramatic consequences as quickly or do a 3 strikes demerit system. There are no legal guardrails against this in charters.

Often exist to circumnavigate teachers’ union contracts and other labor laws. This means teachers at charters are often overworked, underpaid, micromanaged, and have EXTREMELY high turnover. The additional strain on teachers and overrepresentation of first-teachers who burn out in the system and get replaced makes for bad educational environments in a lot of places.

All of these are even more of a problem because of the way that charter networks like KIPP were marketed as a way to fix public schools in black and brown areas, and have just kneecapped public schools while providing students with subpar educational outcomes instead.

[bacony-cakes]

everyone's heard of pan am and trans world airlines and i have already seen things like these

but i made some more from other airlines i know

i also made an alternate biman bangladesh:

and interflug:

feel free to use all of these

(…and tell me if you know an airline that can fit in with this style, so i can make more)

[liberalsarecool]

School vouchers are a scam.

Private/charter schools will NEVER address the needs of ALL children.

Conservative ideas for education are always the worst for our children.

[mossadspypigeon]

if you don’t even know about the munich massacre, why are you talking about the israeli palestinian conflict?

like really, if you don’t even know basic historical events, why are you here and making this war your entire personality?

[victusinveritas]

Posts with the same energy.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Apple's encryption capitulation

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in NYC on TOMORROW (26 Feb) with JOHN HODGMAN and at PENN STATE THURSDAY (Feb 27). More tour dates here. Mail-order signed copies from LA's Diesel Books.

The UK government has just ordered Apple to secretly compromise its security for every iOS user in the world. Instead, Apple announced it will disable a vital security feature for every UK user. This is a terrible outcome, but it just might be the best one, given the circumstances:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgj54eq4vejo

So let's talk about those circumstances. In 2016, Theresa May's Conservative government passed a law called the "Investigative Powers Act," better known as the "Snooper's Charter":

https://www.snooperscharter.co.uk/

This was a hugely controversial law for many reasons, but most prominent was that it allowed British spy agencies to order tech companies to secretly modify their software to facilitate surveillance. This is alarming in several ways. First, it's hard enough to implement an encryption system without making subtle errors that adversaries can exploit.

Tiny mistakes in encryption systems are leveraged by criminals, foreign spies, griefers, and other bad actors to steal money, lock up our businesses and governments with ransomware, take our data, our intimate images, our health records and worse. The world is already awash in cyberweapons that terrible governments and corporations use to target their adversaries, such as the NSO Group malware that the Saudis used to hack Whatsapp, which let them lure Jamal Khashoggi to his death. The stakes couldn't be higher:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/04/citizen-lab/#nso-group

Encryption protects everything from the software updates for pacemakers and anti-lock braking to population-scale financial transactions and patient records. Deliberately introducing bugs into these systems to allow spies and cops to "break" encryption when they need to is impossible, which doesn't stop governments from demanding it. Notoriously, when former Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull was told that the laws of mathematics decreed that there is no way to make encryption that only stops bad guys but lets in good guys, he replied "The laws of mathematics are very commendable but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/australian-pm-calls-end-end-encryption-ban-says-laws-mathematics-dont-apply-down

The risks don't stop with bad actors leveraging new bugs introduced when the "lawful interception" back-doors are inserted. The keys that open these back-doors inevitably circulate widely within spy and police agencies, and eventually – inevitably – they leak. This is called the "keys under doormats" problem: if the police order tech companies to hide the keys to access billions of peoples' data under their doormats, eventually, bad guys will find them there:

https://academic.oup.com/cybersecurity/article/1/1/69/2367066

Again, this isn't a theoretical risk. In 1994, Bill Clinton signed a US law called CALEA that required FBI back-doors for data switches. Most network switches in use today have CALEA back-doors and they have been widely exploited by various bad guys. Most recently, the Chinese military used CALEA backdoors to hack Verizon, AT&T and Lumen:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/07/foreseeable-outcomes/#calea

This is the backdrop against which the Snooper's Charter was passed. Parliament stuck its fingers in its ears, covered its eyes, and voted for the damned thing, swearing that it would never result in any of the eminently foreseeable harms they'd been warned of.

Which brings us to today. Two weeks ago, the Washington Post's Joseph Menn broke the story that Apple had received a secret order from the British government, demanding that they install a back-door in the encryption system that protects cloud backups of iOS devices:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/07/apple-encryption-backdoor-uk/

Virtually every iOS device in the world regularly backs itself up to Apple's cloud backup service. This is very useful: if your phone or tablet is lost, stolen or damaged, you can recover your backup to a new device in a matter of minutes and get on with your day. It's also very lucrative for Apple, which charges every iOS user a few dollars every month for backup services. The dollar amount here is small, but that sum is multiplied by the very large number of Apple devices, and it rolls in every single month.

Since 2022, Apple has offered its users a feature called "Advanced Data Protection" that employs "end-to-end" encryption (E2EE) for these backups. End-to-end encryption keeps data encrypted between the sender and the receiver, so that the service provider can't see what they're saying to each other. In the case of iCloud backups, this means that while an Apple customer can decrypt their backup data when they access it in the cloud, Apple itself cannot. All Apple can see is that there is an impenetrable blob of user data on one of its servers.

2022 was very late for Apple to have added E2EE to its cloud backups. After all, in 2014, Apple customers suffered a massive iCloud breach when hackers broke into the iCloud backups of hundreds of celebrities, leaking nude photos and other private data, in a breach colloquially called "Celebgate" or "The Fappening":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak

Apple almost rolled out E2EE for iCloud in 2018, but scrapped the plans after Donald Trump's FBI leaned on them:

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sour-idUSKBN1ZK1CO/

Better late than never. For three years, Apple customers' backups have been encrypted, at rest, on Apple's servers, their contents fully opaque to everyone except the devices' owners. Enter His Majesty's Government, clutching the Snooper's Charter. As the eminent cryptographer Matthew Green writes, a secret order to compromise the cloud backups of British users is necessarily a secret order to compromise all users' encrypted backups:

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2025/02/23/three-questions-about-apple-encryption-and-the-u-k/

There's no way to roll out a compromised system in the UK that differs from non-British backups without the legion of reverse-engineers and security analysts noticing that something new is happening in Britain and correctly inferring that Apple has been served with a secret "Technical Capability Notice" under the Snooper's Charter:

Even if you imagine that Apple is only being asked only to target users in the U.K., the company would either need to build this capability globally, or it would need to deploy a new version or “zone”1 for U.K. users that would work differently from the version for, say, U.S. users. From a technical perspective, this would be tantamount to admitting that the U.K.’s version is somehow operationally distinct from the U.S. version. That would invite reverse-engineers to ask very pointed questions and the secret would almost certainly be out.

For Apple, the only winning move was not to play. Rather than breaking the security for its iCloud backups worldwide, it simply promised to turn off all security for backups in the UK. If they go through with it, every British iOS user – doctors, lawyers, small and large business, and individuals – will be exposed to incalculable risk from spies and criminals, both organized and petty.

For Green, this is Apple making the best of an impossible conundrum. Apple does have a long and proud history of standing up to governmental demands to compromise its users. Most notably, the FBI ordered Apple to push an encryption-removing update to its phones in 2016, to help it gain access to a device recovered from the bodies of the San Bernardino shooters:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/eff-support-apple-encryption-battle

But it's worth zooming out here for a moment and considering all the things that led up to Apple facing this demand. By design, Apple's iOS platform blocks users from installing software unless Apple approves it and lists it in the App Store. Apple uses legal protections (such as Section 1201 of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Article 6 of the EUCD, which the UK adopted in 2003 through the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations) to make it a jailable offense to reverse-engineer and bypass these blocks. They also devote substantial technical effort to preventing third parties from reverse-engineering its software and hardware locks. Installing software forbidden by Apple on your own iPhone is thus both illegal and very, very hard.

This means that if Apple removes an app from its App Store, its customers can no longer get that app. When Apple launched this system, they were warned – by the same cohort of experts who warned the UK government about the risks of the Snooper's Charter – that it would turn into an attractive nuisance. If a corporation has the power to compromise billions of users' devices, governments will inevitably order that corporation to do so.

Which is exactly what happened. Apple has already removed all working privacy tools for its Chinese users, purging the Chinese App Store of secure VPN apps, compromising its Chinese cloud backups, and downgrading its Airdrop file-transfer software to help the Chinese state crack down on protesters:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/11/foreseeable-consequences/#airdropped

These are the absolutely foreseeable – and foreseen – outcomes of Apple arrogating total remote control over its customers' devices to itself. If we're going to fault Theresa May's Conservatives for refusing to heed the warnings of the risks introduced by the Snooper's Charter, we should be every bit as critical of Apple for chasing profits at the expense of billions of its customers in the face of warnings that its "curated computing" model would inevitably give rise to the Snooper's Charter and laws like it.

As Pavel Chekov famously wrote: "a phaser on the bridge in act one will always go off by act three." Apple set itself up with the power to override its customers' decisions about the devices it sells them, and then that power was abused in a hundred ways, large and small:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

Of course, there are plenty of third-party apps in the App Store that allow you to make an end-to-end encrypted backup to non-Apple cloud servers, and Apple's onerous App Store payment policies mean that they get to cream off 30% of every dollar you spend with its rivals:

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1iv072y/endtoend_encrypted_alternative_to_icloud_drive/

It's entirely possible to find an end-to-end encrypted backup provider that has no presence in the UK and can tell the UK government to fuck off with its ridiculous back-door demands. For example, Signal has repeatedly promised to pull its personnel and assets out of the UK before it would compromise its encryption:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/

But even if the company that provides your backup is impervious to pressure from HMG, Apple isn't. Apple has the absolute, unchallenged power to decide which apps are in its App Store. Apple has a long history of nuking privacy-preserving and privacy-enhancing apps from its App Store in response to complaints, even petty ones from rival companies like Meta:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378541/the-og-app-instagram-clone-pulled-from-app-store

If they're going to cave into Zuck's demand to facilitate spying on Instagram users, do we really think they'll resist Kier Starmer's demands to remove Signal – and any other app that stands up to the Snooper's Charter – from the App Store?

It goes without saying that the "bad guys" the UK government claims it wants to target will be able to communicate in secret no matter what Apple does here. They can just use an Android phone and sideload a secure messaging app, or register an iPhone in Ireland or any other country and bring it to the UK. The only people who will be harmed by the combination of the British government's reckless disregard for security, and Apple's designs that trade the security of its users for the security of its shareholders are millions of law-abiding Britons, whose most sensitive data will be up for grabs by anyone who hacks their accounts.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/25/sneak-and-peek/#pavel-chekov

Image: Mitch Barrie (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daytona_Skeleton_AR-15_completed_rifle_%2817551907724%29.jpg

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

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Kambanji https://www.flickr.com/photos/kambanji/4135216486/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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[hunnam]

[justme068]

He used to be so silly <3

[fateswind0wseat]

"I swear! I'm going to be a good girl now! That's it!"

[unteriors]

King Street, Richmond Hill (Charters Towers), Queensland.

[forgetme-eternally-blissfully]

“So, babysitting?”

Alberu follows after the delinquent. From the record the vice-principal gave him access to, Cale frequently drinks alcohol, he often gets himself into a lot of fights, and he barely passed his classes at the end of the grading period. The teachers never call on him in class, girls and boys avoid him alike, and he is- supposedly- completely intolerable.

Which is why Alberu Crossman, who’s only a little older yet infinitely more mature has been assigned by the principal (his father) to get the troublemaker under thumb. Cale's father is quite wealthy, actually, and since there isn't much known about the successor to the Henituse family... it'd be bad if he had to be expelled.

Cale scowled. “Yes, babysitting, your highness. Please, leave if you must,” He jeers at Alberu, but internally he thinks, 'No, really. Please leave.' Otherwise, he might get caught in the act.

Of not actually being Cale.

Roksu aims a sour expression at Alberu, who returns it with a more flowery one. Acting as his twin for the day had been easy enough, mainly because being trash is great!- until Alberu Crossman strolled into his lunch period and introduced himself.

He is even following him out of the school to his job. Well, this job is Roksu’s and not Cale’s, but because he can’t ditch work nor can he get glib-tongued Alberu off his tail-

Well shit.

Thankfully, the kids call him hyung. Except Raon, who calls him human. Hopefully Alberu doesn’t look into it too much. If everything goes right, Alberu Crossman will be Cale's problem to deal with tomorrow. As it should have been.

“I didn’t know you liked kids, Cale,” Alberu smiles charmingly, walking side by side with Roksu. “Can you introduce me?” Roksu struggles to not put on his own disarming smile out of spite, instead plastering on a classic Cale Sneer™. It fits on his face perfectly, like he’s playing a character in a play.

They enter the building and ‘Cale’ guides Alberu to a colorful playroom, decked out in toys and a fountain of running water as the centerpiece (A gift from his father, who is still upset that Roksu doesn't visit more often). There’s a tray of fruits and oatmeal on the small table in the corner of the room, except not a soul to be seen. Picking up a bowl of oatmeal and finding the ceramic to still be hot, Roksu almost smiles.

Alberu frowns. Where are the kids he's supposed to babysit?

Roksu tells the empty air, "Come on out."

Three children appear out of nowhere in front of them.

“Hyung!”

“Human! You’re back!”

“Hyung, nya.” On examines Alberu some more.

All of the kids had been revealed the moment that Roksu spoke, as Raon unveiled the invisibility on them.

Raon runs up and grabs Roksu’s hand, who places it on his head, rubbing the black hair comfortingly. “Mm.” Raon beams at the affection.

“Raon, On, Hong,” they each look up at him at the call of their names. “This is Alberu Crossman, he is doing a report on my trashy behavior. Don’t be rude."

All three children become hostile immediately. “He isn't trash!”

On observes Alberu with an intense glare. Raon shifts under Roksu’s hand, his deep blue eyes glinting with magic. Roksu positions him away from the older teen’s view. Raon grips onto Roksu’s pant leg with a vengeance. Hong stares openly, offensive.

Alberu smiles at them.

"I'm visiting with Cale Hyung for today, nice to meet you."

Hong gasps suddenly.

“He-!” On gives her brother a look, and he clamps his hands over his mouth. Alberu feels a deep curiosity, as if something isn’t quite as it seems.

Roksu sighs. It’s going to be a long hour.

At the midway point, Alberu has easily disarmed the children. They look fascinated at the magic he shows them, while Roksu can only rub a palm over Raon’s shoulder as a warning to keep his dragon magic under control. He's still just a child that wants to brag. Everything is going well.

Bang!

“Hey Roksu! How was-“ Cale bursts through the door, bright red hair equipped with a shit-eating grin, wearing clothes far less fancy than his usual. He tenses up, frozen in place when he spots Alberu on the floor, politely sitting "crisscross applesauce" with the children. Roksu narrows a withering glare at his twin.

“… Roksu?”

Alberu looks at ‘Cale,’ sitting next to him, the one he's spent the entire day with, who is trying to send what must be the real Cale into the sun with his eyes.

“Ha… ha?” Cale winces. Roksu wipes his expression from his face.

“Cale-hyung, run! That’s the human’s bad look!” Alberu’s eyes widen as he watches the confirmed real Cale bolt back into the hallway and out of the front door. Alberu whips his head back toward the stranger behind him, who is a perfect replica of the Cale who ran like Hell. Cale has an identical twin?? Since when? Why doesn't he go to school?

Roksu levels an emotionless gaze at Alberu. “Hello, your highness. Don’t mind me.”

Alberu can only watch in astonishment as this stranger walks out of the playroom, with a smooth and deadly gait as he hunts down his twin like a predator would to prey. He recalls the look 'Roksu' gave him and it sends a shiver down the principal’s son’s spine. That gaze held secrets.

Something about this stranger is even more interesting than the sudden appearance of a twin.

On walks up to him, sitting down in his lap and looking into his eyes. “Roksu-hyung will be back soon, nya!” Hong bounds over and sits next to his sister, grinning widely. Raon huffs and looks at the door. He wants his human to come back.