#THE DATA TAKES UP 2 PAGES ALL BY ITSELF

[mollyjimbly]

🚨🚨🚨RED ALERT🚨🚨🚨

if you care about trans folks please take a few minutes to read through this post and share.

They are not even trying to hide their true intentions with KOSA...

"Top of the agenda is to go after providers of gender affirming care, including for adults. The FTC could also go after online platforms for displaying LGBTQ content which would be supercharged under KOSA."

This is catastrophically bad.

There is a HUGE push to pass KOSA rn at the end of the year.

Real quick summary: Blumenthal and Blackburn "rewrote" KOSA to appeal to the right more. They worked with ELON MUSK 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♂️ to push this bill "protecting kids". Tomorrow, many orgs are bringing groups of parents to speak to congress. This is coming at a time when FTC commissioner admitted their agenda is straight transphobia:

There are two ways KOSA can be passed right now. Either from the House or attaching it to an end of year spending bill. They will try both.

Republican leadership (Scalise and Johnson) are surprisingly what is stopping thia from going through. They wont admit it out loud but they dont like the bill.

WE NEED TO PUSH BACK NOW!! Tomorrow those phones need to be ringing OFF THE HOOK while they meet with parents.

PLEASE SPREAD THIS EVERYWHERE!! ADD THESE LINKS TO TWITTER, REDDIT, INSTA, TIKTOK!!

USE THESE CALLING TOOLS AND SCRIPTS TODAY AND TOMORROW ALL DAY!!!

SCRIPTS:

🔴 If your rep is GOP:

"I am urging you to VOTE NO on KOSA, the Kid’s Online Safety Act. This is a dangerous bill that will harm children.

Many news organizations have reported that this bill actively harms kids by exposing their private data to strangers under the guise of protecting them.

We need to hold Big Tech accountable, but KOSA is not the solution.

The bill let any state attorney general and the FTC to sue any website for “harmful” content. Do we really want blue state lawyers deciding what can and can’t be allowed online?

Big Tech is already censoring us. That’s why they support KOSA. This is massive government overreach. We need a bill that actually protects children by creating better security measures instead of bringing about more censorship.

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language.

KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies, which would put them in further danger. How is this protecting children’s privacy?

What parent would want their child’s private data in the hands of strangers like this? KOSA is actively putting kids in danger.

Do NOT support this bill. Thank you."

Also,to note, Biden supports KOSA: You could try asking your GOP rep why they would support a bill that has Biden's support,and that he could use it to his advantage somehow (we know GOP does not like Biden,so it should be utilized somehow). We need to ensure the bill doesnt pass at all.

🔵 if your rep is DEM:

"I am urging you to VOTE NO on KOSA. Nearly 200 human rights and LGBT organizations total came out in an open letter opposing it. The ACLU is against it. Hundreds of thousands of Gen Z, who actually live online, are against it.

We know the harms of social media, and we know this is not the solution. The new language does NOT meet any concerns brought up, in fact many organizations were ignored.

Major news have reported that this bill actively harms kids. We do not want this. The rewritten bill would still allow any state attorney general, and now the FTC, to sue any website for “harmful” content. When you have Republicans calling anything LGBT “sexual exploitation” or anything about race “CRT” to successfully ban books and teachers, then they will use any justification to censor the internet.

The Missouri attorney general used “mental health” successfully to ban gender-affirming care with backed up research. Suicide rates will skyrocket for marginalized youth with this bill restricting content. Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language.

KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies. Furthermore, updated language threatens encryption the same way the Earn It Act does.

How is this protecting children’s privacy? KOSA actively harms kids. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you."

Tell them you'll vote for your reps if they vote no on KOSA, anything goes. But most importantly it's crucial that KOSA is not being brought at all for any vote.

Thank you, remember to stay calm and stay strong. We've got this!! ♡

[vergess]

Please, please explain how to install and use linux like I'm 5 years old. I'm so sick of windows adding AI and other bullshit to my already struggling elderly laptop but I'm really not good with computers at all so I have no idea where to start with Linux.

Okay, so, I'm going to break this down into steps I would give the average tumblr user first, and then if any of them are confusing or use words you don't understand, ask me and I'll explain that step in greater detail.

Step 0) BACK. UP. YOUR. SHIT.

NEVER EVER EVER CHANGE YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM WITHOUT A COMPLETE BACKUP OF ALL YOUR FILES.

Step 1) Learn your machine. You need to know:

How much RAM you have

If your processor is 32 or 64 bit

How big your hard drive is

On windows, you can find out all of this by going to the start menu, typing "about" and opening the first result on your system instead of the internet.

For additional instructions, visit this page.

Step 2) Pick your Linux.

There's like 10,000 kinds of Linux, each tailored to particular functions that the end-user (that is you!) might want to have. The sheer amount is very daunting, so first I'm going to give my suggestions, then I'll explain how to pick for yourself.

For Mac users, I suggest Kubuntu. For windows users, I suggest Mint Cinnamon. If your laptop is really REALLY old, I recommend Sparky Stable, which is the lightest weight Linux I would ever suggest for a new user. In every case, download the version suited to your processor (32 bit can be labelled "x86" or "32 bit"; 64 bit is always labelled "64 bit").

If you want to try a different type of linux, you'll need to make sure your laptop meets the "minimum specs" or "system requirements." These numbers tell you how much RAM, processor and hard drive space the linux will use. (That's why you needed those numbers at the beginning.)

Step 3) Collect your supplies. You're going to need:

An ISO burning program compatible with your current system, like Balena Etcher.

A copy of the ISO file for the Linux you want to use.

Your laptop.

An 8gb or larger USB flash drive.

Step 3) Make a bootable USB drive

Install Balena Etcher, hitting "okay" and "next" when prompted. Last I checked, Etcher doesn't have adware attached, so you can just hit next every time.

Plug your USB drive into the laptop.

Open Etcher.

Click "flash from file" and open the ISO file with your Linux on it.

Click "Select target" and open the USB drive location. Hit the "flash" button. This will start writing all the linux installer data to your flash drive. Depending on the speed of your machine, this could take as long as 10 minutes, but shouldn't be much longer.

Step 4) Boot to the USB drive

This is, in my opinion, the trickiest step for a lot of people who don't do "computer stuff." Fortunately, in a rare act of good will, Windows 10 made this process a lot easier.

All you'll need to do is go to settings, then recovery, then advanced startup and pick the button labelled "use a device."

This tutorial has images showing where each of those is located. It's considered an "advanced setting" so you may get a spooky popup warning you that you could "harm your system by making changes" but we're not doing anything potentially harmful so you can ignore that if you get it.

Step 5) Try out linux on the flash drive first.

Linux installs using a cool little test version of itself that you can play around in. You won't be able to make changes or save settings, but you can explore a bit and see if the interface is to your liking. If it's hideous or hard to navigate, simply pick a new linux version to download, and repeat the "make a bootable USB" step for it.

Step 6) Actually install that sucker

This step varies from version to version, but the first part should be the same across the board: on the desktop, there should be a shortcut that says something like "install now." Double click it.

Follow the instructions your specific linux version gives you. When in doubt, pick the default, with one exception:

If it asks you to encrypt your drive say no. That's a more advanced feature that can really fuck your shit up down the road if you don't know how to handle it.

At some point you're going to get a scary looking warning that says 1 of 2 things. Either:

Install Linux alongside Windows, or

Format harddrive to delete all data

That first option will let you do what is called "dual booting." From then on, your computer will ask every time you turn it on whether you want Windows or Linux.

The second option will nuke Windows from orbit, leaving only linux behind.

The install process is slower the larger your chosen version is, but I've never seen it take more than half an hour. During that time, most linux versions will have a little slideshow of the features and layout of common settings that you can read or ignore as you prefer.

Step 7) Boot to your sexy new Linux device.

If you're dual booting, use the arrow keys and enter key to select your linux version from the new boot menu, called GRUB.

If you've only got linux, turn the computer on as normal and linux will boot up immediately.

Bonus Step: Copy Pasting some code

In your new start menu, look for an application called "terminal" or "terminal emulator." Open that up, and you will be presented with an intense looking (but actually very harmless) text command area.

Now, open up your web browser (firefox comes pre-installed on most!), and search the phrase "what to do after installing [linux version you picked]"

You're looking for a website called "It's FOSS." Here's a link to their page on Mint. This site has lots and lots of snippets of little text commands you can experiment with to learn how that functionality works!

Or, if you don't want to fuck with the terminal at all (fair enough!) then instead of "terminal" look for something called "software manager."

This is sort of like an app store for linux; you can install all kinds of programs directly from there without needing to go to the website of the program itself!

[meinkatzchen]

If mist had a route in btd how would it be like? What would get you killed, what environment would we be in, and what would be some of the good and bad endings?

That's a wonderful question! I didn't really have a route for her during BTD because she was a good and timid at that time, just trying to adapt to the situation she found herself in, but I did start to plan her route for TPoF-period, when she changed a lot. And I'll try to be as brief as possible.

I guess I should fill her in on her nature first, because she's definitely not human and not exactly a beastkin. She was until her first real death in Strade's basement, but after that, she's a creature that can only exist through the consciousness and memories of other people. She's drawn to power, to authority, to life itself in all its manifestation, secretly envious of those who have that gift, not worried about disappearing without a trace at any given time. Mist is technically immortal; playful, capricious, cunning, manipulative, and unpredictable as cat itself, with a charisma and the ability to talk anyone out of it, and also paranoid. (And to avoid further questions: No, she does not have magical abilities to hide her ears and tail. And yes, the cultists has gotten used to her appearance. And yes, newcomers do not immediately notice her peculiarities, because she has a habit of pressing her cat ears to her hair, and her tail is not visible under her coats/skirts ^3^) The question of creating a cult would be a matter of time for her: for power, for protection, for her own life.

Sonia Milasch, also known as "Mist", is the leader of a cult called "Anima Infinita", which she created over five years together with her two assistants (I will not tell much about it, since there is already a lot of text here.)

You could say that this route is an AU, in which she would agree to cooperate with a person who insistently demanded her cooperation and her cult lives and prospers. In reality, she failed.

-Location: The route itself will take place in an isolated territory-cult base in the forest near the lake. The territory is surrounded by a stone fence.

-Main opponents/possible allies: Mist + Tanya, Bruno (and I still need to come up with more characters, because so far there are two horny women and one man who just wants order :D)

-Time: 3 days.

-Map: As for specific locations, I have too many different ideas right now, but MC can use the map to move around the territory.

-Backstory:

"You were having a hard time dealing with the loss of a dear relative who had recently left this world. The wound on your heart and soul was still bleeding, and a sudden letter on social networks made your heart clench with renewed vigor. Judging by the last name, it was some relative you hadn't heard of before, but the amount of information she had about the life of the deceased relative made you think that it was all true. You both had a lot to remember and grieve about, a lot to share, when after a couple of days of your communication, she sent you an invitation link to a charming and peaceful website in light colors and with an elegant swift symbol on the page banner, the text of which spoke of a cult that temporarily lived like a family, conducting psychological trainings and group therapies to heal psychological trauma. Doubts overwhelmed you, but your relative assured you that her friend had returned after these trainings, finally, peaceful and calm and that she herself is going to go to tomorrow's gathering of new members:

1) Agree (continuation of the plot) 2) Disagree (ending 0 (You stayed home, deciding that you still had the inner strength to cope with depression.)

You filled out the application form on the website for admission to the Cult (name, pronoun, data) and were approved and included in the list and, at the appointed time, at the appointed place, you arrived a little late. Unfortunately, it was your bus that broke down, what a misfortune. But then you passed through the gate of the stone fence and found yourself inside the base, which had several buildings, people scurrying around and everything seemed so lively that you even got a little confused, but before you had time to come to your senses, you were quickly overtaken by a short young woman with a tablet in her hands. "

SO, Mist approached MC and scolded them a little for being late, but overall, she greeted them warmly, almost in a motherly manner. She said that in 3 days they would have a holiday for which she was preparing, so the MC would have the opportunity to help her, increase her sympathy for them and generally chat and learn more about the cult or can refuse and walk around the territory.

Near the training complex, MC can meet Tanya: a tall woman with a braided high ponytail, dark hair and yellow eyes. She will mockingly note that newcomers must adhere to strict discipline and that many places are closed to them for now, and trespassing will lead to various punishments, for which she is responsible. However, tomorrow there is some kind of pre-holiday games planned, in which newcomers can show their strengths and weaknesses. MC can ask what awaits the winners, to which she will smile, shake her head and say that the prize will always find its winner, you just need to be more patient.

Near the armory you can meet Bruno: a tall man with light, slightly curly hair, green eyes, in a sand-colored military jacket, he went out to smoke. He treats newcomers patronizingly and does not give off any coldness or aggression, you can learn from him that he can't stand the holiday that is approaching, but he can't object to Mist and in general feels calmer when she is happy. In general, on the first day, you can hang around, talk to NPCs, increase the sympathy of main characters, and go to bed at night.

Possible endings on the first day: (possible on any other day): "You were a danger." (try to escape after arriving at a closed area -> shot from a sniper rifle on a fence tower. Affection does not affect. Death.)

-Second day. Pre-holiday games.

In general, if I were developing a game, I think I would add a few mini-games to this segment, but if I were creating a novel, I think there would only be role-playing of the MC, like he's either weak or active, I don't know. Or insert some randomness. If MC shows high results in active games, this will greatly increase Tanya's sympathy, slightly increase Bruno's sympathy, and Mist doesn't give a shit at all. Her sympathy can be increased if you take a break during the games and chat with her, at the same time find out that in general she likes games and especially winning them, which didn't happen as often as she wanted, but the main thing in games is not winning, but participating and having fun. Also, she can say that she hasn't been feeling well in the last few days, so if she weren't nauseous and cold, she would definitely take part in vaulting. If MC expresses concern, they will receive sympathy, and at the same time learn that she plans to fly home from the base tomorrow.

Also, while everyone is busy, MC can explore locations that were previously prohibited. For example, the armory or one of the barns. Feeling that something is wrong with this cult (I think MC could have seen in advance that the snipers was not letting anyone out and draw their own conclusions), they could take either a pistol or a knife for self-defense. If they start shooting somewhere near Bruno, his PTSD trigger will work (yes, he is a former soldier with PTSD, surprise surprise…..) and he will lose control of himself, killing not only MC, but also several people nearby.

MC can kill Tanya with a knife, kill Bruno, if they stab Mist with a knife, she will shoot MC.

They can get into the barn where barrels of narcotic gas are stored, which makes other cultists more loyal, but in this case the MC will get stuck here and will not be able to get out (they will only get out into the grave, sorry) And oh my god, I'll probably stop with the plot at this point, because it all takes too long to describe and the amount of text is already scaring me. I'll stop at the deaths and briefly describe them.

Endings of the second day:

1) "Bruno did not recognize you." (After the shot, Bruno triggers and kills the MC and several people with his bare hands. Affection does not affect. Death)

2) "Man's best friend." (Increase Mist's max sympathy -> she will start flirting and hinting at MC -> They won't mind intimacy -> after sex Mist will cut off their hands, feet and tongue so that they can only make coughing barking sounds and become a good girl/good boy and keeping secret. Survived!)

3) "Overdose." (Release 10 times the narcotic gas by inhaling it in a closed barn. Death.)

4) "Lovely sweet dream." (Release the gas 5-6 times and wait, after which the MC will start seeing charming hallucinations. A moment later, Mist will come to the barn IN A FURIOUS FURY, because the ingredients and the creation of this gas cost a lot of money, and some newbie is sucking it in with one nose. The MC will not even understand anything, as he will see in the hallucinations his heart in Mist's hand, which was still beating until she sharply squeezed it. Death.)

5) "Mist ended the fight" (MC stabbed her with a knife, and Mist shot their brains out in response.)

The personal endings of other characters are still being thought out, since the list of characters is still not complete-

Endings of day 3.

1) "You have made your contribution." (The essence of the holiday is sacrifice. MC's throat was cut and thrown into the lake, so the last thing they saw was how the water turned a deep scarlet color. Low affection of all characters. Death.)

2) "You do not belong here." (The award has found its winner. Having shown excellent results in the games of the second day, MC was pumped up with drugs and they and some other newcomers were exported further by helicopter, like goods, and their further fate is no longer the concern of the cult. Survived.)

There is a variation of this ending, with high affection of Mist and with the condition that her flirtations were ignored, replaced by care. Then on the helicopter she will want MC to fly with her as an escort due to poor health. It's a pity that at the end of the journey death from a shot to the head awaits, although Mist will really try to save MC.

That's all I've thought of for now :)

[security-chief-odo]

To Love and Be Loved in Return - Chapter Two

Roy Kent x Reader

Read chapter 1 here

Description: The awkwardness from yesterday still lingers between you and Roy. Jamie, Rebecca and Keeley all try to make you feel better in their own ways.

Word Count: ~1.4k

• • •

Chapter 2 - Pep Talk

Coming into work Friday morning is a monumental task in and of itself. You spent most of the night before overthinking every moment with Roy that day.

You had spiraled through every possible analysis of your conversation, but as of this morning you’ve stopped worrying as much about that interaction and more about how any interaction you have today will go. He was still acting awkward about it at the end of the day, so he probably won’t be much better today.

Either way, you have work to get done before your lunch “meeting” with Rebecca and Keeley at noon. This “meeting” had become somewhat of a weekly routine for the three of you. It didn’t take long after you were hired for you to become fast friends with Rebecca, and Keeley was pretty much fast friends with everyone she’s ever met.

You watch the time tick by as you finish up your reports and interview prep for Roy. You consider just emailing them to him to avoid any awkwardness, but you know that he always works better with hard copies to review and mark up as needed. As much as seeing him today has made you nervous, you couldn’t let your feelings for Roy get in the way of doing your job well.

With this new found resolve and the best poker face you are capable of, you head downstairs and through the mostly empty locker room. You find yourself stopped at the door to the office, skimming over the report in your hands, anxiously looking for any errors or really any excuse to run back upstairs and redo it all. Maybe you could push off seeing him again until Monday.

“He’s not that scary,” Jamie chimes in behind you.

You tilt your head to look at him and raise a brow in question. He continues “Roy, ya know, he’s all grumpy with the scary eyebrows” he tries to mimic Roy’s face “and well just his general vibe, I suppose.” He trails off at the end of the last sentence.

You look at him, dumbfounded. “Was that supposed to reassure me?”

“Oh, uh, no. What I was tryin’ to say was that he’s just grumpy but he’s not really that mean. He likes ya well enough, so just go in there. Stop worryin’ so much.”

If only mean was what worried you about Roy, but of course you couldn’t say that to Jamie. The moment that man figured out how you felt about a certain coach, the entire team would know within minutes.

“Thank you Jamie. I appreciate the pep talk,” and it was true. You did appreciate the pep talk even if it was terribly misguided. Though it may be for the best that your coworkers don't all know how you really feel about your boss, and if Jamie knew, he'd give it away before long.

With a deep breath you open the door to the office with a smile plastered across your face.

Coach Beard was the first to acknowledge you. He offered a friendly smile and polite nod which you returned with a small wave. Walking past him, you stood by Roy’s desk and held the papers out to him. “Overview is on top, followed by the analytical reports, then the raw data and the last page is talking points for any press interviews.”

“Oh, I didn’t need this until Monday. You didn’t have to get it done so fast.”

“I like to stay on top of things, coach.”

“Have I ever told you that you’re my favorite assistant?”

“I’m your only assistant.” Conversation is flowing naturally between you and much of the tension from yesterday seems to have dissipated.

“Makes it easy to rank then, but I really do appreciate you getting this done y/n”

“That’s what I’m here for.” There’s a moment of comfortable silence that you relish in before turning to leave.

“Wait,” you stop in your tracks, “Do you want to go grab lunch?” He stands up and gathers his things. “It’s about that time anyway.”

“Can’t today, I’m sorry. I’ve got lunch plans with Rebecca and Keeley today.”

“Fuck, right, I forgot all about that.” he waves you off “No worries, go have fun, do “girl talk” or whatever. Let me know how it goes.”

“Of course.” You pause before adding, “Maybe we can figure out lunch together on Monday?” He nods in response and your phone buzzes in your hand. “And that would be Rebecca, see you later!”

You rush out the door before he has a moment to respond.

You arrive at the restaurant with Rebecca first. Keeley texted that she’s running a few minutes late.

You had told Rebecca about your feelings for Roy a couple weeks back and you needed to get the past couple days off your chest as he had consumed most of your waking thoughts for the past 24 hours.

“So, Roy asked me to be his plus one for the gala next weekend.”

“Oh?” Rebecca looked hopeful albeit rather confused, “And why are you saying that like it’s a bad thing?”

“Well, when he slipped up and referred to me as his date, he panicked at the idea and made it beyond clear he isn’t into me. Of course I knew he didn’t like me, I mean he’s Roy fucking Kent, he dates gorgeous models, not regular office workers, but it still hurt that i didn’t get the chance to ask him out before getting brutally rejected.”

“That’s stupid.”

“What?”

“Roy would be fucking lucky to have you. Just because he’s too stupid to see it, doesn’t make you worth less just because you aren't some model.”

“It just sucks. I can’t stand being alone with him. I think I’m falling in love and he will never see me as more than just an assistant.”

“Who are we talking about?” Keeley walks up in time to hear your last remark. You were waiting to tell her until you were finally ready to deal with her teasing. She had moved on and you knew she would have no problem with you liking Roy, but she would be almost relentlessly supportive, which might just be worse.

At the same time you say “No one.” and Rebecca says “Roy”

“Ooh, falling for the boss?” Keeley adds as she sits next to you.

The waiter comes by and takes your food order. After he leaves your table Rebecca fills Keeley in on the situation. When she finishes you add, “So I’m falling for a guy who finds the idea of even a single date with me so repulsive he panicked at the suggestion.”

“I don’t think that’s it, babes. Roy is always a little panicked, he just usually gets mad about it instead. If he’s willing to show that he’s worried, then he’s dropping that facade a bit. I say you should ask him out.”

“And get turned down again?”

“I don’t know about that y/n. He seemed pretty nervous when he texted me about taking you out dress shopping.”

At that moment, the waiter brings your food, putting an end to that conversation before you got the chance to ask Keeley what she meant by that.

She asks the waiter to bring you a round of drinks. After the waiter leaves you lightly elbow Keeley. “I’ve got to go back to work after this. I can’t be drinking.”

Rebecca scoffs “Well, I’m your boss and I say you need a drink. I’m giving you the rest of the day off.”

Keeley adds, “It’s not like you’d get much done anyways. You’ll be too busy daydreaming about a certain coach.

“Fuck off” you laugh. You don’t really mean it and you all know it. You pull out your phone to text Roy.

Y/N: Hey, I won’t be back after lunch. Everything is caught up. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll see you on Monday!

You see the bubbles appear and disappear for a couple of minutes as you try to subtly keep an eye on your phone. Finally your torture ends as your phone vibrates in your hand.

ROY: Ok.

Those three characters should not be enough to stress you out. There’s hardly anything there to overanalyze, but that won't stop you. You take a long swig of your drink hoping that maybe the burning feeling as it slides down your throat will provide enough of a distraction.

• • •

Read Chapter 3

Series Taglist: @infinetlyforgotten @taytaylala12 @siriuslyreads

Let me know what you thought of this chapter and if you want to be added to the taglist for this series. 🖤

[paper-mario-wiki]

Your Trollsona is such a damn cool concept! I love the sheer insanity that the RPS unfolds into and I gotta ask, how does their Captchalogue and Fetch Modi work? Those are always another fun bonus way characters quirks are shown

Not quite!

The Sylladex object recovery and creation system is COMPLETELY separate from the RPS system.

Total mastery of the RPS fractal would be DESTRUCTIVELY OVERPOWERED, considering if you knew exactly how each object interacts with the other, you'd be able to instantly resolve any conflict with a single action no matter what. But this is near impossible because the RPS catalogue accounts for all possible concepts, not all possible objects. This is why a double-sided barcode is used instead of the typical hole punch system. You can't captchalogue a kick in the nose, after all.

Each line in the barcode represents a single binary digit. With each digit added, the amount of possible values goes up exponentially. Within only 10 lines in the barcode, 1024 values are possible. But what's even MORE exponentially gigantic is having it be double sided, because then it squares itself instead of just doubling itself. So a two-sided ticker tape with 10 bars on each side would be 1024^2, or 1,048,576 different values. And that's with a code that fits within the circumference of a nickel.

However, if you refer back to the gif with the ticker in it:

That's WAY more than a nickel's length.

And that’s an absolute necessity, because every possible concept must be accounted for. The system is pretty fucking wildly, multiversally, insanely gigantic. Hence the need for extremely dense data to get anywhere.

And even then, the bar code doesn’t actually grant you access to the item that its value represents. The only thing it does get you is access to all relative values, or everything that interacts with that object in a meaningful way. The RPS Chart acts as a gigantic excel spreadsheet which catalogs and calculates how one thing could reasonably negate, counteract, subvert, or otherwise destroy another thing, and vice versa.

You can't just KNOW where something is on a fractal, you have to find it. Like how theoretically you could find every single number combination within the digits of pi, but you'd still have to go looking for it.

Imagine it like playing the Wikipedia game, where you can only get from one place to another by clicking through links on pages, except instead of words with context on a screen, it’s dozens to thousands of arbitrary binary digits. The longer the code, the more quantumly hyper-specific the item.

You're going to have a lot easier of a time finding "cup of water" than you are "Betty McLaughlin's Red Diary From 1997".

This is why Kippyr has to spend as much time studying it as they do, because navigating through the chart with any amount of grace would take several human lifetimes to accomplish. However, with the Seer of Mind classpect, as well as their countless hours of diligent observation and experimentation with the chart, Kippyr is able to gracefully navigate through the fractals with the instinctual finesse of a sea turtle in an underwater slipstream.

NOW. Onto the topic of a Fetch Modus.

Kippyr is a slow adopter of it. Fetch modi are not a necessary element in the Homestuck world’s set of natural laws. For the majority of their life, Kippyr'd prefer to just use their satchel and pockets to carry all their stuff around. But as they progress further into Sgrub, and their session becomes more demanding and complex, they’d eventually develop one that works seamlessly with the RPS system:

The RPS Modi. The way it works is simple: Just throw the shape of the object which would beat the object you’re looking for. If you wanted Rock, you’d throw Paper, if you wanted Paper you’d throw Scissors, and if you wanted Scissors you’d throw Rock.

Simple! Just don't forget the hand shapes :^]

[liminalweirdo]

If you are not in the US, you can sign the above petition.

KOSA is censorhip and targets LGBTQ+ and trans youth.

If you are in the US, the resources will help you find your reps so you can call or email them.

change is possible, but activism is called activism because you must act. Don't wait for others to do it for you.

Scripts for email, fax, or telephone below the cut:

DEMOCRATIC VERSION:

Hi, I am urging you to VOTE NO on KOSA, s.1409. Nearly 200 human rights and LGBT organizations total came out in an open letter opposing it in 2022 and 2023 because of how dangerous it is. The new language does NOT meet any concerns brought up, in fact many organizations were ignored. Major news have reported that this bill actively harms kids. When you look online through social media, you will find thousands of posts by Gen Z who are opposed to this bill. We do not want this. 

The rewritten bill would still allow any state attorney general, and now the FTC, to sue any website for “harmful” content. When you have Republicans calling anything LGBT “sexual exploitation” or anything about race “CRT” to successfully ban books and teachers, then they will use any justification to censor the internet. The Missouri attorney general used “mental health” successfully to ban gender-affirming care with backed up research. Suicide rates will skyrocket for marginalized youth with this bill restricting content.

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies. Furthermore, updated language threatens encryption the same way the Earn It Act does. How is this protecting children’s privacy? 

KOSA actively harms kids by taking away educational resources they need right now. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

REPUBLICAN VERSION:

I am urging you to VOTE NO on KOSA, s.1409. This is a dangerous bill that will harm children. Many news organizations have reported that this bill actively harms kids by exposing their private data to strangers under the guise of protecting them. We need to hold Big Tech accountable, but KOSA is not the solution.

The rewritten bill would still allow any state attorney general, and even thr FTC, to sue any website for “harmful” content. Do we really want blue state lawyers deciding what can and can’t be allowed online and continue to censor people? This is massive government overreach. We need a bill that actually protects people by creating better security measures instead of bringing about more censorship.

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies, which would put them in further danger. How is this protecting children’s privacy? What parent would want their child’s private data in the hands of strangers like this? KOSA is actively putting kids in danger. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

[bredforloyalty]

what were u studying? and why did you quit if it’s not too personal

of course it's not too personal! (this is my blog where i yap hdsgvy and i'm just touched anyone even asks)

short version is it made me want to off myself so i stopped / i stopped studying psychology because of my psychological problems ahaha and also i didn't want it all that much to begin with, and also i might have some problems with studying itself (some kind of brain problem), and also the circumstances because i'm back at home and it's not good, and also i'd just rather work and focus on anything else other than a "career" now. i don't want assignments i want something to do with my hands and people to see. i want to enjoy things again. and not have this hanging over my head

longer version: i was doing a psychology bachelor's, i had one course—a research project—to go and the final exam after that. this was my third time with this subject, because, well there are three types of research projects we have to do and the essay type was fine (no data, no stats, just theory), then the questionnaire research i failed in the 4th semester. 5th semester i tried to do both the questionnaire and the experiment research projects (both requiring like actual collection of data) and could only finish the one i had begun before, bc i didn't have to do a wholly different one of the same kind of questionnaire research, i could just pick up the one i had before. these are ~15 page scientific papers by the way, title page and sources and all not included. so i finished that, but i had to ask for an extension and then ANOTHER extension. and i cried most days. it was bad. i got a 5 (A). at this time i was still living in another city, where the campus is, away from home, and this helped, that i was alone in my apartment And i had a friend talking me through the whole process (!!). and it was easier research than the ones that would come after, genuinely. 6th semester (last one), you're not really supposed to do research, because if you want to graduate w everyone else, you have to hand it in about 2 months into the semester, because you have to compile all your research into a portfolio and upload it, so they'll let you take the final exam during the exam period of that semester

now, the first problem was i couldn't do it in 2 months, so i was gonna do the final exam and get the diploma next semester, so a whole summer later. and i moved back home. this freaked out my mother big time. i'll never forget the 3 hours in the car on our way back from the apartment, after we packed up. she was vicious. anyway not only did i not hand in my portfolio, i just couldn't finish the paper. worked a little over the summer, i tried again with new research this september, traveled there and back in the same day (mondays) to talk to the consultant. i finally got a student job, it was and is sooo important to me because i like the environment and the people there are actually normal. and treat me like a person. i was always told and i feared that i'd never get a job or i'd be fired because i'm stupid and incompetent and i can't handle a "real" job (→ i had to study and do something intellectual) and this was not the case.. all of my fears were unfounded actually everything is okay there and i'm not an unpleasant person that customers avoid. in fact i'm pleasant. and i get on well with everyone there. i really like making coffee, i'm kind of looking for a full-time barista job or something similar right now

um. for context my dad does physical work and my mom is white collar. they're getting a divorce now, both just unhappy people, my dad's a misogynist they really hate each other he's hurt my mom a lot. etc. my mom really really really wanted me to get a diploma, she thinks the only reason i would opt out is laziness and a general disinterest for all useful things in life (i think this is related, she wants me to have a better life than dad and to be a different, better person). i couldn't stand her breathing down my neck. two days ago she checked on me SEVEN times during the day, asking if i'm studying (i wasn't btw). my home life is frequently awful even without the added stress of studying, i just couldn't do it anymore. i never even liked studying, it made me miserable most of the time, to have things that i Must do by a certain deadline. some lectures/seminars were fun and stimulating and some weren't, some schools of thought i'm really interested in and others i think are horseshit, this is normal stuff. still, i didn't really find my place within psychology ? and anyway, if i decided i wanted to be a child therapist or a family therapist or work in adoption, it's a looong road there.

if i can only do a 15 page research paper with several extensions and while using up all of my energy to deal with the personal/mental health crisis that is "important project", Without actually ever dealing and resolving this crisis (because, i did try again and again and the same crisis would set in every time), the master's degree is just out of the question. psych BA is half a degree, it's useless in this country without the master's. except for being able to say "i have a degree", it's good for that, some employers ask for only that. and there are certain MAs you can do with a psych BA that aren't psych so of course it wouldn't have been useless. but that's just not reason enough to keep doing this, y'know? it was painful and destabilizing, i couldn't let go of this idea that my academic success or my output or my work is what i'm worth. intellectually, personally. so if i don't do well, i'm dumb or i can't think in complex concepts or my. executive functions are just subpar and i'll never make it in fields that require any studying at all (ofc as i saw it, this last thing would still be my fault because i should've learned to study better and should've worked on my attention span and should've just Wanted it harder and learned to stick with things, and learned to do stuff i don't want to do, or that i don't enjoy doing).

this was untenable, i worked myself into these states, my family couldn't deal with me or help me either. but the main reason i've decided to quit uni (for now; for at least a year i'm quitting and then i'll see if i resume the program) is i want to do something on my own terms. and not be obligated to finish this for my mother, or to be the kind of person she requires me to be. i can't be that person. i'm my own person. as long as i live here and i'm studying (and failing and trying again and failing and-), i can't be my own person. if i finish this program, it has to be because i'm in a better place and ideally getting more support and because i really want it. and it's my thing. currently uni isn't my thing, it's my mother's thing... so yeah i'm much happier now that i've let go of this, and promised myself i'd do what i can to be financially stable (somewhat) and to move out!

[homestuckreplay]

Ditch The Clowns, Get The Crown

(page 627-636)

9/11/2009 Wheel Spin: Sburb Lore Verdict: YES! YES! YES!!!!

9/13/2009 Wheel Spin: being silly :3c Verdict: The Prankster’s Hammer Emerges :3c

John was pretty smart about how he got all those new cards into his sylladex. And now that he has twelve cards, does he even need a ‘detect collisions’? I’m sure he’ll be absolutely fine and there will be absolutely no throwing things off a cliff from here on out. Right????

Two huge things happen in these pages: we get a peek into Harry Anderson: Wise Guy by Mike Caveney, and John creates the pogo hammer, unlocking uncountable new possibilities with alchemy. They’re both super important, but my Wise Guy analysis will be a separate post because I found some weird and cool trivia, so here I’m just discussing the alchemy.

Alchemy is, historically, right at the intersection of science and magic. In that way it’s very cool that John has his breakthrough while reading about magic tricks, considering that up til now the process of punching cards has focused on the mathematics and data storage of it all. Stage magic, however, doesn’t create ‘real’ effects, only its impact on people is real. Alchemy seems entirely real – there’s no trickery, and John sure is holding that hammer. Taking the unreal (video games, the effects of manipulating the mouse and keyboard) and making them real continues to be Sburb’s whole deal, and right now I think Skaia’s power can be best phrased as ‘turning stories into reality’ – encompassing both meanings of creation/creativity at once.

Above are the totems for the hammer and pogo ride individually (p.618 – see bottom right of picture) and for the pogo hammer (p.632). They do all look similar, with a thicker part at the top and another thick section jutting out in the lower half. It’s not identical – the pogo hammer has some crisper edges compared to the smooth curves of the pogo ride – but the pogo hammer totem looks more similar to the pogo alone than to the hammer alone. This suggests that – from an alchemy mechanics perspective - the pogo is the base item, and the hammer is the combinatory or modifying item. It further suggests the idea of a ‘hammer pogo,’ which I imagine as a giant, rideable hammerhead mounted on a spring instead of a handle, one that John could ride to victory just like on p.496, but where his steed itself can bash the imps and John only has to worry about guiding it around. This might be slightly less dangerous than using the pogo itself, as he’d at least be able to hold on, and it would deal more damage. It could be created by punching the hole patterns for both items into a single card, creating more holes instead of less.

The pogo hammer is significantly more expensive than the pogo ride and hammer as individual items. The pogo ride alone costs 5 grist and 1 shale, the hammer alone costs 2 grist, and the pogo hammer is all the way up at 10 grist and 16 shale – the most expensive item we’ve seen so far. The rocket pack with its multiple insertions was technically a more complex item, but was cheaper on grist, maybe because it’s absolutely useless. It makes sense that the grist cost wouldn’t just refer to the components, but to how useful the output will be in the game, so that players can’t get access to gamebreakingly powerful items too early on. I would guess that the rocket pack on its own would be more expensive than the merged item, possibly requiring a grist type that John and Rose don’t have yet.

John is truly acting on whims here. Not long ago he was furious about the imps using his pogo ride, swearing that no-one but him risks injury on the pogo ride (p.476) – but now he barely notices an imp bouncing on the balcony, getting the new one all messy with oil too. He’s got something new to feel overly passionate about, and it is HIS FIRST CUSTOM WEAPON. And not a moment too soon, given that the giant imp has presumably climbed up into John’s yard by now. Lots of combat-based games make it necessary to either upgrade your weapon with additional damage and special moves, or obtain new and more powerful weapons, in order to fight tougher enemies. Players are often able to choose what properties they’d like to imbue their weapons with, or will collect multiple and decide which one to use. In this case, John’s chosen the Bounce property, which allows for the weapon’s attack to ‘jump’ to a second target on a successful hit, stacking an unlimited number of times so long as the attacks continue to land. The imp on p.636 looks understandably scared about this.

The alchemiter, we’ve seen, can be used by either Rose, John, or the imps – I assume they’re the ones who made a whole bunch of regular hammers. John should definitely take the pogo hammer totem and stash it away somewhere, both so that he’s the only one who can use the upgraded weapon, and so that the imps don’t waste all his hard earned grist making a hundred pogo hammers. The imps are mischievous creatures due to the harlequin prototyping, but I’d actually guess this tendency is programmed into the base NPC, pre-prototyping. As well as directly attacking the players, enemies trying to deplete grist resources so that players can’t progress further in the game fits with Sburb’s punishing learning curve, and gives players another task to balance – protecting their carved totems and their alchemiter.

The cosmetic upgrade to the weapon is important too. Instead of a plain, uncolored hammer, the pogo hammer has a green rubber grip and a miniature green Slimer on top of the head, perfectly matching the one on John’s shirt. I know that I will choose a weapon that looks sick as hell over one that does a little more damage but has a boring design, because you gotta have an aesthetic when playing a video game and you gotta stick to it even more strictly than you stick to a mechanical build. John’s whole aesthetic being based around green slime (and perhaps magic, thinking back to his CLEVER DISGUISE) means this weapon is for him and him alone, and with that in mind, it’s poetic that he made it all by himself.

John is really, really excited about his creation, as he should be. He DID ‘make something totally sweet’ as he says to Rose, and I’m really happy to see him proud of himself for this. Rose is really good at this game, and it can be hard to play games with a friend who is a lot better than you, so it feels really good as a reader and a big John fan to see him get this moment of success.

[graytrailcam]

Indie Xenofiction; Data Lion

"Data Lion is a short visual novel about a lion who gets a camera collar put on him by a group of scientists wanting to document his journey. It has choices, 2 love interests, and many alternate endings including bad ends (game overs)!

The idea was inspired by masterpieces like The Lion King and the manga/anime Kimba The White Lion."

Found this game while searching around on Itchio, the game is completely free to download and can be completed within just a few hours. It is described by the author as being unfinished in its current state, but I think it can be played through completely with a feeling of some satisfaction. Here is the link for those interested

More in depth review under the cut featuring spoilers. If you're looking to play I do recommend going in blind, it's fairly simple and the fun is really found in unlocking the CGs, which isn't too hard to do.

This is a short game that reminds me a lot of media I grew up with on dA back in the day, so it was very entertaining. I can definitely tell this takes a lot more inspiration from Kimba than it does TLK with a lot of its story concepts and overall character design. The game itself runs on a seven day cycle so it's fairly short.

I enjoyed the main character's design, he's an intersex, mostly maneless lion that you can name, though the default name that pops up is 'Lion McLionface' (your character was supposedly named via an Internet poll made by the scientists attaching your radio collar)

You're also able to choose your stats, as this game does have (extremely basic and limited) combat. For my playthrough I named the lion 'Lasaga' to be a bit silly and I dumped all my stats into strength.

I'm not really sure what the stats of Skill and Speed do for you. I completed the game by getting all the CGs and didn't encounter anything that was explicitly skill or speed required, perhaps it has a factor in combat that I'm unaware of.

You make a series of choices, some meaningful some not as most of them lead to the same exact events playing out. You can acquire the only pickable item, a thorn you can use in combat, in the game earlier on based on where you choose to make your home if you pick the Acacia Tree.

At some point a Safari Car will come by and observe you, if you make the right dialogue choices you can get some exposition on the setting you're in.

The animals in this particular section of Africa are apparently Bio-Engineered to have heightened, near human intelligence. The author of the game, Caveboy Tup has elaborated in a comment on the game's itchio page which I'll leave below;

This is definitely something that shows a lot of Kimba inspiration though it goes in a different direction that has some interesting implications. I would have been interested to see this explored in a more elaborate narrative.

The two love interests in this game are Jetsway and Rrred;

Their routes are very straight forward, I'd say you would have to really go out of your way to not pursue either of them, which makes it easy to pick and choose which one you 'romance', as it's also pretty bare bones in that regard too.

The one most advertised is definitely Rrred the lion who is featured more prominently on the game's page. He's not got a whole lot of depth, you have the choice to fight him or join up with him in a coalition immediately upon meeting him.

I do like the game's expression work, I find the animals emote in ways that are fun to look at and easy to read.

If you defeat him he will simply retreat and will show up again later to give some brief exposition on Jetsway's character.

Joining up with him starts his short route, which mostly consists of him scaring off crocodiles at the watering hole for you, which you are able to avoid without him regardless (The only time my character got a bad end was when I chose the wrong evasion option at this point in the story) The other portion is an encounter with a clan of hyenas that was pretty comedic, this got a good laugh out of me. It was the only time the game was particularly vulgar.

You escape the hyenas, as you are outnumbered no matter how high your strength stat is. The rest of the route is pretty uneventful, you travel together and it's implied there's some romantic interest between the two of you.

I will admit I found Rrred to be the less interesting of the two routes but I can see what appeal they were going for here.

The other route is Jetsway's which I found to have slightly more meat on its bones.

You meet Jetsway first in fact while looking for food but he only says that the radio collar you have on means you aren't one of his 'targets' before sprinting away.

Encountering him later finds him injured in the middle of the night after a fight.

There's more lore exposition with Jetsway regarding the largely left out bio-engineering aspect. He's some creature part of Glo's work that was created by them, it's specified he has some sort of Tech in his eye that isn't explained very much.

Poking around the dialogue options with him will give you the option of fighting him once he reveals he got these injuries fighting and killing lions, which explains why he specified you weren't a target earlier.

Upon defeating him, you can kill him here which I found interesting. But you can also choose to stay the night and nurse his wounds until he recovers.

You are given the option to walk him back home, and doing so will trigger an interaction between you two and Rrred, who calls Jetsway a murderer. Pushing Jetsway for more answers will only get you this in response.

There is no further elaboration on this plot point after this. I assume given the larger narrative that was mentioned by the creator that he's killing lions that are either human aggressive or resistant/unsuccessful in the Bio Engineering stuff. But that's only an educated guess.

Walking him home will after lead you to Utke town, where he says the humans will give him more medical treatment but that your character cannot stay.

You're able to stay the night, where you'll find Jetsway gone in the morning, but you are spotted by a Glo operative prior to this who takes this photo of you and Jetsway to 'share on the internet'.

After these two CG's, the final day is always the same. Your radio collar falls off on the seventh day and the scientists come to retrieve it. You have two options after this, to hide in wait to observe the humans at first, which will lead to you being tranquilized again while they retrieve your collar.

You can also attack the scientists, which will result in you ripping off the arm of one of them, the one named Saito.

They escape you after this, and leads to the final CG where Saito has been given a replacement prosthetic arm.

This concludes the game as currently published. I found it very charming to play and a nice way to spend part of an afternoon. It was definitely worth sharing since I haven't seen anyone discuss playing it or knowing it exists.

[writeouswriter]

.....what do you mean "dial up the internet?" did you have to call someone to turn it on for you?

I... I honestly can't tell if this is a joke or not. 😭

But I'll take it as serious because apparently everyone else prior to 2015 was having fun on their nice and fast internet here except me, which is fair! So congrats on being one of today's lucky 10000.jpeg.

It does technically involve the telephone, but not exactly in that way. I'm not calling anyone, but the internet itself is, sort of?

Wikipedia describes dial-up Internet as "a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network to establish a connection to an Internet service provider by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telephone line."

Basically dial up is a now outdated form of internet that used a standard phone line and analog modem to access the Internet at data transfer rates of up to 56 Kbps. It was released commercially around 1992 but fell out of popularity in the early to mid 2000s after the introduction of commercial broadband in the late 1990s, except in rural or poorer areas where it tended to persist for a little while longer. (Hello from the rural areas.) Anyway, a dial-up connection is the least expensive way to access the Internet, but is also the slowest connection. (When I was a kid, I tried to watch a three minute video of the "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" song, and it took me at least an hour to load it without buffering. Though text based pages or images would maybe take a few minutes or so, so it wasn't like completely unusable.)

Also, due to how it's set up, you can't use the telephone (home phone) while connected, and if you were to try, it would make what we all know as the classic internet sounds, that you've probably heard even if you didn't know what it was: Pshhhkkkkkkrrrr​kakingkakingkakingtsh​chchchchchchchcch​*ding*ding*ding*. That's terrible phonetics, but I just took that off a search, I wasn't gonna try to type the sound out myself. This, anyway: X.

It honestly baffles me when people don't know what dial-up is, makes me feel old, but I can't hold it against anyone because if you didn't live in a rural area, most people got high speed or some variant thereof really really early on, and most people younger than me and even some older have always had it, so dial-up internet Georg (me), who still couldn't get a single image of a Nicolas Cage meme to load 8 years after the invention of the iPhone is an outlier and should not have been counted, apparently.

On that note, the store where I work at has frequent power outages, which always knocks out the internet to the debit machine, so I'll be like, sorry, we're on dial-up, and some people will smugly be like "oh I bet you don't remember dial-up," and I'll be like, "No, I, I had dial-up like all through high school," and their eyes will go wide, but I think it's mostly because 1. I look like I'm 12, but I'm very much not 12. and 2. Again, people not used to the rural experience, catches 'em off guard.

[mollyjimbly]

🚨🚨AWFUL HORRIFIC NEWS🚨🚨

Hey everyone, some news update and a call to action :( Yes, KOSA is most likely going to be moving again possibly. Please read the entire message and take action.

WHAT TO DO?:

(YES YOU CAN CALL IF YOURE A MINOR)

1) Call House leadership everyday.

Steve Scalise (R), Mike Johnson (R), and Hakeem Jeffries (D). House leadership (GOP) sounds like they're somewhat in disapproval. Use their reasonings. There is a tailored call script SPECIFICALLY FOR REPUBLICANS in our call script here:

2) Call House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Click their names here:

and their phone numbers should be present. Split amongst yourselves which ones to call because there's a lot of members. If you have time, call all. If not, pick a few and call.

More noise = better.

⭐ See end for extra resources and tips.

1) Movement in the House. There will be a full committee markup next Wednesday at 10 am. The list of bills they will markup hasn't been finalized but KOSA is most likely to show up.

SOURCE:

2) 42 State Attorney Generals signed a letter in support of action on social media harms, including passing KOSA

SOURCE:

3) Schumer has been pushing for a vote on this all last week

⭐ Pretend you are a member of the GOP when calling them. Use their concerns. They are worried about pro-life, christian messages being censored off the internet. Pretend you are concerned about this as well. Say things like "this will give Biden a win and then they will use this bill to push their LGBT agenda on the rest of us!"

CALL SCRIPT FOR GOP:

I am urging you to VOTE NO on KOSA, the Kid’s Online Safety Act. This is a dangerous bill that will harm children. Many news organizations have reported that this bill actively harms kids by exposing their private data to strangers under the guise of protecting them. We need to hold Big Tech accountable, but KOSA is not the solution.

The bill let any state attorney general and the FTC to sue any website for “harmful” content. Do we really want blue state lawyers deciding what can and can’t be allowed online? Big Tech is already censoring us. That’s why they support KOSA. This is massive government overreach. We need a bill that actually protects children by creating better security measures instead of bringing about more censorship.

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies, which would put them in further danger. How is this protecting children’s privacy? What parent would want their child’s private data in the hands of strangers like this? KOSA is actively putting kids in danger. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

CALL SCRIPT FOR DEMS:

I am urging you to VOTE NO on KOSA. Nearly 200 human rights and LGBT organizations total came out in an open letter opposing it. The ACLU is against it. Hundreds of thousands of Gen Z, who actually live online, are against it. We know the harms of social media, and we know this is not the solution. The new language does NOT meet any concerns brought up, in fact many organizations were ignored. Major news have reported that this bill actively harms kids. We do not want this.

The rewritten bill would still allow any state attorney general, and now the FTC, to sue any website for “harmful” content. When you have Republicans calling anything LGBT “sexual exploitation” or anything about race “CRT” to successfully ban books and teachers, then they will use any justification to censor the internet. The Missouri attorney general used “mental health” successfully to ban gender-affirming care with backed up research. Suicide rates will skyrocket for marginalized youth with this bill restricting content.

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies. Furthermore, updated language threatens encryption the same way the Earn It Act does. How is this protecting children’s privacy? KOSA actively harms kids. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

friendly reminder!! ⬆️

[thefirstknife]

wanted to share some post Lighfall thoughts in my head with you (im sure most if this has been said or i got key concepts wrong but still)

I personally believe the Witness either is the First Knife or somehow has tricked itself into believing it is. (if the later then that's then it already had the desire to end universe and is using this to justify as an allegory for fascism)

my thoughts are summed up as this:

The Winnower wants to finish this round of the garden game. and wants to keep playing it over and over and over. It didn't seem to care about the Gardener wanting another round until she put herself into the game

The Witness is the Knife or somehow has vague spiritual metaphysical memories of the Knife and took its purpose the the most logical extreme:

It grew sick of round after round of the Game.

It is the Knife it wants to cut and cull all

The Winnower wants to play the game eternally which means restarting the game

The Knife wants to do it purpose and end the Game.

Permanently

To do this it must also end the Players so it can never restart again.

The Witness wants so somehow end the Game, end the Gardener, end the Winnower.

So that

The First Knife

becomes

The Final Shape

That's a really good summary of some of my thoughts as well!!

Obviously, a lot of this is very abstract and we might be looking at the Unveiling too much for hints, but ALSO. I think this would be super cool and would definitely explain a lot of stuff. And I would absolutely adore to see the Unveiling stuff be directly relevant in this way, and not just a metaphorical retelling of how the universe began.

An interesting lore tab from the raid lore book, page 9, that was available to unlock this week (the remaining 2 pages are tied to the red border chest, crisis averted. The chest was just bugged last week. Final raid lore book page next week!). Page 9 was... very peculiar. I'll copy it fully:

No clue who is the author. The first paragraph usually hints at the author, but this time I can't tell. Mention of "dream" and later suffering might suggest Nezarec talking to the Witness... or to something else. Or something else talking about the philosophy in general. This lore tab has Unveiling vibes to me, tbh. Mostly, the part about this data fragment coming from something "warped, barely-real" gives me massive Winnower vibes. It's a metaphor, an allegory, like the Unveiling.

I love the metaphor for the Light and Darkness philosophies, here presented with the story of a man coming upon a crossroads. The man asks the sky where to go, and there's no answer because that is for the man to choose. The Light doesn't direct anyone to anything, it lets you make your own choices. That is the essential part of the philosophy; freedom to choose.

The whole next bit with a wanderer that shows up to tell the man which path to take and even suggests brandishing a knife to exert a threat and force the man to pick is essential to the Darkness philosophy. Darkness wants to funnel you into a specific path and it will do everything in its power to make you go down that road.

But the author also muses about the knife. Is threatening violence a better way to make people obedient or is that actually ceding power? Once you show the knife, you can never sheathe it or else the threat goes away and so does your power. And even if you never sheathe it, someone might still risk fleeing. If you force someone to follow you, you are never allowed to stop threatening them, but the more you threaten, the more chance there is that the person being threatened will take the risk to flee once they're fed up. Which is what happened with several Darkness-aligned characters, most notably Savathun. She was coerced and lied to and threatened, and the longer that went on, the more she contemplated taking the risk to leave. And she succeeded.

The final sentence is also super important because it really explains why a lot of characters fall to Darkness in the first place. Because it makes the choice for them, and many are afraid of the unknown. They are too afraid to take the risk and make a choice for themselves and find it easier and safer to follow what is being told to them. Ergo, Darkness being "salvation."

And if we're on the right track, in this analogy, the wanderer telling the man which road to pick would be the Winnower, the Darkness. And the knife it pulls to make the threat? The Witness. It doesn't need to use the knife, but maybe at some point it considered it and now it's doubting its efficacy. Wouldn't it be easier if the man just listened instead of introducing the knife which complicates the interaction and possible outcomes?

We're in hardcore speculative territory here but it's one of the mos interesting thing to me right now, especially with all the new stuff we learned from Lightfall and the raid.

[ollieofthebeholder]

And If Thou Wilt, Forget: a TMA fanfic

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]|| Also on AO3 and my personal website

Chapter 11: That all my past results in "if"

Gertrude grumbled to herself, more for show in case of observation than anything, as she painstakingly logged the bundles of statements that had come down from Research that morning. The care she was having to take with the data entry wasn’t really feigned. She was familiar enough with technology, at least modern technology, but this particular machine dated back to the early nineties—she was astonished it still turned on, let alone functioned—and her memory of how to use MS-DOS was a bit rusty. There, at least, she had an advantage over Tim, if the penciled notes all over the pages of the thirdhand operating manual next to it were any indication.

At least the wiring had finally been upgraded. It hadn’t occurred to her that there would be an issue, but evidently the machine, old as it was, had proved to be too much for the outlet it had been plugged into. Fortunately it hadn’t caught fire since she had returned, but it had shorted out twice more, only not costing her several hours’ worth of work because of a large black box Tim had installed that turned out to be a battery backup holding enough power to at least allow her to save her progress before the computer shut down completely. The electrician who’d come by had kindly explained to her that the Archives, unlike the rest of the Institute, were still on a fuse box, and had upgraded it to a circuit breaker. Which also meant the lights had stopped flickering ominously whenever the wind shifted.

It was, however, rather an expensive repair, and she was already betting with herself whether Elias would be willing to budget for an upgrade to the fire suppressant system too.

The computer—which, if the notebook sitting next to the manual was to be believed, Tim had named “Mister Megabytes”—was difficult to use, but Gertrude supposed she should just be thankful Elias hadn’t somehow found a punch card system. It was going to be hard enough to upload anything to it, let alone store it. Fortunately, Tim had thought of that, and had apparently cleaned out every antique store and charity shop in the greater London area in search of floppy disks that would fit the beast. (She’d smirked when she saw the neat stack of receipts locked in her desk drawer, and promptly submitted them to Elias. She had hoped the nosy bastard would have had a heart attack when he saw the total, but alas.) Unfortunately, he’d been unable to fit more than a single statement and associated research onto any given floppy disk.

Gertrude had fortunately found a source for them and ordered in a large quantity. Less expensive than the piecemeal way Tim had picked them up, sadly, but still hopefully a big enough bill to make Elias regret a few more of his life choices.

She sighed, stretched, saved her work. Waited until the spreadsheet had finally committed itself to the disk, then ejected it from the computer and tucked it into the case labeled ARCHIVES OPERATIONS in Tim’s neatest block print. Shut down the computer, ran her hand over the CRT monitor to wipe clean the static—whether it actually did anything or not, it made her feel better—and headed to the break room to make herself a nice cup of tea. That done, she locked herself in her office, set up her shields, and settled in to read Tim’s latest report.

It was…interesting. Most of his reports were. She couldn’t tell if it was just that he was interested in everything and liked to chase down rabbit holes until he either hit rock bottom or encountered a badger or if he was simply hoping to head off every single ritual at the pass, but he’d detailed his research into incidents linked to more than half of the Fears in just a few short months. She could see, of course, how all of them might have involved the Stranger, often because of circus connections, but instead they had been about the Hunt, the Slaughter, the Desolation, the Spiral. (The message I am staying away from the sculptor’s work so I don’t have to give you a statement had both intrigued and worried her in nearly equal measures.)

The most interesting part of Tim’s reports was that most of the incidents he had learned about—or at least most of the recent ones—involved the Dark. Frankly, Gertrude would have thought the Dark was the last of the Fourteen to have anything to do with the big cities Tim and Gerard were visiting. They even called New York the city that never sleeps. And yet, here it sat, lurking in alleyways, behind theaters, in the smallest of gaps between street lights. The latest report was at least from somewhere she might have expected; they were in western Virginia, in the shadow of the Appalachian Mountains, investigating several local myths, legends, and traditions that had been handed down by those whose roots were deep in the soil.

Gertrude perused the reports. There were three in particular highlighted as having been recent incidents. One, unsurprisingly, was a rather gruesome murder that bore the hallmarks of Skin’t Tom; Tim was planning to pay a visit to the girlfriend of the perpetrator, who’d sworn he was dead a whole week before the murder. The second was a house fire that apparently started because of too many candles, but according to Tim’s notes, the child who had had them all burning had been in a nearby long-abandoned coal mine with a friend, who hadn’t come out, and he’d been crying about the mouth of the night; he wasn’t sure he would be able to get to him, but he would try. The third had taken place in what Tim termed a “ghost town” a few miles from where they were staying, where the rumors were it had been abandoned not because the coal dried up but because of something that stalked the streets; he was vaguer on that incident, which had taken place slightly more than a year previously, but said it was probably real. In the code he was using underlying the reports, unless she was misinterpreting it, was a statement that gave her pause: I know it sounds like the End or the Hunt, but it’s the Dark.

Not I think it’s the Dark or it looks more like the Dark. Tim was one hundred percent certain of that. Gertrude didn’t know why, but if he was sure, she trusted him.

She thought about that for a long moment as she began composing a reply. Not that she trusted him. She had along ago accepted that she trusted Tim with everything she had in her to trust; it was why she had left him in Chicago without hesitation, why she hadn’t immediately recalled him when he’d finished in Pittsburgh, why she hadn’t felt the need to double-check that everything he was sending her as a reply to his emails was true, let alone helpful. It was helpful, but that was beside the point. The point was that she didn’t for a minute doubt that Tim knew what he was doing and was working in the best interest of the Archives, and in her best interest as well. The thing she had to think about was his conviction that it was the Dark.

She didn’t think the Dark was preparing anything in America. Activity was up all around the world—she’d had several statements her in the Institute, and a few more she’d gleaned from her travels that weren’t as prominent as Tim’s. But the simple fact that the Dark was rising—damn Tim for reminding her of that book, now she was going to have to hunt down a copy, she didn’t have time to read for pleasure these days—meant that perhaps she had misjudged. Perhaps the Dark’s ritual was going to begin more quickly than the Stranger’s after all.

She gave Tim a few instructions, sent him a copy of the statement form—he was no Archivist, compelling wasn’t his gift, and it likely wouldn’t produce much of a coherent narrative, even if he had them write it down, but she could at least let him try—and enjoined him to be careful, then closed her laptop thoughtfully. It was Tuesday. Elias was happily engaged with the budgeting—really, she’d thought when she first realized what was going on that he was putting on an act, but he wasn’t, he really did enjoy the mundane bureaucracy and administration necessary in running a place like the Magnus Institute—so she would be unobserved for at least the next several hours. Which meant that if she pulled a few statements and went downstairs to talk them over, he wouldn’t notice.

Thanks to the computer and Tim’s efforts, she knew exactly where to find the ones she was looking    for, even though all of them were in the wrong place compared to where they should be. She pulled a few out of various shelves and boxes, tucked her tape recorder into her pocket, and headed to the center of the Archives. There was a barely perceptible crack in the floor, and next to it a board that easily levered up when she pressed a certain spot. Beneath it was an iron ring. She pulled it, lifted, and descended into the belly of the beast.

As usual, there as a sticky, unpleasant sensation as she passed below the floor an closed the door behind herself. The Eye couldn’t reach down here, not easily, so she could pass unobserved, but it also meant cutting herself off from her…patron, she supposed. While she had remained human through dint of unceasing effort, she still relied on it a fair bit, and cutting off the contact didn’t help her mood much. She shook it off as best she could and progressed a bit further.

Once she had descended another level, she let out a low whistle. There was an answering whistle from further down the tunnel, or at least an attempt at a whistle. A moment later, an elderly man with a broad, florid face and rather dusty clothes appeared out of seemingly out of the wall. He gave her what he probably thought was a disapproving glare but actually looked rather like a walrus with indigestion. “Gertrude, what on earth are you doing down here et this time of night?”

“It’s one o’clock in the afternoon, Jurgen,” Gertrude said with a sigh. “You really ought to pay better attention to the passing of time. You’re going to end up doing something foolish one of these days.”

Jurgen Leitner limped closer. As usual, he clutched his copy of A Disappearance in one hand and a heavy torch in the other, although what he thought he was going to do with that was beyond her. He was a coward, and a rather frail man, and the most he could do was drop it and run, leaving the light to possibly distract whatever was following him. “If it’s the middle of the afternoon, what’s going on? Has your assistant returned?”

“No, Tim is still abroad.” Gertrude didn’t bother explaining beyond that. Leitner didn’t need to know what was going on in that level of detail, just that he was safe from being spotted by her assistant. “But he sent me a rather…interesting report. I need your input.”

Leitner snorted. “I very much doubt that. You just want someone to listen to you ramble and nod their head.”

“If I wanted that, I would speak to a mirror,” Gertrude shot back, stung. Leitner had ego, of course, she’d known that for years, but did he have to be so crass as to project it onto her? “I do actually need your input. You have expertise in this matter.”

And I have no one else I can discuss this with, she added to herself. She still wished she could discuss it with Adelard; she would have preferred, given her current options, to discuss it with Tim, and probably Gerard, since she was fairly certain at this point they came in a set these days. But with the boys in Esau County and Adelard reduced to ashes, she was left with an addled bookseller who had believed, like Mary Keay, that he could master the Fears. At least Mary had been honest about herself.

She followed Leitner to the room he had set up as his “study”. He kept precious few books on him anymore, and she had to admit she took a perverse bit of pleasure in knowing that his fear of what he had done meant that he was basically reduced to reading nothing but terrible mass-market romance novels of the sort her mother had once thrashed her for keeping under her mattress. Still, he had two chairs and a table, and he invited her to sit, then poured them each a measure of rather expensive wine.

“All right,” he said, settling down and lifting his glass. “What is it you wish to discuss with me?”

Gertrude laid out the folders containing the statements, and felt a bit of satisfaction at his flinch. To his credit, however, he rallied quickly and sat silently sipping as she tried to put them into some kind of coherent order. The very last one she placed was the most recent, the one she had missed by three days and that Tim had locked in her desk drawer under her instructions; she’d sensed the Dark on it right away and brought it down with her.

“What are these?” Leitner finally asked when she didn’t speak. He had to have known she was waiting for him.

“These are all statements involving the Dark,” Gertrude told him. “All from within the last five years. Take a look and tell me what you think.”

She sat down and sipped at her own wine as he began to read, hesitantly at first, then more intensely. She already knew what he was going to see, or at least she hoped he did. He could be quite obtuse at times. Still…this was obvious, even for him.

As she watched him struggle through the third one, she reached for the latest, more out of boredom than curiosity. The handwriting was neat enough, but bold, pressed deep into the paper. The writer had obviously been quite excited about what she had come to say. Likely it was yet another person who had had an encounter with the People’s Church of the Divine Host, or with Robert Montauk himself, or possibly with the bogeyman.

Then Gertrude’s eyes fell on the name Maxwell Raynor, and she began to pay attention.

Manuela Dominguez was not simply a victim of the Dark that had come to relieve her feelings. She was an acolyte, a relatively high up member in the People’s Church of the Divine Host if her statement was anything to go by, and she had a great deal to say about her actions. She had been on the Daedalus, the third astronaut and the only one to not be an unwitting victim of a Fear. Gertrude bristled slightly at her taunt about Jan—how did she know that, she wondered—but the rest of the statement was too fascinating, and filled her with too much dread.

So. She was right. They were ready, just about.

Across from her, Leitner laid the last statement he’d had to read down. “I can see that you’ve picked a good number of Dark statements, Gertrude, but surely you could just as easily have selected the Stranger or the Flesh, so—”

Gertrude handed him the statement she had just completed. Leitner read it, his eyebrows climbing steadily higher and his face growing steadily paler. At last, he looked up at her. “The Black Sun?” he whispered.

“Any day now, I would imagine,” she said, as calmly as possible. Something about that nagged at her, but she didn’t give it a chance to take root. Not then.

Once she had discussed with Leitner how much help he was willing to give—none—and returned to the Archives, though, she probed at it as she began re-shelving the statements. Manuela Dominguez had stated that the time was at hand, that they were giving her one last chance to capitulate and join them. She never would, of course, but…

But why had they waited?

She had returned to London in November. It had been three months since then. Surely they must have decided by now that she wasn’t answering. Why hadn’t they moved ahead with their plans? Were they waiting for her to come and try to stop them? Surely they hadn’t needed to wait.

Or did they?

Gertrude pursed her lips thoughtfully. Somewhere in the Archives, she ought to be able to find evidence of the Dark’s last attempt at a ritual. It had to have been at least a hundred years ago. Maybe that would give her some sort of hint. Obviously it wouldn’t look the same. Space travel hadn’t been possible and science wouldn’t have advanced far enough for them to even know what dark matter and neutron stars were, so whatever Raynor had done back then…whenever it was…would have involved something else. But she could at least get the shape of it, and get an idea of how to disrupt it.

She wasn’t even sure how to disrupt a dark star. Or, frankly, what they thought it would do to bring…what did they call him? Mister Pitch into the world. She was almost curious enough to let it play out, just to see what it would look like…

Wait.

Gertrude froze, one hand on the shelf. The Eye was pushing back at her, she could feel it, but there was something right on the edge of her attention that…

Abandoning all else, she hurried back to the trap door, lifted it, and took the steps down three at a time. The second she was cut off from the Ceaseless Watcher, she drew in a breath and stepped into the first room available. She suffered briefly from that loss of contact, but she could think.

How had previous rituals stopped? Tim’s research had shown that the last attempt at the Unknowing had been disrupted by the Slaughter…but then she thought of the statement she had recorded when it had finally arrived from Pu Songling. The one about the Nemesis, and the failure of the Risen War. She’d idly speculated about what could have possibly disrupted it before deciding it didn’t matter, that she would put it from her mind and go back to figuring out how to deal with the Unknowing. Now, though, she wondered.

What if…what if what they were waiting for wasn’t some moment that would finish the ritual? What if it wasn’t some grand outside gesture that would seal the fate of the men and fully bring the Slaughter into the world? What if, quite simply, the soldiers had been waiting for the Slaughter itself?

What if the Risen War had simply collapsed on its own?

If it had collapsed on its own, if it had needed no intervention to fail…then there were two possibilities. Either the ritual itself had been imperfect, incomplete, they had been missing some key component of it and simply hadn’t known, or…

Or the ritual could not have succeeded in the first place.

Gertrude put her fingers to her lips as the implications of that crashed down on her. If the Risen War could not have succeeded, did that mean the Sunken Sky, too, could not have succeeded? That the Last Feast could not have succeeded? That the Great Twisting could not have succeeded? That the Unknowing would not succeed? If the Unknowing was doomed to failure without intervention, she supposed that was all to the good, as it would mean she could keep Tim and Gerard away from that danger.

But—she stifled the moan that rose, unbidden, to her throat—but if the Great Twisting could not have succeeded either, if it had been doomed to fail from the beginning, then that meant that she could have left it alone and it would have collapsed under its own weight. It meant that her interference was not only unnecessary, but counterintuitive.

It meant that Michael Shelley need not have been sacrificed.

She couldn’t believe—no. She didn’t want to believe that. She didn’t want to believe she had been so short-sighted, so focused on what she thought was her calling, that she had wasted her life and the lives of her assistants.

Poor Michael. Poor Sarah. Poor Tim, because she was putting him at risk for no reason…

Well. No. With him and Gerard safely out of the country for the moment, they were at least out of Elias’s range. And if she was wrong…after all, she told herself, it was only a guess, a wild surmise. There was still every chance that one of the rituals would work.

So. She would allow Tim and Gerard to keep following their path, to keep researching the Unknowing and ways to stop it. Perhaps they would find something less dangerous and volatile than the C4 poor Adelard had obtained for her, something that would nevertheless do the trick. Meanwhile, the Dark’s ritual would likely happen sooner. She would come up with some kind of plan, figure out what she could do if it did work, and then attempt to find out when the ritual would happen. She could do what she did best—watch, and observe, and know. And then she could act, but only if absolutely necessary.

If she was right, then she would tell Tim and Gerard everything. And if she was wrong, she would tell them that, too, and then they would stop the Unknowing together.

But whatever the result, she vowed to herself, she would not sacrifice either of them. She’d grown fond of the boys, and she would never again be responsible for another assistant’s death. Not if she could prevent it.

[whizzermania]

Harley’s Body Code Guide Part 1

If you want the official guide of it, please refer to FUA’s official website here. This guide is mainly made for my own convienence and nutshell understanding of it so I might not get everything right—but you’re free to take this as reference too. Most of this stuff is from the page itself so I still encourage checking out the original page.

PREMISE

The Body Code is a specialized code Harley made to combat against SCP-6320’s time loop—which happens every 32 days and erases all recorded data on the anomaly, as if it’s never been recorded, back to Incident A(the Shift).

The code is able to be used as tattoos since tattoos carry over resets—making it possible to record data on the anonaly without worrying about it being erased. This allows it to have many possiblities with it: such as important notes, sentimental value, and more.

THE CODE

The code is organized by a shortened phonetic version of the English Alphabet, dropping some letters and retaining some to fewest letters possible.

Using these sets of letters, you can make shortened words and retain their sound and meaning.

For example, if you want to say “SECURE” you would need to shorten it to “SEKUR”. Insure the word you’re using can retain it’s meaning. The shorter the words, the better.

You can also combine some letters to create other sounds.

E = E, A

D = B, A

V = V, W, F

K = K, C, Q

S = S, C, Z

Y = Y, I

THE CIPHER

The letters selected are arranged on the following cipher grid.

Words are constructed by a base diamond, letters are constructed in littler diamonds inside the base diamond, and vowels simply use dots.

The letters are read clockwise, starting at the top of the diamond. Vowels are usually placed on the consanants that come after it. So for this example: this diamond says “SEKUR”.

The top diamond starts with an S, then with the second diamond on the right you’d have K—and add the E vowel dot alongside it. The third diamond on the left has R alongside the U vowel dot.

A thing to keep in mind with the Y vowel: you’ll notice that you draw a line to go with it. When using a Y dot, they will always be drawn on the edge of the letter diamond, not on a corner.

To form a sentence: the base diamonds are formed in a horizontal array as such.

There is also locational context involved depending where you tattoo the code. They mostly vary depending on each individual but most form of context in FUA include something like:

Inner left wrist: location system used (which Department/Group key you’re using)

Back of Neck: Foundation ID (in case your body is not easily identifiable)

Back: Used by department heads or group as a key to their department’s locational system

Left ring finger: martial status (sentimental)

There is also additional meaning to words by adding an arrow on top of the base diamond; creating a connotation for the word.

Up: Good, safe, favorable outcome

Down: bad, Keter, unfavorable outcome

Left: Caution, Eucild, vulnerable, keep watch.

An example would include something like:

Word: “casualty 9/6/19”

Locational context: Area designated for breach documentation.

Orientation: Down

Phrase: A breach on 9/6/19 suffered heavy casualties.

On the topic of numbers, actually: numbers use the same grid and format as such above.

But the key difference is the caret above the diamond. Dashes can be used as horizontal lines if you are referring to a date as such.

STEP BY STEP TUTORIAL

Before we draw our diamonds, lets figure out what kind of words we’re using. Let’s do something like..Love’s organ donor reminder as canonically said in the show :)

Part 2

[mephitsguidetothemultiverse]

Catalogue No.: Omicron-XK9732331-C0-P5-12, Media Type: Textbook Excerpt, Title: On the Subject of Ley Travel (Earthling Edition) - "Introduction and a Brief History of Ley Particles," Author: Bosun Dal Tremor of the Cartographic Flotilla, Additional Text: Margin Notations by Mephit

Before one can properly discuss the nature of how Ley Particles and their confluences into Ley Paths allow for FTL travel without the requirement of opening a wormhole or draining a sun, it occurs to me that the reader should have a brief history of our discovery and naming of these particles to grasp onto.

This sentence has been circled with an arrow drawn from the below note to the sentence

Mephit here, yes that was a single sentence. Bosun Tremor, Dal to his friends, can be a bit long-winded at quite inconvenient times. He is, however, possibly the best Ley Cartographer who will ever live in his universe, so bear with it. I'll throw in a joke or two to keep you entertained. On with the knowledge!

As with much of this book, the scope of such discussions will be in relation to earthlings as this version is translated into Earth languages for training earthlings on Ley travel. If you were wanting more information in regards to a different collection of sentient species or a particular culture or culture cluster, please contact the Cartographic Flotilla Library Vessel on its service line and ask about an edition of my book for the pertinent species. That being said, let us continue.

Bright red underlining on the last sentence.

He only talks like this when he has to sound smart, way less formal after a nice wine. Feels like he has to be a fuddy-duddy to be respected, poor thing.

Humans first discovered an unorthodox particle they could not explain on deep space scanners in the Earth year 2350. By that time, enough deep space probes had been launched in order to more quickly achieve a relay time of only 17 years, 92 days and 15 hours from furthest probe to Earth using Colonel Alvin McTalbot's, of the Independent Scottish Navy's Communications and Navigations Division, then famous "Informational Railgun" technique of near-simultaneous blitz uploads across a series of satellites or other terminals/relay points. As completely useless as this would be today for communicating from even just Sol System to Alpha Centauri, It was brilliant for picking up never before seen data in almost-real-time.

Another underline, this time on almost-real-time. Angrier looking underline.

I checked all 977 pages and the reference material and additional guides, Dal you scatterbrained little shit! NOT A SINGLE MENTION OF WHAT THIS MEANS. Had to have a foreword about the history of particles, can't be arsed to mention time-slippage. Time slippage happens across any amount of space-time that is being warped by an object that warps or bends space-time itself. This includes black holes, but in Universe-78735-Zala, aka the Prime Ley Path Universe, Ley Paths also do it. Dal explains enough to see why that's important to know but never actually mentions that almost-real-time means that time slippage was at least 99% overcome if any occurred. In other words, they saw 2 minutes worth of footage without going over 2 minutes 3 seconds in terms of human time measurements. Carry on.

This data was incredibly strange and difficult to even fully process on standard equipment, leading to then United Nations of Earth Second Chancellor Harlan Quell to propose a plan to use an improved relay to search for the source of such particulates and additional information. The initial Long Chain Project was signed into Earth policy in Earth year 2352 and would set off almost 450 years of intergalactic discovery in an attempt to do so. Of the many discoveries made by the LCP of 2350, as it came to be known, one which was noteably missing was a source for the mysterious particles. Instead, in 2807, when the LCP took was starting to take almost 30 years to get information from the furthest satellite to Earth, near lightspeed travel became possible with the invention of the Horace-Lader drive and its use of near-perfect reclamation of the photoelectric effect and the underlying continuous yet infinitesimal breaks to space-time involved to power vehicles travelling at approximately 2.88x10^8 m/s, closer than any human would ever achieve prior to joining the IULPS (Intergalactic Union of Ley Path Societies).

Another underline starting at with many exclamation points and an expletive followed by the word

SPOILERS!!!!!

This same year, First Chancellor of the United Nations of Earth Malia Varayev championed a new plan that left behind the continuing updates to the Long Chain Project and instead called for a one way manned flight by volunteers towards the newly predicted center of these particles (at this year commonly denoted McTalbot's Particles or Fairy Particles due to the former being responsible for the method of discovery and the latter being what humans thought they resembled). This operation was highly contested and debated for almost a decade until on December 12, 2816 of the Earth calendar The infamous Operation Heaven's Darts was signed into policy and launched. It would launch one of the darkest and most brutal periods in Earth history, so much so that to this day all Earthlings, humans included, hold a month long vigil starting on December 12 every year to commemorate the Month of Peace, the first month of Heaven's Darts in which no genocides, mass murders, forced disasters, or any other large scale death toll or oppression took place for the last month until the year 3030.

A simple arrow points to this last sentence.

I wish I could say that Dal was kidding or exaggerating, but he is actually going easy on the matter. There was a continuous series of horrific disasters and poverty crises forced by corporations who took advantage of Clause 19 in that policy that started almost exactly a month later. They only hit other humans at first. Dal says more, but he is kind to his reader. He doesn't wish you to have to dwell on the darkest portion of human depravity most members of the multiverse have ever seen in order to understand Ley particles. He simply wants to address the elephant in the room lest anyone forgets it. Personally I would go into every detail if I could, but I have actual respect for Bosun Dal Tremor. So... for gorey details see Cataloge No. Chi-JP9393321, I won't write them here. For Dal.

The process began by designating a number of private organizations that were not under direct governance of the UNE as targets for incentives to aid in the search for volunteers under what is now infamously known as Clause 19. This clause left a number of openings that led to private organizations propping up the efficacy of the UNE and the ability to make incredibly powerful actions and decisions with next to no oversight as time went on. Humans, as of 2817, were the only large population sentient species as cohabitant species would not be discovered until the 2900's and engineered species were in their infancy. As such, these organizations used economic, social, political and environmental data to ensure large swaths of human volunteers. Over time the UNE would, far too late, recognize its mistake and begin to further and further curtail harm that could be done to humans in order to receive incentives to generate volunteers. In 2873, the human population began to suffer greatly from the now 56 year process of volunteering to be shot into deep space and never heard from again in a single human lifetime. Human colonies on Mars and the Moon were beginning to finally show promise of true self-sustainability at this time and freight relay to colonies outside the asteroid belt were capable of helping there be a Sol System for humans to live and claim as home rather than just one or two planets and planetoids, however it was determined that it would not be enough to save the human race from extinction in the next few decades without serious action. This led to the UNE, slowly becoming the United Planets and Colonies of Sol behind the organizations' backs at this point, made its firmest action to prevent human harm with the Humanity Welfare Act the same year, a policy designed to stop rampant harmful genocides and environmental disasters in their tracks. Instead, it only directly protected humans and, as engineered species were no longer in their infancy, led to the private sector of Heaven's Darts to begin committing slavery and genocide on inorganic sentients such as androids, genetically modified sentients such as Siriusians (named for Sirius, the Dog Star), and genetically engineered sentients such as homunculi in order to achieve their continuingly less realistic incentives goals. When subterranean reptilian species Homo Herpetus aka Tariks were discovered in the early 2900's, and later the semi-aquatic species known as the Meeri in 2940 and the smaller mammalian species called Mauskin in the 2990's, they, too, became part and parcel of the actions of these organizations. The latter was folded into the private sector's "volunteer searches" shortly after the passing the Anti-Deification Act of 2989, an act which the beginning to burgeon UPCS passed to put incredibly strict guidelines on the production of engineered sentient species and the rights inherent to these species as sentient beings. Finally, In the Earth Year 3028, The UPCS announced its official status and separated itself from the entity known as the UNE completely, leaving behind only those most loyal to private sector causes, and led a 2 year military campaign alongside all species, cultures and races of sentient people in the known Sol System against the United Private Militaries of Earth and Allied UNE forces. It was an incredibly one sided affair that ended unilaterally in the UPCS's favor and led to the complete dismantling of Heaven's Darts and all of its components and constituencies on Earth Date May 19, 3030. This date is now known as Mayteenth across all Earthling colonies and is celebrated with planetwide feasting and partying in honor of the end of progress at any cost as well as the beginning of the unification of the Earthling species.

Mayteenth is circled.

You have no idea how many jokes you will have to hear about 3030 vision that day. It's beyond obnoxious but the wine and music and drugs and food are to die for. Hell, even homunculi like Dal whip up amazing libations for Mayteenth, and they don't have a sense of taste. Some places it can be quite Bacchanalian in fact, I recommend at least visiting once for it.

Not three months later, the first ever transmission to return from a Heaven's Darts vessel was received on what all Earthlings refer to as Contact Day. The transmission was a recording of the third crew to leave Earth, a hundred-person cruiser named Zephyr 1 captained by Marla Moore, announcing the playback and data of a received transmission along with a large file of all notes. A second recording arrived a few days later detailing even more information that showed many references to the Fairy Particles in the received transmission as well as new study data on the particles themselves. 3 weeks later Zephyr 1's third and final transmission arrived detailing how it would be the final transmission ans Quartermaster Alan Moore (Captain Marla Moore's brother) detailed he was the last surviving crew member and would be jettisoning beacons until the ship decayed due to local time slippage in order to aid further vessels in finding it. QM Moore also detailed the last of the notes and how he intended to set up all data to be able to be collected by the LCP relay as quickly as possible with the aid of further ships. Over the course of the next 35 years, all information from every ship that made contact with one of QM Moore's beacons or those of his eventual successors. The original transmission received by Zephyr 1 itself was returned in full with no corruption as the final transmission by any Heaven's Dart vessel, along with the signoff "So long and goodnight everyone, the stars are calling me to the airlock."

The quotation is underlined with a doodle of a grimacing emoticon face next to it.

Dal doesn't always understand just how grim some things sound, this included I think. I think he just thought this would give a final feeling to the Heaven's Darts era. I honestly couldn't tell you if he realizes that person decided to take a long spacewalk without a helmet. Either way, bit of a yikes yeah?

This final transmission in 3065 marked the beginning of the Era of Cryptography for all Earthling species as the UPCS scrapped all non-localized space travel programs to instead focus on strengthening all Sol colonies and the decryption of the Deep Space Transmission Alpha (we now of course know Zephyr 1's discovery as the Ley Protospecies Transmission). It would take until the year 3315, almost 250 years to the day of receipt of final transmission, before retired UPCS Starfleet Commander and veteran of the Sol Unification War Dr. Sparky 'Sparks' McGruff and his team of the brightest minds of all of the Earthling species cracked the transmission wide open to reveal astounding information all about the then mysterious particles. It contained details from some sort of Protospecies about how these particles could be measured and why current equipment would have had trouble measuring them. It contained the name for what they were, calling them Flux-Oriented Aspatial Achronal Metatransitive particles when translated to English. The name became shortened to FOAAM Particles, however the name didn't translate well into other languages and presented a problem for communications. When the section detailing that these particles had a tendency to confluence into various sized flows both terrestrially and celestially was released, scientists quickly also discovered how to see such confluences on planetary surfaces and were startled to see they looked exactly like old human descriptions of Ley Lines, a phenomenon that had since spread to the consciousness of all Earthling species. As a direct result, all Earthlings now call these particles Ley Particles and their confluences as Ley Paths to ease communications. The most important section detailed how to use these Ley Paths to travel by charging them in specific ways to allow travel in directions along these paths only available by warping space-time. In 3363 Arcturus Fran became the first person to perform Ley-Flight in a single-person probe vessel that completed a path from Earth to Jupiter and back in less than an hour in local space-time. Most exciting of all, the pilot, also the Chancellor Adjudicator of the UPCS at the time, came back unharmed, the same age, and with almost minimal fuel costs. The Chamber of Chancellors of the UPCS immediately began a race to be able to use Ley-Flight for deep space travel in order to find the source of the Transmission or Ley Particles themselves. This would last for almost 900 years while Earthlings and now Solians, as sentient species who were non-native to Earth had long ago been discovered and created by accident by Earthlings, expanded the UPCS to achieve the resource load necessary to make the First Ark.

First Ark circled.

This time he's not mentioning it because everyone knows about it there. Big effing ship that transported a bunch of Solians to The Convergence and got the UPCS accepted into the IULPS. You know, the spoiler from earlier that still hasn't been explained? Anyways, the project is interesting and its development and broader context can be found in Catalogue No. Chi-SPT999332.

The remainder happens quickly as the First Ark finalizes building in 4212 and launches 10 years later with over 2 million Solians on board carefully selected for research and contact purposes. In 4224, The Convergence, a massive asteroid turned into a house of government for the IULPS. Solians expected to be met with the Protospecies but instead were met by hundreds of societies who had all discovered The Convergence as a result of some version of the same transmission. Ever since, all Earthling, and further Solian, species have been working with each other, the IULPS and the Cartographic Flotilla, and the Archivist Scionate to attempt to catalogue and discover the many nuances of Ley Path science as well as any information discoverable about the Protospecies that seems to have put everyone else on the right path for Ley-flight so many eons ago. As a scientist and Ley-cartographer, I recognize that this has little to do with the scope of this book and discussing aspects of Ley-flight, Ley travel, and the Ley Paths and science that make both possible directly. However, as a PERSON first and foremost as well as a Bosun with a duty of care to other people in this universe, I must reject this notion entirely. These discoveries you will read were not made in a vacuum and they instead exist in the context of countless choices of endless historical figures who worked to make them. Some of these discoveries were paid for in countless lives and dignity, others in a near resource collapse from overzealousness. Some were even paid for in sheer good luck, as in the case of Arcturus Fran's first flight. And yet others were paid for in kindness and care and unity. We people make decisions as to the context of the research we make, the maps we draw, the flights we take and so much more, and for ill or for good it will always change lives, potentially for generations. As my last thought for this foreword, I implore that, as you read and educate yourself all about Ley travel, you also educate yourself with a duty to use that information to do no harm. Thank you, and enjoy the book.

The last paragraph is almost illegible without aid from a layer separator program removing Mephit's edits as it is covered in various scratchings and scrawlings of laughter onomatopoeia (haha, hoho, etc) with a paragraph beneath it all.

Oh Dal, how hopeful you can be sometimes. And yet I know you are not reading this edit calling out how hopeful you are. I wonder why that might be? Ah well... end of notes.

Instead of a name, Mephit signs off with what appears to be a symbol of a smiling set of jaws.

[melonadem-personal]

I thought this'd be an interesting walk through the world of music royalties and whatnot.

Recently I've had a payment from my distributor for music on Spotify, Apple Music, etc - this was across two years or so of streams (almost exactly, too - I remember setting this up ABOUT two years ago, give or take). It was a paltry sum of $5.37 (£4.18).

Now, it is worth noting I never really pushed these heavily - not that spamming links everywhere makes that much of a difference I found, but I've just put download links to those landing pages that directs you to where said song is on all platforms. On top of this, my discography on these platforms is extremely limited, compared to what I've got on my Bandcamp, YouTube and SoundCloud.

Still, it prompted me to do a bit of research onto where most of my streaming revenue comes from, and it's... interesting.

This is actual data that I've pulled and converted to one currency - it isn't 100% accurate, but I don't need that as I'm just looking for a quick comparison.

YT Ads - These are just your standard partner ads that I run on my music on YouTube. There's a threshold of, I think about £60 or £70 before it makes it to my bank account. On average, this earns me £10/mo.

Bandcamp - These are the most interesting ones - sometimes, people just buy your music unprompted if either your name is large enough to pop up on the front page (or however that algorithm works), or when you release some new music. Whatever money is also immediately available for payout (though PayPal usually takes a tiny amount of whatever they pay me out as tax, which is a paltry amount anyway so I don't really care). On average, this earns me about £7.60/mo.

SC Repost - This is who distributes my music to Spotify, Apple Music, etc. I pay £10/mo for this and SC Premier combined, so I really made a loss if we're just considering this domain on its own. On average, this is £0.17/mo.

SC Premier - This is just SoundCloud monetization, basically SC's version of YT Ad revenue. On a complete flipside to Repost, this basically pays for itself. On average, I earn £13.06 from this, but if you consider the fee I have to pay in order to get it, it's more like £3.06.

In total, If I create about 2 releases and 1 re-release every 2 years, I'd probably earn a total of £21.10/mo.

It's interesting to note, however, that the spikes are a direct correlation to me just putting the music out on platforms. Notably Bandcamp, as people have to pay to download for it usually - normally a small amount, but having an option to purchase the entire discography or having people want to add more on top of what they have to pay does do wonders. If I'm not putting music out actively, then ad revenue from YT or SoundCloud actually pays okay for the amount of effort I put into it (next to none). Ad stuff have less transientary moments, where it's just a spike with nothing afterwards, as I imagine people have to come back to the platform to listen to the music (whereas on BC, people download it and stream it offline)

No conclusion for this from my part, but I thought it was interesting to share. You can draw your own conclusion (and tag me about it or something) if you'd like!

Something to note about all this - I'm not exactly struggling for money, I have a full time job that I'm grateful I can work, and the way it is set up still gives me some time to work on music, which is about to become a lot more important (hopefully) next month as I'm planning to heavily push my music work again. However, in the meantime, I can definitely work on putting some music out on BandCamp and provide a far more complete discography on all platforms, which has been my goal anyway.

I hope that was an interesting read for you!