#i also have a lot of random science knowledge that is accessible and interesting to the public!!!!

[letteredlettered]

We’d all like the rest of your butterfly facts, please.

I have SO MANY; I'm not even sure how to share them all.

Butterflies and moths are not taxonomic or cladistic groups; they're colloquial terms to refer to lepidoptera (the taxonomic order butterflies and moths belong to) that have different characteristics and behaviors. That said:

Moths tend to be nocturnal

Moths tend to have fuzzy bodies, butterflies are sleek

Moths tend to have fuzzy antennae, butterflies just have straight plain ones

The additional fuzz on months allows them to sense what's around them, which is helpful because they're not seeing as much because they're nocturnal

Moths tend to build chrysalises with silk but also leaves and mud, etc. These are known as cocoons. Butterflies only use silk and don't have cocoons (either are known as chrysalis)

The Atlas Moth has the biggest wingspan of any lepidoptera

The Atlas Moth usually emerges from its cocoon without a mouth. It can only breed and die

The Atlas Moth caterpillar lives for months. It's generally in the cocoon for months! But it only lives as an adult moth for a few days (because it can't even eat!)

Inside their chrysalises, caterpillars don't just grow wings and longer legs. They liquify completely and reform.

Caterpillars have six legs called "true legs" that mirror the six legs butterflies have. Then they have additional nubs farther down their bodies that help them move around.

Butterflies taste with their feet. If they land on you, they're tasting you!

Butterflies can only eat liquid. They primarily eat nectar and juice from fruit. Rotten fruit is easier for them because rotten fruit is juicy.

The butterfly mouth is called a proboscis. It curls up when not in use and uncurls when the butterfly eats. It's like a straw.

The word "proboscis" can sometimes refer (as a joke!) to nose, but butterflies can't smell with their proboscis. They smell with their antennae!

Like many insects, butterflies have faceted eyes. But unlike the movies, they probably don't see the same image over and over, because their vision isn't refined enough for that. What faceted eyes allow them to see are big patches of color, which is useful considering they eat fruit and flowers. If you want a butterfly to land on you, wear something colorful.

Butterflies don't have lungs. Like most insects, they breathe through holes in their bodies called spiracles.

Incidentally, this is why insects are so small. If they were giant, these holes would have to be bigger or there would have to be many more of them, and that would mean their exoskeleton was not stable!

Oh, yeah, butterflies do not have bones. Like all insects, they have an exoskeleton.

Butterflies do not have blood. Like all insects, they had a fluid that moves most nutrients through their bodies. It's called hemalymph. It carries hormones, nutrients, and waste. It's blue!

Male butterflies tend to be smaller and more colorful than female butterflies. This is the same style of sexual dimorphism present in most insects. Also in birds!

Male monarch butterflies have distinctive dark spots on the lower wings that female monarch butterflies don't have. The spots are scent glands that help them attract mates.

Most butterflies migrate. Like birds.

Monarch butterflies in North America east of the Rocky Mountains have one of the most impressive migration patterns of any animal. They may travel up to 3,000 miles from Canada to Mexico, but what is most spectacular about it is that almost all of them end up in just a few spots relatively close together on some mountain peaks in Central Mexico. The monarchs are so dense that you can't see the trees.

Butterflies are great for studying evolutionary adaptations in coloration and appearance because they are so striking. Camouflage is the adaptation present when an animal blends in with its surroundings. Mimicry is the adaptation that makes an animal look like a different animal.

The owl butterfly is a great example of mimicry because it has two big owl eyes on its wings. The Atlas moth wing tips look like snake heads.

"Batesian mimicry" is named after Henry Walter Bates, who studied mimicry in butterflies. Batesian mimicry means that one species who is harmless looks like another species that is not harmless. Mullerian mimicry is when several species that are harmful all look like each other, so the warning to predators is stronger. Butterflies have great examples of both types of mimicry.

Monarch butterflies and viceroy butterflies were once thought to exhibit Batesian mimicry, because it was thought that vicroys weren't toxic, but it turns out both butterflies are poisonous and so the species have evolved to mimic each other in an example of Mullerian mimicry.

Monarch butterflies are poisonous because the milkweed caterpillars eat is poisonous

The best way to attract butterflies is to grow native plants.

[moonchild033]

Random astro community related thoughts going on my mind 😏😑

I would request u all to read it thoroughly but yea whatever😏

Idk how many ppl are going to get offended or have controversial views to this but since it's MY BLOG, I'm gonna write things that are constantly disturbing my mind.🙂

First of all, I'm feeling truly devastated by seeing the number of astro posts circulating around Liam Payne's d*ath. Why r u hellbent on dissecting someone's d*ath? Idk what tropical astrology teaches, so I can't say anything about that, but as far as ik, traditional vedic astrologers are trained NOT to predict someone's demise or dissect a de*d person's chart, so kindly refrain from using vedic astrology and its tools such as divisional charts to do this, I find it very disrespectful. Vedic astrology can just be a science or interesting content for u, but for other ppl it's a part of their heritage and it has its respect, so don't misuse it. Also I kind of think it's literally humane to not make content out of someone's demise, be a human first then u can be a celebrity.😒

Be responsible about what u say, u might not know how much impact your words have but there are ppl who are following and reading your posts. I feel like some knowledge should've stayed in the same place, protected and safe in the right hands rather than accessible to everyone, Kali yug is definitely not the era where ppl r sensible enough to understand how to wield knowledge bcoz it is literally a POWER. 😌

The way the world of Nadi astrology is destroyed by the same means, knowledge going in the wrong hands, now it has become a whole scam, spinning tales and extorting money. Nadi is where sages like Agasthiya wrote future horoscopes and its predictions along with their past lives. Our lives have been written in palm leaves years ago, the main sanctuary of the collection is in Tamilnadu, it was passed on from generation to generation in certain family lineages, then some of them sold it, made fake ones and it got sparsely distributed and now almost vanished (Ik in specific temple some of the originals are stored even today, I'll not mention the name, I'm tired of misuse of knowledge, if u r genuinely interested Google is free). Even our accurate d*ath incident is written in there but the real nadi families back then were trained not to reveal it, so they just say 'Stay healthy and careful in that time, be cautious while driving' that's it. I know of real life incidents predicted through that, my dad's friend and my bestfriend 's mother both d*ed on the same predicted year and month by the same warned incident, my dad's friend was asked to be cautious of vehicles in that time period and he d*ed due to an accident and my friend's mom was asked to take care of health issues on a specific time period and she d*ied due to cancer. It's ur choice to believe in an age old writing of ur destiny in a palm leaf but it was an accurate tool some 20-30yrs back but today when it went into the wrong hands, that is when the knowledge got spread rather than being protected and reached ppl with wrong intentions, it all went berserk, now they just bluff nonsense. Still there are authentic family lineages with real texts and skills but it's very hard to differentiate between a whole lot of fraudsters. 🙃

So yea, overall I'm pissed off about the fact that some things are better to have left the way it is rather than showcasing it to the whole world to have it misused, like vedic astrology too, if u r learning it, respect it's ethics too, don't disrespect it's norms for the sake of ur content.😌😬

Idc if u disagree with me, this is MY opinion and I'll stand by it, BYEEE 😤😌

(But I'm angry too 😒)

[listentoace]

This will freak you out

... or at least I hope it does. Yes, I know most of the stuff I post on here is just kinky and horny talk and that's totally fine. By now, thousands of users have found their way to my blog and I'm very grateful for the support. I know I don't share much about myself, but the following will be about a more personal matter. I work in IT, or more specifically, with data. Lots of data. Being into data science, I am hyper-aware of the constant collecting and aggregating of user data. I know it's somewhat common knowledge that you're being tracked, but I want to take this opportunity to point out how bad the situation is and why privacy matters. I'll try to keep it as easy to follow as possible, so please bare with me!

The Trackers

Right now, you're on Tumblr. As you are reading this, your app connects to over a dozen servers that are not from Tumblr itself. They are from companies like Google, Amazon, Yahoo, but also lesser known companies such as Adjust and Moat. Within a single day, the Tumblr App sends about 5.000 tracking requests to the aforementioned and more companies, sharing your personal data. That's once every 15-20 seconds, regardless of whether you have the app opened or not. While I can't say exactly what data is being shared, it is likely that this is personal information that can be utilized to assume your opinions, target ads, or predict future behavior, as these are ways how companies will ultimately make money. Depending on what permissions you have granted the Tumblr app, it might also scan your gallery, your entire file system, access your call history, or your camera and microphone. By granting this permission, you are essentially giving Tumblr the keys to your phone on a complete "just trust me, bro"-basis. To me personally, that sounds scary.

But why do you use Tumblr yourself, then?

Very good and fair question! I actually am conflicted regarding using Tumblr, but I have put several security measures into place to minimize tracking potential as much as possible. While Tumblr can still see when I go online, read all the messages I send to others, know what content I view, like, comment on, and otherwise engage with, that is about it. Tumblr cannot acces my general file system, it cannot remotely access my camera and microphone, and even all the aforementioned trackers are blocked. I'll go more into this later.

"So what, I've got nothing to hide."

It's great that you think that! That's just what the big tech companies want you to believe. But answer me this: have you ever found it uncomfortable when a person next to you was reading all your texts, looking at your gallery, and just generally kept an eye on what you do on your phone at all times? Well, if a single person doing that is bothering you, how much worse must it be to know that several companies with thousands of employees spy on you for a living? Yes, they have seen your nudes, your breakup texts, your hours of Whatsapp calls with your best friend. It's literally a Big Brother Dystopia.

"Why would they be interested in me?"

I bet you have heard about the Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal from 2018. Just to summarize: a data analytics company CA worked closely together with Facebook to target adds specifically tailored to users to manipulate them into voting for Donald Trump as President. If you are asking how specific this could be, just look at this demonstration by Signal, where their ads are extremely specific to a point where probably only a few thousand if not only hundreds of people would fit the description and just those exact people saw their ad.

"You got this ad because you're a newlywed pilates instructor and you're cartoon crazy. This ad used your location to see you're in La Jolla. You're into parenting blogs and thinking about LGBTQ adoption."

Facebook took it down within hours. But imagine you seeing this ad of a random company knowing this much and lots more about you. Note that Instagram and WhatsApp belong to Facebook/Meta, so even if you're not using Facebook directly, you're still being watched just as closely.

Knowing exactly what you like, dislike, fear, and love, strong emotions can be triggered for political or financial gain. You're into sustainability? Buy this product and we will retrieve one pound of plastic from the ocean! You are conservative and maybe slightly racist? Immigrants are taking over more and more healthcare jobs! You are scared by a possible nuclear war? Vote us for safety and peace!

This is how Cambridge Analytica managed to pull in millions of voters in the US and manipulate the election in a way that Donald Trump wouldn't have won without their manipulation. This is literally a threat to democracy. And as you know, my allegiance is to the Republic, to Democracy!

You might be aware of how right-wing and extremist parties all around the western world use very polarizing and emotional topics in their campaigns and are doing very well on social media. Often much better than more centered, leftist, or conservative parties, who tend to polarize less. This is not a coincidence. Not only is this because of customized, targeted content, but it's also because strong emotions generate more attention

Doom Scrolling & Dopamine

Social Media has had decades to perfect their dopamine lottery. The algorithms know exactly what you are into, no matter how much of a niche it might be. A good, user-oriented algorithm would show you a few posts, the best ones of the day, and then simply say "well, that's been all the good stuff. Wanna see the rest anyways?". But that's not how it works, is it? When opening an app like Instagram, TikTok, Tumblr, etc., you usually immediately land on a recent top-post. This is to give you the instant gratification and that sweet hit of dopamine.

Have you ever noticed how you had to scroll a bit before you got a post again that you really loved? That's by design. The mix of top-posts and mediocre ones is on purpose, to keep you waiting for more. You never know when the next super funny TikTok will come by. All you know is that it might be the next one. In-between top-posts, you're met with mediocre garbage and an add or two and just before it gets too boring, you hit gold again. The constant release of much higher than normal amounts of dopamine make your brain temporarily lose touch with what levels are normal. Why is it that you feel drained and tired after scrolling through social media for a few hours, even though you've done nothing but sitting around? You didn't think hard, you didn't move much, so what is it? It is the dopamine-rollercoaster that is mentally straining you. And there are tens of thousands of highly trained software engineers and corporate executives designing their platforms to keep you scrolling for as long as possible. If that little chiming sound increases your screen time by as little as 2%, it will be added. It is designed to suck your life away, chain your eyeballs to the content they want you to see, just so they can literally sell you to anyone who has the cash. You need that new gadget, visiting this country is an absolute must, this new sports competition is amazing, definitely vote for this cool party. Trust them. They know what you want. You don't know anything about them, but they know everything about you.

"What do I do now?"

Well, it is unlikely that you'll stop using social media at all. I mean, even I am still here. But there are things you can and should do for your mental and financial health, and for your own safety and protection against manipulation. Here is a list of things you should consider

Limiting social media to only a few apps you actually use and are interested in

Spend no more than 2 hours on social media per day

Meet friends irl instead of only texting

Stop sharing personal information. It is not illegal to enter false names, birthdays, etc into random sign-up forms! Protect your children as well!

Use privacy- & user-oriented platforms, such as Signal instead of WhatsApp, or Mastodon instead of Twitter. They finance themselves through volunteers and donations instead of by selling your data and lifetime to any buyer

Use privacy-oriented frontends (the visual interface and application you interact with), such as NewPipe or FreeTube instead of YouTube. You also won't be seeing any ads there

Don't buy anything impulsively. Take a week or two to think about whether you really need and want it.

Check facts, do your own research, use multiple sources, be critical

And in case you're interested in what I use:

I'm have an Android phone running /e/OS and a total of 5 computers/servers which run Linux and a Windows laptop for work. My phone block any trackers, fakes my GPS location (not VPN/IP) to where I am in Barcelona. All devices have a 24/7 encrypted VPN connection. I don't have WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or even a Google account. For personal use I have Signal, Element (Discord alternative), and Proton Mail. That's it. Every website or platform I have an account on has it's own, unique, single-use email, a randomized password and 2FA whenever possible. I use KeePass as my password manager, encrypted with a password, key file, and hardware key. I enter false data into any random form, use hardened Firefox browsers to resist fingerprinting and tracking, and back up all my data at home on a hard drive instead of using a cloud service. (Yes, there is much more)

For my content, I use Tumblr and a semi-active Discord account, Reddit accounts are banned.

For my professional life, I am forced to use Microsoft Teams and Outlook, yet I only use those on my work computer & phone.

Privacy = Freedom

Yes, I know my measures are far beyond average, but I wanted to present an example and hopefully inspire some of you to take back your online freedom and privacy! Because that's what it is! Privacy is Freedom!

I hope this inspired you and please ask any questions in the comments! This truly is a topic that means a lot to me so thank you for reading all the way through it. Please reblog to further share this important topic and encourage others to protect themselves!

- Ace

[stem-sister-scuffle]

STEM SISTER SCUFFLE: ROUND 3 MASHUP 1

Jadzia Dax (Star Trek Deep Space 9) vs Ema Skye (Ace Attorney)

Jadzia Dax is an Astrophysicist and Xenobiologist!

Ema Skye is a Forensic Scientist!

Why you should vote for each contestant:

Jadzia Dax:

"She does a lot of science in space — like xenobiology and physics — but is also the ranking science officer, so she covers a lot of fields. she is an expert in many scientific fields, leads a lot of other scientists, and is a badass starfleet officer who can f you UP in a fight. her alien species is a symbiotic set of species, so Jadzia’s got a worm named Dax in her and has access to all of Dax’s past hosts’ memories & knowledge, part of why she’s an expert in so many fields! but Jadzia, the host, also got multiple degrees in different fields before she was “joined” with her symbiote."

"She is a star trek science officer, so mostly space anomalies and stuff 😄 She is self assured and takes up space and just a joy to watch. All the bi girls love her 💜"

"First F/F kiss on TV"

"IMMORTAL WORM ALIEN WOMAN who has lived EIGHT LIVES and is GENDERFLUID but is CURRENTLY A WOMAN! She's great"

"She is the lead science officer on her space station! Got four degrees in astrophysics, exoarchaeology, exobiology and zoology. She is an amazing researcher! Jadzia is a Joined Trill, host to the Dax symbiont which has lived 300 years. Jadzia became a Starfleet officer and pursued her science studies before then becoming Joined, which means she also has the wealth of knowledge from Dax's multiple lives. She is an amazing scientist and also loves to have fun, and she's a genderfluid pansexual ICON."

Ema Skye:

"I love her a lot and she's very important to me. We get to see her story from being a high school student who's really into science, to becoming a detective, to then finally passing her forensics exam and becoming a forensic scientist like she always wanted. I cosplayed her before"

"Ema has been interested in forensics ever since she was a kid. She's extremely passionate about it. She works very hard and despite bumps along the way she does manage to achieve her dreams/career goal and get into forensic science. She is amazing and I love her enthusiasm and I love her :D When she was like 16 she personally had her own spray bottle(s) of luminol testing fluid, what a dork (in the best way!). Forensic science is practically her whole life. What an inspiration. The first thing on her wiki page is the quote "Yes! Isn't it amazing? Ah, the power of science. It's my life." Bless."

"this girl is so silly. Her favorite thing is luminol. You have an ace attorney pfp you know her. She is my favorite ever. She calls Klavier Gavin a "glimmerous fop" (accurate description). She wears a lab coat over her school uniform. She brings snacks to crime scenes.i love her your honor"

"shes like every enthusiastic autism girl with a science special interest who then gors to college and gets a job and is tired and a mean lesbian but still is a freak about forensics. i love her"

"SHE WORKED SO HARD TO GO INTO FORENSICS. SHE HELPS EVERYONE DO FORENSICS. SHE THEN FAILS WHEN IT COUNTS AND BECOMES BITTER BUT GETS OUT OF THOSE FEELINGS LATER ON. I love her dearly she's so silly and fun when she needs to be, and I think her failure is fascinating but I'm SOOOOO GLAD she was able to become a forensic scientist in the end :)"

"Showed up and gave Apollo random forensics supplies at just the right time. Not sure if this was authorized. Does not Mayte though she can do anything she wants. C’mon man you know her you know why she’s the best you get me right"

"She's fun and good at science and has pink lenses in her glasses and I like her a lot"

"She is so excited to be using her fun little toys to solve crimes."

"She’s a gosh darn professional in a house of fops. Is passionate about her work and was inspired partially by a murder case she was involved in as a witness. She’s really cute and really quirky, and ya girl knows how to snack. She accessorizes really well. I cosplayed as her once and found myself more and more impressed with her style choices as I was putting it together. We stan a fashionable yet practical STEM queen."

"she is literally everythingggg to me. she has wanted to be a forensic scientist since she was 16 y/o and introduces forensic investigation mechanics to the series like luminol and dusting for fingerprints. when she does not get her dream job, she becomes depressed and bitter, only cheering up when she talks about forensic science. later on, when she attains the job, she is much happier! science is her entire life and her career and she is tremendously autistic about it. also she's such a girlboss i love her <3 ema must go through btw. she is the ultimate woman in stem"

"Ema Skye has been interested in forensics for many years due to case that occurred when she was younger. Even though she didn't pass the test to become one at first she had still continued trying till she made it. She always lights up at the mention of anything revolving sciene. She gets so happy when she's able to work with her forensic tools and investigate the crime scene <33"

"Teaches Phoenix wright about forensics"

"she wears a cool lab coat and I don't really know what else to put here but she's neat"

"she is so autistic about forensic science. she goes against the police rules to take fingerprints. she infodumps to anyone who will listen about forensic science. ema is so special to me and I love her very much"

"Ema is a girlboss! She started using forensics and scientific investigation to help solve murders when she was just 15 years old. she autistic and bisexual bc I say so :)"

"Literally the only character in universe that uses hard evidence in trials."

"The skyentific detective…."

"Its literally her personality ok. Just listen to her theme(s). I just love her"

"She is literally me <33 I love her. I need to see her grow up happy and healthy and i need to tell my friends and family about her."

"Wants to be a scientific investigator and solve crimes scientifically, forced to be a cop. Goes from teen with a weird hobby to reluctant cop to everything she ever wanted and I am so proud"

"She’s just a little weirdo. And she keeps trying to be a forensic scientist, but she has to finish high school first. She solved the murder her sister was accused of "

"Forensic science fascinates her. She sure is a woman jn stem. I am sorry I am very tired i dn what to write"

"I need to actually finish AA but it’s her. You probably have more submissions with better reasoning but I like her vibes from what I did play."

"She's got all sorts of cool gadgets which utilize the DS touchscreen"

[veronika-tserber]

ASTROLOGY AND GIFT-GIVING PT. 5🎁

🌪 AIR SIGNS EDITION

Air signs love LEARNING new things, even though they do it in slightly different ways.

CONNECTION is more important than anything to them, which is why the company they are in can make or break their mood/celebration.

They are honestly the most unpretentious when it comes to receiving gifts, and their tastes aren't set in stone or strictly specified. They are curious and open to trying out new things.

♈ GEMINIS are the Tricksters of the zodiac, and they love to have a fun time. If you host them a party, make sure it includes puzzles, card games, and even roleplay! They love connecting with others on a personal level, so keep the circle relatively small and/or maybe host it at home? Alternatively, you can go to a stand-up comedy show together.

Many of them have a unique/twisted sense of humor, and they love to read, so maybe you could find some weird, witty books to gift them. They love to learn about everything, so even books about random topics they know nothing about may spark their curiosity, and become their next favorite hobby. At least for a month or two.😁

Gemini rules the 3rd house of day-to-day life, so they pretty much enjoy the small things that bring joy. A day spent in the right company, talking and goofing around town or exploring nearby cities, can be more rewarding than anything "fancy".  The 3rd house is also connected to vehicles, so bonus points if you use bikes to move around or go roller-skating.

They are also the messengers/communicators of the zodiac, and they sure have a LOT to say, so why not give them an outlet for that? Buy them a funky journal or pen to help them document their thoughts and emotions. If they are open to the idea, you could even get them a quality mic to start their own podcast.

I find that a SPRINKLE of the opposite sign's energy can be a good move. To help Geminis find balance, gift them a slightly Sagittarian gift. Expand their perspective and beliefs by giving them a book on the topic of philosophy or esoterica, but make sure it's written in an accessible way that won't bore them to death. Especially if they REALLY aren't into this kind of stuff, normally. E.g, I've seen cool comic books on Zen Buddhism.

You can also take them camping or go on a longer trip around the country. Geminis tend to get in the details sometimes, so you can broaden their perspective by feeding them facts and knowledge about history. Visit sacred spaces or ruins, and museums - give them a cultural expansion!

♌ LIBRAS, ruled by Venus, the planet of love and beauty, enjoy *surprise* beauty products and fashion. They love (natural) skincare, accessories, and makeup.

They also love to play with their home interior. However, make sure you know their aesthetic preferences well. They are the pickiest Air sign, but even if you "mess up", you probably won't even hear a word about it. Alternatively, you can feed their hunger for culture and art by visiting an art gallery/museum or something similar. If you decide to give them a book, go for the fiction genre and poetry instead of science. They are super intelligent, don't get me wrong. But they are also the most sensual, feminine, and emotional Air sign.

Libras love to connect one-on-one, so definitely try to do something together. If you are a couple, you could go on a movie date *preferably romantic movie* and have a nice dinner at a restaurant afterward. Bonus points if you cook them a nice healthy meal at home, set up the table with candles, and try all of the cheesy romantic stuff you've seen in the movies.

I find that a SPRINKLE of the opposite sign's energy can be a good move. To help Libras find balance, you can gift them a slightly Aries gift. They would benefit from things/experiences that strengthen self-confidence and individuality by shifting their focus on themselves/their goals/interests.

You can also ignite their inner fire by taking them to a competitive sports class or martial arts class such as kickboxing, for example – see how that makes them feel. If they are already into fitness and sports, you can give them sports apparel.

♐ AQUARIANS are the most solitary of all air signs. They are the true definition of an ambivert – someone who is both an introvert and an extrovert. They love to exchange ideas and collaborate with others, but up to a certain point. After they reach that point, they tend to disappear into their inner world. To help them effectively tune the outside world off, you can gift them headphones or tools to develop their own spiritual/self-improvement practices and routines.

Give them some sort of a puzzle/toy they will be able to disassemble and put back together. They love to see the inner workings of systems and things, so "toys" like this are perfect. An obvious gift idea is technology if you can afford it.

If you decide to give them a book, go for the celestial sciences such as astronomy or astrology, and if it’s fiction - they like sci-fi. A LOT. They are the humanitarians of the zodiac, so books that educate them on current social/political issues or technological progress are a good idea.

They love to accentuate their individuality and to even elicit strong reactions in others, so unique clothing pieces/accessories with witty text on them, and all kinds of personalized items that show them you appreciate their quirks, are ideal. Aquarius also rules Astrology and the Occult, so it’s pretty obvious what you could get them. *wink* 

I find that a SPRINKLE of the opposite sign's energy can be a good move. To help Aquarians find balance, you can gift them a slightly Leo gift. Bring out their heart and passion to the front by hosting a party. Many of them don't even celebrate their birthdays, and they can totally get too sucked into the “self-improvement” spiral. Help them have a good time that may or may not involve drinking games, lots of selfies, and silly/sexy dancing.

You could also take an art class or see a play together. These activities will allow them to access their untapped reserves of emotion. *jk jk* If they are hesitant to go to an art class, there is even a better alternative. Gather art supplies and have fun drawing and experimenting with different techniques and whatever comes to mind. Art talent: not required. In fact, to take it a step further, draw as awkwardly and chaotically as you can, and put your creations on eBay for sale. Laugh at yourselves. The point is to tap into Leo's childlike creativity and confidence which Aquarians seem to lack at times.

Okay, guys, this was the final post of this "series". Honestly, I am so over it at this point 😂I feel like I only really wanted to write the first part. But still,

- Foxbörn

ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ 1

ᴄʜᴀʀᴛ ʀᴇᴀᴅɪɴɢꜱ

ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʙᴜʏ ᴍᴇ ᴀ ᴄᴏꜰꜰᴇᴇ?

[obedientononline]

INFINITE HORIZONS

Tracing the threads of whisper of the mind

Unraveling the mysteries of dream ,so what exactly a dream is? Dream can be defined as Sequence of events happening in subconscious mind oftenly in sleep.

Even though definition is quite understandable but I still wonder what exactly a dream is, theories on why we dream, science behind dream ,psychological significance ,what not and that one definition is unquenchable.

I am so enchanted by this for several reasons as I go through this everyday, each day a new script a happy script like a field of dandelions in the warm breeze, a sad script like a dark looming cloud, a tangled script, a contentment script just like a golden glow of sunset embracing peace or the worst a fearful script like a freezed heart paralyzed. Sometimes a mixture of sweet, sour, tangy delightful melody of contrasting sensations.

A night owl in me was brought up in the landscape of Dreams, Without my awareness I developed this habit of staying awake late at night because of this. As I mentioned earlier one bad script and you don't want to go back to sleep again.

Preferred to stay conscious rather than journeying the path of subconscious. But the fact one cannot deny the natural rhythm, I end up with the flow of notes of dreaming.

The dreams which will make me question my existence but how challenging is to recollect one's dream. If only this was a case may be I feel it would not be bothering me as much as it does, it bothers me for various other reasons like a phenomenon called Deja-vu, the exact places exist for real even though I have no idea about it, the common dreams repeating and some of them wild too. All this made me fascinated to know about this more and more.

The thing that science could not answer dream completely makes it more interesting.

While there are many theories about dream, before that I wanted to know why it is difficult to justify or explain the actual significance. When I went through several research papers and scholar's talk I got to know it is challenging as Brain is complex and mechanism involves neural process which is difficult to understand for the common people like us, the next reason as it is subjective experience as it varies from person to person.

One of the main reason which makes a lot of sense to me as well is that Dream is a limited access, dream occurs during sleep when the conscious mind is inactive so basically when a researcher wants to study as a individual can't remember or explain as it is limited, reporting or analyzing is difficult in such case, hence coming to the conclusion is also difficult.

And lastly also due to knowledge in various fields such as psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, anthropology etc. So it is not yet fully understood by an individual.

But wait Why do we dream?

The exact reason why we dream is still a topic of debate among scientist and researchers. However, several theories explore the purpose of dreaming.

After getting to know about why it is a mystery still, all my attention for the proved theory and even the hypothesis increased .

Firstly I was probing to know about the hypothesis, of course the excitement in exploring a hypothesis is more captivating than the realm of proven theories.

Some of the interesting hypotheses which I have come across is as follows:

Hypothesis of Random activation: Dreams arise from random neural activity during sleep with the brain figuring the sense of the signals.

Emotional processing Hypothesis : This says that dreams help individual regulate emotions providing a chance to work on unresolved emotions.

Hypothesis of memory organization: Dreams organize memories, adding new information with existing knowledge. There is an other similar hypothesis which is Memory reorganization which facilitate reorganization of memory prioritizing important information while discarding less relevant details.

Psychoanalytic Hypothesis: This is one of my fav which says that dreams provide a window into unconscious mind revealing hidden desires, fears, and the influenced behavior and conflicts. How interesting is that!

Hypothesis of warning danger: This tells that dreams simulate danger in advance allowing them to be prepare for one. The one thing I would like to add from my individual experience is that there is an unforgettable dream of mine which was the best dream, the dream was that my father returning from hospital for my birthday and he did but not in that state, which haunts me till date.

Problem Solving Hypothesis: According to this theory Dreams provide space for the brain to explore in creative aspect also in resolving problems, which may help in real world.

Hypothesis of continual-activation: This hypothesis tells that dreams are a result of continual activity of brain during sleep reflecting process of consolidating memory and emotional processing.

Evolutionary Hypothesis: Dreams have evolutionary significance, adaptive functions like threat detective as mentioned earlier in Warning danger hypothesis, social bonding and survival skills which helps in survival of the fittest of an individual.

Hypothesis of Cognitive development : Dreams play a role in intellectual development helping to solidify neutral connection and hence develop problem solving, creative thinking etc.

Then I headed towards some of the research papers published regarding this. Firstly, I came across "Dreaming and the brain: Toward a cognitive neuroscience of conscious states" by J. Allan Hobson, Edward F. Pace-Schott, and Robert Stickgold published in 2002.

This was one of the interesting research paper I came across which begins with the introduction and objective of dreaming which states that Dreaming is a universal human experience that offers a unique view of consciousness and cognition. It has been studied from the vantage points of philosophy and it further mentions that they will also review polysomnographically defined wake and sleep states. Their analyses will be based on comparisons and correlations among these various mental and physiological states.

This paper will cover the three major questions seem to be ripe for resolution through constructive debate:

1. Are the similarities and differences in the conscious experiences of waking, NREM, and REM sleep defined with sufficient clarity that they can be measured objectively? If so, do the measures establish clear-cut and major differences between the phenomenological experience of these three physiological states?

2. Are the similarities and differences between the brain substrates of the states of waking, NREM, and REM sleep defined with sufficient clarity that they can be measured objectively? If so, do the measures establish clear-cut differences between these states at the level of brain regions, as well as at the cellular and molecular levels?

3. To the extent that affirmative answers can be given to the two preceding questions, can a tentative integration of the phenomenological and physiological data be made? Can models account for the current results and suggest experiments to clarify remaining issues?

In order to understand this, we need to know about certain topics

A state space model of the brain-mind:

The brain-mind is a unified system whose complex components dynamically interact so as to produce a continuously changing state. As such, any accurate characterization of the system must be multidimensional and dynamic and must be integrated across the neurobiological and psychological domains. Both neurobiological and psychological probes of the system must therefore be designed, applied and interpreted so as to recognize and clarify these features.

They have explained this with the help of state space models which can be simplified as (1) the information processing capacity of the system (activation); (2) the degree to which the information processed comes from the outside world and is or is not reflected in behavior (information flow); and (3) the way in which the information in the system is processed (mode).

The resulting state space model, while still necessarily overly simplistic, is nonetheless a powerful tool for studies of consciousness. It captures many aspects of the neurobiological, cognitive, and psychological dynamics of wake, sleep states, and is unique in several important respects that light of the controversial conceptual and empirical issues that have stymied the study of waking, sleeping, and dreaming.

The phenomenology and psychophysiology of waking, sleeping, and dreaming

In this section they have discussed the evidence which has been gathered over the past 40 years in an effort to define the conscious states of waking, sleeping, and dreaming and to measure their formal features quantitatively. With respect to the first question raised in the introduction, was defended the position that these three states can be defined, that their components can be analyzed and measured, and that they are significantly different from one another.

And guess what my search of definition of Dream found a way here.

"Mental activity occurring in sleep characterized by vivid sensorimotor imagery that is experienced as waking reality despite such distinctive cognitive features as impossibility or improbability of time, place, person and actions; emotions, especially fear, elation, and anger predominate over sadness, shame, and guilt and sometimes reach sufficient strength to cause awakening; memory for even very vivid dreams is evanescent and tends to fade quickly upon awakening unless special steps are taken to retain it.”

It is believed that this highly specified definition serves both folk psychology and cognitive neuroscience equally well.

Then they provide us the Overview of the NREM-REM sleep mentation controversy, early findings of distinct differences between REM and NREM mentation with the appropriate data.

Then comes the relationship between dream features and dream report length

A critical review of the papers of Antrobus (1983) and Foulkes and Schmidt (1983) reveals that these papers report significant quantitative differences in the features of REM and NREM dreams. Both papers also find features such as dreaminess or character density to differ significantly between REM and NREM dreams even when report length is unjustifiably normalized. Neither study reports data that argue against the contention that the strong correlation between report length and dream features occurs because reports with more dream features require more words to describe them (Hunt et al. 1993; Nielsen 1999). We urge the collection of additional data to further clarify the nature of these REM/NREM differences. Such data should include ample numbers of reports, collected longitudinally in naturalistic settings, which are obtained from home awakenings physiologically monitored with un-intrusive devices such as the Nightcap.

They have even provided Methodological considerations in the study of dreaming and the reduction of psychological states to narrative reports.

In conclusion, this paper made me gain a deeper understanding. This study underscores the importance of continued research. Perhaps We continue to explore the interplay between conscious and unconscious.

Journeying to dreamscape I don’t know whether I crossed realm of imagination . But I definitely discovered unknown within, I really want to continue dream quest navigating to inner self.

The content of this blog post is intended for informational purposes only.

[Source: assets.cambridge.org]

[Image source: Pinterest]

[daimonzone]

Lydz's Interests:

I WILL HAPPILY RAMBLE ABOUT THESE TOPICS AND LEARN ABOUT THEM, I HAVE VARYING LEVELS OF KNOWLEDGE ON THESE TOPICS AND SOME OF THEM ARE JUST STUFF I KNOW SOME RANDOM THINGS ABOUT DUE TO GOING DOWN A RABBIT HOLE ABOUT THEM ONCE BUT ALL THESE THINGS ARE STUFF I CARE ABOUT TO SOME DEGREE

also there's no particular order

Has Not Left My Brain Since Spring of 2021: Omori

Fuck Yeah These Are Incredibly Important And Sentimental To Me and I Love Them: Undertale, Celeste, Splatoon, Animal Crossing

Still Pretty Important: Rain World, Deltarune, Shovel Knight, Unpacking, Stardew Valley, Bokujou Monogatari games, Pokémon, Rhythm Heaven

Can Infodump About But Not Currently Incredibly Interested: honeybees (specifically beekeeping and SPECIFICALLY HONEYBEES)

Broad Categories: linguistics, psychology, science stuff in general (soft and hard), computer-related stuff, witchcraft, queer topics, civil rights, economics, anime (maybe at some point i'll post about anime im interested in/currently watching)

Other Assorted Stuff That Sometimes Falls Under Broader Categories But Whatever: The Owl House, Bluey, Toki Pona, paradoxes/logical fallacies/cognitive biases/etc., Ghost And Pals songs, cellular automata, storytelling (tropes, techniques, tools, etc.), Civilization, The Sims games, accessibility

The Current Thing I Like A Lot: Fallout Shelter, Terra Nil (have been playing both games quite a bit recently lol)

[sagau-my-beloved]

So I have a lot of brainrots and stuff that I share with my brother but nobody else that I felt like sharing with you. One of them is what if creator!Reader subconsciously ends up sending like... gifts from our world to Teyvat. Like giving them a taste of the things the creator likes or is familiar with and are tailored to the characters who get them, so like Yun Jin, Xinyan, and Venti get access to an interdimensional radio that plays music from Earth, and Albedo gets like science textbooks, and tech that is too advanced for Teyvat and has media would be translated into book form, so cartoons become comics/manga so like Klee gets like a manga version of MLP:FiM and Beidou gets a novel series version of Pirates of the Caribbean... maybe Zhongli gets copies of myths and legends from earth history cause he seems like he'd like that...

Oh my god this is so cool, like, and this is kind of expanding on that in a different form, if reader just happened to look at an everyday object they owned and thought "Huh, you know I bet *insert character here* would find this interesting" then boom, it's transported directly to them (in three to five business days—)

So like the first few times it happens everyone is super confused, I mean, random stuff that they didn't even know existed is suddenly appearing in front of them

As soon as word gets out that your the one doing it, all hell is going to break loose, anything that makes its way from your world to their world is going to be seen as a blessed object, the receiver as someone who has gained your favor

So there's probably going to be ceremonies dedicated to this where everyone tries to get your attention so that you might think of them more (and therefore have a higher probability of you accidentally sending them something that reminds you of them)

Like characters that you would typically only see on character quest or specific storylines are going to be appearing more frequently outside of that, doing anything possible to get you to strike up a conversation so they can keep you there as long as possible

Characters that you already own are going to try their hardest to stay as a part of the main team, a suspicious increase in attack rates, sometimes it looks like the attacks don't even hit them, how suspicious

Suddenly these mostly meaningless things that you wouldn't even glance twice at in your own world become the most important object that person owns, it'll be treasured and displayed and shown off

Since everybody just assumes the more things a person has the more well liked they are, the characters which end up getting a lot from you are going to be both the object of adoration and jealousy, you've successfully placed a target on their backs—

Getting into more specifics, I think it would be so funny if you were reading a modern chemistry or just general science book for your class or job or even just a pass time, and then happened to think of Albedo, because that book would contain knowledge that is so far beyond what they currently know

What they could understand would probably completely blow their minds about the universe and elements and how all of that works

It'll probably be interpreted that you are the one who wrote that btw, you'll be hailed as an absolute genius (as if they didn't already think that), and also incredibly merciful for sharing your wisdom with the rest of them

That's stupid textbook would become the most read and studied book by all of the greatest minds in Teyvat

Of course it is still owned by Albedo, who is incredibly honoured that you would choose to share this with the world through him

And God forbid if you accidentally happened to think of Zhongli while reading a history book—

I could see that turning into a disaster real quick, I mean, everybody is going to learn about the fact that you live in a completely separate world with other people similar to you, and how that world is incredibly cruel and heartless—

It would strengthen their resolve to physically take you away from there

Of course, that does all hinge on the notion that Zhongli would let anybody else even touch that book, which is a little far fetched

I imagine mythology books would be a much safer bet, but there's always a chance that those could be taken as actual history books to so—

I could imagine Venti getting modern instruments, books of poetry perhaps, and I think the funniest would be some kind of iPod, or any other type of music storing device that runs on battery power

Because imagine it, they don't really have anything like that there, so it would take a bit of trial and error to even figure out what it is and how to use it, then he suddenly learns that it's used to play music (which is just so crazy to all of them), music that is completely unlike anything that they have ever heard or known to be possible, even for him with his self proclaimed knowing all music that has and will ever exist

And then the battery dies—

It's not like any of them know how to charge it or even that they have to, so then he assumes that he just broke the gift you gave him—

I want you to imagine what a distraught person looks like, now take that image and multiply it by 10 or so

Venti is going to feel so bad, you went through all this trouble to send him a specialized gift (which was better than anything you have ever sent anyone else in his eyes), and he breaks it

If you were there physically he would apologize for days on end, but since you aren't there physically, he has to simply use that energy apologizing to the statute of you and praying that you'll forgive him

If he gets another gift after that he'll feel better about the whole thing, taking that as a sign of your forgiveness

(Venti would also accidentally be given a lot of wine by me because I just think about him everytime I see bottles anywhere)

Childe would probably be most likely to get various types of weaponry, I'm basing a lot of this soley off of what items cause me to think of these characters btw, but he would really take great pride and whatever you gave him, even if it was like stupid little trinkets (Childe with a tiny bow key chain that he puts on his actual bow let's go—)

I really want Thoma to get a dog stuffed animal, because I think that would be incredibly cute

I think the kids getting things would be absolutely adorable, especially if it was kind of unorthodox things

Like Qiqi now has a large pile of coconuts and coconut shaped toys, because every time you see one you can't help but think of her

Klee would get cute comics and probably a large amount of various toys that are red, she would hoard them all in her room and refused to give them up for anything

It's just such a fun idea, and really personalized too since everyone has different associations for characters and objects, thank you for sharing <3

[icarusgf]

hi tony sorry for coming into your inbox like this but. im entering high school next year and im about to lose my mind 😭 i just have no idea what i should be doing right now or how i should be doing it. like college apps and whatnot or relatively far off but when the time comes i don't even know what to consider or how to look for anything. and really that's the only example that comes to mind because i feel like im doing nothing other than being online all day but i just don't know what i SHOULD do. and i came to you as you seem very well rounded and like you know exactly what're you doing and im just. not. ugh im really sorry about this but i just feel so lost and i really don't know what to do

hiii no worries at all!! here r some general tips but u can also check out my school tag or ask anything else <3 this got rly long so below the cut lol

don't be afraid to explore and just sign up for a lot of stuff. like genuinely if u have a club fair to explore activities at school just put urself down on the email list for anything that looks remotely interesting to u and try to go to at least one meeting. ur not committing to anything and can drop it anytime but it's nice to have a lot of options to just test the waters to see what u might like doing most.

u might feel like ur peers are way ahead of u but especially in ur first two years of hs, it is definitely not too late to start something new. i applied to and did this science summer program before junior year because it looked cool having 0 knowledge in the field i was placed in and it ended up being one of the biggest things i dedicated myself to during hs. i played a completely new sport in sophomore year bc of scheduling conflicts and it was the most fun i ever had being athletic. this guy i know started speech&debate his junior year and ended up a national champion by the time he graduated hs. sometimes people with natural talent will just always have an advantage but especially in hs i've found that most activities are accessible enough so that u can get good at them simply if u enjoy them and invest ur amount of time into them.

don't feel bad for not knowing what u want to do in the future! i didn't have any clue what i wanted to do in the future until i started actually writing my college app essays. and even since then what i want to do now has shifted so much since what i thought i was going to do then. i kind of just looked at what i'd done throughout hs, thought about what classes i enjoyed, and chose a major that aligned with that. ik people say "follow ur passion" but idt i even know what i'm passionate about now 💀 just look at ur options and choose which ones u like and everything will follow

kind of counterintuitive to the first point (but not really) but quality > quantity. what i mean is that after u explore ur options and figure out what activities u really enjoy, focus on those and really dedicate urself to them. it's much more enjoyable to really find what fulfills u and do that to the max rather than simply dabbling in a bunch of clubs that u might not really actually like. (also when it comes to writing college essays it's a lot easier to build a narrative abt an activity if u like.. actually put work into it and enjoyed it).

grades are important but also... don't kill urself over them. study for ur tests but please please please do not beat urself up over a bad grade bc i promise u it will not be the one factor that kills ur chances for anything. i was MISERABLE in physics i think i got a 60 on my first lab report had a solid 70 average in my quiz category and i put myself thru so much grief for that class for like. absolutely nothing. and i am still headed to mit to study random science-y shit so like.. as someone who used to run herself ragged over studying for tests it is important.. but not worth that.

sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep. ik the general advised "8 hrs" is really not feasible for most people but like. i try to get in bed and asleep between 11-12 everyday and it does WONDERS. obv it may not be possible but genuinely esp as u get older i would say get ur sleep, submit ur assignment late if u have to.

i have friends who would go to the library every day during lunch instead of. actually eating bc they had so much work and like. not to say don't do ur work but as someone whose last day of hs is tomorrow i'm telling u u do not want to miss the little things like eating lunch with ur friends or hanging out. ik these tips were mostly academic and like.. high school is school but i strongly advise u to push urself to go to at least one school game or school dance or just. spend some time with ur friends bc it really does end before u know it :,)

[queenlua]

hey, i started following you recently and ur bio says ur a hacker? any tips on where to start? hacking seems like a v cool/fun way to learn more abt coding and cybersecurity/infrastructure and i'd like to explore it but there's so much on the internet and like, i'm not trying to get into anything illegal. thanks!

huh, an interesting question, ty!

i can give more tailored advice if you hit me up on chat with more specifics on your background/interests.

given what you've written here, though, i'll just assume you don't have any immediate professional aspirations (e.g. you just want to learn some things, and you aren't necessarily trying to get A Cyber Security Job TM within the next three months or w/e), and that you don't know much about any specific programming/computering domain yet.

(stuff under cut because long)

first i'd probably just try to pick some interesting problem that you think you can solve with tech. this doesn't need to be a "hacking" project at first; i was just messing around with computers for ages before i did anything involving security/exploitation.

if you don't already know how to program, you should ideally pick a problem you can solve via programming. for instance: i learned a lot back in the 2000s, when play-by-post forum RPGs were in vogue.  see, i'd already been messing around, building my own personal sites, first just with HTML & CSS, and later on with Javascript and PHP.   and i knew the forum software everyone used (InvisionPowerBoard) was written in PHP.  so when one of the admins at my RPG complained that they'd like the ability to set multiple profile pictures, i was like, "hey i'm good at programming, want me to create a mod to do that," and then i just... did. so then they asked me to program more features, and i got all the sexy nerd cred for being Forum Mod Queen, and it was a good time, i learned a lot.

(i also got to be the person who was frantically IMed at 2am because wtf the forum is down and there's an inscrutable error, what do??? basically sysadmining! also, much less sexy! still, i learned a lot!)

the key thing is that it's gotta be a problem that's interesting to you: as much as i love making dorky sites in PHP, half the fun was seeing other people using my stuff, and i think the era of forum-based RPGs has passed. but maybe you can apply some programming talents to something that you are interested in—maybe you want to make a silly Chrome extension to make people laugh, a la Cloud to Butt, or maybe you'd like to make a program that converts pixel art into cross-stitching patterns, maybe you want to just make a cool adventure game on those annoying graphing calculators they make you use in class, or make a script for some online game you play, or make something silly with Arduino (i once made a trash can that rolled toward me when i clapped my hands; it was fun, and way easier than you'd think!), whatever.

i know a lot of hacker-types who got their start doing ROM hacking for video games—replacing the character art or animations or whatever in old NES games. that's probably more relevant than the PHP websites, at least, and is probably a solid place to get started; in my experience those communities tend to be reasonably friendly to questions. pick a small thing you want to do & ask how to do it.

also, a somewhat unconventional path, but—once i knew how to program a bit of Python, i started doing goofy junk, like, "hey can i implemented NamedTuple from scratch,” which tends to lead to Python metaprogramming, which leads to surprising shit like "oh, stack frames are literally just Python objects and you can manually edit them in the interpreter to do deliberately horrendous/silly things, my god this language allows too much reflection and i'm having too much fun"... since Python is a lot of folks' first language these days, i thought i'd point that out, since i think this is a pretty accessible start to thinking about How Programs Actually Work under the hood. allison kaptur has some specific recommendations on how to poke around, if you wanna go that route.

it's reasonably likely you'll end up doing something "hackery" in the natural course of just working on stuff. for instance, while i was working on the IPB forum software mods, i became distressed to learn that everyone was using an INSECURE version of the software! no one was patching their shit!! i yelled at the admins about it, and they were like "well we haven't been hacked yet so it's not a problem," so i uh, decided to demonstrate a proof of concept? i downloaded some sketchy perl script, kicked it until it worked, logged in as the admins, and shitposted a bit before i logged out, y'know, to prove my point.

(they responded by banning me for two weeks, and did not patch their software. which, y'know, rip to them; they got hacked by an unrelated Turkish group two months later, and those dudes just straight-up deleted the whole website. i was a merciful god by comparison!)

anyway, even though downloading a perl script and just pointing it at a website isn't really "hacking" (it's the literal definition of script kiddie, heh)—the point is i was just experimenting a lot and trying a lot of stuff, which meant i was getting comfortable with thinking of software as not just some immutable relic, but something you can touch and prod in unexpected ways.

this dovetails into the next thing, which is like, just learn a lot of stuff. a boring conventional computer science degree will teach you a lot (provided you take it seriously and actually try to learn shit); alternatively, just taking the same classes as a boring conventional computer science degree, via edX or whatever free online thingy, will also teach you a lot. ("contributing to open source" also teaches you a lot but... hngh... is a whole can of worms; send a follow-up ask if you want that rant.)

here's where i should note that "hacking" is an impossibly broad category: the kind of person who knows how to fuck with website authentication tokens is very different than someone who writes a fuzzer, who is often quite different than someone who looks at the bug a fuzzer produces and actually writes a program that can exploit that bug... so what you focus on depends on what you're interested in. i imagine classes with names like "compilers," "operating systems," and "networking" will teach you a lot. but, like, idk, all knowledge is god-breathed and good for teaching. hell, i hear some universities these days have actual computer security classes? that's probably a good thing to look at, just to get a sense of what's out there, if you already know how to program.

also be comfortable with not knowing everything, but also, learn as you go. the bulk of my security knowledge came when i got kinda airdropped into a work team that basically hired me entirely on "potential" (lmao), and uh, prior to joining i only had the faintest idea what a hypervisor was? or the whole protection ring concept? or ioctls or sandboxing or threat models or, fuck, anything? i mostly just pestered people with like 800 questions and slowly built up a knowledge base, and remember being surprised & delighted when i went to a security conference a year later and could follow most of the talks, and when i wound up at a bar with a guy on the xbox security team and we compared our security models a bunch, and so on.  there wasn't a magic moment when i "got it", i was just like, "okay huh this dude says he found a ring-0 exploit... what does that mean... okay i think i got that... why is that a big deal though... better ask somebody.." (also: reading an occasional dead tree book is a good idea. i owe my firstborn to Robert Love's Linux Kernel Development, as outdated as it is, and also O'Reilly's kookaburra book gave me a great overview of web programming back in the day, etc.  you can learn a lot by just clicking around random blogs, but you’ll often end up with a lot of random little facts and no good mental scaffolding for holding it together; often, a decent book will give you that scaffolding.)

(also, it's pretty useful if you can find a knowledgable someone to pepper with random questions as you go. finding someone who will actively mentor you is tricky, but most working computery folks are happy to tell you things like "what you're doing is actually impossible, here's why," or "here's a tutorial someone told me was good for learning how to write a linux kernel module," or "here's my vague understanding of this concept you know nothing about," or "here's how you automate something to click on a link on a webpage," which tends to be handier than just google on its own.)

if you're reading this and you're like "ok cool but where's the part where i'm handed a computer and i gotta break in while going all hacker typer”—that's not the bulk of the work, alas! like, for sure, we do have fun pranking each other by trying dumb ways of stealing each other's passwords or whatever (once i stuck a keylogger in a dude's keyboard, fun times). but a lot of my security jobs have involved stuff like, "stare at this disassembly a long fuckin' time to figure out how the program pointer got all fucked up," or, "write a fuzzer that feeds a lot of randomized input to some C++ program, watch the program crash because C++ is a horrible language for writing software, go fix all the bugs," or "think Really Hard TM about all the settings and doohickeys this OS/GPU/whatever has, think about all the awful things someone could do with it, threat model and sandbox accordingly." occasionally i have done cool proof-of-concept hacks but honestly writing exploits can kinda be tedious, lol, so like, i'm only doing that if it's the only way i can get people to believe that Yes This Is Actually A Problem, Fix Your Code

"lua that's cool and all but i wanted, like, actual links and recommendations and stuff" okay, fair. here's some ideas:

microcorruption: very fun embedded security CTF; teaches you everything you need to know as you're doing it.

cryptopals crypto challenges: very fun little programming exercises that teach you a lot of fundamental cryptography concepts as you're going along! you can do these even as a bit of a n00b; i did them in Python for the lulz

the binary bomb lab is hilariously copied by, like, so many CS programs, lol, but for good reason. it's accessible and fun and is the first time most people get to feel like a real hacker! (requires you know a bit of C beforehand)

ctftime is a good way to see when new CTFs ("capture the flag"s; security-focused competitions) are coming up. or, sometimes CTFs post their source code, so you can continue trying them after the CTF is over. i liked Stripe's CTFs when they were going, because they focused on "web stuff", and "web stuff" was all i really knew at the time. if you're more interested in staring at disassembly, there's CTFs focused on that sort of thing too.

azeria has good ARM assembly & exploitation tutorials

also, like, lots of good talks out there; just watching defcon/cansecwest/etc talks until something piques your interest is very fun. i'd die on a battlefield for any of Christopher Domas's talks, but he assumes a lot of specific x86/OS knowledge, lol, so maybe don’t start with that. oh, Julia Evans's blog is honestly probably pretty good for just learning a lot of stuff and really beginner-friendly?

oh and wrt legality... idk, i haven't addressed it here since it hasn't come up in my own work much, tbh. if you're just getting started you're kind of unlikely to Break The Law without, y'know, realizing maybe you're doing something a bit gray-area? and you can cross that bridge when you come to it? Real Hacking TM is way more of a pain-in-the-ass than doing CTFs and such, and you'll learn way more with the latter, so who cares lol just do the fun thing

[scoutception]

Robotics;Notes Elite review

Robotics;Notes, the third visual novel in the Science Adventure series, is by far the most unfortunate entry in the series. Not only is it the follow up to Steins;Gate, one of the most acclaimed and popular visual novels ever released, something that even extends to its anime adaptation, but it had to wait until 2020, 8 years after its release in 2012, to be translated into English, well after every other main entry in the series besides Chaos;Head, with its anime adaptation being the only way to experience it beforehand, and while said anime is a decent watch in its own right, it definitely accentuates the source material’s problems, while adding several more. Needless to say, Robotics;Notes had a lot of things going against it when it was finally released, most of which weren’t even its own fault, and it can definitely come off as an underwhelming entry just from that. However, today, we’ll be putting aside all those external factors and take a fair look at the VN itself, and how it holds up on its own. The version I played was the Steam version, using the Committee of Zero patch, a fan made patch that, among other things, fixes many issues with the translation, and is absolutely the recommended way to experience the VN.

Kaito Yashio is a student of Chuo Tanegashima High, and one of the two members of its Robotics Research Club. The president of the club, Akiho Senomiya, Kaito’s friend since childhood, and little sister of the club’s founder, Misaki Senomiya, is completely committed to completing GunBuild-1, a lifesize recreation of the titular mecha from the extremely popular anime Gunvarrel, and a project the club has been working on since its creation. Unfortunately for Akiho, everything seems determined to see her efforts be in vain. The club gets no funding, and is seen as a laughingstock among the students, its advisor, Mitsuhiko “Mitchie” Nagafukada, is completely irresponsible and rarely does anything of help, and Kaito is completely apathetic to anything that isn’t KillBallad, a mobile fighting game he’s determined to become the top player in the world in. While the club soon manages to gain three new members, namely Subaru Hidaka, an expert in robotics whose knowledge far surpasses Akiho’s, Junna Daitoku, a former member of the karate club, and Kona Furugoori, aka Frau Koujiro, the teenage creator of KillBallad, their personalities are just as difficult: Subaru sees the project as a lost cause, and refuses to help with it without a compromise, Junna is painfully shy and has a fear of robots, and Frau is a complete shut in and social mess, being completely perverted and mostly talking in outdated slang, which keeps most people from even understanding her. Despite all this, Akiho’s unrelenting passion for mechas, and desire to step out of her sister’s shadow, compel her to continue on.

Meanwhile, Kaito one day encounters Airi, an AI that exists within the augmented reality app IRUO, along with a strange AR annotation called the Kimijima Report, authored by Airi’s deceased creator, Kou Kimijima. Within it are warnings of a grand conspiracy that aims to devastate humanity, the details of which are contained in similar reports hidden all over Tanegashima, locked behind “flags” that must be cleared before they become visible. Though at first skeptical, it soon becomes clear to Kaito that the reports contain a disturbing amount of truths, and that he’s become involved in something far larger, and far more dangerous, than he bargained for.

I’ll say it now, the story’s focus on both of these plotlines causes a number of noticeable issues, mainly due to feeling very disconnected from each other. While all of the main cast except Airi are heavily involved in the Robotics Club plot, only Kaito, Airi, and to a much lesser extent Frau are involved in the Kimijima Report plot, in comparison to, say, Steins;Gate and Chaos;Child, which tied its whole cast into their stories much better. In addition, the majority of the focus is on the club, and though always interesting, the reports tend to go rather uneventfully as well. Due to this, the story can feel very slow and meandering if you don’t know just what you’re getting into, much more so than the other entries in the series, which can definitely make it seem unappealing. Additionally, the story is much less standalone than most SciAdv VNs, where the references are often minor. Here, there are some rather significant references to Chaos;Head and, to a lesser extent, Steins;Gate, to the point of outright spoilers in a few cases, meaning going through those beforehand is heavily recommended, which is especially annoying when Chaos;Head still has no official translation, and only a fan translation for the incomplete PC version.

Despite all of this, both plotlines are actually quite compelling, once you get used to the game’s pacing. Robotics;Notes’ biggest strength is its absolutely great cast of characters. Everyone in the main cast is very likeable, distinctive, and well developed across the story, and have good dynamics with each other, with Kaito and Akiho’s interactions being some of the biggest highlights of the game, with the end result making everyone feel significant in their own ways, and truly feeling like a unified group, something Chaos;Head and even Steins;Gate struggled with at times. Kaito, who initially comes off as a very motivationless character, has a good amount of backstory and a constant, if subtle, arc throughout the game that makes him properly fleshed out. Subaru, who’d normally just be the token other guy, is a prominent and likeable character in his own right, having a very important role in Gunbuild’s construction, while Frau, who initially just comes off as comic relief, has many great moments throughout the story, with her focus chapter in particular being one of the best in the game. Even Airi has quite a bit more to her than it may seem. The cast is definitely a worthy successor to the cast of Steins;Gate, even more so than Chaos;Child’s, I would say.

The cast also heavily ties into one of the main themes of the game, namely dreams, the harsh difficulties and compromises one faces in pursuing their dreams, and how losing one can change a person. All of them face this, with varying amounts of focus, and it’s a theme furthered with the prominence of robots throughout the game, both the idealized kind found in mecha anime, and the real, practical robots of the real world. There’s an almost exhaustive amount of detail put into the construction and function of real robots, which makes for some interesting, if sometimes long winded, discussions throughout the game, in true SciAdv fashion.

While the story is mainly told through Kaito’s perspective, it switches fairly often to other characters, most often Akiho. While the rest of the series except for Steins;Gate does this as well, it’s notable here for giving almost every character, even the supporting cast, at least one scene from their perspective, often focused on their own personal dilemmas, or flashbacks involving Misaki. These perspective switches make a nice change of pace, and definitely help flesh out the characters even further. On the subject of the supporting cast, while most other entries either have supporting casts that are very inconsequential, such as in Chaos;Child, or almost nonexistent, such as in Steins;Gate, Robotics;Notes, on the other hand, has a much more prominent and fleshed out supporting cast. From Mizuki Irei, the harsh and snarky convenience store employee, and info broker to Kaito, to Tetsuharu Fujita, the grumpy but fair “Robot Doctor”, to Mitchie, the horribly unreliable, yet entertaining club advisor, they certainly leave much more of a mark than usual. The most interesting of all, though, is a 20 year old Nae Tennouji, originally a very minor character in Steins;Gate. She has an almost surprising amount of prominence throughout the game, and even has her own ending, if a very short one.

Compared to most other entries in the series, Robotics;Notes definitely carries a much lighter tone. Tanegashima makes for a very relaxed setting, and as mentioned, there aren’t quite as many big events as one might expect. The characters are generally pretty lighthearted in personality as well, up to Kaito not being nearly as unlikeable to start off as other SciAdv protagonists. However, the tone works quite well, and helps slowly endear the characters to you even early on. And while it’s not quite as messed up as, say, Chaos;Head, it’s got more than a few disturbing elements and scenes of its own. Ultimately, it has the same “feel” as the rest of the series, and when it wants to be intense, suspenseful, sad, or whatever else, it absolutely works, especially from chapter 7 onward.

As far as “gameplay” goes, there’s a surprisingly large amount of interactivity available. At most moments during the story, Kaito can pull out his tablet and access its various apps. Most prominently, there’s Twipo, an obvious lawyer friendly version of Twitter, where Kaito can look at tweets from the Robotics Club, its associates, and even random accounts commenting on current events, with Kaito having the option to reply to those of the Robotics Club. There’s also IRUO, the augmented reality app, which lets the player look around the area and scan geotags, which contain small profiles for characters, or details for locations or objects. IRUO is also used along with a map app to search for the Kimijima Reports, letting you travel to various different locations on Tanegashima to search. It’s a neat concept, but the icons for the reports are so small, and so many locations tend to be available at one time, that finding them can often just be annoying. There’s also, of all things, the otherwise story reliant KillBallad matches, where you have to successfully input a string of buttons, the length of which varies depending on the opponent’s skill, within a time limit in order to win. Most of the time it doesn’t matter, but there are achievements and even story sequences reliant on winning or losing certain matches. All in all, these make for nice occasional changes of pace, but it’s still a visual novel in the end.

Visually, Robotics;Notes is actually quite impressive. As can be seen in the screenshots, instead of sprites, 3D character models are used instead in normal scenes, and having played Virtue’s Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma well before this, I was more than a bit wary of them before release. Thankfully, compared to the cheap models of those two games, they’re much, much better. They’re actually very expressive, and have some great animations that give each character a lot of life. The backgrounds are also quite well done, and Tanegashima definitely makes for a unique and atmospheric setting. As usual for visual novels, there’s also CGs throughout the game, done in a different, but still appealing and well drawn style. Finally, in one of the biggest additions to Elite compared to the original version, occasionally, clips from the anime adaptation is used, mostly to better demonstrate details that were only narration originally, as far as I can tell. This blend of 3D models, CGs, and animation is a bit bizarre at first, but it works surprisingly well, and makes for one of the most visually appealing entries in the series.

As far as sound goes, Takeshi Abo is once again the composer, and once again puts out a very good soundtrack, which further captures and enhances the atmosphere. The soundtrack in general is definitely much lighter and peaceful than usual, but actually has more tracks than most of the SciAdv soundtracks, allowing it to cover many other moods as well. From the very relaxed Winds of Tangegashima, to the mysterious Uchugaoka Park, to the nostalgic Memories with Big Sis, and especially the beautiful title screen theme, Robotics Notes -2nd theme-, there’s a lot of great songs to be found. The voice acting is also very good, and the characters wouldn’t work nearly as well without it, with Ryohei Kimura as Kaito, Yoshino Nanjo as Akiho, Kaori Nazuka as Frau, and Sora Tokui as Junna especially sticking out to me.

It’s worth noting that Robotics;Notes is on the longer side when it comes to SciAdv, much like Chaos;Child. It’s hardly Fate/Stay Night, but it’ll take some time to get through. It also has a very, very weird and annoying ending system. Whereas in other titles, endings are, just that, actual endings you can diverge into somewhere in the story, Robotics;Notes’ endings are actually just regular chapters that are part of the main story, which just happen to focus on different parts of the cast. The divergence happens in chapter 5, and depends on your replies to said characters on Twipo in both that chapter and the preceding one, with you instead going to the short Nae ending if you don’t fulfill the requirements for any of them. While Steins;Gate had a similar system, and was annoying in of itself, Robotics;Notes takes it to another level by making all but the Nae ending mandatory, though said ending has some points that make it worth seeing regardless, and occurring in a specific chronological order, despite allowing you to get the endings nonlinearly, meaning you could accidentally skip from chapter 5 to chapter 8. The system overall is just unneeded, and following a guide, such as the one by the aforementioned Committee of Zero, is highly recommended.

In the end, would I recommend Robotics;Notes? To a SciAdv fan, absolutely. To someone who isn’t, well, I already explained the problems there. I can’t say its one of my favorites among the series, but by itself, it’s still something I enjoyed a lot. Despite the issues it does have, its very well done cast, visuals, sound, and overall story make it a memorable and emotional experience in its own right. Now, with yet another long VN review out of the way, I anxiously await the Committee of Zero patch for Robotics;Notes DaSH, to finally finish off my SciAdv journey, for the foreseeable future, at least. Till next time. -Scout

[notesbyash]

heyyo! how was your day?

i was wondering if you have advice for me — there are tons of courses online that are free for people to take, and i’ve been itching to take some, but here’s the thing: i am interested in too much, and i have too little time. i long to study literature and arts, but political science and economics also caught my eye. then again, there are a lot of content on chemistry and biology online. mycology sounds fun too.

your blog has been one of the ones i’ve genuinely loved on this site, and i’ve been mustering up the courage to ask this. i hope i’m not being too much! take care of yourself :]]

Hello Anon! I’ve had a lovely day thus far despite the looming threat of a final exam in a just few hours, how about you?

So… too much to learn, too little time? I’ll admit, I feel the same way you do. There’s dozens of courses out there that I’d love to take and the amount of information that’s so easily accessible is wonderfully overwhelming.

I could tell you to write out a list of everything that you’re (currently) interested in, rank them from most to least interesting (or alternatively, most to least useful for your major/career path), and work your way down finishing them course by course, but that’s advice that I myself would never take. It would be nice to, but I know I wouldn't.

Instead, what I’ll pass along is what’s actually worked for me. Pick whichever one is your favorite (at least at the moment) and just jump in. If you get bored with it, skip ahead a bit in the class to the parts that are interesting. If you’re still bored, or don't feel like to skipping ahead, hop over to something else.

The thing with independent learning - provided you’re not trying to make a career or the likes out of it because if so I’d have different advice - is that you’re probably just learning it because it’s fun. So, start by learning the fun parts! There’s nothing stopping you from picking some random research paper because the title looks cool and just reading it. If you run into issues with technical verbiage, you can look it up and basically study backwards until you understand it. If you think a course looks interesting, there’s nothing stopping you from picking it up for now and abandoning it halfway through because you got bored. I have done this far too many times.

Sporadic learning like this does come with drawbacks of course. It leaves you with gaps in your knowledge. It doesn’t guarantee a solid foundation on which to build knowledge. It often takes longer. It’s very self-reliant in terms of how much you learn. But, in my opinion, it’s much more fun. You get to learn what you want, how you want, when you want. For me, that’s good enough; all I’m looking to do here is keep life interesting. To hell with basic biology, I just want to learn about cephalopods, you know?

Hopefully that advice was a little helpful, or even just comprehensible. This was honestly such a sweet message to receive and you should never worry about being too much. My ask box is always open, as are my messages if you just want to chat! Take care of yourself too :)

[tfrohock]

Writing historical fiction

All writers, to some extent, do research for their novels—I want to get that out of the way from the beginning. Third world fantasy? You’re going to do some research, especially if you don’t have a great deal of experience with horses or weaponry. The fact-finding mission might be fun and relaxing, but it still counts as research, so I don’t want to imply that only historical/alternate fantasy authors are the only ones who do research for their books.

Regency romance? Research.

Third world medieval fantasy? Research.

Science fiction? Research.

The difference between these subgenres and historical fiction is the amount of necessary research needed for a specific project, which also depends on how familiar the author is with the time period. The other problem is making sure the historical details are in line with the period. So what I have for you is a quick and dirty list of tricks that will help you get to the information you need.

Understand your time period

How familiar are you with the time period you want to represent in your fiction? I’ve been studying various aspects of World War II for roughly forty years and the Spanish Civil War for merely eight. I’m an independent scholar so my knowledge isn’t as detailed as someone studied in this field, but I’ve got an excellent grasp of the societal and political ramifications of both wars with a rudimentary knowledge of World War I.

What this means is that I instinctively know which books to go to for the information I need. For the purposes of this post, I want to talk to people who are at the beginning of their research, meaning it’s not their field, but they want to know more.

Beginning points

Generally speaking, historians are focused on the big picture—names, dates, major battles, and the societal issues of the day. While all these factors are necessary and important, historical fiction authors are more interested in the nitty-gritty details of everyday life in order to give our readers a realistic setting.

Where to begin?

First, I’ll point you to the bloody obvious: a library. Talk to the reference librarian and tell them your research needs. You will a) make their day, because trust me when I say that reference librarians live for this, and b) you’ll save yourself a lot of time. Call your local academic or community college library and see if they are open to the public. If they are, remember the reference librarians’ primary responsibility is to their students, faculty, and staff, but depending on the library, you’ll find a marvelous amount of resources.

Look for books on “daily life” (daily life is in quotes, because that is usually part of the title) of different periods, which are like historical snapshots into what people ate and drank, and how they went about their daily lives. These are usually written on a young adult reading level, so most people can breeze through them quickly.

Osprey Publishing also carries a lot of books on specific battles, time periods, and clothing/uniforms. These are all great starting points with bibliographies should you feel the need to continue your research for a deeper understanding of the time period. I know The Ebro 1938: Death Knell of the Republic was invaluable to me with graphs and lists of major generals. These books are a huge timesaver, because of the way the information is quantified.

Indexes and bibliographies are your friends

When you can’t find a book on a specific time period, you need to think outside the box. What are you looking for? Clothing? Find information on the history of textiles. You might not have the time or desire to read the entire book, but this is why indexes were created. Go to the index and see if your subject is listed there. You’re not looking for random references of a page here or there; you’re looking for blocks of text. Check the footnotes and the sources the author used. Research is like a trail, once you pick up the right source, you can run with it to other sources.

JSTOR for the world

JSTOR is a digital library of academic articles on a wide range of topics. When most people think of JSTOR, they think of costly academic libraries, and they’re wrong. JSTOR has moved with the times and has several tiers that enable you to read many articles online for free, and others that you can download for a nominal fee. Also, see if you can get access to JSTOR through your state library, because North Carolina residents have free access to JSTOR through the State Library.

Youtube

Many of you already know this, but just in case you don’t: Youtube can be a valuable resource for learning how to do something. There are a ton of videos on how to put on chainmail, women’s and men’s clothing from various time periods, and even how to fence.

Academic textbooks

Academic textbooks have a way of narrowing the focus to just the essentials. These can be costly, but you can also find them used. Keep in mind that with historical sources, you don’t have to purchase the most recent edition but can go back as much as two editions to find a reasonably priced copy and still have relevant information.

Ask for help

Because my Los Nefilim novels were based in Barcelona and Paris, two places I’ve never been, I asked for help from residents of those areas. Josep Oriol and Ollivier Robert pointed me to resources I never would have found on my own in both Spanish/Catalan and French respectively. Josep gave me links to short historical films from the twenties and thirties, which gave me a very clear eye into the clothing and transportation in early twentieth century Barcelona while Ollivier sent me links to Parisian subway maps from both before and during the war, which helped me plot Rafael’s journey in the subway in Carved from Stone and Dream and also showed me the closed station used in A Song with Teeth.

Search only educational resources

The Internet has changed dramatically over the years and searches are now focused almost entirely as a giant advertisement. Know how to narrow your searches to academic resources. Let’s say you’re looking for information about medieval Spain.

For example: a search for medieval Spain will bring one set of hits from all over the web, but if you narrow your search to medieval Spain .edu you’ll get a list of academic resources about medieval Spain. Use Iberia history .edu and you’ll get another set of academic resources. The key is the .edu at the end of your search term, which restricts your search to academic resources.

Documentaries and historically accurate films

Documentaries are exceptionally helpful, but so is fiction. Criterion Films had several movies from the early twentieth century that helped me see the clothing, hairstyles, transportation, and dining options available to people during the 1930s and ‘40s. They were also entertaining to watch. So if you’re lucky enough to find a historically accurate film, that counts as research, too.

The devil is in the details

You don’t want the details to overwhelm your story, but you do want to put in enough information to lend credibility to your time period. Remember, if it doesn’t feel real to you, it won’t feel real to your readers. A little research often goes a long way in adding a sense of time and place to your story.

Happy researching and good luck!

[fae-fire]

Yehn’li Khete (LFRP)

basics ––––

REAL NAME: Yalvus Lux Ilvanus, Suffragium Tertius Architectus Magiteci ALIAS: Yehn’li Khete. Mostly goes by just Yehn. Yehn’li or Mr. Khete is also accessible. AGE: Early 30s, looks deceptively a bit younger RACE: Keeper Miqo’te GENDER: Male, He/Them SEXUALITY: Pansexual MARITAL STATUS: Single  SERVER: Balmung/Mateus

physical appearance ––––

HAIR: A light reddish-brown. Almost strawberry blond. His hair extends past their shoulders and some chunks are longer than others since he mostly just cuts it himself. EYES: His right eye is black with a permanently dilated pupil from an injury in an explosion. His left eye is a bright green-blue. HEIGHT: 5′6″ BUILD: Small frame, lanky with more of a lean cut to him. He isn’t weak though as he’s dedicated the last five years or so of his life to metal working and crafting, so he’s got quite a bit of lean muscle. More of a runner’s body than a warrior’s though. DISTINGUISHING MARKS: His left leg is a magitek prosthetic. He has a small scar on his cheek from the same accident. His foot tends to be dirty with soot or just...dirt from walking around barefoot. There is a Garlean brand-like tattoo on his back over his right shoulder blade. It appears to have been cut with a knife to try and remove most of it so there’s a lot of scar tissue there. COMMON ACCESSORIES: Goggles on his head. A few tools laid out in what could look like a surgeon’s pack...even though he’s an engineer. 

personal –––-

PROFESSION: Former scientist for Garlemald. From a conscript family, he took on a Garlean name as he gained more respect in the medical field. He worked mostly on neurological-based technology. He still has a list of every test subject and what he had done to them. Many of his experiments were just for fun. He is now...retired. Away from Garlemald as he was in it for himself, not the Empire as a whole and didn’t care for their plans in the long run. He now is a tinkerer of random things, takes on odd jobs, fixes magitek prosthetics, and is “totally clean” of the criminal life...sometimes.  HOBBIES: Crafting and gathering junk to sell. Explosives. LANGUAGES: Common. I am unaware if Garlemald has its own language but he’d know that if it does. Bits and pieces of Hingan from hiding out in Kugane. RESIDENCE: He has two shops--one in Limsa and one in Kugane. The Kugane  one is safer due to the rules around weapons so he’s most likely there. FEARS: Being sent back to Garlemald, the Empire killing him, the alliance arresting and/or killing him, nutkins

relationships –––-

SPOUSE: None. CHILDREN: None. PARENTS: Birth parents are (probably) alive, but not of consequence SIBLINGS: None. OTHERS: None.

traits –––-

extroverted / introverted / in between

disorganized / organized / in between

close minded /open-minded / in between

calm / anxious / in between

disagreeable / agreeable / in between

cautious / reckless / in between

patient / impatient / in between

outspoken / reserved / in between

leader / follower / in between

empathetic / unemphatic / in between

optimistic / pessimistic / in between

traditional / modern / in between

hard-working / lazy / in between

cultured / un-cultured / in between

loyal / disloyal / in between

faithful / unfaithful / in between

additional information –––-

SMOKING HABIT:

never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

DRUGS:

never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

ALCOHOL:

never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

RP HOOKS –––-

THE MOTHERLAND: Garleans and ex-pats may have heard of him. Whether you need an ally in an unfamiliar land (though one that may drive you a bit mad) or are chasing down a deserter, there’s plenty of routes to choose from.

WANTED: Got an itching for justice against a known criminal? Could be an open route there though I’d have to discuss for pre-established knowledge since god modding and all that cool stuff. But definitely bring it up if you’re interested in that. 

MAGITEK: In need of a magitek prosthetic tune up? Some illegal weaponry? He’s your guy. Though a lot of his product is unstable since a lot of is made from blackmarket parts and some of the Ceruleum is refined by himself...but that’s irrelevant! You’ll get a good bargain! 

I’M CLEAN NOW...UNLESS?: Yehn will swear up the ass that he’s not part of that criminal life anymore. Though who is he kidding? The man is addicted to chaos, murder and explosions and it’s not that difficult to get him to tip his hand. He still has his hands in a lot of pies and may prove to be a good criminal contact. Or enemy.

TO THE SKIES OF DRAVANIA: My main RP is focused around Sky Pirates and Yehn becoming an airship engineer. If you are also a sky pirate, that may be a useful avenue for adventure. Or at least fixing your engine... You may find him around Ishgard and Dravania as well.

Extended Background Details––––

I probably forgot something but Yehn is an ex-scientist based around studying the body and has a laundry list of lives he has taken. He left the empire to seek a life of his own since the Empire didn’t line up with what he wanted and he felt stifled by the professional environment he was in. It’s been around five years since he left and in that time he has gotten into some trouble here and there but keeps trying to quit his ways, though he really does love his work around the body and taking things apart. He focuses most of that energy into making random things to sell, and has used his knowledge around magitek and science to go more towards an engineering route and live the good-guy life, but self sabotage is a thing. He also kinda loves explosives and did blow his own leg off... Though he’ll lament about how he lost it in the war. The story changes every time. He’s pretty guarded about who and what he is and comes off as lazy and bemused.

In any case, this is a fairly dark character overall and this is kind of a warning to explain that. My OOC values and views don’t align with my character’s and he’s still very much a work in progress alongside my partner’s character. 

what I’m looking for ––––

Anything really, though this is more of a profile post than actually LOOKING for new RP since I am busy IRL. I’d like to delve in to some plot based rp a bit more, make some connections, friends, enemies, contacts. I’m open to head canons and plotting, but I am not open for RP at the moment unless you can handle slow discord replies because of working from home with the pandemic. But I try... I don’t really RP in game though. I stick to discord because I really don’t have the time to sit in game and RP anymore.

oocly, I am ––––

A nerd who Rps? Mostly darker RP that gets in on mature themes, etc.

I have a 9-5 job, pacific time (currently working from) and I run and exercise regularly and that takes priority for me. Replies from me won’t be instant.

I am a multi-paragraph RPer. I will usually match who I am RPing with, but I DO type a lot. You have been warned!! I don’t do one-line RP. If that is your style and you are annoyed by multiple paragraphs, I may not be the right partner for you.  

I do a lot of darker RP with a lot of questionable themes. I am not the person to go to for tavern RP and constant casual RP. While Yehn can be social, I’m not really looking for happy go lucky small talk, if that makes sense. It doesn’t really fit the character. 

My rules for RP are still being made, but you can call me Rae. Pronouns are He/They. 

you can contact me via ––

Tumblr DM. Discord upon request. Contacting me in game is not a good idea probably since I’m either afk or offline a lot.

@crystalxivrp @balmungrp @mooglemeet @ffxiv-crystal-rp​

[everydayanth]

Let’s talk about talking about politics! Yay! Everyone’s favorite!

Over the past few weeks/months/years, I have had this strange insider seat to a bunch of criminal justice/poly sci professionals (as in, they get paid as professors or scientists or compliance officers, etc.) as they talk about politics and get angry at the general public for our lack of understanding, without having the patience to teach or explain. 

Two problems: 1. the ivory tower issue of watching and not actively engaging in the social part of social science, but as their friend, I will note much of this comes from burnout through negative engagement and attacks; 2. expecting others to have had an adequate education to even know many of these tools exist in order to discuss things beyond our average public school education that cuts out Fridays and makes random half days because we can’t afford teachers or textbooks. 

As an awkward observer, here are some things I never talked about in school, despite having a better political/civil/economics education included in my curriculum than many of my friends:

1. When we vote for someone, we are voting on a trend in politics. Not as a result, but a direction to move, and most voters vote for the candidate who is closest to their current values already, rather than following the trend of voting for who would move policy to match their needs. 

2. Our values change far more than we think they do and they almost always align with a problem we require a solution to or a fear we would like to stabilize or go away, such as property taxes. Because we need to trust the person to solve our problems, especially if we are projecting large fears, candidates who are most likable. We don’t like to stir the pot, we just want it to go where we want, fighting for something is exhausting for everyone.

3. We consider political agendas to be moral agendas but do not agree on obligations. Many feel powerless, others are powerless, we talk about responsibility, but without acknowledging those first two things, it sounds more like blame. We also imagine many things to be wishful thinking that are enacted successfully elsewhere and fail to understand or use logical reasoning to really discuss issues. Anything will be an experiment because the US is so huge, but it is a scalable experiment working in other places, often we don’t understand that until we’re abroad and sick.

4. We’re not sure how to translate policy, and our country was built by and for lawyers. There are very little areas where we agree as a society on black/white right/wrong, and in many ways that’s good, but when it comes to discussing policy, it can be very confusing.

To account for these aspects, people use charts and grids. Much like personality tests, these are useful for creating a foundation upon which to debate and discuss, but are ultimately made by humans in order to generalize and will have errors and discrepancies. But the political spectrum has rarely been the single line most of us were taught. Instead, it is often a grid used to navigate the direction and preference of trends. Most people are much more moderate than they think, but have problems that need cooperative solutions, like the water crisis and fires on the west coast, disaster relief in the south, crop failure in the midwest, and ticks and diseases in the northeast. We all have huge problems and some areas are insulated from them for now, but they will come. How we navigate and demand solutions for those problems is what creates policy and the policies we agree with because of our value is what dictates our vote. 

So here’s some charts that human people made to talk about these things with and they have helped ground a lot of engaging conversations with people as I watch them argue but not get angry, because there’s a visual thing to talk around. Those kinds of tools should be everywhere. 

The political compass:

via Wikipedia: political spectrum

^

^A generalization of what different areas might look like. I’ve seen so many versions of this, but I liked the way this one because it gave me a better understanding of words I’m more familiar with and where they fall within the broad concepts. I couldn’t find the source. 

^ Here is another one from Google that took me to a shady site, so I didn’t link it, but the goal is to just be familiar with the different ways people structuralize and use definitions and terms to divide them up, in the end, the general understanding is all that matters, and our goal is to be functional, for the government to be usable by the people. Hamilton, the musical, was/is so important for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that it reminded us that this fight of trends and moving around the board has been going on since the very first election of a president to America. It’s always about one group pulling another, creating a tug-of-war that keeps us near the middle, hopefully.

This is a graph showing the individual party ideologies of past presidents by a site called Fact Myth. It is showing the party split between individuals and while we could argue and speculate about accuracies and meanings, whether a president was pushed to make a decision as a person, etc. in the end, they represent the will of the people and the trends we with to follow to solve problems at the time. 

^An outline someone made of 2020 candidates on Reddit that has been going around for a while. Jake showed this to me and while he was perfectly receptive to me saying that yeah, but a person made this and they can have agendas and just put people places, he also had some really great points on how Americans often think we’re moderates, but what we perceive to be in the middle is often skewed by capitalism. That’s not to say it’s bad, simply that if we’re talking trends and problems and solutions, we have to understand where we are on the real scale, not just our own. We will also tend to vote for those who are closest to us, rather than moving in the direction of us, so, say someone sits right where Ryan is, Ryan drops out; now, despite their personal political preference being on the edge of the middle moderate square, they move to Biden rather than Warren or Sanders because Biden is closer to their original place, even if, coming from Trump, moving to Warren/Sanders would pull the political trend back toward their moderate preference. 

Not everyone does this, obviously, but I’m fascinated by how our individual personalities affect how we decide politics. Are you a “next best thing” kind of person? Are you a “obsess relentlessly until it’s done” kind of person? Are you a “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke? Or what about “out of sight out of mind, doesn’t bother me, I don’t care” kind of person? So many of the ways we solve our daily problems are reflected in the ways we move our own political affiliations during voting times. I just think that’s interesting because I’m a social science nerd though. 

A friend from Brown who is much older than us (also a social science nerd <3) pointed out that she grew up with such antagonizing propaganda during the cold war and beginnings of technological boom and peak oil, and it all said the same thing, anything outside the blue is morally wrong and heavily corrupt. I thought that was an interesting point about exposure and remembering past problems, how voting ages overlap to find new solutions or rely on old ones, and what it would cost us to see American politics on a global scale. 

^This is a global scale of values (not politics) from the wikipedia page on political spectrums, and I thought it tied into the conversation in interesting ways, especially when we look at American generation differences in individualism and social cooperation and how they are viewed by each other to both be equally negative. There’s a whole world of solutions and different ways things our done, but we’ve been taught from birth that some are bad and others are exceptions and ours is good. 

Vox has an interesting tool to figure out where abouts you would lie on the compass. I think debating it with others is a better way, since it’s a primarily relative scale (unless you prefer those structuralist ones, but keep in mind that it’s a preference, not a requirement). But I thought I’d include it for those who may not have access to that kind of conversation. 

In the end, consider your morals and how they are different from your current values, and how your current values are affected by your current problems, and how you want the world to look, how you want trends to move, and how your biases of experience or ignorance might play a role in that. I honestly didn’t really think about healthcare until I was in Ireland and saw how simple an alternative was and how freeing it felt. My parents can’t even imagine it (and they are of the class who should most desire those changes), they don’t have enough of a base knowledge to understand how it works, it’s electricity after gaslamps. 

Anyway, just thought I’d share some of those tools. As a skeptical person, I want to remind everyone that these are tools, not documented facts, and fighting about where people are on the graph and where we might be is part of how we come to conclusions about rights and wants and solutions and needs and what we actually value. Most of us, in the end, value comfort and hope, and we vote for the people we think provide that to us. The problem often lies in people misunderstanding their own comfort and relying on ignorance rather than hope. I found these graphs useful in grounding my talks with overwhelming professionals and finding some semblance of peace in what I wanted to hope for and I hope maybe for some of you they can provide that as well. ❤️

If, like me, you reached your 20s and realized a gaping hole in your education, I also recommend the Crash Course series on US Politics. It helped me understand a lot of things that were skimmed over in textbooks or left as multiple choice answers on a standardized test. Politics are a series of solutions to the problems we face as a social group, and knowing how to talk about them completely changed my own feelings of helplessness when communicating to others. 

[ssaalexblake]

I am, as they say, That person who has a huge ass pile of books to read that i’ve had, in some cases, for years, but i saw the new Suzanne Collins book was out and got an e-copy and read it immediately, you know, as you do when you have a huge pile of books to get through. 

anyway, spoilers, definitely ---

I’ve never actually read a Book where the whole story was from the perspective of a terrible protagonist, i have read books where there have been spare chapters from the perspective of villains, but never has the villain been the Protagonist before in my experience. And this protagonist was showing danger signs of a seriously pathological narcissistic personality from the opening world building chapters, and it only got worse and worse as the stakes in his life got higher and higher. 

And here’s the thing, i Know people were immediate and vapid in attacking Collins for this when the plot summary were released, and i will admit, my eyes rolled so very much at the immediate assumption that this was a story to make you sympathise wigh him, because, simply, i’ve read the trilogy. Collins’ doesn’t even make her Hero characters that sympathetic a lot of the time, with the exception of Prim and Rue, whose literary function demanded them to be symbols of purity and innocence, practically everybody else is in a shade of grey. The victors we love all have blood on their hands, even Peeta, who is also a symbol for non violent ideals, is corrupted by the narrative. This is not a series that is particularly nice to it’s cast of characters, even when we are meant to Like them. 

But now after some brief fandom browsing i am now just going ‘wtf’ at the idea that people are Still holding onto the idea After having read it that, just because a story is about a bad guy, the author Must somehow be endorsing their actions. I’ve literally never read a story with a more unsympathetic protagonist. What a Disgusting person. 

This story revealed that the villain is a pathological and possessive narcissist who is very much the hero of his own story, but sure as hell nobody else’s. 

I also noted that people have been commenting that the book is too Coincidental in its references and that it made it a bad story, that they were just for clout. That Snow is in 12. The lake. The bakery and so on and so on, and that it put people off and seemed just a grab to keep people interested, but the thing is, it’s a Ballad.  This isn’t ‘the novel of songbirds and snakes’, it’s ‘the Ballad’. It plays out, contextually, with the deliberate knowledge that all the readers have read how this story ends in the trilogy, as one of the covey’s songs. 

I’m not sure how to phrase it, but i feel like viewing the story and plot itself as more of a folk song or limerick is the best way to look at it from, it’s not Meant to be a novel. It’s a Ballad. The literary devices in two such storytelling methods are very different, in a ballad i would Expect this type of thing which is fair because the book is named a ballad. In a novel i would find it a bit too coincidental, but i don’t think that was how we were supposed to look at it. 

That all aside, i never actually had any feelings for Snow beyond the literary device he embodied, the power so vast and beyond you it is hopeless to even think of defying it. Now i have Many feelings about Snow, namely, that i actively hate him now. 

This book may actually play out as a cautionary tale about being careful of narcissists, actually, and taking care to make sure they do not end up amassing too much power. 

I would say Collins portrayed Snow as a mixture of the old Nurture versus Nature debate, his absolute lust for total control to no longer be the victim of something as horrific as the war was Clearly a case of circumstance... If he had never been in the war, he would not have felt the sheer powerlessness that has led to his absolute need for control. 

There is also the other angle of his nurturing that plays into this, his Absolute sense of entitlement as a Snow. He was born a Snow, not some lowly normal capitol family, or worse, one of those ‘district animals’. In his mind, what was rightfully His was stolen from him when they lose the business in the war because of district 13, he got bit in the ass by capitalism, hilariously. His family’s business went under, and the loss of income from it took them from hero to zero, but he though he was Owed his money and status by virtue of his birth and did not see how fragile the perch of his wealth and status was even After the perch had been toppled and he was left penniless. The presence of irrefutable evidence that nothing but access to more dollars provided his life style did not even break through his entitlement. 

But i mean, there are a lot of entitled capitalists in this world who think that just because they Used to have money and a thriving business means they are entitled to always have that, and while it makes them not that great, it doesn’t exactly make them Monsters. But here’s the thing, you also cannot claim that Snow is not just naturally a self centered narcissist. That is just a personality trait, and it is This that makes the above a horrifying problem. 

When somebody else is harmed, it is about how it will effect Him. The tragedy in being assigned district 12, girl, was not that a girl was being stolen away to be murdered, but that he got stuck with one of the kids unlikely to win. Tigris’ implication of what she may have had to do to keep their family operating was first and foremost about how uncomfortable and disgusted it made Him. Other were reduced to utter horrors to survive the war and he judged them for it, all the while, he only escaped such a thing because of a crime his grandmother committed (looting was, technically, illegal). Clemmie maybe needing him? It wasn’t about her or her life, it was about how it might effect Him (to a point, it is fair to fear for your own life in such a situation, but most would bother to feel bad about it). This is just a handful of examples, but there are many, many more. 

He is also Horrifyingly possesive. He, Literally, is a textbook case of an abusive boyfriend who kills their girlfriend because they might have priorities other than him. Lucy Gray may not be dead, i was not left with the impression he succeeded in killing her, but the deal sealer is in the attempt, not whether he succeeds. The entire narrative in his head towards his relationship with lucy contains every danger sign i’ve ever been warned against in men. He wishes to Own her, not love her, and that he was literally given her life on a plate as an experiment did not help with his narcissistic entitlement. His family and friends (though, he did not have friends) all assumed he loved her and because they said it he assumed it was true. But it was possession he was feeling. 

He did not help Lucy out of the goodness of his heart, it was self serving. It was self serving the entire time. Us, having knowledge of his internal monologue are aware of his self centered intentions, but the characters around him, unaware of this, treat him as if he is a good person because they assume he has charitable motives. He very much does not. Him comforting Clemmie was, every step of the way, for his own benefit. He Certainly was not the saint Sejanus thought he was. 

But he still Believes the people who tell him how great he is!!! Narcissist. 

he is, in short, a right piece of work. What a monster it takes to get your ‘brother’ executed for treason and manage to make it about himself in about an Hour. What a monster it takes to attempt to do that to Lucy Gray. What a monster it takes to get the Plinth’s only child killed and take his inheritance and power out of a sense of entitlement and continue calling the grieving mother ‘ma’. 

Anyway, brilliant character building. I Hate him. 

I also Love the world building, the confirmation that Reaping Day is on July 4th, the idea that in the beginning even the capitol citizens thought the hunger games were barbaric and depressing and that they had to be won over by a propaganda campaign of dehumanization and entertainment. The idea that mentors were once capitol citizens, that it went wrong so they erased it from history but cherrypicked the parts that worked. 

I found Dr Gall or whatever her name was gravitating towards Snow interesting, because people who are like that Naturally gravitate towards people who prove their world views right, and by all rights Snow does turn out very much like her (admittedly, with less an interest in science), who is to say she in turn was not less of a monster in earlier life but grew into it as well? She saw something in him and nurtured it with poison. 

This is getting increasingly more random, But i love Peeta’s highjacking now. I was never against it, but it was never the plot for me, but now i am So into it. Because Sejanus is Very peeta like, that idealism. And how satisfying it must have been for Snow to finally be able to crack into that and destroy it because he has the Power to do so now. 

On the flip side, I actually now wish we had Peeta perspective chapters, because there is a compelling argument to say Snow and Peeta have their similarities, too. I mean, their defining difference is that Peeta is a good person, but they have the same talent for sheer manipulation as each other, Peeta manipulated hunger games audiences into keeping Katniss alive longer, Snow did the same with Lucy Gray. They are both deeply charismatic, generally liked by their peers, popular, are sabotaged by small groups of people who hate them for reasons beyond their control. They are inversions, same coin, different sides. 

The sexual slavery of the victors is now a more narratively interesting thing, as well, because snow is, in this book, Disgusted by the idea of any kind of sexual impropriety (not My opinion, but he considers it impropriety). He is disturbed by Tigris’ implication she may have had to engage in it. Was what he did to the victors merely a case of his disdain for district animals and wishing to subject them to the most degrading thing as possible? How did he get from A to B here? 

Seeing the very first career pack was interesting, too. I wonder if the stronger districts started to band together in the games from realising the strategy had advantages or of the capitol subtly Encouraged the behavior themselves. The latter seems more likely, considering they were the ones out for a good show. 

I was interested on canon confirmation on the peacekeepers, to be honest. I’ve seen fic discuss where exactly they come from, but to know they are made up from less wealthy capitol citizens And district people after either money/a way out of their assigned district’s profession or both was a nice lore drop. 

I know it’s not Confirmed Tigris is the same Tigris who played a part in mockingjay but... it would be so wonderful if she were. Being brought down, in part, by she who nurtured him. Tigris loved Coryo because she thought he was somebody he was not, so when and how did she find out who he Really was? 

In the end, i find the idea that this books Shows us Snow created the country we see in the trilogy through the reasoning that A) humanity is terrible and will always fight and try to destroy each other  and that B) he decided that if point A was true, he’d amass enough personal power to make sure he would Always be in control of the fights and come out on top of them utterly Fascinating societal commentary, most of which is not really my lane to address so i won’t (also, it’s fairly obvious). 

But the idea that Snow was one of the capitol ones who sees the district people in a more favourable light simply because he’s at least willing to admit they’re not zoo animals is Stunning when you put it in context of all the things He does to them. He’s not even close to the worst one and look what he did! 

In the end, i think Collins has fleshed out this world and made it more horrifying than it was before. And Panem is meant to be a reflection of our own society’s failings. This book was not to say ‘oh Snow was an actual person so wasn’t That bad’, it was trying to say ‘Snow was an actual person and is Very much terrible’ because the idea is this series is a highlighted reflection of the real bad in our own world. If the monster Snow is cannot be relatable to a real person, how is it any kind of societal commentary at all? He cannot be one dimensional and totally evil from the womb if you want the story to actually say anything. 

I also did find this story relied on Collins’ previously seen not necessarily realistic world from the original books to make its point, and i did not expect that to be a deal breaker for so many people considering the story from the trilogy relied on its audience’s skill to read into the meaning rather than the literal at times as well, but i stand by my assertation that the title is meant to be an indication of the type of narrative the book observes, it is a song, which is a very different style of story than that in any other kind of media.