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nefertitiacai · 11 months

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Astrology observations: LONG DRIVE EDITION 🛣️

LET'S GOOOOOOO!!! 🏁 🚘

🚋 This post is dedicated to my prominent mercury and third house placement folks who love their long drives, cars, and road trips.

🚋 Uranus/Aquarius in 3rd house ppl may own a car which may have a unique aspect to it, like the model of the car has been stopped being sold by the company, not many people may buy it, it may be electrical, etc.

🚋 With Uranus in 3rd house, you may also go on sudden, spontaneous trips.

🚋 Okay but my condolences to the Sagittarius folks who love traveling but also have Virgo placements (especially if they are squaring), y'all how are your motion sickness and stomach problems while traveling 🫣, mine ain't better.

🚋 Growing up, folks with Sagittarius moon/ Jupiter conj Moon/ Jupiter in the 4th house may have traveled to a lot of spiritual and pilgrimage places with their parents.

🚋 Capricorn/Cancer/Taurus placements for what I've observed is that they want to travel slowly, like if going on a long drive they are the ones who make sure the ride is comfortable by stopping by food stations/ scenery checkpoints etc, they ain't hurrying that's why they are my fav travel buddies.

🚋 Pisces/ 12th house placements/Neptune in the 3rd house 🤝 taking a good ass nap while sitting on the backseat. Ik ppl who have this placement who'll legit not sleep throughout the night just so they could sleep while traveling XD.

🚋 Gemini placements are a great source of entertainment while traveling XD. They've got everything. They'll make jokes and be funny all the time but also if you're curious about the place they'll have the facts up their sleeves.

🚋 Leo, Taurus and Libra placements 🤝 shopping, especially the cutesy souvenirs.

🚋About pilgrimage and spiritual sanctuaries, I've noticed that Capricorn placements also love to visit them, especially when they get older.

🚋 Libra, Scorpio, Cancer, and Pisces placements 🤝 daydreaming/reminiscing while listening to music and looking outside the window.

🚋 If you wanna dine the right place, I think it is quite well known by now to take Virgo, Taurus or Sagittarius folk with ya. They know and have it well researched.

🚋 Aries/prominent Mars placements (especially in the 3rd house)🤝 loving that adrenaline rush from driving on rocky terrains and fast driving on the highways.

BONUS: Some asteroids associated with gods of travel and my take on em 🛣️

Ganesa (2415) - Hindu God of wealth and wisdom. Also known to be the "remover of obstacles" that's why he is prayed for before embarking on a new journey be it literally or metaphorically. Having it prominent in your chart may indicate where you'll be successful in your ventures, where you may have a lot of luck and wisdom by your side, and where you may gain wealth.Where new beginnings will be auspicious for you.

Hermes (69230) - Many consider this Greek god as the "Jack-of-all-trades" as he is considered to be the patron god of travel, art, invention, trade, literature, and also of thieves. Planet Mercury is associated with this deity hence having it prominent in your chart may indicate that you may also be a jack-of-all-trades, clever, cunning, and intelligent. Having it prominent in your chart may also indicate you may get away from the troubles and consequences of your actions by using your wit easily.

Vibilia (144) - Roman goddess of the journey, "the right way", short and long trips as well as roads. Having it prominent in your chart may indicate what inspires you to travel, your spiritual/symbolic or literal journey. Being prominent in solar return may be an indication of travel that year.

Adeona (145) - The Roman goddess of safe return, she is also considered the protector of children who travel to come back home (isn't that wholesome?), and also the goddess of homecoming. Having it wherever in your chart may indicate aspects of your life that you return to for comfort and safety. What aspects of your life are where you return and settle in after completing all your endeavors.

#astro observations #astrology #astrology community #astro community #astrology observations #astrological observations #astrology notes #asteroid astrology #asteroid #travel asteroids #astrovations #astro notes #astrology placements #astrology tumblr #astrology aspects #natal chart #travel #astro placements

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shamelessbigbang · 10 months

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Round 12 is here!

Hey guys! Hope you are all doing well here in Tumblandia and out in the real world. It's been a minute but we are happy to announce another round of the Shameless Big Bang! There have been some updates that we're excited to share as we kick off another turn.

Since I have been quite busy and don't want to spread myself too thin this time around, @wehangout is back to help keep things running again this round, and @whaticameherefor is joining as well. I am so happy to have them on board so that we can keep the tradition alive <3

As a reminder, we are sticking with the original format of completing your work before posting. If you plan to participate, please try to be mindful of that when you commit. Also, while most people are good about staying in touch, we have people every round who have issues with communicating and responding to emails. We are going to continue to take a more strict approach with that if people aren’t responsive, especially once authors and artists are paired off and the posting dates get closer. We will not be confirming your sign up until the last day, so please wait until after then to reach out if you don't hear from us.

Please consider these things before signing up. Without further ado, here’s the timeline for the next round.

August 8 – Sign-Ups open

September 18 – First author checkpoint and LAST DAY TO SIGN UP

October 23 – Rough drafts due

October 30 – Summary previews for artists

November 3 – Artist claims open (authors and artists will be paired up on a first come, first served basis)

December 1 – First artist and second author checkpoint

December 15 – Second artist and third (and FINAL) author checkpoint

December 22– Posting Schedule will be announced

January 1 – Posting begins!

You can sign up to participate here!!

Don’t forget that there are a few different ways to keep up with us:

The Shameless Big Bang Tumblr page is the primary source of information. If you’re new around here, you can find out more info about the Big Bang at our Info & FAQ page. You can find links to the art and stories from previous rounds, and the home page even shows our commonly used tags, which you can use to filter through posts.

The Twitter account! Our Tumblr posts automatically feed there as a convenient way for you to keep up to date on either platform. Follow our Twitter account if you’re active there!

We also have a Discord! If you provide your Discord information during sign-up, I'll add you automatically.

As a reminder, the Big Bang is a collaborative effort between authors and artists. Please be mindful about your time and how busy you are when you sign up. We don’t want you to have to drop out and leave someone in the lurch if we can avoid it.

If there are any questions, you’re always welcome to send me an ask or an email! Reblog and spread the word!

#shameless big bang #shameless us #gallavich #ian x mickey #shameless #ian and mickey #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #shameless fanfic #shameless fanart

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unseededtoast · 2 months

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Turtle Doves | Joel Miller

Part Eight

Chapter Directory

Series Summary: In which two broken souls connect so deeply, that if one should perish, the other would surely die of a broken heart. (slow burn, timeline changes. After TLOU1, before TLOU2, assumed knowledge of infected, uses elements from both show and game)

Series Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, death, and sexual content.

Also cross-posted on Wattpad and AO3. Link to my masterlist for everything else I’ve posted!

Though he is a man of few words, his actions speak for his character.

Heading west, I keep walking through the night, though it's less than ideal. I take my time, wanting to stay quiet and undetected by both infected and people. The silence of the night allows my mind to mull over what I found today and how everything is supposed to fit together.

My mind can't seem to figure anything out that makes sense. The map is the only thing that makes the most sense to me. The notes, the game tallies, they all seem so odd but there has to be some connection. There has to be some reason these people were tasked with killing a specific age range of children in QZ's across the country. There has to be some reason they're connected to the Fireflies. I'm seeing bits and pieces of the picture, but not the full painting.

But what if this is all a bit bigger than I can take on? Am I walking myself right towards a death sentence? Maybe. Could I be making the wrong decision to go to Nebraska? Possibly.

The other alternatives are either to retreat back to the QZ and be stuck wondering for the rest of my life, or try to track down which QZ the others went to, and I could miss them and have wasted time. But if I guess which QZ they're going to next, I could possibly save more lives. I've never been good at gambling, and yet I find myself playing at the highest stakes.

Each step seems to take ten times the effort as normal as I consider my options, trying to see which is the most logical, which would give me the best odds of finding these people. As soon as I think I've made a decision, I second guess myself. It feels like there's no right decision to be made.

I stop walking in the middle of a street and stare straight up at the dark sky, the stars shining brightly down. If only they could give me the answer. The sound of a clicker in a nearby skyscraper gets me moving again, towards the interstate. It seems I've made up my mind, and only time will tell if this was the right decision.

Readjusting my backpack and yawning, I take in my surroundings so that I'm not ambushed by infected. Sometimes it seems like they come out of nowhere. My thoughts seem to run in circles until it starts to drive me mad. I have to think of something else or I'm going to go insane. And after searching for something, the green sign above the road distracts my mind and reminds me of the stranger I met only yesterday.

I wonder how Joel is doing, how his journey is going so far. He seemed seasoned to life outside a QZ, his time away from Boston likely forced him to adapt. Whatever job it was that he took to get out of Boston must have caused him to not want to return. But no matter the reason, I hope that he has a safe journey, I'm sure whoever is waiting for him is worried sick.

My path leads me to a roadblock where an old FEDRA checkpoint used to be, just before the entrance ramp of the highway. Cars are parked bumper to bumper and there's sandbags stacked on top of each other supporting a thick line of barbed wire. Knowing I can't climb overtop of it, I take a right and decide to go around. Sure, this is going to delay my trip slightly, but it's better than trying to go overtop of barbed wire. I don't really feel like nursing open wounds on my way to Nebraska.

As I go to turn left to get back on track I immediately stop moving. Standing in the street are three runners, all hunched over with quiet sobs. A clicker cries out somewhere close, its screeches ricochet off the buildings and echoes into the open air. My heart hammers in my chest and I take careful steps backwards so that I can keep my eyes on them. Thankfully, they don't see me and I'm able to get back to the front of the barricade.

I take a left instead, and hope for a better outcome. Bracing myself, I turn the corner and am in disbelief with what I see. There are four runners standing in the road. My eyes trail down the street and I see that they're all trapped here. The FEDRA barricade extends down the streets so that the infected in the Boston area can't use this ramp to get onto the highway. On one of the barricade sections I see the telltale sign of a door, there's a giant FEDRA sign hanging above it. That door would be a direct path to the road if it weren't for the infected. It seems that there's no unobstructed way for me to get to the highway. I'm up against seven runners and a clicker, at least. Even during the day I don't know if I could take this on.

Ducking back behind the building I try to formulate some sort of plan. How can I get through this barricade without the infected noticing me? I know the door is to the left, but there's no way I can get past all of those infected and open it. Even if I do sneak to the door, I know it's going to make sound when I open it, and that's like ringing the dinner bell for them.

Sound would be like ringing a dinner bell. An idea comes to my mind and I spot an abundance of bricks laying beside one of the cars. If I can get those bricks to all fall at the same time across the street, it should draw them away long enough for me to get to the door. It's still risky, but I think it's my best shot. But how do I get them to fall at the same time?

I don't see a way that I can pull that plan off without considerable time, and I don't have time to be stopped up here, not with all the infected. I stare at the pile of bricks and another idea crosses my mind. What if I use them to get over the barricade? I could lay the bricks in a way that I could get over the barbed wire. It might not be the most sophisticated plan, but it's going to have to work.

Quietly, I walk over to the pile and begin picking them up slowly. The barricade is at least six feet high, so I'm going to have to bring bricks up to the top of the sandbags and lay them there before I can construct something over the wire. I slide my backpack off my shoulders so that it's easier to get the bricks to the top of the barricade. Clutching three bricks under one arm, I climb the sandbags and drop them on top. Thankfully, the sand masks the sound of the bricks landing.

I take another trip up with three more bricks without incident, and feel more confident in my plan. On my last trip up with bricks, I drop them on the sandbags, but one of them hits the corner and falls down to the road with a loud crash. The infected hear it and I can tell they're rushing to investigate. I drop down to the road to pick up my backpack and see them coming towards me on both sides. Shit.

With the speed of lighting, I put my backpack on and start climbing the sandbags. I hear them getting closer as I reach the top, their carnal breaths loud in the night. I'm about two inches away from pulling myself to the top when I feel one of them grab my foot and it yanks me down.

My fingers slip on the sandbags and I fall a few inches before I'm able to grab ahold of something. Wildly, I kick my feet in an attempt to get them off of me, but there are too many. In a last ditch effort, I grab my gun from my thigh holster and shoot the ones who drag me down. The shots ring out in the night and I know it's only going to attract more.

The few runners I've shot collapse to the ground, which gives the clicker more space to reach for me. Clickers are infinitely more terrifying than runners, and they're about ten times stronger too. Runners take one bullet to kill, clickers can take at least two or three. I aim my gun towards the clicker and pull the trigger, but it just clicks. It's empty. Quickly, I shove the gun back in the holster and use both hands to grab onto the sandbags.

Adrenaline pumps in my veins and I fight harder to pull myself away from the feral infected. My pant leg rips at the bottom from their clawing and I feel my fingers beginning to slip. Clenching my eyes shut, I grit my teeth and pull with all my might to get away.

Just as I'm about to accept my fate, a shot rings out and one of the infected crumples to the ground. Four more shots hit the clicker, and it falls as well, body twitching on top of the others. Without thinking I pull myself on top of the barricade and whip my head from side to side to see who shot them. I grab my curved knife from my belt and hold it in front of me.

My chest heaves with each breath I take as the adrenaline begins wearing off and the panic sets in. Whoever shot them could be coming for me next. What if it's the T group?

From the shadows I see a figure approaching, slinging a gun behind them as they quickly jog towards me. Once they get close enough, I recognize who it is immediately. It's Joel.

He runs to the barricade and holds out a hand. I put my knife away and offer him my help up the sandbags. We both start using the bricks to construct a makeshift bridge across the barbed wire, the screeches of a dozen approaching infected rushing our movements. Joel takes bricks from my shaking hands and practically stands me up on his own and pushes me across the bridge, my other pant leg ripping from the barbs.

My feet hit the ground with a hard thud, quickly followed by Joel. His hands push on the back of my backpack and one word is clear over the coming stampede.

"Run." We take off sprinting down the highway's entrance ramp. He's slightly faster than me but I keep up well. Joel points to an abandoned car that crashed into a guard rail and I nod, showing him I understand the plan.

We yank open the doors and climb in. If the infected make it over the barricade, they shouldn't see us here and eventually will disperse. The two of us are out of breath and we sit in silence, trying to regain our bearings.

After a few minutes of steadying my breath, I take my backpack off and sit it in my lap. I rest my head on it and lean forward, closing my eyes in an attempt to calm myself down.

"Thank you." I say, slightly breathless. Raising my head from my backpack, I look over to Joel, who's glancing in the mirrors to see what's behind us. His eyes flicker to mine and he gives me a stern nod, opting to stay quiet.

If it weren't for him I'd be some infected's dinner. That fact sinks in and I feel an immense amount of gratitude. He didn't have to save me. He could've left me for dead. Most people wouldn't stick their neck out for someone they barely know, but he did. Though he is a man of few words, his actions speak for his character.

My gaze turns to the mirrors as well, the two of us anxiously wait to see if the infected are going to make it over. The runners would have no issue scaling the wall given the proper motivation to do so, but they're less likely to if they can't immediately see something that grabs their attention.

After hours of us hunkering down silently in the car, Joel opens his door and gets out. He slings his bag and rifle on his back, looking behind him one more time. I get out and gear up as well. And just like the first time I met him, the silence is almost overwhelming. The morning sunlight begins rising, and I realize we spent almost the entire night in the car.

I chew on the inside of my cheek as I debate whether or not I should say anything. Seeing as how he just saved my life, I decide it's the least I can do. I clear my throat and scratch the back of my neck, looking down at the ground to avoid awkward eye contact.

"I just want to thank you again for saving me back there. You really didn't have to put yourself at risk, but I appreciate it." I find the courage to look up, only to see him staring at me already with a fierce intensity.

"I thought you were headed towards that camp?" He asks, totally disregarding my appreciation.

"I was. I mean, I did. One guy was left but he was infected. I found clues though, about where they might be going." I tell him, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. He nods,

"So where're you headed?" He asks again, and it throws me off. This is the most talkative he's ever been.

"Omaha, Nebraska." I say, recalling the city where the large 'T' was located. Joel's eyebrows raise.

"That's quite a ways from here." He points out and I sigh, knowing I'm severely underprepared for the long road ahead.

"Yeah, I know. But I have to do this. I won't be able to live with myself if I don't." I confess to him. I'm well aware my choices defy logic, but, the alternative of letting the guilt eat me alive is worse.

Joel rests his hand on the top of the car and looks down the highway. He shifts his weight around like he's deep in thought for a few minutes. He's probably trying to think of a way to ditch me. Feeling like I'm intruding on his venture home, I speak up again.

"Listen, I appreciate what you did for me back there, all of it. But I know you're trying to get home so I'll get out of your hair, for real this time." I say and extend a hand out to him again, probably for the last time. Like before, he stares at my hand.

"I'm headed west and go right by Omaha." He says, squinting in the sunlight. I drop my hand once I realize he isn't going to take it, meaning we aren't splitting quite yet. My eyebrows draw tightly together in confusion as I try to understand what he's trying to get at. I think I understand, but I need to hear him clarify.

"Meaning what? We tag along 'til Omaha?" I hear the insecurity in my own voice and I hate it. Joel takes his hand back from the top of the car and nods.

"Safer that way, for the both of us." He confirms my thoughts and starts walking down the highway. I follow him, accepting his offer.

We walk side by side down the road, the only sounds being the birds in the sky and our gear rattling around. My mind is buzzing with questions I want to ask him, but I respect that he's a quiet, reserved man.

Every few minutes I check behind us, feeling paranoid that we're being followed. There's never anything there, but I'd rather check and see nothing than not check and be surprised. Joel is less paranoid I think, he walks with a silent confidence that tells me he's no stranger to the outside world. He understands it far better than I do.

The two of us walk for miles without saying a word until we come to an exit ramp. I recognize it as a suburb outside of Boston, but I've never been there before. Joel veers off the highway to the exit and I follow without question.

Off the ramp, there's a small town to the left and a bunch of housing complexes to the right. Seems like the perfect place for infected to be lurking about. But for some reason, I put my blind faith in the man leading me and trail him into the town.

He looks over his shoulder at me and points at a small brick building. I nod and approach it with him, preparing my knife for use. He stands on the opposite side of the entrance doors with his knife in hand, looking to me for confirmation that I'm ready. Silently, I nod and watch as he swings the door open. I wait for the sound of infected, but am pleasantly surprised with silence.

Joel seems to know where he's going though, he heads straight for the back room. I take my time to look around at the front room, seeing if there's anything of use. Most likely there isn't, but every once in a while I get lucky. The sound of whatever Joel is moving is enough to catch my attention, and I stand in the doorway. He's moving a large piece of plywood that's on the floor. There's a hole in the ground, and he drops down into it.

Curiosity gets the best of me and I go over to peek in the hole, seeing a small stash of supplies. Joel rummages around and picks up ammunition, a few cans, and another knife. He turns around and sees me staring above him, and he hands me items he can't carry himself; some cans of food and ammunition, before he pulls himself back out of the hole.

"You stashed that?" I ask quietly. He huffs as he puts away the extra supplies.

"A while ago." He answers and the two of us quickly shove the items in our bags. My bag feels like it gained fifteen extra pounds, but I can't complain. The extra weight means we have better survival odds.

Wordlessly, Joel moves out of the store and heads towards the suburban side of town, only a few miles walk away. The cookie-cutter houses remind me of the neighborhood I used to live in. A small, idyllic place at one point in time, turned to nothing but a ghost town now. Joel approaches the porch of one and opens the door. Luckily, it's empty and I follow him inside.

He blocks the main entrances to the home without a word, and I move to help him. I shove a strong chair underneath the handle of the back door and try to turn the handle to test its durability. After that, I make my rounds on the curtains and close them all. It seems like we're making this our base for the night. Once we've taken all the safety measures that we possibly can, Joel finds his way to the living room and unloads his stuff on the old, worn-down couch.

I place my backpack on the floor next to the couch and lean against the doorframe that connects the living room and kitchen, watching as Joel straightens his back out on the floor. His arms reach above his head to elongate his spine, and I hear the bones pop and crack. Wincing slightly, I turn my attention elsewhere in the house.

My eyes catch the fading family portrait on the wall and I go to look at it. The black frame houses an old photo. There's a man, woman, two kids, and a dog. They're all smiling, even the dog looks happy. My heart tugs at the sight of the happy family, and I can only assume what happened to them, just like so many other families. Sighing, I look at the other photos on the wall, seeing the slow growth of the children through still images. They look like they were probably high school age. My fingers find their way to the necklace that adorns my neck and I squeeze it tight.

A sound from behind me snaps me out of my thoughts and I turn back to see Joel staring at me. I offer him a polite smile and go to take a seat across from him on the floor, resting my back against the old couch. I fiddle with the torn edges of my pants, and can no longer restrain myself from asking questions. There are too many things I want answers to.

"How did you find me at that barricade?" My voice is soft. Joel clears his throat and shrugs.

"I took the long way 'round so I wouldn't interfere with whatever you were doin'. I was plannin' on taking this highway back home anyways. Guess it was just a coincidence." He plainly answers and I nod, accepting his answer.

"What a lucky coincidence." I smile, trying to break through the tension that always seems to hang over us. It's going to be a long trip west if he keeps things this short. He just shrugs in response,

"So what did you find 'bout those people?" He asks. I'm surprised he even cares, but I reach for my bag to show him what I've found. I spread the documents out in front of me and let him look. I explain to him what I know and what my theories are.

"Whoever they are, they need to be eradicated. Those kids, they were-" The tightness in my throat constricts my ability to talk and I take a shaky breath, remembering what it felt like to cradle the dying girl's head. Joel just nods, not needing further elaboration. He holds up the scraps of paper I found in the fire and reads the simple words.

"I'm not sure what those have to do with anything, and I'm not sure there's any sort of connection." I speak up, truthfully not knowing if they're of any value.

He puts the scraps down and picks up another piece of paper, the one with the Firefly insignia on it. As he reads the paper it's like the blood is drained from his face. My eyebrows knit together,

"What is it?" I ask and his startled eyes look deep into mine with fear that he tries to mask. An uneasy feeling settles in me. He looks back down to the paper and re-reads the note before he says anything.

"These bastards aren't going to live much longer." Is all he says before handing everything back over to me. The look on his face is unsettling, so I don't push anything further.

There has to be something he knows about this.

#joel miller #joel tlou #the last of us joel #joel miller fanfic #joel miller the last of us #joel miller fic #joel miller fluff #pedro pascal #joel miller fanfiction #tlou #tlou hbo #tlou fanfiction #tlou fanfic

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gravidasomnia · 7 months

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A text post for a change! tldr: There's some technical details re: Dayspa Squad which spills into discussion of the software & hardware used, and a few other thoughts. Group pics are difficult with the limitations of the AI I'm using (SD 1.5, sdxl is better but my budget gaming laptop can't run it the way I use 1.5 without overheating), and people have noted that they often look like a row of clones. So this time (and last) I've found a suitable txt2img generation (top left) then re-run it through img2img and added variations in the prompt to produce different, still very similar looking groups, with many typical AI pic problems e.g. too many/not enough fingers & hands:

but from that I'll use Krita + the clone tool aligned to each pic and take parts of each that seem apt; hopefully between all the iterations there's enough non-freaky hands and other parts to go around!

You can see I haven't done a perfect job - especially with the 2nd woman from the left's dressing gown and hand, and the breasts still look cloned. Such flaws and others are much less noticeable on IG with it's limited image resolution and most users having a small screen experience. My excuse is that the milestone came up sooner than expected and I rushed it (I only started after noticing I'd hit 8,995 followers and it took about 20 minutes all up, a few minutes before I hit 9k). But a little more time and scrutiny and even running a couple more iterations could have gone a long way. Photoshop could just regenerate individual elements if you want it to but I'm not a pro user and can't justify the expense (such functionality wouldn't be available to unlicenced users). I'm more familiar with GIMP but I prefer Krita for simple clone tool operations because it loads quicker and the default brush is perfect for how I use it + the smart patch tool is also handy. I could also use the SD plugin within Krita/GIMP for similar functionality but I found the interface too clunky so I prefer to work manually for this sort of thing. This method is the sort of thing I'd use earlier on to fix weirdness like mutant hands, multiple weird bellybuttons and other AI body horror. Or to get a striking individual image juuuust right, like this one or this one. Nowadays the raw outputs are often realistic enough that simple touchups can take care of aberrations. We're not far off having an app that laypeople can use that will make pics like this without a need for editing - but for now I'm happy in this niche. Assets Used (All software free for personal use, mostly free for commercial use):

Software: Stability Matrix with the Automatic1111 WebUI Krita (has a learning curve but so does PS, amazing functionality that I've barely made use of because I'm not an actual artist) Irfanview (free for personal use but I've licensed it so I can use it for work if needed, totally worth it) AI Checkpoints/Loras/Embeddings: Photosomnia Omega (my SD1.5 photorealism model blend) Pregmix 2 Lora (will update eventually but it's not available yet, for now try Pregmix 1 or other pregnancy Loras on civitAI) FreeU/FreeU webUI plugin Negative photorealism embeddings used to help a lot but I don't need them so much now due to how far the model and Lora has come. They still deserve a mention as they have been very useful and will continue to be so with a variety of models: fcneg kkw-ph1-neg Bad_NegAnatomy Hardware: 2nd hand laptop with an i7, 16gb ram, 1G SSD, and 8gb rtx graphics. 4gb nvidia GTX graphics is considered the bare minimum but an RTX with 8gb is gonna be the minimum practical for working with HD resolutions & SDXL. Cheaper laptops will struggle with heat management, PCs will hit your power bills. Radeon graphics can technically work, they're good for people who love fucking around with linux because things aren't working and want to apply that approach to AI artgen software. If you don't enjoy that sort of frustration don't bother. Apple isn't supported for Stability Matrix yet but apparently many implementations of SD will work on a Macbook Pro with the M1/M2 chip and preferably at least 16gb of ram. Draw Things will run on an newish iphone/ipad but I found it too clunky to use for serious pics and it's not practical for high resolution work. While reflecting on the artistic mediocrity of this otherwise pleasing pic, a paraphrase of T.K. crossed my mind, namely that the AI revolution has been an utter disaster for human art. It does have a place alongside real art but as an example I hate seeing AI garbage in advertisements knowing that it's not only deceptive garbage that pretends to be something it's not AND it's also more lost payments for working artists/photographers/models. But I also think that fake erotica photos people make for themselves or share freely are outside of that problem, as long as they don't depict actual identifiable persons. I will not do fakes without consent, maybe everyone has their price but mine hasn't even come close to being reached, which I'll admit isn't possible without some level of privilege.

I'd like to not be judgmental of people who do make AI fakes for $ but otoh AI users must have some level of privilege to be able to access and use the technology. What I have seen with technology and other things is that irresponsible use is likely to be met with irresponsible regulation and I do wonder (not worry) how much longer blogs like this will be legal. Anyway for now just enjoy the pics! There will be more to enjoy soon. If you've bothered to scroll through thanks for reading and thanks for being a fan!

#ai art #I guess this is a mini AI tutorial of sorts #AI art assets #Infopost #AI Assets

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shineonyoucrazyyandere · 1 year

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Bad Horsie - Yandere! Johnny Joestar x Reader x Yandere! Gyro Zeppeli

Reader’s horse has a stand and of course is protective of their owner, both Gyro and Johnny fume over this as this animal blocks them at every move. This was supposed to be a joke post for April fools awhile go, less comedic than I was intending so it’s not gonna be right on April fools. Horse’s name : Bastille

Stand : Bad Horsie (Namesake ; Steve Vai - Bad Horsie)

You and Bastille probably had one of the strongest bonds one could possibly have with each other. Even Mountain Tim himself made an observation of this, which made you proud. Your father had given him to you a few years prior to entering the Steel Ball Run. A horse that was supposedly stubborn with other riders, just happened to click with you. So, you made sure to treat him right, give him the love he deserved and the both of you could communicate with grace.

Something that came heavily in handy in this arduous journey across the United States. Though it wasn’t just the two of you alone not like you thought it would have been. You wished it was that way, but life had thrown you a terrifying hardball consisting of two racers. The British born Johnny Joestar and Italian Gyro Zeppeli, who you only had considered allies to get you through this disaster of a race.

Bastille was your rock keeping you sane around those two, their romantic interest suddenly blossoming in a hell-scape of stand users. Your lovely horse knew this, the nervousness in your heart as you handled the reigns. He’d always eyeball the two of them when they were camping down for the night or when you hit a checkpoint. So he made it known to you to give as much pets as you wanted.

However as the trek went on, the atmosphere became suffocating. Bastille could feel it even as the two of you kept in sync, trying your best to either ride behind or in front of those two men. As much as there was to worry about venomous snakes or other apex predators, they seemed easier to deal with in this scenario. Perhaps this horse couldn’t get the complete situation down, but if you were in danger it would help instinctively or otherwise.

You knew your lovely companion had a stand but never divulged this to the men you were traveling with. You felt rather guilty relying on your own horse for protection, but if he wanted to you knew there wasn’t stopping him. Just retroactively planning things carefully so you and him could cross that finish line.

While you tried to keep your distance from these two, as much as they would allow they would take advantage of this to talk about your horse. This was literally the only reason for the past few weeks that you managed to get any kind of break. They knew for certain your furry friend knew this even if you didn’t consciously realize.

“The way their horse acts it’s interesting isn’t it?” Gyro said breaking a small silence the two of them.

Johnny’s blue eyes glanced over briefly “It’s not too hard to differentiate, horses do have emotions but I can tell there’s something more to him”

Gyro nodded along “How long have you been suspecting him being something more?”

The blond admitted he couldn’t shake a certain feeling from the very start of the race. Gyro’s eyes in turn widened a bit before resettling.

“Tch…so I’ve been getting dirt flung in my face on purpose by that cheeky prick for a little while now” The male smirked with a small gleam of his teeth.

Joestar himself sighed, he was frustrated by Bastille himself. He never really counted on being on the defensive against a horse of all things. Considering they were chasing corpse parts, this should hardly be any surprise to either of them. Johnny would never hesitate in taking a humans life to keep you to himself, Your horse complicated things for the race at least.

“Think it has a stand?” Gyro tossed another question out “If he wants to protect them that bad, I can’t rule that out as an impossibility”

“Wouldn’t be surprised, y/n loves that horse to death and of course they wouldn’t bother telling us about it”

“Damn, that’s true…” He clicked his tongue in annoyance, not for the potential fact your horse could’ve helped during certain face offs. Or the fact it was only focused on you and vice versa stung his heart. You’re cute trying to hide everything from him and Johnny though. As for Bastille, he wasn’t about to let a damn horse of all things keep him away from his darling.

The two of them decided to stitch together a timeline of sorts of your mighty steed’s actions. Johnny recalling a few times during the night he’d see your horse move it’s pitch closer when it could tell when he was staring at you during the night. Not to mention the close proximity of blocking his view of you by the morning. Or it pulling back when if felt your discomfort at him getting close to you while running.

Biggest thing Johnny had happen to him was almost having his head crushed in. He’d admit he was being nosy in attempting to get a hold of a diary you had, just to see if you were trying to write something to a potential significant other. Which he’d promptly burn without care if you had one if he had actually gotten a hold of it.

Gyro on the other hand had as he said dirt flung in his face various times. The intense flirtatious comments he’d make occasionally would sometimes occur. Almost getting knocked off balance if you tensed up enough. Or his belongings on Valkyrie getting strewn about, to distract the Italian from being in your presence. Or somehow slipping into a waterhole even though he knew for certain he had good balance and grip.

Johnny wouldn’t lie, he kinda chuckled at that last one at the time.

In literally any normal scenario anyone would take a hint. But Johnny and Gyro didn’t quite see it as protecting you. They were pouncing for more attention from you than they already greedily lapped up.

That evening when you all decided to pitch up camp for the night however would unknowingly unravel everything.

That evening you were the one to start the fire, the wood and kindling already gathered. You felt nervous that you weren’t able to catch another respite from these two. Keeping you right in their line of sight. Sighing you informed Gyro the fire was ready and he decided to start dinner with steadfastness. However he insisted you help him this time around.

“You know, that horse of yours sure does love you” Gyro abruptly brought up while tending to cutting up something with his knife.

“uh yeah I’d think so?” You do your best to shrug off the comment

“Something seems interesting about yours behavior wise” He responded cryptically.

“What’s your point?”

A smirk rises on his face, his green eyes cutting into your own.

“I’m just saying your horse seems to act on things with purpose”

You could feel your heartbeat race a bit faster than usual, this wasn’t the first time but this was a little different. A snort came from the distance, Bastille looking to your eyes clearly disgruntled. Shortly after you saw Gyro pointing towards him.

“There’s only so many times something could be an accident, and you know it don’t you?”

You swallowed nervously when Gyro projected his voice a bit louder. You knew who he was referring to, and when his eyes settled down back to yours you went cold.

“It’s not very nice keeping things from your lovers you know” Your eyes darted over to Johnny whose own stare was ice cold.

“Now, I’m a little more forgiving than Johnny is…Bastille would probably be dead by now if we weren’t searching for the corpse parts or were in a race” Something you absolutely took to be true when you saw the blond facing down an enemy.

Out of the corner of your eye you saw something pierce the ground, causing Bastille to move erratically in dodging. Quickly rising to your feet to attempt to assist him. But the sensation of a steel ball on your leg made you twist in a way you never felt before. Gyro quickly sought to catch you and hold you back into his vice grip.

“Bastille stop! Stop!” You shouted as he stomped his hooves aggressively, knowing he would try to attack Johnny. Gyro too if he hadn’t been so preoccupied. It pained you to say such a thing when you knew for certain they started this on purpose.

“You could give it up all right now and try to fight Johnny and I off, abandon the race completely” The Italian man stated with smugness.

“But I’ll make sure you’re unable to run in anyway I can” He hummed “I can hurt you just enough that I need help you like I do Johnny~, but not enough to disqualify you from the race”

You bit your lip as he squeezed his arms closer around your body.

“So what’ll be? Can’t wait to hear your answer”

#yandere x reader #yandere drabble #yandere imagines #yandere #yandere scenario #jjba imagines #yandere jjba #yandere jojo’s bizarre adventure #yandere johnny joestar #yandere gyro zeppeli #yandere jjba x reader #jojo’s bizarre adventure #Yandere jjba imagines #yandere jojo's bizarre adventure

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bisou-doux · 4 months

Note

I am Jewish, by the way. I don’t feel like arguing with you. I’m just saying that. I’ve also done research. there’s loads of writing out there on the inequality between Ashkenazi Jews and other Jews in Israel. Why don’t you look it up yourself? It’s interesting reading. anyways, at any rate even if there wasn’t any inequality you should definitely do research on their apartheid and colonialism towards Palestinians. Even if it’s not towards other jews, and if i got bad info I’ll delete that post, they’re still horribly racist.

I mentioned in my response that I’m aware there is a history of racism by ashkenazi Jews towards sephardi and MENA Jews, and that I by no means think israel is perfect in terms of social equality. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve to exist as a country. By that metric, I can’t name a single country that would deserve to exist. Social inequity =/= apartheid. On a day to day basis you will never see examples of virulent racism, nor is it something that would ever be tolerated by the average person. Under the law, ALL Israeli citizens (including those of palestinian descent- bc yes, palestinian israelis exist) are equal under the law. When people cite “apartheid” practices, they’re either not true, or are things that are only happening in the west bank (which btw I absolutely disagree with the israeli settler and military occupation of the west bank). The biggest issues for Palestinians being the roads built by the IDF, the checkpoints and resulting abuse of power, and the fact that they are subject to Israeli military law while Jewish settlers are subject to regular Israeli law. Settlers in the west bank are comprised entirely of religious (and some nationalist) extremists who believe in Jewish (/Israeli) supremacy. They are not at all representative of Israeli society as a whole, which is largely secular (not including bibi and ben gvir and the morons in the Likud who are absolutely DESPISED by nearly all Israelis rn). Many Israelis refuse to serve their mandatory military service on the basis of their opposition to the military occupation of the west bank. So yes, the situation in the west bank is horrendous, but it cannot and does not serve as “proof” that Israel is an apartheid state. IF Palestinians in the west bank were Israeli citizens and were still subject to military law, THEN it would be apartheid. But they are under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, and like I said, it’s the checkpoints and road systems (built by the IDF for settlers) that create daily issues.

As for “colonialism”, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. There has been a continuous Jewish presence there for over 3,000 years. You can’t colonize a land that you’re indigenous to. Palestinians, even though they have a centuries long history living in the land, are not indigenous to it. They speak Arabic, they practice Islam- a language and a religion that originated in the Arabian Peninsula. Prior to Israel’s establishment (and really up until the 1960s) there was no Palestinian national identity as we know it today- JEWS living there were called Palestinians, Arabs living there considered themselves Arab, not Palestinian. (And no, I’m not saying that because they’re not indigenous to the land that they should leave or that they have no right to be there- they do, just as much as Jews do).

Lastly, Ashkenazi Jews are not all horrible racists. That’s a harmful and completely false generalization. Do they exist? sure, but they are in the minority. You also have to consider that Jews in the diaspora were/are naturally going to be influenced by the cultural norms and attitudes of the countries they live in- especially during the mid 20th century. But let’s not forget about Operation Solomon- a covert Israeli military operation in the 90s that airlifted over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews out of Ethiopia in 36 hours so they could make Aliyah. There were opponents, sure, but they were ignored and the operation went ahead anyway. Ethiopians coming off the plane were greeted by thousands of cheering Israelis. Doesn’t sound very racist to me. And if you wanna talk about racism, why not talk about the fact that the Arab slave trade still exists? But does that mean that every single Arab person is racist towards black people? NO!

(this isn’t as eloquent as I wanted it to be but I hope I got my point across. If you want me to clarify anything I said don’t hesitate to ask)

#I/p #i/p conflict #israel #judaism #jumblr

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purp-violet · 7 months

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This will be my pin post for now so I can throw all my thoughts in one place

My country, my family and my people are under attack and have been under attack for 75 years. A colonial, zionist occupation has been committing genocide on innocent civilians since 1948. They've forced them to leave, destroyed their homes, took their land and have done all that they could to take their culture and humanity with it.

There's killing, yes, but this occupation spreads to every facet of Palestinian life.

It's so unbelievably humiliating to have to go through several checkpoint on my way to a city that should just be a less than an hour drive. It's so disheartening to have family in Gaza, relatives I have never even gotten the chance to meet, people who have died before I could see them face to face, despite them being so close to me. It's so dehumanizing to not even be considered a citizen, to have to constantly justify myself and explain my identity as Palestinian to every person who asks, whether it be a soldier or an employee or just someone I meet.

If there's one thing I want people to keep in mind, is to not let this pass. The Israel-Hamas war is only a culmination of decades of discrimination and murder, people who've gone years without any food or water, with no way to provide for themselves and no escape. The IDF has killed journalists, medical professionals, women and children and have continued to justify it under the disingenuous excuse of giving "land without people to people without land."

This isn't a religious conflict, this isn't a conflict at all. It's the systematic abuse of an entire group of people, funded by the most powerful countries in the world, all to serve a zionist agenda built on hatred and discrimination.

I don't know, it's been an upsetting few days, so this one had to be insanely vulnerable and personal. Thanks for reading and please spread the word however you can, if you're able.

#from the river to the sea palestine will be free #palestine #israel hamas war #pinned post for now #I'm so sorry for how my reblogs are gonna switch between general fandom shit and hamas-israel #but im also not sorry at all this is my account and you'll have to deal with it

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stickyspeckledlight · 25 days

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Saw this absolute fuckwad while scrolling Twitter

What. The. Hell. Coming from a candidate too.

The ‘outside agitator’ excuse is obviously easy to see the BS lying in it (because it’s used so often), so now they’ve resorted to dehumanization. Considering how this all even happened in the first place, it shouldn’t be too hard for them.

And how some of them are reacting to graffiti and broken windows like it’s the end of the world? Condemning property destruction like society is collapsing because of it? And they don’t bother to show the shelled and desolate areas of Gaza under siege.

There’s an underlying reason for that damage, and notably, that damage can be repaired. While you’re demonizing students, you ignore the actual demons which they have been (PEACEFULLY) protesting. Of course, it’s hard to justify riot gear against peaceful protestors, so I don’t blame them when people scramble to find a way to have it make sense to them. They have to for their mental health! And maybe yachts, if you have money. You gotta understand that they really need those yachts! So they can’t divest! …poor things….

People understand that suddenly divesting would put you in hot water over a lot of things. But really? A genocide is not enough to make you reconsider?

Note: if you feel like increasing your risk for cancer (this alone could’ve been a whole post but I just didn’t have the energy):

(It looks even worse after skimming a preview of her book which talks about what sort of ‘social contract’ the 21st century should have. I don’t think I’ll read the entire thing, mostly because I have no interest in supporting here, but damn. What do we owe to each other, she has asked, and this is a microcosm of her answer)

(AGH the way she puts ALL the blame on the students too. Who was the entity that called the NYPD again? The kind of group who puts up fucking sniper checkpoints against kids?)

Anyway I should go to bed. I’m tired and it’s hard to articulate things. I’m just frustrated

#free Palestine #keeping up with the college protests just because a small part of me hopes I’m proven wrong #but like no #I am literally not surprised in the slightest #I hate it #and just about every other protest will go similarly #only if more brutal because there’s less attention drawn to them #to paraphrase what someone else said #if this is what they’re willing to do and show at someplace as prestigious as Columbia what are they doing when there aren’t reporters #(although I’ve seen some get arrested or threatened with arrest)#mostly at the universities which have a good track record of student journalism

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scaryscarecrows · 4 months

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“I’m sure that by now most of you have become aware of the events at Arkham Asylum.”

Antoine’s voice is hoarse, going in and out a little. He hasn’t slept, not really. Sure, Mark got a power nap out of him, but that’s about it and it wasn’t enough. He looks like shit, too, all washed out and with eye bags big enough to take on a cruise.

“Batman do that, sir?”

“Yes and no. Before I continue, I want it clear: Batman is now considered a level five threat.”

“We can take him. Right, boys?” A cheer goes up. “Just tell us where he is, we’ll bring his head back in two hours.”

Ha. Trent disagrees. Bastard’s got clown morals with Bat-bullshit, if he’s still alive–and he probably is–‘taking him’ is going to be a real bitch. It’s doable, probably, it’s just going to be difficult, especially with their best resource on both Batman and Joker being at death’s door.

Antoine’s smile is wintery and the cheer dies down, gives way to an uneasy silence. Trent can’t blame them for that. He’s usually the nice one. Nice is relative, but still.

“What you’ll be up against isn’t Batman anymore,” he says. “Now, I’m sure you all attended the briefing regarding the Joker’s death of TITAN poisoning.” Pfft. Trent knows damn well they didn’t, but that’ll keep them from jabbering. “Before that incident, the Joker supplied hospitals with tainted blood, and apparently gave Batman a transfusion as well. The cure didn’t take.”

He turns to his laptop and taps a few keys. On screen, the footage Jimmy managed to get from the boss’s helmet earlier on Halloween looms large. Trent shudders. He’s seen some shit in his day, but that–a laughing, maniacal Batman attacking with full intent to kill–is in the running for his personal Top Five WTF. Thankfully, Antoine only lets it play for a few seconds, but those few seconds are enough to quiet the skeptical mutterings.

“That’s what you’re up against now. He will kill you, without a second thought. He has already killed Scarecrow–”

“Shit, we work for Richardson now?”

“No. The Arkham Knight dispatched her before the asylum blew up.”

At least that one stuck. Last thing they need is that vindictive little monster blaming them for what happened to Scarecrow.

“For the moment, we are going to continue as we were. I want drones sweeping the city, checkpoints manned, and watchtowers fully operational. If anybody sees anything, you call in immediately and you wait for backup. Don’t be a hero, your insurance does not cover facial removal.” There’s a smattering of nervous chuckles that Antoine does not join in. “Patrols: minimum of four, do not let each other out of your sight. Someone has to piss, you all go. Someone falls in one of those damn potholes and breaks an ankle, you all come back to base as a group. Understood?”

“Yessir.”

“Good. Any questions?” If they have any, they don’t ask them. Antoine closes his laptop, disconnects it, and turns on his heel. “Dismissed.”

Trent steps in fully as they file out. A few of them flinch, but most of them just keep moving.

“You look like shit,” he says bluntly. “Mark’s right, you need sleep.”

“I’m fine. Anything?”

“Couple of false alarms.”

“So no.”

“No.”

“Damn.” Antoine runs a hand through his hair. “Any change with the boss?”

“Still out. Look…what are we going to do, if he…doesn’t…wake up? Batman’s Gotham’s problem, right?”

Antoine just laughs, a little bitter, and starts towards the door.

“He only got maybe a quarter of the mines. We pull our men out and blow this city to Kingdom Come, see him walk that off.”

God damn.

“You’re sure?”

“My orders are to put the bastard down, whatever it takes.” He turns towards the back hallway. “Check in with the Arkham troops again, make sure they don’t need any further supplies. Did you send them a COBRA drone?”

“Yeah, earlier.”

“Good. Keep me posted.”

#ficlet #laughing batman timeline #arkhamverse #scaryverse #antoine drouot #trent ages

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theluckywizard · 3 months

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writing patterns tag game

Thank you @samseabxrn

Tagging @crackinglamb, @monocytogenes, @delicatefade and @zenstrike if you would like to share!

Rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!

Cullen catches Blackwall’s charge in his back leg, his boot sliding in the slushy muck of the sparring ring. (Thirst, Cullen POV, Mature, wc 6450)

Ahead of me a creature wrestles then rests, then wrestles and rests again. But it hasn’t given up hope yet. (In the Shattering of Things, Rose Trevelyan POV, Explicit, WC 375,749)

“Ser, an update on construction of the outer checkpoint.” (An Inexplicable Pull, Cullen POV, Teen, WC 1504)

Hawke extends both hands delicately to his sides and digs the toe of his boot into the dirt of the street. (The Roasting of Bethany Hawke, Garrett Hawke POV, Teen, wc 703)

Cullen hunches over his map of Ferelden muttering softly in the candle light that winks on the draft from above (The Firmness of his Resolve, Cullen POV, Explicit, WC 2166)

The ache rolls behind his eyes, stabbing and pinching all the way down into his neck and through his shoulders. (A Sense of Duty, Cullen POV, Teen, WC 2220)

(LMAO) The Inquisitor and the Champion are fucking. (Rumors, Garrett Hawke POV, Mature, WC 2189)

Hawke has always considered himself to be a bit of a brute, but this ogre of a man is head and shoulders above him, wielding a comically large hammer against the Inquisition’s comparative shrimps. (Point, Garrett Hawke POV, Mature, WC 1224)

When Cullen hits the final landing with a huffed sigh, he sees Rose sitting at her desk, waggling a quill against her cheek between two inkstained fingers, her wicked little smile accosting him across a stack of paperwork. (Proper Provocation, Cullen POV, Explicit, WC 2262)

Quite adrift from the conversation he’s meant to be having with Bull and Dorian about the excesses of Tevinter booze, Hawke sneaks helpless looks in the Inquisitor’s direction across the mess tent. (Into her Hands, Garrett Hawke POV, Teen, WC 1334)

This was interesting! Most of these are companion fics for my long fic, so it's a lot of Cullen or Hawke. Cullen's fics tend to start with him in the midst of some kind of work (SHOCKING I KNOW). Hawke's are almost universally a bit funny or provocative. If I glance through all my fics that are her POV, they are usually in the midst of some kind of action.

#tag game #theluckywizard #my writing

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Bruce Schneier's "A Hacker's Mind"

A Hacker’s Mind is security expert Bruce Schneier’s latest book, released today. For long-time readers of Schneier, the subject matter will be familiar, but this iteration of Schneier’s core security literacy curriculum has an important new gloss: power.

https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393866667

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/07/trickster-makes-the-world/#power-play

Schneier started out as a cryptographer, author of 1994’s Applied Cryptography, one of the standard texts on the subject. He created and co-created several important ciphers, and started two successful security startups that were sold onto larger firms. Many readers outside of cryptography circles became familiar with Schneier through his contribution to Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, and he is well-known in science fiction circles (he even received a Hugo nomination for editing the restaurant guide for MiniCon 34 in 1999).

https://www.schneier.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/restaurants-san-jose.pdf

But Schneier’s biggest claim in fame is as a science communicator, specifically in the domain of security. In the wake of the 9/11 bombings and the creation of a suite of hasty, ill-considered “security” measures, Schneier coined the term “security theater” to describe a certain kind of wasteful, harmful, pointless exercise, like forcing travelers to take off their shoes to board an airplane.

Schneier led the charge for a kind of sensible, reasonable thinking about security, using a mix of tactics to shift the discourse on the subject: debating TSA boss Kip Hawley, traveling with reporters through airport checkpoints while narrating countermeasures to defeat every single post-9/11 measure, and holding annual “movie-plot threat” competitions:

https://www.schneier.com/tag/movie-plot-threat-contests/

Most importantly, though, Schneier wrote long-form books that set out the case for sound security reasoning, railing against security theater and calling for policies that would actually make our physical and digital world more secure — abolishing DRM, clearing legal barriers to vulnerability research and disclosure, and debunking security snake-oil, from “unbreakable proprietary ciphers” to “behavioral detection training” for TSA officers.

Schneier inspired much of my own interest in cryptography, and he went on to design my wedding rings, which are cipher wheels:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/09/contest_cory_do.html

And then he judged a public cipher-design contest, which Chris Smith won with “The Fidget Protocol”:

http://craphound.com/FidgetProtocol.zip

Schneier’s books — starting with 2000’s Secrets and Lies — follow a familiar, winning formula. Each one advances a long-form argument for better security reasoning, leavened with a series of utterly delightful examples of successful and hacks and counterhacks, in which clever people engage in duels of wits over the best way to protect some precious resource — or bypass that protection. There is an endless supply of these, and they are addictive, impossible to read without laughing and sharing them on. There’s something innately satisfying about reading about hacks and counterhacks — as authors have understood since Poe wrote “The Purloined Letter” in 1844.

A Hacker’s Mind picks up on this familiar formula, with a fresh set of winning security anaecdotes, both new and historical, and restates Schneier’s hypothesis about how we should think about security — but, as noted, Hacker’s Mind brings a new twist to the subject: power.

In this book, Schneier broadens his frame to consider all of society’s rules — its norms, laws and regulations — as a security system, and then considers all the efforts to change those rules through a security lens, framing everything from street protests to tax-cheating as “hacks.”

This is a great analytical tool, one that evolved out of Schneier’s work on security policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. By thinking of (say) tax law as a security system, we can analyze its vulnerabilities just as we would analyze the risks to, say, your Gmail account. The tax system can be hacked by lobbying for tax-code loopholes, or by discovering and exploiting accidental loopholes. It can be hacked by suborning IRS inspectors, or by suborning Congress to cut the budget for IRS inspectors. It can be hacked by winning court cases defending exotic interpretations of the tax code, or by lobbying Congress to retroactively legalize those interpretations before a judge can toss them out.

This analysis has a problem, though: the hacker in popular imagination is a trickster figure, an analog for Coyote or Anansi, outsmarting the powerful with wits and stealth and bravado. The delight we take in these stories comes from the way that hacking can upend power differentials, hoisting elites on their own petard. An Anansi story in which a billionaire hires a trickster god to evade consequences for maiming workers in his factory is a hell of a lot less satisfying than the traditional canon.

Schneier resolves this conundrum by parsing hacking through another dimension: power. A hack by the powerful against society — tax evasion, regulatory arbitrage, fraud, political corruption — is a hack, sure, but it’s a different kind of hack from the hacks we’ve delighted in since “The Purloined Letter.”

This leaves us with two categories: hacks by the powerful to increase their power; and hacks by everyone else to take power away from the powerful. These two categories have become modern motifs in other domains — think of comedians’ talk of “punching up vs punching down” or the critique of the idea of “anti-white racism.”

But while this tool is familiar, it takes on a new utility when used to understand the security dimensions of policy, law and norms. Schneier uses it to propose several concrete proposals for making our policy “more secure” — that is, less vulnerable to corruption that further entrenches the powerful.

That said, the book does more to explain the source of problems than to lay out a program for addressing them — a common problem with analytical books. That’s okay, of course — we can’t begin to improve our society until we agree on what’s wrong with it — but there is definitely more work to be done in converting these systemic analyses into systemic policies.

Next week (Feb 8-17), I'll be in Australia, touring my book Chokepoint Capitalism with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We'll be in Brisbane on Feb 8, and then we're doing a remote event for NZ on Feb 9. Next are Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. I hope to see you!

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

[Image ID: The WW Norton cover for Bruce Schneier's 'A Hacker's Mind.']

#pluralistic #schneier #bruce schneier #books #reviews #hacking #power #punching up #punching down #gift guide #tax evasion #regulatory capture

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inbredfawn · 7 months

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An English translation of this post on X/Twitter:

"Let me tell a few things clearly and in Arabic:

Regardless of October 7th incidents, Israel has constantly been bombing Gaza. I work at a school affiliated with the UNRWA near the borders. We're always asked to wear loose clothing to help us escape in the event of bombing.

More than half of the female students in the class, not only have martyr relatives, they also witnessed the death of martyrs before their eyes. Meaning, more than three-quarters of the students in my school have psychological trauma. More than once we fled from school under random bombing. More than once we hide in our classes and sit on the floor (like the CNN broadcaster), but this time I have 40 students in the class and I am charged with protecting them, and I cannot even protect myself. Many times we would go back to school when we were not in a state of war, and we would find a girl who had been martyred, or in the hospital seriously injured because a soldier on the border had targeted her while she was in her home.

The residents of Beit Hanoun, all of their agricultural land, which is their livelihood, is on the border. Go and ask them about the tragedies they experience day in and day out. How many times have their crops been burned? How many times have they been targeted while they were farming safely?

Before October 7th, Israel constantly assaulted women on their way to prayers in Jerusalem, preventing them from reaching Al-Aqsa Mosque for days. Celebrations are held in vain and repeatedly, and they chant racist slogans to provoke the Palestinian people of Jerusalem.

Gazans need a permit to enter the West Bank, which is often denied (for education, work, treatment, all the same, forbidden).

On a personal note, I am 32 years old and have never visited Jerusalem or the rest of the cities of Palestine.

Patients with serious medical conditions that require a transfer to the West Bank die while waiting for the approval of the transfer.

Checkpoints are widespread in the West Bank on every street, to the point that you take 2 hours to reach a place that you can normally reach in 15 mins because you have to stop and wait many times. Israel arrests men, women, and children, imprisons them without charge or trial, abuses them, and tortures them in prisons without supervision. If it releases them in deals - something that happens once in a lifetime - it exiles them to another city far from their family, that if it doesn't take them captive again! Settlers occupy houses in the West Bank, steal them and live in them (just like that, imagine!), and the Palestinian who yesterday was still sleeping in this house is expelled under the cover of the occupation government. Even the Palestinians inside Israel, who are supposed to have Israeli identity cards, were not spared. They are treated as second-class citizens and are considered a minority. They are prevented from many jobs. Armed Israeli gangs constantly assault them in the streets and in their homes. They are killed without any accountability. Rather, their killing is encouraged because they are causing a crisis for the occupying state.

In Gaza, if you order something online, it will take a year and we will be answered verbatim "it's up to the mood of the Israeli soldier working at the crossing". Three-quarters of the items Israel considers to be dual-use and refuses to enter the Gaza Strip, the most important of which is reinforced iron, which can be used in building shelters to protect civilians in wars. I once ordered diving goggles, and they were returned because they were classified as dual use. Everything entering the sector is subject to inspection. Israel rations the Gaza Strip's food supplies so that the food that enters is not enough for a single person. It updates its data after each war to account for the sector's decrease in population due to martyrdom (articles are widespread and numerous, for example how it rations the entry of chocolate into the sector according to its own specific calculation).

Fishermen are hunted at sea and they're falsely accused of getting close to the border. The fishing area keeps shrinking that they now have a tiny area from which they can make a living.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the occupation's practices against the Palestinians in general and Gaza in particular.

Israel did not need October 7th except to inflame people's feelings, remind them of the Jewish tragedy, and wipe out the Gaza Strip, with the world giving it the green light. If October 7th hadn't happened, Israel would have bombed the Gaza Strip and said that a Gazan dog walked near the border and denied the Holocaust.

Resistance, tunnels, return marches, and demonstrations are all forms of oppressed people trying to defend themselves.

Whether they succeed or fail, they are all attempts to say that we died with dignity, and at least we tried not to let them kill us while they were happy.

As Naseer said, "If it were not for the resistance, your mother would've been washing an Israeli soldier's feet in a basin right now."

The occupation is not the enemy of the resistance itself. The occupation is my enemy, the enemy of my students, the enemy of my children, the enemy of my family members, and the enemy of my people. If God allowed us to live, I would like to let my children and students grow up cursing Israel. The battle is not over yet.

This is not a post of justification, I don't have to justify to the world why we resist. This is for some of my people who seem to believe the occupation's repeated narrative that its goal is to eliminate Hamas. And to remind them that in the past there was no Hamas, but your grandfather and grandmother were still killed. My son and your son are not Hamas, but my son and your son are still being killed."

#free palestine #save palestine #gaza #israel is a terrorist state

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henghost · 1 year

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another schizopost

I was, as the Against Me! song suggests, a teenage anarchist. I read Kropotkin, Le Guin, Bonanno, and several Twitter accounts of dubious quality. These culminated in a state of mind that saw Worm fanfiction as the ultimate revolutionary medium — an infantile disorder indeed. My attempt centered Circus, namely as a means to get away with a winking title: "Panem et Circenses" (although certainly concerns of gender nonconformism were involved as well), and for all its many flaws I believe it grazed lightly against some vast truth of canon, the anarchist core of the parahuman universe. (NB: I am no longer an anarchist. I have nothing against those who are, but let me offer by way of critique a summary of the latter half of my aforementioned fic: due to disorganization, agents provocateur, and a dearth of productive capacity, the state — i.e. the PRT/Cauldron — overwhelms the plucky libertarian Undersiders to a brutal, gory end.)

I introduce this concept of parahuman anarchism as a preface to the primary topic of today's schizopost, which is the nature of the "shard," the passenger, the Corona pollentia, etc. How are we meant to read this quirk of world worldbuilding if, as one ought, we understand the system of triggering-shard-power as metaphor? Are we meant to understand this conflict-causing organ as what Nietzsche would call the will to power, the irrepressible drive toward strength and creation. Or — and this interpretation seems more analytically lucrative considering the Freudian overtones of the text in general — shall we read it as Thanatos, the death-drive, the desire for destruction unto a ceasement of excitation. Indeed, much of the function of powers resembles the psychoanalytic model, especially, as I have alluded to in an earlier post, with regard to the repetition compulsion. This way, we can understand the Endbringers as a form of neurosis, some sublimated trauma unleashed upon the entire world.

However, as much as Worm's Freudianism presents an easy hermeneutical framework, I believe that to understand the full political weight of the text it is necessary to rely upon a concept formulated by French insurrectionary anarchist collective Tiqqun, that of the form-of-life. The form-of-life is (as best as I can understand it; these frogs arent known for concreteness, much less accessibility) that organism which rests beneath whatever predicates (= descriptors or qualities, e.g., mother, worker, socialist, individual, etc.) have been forced upon you. They experience friendship or enmity at the micro scale, community and a constant state of civil war at the macro. This is crucial: civil war is the natural state for the form-of-life — war is its free play.

This helps to explain the so-called cops and robbers dynamic that dominates much of the narrative. Tiqqun understands Empire (= the neoliberal state, for all intents and purposes) as an all-encompassing web of biopolitical tissue. There is no longer a society as such. In lieu of borders there is a customs checkpoint on every block, a Dragon drone beside every streetlamp, a panopticism that would have been unfathomable to the society of sovereignty. In the fissure between the form-of-life and the individual, the ego, there is a cop. (This citizen-cop has an outsize influence on Taylor, as can be seen in her turn toward the Wards, and in her humanistic moralizing more generally.) Empire (in our vocabulary, Cauldron) tolerates these violent crises because that is its wont. The gang war in Brockton Bay represents no threat to Empire/Cauldron because it has achieved utter immanence; there is nothing outside its purview. Panem et Circenses is more accurately rendered as Spectacle and Biopower. The only meaningful challenge to such a status quo comes in the form of Khepri. Tiqqun sees the workers’ strike as ineffectual — only a human strike will do, only the renunciation of the predicate, as in the feminist protests of the seventies: these women were no longer wives, no longer mothers, no longer women. In Khepri’s hivemind can be seen Tiqqun itself, which in Hebrew means rectification. (Remind me to talk more about shards in the context of Lurianic Kabbalah later on.) Khepri is nothing but her shard, Queen Administrator made manifest, and all her acolytes are in this similarly bare state, reduced to their forms-of-life. Khepri against Scion is civil war in its purest form, and only in this way is change possible.

#wormblr #worm web serial #henghost's schizoposts #anarchism #civil war #khepri

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secretgamergirl · 7 months

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The Trouble With Dying in Horror Games

So as you could probably guess after posting a week ago that I'd just played most of the way through SOMA and planned to finish it today, I just did so. It's an excellent game, I'd highly recommend it, and I'd particularly like to sing its praises for mostly delivering on the horror end by throwing a lot of heady philosophical questions at you while forcing you to actually pay attention to everything going on, because you absolutely are not given any sort of map, compass, or current objective tracker. The one aspect of it that didn't so much click for me though was the monsters, and I'd like to share some thoughts on why, and how this is honestly one of the trickiest needles to thread in game design.

So the thing about horror games is that you want the player to feel, if not actually scared, a certain amount of tension, unease, disquiet, dread, etc. You don't want to keep that feeling mounting for the entirety of the game of course, you want to build build build build but then and release now and then, give a breather, and start building it up again. And while there ARE other ways of doing that (and again, the game that got me thinking about this is pretty good at making you stress over, frankly, roleplaying decisions), the most obvious and probably the most effective is making the player stress out over some sort of fail state, or as we call it in game design circles, death.

Problem is, dying releases tension.

This applies to any game really. When things are getting rough and it seems like you're about to die, yeah that's some great heart pounding high tension stuff, but then you miss that timer or take that hit or flub that dropped block or whatever and you're snapped back to the reality that oh right, this is just a game, and now you just have to try what you were doing again. And that's nice in a lot of situations, but in a horror game it's pretty much always going to throw things off because there is, again, this very particular sort of timing you want in the building and release and that early release can really screw with it. And generally, because really this is just how games work, you need to decide how far you want to roll the player's progress back to get back into that right rhythm.

Now personally, I'm a big fan of the golden age of horror games. Stuff from the earliest disc based systems, where not only are save points few and far between, but there's limitations on how many times you can save your game at all. Death had a hell of a lot more sting to it as a threat with games like that, and it also played super well with the first couple Resident Evil games and the way they make you sweat over all your resources in the long term by slow-drip-feeding you ammo and healing items into your very limited inventory. Now the downside to this of course is that you WILL, in all likelihood, die at some point where you have gone Some Time without saving, and while that leaves a good runway to reestablish the tension it's also, you know, super frustrating and you'll maybe want to step away from the game for a while to cool off.

Modern games though, with few exceptions, do not do save points anymore. They have fallen completely out of fashion, and the modern expectation is that every game will constantly be autosaving at very closely packed checkpoints, which is generally considered an evolution of the kindness of letting you save anywhere at any time, probably with zippy quick-save and quick-load buttons, which have kind of been back-ported to older games thanks to emulation and... honestly personally I hate this and that's a rant for another time, but I acknowledge that I am in the minority there. HOWEVER, this still really sucks for horror because we now have the tension break of death, with little to no sting following it, and we're then right back where we were, with no time for the tension to remount at all, and then whatever you died to is just an annoyance, especially if it happens again.

Now, SOMA is as much of a modern horror game as you can get. Like, you tell me something is a "modern horror" game, I'm immediately going to picture something with more or less this gameplay and frankly, something from this developer or someone trying to be like them, and sure enough, if you die you lose absolutely no progress at all. The checkpointing is so generous I swear I've actually MADE progress when dying, and it really hurts the ability for deadly things (by which I pretty much just mean monsters) to have the sort of impact they need. Which is a shame, because these are some pretty neat monsters! Every new one you encounter has a very distinct look and, in theory, a different rule you need to work out in order to avoid being killed. Here's one you need to keep from seeing you, one you need to avoid looking at, one you can't break eye contact with, one that won't kill you if you're perfectly still, etc. And that's neat.

But... I say "in theory" because I absolutely DID get through the game without figuring out the deal with half of them. Either I just booked it before they could reach me (which is great, actually, that keeps the tension if it feels like you're just barely staying ahead) or I just... ate the deaths which didn't even change my position but kicked the monster further down the hall. Which... yeah, nobody's happy with that.

Now, here I should point out that in this particular game this really isn't much of a problem at all because SOMA has like... 8 monsters total, give or take? It has much more cerebral ways to get under your skin, to the point where a lot of people say it'd be better not having monsters at all (and there's even an option to play it that way). I disagree though. They're fun designs, they have interesting patterns, and from both a perspective of story pacing and world building, it's quite important that we at least occasionally have some twisted monstrosities that may once have been human shuffling about in a menacing fashion. We just don't want the tension totally destroyed when they succeed in that menacing.

So how could we fix that? Well my go-to answer is "quit doing constant checkpointing, make me lose real progress so the stakes feel high and I'm really incentivized to work out the safe way past," and for a LOT of games, yeah, just do that. Here though, it's tricky, because a big part of why this game works as well as it does is that it's a bit mazey in its design with zero handholding, it doesn't have you collecting stuff, and aside from some chasey bits which are, again, great, there's no combat or action scenes really. You spend a lot of time stumbling around clueless and confused, picking up cool bits of world-building lore and familiarizing yourself with your surroundings enough to properly orient yourself and work out the path forward. If you die in the middle of that and get sent way back to the start of the area, you're not going to retrace those steps. You've seen those files you've worked out that mental map, you're going to get right back to where you were now, but now that monster is an annoyance not a threat.

So OK, if we can't restore tension after a death without sacrificing good stuff, what if we just avoid dying in the first place? I mean, that IS the ideal, really. You want to constantly be worried you're about to die, and then never have it happen. Tension builds constantly and only gets released when the designers want it released. This is tricky to accomplish though. You can literally just not put anything in that's actually going to lead to a death. Monsters that come charging and screaming up corridors but never reach you because a door slams shut or a walkway collapses or whatever, but that's a huge gamble because if the player notices even once that they weren't really in any danger, they now know death isn't a thing in this game, and the threat of it can no longer establish tension. The more fake-outs you do, the more likely they are to see behind that curtain.

OK, so, how about the monsters DO have the ability to kill you, but they rarely if ever will if you approach them smartly? This could work. Again, in our case in point, there's some trick to every monster, and if you know the trick, and can execute it, you're safe from that monster. It's still tense if there's some chance you might not use the survival strategy properly, we can still ratchet things up in a hurry by taking away the means to do what you need to at the climax of a given monster encounter, so things are still plenty tense, but the player has to be fairly incompetent to get killed, and hopefully they'll learn from it for the next attempt but be iffy on that. I do feel like this would work for SOMA and going in with outside knowledge of what does/doesn't cause each given thing in the game to come charging at you so that death is possible but rare would be ideal, BUT again the whole nature of this particular game not holding your hand and rewarding thorough exploration only with more details about exactly what the heck is going on and really pushing for isolation eliminates the easiest ways to clue that in-game. Unless of course it was dropping hints with the whole corpse black box recording deal and I was just too personally distracted to pick up on it. Again though, I'm just using this game as an example to discuss this in the abstract.

How about this though? What if we took dying to the same thing twice out of the equation? If this particular monster in this particular hallway kills you, you return to the last checkpoint, but when you get back to that hallway, the monster isn't there anymore. There's a risk of players treating this as an alternate solution to the problem of dealing with monsters and just face-tanking through the whole game, but you could mess with people's heads with it. If that monster isn't here, then where is it? Why isn't it here? Do we have diegetic respawns? Is the monster not here because it's off eating the corpse of the previous version of me? This feels like it's worth exploring.

Here's another one for you. Have softer fail states. SOMA actually does a bit of this in fact. When you die, sure, you get back up pretty much where you were standing, and it almost or literally does feel like monsters aren't so much trying to kill you as just giving you a big ol' bonk on the head as they pass, but it screws with your vision, and sometimes your ability to walk straight. I'm not going to lose progress from a death, but I am going to have a bad time if I get caught. That can work really well, and hell, in SOMA I took a lot of hits where I'm actually unclear if I just screwed up and got knocked out, or if we were just punctuating the end of a scene with me getting taken off guard and cold-cocked in cinematic fashion. There's a lot of ways you can play with this design space too. Maybe you get dragged off somewhere if you get jumped and have to work out where you even are when you wake up. Maybe you drop plot items when you get taken down like this, and have to track those back down when you're back on your feet (just, if you do this, be sure to make it a fail-forward sort of thing where you're just on a different path for a bit and people don't have to just do repetitive runs fishing keycards out of the sewer every time they get smacked by the monster they're stuck on or something).

How about some more variations on this? Every time something should kill you, fate gets altered by the weird artifact you're carrying. Maybe this is just fancy fluff for HP, or it's like the Gamecube Resident Evil Remake's survival items. Maybe sidekicks take the hits for you but then die forever, like Hellnight. Maybe you live but with a permanent injury (this is an idea I personally plan on taking somewhere when I get the time). So long as the player keeps moving forward after, these can all be really impactful partial fail states that don't break tension.

Anyway, this is all just stuff to consider if you ever end up designing a horror game... or just a game in general. But anyway, SOMA's great, definitely worth checking out.

Anyway if you'd like to seem me keep rambling about things, I honestly quite desperately need money to live, my patreon donations fell off a damn cliff this month. And if you want to see me stream more, OK, I'm going to try to make that a regular thing, monday nights, 8 PM.

#horror games #game design #SOMA #streaming #twitch

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