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bongkillua · 6 months

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20 for the ask game? i love seeing how creators interact with and connect to their characters :>

i am so sorry i saved this ask to be a reward for me after work yesterday and then completely forgot about it.

20. Have your ocs helped you in self discovery? How?

yes!!! a lot actually!! all in very individual and unique ways. i mean i literally went by tucker as a name for a time because of how much tucker influenced me lol. it’s actually funny because you can always tell when i’m going through some sort of identity crisis because one of my ocs will just get a dramatic overhaul or like intense deep dive into their character.

in terms of queerness specifically… tucker is the whole reason why i discovered how werewolves and wolves connect to my masculinity and my gender. that’s something that i still carry very close to me and probably my first baby steps into butchness before i even fully understood it. hes a very old monsterhearts character that i made him at the beginning of the pandemic when i was in this weird limbo space of my transition and how my neurodiversity played into that. he definitely represented who i wanted to be/look like at the time. and over time his identity has changed to reflect mine- from being a gay man to bisexual to a butch dyke to all three at the same time. tucker tends to reflect me the closest but i think i also just change him whenever i’ve Already discovered smth about myself.

xanders gender presentation has given me a much higher respect for drag and Gender Weirdness in general. not to say i didn’t have it before but it feels a lot more personal now. he’s just so fun to play around with in ways that i’m not comfortable experimenting with my own gender url but are still experiences i like to explore if that makes sense. he was also definitely my bisexual awakening when i was in denial for like 6 months. like when i finally accepted that i thought xander was a hot guy AND A HOT GIRL was when i finally accepted that i liked men and women lol. it’s also when i decided xander would be bigender as opposed to a feminine man LMFAO.

ummm tucker and jordan’s relationship pushed me to think a lot more about my queerness growing up and how my experiences growing up as a Queer Girl influenced my Current identity. their whole relationship is like. very personal to me and the queerness of their childhood is such an important part of the story and Why They’re Like That. like idk Queer Childhoods are a very prevalent theme in wolfsbane and i guess i don’t really Discover anything when talking about/working through their backstory but i definitely reflect a lot on myself and my own experiences and it’s just made me a lot more Aware of my childhood.

jordan is actually my oldest character of the bunch that i made back when i was transitioning in high school and was definitely me sorting through some Gay Repressed Emotions but his backstory was just so different back then that it’s hard to relate to it. jordan’s queerness is such a diff experience from i mine though that i can definitely say for certain that he has helped me with self discovery in other ways way more than in terms of queerness. his relationship to his body (less in a trans sense and more in a psychosis sense) and reality are like. the big things i sorta project onto him.

konami reflects a lot of my gender apathy and “unseriousness” about queerness and while i haven’t thought about it much before he definitely represents a future i wish i had for myself of being raised in a communal queer space so like. he’s my inner child in a way :3c i think they also represent like. how my queerness was influenced by the internet and digital spaces but like that was as close as i got to having a queer community growing up so it still relates back to that first point about queer upbringing!

but yeah my characters are always very clear reflections of me and my experiences it’s very intentional. you can definitely tell how i perceive myself and my identity at the time based on which of the four im hyperfixated on the most. i will literally change my entire wardrobe when i decide to delve into one of my characters more. we sorta grow in tandem though sometimes my love for them changes my identity/i subconsciously project things onto them first and other times i realize something about myself and then add it to their characters. we’re very connected though!

#cemeteries #blurry answers #wolfsbane #tucker #xander #jordan #konami #mine #this is long as fuck jesus christ my bad

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deancaskiss · 3 years

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alright yall, here are some possible halloween/fall urls that i could use for my blog. pick which one yall like the most!

spookynightdeancas

pumpkinspicedeancas

autumnleavesdeancas

candycorndeancas

tombstonedeancas

#sophie talks #need some halloween aesthetics #bring on the autumn feels #please vote and let me know #i have all the urls saved already so i can change whenever i want #or i can just stick with starrynightdeancas and not change #let me know what yall think

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yellowocaballero · 3 years

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Human Relations Snippet: Tim teaches Jon the internet and odious goats are sacrificed to the cult of Bezos

There’s no reason for this to exist. I was rereading a bit of HR and I saw a throwaway joke about Jon wanting to buy Martin a Portal Gun. I started wondering about how that would even work. The answer is, obviously, a 200 year old man squinting at a computer screen wondering why there’s so many horny singles in his area. I get possessed by demons easily, so I took three hours out of writing my daemon au and wrote this instead. Bon Appetit.

(Edit, quick clarification: I think that Jon would refuse to use the name for the Beholding that Smirke made up, and although all of this exists in my head and you guys don’t know this, there was a lot of tension between Jon and Jonah’s ‘circle’. So Jon hated Smirke and thought he was a hack. He uses Smirke’s terms to others sometimes for ease of understanding or in deference to Jonah (:/) but I think that mentally he mainly calls the Beholding his own name, The Witness. It rings of that personal and intimate connection Jon and the Beholding has. Anyway, onto the story.)

After one hour in anguished uncertainty, fifty popups that advised Jon of very many ‘hot singles in his area’, six separate sites that Jon’s God had to inform him were covers for thieves that stole money from you, and a very confusing retreat to Jon’s favorite internet page ‘Wikipedia’ as to what an Amazon was, Jon had given up.

Normally this was where he asked one of his personal assistants for help. Normally, he wouldn’t even be trying, and he would have just told one of them to do it. This was how Jon had cunningly mostly avoided using computers for the past twenty years. Some endeavors were unavoidable, and Jon was proud to say that he mastered email in 2010. Or was it 2008? He liked to think it was 2006, but it was possible...never mind. If it was important, the Witness would tell him.

Peter Lukas was right on almost nothing, Jon thought disgruntledly as he slammed his laptop shut - including in his taste of men, company, philosophies, men, patron deities, professions, and men - but he was right in his proclamation that the internet was the degradation of society. Not that he hadn’t sacrificed his morality and sold out, feeding his patron through something called “incel forums” and “Reddit”. Between him, Jonah’s “Excel spreadsheets” and “TurboTax”, and Annabelle Cane’s ridiculous “MMO guilds”, the Society was filling with computer geeks. Jon could always read the wind: he had to keep up, and quickly.

Besides, Martin had kindly educated him on how it was almost unheard of for a young man like Jon to not understand how to work that Goggle thing. Giggle? Martin was very streetwise and was one of the most insightful people Jon had ever known, he was definitely right.

Which is why he had to buy him this “Portal Gun” that he wanted. He had even shown Jon the website! And if Jon was in desperate times trying to navigate these confusing webpages entirely with URLs he memorized, then he would take desperate measures!

“I’m going down to the Archives,” Jon said, slithering off the couch and clutching his laptop to chest. Jonah had bought it for him. He appeared surprised that Jon was using it. “I may not be back for a while. I need...a book.”

Jonah didn’t look away from his own infernal machine. It seemed he was on that ‘Excel’ program again. Was it one of those ‘video games’ he kept hearing about? “Do I want to know what you were doing on that laptop.”

“Reading Wikipedia,” Jon said immediately, and somewhat defensively. Jon had discovered Wikipedia in 2001 before promptly funding it and throwing his weight behind its development. He had spent a solid five years convinced a computer was a kind of electronic screen that let you read digital Encyclopedia pages, like in Star Trek. He’d seen Star Trek. Georgie made him. “Did you know that -”

“Yes, yes, have fun. Haven’t you read that entire site already?”

“Not even,” Jon said defensively. “I can’t just sit and read through entire Encyclopedias anymore, Jonah. We know more things now.”

“What a way to describe the last two hundred years,” Jonah said, not even looking away from his computer. “We know more things. Never change, Jon.”

“You’re the one who never changes,” Jon grumbled. But it was a weak comeback, and considering his brand new delightfully short stature somewhat untrue, so Jon breezed out of Jonah’s office with full knowledge that he’d think of a better comeback halfway down the steps to the Archives.

In fact, it wasn’t until he was at the door, and by then he felt stupid for losing a point against Jonah anyway. He easily opened the door, stepping inside and quickly bee-lining for Sasha’s office. Her burgeoning powers were wonderfully flowing in the shape of access to and understanding of technology. He had never seen such gratuitous breeches of privacy as she casually committed. Every day Jon was validated in his decision to save her from the Stranger. A balance, an equal yet opposite Archivist from Jon, would be invaluable. Not that Jonah and Jon weren’t their own yin and yang, but Jonah’s powers were paltry and out-of-date. Mind reading and spying through iconography was so 1960. They needed fresh blood.

Sasha had been a wonderful choice, and Jon didn’t regret choosing her to act as saviour. Most of the time. Some of the time she -

“She’s not in.”

Jon’s fist halted in front of the door, about to sharply rap on her office door. He turned around to actually look through the bullpen, only to see that Timothy was sitting in his chair chewing a sandwich. Somehow angrily. Definitely suspiciously.

“Are you sure?” Jon asked dubiously. “Because you’ve lied about this before.”

“Because you should stop coming down here and bothering her.” Timothy balled the saran wrap in his hand and dunked it in the trash can, somehow undoubtedly giving the impression that he wished it was Jon’s head. “Just bugger off.”

Someone was in a snit. Normally Timothy wasn’t this hostile. Jon had thought that learning his name might make him less mean, but it did little to help. But when Jon looked around he didn’t see Martin, and a quick check assured him that both Sasha and Martin were having lunch at their favorite deli and engaging in that plotting hobby they both enjoyed. Timothy had elected to stay behind, stewing in his own angry and paranoid juices.

He would have to do this with Martin out of the Archives...and he really wanted to take care of this now so Martin would get it before the weekend...and it wasn’t as if Jon was scared of this boy he was one hundred and seventy years older than…

“Uh,” Jon said intelligently, “can you help me with...something…”

Timothy’s face twisted in a novel combination of surprise and disgust. “What,” he sneered, “your evil fear god or whatever can’t figure it out for you?”

“I don’t need others to think for me,” Jon said stiffly. It was something he’d had to say far too many times. “The Witness is less helpful with...troubleshooting...look, do you know how to work a computer?”

Timothy stared at him blankly. “Like, at all?”

“I’m trying to buy Martin this toy he desires,” Jon said desperately. Fuck it all, he walked over and sat down in the chair next to Tim’s desk. He pulled a little bit closer, placing his laptop on Tim’s desk, and ignored the way the other man leaned away. “But whenever I try I keep on seeing alerts about hot singles. I’m not interested in young women, I just need to buy a ‘Portal Gun’. Do you know what a Portal Gun is?”

Timothy continued staring at him, eyebrows raised. Clearly involuntarily, so quick that he may not even have noticed, one corner of his lips was ticking upwards into a smile.

“How many credit card scams have you fallen for?”

“Absolutely none,” Jon said, very quickly. He pulled out his credit card, placing it on the table. He knew a credit card was involved, although he didn’t know how. “What do I do? Do I swipe it? Is there a port?” He picked up the laptop and squinted at its sides, looking for a port. “I wanted to ask Sasha for help, since she’s the expert in hacking, but surely you know the basics?”

“I mean...I can’t, like, code, but yeah, I can work Amazon.” Timothy carefully opened the laptop, watching the display light up. He effortlessly navigated to an icon on the screen, clicking it open.

“That’s not right,” Jon said urgently. “You’re supposed to press the E.”

“I do not want to know how many toolbars you have,” Timothy said bluntly. “We’re using Chrome. That’s another way to look at the Internet.” He rubbed his hands together. “Yeah, I got a grandmother, we can do this.”

Jon perked up. “So you’ll help?”

Went unsaid: even though you hate me?

“Whatever,” Timothy grumbled. Jon decided not to press his luck.

Jon decided that he liked the Chrome better than the Internet Explorer, because it was simpler and Google was on the first page. Tim rapidly typed on ‘Amazon.com’ into the search bar and easily scrolled through the very busy and picture filled page that immediately popped up. Why was everything so fast? Maybe this was why the young people had no attention span: these pages just came up immediately. No flipping for indices for finding anything in phone books.

“Right. What was it, a Portal Gun? Like from the game?”

“A board game?”

“Video game.”

“Like on a VHS…?”

“Right.” Tim pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know, Sasha said that you’re one of the most famous sociologists and anthropologists in British history.”

“I am extremely intelligent, Timothy, and I won’t abide any insinuation otherwise,” Jon said curtly. “I cannot be expected to keep constant track every time there’s another - iPhone or whatever. You have teenagers in your family, correct? Do you always know what they’re talking about? That’s, what, a twenty year age gap? Multiply that by ten.”

That shut him up. Timothy sighed again, much more aggressively, but he clicked the white bar and typed in ‘portal gun’ anyway. “Right. Not fucking apologizing, but right. I still don’t fucking know what ‘Twitch’ is.”

“It’s a brief spasmodic contraction of the muscle fibers,” Jon said helpfully. “Fascinatingly, this phenomenon was first observed in frog’s legs before I was even born in 1780, by Luigi Galvani. Erudite man, by the way, but he couldn’t hold his liquor. It was the birth of the study of bioelectricity, although the exact mechanism of muscle contraction eluded scientists for years.”

“Never mind.” Timothy sighed again, the perfect mix of aggravated and long-suffering. It seemed to be the man’s two favorite emotions. “My grandmother has a PhD and she still can’t figure out her cell, either. We had to get her a Jitterbug.”

Amazon, as Timothy explained, was a kind of shopping mall, except you could pick out what you wanted by its picture and have the shopping mall pack it up and send it to you. Jon didn’t quite understand why people preferred this to just going to a shop yourself, seeing as you could get it immediately instead of with a three or four day turnaround, but Tim explained that Amazon was cheaper, had a wider selection, and didn’t make you get off the couch.

“Oh,” Jon said, finally getting it, “this follows the economic model of large scale businesses underpricing their products to undercut smaller businesses in the area, driving them out of business until they hold monopoly over the market and can raise their prices without worrying about staying competitive.”

Timothy stared at him.

“I mean,” he said, “I guess?”

“This explains why my Alexa project was successful so quickly,” Jon mused. “With a lack of competition or alternatives, consumers are more likely to accept the dramatic invasions of privacy as normal. Normalizing intrusions into privacy took ages, but my early efforts paid off very well. The Ring doorbell was even better, along with the line of security and home protection systems. We’re now working on live streamed 24/7 surveillance to social media platforms.”

Timothy stared at him further.

Finally, he said, “Alexa was...you?”

“Of course,” Jon said, baffled. Who else would it be? “I gave Jeff the idea and convinced him it would be profitable. I didn’t understand the whole mechanics of it, but once I gave Jeff a vision from the Witness he was eager to implement the divinely inspired spyware.”

Timothy continued to stare.

“The evil fear god controls Jeff Bezos.”

“He thinks I’m a prophet, actually,” Jon said helpfully. “I let him become Cardinal of the imaginary cult in exchange for funding some of my more esoteric programs. Had him sacrifice a goat and everything, it was great.” At Timothy’s alarmed look, Jon was quick to elaborate, “It was the most evil goat you’ve met in your life. Morally odious.”

“...for my sanity I’m going to pretend that you said none of that.”

In retrospect, although Timothy had worked at the Institute for a few years, it did take quite a bit of time to acclimate to the fact that the Avatars permanently shaped the shape of human existence in order to better feed their gods. Jon knew better than anyone: when humanity made gods, and gods made man, and man made gods...the feedback loop could self-perpetuate for years. Eternity, if needed.

But they had no luck on ‘Amazon’. With Jon’s eidetic memory he was able to easily pick out the one that looked most similar to the one that Martin had showed him, but all of the little toy guns were for someone named ‘Rick’. Then Timothy took twenty laborious minutes explaining the entire plot of ‘Rick & Morty’ to him, which Jon patiently sat through.

“I think young people today deeply enjoy explaining media,” Jon said, once Timothy finished telling him the funny jokes. “I’m very interested in your interests, Timothy.”

“You are so fucking condescending. And please call me Tim, you’re sounding even more like my grandmother.” When Jon brightened, Tim - Tim! - quickly said, “This does not mean we are friends.”

Granted, Jon had never once in his life gave a shit about making friends, but he felt as if he should be making more of an effort with Tim. He was a sort of supernatural brother in law, wasn’t he? Although Sasha perhaps Sasha was more of a favored niece. At least, he would be, if today’s generation found some morality and stopped living in sin.

Good lord. Now he was sounding like Jonah. Georgie used to joke that he was born in the wrong generation - he should have been born a 17th century Puritan instead. Jon found it a very funny joke. Jonah did not.

“Are there any other shopping websites?” Jon asked finally, after Amazon failed them. He’d have to call up Jeff later and complain. “Or is this the only one?”

Tim sighed. “Let’s check Google.”

Quickly and efficiently, yet with many lightning fast detours, Tim found another site called ‘eBay’ - pronounced ‘e-Bay’, not ‘ehbay’ - that listed off exactly what they needed. They weren’t under the toy section, instead listed as something called ‘cosplay’, but Tim seemed highly resistant to explaining that one, so he dropped it.

They picked a likely looking white toy gun that looked the most similar to the one that Martin had liked and Tim talked Jon through punching in the numbers on his card into the website and sorting through the billing and shipping information. Tim helpfully took down the numbers on his card to file later.

“And...done!” Tim said, pressing a button and leaning back. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“It was ten times as complicated as I thought it would be,” Jon assured him, “but also much more fun. What else can you buy online?”

“Oh, god. What can’t you buy.”

Jon brightened. “Can you buy books?”

“Old Gertrude used to buy Leitners on eBay,” Tim said dully, “so yeah, sure, why not.”

Jon stared at his computer. He carefully navigated the mouse to the big red x and clicked out of the internet browser. “That’s enough of eBay, then, I think.”

Guess he would have to stick to buying Leitners in person. It was no good buying fucked up books from sketchy sources. Always stick to people you trusted, or at least trusted to be themselves. Mikaele was Jon’s favorite supplier since the kid Leitner disappeared, and they had a pleasant working relationship. Mikaele shared his grandfather’s stories about the history and culture of the Maori, and Jon told him which of his haunted artifacts would be the most helpful in the imminent apocalypse.

“Well,” Tim said finally, gently pushing Jon’s laptop away, “that was...something, great bonding session with my local supervillain, please run back to Elias and bother him instead.”

“You were very helpful, Mr. Stoker,” Jon said, as professionally yet paternally as possible. Tim was six years older than his body, so he’s not sure how it came off, but the touch of grey at his temples helped with the dignified air. “And as soon as you start acting like a man and propose to my Archivist, you’ll make an excellent brother in law -”

“Uh, excuse me?”

Jon spun around in his chair to see Sasha and Martin standing at the door, holding doggy bags and looking somewhat flummoxed. Probably confused at the sight of him and Tim having a civil conversation, which admittedly had never happened before. Possibly also confused at how completely mortified Tim looked.

“Who said anything about proposing?” Sasha asked incredulously. “Tim, are you -”

“No! No, god no!” Tim stood up quickly, holding his hands out as if he was placating a raging bull. “Nobody’s been saying anything - I would never do that to you -”

“Oh,” Sasha said frostily, crossing her arms and letting the bags swing, “would you.”

That was a domestic Jon should stay out of, even though he definitely caused it. He and Martin sidled away in tandem, huddling near the back of the Archives as Tim frantically pled for his life.

Sneakily, Jon glanced at Martin out of the corner of his eye. He looked happy. Happy, and just as stressed as he always looked - Jon had never known Martin when he wasn’t constantly stressed out, and he was more than aware that it was his fault.

He looked good, too. Really nice, broad jawline that gave his face a friendly round shape. Just friendly and round in general, it was really handsome. His hair was as nicely short and ruffles as ever. The big glasses were super stylish, and really framed his face well. Really big, broad hands. Jon, who had always been so poky and tall and thin and gaunt, like some kind of haunted scarecrow that lurked through the corners of time, was envious. He wanted some of that softness and gentleness. Really, he wanted some of Martin’s -

“So what were you and Tim doing?” Martin asked. “I didn’t know you knew he existed.”

“You told me his name,” Jon said anxiously. “I don’t forget the things you tell me, you know.”

Martin smiled shyly and him, and Jon found himself smiling back. “It’s pretty good for my ego to hear that I have something to teach the immortal genius.”

“I don’t know,” Jon said, as Sasha yelled in the background, “I’ve been learning a lot lately.”

“Really?” Martin teased. “Anything interesting?”

“Oh,” Jon said, watching the yellow fluorescent light cast Martin’s dim smile in soft relief, “I can think of a few things.”

#my writing #jonathan sims #tim stoker #archivist!sasha #martin blackwood #sasha james #mild homosexual activity and massive old man activity inbound #tma #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #the magnus archives fanfic #im posting this at an awkward time so prep for a lot of self rbs

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immobiliter · 2 years

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People I’d like to know better

1. Alias / Name: Lottie 2. Birthday: 27th June 3. Zodiac Sign: Cancer 4. Height: 5′7″ 5. Hobbies: writing is the obvious one, but gaming has also become much more of an active hobby for me over the past year or so. i’m also trying to get back into reading. 6. Favourite colour: purple 7. Favourite book: my two all time favourite novels are Jane Eyre and Emma 8. Last played song: When I Grow Up, West End cast of Matilda 9. Last film / show: i was meant to start watching s2 of Penny Dreadful as i promised @iniziare i would do next, but then i saw that all five series of Poldark were on netflix and so here i am, already partway through s2 and enjoying watching actual human disaster ross poldark in action lmao 10. Recent reads: the last book i actually finished was Ruin and Rising, but i’ve recently returned to Drums of Autumn determined to finish it and never have to read it ever again.

11. Inspiration: my inspiration to write comes from all sorts of things ( and it’s more likely than not that my inspiration to write is higher whenever i’m not at my computer and able to write lmao ). for my ‘bigger’ canon muses, i have youtube videos saved that always help me get into the characters’ headspace, and several muses are lucky enough to have their own spotify playlists too, as well as pinterest boards that give me a lot of visual inspiration ( i’ve learned over the years that i’m a visual and auditory learner so those are the best two means of tapping into my creativity as well ). all of these things help me particularly when switching between two muses on this blog because -- in short, when it comes to writing here i tend to always pick two or three muses that i want to focus on over a certain period ( usually over the course of a couple of weeks ), as that helps narrow down my focus as if i was writing on a multimuse with a much smaller roster than i currently have lmao. grouping my muses by genre on my muse page has also helped, as i can then decide ‘okay i want to focus on my sci fi muses for the next two weeks’ and i have a visual indication of who those muses are. sometimes, however, the muses i pick are from complete opposite ends of the spectrum ( so i might pick jamie and garrus, for example ), in which case having those visual and audio cues from playlists, pinterest boards and the like helps me to switch between the two settings as well as the two characters. 12. Story behind URL: it’s really not that exciting. i picked this url back when latin urls were in vogue, taking immobiliter as to mean immovable / fixed because the muses i had on the blog at the time all fitted that description in one way or another. it’s far less relevant now because my muses are so broad, but the brand has stuck and now i’m reluctant to change it lmao.

13. Fun fact about me: i read this and literally forgot every interesting thing ever about me but uhhh something that was always quirky about me when i was younger in particular is that i’m right-handed but left-footed. i used to play a lot of football (soccer) when i was young ( only in terms of you’d always find me on the football pitch hanging out with the boys in my class in true tomboy fashion lmao ) and it was always something that was commented on by people.

Tagged: @iniziare Tagging: if you’re reading this, you are tagged!

#* / be yourself. everyone else is taken ( ooc. )#i'm too lazy to tag people today plus sae probably covered most of them lmao

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jung-koook · 3 years

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Hi! I just saw your post and I'm sorry you feel like that :( I have trouble feeling comfortable writing something public even in my native language :( I stopped talking here on tumblr for years bc of that, if I can give you an advice is keep talking to your friends anyway ( in private) if they correct you that's fine as long they are respectful, you'll improve more and more, but try to remember you are not obligated to speak English, anything you know is already a plus, you're doing great, not small mistake can change that, I hope you're proud of yourself! Wishing you all the best 🌟💖

wow you're so sweet thank you 😭 i like it when people point out to me what i said its unfair or wrong or something like that. not just my english but the things i can say here. i'm not scared of being wrong about something and learning from my mistakes. with the concerts discussion i realized how closed off...? in just my country i was that i wasnt really knowing whats going on (about the covid) in other countries. i'm so angry at how my country deals with pandemic that i closed myself off to what is also happening about pandemic around the world. to be honest i'm just afraid of having some misunderstanding with my bad english but i'm not afraid to express my opinion here. i just get frustrated that i dont know how to use better words to express myself. and i always think i sounded so childish for not knowing a lot of better words to express myself. i dont know what makes you feel that way but if you werent comfortable dont feel guilty about it ok? you have every right to do anything to make your tumblr experience better and more comfortable for you. but if you want to express your opinion please do. its your blog and you can post whatever you want there. if someone doesnt like it they can unfollow you. i think if you are not posting anything racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobia, etc. you have the right to express your opinion whenever you want ok. ive always been lucky enough to meet really nice people here who helped me with my english even though it wasnt their obligation. i'm always comfortable with my friends talking even with my grammar mistakes. they never made me feel small because of it. i hope you never had such a bad experience either.

thank you so much for you sweet and precious words. ♡ i hope you're proud of yourself too! i'm wishing all the best to you too! please take care and i hope you're having a good day/night! ♡

ps. how did you manage to save your url with - in the end??? omg this is so cool

#reply #fall-

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indomies · 3 years

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#showyourprocess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES - When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag up to 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours.

sabrina @lanwangiji tagged me to show how i made my zayn’s birthday edit! check out her explanation on this mesmerizing zayn’s edit

1. PLANNING

It’s Zayn’s birthday, I ought to make something because so far I have made birthday posts for Louis, Niall and Liam. I didn’t participate in his birthday challenge so I had more time to create something for his birthday. I saw this post by @spaceniall and instantly fell in love with it. It's so clean, so neat, an amazing edit. I had that post tagged for inspo and because my Louis’s birthday edit was a bit “grand”, I thought I should make something simple.

I went to look for some photos of Zayn everywhere. Literally e v e r y w h e r e. I saved every photo I found beautiful and there were a LOT. I asked my friends for adjectives that describe Louis best and added them on my Louis’s birthday post, and I followed that approach for this edit. I asked several friends what they think of Zayn and collected the adjectives.

This was a time where I haven’t used trello board, so I put all the adjectives in a google doc. Seriously I swear by trello board, they make my life easier.

After I had all the photos and the adjectives, I went to pinterest to look for the color palette. I forgot how and why I came up with this color scheme, but I believed I wanted something pastel and muted color.

I had this idea to make an evergreen birthday post. I didn’t want to state any “happy birthday zayn” or his age on the graphic. I didn’t want to make all the edits to have his face because I wanted to showcase my graphics and typography style lmao. So I came up with 2 pictures with Zayn’s face and one central picture with his name. And I’m obsessed with space stuffs so this birthday edit is space themed.

2. PROCESSING

This is one of my earliest edits that I made in Illustrator, though I used Photoshop as well.

2.1 REMOVING PICTURES BACKGROUND

Remember I saved a LOT of Zayn’s photos? Yeah? Well I had a hard time choosing the right one. I asked Sabrina to help lmao. After I agreed with myself which photos I would use, I opened Photoshop and prayed it won’t crash after 5 min.

I uploaded the 2 photos and then I used selection on Zayn and then clicked inverse and deleted the background. Recently I found this website who can delete your background in 1 min, tbh that’s a life saver. I recommend using them, if you hate removing backgrounds with Photoshop.

I saved the backgroundless Zayn’s photos as png. And we’re moving on to the next step

2.2 THE TYPOGRAPHY

I only used Photoshop to remove the backgrounds. Now onto Illustrator. Always pray it won’t close by itself every 5 min.

I don’t really remember which dimension I used, but I suspect it’s 600x700 px. I made 3 artboards and loaded the color palette I found from Pinterest. I made 3 rectangles as the backgrounds for each picture and filled them with my desired colors, 2 pink and 1 green. Green being the standalone was put in the middle.

A bit of excursion based on my experience

When you open an artboard in Illustrator, you’ll see a white background. When you save the file you’ve worked on, it’ll actually be transparent. That’s why I always draw a rectangle as a background so it has a solid color.

I focused on ZAYN (middle pic) first because I wanted that to be the main focus. I don’t remember the font I used and I already deleted all files. I followed this tutorial to make the text. Basically you write your text first and choose effect > 3d > extrude and bevel > isometric top. Changed the colors according to my color palette.

I moved on to the first picture, Zayn and the adjectives. I uploaded his photo to the artboard and put it in the middle. I wanted the adjectives to encircle him. I just followed this tutorial on how to make the effect. I made that text effect because that reminded me of the saturn ring lmao.

2.3 THE GRAPHIC DETAILS

Once I got the typography done, I made stars and moon to make the edits merrier and more space themed.

For the stars you can follow this tutorials. For the moon I made 2 circles, one of them was bigger. I put the smaller one in front and click minus front (I think). For the saturn planet, I made a circle with filling and an oval with stroke only, putting the oval infront of the circle and delete the back part of the ring (I hope this makes sense).

I have these lines around Zayn, my intention was to make Zayn pop and kind of crown him or give him a glowy effect sort-of.

All I did was follow this tutorial and delete the lines at the top, because I didn’t want it to be too crowded. Then I put some stars and planets at the top to balance it.

2.4 FINISHING TOUCHES & EXPORTING

I rearranged some things, zoomed out the artboard so I could see everything as one post and picked and deleted some unwanted things. After I was satisfied, I added my watermark and it was my old url, I just typed louistomlinboo. (Now I made a logo-ish and use that as my watermark and the logo is not dependent on my url)

Ok I lied I used Photoshop again… so I had these adjectives in 2.1 that encircled him right but some parts of the texts are above him. I exported my Illustrator file as a psd, uploaded it on Photoshop and used layer mask magic to delete the texts that were above him to create an illusion that the texts went around and under him you know. See the picture below, some texts are beneath him.

For this picture I exported the png file from Photoshop, the rest directly from Illustrator.

This was when I learned I needed to scale up, because on Illustrator they all look good in terms of quality. But when I posted it, the quality was reduced. That time I just exported as big as the dimensions and I was disappointed with the quality when it’s on tumblr.

3. POSTING

I uploaded the 3 pictures I have on tumblr and chose “happy birthday zayn” with star symbols/emojis to keep up with the space theme.

So I always write out what my caption will be with the “rich text” option.

Then I go to this color html website to add the gradient color in the caption and remove the “;” with “ “ in here. Once I have everything, I change rich text to html so I can put the text with color in html mode.

Put some tags related to Zayn. (self promotion time lol. i have compiled tags for 1d creators check them out here)

I finished I think a week earlier before Zayn's birthday so I saved it on draft. I posted around midnight (my timezone is CET), because oh boy it is a competition with birthday post lmao. That’s what I feel like at least. You know, everyone wants to make a birthday post, I feel I have a better chance If I post something first. Whenever I have something done earlier before a certain due date, I either save it on draft or schedule it so it’ll be posted automatically.

Yeah that’s it! It’s not as detailed as before I think because the files are deleted sorry!

i’m tagging:

@spaceniall for this wonderful niall’s birthday edit

@she-fearlesss for this magnificent louis’s birthday gifset

@finewalls for this mesmerizing animation

@louitomlinson (i know you’re not that active but if you want and can!) for this amazing edit

and @tomlinsun for this cool edit

#showyourprocess #bacotan belle

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hayjeon · 4 years

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Tips on creating fun fanfic headers!

i had so much fun writing the fanfic writing tips yesterday and i got a few more questions about header-making, and so i decided to make one more of these! i hope these tips help somebody out there! hope you enjoy :)

p.s. these tips won’t require any hard editing skills or photoshop skills, nor any expensive tablets/apps!

typically i spend around ~5-10 min creating one header, and that’s either after i think of/finish a fic. i have so much fun doing it and sharing it with you that i figured i’d share how i do it!

why headers?

as I talked about in my fic tips, one of the most eye-catching things about fics are headers. when i’m scrolling through a rec page, my home page, a tag, or even someone’s masterlist, i’m immediately drawn to well-made headers. that’s what captures my attention, and then i’m more drawn in by the content. so, you can say that headers is your own version of an ad for your own fic, or an extension of it (like the cover of a novel!)

if you were writing your own book, imagine how much time you’d spend figuring out what you wanted your cover to look like. i try to have as much fun and invest as much time making my own headers because it’s just the cherry on top to my finished product :)

disclaimer: BUT HEADERS ARE NOT NECESSARY/DO OR DIE! if you don’t feel like you want to do this, then keep writing! its ok! this is just a suggestion. i’ve seen plenty of well-written fics without headers at all, so don’t beat yourself up over not having one/not wanting to do one. this is truly just a fun, extra kind of thing, and only keep reading if you want to learn how i do it! :)

tips for people who don’t want to make headers: if you still want something to make your fic stand out, use gifs! i use them in my drabbles a lot! this will at least give ur fic a lil boost!

how to find pictures

I typically use unsplash, which is a free website in which photographers upload their HQ pics for free use. the pics are really high quality, typically stock photos, and don’t have any logos on them like other ones on google. unfortunately, you won’t find any pics of the members or anything, but you’ll find beautiful stock photos of typical scenes like “ocean scene” or “desert scene.” I found the stock photo for cut me open (shown below) on that site by just looking up “medical” or “doctor”.

i used to use google a lot and just use keywords like “desert scene HQ” and edit the search settings to deliver HQ pics, and a minimum # of pixels, but unplash is definitely better in terms of quality, more aesthetic photos, and no logos/watermarks.

on some occasions, i will screenshot some scenes of youtube videos, turning up the quality to 1080p or 4k and zooming in so that the pixelation is as crisp as possible, and then editing it later to look good (which i’ll explain in a second!)

the above photo was a scene from the specific characters from the drama, “100 Days My Prince” that I screenshotted from a youtube video that TvN uploaded, recapping the drama. I cropped it just right so that their faces were left out, which i’ll also mention soon!

things to look for when picking pictures:

you want the picture to reflect a specific motif/theme from your fic! if its a moody fic, then try to find a moody scene that you can edit with filters/lighting to look even moodier; or if the characters’ jobs are a big portion of the fic (like cut me open/doctor theme) try to look for stock photos with that shown very clearly!

make sure its high quality: tumblr really dumbs down the quality of the photo when uploading it, so try your best to find something with a lot of pixels in it so that when you start editing, you don’t sacrifice too much of the quality already

try to look for something simple/clean: a picture with too much subject (ie. people in the background, or too much detail) may end up taking away from the main point of your header, which is your title. so find pics without too much clutter!

try to make sure its landscape: which will help during editing to save some of the quality better.

editing your pictures

now that you have a specific photo you want to use, now its time to edit! I use VSCO CAM (free app) and my own apple photos cropping tool for faster crops.

crop/adjust: if your picture is too large/wide, crop it to at least a 16:9 ratio. i’d say aim for skinnier if you can, so that you don’t take up too much space (especially if you’re planning to add headers to your masterlist). also crop out any faces, any clutter, any unnecessary details, so you have a nice, clean slate to work on when adding text.

contrast/sharpen/clarity/white balance/etc.: i’m not gonna give you a lesson on photography, but i’ll tell you I learned like 80% of everything that i know just by fiddling with it on VSCO! So just try it out and play with the app, see what you can make of it. i’d say a rule of thumb to follow is that you want happier fics with a brighter tone, and moodier/angsty fics with a darker tone so that it can reflect the nature of the fic further, without saying anything!

if you wanna be extra af like me, then go a step further and photoshop your pics. this one is a good example; when i screenshotted this scene from another youtube video for my fic One Year My Love part 2, i was specifically looking for a scene that would showcase the ornate/regal details of their clothing/environment in contrast to part 1′s modest clothing/scene (the first header in this post).

i found this scene, but actually, this scene portrays the Crown Prince and the Princess, not y/n. So, the actors weren’t smiling at all! They were actually frowning at eachother in this scene, to portray the tension between the two characters and their marriage.

So, I took the extra step, adjusting the pic with VSCO so that their shoulders/chins were at the same level, cropped off their faces up until their lips, and then used the adobe photoshop free app to photoshop their lips to be SMILING at eachother!!!! subtle, but important!

call me crazy for taking that much time but i’m so proud of how it turned out and i loved every second of making this one. that way, this scene makes it portray the happy ending for Jungkook and y/n!

adding text to your header

you can use any app out there, but i really like Font Candy! I actually ended up buying the 2$ version of this and never regretted it, but you can actually find a lot of their basic fonts on the free version; I tend to use the fonts: OSTRICH SANS, BEBAS, TREND, and INTRO the most! these are pretty clean-looking, block letters that look good whenever i put them as my titles.

I love this app too cause you can easily control the spacing between letters to make them take up more space, add shadows, or even make them contrast their background using the overlay feature; like this one i made for wildest dreams (see how the text changes depending on what part of the photo its on? amazing! it’s literally with a click of a button!!)

And i’ll always add “written by HAYJEON” or “by HAYEJON”, space it out, and add it somewhere underneath as my own branding.

orrrrrr

if you want to be more creative, you can even go a step further and use whatever you have on hand to enhance whatever you’re trying to portray.

for this one, i ended up finding this amazing photo on unsplash and i thought it would do a create job of portraying the “movie-set” quality of what wildest dreams is going to be about. this stock photo had someone else’s names on it, so i used my ipad, and used instagram to just erase the existing writing with the color of the background, and then wrote in my own title and url with my own handwriting/apple pen!!!

i thought this was pretty cool because it’s like wildest dreams is its own movie/has its own movie set, which, once it’s out, you guys will see that it’s supposed to be!

saving/uploading

this is pretty easy/obvious, but i figured i’d mention it. all the apps i mentioned are available on the appstore, and they will save directly to your photos. after doing that, i’ll just upload them into a special folder i have on my google drive so that when i’m finished writing a fic on tumblr using my laptop, i can easily download the photos without sacrificing quality. easy!

and that way, i can save them forever; even if i have to delete them from my computer, i can always redownload them!

side note: making text separators

i just recently started doing this, but ever since tumblr took down their text separators, i’ve just been cropping the bottom like 5-10 pixels of the header to use as my text separators! (with my laptop)

i saw some other writer doing it and thought that it looked better than what i had used previously (a cropped photo of a random line i found on google); i found that doing this tied my fics together a little better and just looked better aesthetically;

so there it is! hope you enjoyed! :) i would love to see what other tips you guys have been using, feel free to send me an ask or reply to this post; and if you end up using any of my tips, please let me know! I love to hear from you guys all the time <3

lots of love, especially during these times,

hay <3

#writing tips #story talk

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thetv-junkie · 4 years

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Keeping Track of Fanfics (99 % Offline) and How to Organise Them Neatly

Without a doubt, fanfiction has become an undeniably popular phenomenon in modern pop-culture. Every day thousands of avid writers provide us with their entertaining adventures, allowing us to interact with like-minded fans and friends and secretly indulge in collective swooning. ヽ( ⌒o⌒)人(⌒-⌒ )ﾉ

But then again, the sheer abundance of stories makes it hard to not be confused at times. Have I read that fic before? Did I like it??? Had there been an update that I might have missed? Where the heck did I stop reading? Damn, that story has been deleted; I wished I had saved it! ( ಥ ʖ̯ ಥ)

Especially in devastating times as this, with the corona virus running rampant on the whole globe, forcing millions of people into quarantine at home, the fear of the internet collapsing is palpable everywhere. In China, readers didn't/still do have no access to archiveofourown.com anymore. (o_O) !

But fear not, here's a great solution for the problem. – The FREE offline programme "Calibre". Some of you might have heard of it already and shy away from its usage as it seems confusing and cumbersome at first glance. (•ิ_•ิ) ?

In this tutorial, however, I will show you that, once you've gotten through the necessary set-up (which I will guide you through step-by-step) it will be well worth the effort and you're going to love “Calibre” forever for saving your fanfiction treasures and allows you your daily fix of smutty goodness, even if being online is no longer an option. (๑˃ᴗ˂)

So, here we go:

First, you need to download "Calibre" (either the regular or portable version):

https://calibre-ebook.com/download

and install it.

ヘ(￣ω￣ヘ)

Follow the instruction and select your device (output format is usually .epub but than can be changed to pretty much every other common format.) and click on “Finish”. If you’re not sure which device you use (or use more than one), simply stick to “Generic”.

An interface will appear:

You need to click on the three dots on the right (see arrow). An additional row of plugins will open which holds the button “Preferences”. Click that.

Scroll down to “Advanced” and select “Plugins”, “Get New Plugins”.

In the list of new plugins chose “FanFicFare” and install it (Ignore the warning.). As for the toolbars - best go with the pre-sets.

You can pick as many plugins as you like; “EpubMerge”, “Find Duplicates” and “EpubSplit” are useful additions, but see for yourself. Whenever “Calibre” asks you to close and re-open the program, do so (might happen a couple of times).

Next, go back to “Preferences” (remember the three dots on the right of the toolbar), find “Toolbars and Menus” and choose the main toolbar.

You can now pick the buttons you want to show up in your main toolbar, then click “Apply”. My toolbar looks something like this:

If you can't see all of your plugins, click on the three dots on the right, just as before. An additional row of plugins appears underneath.

Now we’re going to add the columns that are individually important to you and which will give you the information you need in order to pick the right book for your reading session.

Go to “Preferences”, “Add your columns”.

First tick and un-tick the pre-set columns that you want to keep or get rid of.

__φ(。。)

Then, click the green “+”-button on the right. An new window pops up that allows you to create new categories. Here's an example:

In my case I've picked a column that can be answered with a yes/no, but of course you also could opt for a text version instead (which is helpful when you want to sort stuff by pairing). Just make sure the lookup name is written in small letters (otherwise you'll get an error message) while for the column name you can write whatever you wish. When you're done, click "Apply".

Repeat the process as often as desired, here's my columns to give you some ideas:

(like 008, so I can give individual IDs to my books which makes finding them easier.)

Title

(No big brainer here – once you download a fanfic, this will be filled in automatically.)

Read?

(Again, pretty self-explanatory, easy to answer with the yes/no option)

Rating

(Now that is probably the most important column since it gives me an idea whether that fic is worth a re-read, or not. You can chose the ★★★★★-rating system in your personalised columns)

Time

(This column is only necessary if you know if you're a fast reader or not. We only need this column if you intend to add “Pages” as well:)

Pages

(That feature comes in handy when you're reading on another device like your mobile phone or tablet. Some devices show either the number of pages or the estimated reading time. In case it shows only the number of pages (just for example's sake, let's pretend you need one minute for reading one page which leaves you with e. g. 900 pages. Go to this site to break it down to hours and minutes:

https://www.unitjuggler.com/convert-time-from-min-to-h.html

900 minutes/pages leaves you with a total of roughly 15hr of reading time. You might want to note that down in your Calibre columns in order to have a vague idea if you're in for a lazy half-an-hour-read or better get settled for a marathon.)

Pairing?

(Does what it says on the tin – If you have more than one fav pairing in the same fandom it is useful to be able to sort by pairing for easy selection when you're in the mood for certain protagonists without wanting to scroll through your library forever. Btw, I recommend to use different libraries for each fandom. (Click the arrow on the right of the button "Calibre Library", "Switch/Create Library" and follow the instructions)

NSFW?

(Personally, a really important column for me. 'nough said. (^_<)〜☆ )

Okay, so now that we got the most important stuff done, let's finally download a fanfic!!! Leave Calibre as it is, open the internet and go to your site and fic of choice. Select the according url in your browser, copy it, switch back to Calibre.

Click on the arrow button on the right side of your plug in fanficfare, "Download from URL", the download url is automatically added, then press OK.

Now one of these two things can happen:

If you're lucky, on your bottom right corner, there's a pop up, letting you know that your FanficFare download is complete. All you have to do is press "Yes" and ét voila – you've imported your first fanfic!

All you need to do now is to double click on the title and start reading (I recommend to use E-book viewer). Enjoy !

However, if you're not lucky, you might get messages like how the sites want you to enter your username and password or that it's adult content blah blah blah, yadda, yadda, yadda. Having to fill in the information for every single fanfic is annoying, time-consuming and, most of all, incredibly annoying!

凸(￣ヘ￣)

Hence, here's the work-around:

Click on the arrow right to your plugin "FanFicFare" in the tool bar, find “Configure FanfFicFare”.

Go to the tab that says "personal.ini", then "edit personal.ini" Scroll down in the small pop-up until you can see this pre-set:

Edit in all the sites you're usually browsing for fanfiction. Always make sure that the letters of the sitename are blue, not red. If you want to make sure you aren't bothered with any verification pop-ups and such, double-check to work all of these in:

[Your fanfiction page like hp.adultfanfiction.org]

#username:YourPenname

#password:YourPassword

## default is false

#collect_series: true

#is_adult:true

#fail_on_password: false

That should do the trick and you can now easily keep track and enjoy your fics!

☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆

Bonus:

When you're done reading you might want to fill in some information for later use.

For that, fill your columns on the main screen by simply double-clicking on each category. So far, so good. But we need more metadata.

Choose a fic so it’s highlighted in blue. Then go to "Edit Metadata" in the main tool bar.

A window opens:

Some information will be pre-filled but you can always edit them. Also, I highly recommend you to change the tags to your liking, same as you can add a book cover of your choice via the browse function.

On a final note: When you're following a fic that is still in-progress, you can simply click the button "FanFicFare" (NOT the arrow next to it!) to update it.

♡( ◡‿◡ ) ENJOY YOUR READ!

#Fanfiction #Calibre #Corona

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troywalters658 · 4 years

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9 WAYS TO KEEP YOUR MOBILE DEVICES SECURE WHILE TRAVELING

From coffee shops to planes, trains, and cruise ships, we've become accustomed to having ready access to the Internet just about anywhere. The problem is, it's easy to forget how vulnerable that makes us to security threats.

I learned this the hard way recently when traveling from San Jose to Tampa, passing through four cities along the way. Even though I'm well aware of the potential for others to hack into my devices, I'd never had any problems previously. Unfortunately, there's always a first time: When I got back home, Facebook alerted me to some suspicious activity. I had been "Firesheep'd"!

Apparently someone in Chicago (using Firefox and a Windows PC) had logged into my Facebook account via Firesheep, a Firefox extension that can intercept unencrypted cookies from certain Websites on any open Wi-Fi network, making it possible to steal login credentials for sites like Facebook and Twitter, or even access your e-mail.

Think it can't happen to you? Think again. Fortunately, a combination of plain old common sense and some technology can protect your devices--quickly and fairly easily.

HOW YOUR GADGETS MAY BE VULNERABLE

Whether you're traveling with a laptop, netbook, smartphone, iPad, or all of the above, the risks and defenses against them are basically the same, according to Joe Nocera, an information security expert and a principal with PricewaterhouseCoopers. "Many of the security concerns that people think about when they think about their personal computers are applicable in the mobile world." As mobile devices become more sophisticated, they lend themselves to the same types of access to e-mail, passwords, and other secure information that PCs have done in the past.

Because today's devices are so much more powerful and can hold so much more information than ever before, the risks are increasing, says Martin Hack, information security expert and executive vice president of NCP Engineering, a software company that helps businesses with their secure remote access systems. Add to that our tendency to carry both personal and business information around with us on the same device, and our mobile devices have never looked so appealing to hackers, he says.

As specific mobile devices become more popular, they become more of a target for hackers. "Five years ago, the vulnerabilities were Microsoft-based and targeting PCs. Apple tended not to be targeted so often," says Nocera. "But, in the last year and a half or so, we're seeing a shift. More and more often we're seeing either Android- or iPhone-based vulnerabilities being targeted. We predict that by 2014 you'll see those types of vulnerabilities being the most targeted as more and more users go to those mobile devices."

The good news is it's not difficult or even expensive to protect your devices and the information on them. The fixes are simple. The problem, stated quite eloquently in an old Pogo comic strip, is: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

9 TIPS FOR KEEPING YOUR MOBILE DEVICES SECURE 1. Make sure your software is up-to-date. The first line of defense, says Nocera, is making sure that all your software is up-to-date. "Almost every release of software patches a number of security vulnerabilities that are out there," he says. Before every trip, or at least every few weeks, it's a good idea to check the manufacturer's Web site (or search Google) to see if a software or firmware update is available. If there's a new one, download it, unless there's a massive firestorm of negative reviews from early adopters.

2. Employ strong passwords. "Be sure to use some combination of letters, numbers and/or special characters of 8 characters or more," says Jeremy Miller, director of operations for Kroll Fraud Solutions. "Avoid using dictionary words. Instead, [use] acronyms for things like favorite songs, restaurants or other items known only to you. And change the password frequently--at least once every six months." If you're just not feeling clever enough to create your own passwords, programs like RoboForm will do it for you.

3. Don't mess with the security settings. Nocera notes that most of the default browser settings in Android, iPhone, and Blackberry phones are fairly secure out of the box. "I recommend not going in to change browser security settings--they're pretty good already," he says.

4. Avoid unencrypted public wireless networks. Such Wi-Fi networks require no authentication or password to log into, so anyone can access them--including the bad guys. In some cases, bad guys set up an open network to snare unsuspecting people. Encrypted networks, on the other hand, are those that require an ID or password for access--you'll find such networks at many hotels and coffee shops that offer Wi-Fi services. These networks have two different types of security--WEP (wired equivalent privacy) and WPA (Wi-Fi protected access); the second is most secure. Even encrypted networks, though, have risks--it's possible for bad guys to gain access to encrypted networks at a hotel or café, for instance, so be cautious about the sorts of things you do on such networks.

Besides avoiding connecting to unencrypted networks, turn off Wi-Fi when you're not using it. This will prevent you from automatically connecting to networks (and it will extend your device's battery life).

5. Paying to access a Wi-Fi network doesn't mean it's secure. Access fees do not equal security. Just because you pay a fee to access a Wi-Fi network doesn't mean that the network is secure.

6. URLs beginning with 'https:' are safer (but not foolproof). Whenever you're accessing a site where you'll be sharing personal or confidential information--your bank's site, for example--you want to make sure that you're doing so securely. The s in https means that you're connected to the site via the Secure Socket Layer (SSL). In layman's terms, this means that all data transmitted to that particular Website over the Internet is encrypted.

SSL is not foolproof though: If you're on an unencrypted network connection, you may still be subject to man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, a form of eavesdropping where the bad guy makes a connection independently with two parties and then "gets in the middle," making both believe that they are talking directly to each other.

These types of attacks are rare, but to guard against them, make sure you're both connected to a secured network and that Websites use https when you're entering sensitive information.

In addition, says Nocera, most e-mail service providers have both a clear text option (that sends unencrypted data) and an encryption (SSL) option. "Make sure you have the SSL option enabled," he says.

7. Use VPN. If you have access to a VPN (virtual private network), use it. A VPN provides secure access to an organization's network and allows you to get online behind a secure layer that protects your information.

8. Turn off cookies and autofill. If your mobile device automatically enters passwords and login information into Websites you visit frequently, turn that feature off. It's convenient, but it can also be a privacy threat. To get back some of the convenience that autofill offers, you can try third-party apps, available for most platforms, that can manage saved passwords with a higher level of security. Mac OS X, for instance, comes with a built-in password manager--Keychain. KeePass is a free, open-source password manager for some versions of Windows. For iOS and Android smartphones, there's LastPass, 1Password, and SplashID. Using them is not as secure as turning off autofill altogether, but it's one way to strike a good balance. In the end, a little inconvenience can go a long way toward added security.

9. Watch your apps! Apps are great, and many are free, so it can be tempting to download with abandon. But, Nocera cautions, you should be selective about the apps you download, particularly in the Android market, because "the Android app market is a little bit more open," without the strict developer guidelines found in Apple's App Store. Do some due diligence before downloading apps. Make sure that you trust the developer and have taken the time to review some of comments.

TaintDroid is an Android tool that can identify apps that transmit private data and notify users that a third-party application is requesting private information. However, it's not an app that's offered through the Android Market. Instead, users have to manually compile and build the app using the framework provided by an app analysis company.

IF YOU STILL GET HACKED... If you do everything right and still have your information stolen, what should you do? The damage can often be repaired simply by changing your password (to one much stronger) and sending a message via the network that was affected, explaining what happened. What if one of your devices gets stolen? Be sure that all of your mobile devices have a remote wipe or autowipe feature. For Apple's iPhone and iPad, there's Apple's MobileMe service. GoogleApps offers a solution for Android as well. If your device is lost or you know there's been a breach, you can quickly and remotely perform a factory reset from any computer connected to the Internet, wiping out all of the device's data and even locking it indefinitely.

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fdhfjdafdajfa · 5 years

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Help me out with my extreme third world poverty some.

hi, i’m vivian, some people know me as pearl or sibyl if you are extremely old school, and might remember me from when my url was whimslcott or something else. I posted this and this. I’ve been on this website since 2009 when I was a problematic edgy anarcho-primitivist whose friends were all getting called out on here for like stabbing people or human trafficking or whatever. I never stabbed anyone. I was one of the humans being trafficked. long story. immeasurable trauma.

There was a period of about a year or so where I was managing to pull in a couple hundred dollars per month via tumblr fundraisers, and that was during a period in which the government had arbitrarily cut me off my disability funding. Before acquiring that disability funding, I had been homeless for around 6 years, including my aforementioned stint as a human trafficking victim, compounding my already extant C-PTSD from child abuse, being bullied in school to the extent that I dropped out after 8th grade, and growing up autistic.

Eventually, between the stress of keeping up with social security and the paranoia of running into the people from my extensive nationwide sex trafficking ring I decided to just fuck off entirely and leave the country. Then I got cut off from Social Security again because apparently it’s for people who “actually live there”. I took what was left of my savings and absconded with some student loans and lived on my own for about two years, and my money is starting to run dry. Not only am I still disabled, but there’s a big allcaps notice on my visa saying NO WORK/BUSINESS. If I don’t get some source of income by the end of my current visa, my immigration status will change from “kind of hoopty” to “straight-up undocumented” and I think we’d all prefer to avoid that.

Since my legal immigration status is kind of hoopty, I haven’t been able to get things like a bank account and am dependant on my roommate for stuff like that. As such I don’t have anything like a venmo or an impactguru.

I have these things:

https://ko-fi.com/vivyansarlas https://www.paypal.me/pcoolpearl https://www.patreon.com/vivyansarlas

and if you want my roommate’s bank information for a direct money transfer, go ahead and ask me about it.

While I’m technically capable of *surviving* for another few months off of what’s left of my savings, attempting to isn’t a very good idea. My computer is starting to age a bit, my cell phone fell off a 13th story window almost a year ago and so is not really functional, I really need new clothes, and I’ve got a few neglected medical needs, like therapy and jaw surgery. Also, my meds are about $30 a month. This is to say I need to have some income so I can start working out a plan for these issues in the medium-to-long term.

Aside from my web presence, which is pretty good these days (ask me about my twitter), I’m also working on my first book, which is about 3/7ths of the way complete by current trajectory and I’m also in the starting phases of creating an NGO to work with LGBT religious minorities, something that is deeply needed. So listen. About my current life circumstances. I live in a slum in Delhi. Part of living in a slum is that my house is incredibly cheaply and poorly made and that means it’s not designed to account for the extreme weather or any other factors really. Being that it’s a slum flat it’s not legal, let alone “up to code”. I get heat sickness from staying in it too long, and can’t sleep in there. Instead I have to drag my mattress out onto the roof and just sleep on the roof. Since there’s so little air circulation, I have to keep the door and window open, but when I do that, it gets dusty. But I’m allergic to dust. I sweep about 3-4 times a day. But still I haven’t managed to sleep through the night in there without waking up in the middle of the night either having a hacking fit or so congested I can’t breathe.

I own no furniture and very few clothes. I currently am not able to get a bank account due to immigration issues, and since my debit card was mugged a year ago I haven’t been able to get a new one mailed despite repeated efforts. This means that I’ve been storing all my money in my roommate’s bank account. The issue is, since she spends no time at the apartment because it’s an uninhabitable sweltering hellhole, I basically have to live in increments of $8-$30 whenever she gets around to giving me them -- maybe every 2 weeks or so. It’s far from a perfect system. This kind of makes it sound like she’s the problem here but she’s got just as many problems as I do and she’s doing her best we’re just a couple of impoverished slum dwellers doing our best.

Due to language and anxiety issues I have trouble accomplishing things like getting cooking gas delivered to the apartment meaning I can’t cook at home. My medications are about $30 a month. But even if my roommate were to be more consistently available with my money I wouldn’t be able to do anything with it because I’m not pulling in any income and I’m basically counting down until I run out completely and, like, idk, die or something. If we ever manage to get AC installed it will only speed up this process.

Basically what I am saying, is I desperately need money, for such a vast number of things that the immediate priority just needs to be seeing if I can’t maybe start pulling some in on the regs. Little quality-of-life adjustments are very much within reach. For instance, maybe I could start paying a couple dollars (or a few hundred rupees) a week to get a guy to drive me to a mall where there’s AC so I can stop having heat stroke for a few hours. Or maybe I can buy a library membership for something like $20 month and have a workspace and wifi whenever I feel like it. There are many, many things I can be doing to improve my circumstances, but they are all out of reach because of the increasing direness of my financial situation.

What I am hoping, is that I manage to start pulling in at least a few donations per month even if they are small and I can build up some momentum that way.

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