adult - he/they - one of many - not straight - not cis - not white - not human
Call me Phosphor!
I’m just here (very reluctantly, given tumblr’s Everything) for my friends and my fandoms, and I read much more than I post. I expect that I’ll mostly post Fallen London stuff (namely my OCs and my fanmade sigils) but who knows. I may occasionally post things on my headmate Lark’s behalf, including stuff about his own FL OC. (You can find him on his own blog as well, at @lutekeeper.)
Anyone who’s not a TERF/Nazi/etc is welcome to follow. I believe in good faith and in caring about people despite their messiness; I have no fondness for exclusionism, puritanism, or the slapfighting that passes for “discourse” on social media. Do with this information what you will.
Tags/posts of interest:
My Correspondence sigil art
My "what even is Fallen London" guidepost
References for canon Correspondence sigils
(more info below the cut)
Other links:
My system’s website
My account on the fediverse, where most of my personal posting happens - instance is set to allowlist only because I got tired of Nazi whack-a-mole, but if you want to follow me and your instance isn’t allowlisted, let me know and I’ll add it. (If you don’t have a fedi account but want one, here’s a few instances.)
My blog, where I keep many of my longposts, including some that I don't put here or on fedi.
FAQ
Why am I blocked?
See this post.
Are you still drawing Correspondence sigils/taking requests?
Yes! I go long periods where I don't draw any because I'm prone to getting deleted by seasonal depression and other health woes, but it's always okay to send in requests as long as you understand that it may be a while until I get to it.
Can I get a tattoo of one of your sigils/use it in my Fallen London fanart/brand it onto my Fallen London OC’s back/(some other personal noncommercial use that doesn’t involve blockchain or AI)?
Yes, go ahead! No credit needed.
Can I make NF*Ts of your sigils/use your sigils to train my AI/(some other techbro junk)?
No. Fuck off.
Can I use your sigils in a non-techbro commercial project?
Ask me first! If it’s something like slapping my art onto T-shirts, almost certainly no. If it’s something like “I’m drawing my Correspondent OC for a Neathy charity zine and want to use one of your designs,” then it’ll probably be fine - but again, ask me first!
my thanks to whoever decided the archive files for installing programs the hard way on linux (as opposed to installing a flatpak, an appimage, via .deb files, via package repository, or any of the other conveniences people have invented) should be called tarballs, because, obviously, all things are improved by making them round. but it also evokes the sensation of rolling all of your files up, katamari-style, for wider distribution. it also evokes the sensation of having to dig through a sticky, greasy mass on the receiving end, which is not inaccurate to the experience of figuring out how the hell these things work
anyway, as much as I'm bitching about The Hard Way being Hard, there's still a reason I'm doing this. the main reason is that the linux distribution (aka an operating system built on top of the core linux code) I'm using is linux mint, which by design is built using older versions of ubuntu (another linux distribution) as its base. this means that mint is very stable - those older versions, called LTS or "long-term support" version, have the benefit of being time-tested and continually fixed if any issues are found, whereas newer versions have shiny new features but are less time-tested and more prone to surprise breakage. however, this means that the programs you can install via mint's official package repositories (basically sites containing prebuilt software that should play nice with your linux distribution) will often also be older versions of themselves. if you know what you're doing, you can install software through routes other than the official repositories (this is not only allowed but extremely normalized), which is why I was screwing with tarballs - I wanted the most recent version of geany that had support for more programming languages.
but the other reason is that I just genuinely like figuring this stuff out! doing things the hard, hands-on way often leads to me learning things I wouldn't have otherwise learned by doing them the easy way. I spent a lot of time feeling stupid and frustrated but once I figured it out the payoff was so worth it. it's like solving a hard puzzle in a video game and getting an old car to work at the same time. and I got to open up the repository where all the software packages live and find the places where mint keeps its thinking for specific programs. it was neat!
it's part of why I'm so unhappy with "vibe coding" and all the other things genAI has done to the software field and to tech literacy. obviously there are bigger reasons (labor, environment, etc) but I feel like the corporations pushing genAI are taking understanding away from people. as much as I joke about them being demonic math boxes, computers follow logic and they can be understood. obviously I don't think everyone should be hardcore code freaks running arch linux and installing from tarballs, and obviously we should strive to make tech more accessible, but genAI isn't it. we need to make the understanding and the processes more accessible instead of selling the idea that computers are wish-granting genies
a non-exhaustive list of examples of non-genAI ways linux has become more accessible over time:
the creation of distributions like linux mint, which are designed to be newbie-friendlier: they run more stable versions of software, come packaged with common applications like internet browsers and office software, are graphically set up to resemble windows, and so forth.
some parts of the linux community becoming much less elitist and much more accommodating of non-technical newcomers (emphasis on "some" - there's still a bunch of elitist assholes but communities for newbie distros like mint tend to be very helpful)
the introduction of package repositories, flatpaks, and other tech that simplifies the installation process for new software, as well as package managers and other tech that makes it easier to manage and debug installations (ex. by showing you which packages need which other packages in your system)
people making graphical interfaces for command-line-based programs so that you don't have to memorize and precisely type a bunch of commands to do things
the creation of software like wine and proton, which "translate" windows programs so that they can run on linux (this is why so many steam games are playable on linux now! this is how the steam deck works! it runs linux with proton as its translation layer!)
and yes, with some of these advancements, a certain amount of understanding gets abstracted away for convenience - you don't need to understand how proton translates windows programs for linux in order to play games, it's something that Just Works 95% of the time. but you still have to follow a series of specific, traceable steps to get things to work, with more tightly coupled cause-and-effect, with room for you to tinker, instead of making requests of highly variable specificity to the genie until it gives you what you want
eh, as much as i enjoy learning things (and The Thing for me recently is learning to make neocities site) the last part kinds hurts
it hurts because i wish it was this easy. i had few attempts at linux but the issue is that i only have one pc. and that i use it for everything when that's possible. so following any specific steps that are new to me is not really a thing that is within my capabilities in such scenario.
and i imagine it may be the same for other persons even if for different reasons. my PC can't handle a virtual machine so i hope with some time it's gonna be even easier to get started.
oh, for what it's worth, I definitely agree that while linux is more accessible than it used to be, it's still not accessible enough. we still have a ways to go before I'd feel confident recommending even mint as a main OS for most non-technical people - I describe it as "newbie-friendlier" rather than newbie-friendly for that reason. (I generally know what I'm doing and I still irreversibly broke my install trying to upgrade to a newer minor version of mint, following the steps given by the update manager, to the point that I had to wipe and reinstall everything. until a baseline of "you won't brick yourself by doing routine maintenance" is met, I don't feel like "switch to linux" should be tossed around as cavalier as it is.)
(on that note: as much as valve isn't above criticism, I am genuinely curious how the steam cube will shake out in the long run, especially if it lives up to their promises of being a functional PC on top of being a gaming console. if it does, then this could be the stepping stone a lot of people need to be able to try out linux safely)
anyway my problematic secret is. I actually like computers a lot. they feel both endlessly intriguing and reassuringly grounded to me, the way they work, and also they are Creature. sometimes, when I have trouble sleeping in my room because it's too quiet and the walls are too close, I'll go outside and sleep in the living room instead, where I can listen to the consoles and the printers talking to themselves
my thanks to whoever decided the archive files for installing programs the hard way on linux (as opposed to installing a flatpak, an appimage, via .deb files, via package repository, or any of the other conveniences people have invented) should be called tarballs, because, obviously, all things are improved by making them round. but it also evokes the sensation of rolling all of your files up, katamari-style, for wider distribution. it also evokes the sensation of having to dig through a sticky, greasy mass on the receiving end, which is not inaccurate to the experience of figuring out how the hell these things work
anyway, as much as I'm bitching about The Hard Way being Hard, there's still a reason I'm doing this. the main reason is that the linux distribution (aka an operating system built on top of the core linux code) I'm using is linux mint, which by design is built using older versions of ubuntu (another linux distribution) as its base. this means that mint is very stable - those older versions, called LTS or "long-term support" version, have the benefit of being time-tested and continually fixed if any issues are found, whereas newer versions have shiny new features but are less time-tested and more prone to surprise breakage. however, this means that the programs you can install via mint's official package repositories (basically sites containing prebuilt software that should play nice with your linux distribution) will often also be older versions of themselves. if you know what you're doing, you can install software through routes other than the official repositories (this is not only allowed but extremely normalized), which is why I was screwing with tarballs - I wanted the most recent version of geany that had support for more programming languages.
but the other reason is that I just genuinely like figuring this stuff out! doing things the hard, hands-on way often leads to me learning things I wouldn't have otherwise learned by doing them the easy way. I spent a lot of time feeling stupid and frustrated but once I figured it out the payoff was so worth it. it's like solving a hard puzzle in a video game and getting an old car to work at the same time. and I got to open up the repository where all the software packages live and find the places where mint keeps its thinking for specific programs. it was neat!
it's part of why I'm so unhappy with "vibe coding" and all the other things genAI has done to the software field and to tech literacy. obviously there are bigger reasons (labor, environment, etc) but I feel like the corporations pushing genAI are taking understanding away from people. as much as I joke about them being demonic math boxes, computers follow logic and they can be understood. obviously I don't think everyone should be hardcore code freaks running arch linux and installing from tarballs, and obviously we should strive to make tech more accessible, but genAI isn't it. we need to make the understanding and the processes more accessible instead of selling the idea that computers are wish-granting genies
a non-exhaustive list of examples of non-genAI ways linux has become more accessible over time:
the creation of distributions like linux mint, which are designed to be newbie-friendlier: they run more stable versions of software, come packaged with common applications like internet browsers and office software, are graphically set up to resemble windows, and so forth.
some parts of the linux community becoming much less elitist and much more accommodating of non-technical newcomers (emphasis on "some" - there's still a bunch of elitist assholes but communities for newbie distros like mint tend to be very helpful)
the introduction of package repositories, flatpaks, and other tech that simplifies the installation process for new software, as well as package managers and other tech that makes it easier to manage and debug installations (ex. by showing you which packages need which other packages in your system)
people making graphical interfaces for command-line-based programs so that you don't have to memorize and precisely type a bunch of commands to do things
the creation of software like wine and proton, which "translate" windows programs so that they can run on linux (this is why so many steam games are playable on linux now! this is how the steam deck works! it runs linux with proton as its translation layer!)
and yes, with some of these advancements, a certain amount of understanding gets abstracted away for convenience - you don't need to understand how proton translates windows programs for linux in order to play games, it's something that Just Works 95% of the time. but you still have to follow a series of specific, traceable steps to get things to work, with more tightly coupled cause-and-effect, with room for you to tinker, instead of making requests of highly variable specificity to the genie until it gives you what you want
my thanks to whoever decided the archive files for installing programs the hard way on linux (as opposed to installing a flatpak, an appimage, via .deb files, via package repository, or any of the other conveniences people have invented) should be called tarballs, because, obviously, all things are improved by making them round. but it also evokes the sensation of rolling all of your files up, katamari-style, for wider distribution. it also evokes the sensation of having to dig through a sticky, greasy mass on the receiving end, which is not inaccurate to the experience of figuring out how the hell these things work
anyway, as much as I'm bitching about The Hard Way being Hard, there's still a reason I'm doing this. the main reason is that the linux distribution (aka an operating system built on top of the core linux code) I'm using is linux mint, which by design is built using older versions of ubuntu (another linux distribution) as its base. this means that mint is very stable - those older versions, called LTS or "long-term support" version, have the benefit of being time-tested and continually fixed if any issues are found, whereas newer versions have shiny new features but are less time-tested and more prone to surprise breakage. however, this means that the programs you can install via mint's official package repositories (basically sites containing prebuilt software that should play nice with your linux distribution) will often also be older versions of themselves. if you know what you're doing, you can install software through routes other than the official repositories (this is not only allowed but extremely normalized), which is why I was screwing with tarballs - I wanted the most recent version of geany that had support for more programming languages.
but the other reason is that I just genuinely like figuring this stuff out! doing things the hard, hands-on way often leads to me learning things I wouldn't have otherwise learned by doing them the easy way. I spent a lot of time feeling stupid and frustrated but once I figured it out the payoff was so worth it. it's like solving a hard puzzle in a video game and getting an old car to work at the same time. and I got to open up the repository where all the software packages live and find the places where mint keeps its thinking for specific programs. it was neat!
it's part of why I'm so unhappy with "vibe coding" and all the other things genAI has done to the software field and to tech literacy. obviously there are bigger reasons (labor, environment, etc) but I feel like the corporations pushing genAI are taking understanding away from people. as much as I joke about them being demonic math boxes, computers follow logic and they can be understood. obviously I don't think everyone should be hardcore code freaks running arch linux and installing from tarballs, and obviously we should strive to make tech more accessible, but genAI isn't it. we need to make the understanding and the processes more accessible instead of selling the idea that computers are wish-granting genies
my thanks to whoever decided the archive files for installing programs the hard way on linux (as opposed to installing a flatpak, an appimage, via .deb files, via package repository, or any of the other conveniences people have invented) should be called tarballs, because, obviously, all things are improved by making them round. but it also evokes the sensation of rolling all of your files up, katamari-style, for wider distribution. it also evokes the sensation of having to dig through a sticky, greasy mass on the receiving end, which is not inaccurate to the experience of figuring out how the hell these things work
anyway I'm grateful that I'm mostly compelled to have takes about decades-old jrpgs and obscure browser games. I shudder to think of what my notifications would look like if my chronic takes were about tadc or hazbin or whatever media's hot with the kids these days
people are like "I hate ff13's cast because they are the bitchiest whiniest mfers to ever disgrace the name of final fantasy" and yeah I see where they're coming from but. also. that's kind of why I think they're great.
like, in most final fantasies, the main cast is a bunch of oddballs you pick up on your way to Save The World. yeah there are Stakes and Tension. yeah there are Conflicts of Personality and sometimes Interest. but for the most part, people get along surprisingly well and you're having a grand ol' adventure in between the character-defining crises.
meanwhile. in ff13. the main cast is a bunch of normies (and some people masquerading as normies), several of whom would not even give each other the time of day. and they're gotten suddenly thrust into an unspeakably awful situation, where they're hunted 24/7 with no downtime, hated and feared by everyone, and the only choices being handed to them by Destiny are "die" "suffer eternally" or "destroy the world." in short, it's a bunch of people who hate each others' guts, who've gotten shoved into the world's stinkiest, scratchiest get-along shirt. and the core conceit of ff13's writing is that despite literally everything conspiring to break them, they come to understand each other, care for each other, and through the Power Of Friendship, they give Destiny the big middle finger. it's pretty fucking great.
...but also it takes nearly ten hours before the writing in this area begins to pay off. (the intro alone is nearly THREE HOURS.) and for those first ten hours you're stuck watching them gouge at each other's wounds about how much their situation sucks. I personally think the payoff is worth it and that 13 was way braver than most of its predecessors for doing this, but it's polarizing for a reason
also I genuinely really liked hope's character arc in 13 and I really like the premise of how 13's sequels continue that arc. in 13, he's a shy, terrified teenager who initially copes with The Horrors by nearly losing himself to anger and hatred. but he moves past that thanks to the care of the people around him, and those same people inspire him to find the strength to face The Horrors through his desire to protect others. in 13's sequels, he has to then deal with all of those people leaving his life for one reason or another as he grows up, and he becomes an adult who is incredibly capable and widely admired for his smarts and leadership, but he's still fucked up by losing all of the people who are important to him even if he's outwardly keeping it together for the sake of Saving the World (Again). and then all of it blows up in his face, big time.
it's enough to tempt me to dig into the sequels deeper than some youtube let's plays, but I have my concerns about how much of that time will be spent appreciating his character arc versus shaking my fist at the screen yelling about things like "setting continuity"
people are like "I hate ff13's cast because they are the bitchiest whiniest mfers to ever disgrace the name of final fantasy" and yeah I see where they're coming from but. also. that's kind of why I think they're great.
like, in most final fantasies, the main cast is a bunch of oddballs you pick up on your way to Save The World. yeah there are Stakes and Tension. yeah there are Conflicts of Personality and sometimes Interest. but for the most part, people get along surprisingly well and you're having a grand ol' adventure in between the character-defining crises.
meanwhile. in ff13. the main cast is a bunch of normies (and some people masquerading as normies), several of whom would not even give each other the time of day. and they're gotten suddenly thrust into an unspeakably awful situation, where they're hunted 24/7 with no downtime, hated and feared by everyone, and the only choices being handed to them by Destiny are "die" "suffer eternally" or "destroy the world." in short, it's a bunch of people who hate each others' guts, who've gotten shoved into the world's stinkiest, scratchiest get-along shirt. and the core conceit of ff13's writing is that despite literally everything conspiring to break them, they come to understand each other, care for each other, and through the Power Of Friendship, they give Destiny the big middle finger. it's pretty fucking great.
...but also it takes nearly ten hours before the writing in this area begins to pay off. (the intro alone is nearly THREE HOURS.) and for those first ten hours you're stuck watching them gouge at each other's wounds about how much their situation sucks. I personally think the payoff is worth it and that 13 was way braver than most of its predecessors for doing this, but it's polarizing for a reason
I DO hope that if it ends up ff13 coded it's just in setting flavor, and that they don't attempt to emulate ff13's plot. again, I'm of the controversial opinion that ff13 was Good actually, but I will also be one of the first people to admit that its plot was a convoluted excuse plot engineered in a lab to put the main cast in a Specifically Stressful Situation. it worked because ff13's character writing is one of the actual best in the series but we are not dealing with the same character dynamics with the 14 cast in the slightest. not since heavensward at least
for those who don't go here: vim is a 30+ year old, infamously arcane text editor. it hates the concept of computer mice and therefore all actions you take in it are through keyboard inputs and typed commands, of which there are hundreds. those who use it (old-timers, power devs, and other freaks who've replaced their neurons with circuits) swear up and down by it. everyone else hates it. we're about to see which one I am
I've gotten so fed up with practically every code editor bragging about being """AI First""" that I've thrown out my old standbys and gone hunting for alternatives. so far I'm trying out neovim (which is a fork of vim that sucks slightly less than the original vim) with Geany (a more traditional editor whose main brag is that it is Small and Decent) as a "can't be fucked to deal with nvim today" option. if shit gets truly dire then we're headed back to notepad baybeeeeeeee
another perk of Geany is that it has a plugin that basically adds simplified vim functionality, so even on days where I can't be fucked to deal with the entirety of vim I can at least practice the bits that I've retained.
for those who don't go here: vim is a 30+ year old, infamously arcane text editor. it hates the concept of computer mice and therefore all actions you take in it are through keyboard inputs and typed commands, of which there are hundreds. those who use it (old-timers, power devs, and other freaks who've replaced their neurons with circuits) swear up and down by it. everyone else hates it. we're about to see which one I am
I've gotten so fed up with practically every code editor bragging about being """AI First""" that I've thrown out my old standbys and gone hunting for alternatives. so far I'm trying out neovim (which is a fork of vim that sucks slightly less than the original vim) with Geany (a more traditional editor whose main brag is that it is Small and Decent) as a "can't be fucked to deal with nvim today" option. if shit gets truly dire then we're headed back to notepad baybeeeeeeee
writ upon the heavens @slightly-sigilant - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
