I'm coming to COLORADO! Catch me in DENVER on Jan 22 at The Tattered Cover<, and in COLORADO SPRINGS from Jan 23–25 where I'm the Guest of Honor at COSine. Then I'll be in OTTAWA on Jan 28 at Perfect Books and in TORONTO with Tim Wu on Jan 30.
Samantha: This town has a weird smell that you're all probably used to…but I'm not.
Mrs Krabappel: It'll take you about six weeks, dear.
-The Simpsons, "Bart's Friend Falls in Love," S3E23, May 7, 1992
We are living through weird times, and they've persisted for so long that you probably don't even notice it. But these times are not normal.
Now, I realize that this covers a lot of ground, and without detracting from all the other ways in which the world is weird and bad, I want to focus on one specific and pervasive and awful way in which this world is not normal, in part because this abnormality has a defined cause, a precise start date, and an obvious, actionable remedy.
6 years, 5 months and 22 days after Fox aired "Bart's Friend Falls in Love," Bill Clinton signed a new bill into law: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA).
Under Section 1201 of the DMCA, it's a felony to modify your own property in ways that the manufacturer disapproves of, even if your modifications accomplish some totally innocuous, legal, and socially beneficial goal. Not a little felony, either: DMCA 1201 provides for a five year sentence and a $500,000 fine for a first offense.
Back when the DMCA was being debated, its proponents insisted that their critics were overreacting. They pointed to the legal barriers to invoking DMCA 1201, and insisted that these new restrictions would only apply to a few marginal products in narrow ways that the average person would never even notice.
But that was obvious nonsense, obvious even in 1998, and far more obvious today, more than a quarter-century on. In order for a manufacturer to criminalize modifications to your own property, they have to satisfy two criteria: first, they must sell you a device with a computer in it; and second, they must design that computer with an "access control" that you have to work around in order to make a modification.
For example, say your toaster requires that you scan your bread before it will toast it, to make sure that you're only using a special, expensive kind of bread that kicks back a royalty to the manufacturer. If the embedded computer that does the scanning ships from the factory with a program that is supposed to prevent you from turning off the scanning step, then it is a felony to modify your toaster to work with "unauthorized bread":
If this sounds outlandish, then a) You definitely didn't walk the floor at CES last week, where there were a zillion "cooking robots" that required proprietary feedstock; and b) You haven't really thought hard about your iPhone (which will not allow you to install software of your choosing):
But back in 1998, computers – even the kind of low-powered computers that you'd embed in an appliance – were expensive and relatively rare. No longer! Today, manufacturers source powerful "System on a Chip" (SoC) processors at prices ranging from $0.25 to $8. These are full-fledged computers, easily capable of running an "access control" that satisfies DMCA 1201.
Likewise, in 1998, "access controls" (also called "DRM," "technical protection measures," etc) were a rarity in the field. That was because computer scientists broadly viewed these measures as useless. A determined adversary could always find a way around an access control, and they could package up that break as a software tool and costlessly, instantaneously distribute it over the internet to everyone in the world who wanted to do something that an access control impeded. Access controls were a stupid waste of engineering resources and a source of needless complexity and brittleness:
But – as critics pointed out in 1998 – chips were obviously going to get much cheaper, and if the US Congress made it a felony to bypass an access control, then every kind of manufacturer would be tempted to add some cheap SoCs to their products so they could add access controls and thereby felonize any uses of their products that cut into their profits. Basically, the DMCA offered manufacturers a bargain: add a dollar or two to the bill of materials for your product, and in return, the US government will imprison any competitors who offer your customers a "complementary good" that improves on it.
It's even worse than this: another thing that was obvious in 1998 was that once a manufacturer added a chip to a device, they would probably also figure out a way to connect it to the internet. Once that device is connected to the internet, the manufacturer can push software updates to it at will, which will be installed without user intervention. What's more, by using an access control in connection with that over-the-air update mechanism, the manufacturer can make it a felony to block its updates.
Which means that a manufacturer can sell you a device and then mandatorily update it at a later date to take away its functionality, and then sell that functionality back to you as a "subscription":
Here's what this all means: any manufacturer who devotes a small amount of engineering work and incurs a small hardware expense can extinguish private property rights altogether.
What do I mean by private property? Well, we can look to Blackstone's 1753 treatise:
The right of property; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe.
You can't own your iPhone. If you take your iPhone to Apple and they tell you that it is beyond repair, you have to throw it away. If the repair your phone needs involves "parts pairing" (where a new part won't be recognized until an Apple technician "initializes" it through a DMCA-protected access control), then it's a felony to get that phone fixed somewhere else. If Apple tells you your phone is no longer supported because they've updated their OS, then it's a felony to wipe the phone and put a different OS on it (because installing a new OS involves bypassing an "access control" in the phone's bootloader). If Apple tells you that you can't have a piece of software – like ICE Block, an app that warns you if there are nearby ICE killers who might shoot you in the head through your windshield, which Apple has barred from its App Store on the grounds that ICE is a "protected class" – then you can't install it, because installing software that isn't delivered via the App Store involves bypassing an "access control" that checks software to ensure that it's authorized (just like the toaster with its unauthorized bread).
It's not just iPhones: versions of this play out in your medical implants (hearing aid, insulin pump, etc); appliances (stoves, fridges, washing machines); cars and ebikes; set-top boxes and game consoles; ebooks and streaming videos; small appliances (toothbrushes, TVs, speakers), and more.
Increasingly, things that you actually own are the exception, not the rule.
And this is not normal. The end of ownership represents an overturn of a foundation of modern civilization. The fact that the only "people" who can truly own something are the transhuman, immortal colony organisms we call "Limited Liability Corporations" is an absolutely surreal reversal of the normal order of things.
It's a reversal with deep implications: for one thing, it means that you can't protect yourself from raids on your private data or ready cash by adding privacy blockers to your device, which would make it impossible for airlines or ecommerce sites to guess about how rich/desperate you are before quoting you a "personalized price":
It also means you can't stop your device from leaking information about your movements, or even your conversations – Microsoft has announced that it will gather all of your private communications and ship them to its servers for use by "agentic AI":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ANECpNdt-4
Microsoft has also confirmed that it provides US authorities with warrantless, secret access to your data:
This is deeply abnormal. Sure, greedy corporate control freaks weren't invented in the 21st century, but the laws that let those sociopaths put you in prison for failing to arrange your affairs to their benefit – and your own detriment – are.
But because computers got faster and cheaper over decades, the end of ownership has had an incremental rollout, and we've barely noticed that it's happened. Sure, we get irritated when our garage-door opener suddenly requires us to look at seven ads every time we use the app that makes it open or close:
But societally, we haven't connected that incident to this wider phenomenon. It stinks here, but we're all used to it.
It's not normal to buy a book and then not be able to lend it, sell it, or give it away. Lending, selling and giving away books is older than copyright. It's older than publishing. It's older than printing. It's older than paper. It is fucking weird (and also terrible) (obviously) that there's a new kind of very popular book that you can go to prison for lending, selling or giving away.
We're just a few cycles away from a pair of shoes that can figure out which shoelaces you're using, or a dishwasher that can block you from using third-party dishes:
It's not normal, and it has profound implications for our security, our privacy, and our society. It makes us easy pickings for corporate vampires who drain our wallets through the gadgets and tools we rely on. It makes us easy pickings for fascists and authoritarians who ally themselves with corporate vampires by promising them tax breaks in exchange for collusion in the destruction of a free society.
I know that these problems are more important than whether or not we think this is normal. But still. It. Is. Just. Not. Normal.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Hello everyone :) School is starting, and that's a time when stress levels can peak for anyone in the manifesting community. It's tough to wake up to another school year without your dream life, and I know how draining it can be. You might feel like you have to focus on your journey while also tackling school, which is challenging enough on its own. I hope this can help with anything related to manifesting reality, the void state, shifting, lucid dreaming, school, and mindset. Remember, you're not alone in this journey, and it is inevitable you achieve all that you desire!
What are morphic fields
Morphic field audio refers to soundtracks that are designed to interact with the concept of morphic fields, which are theoretical fields that influence patterns and behaviors in nature. These audio tracks often incorporate elements like binaural beats or isochronic tones, which are sound frequencies intended to influence brainwave activity and promote specific mental states.
The idea is that by listening to these audio tracks, individuals you can tap into or resonate with morphic fields, potentially enhancing focus, relaxation, or other desired states. The concept is rooted in the belief that sound can influence the mind and body in ways that align with the patterns and connections proposed by morphic fields.
Subliminals or and affirmation tapes with morphic fields
When using morphic fields with subliminals, you can experiment with different approaches to see what works best for you.
Simultaneous Playback:
Play the morphic field audio and subliminal tracks at the same time.
Sequential Playback:
Before: Start with the morphic field audio to create a receptive mental state, then follow with the subliminal tracks. This can help prepare your mind to absorb the affirmations more effectively.
After:
Begin with the sublininal tracks to plant the affirmations in your subconscious, then play the morphic field audio to reinforce and integrate the messages.
Layering:
If you have audio editing software, you can layer the morphic field audio beneath the subliminal tracks, creating a single, cohesive audio experience. This method requires some technical skill but can be very effective.
Experiment and Adjust
Everyone's response to these techniques can vary like all methods so feel free to experiment with different methods and monitor how you feel. Adjust the timing, order, and volume to find the combination that resonates best with you :) it doesn’t have to be methodical at all
Specified Morphic Fields
You can also find specific morphic fields tailored to your desires, such as lucid dreaming, shifting realities, or entering the void state. These specialized audio tracks are designed to help you achieve particular goals by using specific frequencies and energies.
Similarly to binaural beats or isochronic tones Sounds, it’s best to listen to morphic fields in positive environments because they are highly receptive to surrounding influences. Ensure that your surroundings are calm and uplifting. This might include a tidy space, soft lighting, or calming scents like lavender or sage.
Stay away from negative influences like for example watching horror movies or engaging with negative shifting or void content while listening to morphic fields. Instead, pair your listening sessions with positive and inspiring content. This could include watching manifesting videos, glow-up transformation videos, or reading success stories related to shifting and lucid dreaming.
Combine this with affirming and persisting
the only three affirmations I use are:
I can shift
I will shift
I have shifted
This is very simple and effectively covers the past, present, and future, making it easy to repeat. The brain loves mantras, and these affirmations are designed to reinforce your belief in your ability to shift. This repetition helps to rewire your subconscious mind, aligning your thoughts and actions with your desired outcome. Keep it simple, stay consistent, and watch as your affirmations help manifest your shifting journey.
The challenge
Compile a playlist of subliminals or affirmation tapes, whichever you prefer.
Listen to them while playing morphic fields. You can use headphones or play them out loud; it doesn’t matter.
If you don’t want subliminals or affirmation tapes, find specific morphic fields for your desire, such as wealth morphic fields or shifting morphic fields.
They are easy to find on YouTube. Just search up your topic and then morphic field feel feee to use the ones I recommend as well!
4. Do this in a positive environment. Engage in activities like scrolling on Tumblr, reading success stories, or watching lucid dreaming tips.
5.Outside of this, use the three affirmations: "I can shift," "I will shift," "I have shifted."
You can replace these with anything related to lucid dreaming, the void state, or manifesting whatever suits your goals, e.g: “I can wake up in the void,” “I will wake up in the void,” “I have woken up in the void before”
6.Make this routine fit your schedule.With school starting, you’ll be busy, so keep it simple and easy!
the movement “stop killing games” is highly against age verification laws and restrictions on the internet
A Reddit post goes over their fight against age verification
The Reddit post:
“Stop Killing Games has signed a joint statement with groups including Mozilla, EFF, Open Rights Group, Tor Project, Proton, Big Brother Watch, Internet Society, and others about the risks of current UK online safety policy.”
“We wanted to explain why this matters to SKG specifically.
SKG is about making sure games are not destroyed when official support ends. That does not just mean “publishers should keep servers on forever.” It means players and communities need practical ways to keep games working after publishers move on.
That often depends on things like:
private servers
modding communities
fan patches
community launchers
forums, wikis, and Discords
open-source tools
independent hosting
preservation projects”
Age verification and other laws like this puts this ecosystem at risk
An example of this is a old 2005 game called urban dead
It was shut down “ after nearly 20 years, citing requirements created by the UK Online Safety Act.
Whatever your view of that specific case, it shows the problem clearly: small, old, community-run games can become too legally risky or too difficult to operate.”
“That is directly relevant to game preservation.
If laws are written in a way that assumes every online service is a giant platform with lawyers, compliance teams, ID-verification systems, app-store integration, and moderation infrastructure, then small communities get squeezed out.
The result is not just inconvenience. It can mean servers shut down, tools disappear, mods become harder to distribute, and fan projects become legally unsafe to run.”
This isn’t UK only
“We are also worried about similar trends elsewhere, including California’s Digital Age Assurance Act / AB 1043, which pushes age assurance into operating systems, app stores, and software distribution.
That could make independent software, Linux-based ecosystems, community launchers, modding tools, and private server hosting harder to maintain.”
The group see the point of keeping kids safe, but they disagree with the methods
“But it is frustrating to see policymakers suddenly claim everything is “for our safety” while young people are often left to deal with bigger problems on their own elsewhere.
And even when the goal is reasonable, this approach goes far beyond what is normal or proportionate.
Mission creep is real and some actors dont just creep.
The issue is that blunt access bans and mandatory age checks do not fix the root causes of online harm.
They often create new gatekeepers, collect more sensitive data, and make the open web harder to use.
They also risk punishing the small community projects that are least able to comply, while the largest platforms adapt and become even more entrenched.”
Accursed farms, the leader of this movement, admits that they can’t take this on directly due to its size and what’s on their plate already
Welcome back, and welcome to an all-new, revamped Fandom-Free Bingo.
We're going to do things differently this year.
We've absolutely adored making cards for you all. Designing them, coming up with the prompts... The bottleneck has been finding the time to actually make the pretty intense number of cards requested.
But we didn't want to switch to static cards, like those available for August Chaos. We like the personalisation too much - the assembling of a variety of monthly cards, choosing a new theme, picking probably way too many new prompts...
And so, we found a compromise - actually, one of our very own mods suggested it after reminding us of something we deeply loved in the past.
Without further ado, it gives me great honor to introduce you all to...
So what does this mean?
Well, essentially. You pick one of the boards below - the theme is purely stylistic, and you might recognise them!
December has been unhinged and I've only made boards for the first year's themes, but I do intend to get the others done in the next week or so, so feel free to wait if you'd prefer a later one
You pick your board - or several, I'm not the boss of you.
And then, each month, we will release a number of prompt cards - Whump, Smut, Lyrics, Quotes, Angst, Fluff and AU - with prompts under a certain theme. You can mix and match as many of these as you'd like! Each card will have a minimum of ten prompts (and ten is all will be required for the Completionist and theme-specific Completionist badges - more on these further down). As always, interpret our prompts however you like.
Then, once you've written, simply input the prompt(s) used into the applicable month - most photo software on cell phones is capable of this, or there's things like Canva if you prefer. You can use all the prompts you've chosen in the same work or several different ones - the world is your oyster, my friends.
As your card fills up over the course of the year, feel free to post individual fills and/or monthly and/or yearly masterlists - anything posted in 2026 will be reblogged. Only got to that pesky annoying March prompt that was sat in your WIP drawer in October? We got you.
Note: Fills for Half-Baked Edition onwards will still be reblogged as of January 2026.
Find the AO3 collection here!
Where can I find the prompt sheets?
Here!
Whoa, hold on. Did you mention... Badges?!
I did indeed, imaginary other half of this conversation!
We won't be requesting that you submit your fills by a form or anything - there's technically nothing to stop you claiming all the badges and saying that you earned them. But, you know. It's an internet bingo run by a bunch of weirdos, seems like an odd thing to do for a rep, but go off, I guess?
Note: To make this inclusive of those who don't write whump/smut, or are underage, etc., badges can be claimed on a lower number of fills, provided they all come from the SFW categories (Angst, Fluff, AU, Quotes, Lyrics). For example, the two Fan badges can be claimed on the five SFW sheets, or all seven - but not five mixed sheets (e.g, no angst/fluff/whump/quotes/smut mixes, or the like. If any of the sheets are NSFW, you gotta go for the full range. <3)
Currently, the hypothetical badges include:
[Theme-specific] Fan - Fill (at least) a single prompt from each sheet. This will be a monthly badge (i.e, you can get twelve over the year!)
Bingo Fan - Fill (at least) a single prompt for each month. An annual badge.
[Theme-specific] Focused Content Creator - Fill all prompts from only one sheet, and no others. (e.g only Lyric fills). For obvious reasons, this badge is special, in that it cannot be held in conjunction with others (except the Focused Content Creator Extraordinaire, below). Monthly badge.
Focused Content Creator Extraordinaire - Fill all prompts from only one sheet, and no others, every month for the entire year! Annual badge.
[Theme-Specific] Eager Beaver - Fill all prompts given in a month! (We will count this as seventy (or fifty if SFW) or more, regardless of where they've actually come from ;) We're not going to call you out if you submit, like, 11 quotes and 9 whump, for example). Another monthly badge!
Die-Hard Bingo Enthusiast - The highest honor one can earn. Every prompt (in line with the Eager Beaver requirements), every month. If anyone gets this, I may have to let them have some input on next year's themes or something, because that would be a feat. An annual badge, of course.
Feel free to submit an ask/drop a message if you have any other badge ideas!
Badges will be in a separate post, which can be found here!
So I pick my prompts, from these sheet thingies, and put them in the card myself?
That's the idea, yeah! Your card will fill out over the course of 2026.
I can't fit all my prompts in that little box!
Yeeeeah, this is my only concern with having such a variety of prompts available. I guess an option is to just write 'all prompts' or 'all (category) prompts', if you've gone that way? If you use a mashup, uhhhh.... Numbers or something?
Or write them below, if you're submitting.
Look, it's not a perfect system, but I wanted to have All The Prompts still.
What about posting on Tumblr? How do I do that?
In order to get reblogged, you mean? Well, the actual post requirements are the same - rating, fandom, Character(s) and/or pairing(s) (please note, if you have a whole bunch of these, I proooobably won't be adding all of them to the tags, unless you have and I can just pull them from the list) and where the prompt comes from. In the past, this would have been the name of the edition, but now it'll be the month covered (obviously for annual masterlists, this isn't required). Any CW must be clearly listed.
Tag us @fandom-free-bingo to be reblogged!
Ideally, your tag should look like this;
#Pairing: (yxz, a&b&c, etc) and/or #Character: (Name)
#Rating: (G/T/M/E)
#Fandom: (Fandom)
#CW: (as applicable)
#Fandom-Free Bingo: (Month)
#Fandom-Free-Bingo
#FFBaB
The last two aren't required, it's just nice to be acknowledged ;)
Has anyone ever told you that you're awesome?
Frequently. But thanks!
I don't like it. Can we go back to the old way?
Would if we could, but it was getting truly unmanageable. I love that y'all love this bingo so much. But we and our mod team are only human - and we have lives and responsibilities outside of this bingo that we run for fun in our spare time. Honestly, it was getting too much to handle, and we struggled for the last few months to decide what to do, because we knew it was becoming unsustainable. Making cards just... Wasn't very fun anymore. It began to feel like a job. And we want this event to be a source of joy - for everyone. Mods and ourselves included. I hope you'll stick around, but we understand if the new dynamic isn't for everyone, and won't take it personally if folks duck out.
I guess I can give it a shot.
Excellent! And our discord is also still available here. Feel free to swing by!
I don't get it.
Yeah, sometimes I suck at explaining things. I'll use the tag #FFBaBFAQ when responding to any questions, so check there, or submit an ask. Hopefully I haven't made this too confusing.
(Like this cute lil floral divider? It comes from /@saradika-graphics! Check her out - I love her stuff!)
Orcus is a freely available, open licensed, tabletop RPG made and maintained by Sanglorian. If you want to check it out, you can just go straight to this link, grab the pdfs, and examine the whole of the thing on your own. I am not offering you unique access to anything about the game having bought and played it before you.
I also really like it and think you should check it out.
Orcus is a large-scale, tactical TTRPG with a heavily structured system. Player characters are built first with a heritage, indicating the sort of base experience of the kind of person they are, then they pick up a class and a kit that refine them further and limit their options. These options, once limited, open you up to specific Disciplines, which give you a list of powers you can pick to build your character as you level up. These disciplines have their own flavour identifying and connecting them, and a unifying pair of attributes that give them further distinction for play. All of these powers are to be used either at will, once an encounter, or once per day.
Orcus brings some of its own implied setting and context, with a community of people who are, broadly speaking, the same kind of people. Characters start out as a very reasonably similar form of thing, with heritages and backgrounds only really describing things that a person could experience in their life, or be part of how they’re born into a fairly similar society. This is a really reasonable way to approach a game of its type, where you don’t have ‘elves’ as much as you have ‘people born to fancy magical families,’ and it might just be that all your elves in the setting do that.
All of this summarising aside, it is perhaps important to note that Orcus is not ‘just’ an open source TTRPG that you can freely download and play that has a robust set of rules for tactical combat in a powers-based combat system. It is that, but it is also a system that is, by design, completely compatible with 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons (the best edition), and this compatibility is almost definitionally the point for why it exists. There’s a little bit of a sleight of hand to it, because of the silliest reasons around. Technicalities under law.
See, let’s just use a rudimentary example of a brand-specific term. Let’s say D&D has a Beholder. It is a thing that you can represent entirely, reasonably, 1:1 with rules. You can make an enemy that is a floating, one-eyed, creature with a set of eyes on stalks that shoot blasts of magical force at people. You can make it hostile and omnicidal and you can make its reproduction really fucking weird and fill its mouth with teeth and you can have it mechanically do every single thing that a Beholder does, and you can print that. The second you call it a Beholder, or draw it looking like a Beholder, then you’ve violated brand identity, and you are in trouble.
See, game rules are uncopyrightable; you literally aren’t capable of demanding a copyright over a method, just a description of that method. That puts game rules, as actual rules, completely free use for re-describing, and yet we have a whole industry built on the idea that you can pay one specific company for access to their rules.
But, the thing is, they can trademark and copyright and brand some specific things, and that’s where this silly dance kicks in. Providing a simple 1:1 translation guide for how the Orcus rules map onto 4th edition rules would require printing something that’s explicitly about pushing against that legal boundary. And to that, the rules of Orcus are entirely about being easily and obviously translatable to 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons, if you understand how 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons works, even just the visual frame of a power in Orcus makes obvious sense.
It’s an interesting thing; I have a hard time comparing it to anything but software engines. Imagine a spreadsheet; you made it in one program, but you can open it in a second program. The second program, however, is designed only to do the task of opening that spreadsheet.
Now, none of this is to say that Orcus just is 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons. It’s a good game, and I think that it’s a great place to start, especially if you want to play something world-agnostic the way 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons wants to start off. You just make some characters with your friends, you pick a few random monsters and you start building your world from a settlement outwards, the points of light world that honestly, I think is an underappreciated form of tabletop RPG.
I don’t know if anyone designed 4th edition to work this way from the ground up. Orcus inherits it, but the idea is that if the game gives you a laundry list of reading you have to know ahead of time, before you get to play the game, then you’ve got one more thing slowing you down. If instead, the game lets you start by playing the combatty bit of the game – build a character, chuck some dice, see how the game works – then you have a first step for what you want to do in a game at that point and going forward.
This is something that Orcus can do even more fluidly than 4th edition, because the flavour in the game is mostly about the existing bandwidth of normalcy. There aren’t elves, unless a player makes one up, and there aren’t orcs, or Orcs, unless a player makes one up.
There’s some formatting updates too, which are quite nice. Improvements on the fundamentals of how 4th edition is written that are easy to be annoyed with if you’re, say, one person rewriting everything that goes into a system of that scale and you’d like a more convenient way to (say), format a power scaling up over a player’s levels. That formatting is however, one area where Orcus struggles a little, though.
… Orcus kind of looks like ass.
I don’t mind that it looks like ass, but it does look like ass. My favourite detail is the name of the PDF of the base rules is named Microsoft Word – Orcus Heroes’ Handbook. This is a totally reasonable mistake to have made in your exporting of a PDF file, to have not noticed that you’re still using the default Microsoft Word export name.
Still, it is a book that has a lot of room to look prettier and to communicate its system a bit more clearly.
On the other hand, what do I want out if a free 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons scale game project? What more do I want of a system where I can hand it to someone and say, hey, completely reasonably, you can just start playing this game and it will play like my favourite TTRPG of its type?
Great game! Check it out!
And if you like formatting things, you could contribute to the project!
Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!
Just a lil FAQ to make folks' lives easier. If your question isn't answered here feel free to send me an ask. I'll keep adding to this as needed :)
Technical Info:
Do you take commissions?
My commission status will be listed in my bio- they are currently closed but if I open them I'll make a post to announce it.
2. Where else can I find your work?
Check out my LinkTree!
3. Can I repost your art?
I am ok with reposting so long as I am properly credited in a "front-and-center" manner. Example: "Art by crow-keys on Tumblr/crow.keys on Instagram" as the first line in the caption of the post. If it's a social media platform I'm already active on, I prefer if my original post is just shared rather than reposted onto a different account. (If you see me uncredited or improperly credited somewhere on the web, an alert is much appreciated <3)
4. Can I make a fanfic/fanart/voice dub/edit of your art/comic?
In general, YES!!! I love when this happens. It brings me immense joy when my art inspires someone to make their own works. Tags are appreciated for works loosely inspired by mine (I wanna see!!!!), but are required when heavily inspired or using my work directly, as in for comic dubs. I also reserve the right to request the removal of any work that uses my art in a way I do not approve of. If you're unsure if you need to tag, you can always shoot me a message and I'll do my best to clarify.
5. Can I use your art as a phone background/desktop wallpaper/icon/banner?
YESSSSSS!!! I only request credit for using it on social media profiles! (icons, banners). Listing my user anywhere in the bio is fine. Also working on getting something set up that will allow people to download high res versions of my work- more on that later.
6. Can I use your art for AI training purposes/are you interested in turning your art into an NFT?
Ok so this hasn't actually been asked really but I figured I should put it somewhere. FUCK NO, get your corny ass off my blog and pick up a fucking pencil.
Art/Setup Info:
What software do you use?
Right now for drawing I primarily use Procreate, but I also use Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint. For animating/storyboarding I use Storyboard Pro. I also love Pureref everyone go check out Pureref.
2. What hardware do you use?
I have a refurbished 4th Gen iPad Air with the Apple Pencil 2 and a 22 inch Wacom Cintiq. My computer is a lowkey old as fuck ROG Strix laptop but it works (mostly).
3. What brushes do you use?
For Procreate, I use these most frequently. If people are interested I can set them up somewhere for download, but most are just slightly modified versions of Procreate default brushes:
For Photoshop, I mostly use a modified version of Shiyoon Kim's Wet Ink Pen, or just a plain chisel shaped default brush.
4. Any advice for people learning art?
For advice on specific things, shoot me an ask! But generally, I recommend people check out Draw A Box. It's free and imho has some of the best drawing practice methods for training your eye and hand.
nightshade is basically useless https://www.tumblr.com/billclintonsbeefarm/740236576484999168/even-if-you-dont-like-generative-models-this
I'm not a developer, but the creators of Nightshade do address some of this post's concerns in their FAQ. Obviously it's not a magic bullet to prevent AI image scraping, and obviously there's an arms race between AI developers and artists attempting to disrupt their data pools. But personally, I think it's an interesting project and is accessible to most people to try. Giving up on it at this stage seems really premature.
But if it's caption data that's truly valuable, Tumblr is an ... interesting ... place to be scraping it from. For one thing, users tend to get pretty creative with both image descriptions and tags. For another, I hope whichever bot scrapes my blog enjoys the many bird photos I have described as "Cheese." Genuinely curious if Tumblr data is actually valuable or if it's garbage.
That said, I find it pretty ironic that the OP of the post you linked seems to think nightshade and glaze specifically are an unreasonable waste of electricity. Both are software. Your personal computer's graphics card is doing the work, not an entire data center, so if your computer was going to be on anyway, the cost is a drop in the bucket compared to what AI generators are consuming.
Training a large language model like GPT-3, for example, is estimated to use just under 1,300 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity; about as much power as consumed annually by 130 US homes. To put that in context, streaming an hour of Netflix requires around 0.8 kWh (0.0008 MWh) of electricity. That means you’d have to watch 1,625,000 hours to consume the same amount of power it takes to train GPT-3. (source)
So, no, I don't think Nightshade or Glaze are useless just because they aren't going to immediately topple every AI image generator. There's not really much downside for the artists interested in using them so I hope they continue development.
Is this real or did someone make it? I've seen it around since forever but I've never heard if it's true or not.
SHORT ANSWER: It is kind of true. The timestamp on the top screenshot is fake. But it's not too far off. The OG video doesn't have timestamps burned onto it. HOWEVER, there's more to this.
LONG ANSWER, FULL ANALYSIS AND IMPLICATIONS OF ALL THIS.
1. BRIEF EXPLANATION OF 2 TYPES OF CCTV TIMESTAMPS.
Timestamps burned onto the CCTV footage itself - they become part of the picture and cannot be removed. Whatever was shown behind them - won't ever be visible. This seems to be the case of the bottom screenshot you've shared.
Timestamps in the metadata of the CCTV footage. They're not visible in the CCTV footage - so nothing is hidden, but they're easier to fake. They're in a separate file and usually require a specific software to view. This seems to be the case of the top screenshot you've shared - if you look up the video, it doesn't have any timestamps.
2. ANALYSIS OF CCTV FOOTAGE TIMESTAMPS FROM THE CRIME SCENE (TOP SCREENSHOT)
BUT various legal documents do list the time of incident as 6:44 or 6:45. Also, Manhattan DA's office seems to have shared the metadata of the CCTV footage with the media back in Dec'25. ABC, for example, included the timestamps in one of their videos, and they list the time as 6:44:18. Sources:
If you watch the full video, the suspect leaves the scene and crosses the street on foot ~ 23 seconds later, which would be at ~ 6:44:41. Not a good look on prosecutors who kept on saying in the legal docs that it happened "at (approximately) 6:45 a.m." - the suspect had already left the scene and UHC CEO was already dead at 6:45 a.m.
3. ANALYSIS OF CCTV FOOTAGE OF THE SUSPECT CYCLING AWAY (BOTTOM SCREENSHOT)
Now, the bottom screenshot comes from NewsNation's "exclusive" footage released on Dec 7, 2024. In which, the host Ashshleightgh Banfield (who, by the way, lusted after p*dofile Jeffrey Epstein) says that the timestamps on their video are definitely showing "the right time". She does point out that goes at odds with law enforcement's "6:45 a.m." narrative. Here's the relevant excerpt:
4. REAL LIFE DISTANCE & TIME COMPARISSON
I mapped both locations depicted in CCTV videos + the distance between them. Something to keep in mind: we don't actually know where exactly the suspect stashed (or when exactly he mounted) his electric bike. Feds said he mounted his bike on West 55th St., so I'll assume he covered the whole distance of the alleyway (75m / 245 feet) between East 54th St. and West 55th St. on foot.
Anyways, I'm being really pedantic here and it doesn't really matter, because even if we were to say that the suspect didn't walk at all, and covered the whole distance (0.31miles / 500meters) on his electric bicycle - without ever stopping - it would still mean that he did that in ~ 18 seconds. It would mean that he was going at around 62mph or 100km/h. And, folks, forget about electric bicycles - that's the speed at which cars go on highways. In other words, it's impossible. In other words, timestamps on one of these videos must be incorrect, unless:
5. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS.
The second video came from mainstream media - not prosecutors. So, there's a small possibility that it doesn't actually depict the suspect, but someone else. In this case, defense could use it as a proof that there were multiple similarly looking people in the area - casting doubt on prosecutor's tracking of them.
Metadata of the first video (and/or the video itself) has been altered. I'm just saying - it is a possibility. Especially, given that in most legal docs prosecutors list the time of the incident as "(approximately) 6:45 a.m.) - which would be incorrect.
Timestamps of one the videos were inaccurate. This can happen. In such cases, prosecutors get a witness to testify on he correct time. Such witness is usually a person who installed and/or maintained the CCTV equipment in question. We already saw one such witness during the Dec'25 suppression hearings, when prosecutors had someone briefly testify about McDonald's CCTV footage.
So, prosecutors are likely going to get someone responsible for Hilton Hotel's CCTV and have them testify that the timestamps are off by a few minutes/seconds, but the footage is authentic (Essentially: "Trust me, bro"). Could such witnesses lie? Yes, of course. Plenty of innocent people have been convicted based solely on false prosecution's witness testimonies. Scientifically speaking, it's a f*cked up system. It's hard to disprove such testimonies, and it's going to get even more difficult at the age of fake AI videos.
However, while CCTV footage with inaccurate timestamps is often admitted into evidence - the inaccurate timestamps do negatively affect "the weight of the evidence". This means that such footage is less likely to be viewed as credible evidence and less likely to be convincing. Which works in defense's favor. Additionally, this is not the only CCTV footage with inaccurate timestamps. For example, the footage of the suspect talking on the phone before the shooting is timestamped at ~7:29 a.m. - i.e. around 45minutes after the shooting. (Presumably, due to daylight savings time changes, but still - in a case, where every second is important and where law enforcement and prosecutors have been caught messing up with their tracking of the suspect - it all adds up.)
Lastly, never forget that prosecutor Joel Seidemann admitted that the quality of his evidence was bad. Inaccurate timestamps are one of the things that can decrease the "quality" of the evidence.
