ph. Danko Maksimovic - Prague, Czech Republic (2022)

Film: Kodak Ultramax 400

"Me, with me little lamb in me hands." - The Malevolent Podcast, part 56

digitaltober day 29 - laugh

Evrard's Black Stone Road Trip (meta)

So now that we can reasonably assume we have the entirety of Evrard’s Black Stone Road Trip plan on the table, I wanted to talk about it a little. Setting aside any discussion of the effectiveness of its timeskip/flashback format, and its effect on the characters and emotional impact, the plan itself I at first found really unconvincing. But now that we have the full picture, I’ve been rotating it to find the angle I think makes the most sense.

‘Cause come on, I think a lot of us raised an eyebrow when Evrard the cultist-killer decided on the spot to trust Arthur, of all people, to protect the Destroys the Universe device. But at this point I think it’s clear that he didn’t. Arthur wasn’t the trusted anchor runner in their fellowship: he was the patsy.

It was a gamble and it didn’t work. And the show spends no time post Antoine reveal to clarify or recontextualize the trip as a whole, there simply isn’t time, so I dunno if any of what I’m supposing below is the intended conclusion, but it makes the most sense to me.

ORTHOR RUN -John

I painted over a unfished piece. I'm happy with the results

Some of you are using pov (point of view) when you mean to say mfw (my face when). Get the word out

Some audio dramas to get you in the Halloween spirit!

I've recently learned that escaping enshitification is actually really easy. When I was younger I would use FOSS (free and open source software) because I usually couldn't afford anything else. Back then the paid options were usually significantly better than the unpaid options so when I finally got money I started using the paid stuff and completely forgot that Foss existed.

If you don't know why Foss is awesome its not just that its free. Open source software has a huge set of advantages. Most software is proprietary meaning that its code cannot be viewed by other people. Open source softwares code can be viewed by everyone and people can contribute their own code to make it better. Open source is often more secure than proprietary because more people have more eyes on it and more people have contributed to it's security. Its also easy to know how much privacy you have with every software because you can read the code. No more "trust me bro I'm not harvesting and selling your data" you know if they are collecting and selling because the code is publicly available.

In the last two months I have been switching almost completely to Foss. I was worried at first because when I stopped using Foss over 10 years ago the average Foss software was genuinely worse than the paid proprietary alternative. Thankfully things have really come full circle. 90℅ of the software I have tried in the last 2 months works better than the proprietary alternative and is 100℅ less obnoxious.

So here is a list of every Foss software I have tried and recommend. There is way more than this available. This list is just what I have used and like personally. Anyone can feel free to add and we can turn it into a master list. Please just take these as a place to start and do your own research to see if these softwares will work for your use case before you fully ditch your proprietary software.

Operating systems

Graphene os: android alt. Security and privacy focused. The most secure and private smartphone currently available.

Linux mint: easy to use linux, 100℅ better than windows.

Pop!: The Linux distro you should use if you have nividia hardware and want to play games using said hardware. Very intuitive and easy to use.

Kubuntu: Ubuntu Linux with KDE desktop. This is the linux distro one I am currently using and I don't have any plans to jump ship again. Better than windows and better than Mac. The companion app for your phone makes life soooo easy. Its pretty and easy to customize to a ridiculously granular level. No fucking notes.

Kindle jailbreak- ko reader: use jailbreak to free your kindle from the tyranny of the bezos. It will download ko reader which is a Foss OS that has every fucking feature you always wished kindle had and let's you read whatever the fuck you want, and have whatever the screensaver you want (no more ads!). Soooo fuck amazon and use this. I genuinely cannot recommend it enough.

Linux FOSS: (some available on windows and android as well)

Calibre: Foss desktop eBook library. Packed with features. You will want to use this with koreader to make managing your kindle easy.

Manuscript: skrivner alt. Does absolutely everything I need.

Bitwarden: password manager (use a keepass fork if you want self hosted)

Next cloud: private google drive and cloud alternative that you can self host if you want but it's not required. App available

Proton VPN: to the best of my knowledge it is the only Foss no log VPN you can get. You can pay for higher speeds. App available

Quad9dns: free encrypted DNS provider. App available.

News software:

Use any Foss RSS reader and for the love of god stop getting news from social media. Take control of your feed!

Apps (I only know for android)

Fdroid: great app store to find Foss android apps and download them.

Antennapod: you can get all of your podcasts fetched to one feature rich app via RSS feed. No need to rely on spotify or music steaming services.

Openreads: it's good reads but private and 100℅ stored locally. No amazon, no social media aspect, it just tracks your reading, you can import your good reads but if you want to import from storygraph you have to make a good reads burner account, import to good reads, then import to openreads. The menus Navigation on this one is a bit cumbersome but honestly good reads app is worse.

Newpipe: YouTube frontend that let's you have YouTube subscriptions, watch YouTube in the background, and blocks all ads, without logging in to YouTube. You will want to use this one with a VPN set to Canada (or any other country) so YouTube doesn't keep blocking it in order to force you to sign in. But even with that extra step its worth it for the privacy and the lack of ads.

Proton mail: one of 2 more private gmail alts. But you should note that email cannot be 100℅ anonymous or private.

I think that's it. There are still a lot software varieties I am slowly finding.

website

StopNCII.org is operated by the Revenge Porn Helpline which is part of SWGfL, a charity that believes that everyone should benefit from technology, free from harm. Founded in 2000, SWGfL works with a number of partners and stakeholders around the world to protect everyone online

Sounds legit

everyone reblog this!!

Hello TMA fandom how we doin

A Comprehensive History and Analysis of the Poetry of John Doe

(All IDs in alt text)

I had the absolute pleasure of working with @gayghostrights and bones.mt as an artist on this year's @malevolentbigbang event! Moss wrote the incredible academic-style fic A Comprehensive History and Analysis of the Poetry of John Doe, which is told in a series of essays, interviews, letters, photos, and poems that are structured as if they're academic articles and sources about real-life poet John Doe and his newly-revealed queer relationship with songwriter Arthur Lester. This fic is truly phenomenal, creative, and emotional, and everyone reading this should go read it.

It also lent itself incredibly well to a bookbinding project! Before I get into the typeset and the various intricacies, I want to shout out the other artist on this project, Bones, who illustrated every single photo from the fic, as well as designed the cover art that you can see above. It was truly a wonderful experience to work with him and to have a collection of wonderful photos to include in the bind, and I was able to make glossy centerfolds to show them off.

You can find Bones's artwork here!

More details and photos can be found below the cut!

Alia showl but I gave her some peace and a lute <3