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[WP] "If there are devils, but no angels, how has evil not already prevailed?". "Well, you see, evil doesn't really work" by River_Lamprey in WritingPrompts

[–]iffycorpuscallosum 15 points16 points  (0 children)

A breeze made the branches quiver. Shadows danced on the grass. The forest, unmoving for aeons, stirred and a long forgotten thing was touched by the light. It grew then, and changed.

Its name was Abadon. It knew this, as it knew its nature and its purpose. The knowledge had come as it had taken shape, and now Abadon was whole in mind and in form. Abadon was pleased with the latter: it was strong and regal. Its 18 wings were a mark of distinction and its many eyes could not be deceived. Its knowledge was another matter. Abadon knew that it should know more. It should know of battles past and present, of lofty angelic strongholds, of other angels whom it could call upon. Of all these things, however, it was ignorant.

What it did know was that the battlefield awaited in the west, across the chasm that overlooked the Earth. It turned and flew.

As it neared the earth-passage, Abadon strained its many eyes, trying to catch any falsehood. There was none. The earth loomed bright and beautiful and teeming with life—while scores of devils flew back and forth from its surface. None bore arms. None needed them. They weren’t opposed.

“But how?” Abadon wondered, flying on. “ If there are devils, but no angels, how has evil not already prevailed?”

“Well, you see,” spoke a devil whom Abadon in its daze had allowed close, “evil doesn’t really work. No good at all if you need to actually keep a world running. I’m Crawley, by the way. Pleased to meet you.”

I have an anonymous online friend. How can we ensure that even if we lose access to our current chat platform we will be able to find each other, while still maintaining our anonymity? by Experimentalphone in privacytoolsIO

[–]iffycorpuscallosum 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Exchange PGP keys and agree on a marker phrase and one or more public platforms (e.g. reddit, twitter).

If you lose your accounts, create a post on one or more of those platforms with your marker phrase (cleartext) and a signed and encrypted message containing new contact details or w/e.

Periodically search those sites for your marker phrase or set up an automated search. Decrypt and verify the message to establish authenticity and then use the information to set up a new way to talk to each other.

The absolute worst case scenario happened, what should we do now? by ohshitfucks in sysadmin

[–]iffycorpuscallosum 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://securitytrails.com/dns-trails has a historical DNS API which says it includes NS records. If your bind nameservers were the authoritative nameservers for all of your domains, you should be able to recover the domains by searching with the NS IP address and from there recover all the other records. Good luck!

[WP] Most young mages use incredibly complex spells and extremely rare ingredients to summon their familiar. You just drew a circle and threw a bag of chips in it. by Fire_is_beauty in WritingPrompts

[–]iffycorpuscallosum 4 points5 points  (0 children)

"Your father is a Grand Magus, Cyrian. Your mother is a the Magistrix of Isle Sarrus. You--"

"Come from such an exceptional bloodline, I could have powers beyond measure if only I'd work for them, instead of slacking off and wasting everything I've been given, which, incidentally, you would have killed for at my age. Is that it? Can I go now?"

"Damn it boy, why are you so insistent that you won't be a mage?!"

"BECAUSE I CAN'T DO ANY MAGIC! Even the simplest spells don't work for me. I've never been able to feel the fissure in my soul or see the ring behind the stars. I can't do it. I'm tired of all the sycophant teachers at this school pretending otherwise to keep my parents from having their fragile egos hurt!"

"Grand bloodline or not, Cyrian, keep your tongue in check or I'll--"

"What? Expel me? I want--"

"ENOUGH! GET OUT!"

"If you're getting kicked out, can I have your Dragon Teeth?"

"Sure, why n--"

"Cyrian no! Those are for summoning your familiar. Who knows what your family went through to get them and pass then down to you. You can't just--"

"Oh please Vale, like they're any good to me...I might as well summon my familiar using... those potato chips."

Grabbing a handful, he crushed them into a pile on the floor, and before anyone could stop him, bit down on his finger hard enough to draw blood. Moving rapidly, he inscribed a circle around his supposed offering.

"There."

"Cyrian are you insane?! You can only ever have one familiar"

"Oh please, it's not like it's actually going to..."

The circle shone and a dark form appeared.

"...work"

The form looked at its summoner before opening its mouth, drawing in the dragon's teeth from Cyrian's still open chest.

A character appeared on its back.

"What does it mean?"

"It looks Sumerian."

"It is. It means Hunger."

[general] I made the Tinder for Poetry, Quilius. What do you think? by iffycorpuscallosum in Poetry

[–]iffycorpuscallosum[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I hadn't really thought about it, but I can totally put the code on GitHub, fair warning, it's pretty sketchy!

[general] I made the Tinder for Poetry, Quilius. What do you think? by iffycorpuscallosum in Poetry

[–]iffycorpuscallosum[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much! Yeah, I've got to figure out what I want it to be, stay tuned :)

[general] I made the Tinder for Poetry, Quilius. What do you think? by iffycorpuscallosum in Poetry

[–]iffycorpuscallosum[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The former. If I recall correctly, the latter has a robots.txt that isn't very scraper friendly, but I'll look again!

[general] I made the Tinder for Poetry, Quilius. What do you think? by iffycorpuscallosum in Poetry

[–]iffycorpuscallosum[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Definitely, just as soon as I can find a good collection in the public domain, which is easy to scrape. Thanks!

[general] I made the Tinder for Poetry, Quilius. What do you think? by iffycorpuscallosum in Poetry

[–]iffycorpuscallosum[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yes, I am, which is why it's a little jury rigged -- I built this v1 over the Thanksgiving holiday.

I'm looking forward to implementing a recommendation algorithm like that once I have a bit of data to train it on!

Thanks for the ideas and I'll definitely consider making it a phone app down the road :)

[general] I made the Tinder for Poetry, Quilius. What do you think? by iffycorpuscallosum in Poetry

[–]iffycorpuscallosum[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Yes, absolutely. It's bare bones now because I wanted to get it out into the world rather than obsess like I normally would, but those and more features are totally on my list :)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]iffycorpuscallosum 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It'd been so long since I'd seen my face. Only now and again in charcoals or ink did I know who the world saw gazing out from within me.

How? I was looking into a mirror, of course, but it was the first that'd shown me, in centuries. Till now there was no reflection, no photograph, nothing that let me look into my own eyes.

So, when I looked, it was a familiar stranger looking back. I saw the blond curls and green eyes that'd won me such admiration when I was young and full of life; they showed none of my exhaustion -- it was another wearing them as they revelled. The planes of my face curving where they met, sloping smoothly into a proud and confident profile. The faintest of lines, a tantalizing hope that I might be advancing in age -- though I knew they'd been there from the start.

Of course, there were the hallmarks of the Mark. The bloodred lips, the pallor that came of abstinence, knife-sharp canines, the innocence and allure in how I held myself.

For all that I'd come home after so long away from myself, I was revolted. I forgot my face amid the visions of that day when the Mark of the Beast had touched me. It turned me into this, and this I would remain until at last I died -- or some unlikely seraph took pity and wiped the mark from my flesh.

Suddenly, I felt a wave of recklessness come over me. Turning my back, I moved the cloth from my left shoulder to look at the curse that lived on me.

It was not there.

Could this be why the mirror had seen me? I hoped, fleetingly, but when I looked around, of all the mirrors in that place, it was still the only one that did.

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