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When I beg you to do banners for us too, Scape. And hS, I'm using the occasion for begging for portraits from you too.

Take my +1, you beautiful person.

(Will Baron Phobos be treating us to an interpretive dance routine at the next council meeting?)

In regards to point four...I happen to have a degree in Dance. Just sayin'.

-Phobos

But point four, especially.

You gave me an irresistable image to work with.



Fun fact #1: Only the heraldic colours are filled in, because I couldn't be bothered to find a decent colour scheme for the armour.

Fun fact #2: Baron Phobos of course carries a token from his fair lady.

Fun fact #3: The circular devices on his shoulder armour weren't meant to come out looking like pizzas, but I'll take it!

Fun fact #4: Baron Phobos is sketched from a pole dancer, because that's what comes up when you Google 'man holding spear'. I'm... not sure what that says, but there it is.

hS

I like mine, pizza connotations and all. The only problem is the lack of daggers. I guess I'll just have to fly it from a spear to compensate.

~Pizza-Baron Phobos

I'm sure Kvothe might get some rough treatment by agents, but I don't think there's been as much fanfiction as a silent decade between books would generate.

There is a Name of the Wind prequel television series coming, so maybe that universe will get some fanfiction that's not focused on Bast.

((More seriously, I reckon he's not the only one. How many times do you think the words 'Are you sure she's not a Suvian?!' have been heard about Bella Swan? >:D

hS))

I imagine that he has been "accidentally" injured by agents so many times that he could have benefitted from several punch cards by now.

I'm not going to link the comic because while they've cleaned up the ads, it's still about sex and is frequently NSFW.

Back in 2011, when the old Pottermore was still in beta test, I was sorted into Slytherin. I guess I got that for an attempt to cheat and get into Hufflepuff (the only common room we’ve never seen in the books).

A far more sophisticated test by PersonalityLab that sadly isn’t available anymore asked me a hundred questions and then told me that Slytherin is actually the house I’m least compatible with (52%) and that I should have been sorted into Gryffindor (68%), with Ravenclaw as second (64%) and Hufflepuff as a third (56%) choice. It’s all so close together that I may just be a jack-of-all-trades, although I feel like I should be a Ravenpuff or Huffleclaw.

My wand is alder wood with unicorn tail hair, 10.75 inches long and surprisingly swishy.

Since I never bothered to sign up for the new Pottermore, I don’t know my Patronus and my Ilvermorny house. To me, the important part of Pottermore is the "Writing by J.K. Rowling", and I don’t need to sign up to get this. Although, collecting it on the old Pottermore (and needing a wand and to have been sorted to be able to do so) was definitely more fun.

HG

Somewhat, but in my opinion they're better targets to go after.

A flag shouldn't be as complicated as a coat of arms; they serve a very different purpose (especially in Plort, where people don't seem to be using shields for identification on the battlefield anyway...). I also love the fact that mine is the most complicated, because yes, that is absolutely what Baron Me would do.

I am also perpetually amazed that people are still playing around with this Plort idea at all. ^_^

hS

It's Horned Serpent, which seems apt. It would've been either this one or Pukwudgie.

House: Hufflepuff
(Not what I expected to get, but it makes sense. I would also make a good Ravenclaw, I think.)

Patronus: Greyhound
(Just... what? I hate greyhounds. They're so creepy, in my opinion. My sister thinks it works, though, so... shrugs Whatever.)

Wand: Rowan wood with a Unicorn hair core 10" and Surprisingly Swishy flexibility
(Apparently rowan wood is paired with the clear-headed and pure-hearted, and is excellent at dueling and defensive charms. Unicorn hair makes for a weak wand, usually, though a strong wood like rowan will counter that. However, unicorn hair is (once again) generally considered virtuous. Surprisingly swishy indicates that I'm adaptable and willing to change, according to Pottermore, which is true. So, all in all, my wand is super awesome!)

Also, I really have not posted on here in such a long time. Hi to everybody who doesn't know I exist, and please know that I am expressly not the original Jay. I have no idea why I picked this name, and I really need to change it sometime.

I love the one for Juliette- the cog and flower are lovely and abstract and pretty and aaaaaa.

Hogwarts House: Slytherin Oh wait...yeah...Slytherin. That makes sense.

Wand: 13 inches of unyielding Black Walnut with a Dragon heartstring core

Ilvermorny House: Thunderbird

Patronus: Hedgehog. That's an interesting choice.

-Phobos

Logged on to Pottermore, and, uh, when did they change the site? I remember it being kind of a social site with a click through adventure of the books, mini-games, and house cups, not. . .whatever it is now.

House: Hufflepuff

Wand: Alder, 10 1/2 in, Unicorn hair, surprisingly flexible

Patronus: Irish Wolfhound

Ilvermony House: Pukwudjie.

I went to another site to take the test because I didn't want to log in and I got Ravenclaw for my house. I was sure I was giving Hufflepuff answers.

My patronus would probably be a badger.

Hogwarts House: Gryffindor
Gryffindor??? What??? No. No. Absolutely not. I am not even slightly brave, nor am I daring, nor am I chivalrous. I feel the same kinship with Gryffindor that I do with the average earthworm.

Wand: Pine and Dragon Heartstring, 13", hard
This seems to imply great but inflexible magical power, which... I suppose works. When it comes to things like strategy, I tend to pick one thing and brute-force it into working for as many situations as I can.

Ilvermorny House: Thunderbird
Scapegrace is now available in SUPERMARIONATION.

Patronus: Sphynx Cat
So, what do these look li-


...

Yeah, that fits.

When it comes to a lot of these flags, I tried to take motifs and colour combinations from the relevant baron's heraldry that worked together. In the case of Barony Phobos, that was the two field colours, the bend, and the dice reading six; that it came out resembling a Famous Pizza Corporation's logo was merely a happy accident. Zing's, meanwhile, came from combining the eight-pointed stars from the top of the field and the central charge of an olive branch with the purple field, while the rays were there to represent dawn. =]

Yours was actually super hard, bc Flag Maker Jr doesn't have quills or alembics or leaves and the scaling only goes up to 20x, which meant I couldn't put a lot of filigree in. I'm really glad you liked it. =]

I have totally fallen in love with mine and Kaitlyn's. O.O That's going directly onto Baron Me's overstuffed flagpole. (It can replace the flag of Ozerbord, which he now keeps in a box next to the pole. A black box. Of mourning.)

I'm preeeeeeeetty sure Barony Phobos is now the heart of a pizza-selling empire. Which is... alarmingly appropriate. Hrm. So you did that on purpose?

And Barony Eshakhar is just a vision of joyfulness. ^_^

hS

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I'd like to take this moment to step in with a bit of optimism and share something I dug up on Slashdot:

https://motherboard.vice.com/enus/article/7x4y8a/net-neutrality-fcc-community-networks

As well as this, in particular. I think this may be some hope.
<a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/enus/article/paax9n/rural-america-is-building-its-own-internet-because-no-one-else-will">https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/paax9n/rural-america-is-building-its-own-internet-because-no-one-else-will

The Internet was heavily federated when it was first built, and still is. As a result, there are many ways we could still operate outside of the infrastructure that the Telecom Mafia controls. Find out if your town has a community broadband network, and start volunteering if you can. Try to see if you can get your town to adopt a fiber-to-home network. I know that there are some Ham Radio enthusiasts here -- now is the time to start putting that equipment to use.

One thing you can do right now, even if you have no money or time, is to start operating sneakernets[1] or pirateboxes[2] to try to build up the network effect, or start moving onto peer-to-peer networks. You could even set up a Retroshare network and share the information you want to share with your friends yourself rather than relying on a content delivery provider which could be censored or blocked by your ISP.

Don't forget about peer-to-peer networks like I2P. Peer to peer networks can be difficult to censor or block without completely redoing the entire federated model that the Internet relies on. Volunteer networks such as Tor hidden services can be difficult to censor or block (there are ways to block Tor exit nodes and guard nodes, but there are ways to circumvent these blocks through the use of Onionsites and Tor Bridges). If the ISPs insist on blocking and censoring, we can use tunnelling to circumvent it. Many of these nodes exist outside the United States and won't need to answer to US Policy. If the guard nodes start getting blocked, use a Bridge.

Also, while this can be a bit of a long shot, ask your favourite content provider about domain fronting[3] and see what could be done about that. This is one way to make it expensive or costly for the ISPs to start throttling or shutting off access to particular sites, since there are ways (Domain Fronting is one of them) to use encryption to disguise traffic they want to block as something they don't.

There are ways we can fight back, we just need to use them.


[1] A sneakernet is simply a fancy way of saving data to a CD or a USB drive, and carrying it to where it needs to go by walking (hence, shoes, or sneakers) to the destination.
[2] Piratebox: A piratebox is simply a regular off the shelf wifi router attached to some means of storage that can be used to create ad-hoc portable networks. Fancy cases are not required, but they look good! https://piratebox.cc/
[3] Domain Fronting: In layman's terms, this is a way to circumvent blocks by utilizing some of the features of HTTPS to disguise traffic your ISP, or even government may wish to censor by making it appear as if it were coming from an entirely different website. http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/domain-fronting/
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