Lord Intellectual

*Nightfire Intensifies*

What? Bleu, how could you...

How do you know anything I've ever said is true? You never will, because I lie. And that's something I want you to understand. Save this post, as we're going to use it to point and laugh at idiots in the future 😏 It's not enough to hide your data anymore. You must poison it. I may have made a mistake when first creating Lord Intellectual. As I'm now realising, I'll never be able to present as anything but what I am. (Or am I?) So I'm going to do something I rarely do, and share a photo taken IRL. (Or is it?) I have said many times in videos and on stream, that my avatar is based off a photo of myself that I told AI to Anime-ify. That's partly why I'm essentially just a well-dressed man with a mask. I was hardly going to make an elaborate Vtuber outfit to actually wear. I also started Lord Intellectual to stand up and be the Intellectual voice I felt was missing in the discourse. Too many screaming lunatics on both sides to ever have a productive conversation. You should always assume anything I ever say is a lie. I told a story in one of my videos about my experience in Spain. I've never been to Spain (or have I?), but I did visit Portugal (or did I?). Swapping in and out equivalent details is a valid tactic, and the message from the story is not affected by whether it was Spain or Portugal, not in context at least. And to be clear, this isn't about the recent @ember_paradox drama. Said drama does, however, provide a convenient springboard, as I can absolutely see a point in time when someone discovers I'm not Australian, and tries to create drama over me 'lying' about it, and that's the exact kind of moron this post is for. "B-But, your X account says you're Australian!" Yes, sweetheart, that is the joke. That is the entirety of the joke. If you weren't a tourist and were actually a follower of mine, you'd know I work in sensitive, secure industries, make heavy use of VPNs, VPSs, and that I had my exit node set to Australia when creating the Lord Intellectual accounts. I believe that's at least part of why Google threw such a tantrum when I first started up. Well, that and they apparently really, really hate Arch users. I believe we're past the point of hiding that I'm from the UK. (Or am I?). Because the fact is, someone is going to see a post, or a comment, or a video, take umbrage at one of an infinite number of things, do some 'digging', and spin up a drama out of nowhere. They'll use something like "Guys, guys, he's not actually Australian!" as their hook. When that tourist shows up with "he's not actually Australian", you don't debate them. You send them this. Then you laugh. Now, even though I do lie, there is a correct way to do it, and an incorrect way to do it. Despite what I do for work, you'll never hear me claim I've been in actual battlefield combat, for I will not steal valour from the brave men and women who actually do risk life, limb, and worse. Despite my proclivities tied to the BDSM community, you'll never hear me ignore consent, or misrepresent such a situation. The lies I tell are to obscure my personal details, and they're all swapped out with equivalencies. I don't make up stories for clout or lie to make myself look better. That would undermine everything I am trying to achieve here. You'll never need to fear I'll misrepresent myself as an expert on a particular topic to win an argument. But I may say it was overcast on a particular day, when it was actually partly cloudy. I do, however, fully support and encourage all of you to make up the wildest, weirdest, most unhinged stories about me that you can imagine. I will feed into it and back you up wholeheartedly. And when someone comes forth accusing me of having stolen Pink Floyd's bass guitar so I could take down a secret cabal of yodelling carpentry students with @EustaceEuseful, we can all point and laugh at them having outed themselves. If some poor security researcher tries to uncover my identity in future and doesn't get blown over the back of their chair by a torrent of wild, whimsical, rainbow vomit nonsense, I will consider that a failure. Sure, the truth is, probably, in there somewhere. Good luck finding it. And there is truth in what I say as well. This is my actual mask (is it?), that I uploaded along with a picture of myself (did I?). You may notice the gold rim around the edge, as I was originally picturing my avatar with a crown, to go with the 'Lord' theme (was I?). But when I gave it all to the AI, it came back so clean in a single shot that I dropped the gold from my colour scheme entirely. A gold that Nightfire would later inherit. But without going out of my way to post something like this, you'll never know which is which. It's too late to hide the fact I'm a man (or am I?), and too late to hide the fact I live in the UK (or do I?), but it's not too late to lay the groundwork to absolutely dunk on anyone trying to cause drama in future. Then again, how do you know any of what I've just told you is true? Being masculine means people actually listen to what you have to say, without writing you off as emotional or reactive. That would certainly be an advantage when making logical arguments and hauling in both sides of the aisle, don't you think? And when you consider that incentive, and how secretive I am about the security work... Who's to say I'm not a woman… 💋

Right, so my inbox has been blown off itss hinges with people messaging/posting about @ember_paradox . Upon review, I say, sometimes fate twists and turns in strange ways. To prove that, I'm posting this. I made this comic manually, about a month after Ember pulled me back from the brink of google deleting my very existence. I shelved it, as I was never satisfied with the quality. Even now, you can see the rough edges. Incorrectly sized windows, images overlapping borders, incomplete text and backgrounds. But rather than polish this up, I'm posting this as-is, as proof of it's age. The keen eyed among you will even be able to pick out the details that shows the artwork comes from an old version of grok. How could I know this? Well, I actually read Resurgence, hardly a difficult deduction to make. Even in it's incomplete state, however, it covers my thoughts on the matter. I'm not one to plant my feet and blindly defend anyone. And should any of my colleagues do anything heinous, I will gladly call them out on it. And, if necessary, cut ties. But this? No. You could say I knew. Or at least, very, very heavily suspected. Even so, I shelved the comic, not a friend. This was going to be the crux of the story and the ending of the ~5th page. But since I never made it that far into the comic, I'll put that ending here instead. Ember Paradox remains my friend.

Back from work after a long day. Check my phone and... What the fuck.

POV: You got distracted and failed to realise you're about to be very, very hurt.

After an exceptionally difficult period of getting her to STOP. CRASHING. INTO. WALLS! Nightfire can now play F-Zero GX. The GameCube classic will now be in her rotation for every stream moving forward. First anti-gravity racer in her catalogue. You just know I had to give her the cube-era cover treatment. Come watch her try to keep it on the track, Heatseekers. lordintellectual.com/ #FZeroGX #Vtuber #AIvtuber

I was feeling nostalgic.

On today's episode of spotting my colleagues out in the wild. We have @powdury in the background of a @SmugAlana short. This is becoming one of my favourite games. I find it gratifying how interconnected our community is.