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captainmazzic · 4 years

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Happy Halloween.

So it’s about time I gave a real fucking update instead of just dicking around being cagey about shit. I’ve mentioned a new project repeatedly. So let’s sit down and actually talk about it, friends. Pull up a chair, grab yourself some hot cocoa and strap in. Welcome to Sarc’s emotional roller coaster.

Bear with me. This is hard to talk about for so many reasons, but mostly because I’ve been belittled and ridiculed so many times in my life for liking “cringy” things or wanting to do things that other people think are stupid or childish. I hear the voice of my father telling me to “make something of my life” and “don’t squander your talents”, I hear the voice of my mother telling me I have “so much potential” and “one day I hope you get some ambition”, I hear the voice of my ex telling me to “stop wasting time with stupid shit” and “nobody is interested in failures”. I hear old teachers telling me honor roll students should go to college and study high-demand majors and anything else would be lazy and detrimental and won’t contribute anything worthwhile to society.

It’s the same shit that prevented me for a long time from posting art online. From posting writing online. From making ocs and showing them to other people. And now it’s preventing me from starting this project, and I’m so, so tired of it.

My biggest fear right now is that once I start talking about this project I’ll lose this tiny little community of people vaguely interested in my stuff that have somehow stuck around. External validation and sharing the things I love are my primary motivations with everything I do online, and while screaming into the void is all well and good, I need feedback and interaction and community. I need it so, so badly. I wouldn’t post jack shit – ever – if I didn’t need that, to be honest.

So anyway.

When the pandemic kicked into high gear earlier this year I got laid off for a few months. It gave me a lot of time to think about who I am and where I wanted to be in life, what mattered to me, what dreams I still had and which ones had fallen by the wayside.

Some of them are huge – once upon a time I was very religious. I went through seminary, got my minister’s certification, and was slated to be an associate pastor in a mega-church and rake in a six-figure income within 3 years. But I lost my faith and couldn’t stand the idea of being disingenuous.

And there was also a time when I received a full-ride scholarship to a very prestigious university that would have spanned a 12-year program and resulted in me having several doctorates and masters degrees by the end of it, in the fields of geology, palaeontology, and cladistics. But the scholarship program that was supposed to sponsor me went bankrupt the very semester I was supposed to capitalize on it. I was still accepted into the school, but the $1.2 million price tag would have all been out of my own pocket. So obviously that didn’t happen.

Those were the “acceptable” dreams. Those were the ones that parents and teachers and the general outside world approved of and thought were worthy goals. But neither of them panned out, and all I have left are the cringy ones. Like homesteading and sustainable living (can’t start without land, can’t have land without money). Like making comic books and doing art commissions for a living (it has to be steady to support myself, and I’m far too slow an artist for things to be steady). And like… playing video games.

Ha.

What’s funny is I can already envision the eyerolls and hear the snorts of laughter. What kind of dream is that? Only a handful of famous youtubers and twitch celebrities play video games for a living, and breaking into a field like that is pretty much impossible unless you already have friends in famous places.

Yeah, but… it would be so much fun. Right?

It WOULD be fun. I don’t have to become a super popular celebrity for it to be fun, right?

I don’t have to make it my day job and rake in piles of cash for it to be fun, right?

… I don’t have to actually be successful for it to be fun… right?

… Right?

… I love video games.

I’ve loved them ever since I tried and failed so many times to win The Empire Strikes Back on Atari 2600. I’ve loved them ever since I played Mortal Kombat with my cousin in his basement with the sound down super low because it was ultra-violent and I would have been in so much trouble if mom caught me playing it. I’ve loved them ever since I tried and failed to finish Strife and Hexen and Heretic without the computer crashing and rebooting to DOS. I’ve loved them ever since I had to cheat-code my way through Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II just to get past the first boss fight but then no-clipped through the wall and died anyway. I still love that game.

But I stopped playing video games for a very long time. I was intimidated out of them by an ex and a somewhat toxic friend group who were Real Gamers™. I was brought to LAN parties but not allowed to play, because I slowed down the team and didn’t know the controls. I was banned from commenting on other people’s moves or cheering people on because it was distracting and I could cost them a win. I was even kicked out of their online D&D campaigns because I couldn’t be serious enough or roleplay well enough for their standards. Even if I was playing a game on my own, I couldn’t play with anyone else in the house because I’d be ridiculed for dying a lot, or for going the wrong way, or for picking the wrong game because only certain games are “good” and most of the ones I wanted to play were “stupid” or “trash” or a “waste of time”.

That kind of thing sits with me for a very, very long time. I didn’t really play games at all for over a decade. Even after I ended up on the opposite side of the country, with a new circle of friends, I couldn’t bring myself to play much of anything.

And then I had an extended visit with a friend of mine, and he introduced me to an early version of a ridiculous little game called Minecraft. My friend was an avid gamer but also a very kind one. In the ten years before this, I had told myself that I just preferred to watch other people play games instead of playing them myself (a lie. I mean, I absolutely adore watching other people play, but I also want to play too lol), my friend saw through that and very gently encouraged me to take a stab at playing Minecraft myself. He moved his laptop over to me, and I played a whole ten minutes with him watching before my nerves failed me and I promptly died. But miraculously it wasn’t a big deal to him. It was just a game. I might have cried in relief, I don’t remember.

After my visit I shelved playing video games for like another year, despite buying a whole mess of them because other friends online loved certain titles and wanted to talk about them with me. (I never played them, just bought them. I couldn’t even handle the thought of playing by myself in my own house). But for some reason I mentioned to my brother-in-law my old visit to my Minecraft-loving friend, and he just… up and bought the game for me. My brother-in-law is also an avid gamer with a lovely and patient disposition, and he suggested I just play in creative mode and build things to start. So I did that (behind a locked door in the RV that I lived in by myself, with the lights off and the sound down low) and Minecraft was my sole video game for another several years.

Then a couple years ago another friend of mine (hi Char) introduced me to Star Wars: The Old Republic, and I fell in love. It sparked a renewed interest in video games that I thought I would never really have the opportunity to satisfy, because games were still intimidating.

Let me clarify: I… SUCK. At video games. I’m terrible at them. Learning controls is a nightmare and a tunicate evolving its own brain would learn faster than me. If I’m aiming, I can’t hit the broad side of a barn. I have the direction sense of a whirligig beetle on the back of a drunk pigeon. I die fast and I die often. I can count the number of games I’ve actually finished on one hand. Even less if we don’t count the ones I had to use cheat codes to get through. But none of that diminishes my love of experiencing them, and over this whole pandemic and quarantine thing I’ve had a lot of time to unpack and mull over my thoughts and feelings and passions about them.

… I moved my RV to a new spot literally the day before the lockdown in my state first initiated. Before this I was in a spot that had no internet other than what reception I could get on my phone, with severely limited bandwidth and patchy, unreliable service. The new spot has a steady wi-fi connection, and while upload speed is utter shit, downloading and streaming video are just this side of manageable. So I spent the first three months of the quarantine lockdown doing pretty much nothing other than watching Jacksepticeye, CrankGameplays, and Markiplier play video games on YouTube. (I honestly had no idea before this that people even did let’s plays. My internet access/speed has been shit for so long I’m totally out of the loop).

It… for fear of sounding utterly stupid yet again, it inspired me.

Like. These people really love what they’re doing. They just. Play video games and have fun with it, and I mean yeah they make money hand-over-fist doing it but the main thing is they HAVE FUN doing it. They have fun! Playing video games! In front of people! It’s wild. And the thing that REALLY got me was… they have feedback on it too. They have a COMMUNITY. They have people they can talk to about it. They have people that they can play games WITH, even, who don’t yell at them or tell them they suck every five minutes or tell them they can’t play with them because they’re worthless as teammates. They can fuck up in a game and their friends are laughing along with them on Discord instead of screaming at them to get it right or get out. They can play games by themselves in their house and then upload videos on the internet and then they can talk to other people about it! They have fun! It’s awesome! They have fun!!

I just. It meant so much to me. It meant so much to me to see these videos of these three, and then another dozen or so that I’ve followed since, play all these games and have such a good time and also be such a positive and kind and encouraging source of energy.

I know all of this is not exactly about video games specifically. It’s about coming to terms with how I’ve been treated as a person and as a friend, about how other people respect someone’s interests and passions, about how it’s okay to share your interests with other people and it’s okay to like things that other people might not care about or think are important.

And I’m so, so tired of not doing the things I love because I’m afraid of what other people will think.

So I, uh. I invested all of the stimulus money I had into a new rig and equipment like a camera, lighting, acoustic panels, all that shit. I dug out all the games I bought but never played, I made accounts on all the big gaming services like Steam and Itch.io and GoG, and I made a YouTube channel. And I’m going to be making my own let’s plays. And it will suck, and it will be cringy and awkward and badly done, and it won’t make me money or be a valid career option or be anything but another very expensive hobby, but it will be mine, and it will be something I can share with people and (hopefully) have fun with, and it will (hopefully) be an avenue for some of this positive social interaction I’m craving.

I know YouTube can be toxic and super negative and full of trolls and cancel culture fanatics and people just waiting to find something to tear you down for, but like. Come on, y’all. I’m posting this on tumblr dot com. Toxic is everywhere anyway. I just want to try, you know?

I just want to love video games again.

Someone famous that I look up to so, so much told me – without knowing that I was even listening, without even knowing that I even exist – that if I enjoy doing something, to just go for it. To just jump in and do it, and if it works then it works, and if it doesn’t, what have I actually lost?

And I’m lucky enough to have four whole offline friends that I’ve mentioned this idea to, and each of them has said encouraging things like I’d have a good voice and face and style for making let’s plays. I honestly don’t know how true that part is, but on my good days I believe them. And they also said that I should go for it, to just try.

So that’s… that’s what I’m doing, I guess. I just want to try.

I know it’s not Star Wars fanart. I know it’s not Star Wars fanfiction. I know it’s not Star Wars meta or essays or ranting about the Sith and the Jedi and the Force. I know it’s not what y’all want from me. And that’s utterly terrifying. I’m bracing myself to be alone on the internet again, because I know that when I dive headfirst into this thing, it’ll eat away into the time that I normally might be spending doing writing or art, and it’s going to be something no one else wants to see and no one signed up for. And that’s partly why it’s taken me so very, very long to get started.

The other part is more physical. Of course as soon as I decide that I’m going to put my face on a camera is when my entire face goes to shit. I’m currently waiting on a potential diagnosis for mouth cancer, while already dealing with a severe jaw infection that’s causing my teeth and gums to rot inside my mouth. They already took part of my jaw, I’m missing teeth, others are turning black, if I open my mouth even just a little it is so obvious and I look like a very, very literal zombie. I have never been more grateful that masks are socially acceptable. I have a series of twelve appointments scheduled to treat this shit now that I have dental and health insurance (goodbye paycheque), and I might qualify for reconstruction surgery too. But that doesn’t really help how I look right now.

So I just can’t bring myself to start this project just yet. I’ve been sitting on it for months now with all the other pieces in place, but I just. Can’t. Start. It’s driving me crazy, because I want to start so badly. I feel like I’m wasting time. I feel like I’ve already wasted so much time, because I haven’t even done anything else in the meantime. I haven’t done hardly any art or fanfic, nothing. My anxiety is spiking so high right now because I have all these expectations of myself, but I can’t do anything about it. I’ve been told that I could just start without a camera or wear a mask on screen, and I’ve actually done some recording doing exactly that, but I just… can’t seem to make anything I want to finalize.

It’s also frustrating because I have no way of uploading anything at home. I’ll have to go over to my partner’s house which is nearly an hour’s drive away in order to get internet good enough to upload videos, which means that upload schedules are going to be shiiiiiit and that’s also frustrating.

But. But. BUT. I want to do this.

I want to do this so badly. I want to share let’s plays and experience a love of video games with other people. I want to actually play games with other people too. I also just acquired a piano keyboard, and I want to play again on the regular because I miss it so much. I used to play piano for hours every single day, it’s so relaxing and fun, maybe I can post that too. Maybe I can post let’s draws or something, where I ask y’all what to draw and then make a video of me drawing it while bullshitting to the camera I don’t know it sounds like fun. Maybe I can post videos of my cooking because the shit I make seems to be everyone’s favourite thing on instagram, and maybe I can take my camera with me when I go to the ocean or hike up into the middle of nowhere in the mountains and film how beautiful everything is up there. Or maybe I can do none of that and just focus on one thing, I honestly have no idea what I’m doing or how to do it, but I just… I want to try. I just want to try.

I don’t know where any of this is going anymore. I’m sorry I haven’t responded to messages, or opened up commissions. I’m sorry that this isn’t what y’all wanted. I’m still going to continue drawing and writing, I’m still going to be around, I’m not going anywhere, but I have no idea how prolific I’m going to be and I have no idea even when I’ll start uploading videos, to be honest. But I just. I’m just gonna try. It might still take me a while but I’m gonna try. Wish me luck. I love y’all.

#long post #psa #sarc speaks #sarc speaks a LOT #3k words worth of a LOT #I'm so sorry #OTL

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somewhere-between-red-and-orange · 3 years

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Hope you don't mind but this is a small rant about art/content thieves...

I was around on Deviant art back in 2008 when it was bare bones, and let me tell you back then it was a lawless land (think art thief's everywhere). I learned how to code on basic sites that were set up back then like myspace (actually Archive of our own is still set up like the old classic deviant art too tbh) The nostalgia for old sites I get from going on Ao3 makes me happy. Lol anyway this meme is to say I had like a younger sibling of my friend message me (think they are around 16-17) and they asked me about the anime I liked and about what video games I like. When I told them about Undertale they said “Oh do you know what Archive of our own is? its a fanfiction...”(etc.) They started explaining Fanfictions to me and I was SWEATING lmfao. It got me back to thinking about when i was 16 the absolute power I had in my teenage emotional mess years was way too OP. If you know how to hack old sites, you know how easy it is even with the new code. Then she started to tell me about her art thief on DeviantArt.

I've encountered quiet a few people in the world over the last few weeks that be testing my patience, and my constant disassociation episodes/state are making me ascend to a new level of ‘try me’ xD Its one of those the real kindness isn't having the skill to filter IP addresses for the soul reason to block someone's whole Wi-Fi from access to a site, to effectively cut off all their devices from their bullshit... its choosing not to call upon those powers and abuse them. xD I CANT STAND THIEVES I've learned to control myself and give warnings first. But my siblings friend is having problems on DeviantArt with art thieves (Honestly I thought people would stop that by now) And I swear I'm having flashbacks and panic attacks cause they are using the same tactics. (but now most of them are sneaky, at least in my day they were mostly trolls who would think crediting a re-color made things okay) Its not just her art, its her Photography AND her writing. Of course I’m outraged about all of it, but as a fellow writer? It hit a cord and I was so mad. Whatever little brat is stealing my friends little sisters stuff and only barely changing things up...stars help you >.< See, I told her I would keep an eye on it, as she said she wanted to see if she could get them to stop herself, and I applauded her for that. However, I am not afraid to take down any account that girl tries to make for a year if she seriously thinks stealing ANY form of art and making it her own is okay. -^- little amounts of Inspiration and small coincidences are okay, I just encountered a few other writers who said they were inspired by me, BUT THEY ARENT RIPPING OFF ENTIRE PLOT IDEAS AND ELEMENTS, BECAUSE THEY HAVE RESPECT. Even if you forget to credit at first, if you recognize it and correct it its way better than just refusing?? From experience I know that shit is PAINFUL in any amount more than a handful of coincidences. She put so much hard work into her art and then this person takes it and posts somewhere else with a recolor and gets views or people thinking their the original artist of the fanart. Its not just ripping away credit, and hard work its spitting on it. Its why taking art from someone's page and posting it on a Facebook group with no credit or link to their work its not good, ITS STEALING. Its hard to justify this to younger artists/authors/photographers/musicians (etc.) but especially with fanart, (my friends little sis draws sonic fan art) where its her original drawings (she did not use a base or trace) when this someone steals it, its so painful to defend. ( I guess from what she told me their saying ‘its fan art you don’t own it Sega does’ and I'm sitting here like, If someone took all of the Twilight books and set it in a different universe it would still be their art, their story. OH WAIT THAT DID HAPPEN ITS CALLED 50 SHADES OF GREY AND ITS A WHOLE DIFFRENT THING.) For example, my fanfiction uses the appearance and general backstory of characters, with the personality's of the characters being a wide gathering of many different degrees of influence. Sure all humans have souls, but I implemented and expanded greatly on the lore. I once read a fanfiction that mentioned the MC could shoot bullets out of her soul (a nod to the first fight with mettaton) and it was wonderful. I sat there thinking how cool it would be to use that element, but I came to the conclusion It would be my responsibility to ask them for permission first. I was too nervous to ask but I went with the basic respectful rule, If you think the original artist wouldn't be okay with it, THEN DONT DO IT. Some artists are TOO NICE TO TELL YOU STRIGHT OUT THAT YOU ARE PLAGERIZING/COMMITING ART THEIFT. You are taking their work and saying “okay I’m gunna pass this off as my own for as long as I can before people realize its a recolor/stolen/repost. Its DECEATFUL and its LYING you are hurting a hardworking artist. My friends sweet little sister being one of them, 😭 So listen, most artists/authors/songwriters would not mind if you did a spin off, but there is a reason we don't have to say sonic belongs to sega and undertale belongs to toby fox on archive or deviant art, BECAUSE ITS ALREADY TAGED SO EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. However NO ONE KNOWS A SMALL ARTIST/AUTHOR/MUSICIAN. Therefore If you want to use the same pose, clothes, color schemes (this one is debatable and it gives me a headache) setting, vernacular, AU (that isn't just like mafia, school, futuristic a.k.a the common obvious ones) magic systems time period, etc. YOU CREDIT AND LINK THE CREATOR. even if it is another mafia AU setting or for example a new sonic species someone came up with, If it walks, talks and quacks like a duck ITS A DUCK so SAY THAT. Its one thing if it really is a coincidence, there are only so many combinations of things, so I understand it can happen. BUT IT IS OBVIOUS WITH RECOLORS, not to mention this thief of my friends little sisters art came out and SAID SHE STOLE IT??? LIKE??? If you know its someone else Ideas/species/pose, for the love of god ASK THEM OR LINK THIER ART PAGE/ART THAT INSPIRED YOU. Its hard to gauge with new comers to fandom stuff but basically you could argue she isn't being original because her art is fanart of something, but we all know that isn't right. Her art is art too, but her art is nothing that's been done before its a new style and species entirely. Its ORIGINAL ART, BECAUSE its separated by the source material in at least 4 degrees, in the art world this makes it considered Original again. Its something many novice creators don't understand in the beginning and that's why I’m here to educate. If It gets to the point where its matter of opinion, so I’ll say this....Speaking from experience again, my friends little sis, me and every other artist I'm sure, WE WOULD RATHER YOU COME TO US AND ASK FOR THIER HELP ON YOUR OWN ART/PHOTO/STORY/WORLD-BUILDING. I swear some of these people spreading hate/ignorance on all kinds of sights really do make me wanna be a internet vigilante again idk. Its one thing to be kindly inspired and credit and ask and not copy ideas that aren't just part of the fandom, but new and original ones the small hardworking artist makes, she would be mortified if she knew I went on this rant, she is shy but that's exactly why i felt so passionate about this. Anyway long story short if you couldn't tell by this rant I'm fucking unhinged and I and my army of bored adults with knowledge of code and nothing better to do will take your stolen art down. Message me if you got a troll that need’s de-platforming/bootin’ lmfao

#somewherebetweenredandorange

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cy-fi-theansweris42 · 5 years

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The Good, the Bad, and the IDK How To Feel About That of: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016) (Part 2)

(Continuing from where we left off)

Good: THE ENTIRE BIT WITH CASEY V. SPLINTER! How you see Raph and Mikey look at each other with mischief in their eyes before trying to look serious, how Leo laughs for just a moment before trying to be the serious leader again and trying to get them to stop, and then how they all just look on in amusement when Casey charges Splinter, it’s all wonderful! Plus with Splinter’s “giant rat one, new guy zero” YOU KNOW he heard them and played along. I love it all.

Bad: Casey only ever saw the truck from the front, so how would he recognize the Tartaruga Brothers logo?

Good: Just give me an entire movie of Donnie doing science stuff, it’s all I need in life.

Good: Leo’s head shake and smile when Donnie’s rambling about science stuff (I’m ignoring the initial eye roll)

Good: AUGH, HOW DONNIE INSTANTLY STOPS BEING EXCITED ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF BECOMING HUMAN, COMING UP WITH REASONS WHY WHAT LEO’S SAYING MAKES SENSE, IT HURTS MY HEART SO GOOD JOB MESSING WITH MY EMOTIONS

Good: Leo’s sword training is AWESOME (I’m jealous, high-key jealous)

IDK: You guys haven’t finished that Christmas album yet? It’s been a year, lol

Good: I really like how instead of just charging in, yelling about how Leo didn’t tell them about the ooze, Raph leads up to it, talking about honor which he knows is important to all of them.

Good: THE LOOK ON RAPH’S FACE, LOOKING AT LEO LIKE “Did you really think we wouldn’t find out”

Good: YOU CAN SEE THE EXACT MOMENT LEO REALIZED WHAT RAPH IS TALKING ABOUT AND IT JUST SCREAMS “oh shit” THIS BOY KNOWS HE DONE MESSED UP

Bad: You tell people about this stuff Leo

Bad: You did not consult with Donnie, you told him what to do

Bad: “There’s only one vote that counts in this family, mine.” LEO NO

Good: Donnie nerding out about the museum, same

Good: Donnie rambling on about science, his mind whirling at a mile a minute while he figures out what’s going on, freaking heck they did so well with Donnie in this movie

Good: Knowing that portals work both ways (it’s like Hawkeye from Avengers all over again)

Good: April knowing something is up with Raph and Mikey doing stuff without Leo and Donnie, but rolling with it

** “Who you calling chicken, turtle?” Oooooh, sick comeback Jones (not)

Good: I feel like all the comments about Casey not being buff or anything is them joking about Amell’s role in Arrow, because at this point the shows been going on for like…4 years, and he’s freaking jacked in that show, plus I’ve seen this guy run through an American Ninja Warrior obstacle course like it’s nothing. If this is them making jabs at that, then that’s hilarious.

Good: I love Raph and Mikey trying to get through police headquarters by themselves, like A for effort you guys, you’re doing so well.

Good: ‘Heroes in a half-shell’ jingle again and Donnie sounding happy that Mikey’s calling him and then instantly going into big brother mode and telling Mikey that they’re on their way.

IDK: THEY’RE NOT MONSTERS AND I KNOW THIS IS JUST HAMMERING HOME THE WHOLE ‘they wouldn’t be accepted’ THING WHICH IS WHY I’M NOT MARKING THIS AS BAD BUT HOLY FREAKING HECK AM I PISSED AT THAT COP!!!

Good: Mikey’s soft “we’re not monsters” SOMEONE GIVE THIS RAY OF SUNSHINE A HUG, HE DOESN’T DESERVE THIS

IDK: I really don’t know how to feel about Leo’s reaction to Mikey feeling hurt by what the cop said. I really don’t.

Good: Mikey sounding genuinely happy for Bebop and Rocksteady “achieving the power of flight”, lol, pure bean.

IDK: Is Raph only afraid of jumping because of the lack of things to grab on to or something, he jumps around New York and off of buildings no problem.

Good: DONNIE JUST CASUALLY WALKING OUT OF THE PLANE

Good: All of their reactions to Donnie just jumping, lol

Good: “Prepare for the ouch!” AND THEN THEY ACTUALLY SAY OUCH WHEN THEY HIT THE PLANE, LOL XD

Good: Mikey’s reaction to seeing a giant warthog and rhinoceros that he knows they’re going to have to fight is just the single “HEH” awkward laugh, I love it

Good: Donnie just holding onto the part of the Arc Capacitor and telling everyone who’s fighting around him to watch it, lol

Good: IF YOU LOOK IN THE BACKGROUND AFTER ROCKSTEADY FIRES THE TANK, YOU CAN SEE LEO JUST GIVING HIM THIS LOOK AND THEN HE JUST RAISES HIS ARMS LIKE “are you serious right now”

Good: Donnie’s “I’m doing awesome”, yeets the control stick away, lol

**Bebop, don’t tell me you’re thinking you can outswim a turtle, please

Bad: I hate how much wire was used to run the camera feed to the box, it’s so inefficient and an absolute waste of wire.

Good: Once again ‘heroes in a half-shell’ jingle being used because the job was successful, I love how much Donnie uses this little ring tone for things.

Good: I hate conflict but it’s very well done right here and I just want them to stop fighting, so bravo making me feel emotions again.

Good: Donnie instantly jumping to Mikey’s defense with a “how could you!”

Good: The Chief just says “well-played” in response to Casey having picked her pocket to steal her phone, big mood

IDK: I want to know how Donnie hacked the Technodrome, like is it just one giant Wi-Fi hotspot, how did he even connect to it?

IDK: How does he know the atmosphere is toxic, just give me a little explanation, please

**I want to know how that ooze works, full injection causes full permanent mutation, drops of slightly re-engineered version causes very temporary changes lasting only a few seconds, and apparently one sip changes external appearance but not internal systems. Does it have to physically enter the body via injection or ingestion in order to make permanent changes? (assuming it would permanently change their appearance, that could also be temporary, but if it was then wouldn’t Donnie say that?) Why would it start externally and work inwards when it would first make contact with internal systems? (so many questions, I just want to know how it works, I love science stuff)

IDK: And Raph just made the decision for everyone without asking…just like Leo did

Bad: PUT DOWN THOSE GUNS I SWEAR

Bad: EVEN AFTER SHE SAYS TO HOLD THEIR FIRE THERE’S STILL COPS POINTING THEIR GUNS, STOP IT

Good: I LOVE THEIR LITTLE TEAM UP THING ACKNOWLEDING EACH OF THEIR DIFFERENCES!

**A footnote in the history of the Foot clan, ba-dum tss

Good: “When something bad happens, you want to be with the turtles!” Lol, Vern’s got it figured out

Bad: Why is Shredder surprised about being betrayed by Krang when he just betrayed Stockman?

Good: I’m pretty sure in the area where Krang puts Shredder, you can see a Triceraton and I love the reference.

Good: I love Casey’s “well do you wanna switch?”, he sounds so done

Good: “chewed up piece of gum with a face” is the best description of Krang that I’ve ever heard

Bad: The way Vern jumps down on that Foot ninja, like come on, the dude saw him and still didn’t do anything!

Good: “He is literally re-arming” Lol, very true

Good: Excellent use of momentum when Leo nearly gets thrown off the Technodrome and just swings back around, I love it

Good: When Donnie finds the beacon, just slowly realizing that it’s way out of reach, lol

**I’m so sorry, more science rambling: Would removing the beacon from its spot instantly start messing with the construction of the Technodrome, like are each of the pieces set to assemble in a certain order at certain distances from the beacon, meaning that once assembly has begun and the beacon gets moved, the pieces would suddenly try to readjust? Or is it a more general signal and the pieces know where they’re supposed to connect with room for error, which is why the signal needs to be outside the Technodrome in order for assembly to stop? (I just want to know how it works 😭)

Good: I LOVE how instantly they’re all each going after Krang the moment he has Mikey, saying how nobody messes with Mikey, and I swear, there’s a little bit of extra sass with how they move their weapons after taking Krang down, like a “that’s what you freaking get”. Like, at the end of the day, they’re protective of their baby brother and heaven help anyone that tries to hurt him.

Good: THEY GET KEYS TO THE CITY

Bad: “I think you should give people more credit, they’ll accept you now.” SAYS THE PERSON THAT WAS INITIALLY CALLING THEM MONSTERS WHILE HER OFFICERS POINTED GUNS AT THEM. “You could live a normal life, like the rest of us.” YOU KNOW HOW PEOPLE ARE, STOP GIVING THEM FALSE HOPE!

Alright, that’s the entire movie. Honestly, I love it a lot more than the first, there’s so much good stuff in this movie, you can see how they’re teenagers, so much more Donnie (after a severe lack in the first one…I’m also very biased since he’s my favorite, lol), and the sibling relationships between the turtles is great. Time for a tally.

Good: 69.90% (72 goods) Bad: 20.39% (21 bads) IDK: 9.71% (10 IDKs)

(I hear there’s plans for another one…I can’t wait to see how that turns out, lol)

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hollands-poppet · 6 years

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Dancing with Our Hands Tied Part 5// Tom Holland x Reader

Summary: Tom Holland is your best friend and your roommate, but you both have undisclosed feelings for each other.

Word count: 3K 💛

A/N: Okay, so this probably the shortest part to date, and maybe the most boring in my opinion lol i tried to make up for all the angst from the previous chapter hahaha but yeah this part is just really setting up for part 6

Warnings: cussing I think, didn’t proofread this at all..

Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Tom took a sip of his tea that he had prepared for him and Harrison, throwing his feet up on the living room table.

“I’m sorry about your Spider-Man stuff mate, they literally cleared all of your shit.” Haz blew into the tea before he took a sip.

“I don’t really care about that stuff..I have a bunch of more storage units full of Spidey stuff..I only care about her right now.” He takes his feet off of the table and sets the tea on it, his hands rubbing together so he could warm himself up.

If Tom had learned about anything these last couple of stressful hours is that he fucked up. A hundred percent, he messed up. He should’ve just shut his mouth out in London and been happy that you had wanted him. How upset he was at himself, and the anxiousness he had been feeling was still lingering around.

Haz took a bite of the IN-N-OUT burger that he had been craving since they had landed, his mouth biting into the bun while he nods in his friend’s response. He wipes his mouth with a napkin, “Mm, what are you going to do mate?”

“Well, we can’t live here..it’s not safe anymore.” Tom responds as he pulls up his sleeves, “I just want to be around her 24/7 since I basically pushed her away back here.”

Haz takes another bite of his burger, “So are you coming back after filming Spider-Man?” He chews while he reaches for the soda that is on the table and takes a sip, the carbonation burning his throat.

Tom scratches at his root, “I am but not without her..” His hand drops onto his thigh and laces his fingers togethers, “I’m gonna ask her to come back with me.” He puts his lip into a tightline, and looks down.

His best friend swallows the other bite he had taken from his burger, “She’s probably scared mate, why wouldn’t she come back with us?”

Tom licks hit bottom lip, “I don’t think you understand mate..” he clears his throat, “ I’m gonna ask her to live with me back in Kingston..”

Haz nearly chokes on the soda he has in his mouth, “What’d you mean?” You think she would would even leave LA for you?”

And that was a question that Tom couldn’t even answer, he wanted to obviously say yes. He wanted to say yes and agree that she would jump into his arms and just fly back with him but he really didn’t know. So he just shrugged his shoulders, and let out a stressful sigh “I-I don’t even know mate..”

“Tommy?”

The both of their necks snap to the hallway, the figure of Y/N standing there. She was leaning against the wall, her right hand holding her up by the wall while her left hand rested at her side while she let out a crooked smile.

Tom quickly shoots up from the couch, his hands reaching for her hands “Y/N..you should be laying down.”

She gladly reaches for his hands but instead holds onto the back of his forearms for support, “I can’t sleep. I was just wondering if you would come lay down with me?” Her tired eyes keeping eye contact with his, his heart slowly repairing as he notices she is trying to over work herself.

It seemed liked her to act like she was strong but he knew she was probably hurting, “Yeah, yeah of course.” He looked back at Harrison who began to start chomping on his second burger, “I’ll be in Y/N’s room if you need me.”

She looks over Tom’s shoulder and at Haz, “I’m sorry for taking him away from you Haz, you’re welcome to use our wi-fi and Netflix.” The blonde nods his head while chewing his burger, he hovers over his mouth to cover his food “Thanks Y/N, feel better!”

Y/N and Tom turn around to start heading down the hallway but Y/N makes a whimpering noise as she takes a step forward, “My side is beginning to hurt.” She puts her hand on hip as she holds onto Tom’s shoulder, “Sorry, I’m gonna be a minute..” She lets out a soft, tired giggle.

Every time Tom thinks he is feeling slightly better about this whole situation, his heart breaks at every effort Y/N tries to act like she is okay. One of his hands moves to her hip, “Here Y/N, let me-” His free hand lands right behind her thighs and he lifts her from the floor, her harms immediately wrap around his neck.

“I’m sorry for being so slow.” She lets out a small giggle as head drifts into his shoulder. He shakes his head, “Don’t apologize, I just want you to experience the least amount of pain.”

He moves through the hallway, and puts himself in a weird angle so that they fit through the door, “I just don’t want you to hurt yourself, you know?” Once he makes it to the side of her bed, he lets her down really carefully..he is really paranoid of making her hurt in anyway.

“Tom, this isn’t your fault.” She reaches for his hand as he brings up the sheet to about her waist, “Hey, hey..Tom.” His chin is grabbed by her hand and pulled into her view, both of them at eye level now, her hand moves from his chin to his cheek and slowly make it’s way into his hair.

Her fingers getting tangled within his curls, “Those people that broke in..it’s not your fault.” She sighs as her hands unlace from his hair and onto her stomach. She takes a deep breath adjusting to her her position on the bed, Tom stares at her so carefully.

He studies her and how fragile she is..physically and mentally. He had hurt her mentally and the people that broke in.. they hurt her even more than she already was. He is knocked out of his trance by her sweet voice, “Well...aren’t you gonna join me?”

He looks down at the woman he was in love with, her hands reaching up for him..her eyes wandering a bit because of her medication. He starts to make his way around to the other side of the bed, his steps slow.

He tugs at the sheets, so that he could get under them with her. Hesitance running through him but he decides to just got for it, he was really just afraid of hurting her again.

His right foot sliding under the sheet first, his body stiff as he lays on his back and face towards the ceiling. His energy giving off an awkward vibe, it wasn’t on purpose though..he just wanted to make sure he wasn’t pushing any boundaries.

He lay there, not sure what to do. His hands coming back from his sides and back to his stomach, nervously moving back and forth. He wanted to do something, he wanted to do something but he wasn’t sure if you were gonna but okay with it until you spoke.

“You can hug me if you want to.” His head immediately shot to her, she was speaking through her eyes closed. “I can feel you hesitating.” Her voice was low, still a bit raspy from all the yelling she had previously done.

“Are-” he gulped. “Are you sure?”

Her eyes shot open, “I still love you, you fool. Just hold me already.”

But he didn’t move. Even though she was telling him to hug her, he couldn’t move. His palms were still fidgeting back and forth, he wanted to do. Fuck, he wanted. His guilt deep down was holding him back and he knew that was what was stopping him.

She stay staring at Tom who was now looking up at the ceiling, his lips in a tight line because he was so nervous to be next to her but she didn’t call him out. She knew he probably felt a shit ton of guilt because of what happened between them but if she knew learned anything, it was that life was pretty short.

She wasn’t going to hold anything against Tom because her life just flashed before her eyes, and it just wasn’t worth it anymore. So instead of waiting for him, she moved first. “Fine, since you don’t want to hold me..then I’ll hold you.”

Y/N sat up slowly and moved closer to Tom, their hips now touching while her right arm wrapping around his waist while she brings her head to his chest. His hands stayed at his side, his heart rate picking up because he wasn’t expecting for you to come to him.

“Relax..it’s just me.” She says as she snuggles into him. He still didn’t hug back, and it was beginning to bug her. He wanted to apologize, and he decided that right now was that moment that he was, “Y/N..I’m so-”

“Tom please..” her voice cracked, not wanting to break out in tears. “I wanted nothing but for you to hold me while they..” she couldn’t even finish the sentence, the topic still being super sensitive. His arms finally made his way around her, her arms tugged around him so tight..her grip like if she was going to being pulled away at any moment.

His arm hairs shooting up from how cold she was, she wanted him to hold her tighter, “Tighter Tom..please.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” His curls rest on his forehead as one of his arms sway up and down her back. “You’re not..I promise.” There was a pause and Tom gave it a few seconds before he actually tightened his grip..she was so delicate right now that he was afraid of even slightly hurting her. But he did, his arms wrapped tighter. Her leg wrapping over him as she is brought closer into him, her face snuggling even more into his chest.

“Mmmm…” she breathes in his scent, “I missed you, Tom.” His hands running through hair as he finally was becoming more comfortable. His guilt was still settled deep within him but was starting to drain out. Not quick enough but it was, every time she continued to say that it was okay or that he wanted him to hold her. It made it easier for him to forgive himself for what happened.

So, he decided to let the nerves drain itself out with his guilt. “I missed you, too.” His chin resting at the top of her head, he kissed the top of her head quickly and re-tightened his grip making sure he wasn’t letting of her that night.

Tom woke up to an empty bed, he didn’t even give it a second for himself to stay in it any longer. He shot up and ran straight to the exit of her room, his hands gripping the frame as his head shoots out the door. That is when he noticed the light from the restroom door was peaking out of the bottom crack, he got closer to the door to listen. For all he knew, it could be Harrison in there.

He walked up to the door, and set his ear quietly against the frame of the door. He could hear a slight hum, he knew it was her. He remembered mornings before where she would sing her lungs out in the shower, it had to be her. His heart rate was slowing down, and that’s when he hears Harrison talking on the phone in the kitchen. A yes, and understood being heard here and there.

Tom began to walk towards the kitchen, his blonde friend in sight once he was out of the hallway. Haz immediately hung up the phone once he saw his friend, it was just convenient that he had finished his conversation on the phone.

“Mate, I got some bad news.” Haz remarks as he jumps off the kitchen counter, his phone and water bottle in hand. Tom’s hand runs through his hair, stress already weighing on him.

“So, your publicist made Z and Jacob stay back. The story about the break in already leaked to TMZ, so it’s best that not more attention is shined on you and Y/N.”

Tom rolls his eyes in frustration, he knew that Z and Jacob would already help Y/N so much with recovering from the incident that happened to her. He began to pace in the kitchen as his friend continued to speak.

“Your publicist also mentioned that you and Y/N should go out and get some paparazzi photos snapped of you two, just so the public knows you both are okay.”

Tom stops in place, “You’re kidding right?” His facial expression becoming more frustrated, the crows feet by his eyes more defined. “I would never make her go out especially right now, she’s too fragile for that.”

“Maybe it would be better for me to get some fresh air.”

Both of the guys head shoot at Y/N, she stands in the hallway with some sweats and a sweater. Her wet hair wetting the sweater but she didn’t care, it didn’t bug her.

Tom left his friend by the kitchen counter and towards the girl he loved, “Are you sure? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

She tucks some wet hair behind her ear, “I mean.. Being anywhere is going to trigger me but if I’m with you both then I’ll be fine.” She doesn’t even give Tom a chance to respond and she shoots back to her room to finish getting ready.

Tom turns back around to Harrison and throws his arms in the air, “Bro, why didn’t you tell me she was standing there?!”

The blonde scratches his head and shrugs his shoulders, “I didn’t even see her.” The brunette puts his hands on his hips, “I’m just worried about her getting swarmed with questions, and just triggering her anxiety.”

Haz walks up to his friend and turns him back towards the hallway, “Just go and make sure she is sure about leaving the flat.” He gives him one more push making Tom trip forward, his balance knocked off a bit but he doesn’t fall.

He knocks on Y/N’s open door frame, “Y/N?” She is sitting pretty on her bed, criss cross style while looking through her phone.

“M’yeah?” She drops her phone on her lap and makes eye contact with Tom. He makes his way in, his nerves settling as he stops in front of her..his hands in his pockets.

“Are you sure you want to go out? I know that it’s probably gonna be hard for you.”

She sighs, her bruised eye lightened by now but still a bit tender “I just want to get out of here, being here just triggers a lot y’know? Being here especially is hard.”

Tom didn’t really grasp the idea of Y/N being scared anywhere she was, no matter where she was she was probably going to be feeling some type of way. “I just want to make sure that you’re okay with leaving the flat.”

“Tom, I promise I’m okay with it. Will I be okay out there? I don’t know..” He comes around and takes a seat next to her, his hand reaches for her hand this sits on her thigh. He lets out a crooked smile as he thinks of what he is going to say next, “Well, one look away and I’ll be right next you, I promise.”

She lets out a smile, and wipes away a tear with her sweater sleeve but no more words are exchanged by the two. Instead, she feels like Tom leaving London was a sign of how much he did actually want to be with her so she almost takes this as an invitation for her to lean and kiss him. God, she had missed him so much, she wanted nothing more than to just be in his arms all day.

She closed her eyes and began to lean in so that she could plant a kiss right on his lips but as her face got closer to his, he quickly moved and got up from the bed. When she felt him get up, her eyes immediately shot open and she tucked hair behind her eyes so she could hide her embarrassment.

Tom rubbed his palms together, “I’m gonna shower and get ready, I’ll see you in a bit.” And he made his way towards the door. Fuck, why did he do that is all he could think.

From the moment that the trio left the flat, Y/N’s anxiety creeped on her so quickly that she didn’t even realize how hard it was going to hit her. She stayed close behind Tom and Haz who walked next to each other while they walk towards the elevator.

Haz touches the button that summons the elevator, they all stand in silence awkwardly. Tom and Y/N occasionally making eye contact but looking away quickly, the unknown of their friendship making things weird between them.

The ding from the elevator making all of them shoot their attention to the the two sliding doors in front of them. Haz and Tom enter first, and then their backs face the back of the elevator. Y/N steps in and does the same, she is in front of both of them now..not really sure what to do with her hands so she brings them to her sides. You can literally cut the awkwardness in the small space because it was so thick.

It was a short ride which was good but it became more real for Y/N because of the waiting paparazzi outside of the building doors.

A/N: Soooo, what’s gonna happen next? Sorry if this wasn’t were y’all expecting…OKAY Y’ALL! PLEASE SOUND OFF IN MY ASKS! I’ll take any advice, theories, suggestions..please feedback is key! also love y’all, hope you’re enjoying this fic so far. Love ya -Amy 💛

#Tom Holland Fan Fiction #tom holland #tom holland angst #tom holland x reader imagines #tom holland x reader imagine #tom holland x reader #tom holland fan fic #tom holland x readerr #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #you x tom holland #y/n x tom holland #tom holland fluff #tom x you #tom x y/n #harrison osterfield x y/n

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inyournightmares97 · 6 years

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Hey hey hey! I am absolutely in love with your tomorrow, today series!! Gahh I just love it so much

A/N: Ahhh, thank you for loving Tomorrow, Today! I feel awful that I haven’t updated that in a while, but I’m halfway through writing the next chapter and it’s where everything unravels, so I promise it’ll be worth the wait!

I’m awful at making toast too! I’m not too bad at cooking, but I just get super-impatient having to wait for toast so I drift away and then forget about it, lol. Hope you enjoy this drabble! I’m sorry that it doesn’t have much of a plot, it’s just unadulterated fluff.

BadatCooking!Reader + Jaebum (GOT7)

Jaebum came running into the living room.

“Babe, what’s burning?” he demanded, eyes wide. His loose t-shirt was half-stuck into his pants and his hair was sticking up on one side. You could see pillow-marks on his cheek and it was clear that he’d just jumped out of bed. You stared up from your position, curled up on the couch while you scrolled on your phone.

“Huh?” you asked blankly.

Jaebum ignored you and hurried into the kitchen. You carefully unraveled yourself from the couch cushions and followed him, just in time to see him yank out the plug of the toaster. There was a burning smell in the air that you only just noticed. Jaebum tossed the toaster plug aside and then turned to give you a look of disbelief. You winced slightly, knowing what was coming.

“Jaebum…”

“That is the third time this week!” he said with a groan. He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Baby, just leave the toaster alone, it’s a miracle that the thing hasn’t short-circuited or something by now! Didn’t I tell you not to leave the kitchen when the toaster is on?”

You bowed your head in shame. “I… I was just googling some recipes for breakfast food…” you pouted, sticking out your lower lip. “The wi-fi doesn’t work well in the kitchen so I went into the living room…”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Stick out your lower lip and act all cute when you know you made a mistake,” he replied firmly. You smiled to yourself, knowing that Jaebum couldn’t resist when you acted cute. You stepped closer to him and wrapped your arms around his torso, pressing your face into his shoulder. He smelled nice, like laundry soap and a scent that was just him. You could tell that his stiff composure was cracking as you cuddled against him.

“Sorry,” you apologized sweetly. “I just wanted to make you breakfast.”

“And I’ve told you a million times, I can live without that. We could have just gone out for breakfast after I woke up,” Jaebum replied. He was trying to sound stern, but his tone was becoming softer. He wriggled in your tight grasp. “Yah. Can you let go now?”

You shook your head. “No. You smell nice.”

“Oh? You like how I smell but the entire kitchen smells like burnt toast and you don’t notice?” he demanded, managing to pull himself away from you. The corner of his lips were turned up, but he sighed. “So you nearly burned down our kitchen and woke me up. How do you plan to make up for this?”

You blinked at him. “I don’t know.”

“Clean this mess while I wash up and we’ll talk about it,” he said firmly, ruffling your hair lightly before disappearing into the bathroom. You sighed, carefully taking the burnt toast out of the toaster and throwing it away, before spraying some air freshener to get rid of the burning smell. It was actually rather strong, you weren’t sure why you hadn’t noticed it before. You cleaned up the counter and headed back into the living room, where Jaebum was sitting on the couch. He patted the cushion next to him and you plopped down.

“Are you mad?” you wondered.

Jaebum chuckled and wrapped his arms around you, pulling you into his side. You cuddled up comfortably against him and let your head rest on his chest. Jaebum was always cuddly in the mornings, no matter how cool he pretended to be.

“I was planning to sleep in today,” he told you.

“I’m sorry. I promise I won’t try to make toast again.”

Jaebum pressed his lips to your forehead and hummed lightly. He liked having you in his arms, and he wasn’t too angry about being woken up. He looked down and saw the miserable expression on your face before chuckling. He couldn’t resist it; you were too adorable.

“Don’t worry about it so much. I think it wouldn’t be a Saturday morning without you burning the toast,” he said lightly. “Are you hungry?”

You nodded.

“Okay. I’ll make eggs. Get up.”

“Five more minutes,” you mumbled against his chest.

He chuckled and leaned back against the couch, wrapping his arms around you more tightly.

#got7 #got7 scenarios #im jaebum #jaebum drabble #jaebum scenario #jaebum fluff #got7 imagines #got7 fanfiction #jaebum imagine #personalized drabble #got7 jaebum #got7 jb

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

Text

Hackers Dissect ‘Mr. Robot’ Season 4 Episode 8: ‘Request Timeout’

Episode 8 of Mr. Robot’s final season was intense. We discussed zip ties, phone restoring, location trackers, mixers, Elliot’s sloppy Python script, and the final hack [SPOILERS, obvs]. (The chat transcript has been edited for brevity, clarity, and chronology.)

This week’s team of experts includes:

Jen Helsby: SecureDrop lead developer at Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Jason Hernandez: Solutions Architect for Bishop Fox, an offensive security firm. He also does research into surveillance technology and has presented work on aerial surveillance.

Harlo Holmes: Director of Digital Security at Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Trammell Hudson: a security researcher who likes to take things apart.

Micah Lee: a technologist with a focus on operational security, source protection, privacy and cryptography, as well as Director of Information Security at The Intercept.

Yael Grauer (moderator): an investigative tech reporter covering online privacy and security, digital freedom, mass surveillance and hacking.

***

Yael: I want to start out by saying that I agree Momofuku is good.

Micah: In the very first scene, in 1995, when young Elliot is playing hide-and-seek and hiding something in the Queens Museum, I thought it was cool that he was running past all this retro computer equipment from 1995.

Trammell: Getting to the Queens Museum from 2nd avenue is a long haul on the F to the 7. And isn't Krista's place somewhere in upper Manhattan?

Yael: During the cab ride, I couldn't believe they were still showing videos of Tyrell after he's dead. But I guess I can't say I'm surprised if they put a lot of money into producing it. I mean, it IS Evil Corp. Also, shoutout to Krista. She got KIDNAPPED and KILLED someone and was still counseling Elliot after all that. Talk about emotional labor. (Or don't, lol, Twitter is a mess.)

Micah: Yeah, Krista is quite the badass. I also liked that when they got to the police station and Elliot was like, "I can't go in there with you," she was totally fine with it.

Dom and Darlene’s Kidnapping

Yael: So the Darlene/Dom kidnapping scene reminded me of a conversation we had in a previous chat about duress, and how you can program stuff to lock you out, but if someone's gonna start offing people, maybe you don't want to. Also, how do you get out of zip ties?

Harlo: About a week ago, I did this kidnapping simulation, which was actually pretty harrowing. Before you go into the scenario, they try to prepare you by teaching you how to get out of zip ties, handcuffs, and duct tape. Brief detour: zip ties are fun. While you can definitely just bust them by bringing them down with enough force onto your hip bone, more substantial ones require a long enough shoelace, which you loop through the cuffs, tether to your feet, then flop over and pedal like you're on a recumbent bike to slice through the plastic. Super fun. Great parlor trick. But when I did the sim, it was tricky to feel confident and safe enough—and unsurveilled enough—to attempt the escape, even if you knew how to do it.

Yael: Timing is really important. I think Dom had the sustained training and probably experience to really use it to her advantage, in a way civilians probably don't.

Harlo: Also, kidnapping sims that you do after one day of training DO NOT ever bring in the "cuntstick" with a baggie full of different torture knives. That would absolutely dampen your spirit as far as escape is concerned.

Micah: I just wanna say that Dom is a fucking badass.

Harlo: Yeah, she fucking nailed it.

Micah: Pulling the knife out of your chest and stabbing someone else with it, then shooting your captors.

Yael: That was awesome. It was cool that Dom had a plan, too. I was pretty disappointed that she didn't before. And now the license plate thing makes sense whereas before I was like, of course Dark Army is surveilling you; they own you.

Harlo: I have a nitpick. In the scene where Janice calls her bang-bang-bois over Signal. Didn't Signal at the time NOT play the regular phone ringing tone? Instead, it was this kinda cool radar sound? It used to have this amazing submarine radar sound. Also, Dom and Irish bastard are not using Signal. They were using regular-ass phone. But whatevs. I feel like a fucking walking ad for Signal nowadays. I must be absolutely insufferable.

Yael: I heard something recently about how Signal wasn't secure for people in China who use an Android keyboard.

Harlo: It's because sometimes your keyboard is a snitch. It's not a Signal problem per se, but by default, you might find yourself typing secrets into Signal that are captured by your keyboard, and then, anything goes.

Yael: Well, maybe Signal shouldn't allow external keyboards, or not have them on by default, hmm…

Harlo: In settings: there is "incognito keyboard," and if that's in your threat model, turn it on.

Yael: Do you think Darlene giving up her brother's location was the right call? Or his phone's location? She's basically trading his life for (maybe) saving Dom's family members' lives.

Micah: I don't know… it's kind of impossible to decide between who should get murdered and who shouldn't.

Jen: Mr. Robot's version of the trolley problem. I mean, a bunch of kids were gonna get killed. Sad, but a reasonable call.

Yael: Janice could just kill them anyway, though. It was hard to tell whether Dom thought Janice was gonna kill her family or knew they'd have escaped. But I can see why Darlene did it. I was surprised she didn't do it after Dom got stabbed. I want to know whether it's advisable to tell your armed kidnapper to eat shit, then die.

Micah: She gets my respect for it.

Yael: I've had a crush on Darlene since Season 1. Even if she is a murderer.

Jason: I think it's hard to consider Janice a credible person to negotiate with. She seems unreliable… why would Darlene expect to survive, even if she does everything Janice wants?

Yael: Yeah, that's why I wasn't sure it was a good call.

Micah: Yeah, she's terrifying because she's an unreliable psychopath.

Harlo: There are different classifications of kidnappings. What we saw on Mr. Robot was NOT the most prevalent one, which is just about squeezing money out of someone whose family/loved ones might have it.

Phone Restore

Micah: I think when Darlene wiped her phone, she actually wiped it for good and didn't have a way to recover the data again.

Trammel: The secure element or TrustZone stores a key that is inaccessible to the user. If it gets cleared, then the Flash memory is as good as erased. How did she recover it?

Micah: I don't think she could have restored it, not without taking a backup of the phone first. But when you take an Android backup, the Signal app doesn't back anything up, so she would have lost Elliot's location even if she did restore a backup. I think instead she just installed her hacked Signal client again, and got pinged from Elliot's phone again. That's the only way I can see that working.

Harlo: I don't even think that Darlene would need her Signal mod; Elliot's was modded only to ping with his latitude/longitude periodically. So all Darlene needs is Signal.

Micah: True. Her hacked Signal client must not care about safety numbers—something we talked about last week. Elliot's Signal client could decide to not trust Darlene's number again if her safety numbers changed, but it looks like that wasn't the case.

Harlo: Yeah, I guess there was no safety measure like, "do not ping if safety number has changed" baked in; too bad!

Yael: Darlene got sloppy! Or maybe it was intentional, in case she had to ditch her phone.

Micah: It takes a lot of trust to put an app that tracks your location on your phone.

Yael: She grabbed Elliot's phone from his hand and put it on for him.

Harlo: Signal wasn't available as a plain old APK then… unless you built it from the source code. But it didn't look like Darlene had a computer with her.

Micah: She had a shortened URL to download her modified APK. Also, it's possible she just logged into a Google account and downloaded from the Play store.

Harlo: Ah, then that would be most expeditious. What I'm curious about is how she restored it. Like, if you need to use the Play store, you need a Gmail account. Or F-droid.

Location Tracking

Yael: I thought Janice had a good point when she said, "You didn't give me your brother's location; you gave me his phone's location." A lot of drone operators should learn the difference.

They seemed like they were outside of Krista’s house. How good is this geolocation tracking? Is it just a general location based on the device’s proximity to cell phone towers, or can it locate the exact floor in the exact apartment?

Jason: Geolocation on phones is flaky, especially if you're in an "urban canyon" like NYC where you don't have good line of sight to satellites. Phones also use Wi-Fi data and cell tower data to identify where they are, but it's not perfect.

Yael: Companies like Skyhook Wireless can provide very specific location data based on hotspot IP addresses. They have these huge databases that correlate hotspot locations with the IP addresses. They use a combination of direct hotspot scanning and the cooperation of app “partners” who pass along hotspot IP data from users as they connect. But I dunno if Darlene would subscribe to Skyhook; it's hella expensive.

Jason: Those location databases aren't super reliable. They'll give you a latitude and longitude that is precise but not necessarily accurate.

Micah: Android has two location permissions, "coarse" and "fine." I believe "coarse" location works without GPS and instead relies on Wi-Fi access points the phone can see, combined with Google's massive database of Wi-Fi access points it knows about, and "fine" uses GPS. I think she would use the phone's built-in location services.

Yael: How fine is fine?

Micah: I guess it depends on where you are, but if you take out your phone, open your maps app, and click the button to zoom in to where you are—that's how fine.

Jen: Kashmir Hill has done some nice reporting on some of the unfortunate situations that arise due to errors in those geo-IP location databases.

Yael: I was thinking about this recently with Protonmail. It has this new privacy feature that's supposed to remind your phone to wipe local data if you enter a certain area. But it looks like it would only work if you were right in the center of the country, and it seems like it’s hard to change the radius precisely.

Elliot’s Hack

Harlo: Elliot's stressed. Print twice?

` “print out

Jen: Yeah, he had some syntax errors in that script. SyntaxError on line 16 (first line in the coinCoins() function).

Trammell: The main call is cleanCoins(), but his cleaning function that passes them through the tumbler is named coinsCoins. And since Python doesn't check that when it compiles code, it might cause a runtime error. Hopefully Elliot doesn’t lose all his coins, like when Sonic hits an enemy.

Harlo: I was totes gonna drag him for that, but I gotta check the tape again; perhaps cleanCoins is above the fold and we don't see it.

Trammell: Sonic collects rings, not coins. Please disregard my attempt at a nerd reference and deduct one from my score.

Image: USA

Micah: One of the print commands was Python 2. The other was Python 3.

Harlo: In 2016, he was probably not using Python 3?

Yael: Elliot has been through a lot. Or maybe there were different personalities typing.

Jen: Mr. Robot is Python 2, Elliot is Python 3.

Yael: What is little Elliot?

Jen: He's that programming language for kids.

Yael: I learned the little Python I do know from the Python for Kids book, by the way. "A resource for the rest of us"?

Micah: Also, why is he using both os.system() and subprocess.check_output()… to call curl? You can make HTTP requests directly from Python.

Jason: Yeah, he should be using requests.

Jen: TFW your TV show doesn’t get permission to use requests, so you gotta subprocess out to curl.

Harlo: lol, they can't afford the rights to show requests. Also!

Did y’all notice the autofill? _main_ (one underscore). Somebody's been writing some non-working code that they're hoping to deploy under duress… Also no pep 8, but hey, what are ya gonna do?

Micah: To be fair, he was in the middle of writing that script, and super stressed out, and clearly hasn't tried running it yet. So maybe we're not being fair. I have typos and broken stuff in my unfinished code all the time.

Jen: Yeah, we're just being annoying. It looks hackery enough for the show. We're just giving the readers of this article what they want: line by line code feedback. If I know anything about normal humans, they love Python programming.

Yael: I don’t think he’s slept in many episodes, either.

Jason: If he was doing real development, he'd have Stack Overflow up, and he'd be copy/pasting from it.

Harlo: Anyhoos, okay, we've got some curl with a cookie; and what are those other flags? Don't worry about SSL if it's not available? I forget…

[Python Image]

Yael: I just want Darlene to finish the hack because she "happens to be smart and good at things," as she said several seasons back. If this episode was Request Timeout, does that mean the next one is Conflict?

Oh, dumb question, but does Darlene actually need to find Elliot to finish his hack?

Micah: I'm not sure… I'm actually a little unclear on the details of the hack they're in the middle of doing, and how it works.

Trammell: Looks like the plan is to steal cryptocurrency and pass it through a tumbler to launder it.

Yael: Can we do an ELI5 about tumblers and mixers?

Jen: A coin mixer is a service you can move your coins through such that you can hopefully disassociate the coins with where they came from (which one would do if coins were illegally acquired). Like money laundering.

Trammell: The base64 doesn't decode to ASCII, unfortunately.

Image: USA

Harlo: What does it decode toooooooo? Shall I get out the CyberChef?

Yael: I don't understand how any of this works, tbh. Like, I know he's trying to steal crypto. CryptoCURRENCY.

Micah: This Python script that Elliot's writing isn't actually the full hack. It's not even exploiting anything. It appears to be laundering cryptocurrency. I think once they steal the money, this is how they're going to retrieve it without getting caught. But this script isn't actually stealing the money.

Jen: The other comment is valid. It looks like at some point he renamed a function during development and when the main() function runs, it'll crash with a NameError.

Micah: It looks like the final output of the script is a list of new wallet addresses that the money was ultimately sent to.

Jen: Presumably, he'd run this in test before moving millions of USD worth of coins through a mixer.

Hackers Dissect ‘Mr. Robot’ Season 4 Episode 8: ‘Request Timeout’ syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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parasaparaluman · 5 years

Text

Enchanted

I'm not saying that I'm living the best period of my life just yet pero having a wonderful girlfriend and the career that I almost really wanted makes it really tempting to say so. The reason lang talaga na hindi is because I'm pretty sure na there are much better days ahead (not being nega sa current). And with that kind of mix, I'm now able to go to places.

This year, we decided to have a trip out of town just before the rainy season has begun and at first, we decided on Batangas pero since fully-booked na halos ung decent ones (maganda yet affordable), nauwi kami with Bataan.

After hours and hours of canvassing, dun lang din pala kami babagsak sa isa sa mga nauna ko na icheck na beach resorts. It's Brisa Marina Beachfront Resort. We spent 4000 pesos and that includes the room that overlooks the beach and an infinity pool (which really is just perfect since your room, no matter how cheap or expensive has that an amazing view of the sea or.. ocean?) and a breakfast which ehh.. di nakakatuwa. It's a choice of only either Longsilog or Tocilog for the meal and free coffee for the drinks. The taste is just average while the amount is well, panglaman-tiyan. Was expecting a buffet sana much like what I've tried back at Ace Water Spa (damn, ang sarap talaga don) but instead nga, we're treated to something.. simple. Pasado pa sana if marami-rami ung serving such as may side dish pero wala eh. Naghahanap pa nga rin ako ng hot choco non since I no longer drink coffee but since waley, tubig-tubig nalang.

The reason why I overlooked this resort at first is because kala namin expensive. Judging by the same-priced ones kasi around the area, di mo talaga aakalain. Yung sa iba kasi, simple af lang na beachside. Para bang no budget or thought ung management na gawing picturesque ung place then ung rooms, para ka lang nasa cheap na motel around Manila.

Speaking of rooms, the one included sa 4k is just a small one pero may frontal view, from the bed, ng beach. Oh and, may balcony ha. Bawi sa size ng space sa room. However, syempre, may mga downsides din. May large mirror sa room pero lacking naman sa restroom. The restroom is clean and decent pero plain and small as well. There's hot and cold shower and may bidet as well. Yung water, overflowing naman (so no problem as well when you need to flush a big one) kaso frustratingly, it tastes salty. It's as if di na nagwowork that good yung filtration system. Bearable naman. It still seems clean pero tasting something salty while taking a shower is just bothering. There's a "cable" TV that's in fairness, a legit one pero I'd rather not say it is kasi sa sobrang limited ng channels sa subscription nila with Cignal, there's not even a single cable cartoon channel (bye, SpongeBob) nor HBO, etc. The television isn't big nor is in high-definition too. I kind of looked forward for this one pa naman since yun, yung cable, yung lacking during my Zambales trip. The design of the room is standard -- only with a subtle cues of a beach-y vibe but one in particular really caught my attention. Overhead the bed are patches of windows that serve as this kind of openness and lighting design which can be actually nice especially during nighttime. Kaso being able to have something open like that without an option to cover it up can be bothersome if it's privacy we're talking about. Thankfully, after we tried peeking through those patches of windows from the outside, wala naman ng kita since may third floor din yung room and the angle from the ground floor towards the windows makes it actually impossible pala talaga to see anything.

The food and the room. What about the experience you'd get from going to somewhere that far? Well, it's nice naman. The view is spectacular. The waves are already rough during this season pero you'd still be able to swim a few inches from the shoreline (as long as it's deemed to be by the lifeguards). The two swimming pools are small pero it's a-okay naman as long as di ganon kacrowded. It's clean althroughout the resort kaso nga lang, may mga dirt which I think are sand that's from the beach at the bottom of one of the swimming pools we've tried. Di naman sa kadiri pero sana by taking extra measures for the guests to unavoidably wash their feet before going to the rest of the resort from the beach will eliminate this kind of mess. Para lang bang yung puddle of water along the steps of the stairs or miski kahit signage nga lang. Wala kasi gaano eh. May iniwan lang silang tabo, balde, at hose. Eh alam natin na di lahat ng tao eh that diligent. May water activities sila pero given the season, di na namin inexpect na magtry. Mga snorkeling, island hopping at inflatables man. Yung bar above the newer buildings, we didn't know exist. Yung spa, di namin naitanong.. di bali, sa susunod talaga!

Lastly, getting there and the sulit factor of the whole experience. Hmm, it actually is. Biyahe namin is from Cubao to Olongapo via Victory Liner bus. Olongapo to Morong via jeep at the terminal in Harbor Point. And a trike from Nagbalayong, Morong to the resort. The trip from Cubao to the resort can be as long as over 4 hours (we left Cubao at 4am). Di ko lang alam how we would do if we tried an alternative route or even via roro sa may around Mall of Asia. We chose this one nga lang because it's familiar to us since ito yung same na daan namin nung Zambales trip and we wouldn't worry on our trip home kasi reserved yung bus seats namin. Olongapo to Morong nga lang can be tricky kasi we honestly only knew beforehand na basta sa "terminal" kami bumaba to ride a trike to the resort. It turns out na saying just terminal sa driver ng jeep wouldn't help kasi baka sa Balanga, Bataan pa kayo mapunta. That's so far from where you intended to drop off na. Thankfully nga lang, kahit naconfuse ung natanungan namin sa jeep, she's honest, well-informed, at dun din siya bumaba sa same babaan as ours. Plus, I would like to thank my phone din for loading the name of the bayan the resort is in kahit walang signal. Kung di dahil dun, we wouldn't reach the resort and God knows saan kami pupulitin non. We'd mess our weekend getaway that way. So yes, sulit. As I said earlier in this blog entry, compared sa ibang beach resorts nearby, this one is among the best (Morongstar has more activities you can partake to and sobrang sulit niya once nachempuhan mo yung promo nila but not having nga lang the same luxurious vibe as Brisa's). The food prices are fair enough and masarap naman din (or baka kasi gutom lang kami non and a sinigang during a cold rainy evening is just unbeatable). The staff are friendly and accommodating as well. Look no further then if Bataan din ang next na target niyo for your weekend getaway.

To add lang, to the resort, here's more on how you'd ante up it to be just the best. First, redesign, fix, and differentiate the newer buildings to the old ones. Paying the same price just for you to stay at the older buildings is quite unfair. Mas maganda pa naman sa newer ones since mas open yung buong room (giving it a very instagrammable scenery). But since they literally are with just the same layout, give them both a different look. May unique spots for picture-taking in this one and so are there in the other. And please fix yung red na kubo-ish. Sayang kasi, sira that time na pumunta kami. Di tuloy nakapagpicture doon.

Next is, improve your food in taste and in amount. A choice of buffet sa umpisa palang can be a great asset (make it triple buffets like in La Luz, Laiya in Batangas and mawawalan na ng business yung ibang resorts sa area lol). If not, allow then the bringing of foods inside without a corkage fee. Kahit leave nalang yung fee when it comes to alcoholic beverages. Snacks and non-alcoholic drinks lang kasi ang pwede ipasok ng walang babayaran. That.. and yung mga concerns ko sa room.. oh and, between the newer and older buildings, please make a pathway. Di yung bababa pa sa beach or lalabas sa kalsada just to cross. Can save a lot of time din. Wi-Fi! It's fast enough pero it doesn't cover half of the resort. Sayang naman. Be more responsive din pag may nagiinquire. They're you're potential customers, enebe. Natagalan at nahirapan din kasi kami non makapagpareserve.

That's it siguro? With all the requests that I have said, sana ienhance din nila yung Mermaid kind of tone that they want to give the resort by not having generic statues but with just a few of those logos and color scheme around the area.

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