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eov-blogs · 2 years

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Slow Mobile App? Why and How to fix it!

In this era where science and technology are advancing at a great speed, people do not have any patience or time to wait. You have to always remain active and alert to make sure you do not lose your users. It is true that most people don’t have the time or patience to wait to get a response from a mobile app.

The expected time for loading a mobile app is just two seconds; however, according to research, the rate of conversion reduces by 7% for every added second that an app takes to load. Thus, users cannot wait for the app to respond and leave that app without any second thought. Some reports even say that 48% of those users even stop using an app or uninstall it if it tends to be slow.

Hence, the most crucial task is to find the main reason why an app is slow. Only by finding out the main cause can you fix the issue or take the necessary steps to fix the problem and satisfy your customers.

Why mobile apps can be slow?

Some major problems that can make a mobile app slow and their solutions are:

The server speed is becoming sluggish

The sluggishness of your server speed is one of the common reasons why the website takes a long time to load. In may happen because:

You may face issues while accessing files from the disk, communicating instantly, running the application code, etc.

The server may become slow because of the multi-tiered infrastructure, which is crucial for the running of most modern applications.

To fix these issues, you can follow some methods:

You can try to take some load off your server by offering an extra reverse proxy server. This can offer several benefits and speed up web requests by offering SSL termination, compression, caching, etc.

You need to identify the interactions between different components of the application, which is called ADM or Application Dependency Mapping.

The app is not supportive or obsolete

If you are already into the app development business, you may be aware of how crucial it is to update the apps on a regular basis. No matter if you are using an iOS or an Android developer, you need to ensure that the app is designed on the updated version of your Operating System. For example, in the case of iOS, it has to be iOS 10 or 11, and in the case of Android, it needs to be Android Nougat or Oreo. Hence, if you are not updating your apps to become compatible with these versions or if you have an out-of-date version of the framework, your mobile apps can become slow.

The solution to this issue is optimizing and updating the software and choosing the updated app design and development-related trends. You should update your applications and test it to newer platforms to make sure it works properly with your operating system.

Chatty conversations.

This kind of problem can happen when the client makes multiple requests to perform a transaction instead of individual operations within the app. The use of virtualization enables you to build a virtual version of the resource or device, like the server, a storage device, or even the OS.

It can be that the team of the server has configured the server image that has been automatically migrated to a host that is loaded lightly because of virtualization. It can move the image of the server to another location so that it goes several milliseconds further away from your disk storage system or the server.

In order to fix this issue, you need to give a close look at the number of requests between systems where it has a link with the network. You can also check out delays between those requests.

Latency of the network

Your network speed can affect the speed of the mobile application to a great extent. If your network is slow, the performance of your apps will also become slow. So, to fix this issue, you need to check the speed of your network all the time and find out if the apps slow down.

Faulty software development kit and library

An app developer can be particular regarding making sure the best-in-class performance of the apps. However, there can be some issues with the Software Development Kit or SDK and the libraries offered by the vendor that is not in the control of the developer. Thus, it is important to look at the code of the third-party libraries to find out if they contain bugs or errors. If this procedure is not done accurately, the apps can become tardy eventually. Hence, it is important to make sure that you are using those libraries which are reliable, stable and secure.

Therefore, whenever you feel like your mobile apps are becoming slow, you can follow the above-mentioned tips to ensure their fast and accurate performance. If it al seems a lot for you, please feel free to reach out to us today! Our team of product development experts will assist you to build responsive and robust apps that will further propel your success in the right direction!

#mobile app development #Mobile Applications

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elsanna-shenanigans · 3 years

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April Contest Submission #30: Break Me Off

Words: ca. 3,000 Setting: mAU Lemon: no CW: none

“Can I try yours?”

Elsa’s head snapped up from the book she was reading to look to her left. Her baby sister was looking expectantly, her small hand outstretched and waiting expectantly, fingers wiggling in a grabby motion.

“Sure,” she answered with a smile, and passed her barely started dark chocolate KitKat on to Anna. “I don’t think you’ll like it though.”

Anna ignored that statement and immediately put the candy bar in her ‘some teeth missing transition period’ mouth, and bit off a sizable chunk. She chewed for a few seconds before her chocolate-covered lips twisted in a grimace, and she threw the KitKat back in Elsa’s lap.

“Ewww,” she said once she finally swallowed the bite (she at least had the decency to not spit it out like she used to a few years ago, something Elsa could bet would drive their father nuts if she did it in the new car), then gave Elsa the dirtiest look ever. “It’s so bitter! Why are you doing this to yourself…”

The last words were said with an overly-dramatic flair as Anna put her hand up to her forehead and pretended to faint like an old-timey movie lady on an ottoman. Which would work much better if she wasn’t stopped by the seat belt.

“It’s not that bitter to me.” Elsa shrugged as she picked up the discarded KitKat and continued to eat it as if nothing ever mattered. “You just still have a baby palate,” she said around a mouthful.

Anna blew her a raspberry, and her gaze dropped to Elsa’s book. “Whatcha reading anyway?”

Elsa swallowed the KitKat. “Harry Potter.” She flipped the cover to show it to Anna, who immediately started tracing and mouthing the letters of the title. “The fifth part comes out next week, so I wanted to re-read it before then.”

“Can you read it to me?”

“Later,” she lowered her voice and glanced in the rear-view mirror at their father’s concentrated face. It wasn’t the best idea to read–and have Anna interrupt with her loud comments–while he was driving. “When we’re settled at the hotel, I’ll read some to you.”

+++

“Hey,” Anna whispered, leaning over the wide armrest so she could reach Elsa’s ear. “You wanna try a bite of mine?”

She offered her the obnoxiously white KitKat, and Elsa immediately took it, as if its glow-in-the-dark properties could be seen by the row behind them. Without thinking much, she chomped down on the half-eaten candy bar. The overwhelming sweetness exploded in her mouth and seemed to coat her tongue with a thick, fatty film.

“You like it?” Anna whispered again, absolutely disinterested in the screen, her eyes locked square on Elsa’s face. “It’s kinda sweet, but I think I dig the white chocolate.”

Fighting through the nausea, Elsa finally managed to push the saccharine mush down her throat. “It’s absolutely disgusting,” she whispered back, then chuckled at Anna’s betrayed face. “I can see why you’d like it.”

Anna opened her mouth to say something (presumably snarky, she was hitting that age) in return, but an angry shhh came up from behind them. Elsa glanced at the people sitting in the back row and mouthed a sorry.

She turned back to the screen and tried to catch up on what she’d missed from the movie. So far The Goblet of Fire was proving to be worse than the previous parts, but she still wanted to know how they managed to work out the lake task of the Triwizard–

When Anna opened her mouth again just a few seconds later, Elsa stuck the white chocolate KitKat in it.

+++

“Hey, tradition!” Anna screamed suddenly as Elsa unwrapped her finals-study-motivation KitKat, almost making her drop it. “Lemme try!”

Elsa blinked. This was just the dark chocolate variety, one that she was sure she’d already let Anna try at some point in her life.

“You already–” But before she could finish, Anna’s shark jaws locked around the still barely unwrapped candy bar in Elsa’s hand with a loud crunch.

She munched for a moment, a thoughtful look on her face as she was considering the flavor. It quickly gave way to a disgusted scowl.

“Ew,” she said with a fake gag. “It’s as bad as I remembered.”

So Elsa did let her try it before. She rolled her eyes and half-heartedly swatted Anna away.

With a devious snicker and a hurried good luck with the exam!, Anna skipped out of the room and left her alone to study.

Elsa shook her head and finally returned her attention to her long-awaited snack award.

For some reason, the sight of Anna’s glitter lip gloss on the dark chocolate made her stomach twist.

+++

KitKats turned out to be the best way to go through her finals that year, and the next semester, and the next next semester, putting in the required fuel, feeling of accomplishment and the calories missing from not having time to eat proper meals.

It was also one of her little pleasures to find and test new flavors, especially those not available locally. It was Anna’s little pleasure to never say she wanted to order some for herself, and instead take bites off of Elsa’s, ‘just in case I don’t like it and don’t wanna finish!’

And over time it was one of Elsa’s little pleasures to look at the print of Anna’s lips on the chocolate and tenderly place hers on top to match the shape.

That little pleasure turned into a major curse when she realized she was daydreaming about placing her lips on Anna’s directly.

From then on, she would only buy the 4 finger breakable Kits.

+++

“I don’t really like this one,” Anna said around a mouthful of the Ruby cocoa KitKat. “It looks super cute, but it just tastes kinda waxy.”

Elsa shrugged. “Honestly, it’s just like the regular, but pink.”

“No, it’s different.” There was no point arguing with Anna on that. While Elsa preferred to try out new flavors, Anna has always been a hardcore true fan and real connoisseur of the regular Kit, so all she could do was to believe the expert. The currently pouting, cutely irritated expert. “Do you wanna finish mine?”

Elsa’s blood froze.

The whole point of the 4 finger Kits (which she personally considered inferior as the ratio of chocolate to wafer was just not quite on par with the single stick) was to not kiss Anna by proxy. Is what she came to call it.

But Anna was holding out the pink KitKat with a darker pink lip gloss outline in her direction, looking at her expectantly.

“N-no, I’m fine,” she answered a little too quickly and in a little too nervous of a voice. “I don’t really like it either,” she lied.

Anna’s brows furrowed. “I thought you said it tastes like the regular to you.”

Elsa could feel herself sweat. Damn, the stupid act of sharing a KitKat, something they’ve done since they were little kids was making her sweat.

Probably precisely because they’ve been doing this since they were little kids. Growing up together. Being sisters. Who should not want to kiss each other, yet there Elsa was, looking away from Anna’s perfect cupid bow glossy lips like a teenager (which she was definitely not anymore, on the final stretch to obtaining her bachelor degree) in love.

Her own lower lip felt numb from biting down on it. Fuck, she was in love.

“Yeah, but you’re right,” she said, mouth dry. She was in love and she was just now realizing this because of a stupid Ruby KitKat. “It is waxy.” Stupidly good Ruby KitKat that she was going to deny herself because her sister’s lips touched it and she would burn in hell if hers did too. “Just toss it out.”

Anna’s face looked like she just told her she actually was planning to vote on Trump for the pure fun of it, but she didn’t say anything.

+++

“Hey, I’m just about to head out– oh is that a new one?”

Elsa almost dropped the half eaten candy bar on the floor. She was not expecting Anna to come in her room any time soon, and like the true disgusting goblin she was, she decided to partake in her secret stash of imported KitKats.

Her dirty little secret stash of single stick KitKats that she couldn’t find in 4 finger format, and thus could not ever, ever let Anna know about because even if she ordered two pieces of each kind Anna would refuse to try an entire bar on her own.

‘I mean, what’s the fun in that? Half of the joy of KitKats is sharing!’

Not really seeing any way out of that, Elsa admitted defeat. “…Yes.”

“Oh, cool!” Anna bounced over excitedly to drop down on the bed next to her. “Oooh, white chocolate and peach? So fancy! Is it from Japan? It looks about the size of the Japanese ones I saw online…”

Her pure, genuine excitement only made Elsa feel even worse about hiding in her room like Gollum with his ring. Then, right as she was reaching for Elsa’s KitKat, Anna’s face and hand suddenly dropped.

“Wait…”

Elsa gulped.

“…you… you were going to eat it without me, weren’t you?”

She focused on the pattern of her carpet.

“Oh my god, Elsa! You stinker!” Anna sounded full-on betrayed, and Elsa could honestly not blame her for that. “I thought KitKats were our thing!”

Elsa blushed, for many different reasons. “I-it’s not like that,” she started explaining herself, fully aware of how pathetic she sounded. “It’s just cause you never want a full KitKat of a new flavor and I couldn’t find them in the sharing format–”

“So? I didn’t know we were suddenly only allowed to share the break-apart ones.”

Elsa sighed. Right, to Anna it didn’t make any sense, because Anna was a normal person who didn’t fantasize about kissing her sister. Or flustered about indirectly kissing her. “I-it’s just easier to portion…”

“I’m pretty good at portioning a bite, thank you very much.” She still sounded a little miffed, but she did smile towards the end– right before her eyes turned very round and glistening. “Did you eat many without me?”

Holy shit, she was looking like the pleading emoji and Elsa was at her wit’s end. “No!” she denied quickly and truthfully. “I-I bought more, but this was the first one I was going to try…”

Anna crossed her arms.

“Aaand now that you know about it I guess there’s no point hiding,” Elsa continued sheepishly. “I’ll uh– I’ll go to the kitchen and cut you off a piece.”

She stood up quickly, holding the KitKat like a relay sprinter holds the baton, clinging on for dear life with the prospect of glory and escaping the rivals, or in this case escaping her sister before she could–

“Wait.” Anna’s hand was on her wrist and Elsa almost yelped. The rivals outran her and the finish line was nowhere in sight as she fell on her knees, defeated, and only metaphorically speaking as in real life she was just standing stiff in her place. “What? Just let me take a bite, it’s easier–”

“N-no,” she interrupted quickly, trying to pry the wrist away from Anna’s surprisingly strong grip. “Cause, uh– umm, that way I can make sure to cut in the middle and give you a fair share.”

Yes, that was a splendid save.

“I just want a bite, I’m not sure if I would like a whole half.” And a gloriously crushing response from the opponent. “Just let me–”

Her peach pink lip gloss would look amazingly fitting on the white chocolate and peach KitKat. Or on Elsa’s lips. Applied with her lips. On her lips. Kissing–

“No!” She yanked her hand away. Anna’s eyebrows shot up in shock, and Elsa realized she yelled that very loudly, even though she was mostly responding to her own dirty little secret thoughts. “I mean– I don’t wanna…”

What? What was she supposed to say to get out of this? There was literally no logical reason she could not be wanting to simply share the KitKat like they used to for so many years, aside from the obvious plague that was currently rotting her mind, but she could not tell Anna that–

“…are you disgusted by me?”

She said it in such a small voice, looking up from where she was sitting on Elsa’s bed with hands folded neatly in her lap, her big teal eyes glazed with a sheet of tears and Elsa’s heart broke into a thousand shards.

“Oh god, no!” Her hands moved on their own to grab Anna and pull her into a hug, but she stopped herself on the way, now with her hands awkwardly hovering at Anna’s eye level. “Why… no, I’m so sorry you would even think that, I–”

“Then what is it, Elsa?”

Fuck. Fuckity fuck shit fuck what was she–

“Just say it,” she damn near sobbed. “Out loud.”

“Your lip gloss,” she said in a flat voice, grasping at straws to not lie, but also not tell the truths. “It stays on the KitKat when you bite it.”

Anna’s eyes went wider. “You don’t like my lip gloss?”

Why the fuck was she sounding this hurt by the idea? “No, I–”

“I thought you said it looks good…”

“It does!” She could clearly feel herself getting flustered. “I like it, and it looks very good on your li– on you. Really good.” God, was she sounding as borderline creepy to Anna as she did to herself? “B-but it leaves a– a stencil of your lips on the…”

She trailed off, not really sure how to get out of the corner she just talked herself into.

Anna gave her a puzzled look. “So you don’t like… my lips?”

“No!” Jesus why was communication so difficult and why was the room so hot and why was Anna looking at her like this? “I love them. Like! I like them. I like. Them. Your lips. Like them.”

If Anna got up and called the ambulance right now because ‘my sister is having a stroke!’ Elsa would find it completely justified.

“Ookay…” Anna said slowly, not reaching for the phone, and instead continuing to try to read Elsa’s face (but what she could potentially read was that inside Elsa’s head there was a wind-up monkey puppet playing the cymbal, and nothing much beside that.) “So what is the problem?”

Elsa mumbled in response.

“I’m sorry?”

“It feels like we’re kissing,” she said weakly, absolutely giving up on her hopes and dreams in that instance. “When I bite the KitKat.”

Anna blinked at her. “That’s it?”

Elsa nodded.

“I mean, that’s all?”

It was Elsa’s turn to wear a confused expression.

“You’ve been getting only breakable KitKats for a year just so you could share with me without feeling like this?”

Elsa nodded again, albeit cautiously. She had no idea where Anna was going with this.

“And denying yourself flavors that don’t exist in that format so that I wouldn’t feel left out?”

Nod again.

“I’m sorry.”

Record scratch. “What? No, why are you sorry?”

“Because you were feeling uncomfortable because of me?”

“No, I– I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable knowing I want to kiss you.”

Wait, no– oh no no no no holy fuck no backtrack backtrack backtrack–

Her stomach sunk. There was no way to backtrack.

Red alert, escape the room.

Anna caught her hips before she could dash for the door and spun her around to face her again, this time meeting her at eye level. She reached for Elsa’s hand–which was currently hanging limply at her side, and still holding the goddamned half-eaten KitKat–and clasped it gently in hers, then brought it up until it was between them, right in front of Elsa’s mouth.

The scent of peach and white chocolate hit her before her brain registered the development.

“Bite,” Anna said softly, but with demand. “And hold.”

Elsa’s mouth opened on its own as her sister pushed the KitKat in, and obediently she clamped her teeth down on it–just enough to break the chocolate layer, but not all the way through.

She stood there patiently with the candy bar sticking out of her mouth, watching Anna remove the remaining wrapper as if her body was not hers to steer, as if she was just a passive observer as her mind was struggling to pick the pieces of what her sister was doing without going for what she really wanted Anna to be doing in her heart of hearts.

Once the wrapper was off, Anna climbed on her tiptoes and– Elsa could swear she saw her smirk right before the free end of the KitKat disappeared in Anna’s mouth, slowly, until their lips finally touched.

Their lips touched.

She was kissing her sister.

She was kissing her sister around a fucking candy bar.

And in just a few heartbeats she heard the tell-tale, trademark KitKat crunch as Anna’s teeth broke through the wafer, and with a final brush of her glossed lips she was off, leaving behind only a chunk of white chocolate and peach mousse in Elsa’s numb, speechless mouth.

“It looks good on you too,” Anna said with her mouth still full and gaze dashing between Elsa’s lips and eyes. “Bet it would be even better without the melted chocolate.” She swallowed down her bite, and let out a satisfied hum. “Mm, I like this one. Funny how the flavors work together so well… chew, Elsa.”

She brought her hand up to Elsa’s chin and pressed on it, and Elsa mechanically picked up the chewing motion, earning a delighted smile from her sister.

Anna glanced down at her watch. “Well, I gotta go. The sea and beach won’t run away, but my friends just might if I keep them waiting any longer.” She placed a soft, sticky kiss on Elsa’s boiling hot cheek. “But I’m really looking forward to trying the other flavors you got.”

With a wink, she pushed past her and out the door, leaving Elsa to deal with the lump (of KitKat) in her throat.

#elsanna #submission #April 2021 contest #prompt: break

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name-me-regret · 3 years

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If The World Was Ending 14/?

If The World Was Ending Chapter Fourteen: A Lethal Side

Read on AO3.

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

“Some things I just cannot change Are you waiting for me to show you the way out? This love has a lethal side I would take the bullet, ah

You feel just like you're wasting a lifetime on me Just give into the feeling we got something real, yeah 'Cause every love song needs somebody to sing

So let me show you I'm what you need before you run away...

Can't hear what those people say Telling you that you're crazy believing in me now And if we march on the front line I would take the bullet...”

~ Runaway - James Carter

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

‘Because you’re exhausting!’

The words had been playing on repeat in his mind for the past hour, and it didn’t look like it would stop any time soon. Buck felt, not for the first time, that he had made a mistake for filing that lawsuit. That was especially true since it had solved nothing. His friends, his family, had pulled away further. That was none more true than Eddie, who had started to pull away from him even before the lawsuit. Now, he was sure he had completely lost him.

Buck cleared his throat, wiping hastily at his eyes. He decided that he needed to clear his mind, and that it was time to fall back on his usual coping method. So, he stopped briefly at his loft to get changed into his hiking gear. He’d added to the collection in the last two years that he had been with the 118, especially since he was trained in rescue and knew what was needed in case of an emergency.

He’d been part of a lot of hikes, so he knew that things that might seem like overkill, were essential. That meant his headlamp since it was almost sunset, and made sure he checked the batteries on it and brought extra ones just in case. He also made sure he had his LifeStraw Water Filter that he’d recently purchased, since he’d taken to hiking a lot during his recent shifts as the Fire Marshal.

The man sent a text to Maddie telling her he was going for a hike at Griffith Park, which would be open until 9pm, so he had plenty of time for a few hours to go on the hiking trail. When he arrived at the park almost 40 minutes later the sun was almost completely setting, he grabbed his backpack with his supplies but first slipped on his hydration backpack, which was small enough to fit on his front, against his chest. He had enough water for at least a two to three hour hike.

He was twenty minutes into his hike, not having seen anyone on the dark trail this whole time, when his playlist cut off as his phone started to beep furiously. “JARVIS?” Buck asked as he detached his phone from the strap of his backpack.

‘Sir will be with you shortly, Mr. Buckley,’ JARVIS told him. Buck knew that J was an AI, but he had always been pretty expressive. However, he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard him sound as strained as he did now.

“What? Why? What’s going on, J?”

The AI was silent before he started to speak again. ‘Sir was attacked two hours ago by an assailant that I’ve been able to identify as the Winter Soldier.’

This alarmed Buck and he lifted his head, looking for the armor but the dark sky was empty thus far. “Is Tony hurt? Why are you bringing him here?”

‘Sir didn’t have a combat ready armor with him at the time and though he managed to evade capture, he suffered a head injury that’s rendered him unconscious.’

“Why didn’t you take him to the hospital?” Buck demanded. “He could have a concussion!”

‘My protocols are to bring him to the closest person he trusts, and since his healthcare proxy is currently in D.C., you were the closest person to his location.’

Buck ran a hand through his hair, his cap getting knocked off in the process, but not that he noticed in that moment. “Alright… alright,” he muttered. He turned back and started to run back the way he had come, and was glad he hadn’t gone too far down the trail. He reached his Jeep in less than ten minutes, glad that he had kept to his training regiment after he’d started his light duty. After all, lying around doing nothing was more detrimental to his health.

He heard the repulsors then and he lifted his head to see the armor coming in from the west. That meant he had been in Malibu when he’d been attacked. The armor touched down more gently than he would have thought, but then again, JARVIS was the one flying it. It also appeared to be an incomplete armor, so that’s likely why he’d been mostly unprotected from the attack.

“Alright, open her up J,” he told the AI. When he did, Buck was ready to catch Tony as the unconscious man tumbled out. He’d opened his passenger side door ahead of time and easily lifted him and put him inside. “Tony, hey,” he said as he rubbed his sternum and patted his cheek to get him to wake up.

Tony moaned weakly and his eyelashes fluttered but didn’t open. The was blood caked on the side of his head from where he’d been hit and Buck didn’t have time to wonder what exactly it had been. Tony whimpered when he shifted him up further in the seat, making Buck wince.

“Sorry, sorry, but I need you to wake up.” Finally, his eyes opened and Buck couldn’t help grin at him. “There you are.”

“Ev?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” He took his headlamp off as an idea occurred to him, and used that to shine in his eyes. He flinched at the light and that wasn’t a good sign, especially since his pupils were dilated. When the man suddenly leaned out the open door and threw up, narrowly missing Buck’s hiking boots, he knew that he had a concussion, and needed to get him to the hospital to make sure it wasn’t anything worse.

That’s when he noticed the blood at his side and when he lifted his shirt, Buck saw that he’d torn his stitches. “Shit,” he hissed. He reached under his seat for his first aid kit, being thankful for his sister’s paranoia after the truck bombing. He quickly patched the wound, since he didn’t have the supplies to restitch it there and then he buckled him in and ran around to the driver’s side. Buck was relieved when he pulled up his maps amp and saw that there was a medical center less than ten minutes away. As he drove, he had JARVIS call the hospital.

“Tony? Are you awake?” The man groaned. “Do you know where you are?”

“M’in y’r Je’p?” Tony slurred. That didn’t sound good.

“Can you remember what happened?” Buck pressed, needing to see how bad the concussion was.

“Dunno… g’t hit?”

“Do you remember what hit you?”

Tony was silent for too long that Buck reached over and shook him, and sighed in relief when the man flinched. “No… no,” he said, shaking his head but moaned in pain at the movement. “Hurts.”

“I know, but I got you, Tony,” he reassured him. He looked behind him when he saw the blue lights and a cop car, which then pulled along side and then he motioned for Buck to follow him. It seemed JARVIS had also contacted the police department for an escort. Buck gave a thumbs up and followed the black and white cruiser.

As soon as they pulled into the ER, a few nurses and a doctor rushed out with a gurney. Buck told them about the head injury and the torn stitches as they loaded Tony onto the gurney. The cop told him that he’d be guarding Tony as per the instructions of someone named JARVIS. Then he was left alone, not knowing what to do except look at the hospital doors for a few moments before the siren of an arriving ambulance snapped him out of it. He closed the passenger side door of his Jeep and then got back in to find a parking space.

He was lucky to find one, even if it was further away than he would have liked. However, before he could leave the Jeep, JARVIS spoke up again. ‘Mr. Buckley, sir is being tracked.’

“What? By who?”

‘The Winter Soldier.’

“Who is that?” Buck asked a bit hysterically. He didn’t know what was going on. All he knew was that someone had hurt Tony and now they were likely coming to finish the job.

’He is an assassin that’s been sent by HYDRA.’

“Hydra? What is Hydra?”

‘HYDRA is an authoritarian paramilitary subversive terrorist organization bent on world domination. It was very active during World War 2 but with the efforts of Captain America and the Howling Commandos, they were able to destroy it.’

“I’m sensing a but,” Buck groaned where he’d laid his head against the steering wheel. This was spiraling into very dangerous territory, and Buck felt that he was barely keeping his head above water.

‘It seems to have survived and infiltrated SHIELD. Sir discovered this several days ago, as well as a plan to use an algorithm created by a HYDRA scientist to identify people that posed a threat to them and thus be able to eliminate them.’

“He stopped them and then they came after him?” Buck hazarded a guess. He took in several shaky breaths, trying not to have a panic attack right that moment. He was a first responder, a fire fighter that was used to running into a burning building, but this was more Athena’s area. Only, he couldn’t call her, couldn’t call anyone for help.

It was in that moment that Buck truly felt alone. He was alone in this.

‘Yes, that is correct.’

Buck contemplated on what he should do now, wondering if he should go inside, or call the police to warn them. It was just, would they believe him at all? Buck seriously doubted it. He was worried, because right now Tony was unprotected. “What do I do, J? I’m just a firefighter... or rather, I was.” He sighed and ran a hand through his blonde hair. “I can’t help him.”

‘There is a way, Mr. Buckley.’

The man’s head lifted in surprise. “What? How? What do I have to do?” He’d already lost his family at the 118 and didn’t want to also lose Tony. If there was something that he could do, then he would.

‘The Rescue Protocol.’

Buck frowned. “What’s that?”

‘Sir designed armor to your measurements and called it the Rescue armor.’

“What?!”

Before he could ask more, he heard the sound of repulsors once again and rolled down his window as he stuck his head out of it. He saw the suit coming from the east, which he found was weird. “Where is it coming from, J?”

‘Sir designed it and had it built at his lab in New York, because that lab had the equipment for it. He activated the protocol almost three hours ago, but since it was on the other side of the country, it is only now arriving.’

Buck stumbled out of the Jeep and saw not one armor, but two of them. “Wait, that’s two armors.”

‘It is War Machine, Mr. Buckley.’

“Holy shit,” Buck gasped, not believing that he was about to see Rhodes after all these years.

The two armors touched down and the face plate lifted on the War Machine armor. “Evan Buckley, is that you?” the man asked incredulously. The War Machine armor gave Rhodes about four inches, so they were about the same height.

“Rhodes, hey man,” Buck greeted him weakly. As he turned to what JARVIS had dubbed the Rescue armor, he saw that it would likely give him four inches as well. That explained why the Rescue armor looked taller. It was also colored the same blue as his LAFD uniform.

Rhodes pointed at the other armor. “Is it safe to assume this is for you to use?”

Buck ran a hand down his face as he nodded. “I don’t- I don’t know the first thing about how to use it. I kinda just found out literally a minute before you got here.”

“Lucky for you, FRIDAY informed me about the situation going on with Tony, so you might not have to use it.”

“Who’s-?”

‘Colonel Rhodes, incoming from the west,’ JARVIS interrupts them suddenly, voice urgent.

The Rescue armor is opening and Buck yelps as it lunges at him and incases him. He staggers back as the HUD turns on, breathing heavily and an alarm is suddenly beeping. Buck is stunned as his Jeep suddenly explodes in a ball of fire as it is flung to the side and into another car. The instincts he learned from his time in the SEALs kick in as he jumps away, rolling with the momentum, and is shocked at how easy the armor moves around him.

“Evan!” Buck hears Rhodes panicked voice and his vision is suddenly filled with a man with long hair wielding a grenade launcher, which is aimed right at him. He jerks to the side to avoid the grenade, which sails dangerously close to his face and it hits another vehicle that also explodes.

‘Mr. Buckley, may I suggest leaving the area before the hospital takes damage,’ JARVIS tells him.

“How do I do that?!” He yelps as the repulsors at his feet suddenly turn on and he waves his arms around wildly as he starts to lift off the ground, which makes the take off shaky and almost flies into another car.

‘Keep your hands at your side, Mr. Buckley,’ the AI instructs.

Buck quickly does that and the armor shoots into the sky, and it’s only because he’s jumped from a helo into the ocean during the BUD/S training that he doesn’t scream. Of course, he hadn’t made it much longer after passing Hell Week, because he hadn’t been able to turn off his emotions. So, he was very terrified in that moment. Especially when he saw a motorcycle following them with the long haired man on it, and did he have a fucking metal arm?!

“Evan, this way,” he hears Rhodes call. He follows JARVIS’s instructions as he angles his body to follow the man and almost whoops when he’s able to do it without veering too much off course. “We need to get away from the city before we engage.” They’re heading toward the Hollywood Hills, more than likely where there are very little houses.

Buck is totally onboard with that, since the last thing he wants is for someone to get hurt. He tries not to think too closely about what engage actually means, and that he was going to actively attack someone. And shit, he’s thinking about it now.

Then an alarm starts to blare through the speakers and with J’s warning, Buck twists in midair to avoid being hit as their pursuer shoots at them, which sends him into a sudden barrel roll that has him giving a choked off scream. He some how manages to regain control of the —his?— armor and gasps when he sees that the grenade had missed him, but managed to hit a building. Buck becomes alarmed when he sees that it was a house on the edge of where the hills start.

“Shit!” Buck exclaims as he turns, forgetting his fear and even that he’s way out of his element. There are people in danger and he can’t just do nothing. “JARVIS, is there some kind of fire suppressant system in the suit?” He sees as the AI selects the systems but curses when he sees its aimed for it to be used in case the suit is on fire or sparks. “I need something to stop the fire!”

‘There is a water gun on the shoulder,’ JARVIS tells him. Of course he had seen it, which resembled the one that Rhodes had on the War Machine armor, but he had assumed it was a weapon. ‘If you land in the pool beside the house, there are compartments that will open to suck into the suit and that will be directed to the water gun.’

Buck grinned despite himself, because he hadn’t been expecting that. “Wow, I thought it was a gun!”

‘That’s why Sir called it the Rescue armor. He designed it especially for you.’

And Buck could see that now. He hadn’t designed it like a weapon the way he had for Rhodes’s War Machine armor, but like a tool used to rescue people for Buck. Because that is what Buck did, he was a firefighter and he rescued people, and now the name Rescue for the armor made sense. “Alright then, J. Let’s see what this thing can do.” He had the AI connect him to Rhodes and told him that he needed to keep the assassin off his back while he went to put out the fire and see if there had been anyone inside the house.

“Roger,” Rhodes tells him. The War Machine turns and heads toward where the motorcycles is still following them. It also appears as if there are two police cars and one police motorcycle following the man. Whether they were alerted because he was breaking laws to catch up to them or because someone saw him shooting the grenade launcher is unclear, but that doesn’t matter at the moment.

“J, is there like some kind of autopilot on this thing? I don’t think I can land softly enough not to damage the pool.” Buck asked as they fly toward the house. He grins when the AI takes control of the suit and they land. JARVIS relinquishes control almost immediately after and he grins when he sees that the water can also come out of the hands by three individual tubes that can open up at the palms. It’s a good thing the pool is fairly large, and the gallons in it are likely enough to extinguish the flames. If not, there is another pool next door he can use.

“Aright, let her rip, J,” he tells the AI. He braces for the pressure to hit, use to doing it when he handles the hose as a firefighter, but it seems that he doesn’t need to as the suit is immovable. The water leaves the gun and the palms of the armor, and he aims at the worse of the flames. He cuts off the flow when the flames frizzle out, but makes sure there is enough left inside the suit in case there is more fire inside. There is a hole on one side of the house, and he rushes in like he usually does. “LAFD! Is anyone in here?” Buck shouts, forgetting that he isn’t a firefighter with the department anymore.

There is smoke and ash from the destroyed wall in the air and he kicks a few chucks away as he goes further inside. “Hello! Is someone in here?” His voice sounds mechanical and almost resembles what Tony’s does whenever he speaks while in the suit.

That’s when the suit’s HUD displays a scan of the house and it detects three heat signatures. Even then, he keeps calling and soon he hears a voice calling for help. The first person is a man in his early fifties which is the owner, judging by the information that JARVIS is displaying, and that he lives there with his younger wife and fifteen-year-old son. He brings the man out even as he protests. “I’m going to get them out,” he tells him with certainty.

He finds the wife next in a bathroom, a woman in her early forties who is unconscious from a hit to the head. Buck needs to secure her neck and substitutes a towel gently but tightly around her neck, making sure its not enough to strangle her. He then sees a bathrobe and uses the tie of it to secure the towel in place. Now that the neck is secure in case she has a spinal or neck injury, he carries her out.

“Evan, are you clear?” Rhodes calls over the coms, hearing the strain in his voice.

“Almost, Rhodes. I got one more victim inside the house. Give me ten minutes.”

“You got five,” he gasped. Buck jerks his head up as he hears an explosion, but sighs in relief when he sees War Machine still in the air.

“Copy!” Buck yells as he runs back into the house. JARVIS had pulled up the information, so he knows the name of the young man. “Jake! Jake, are you there?” He hears the house groan and knows the explosion caused the whole structure to be unstable, but he doesn’t want to leave until he has the teenager. Buck heads to where the heat signature is coming from, glad there isn’t any more fire, but there are sparks and if the gas line was damaged it could get really dangerous really fast. So he hurries. “Jake!”

He comes upon a room for a teenage girl and decides that he obviously isn’t there. Then he sees movement and turns. “Jake?” he calls as he rushes in. He finds a teenage girl huddled in the corner, confused by her presence there and wondering if he’ll have enough time to find Jake, but knows he can’t leave her there.

“It’s Jenny,” she whimpers as the house shudders.

Buck is confused. “What?”

“That... that’s not my name. It’s Jenny.” She cries out as the house shakes again. “J-Ja... that’s not my name!”

He realizes what she means almost immediately and nods as he kneels. “Alright, Jenny,” he soothes. He holds out his armored hand. “Take my hand, sweetheart. I’ll get you out, alright?”

Her eyes, bluer than even his own, dart up to his face. Then she nods and takes it. Buck lifts her up and carries her out. He deposits her into her father’s waiting’s arms who sobs a thanks for getting his daughter out, and Buck takes a moment to smile.

“Evan!”

“Shit!” he curses when he sees another grenade coming their way and instinctively lifts his hands and lets the water go with all the pressure the suit has, from the water gun as well. It must be more like a water cannon, because it knocks the grenade out of its course, and it hits the house. Buck turns and shields the family from the debris as it seems to hit another support beam and the whole structure comes down.

When he makes sure the family of three is okay, he goes a few steps away and his second take off is more smooth than the first one. He sees the lights of the emergency crews as he goes, and now that he knows the family is safe, he decides to concentrate on the fight that’s coming. Buck had never been a violent person, had never seen combat during his SEAL training, but he also knows that he can’t stand by while this assassin wrecks havoc and harms more people.

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Athena had gotten a call from one the police officers in East Hollywood. While she wasn’t able to put any kind of official alert on her family or the 118’s vehicles or homes, they each knew the names of the people closest to them. When one of them was involved is an accident or any kind of incident. Mostly it was her kids, Michael and Bobby. Oh, and Buck, of course. It was because that kid was always getting into trouble, and because despite what Bobby said, Buck was his son. He was his son even while he was suing Bobby and the man was mad at him.

So, when the East Hollywood police were contacted by Iron Man’s associate to be an escort and given the license plate of Buck’s Jeep (which he’d just gotten back from the body shop), Athena had found out about it twenty minutes later. Naturally, she told Bobby, who was off shift and both of them raced over toward Kaiser Permanente regardless that they couldn’t contact Buck due to the lawsuit.

They were horrified when they found that area around the hospital parking lot cordoned off by police. Athena got off to try to find out something, telling Bobby to circle around and she’d call him when she knew something. She was able to pass through the police line easily enough, and even if she wanted to go immediately to the hospital and find out about Buck, something drew her to the scene.

There were several vehicles that had been on fire, which meant the another fire station, mainly station 6, were on the scene. There was a lot of destruction, like a bomb had gone off, and as she walked closer to the scene to try and see what was happening, she stepped on something.

The woman frowned and bent down to pick it up, seeing it was a California license plate, covered in soot and half burned. She wiped at the numbers, the curiosity getting the better of her. The moment she did, the sob felt like it was punched out of her.

It was Buck’s license plate.-

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

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shiruvan · 3 years

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Things going in twitter about Japanese Garage Kits

The issue was started because ‘western’ garage kit youtube content creator, was implied to have been sponsored by certain unauthorized recaster company(basically pirated); the youtuber’s denial seems plausible that by accepting the recast kit for free to make content, it doesn’t mean accepting sponsorship, but alas, the Japanese sculptors see it just as guilty as taking sponsorship from pirates. The overblown picking on unrelated mistakes or bad things from every side was just, imo, overblown, and simply unproductive, but this common thing in western part of social media is difficult to translate to the Japanese like they can’t believe those things just happen all the time, whereas us in the Anglosphere, not limited to western, seem to accept that such are the Japanese and their polite-politics, being stiff and difficult.

Given the history that it’s difficult to even purchase Garage kit directly from Japanese GK makers and thus making it expensive to buy from scalpers, the very expensive, unprotected gray market, I understand as much to the people who enjoyed and use pirated products extensively due to poor distribution, albeit most of the issue is overbaked political problems that are outside the consumers and these 3rd party producers’ hand.

To the Japanese GK producers, its so much seemed like a god-granted privilege to sell their original work copies to the domestic Japanese market, so for them, to ask license for selling overseas is out of their mind, albeit WE CAN ALSO UNDERSTAND as foreigner or not, that there are always issues with fanmades, licensed 3rd party products, for possibly wrongly representing a company’s interests, such are the right holders for popular characters/IP such as Kadokawa, Gainax, Toho, and everything else, if gaining income for someone elses’ intellectual property might be on the wrong side without permission.

To the rest of the world who’d like to enjoy Japanese paraphernalia as direct as possible, we’re kind of boned with piracy as a better option; paying direct to creators might be what we want, but how many proxies/hands should we pay to deserve that? distrust to own country’s system is usually enough to sway to the pirate option because they can also reduce tax from illicit customs declaration(and somewhat generally not so much of problem by law in many countries?)

what we can do

-Try gaining permission to sell overseas, make a line of trusted potential buyers/distribution points, confirm their identity as to not misuse the purchase. If done right, this is the way to serve better than the pirates and gray market scalpers, so the garage kits end in the proper end-users.

-Do not normalize piracy like it’s okay to advertise them. Simple as this may sound, our lack of option may turn even the most illegal ways to be ‘It won’t hurt anyone except their feelings’ gray-legal, this won’t be an instant utterance, instead, a constant campaign from all of us who supports, even if only morally, by not purchasing pirated kits, not watching/reacting to youtubers who endorse/mention piracy as the way.

I meant to say all this in Japanese, but damn, just how. I’m even speaking it through both views/sides, sometimes it’s all us, both sides, to do them in agreement, since it’s so hard to solve that political problem on our own.

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elenathehun · 3 years

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Watching the Clone Wars, part 7

Well, this is a better batch of episodes than last time, solely due to not having to actually skip an episode because it was too awful to watch. With that said, click on keep reading to see reviews of "Brain Invaders", "Grievous Intrigue", "The Deserter", "Lightsaber Lost", "The Mandalore Plot", "Voyage of Temptation", and "Duchess of Mandalore".

"Brain Invaders" (2x08)

I'd rate this as above-average. I am not really into horror as a genre, as I previously noted, so I was pretty grossed out by the brain worms. However, it was a pretty nice Ahsoka and Barriss episode, although I think it's a bit weird that four Jedi Knights/Masters are necessary to interrogate Poggle.

Anyway, it's not an episode of The Clone Wars without some unexpected graphic clone violence. I don't blame Ahsoka or Barris for killing poor Trap - I even think this was well-written and conveyed the desperation of their situation well - but good god, it was startling. Also tense: that final approach to the medical station.

Not good: Kit Fisto entering a ship that's infested with brain worms with no PPE. C'mon, man, I know your headtails are majestic, but keep it covered up! Also not super great: Anakin and Ahsoka's little talk at then end. A lot of their interaction just feels forced. I honestly feel like this should have been a dialogue of some kind between Ahsoka and Barriss.

"Grievous Intrigue" (2x09)

Sort of a meh episode. I understand Eeth Koth is a bit of a bad-ass in the comics, and that does sort of carry over in this episode, but mostly it just seems like a vehicle for various Jedi Masters to quip while crossing blades with this somewhat delightful murder-cyborg. Obi-Wan gives a furious monologue to Grievous, which rings a bit hollow since the clone army has had precious little screen-time (at least relatively speaking) to exhibit their loyalty or spirit.

Shout-out to Cody and those 212th soldiers dog-piling Grievous. If only you'd had a lightsaber, Cody, you probably could have killed him right then and there. And if the writers let you and your fellows out of the background more often, Obi-Wan's speech would have rung more true at the time this episode aired.

"The Deserter" (2x10)

I struggled with accurately summarizing why this episode left me cold. After all, the focus is split between Rex and the pursuit of Grievous, and I love most of the clone-centric episodes I've seen thus far. But after some thought, I realized this episode felt like the culmination of a character arc that never actually occurred for Rex, at least on-screen. After all, this episode is only the third time he's been promoted to something more than the token Clone Character Who Doesn't Die At The End - the previous two episodes I thought were legitimately Rex-centric were Season One's "Rookies" and "The Hidden Enemy". We still barely know the guy, but in this episode we watch him wrestle with doubt about his role and reason for existence when faced with a fellow clone who's made radically different choices than he has, before triumphantly stating his place is with the army. This feels like it would be a great episode, if only we were more attached to the character. Writers have to build-up to those kind of moments, or they ring false.

Anyway, is it just me or is Obi-Wan getting a little angry in this episode?

"Lightsaber Lost" (2x11)

I wasn't expecting much from this episode, but it was actually very good. Aside from the annoying Cad Bane arc at the beginning of the season, the Ahsoka episodes have been improving a lot this season - possibly because she's been separated from Anakin for a lot of them. Losing a lightsaber feels like the sort of problem a Padawan might face, and the solution feels like the sort of thing an impatient teenager would resort to. Tera Sinube is a gem - I am always a sucker for the elderly teaching the next generation, and he does it so well! The animation was well done too, especially in the chase scenes.

I've been ragging on TCW for it's lack of interconnectivity between episodes and episode arcs, but this is a stand-alone episode done right: it focuses on what a secondary character (yes, I know she's supposed to be a main character, but she doesn't feel like it quite yet), allows them to learn a lesson that develops their characters in an organic way, and reverberates through future episodes (I hope!).

"The Mandalore Plot", "Voyage of Temptation", and "Duchess of Mandalore" (2x12 -2x14)

Oof. So, this was the arc that actually made me quit watching TCW the first time around. I am very lukewarm on Mandalorians in general, so that wasn't great. But aside from that, and from the well-attested issue of everyone on Mandalore looking like a Storm Front fantasy, this arc exhibits the same structural writing defects the entire show has shown far - and honestly, life is too short to watch bad TV. At this point, I know this main issue will never be corrected in the entire show run, so I can accept it and push through in the name of completionism and writing research, but at the time I wasn't active in fandom and it was enormously easy to just stop watching and move onto other, better, shows and books.

Now, I thought long and hard about how to review these episodes, but I think it's useful in this case to interview them as a singular block instead of individual episodes. The story is largely cohesive, if a bit strained. It is essentially Palpatine's PT plot writ small: he wants to take over Mandalore (a reason is never really explicated in the actual story, so who knows why), and he's doing it by essentially creating a false war between the CIS proxies, Death Watch, and the Republic proxy, which is Duchess Satine. If all goes according to plan, Satine will be shown as ineffectual and unable to rule her people, and the GAR can occupy Mandalore for reasons of "public safety". This will inflame the Mandalorians, who aren't part of the Republic and don't want to be, and send them rushing in the arms of the CIS-allied Death Watch, starting a cycle of radicalization and violence which will end (at least from Palpatine's POV) with Mandalore firmly in his grasp, and all potential opposition killed in the Civil War he engineered.

As enormously stupid as the whole plot sounds, it's a valid historical tactic for imperial powers looking to expand. And that's lead us the the primary flaw of this story: The Jedi are the Bad Guys. Just ignore the tangled mess of Mandalorian canon, retcons, and expanded universe, past and present - in the show itself, they are presented as a smaller, weaker neighbor-state, and the Jedi are acting as agents of an expansionary military power, interfering with their internal politics specifically for the purpose of a soft invasion. And that's an interesting story! But that story is deliberately obfuscated and hobbled because the writers and producers of TCW were and are ever-so-concerned with making the Jedi as sympathetic as possible, even in situations where they shouldn't be.

Part of that hobbling is Satine's character. Satine is badly written, but she's badly written in a very specific way that has been common to most of the non-CIS political antagonists the show has presented thus far. Satine's most interesting characteristic is that she doesn't want to involve Mandalore with the war - and who can blame her? The Republic and the CIS have nothing to offer to her or her people. The only thing that will happen is the exploitation of Mandalore's natural resources (at best) or the destruction of her people, caught between two Great Powers who obviously don't care for her people's struggle. That's an interesting character, right? A POV we haven't seen in this show so far, which has consistently been from the Jedi POV, which is pretty firmly in the CIS = monsters and Republic = assholes (but democratic assholes!) camp.

But it's a POV that is pretty uncomplimentary of the Jedi role in this war, which means Satine must be crippled by an obnoxious belief in pacifism, like the unlikably-written Lurmen in season one, and also weighted down by a personal connection to an avatar of the Republic, like Senator Farr and his "family friendship" with Padme overcoming the fact that his people are starving and getting no support from the Republic. I have heard people argue that TCW, written as it was in the late 2000s, is reacting against the excesses of the War on Terror. I am less than convinced, mostly because every single anti-war character is reduced to a flat caricature of an annoying pacifist that can be safely defeated by the ever-so-kind warrior monks in the space of an episode or two before being cast aside for the next adventure.

Because Satine's motivations are poorly written, her actions don't make a lick of sense. In "The Mandalore Plot", she's clearly escorting Obi-Wan around under duress - but in "Voyage of Temptation", she's apparently going with the Senators willingly to the Coruscant, to essentially beg the Senate to not invade. Why not write her as an unwilling "guest" of the Republic, invited without recourse to defend her people's sovereignty? Well, that would show Obi-Wan in a very unflattering light, wouldn't it? But in "Duchess of Mandalore" she's back to being a prisoner in everything but name, escaping custody to receive an unaltered copy of her dead minister's speech.

Now, Obi-Wan helps her at that point...but it's clearly due to some poorly-written romantic feelings. I am not interested in any Padme/Anakin parallels, mostly because I find it incredibly tedious and honestly not helpful in exploring Anakin's Leap into the Dark Side. This story is a gigantic missed opportunity to show the Jedi (or at least, a representative of the Jedi) wrestle with their roles as avatars of the republic, when the republic is so obviously manufacturing a reason to invade Mandalore. Palpatine is obviously orchestrating this whole thing, but he still (at this point in the show) requires the consent of the Senate to essentially annex more territory - and the Senate is perfectly happy to give him that consent, by the way. There is a fantastic story on the Jedi side about the clash of ideals vs realities, and the writers totally side-stepped it.

But pulling the focus out a little further, that has actually been par for the course for most of the Obi-Wan stories of season 2. He's been consistently more and more irritated about the war as the season has gone on, and made some off-hand comments about the ungratefulness of the Republic populace that, in the hands of a more competent writer, could have been a multi-season character arc about loss of faith in fallible human institutions, which would dovetail pretty well with his characterization in both RotS and ANH. Instead, his character remains the static wise-cracking Good Guy; Satine is the Designated Love Interest, unable to develop along more interesting and independent lines; and this arc falls deeply flat as a result.

They're not the only characters who are horribly underwritten. I mean, here we are at the end of Season 2, and have we yet seen a sympathetic CIS character, or an accounting of how Palpatine was able to take advantage of already extant fractures in the Republic to create a shadowy cabal dedicated to tearing it apart? No. It's all war crimes and evil laughter so far. The Good Guys always win (until they don't), the bad guys are always Very Bad, and there are no shades of gray in this massive galaxy. Again, ignoring the complicated Mandalorian backstory, Death Watch is extremely under-baked as villains. There could have been a fascinating interplay between Satine and Pre about their different visions for their people's future, but just as Satine is a flat Pacifist caricature, Pre is a dull Terrorist caricature.

I have to give a special mention to the horrible Love Confession of "Voyage of Temptation". This is the episode where Satine is written most consistently as Peak Pacifist. If she had instead been written as anti-war (but not necessarily a philosophical pacifist), her escape from Tal Merrik would have been a great inversion of that trope - and in fact, I thought it was at first, when she "confessed", and then had to make an annoyed face when Obi-Wan didn't immediately play along. Instead, they played it straight, and I've never felt more simpatico with a villain than when Tal Merrik complained about their timing. That fact that Satine's "pacifism" is then used as an excuse for Obi-Wan and Satine to hesitate to kill a terrorist, leading Anakin to kill him...like, c'mon. I get it, the writers want to show his fall to the dark side, you gotta play the ominous theme music, but is this really a particularly evil act by Anakin? I'm gonna be honest, if a cop or an armed civilian kills a mass shooter, no one is castigating them for doing so, but instead congratulating them for stopping a murderer from killing again.

Final note and the only one that explicitly addresses the Mandalorian elephant in the room: I hate the Darksaber. Like, I know we all gave KJA shit for the original Darksaber novel, but the fact that Filoni (or Lucas?) repurposed the name for a SPECIAL MANDALORIAN LIGHTSABER fills me with intense rage. They're fucking gun knights, you coward, stop inserting your weird Arthurian hard-on into my western samurai sci-fi pastiche.

And that's it for this batch of episodes. Up next: Boba Fett makes his first appearance in our chronological viewing, and we return to Mandalore a second time, much to my sorrow.

#watching the clone wars #star wars #star wars tcw #television is hypnotoad

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mst3kproject · 4 years

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Tobor the Great

This was a movie YouTube thought I ought to watch. It’s so bad even Leonard Maltin didn’t like it.

Two scientists, Dr. Harrison and Dr. Nordstrom, are concerned about the effects of space travel on the human body, and so they attempt to convince the Civil Interplanetary Flight Commission (think NASA, but with funding) to use an alternative form of test pilot. No, sit down, dog- and monkey-lovers in the audience, I’m talking about a huge, unwieldy, unnecessarily humanoid robot! Obviously, foreign agents want to steal this machine and turn it into a huge, unwieldy weapon instead of a huge, unwieldy astronaut, but Nordstrom’s grandson Brian saves the day using his special telepathic link with Tobor!

The movie does not believe we’re smart enough to figure out why the robot’s name is Tobor. It spells it out for us, literally and on more than one occasion.

Tobor the Great is a children’s movie – the main character is eleven-year-old Brian, who is mostly addressed by his nickname, Gadget or Gadge. He’s established as an engineering genius in his own right, who gets to hang around in his grandfather’s lab and make friends with this cool robot. He’s what every white American boy in the 50’s was supposed to want to be. All of which makes it sort of weird that we don’t meet him until nearly fifteen minutes into the movie.

Consider some better children’s movies. In Coco, Miguel is the literal as well as the metaphorical narrator – we begin with his voice telling us the backstory. Lilo and Stitch gives us one title character almost immediately, and then brings in the second as quickly as it can to get us to the point where they meet. Of course, you don’t have to introduce the main character first in a movie, but if you’re going to put it off you have to do it skillfully. Star Wars takes its time getting around to Luke Skywalker, but it’s already given us somebody to follow in the form of C-3P0 and R2-D2, who make good audience proxies because 3P0 doesn’t know what’s going on any more than we do. Tobor the Great lets nearly a quarter of its running time go by before we finally meet Gadge, and even more before we get to Tobor himself, and that time is spent setting up what seems to be a rather different movie.

The opening does establish the need for Tobor, but it takes way too long about it. We start with narration and stock footage about the American space program, which is as deathly boring as it always is in these movies. Maybe it seemed more exciting in the fifties, when space rockets were the coolest thing around. Then we get into Dr. Harrison and his complaints about unsafe practices, which lead to his resignation and to him trying to dodge the press before meeting the likeminded Dr. Nordstrom.

These seem like strange things to put in a children’s movie. I feel that a lot more time is spent justifying the need for a robotic astronaut than is really necessary, and the early close focus on Dr. Harrison makes it seem like he’s going to be our main character – but he fades into the background once we get to Dr. Nordstrom’s lab and at the end he’s not much more than a completely unnecessary love interest for Gadge’s widowed mother. In Star Wars the two droids stick around and participate in the plot for the whole movie – Dr. Harrison doesn’t. The politicking within the CIFC is not something children are likely to be interested in, nor is the nagging newspaper man, and all of these scenes are just guys in suits talking. Very little actually happens and none of it involves robots carrying off beautiful women like the poster shows us!

The annoying reporter is a particularly odd inclusion. His name is Mr. Gilligan, which Joel and the ‘bots would have found hilarious. I went into Tobor the Great totally blind, having never heard of it when the thumbnail appeared in my YouTube recommendations, but if I’d read a plot summary or something beforehand, maybe I wouldn’t have expected Gilligan to play a major role in the plot. As it was, I figured he was either a Soviet spy or would unintentionally pass information on to them – but he vanishes after the first press conference, and the question of whether he has the right to compromise national security in the name of selling newspapers is never dealt with. Instead the spies are a bunch of guys we’ve never seen before.

Once all this is over with, though, we do finally get to see Tobor strut his stuff. Nordstrom and Harrison work on programming him to do things like type reports to be sent back to Earth and dodge meteor showers (as all 50’s space rockets had to do), while Gadge sits and watches… and does very little else. You’d think this part of the movie would continue the thread of Gadge being the equal of the adult scientists, maybe overlapping with him and Tobor bonding, but there’s almost none of either. Why set up Gadge as a prodigy if you’re not going to make use of it? At the climax we expect Gadge to save the day by figuring something out, as he showed he could do earlier. Instead he just shuts his eyes and thinks really hard at Tobor, like Ichi trying to summon Gamera. It works, but it’s not as satisfying as it could have been. At the end the movie has neatly avoided almost all of its potential and anything that might have been cool to watch, and failed to give us anything it seemed to promise.

To make things even worse, Gadge is played by one of those insanely cloying 50’s child actors who say things like “oh, gosh!” and “gee whillikers!” I cannot imagine anybody actually talking like this. Actor Billy Chaplin sure makes it sound fake as hell. While Chaplin is a decent actor physically, everything he says sounds stilted and unnatural, like he’s reading it off notes while trying to project his voice to a full auditorium. The adult actors are much better, which just makes Chaplin look all the worse by comparison.

Tobor, on the other hand, is wonderful, in the ‘stupid cardboard movie robot’ way that makes Torg from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and the delightfully awful robot of Devil Girl from Mars so much fun. It’s got lots of blinky lights and moving parts, and stamps around with a pretty convincing sense of weight. Unlike some movie robots it actually moves at a good clip when it wants to, perhaps helped by the fact that it has working knees. The movie makes the point that Tobor is a large and dangerous piece of kit at the same time as it’s able to be gentle and dexterous, which reinforces the idea that it would be frightening as a weapon.

My favourite part is when Tobor drives a car. I wonder if the guy in the costume could see anything. That must have been a hell of a day on set.

What you want me to get back to, though, is the bit where the robot is psychic. Yes, that’s actually the premise of this movie, a telepathic robot! I’m not sure how plausible that would have seemed in the 50’s, even in such an explicitly silly movie. Dr. Nordstrom doesn’t expect the reporters to believe in it without a demonstration, and yet the same decade also produced films like The She-Creature that present such ideas with an entirely straight, albeit incompetent, face. Psychic powers as hard-ish sci-fi seems to have gone out of style by the 90’s, and nowadays it sounds like something you’d see in the Weekly World News.

Man, I miss the hard copy Weekly World News. It was so nice to have that little isle of humour in the sea of garbage that was (and still is) the supermarket tabloids. Remember Hilary Clinton’s space-alien lover? Classic.

The function of telepathy in this story is not just to give Gadge a way to summon the robot after the spies break Nordstrom’s control mechanism. It is also a means whereby Tobor may acquire human traits and emotions. How to make a robot feel things is a perennial problem in science fiction… a lot of the time the mechanism is simply glossed over, as an artificial intelligence becomes more human by interacting with humans. Emotions are just chemicals in our brains, though, and the more we learn about how they work, the harder it gets to justify a machine feeling them. In Star Trek: the Next Generation Data and Lore have a special bit of hardware that must be installed to enable emotions, and really seem like they’re better off without it. In Saturn 3, Hector has a processor made of cloned brain cells that can produce their own chemistry, as well as a direct neural uplink to its programmer.

As such solutions go, I actually kind of like how Tobor the Great goes about it, even if the mechanism is silly. Rather than having emotions of its own, Tobor senses and mirrors those of the humans around it. When Gadge is panicking, worrying that Tobor is out of control, Tobor panics and goes around smashing things, thus making for a self-fulfilling prophecy. When Gadge thinks of Tobor as a hero, the robot comes to his rescue, carrying him to safety like a rescued princess, and responds to the anger and rage of the spies by turning these emotions back on them and beating them up. This is quite different from many ‘emotional machine’ stories, in that it doesn’t actually require Tobor to be in any way self-aware.

Unfortunately the movie is not very consistent about this. There’s a scene in which Tobor gets frustrated and breaks stuff after being put through too challenging a simulation, which does imply that the robot has an intelligence and emotional capacity of its own. This bit has a purpose, as it serves to make us worry that Tobor will be unable to tell the difference between friend and foe at the finale, but it just doesn’t fit with the way this machine is treated in the rest of the movie.

Like many others both from MST3K and from the Episodes that Never Were, Tobor the Great has a couple of good ideas at its core. It even predicted how much easier and safer it is to send robots into space than people, although those robots don’t look much like the lumbering humanoids of 50’s sci-fi. Sadly, the film is uneven, rushed, and poorly-acted, and nothing particularly fun or exciting happens in it. Various people over the years have seen its potential and Tobor has starred in a couple of comic books and an unproduced TV pilot, but these never went anywhere either.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #tobor the great #50s #tobor is robot spelled backwards

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junaou · 4 years

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𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋.

Brain worms said ‘go write Junao’s relationship call!’ so here I am, writing this relationship call. Please come and cherish this man. Or pick a fight, whatever’s your thing. Now, as of writing Junao is not in FGO servers outside of JP yet, so there are some spoilers regarding LB4 and all that. These are things I can usually leave out in normal threads/convos, but deeper social links would require me to prod into some of those topics. Tread carefully!

(This ended up being long. Like, really long. I’m so sorry.)

Like this post or reply with the number corresponding to the ideas below that you think would jive well with Junao and your muse. By default I’ll use Tumblr’s messaging system, but if you don’t prefer that/have other options my Discord ID is also available for the taking - just ask! I’ll also make sure to send any memes I find interesting, poke you when the brainworms come out, etcetera.

01. GENERAL IMPRESSIONS.

Junao is a very pleasant person to be around, and chances are most would find him to be good company - especially if this is their first meeting with the guy. Small talk is a good start to being acquainted with him! Most of the time he’ll just be there to point out things, maybe lend a hand or two.

But at the same time one might notice that a lot of this is very surface level. Less mimicry and more detached if anything, like floating clouds. His optimistic behavior will always be directed at others. Junao is a god, an observer with no personal preferences. He doesn’t really feel emotional about a lot of things, so chances are you’re not gonna get a rise out of him: he’ll just simply disagree or agree, and move on.

02. OCCASIONAL CURIOSITIES.

His world came into a standstill during ancient times. He might be aware of new innovations and modern changes thanks from Chaldea’s database or due to the circumstances of his summoning, but knowing and actually experiencing these things are two very different things. A lot of the environment is bound to catch his attention - whether it is about the urban horizon or the noise of arcade machines down the street. Junao would be up to trying out pretty much anything, so it’s really easy to entertain his questions or drag him into participating activities.

03. ARTS & CRAFTS.

Creation and destruction are his domains as a god, but creating stuff with merely the use of his Authority wasn’t very fulfilling at all. There’s joy in the process itself, so even back in Chaldea he had been trying to create with conventional means. The end result isn’t as perfect, of course, but he still finds it fun regardless. The nature of the craft can vary, from carving wood to folding origami or even assembling model kits! Chances are if you find him in a shop he would be looking for DIY items to try out.

04. DIVINITY.

Junao’s status as a god is quite strange. He wasn’t born as one and he wasn’t supposed to become one. Needless to say, his current performance as a god is…well, it’s not quite stellar. Of course it’s not like he hasn’t communed with gods in the past - his father is one after all. But all of his prior experiences have been under the position of one who followed and worship them. Now that he walks among them, he’s not quite so sure. Anyone who also happened to be a god in their own world would be of interest to him, just to know how it is like for them to have divine inhumanity in their blood. He has to realize that not every god shares his emotional detachment.

05. TO PURGE ALL EVIL.

He inherited the majority of his divine aspect from Kalki, one who is said to cleanse the world of all evil. In his hopes and dreams for a perfect world he tried to remove all known sources of it, only to end up going overboard. (Overboard is an understatement.) Now aware of this flaw, Arjuna has narrowed down his definition to anyone who threatens those close to him, which is a good starting point! So uh, don’t mess with them or you’ll have to face the wrath of a god.

That being said, he’s aware that figuring out the complexities and the nuances between good and evil is something he needs a better grasp on, something that would take an eternity for one to learn. There are some things that he can easily consider to be evil of the bat, but the moral grey is something he needs to face directly and address if he wanted be do better at his job.

06. I HAND YOU MORE YEARNING.

“How enviable. That is truly the form of a human. They continue to struggle even as ugly as they are. They act valiantly, but they continue to tremble in fear. They cry out saying they don’t want to die, and yet risk their lives to save another. Something inside me insists… ‘I want that. I want to be that.’”

Gods use humans as their proxies, but men do not become gods. Arjuna Alter’s existence is an anomaly, one that breaches this rule. And yet, no matter what happens, his status as a god shall never change. He can no longer return to become human again. That is why he looks at humans from a distance - in all their beauty and ugliness, their strength and their love and their passion, the way they rise and fall and rise again. Longing for something he has discarded.

07. BY CONTINUING TO QUESTION.

So. Remember what I said about him being a god with no preferences, detached from all forms of desire and emotion?

Now throw all of that out of the window.

Arjuna is an imperfect god. Beneath all these layers of divinity, underneath the functions and the code, therein lies a human soul. One that by all means should have disappeared into the void once he has absorbed nearly every god and yet despite everything he has retained his individuality. Call it a paradox or a miracle, but this is something that can only be achieved by those we call heroes.

Of course this is something that not everyone would be privy towards, but if one pursues a closer relation with Junao it is inevitable that one would end up unearthing these aspects. This personality may be muted, but there are just simply things that he cannot help but react towards. What sides would resurface would depend on specific interactions, however. After all, Arjuna is human, possessing positive and negative traits in equal measure.

07A. WHITE. Bonds are important to Arjuna, whether it is from friends or from family. He is devoted to those who trust and respect him, and those he has grown to trust and respect in return. He still loves his theatrics, whether it’s showing off a skill or just being plain dramatic, and is a willing participant when it comes to competition. He’s no longer afraid of expressing himself, and thus any smile or sign of gratefulness is the genuine thing.

07B. BLACK. He is not above pettiness or resentment. One cannot easily forget pride and honor, and he would come to rise in his own defense or on others when necessary. There are things that are still capable of riling him up, such as injustices that he cannot find himself to forgive. While he is trying to rid himself of his perfectionism, a part of it still exists, and he might find himself going overboard when blinded by emotion. As much as he would deny it, there are things he has begun to question - about his destiny, about his dharma, things he would claim to be unfair despite declaring himself as the greatest sinner of them all.

07C. BHAGAVAD GITA. And herein lies the root of his existence, the point where the fates of the Berserker Arjuna has diverged from the Archer Arjuna. His decision to absorb all gods was a decision rooted in the deepest depths of despair. It was the overabundance of suffering and moral dilemma that has had him think that it would be better to feel nothing at all, and why he has given up his emotions and personality. Why he forgot what was he supposed to fight for in the first place.

He still cannot confront them, after all this time. To face it head on is to have it break down all the walls he has built up for millennia, and no matter when it occurs he would not be ready for that backlash. He has failed in where the Archer Arjuna succeeded, and he is full aware that to acknowledge them again would break him. It has already broken him before.

What lies beyond the song of gods? I do not know. But eventually he has to go back there again, to that time where he has sacrificed everything for nothing. And when he does, he needs to find an answer. May you help him find that, no matter what it may be.

If you have reached this part of this post…congratulations! And thank you so much for reading this up to the end. Of course, I am also open to any ideas that aren’t listed here. Feel free to poke me on messages, plotting is fun and good.

#isola rp ad #isola relationship call #isola plotting call #「・」 TRIVIAL #'how long did this take you' too long #slaps this monstrosity of a post into your dashboard

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kyarymell · 5 years

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[Fic] Sugar Hearts; Leon S. Kennedy x Reader

Rating: T

Summary: Even with Raccoon City going to hell, you still end up sharing chocolates with the cute Rookie cop you just met.

Just a quick one-shot for you all, Happy Valentine's Day you love-fools! My boyfriend helped me write this by proxy because I’ve been watching him play the Resident Evil 2 Remake a bunch, giving me details on the universe.

No cover art for now, I’m too tired. xD

You were at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Finally able to take a break from work, you were staying at your friend’s place in Raccoon City. It was strange seeing the military barricades everywhere, but no-one thought anything of it. Random acts of violence eventually became frequent and suddenly everyone was clamoring to the exits.

In the confusion, you were separated from your friend. Days passed holed up in their apartment and you were getting worried.

Even if looking for them spelled out your certain death, you would try. As you came to realise, the situation in the city was no regular occurrence.

Humans once populating the streets, were now mindless walking shells of flesh. It was straight out of a horror movie. Armed with a melee weapon, your first point of visit was the Raccoon City Police Department.

Thankfully, the reanimated corpses were slow, unlike those seen in movies. Running over to the historical site, you saw that the front gate was shut. Narrowly moving out of the way as a zombie lunged, you tried to find another way in.

Walking through a side alley, you find a gate with loose boards against it. Making sure you don’t get splinters, you quietly pry the nails from the boards. Slipping through the gate, you breathe a sigh of relief as you’re able to get away from the rain.

Stumbling into the main hall, miserable and wet, is when you meet Lieutenant Marvin Branagh. He’s heavily wounded, bleeding profusely from his injuries. You wish there was something you could do, but there’s no first aid kit in sight.

“Didn’t think there were any civilians left alive around here.”

“Then that means...”

“We were overrun a few days ago. I’m sorry. There were so many people coming and going- I can’t say if your friend was here.”

Downcast, you bit your lip. So that’s it then. Where would you even go now? Zombies surrounded the station as far as the eye could see. Your friend... maybe if you weren’t so scared hiding out in their apartment you’d reunite with them.

Maybe-

“You wanted to show me something, Lieutenant?”

Jumping, you were so deep in thought you didn’t even notice the newcomer. Judging by his uniform, he had to be a police officer. He looked young, hair clinging to his forehead from the rain.

This is your first introduction to Leon S. Kennedy, a rookie cop who was late for work and happened to miss the apocalypse. You’re in his company after Marvin fills you in on the situation- finding a way out by opening a secret passageway.

“Strength in numbers. Remember that.”

It sounds surreal, but then again, you’re in a historical building surrounded by zombies. Secret passages shouldn’t phase you by now. Before heading out of the main hall together, the pair of you make introductions and you find out it’s (technically) his first day on the job.

“Damn, that sucks.”

There’s nothing much to say- passing by what seems to be an office, there’s a banner with the words ‘Welcome Leon’ strung on the ceiling. It’s almost sad to think about his department throwing a party for a person who would never come.

“I couldn’t just abandon the other guys out here. I had to see what was going on.”

“I see…”

The way he speaks is with a hint of regret and you’re feeling it- too frightened to find your friend sooner. You wish you had that sort of confidence. The rookie noticed your faraway look and shot you a smile.

“As long as we stick together, we’ll be alright. Hopefully I’ll find some answers as to what’s going on.”

Trying to ignore how attractive he looked when he smiled, you nodded. It would be nice to know who was to blame for everything becoming fucked up like this.

A lot goes down in the next hour. You’ve been given a knife to fend off any attacks and you find it useful when a zombie grabs you from behind. Sticking your knife in it, you shove it away as Leon shoots it squarely in the head.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

You’re not sure how much help you can be in this situation, with no combat experience to speak of but you can reach and grab things that Leon is unable to. Things continue like this for a while, collecting keys and finding parts to mechanisms.

Then, Leon’s foot goes through a loose floorboard in the library.

“Shit-!”

With all the gear he was carrying, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Diving for him, you grabbed his arm before he fell completely. The zombies on the floor below were alerted to the noise, grasping for his foot. He was heavy- but was able to regain his footing before falling completely.

“Thanks. Guess we’re even now. Let’s go before they catch up to us.”

“Sure.”

If you had to be honest, it was good to have someone watching your back, after days of being alone. Leon was considerate, making small talk when he saw how nervous you were. After running from monsters of all types, you felt a little hopeful that you would make it out alive.

Coming to a dark, quiet hallway Leon motioned for you to stay behind him. Trusting his judgement, you were a few paces behind him. Something still didn’t feel right.

“Le-?!”

You were about to call out to him, until you find yourself pinned against the wall. The rookie’s hand was clamped onto your mouth, effectively silencing you. There was a moment of confusion, then you saw a mass of flesh and bone crawl slowly past.

Every time it made a movement, there was a clicking noise across the floorboards. Claws. You willed yourself to stay put, hoping you wouldn’t be shredded to pieces.

The pair of you leaned against the wall, listening for the creature’s whereabouts. Sweat beaded on your forehead as Leon held you tight, his breath hot on your ear. Trembling, you tried to focus on how warm his body was and not how terrified you were.

After a tense moment of silence, Leon released you.

“Sorry,” he whispered, “I’ve encountered one of those things before. They react to sound.”

Nodding, you slowly walked with him and winced when the floor creaked under your boot.

Thankfully, the creature didn’t come back.

It was a blur after that; unlocking the passageway out, Marvin succumbing to his wounds and reaching the parking lot. There was a race against time, reassembling the circuit board to the jail and grabbing the parking key card.

All the while, you were running from some crazed giant mutant who was hell-bent on seeing you both dead. Finally losing the creature and opening the garage door, you were the closest to death you’ve ever been. Caught off-guard, a mutated dog tackled you to the ground.

Desperately trying to get yourself free, you moved to grab your knife and shoved it straight into the creature’s throat. Staggered, you kick it away and Leon is able to shoot it cleanly.

“You alright?”

Your breath is caught in your throat. Were you bitten? Would you become one of those things? Numb, your companion led you by the arm out of the parking garage.

Feeling raindrops on your skin pulls you out of your shocked state. Oh, how you were so glad to see the night sky again.

“I…”

“C’mon.”

Exhausted from the ordeals thus far, the pair of you take a breather after barricading a small newsagency. Setting yourself down on the floor, you’re relieved to be able to rest for once. Wrapping your arms around yourself, you hugged your knees tight.

It’s been horrible from the get go- you’re not sure how much more you can take of this. All the blood, seeing those things rend and tear flesh from each other…

Leon sits next to you, taking you out of your thoughts. There’s a square-shaped box in his hands and you can feel a slight chill radiating off it. The sound of the box unwrapping brings your attention to what’s inside.

Chocolates.

“Found these in the back, I think they’re free from infection.”

There’s a theory between the two of you that the cause of zombies was due to an outbreak.

“You think they’re free from infection?”

As you’re questioning him, he’s already popped one into his mouth. Shocked, you lean over and squeeze on his chin.

“Wait! Spit it out!”

Choosing to ignore your concern, he swallows it down then offers you a piece.

“Have some, they’re pretty good.”

“Leon…”

Frowning, you really don’t have the stomach for this sort of thing but take one anyway. Chewing on the sweet confection, you found yourself yearning for the days when things were normal. Perhaps some sugar was good for you, after the shock you just experienced.

“You’re right. They are good.”

Leon nodded and the two of you sat there for a while, sharing the chocolates. Your thoughts wandered. If only something like this could happen under normal circumstances…

How much more were you to endure before getting out of here? It was frustrating being on the receiving end of the rookie’s kindness all the time.

“I’m sorry that you end up saving me a lot.”

Your companion shook his head.

“You’ve had my back more than once- remember when I got grabbed and you threw me your knife?”

Biting the inside of your cheek, you were unsure of what to say.

“-and those weird puzzles we always seem to come across, you solve them pretty quickly.”

“Well…”

“I’m glad I met you.” his words are genuine and it ignites a heat in your chest.

Would you get another chance like this?

You’re not sure if it’s the adrenaline from earlier wearing off, but you allow your eyes to shut, pressing your lips against his. Subconsciously, your tongue darts out and you taste the lingering sweetness from the chocolate.

Gasping, you pull away from him as if burned.

“I’m sorry! Uh, we just met and-“

He gives you a smile-

“Nah, it’s fine.”

-and leans in to kiss you again.

#resident evil 2 #re2 #resident evil 2 remake #re2 remake #leon s kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x reader

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mompansy03 · 2 years

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Open The Gates For Wotlk Private Server By using These Simple Tips

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#Grn online #all about private wow servers

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protecthunter535 · 3 years

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Openoffice For Mac Os

Openoffice For Mac Os X

Openoffice For Mac Free

Openoffice For Mac Os X 10.4.11

Openoffice Mac Os 10.11

Draft : This page aims to create a reviewers guide, mainly maintained by the hard-core devs from the Mac port (but not only). Means the information has been put in random order, and maybe this is completely uggly. Please contribute if you think the outline is not correct, or if you catched an error . or .

Thanks in advance !!

Goal : create a Reviewers Guide for OpenOffice.org Aqua, on Mac OS X

OpenOfficeはWindows・Mac両方のOSで利用可能です。Windowsユーザーでも、Microsoft Officeを持っていない方もOpenOfficeを利用すれば、Microsoft Officeと同等の機能を利用することが可能となりま. Free download OpenOffice.org Impress OpenOffice.org Impress for Mac OS X. OpenOffice.org Impress - IMPRESS is a truly outstanding tool for creating effective multimedia presentations.

5Installation

5.5Personnalisation

The last OpenOffice version supporting Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard), 10.6 (Snow Leopard) is OpenOffice 4.0.1. Hardware Requirements ¶ CPU: Intel Processor. Openoffice for mac free download - Apache OpenOffice, WinZip Mac, Avast Free Mac Security, and many more programs.

Aqua Screenshots

Feel free to add others. Better idea: propose little and high resolution of the same shot

Supported Versions and Architectures

Please note:

Mac OS X 10.3 (aka Panther) is no longer maintained after 2.2. version included

There is officialy no Universal Binaries archive provided, and you have to take care of the architecture (mentionned in the archive name)

Software versionPowerPC processorIntel processorOpenOffice.org Aqua (starting 3.0)Works with Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5, and the 10.6pre (aka Snow Leopard)Works with Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5 and the 10.6pre (aka Snow Leopard)OpenOffice.org (starting 2.2 version)Works with Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5Works with Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5OpenOffice.org (until 2.1 version included)Works with Mac OS X 10.3 , 10.4, 10.5 (during 2007)Works with Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5 (during 2007)

New features coming with the Aqua version of OpenOffice.org ( 3.x )

FIXME: add screenshots / links for high resolution images, for every feature

In addition of all the changes of the 3.0 papported to the 2.0 version, the Aqua version of OpenOffice.org brings the following new features (non exhaustive list)

Install by simple drag and drop.

What you see after double clicking the downloaded .dmg :

Simply Drag the OpenOffice.org on Applications folder :

Other possibilities: drag the OpenOffice.org icon (aka the' Bundle ' ) elsewhere is possible. Just do what you prefer, keeping in mind Applications folder is the prefered one

The Aqua version of OpenOffice.org no longer needs X11

NEW Start center

Look and Feel Aqua, using Cocoa API

Many useful extensions available (e.g. PresenterScreen or PDF-Import)

Main Application Menu on the main menu ( on Top of the screen ) ( no more menus in the window frames)

Improved accessibility (Voice Over, Zoom, Contrast . nd so on)

FIXME : Describe accessibility features

Apple System fonts are transparently used (ATS server)

Integrated Mac OS X Address Book

Media Player using QuickTime ( videos and sounds: all QuickTime supported formats are supposed to work inside OpenOffice.org)

Expected:Describe: the feature, the shortcuts, more features ( possible sound/movie file formats ), limitations

Integrated Apple SpellChecker

Expected:Describe: the feature, the shortcuts, what can be done with it, limitations and known issues

Copy Paste

Expected:Maybe a nive movie about DnD ?

Drag and Drop

Expected:Maybe a nive movie about DnD ?

Native Print Dialog box

Expected:Screenshots

Cocoa FilePicker

Expected:Screenshots

Spotlight Plugin

Expected:Describe: the feature, the shortcuts, what can be done with it

QuickLook plugin (limited to Mac OS X 10.5.x aka Leopard)

Expected:Describe: the feature, the shortcuts, what can be done with it, limitations and known issues

Multi monitors support

Expected:

show the feature, how customize, tips

Show the presenter screen in actins

.. complete me (work in progress )

Scheduled features ( 3.1 )

Improved antialiasing FIXME: add a link

Apple Remote in Impress => see Apple Remote Implementation

Proxy Icon implementation => see Proxy Icon Implementation

OpenGL transitions in Impress => see OpenGL transitions in Impress

Truer compatibility with WebDAV-connected file systems => see issue 81536

COMPLETE ME ..

Installation

FIXME: translate .

We suppose you already downloaded an OpenOffice.org Aqua archive ( 3.0 version or superior )

TODO :

screenshots !!

explain the .dmg

explain how to use it

comment the prefs, where they are located (shortcut)

describe the preferences, and what is important for the Mac user

how to locate/remove them

Click on the links mentioned here, create an account using the signup in the top bar on the GOG.com website and buy the game. So if you haven’t Crossover yet, then sign up and buy the program or if you want to test it first, for the 14 days trial. Or use the Porting Kit alternative.If you don’t own the game yet, get from GOG.com which is DRM free there and runs out of the box. revslider slider41 Game Details:Welcome to the “Worms 2” for Mac game page.This page contains information + tools how to port so you can play it on your Mac just like a normal application using. Mac os for pc torrent.

Mount the archive

A double clic is sufficient. If the archive is valid, and nothing goes wrong, you should obtain

(screenshot)

Copy the Bundle in the Install dirC

In the frame, just drag the 'OpenOffice.org' Icon on the 'Applications' Icon : the Bundle will be copied into the Applciations folder.

The next step will start once this one will be finished

Dock the OpenOffice.org icon

What means dock an application ?

Dock an application means put its icon on the dock. This will allow to make the icon always visible, and then, start the application just clicking the icon !

Note: the number of icons you can dock is limited. (say around 40, what is not that bad ;-)

Process to dock the OpenOffice.org icon

1) Go in the Applications folder

2) Drag the OpenOffice.org icon somewhere in the dock (e.g. between two applications)

That's all !!

First launch

At the first launch, you'll be invited to answer a few questions. Please provide us feeedback : this is very important for us to improve the product.

FIXME : screenshots

Personnalisation

Printing

Change the iconset

menus modifications

FIXME: provide examples+ screenshots

Adobe photoshop free for mac download. How long does it take for download?

Using Webdav

Links

This page is based on Herbert Duerr idea, and an example could be: http://www.opera.com/press/reviews/#sharp

Page created: Ericb 16:54, 10 September 2008 (CEST) https://protecthunter535.tumblr.com/post/652776997882413056/coreldraw-for-mac-crack-download.

Retrieved from 'https://wiki.openoffice.org/w/index.php?title=Mac_OS_X_Porting_Reviewers_Guide_for_OpenOffice.org_Aqua&oldid=92327'

Freeware

macOS

165 MB

18,798

Major Components:

Writer – a word processor you can use for anything from writing a quick letter to producing an entire book.

Calc – a powerful spreadsheet with all the tools you need to calculate, analyse, and present your data in numerical reports or sizzling graphics.

Impress – the fastest, most powerful way to create effective multimedia presentations. Vector drawing tool Draw – lets you produce everything from simple diagrams to dynamic 3D illustrations.

Base – lets you manipulate databases seamlessly. Create and modify tables, forms, queries, and reports, all from within OpenOffice.org

Math – lets you create mathematical equations with a graphic user interface or by directly typing your formulas into the equation editor.

Mac OS X Support

With Version 3.0, OpenOffice.org is now able to run on Mac OS X without the need for X11. Thus, OpenOffice.org behaves like any other Aqua application.

ODF 1.2 Support

Openoffice For Mac Os X

OpenOffice.org 3.0 already supports the features of the upcoming version 1.2 of the ISO standard OpenDocument Format (ODF). ODF 1.2 includes a powerful formula language as well as a sophisticated metadata model based on the W3C standards RDF and OWL. ODF is being mandated and adopted in a growing number of countries. In addition; ODF is being implemented by many vendors for many different applications.

Microsoft Office 2007 Import Filters

In addition to read and write support for the Microsoft Office binary file formats (.doc; .xls, .ppt, etc.), OpenOffice.org 3.0 is now capable of opening files created with Microsoft Office 2007 or Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac OS X (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.). Thus, OpenOffice.org users can interact with users still using Microsoft Office. The various filters for the Microsoft Office file formats also make mixed environments possible, so that some users stay on Microsoft Office while others use OpenOffice.org.

Solver

OpenOffice.org now also has a solver component which allows solving optimization problems where the optimum value of a particular spreadsheet cell has to be calculated based on constraints provided in other cells. The new solver component should be particularly interesting to Mac users considering that Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac OS X apparently does not include a solver feature anymore.

Chart Enhancements

Many OpenOffice.org users requests support for displaying custom error bars and regression equations. The OpenOffice.org developer community including Sun listened to these users and added these highly desired features to OpenOffice.org 3.0. Thus; now it's possible to draw error bars based on error ranges provided in spreadsheet cells. In addition, it is possible to display regression equations as well as correlation coefficients.

Openoffice For Mac Free

1024 Columns Per Calc Sheet (Instead of 256)

With support for 1024 columns; OpenOffice.org 3.0 can now handle significantly more data than before. Previous versions only supported 256 columns.

Display of Multiple Writer Pages While Editing

When you are writing larger documents; it is often nice to see the current page in a context, i.e. to also see the previous and the next page. With the new zoom slider, it is now easily possible to change the zoom factor. More importantly, OpenOffice.org Writer can now display multiple pages at the same time. This features is particularly handy on large monitors or dual-monitor setups.

New Sidebar

The Sidebar is a major new feature of the user interface in all of the OpenOffice applications.

The Sidebar makes better use of today's widescreen displays than traditional toolbars. The 'Properties' deck is context-sensitive and shows panels with the document properties that are most frequently used for the current editing task.

Different panels expanded or collapsed

Eleven property panels have been migrated from IBM Lotus Symphony: Alignment, Area, Cell Appearance, Graphic, Line, Number Format, Page, Paragraph, Position and Size, Text and Wrap.

Seven panels come from the old Impress tool panel: Available for Use, Custom Animation, Layouts, Recently Used, Slide Transition, Table Design, Used in This Presentation.

Four are non-modal (ie non locking) dialogs: Functions, Gallery, Navigator, Syles and Formatting.

One is new: Insert.

The width of the Sidebar can be adjusted. The controls adapt their size accordingly. If you need more space then it can be undocked — and possibly moved to a second display — or it can be reduced to a thin tab bar. A single click on one of the icons and the sidebar is back.

Interoperability Improvements

Free coding app for mac. Swift is a robust and intuitive programming language created by Apple for building apps for iOS, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch. It’s designed to give developers more freedom than ever. Swift is easy to use and open source, so anyone with an idea can create something incredible.

Fidelity and interoperability improvement is an ongoing goal for Apache OpenOffice. And there are many improvements going in to the new version. Here an overview of some of the major fidelity improvements since the Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1 release, including features, enhancements and defect fixes.

What's New:

Apache OpenOffice 4.0.1 is a maintenance release which fixes critical issues and improves the overall quality of the application. All users of Apache OpenOffice 4.0 or earlier are advised to upgrade.

General areas of improvement include: additional native language translations, bug fixes, performance improvements and Windows 8 compatibility enhancements.

Improvements/Enhancements

Performance Improvements/Enhancements compared to OpenOffice 4.0.0

The performance for saving XLS files was boosted by more than 230%.

Improvements/Enhancements missing in the OpenOffice 4.0.0 release notes

OpenOffice 4.0 integrated the very popular extensions 'Presenter Screen' and 'Presentation Minimizer' into the core product.

Bug Fixes

Openoffice For Mac Os X 10.4.11

Crash when switching sidebar panes

Crash with certain extensions

Crash on Microsoft Windows with text in complex scripts

Crash when deleting footnotes

Loading *.123 files

Rendering of charts with many data points

Image rendering on Mac OS X

Python compatibility has been improved

Fixes to make C# extensions work

Error on user profile migration regarding updating bundled extensions

Error on opening Microsoft Office documents created in Apple iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)

HTML export losing paragraph formatting

Crashes on PDF export in Writer's Page Preview

Crashes in Writer when deleting content which had been copied to the clipboard

Error/Crashes on importing Microsoft Word documents

No possible keyboard text selection in Writer's text frames

Lost database connection in text documents on save - related to Mail Merge

Errors in Calc's filter functions

Calculation error in IMABS() function

Formatting error of boolean values in Calc

Repaint errors in Calc which showed double lines and white stripes

Various fixes/improvements for SVG files

Fixed and improved visualization of transformed bitmap graphics for Linux

Fix to exporting a bitmap graphic with a given pixel size

Fixed Copy/Paste clipboard handling for transporting bitmap images (e.g. drag & drop or copy/paste from browser)

Fixed Microsoft Windows-specific performance task with very large bitmaps, enhanced buffering for all systems

Repaired some modes of text editing for graphic objects where the text was not always readable

Fix to import of user-defined connector changes

Corrected line width for anchor visualization in Writer

Fixed EMF/WMF reader for some critical cases to enhance the import quality

Openoffice Mac Os 10.11

Popular apps in Office Applications

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anycontentposter · 4 years

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3 PC Upgrades for a Lightning-Fast Video-Editing Rig

It’s the best (most affordable) time to upgrade your PC. Here are three components that can turn your clunker into a high-performance, video-editing rig.

We are currently living in a PC renaissance, which makes it the best time to build your own PC or upgrade your existing one. With the days of Bitcoin-mining rigs in the rearview mirror, prices for PC components have finally stabilized. Add a healthy dose of innovation and competition between manufacturers, and you have yourself a truly competitive market with affordable PC components lining the shelves.

For video editors, a computer is essential to the process, but old components can slow down rendering times for videos, making it nearly impossible to edit. Instead of building a PC from scratch or purchasing an overpriced, pre-made PC, you can invest in a few components to breathe some life into your old machine. Though more expensive parts will yield better results, sometimes those gains are incremental and not worth the steep price tag. It’s best to replace your oldest or slowest components — even a new budget component can revitalize an aging system.

Central Processing Unit (CPU)

The CPU is the brains of the operation, and, for video editors, perhaps the most essential component inside a PC. A powerful CPU can significantly improve rendering and exporting times, and software such as Adobe’s Premiere Pro drains the CPU unlike anything else.

A new CPU can speed up your computer and cut down on program closures. Image via Blue Andy.

As your computer ages, you’ll notice longer rendering times, video that stutters as you edit, and, even worse, an unexpected program closure that deletes all your progress. A brand-new CPU can remedy those issues, which is where the majority of your budget should go. Luckily, AMD and Intel’s fight for market share has significantly impacted the price of CPUs, and better yet, AMD’s current lineup has made significant leaps in technology. There’s no doubt that AMD has a better overall cost-to-performance ratio.

You’ll want to keep an eye on potential CPUs’ speed, which is measured in gigahertz (GHz), the number of cores, and the number of threads. Speed is crucial, sure, but more cores can help you process more information at once. Threads, on the other hand, are what feed information to the cores, thus increasing the processing power. Current AMD processors use a 1:2 ratio with cores and threads — i.e., eight cores and sixteen threads. Another thing you’ll want to look out for is whether the CPU is unlocked, which allows users to overclock the CPU past its stock speed. It’s worth noting that all AMD processors are unlocked, while Intel adds a “K” after the number to signify that the CPU is unlocked. Overclocking can lead to frying your CPU if you do it wrong, and you’ll need a better cooler to keep it from overheating.

Below is a list of our favorite picks, but you can find out more about CPU rankings here.

Last-gen CPU is still going strong: AMD Ryzen 7 2700x

8 Cores and 16 Threads UnlockedBase/Boost Speed: 3.7/4.3 GHzPower Consumption: 105W

Current-gen CPU with Better Power Efficiency: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

8 Cores and 16 ThreadsUnlockedBase/Boost: 3.6/4.4 GHzPower Consumption: 65W

Fastest CPU under $500: Intel i9-990K

8 Cores and 16 ThreadsUnlockedIntel UHD Graphics 630 (No discrete GPU required)Base/Boost: 3.6/5.0 GHzPower Consumption: 95W Random Access Memory (RAM)

If your computer often freezes when you open too many programs or when you’re editing video on your timeline, you may need a RAM upgrade. Although the word “memory” is technically within “RAM,” this kind of memory doesn’t store files. Think of RAM as your computer’s short-term memory, which keeps your most important files and processes on hand so you can access them quickly. The more RAM you have, the faster your computer is because it doesn’t have to access your computer’s storage.

These days, editing video needs higher RAM. Premiere Pro requires a minimum of 8GBs of RAM to operate. However, Adobe recommends 16GBs of RAM for editing HD video and 32GBs for 4K video. RAM speed, which is measured in megahertz (MHz), is another thing you’ll want to consider. To take advantage of RAM speeds, you’ll want to use dual-channel memory, which requires you to place two sticks of RAM in the corresponding DIMM slots. Motherboards have different instructions for dual-channel memory, so check your manual.

Adding more RAM will help you access your files more quickly. Image via vtwinpixel.

For example, if you want to upgrade to 16GBs of RAM, purchase two sticks of 8GB RAM, which are sold together, and place them in the correct DIMM slots on your motherboard. It’s worth noting that AMD processors love fast RAM, and 3rd-Gen AMD processors work best with 3200 MHz RAM or faster. From budget-friendly to 4K editing-worthy RAM kits, we’ve created a list below.

8GB Budget-Friendly RAM Kit under $50: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2x4GB)

Speed: DDR4 2400 MHzHeat SpreadersDual-Channel CapableLow-Profile

16GB RAM for HD Video Editing: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2x8GB)

Speed: DDR4 3600 MHz (Perfect for 3rd-GEN AMD Ryzen CPU)Dual-Channel CapableHeat Spreaders

32GB RAM for 4K Editing Rig: G.Skill Trident Z Neo Series 32GB (2x16GB)

Speed: DDR4 3600 MHz (Also great for 3rd-Gen Ryzen CPUs)Dual-Channel CapableColorful RGB Light Heat Sinks Solid State Drive (SSD)

When editing HD or 4K files, you’ll need high-capacity storage to keep the files on your computer. Hard Disk Drives (HDD) are great for archiving old footage and videos, but Solid State Drives (SSD) are faster, smaller, and can improve your workflow. They’re also considerably more expensive. Before you begin editing off an SSD, you’ll want to install Windows on it, which will make it your Boot Drive. When installed on an SSD, Windows starts up insanely fast. Then, install your editing software onto your SSD for a smoother editing experience.

SSDs are faster, smaller, and will improve your workflow. Image via Samsung.

SSDs are relatively new still, but have recently become more affordable. There are really two kinds of SSDs these days. The classic SSDs have a rectangular form-factor and connect to your PC via a SATA cable. The newer M.2 NVMe SSDs, however, are the storage option du jour. They connect to your computer via the M.2 socket on the motherboard. But, not all motherboards currently have this socket.

With a speedy SSD, you can skip creating proxies if you want, and you’ll be able to load and work on files faster. You can still store most of your footage on an HDD since they’re much cheaper, but you can work off of your SSD, which will shave time off your editing process. Below are our SSD picks.

500GB of SSD storage for $50: ADATA SU760 512GB SSD

SATA III Size: 2.5 InchesRead/Write: 550/520 MB/s

1TB SSD for under $100: WD Blue 1TB SSD

SATA IIISize: 2.5 InchesRead/Write: 560/530 MB/s

1TB SSD — The Holy Grail: Samsung 970 EVO 1TB SSD

NVMe M.2 (Requires M.2 socket on the motherboard) Thermal GuardRead/Write: 3,500/2,500 MB/s Optional Upgrades Graphics Processing Unit/ Graphics Card (GPU)

While most consumer-grade GPUs, these days, are meant for playing video games, they’re also useful for video editing, especially for special effects software such as Adobe’s After Effects. But, because most Intel CPUs have integrated graphics on-board, you may not need a discrete graphics card. This could save you $200 or more.

AMD provides high quality, affordable GPUs. Image via AMD.

If, however, you opt for an AMD CPU, you’ll need to purchase a discrete graphics card since AMD rarely makes CPUs with built-in graphics. Luckily, AMD makes excellent GPUs that are typically more affordable than their NVIDIA counterparts. You could easily spend between $500 to $700 on top-of-the-line current-gen GPUs, but since you won’t be gaming, you can go for something more affordable. Check here for a full list of GPU rankings, or check out our picks below.

Last-gen budget GPU, but still powerful: AMD Radeon RX 580

Speed: 1366 MHz (Boost Clock)Factory OverclockVRAM: GDDR5 8GB2x Display Ports (FreeSync)

Mid-tier GPU with a small form-factor: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti

Speed: 1830 MHz (Boost Clock)Factory OverclockVRAM: GDDR6 6GB3x Display Port (G-Sync)

Best GPU under $500: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT

Speed: 2025 MHz (Boost Clock)VRAM: GDDR6 8GB3x Display Port (FreeSync)4K Resolution at 120HZ (120 Frames per Second) Motherboard

If a computer is a house, then the motherboard is the foundation, and it can limit what components you can use. A motherboard’s chipset sets how much RAM you can use and how fast that RAM can be. It’s worth noting that AMD and Intel require different motherboards, which aren’t cross-compatible — i.e., you can’t use an AMD CPU on a motherboard meant for Intel CPUs.

The motherboard’s IO shield is where all the ports are located, too. So, if you want more USB, HDMI, or Ethernet ports, you may want to upgrade. To summarize, check on PC Part Picker before you buy any component to make sure it’s compatible with your current motherboard. If not, it may be time to upgrade your motherboard, too.

Cover image via Preechar Bowonkitwanchai.

Want to learn more about video gear and production? Check these out.

2019’s Top 10 Premiere Pro Video TutorialsWhy You Should Ditch the Laptop and Carry a Gnarbox 2.0 InsteadSupercharge Your Channel with Unlimited Music for YouTube VideosEight Tips on Viewing Your Videos with Fresh EyesWhat You Need to Know About Memory Cards Heading into 2020

The post 3 PC Upgrades for a Lightning-Fast Video-Editing Rig appeared first on The Shutterstock Blog.

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vbktechnologiesllp · 4 years

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Cyber-Invading Communities In The Dark-Net Cyber-Invading

The role of Cyber-Criminals has changed over the years, in the past, these professionals were viewed as dangerous criminals that needed to be kept away at any cost. However, such times are behind us and recently various private companies, criminal gangs, and intelligence agencies are seeking help from those experts. An increasingly large number of modern business operations rely on an understanding of the risks associated with programs that can easily be made vulnerable to Cyber-Invasion. Reported in a post I published on the Fox News Web-Site on the role of Cyber-Criminals. Cyber-Invading services are among the most attractive commodities in the underground market, it is possible to hire a Cyber-Criminal to request a realistic penetration test, or one can pay a Cyber-Criminal if they wish to take over someone’s Facebook or Gmail account. How much does it cost to hire a Cyber-Criminal? How to do it and what is the price for their services?

Recently many new sources also claimed that now a day it is extremely easy to hire Cyber-Criminals to carry on desires Cyber-Invasion. These Cyber-Criminals have a catalog full of prices for their Cyber-Invading Service, if an individual wants to compromise someone’s Gmail account they have to pay approximately $90 USD to get the job done. This can really come in handy if you forget your password and have important information to access and you are feeling helpless without the password. But, truth is that taking service from these Cyber-Nerds you can unlock your account. It states the post if you want to crack Gmail passwords; you can compromise Gmail with browser settings, phishing and keylogging programs, and special scripts. Cyber-Criminals, for example, could be hired to Cyber-Invade into a social media account, the cost to compromise someone’s Facebook account is $350, or simply to increase the rank of a company on a social network. The investigation conducted by law agencies revealed that the Cyber-Criminal can steal someone’s Facebook Information for $15 and to compromise a NetFlix account you have to just spare $1.25. Other common commodities in the Cyber-Invading underground are the tutorials of Cyber-Invasion that go for $20 and hit-and-run strikes, such as a DDoS or Web-Site defacement. There are various ways to buy Cyber-Invading services and probably the most interesting place where it is possible to meet members of the principal Cyber-Invading communities is the Dark-Net.

Diving In The Cyber-Invading Communities

Many Cyber-Crime investigating agencies disclosed that are countless Cyber-Invading community in the Dark-Net and Strike-Forum, Cyber-Experts, Trojan-Forge, Mazafaka, TheRealDeal and darkdeare some of the rent examples of these community. The majority of the Cyber-Invading communities are closed to the public and one must request an invitation to join the discussions. In many cases, these groups are specialized in their activities on specific topics and practices (e.g. Social media strike, data theft, infections and exploits and hit-and-run strikes (i.e. DDoS, Web-Sitestrike).Among the communities accessible only by invitation there are several strike forums, an example is the popular Trojanforge, which specializes in virus and code reversing.

Let’s start our tour on the Dark-Net from the results of a study conducted by the experts at Dell Secure Works Counter Threat Unit (CTU) to see what is changing from the publishing of the report and which are the dynamics and trends behind the Cyber-Invading communities in the underground. In 2013, experts at Dell Secure Works Counter Threat Unit (CTU) published a very interesting report titled “The Underground Cyber-Invading Economy is Alive and Well.” which investigated the online marketplace for stolen data and Cyber-Invading services. The study listed the goods sold in the black markets and related costs. One year later, the same team of researchers at Dell SecureWorks released an update to the study of black hat markets, titled “Underground Cyber-Criminal Markets”, which reports a number of noteworthy trends. Many researchers witness that the demand of fraudulent personal documents is rising every day, these documents could be employed as a second form of identification such as passport, drivers licenses, utility bills, and Social Security Numbers. Another distinguishing element of the evolution of the underground marketplaces in the last year is the offer of Cyber-Criminal Tutorials, as we have seen this kind of product still represents an element of attraction in the Cyber-Invading community. Training tutorials provide instruction to criminals and Cyber-Criminals that want to enter into the business of stolen credit card data, information on running exploit kits, guides for the organization of spam and phishing campaigns, and tutorials on how to organize hit-and-run DDoSstrike. Other tutorials offered in the Cyber-Invading communities include an instruction to compromise ATM and to manage a network of money mules, which are the principal actors for the cash-out process of every illegal activity. An investigation conducted by many law agencies proved various underground illegal activities happening in the Brazilian underground, which is characterized by the availability of a significant number of similar products and services. Cyber-Invading communities are very active in selling stolen credit cards, differentiating their offer to reach a wider audience and provide tailored services at higher prices. In the table listed on twitter, the services and the products are there with related prices expressed in both BTC and USD.

Most Common Browser Employed To Access Dark-Net

The Tor Browser is a web browser that hides your web traffic using the Tor network, making it easy to protect your identity online. The Tor browser is a perfect choice for you, if you’re investigating a competitor, researching an opposing litigant in a legal dispute, or just think it’s creepy for your ISP or the government to know what Web-Sites you browse. Browsing the web over Tor is slower than the clearnet, and some major web services block Tor clients. This browser is illegal in some countries, as the authority there does not want their citizens to publish, read or communicate privately. Various free minds across the globe have embraced the Tor browser, as online freedom and company itself work very hard to improve the overall performance of the browser.

How to Operate the Tor Browser

Like any other browser such as google chrome and Firefox, one can easily download the Tor browser. If you’ve never practiced Tor, then the first thing you’ll notice is that it’s slow or at least, slower than regular internet browsing. Still, Tor has gotten quite a bit faster over the years, and with a good internet connection, you can even watch YouTube videos over Tor.

Tor Browser gives you access to .onion Web-Sites that are only available within the Tor network. For instance, try to access Facebook at https://www.facebookcorewwwi.onion and The New York Times at https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/ employing a regular web browser. It won’t work. As you can only reach these Web-Sites over Tor. This makes it possible to read the news privately, a desirable feature in a country where you don’t want the government knowing which news Web-Sites you’re reading, when you’re reading them, and for how long. Operating Tor comes with a major set-back as various web services have blocked the access to Tor, sometimes without useful error message. If a Web-Site you normally visit suddenly returns 404 when visiting over Tor, the service is likely blocking Tor traffic and being needlessly opaque about it. Web-Sites that do not block Tor might push you to click through a ton of captchas. It’s not the end of the world, but it is annoying.

How Tor Browser works

The greatest advantage of the Tor Browser is that it re-routes all the web traffic through their network and it results in complete secrecy. Tor had developed three-layers of the proxy, quite similar to the layers of an onion. Tor Browser connects at random to one of the publicly listed entry nodes, bounces that traffic through a randomly selected middle relay, and finally spits out your traffic through the third and final exit node. As a result, don’t be surprised if Google or another service greets you in a foreign tongue. These services look at your IP address and guesstimate your country and language, but when using Tor, you will often appear to be in a physical location halfway around the world. If you live in a regime that blocks Tor or need to access a web service that blocks Tor, you can also configure Tor Browser to exercise bridges. Unlike Tor’s entry and exit nodes, bridge IP addresses are not publicly listed, making it extremely complex for web services, or governments, to blacklist those IP addresses. Tor does not support UDP, so don’t try to torrent free programs ISOs, as it won’t work.

Is Tor Browser legal?

For most people reading this article, Tor Browser is completely legal to practice. In some countries, this browser is illegal, as the authority there does not want their citizens to publish, read or communicate privately. Various free minds across the globe have embraced the Tor browser, as online freedom and the company itself work very hard to improve the overall performance of the browser. China has banned secrecy and hence blocks Tor traffic from crossing the Firewall and countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia are working day and night to stop citizens from using Tor. Recently most of the traffic of the Tor browser was blocked in Venezuela. It’s easy to see why a repressive regime hates Tor. The service makes it easy for journalists to report on corruption and helps dissidents organize against political repression. The freedom to communicate, publish, and read privately is a prerequisite for freedom of expression online, and thus a prerequisite for democracy today.

How to get on the Dark-Net?

Let’s get this Dark-Net nonsense out of the way once and for all. While it’s true that some criminal entities employ Tor to commit crimes, criminals also employ regular internet to commit crimes. Bank robbers often take getaway cars on public highways to commit crimes. We don’t slander highways or the internet, because that would be foolish. Tor has tons of legitimate operations and it is considered to be a cornerstone of democracy today. So when you hear people talking in scared whispers about the Dark-Net or some other nonsense, understand that there is a lot more going on here than just The Four Horsemen of Infocalypse are using systems in non-normative methods and online Secrecy is not merely the bailiwick of criminals.As a practical matter, Tor is for ordinary people, because criminals willing to break the law can achieve better secrecy than Tor provides.

Does Tor allow criminals to do illegal things?

Criminals can already do bad things, as they want to break the law and they will do it in one way or the other. In addition to that, they have plenty of options available to do their work is absolute privacy. They can steal cell phones, employ them, and throw them in a ditch; they can crack into computers in Korea or Brazil and employ them to launch abusive activities such as spyware, viruses, and other techniques to take control of literally millions of Windows machines around the world. Tor as a browser always aims to provide protection for ordinary people. Those who want to follow some rules. Recently, only criminals can enjoy privacy and we need to do something about it.

Is Tor Browser private?

Tor browser features one of the best private web-browsing so far. However, still is far from perfect. They are currently witnessing an arms race between researchers seeking to strengthen Tor, or even develop a next-generation secrecy tool, and governments around the world studying how to break Tor’s secrecy properties.

Hiring Cyber-Criminal In Tor Network

Product — Price

Small Job-like Email, Facebook etc. compromising — $200 USD

Medium-Large Job, ruining people, espionage, Web-Site strikes etc.comercial Moctezuma — $600 USD

Compromising web server (vps or hosting) — $120 USD

Compromising personal computer — $80 USD

Security Audit

Web Server security Audit — $150 USD

Social media account take-over

Social media (FB, Twitter, etc.) — account Compromising — $50 USD

Spyware and Device Tracking

Spyware development — $180 USD

Device Tracking — $60 USD

Intelligence and Investigation

Intelligent report — locate people — $140 USD

Intelligent report — background checks — $120 USD

Fraud Track — Find your Scammer — $120 USD

Cyber extortion To be agreed prior contact

Compromising web server (vps or hosting) — $250 USD

Compromising personal computer — $200 USD

Compromising Social Media Account (Facebook, Twitter) — $300 USD

Gmail Account Take over — $300 USD

Security Audit

Web Server security Audit — $400 USD

Virus — $150 USD

Remote Access Trojan — $400 USD

Banking virus Customization (Zeus source code) — $900 USD

DDoS strikes

Rent a botnet for DDoS strike for 24 hours — $150 to $500 USD

24 Hours DDoS Service — $480.61 USD

Market set up — $7957.80 USD

Private RAT setup for dummies — $1250 USD

The real GovRAT — source code + Instructions on setup and compile + 1 digital certificate for code signing to sign your files — $1081.38 USD

RAT set up service and deployment on bullet proof hosting — $1201.53 USD

Android RAT + Tutorial — $1200 USD

Compromising web server — $500 USD

Compromising Social Media Account (Facebook, Twitter ) — $200 USD

Compromising Tutorial, Cash out tutorial, Carding tutorial etc. — $240 USD

Compromising Tool: Spying a Computer — $500 USD

Compromising a web server — $1000 USD

Targeted invasion on a specific client — $2000 USD

Programs protection cracking- Reverse engineering — $300 USD

Penetration Testing — $250 USD

Custom Facebook strike — $250 USD

Tutorial

How to make a Botnet — $2211 USD

How to set up a RAT — $1100 USD

All the payments are done privately and in BTC. In the Tor network, several Cyber-Criminals offering their services using their own Web-Sites, black markets represent the privileged choice to get in touch with a Cyber-Criminal and hire him. The principal benefits of hiring a Cyber-Criminal on a black marketplace are: • Possibility to verify the reputation of the Cyber-Criminal and its abilities. • Availability of escrow services that protect both buyers and sellers.

For this reason, we decided to explore some of the most popular black markets searching for Cyber-Criminals to hire. We end up taking a short tour of the TheRealDeal black market. This community was emerged recently to deliver a privileged environment to both buyers and sellers and the core goal is to commercialize exploit kits and Cyber-Invading services. I have found among the Cyber-Criminals that propose their services the possibility to pay for a DDoSstrike or for the customization of a virus, also on TheRealDeal market it is possible to pay for tutorials of a different kind. Below a table that outlines the offers, I received from the Cyber-Criminals I contacted, or that published their offers on the marketplace. Another popular black market is Nucleus(http://nfc2s3fsbjh22hzz.onion, http://ifa3gxnvs6gj7ooa.onion/ but at least another 2 mirrors are up to serve visitors), this marketplace is more focused on products (i.e. virus, stolen card data, etc.) than service. I tried to contact some sellers and only one of them offered me Cyber-Invading services to compromise a server or to compromise a specific client stealing his data with targeted invasion. In the following table are resumed some of the products/services available on Nucleus marketplace.

The Opinion Of An Expert

In order to give you an illustrious opinion about the Cyber-Menaces of the Dark-Net, I decided to involve a valuable colleague, Paolo Stagno, aka VoidSec, which is a Cyber Security Analyst specialized in Underground Intelligence. He provides speeches in various international conferences, which include BlackHat, DEFCON, and Droidcon. He is the proud leader and founder of VoidSec.com. This is the Web-Site where all Cyber-Criminals can share experience and ideas. Below my questions for Paolo regarding Dark-Net and Cyber-Invading communities:

What can we find in the Dark-Net?

The Dark-Net is a “hidden reality” where is possible to find every kind of illegal products and services. Black markets are the places in the Dark-Net were sellers offer their illegal goods and services, including drugs, weapons, counterfeit, stolen merchandise, credit cards, access to bank accounts, fake identities and related documents, various accounts, trafficking in persons, organs, account compromising services and also hitmen. The Cyber-Invading market inside the Dark-Net is flourishing thanks to the secrecy offered by the communications protocols implemented in this part of the web. The newest trend observed by security experts is the model of sale known as Cyber-Invading as a service. The addition of technical support to the Cyber-Strike tools (i.e. Friendly interfaces, email, and IRC) lowers the level of complexity for their usage, ransom-ware kits, for example, are offered according to this model example allowing anyone to commit crimes just for 50 €. Most common services available in the underground Cyber-Invasion:

Hire a Cyber-Criminal

Botnet

exploit kit

Zero-day

Crypter

DDoS

Doxing

Spam

Virus

Money laundering services

In order to rent a botnet, they normally run spam or DDoS campaign, clients pay a price from 2–5$ month, with a limitation on the number of strokes per session and up to $ 100–200 every day for more complex strikes. Exploit kits are still sold with their source code, but they still have exorbitant prices of $ 20–30k, for this reason, clients rent them for the limited periods, which cost them near about $ 500/month and the same goes for 0-day exploits that can cost approximately up to thousands of dollars.

Which are the principal players of the Cyber-Invasion the Dark-Net?

In Dark-Net, there are several Cyber-Invading communities that are accessible via both hiding protocols or via Clearnet. Most of them are exclusive and one must have an invitation in order to gain access. Normally they are more focused on topics like reversing and viruses including Trojan-forge, however, we also have some generic communities such as Cyber-Strike Forum, where members plan various issues related to Cyber-Invasion, Cyber-Frauds, and Financial Crimes. There are various forums and chat on the Dark-Net, which are dedicated to activities of Black Cyber-Invasion. However, the distribution of products and service are done by marketplaces to reach a wider audience. The major players in the Cyber-Invasion landscape in the Dark-Net are:

Agora (TOR)

TheRealDeal (TOR) past the spotlight recently due to the possibility of buying day exploits

DreamMarket (TOR)

MRNiceGuy (TOR, a clone of the original)

Outlaw (TOR)

MajesticGarden (TOR)

Among the black market in Clearnet find

Rescator

Lampedusa

What are the risks for buyers?

The black markets hosted in the Dark-Net increase the safety of both sellers and buyers, making hard to track them by law enforcement. In any case, there is the concrete risk that clients fall victim to a Web-Site known as a honeypot, which was used by law enforcement. Another great risk for the buyer of these black market places is that the law enforcement agencies now have the ability to track their shipment and seize their shipment of illegal products.

How is the payment, what guarantees the buyer?

Trust has been a major issue for the Cyber-Invading communities and quite similar to any other market. The black market has created a reputation mechanism with the help of the buyer’s reviews. Some black markets implement escrow mechanisms based on BTC MultiSignature in order to protect both sellers and buyers. The Payment is generally made by exploiting virtual currency schemas such as Bitcoin and Litecoin, rarely operators allow PayPal, Western Union, and other payment systems.

Activities Of VoidSec In Dark-Net

It normally operates intense activities of the black market and under-ground intelligence by extreme research and preservation of various menaces. They also keep a close eye on the main black marketplaces and Cyber-InvadingCommunities. We analyze the latest trends, products, and services offered in the Dark-Net.

Conclusions

As we have seen it not so hard to hire a Cyber-Criminal in the numerous black markets available on the Dark-Net, especially when someone needs simple tasks. These services are tempting, but it has a greater risk involved, as it is way different from hiring a professional. These groups employ various channels for communication and the majority of the service providers are just scam, as they run away with your money without doing the task. For this reason, clients that intend to hire a Cyber-Criminal usually refer to black markets due to the reputation mechanisms they implement.The rates of various services among various Cyber-Invading communities are quite similar and this allows the user to monitor the evolution and the latest running trends in the Cyber-Invadingmarket place. Variation of price: For instance, prices could be changed, due to the sudden rise in demand for a product in the criminal ecosystem. The availability of a large amount of data related to a data breach could cause a decrease in the price of a single record and sustain the offer Cyber-Criminal against clients of organizations affected.

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