#but i was given an extensive play by play and then verified everything i heard through various sources

[laurelwinchester]

jeff davis has been desperately trying to kill derek hale since the first season so i’m disappointed and irritated but not necessarily surprised that he finally followed through on that one. i am kinda surprised that he accidentally gave derek and stiles an inexplicable child though. that was a plot twist i did not see coming.

#everyone keeps saying they destiel'd sterek but this was so much fucking weirder #obviously the eli character was meant to be a replacement for stiles but instead it kinda looked like something else was going on there #and i HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS INFORMATION #like derek's inexplicable child (whose mother was NEVER mentioned) had stiles' personality #he played lacrosse #he literally had stiles' jeep #he and derek were close to sheriff stilinski #there was a ''complicated relationship'' comment #i'm pissed about what was done to derek #it's mind boggling that they gave this character a peaceful happy ending with a child and a real life after so much suffering #only to kill him BY FIRE #in front of his son #but.......they accidentally gave derek and stiles a whole ass child and i think that's honestly the funniest thing i've ever heard #i haven't even thought about sterek in years but i'm honestly obsessed with how hilarious that is #anyway the disclaimer is i haven't actually seen the movie and will not be seeing it because...why would i #but i was given an extensive play by play and then verified everything i heard through various sources #(because i was certain i was being lied to) #and....out of everything i heard this is the part that made me literally choke on my drink #the funniest thing to happen in 2023 #bullshit death but somehow accidental mpreg #honestly that tracks #teen wolf: the movie spoilers #teen wolf spoilers #derek x stiles

[gisellelx]

Why would Bella have been interested in studying biology in college? It makes no sense at all for her character. Just because she was ✨ gifted ✨ at biology for knowing the same mitosis lab every 10th grader in the country does? And HOW did she get into Dartmouth with no advanced classes and no extracurriculars?! Did the Cullens have to Aunt Becky her into Dartmouth? Is there a photoshopped picture of Bella playing water polo somewhere out there?

Forgive the time on this one. I actually forgot that I have bootleg pdfs of all the books--I downloaded them a decade ago and then they’ve just been on various backups ever since. I wanted to verify what Bella had ever said about her major before grandstanding on this. But now, let me grandstand on this a bit. :)

I think SM absolutely wants us to believe that the Cullens Aunt-Beckied Bella into Dartmouth. However. In normal circumstances, I’m relying on good research when I talk about what might have happened in a given Twilight situation. In this situation, however, I’m drawing on several years’ experience on the admissions staff of an honors college at a major elite university you’ve heard of. 

We absolutely would have admitted Bella Swan.

Bella absolutely got into Dartmouth on her own, once Edward submitted her materials and here’s why. Two words. Pell Grant. Universities want them. They’re not huge, but it helps fend off the “Oh you’re just for the elite students” charge. Let’s look at Bella for a minute. She’s a first-generation student (ooh), with parents of lower middle class incomes (ahhh), her father is in law enforcement (great, respectable middle-income job that is going to appeal to the kinds of people who accuse higher ed of being "elite"), who is coming from a county with an under-average college matriculation rate and low test scores. 

These are exactly the kinds of things an elite college is looking for. They want to balance out the “My daddy went to Princeton and my mommy went to Harvard” enrollment. They need to be able to go “Look, here’s a talented student who comes from nothing and we were able to make it work for her” in order to make themselves look and feel good. They need the rags-to-riches story, and if it can get a 1400+ on the SAT...bring it on.

There is nothing in the saga to suggest that Bella isn’t an excellent student. In fact everything suggests exactly the opposite--she comes into junior year Bio having already taken Bio AP at a bigger school district. She seems to be a vigorous reader, which means she’s probably not a bad writer. And she’s an introvert, so she probably spends a great deal of time studying. While it’s true we don’t get an indication that she has an extensive extracurricular life, extracurriculars are the domain of the well-off students, and admissions experts know this. Newton’s Outfitters would suffice. We/they know that our working-class, first-gen students are likely to be working as their extracurricular, so a steady job stands in for band or Science Olympiad, or what have you. 

So...yeah. Presuming her test scores are where we would expect them to be for someone who considers Wuthering Heights to be pleasure reading...she absolutely got into Dartmouth on her own. She’s exactly the kind of student elite universities are looking for--not too much trouble (and ngl, white! She'll fit in! Admissions committees are totally racist AF!) who is just kind of poor but not really through no fault of her own. So yeah, she’s getting an admit offer. 

As to science--I had to go searching here because I’m not sure if you’re referring specifically to my personal AU. But I have to assume you are, based on what’s in canon. In canon, we don’t get any indication that Bella is bad at science. She just prefers Victorian lit. In One Day the Sun Will Rise, she chooses neuropsych precisely because of what happened in TW & NM. She has an aptitude for it, if an underdeveloped one (but seriously, every undergrad has underdeveloped aptitudes for lots of things) but she has only ever imagined herself as an English teacher. Edward, and his death, force her to re-imagine that--English lit is painful because it reminds her of him, and neuro is intriguing because it offers insight into his gift. So something very different than what she has envisioned makes a lot of sense in that canon divergent AU. She doesn't suck at science, obviously; she just hasn't dreamed of a need to cultivate it. And Edward gives her a reason to cultivate it.

I think in canon, had pregnancy not been forced upon her by SM, she absolutely majors in 19th century lit, has a wonderful time at Dartmouth, eventually gets turned, and does other degrees later. But I don’t think it is implausible to think she got into Dartmouth on her own, nor that she would pursue a science degree if Edward were out of the picture. 

#bella swan #canon #twilight #asks #one day the sun will rise

[cyborg00-why]

Random yet specific headcanons

Alright, I’ve been working on a rancher fic and wanted to share a few of my favorite headcanons for these three. 

Jet Link

- Considering his time of abduction and how often he’s gone off to be a ranch hand/play cowboy there is a very high chance he’s a Spaghetti Western fan. His ideas and romanticism of the west based almost solely on what he’d seen on film, by extension his bravado and man’s man personality being heavily influenced from such films. Something that both mirrored his gang life on the streets while still being a mental escape. The lone cowboy out to right wrongs on his own terms something he’d see in himself.

- This of course would bleed into an odd fascination/respect for Geronimo Jr. as he’d likely be the only Indigenous person he’d ever met (that he was aware of at least). The personification of the “last of a dying breed” trope you see often in such films, something he likely project onto Jr. Especially considering that being from New York he’d known of Mohawk Steelworkers but wouldn’t have known any personally. 

- Serial pawn shop shopper. He knows they don’t make knives or lighters like they use to and he’s got a small collection going.

- Apart from his established knife fighting skills, he’d whittle in his free time. 

-Great at darts.

- He’d be a great houseguest, very considerate and takes direction as well as he can. Doesn’t want to be deadweight on the ranch, and have a stern ‘earn his keep’ sort of vibe. 

-Despite having a high interest in learning the ropes he’d still struggle. His time on the ranch would positively impact his ‘square peg being forced into a round hole’ mentality. 

- Plays a mean game of checkers.

- Maybe too embarrassed to say it, but really respects Jr.’s self sufficiency and wants to take after him in some ways. Is really touched when Geronimo teaches him something. At the same time can be especially hurt when there are traditional lessons Jr. won’t share. 

-Sure he can play the guitar but he’s also been teaching himself the harmonica. He’s also good at playing both the spoons and a blade of grass but he’ll never admit to either. 

-Can do that really cool two finger whistle thing. 

- Long story but he knows from first hand experience that chickens float in water. Pyunma isn’t impressed and Jr. thinks it’s cute he likes chickens. 

- You know at some point in time Jet would do rodeo shows and live out the whole cliche bonding with a horse who can’t be broken bologna while Geronimo worked the event as an MC.

Geronimo Jr.

Which brings me to Jr.

- You know, and I mean KNOW he’s worked the Arizona circuit like no ones business. Despite the team thinking of him as stoic and saying little everyone in town knows him as their favorite MC. He’s done everything from powwows, estate sales, property auctions, all the way to rodeos. 

-Those on the moccasin telegraph rumor he was a guest at G.O.N. in New Mexico one year. 

- Would absolutely have an old 1988 red, sun bleached Toyota Tacoma that had seen better days but still runs. Of course the suspension is shot and leans heavily on the drivers side. The glove compartment is full of old tapes, and he’d have at least one mix tape with classic 49ers in there too. 

- When he’s working as an auctioneer he goes Full Boomhauer

- Aunties love him. He’s always given an extra helping at food stalls and everyone is vying for him to say their fry bread is best, even though we all know his grandmothers was #1.

-Would be in the loop on all the local chisme.

-He can’t shop at normal stores for clothes, instead making annual custom orders through Wrangler and Dickies. 

-He is why Wrangler revoked their lifetime guarantee. Too many blown out shoulder seams.

-He’s excellent at traditional methodologies and takes a lot of pride in keeping traditions alive. He’d be a great beader and leatherworker, his mitts being extremely sought after in the community with order requests coming in year round. Word is he’ll sometimes make a trade if you can do quillwork. 

-Prior to the bootleg boom his family would have been respected artisans, collectors and locals alike still hold onto their older jewelry, and at a few estate sales he’d seen his dads old silver stamping tools still in circulation. Sometimes he get’s letters in the mail from a collector in another state asking to verify the family stamp.

-He’s got a lifetime ban from one diner in Albuquerque for smashing a jukebox that was playing The Ballad of Ira Hayes. 

-Standardized cooking measurements do not exist in his house, everything is old school cooking in relation to yourself. A handful of this, a pinch of that. 

- He has his grandmothers taste in home decor. 70′s shag rugs, wood laminate, acrylic yarn doilies, and a mug collection that at it’s best could be described as kitschy.  

-While he is incredibly thankful that after being abducted he’d gotten to keep his hair, there was also the struggle to maintain like he had before. Enhanced hulking muscles meant he isn’t as flexible as he use to be, and he is unable to braid it. So he kept it short on the dolphin, and even on breaks back home he’d grow it out in a bun tucked under his hat.  

On one of the many trips where Pyunma would stay with him, he’d catch Jr. early one morning struggling to braid it. Instead offering to do so himself. This became a routine whenever Pyunma stayed over, and as far as he knew the only person Jr. will let touch his hair. Pyunma would also take a lot of pride in his handiwork, especially whenever he’d catch Jr. admiring his own reflection.

Pyunma

- He’d always wanted to visit Jr.’s ranch but maybe felt a bit awkward to ask, unsure if he’d even want the company.

- He’d immensely enjoy the monotony of ranch life, the predictability of long structured workdays giving him a chance to mentally tune out while keeping busy. A sort of stress relief from the unpredictability of his previous life back home.

- One of the only people Jr. would share teachings with because he understood that weight and responsibility that comes with it. 

- Would be really into plant identification and drying them for storage. Would have a whole notebook full of illustrations and field notes based on what Jr. shared. Maybe even get into salve making on the side. 

-Always carries a canteen to water the plants he harvests from, even when Jr. isn’t watching.

- Loves, loves, loves telling Jet believable lies about ranch stuff. Think lying about a weed being a cure all for muscle soreness, only to have Jr. ask where the hell he’d heard that from. 

- Big fan of cinnamon instant oatmeal, Jr. is sure to stock up when he knows Pyunma is coming by.

- Of all the hand crafts Jr. had shared with him, Pyunma’s favorite would be dressing feathers. He’s got a near cult following in the fancy dance community for his bustle work. 

- Very good at removing the stickers from nopales, often times double and triple checking Jr.’s handiwork before they make breakfast.

- Not afraid of rattlesnakes, but respects them deeply. Firm believer in the old rope trick. 

- Can haggle with the best of them at vendor stalls, he knows a tourist price when he hears one. 

- Enjoys listening to old radio dramas while laying in the back of Jr.’s truck at night. Eventually getting all three of them to make it a part of the weekly routine. They sit outside and start a fire, and make dinner before tuning in. They eat in silence, and when it get’s cold they all share a big wool pendleton. 

#Cyborg 009 #Jet Link #002 #Geronimo Jr #005 #Pyunma #008 #Headcanons #HC

[hitbythunder]

Among the Gods of Asgard -3

A dark!Thor x Reader, minor Loki x Reader story with all the drama and angst you’re craving. Including Alexander Skarsgard as Balder.

–> Read also on AO3

Summary: The gods are being loved and feared in equal parts by their subjects, more the latter by the thousands of slaves working for them. Ten feet tall, powerful and immortal are the rulers of all beings within the Nine Realms. You, the daughter of an Asgardian merchant, fancy the three handsome princes of Odin - like any woman does - and dream of actually meeting them instead of watching them at public events. That is until, as a consequence of Loki’s tricks, you are being forced into slavery at the royal court. Amidst this harsh new reality, you catch the attention of the god of Thunder who then seeks to make you his alone. You are nothing but a toy, a puppet, in the god’s eyes and he will use you as he pleases.

Do not hope for mercy.

**** WARNING: dark story, manipulative Thor, heavy rape/non-con elements, no happy ending in sight

____________________________xXx____________________________

The crown-prince of Asgard was a man to be envied by thousands of others. For he had everything one could dream about. Wealth beyond imagination, the might of thunder coursing through his veins and a physique like carved marble, all embellishing his immortal life. And as if that wasn't enough, Thor Odinsson would soon step into his father's place and become king of Asgard. Oh how he enjoyed the sound of it already. Thor, king of Asgard, Protector of the Nine Realms and Ruler over all beings.

The prospect caused a warm pleasant shudder to rush along his spine, trailing his muscled back like slender fingers of a wanton woman. This sensation grew more violent with each repetition of the line.

Many would have called Thor a greedy, spoiled brat who strived only for his own satisfaction regardless the cost – if they had the courage to face him and his famous temper, his wrath capable of erasing whole villages with ease. Truth be told, the crown-prince was guilty at all points and probably at a few more the public didn't know about.

But Thor didn't care.

He loved his life, indulging in every single day, be it the hard training in the morning, the joyous afternoons with his brothers or the heated nights with one of the goddesses. Yes, Thor had a certain reputation in this regard too and since the branches of the gods' family tree would fill several pages, he had some options to choose from. Currently, there was Sif the goddess of harvest, who had been a dear friend of his since their early childhood. Thor's amicable feelings for her had transformed into those of a more salacious nature, however, not until Sif's name-day last year. The celebrations in her honor in early autumn had been one of the very rare occasions that the goddess had shown herself in a lovely dress. Since Sif was also a fierce warrioress, her body was usually hidden beneath cold metal but not so on that very night. The caramel silk clung to her athletic but feminine figure in all the right ways. Thus, while the citizens of Asgard had humbly presented their offerings, Thor's hungry gaze had lingered on the goddess's alluring curves, wondering how he could have missed them before.

Skilled as he was, Thor had her wrapped around his finger soon after, her welcoming legs spreading wide for him. Because once the predator was awoken he would complete the hunt no matter the obstacles. And there was always new prey.

Almost simultaneously, queen Frigga introduced her first-born to the goddess Idunn, whom she deemed best suited as a wife – and perhaps future queen. In comparison to Sif's lean physique from the fighting, Idunn was a lot softer all around and she didn't shy at displaying her voluptuous assets. And Norns, Idunn's fruits were beyond ripe. So Thor didn't complain and played the charming prince, aiming at burying his face in those welcoming tits.

Which he did actually, two moons after their first introduction, and her soft flesh felt just as heavenly as expected.

Why wait with the fun until after a mayhap-wedding? Take what you desire and indulge in its utter consumption without regret. That was the motto according to which Thor fought, ate and fucked.

Both Sif and Idunn could verify that fact.

    All in all, the crown-prince enjoyed the luxuries of his life without questioning the (social) mechanisms behind them, whether they were just or not wasn't in his interest. Asgardians were far below the god and slaves mostly even invisible - if they did as being told, that is. For woe betide anyone who failed to keep up his duties! A serving girl once spilled the prince's wine while pouring and Thor had replied promptly with a mean back fist, sending her across the room.

The Thunderer was known for having the highest turn-over rate of personal slaves.

xxx

Whenever the god lay with one of his affairs, the world around him blurred and nothing else but the whimpering woman beneath him mattered, her squirms of delight ringing in his ears. Also this time, as he took Sif against the balustrade on the balcony of his bedroom, their garments removed just so that the heated flesh could meet. High up above the rest of the city, Thor succumbed to the bliss and almost didn't notice the silent observer. From the corner of his eye he spied the small figure standing on a balcony of the nearest tower, some cloth in hand.

One of Balder's maids...

The girl was staring nonchalantly at the god and continued to do so even when their gazes met.

Persistent just as Thor kept burying himself in the damp wet hole.

Sif's moans grew louder, more appreciative as her cunt pulsated with every thrust, and reclaimed Thor's attention – both cock and mind. Being close made him grip Sif's hips hard, helping himself deeper into her, the way he enjoyed most. His satisfaction was what he strived for, always, regardless the needs of the woman beneath him.And although the grand wave was already rising on the boarder of his mind, somehow, the thought of being watched wouldn't make way for the crescendo. Thus Thor increased speed, sending Sif over the edge and causing the world once more to blur around him.

Except for one particular spot.

The girl was still there, frozen in place and staring right at the panting god. His gaze was heavy laden with lust, the blue a tad darker than usual and sparkling between the strands of golden hair. When it fell upon the girl, a lovely shade of crimson painted her cheeks and Thor smirked triumphantly. Then he came.

xxx

With a quiet squeal, ________ shut the balcony door after she was back inside from shaking out a cushion. Her mind was spinning, matching the flutter of her heart and she slowly walked over to the large bed. Absentmindedly she put the pillow back in its place, images of what she had just witnessed flashing up before her inner eye. Those strong hands holding on to the moaning woman while penetrating her, each thrust vigorous as per the looks of it. _______ hadn't been able to tear her eyes away from the scene, away from the ocean blue orbs of the crown prince as he fucked. Norns, he could have me hanged for that...

During her first few weeks, ________ had learned about the dos and don'ts as a slave, when to be silent and which gods to avoid messing with. Thor was leading the ranking. The many stories of how he maltreated (not only his) servants haunted the girl in her dreams.

Luckily, Balder was not like his brother in this regard and he seemed to keep his promise, having ________ cleaning his chambers or fetching him some items. Generally easy tasks which she carried out dutifully nevertheless, giving her master no opportunity to complain. Her current punishment was harsh enough so better not add any unnecessary extensions. With that in mind, the girl wondered why she hadn't been able to look away.

She had almost given up on solving this riddle when some nights later, the three brothers decided to close the day with some cups of wine in Loki's salon. After a successful hunt together, they had each retreated quickly to their own chambers in order to change, Balder had even refreshed himself in the hot tub of the common baths, before they gathered again. While Loki had his slaves prepare some drinks and food, both Thor and Balder had each brought two of their own servants as well, ________ being among them.

It was the first time she entered the private chambers of the youngest prince, a mysterious place full of wondrous magical objects as she had heard. As they entered, the girl looked curiously around the salon, it's interior being dominated by green, gold and dark ebony. Very classy and matching the Trickster's image. Yet her admiration was overlapped by growing nervousness when she spied the crown-prince sitting on the couch next to the fireplace, the flames tinting his blonde locks in an orange glow. The piece of furniture was entirely occupied by his long, muscular limbs stretching in all directions as he relaxed, the dark red tunic being stretched as his broad chest expanded with every breath. And here I thought Balder was huge...

Upon seeing the three princes together, the differences of their physiques became prominent: Loki was lean and athletic while Balder was well-built and a tad taller. Well, and Thor was massive.

"Come and sit, brother!" the Thunderer called and waved lazily with one large hand towards the couch opposite of him. Following her master further into the room, ________ purposefully remained behind him in order to hide from the giant on the couch - a least a little while longer. As Balder sat down, she looked around for the drinks so that she wouldn't let him wait. But one of Loki's slaves already hurried towards the god, the green double-serpent inside the ring on her upper arm glowing vibrantly in the dim lit room. Thus there was nothing for _______ to do right now than to position herself a little in the background and wait for an order. Of course Thor noted her then, a spark of recognition crossing his eyes as they fell upon her. Much to the girl's relief, however, he chose to ignore her for the rest of the evening.

xxx

Time floated by as did one bottle of wine after another. The gods were in a good mood and chatting casually about various topics, some of which ________ found quite interesting to listen to. The shallow conversation was punctuated by many subtle, quite entertaining jokes of the Trickster and the girl found herself stifling a laugh at least trice. Loki, the god of Lies and Mischief, impressed her with both his witty comments and his looks. Clad in a dark green tunic atop back leather pants, matching his neatly combed raven hair, he had draped himself gracefully onto he plush couch next to Balder. The porcelain skin resembled a painting, soft strokes forming his oval face and those long black lashes atop the strong shade of emerald green. The god's appearance didn't account for the cruelty he was capable of - the snake wasn't his sigil for naught - but the way he hissed at his slaves for no reason gave a good hint. ______ was almost feeling thankful for being Balder's maid.

xxx

Later and back in Balder's chambers, two maids helped him undress while _______ drew the heavy curtains of the bedroom shut, pulling at the long piece of fabric with all her strength to move it. Her body already yearned for sleep, her plain strawy mattress in the slave quarters transforming into a wonderful prospect with each passing minute. "_________?" Balder suddenly called from across the room, already in his nightgown and walking towards the over-sized bed. "My golden bangle appears to be missing..." Her shift could have been over for today but no.

"I need you to retrieve it for me from the bath. That's where I probably left it!" the god added as he slipped beneath the silken blanket, the soft mattress giving way under his weight. _______ watched him full of envy but smiled at him nevertheless. "Of course, your highness!" she replied sweetly and bowed before she took her leave. "But don't wake me, just put it onto the table in the salon once you have it!" Balder had received the missing bangle from his father to signal the reaching of adulthood. Of course the prince would send her, the maid he trusted most with such a task. Apparently, this was Balder's way to value her well manners and upper-class education or he merely intended to test whether she would cheat on him like Harald had. Anyways, ________ could feel honored but instead she cursed the forgetful god, the Norns and above all her father for keeping her persistently from sleep.

She hurried down the empty hallways, racing around corners and past a few guards, in utter determination to find this damned piece of reminiscence.

That was until she reached the large doors to the common baths.

#dark!thor #thor x reader #thor movies #loki x reader #among the gods of asgard #drama and angst #fanfic

[pkgam]

What Happened to Twitch?

Twitch used to be a pretty good website. I had really high hopes that it would be a competitor to Youtube. It is a live stream platform that was ahead of Youtube as Youtube took a while to do live stuff. It has videos as well such as of past streams or people streaming videos they made for viewing later, viewer interaction features, solid streamers, no audible magic, good mods/staff, etc... Now the issues with the site are virtually endless. Let me give you a rundown of various things I have experienced and I have heard others experiencing which you may or may not have experienced because it’s as if that issues are not even account-specific.

Lately when logging in, every time, they prompt be to get a 6-digit code from my Email to continue to login because they “don’t recognize” my device. Yeah, you know how on every other website that has verification things like this, it’ll keep track of what devices you logged in from so you don’t have to keep verifying? No matter what, it doesn’t do that for me and a bunch of others. It seems to work fine for others though. So it’s user-specific. I have even tried logging in from one PC, then logging into another off the same internet while STILL being logged in to that PC and it’ll ask me to verify on both. It should at least be able to tell it’s from the same IP, but nope.

Try reporting the glitches and problems to Twitch as well. You’ll get nowhere. A recent experience I had with them was I tried to resolve that 6-digit verification thing for months. I explain it, get what looks like a generic copy/paste or automated response that does not address the issue, I respond back saying that wasn’t it and explain it again, then get NO response back, but do get a response back with a survey on how they did. Needless to say I was not satisfied and explained it in a civil way. No response back from them for that either. They used to handle stuff like that so well way back. Like, I remember when The Speed Gamers migrated from Ustream back to Twitch that they were having layout trouble during one of their charity streams in that what they wanted to incorporate on their page couldn’t be done, so they messaged Twitch staff about it and they tweaked the page so they could. Stuff like that was amazing! I don’t see things like that happen anymore.

When finally being able to log in, I’ve noticed that oftentimes my status is set to “offline” when I always have it set to “online”. Alternately I have seen friend’s statuses going to idle despite them being active on the site. So that status part of the site is entirely borked.  Moving on to other topics...

I think users knew when they implemented Audible Magic (basically Content ID for Twitch, automatically hitting videos) and played it off as a benefit to streamers so they can remove copyrighted music in their videos that it was going to go downhill. Remember that a lot of people went from Youtube to Twitch (Or Justin.tv) BECAUSE they were tired of Youtube’s horrible automated systems. Add automation in the mix and, well... it indeed went downhill.

Twitch is clearly inconsistent in their moderation now too. There was this one girl who frustratedly threw her cat behind her on stream and nothing came of it. But on the other hand, there was a girl who got banned for apparent dog yelps off camera with her being there, stating the ban was for animal abuse. Story: https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/twitch-streamer-furious-over-animal-abuse-ban-amid-alinity-controversy-1296710 Many’ more examples like that out there on various topics.

Also, ever since they implemented automatic moderation of words in chat, there has been a ridiculous amount of people punished for innocent things (you can briefly read what they post before it gets removed from view or use a browser extension to reveal them) because it can’t tell context. At least streamers can turn that off, but it was set to on by default which caused a lot of issues. Still’ does when people have it on as not everyone turned it off.

Streams have been getting very bad audio glitches for me in that they will get more and more distorted until I pause then play the stream. On top of that, the chat will stop scrolling with new messages at times, forcing me to scroll it down manually. With both of these, it’s like having to maintain two fronts while trying to interact. Not fun.

Speaking of trying to interact, ever since they implemented that stream delay of like 20 seconds to cheap on the servers, it has not been the same anyway. They eventually implemented a “low latency” thing which yields faster delivery at the cost of possibly buffering a lot, but it’s still longer than the 2-3 seconds it used to be. Just imagine trying to converse with someone face to face and they respond 20 seconds later first. It’s the most awkward thing to keep track of. (Smashcast doesn’t have that. Just’ saying...) It can be even worse if the stream player itself gets an error and you have to refresh, which does happen fairly often. Making you possibly miss the point the streamer talked to you. Trying to sort it out then just stalls the whole thing because they have to readdress you if you mention it to them which backlogs them responding to others and etc...

For the videos on demand (VOD) themselves, playback is often glitchy as errors happen midway through, they don’t play at all and seeking to a certain part is often very difficult as it doesn’t go where you click. Heck, I heard from others that sometimes you can’t even PAUSE a VOD as that functionality is glitched out. But pausing works fine for me. Why is that? Who knows.

Live streams aren’t much better as they have their own issues. I often get errors and have to refresh the page to get it to run again. Even when not getting an error, I noticed that I’m served a slightly-slower stream than others seem to get. So I have to pause then unpause the video every so often to get it to jump back ahead to the closest point I can see. Part of me wonders if the error and slightly slower stream are related, but don’t hold me to that. I have a good internet connection too.

Twitch streams also get deleted nowadays unless set up to into highlights. Given that many weren’t aware this happened before it was too late (you only had 14 days to save them if not a turbo/prime member and 60 if you are), a TON of content got lost. People argued that it’s to save money because of the hosting costs of video data being large. So rather than streams just being automatically turned into highlights as a precautionary measure, they just let them get wiped because they didn’t care. I’m not entirely sure about that “because” you can save streams to highlights as mentioned. So it’s just going to fill back up again since people now know of it, if not already has filled back up.

Twitch also got rid of PMs so past conversations you might have wanted to look back on or had to catch up on as a backlog were lost. You can do the same sort of thing in whispers if a person allows it in their settings, but what’s the point of getting rid of PMs?... Text is text regardless of where it’s located. This was one of those sorts of changes that I can’t figure out. I “thought” maybe they wanted to unify a private place to talk since both existed at once time, but why not just move the conversation to the other or not have both at the same time to begin with?

Another thing they get rid of for no reason is email notifications to streams you follow. They “say” if you don’t watch a stream for a while they’ll turn off email alerts to it. Which makes sense to not fill up someone’s inbox. Imagine for instance they stream 30 days straight and you don’t go to any of them as sort of a break. That’s 30 emails that are useless to you. Except it doesn’t work. Even streams I watched regular like Bob Ross got email alerts disabled. You can tell that they keep track of when you click an Email link to someone’s stream too because in the URL you’ll notice it recognizes you came from the Email. So there’s no excuse. Oh and there’s no way to toggle that automated disabling of alerts to off as far as I’m aware. So you just have to deal with it. At least they do seem to be consistent about telling you when it does turn off email alerts, but get ready to enter that 6-digit login code just to fix the alerts regardless if the person is streaming or not.

After the Amazon buyout, eventually they started pushing Twitch Prime as well, basically another paid subscription thing like Turbo, only with Amazon benefits added on it. But all the things they push as “prime loot” are complete garbage. Stuff like Raid: Shadow Legends which is hardly a “game”. What made them even think a community of gamers would be into that? Well, maybe they did realize that, but did it anyway as a business partnership for the moolah.

I get the feeling that business partnerships are what’s going on with all the Valorant stuff popping up as well. Only with streamers being able to take advantage of it. For example: People found out to try the game, they need to watch any Valorant stream with drops enabled for a for 2 hours. That lead to people going to streams just for that invite. Many people. Artificial-inflation amounts of people that encourage people to stream it for said numbers and Twitch recommending channels playing it like mad to people, lol! So yeah, I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t a business partnership.

You can find many more examples out there of people may or may not having a bug for things, but this should be enough to explain that Twitch is a complete mess. Every single aspect of it. It’s in a state like Youtube where everything is broke and they are ignoring users who message them telling about bugs (which they claim they encourage people to do and they listen to) or maybe are just unwilling to fix any of them even if they know about them. Who knows because they don’t communicate like they used to.

Your thoughts?

Thanks for reading and have a good one!

#twitch #twitch.tv #twitchtv #bug #bugs #buggy #glitch #glitches #support #staff #moderator #moderators #mods #incompetence #unwilling #dev #developer #developers #ttv #stream #streamer #streaming #live #delay #latency #video #game #gamer #gaming

[culturedcoyote]

Notable Notation

    I loved the musical passage archive (http://www.musicalpassage.org/) The musical pages were lovely and the site highly immersive. I am also a sucker for music since it is basically the only thing that can focus me in on one thing (currently blasting a playlist so I can actually sit still long enough to write this up) so this one really drew me in. I am also acutely aware of the subversive potential of music and how it can be a rallying cry for or against a cause, and its inspirational ability.

    Anyway, I really like the set-up of the site and how seamlessly I could scroll through the elements of any given page - not that there were many to look through. Everything was logically ordered despite the redundancy of the information. The only difference between the pop-ups on the musical notation and the ‘read’ page is the inclusion of the images. I spent an inordinate amount of time reading and rereading the ‘read’ page because I kept thinking “I read this right? I must have because I feel like I just did this.”

    I think that this source is important because it provides a layer of culture, of everyday life and levity that we do not often get to see. Even when music in the context of slavery is discussed it is all “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” and “Wade in the Water.” You know, the songs of the underground railroad. We do not often see the songs that make communities, only really ever the ones that break them in a bid for something better.

    I would say that this source is highly reliable, which is a necessity for a piece this brief. Whatever it says has to be relevant because there is not much information. But it does have connections to multiple universities and well respected individuals in their field. They also have an extensive bibliography of sources through which to verify any and all information included.

    I think what I liked best about the site is the level of control over the interactives. The music did not play the second I opened the page, and I was allowed to decide if and when I heard a piece of music. I did like that it showed me which songs I had already heard and if I did stop a song midway through it showed me the exact spot in which I left it. However, I really wish that the songs would at least loop until I decided I was done with it. They make a huge point to stress that these organic melodies would be played again as the gathered community improvised and celebrated along with it. Playing them once or twice through simply does not do these songs any justice. Maybe even some samples of this could be a boon to it.

    I didn’t appreciate how blurry it got when I moused over it. I have bad vision as is so that sudden transition from legible to illegible really messed with me. Whenever I wanted to move onto the next section I had to x out of the overly massive and clunky pop-ups just to get it to go away and search for the part I wanted after moving the mouse away. Maybe simply highlighting or marking the moused text in an underline or a different color would have been a much better choice. I honestly just felt like I was jumping through an unnecessary hoop to access what should have been easy information.

    Somehow I managed to altogether miss this playlist linked on the about page and hidden in among the sources: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwcqVNt0EPDlGgT6ueKV_wjvPT1-tD_Y_

While it only has six videos and has not been updated in a little over a year, the videos are great examples of this sort of performance, but it is obviously a bit less organic due to the planned nature of the event.

#blog post 4

[painfulelegy]

A real fun time with @frostlocke, we had an extensive playtime, wherein I had a wonderful time smushing them into the perfect base for a toyfriend~. I can't wait till they're done at the factory perfecting her toyline, then we can have our fun datey playtime~.

   Frost had finally arrived at the address listed on their phone. They had recently begun trying out for a new jobs search program put out by major multi-industry corporation, ReesCo, and while most of the jobs seemed bland, one of them truly stuck out: "Play Tester". Its font and page layout was much brighter and sillier than the formatting most of the other jobs listed, and best of it, it was excellent 20 dollars an hour at start… just for playing games! If that wasn’t enough to at least peer into, then nothing was. Finally looking at the place in question, it didn't really seem to him like the facade of a game dev studio, especially with a spurious name like ‘Hoffi's Arena’. He raised an eyebrow, being more than a bit wary... but for $20 an hour, he was willing to ignore his concerns long enough to give this place a chance. Maybe it was worth it. He went up to the door and let himself in, assuming the door was unlocked since that's how a normal business would operate.

   Stepping inside gave way to an environment was cool and clear, the small front room modest in style. There were a couple coffee tables littered with light literature, what looked to be comic books and graphic novels; surrounded with plush, yet playful chairs. The rest of the room was fairly neat and tidy, the only real present decoration being the case holding several ostentatiously patterned rubber balls. The desk itself seemed empty, but upon closer inspection, it appeared to be fully automated. Huh, kinda cute, he supposed. Heading up to the desk, he tried to get its attention. "Hello? I'm here for the job listing? It says here you wanted to hire a playtester?"

   The automated system played some light music, before suddenly jarring, the large, double sided door to the side busting open. From it sprung a small, very shiny, tan individual, whose presence radiated a manic feeling. "Did I hear that someone's here for the new playtester position~? :]" They asked, eager to see why the system had rung.

   Frost was... a bit taken back by them. For starters, they were hurting his eyes, and he adjusted his glasses, tint allowing him to see properly. More importantly... "Did you just... speak an emoticon?" They hadn't spelled out the symbols used, Frost just somehow heard them say... ":]". Furrowing his brow, he adjusted his posture. "Though yes, I was interested in doing an interview for the playtester position. My name is Locke, though most people call me Frost." He held out his hand for a handshake.

   Hoffi smiled widely, gripping frost's hand, then yanking them over, using the leverage to flip onto the reception desk. "Yes, I did~. And it's really, really nice to meet you mistah Frost~" Hoffi kicked her legs energetically, hands on the table. "I'm the owner of this place...” she paused for a moment, “well, technically the owner, but close enough~!" She giggled, "You look like a fun person already, and cute too; sooo..." she hung on her words a moment, tapping her finger to her lip, "you're hired!"

   "...uh." Frost suddenly had several questions. You aren't going to run a background check? Why aren't there any other employees? Why are you only "technically" the owner? You aren't going to let me know what the job actually entails? Is this actually a business or a front for some drug cartel? Despite all that... one question seemed more important than any other. "I kinda assumed you'd tell me your name?"

   "Heheheh, silly me!" the little rubbery enbie giggled before bending backwards into a front flip, landing cleanly on the ground right in front of their applicant. "My name's Hoffi, the namesake of this place, of course!" She said, beaming happily, hands on her hips in a seemingly 'commanding' position; or at least a child's interpretation of it.

   "...right. Hoffi, are you the...only person here? There isn't anyone above or below you that I could speak to?" He doubted her title, given her extremely diminutive size, build, and general attitude; but didn't want to call her out directly just in case she actually was the owner.

   "Nope, no one else here right now~ Just you, me and the automated systems~" Hoffi giggled, innocent gleam radiating from her face. "I, like, work my best when I have the space to be freeee~!" She said as she twirled once in place. "And I love encouraging that in new prospects as well~!"

   That was incredibly suspicious. Very suspicious, to the point where the paycheck was feeling a bit non-worth. Still... it's entirely possible she's just wrong. If he could access the database and do some snooping, he could verify what she was saying. Or at the very least confirm they have a functioning bank account. Frost mulled, before addressing the shiny enbie. "Hmm... mind if I try something?" He looked over the counter. "I'd kinda like to try using the computer manually."

   Hoffi looked quizzically at frost before her face adjusted back to an average smile. "Alrighty, but I don't know if you can really do anything with it~." She said teasingly, "It is fully automated, so I don't mess with it~ " She stood aside, letting frost make his way to the computer interface. "Though, why do you want to use it?" she asked inquisitively, having scrambled her way up on the desk again.

   Hmm...excuses, excuses... "I bought taffy and I want to see if it got delivered to my house yet." He responded, slightly nervous that his weak response would be insufficient for her.

   "ooh, taffy! Go right ahead~!" Hoffi glimmered, watching intently as they went to work on the computer. He was hoping she'd be at least ten feet away, but it seemed like she wasn't looking very closely at the screen anyways; even if she was, she probably wouldn't recognize what he was doing. Pulling out a little USB stick from his sleeve, he carefully slotted it in, activating the program of his own design held within it. In a matter of moments, it begun its task, burrowing under as many locks and firewalls as possible, circumventing the security and giving him access to the information contained within. In effect, it was a much more direct and practical search engine, letting him find... basically whatever he wanted to find. Thankfully, his recent efforts into updating it were enough that even if they had an advanced antivirus, it didn't seem to be able to detect his suspicious activity.

   Frost decided to search for the terms "hoffi", "employee", and "profile," seeing if he could pull up Hoffi's employee profile or the profile of any other employees working here. His program’s digging seemed to pull up a good amount of data as it produced a list of employee files were listed for short term contracts, each with a different project under the belt. Something about the names seemed familiar, but not in terms of gaming, however that was no matter for now when they had more important information: facts about hoffi themselves. No major employee profile came up, but rather a list of records noting their permissions and lack of permissions in the facility, and a user denotation of 'Facility Manager' amongst the jargon. Everything else seemed somewhat sparse, as the USB program suddenly seized up, halting as it tried to access external server information, before propping up a notation about the privacy rights of ReesCo industries, LLC on the screen.

   Hoffi watched in awe and amazement as they couldn't tell what Frost was really doing, just that it seemed really cool. "Cool~ Now I really wanna play with you, cause that's awesome!" She said, even her relaxed posture not allowing for a relaxed tone.

   The short search didn’t give Frost much, but it gave him enough. If he had to guess, Hoffi was a surname and this was the owner's...daughter? And she was given a fake title to keep her amused while actual business was handled elsewhere. Or maybe she was in charge of finding employees or something; but whatever. He was content to humor her until an actual employee showed up. "Yeah okay, I think I'm ready to ‘play’ now. Though, don't I need to sign a contract first?"

   Hoffi held for a moment before realizing, and snapping her fingers. "Ah, right! I completely forgot about that. the computer should handle that for you~!" She said, shifting over and pushing frost, before pressing a button, relocking the computer’s interface onto a page that was a form with several fields. "Just put in your application information, and we can get the boring business part over with, and get back to playing~!"

   Frost spent roughly 15-20 minutes filling out his information on the form... Full Name, Address, Resume, Bank Account Information, Owned Game Consoles, Cuteness Of Pets, Total Comic Books Owned... Favorite Food... okay was he signing up for identity theft or what? Ugh, whatever, this seemed just as official as the documents he spied on so it was probably legitimate. Maybe these were more concessions to entertain his daughter. All the while, Hoffi continued to kick her legs back and forth and hum as she waited, eagerly watching for the moment he was done.

   "Hooray, now we can get to the fun stuff!" She said, flipping off the desk, and swinging around Frost's neck and shoulders, her breasts pressing against his back, not as soft and supple as what one would normally expect, along with an oddly smooth feeling as the arms slid around his exposed neck. Releasing, she flipped in front of him, excitedly moving her arm to direct him to the doors she first came through. "This way~!"

   "...you don't really know what personal space is, do ya?" Frost rolled his eyes, following her gesture as he went through the doors with Hoffi clinging much too close to him for his tastes. Hoffi simply stuck out her tongue as she parted slightly from Frost, taking to skipping through the hall. after they were a few feet in, the automated doors shut behind them, leaving the two to move through the oddly spacious corridor, decorated with various pictures of sporting events and equipment, leading to a large pair of doors. the slope of the hall had gotten steeper as they had walked what was clearly much further than the seeming length of the building, hoffi's excited singlemindedness keeping her cheerfully directing him.

   Observing all the sports regalia on the wall, Frost remarked. "so... normally when people want to hire a ‘playtester,’ the idea is that they're going to be doing quality assurance on video games." Frost kept himself steady as they were eventually walking down a ramp. "Can't help but notice that there doesn't seem to be any game development stuff at all. What exactly am I playtesting?"

   Hoffi giggled, "I'll show you," she said excitedly, their presence at the second large door triggering its opening. As the opening widened, the lights inside propped on one by one, revealing a large gymnasium court, seemingly similar to any one you'd find elsewhere, though small glimmers about it seemed different between them.

   Frost looked around, a bit disappointed. "All that hype for a high school gymnasium? Okay, I guess. Not exactly good at any sports though, so..."

   Hoffi cut him off, "That's fine, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it soon enough~! " and gave him a shove, well past the door frame. Following suit, she continued her acrobatic tricks into the room, the doors shutting behind them. Finally inside, the plethora of fancier devices, monitors and speakers were clear. This may have had the aesthetic of a plain old gym, but it was clearly far more than state of the art. "Welcome to the playroom~!" Hoffi giggled, arms held out in the air. "So, what do you think~?"

   "...I feel like you expect me to be a lot more wow'd than I am." Frost casually strode around, trying to get a better look at one of the devices. "Like, it's cool and all, but your constant pauses make it seem like you're expecting me to be picking my jaw up off the floor." Frost was... being a bit of a downer, but he was once again doubting his pay considering athleticism was never brought up before now.

   Hoffi slumped for a moment, disappointed in it, before snapping back to her cheerful self. "Aww, that's a shame, but I guess that means we can go right to playing~!" She took to an excited stance once more. Frost sighed, looking down at his outfit. A hoodie and jeans weren't exactly exercise gear. Then again... asking for gym clothes felt like an obvious trap, so he decided to keep his mouth shut and wait for Hoffi to start a game. Mulling for a moment, Frost lost sight of Hoffi, before suddenly…

   WHAP! a sharp sting suddenly struck him in the back of the head, throwing him off balance. Frost very quickly found himself face-first in the linoleum, knocked so swiftly to the ground his feet had flipped up above him before he flopped down onto the floor. "...OW." Frost struggled, trying to look over his shoulder to see what happened.

   Hoffi stood several feet away, her left hand raising to shoulder level. "You're not very good at this, but that's why we're playtesting~!" She giggled at her own joke, "now then, we start for reals~!" In an instant, she flicked her wrist, a green sphere conjuring within it. With a hard rotation of her arm, the ball soared through the air, flying right at Frost!

   “Woah!” Frost scrambled to his feet, doing his best to leap out of the way. "Wh… don't I need to know the rules to be able to playtest??" Hoffi was winding up her next throw, before stopping stiff. Returning to a standing position, she tapped her finger on her mouth.

   "Oh, right! The rules are simple. I throw these balls, you try to dodge them. The longer you dodge, the better you do. That's how we playtest..." she paused for a moment, before resuming her wild throw, doing a spinning flip. "...YOU!"

   "...WHAT?" Frost leapt out of the way of another throw. "Why am I being tested?! That's not how a job works, and that's not how… okay this isn't even a real fucking company, is it?" Urgh... Frost was too agitated to properly finish his retort, instead reaching up his sleeves to activate some gadgets. Small thrusters to make large precise leaps, stabilizers to be able to change trajectory in midair, and he tweaked his glasses to try and start predicting how Hoffi's balls would arc. Dammit... maybe if he could get to the doors, he could escape?

   "Because, you're the newest toy... and my newest playmate!" Hoffi giggled, deftly jumping backwards, conjuring and tossing more rubber spheres at moderately fast speeds. "It's no good if my fellow toys aren't as fun as I am! Hihihihihhi~ " She continued to beam that innocent feeling even with her suddenly intimidating aura, each shot flying hard. Frost managed to dodge them fairly easily with his attachments, but only because he was keeping his distance. He was no closer to getting past her to the door, so... taking a risk, he tried to leap past her, hugging the right wall as he did so.

   "You're really slippery and speedy aren't you?" Hoffi, conjured an orb as frost sped by, "I like that, it means you'll be extra fun~!" Just as Frost slipped past the rubbery toy, her figure twisted at the torso, the sphere suddenly flying back in the exact opposite direction she was facing, striking him square in the back, setting him off course. The heavy impact stung like crazy, though in its wake, it left an oddly positive sensation and a feeling of cold air touching his back, as if the spot was bare. "YEAH, DIRECT HIT!" Hoffi cheered, her jump letting her form realign properly.

   Frost tumbled along the wall, skidding to a halt as he tried to clutch at his back. "Did you... paint me with something?" Urgh, now he kinda wished he sprung for the rearview mirror. He can't know how to react if he doesn't even know what she's doing. But whatever, he was at least on the same side as the door! Kicking off the wall, he tried to leap towards the door while facing Hoffi, doing his best not to get hit before reaching them.

   "Like I said, you gotta dodge the balls, or else I'll help you dodge them~" Hoffi giggled further, lobbing a couple more shots towards Frost. With Hoffi's rapid fire, Frost once again found himself unable to advance, too busy dodging to move forward. On top of that, he no longer had an angle to advance with since he was effectively cornered. Hrm... she wasn't that smart, so maybe... he decided to leap back the way he came, circling clockwise around her. Hopefully, she would be so focused on chasing him that he could reach the door unopposed… even if this path was excessively long, with plenty of room to slip up.

   "Heheh, I'm gonna getcha~!" She giggled more intensely, seemingly more aggressive than before, beginning to fire her shots in a blind fire. Her slew of shots continued to fire towards him, toughening his trail, until he reached the right side, her shots stopping as she seemed to stand in confusion. "Hey, where did you go? That's great trick~!"

   FrostLock-Yesterday at 6:56 PM

   ...that… was actually significantly more effective than he thought. Wow, she really was dense. Anyway, frost stopped mulling as he looked at the door and found it to be much sturdier than he had supposed before. He could test the lock, but he found himself no longer respecting this place's property value. Pulling out some diamond-shaped devices, he slapped three of them in a pattern on the doors and triggered them, leaping back as they exploded!

   "Oh, there you are!" she said, her head twisting around entirely, to see the explosion "Hey- you're supposed to be playing with me, not the place! :T" She huffed, her springy body slinging back once more, flinging another sphere right into his shoulder. The impact was hard and intense once more, as it spun him around and back, away from his target. The stinging was once again accompanied by that odd sensation... what was it about it that felt so appealing, and why did his shoulder now feel bare like the spot on his back? "You play with me, silly~"

   "Wha...the hell?" Frost rubbed his shoulder, feeling...a bit soothed? What was on his shoulder?? He was a bit too distracted by that to notice how his bomb thing went, or what Hoffi was doing.

   "Come on now, you can't stop already~" Hoffi slowly approached, conjuring another ball. "Unless you want me to speed things up for you~ then that sounds okay to me~!" Hoffi giggled, lobbing yet another sphere at him. Frost was legitimately too distracted by his shoulder to properly react in time, getting beaned square in the head by Hoffi's pitch as he stumbled backwards.

   "hahah, another direct hit, SCORE~!" Hoffi begun to dance happily, seemingly distracted by the nice, clean hit. Frost, on the other end could feel the stinging sensation across his face. An impact that tough would normally lead to swelling, but the shape that was present still seemed apt... though once again that strange feeling was there, strong enough to realize what it was: pleasure. A shudder rand down his spine from the chill of the good feeling, and the strange numbness in his face from the spot, and the others, seemingly wider.

   This was...more than a little weird. Why did this feel good? He was trying to escape, and getting hit with her balls hurt. He didn't... why was his mind suddenly so cluttered? He rubbed the numbness on his face, finding it oddly enjoyable to do so. "Look... you're clearly doing something to me... can you just explain to me what it is?" Frost's question was a lot more exhausted than accusatory, not being able to muster up the strength for another period of shouting quite yet.

   Hoffi giggled, "You're cool, and fun! …a lot more fun than most of the others who have shown up here before, they were easy play." Hoffi continued to approach frost, gesturing. "But you, you'd make a great toy, just like me~" She said pointing to herself proudly. "No one's lasted this long, after all~. But enough talk, it's time to keep on playing!" Hoffi giggled, conjuring her two spheres while close, holding a readied stance.

   "Yeah, I'm kinda not interested in becoming someone's toy." Frost retorted as got ready once more, trying to muster up the energy to get around her… though he was having a bit of trouble remembering where he was getting around too. He was also feeling a bit sluggish, for whatever reason... was she weighing him down? Or was he just fed up? Letting his thrusters do the work, he launched himself high in the air, hoping Hoffi didn't know how to account for arcing shots with her throws.

   "Ahh, there it is~ I like that a lot~!" Hoffi giggled, tossing her spheres into the air. Unfortunately, all of them fell short, hitting the walls just behind him at high speeds. Huh. A lot of Frost's strategizing had a lot of minor backup options and backup-backup options planned out in his head, as he assumed Hoffi would be able to keep up and make it very difficult for him. But... he was actually outsmarting her fairly consistently. It was... getting a bit hard to be enraged at her when it was so easy for him to gain the upper hand, it was almost endearing. Holding onto a light fixture for stability, he just stood in the air as he looked down at her. He… almost felt like taunting her, but if he upset her that might give her the strength to actually hit him.

   Hoffi stood, huffing lightly, looking for their fellow toy to be. "I wonder where you are? She said, looking around, before finally looking up." Ahh, there you are, I got you~!" She said, confusing frost. she had not thrown any spheres, but in an instant, the two she had thrown before bounced and banked, striking him right in the thigh and arm, the intense pain coursing through, leaving him with that intense pleasure once more. It felt so nice, so warm, it even seemed to pull in that heavy stinging into a pleasurable tenor, the cold air feeling crisp on their seemingly tougher thigh and arm, as well as even more of the space on their back, shoulder and face. "Gotcha~! "

   "Mmmrrrghhh!!" Frost trembled, awash with conflicting emotions. He let go of the light fixture, feeling another desire to rub his thigh and arm as he took a good look. Were they different? They definitely felt different, he could say that definitively. He idly drifted through the air as he focused on his sensations, once again ignoring Hoffi.

   "Heheheh, like a nice target dummy~" Hoffi giggled, tossing a pair, one hitting his leg directly, the other banking off the wall to smack him in the back of the head once more. The two continued with the same overtaking coating, the one to the back of the head suddenly kick starting a shift in the face, seemingly pushing it into a wide smile as its default position, while seemingly locking his hair into a stiffer, and more solid, shape. The other, striking the ankle of the other leg, coated and smoothed the whole of the leg in one fell swoop, leaving it with that odd sensation, his booster disappearing into the smoothed void, disrupting his balance amidst the growing feelings of enjoyment.

   "Whu....woah woah woah!!" Frost flailed, smiling for no clear reason as he begun to spin out and fall to earth. This was exhilarating and terrifying and stupid and felt good and… urgh, thinking about this was hard. He was already having trouble remembering what he was doing in the first place, but now he had to put that aside and try not to fall. He was able to swerve and gain height still, but it was more like a kite following the whims of an unknown breeze than actual flight. His movement was sporadic, but not particularly fast and made for a much more interesting target.

   "And now, for the coup de grace~ <3" Hoffi smirked, spawning several arms from her form, each one conjuring its own ball. In a deft display, they shot one by one, each shot beaning its target clean, each shot more intense than the last, until the final one struck the last of the thrusters smoothing the whole of them down, causing the now smooth and rubbery figure to fall to the ground. The hard impact with the ground filled up those intense feelings, as Frost did not splat, but bounce cleanly off the ground.

   Frost found herself bouncing up in a way that caused her to gently land on her feet, suddenly standing at attention. What the...what was going on?? Way too much was swirling around in her head, and she could barely even comprehend the multi-arm technique Hoffi just pulled off because she was still struggling to process that her thrusters were vanishing. Plus her entire body felt good. Why was it like that?? Why was she on the floor and not in the sky?? Why was... UGH! She just stood there, pressing her arms to her sides as she idled and tried to think through her confusion, though with the smile on her face, her emotion was a bit hard to read.

   "Heheh, now you look like an athlete~ " Hoffi giggled, looking over the at attention figure. Their form was smoothed over, once clothing little more than decals now, seemingly shifted to have a much sportier look. Their hair heavily sculpted, though their form was still roughly the same. "Though, clearly you want more play, don't you, hmm~?" Hoffi teased, running her finger up the new recruit's back. Frosts spine chilled lightly, making her feel more aware to her odd, far too masculine, shape for a toy. "We gotta hammer out those kinks, after alll, teeheheheh~"

   "Uh...is that right? I thought I was....trying to... door, and... playtesting, I...flying?" Frost's mind was lagging behind her body, doing her best to try and think critically about this and only managing to construct half a sentence. "This...isn't, uh... its nice, but...should I...uh?" Hrm... despite her happy appearance, she seemed glum.

   "Heheh, you're disoriented, cause this is your first time playing... and that figure isn't helping either," Hoffi smirks, conjuring a sphere in hand. "But now it's time to get back to playing, then you'll feel better~! As for round two, we'll be playing..." With a snap of her fingers, the greenish ball turned a dark black, its shine intense. "Hardball~ "

   "...uh, wait, no, I..." Frost backed off a bit. Despite her massive confusion as her brain tied itself in knots, she was at least able to remember that she didn't want to be hit. Why... she kinda forgot, didn't it feel good? Or did...guuuh, thinking about this was making her head hurt! Okay, she wanted to not get hit, end of discussion. She remembered thinking that a lot so she was gonna keep thinking it so she could focus on thinking about...lamps? Why was she... Hoffi watched as her new toy vaguely stumbled backward, clearly suffering from some sort of dizziness but unable to tell what due to her static face and broken speech. She was completely unfazed by the strange actions of her fellow toy, instead opting to help fix the situation.

   "Heheh, ready or not, here I start~!" Hoffi threw the dark ball, its high-speed flying towards the rubberfrost, far faster than any of the previous shots were. Frost was struck square in the face with enough force to launch her backwards, skidding and bouncing as she tumbled along the ground and eventually hit the wall. Huh, she was supposed to be bouncy, but she retained a surprising amount of momentum. Maybe cuz of her stabilizers or whatever the hell. The impact in the face still stung, but mostly it made her far more giggly happy, such a good feeling~ With it, it seemed to bring an odd deformation of the face, before it popped back out, feeling, rounder, fuller; as if it's structure had been simplified. It was hard to tell, but it seemed to feel right, especially with the feeling of strong lashes and more prominent lips accentuating that wide smile.

   “Heh...hehehe...” why was Frost laughing? Why was she over here now? Why did her face feel nice? Why was Hoffi picking up a ball? Why wasn't she standing? Why... ugh, too many whys. She was starting to hate whys, they felt important but they were making her head hurt. It was a lot easier to just decide, like when she decided she was gonna dodge things. Okay, she was just gonna decide again. She was over here because she... jumped here! Yep, that's it. No other questions, she was just gonna roll with that for now. She hopped up to her feet, giggling a bit absentmindedly. She still had a lot of whys in her head about other things, but she found it easy to focus on two decides: she wanted to dodge, and she could jump!

   "Heheheh~, let's go, Frosty~ That's the spirit!" Hoffi said cheeringly, before conjuring two more orbs, then tossed in sequence flying right towards her vicinity! Uh, woah! Frost leapt out of the way almost on instinct, managing to avoid them well. Woah, she did great! She was kinda too distracted by her performance to realize she was idly bouncing along her trajectory instead of stopping. Man, if this was gonna be that easy, maybe she'd have the time to figure out her whys.

   Hoffi huffed lightly in glee now that her target was being much more competitive, but with that slow bounding arc, it didn't take much to aim for the toy's gut. In a single deft shot, her relatively flat stomach was beaned directly, it reflexively pushing in, the lost mass shifting up and down into her hips and thighs, sliding the figure about. “Hehehe...” Frost collided with the wall, focusing enough on her pleasurable hurty sensations to forget some of her whys. She couldn't remember that she forgot them, as she was too busy remembering the whys she still remembered and trying to understand them. Why was she here? Why did she want profiles? Why did she leave her USB stick upstairs? Why did...oh! She could see Hoffi readying another attack and leapt away before Hoffi even threw it.

   The next couple of shots flew right behind Frist, the toy deftly dodging them super easily. "now you're getting there~ and that means I'm gonna have to ramp it up~!" Hoffi giggled, this time throwing several shots about, none of them aiming for her target at all, while she stood smugly watching, readying her next set of balls. Oooh, she knew this! She could predict where her shots were gonna go and dodge in the opposite direction! Clearly she was gonna throw where she was currently leaping, so she pivoted on her heel and leapt the other direction! However, since Hoffi wasn't actually trying to hit her, Frost dove directly into a hardball as her face collided with it, flipping over as she tumbled past it. Ugh... maybe that wasn't a good think time...

   The pleasurable strike filled her with glee as her rounded face popped back to normal, but not before reflexively volumizing the sculpted piece that was her hair. of course, her skid to the ground did little to prevent her from being smacked by the return bounces of the other two balls. the strikes to the arms pushed them out from under her, as they seemed to lean out and readjust, the seams for gadgets becoming more evident, her chest expanding once more. "Heheheh, each hit's making you look better and better~!" Hoffi shouted, cheering on the toy.

   Frost was engrossed in thought, thinking about why she thought so much. She was doing all this thinky stuff and Hoffi wasn't thinking at all! Sure, she tricked Hoffi a few times, but Hoffi was never really losing. She was just... not winning sometimes. Meanwhile, she was so busy not doing much that she was tumbling about all of the ricocheting hardballs, letting herself be struck with various bursts of pleasure as she giggled mindlessly and let each firm strike knock a few thoughts out of her. This seemed way better than caring about whys! So... she decided not to. Why? Cuz balls. Any time she had a why she'd just let herself be beaned and immediately drop the subject. She let herself get battered around some more as all of her whys were knocked away, getting more into it as she started to strategically bump into the hard balls, adjusting her hip or flailing her arm to keep the momentum of the hardballs going. Hoffi stood back, watching as Frost somehow managed to turn her gym into a weird pop-o-matic chamber.

   Hoffi couldn't help but be stunned in joy as her fellow toy willingly pushed all the balls into herself, each impact hitting a new spot, pushing and reshaping her form; expanding her arms, tapering her feet, widening her hips and breasts slightly, her voluminous, yet sculpted hair quite pretty. She couldn't help but love the look of the excited, airheaded doll, her 6 foot figure wild yet still probable. She only needed one more thing...

   "Ready or not, here I come~!" With a leap, hoffi bounded up into the air, positioning herself just above Frost, before falling straight down, impacting her square on the top of her head. The enbie toy's pliable bottom was still as hard as any of those dodgeballs, feeling the compacting force pushing her straight down, adjusting that vertical mass outwards, improving the expansion of those toyish droney hands and widening her figure further. Hoffi's force ended when she cleared about one foot of distance down, sliding off the dazed doll. "Tadaaa~!"

   Frost stood there for a moment, almost as if she was processing something... before she just fell back, laughing a bit harder than just some giggling. "Hehehehehe! Like... balls are pretty neat!" A pretty...dry observation, but one which was probably intended to be profound. Her boobs wobbled around from the impact, staying in motion for a surprisingly long time as she laughed. "Like... do I get paid now?" ...somehow of all the things from her original identity to retain, money was one of them.

   "Of course you will~ You're gonna get plenty of royalties once they make the toyline for you. And that means you'll get a BUNCH of new accessories, and maybe a cute new outfit~" Hoffi giggled, gripping and hugging the toy girl, a few of the internal gadgets activating, propping out of the seams on her form. "Oooh, and you even have your own tricks, too~ We should totally work with that, too...~" Hoffi giggled trailing off, gripping and pulling you to the back, ready to head off and get dressed up with a new style, ready to have lots of fun with her new toyfriend~.

   The toyfriend giggled to herself, finding that answer surprisingly satisfying as she let Hoffi near-literally drag her around. She was being paid to let someone else do the thinking for her? That seemed like a completely perfect setup! Without a good reason to protest, she was content with whatever ideas Hoffi suggested, such as having her mold reworked further for mass market appeal, rebranding to give her a cuter name, maybe some further personality adjustments just to be safe... well at that point she kinda didn't have enough brain cells to cobble together to think about that herself. She was mostly inert... but whenever Hoffi pulled out a ball, she suddenly fixated it and sprung to life, getting ready to use whatever she could in order to dodge it perfectly, like any Toyfriend would~!

#tg #transformation #rubber #hoffi draws

[marketingupdates293-blog]

11 "Faux Pas" That Are Actually Okay to Make With Your Content Marketing

First of all, I want an individual know that Objective, i'm not a superstar. In fact, I'm only one regular guy who managed to finally found my another option from the bottom of the pits doing MLM, after teaming up whilst right leaders and figured it all out.

You in order to be accept numerous that you don't know everything. Just because you're good at one topic doesn't mean that you can build an effective business around it. Be an enthusiast learner. Invest money yourself. That's how may do grow your business.

A few well say three, some well say four, almost all of you well say five. One particular says 7. By law your employer is needed to give you at least two days off each work week. That is a policy. An anti-slave labor law. It's a national . All 50 states have it. That law is enforced. Which offers employer demands work beyond what five days a week, they will need to buy from you a minimum of time along with a half (overtime) for the 6th and 7th times the full week. That too is a law. Why? Because perhaps the government witnesses that you can't get the done if you find yourself not given a few days of vast majority.

The second reason which usually capture page is essential is because of the ability to re-market to this expanding list of people that wearing your subject. With this list, you now will have the ability to industry to this list time and time again anything that relates of your niche. Say you create another product in your niche, all you have to do is share it with your niche and you will be making sales quickly and you won't should put specifically the same amount of one's energy in brand new wood people it's simple it. We intend to focus for the word "the finances are in the list".

And i teach something called "Attraction marketing" to every my staff. You see, you want people to find you. Major be chasing other folks. And once you understand this concept, this way to design your company on autopilot, WITHOUT chasing as well as family family, making cold calls, buying leads and using other conventional methods of advertising and marketing.

Your site needs offer of information material. If the engines are comparing your site with others, and your website has 20 pages of great content, while other people have 50 or 100 pages of equally good content, which site a person think possibly be given a greater ranking? Yep, the bigger site will win.

Include a picture. Used cars with pictures posted are about to sell swiftly. Buyers don't want to waste time driving to see a used car, only to understand it is nothing like they expected. Your own research buyers a big favor and include pictures; plus it really can benefit just too! At the very least, post a picture of the car's exterior, but interior pictures are great.

If you propose on ranking at the top search engines, then I can't stress enough the need for educating your own self. The search engines are a highly competitive arena where all those who have taken the time to "learn the rules" claim a top 10 spot.

There are people logging into websites to search online for old school buddies, of whom they haven't much heard of for time. And they are thrilled when they find them, knowing the odds of obtaining it touch again the old way (that is, not using Facebook) would also been almost probably none.

When it begins by consuming thinking roughly a new program, remember for taking it to a different level by thinking about precisely how you can offer to work more deeply with Nagele adult men and women. Whatever ideas you come up with, play them outside in your mind to verify that they have additional extensions on dress yourself in theme. Had been correct also be additional merchandise that support the workshop, too as private coaching or extended group work.

#marketing

[syntaxxxblogs]

Introduction to Schema.org and Rich Snippets

Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process, and it involves quite a big number of variants and factors that you need to consider or take care of. For instance, there are sitemaps to be submitted, crawl errors to be fixed, social networking integration to be dealt with, and so on. Most of the time, there are ready-made plugins and extensions that help you deal with such basic tasks, no matter which platform you are on, be it WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla! However, there is one basic factor related to Search Engine Optimization that rarely gets the attention it rightfully deserves: schema.org markups. Yes, simply by using schema.org markups, you can help your website stand out from the crowd. However, due to its obscurity, not many websites make use of it to the fullest. So what can schema.org markups do? Heard of Rich Snippets in SERPs? Right, that is scheme markup for you! In this article, I will be introducing you to schema.org markups, and ways in which you can use them to boost your search rankings and performance.

Using Schema.org and Rich Snippets

What Are Rich Snippets? So, what exactly are rich snippets? While nearly all search engines have their own mode of operation and each differs from the other in terms of algorithm and search results, there are certain key points which are common to nearly every major search engine on the internet. Among such points is the fact that all search engines attempt to offer the search results on the basis of relevance, which is often decided by virtue of how good or bad the given content might be. Thus, your website may have better content than your competitor’s, but if the search engine algorithm begs to differ, your search rank will suffer. Now, in order to make the SERPs more fruitful and meaningful for the users, search engines nowadays tend to display additional information too. This is where Rich Snippets come in handy, as they can provide extra info alongside search results. Rich Snippets can be of various types: video, people, places, products, events, and so on. Remember Google Authorship snippets (that are now defunct, though)? Those were Rich Snippets too! What Can Schema Do Here? A schema markup can be used to populate Rich Snippets. In fact, it consists of a hierarchy of the various markups that are recognized by search engines. So if you were to write a review about a book, you can use schema markup to help search engines identify the book and its author about which your review talks. So we can say that schema markup is used to “enhance” the quality and appeal of our website’s search listing in results. This has a direct effect over the user experience, as users are more likely to click on a search listing with additional information rather than a plain one. This in turn enhances the CTR of your website, and increases your traffic. How Can Schema.org Help? Schema markup, in easiest terms, is special microdata that is used to inform the search engines about additional information that can be displayed in search results, alongside the usual text and heading. Thus, if you are keen on including Rich Snippets for your search results, you need to employ schema.org markups to inform search engines of the same. In fact, while there could have been various ways to implement Rich Snippets, most major search engines (including Google, Bing as well as Yahoo!) have opted to rely on schema.org framework. As a result, no matter what search algorithm a given search engine is using, Rich Snippets fields are populated using the standard schema.org markup everywhere. Quite obviously, schema.org markup is something that you should seriously consider implementing as part of your SEO strategy, as it can give a big boost to your website’s CTR and overall search engine rank. How About An Example? So, you wish to implement schema.org markup for your website but do not know where to start? Well, there are many plugins available for most CMSs which will help you do just that, but for the sake of clarity, let us discuss the process as if we were doing it manually. We need to place the special microdata inside common HTML tags. Here is how we are going to do it: Let us say our website in question is about a person. This is how the plain HTML excerpt will look: Hello! I am Sufyan, and I like coffee. I can play Chess all day, and I think HTC phones are pretty cool. Now, let us use the ItemScope to add a schema.org category to our excerpt: Hello! I am Sufyan, and I like coffee. I can play Chess all day, and I think HTC phones are pretty cool. The above excerpt will now tell search engines that the given content is about a person. Now, in order to make our markup more meaningful, we need to add extra details: Hello! I am Sufyan, and I like coffee. I can play Chess all day, and I think HTC phones are pretty cool. The above excerpt can now tell the search engines that the text is about a person named Sufyan. You can find additional such properties for the Person type here. Conclusion Too busy to do it all by yourself? Have no fear! Like I said, there are several plugins that will take care of this task for you. For instance, WordPress users can utilize the All in One Schema.org Rich Snippets plugin to take care of everything related to schema.org markups for their websites. Once you are all set and done, you might want to test your markup just to be sure that everything is in order and setup the way you would want it to be. For that purpose, Google has a handy tool to help you test your markup and verify that search engines can properly index your Rich Snippets. That’s all! By proper use of Rich Snippets, you can help your website stand apart from the crowd in terms of search results and improve your SERPs as well as gain extra traffic. Since SEO is nothing more than a combination of several measures to help you stay ahead of the curve, investing some time and efforts in understanding schema.org is well worth the trouble, because it can genuinely boost your website’s SEO ratings. Do you use Rich Snippets and schema.org markups for your websites? If so, share your experiences with us using the comments below! Image Credits: Eyal Sela Read the full article

#RichSnippets #SchemaMarkup #SearchEngineOptimization

[gilbertineonfr2]

Botconf 2017 Wrap-Up Day #3

And this is already the end of Botconf. Time for my last wrap-up. The day started a little bit later to allow some people to recover from the social event. It started at 09:40 with a talk presented by Anthony Kasza, from PaloAlto Networks: “Formatting for Justice: Crime Doesn’t Pay, Neither Does Rich Text“. Everybody knows the RTF format… even more since the famous CVE-2017-0199. But what’s inside an RTF document? As the name says, it is used to format text. It was created by Microsoft in 1987. It has similarities with HTML:

Entities are represented with ‘{‘ and ‘}’. Example:

{\iThis is some italic text}

There are control words like “\rtf”, “\info”, “\author”, “\company”, “\i”, “\AK”, …. It is easy to obfuscate such document with extra whitespaces, headers or with nested elements:

{\rtf [\info]] == {\rtf }}

This means that writing signature is complex. Also, just rename the document with a .doc extension and it will be opened by Word. How to generate RTF documents? They are the official “tools” like Microsoft or Wordpad but they are, of course, plenty of malicious tools:

2017-0199 builder

wingd/stone/ooo

Sofacy, Monsoon, MWI

Ancalog, AK builder

What about analysis tools? Here also, it is easy to build a toolbox with nice tools: rtfdump, rtfobj, pyRTF, YARA are some of them. To write good signatures, Anthony suggested focussing on suspicious words:

 \info

\object

DDEAUTO

\pict

\insrsid or \rsidtbl

DDEAUTO is a good candidate for a while and is seen as the “most annoying bug of the year” for its inclusion in everything (RTF & other documents, e-mail, calendar entries…). Anthony finished his talk by providing a challenge based on an RTF file.

The next talk was presented byPaul Jung: “PWS, Common, Ugly but Effective“. PWS also know as “info stealer” are a very common piece of malware. They steal credentials from many sources (browsers, files, registries, wallets, etc).

They also offer “bonus” features like screenshot grabbers or keylogger. How to find them? Buy them, find a cracked one or open sources. Some of them have also promotional videos on Youtube! A PWS is based on a builder that generates a specific binary based on the config file, it is delivered via protocols like email, HTTP and data are managed via a control panel. Paul reviewed some well-known PWS like JPro Crack Stealer, Pony (the most famous), Predator Pain or Agent Tesla. The last one promotes itself as “not being a malware”. Some of them support more than 130 different applications to steal passwords from. Some do not reinvent the wheel and just use external tools (ex: the Nirsoft suite). If it is difficult to detect them before the infection, it’s quite easy to spot them based on the noise they generate in log files. They use specific queries:

“POST /fre.php” for Lokibot

“POST /gate.php” for Pony or Zeus

Very nice presentation!

After the first coffee refill break, Paul Rascagnères presented “Nyetya Malware & MeDoc Connection“. The presentation was a recap of the bad story that affected Ukraine a few months ago. It started with a phone call saying “We need help“. They received some info to start the investigation but their telemetry did not return anything juicy (Talos collects a huge amount of data to build their telemetry). Paul explained the case of M.E. Doc, a company providing a Windows application for tax processing. The company servers were compromised and the software was modified. Then, Paul reviewed the Nytia malware. It used WMI, PsExec, EternalBlue, EternalRomance and scanned ranges of IP to infect more computers. It also used a modified version of Mimikatz. Note that Nyetya cleared the infected host logs. This is a good reminder to always push logs on an external system to prevent losing pieces of evidence.

The next talk was about a system to track the Locky ransomware based on its DGA: “Math + GPU + DNS = Cracking Locky Seeds in Real Time without Analyzing Samples“. Yohai Einav Alexey Sarychev explained how they solved the problem to detect as fast as possible new variation of domain names used by the Locky ransomware. The challenges were:

To get the DGA  (it’s public now)

To be able to process a vast search space. The namespace could be enormous (from 3 digit seed to 4 then 5, 6). There is a scalability problem.

Mapping the ambiguity (and avoid collisions with other DGA’s)

So solution they developed is based on GPU (for maximum speed). If you’re interested in the Locky DGA, you can have a look at their dataset.

The next talk was, for me, the best of the day because it contained a lot of useful information that many people can immediately reuse in their environment to improve the detection of malicious behaviour or to improve their DFIR process. It was titled “Hunting Attacker Activities – Methods for Discovering, Detecting Lateral Movements” and presented by Keisuke Muda and Shusei Tomonaga. Based on their investigations, they explained how attackers can perform lateral movement inside a network just be using standard Windows tools (that, by default, are not flagged as malicious by the antivirus).

They presented multiple examples of commands or small scripts used to scan, pivot, cover tracks, etc. Then they explained how to detect this kind of activity. They made a good comparison of the standard Windows audit log versus the well-known Sysmon tool. They presented pro & con of each solution and the conclusion could be that, for maximum detection, you need both. There were so many examples that it’s not possible to list them here. I just recommend you to have a look at the documents available online:

https://jpcertcc.github.io/ToolAnalysisResultSheet/

https://www.jpcert.or.jp/english/pub/sr/20170612ac-ir_research_en.pdf

It was an amazing presentation!

After the lunch, Jaeson Schultz, also from Talos, presented “Malware, Penny Stocks, Pharma Spam – Necurs Delivers“. The talk was a good review of the biggest spam botnet active. Just some numbers collected from multiple campaigns; 2.1 messages, 1M unique sender IP addresses from 216 countries/territories. The top countries are India, Vietnam, Iran and Pakistan. Jaeson explained that the re-use of IP address is so low that it’s difficult to maintain blacklists.

How do the bad guys send emails? They use harvested accounts (of course) but also auto-generated addresses and common / role-based accounts. That’s why the use of catch-all mailboxes is useful. Usually, big campaigns are launched from Monday to Friday and regular campaigns are constantly running at a low speed. Jaeson presented many examples of spam, attachments. Good review with entertaining slides.

Then, Łukasz Siewierski presented “Thinking Outside of the (Sand)box“. Łukasz is working for Google (Play Store) and analyze applications. He said that all applications submitted to Google are reviewed from a security point of view. Android has many security features: SE linux, application sandbox, permission model, verified boot, (K)ASLR, Seccomp but the presentation focused on the sandbox. First, why is there a sandboxing system? To prevent spyware to access other applications data, to prevent applications to pose as other ones, make easy to attribute action to specific apps and to allow strict policy enforcement.  But how to break the sandbox? First, the malware can ask users for a number of really excessive permissions. In this case, you just have to wait and cross your fingers that he will click “Allow”. Another method is to use Xposed. I already heard about this framework at Hack in the Box. It can prevent apps to be displayed in the list of installed applications. It gives any application every permission but there is one big drawback: the victim MUST install Xposed! The other method is to root the phone, inject code into other processes and profit. Łukasz explained different techniques to perform injection on Android but it’s not easy. Even more since the release of “Nougat” which introduced now mitigations techniques.

The last slot was assigned to Robert Simmons who presented “Advanced Threat Hunting“. It was very interesting because Robert gave nice tips to improve the process of threat hunting. It can require a lot of resources that are … limited! We have small teams with limited resources and limited time. He also gave tips to better share information. A good example is YARA rules. Everybody has a set of YARA rules in private directories, on laptops, etc. Why not store them in a central repository like a gitlab server? Many other tips were given that are worth a read if you are performing threat hunting.

The event was close to the classic kind word of the team. You can already book your agenda for the 6th edition that will be held in Toulouse!

  [The post Botconf 2017 Wrap-Up Day #3 has been first published on /dev/random]

from Xavier

#Botconf 2017 Wrap-Up Day 3

[ilovefrancefan]

Based on a true story. The pay was standard. Room, board, and 150 euros per month. “Room” was a single on an 8th floor walk-up, with a communal bathroom in the hall. “Board” was lunch 6 days a week. The salary, less than $6 a day, largely went to the all the other meals I had mistakenly assumed would be included. But I wanted to stay in Paris for the summer, so I moved in the day after the interview. The room was a classic chambre de bonne, with a single bed and unobstructed view of Sacre Coeur. Bonne is short for bonne à tout faire, “good for doing everything.” As such, the advertised governess job was more housekeeping than babysitting. “We’ve never had an au pair,” Mrs. Dimas told me. “We are not rich. We can barely afford you.” She showed me how to vacuum the walls, which were covered in fabric. “My husband is a perfectionist,” she said, adding that it was he who insisted the bedsheets be ironed. The French word for perfectionist, when talking about cleanliness, is maniac. Pronounced “mahn-YAK.” She had a confidence, even when lying, that led me to double-check the driver’s license she’d sometime leave on the kitchen counter. Just 29? There were two children. Four-year-old Patrice, dark-complected and moody, and three-month-old Sidonie, blonde like her mother, and the subject of a christening in the works, with family coming from all over. I would arrive to clean up the breakfast table and get Patrice dressed for school while keeping an eye on Sidonie, who dozed off with a belly full of formula that we made with Volvic bottled water. (Madame herself drank Contrex, which was said to be slimming, while her husband, who owned a restaurant, preferred Badoit, the salty one that aids digestion. I found this very sophisticated, and was trying to decide which water brand best reflected the Parisian I was trying to become.) After dropping Patrice off at nursery school, I’d go back to the apartment where Rose-Annette, as Mrs. Dimas asked me to call her, would go over the housework to be done that day, ensuring I understood the words on the list. She would pull me a coffee from the noisy espresso machine, and then make a production of getting dressed and leaving. Rose-Annette returned for lunch most days around 1 or so, and we ate together. Usually Sidonie would be down for a nap. Rose-Annette showed me how to steam vegetables in the pressure cooker, and to bake clafoutis with fruit fresh she’d bring up from the market. “I can’t believe Americans buy mayonnaise,” she said one day, mixing a dab of mustard into her homemade mayo. I said, “I can’t believe you French eat horse meat.” I wasn’t sure if the playfulness I intended came across. “I adore horse meat,” Rose-Annette said. As a post-script, she added, “Vous.” She corrected me anytime I used the informal word for “you.” On Bastille Day I was “verifying” the laundry (no holiday for the help, so I was following instructions to check every button and zipper before ironing and hanging the clothes). Rose-Annette was picking out blue, white and red outfits for the girls when the phone rang. I guessed it was her mother, because she didn’t seem to have many friends. After confabbing on the christening, slated for September—something about how many pounds of candied almonds to order, the traditional accessory for baptisms—Rose-Annette took the phone into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. “What am going to do when she goes back to America?” I heard her say. “I won’t have any help! I don’t know. Maybe it’s good. It’s getting too cosy.” I was better off than the other au pairs that I met at the playground. Some would smoke, or vape, while our charges played, and we’d all wolf down snacks intended for the kids. I was the only one privileged to call madame by her given name, and to drink rosé with her at lunch. “We polished off a whole bottle,” I bragged to Birgitta, whose family used cloth diapers and made her serve dinner like a waitress. The families looked down upon us, and we upon them. “What kind of work is it that you do?” I asked Rose-Annette over lunch. “If only!” she said. In the ensuing sentences, she may or may not have told me. I missed a lot while pretending to understand. What did become clear, though, to my surprise, was that she wasn’t working. It was a full-time job to get her old position back, she said. First, she needed her papers. The word was similar to “husband” and “baptism gown.” Not in the way it sounded, but in that I heard it a lot, and was aware of its importance in this household, but never saw it. Of course, everyone in France talks about papers. It’s a bureaucratic country where one in five people works for the government, mainly shuffling documents. Everyone needed papers, no one had the papers they needed. Even I lacked papers. My visa had expired in May, not long after the final exam of the Sorbonne’s extension program. I was technically an “illegal,” as were most of the other au pairs at the playground. But none of us were concerned about it. We were white, and our host families were comfortable and connected. We had nothing in common with the bands of Afghans who would also congregate in parks, sitting in a circle, quietly passing around food. “I just purse my lips when I walk past a police station,” Birgitta said. We pulled French faces and imitated the high voices our madames used, especially when speaking to their husbands. Chasing papers, and the stamps to validate them—that was a whole separate task, conducted in separate offices or buildings–sent Rose-Annette out of the house most days of the week. The manila folder, where the papers were collected, migrated around the apartment like a mobile religious object. She took a day trip to Brittany to look through boxes in her parents’ house. All she found there was her old monthly metro pass. She made a cute embarassed face when she showed me the photo-booth image on it, of her flashing a peace sign, and wearing the skunk-stripe hairstyle popular in the aughts. “Awesome,” I said in English, and we slapped hands in an off-center high-five. “She’s meeting a lover!” Birgitta squealed. The love life of our madames was a big topic at the park. “No,” I said. “Not Rose-Annette.” For one thing, she primped more for her husband’s return from work than she did for her morning excursions. Rose-Annette was moony over Antonio, her Nino. She liked to stop in and hang out at the restaurant he owned, she confided to me, until he told her she’d have to put on an apron. “That, no!” she laughed. By August, the bottle of rosé was de rigueur at lunch. “My parents are being difficult about the christening,” Rose-Annette told me. “My father still cannot accept that I married a Portuguese man.” She shrugged her shoulders and lowered one eyelid in existential resignation. “Because of them, I couldn’t let Antonio gain nationality by marrying me. He had to be naturalized before I said yes.” I thought about this as I finished off a bowl of berries in sour cream. If Rose-Annette resented her parents’ disdain for Nino, why did she subject him to their requirements? That seemed so French to me. Rose-Annette loved to consider herself an outsider for having a foreign husband. She found it deliciously outrageous that they allowed Patrice to keep her hair cut in a short buzz. But, with their pastel candied almonds–”they’re expensive, butone must,” she had explained–they were as bourgeois as any of the other parents we dished about at the playground. Sometimes at lunch, after a couple glasses of wine, I got an urge to ask her about French traditions, specifically how she came to reject some and emulate others. But even if I’d had the language skills, I didn’t dare, and I would stand and pick up dishes. “Instead of attempting to change the country during your junior year abroad,” read a pamphlet handed to us at orientation at the Sorbonne, “try to understand and respect the cultural norms in France, even if you disagree with them.” I wrote home to my sister, “Rose-Annette doesn’t even buy baby food!” When the baby started eating solids, I spoon-fed her veal puree’d with butter. My last chore each evening was to wax and buff the girls’ navy leather shoes. A heatwave began. It was exhausting speaking staccato French all day. Going home to the States would be like taking off roller blades and walking without fear of wiping out. My au pair comrades started dropping out of sight, accompanying their host families on vacation to Normandy, Provence, the Riviera. Rose-Annette’s handful of friends also decamped, or so she said. The two of us took to watching a soap opera after lunch. “I’m different, she said during a commercial for a cut-rate airline. “I’d rather take a vacation in winter to someplace warm. Nino can’t leave the restaurant, and I prefer not to desert him.” I bought my return ticket online and, after bringing Patrice home from the crèche, slipped Rose-Annette a note across the kitchen table with the flight information. She gave me a “What am I going to do?” face that was endearing, even touching. She opened a bottle of Brouilly—a red served chilled—and invited me to stay for dinner: cervelles d’agneau. I wondered if I should go get my dictionary. Instead I walked to the living room, where Patrice had turned on the TV. I said, “We’re having lamb brains tonight.” She shot up her fists in the air and said, “Oui!” Back in the kitchen, Rose-Annette said, barely audibly, “My paper chase is coming to an end.” The manila folder, which I hadn’t seen in a couple of weeks, had materialized in her hands. “You’ll go back to university,” she said, curling the tab at the top, “and I’ll go back to work.” Now was my chance to get clear on her profession. Teacher? Secretary? One of France’s 13 million bureaucrats? She didn’t seem to have any passions beyond family and food. The theme music for a game show came on, and we both turned toward the TV. I raised my eyebrows. “Ah, oui!” Rose-Annette said, bringing over the bottle and two glasses. “Scoot over, Patrice.” As I walked down the stairs from my chambre de bonne the morning of the 31st, I wondered if Rose-Annette would give me a tip, or a gift, with my pay. Maybe we’d have a coffee together and she’d give me the day off to finish packing. She was dressed, with her cross-body satchel strapped on. “My mother is coming to stay for a week,” Rose-Annette said, clasping her hands to her head. “You think my husband is maniac? My mother is worse.” The list of chores began with vacuuming the walls. “I’ll drop Patrice at school so you have time for a top-to-bottom,” she said. I don’t know if I’ll be back for lunch because I’ve got one last stamp to beg for.” I blinked at the list. “Wow,” I said. “So you’re really going back to work.” She nodded yes, wild-eyed, and called for Patrice to put on her shoes. Sidonie was acting up. I couldn’t clean and entertain her at the same time, so I turned on the radio loud and let her wail. I sweated like crazy scrubbing mineral deposits off bathroom tiles. When I finished, I taped up the nozzle of the Cif, the white cleanser. I loved the smell. There wasn’t anything like it in the United States. As I was burying it in my purse, I heard the front door, and I froze. Rose-Annette appeared in the apartment hallway, looking alarmed. “She just started,” I said over the din, jumping up to turn off the radio. “I’ll go get her.” I calmed the baby by changing her diaper. I gave her a clean outfit, too. When I came back out from her bedroom, Rose-Annette was hunched over, opening a bottle of wine at the kitchen table. She looked up and said, “Are you OK?” “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Sorry. Just a little frazzled about my flight tomorrow. I want to get everything done.” Rose-Annette reached out for Sidonie with one arm and pulled off her satchel with the other. She smelled the baby’s neck and rocked her. I heard sniffling. “I can’t believe it,” she said, her voice an octave lower than normal, and gravelly. I suspected something serious, something about Nino, maybe. She couldn’t be that worked up just because the baby had been yelling. Or even that I was leaving. I tried to think of an excuse about the Cif, which she may have seen me steal. But then the baby stopped crying, suddenly, and I thought about Rose-Annette’s confidence, which had impressed me when we’d first met. I took a step closer and put my hand on her shoulder, a barrier neither of us expected to be crossed. With a face that reminded me of our soap opera heroine, she closed her eyes and leaned into my hand. She mumbled, “I lost all my papers on the metro.” The post Short Story: The Paris Papers appeared first on .

http://www.theparisblog.com/short-story-paris-papers/

#Caribbean #Travel #Caribbean news