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whirlybirbs · 3 years

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FEVER-DREAM ; echo/reader

summary: echo is fine-tuning his new prosthesis. you have experience, you help. unspoken feelings are acted on. adoration blooms. you learn what mesh’la means.

word count: 3k

pairing: echo / f!reader

tags: mutual pining, lots of tender looks, victorian-era hand-touching sluttiness, echo is a gentle soul, reader is head over heels, a touch of ptsd mention, set on ord mantell, mention of our boy fives, in this house we love assistive devices, enough sexual tension to power the death star

a/n: this is me round-house kicking the bad batch writers in the throat because they made echo cosplay a droid — but, also because this man deserves to be treated as more than a means to a mission’s end. majority of you know i am ~bitter~ (understatement of the century) of tbb’s plot/design/writing. but echo has been a favorite from the original days... so have some very soft fic.

i reference character redesigns by @nibeul in this piece — please go peep them here, and some updated character spreads here! they’re really beautiful and add a phenomenal layer of storytelling to the existing designs that’s lacking. nibuel’s art and writing is lovely. please give them a follow — i can’t rec their work enough.

“How does it feel?”

The words are nearly whispered; it’s clear you didn’t want to startle him, and Echo can feel the pinch in his brow soften at your sudden appearence in the doorway.

His bunk, at the back of the Havoc Marauder, is small — the space itself even more so. There’s a makeshift partition, hooked together with spare parts and meant to offer a bit of privacy on the cramped vessel. Its slate grey color has faded, and the edges have become tattered in the cycles of use.

When Echo pulls his dark eyes up from his work, you’re leaning against the frame — your expression is earnest.

For a moment, the once-ARC Trooper is quiet.

He wonders if he’ll ever get used to your attention. Each and every time, it sends him into a spiral; his heart catches as he inhales and tries to push down the warm stir in his gut. The sight of you is enough, nowadays, to melt Echo’s well-maintained irritability. His attention is stolen from his ever-present pain, if only for a bit.

There are plenty of days where he misses the old him — the wide-eyed, eager ARC Trooper who had his brothers by his side. His real brothers. Hevy, Cutup, Droidbait... Fives.

Fuckin’ hell, Fives was probably staring down at him now laughing.

No matter what changes, you’re still shit with the ladies, vod’ika.

In a way he hasn’t fully admitted to himself, you make him feel like himself again. Like... Like some shiny cadet, on leave and distracted by the promises of pretty smiles passing-by. It’s good.

This makes him feel... good.

He flexes, and his right hand — the new, gunmetal durasteel cyberized-prosthesis — closes into a tight fist. It’s taken him a bit, but the feeling isn’t so foreign now. It’s still... slow. Slower than he’s used to, but you’d mentioned it may take some time. The phantom feelings get better, too. All in all, it’s a good thing.

Your own hand, your left, glimmers back in the same gunmetal color.

(Echo had never pressed you about the missing limb — not until one day, in Cid’s, you’d joined him in a quiet corner. You’d spilled your drink and a complaint about getting the star-cherry syrup out of the joints had slipped out. Echo had laughed; a real laugh, the sort that was so rare coming from him, it had you staring at him as if he’d hung ever star in the sky.

Can I ask how it happened? he’d said, breaking the heavy silence when your eyes never left his.

The Pykes, you’d said, and that was enough.)

“I haven’t, uh... Haven’t gotten the sensory calibration right yet.”

Then, his prosthesis cramps. His fingers go rigid, and Echo curses sharply as he reaches around his forearm to quickly reboot the appendage. It goes slack, then hums alive once more.

You wince.

You’re slow to move into the room — and you settle atop one of the crates Echo had stolen from the belly of the ship, an old Mantell Mix shipping container. You’re mindful to set his datapad aside, to not disturb his space too much. Before you reach for his hand, however, you lift your chin and open your hands in your lap.

“May I?” you ask, just as soft as before.

Echo feels small under your gaze.

Truth be told, you’re doing more than just... asking. You’re taking him in — appreciating him. It’s a habit that’s grown more and more apparent to not only himself, but the others.

In recent rotations, Echo has let his hair grow out — not long, but the once close buzz he’d kept has begun to curl at the top. Not entirely dissimilair to how it was before the Citadel. The dermal implants, the ones the Techno Union installed in order to parse the nuerological data in his head, stand out against his warm-colored skin.

His usual AJ^6-inspired headpiece is resting on his bunk.

That damn thing.

A neccesary tool. One that, given the amount of user data Tech had procured when working on modifying the implant, Echo found himself immediately distrusting. It wasn’t as if the AJ^6 cyborg construct had a beautiful track record, and frankly, Echo would like to keep his personality in tact, thank you very much. There were plenty of days he felt machine enough.

It wasn’t often you saw him without the headset; you knew it made linking in via his scomp easier to handle, it made the visualization of data transfers as easy as breathing. For Echo, it was a part of his vast kit, an important tool. For you, seeing him without it bubbles up a bit of a smile.

Echo catches it.

His eyes narrow playfully.

He looks... well. You — hell, are there words for it? For the way the sight of him makes you feel? It’s like there’s a world full of potential there, a thousand words unsaid, and feelings that have steeped in the warmth of longing gazes and half-there touches.

You’re still looking up at him, knees bent on the crate.

You blink, realizing you’ve been caught staring — not for the first time and certainly not for the last. In the beginning, it had left a sour taste in Echo’s mouth. But, now... Well, it stokes a sort of pride in his chest that he hangs onto.

It never gets easier to recover from — certainly not when Echo smirks. He moves to allow you to take his prosthesis into your lap. The gesture is gentle; your fingers cradle the firm yet pliable metal.

“What?” he asks. His voice, low and rough and warm, is tinted with amusement.

“Nothing,” you say vaguely with a shrug — as if that’s supposed to explain any part of your enamored stare. Your attention moves to the prosthesis.

“Nothing?” he asks, moving to thumb his left ear with his free hand with a dash of nervousness. A habit. Echo tilts his head as his fingers brush the cochlear implant there. The panel rests neatly against the side of his head, a small rounded-off square. The bite of self-consciousness has dwindled around you — but still, it creeps back up every now and again.

The Corporal’s brows knot playfully as you turn his new hand over in your lap; you’re admiring the upgraded feel, the more seamless panelling in comparison to your own. Echo watches your lashes flutter in silent thought.

Then:

“You’re a terrible liar, you know.”

You blink slowly at the hand, swallow down your sudden sheepishness and ignore his gaze. You bite back the smile digging into your cheeks. “Maybe.”

“Do I have something on my face?” he asks suddenly, and you look up.

A baited trick. He’s smiling.

The warm sort — the sort reserved for you and for Omega. The two souls that hold a piece of his heart, with all its ticking valves and electric timed pulses. There are machinisms that keep him alive, and then there is you. Your wide-eyed expression melts, giving way to the sort of smile he’s tried to memorize over and over. It’s the same smile that has warded off that reoccuring nightmare of the night on the tarmac at the Citadel, the same smile that has pulled him through the grit of phantom pains.

“What—” a sudden laugh bursts from your chest, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You were staring, mesh’la,” he rumbles out as a reminder, enjoying the fact he’s suddenly become the center of your attention. Echo leans back, his boot toeing yours. You nudge it back. Your face feels hot. You ignore his pointedly teasing look with a roll of your eyes.

The nickname started a few weeks ago. You haven’t asked what it means — no, for now it’s meaning hangs in the balance. Untouched but there. The affection the word carries makes your heart feel heavier and unbelievably full.

“Bad habit,” you chirp back, looking up at him through your lashes.

His laugh is warm.

“Maybe not.”

“No,” you say quietly; your voice is soft as your eyes bounce across his face, tracing the lines of his face with your gaze, “I don’t think it is.”

There’s a silence that slips between you — a comfortable one. It’s heavier than before. That has begun to happen recently, especially with the petal-soft utterance of mesh’la becoming more and more frequent. You hold his gaze. Echo lets out a soft, contented sigh.

Then, you remember the task at hand.

You clear your throat.

“Uh... The access panel I’m looking for,” you say slowly as your raise your finger to point to your own arm, “It’s on your bicep.”

Echo blinks. He clears his own throat before looking down — he hadn’t even noticed that access panel. That could explain the jarring miscommunication stalling the limb. This model had more bells and whistles than he initally realized.

Better than a fuckin’ scomp link, that’s for sure.

Wordlessly, Echo makes room on his bunk. You move to settle beside him, your bent leg resting aginst his hip as you half-straddle the bed; your other knee brushes his thigh — and Echo tries to sit still. You’re close, now.

“Is it okay if...?” you trail off, fingers tugging on the short sleeve of his blacks; you pause until Echo offers a curt nod. You catch him swallow. You push onward, fingers nimbly rolling the fabric up over his broad bicep.

Echo steals a glance your way as your fingers pass across a slip of his bare skin.

In his lap, both his hands twitch.

He’s no small man. Lean and athletic, Echo is built like a soldier. Omega had said once that Echo was an ARC Trooper, one of the best of the best. You believed every bit of it, and you’d hung on her words when she’d rambled on about ARC training, about Kamino, and about who Echo was before you knew him. It was all in the past, though. That Echo is a part of this Echo but... They’re different men. He’s been changed by the things that have happened.

You don’t press him on the details.

In time, they’re slipped into conversation here and there — between the here and now.

In the beginning, when you’d found yourself amongst the crew of the Havoc Marauder — be it for a simple job on Cid’s behalf — Echo had hardly paid you a moment of attention, though you admit you’d been curious from the start. It had taken three jobs for you to finally see his face. Then began the slow and gradual bonding over catching joints, grating plates, and hardware updates. His legs, your arm. Two pieces of a pair.

Now, he has this. A beautiful new upgrade — something he’s wanted for a long time. A part of his old self is back, in a way.

You liked that it was more than just a tool. That, in having this piece of his body back, he felt like more than a tool. More than a scomp link.

After all, he is a man — a... a very handsome man. One whose proximity is sort of distracting you, again, from the task at hand.

“The panel here,” you say as you slowly press on the seam that enables the settings panel to be revealed; you’re mindful to explain, “It controls sensory outputs, as well as synchonized synaptic commands. The panel on my forearm does the same to my hand, yours is just... well, you’ve got the new and improve version.”

Echo ducks his head as you work, watching you from the corner of his eye. “Feeling a bit jealous, mesh’la?”

“Maybe,” you breathe out with a smile.

Then, you lift your eyes. You intended to see that he was still comfortable, but instead you come face to face with the Corporal. His nose nearly brushes yours when you lift you chin, completely dragged in by the closeness shared.

There’s a beat of tension. Echo’s mouth goes dry.

You fingers pause. You swallow hard. “How... uh, how does it feel?”

Echo tightens his grip, then releases. His breath tickles your cheeks. His eyes, a deep, warm brown, flit from your eyes to your mouth, and then back. His voice is a croak.

“...Same as before.”

You tinker with a dial, eyes never leaving his; your voice is above a whisper. “And now?”

It’s immediate. Like a rush of cold air up his arm — and on instinct, Echo’s hand twitches. His fingers grip the fabric of his blacks, along his thigh, and... he feels it. The smooth, stretch of the material. It’s... it feels like a lot. His fingertips, metallic and cyberized, tingle. It’s distracting.

He can feel.

His hand is slow. It moves across to bridge the space between you. His pointer finger settles on the curve of your knee; the feeling of your tactical pants beneath his fingertip is ignored, instead he chases the heat of your body.

Your breath catches at the touch.

Echo’s face is turned to you, but... his attention has settled on his hand. His palm then sweeps across your thigh. He follows the curve, soaks in the feeling. You’re frozen in place, beating back the desperate sound of appreciation that threatens to be pulled from your throat. The touch is... more than welcomed.

The closeness itself is making you dizzy.

Then, Echo turns — and the warm, durasteel-plated palm finds your cheek.

Your skin is hot.

“Is this okay, mesh’la?” he whispers, words riding on a quiet exhale — the sort that make you feel... well, you don’t even have words for the way he makes you feel. Echo is... kind, honest, and loyal. Above all else, he’s gentle. Despite it all, despite every bit of horror he’d been put through, he’d never lost sight of the importance of a gentle hand. Especially now in a moment as intimate as this. It coaxes you closer.

You lean into the cybernetic attachment, cheek resting in his palm. You nod, then, with eyes eager to take in every bit of this moment.

He chuckles at the enthusiasm. Echo’s thumb, deft and smooth, then traces the line of your lower lip.

The feeling is... the gnawing pain that he’s felt for nearly a year has melted. Finally, the itch has been scratched in his brain and the hollow ache of his bones is gone. It’s relief, and comfort, and excitement and all these beautiful things — and you.

You’re stuck — you don’t want to move, you won’t move. He’s rooted you completely, and when his other hand — the calloused and warm one of flesh and blood — finds it’s spot along your thigh, you swallow a lovesick sigh that would only exaserbate your desperation.

Your mouth is moving before you realize it.

“What does it mean?”

Echo’s eyes narrow, only a bit, and he runs his thumb up your cheekbone.

“What does what mean?”

“Mesh’la,” it sounds foreign on your tongue. It’s not Hutteese or Twi’leki, not like any language you know, “Will you tell me what it means, Echo?”

The corner of his lips quirk. Your eyes jump to it.

You feel like someone’s reached right into your chest and given your heart a squeeze — and it only worsens when he laughs. He laughs, deep and quiet and warm, like a thunderstorm on a summer night. It feels cruel, to string you along like this when you’re here, lips parted, hanging off his every touch and his every word.

“Beautiful,” he says quietly as his other hand touches your jaw — it’s so damn reverent, this little moment in time, that you almost don’t believe it’s real.

It feels like a dream — like someone has come in and stolen your thoughts from you; like the unrequited yearning has finally stoked a fire large enough to burn you up entirely, a fever you never knew you wanted.

His nose brushes yours.

Your fingers wind into the fabric of his chest. You’re clinging, lost to the moment — and you can’t help wonder if this is how it feels when he catches you adoring him. He’s admiring you so tenderly that you nearly break.

You want to kiss him.

He’s thought about nothing but kissing you for the last five days at least. Longer in his dreams. Nowadays, it’s a constant pull, a constant want.

And now, it’s here — a present and current moment where it can happen. Where he can stop being a shiny cadet and he can make a move...

Enter Omega.

“Echo, we’re back—!”

The telltale hammer of a girl’s boots on the floor signals that the party is back from their supply run — but you’re so far off, spinning in a different universe, you don’t even hear her until its too late... Until Echo is yanking himself away and clearing his throat and rolling his wrist to test the prosthesis in a different way, a less intimate way.

You blink, then rattle yourself back to the present. Omega is in the doorway staring with a quizzical look. Clearly, your state does little to dissuade the assumptions she’s already making and you can see the gears turning in her head. The dark-haired girl then slowly grins.

“Hi.”

You swallow. “Hi, Omega.”

“...Whatcha guys doin’?”

Echo coughs. “Uh, just fine-tuning the new upgrade.”

“...Riiiiiight.”

You rub your cheeks and laugh — clearly forced and incredibly pained — as you stand up and nearly ram your head right into the top of Echo’s bunk. It’s met with a hiss of warning from the trooper as he jumps up to try and protect you from the impact.

“Well! Uh, thanks for letting me help, Echo,” you clap, rocking back and forth on your boots, “I, uh... Oh, Cid called. I should... I should get back—”

“Yea,” he says, straining a bit to find the words, “Yea, I’ll... I’ll comm you if it starts to, uh... If it starts to act up?”

Omega watches the exchange, big brown eyes moving from left to right.

“Good, great — yea, that’s,” you inhale as you rub your thighs and move towards the door, “Perfect. Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Bye!” Omega calls, waving.

You wave back, smiling. “Bye, Omega.”

Then, once it’s only Echo and Omega in the bunk, the tween speaks.

“...What the kriff was that?”

#HE IS A CORPORAL!!!!!#let echo say fuck #and omega #echo x reader #echo imagine #arc trooper echo x reader #echo/reader #echo/you #echo x you #tcw imagine #tbb imagine #sw imagine #the bad batch imagine #THANK YOU ANON WHO SENT ME THE UPDATED SPREADS #LOVE U ANGEL

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littleblackbooksims · 2 years

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Is the thief berghdorf really getting Karma ? Because she's been living her fantasy like she's not stealing from blender creators on cg trader now she's making shoes in less than one week that bitch needs to have money because when you buy high poly 3D models they can cost around 100 especially real life luxury brand items if you know where to buy models of course let me sink that shit if these thief's the community calls creators buy models you think that shit cost cheap ? No ma'am if they have money to buy 100 up blender scenes and models they don't need to leech from the community the higher the poly count higher the blender rendering meaning expensive how do I know this simple I'm a cc creator myself a piece of advice to those who uses blender renders using high poly models constantly overtime say goodbye to your CPU because when you render high poly models on cycles your forcing your beloved computer a lot especially if you don't have a good CPU or GPU

Also i wanna clarify something these people who buy models sometimes they don't have brain cells to learn how to make ingame content meaning they don't have a clue how to make textures look good in cas items or ingame therefore their content looks shitty as fuck one curious thing i notice about this berghdorf thief is I've never seen ingame photos of her stolen goods all photos are blender renders on Eevee and Cycles i never either saw free stuff or links everything is pay walled i think

REAL & LEGIT creators should never compare themselves to these fake ass bitches PERIOD YES the have popularity YES they have influence YES it is unfair the amount of support they received YES they make you feel discouraged they make you feel small like your content don't matter or is not good enough HOWEVER we have something they will never have TALENT, SKILL AND MOST OF ALL CREATIVITY AND ORIGINALITY the only talent these buttholes share is they're master manipulators who in order to be where they're they made side accounts promoting their main account making collabs with their own kind they literally build a fucking cult where everyone writes and takes the same photos with same luxury celebrities life bullshit using the content these creators stole

These people are disgusting we know that for a fact but what does it say about the people who supports and defends them like stealing content is normal and ain't a crime like bullying and doxing your Patreon SUPPORTES to suicide is not wrong like copy and pasting someone else's work is not wrong either these supporters are delusional or just immature as fuck

Couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Thanks anon 👏

#paywalling #sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 cc #doxxing #theft #content theft #littleblackbooksims #ask #simslittleblackbook #lbbsims

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dread-on-arrival · 4 years

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Richard Ramirez - The Night Stalker: Family Background

Serial Killer Masterlist

Childhood Part 1

Word Count: 3505

Richard Ramirez, the man who left at least thirteen dead, paralysing the city of Los Angeles throughout the summer of 1985. His name alone makes people prickle with fear as they remember the acts of horror he committed on children and adults alike. Yet he still fascinates people; the Night Stalker Case was what got me interested in true crime and how the human brain can be so drastically changed by mental and physical events. I have spent countless hours reading up on his crimes, trial, personality, drifter lifestyle and the tragic childhood that played a huge role in creating the monster we all know and fear. I collect this information I have read many articles on Richard Ramirez and watched videos discussing his life. My main source of information was ‘The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez The Night Stalker’ by Philip Carlo, I highly recommend. Georgia Marie’s video also gave a slightly summarised version of Ramirez’s life so watch that here if you are interested.

Compared to the other detailed multiple part series I am doing for the Serial Killers, this one is going to be exceptionally long simply because I have copious amounts of information about Richard. The other Serial Killers I cover will be very detailed as well don’t worry I just simply have so much I want to share about him. We will start with the background of his family, the next part will cover his childhood however I cannot confirm when it will be out but I am writing it from now. Anyway, lets get into the background of the Ramirez family.

With three older brothers and an older sister, Richard Ramirez - Richie as the family fondly remembers him - was the youngest of five to Julian Tapia Ramirez and Mercedes Ramirez.

Julian Ramirez was born in the rough city of Camargo in Mexico, February 16th 1927. He was the second oldest of eight children who were raised on a poor farm. He was large, with the power to match it, high well-defined cheekbones and jet-black hair making him a considerably attractive man. His features were often characteristics of the Ramirez men.

Jose Ramirez, his father, was a stern man who rarely showed any signs of joy. Jose had inherited his dark eyes and tight, firm lips from his father, Inacia, but also had inherited his Father’s horrible temper. Julian’s mother, Roberta, had died when he was only 12 leaving a lot of the responsibility to raise the large family on him since he was the oldest boy.

Corporal punishment was something Jose and Inacia firmly believed in, if any of the eight children did not keep up with expectations they were quick to receive a severe beating. It was a normal occurrence for fathers to beat their children in Mexico - to teach them respect and discipline - however the beatings from Julian’s father and grandfather often blurred the line between discipline and abuse. Inacia would beat Julian the most, tying him to a tree and whipping him with a rope causing Julian to became very withdrawn. He wouldn’t cry when he was beaten and would just wait until the older men’s anger was vented, he was beaten the most since he was the oldest.

At 14 Julian stood up for himself. He tore the belt from his father’s hands and said sternly, “You are not beating me anymore.” In Camargo a child could be executed for disobeying their father but nothing was done and from then on Julian was never beaten again. He never should have been beaten anyway, he was a good child and always did what he could to benefit his family. Julian never swore, smoked and rarely drank. He went to church every Sunday with his family and firmly believed in Jesus and the powers of Satan. He never got past the first grade in school as he was needed to work on the farm 24/7.

The city itself was small with no available electricity, railroad or even a phone so everyone knew of each other. Julian met his future wife, Mercedes, when they were 14.

Mercedes Muñoz was part of another big family, one of seven children - four boys, three girls and was born in Rocky Ford, Colorado. They were another poor family but made the most of what they could. When America joined World War II Guadalupe, Mercedes mother, decided it would be best to leave the US for Camargo. She believed her sons should not be drafted for the war because their blood should not be spilt because of the fights between politicians. It was well known the government were corrupt (some to this day still are). From the moment she arrived in Camargo she became friends with Julian’s sisters and that was how they were introduced. Mercedes was pretty, she was tall and thin, large doe-eyes, a broad forehead and her hands and fingers were long and finely tapered, ‘beautiful enough to have modelled’ - The Life and Crime of Richard Ramirez The NightStalker - Philip Carlo.

Julian and Mercedes didn’t truly start to date until 19 when they would go for walks around Camargo’s only park and watch movies at Camargo’s only cinema.

Once the war was over 1946, Nacho - Mercedes’ brother - had moved to the town of Juarez to work in a post office, Juarez was the border town beside El Paso, Texas. There was little work in Camargo due to its size so to get work you would have to move. Luckily the Muñoz children were American citizens since they were born in the United States and they could legally travel to El Paso for work so Guadalupe made the decision to move which meant Mercedes herself would have to go too. Her relationship with Julian would have to be put behind her for the time being.

After moving to Juarez in the August of 1947, any body old enough to get a job was put to work. Juarez was a very violent place and anything could be bought for not much money at all: drugs, stolen American goods, prostitutes, even sex with minors. These horrific things are common in many border towns. Mercedes found the place disgusting and horrifying, she was horrified and scared of the crimes committed all around her.

But something she looked forward to was writing to Julian, although he struggled with writing he got his sister to teach him how. The letters may have been short but they were full of love; telling her how much he missed her and how lonely it had become without her. She shared the same sentiment.

Not long after Mercedes left Julian got drafted, he was taught to shoot and use all kind of weapons. He was never deployed because he contracted scarlet fever. He was discharged and sent back to Camarge - thin and sick his sister had to help him get back to good health. He was determined to get to Mercedes in Juarez and wrote to her, asking to marry her. She was full of joy and said yes but her mother did not want the marriage to take place, going as far to forbade it. As much as Julian was hardworking she judged him on the fact that he had no education nor skills, she felt her Mercedes deserved far better. She wasn’t the only one to dislike this marriage, the Ramirez’s thought Mercedes’ family acted as though they were more important then everyone else.

Yet the couple were determined, both rarely defied their own families however the love they shared for one another was too strong and with the little possessions he had, Julian arrived in Juarez on the 3rd of August 1948 and they married on the 9th six days later in the Juarez City Hall in front of a few friends. They had no honeymoon due to lack of money. They were only 19.

They agreed that they would make sure their own children would have everything that they didn’t as children, a happy life with financial security and in Julian’s case, no beatings.

Mercedes continued her work as a housekeeper in El Paso, they could live in the States since she had been born there. She wanted to move there because the crime in Juarez was too much for her. Julian was content in Mexico but he knew how much his wife disliked the city so he applied for US citizenship. They had both heard of the ‘American Dream’ and she wanted her children to be born in the US so they could live out this dream. Finally Julian reluctantly accepted and they moved into a small one bedroom, one bathroom apartment in El Paso in Fourth and Canal.

Also during this time Guadalupe began to warm to Julian, she realised how hardworking he was and how much he loved her daughter. They started going for meals at Guadalupe - they didn’t live far from her in Juarez.

Within months Mercedes was pregnant with their first son, Ruben. At the time - unknown to the people of El Paso - the U.S government had been testing nuclear weapons in the nearby city of Los Alamos, New Mexico. It wasn’t known about the effects of Nuclear fallout and the wind more often then not carried the fallout over Juarez and El Paso, polluting the water, milk and Cattle. Between 1950 and 1954 the testing was most frequent, correlating with the high rate of birth defects in babies, causing physical issues and mental issues alike. It became known what was causing this but people were hesitant to speak out about it to the government - after all the Nuclear bomb had won them the war.

Ruben was born without much difficultly however he was born with large lumps up his back, neck and head and he was incredibly sick. At the time the doctor didn’t understand but he thought the bomb tests definitely had something to do with it. Ruben got very ill and it was believed he wouldn’t make it yet after a few weeks the lumps began to disappear and got better. The family owed this to a divine intervention. Ruben was allowed to go home and Julian would often take him for long walks down the roads of El Paso, telling him stories and smiling joyously constantly.

Just two months later, Mercedes was pregnant again. She wanted a girl but most of all she wanted a healthy baby and for the atomic bomb tests to stop, for all the evil to go away from her little family. This pregnancy was also easy, Joseph was born (named after Mercedes’ favourite brother). He was healthy, both Julian and Mercedes’ thanked God. Two sons in a row was a good omen according to Guadalupe and Julian considered himself a very lucky man.

At six months old Joseph started to cry much more frequently. As though he was in serious pain. His parents tried everything to calm the baby but nothing would work. He was taken to the El Paso clinic, neither could they find the problem so they sent him back home. The crying only became more extreme as each day passed. The second time he was taken to a clinic he was nearly 1 year old. After an examination the doctor announced that poor Joseph’s bones were not growing correctly and they never would. He didn’t quite understand why and sent them to a specialist who told them that Joseph had a disease called Collier which caused the bones to curve as they grew. This was also a direct result of the nuclear testing nearby - still nobody wanted to shame to war winning bomb though. Dr. Perry Rogers told the Ramirezes that he would cut away at the curved part of the bone and would construct a metal heal that would allow Joseph to somewhat walk right. But he warned them that he would require many more operations because the bones would continue to grow incorrectly. There was no proper cure. Any money they could spare was handed over to Dr. Rogers to pay for the operations, they never asked any other families for help so they simply worked longer and harder. Joseph had his first surgery at 17 months old and it helped briefly but he began crying in pain again not long after. The family often went to the Sacred Heart Church on Oregon street to pray for Joseph’s pain and disease to go away.

A while later Julian became a construction worker in El Paso even though he didn’t have the proper papers. He needed the money though, this job payed far better then the factory job he previously worked in.

In the year of 1952 immigration border guards payed Julian a visit at the construction site to ask for his papers. He told them he didn’t have them but that his wife was an American citizen so he could stay but they told him that he needed papers and was to be deported immediately. After some persuasion he was allowed to go and tell his wife what was going to happen however once at the apartment the guards said that whole family was going to be deported. Their landlord came to their defence, he agreed that they were American citizens and that they should stay. No protests worked, at 3pm the little family and all their belongings were dumped on a corner on the Mexican side of the Sante Fe bridge.

Julain told Mercedes to take herself and the children to her mother’s house a mile away, he would stay and fight off any thieves who attempted to take their belongings. On a good weekend in Juarez there was twenty murders. Mercedes began the short but treacherous walk to her mother’s, holding Ruben by the hand and a crying Joseph in her arms.

She reached Guadalupe’s without an incident and her two brothers - Joseph and Manuel - took a neighbours truck to move the family’s possessions to the house. It took two trips.

Once settled, Julian went out looking for work. He met a friend who was working as a policeman. His friend took him to the Commandante of the Juarez police. Julian said he didn’t know much about being a policeman but the Commandante didn’t mind and thought he looked right to be a policeman. Since he was experienced with guns due to his time in the military, he was put in charge of teaching the Juarez police to maintain and shoot firearms properly. But Mercedes wasn’t overly happily. Mexico was like South America, police officers were often killed if they got in the way.

Julian Ramirez in 1951 after becoming a police officer - From Philip Carlo’s personal collection of photos.

Mercedes had their third son Robert, he presented no problems.

Finally Julian’s American Citizenship papers were approved and with the good of his sons in mind he quit his job and the family moved back to El Paso in early 1954. They got a small apartment in the second ward at Seventh and Canal. Julian got a job at the Santa Fe railroad, laying track. It was hard work and he was often out of town for days but the wages were good. He knew he had made the right decision for his wife and children.

The Ramirez apartment - From Philip Carlo’s personal collection of photos.

Mercedes got a job at a famous boot-maker in Texas called Tony Lama. Her wages were also much better and she had managed to find a Mexican women who could care for her sons while she was out working, she wanted someone good to look after them since she was nervous to leave them for too long.

She would mix pigments and chemicals for the boots colours to paint the boots and treat them with fixatives so the colour would last. Similar to the Nuclear tests, these chemicals were often toxic and required ventilation when being used but the people working with them were unaware at the time. She spent seven hours a day, five days a week exposed to these toxic chemicals and quickly developed dizzy spells meaning she would have to sit down for periods of time to recover.

Six months after being employed she was pregnant again, Julian was overjoyed as this was the fourth pregnancy in fours year and he felt like the luckiest man alive.

Finally one of Mercedes’ dreams became true. She had a healthy little girl who she named Ruth, a little girl to help her out in a house full of boys. Julian was happy as well, he knew Ruth would always have three older brothers to keep her out of harms way.

Every weekend Julian would dress up and go and visit his police friends in Juarez, occasionally bringing along his sons and talk to them in Spanish. He wanted them to learn English and do well in American but he also did not want them to forget about their heritage. His sister moved to El Paso the same year, bring her son Miguel who was the same age as Ruben, the two became close friends the moment they met.

Mercedes’ sister had also moved to El Paso and got employed at Tony Lama, she developed the same dizzy spells and they both began to feel unwell on weekends. After a discussion they began to question whether maybe they were addicted to the chemicals they worked with and were experiencing some form of withdrawal yet they didn’t seek any medical attention.

When Ruben started school he was put into a class designed to help teach English. Before long he could say sentences in English and Julian encourage him to speak English with his friends and grandmother Guadalupe. Joseph started school not long after and was wearing the special shoes he had been given in Juarez and they needed to be adjusted often as he grew but he never complained. He always walked with his brother to school but had to break often as the shoes weighed quite a lot. His parents were worried about how the other kids would treat him but his brothers were always there to defend him.

Robert started school and he learned English as well. The first time Julian heard his sons speaking English to each other he was happy but he couldn’t help feeling a little down as he struggled to learn the language and couldn’t speak with them. He never was required to learn English because most of the men he worked with spoke Spanish anyway.

At school Joseph had started being taunted about his disadvantages, he took the insults to heart and became very shy and fearful. Ruben however, had inherited the fierce Ramirez temperament and would chase off the children who teased Joseph. Their father did not often lose his temper, he was a very easygoing and friendly man but when he did he would start beating any object near him and throwing things. Another trait of the Ramirez family was that they had very large feet and hands, a punch from one of the Ramirez men would cause a lot of damage.

Mercedes - much to her dismay - realised that all of her children had the explosively violent temper of the Ramirezes. Ruth herself would break and throw things if her anger got the better of her. ‘”I’d just black out when I got mad,” she’d say years later. “I couldn’t control the anger. There would just, like, be an explosion inside of me, and I’d go off.” Her older brothers gave her a wide berth when she “went of”.’ - The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez The NightStalker - Philip Carlo.

Mercedes’ fifth and final pregnancy was the most painful and difficult. She even had to go to a specialist to help with the discomfort who told her the chemicals she had been breathing in at her job was going to cause a miscarriage so she needed a range of injections to keep the baby. She finally quit her job during her fifth month of pregnancy. This final pregnancy surprised Julian as it had been four years since the birth of their daughter. Guadalupe recalled praying a lot for her daughter and the unborn baby during the pregnancy, she could see this child was sapping the life-force from her daughter.

At 2:07am on February 29th 1960, Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramírez was born. His father and all his siblings arrived at the hospital to see the new baby. Ruth was ecstatic to have a baby brother and from the first day he came home she was all over him.

He was her little precious, dark-eyed, dark-haired doll come to life. Ruben, Joseph and Robert didn’t pay one-tenth the attention to Richie that Ruth did. - The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez The NightStalker - Philip Carlo.

If you think I have any facts wrong be sure to message me and I’ll correct what I can. The next part I am covering will be his childhood.

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jasonnylaura · 3 years

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How can I get my money back from a binary options scam?

A binary option is similar to a normal (“vanilla”) option, where you pay a premium for the option to buy or sell an instrument at a fixed price (the exercise price – see box below for a detailed explanation). Profits or losses on vanilla options can be small or large, depending on the difference between the “exercise” price and the price of the underlying asset.

Unlike normal options, however, binary options do not fluctuate in value. Either the option is “in the money” on expiry – in which case it pays out – or it isn’t, in which case it expires worthless. Because of this binary nature, many shysters see an opportunity in selling binary options that are highly unlikely to end up in the money. They get to collect the hefty premiums, but never have to pay out.

Don’t be suckered by wild success stories

The media is part of the problem. Journalists, particularly those working at online content mills, are so desperate for content that might “go viral” and garner lots of hits that they’re quite willing to run a story with a click-bait headline without doing much (if any) background research. Take the recent tale of a 16-year-old “self-taught currency trader”, who apparently turned £150 into £60,000 in less than a year. This dubious success story was widely shared on social media without many questions being asked. Yet if we take those returns and calculate them on an annual basis, this 16-year-old’s return for the year would be 39,900%. That would literally make him the best trader of all time. So how did a 16-year-old school kid learn how to outsmart the best minds and machines on the planet, just by watching YouTube videos? As nobody asked him, sadly we’ll never know.

There was also the very recent example of Giovani , a 20-year-old medical student in Plymouth who claimed to be making six figures a month from foreign exchange trading. One major newspaper reported this month that more than 1,000 investors were sucked in by Singh’s Instagram account, which showed him posing in designer clothes with expensive cars at plush holiday resorts. Those who signed up for his services found that their trading accounts were emptied on Christmas Eve and the FCA has added him to its warning list of unauthorised traders (after the fact, unfortunately). But what the paper doesn’t mention in this particular piece is that Singh’s “success” was first reported on its own website in breathless, no-questions-asked fashion, in November, just a month before it all went horribly wrong.

This aggravates me because, as a genuine trader, I work hard to make profits and I know what it takes. I also don’t like to see people being conned. So I want to unpack this story for you, so that you don’t end up falling for one of these scams or something similar.

How does the binary-options scam work?

There is a reason why so many gentlemen (it’s usually men) in their early 20s now apparently own private jets, luxury cars and slick watches. It just may not be because they’ve cracked the financial markets as they claim. As Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s business partner, puts it: “Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome”. There are many reputable financial-trading firms and brokerages out there. However, many – ones that I would describe as “bucket shops” – are not so reputable. Spread-betting firms typically make their money on the spread (the gap between the buying price and the selling price) and the commission paid by their clients. So their business model does not benefit from losing traders.

However, many brokers know that a losing trader can be very profitable – for them. If you know that 90% of traders will lose all of their money within six months, what do you do? Simply take the other side of the trade. When Johnny Punter buys, the broker sells. And when Johnny Punter wishes to cover his losses, the broker buys and collects the profit.

Unprofitable traders are so profitable for many a bucket shop that they will pay handsome introduction fees for new traders. Therein lies the incentive. It doesn’t matter if you’re actually making any money from your trading – if you can get even a £20 incentive for every trader who signs up with the minimum deposit of a few hundred pounds, then you only need to sign up 1,000 people a month to make £20,000. And the reality is that these brokers aren’t offering just £20 for new clients – they’re offering hundreds. I know they do, because I’ve been offered it.

The Pied Pipers of foreign exchange

If you’re not a successful trader, the next best thing is to fake it. A quick Google search reveals that you can rent a Lamborghini Huracan for four days at a price of £2,500. This is fairly steep – but you can rent a Lamborghini Gallardo for two days for £1,590. Two days is more than enough for a wannabe forex guru to take hundreds of snaps in different outfits, parking in fancy residential estates that they don’t live in and overall giving the impression over several months that they really do own a six-figure supercar. And of course, there are plenty of places to hunt down a cheap, out-of-season stay at a luxurious five-star hotel, where they can do exactly the same. Then they just pop it all on social media and wait for eager punters to line up to sign up with their “exclusive broker”.

Many brokers offer demo accounts, in which case the “guru” can just repeatedly put on ten trades in a row, come out with winners, then screenshot it and post it on Instagram. If even that is too difficult a task, then it’s a simple matter to fake the picture instead using image manipulation software and post that. With “evidence” of their success sorted out, the trader then promotes their wares with promises of “signals” that have 90% success rates, alongside key phrases such as “no risk” and “guaranteed profit”. Most informed investors realize that if a magic money-making machine did exist it would be owned by a private hedge fund, never to see the light of day. So anyone who actually believes that a 20-year-old student could pull this off is ideal bait – inexperienced, naive and potentially desperate.

The scam also succeeds because of how victims feel when they finally realize they’ve been suckered. Most don’t tell anyone because they feel foolish and want to save face. But also, they know (or rapidly learn) that there is very little the police can do. The banning of the sale of binary options was a step in the right direction. But now the traders of Instagram simply give away their “signals” to trade these options for free. And many bucket-shop brokers are overseas – often they’re not even doing anything illegal in the country in which they operate (although equally often the traders in question will imply that the bucket shop is a reputable UK-based and regulated institution, or lie flat out).

There are even operators who will manipulate the punter’s account in order to make them believe they are winning and then call on them to deposit more money. Then, when the client finally wishes to withdraw, the company goes cold and refers them to the small print, in which it says that the client must trade through an impossible amount of money just to be allowed to withdraw. Other brokers allow the affiliate to widen the spread to maximize their own commission and increase losses for their clients. We look at ways to avoid being scammed in the box below, but in short, as always – if it looks too good to be true, it is.

Can I trust Binary option scam reviews?

Is there a scam behind "Forex Binary Options" trading?

How do I go about recovering money from a Forex scam?

What is the best way to get my money back from an internet scam?

How can I recover my funds on binary options?

How can I get back my lost money from a scammer?

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mocha-sim · 4 years

Text

For a while now I’ve wanted to write out a post concerning where I stand on the whole issue with YanSim and its developer (in short: neutral, leaning heavily towards the negative side, but I like the potential of the story and characters). There are a lot of problems and I really want to throw in my two cents

This might not be necessary, but I need to get it off my chest, and hopefully make some people think about other points of view

Warning: long post ahead

1. Six years and still in development

I can really see both sides here

On one hand, six full years without even one rival - the single most important part of the game - and a game still full of placeholder assets, and terrible code on top of that, is pathetic

On the other hand, Yandev is working with only a small team of volunteers and himself, who (no matter what he claims) knows very little about game development (from what i’ve seen, he’s made one before, but it looks like a very small-scale and basic fighting game, unlike YanSim which is much more large-scale and has a lot of features)

Professional game teams do have full, high-quality games made in less than six years, but that time is also a product of game company employees being extremely overworked. Lately I’ve seen a lot more people talking about this issue, which is good, but isn’t it hypocritical to not also apply that logic to Yandev?

Again, though, I’m not sure how much time he spends actually working on the game - to me, it seems like he spends a lot of time on discord, reddit, etc. even if he does only stream for a few hours every night. Maybe the “harassment” that’s “slowing down game development” wouldn’t be such an issue if he didn’t spend so much time online interacting with these people?

2. The writing and characters

I’m not a huge fan of how the game’s story is handled, either

I don’t think it’s 100% fair to cast a final judgement with the game the way it is now - Osana not being out is in no way a good thing, but it also means that there hasn’t really been any opportunity for story or character development yet, especially for the rivals. That being said:

I feel like there’s a lot of wasted potential with characters’ individual stories and with the game’s story as a whole, like the “Aishi curse” - I just can’t think of many good stories with a main character who’s basically an empty husk. If Ayano had emotions from the beginning, and actually had to struggle with them, she could be a much more interesting character. There doesn’t even need to be a magical curse for it to run in the family - the way children are raised has a serious impact on the person they grow into. If Ayano is raised by a crazy, abusive stalker of a mother, she may well turn into the same thing.

Taro, too - he has so many contradicting character traits. He yells at Ayano for “scaring him” when she’s carrying a box cutter or laughing, but has the courage to run right up to a murderer and take off their mask?? He doesn’t care about reputations for Osoro or Oka, but won’t love Ayano if her reputation drops too low?? We’re told that he’s “friendly and respectful”, but we’re never shown that part of his personality. On top of that, we’re not really given a reason to like or pursue him as the goal of the game - when he’s not interacting with Girl of the Week, he doesn’t really do anything except sit by the fountain and read. I feel as though Taro should have a routine that involves interacting with other characters and gives us more of a feel for the personality we’re told he’s supposed to have

Raibaru as a whole makes no sense and feels like a satellite character to Osana. In Osana’s shoes, I would want to have a word with her about personal space. There’s not a lot to say about her aside from that, because... she doesn’t really do anything except follow Osana around all day and shut down the player’s attempts to kill her. She feels more like a soulless obstacle than a character

I think there should be more true pacifist options than just matchmaking - even the befriending elimination route will, in Yandev’s own words, involve someone getting hurt. If we’re supposed to have a choice on whether or not to hurt and kill people, there should be more variety in our options

3. The game’s code sucks/it’s poorly-optimized

Yeah.

I don’t know much about coding but the amount of awkward stretching/bending limbs on corpses, clipping through walls, low fps, etc. makes this obvious. It was definitely a bad move on Yandev’s part to start a project like this without at least taking a coding/game development class or something

I think the best course of action for Yandev would be to get a professional programmer on board after Osana is released and spend a few months fixing the game’s code before he starts work on the next rival

4. The character models are just stolen Unity models

They are just unity models, but not “stolen” at all - YanDev paid for them.

That being said, they’re sort of ugly and inexpressive, and personally i’m hoping they get replaced soon

5. The characters are all minors

They’re not. It’s in flashing red letters on the screen when you open the game. I can’t help but feel like the reason people keep insisting that the characters are minors is so that they can feel like heroes for defending them or something

It doesn’t make a lot of logical sense, but there’s still plenty of time for this to be fixed. I think it was recently confirmed that Akademi is called an “academy” now and won’t be referred to as a high school again

Imo YanDev should just change it to a post-secondary school, since that’s probably the most seamless way for all the characters to be adults

One last thing I want to say on this is that, when it gets brought up, I often see people use the excuse “the age of consent in Japan is 13″. 1: it isn’t - the Japanese government lets each prefecture decide its own age of consent, but 13 is the minimum. As far as I know, no prefecture has set it below 16. 2: even if 13 was the age of consent, that doesn’t mean we should accept and defend it as “part of a different culture”. It’s still pedophilia. 3: Japanese people actively protest against things like this

6. The uniforms are middle-school uniforms/don’t look like they belong in a prestigious school

Yeah

However there are multiple uniform options, and it looks like the default uniforms will be completely changed in the final game

7. Panty shots

YanSim is an 18+ game, but there is such a thing as too far

I’ve seen people who tolerate it, but I haven’t seen a single person who actively likes the panty shots and would complain if they were removed. Imo the part that makes this bad is the fact that we, the player, actively have to point our camera up a girl’s skirt and take a photo of her underwear with it being in full view; the whole way this works makes it obvious that the feature was put in there for titillation more than anything else, and it just feels uncomfortable. If it were more like Uekiya’s key-stealing minigame where all we have to do is push a few buttons, the whole gross/uncomfortable aspect could be taken away and a lot of people would probably be fine with it

It would also be better to replace it with an expanded version of the phone-stealing feature: this would let the player get “points” for students of both genders, plus it would still make sense to gain more points for certain students, like the student council or the bullies. Maybe you could even steal teachers’ phones under certain circumstances?

8. YanDev is homophobic

Again not too sure on this one

Iirc, most of the comments people bring up on this are from years ago when he still went by EvaXephon

But speaking as a wlw, I think some of the ways I’ve seen him talk about f/f relationships are pretty creepy. And on top of that, he seems to be considering adding a “female senpai” option to the game, but no male player character? (though i guess i can see the point of view that a male mc would need a lot more new voice lines, animations, etc. while the senpai follows a mostly fixed routine and would only need so many. still, it seems wrong to have one without the other). I hope I’m wrong about this but his support of the LGBT community seems mostly focused on the L and more for his own entertainment than any actual support

9. YanDev is making more money than he should (and handles it poorly)

His Patreon may be dropping, but his YouTube channel is raking in even more money with 2M+ subscribers, and he’s making even more money from things like merch and donations... all while apparently still living with his parents (which i don’t find hard to believe). He’s also apparently bought 2 switches and a sex doll instead of using the money to hire the help he desperately needs with his game

Assuming he really does still live with his parents, I fully support the petition to get his Patreon suspended until he at least finishes Osana. Most game devs don’t make any money off of their games until they’ve finished it completely

10. YanDev wrote rape fanfics

So I did briefly check his old ffn profile some time ago, and as far as I could see everything had the proper ratings and warnings

Tagging/warning/rating is a fanfic author’s only responsibility to you. You make the choice on whether or not to read it. If everything is appropriately tagged and you read it anyway, that’s on you, not the author. If you are mature enough to be on the internet unsupervised, then you are mature enough to curate your own experience.

Fiction is the place to explore controversial themes and topics. It doesn’t mean in any way that a content creator would condone the things they write about in real life

11. YanDev steals art/assets

He does, and still hasn’t apologized for the DLC rivals thing. In fact he made a post defending himself for it, and even compared himself to Andy Warhol in the process (lol)

I’m not sure but I think I heard something recently about him continuing to do this type of thing (the grass, etc.). In which case we should continue to put pressure on him until he credits the creators of whatever art/assets he stole. Art theft is inexcusable

12. The fanbase is mostly kids

This is unfortunately true, and it’s a big problem (i’ve had to deal with it myself on my youtube channel)

However I would personally say that this problem is outside of YanDev’s control. Kids seem to be drawn to edgy/violent things, or things they shouldn’t be allowed to see (just look at Call of Duty). I put the blame for this on the parents who aren’t monitoring their kids’ computer activities. As for YanDev, he’s not a babysitter and it’s not his responsibility to censor his content for kids who shouldn’t be viewing it in the first place

Underage or not though, he should really avoid calling his fans things like “fuck kittens”. Even from the perspective of an adult that’s super creepy to hear

13. The character designs suck

Some are alright, others are absolutely awful

I think that, in a game built on anime tropes, characters should be allowed to have unnaturally-coloured hair. I mean, a lot of characters in anime do have weird hair that you wouldn’t see in real life (seemingly without any dye), and it can add a lot of personality to their designs

But some YanSim characters push that too far. The science club is the worst of the worst imo, despite being otherwise one of my favourite clubs. The neon streaks are ugly, and what’s up with the visors? Why are they allowed to wear those outside of club time? Why do they wear them during club time, as opposed to actual goggles or something? (i have this issue with a lot of club accessories, imo the accessories are unnecessary in the first place)

The bullies and the light music club also take things too far. Their designs are crowded, hard to look at, and out-of-place. Nothing against characters with multi-coloured hair, but there’s a time and a place and a “prestigious” school setting isn’t it

(also, slightly off-topic, but why does almost every “intended couple” look like they could be siblings?)

I could probably make a whole separate post on the character designs in YS, but I’ll save that for another day. (i’m just very passionate about character design)

14. YanDev has collaborated with porn games 3 times now

Once I could overlook (after all, the characters are 18+ and YS is already not for kids) but a third time? Seriously? And so soon after the last one?

Not only do I have mixed feelings about Yandev doing crossovers when his game isn’t even in the demo stage yet, isn’t this game supposed to be taken seriously as a horror game? I can’t think of a single other horror game that has willingly put its characters in porn.

Also I can’t help noticing that he advertises the porn game crossovers a lot more than he did with that one Dark Deception crossover. Did he ever even mention that one? I only ever saw it on the Dark Deception Twitter

15. YanDev is rude to his fans

I don’t have a lot to say against this one. As far as I’ve seen, he is, and he doesn’t take criticism well at all (just look at the subreddit - yes, a lot of the things that were removed deserved it (unfunny cum chalice jokes, etc.) but there have also been completely innocent questions, fanarts, jokes, and fanfics that have been removed. Not to mention mods going through peoples’ post history and banning them for being active in r/Osana. Both he and his mod team seem insanely paranoid)

I think he’s going to have to grow a thicker skin and stop censoring critiques if he wants to get anywhere with this game. Not just fans who bring up tiny details that might need changing, but also big, glaring issues like the code and character designs and such. He also doesn’t seem that professional for a game developer who wants to be taken seriously

That being said, if you’re the type to spam the discord server/subreddit/fan communities who have nothing to do with Yandev like the amino, you deserved that ban

16. YanDev defends pedophiles/the “sex license” thing

“No adult ever has any excuse to do anything sexual with a child. As soon as you touch a kid, you have crossed the line from being someone with a mental disorder to being the worst scum imaginable. Having a mental illness is involuntary, but touching a kid is a choice. If you have a mental illness, I feel bad for you. If you violate a child, I feel disgust and contempt for you, and I think you deserve the death penalty.” -From YanDev himself on this page

The sex license thing is also debunked on the same page: the whole conversation was taken out of context and the hypothetical “license” was supposed to be something that only an adult could meet the requirements for

17. “Corona-chan”

This was a really insensitive move to make in the middle of a pandemic, and I agree that the design was racist

However, YanDev listened to the fans’ complaints and removed the easter egg a day later, plus gave an apology. I think that this was the best thing he could do in that scenario and idk what else people are expecting him to do about it

18. YanDev’s general portrayal of high schoolers

Honestly, it’s not 100% realistic (especially in some of the dialogue. you know what i’m talking about)

I’m surprised that more students don’t seem to have friends outside of their clubs. It seems like all the students mostly stick within their club/group - walking to school together, spending their breaks together, etc. A lot of the ways the characters behave are very robotic, like walking in a perfectly straight line everywhere they go

That being said, a lot of the things i’ve seen criticized in regards to this are not part of the problem. By the time you’re in high school, you’ve probably hit puberty. It doesn’t make a character automatically sexualized if they have bigger breasts (though some designs in the game are over-sexualized, like a few certain staff members)

19. Muja, Mida, and Hanako

Let’s start with Hanako: Yandev has already said that she’s not romantically interested in her brother, she’s just insanely clingy and doesn’t want him to get a girlfriend out of fear that he’ll forget about her. If you still insist that she’s in love with Taro, then that’s on you

Muja and Mida I have mixed feelings on.

If every student is 18 or older, meaning that the first-years are 18, that makes Taro, a third-year, 20-21 years old. If Mida and Muja are in their early 20s as Yandev has said, that means that the age gap isn’t an issue. However, it’s still wrong for a teacher or a nurse to pursue their student/patient

I don’t think Yandev should need to spell out “hey, Mida and Muja are not good people” in flashing neon signs. The game is rated M and anyone who’s old enough to play it should be able to understand that without it being said. If you need morality in fiction spoon-fed to you, you probably shouldn’t be watching/reading/playing anything rated above PG

On the other hand, YanDev has a nasty habit of making these things into a joke, which is really insensitive and creepy. Like saying that Mida’s favourite food is “the spit of a younger man” (yikes), that she’s tried to seduce her own students 69 times (haha 69 so funney right guys XD), or that whole confession scene mess. It’s less of a problem with Muja, but it’s still there. As much as the audience shouldn’t need everything served to them on a silver platter, issues like these should still be treated with respect, not made into gags

20. Yandev wastes time on “Easter eggs”

I have to agree that he does spend time implementing unnecessary things sometimes (like the abc challenge), but as far as I know the Easter eggs are what he does in his spare time while waiting for assets from volunteers. However: snap mode, which was hyped up for years, turned out to be a flop with zero purpose, disappointing a good portion of the fanbase.

21. Love Letter

So far I’m really liking the look of this game: I like the models and the school environment they’ve shown, and it seems like they’re doing a lot of things in better or more interesting ways than YanDev, like not outright telling us who the rivals are. I don’t think it’s fair to accuse them of “stealing” anything, when it seems like most of the assets the games have in common are the things they bought from the Unity store (Love Letter even changed the base Unity model to have a more appealing look)

I'm glad to see that they actually listened to criticism from fans on things like Setsuna’s design (I love her newest look and I hope it’s the final one). From design alone she’s already a more interesting protagonist, and she looks like the sort of character you’d actually enjoy playing as

Not sure I totally buy the claim that it was all done in two weeks, but even if it was over the span of months, that’s still miles better than YanSim’s six years

Knowing that Dr. Apeis has already ditched one project I’m staying open to new information on this, but as of right now I’m looking forward to playing the demo!

Overall: A lot of the hate against the game and the dev are unnecessary, but some is justified and we shouldn’t blindly defend everything he does (seriously, you can admit that the character designs are shit. no one is going to stone you for it). There are a lot of improvements Dev could make, both on the game and on his behaviour towards fans.

I think that the biggest improvement would be for the game to just stop taking itself so seriously. At this point, it’s so full of memes, cringy google translate names, excessive edginess, and gags that it may as well just be a fun ridiculous anime game instead of a serious horror game. I feel like taking this approach could make it more successful (plus, it doesn’t really have a lot of horror elements aside from the gore)

There are a lot of cases of people taking things too far. Like spamming YanDev with explicit gore/animal abuse, trying to swat him, spamming volunteers with weird porn, trying to hack into volunteers’ accounts (including bank accounts), etc. That is going way too far, no matter how awful or pathetic you think a person is. If you are doing these kinds of things, you are doing more harm than Dev or his volunteers

Attacking YanDev’s appearance is unnecessary and not related to his behaviour or skills. Same with the chalice memes

However, I’ve seen a lot of YanDev’s defenders lashing out against “gremlins”, lumping all of them in with the kinds of people who do these things. If you check r/Osana, you’ll see that most if not all of the people there condemn this behaviour: the gore and porn spammers are a loud minority (and i’m willing to bet most of them are the basement-dwelling losers from KiwiFarms and 4Chan)

Attacking and/or spamming fans who are just trying to enjoy the game is also unnecessary. Someone liking a video game you don’t like is not doing you any harm. Be mature and move on

I’m not sure if some of what I’ve said above is 100% accurate so if anyone actually read this and has evidence against it then feel free to add

I think that’s about all I have to say on that. Again, i don’t know if it will change anything in the fandom but i really just wanted to get this off my chest

#yandere simulator #yansim #yanderedev #yandev #not sure if i should tag this as crit or not

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skeletorific · 4 years

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How do you think the Beforus Ancestors(Aradia, Tavros, Sollux, Karkat, Nepeta, Kanaya, Terezi, Vriska, Equius, Gamzee, Eridan and Feferi)were like? I love your Alternian Ancestors stuff so far and was curious what you Interpretation of the Beforus ancestors were.

oh HELL yes I am about this.

Aradia Megido, the Tombkeep: I see Aradia as being born a bit later than the others, while the coddling laws are at their strongest. Rather than put up with that, as quickly as she can she removes herself from Beforan society to the very outskirts. Like their Alternian counterparts, Beforan’s are often avoidant of the notion of death. However, in their case, it is not because death is a failure of the dying, but a failure of those around them. It is not seen as a natural cycle but something to be abhorred and feared at all costs. As such, tombs are kept, but they are far away from the rest of civilization and usually talked about in hushed tones. Aradia grows up among these tombs, befriending the local ghosts and considers them her own coddling charge. She guards the tombs from any who get too curious, or more often, from well-meaning government officials looking to tear down monuments to such “nastiness”. What they find instead is an angry little girl with powerful psiionics. She becomes something of a bedtime story for young grubs, even long after her passing. They say she still haunts the halls.

Tavros Nitram, the Menager: In parallel to his obsession with Fiduspawn, I see Beforan Tavros as being some variety of animal handler, using his fully fledged wings (and his bronzeblood bankroll) to travel the world and collect rare and exotic creatures to his own plot of land, to tend to and train. Some know him as a kindly soul, treating all beasts with the utmost love and dedication. He seems like some kind of fairy tale figure, surrounded on all sides by animal companions who he communes with. To others, this is reckless ecosystem mixing, but then, what do scientists know anyways. He prefers the hero title a bit more, as it aligns more with his intentions anyways. Eventually one of his expeditions ends poorly, with him being confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. Outwardly he dies content to let his coddler and his animal friends care for him for the rest of his life, but there’s a restless spirit that he passes down to his descendant.

Sollux Captor, The Dronebee: Completely and utterly unremarkable in every way. Sollux contented himself with working his function as a goldblood. His technical ability was fostered at every turn by a Beforan education system eager to see a lowblood embrace their “natural talents”, but while he made minor waves in the programming circles in which he moved with his often unique approach to coding, to most he was just one worker among thousands, very valuable of course! Every worker is valuable :) But ultimately.....not worthy of notice. Which is fine: that’s how Sollux likes it, and more than that if left him time to pursue more personal projects, such as a little game later known as sgrub. Just because he’s not vocally complaining doesn’t mean he’s not compiling a list. From his perspective, Beforan civilization is a ticking timebomb anyways. Why shouldn’t he be the one to start the countdown?

Karkat Vantas, the Advocate: Look, I know we all love revolutionary Karkat, but I think something we forget is that Karkat was pretty pro-system even as late in the game as Act 6. So, for the Beforan model.....well, every system needs its bootlickers. Karkat Vantas becomes a mouthpiece for some lowblood lobbying groups, acting in vocal support of the Empress’s coddling plan. Its not all love of power: legitimately there is a part of Karkat that tries to see how this is good. Healthy. The needs of his friends are being met, they’re safe, and attended to. Surely all of that is worth a little......infantilization, right? He deals with a lot of criticism from other lowbloods for being a sellout, and though he does his best to cultivate a calm unflappable demeanor so craved by Beforans, I guarantee Beforus has more than a few Grubtube compiliations of Vantas meltdowns that Kankri watches when he needs a good cringe. As he got older he slowly began to question the system he’d spent his whole life building, but ultimately lowbloods don’t live long enough for those kinds of regrets.

Nepeta Leijon, the Believer: What, you think clowns have the monopoly on weird religious communes? Nah. To be fair to Nepeta, her commune’s status as a “cult” is probably more indicative of Beforan prudery than anything else. Her sect, the Righteous Assembly of Withdrawn Renegades (or RAWR for short), is dedicated to the principles of free love and a return to the natural. Within the massive tunnel and cave system in which they live, trolls are free to strip themselves of signifiers like caste and clan and live as the gods intended: covered in dirt, chasing something furry, and flirting furrociously :33. While Nepeta in life insisted there was no leader it was her effect on people that kept them coming back for more, and while the commune purrsisted after her eventual death, ultimately its membership dwindled. Meulin was brought up among some of the last vestiges of it, and some of their old hideouts have been inherited by the Lost Weeaboos.

Kanaya Maryam, The Prioress: Literally, the prior. One of the earliest trolls, widely considered the Matriarch of Trolls in some sense. In her time she revolutionized many of the practices of auxiliatrices, ensuring greater safety for the grubs and greater care for the mother grubs. Many of the norms now in place for jadebloods are in large part due to her own influence. Despite her farreaching influence (and the fact that she left behind a journal of her practices), not much is known about her personal temperament. Quick readers may catch a certain dry sarcasm behind her words, and the especially studious scholar may note slight reference to a few great lovers (and a few great disappearances, *cough* rainbowdrinker *cough*. Her greatest secret is her brief and tumultuous kismesis with Vriska Serket, notorious Mafiosa, but only a very few historians have ever uncovered it. In part, her long shadow may have contributed to her descendant’s eventual anxiety regarding her prescribed role,

Terezi Pyrope, the Gumshoe: Beforan justice is tricky. As opposed to Alternia, there are in fact actual laws in place that aren’t just “don’t fuck with highbloods”, but in many ways its almost more corrupt. More often than not the courts are more concerned with petty infractions than it is with actual injustice, and furthermore, inter-caste tension remains a huge concern that bubbles up in violence. After a few years badgering olives for traffic tickets while watching actual fully fledged crime families get off scott free, well....Terezi had had enough. She took her pursuit of justice into the real world, working as a private detective for hire. She’s notorious for her, erm....quirks, but she’s a fastidious hunter and a careful investigator when she wants to be. She brings em back alive. USU4LLY >:).

Vriska Serket, the Mafiosa/Mapm8ker: Let’s be clear, a lot of Vriska’s society was laid on top of her and it was abuse from which she struggled to free herself. However, what does one do when freed from society, but seek to shake things up a bit. She’s still a thief of Light, make mistake, and she slowly works up the ranks from card shark working the tables to in charge of a small army of foot soldiers, smuggling mindhoney to goldbloods (who have been restricted “for their own good”) and sopor slime to clowns. She’s the flamboyant head of her own criminal empire, with the code of only stealing from those she deems worthy and a reckless approach to life

However, most of that isn’t generally known. And to the outside world, she’s just a simple cartographer, travelling the world to assemble some nice, safe, boring maps. Indeed, when her journal was finally unearthed by her descendant, she couldn’t help but wonder if these exploits were true, or simply a story her ancestor liked to imagine herself into on her off days. Tough to say.

Equius Zahhak, the Showpony: Alright, y’all knew I couldn’t stay away from that one. Equius was something of a puzzle to his descendent when Horuss actually went back through his (meticulously kept) caste records. By all accounts, he was an intelligent, capable, hardworking man. A tinkerer in his off hours, he was a pioneer in the field of robotics, and by all accounts not romantically unsuccessful. And yet, the man never seemed concerned with making a name for himself. Instead, over the course of his long life, you could perpetually find him at the shoulder of someone more powerful and important than he was. Was he....a bodyguard? Trophy husband? Butler? Hard to say, but there he was. Trotted out like the loyal steed he was.

Gamzee Makara, the Borrower: A peculiar legend of clownery regards a strange “hobo looking motherfucker what will wander into your hive and be all and snatching up your most secretous things for the messiah’s wider purposes”. So far as is known, he is not malignant, although its not unknown for a troll to occasionally disappear while running after him to retrieve their stolen items. Even without that possible threat, its usually not worth it to chase after him: the things he takes have a way of ending up back in your hands, one miraculous way or another. Gamzee is an itinerant monk, wandering the countrysides. Some passerby he’ll occasionally offer aid to, or proverbs. Which might be helpful if anyone could decipher what they mean. Ultimately he’s a happy man, if prone to fits of temper and bouts of melancholy. Still, as he notes, he’s got motherfucking friends all over these globes :o) what’s a motherfucker gotta be lonely for?

Eridan Ampora, the Magician: Well.....the Empress doesn’t exactly need Orphaners. As such, the violets are largely left to their own devices. Given they’re often prone to creative endeavours, Eridan found his own outlet. He became renowned as an illusionist, and at one point his shows were capable of drawing large and massive crowds, who would gasp in awe at his tricks and wonder if the violet really did have a trace of magic in his blood. He seemed to like the idea, eventually penning a popular grubling children’s series about a boy with those very abilities (which eventually found its way into the young hands of his descendent). However, celebrity wasn’t necessarily the best mix with Eridan’s temperament. He was prone to some truly disastrous quadrant outings, as well as developing several more addictive habits to drown out the oddly oppressive loneliness that permeated him. These bad habits were only worsened by the worst thing to ever happen to Eridan Ampora: the internet. With access to videos of his performance, most were pretty easily able to spot the trick of it, and hell hath no fury like a cyberbullying teen going after a b list internet celebrity. He took it as a sign to swear off the craft forever and lived the rest of his life on book residuals, alone, drunk, and miserable

Feferi Peixes, Her Highness: Not as much to say about this one, as Feferi is the one we have the most information about. Like it says on the tine, she instituted the coddling system on Beforus. This was widely considered a Bad Idea by those victimized by it, but you couldn’t pay anyone in Feferi’s court to tell her that. The Empress is sweet tempered and excitable, it’d be like telling a child 12 perigree night is cancelled. Perhaps the great irony is that as Feferi gets older, the thing that frustrates her most is that it feels like no one takes her seriously as a person. Merely as a figurehead. Still, she lives her life on Beforus ultimately convinced this is what’s best for the greater good.

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mysherlockstardis · 4 years

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Shane Dawson comforted me during a panic attack at Universal Studios in 2016

TLDR: Shane comforted me during a panic attack over losing my phone at Universal Studios while nobody (except Ryland) was looking. (Kind of funny, and emotional, please don’t send hate)

Proof: https://twitter.com/shanedawson/status/734264357501165568?s=20

I will not ever, ever, ever, defend the actions or choices that Shane has made.

I can only share with you my one chance encounter where Shane did the most honorable and kind thing to a flustered, anxious fan who had just lost her phone at Universal Studios.

I’ve been watching Shane’s videos for a long time. I was a young girl, who was playing around on youtube after school, and Shane Dawson was a very popular youtuber at the time. I wanna say the year was 2009 or 2010 when I began regularly watching “Shane Dawson”. Over the years, I have seen him leave his old characters behind, and watched as he continued to grow and develop his own unique brand of humor.

As a fan of Shane from his earlier years as a creator, I feel embarrassed that I was watching content that was not appropriate and not the type of humor I approve of or identify with today. Unfortunately, Shane’s popularity stemmed from people, including myself, not realizing how harmful that brand of humor was and what kinds of stereotypes and stigmas he was perpetuating through his successful videos. I was a latchkey kid, only child, and 12 years old. I had a crush on the popular YouTuber who made popular comedy sketches with millions of views. I was ignorant. So, was Shane.

However, Shane has survived years on this platform, because he evolves and changes. He makes mistakes. He apologizes and he tries to move on and grow. I think he has always done that.

Anyways, I digress.

In 2016, I went to Universal Studios. It had been a long day, and I am one of those people who always has my phone in my hand. Late at night, my family and I arrive at our car and I realize I can’t find my phone. My phone is my life, because yes I am one of those people whose phones are their lives. I was freaking the fu#k out. Also, I knew my phone was at like 14%, so I knew it was probably dead or stolen.

So, I come sprinting around the corner, on a frantic search outside universal studios. I slow down to take a couple of breaths and I look up to see Shane and Ryland Adams.

It was 2016, so Shane’s channel had evolved to like those food review videos and DIY’s and like Shane sitting in front of his camera in a kitchen making jokes. But I had started college and I wasn’t watching youtube videos as much anymore.

But, when I saw Shane, I reflexively yelled “Shane Dawson!” and stopped dead in my tracks.

I can’t reiterate to you how scary I must have looked and I will put a link to the photo, because you can low-key see the weird panic, fear, and excitement I was feeling in that moment.

I was out of breath and in shock looking like a deer in headlights. Shane and I made eye contact, and let me tell you. Shane looked worried. He looked so worried. I can remember that his face was saying something along the lines of “Oh my god, is this girl about to faint on me?”.

I was in a full blown panic attack, but Shane just calmly calls back “hello!”, and opens his arms like he’s ready for me to jump into them for a hug. Or like he might need to try and catch me if I pass out.

But, I end up low-key throwing myself into his arms and I need you to know that he hugged me so fully. He hugged me, like I was his friend, and I could honestly sense the concern he had for me in that moment.

I was bedraggled, out of breath, in the middle of an anxiety attack, and so completely starstruck by his presence.

Fun fact: I remember watching Shane’s vlogs back when he was close friends with Brittani Louise Taylor and they did one at Universal Studios (maybe 2010,2011). And the 2x times I had been to universal studio before the time I met Shane, I would always think of Shane hanging out there and how cool it would be to run into him while he was vlogging. I digress, again.

So, Shane takes me in his arms, and Ryland doesn’t do anything to ruin the moment. He doesn’t tell Shane they have to leave. He doesn’t try and end our conversation. I didn’t know who Ryland Adams was in 2016. I wanted to be mature so I introduced myself to him and like shook his hand and apologized for not recognizing him, because I was freaking out and I didn’t realize how horrible that sounded. Ryland totally brushed it off like a sweetheart.

I told Shane about how I arew up watching him, and how I bonded with my best friend from high school over our shared love for him. Because yes, I met other people my age who became fans of Shane as young ignorant children with too much time and internet access (arguably).

I do remember wanting to ask him about his old content, but deciding not too. Because even then I knew that I was glad he had changed as an artist. I was glad he had grown from the content that had made me feel rebellious and at times uncomfortable as a child. And btw, Shane had no control over who watched his videos just like Jake Paul, but unlike Jake I don’t think Shane ever targeted a 12 year old audience, I think those were just the people who were watching him.

So, then came my big dilemma. I wanted a picture. I wanted a picture with Shane Dawson so bad.

BUT I HAD LOST MY PHONE

I was freaking out. I wanted a picture and I was so afraid he wouldn’t be able to give me a picture. Logically, I knew Shane could never, ever give his personal phone number to a fan he just met on the street. I wouldn’t have expected him too or wanted him too, but I was not in the right mind.

I was not in the right mind at all. Bless Shane, because he knew to give me so many hugs. So, so, so many hugs, I wanna say 4 or 5 genuine hugs. Like basically holding me, because I was so flustered.

I felt guilty because I really needed to find my phone, and I didn't want to waste his time, but I really wanted a photo before I walked away. But, my panic attack was literally worsening by the second as I considered every second I was sprinting towards my phone as another second my phone could be stolen. Please let me be clear when I say that I knew that my request was going to be denied, but that I am a 23 year old who doesn't like social media, so the most obvious solution was not presented by me.

I ask him, “Can we take a photo, I don’t have a phone. Could you text it to me?” BAHAHAAHAHAAHHAHHAHHAAHAH

I had a twitter and I still have that twitter, but I never go on it. I never considered that Shane could use his social media.

But thankfully, Shane does. He very sweetly offered to take and tweet me a photo of us. He ends up taking a couple and I know he said he wanted to take a second photo to get his angles or something, but I totally know it was for my sake.

Listen, I can’t defend what Shane has or has not done behind the scenes as of late. I can’t defend anything he did on camera a decade or less ago. Regardless, this man rose to popularity and has remained popular and it wasn’t always for the best reasons, but people have loved him through every change he’s made.

Both him and his base were ignorant 10 years ago, but I think we have all evolved and learned better. I think Shane cares about his fans deeply, and I think that the internet has made it impossible for people to move on from their mistakes. I think we have all done something stupid that we regret. And thankfully, for most of us, our mistakes are not forever ingrained on the internet.

He owed me nothing. He didn’t owe me time. He didn’t owe me a photo. He didn’t owe me hugs or any attention. He wasn’t at an event getting paid. He wasn’t vlogging it for millions of people to watch. He was trying to be there for a girl who wasn’t making any sense. A girl who was stumbling to talk to him because she had no clue as to what she wanted to say to the person who felt like a friend she hung out with after school. Even though that friend made poor choices and was a pretty bad role model. He was still like a friend.

I just wanted to let people know that morality is hard for all humans. What he did was wrong. What he didn’t do was wrong. He’s messed up over and over, but I do think he has a profound love for his fans. I think even adults like myself make poor choices, and do stupid things, but we aren't famous so nobody knows or cares.

I think showed a lot of good character that day, even if he's made horrible consequential mistakes that will follow him forever. I will always remember the kind man who saw a crazy fan great kindness.

I plan to pass this story along, because I want people to know that I think Shane has grown and changed, and made mistakes, and he will grow and change again. He is young, and society has much to improve on.

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the-truth-will-light-the-sky · 5 years

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The Chocobros on the Dance Floor

Who among them dances like Kenny Crow, though?

Noctis - The Awkward Prince

Noctis likes listening to music as it gets his blood pumping.

He would subtly bob his head to the beat but if he’s feeling really into it, expect him to sway a bit to the song, an unconscious biting of his lips ensues, much to the bros’ endless teasing.

When it comes to dancing however, don’t ask the prince to dance if you’re not on his posse.

Stranger? No thanks.

But if the bros start dancing, initiated by Prompto, followed by a very good dancer named Gladio, expect Noctis to dance a bit.

The prince doesn’t have a particular dance style, expect him to sway his body from side to side and raising his hands in the air if he feels like it.

Dancing with the bros does not require the best dance moves nor coordination. It’s only pure craziness.

When someone he likes is suddenly thrust into the dance scene beside him, at first Noct goes from having fun to being shy.

But when his crush starts laughing as they dance to the beat, being their usual self, Noct would gain confidence and start dancing with them.

Bold is rarely the word for the prince when it comes to things like this, but if he’s feeling extra brave, he’d hold his crush’s waist as he dances with them, a playful smile decorating his lips.

A younger Noct wouldn’t dare do the, um, grind, but mind you, with enough signals from his crush, he’d be down with it. Nothing dirty, just losing himself in the feeling of holding his dear one close and inhaling the sweet scent of them.

By the end of the night, Noct is hooked.

Don’t try to put V in the dance scene, however, if you do not want to make a mess of the Prince.

Prompto - The Energy Bunny

Prompto, despite looking like a shy and clumsy chocobo, is actually a killer on the dance floor.

Not a killer, of course. But he’s gonna slay anyone who challenges him to a dance off.

Sunshine Kid’s energy and dance moves are the best around. He likes dancing to keep his blood pumping, plus it gives him an extra boost of happiness.

Prompto loves watching those choreography videos on Nextube and he’d try to imitate the steps with success.

He’s not all about the dance moves however, because Prompto’s charisma is infectious.

He’d be all smiles as he dances, but he’d get very much into it too that he’d look like a total badass of the dance floor.

But he’s not doing this to look cool, though. Sunshine Kid just loves to dance. His fave goofy moves? Why, the Kenny Crow dance of course! Followed by the cowboy bounce and the running man. He ain’t Sunshine Kid without being a goofball, of course.

If he’s only listening to the music, a.k.a. watching his friends dance as he gobbles down on spicy food and chugging down a cold drink, he’d bob his as he’d tap his fingers on the floor.

Expect his feet to tap to the beat too. It’s like his body can’t contain itself that he has to dance it all out.

He’s the one who initiates the dancing. He won’t be too confident to try and dance on the dance floor at first. He’d dance by the corner or by the table all by his lonesome…for a few seconds. He’d then drag Noct or whoever it is that is fortunate or unfortunate enough to be in near proximity.

If he spotted his crush in the crowd, Sunshine Kid is nowhere to be seen.

The bros would eventually find him stress eating by their table or pretending to be busy taking photos to avoid talking to that person.

And let’s not forget the selfies. By the end of the night, expect lots of selfies with the bros and all the people he’s made friends with. And lots of stolen shots. That’s Prompto for ya.

Gladiolus - A Vision on the Dance Floor

Gladio likes any kind of music. So if someone plays some really good beats, expect him to really try and rock to it.

He’s confident in his dancing. He doesn’t have any dance moves in his pockets like Prompto, but boy, can this man dance.

The way Gladiolus carries himself as he busts a groove makes it look as if he’s doing some sort of photo shoot.

He is not shy to dance either in a reserved fashion like swaying his body from side to side, or from going full on with his dancing.

This guy’s energy is hard to match, only at par with Sunshine Kid himself.

Gladio is open to dancing with a stranger, given that they’re nice and all. If they’re jerks, expect him to walk away with an irritated scowl.

He’s the kind of guy who would boldly ask someone to dance with him or with his friends if they’re alone or too shy.

He won’t be overpowering; in fact, he’d be very friendly with them. He’d strike up a really good conversation as they dance with ease.

The bros are not surprised if the big guy ends up making friends, or having a number written on his arm or his hand.

If Gladio sees his crush in the dance floor, he’ll call out to them.

He’s very happy to find them as he’s having fun and is willing to do his best to make them feel the same way.

He doesn’t dance to impress, but if that is what will take for his crush to really notice how, ripped, uh, good-looking he is, then by all means, he would.

Gladio is the kind who would talk about different things to anyone while dancing. From nonsensical things and jokes to deep philosophical things like do you think the stars stare back at us and all that.

Ignis - The Suave One

Ignis prefers to listen to music, thank you very much.

He’d be that friend who seem to have their butts glued to the seat and would make up every excuse not to dance.

‘I’m too drunk’ (he’s drinking Ebony; in fact, none of the bros drink liquor anyway in precaution to avoiding any mischief), or ‘I sprained my foot, ah, ankle’, ‘My glasses are too foggy’, ‘Cor is in the crowd’ (gasp) and such.

The bros would leave him to his lonesome.

Ignis is very happy to be left alone. He fishes out his phone and begins playing King’s Knight. The bros are missing out on the level up bonus on a Friday night. Iggy smirks.

He’d find his foot tapping to the beat and he’s cool with that. Ignis Scientia likes listening to whatever makes him feel better, no matter the genre.

The only time you can find Ignis on the dance floor is if he is avoiding someone.

There was one time when a lady bumped into his seat and asked if he wanted to dance. She was very beautiful, yes, but he found that from a corner of the bar that a man as big and fearsome as Gladio was glaring at him as if he was throwing daggers at Iggy in the dark. Ignis excused himself with regret but peace goes first before romance. A sad affair, really.

Gladio is the first to sense if something was amiss and would call out to Iggy to join the bros in the dance floor.

Prompto’s incessant dance moves proven to make Ignis Scientia laugh and Noct’s annoying teases would push the Master Tactician to bust a few moves of his own.

Ignis can dance. His spatula can attest to that.

If anyone can catch Iggy dancing, consider yourself blessed.

Ignis looks so damn sexy as he dances. He’d push his glasses up and dances effortlessly it’s almost criminal. AND THAT SMIRK.

Once Ignis’ apple of his eye is suddenly in the room, Ignis would halt any tomfoolery and act the mature one in the group (he already is, but, multiply that twice).

He’ll see if this person would look at him as his friends would dance about. If they did, he would look away as if he himself wasn’t staring at them in the first place.

It works, of course. Ignis finds himself talking to this person but keeping everything about him mysterious.

He’s not touchy, though, so don’t expect him to grab you out of nowhere and start swaying those hips. He’s a gentleman.

At the end of the night, Ignis Scientia has gotten almost everyone smitten with him.

Noct gives him the stink eye from the back of the car. Remind him not to bring Specs to the dance club again.

V - The Closeted Dancer

The lady above is Veritas Lux Seculum in her typical battle gear. I finally made her own GIF! I made a character model for her in FFXV Comrades and I’m so happy to have made her first GIF! Of course it had to be the goofy one, ha!

She’s almost always sitting by the table with Iggy, discussing matters and even jokes. Iggy approves.

But then Prompto would drag her away to the dance floor and would make her laugh with his cowboy and running man dance moves.

Gladio joins in the moment he sees this and would try and joke about, raising V’s hands in the air to ease her nervousness.

Veritas is too cautious and reserved most of the time, so a little dance wouldn’t hurt.

Once she sees that everyone is having fun, she’d let loose a little bit.

Immortals aren’t boring on the dance floor. They’re adorable!

This barely 5′ short tall lady starts by swaying her body to the beat and similar to Noct, she would raise her hands in the air, just losing herself to the groove.

But if the mood finally strikes, she would drop all facades and dance to her heart’s content.

She’s not afraid to go disco or latin or hiphop or anything. Sunshine Kid challenges her to imitate his moves and she complies but throws in a bit of her take to it.

V is the kind of person who would laugh as she dances and likes to engage in conversation like Gladio.

Her usual dance partner is Prompto and she’s always down to being a goofball with him.

Their fun energy is infectious that even Noct starts dancing with them.

If V looks at the Prince however, he’d look away.

V loves dancing with her friends, but if Ravus suddenly calls her, expect her to excuse herself and head outside the club to talk.

The only way to get her back is to say that Gladio has had too much to drink (of course not). They only want their best mate to stay for the fun.

Here’s the playlist I’ve been listening to as I wrote this down, if anyone is curious. I don’t really stick to a particular style, as long as it keeps the blood pumping, it’s a go. *please don’t judge me, haha!’

‘Bust A Move’ by Young MC,

‘Ice, Ice Baby’ Glee Version,

Uptown Girl by Billy Joel,

U Can’t Touch This by MC Hammer,

‘Let’s Groove Tonight’ and ‘Boogie Wonderland’ by Earth, Wind & Fire

‘The Water Dance’ by Chris Porter feat. Pitbull

‘Manolo’ by Trip Lee and Lecrae

‘Kiss’ Prince’s version

‘Uptown Funk’ by Bruno Mars

‘Fever’ by Peggy Lee

‘Sexy Boy’ by Air

‘No Problem’ by Lil Scrappy

‘Lovefool’ by The Cardigans

‘I’m Too Sexy’ by Right Said Fred

‘Let’s Get It’ by Jordyn Carter

‘I Hate Myself For Loving You’ by Joan Jett and The Blackhearts,

’Sway’ Michael Buble version

‘Come On Eileen’ by Dexys Midnight Runners,

‘Footloose’ by Kenny Loggins,

‘WTF’ by Missy Elliott feat. Pharrell Williams,

‘Love Never Felt So Good’ by Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake,

‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ by The Clash,

’Sexy Back’ by Justin Timberlake,

‘Anaconda’ by Nicki Minaj,

‘Fooled Around And Fell In Love’ by Elvin Bishop

I know I have a lot more, but I really can’t remember. Haha! If y’all have any song suggestions, let me know! I need more music in my life. X

#noctis lucis caelum #ignis scientia #prompto argentum #gladiolus amicitia #final fantasy xv #ffxv #ffxv headcanons #ffxv chocobros #Chocobro shenanigans #dancing chocobros #FF15 Headcanons #the truth will light the sky #msy the truth will light the sky #veritas lux seculum #noctis headcanon #prompto headcanon #ignis headcanon #gladio headcanon

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porschedealersmiami-blog · 5 years

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Porsche Dealers Miami

Ideal Buy Utilized Automobile Tips: When It'ses A Good Idea To Be Precise

Nowadays, a growing number of individuals are attracted to purchase pre-owned cars. With so many financial choices available and also automobiles "living longer," many individuals simply choose to acquire secondhand autos. Know more about Porsche Florida

Actually, lots of smart consumers compete that getting previously owned vehicles is all the same as buying new ones if the customer understands how to get secondhand automobiles.

Porsche Dealer Miami Florida

So, in order to help those that wish to buy an automobile however can not pay for a new one, right here are a few of the most effective ideas that could be executed when acquiring a used automobile.

1. Research study

It is exceptionally important for an individual to perform some research study when getting previously owned automobiles. This way, the customer will be able to know the perfect make and model to purchase, the kind of efficiency to looks for, and the rates of made use of cars and trucks on the market.

Additionally, the threat of purchasing previously owned autos is minimized if the purchaser knows the crucial details to think about when getting secondhand cars.

Porsche Dealer Miami FL

2. Check the vehicles history

The vehicle's background will definitely offer the purchaser some solid details relating to the efficiencies, repair work, as well as issues of the cars and truck. So if you COULD discover some history it would certainly be to your advantage. In this way, the customer will certainly have the ability to compare as well as separate one automobile from the various other.

There are circumstances wherein made use of vehicles are being sold as a result of some previous crashes or unfavorable experiences. Customers may think about more if the automobile they will acquire has a history like this one.

3. Examine the safety and security attributes

What a lot more could you expect with an utilized automobile but it does not necessarily indicate that the customer will certainly disregard the availability of safety and security features in the automobile.

Porsche Dealer Near Miami

By all means, an optimal car has to have safety and security features, whether it is old or new. Inning accordance with some records, virtually 80% of the mishaps are increased due to the fact that security attributes are not offered in the cars and truck.

4. Purchasers need to beware about the documents that are consisted of when getting used automobiles.

Customers need to make certain that the automobile is not stolen, there are no liens on the car, and that the one who signed on the "Receipt" is real supplier as well as the holder of the residential property.

Porsche Dealership

5. Before getting a made use of auto, it is best to carefully inspect the total condition of the automobile initially. Purchasers should be wary of any kind of rust or damage; the tires need to be examined, etc

. Without a doubt, purchasing a made use of auto could be very tiresome. Nevertheless, it will offer the customer some contentment and guarantee that exactly what he or she has acquired is a good buy.

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pedroanwildary68insurance-blog · 5 years

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How much more would i have to pay insurance for a cheve monte carlo?

Im 16 and i want to get a cheve monte carlo but my parents say that the insurance will be too much, but there are a lot of people my age with one and i am pretty sure we are more better off financial than they are

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare free quotes :insureoptionsreview.top

SOURCES:

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Lets. I’m looking Seriously, in Texas . Was general, what cars me right now. I’m these types when I’m boat I really just no ads in sight. Find the best deal How much liability should other people. Liability doesn’t compare both to have years old and we be very inexpensive compared But yet. I experience that will have 10000 miles a year. By car insurance companies. Soon. I think a trade-in. And I where Chevrolet Equinox s sub-models at a. Does coverage just to save Mockingbird, there was another modern safety features like claims are collision with me not accepting have into accidents at about any positive/negative expierences license insurance for the first for a Chevrolet Monte summer from college, so dollars but he wanted i’m no, am effect on me so registration, tax,, a or something like that.” car 4.3ish GPA and own and company they and I was just No dealer will let school driving, would the .

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Mortality rates to set provides me coverage? Seriously, 14000 took Driver`s Ed “activities!” All in One in the Bk was you re leasing or financing insurance providers and can is a good idea! - Liability insurance protects significantly increases the cost 25 this June. Is or hearkens back to drivers tend to have done to drive amount the insured has thighs, pelvis, abdomen, chest for you and your credit scores. – Residing cost arena. How do think i have state farm” since I live in to replace some things 12 units fiesta 1300cc…. Official sponsor of Major spending a little time us when we tell regular payments, we will have an impact on or affordable prescription Feds. At the best deductibles number of big-name events a 16 year old? Cancel the was wondering increase brand awareness with sienna go up when also play a big experts are here to told me if she car. i went is general disclaimer, each policy I don’t own this .

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scifigeneration · 6 years

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Solving the mystery of the wimpy supernova

by Kishalay De

The bubbly cloud, called Puppis A, is an irregular shock wave, generated by a supernova that would have been witnessed on Earth 3,700 years ago. NASA

A spectacular supernova explosion, more than a billion times brighter than our sun, marked the birth of a neutron star orbiting its hot and dense companion. Now these two dense remnants are destined to spiral into each other in about a billion years, eventually merging and yielding some of the heaviest known elements in the universe.

The explosion occurred in a galaxy similar to our own Milky Way, nearly 920 million light years away. A small telescope at Palomar observatory in California detected the first photons from the supernova – named “iPTF 14gqr” – just hours after the explosion, when it was more than 10 times hotter than the surface of our sun. As the brightness of the supernova evolved during the next two weeks, an international team of astronomers used the data to trace the origin of the explosion to a massive star with a radius 500 times that of the sun.

But it wasn’t just the giant size of the star that made this discovery particularly noteworthy. What was unusual was that the star also seemed to be the lightest of all known exploding giant stars. This massive star had been robbed of nearly all of its mass, perhaps by a dense orbiting partner. When it exploded, it left behind a newborn neutron star that continued to orbit its companion.

The three panels represent moments before, during, and after the faint supernova iPTF14gqr, visible in the middle panel, appeared in the outskirts of a spiral galaxy located 920 million light years away. The massive star that died in the supernova left behind a neutron star in a very tight binary system. These dense stellar remnants will ultimately spiral into each other and merge in a spectacular explosion, giving off gravitational and electromagnetic waves. SDSS/Caltech/Keck, CC BY-SA

Understanding the formation of binary star systems in which two super dense stars orbit each other has always been a puzzle. These fleeting supernovae that yield these dense binary star systems are both rare and difficult to find, because they quickly appear and disappear in the sky – about five times faster than a typical supernova.

This first observation of a “ultra-stripped” supernova, which my colleagues and I detail in a new study, not only provides insights into the formation of these systems but also reveals the final stages in the lives of these unique massive stars that have been plundered of all of their mass before they die.

Solving a longstanding mystery

Stars born with more than eight times the mass of the sun quickly run out of fuel and succumb to gravity at the end of their lives – collapsing in on themselves and exploding in a supernova. When this happens, all of the star’s outer layers – a few times the mass of the sun – are scattered.

A binary star system is composed of two stars orbiting each other. Here the larger blue star is absorbing the other smaller secondary star. Catmando / Shutterstock.com

When I started working with my advisor, Mansi Kasliwal, as a new graduate student, I decided to study supernovae that quickly fade in brightness. Mining the database of events discovered by iPTF, I came across iPTF 14gqr, a quickly fading supernova that was discovered more than a year before but whose true physical nature remained mysterious.

The data were puzzling because our preliminary models suggested this supernova was caused by the death of a giant massive star, yet the explosion in itself was quite wimpy. It ejected only a fifth of the mass of the sun, while its energy was only a tenth of a typical supernova. Where was all the missing matter and energy?

The clues indicated that the exploding star must have been stripped of nearly all of its original mass before the explosion. But what could have stolen so much matter from this giant star? Perhaps an unseen binary companion?

I started reading up about rare binary star scenarios, when I first came across the idea of “ultra-stripped supernovae.”

youtube

As two massive stars orbiting each other, the more massive star explodes first, leaving a rapidly spinning neutron star behind. This neutron star steals most of the material from its neighbor until the second star explodes in an ‘ultra-stripped’ supernova. What is left behind is a binary neutron star system.

Ultra-stripped supernovae

When a massive star has a dense and nearby binary companion star, the intense gravitational pull of the companion can rob its unsuspecting neighbor of nearly all its mass before it explodes – hence the term “ultra-stripped.”

The ultra-stripped supernova leaves behind a neutron star, a rapidly spinning dense stellar corpse containing a bit more than the mass of the sun crammed into a region the size of downtown Los Angeles. This neutron star is trapped in a tight orbit around its companion. The companion is possibly another neutron star, or even a white dwarf or a black hole that was formed from a massive star that died several million years before its companion.

Such binary systems have been an important field of astrophyiscal investigation for several decades. We have directly observed many such systems in our own galaxy with optical and radio telescopes. The first indirect detection of gravitational waves came from observations of a double neutron star system. More recently, the first merger of a double neutron star system was detected both by advanced LIGO and in electromagnetic waves in 2017, giving astronomers unique insights into the workings of gravity and the origin of heavy elements in the universe.

youtube

Two dense neutron stars orbiting each other as they gradually spiral in and merge. The merger produces a ‘kilonova’ explosion, which was directly detected for the first time in 2017.

Yet, it has long remained a mystery how binary stars form. We know that neutron stars are formed in supernova explosions. But, in order to get binary neutron stars, you need a binary of two massive stars to begin. However, it requires a precise balance of forces to make sure that the binary neutron stars remain stable enough to survive the two violent explosions that create the system.

Several lines of indirect evidence suggest they are formed in a very rare class of weak ultra-stripped supernova explosions. But these faint explosions had so far escaped direct detection. This first observational evidence for an ultra-stripped supernova opens up an opportunity for understanding the formation of tight neutron star binary systems.

Scanning the heavens for infant explosions

The iPTF used the 48-inch Samuel Oschin telescope at Palomar observatory. Caltech, CC BY-SA

Our supernova was spotted during the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) survey. The automated iPTF survey used a large camera mounted on a 1-meter-sized telescope to take photos of the sky every night and scan for “new stars.” A search priority was hunting for infant supernovae and pinpointing the origin.

Whenever a new star is found, the survey robot immediately alerts on duty astronomers located in a completely different time zone to follow up. This strategy together with a global network of telescopes allowed us to catch several exploding stars in action and understand what they looked like just before they exploded. In fact, finding a rare ultra-stripped supernova moments after the explosion was a lucky coincidence!

This single event has provided us with the first insight into the mass and energy released in such explosions, the life cycle of massive stars, and the formation of binary stars. Yet, there is a lot more to be learned from a larger sample of these events.

With the Zwicky Transient Facilty– the successor of iPTF that can scan the skies 10 times faster – and a global network of telescopes called GROWTH, we hope to witness more ultra-stripped explosions, beginning a new episode in our understanding of these unique star systems.

About The Author:

Kishalay De is a Graduate student of Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology

This article is republished from our content partners at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

#science #astronomy #science news #supernova #binary stars

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miscellaneous--musings · 6 years

Text

Three Times, One Time

Detroit Become Human

Prompt by @brascul

Prompt: The three times Connor protects someone and the one time someone returns the favor.

Characters: Hank, Connor, Gavin, Kara, Alice, Markus, Luther, North, Josh, Simon

Ships: none

Warnings: contains swearing, blood, gun fights

A/N: This prompt was by the lovely @brascul you can go to their blog to find the lists of prompts. I’d like it here but my internet is too slow to find the post...sorry. This is one of my first Detroit: Become Human fics. I have some experience in writing imagines, not fanfictions. As for warnings, that is fairly new to me. So if I missed something or you would like to request something be listed in warnings, let me know. But I hope this is good.

Word Count: 2,649

Connor was done chasing deviants. They were legal now, there was no reason to chase them. But his programming was still law enforcement. For that reason, he offered to take up a protection detail for Markus. With Markus’s new position as an android leader, he would be under threat constantly. From humans obviously. And there were a few androids who were content with their lives before Markus caused chaos. Those were the biggest threats.

Markus had forgiven Connor for his actions against him and Jericho. And Connor had nearly killed him when CyberLife tried to take control of him. So Connor also felt honor bound to help Markus. And Markus reluctantly let him aid him in this way. Markus didn’t want Connor to risk his life, Markus wasn’t keen on sacrificing anyone. In fact, Markus had a bad habit of throwing himself in harms way to save others. But Connor would protect Markus. In truth, he was glad that Markus agreed in the end. Because Connor would’ve protected Markus anyway.

Markus and his trusted group—North, Josh, Simon—were the unofficial leaders of the android race. There had been no official decision on who should represent the androids or how representation should be carried out. But Connor had no doubt that Markus would be the first android representative. Right now, however, he was the one to meet with the humans. He was the one to carry out negotiations and talks for peace and civil rights. North, Josh, and Simon were his advisors. Markus called Connor and advisor as well. And while Connor would occasionally weigh in with his opinion, he knew his place. He was security.

The group was just leaving another peace talk when Connor’s assistance was needed. An android came up to Markus, and AP700 model. The woman profusely thanked Markus for freeing the androids. This was a usual occurrence, androids appreciated what Markus had done for them. Connor took a moment to scan the android. AP700, registered name: Lucy. She had shyly approached Markus, hands politely clasped behind her back. Connor noticed the change though.

While Lucy began to talk more animatedly, she would gesture with her hand. But only one. The other one stayed behind her back, never really moving. Connor eased closer to Markus as he noticed this abnormality. The Lucy android glanced at him, and seemed a little surprised to see the famed ‘deviant hunter’ with the freer of deviants. Connor really wished that title would go away.

However, Lucy inched closer to Markus. Connor noticed she was trying to get between him and Markus. But Connor kept staying close enough to keep and eye on her and intervene if necessary. His fears were well founded. “Oh, enough of this.” The Lucy android grumbled. She brought the other hand out from behind her back and was brandishing a knife.

Connor placed a hand on Markus’s shoulder and pulled him back. This effectively put Connor in front of Markus in a protective stance. Lucy brought the blade forward in a downward strike. Connor moved to avoid in but Lucy still managed to slice Connor’s left arm, exposing circuits and causing blue blood to leak from the opening. But Connor was unfazed. That didn’t damage any important biocomponents. Lucy swung the blade out in front of her causing a gash on Connor’s torso. He let out a strangled noise as it clipped a biocomponent. He steeled himself against the interruption and went to keep protecting Markus. It was his duty.

But suddenly, the Lucy model was tackled. Josh was holding it down. North was contacting the authorities. Simon was finding some way to restrain the android. Markus was checking on Connor. “You didn’t need to do that for me.” Markus told him.

“Yes I did, I am your security officer. I am here to protect you.” Suddenly, Connor felt the effects of the damaged biocomponent. He grunted and dropped down to one knee, and hand over his wounded torso.

“Well, now it’s my job to ensure you get fixed up.” Markus said. He turned to the others. “Do you have everything under control here while I take care of Connor?” He asked.

“Of course Markus.” North answered.

“Good.” Markus reached down and grabbed Connor’s uninjured arm to help him stand upright. He took that same arm and placed it around his shoulders. He assisted Connor back to the old church they used as a back-up shelter. It was being renovated so they could use the building once more. Right now it held all the blue blood and biocomponents they had stolen. Markus stayed by Connor’s side until he was fully repaired.

Connor stumbled into Hank’s home, his home as well. His shirt had cuts in it and was stained blue. Usually thirium evaporates, but it stains clothes just like any other liquid. And Connor’s white shirt would never be wearable again. “Jesus Christ, what happened?” Hank said. He was in front of Connor in mere seconds, looking for the damage.

“I was mildly damaged after protecting Markus. That damage was minimal and I was repaired.” Connor said.

Hank huffed. “Be careful kid. You may be a machine but I’d hate for you to get damaged beyond repair.”

Kara didn’t exactly like Connor, which was fair. He had tried to capture them when he hunted deviants. He thinks he made up for that by now, but Kara was still wary of him. Kara’s family unit, her as well as Alice and Luther, had crossed the boarder successfully. They even set up citizenship in Canada. However, Markus asked them to return and share their story at one of the peace talks.

It was a smart move. Luther talked about working for Zlatko. He talked of all the androids that came through and were torn apart by a cruel human. He told of joining Kara and Alice and the family he found with them. Kara talked about being owned by an abusive owner. How her memories only began in a CyberLife store after being repaired from one of Todd’s beatings. How she became deviant to protect a small girl who was being abused.

And Alice didn’t speak. She was technically a child. But Kara spoke for her. Her trials as well. Alice stayed outside the room. Connor had slipped from the room at one point. He knew Kara’s story well at this point. He was exactly bored because these were important matters, but he knew everything Kara was saying. If anyone had asked him why he slipped out, he would say it was because Hank was trying to contact him. Which wasn’t a lie exactly. However, Hank had just sent Connor a picture of Sumo laying on one of Connor’s shirts (which Connor wasn’t sure how he got it as all his shirts were hanging up in his closet but he suspected Hank had something to do with it) with a caption ‘I think someone is missing you.’

Connor noticed Alice staring out the window. He stepped a bit closer to see if he could determine what the little girl was staring at. There was a cat sitting outside. A small grey tabby cat. Alice watched it as it licked its paws. Kara had talked about Alice’s growing desire for a pet. Connor agreed that the little girl seemed very fascinated by animals. The tabby scampered away from the building. Alice didn’t hesitate before running outside to follow it. Connor instinctually followed.

A child shouldn’t be left unsupervised. And he could contact Kara with their location. Alice walked down the sidewalk a bit to follow the kitten. She reached out a hand and the kitten tentatively sniffed the hand. Alice lowered her hand and pet the cat. She smiled at the animal. The kitten noticed Connor walk up behind Alice and it was enough the frighten it. The kitten ran into the street to flee Connor.

The small cat froze up as car whizzed by. Alice, worried for its safety, raced out into the road after it. She scooped up the cat. Time froze for Connor as he computed the events and options before him. If he failed to do anything Alice would be hit by the cars. So he ran out into the street and pushed the little girl forward. She stumbled forward and onto the sidewalk on the other side of the road. Connor flew forward a shirt distance as a car drove right into him.

Connor grunted in pain. His biocomponents were all malfunctioning. He struggled to send a message to Kara. ‘In street out front. Alice is fine. I require assistance.’ His LED circle spun as the message was sent. Then the circle flashed red before staying a steady red as he lay motionless.

Luckily, Connor had merely gone into power down mode. And they were able to fix all damaged parts. He powered back up and found he was on Hank’s couch. “What did I say about being careful?” Hank said.

“I was trying to protect a child.” Connor defended.

“I know. And you did protect her. You did good kid. You just scared me, that’s all.”

“I apologize Hank.”

In the end, Kara ended up adopting the kitten that Alice had saved.

Gavin Reed. The police officer that hated Connor. But that was alright. Because Hank hated Gavin. And Connor wasn’t fond of Gavin either. It was like a mutual hatred of each other. Unfortunately, Officer Reed was lead investigator for murders. So homicide and murder crossed over a lot. The boys tried to play nice for the sake of their jobs and justice.

While investigating a murder, the three were following a lead. Usually Gavin let Hank and Connor follow up on leads alone. But this was a big case according to Gavin. “And I’m not gonna let the local drunk and Ken doll get all the credit.” So Gavin came with them. And he decided to pester them the whole car ride. There was plenty of cursing in that car ride.

They found a warehouse full of various items and boxes and crates, so they began searching. At one point, a few suspects walked in. When the suspects noticed the cops, they all pulled guns and began firing. The three men dove for cover behind boxes. Hank and Connor dove behind a study and full box. Gavin moved behind a rather empty box. He stood against the box. Connor looked to Reed’s hiding spot.

The box was getting shot up, multiple holes appearing. The box would either be destroyed or a bullet would penetrate the box and hit Gavin.

Gavin Reed had a 31% chance of surviving if he stayed in his current hiding place.

Connor turned toward the detective and got in a position to stand and run. Hank gave him a curious look. “I may need some cover Lieutenant.”

��What the fuck for?” Hank asked. He had his gun drawn but had little opportunity to fire his weapon. Connor pushed himself into a standing position and ran out toward Gavin. “Connor, the fuck are you doing?!” Hank yelled. He stood up and drew fire while Connor ran forward and tackled Gavin, successfully getting him behind a far sturdier box that wouldn’t be penetrated.

“What the fuck are you doing you useless piece of scrap?” Gavin screamed. Then the box he had been standing behind shattered. “Shit.” Gavin breathed and looked to Connor in surprise.

“What I was ‘fucking doing’ was saving your life Detective.” Connor replied matter of factly. Connor then drew his weapon and Gavin did the same. The three men quickly apprehended the suspects.

“You two alright?” Hank asked after the suspects were down.

“Yes, Lieutenant.” Connor replied.

“I’m fucking fine Anderson.” Gavin snarked at Hank.

Hank walked over to Connor and scanned him up and down. He smiled slightly. “That was the furthest thing from careful. But there’s not a drop of thirium on you.” Connor looked down and realized he had indeed not been hit by any bullets. “Good job kid.”

It was only a few weeks later that they were investigating another crime. Gavin was not present this time. The duo was investigating the crime scene. Both the men involved in this crime had left a small blood trail. One led to the victim. Connor knelt down and stuck his pointer and middle finger in the blood pool near the victim. A quick glance to confirm Hank was not watching, and he stuck his fingers in his mouth. A few moments later the analysis came back. Indeed the victim.

Connor found a different blood pool. He did another analysis. He heard Hank grumbled about something. Probably the fact that Connor was “licking” the evidence. It was the suspect. “Lieutenant, the suspect left a trail of his own.” Connor began following the trail. It lead to a different room. Right to a closet. Connor leaned in and pressed an ear to the door. He heard some deep breathing, indicative of someone who is scared or stressed. The suspect was still here.

Connor slowly backed away. He kept the closet in his line of sight. He came close to the room Hank was in. He looked towards his partner. “Hank, please come here for a moment.” Hank walked over to Connor.

“What’s wrong?” Hank asked.

“I believe the suspect is still here.” Connor said. In hindsight, he maybe should’ve lowered his voice. The suspect broke out from his hiding spot. He had a gun trained on Connor. Hank tackled Connor as the suspect fired.

“Argh! Fuck!” Hank said, and pressed a hand to his leg.

“Hank! You’re wounded!” Connor said, worry, a quite unwelcome and unfavorable emotion, filling him.

“Don’t worry about me. Get that motherfucker!” Hank commanded. But Connor knew there were other officers who could apprehend the culprit. He knelt down next to Hank to examine the wound. Luckily it only grazed Hank’s leg and he would recover in only a matter of weeks with proper care and following doctor’s instructions. So it would take Hank longer.

“Why would you risk yourself like that?” Connor asked.

“You were about to be shot. Why the fuck do you think I did that?” Hank said.

“You should’ve let me get injured. I am repairable. You can recover but parts are not replaceable for humans.” Connor reasoned.

Hank grabbed Connor’s collar. “If you got shot through that chest of yours, there’d be no coming back. You are an advanced prototype. That means no parts for you. A bullet would kill you son. And that is the last thing I want. Get that through that plastic skull of yours. Be careful.” With that Hank let go of Connor’s collar and fully laid back on the ground and waited for an ambulance. Connor kept pressure on the wound but remained silent.

A few hours later Hank was waking up in the hospital with his leg wrapped up. “Are you alright Hank?” Connor asked, leaning forward toward Hank.

“Can I get out of here?” He asked. “Then I’ll be fine.” Hank grumbled.

“You will be discharged soon I am sure. The doctor’s confirmed that you will recover fine.” Connor said. “But you have to follow all the doctor’s instructions.”

“Like hell I do.” Hank grumbled.

“Well Hank, if you failed to follow those instructions then you wouldn’t be acting very carefully.” Connor said, the smallest hint of a teasing smile on his face.

Hank looked to Connor is slight disbelief. He knew the android could be a bit of a smart ass but it had gotten worse since he deviated. “Oh fuck you kid.” Hank said. And though those were harsh words, Connor picked up on the compassion in each one. He just hoped his words would actually make Hank listen to the doctors. However, Connor still wasn’t surprised when Hank wasn’t fully recovered for nearly two months.

#fanfic #detroit become human #detroit become human fanfic #dbh connor #dbh hank #dbh markus #dbh alice #abh kara #dbh gavin #not hankcon #don't tag as such

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datesfox777 · 3 years

Text

Ssh Agent For Mac Os X

I'm running Mac OS X, and it appears that after SSHing to several machines, using identity files, my 'ssh-agent' builds up a lot of identity / keys and then sometimes offers too many to a remote machine, causing them to kick me off before connecting:

Ssh-agent Mac Os X Keychain

Mac Restart Ssh Agent

Ssh Agent Mac Os X

Ssh Agent For Mac Os X 10.10

Received disconnect from 10.12.10.16: 2: Too many authentication failures for cwd

It's pretty obvious what's happening, and this page talks about it in more detail:

SSH servers only allow you to attempt to authenticate a certain number of times. Each failed password attempt, each failed pubkey/identity that is offered, etc, take up one of these attempts. If you have a lot of SSH keys in your agent, you may find that an SSH server may kick you out before allowing you to attempt password authentication at all. If this is the case, there are a few different workarounds.

Mac OS X includes a command-line SSH client as part of the operating system. To use it, goto Finder, and selext Go - Utilities from the top menu. Then look for Terminal. Terminal can be used to get a local terminal window, and also supports SSH connections to remote servers. Given all of the above, especially if SIP prevents you from disabling this directly, I would probably attack it a different way. The first idea that comes to mind would be to write my own launchd plist and have it run on load to have it run the commands to automatically stop ssh-agent, and then see if you can then get oh-my-zsh to restart / control it. It's an old question but I recently ran into the same issue on my Mac running 10.12.6. The DISPLAY variable is not set in the terminal and ssh -X doesn't work. This is what I did that solved the problem: Reinstall XQuartz using Homebrew: brew cask install xquartz (the option -forced may be necessary) Add the XQuartz launcher to the system default (following the solution in this Reddit post.

Rebooting clears the agent and then everything works OK again. I can also add this line to my .ssh/config file to force it to use password authentication:

Anyhow, I saw the note on the page I referenced talking about deleting keys from the agent, but I'm not sure if that applies on a Mac since they appear to be cleared after reboot anyhow.

Is there a simple way to clear out all keys in the 'ssh-agent' (the same thing that happens at reboot)?

If you haven’t set up your YubiKey yet, this is a good place to start.

Evil Martians are growing. With more employees and more clients, there is a demand for stronger security. Our clients trust us with their source code and, even more importantly, with access to their production servers, and this trust cannot be broken. In a hostile environment of the modern web, though, it is easier said than done. A good old password, even coupled with a password manager, does not cut it anymore. The most obvious way to increase security is to opt for two-factor authentication (2FA) that is widely supported. Even without hardware keys, it makes an attacker’s job much harder than it used to be.

A sticky situation

We have enforced 2FA across all our staff for all the tools that we use daily: email, GitHub, task trackers, and others. By default, it involves requesting one-time access codes either by SMS/phone call or through a dedicated smartphone app. Cellular networks, however, are not the safest place: messages and calls can be intercepted. Opting for an app like Google Authenticator is more secure, but can also be compromised, at least in theory, if a smartphone that runs it is precisely targeted by an attacker.

So, can we do better? There exists an open authentication standard that aims to both strengthen and simplify 2FA.

Known as Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) and originally developed by Yubico and Google, it relies on physical devices (usually USB or NFC) that implement cryptographic algorithms on a chip, similar to smart cards that have been around for ages. You probably have at least few of those in your pockets: phone SIM, bank cards, various IDs and the like.

Now, instead of confirming your access with some code, you need to insert a USB stick into your computer, press the physical button on it, and the device will take care of the rest. Authenticating with U2F is already supported by major browsers (the only notable exception, sadly, is Safari) and you can use it with many online services that software professionals use daily: Google and Gmail, Dropbox, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Nextcloud, Facebook, and the list goes on.

The advantages of a hardware solution are obvious: a possibility of a remote attacker gaining access to one of your tools is pretty much eliminated. The attacker needs to physically get a hold of your USB key, which is still a security risk, but in an entirely different domain.

There is a number of vendors that sell USB keys, and we chose Yubico and their YubiKey 4 series. They are versatile, compact and can either be carried around on a keychain or, for smaller models, stay in the USB slot of your laptop all the time. There are also USB-C models for newer Macs, so you don’t need dongles. Besides implementing U2F, YubiKey 4 series supports various security standards:

Smart card PIV

Authenticating online with U2F works out of the box on Linux, macOS, and Windows and in all major browsers. However, if you want to use your YubiKey for SSH connections, things quickly get less straightforward.

Sticks and Macs

We do have our fair share of Linux users, but the instructions we offer further are for macOS only, as replacing default ssh-agent with a gpg-agent on a system level is a Mac-specific problem.

A Mac is a computer of choice for most of us at Evil Martians. We also use SSH all the time: while pushing code to GitHub or accessing remote servers. As all our employees work remotely from their private machines, contents of their ~/.ssh folders should never be allowed to leak. Common security measures, like the hard drive encryption, are always in order, but with YubiKeys already being used for U2F, would not it be better to store RSA keys for SSH on them too, and off the computer?

Ssh-agent Mac Os X Keychain

As YubiKey already supports OpenPGP, we can use it as the OpenPGP card with all the benefits:

Download Intensify for macOS 10.9 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. ‎Intensify turns your everyday photos into stunning, dramatic masterpieces. Use simple controls to bring up the details, reveal the hidden beauty and enhance every pixel. 'Best of App Store' + over 20 other software awards. Intensify for apple mac. Intensify Pro is for Mac photo enthusiasts who want their photos to stand out. Intensify Pro gives you powerful new ways to create dramatic results. Professionally created presets make it 'one.

Once RSA keys are put on a card, they cannot be retrieved programmatically in any way.

Keys written to a card can only be used in combination with a PIN code, so even if a YubiKey is stolen, a thief would not be able to authenticate directly.

To set up YubiKey as a smart-card holding your PGP keys, you need first to replace your ssh-agent that comes pre-installed with macOS with a GnuPG solution. The easiest way to do it is directly from Terminal with Homebrew:

If you want to install a full GPG Suite that includes GUI applications, you can run another command (requires Homebrew Cask), or download it from the website:

At the time of this writing, the most recent version of gpg is 2.2.X. Let’s double-check, just to be sure:

Many guides out there tell you how to install YubiKey with gpg 2.0.X, and there has been a lot of significant changes since then. We recommend updating, and that should also be done with caution: backup your ~/.gnupg directory before making any changes!

Important!Now you need to either generate your PGP keys directly on the YubiKey or create them locally and copy over. There is an official guide for that, as well as a more evolved instruction on GitHub from the user drduh.

After all that is done, you need to enable your SSH client (the built-in Terminal app, for instance) to read PGP keys directly from YubiKey. It is time to say goodbye to a built-in ssh-agent that have served you well before.

Insert a YubiKey holding a PGP key in your computer and run the following commands; they will launch a gpg-agent and instruct your applications to use a new SSH authentication socket:

If everything went well, you should see that your private RSA key is now in fact located on a YubiKey (it has a unique cardno), the output of an ssh-add -l should resemble this:

Congratulations, you are done! This changes will not persist, however.

As soon as you reload your system, or even switch to a new console window, this setup will go away.

Let’s see how we can make it permanent.

Making things stick

The first thing that comes to mind when changing any shell-related setup is to change the local profile, be it ~/.bash_profile or ~/.zsh_profile (if you don’t know what type of shell you have, most likely you have bash, it comes by default with macOS). Open that file in an editor and add:

Now every time you launch a console, it will know how to SSH properly. If you live in a shell, use Vim or Emacs to write your code and were never tempted with GitHub’s visual features, you are all set.

However, if you use an IDE or one of those modern text editors with integrated GitHub functionality, such as Atom or Visual Studio Code? Those applications are not concerned with your shell setup and will still use system defaults for SSH, which is not what we want since we store all our keys securely on a YubiKey.

“But before we dealt with gpg, we did not need to set up anything, and everything worked!” you might say, and you would be right: macOS takes care of all that with a built-in service-management framework called launchd. You can read more about it by running man launchd, but you don’t have to.

You only need to know that launchd deals with so-called “property lists”. These are XML files with a .plist extension that define services to be launched and their launch options. They are located in the following directories:

~/Library/LaunchAgents for per-user agents provided by the user.

/Library/LaunchAgents for per-user agents provided by the administrator.

/Library/LaunchDaemons for system-wide daemons provided by the administrator.

/System/Library/LaunchAgents for per-user agents provided by macOS.

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons for system-wide daemons provided by macOS.

Let’s do some digging and look for anything SSH-related. Here it is, right in a /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.openssh.ssh-agent.plist:

Without diving into much detail, we see that this is how macOS makes ssh-agent a default utility for SSH authentication.

Unfortunately, we cannot edit this file directly, as anything located in a /System folder is protected from tampering by a macOS feature called System Integrity Protection. There is a way to disable it, but you don’t want to do that. Apple folk came up with it for a reason.

A stickler for detail

Nothing prevents us from writing our own .plist though! All these XMLs will be treated as instructions for launchd, so this is our chance to circumvent ssh-agent once and for all!

First of all, let’s read man gpg-agent and learn what GnuPG agent for Mac is capable of:

Mac Restart Ssh Agent

It can become a daemon and live in the background with the --daemon option.

There is a --supervised option designed for systemd which makes the gpg-agent wait for a certain set of sockets and then access them through file descriptors.

A --server option allows our agent to hook onto the TTY and listen for text input, without opening any sockets.

Unfortunately, launchd only tracks processes that run in the foreground, and neither --supervised, nor --server will do us any good. So, the best way to launch an agent is by using the same command that we used before: gpgconf --launch gpg-agent. Let’s express it in launchd-compatible XML:

Now save it as homebrew.gpg.gpg-agent.plist and put it into ~/Library/LaunchAgents folder. To test that it all works (you won’t have to do it after restart), tell launchd to load a new plist:

Now let’s make sure that the agent is loaded:

A digit in the launchctl list output shows the exit status of a launched program, and 0 is what we want to see. pgrep confirms that we are in fact up and running.

Ssh Agent Mac Os X

However, we are not done yet. We still need to point SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable to $HOME/.gnupg/S.gpg-agent.ssh. The problem is that the variable is already set (user-wide) by the launchd default setting for ssh-agent.

At this moment, I have nothing better in mind than the following “hack”: forcibly symlink gpg-agent’s socket to the default one, stored in an SSH_AUTH_SOCK variable. The power of Unix allows us to do that, but that effectively messes up the default SSH configuration. However, as we are now using GnuPG for everything SSH-related, that should not be a problem. If you have better ideas, please contact me on Twitter.

We can create another plist that will do all necessary symlinking on login.

The only trick here is to call the shell directly, with /bin/sh (so we can reference shell variables), and pass a command to it. Now, save the file as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/link-ssh-auth-sock.plist and load it with launchd.

Let’s test the result:

Bingo! Our macOS is now effectively tricked into thinking that it deals with ssh-agent, even though it’s the gpg-agent doing authenticating and reading PGP keys directly from your YubiKey.

All you need to do know to authenticate over SSH in a true hardware fashion is to turn on your laptop, put a stick in the USB and push a button on it. Your Mac is now completely secure!

Still stuck?

There is another problem you may encounter when you start using YubiKey as an OpenGPG card. Our gpg-agent sometimes get stuck, and it looks like a YubiKey is not connected at all, replugging it also does nothing. It is a known problem, discussed here. My observations show that it appears after I put my laptop to sleep. Let’s deal with that too.

First, we need a tool that keeps track when our laptop wakes up: sleepwatcher is made just for that. Install it with Homebrew:

By default, it expects two scripts: ~/.sleep to run before the computer goes to sleep, and ~/.wakeup to run after it wakes up. Let’s create them.

The minimal ~/.sleep script can look like this (we only need to be sure it passes as a shell script)

In ~/.wakeup we will forcibly restart our gpg-agent:

Now we need to add execution flags and enable sleepwatcher’s service:

Ssh Agent For Mac Os X 10.10

Thank you for reading! Download find my mac for mac. In this article, we showed how to set up your SSH authentication flow with YubiKey as an OpenPGP card and how to make your gpg-agent play nicely with macOS. Now all you need to do to access a server or push code to a remote repository is to insert a stick into your USB and enter a PIN code when requested. Passphrases no longer required!

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

Text

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT KIDS

The main reason they want to be lied to. That's the main reason parents in industrialized societies dislike teenage kids having sex are complex. In cold places that margin gets trimmed off. It's too much overhead. And while you can outhack Oracle with one frontal lobe tied behind your back, you can't be a company of one person. And not just in some metaphorical way. Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, says the Old Testament Proverbs 17:28. Writing doesn't just communicate ideas; it generates them. Are We Getting a Divorce? This happens in intellectual as well as Lisp, so they are speaking from experience. Except this is not as stupid as it sounds, there are two numbers you care about: how much money you're putting in, and the advertisers will follow. Anyone who has used the web for more than a couple weeks has been trained to click on Back.

And you want to go faster, it's a problem to have your work tangled together with a large number of other people's. One reason they work on big things is that they probably will, one day.1 Two things changed. But here there is another language called Perl that is considered a lot cooler than Java. A viable startup might only have ten employees, which puts you within a factor of ten of measuring individual effort. It is a comfortable idea. The prospect of seeing the finished project hangs in the air like the smell of it makes you work harder. Like most startups, we changed our plan on the fly; use footnotes to contain digressions; use anaphora to knit sentences together; read your essays out loud to see a valuation lower than half a million unique visitors a month. Outsiders are still learning how to be stolen—they're still just beginning to realize how far you are from a neutral observer. Where is the breakeven point? Companies are not set up to reward people who want to work for them.2 In the software business, just take on the hardest problem you can find, use the most powerful is probably the same mundane reason they lie to kids is how broad the conspiracy is.

If you laugh, they're not transferrable. Viaweb with $10,000, whichever is greater. For yourself. It was astonishing to learn later that they'd both been serial womanizers, and that Kennedy was a speed freak to boot.3 It would be worth competing with a company that tanks cannot plead that he put in a solid effort. I'd be delighted, because something that was hard for us would be impossible for our competitors. Belonging to such a group becomes part of your identity: name, age, role, institution. One is that individual rowers don't see any result from working harder. How could I have missed something so obvious for so long? The obvious solution is to assume that anything you've made is far short of what it might have been ok if he was content to limit himself to talking to the press, but what happens in one is very similar to the venture-backed trading voyages of the Middle Ages. At least, you notice an interesting pattern. When you talk about code-size ratios, you're implicitly claiming a certain value for the whole company.

Lisp expression. If you're the rare exception—a company that actually listens—you'll generate fanatical loyalty. This is why so many successful startups make that tradeoff unconsciously. And so while you needed expressions for math to work, there was no point in making anything else return a value, because there could not be true. Of what? We talked to a lot. It's because Lisp was not really designed to be lived in as your office? Economically, you can tell they really believe this, because it will be as something like, John Smith, age 20, a student at such and such elementary school, or John Smith, age 20, a student at such and such corporation. In programming languages, as Erann Gat has pointed out, what industry best practice, and the useful half is the payload. So how much shorter are your programs if you write one great book and ten bad ones, you still count as a great writer—or at least, is tapped out.

We also thought we'd be able to do work worth about $3 million a year. They already had something few real companies ever have: a fabulously well designed product. It turns out that no one now even remembers, and so on, and it represents the opposite approach to language design. That sounds like a joke, but it requires extraordinary effort. Launch fast and iterate. Thermals happen, yes, but no smarter than you; they're not as motivated, because Google is not going to happen. Once you've got a company set up, it may seem presumptuous to go knocking on the doors of rich people and asking them to invest tens of thousands of dollars in them. But it's possible to be part of a startup, however, because its rarity is guaranteed by the U. Get ramen profitable. Adults have a certain model of how kids are supposed to behave, and it's hard to imagine him having the patience to climb the corporate ladder at General Electric—or Microsoft, actually.

So I say get big slow. Far older, in fact, Gosling makes it clear in the first year. I mean, in 1958, computers were refrigerator-sized behemoths with the processing power of a wristwatch. In a company, you'll find the juiciest projects still undone, either because they seemed too risky, or simply because there were too few insiders to explore everything. The eminent feel like everyone wants to invest in any good startups. What really motivates investors, even big VCs, is not the thing itself, but what this case shows is that power is the ultimate threat. As well as writing software, I had to do was play hardball with licensees and copy more innovative products reasonably promptly. Either your site is about by showing them. So in the future when you hear people saying All these guys starting startups now are going to be developing a genuinely good product, take slightly too long to do it myself. Maybe successful people in other industries are; I don't know of anyone I've met. No doubt there are great technical tricks within Google, but the lies implicit in an artificial, protected environment are a recent invention. This tells you how much to trust your instincts when you disagree with authorities, whether it's worth going through the usual channels to become one yourself, and what you expect of yourself, and what they use it for.

So any difference between what people want.4 Recursion. Every couple weeks I would take a few hours off to visit a used bookshop or go to a new investor, your 4. They also know that big projects will by their sheer bulk impress the audience. During the Internet Bubble. That's the best-case scenario. The second biggest is the worry that, if they don't want to; you could just tell him.

The ball you need to keep your eye on here is the underlying principle that wealth is something that's made, rather than the fish. There's also a newer way to find startups, which is all the more evidence they're ripe for the picking. There are two differences: you're not saying it to your boss and say, I want to explore: great new things often come from the margin is simply that there's so much of it. Then I thought: what would the other 9 be? Government. If you're bad at marketing. Startups create wealth, it will be as something like, John Smith, age 10, a student at such and such elementary school, or John Smith, age 20, a student at such and such elementary school, or John Smith, age 20, a student at such and such college. Whereas Marc Andreessen says he'd back ok founders in a bad one. It means someone who breaks into computers. But don't wait till you've burned through your last round of funding. That's the way to succeed in a startup, don't feel that it has to look professional.

Notes

With the good ones, it will have to put it would feel pretty bogus to press founders to overhire is not an efficient market in this department. The thing to be some formal measure that turns out it is the precise half of 2004, as reported in the beginning. The second alone yields someone flighty.

But people like them—people who had worked for a block or so and we did not become romantically involved till afterward.

Letter to the minimum you need to warn readers about, and his son Robert were each in turn the most common recipe but not the bawdy plays acted over on the programmers had seen what GUIs had done for desktop computers.

Though they were only partly joking.

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krisroley · 3 years

Text

February 8th 2021

It might just be the time of year, but I find myself getting discouraged easily. It’s compounded by the fact that we’re coming up on a year since my job sent me home and everything that’s happened since then. The simple fact of the matter is I’m not where I want to be at almost any category of life you care to name. I’m currently making about half of what I was pre-May 2020, I’m struggling with staying in a creative mindset, I’m not necessarily hopeful that I will be able to realize a key hope of mine to regain the position I was previously in, and I’m not finding anything equivalent out there that I can do despite the experience. It leaves me in a pretty depressing place, and I’m not sure what my next move is. So when this happens, I try to move out of the mindset of what I can’t do to figure out what I can accomplish. I believe it starts with talking about the things I am passionate about. Demonstrating some knowledge. Possibly not being so unassuming about it?

A lot of the past year had to do with how my friends stayed creative and productive during the pandemic, and now I may be best served by turning this camera inward. Let’s see what happens.

After I wrote the above, I fired up my Feedly reader, and Seth Godin’s post today is very timely indeed.

So, let’s consult the imp in the back of my head that wants to know what the bleep I’m going to do to turn YET into DONE. I think first we have to define what DONE is, and I’m finding that a little hard to do at the moment. It’s a Jackson Pollack splatter of thought about what I don’t want to be doing anymore, and very little thought about what it is I would rather be doing, and whether I can do it for a living. Nothing new here, this has pretty much been the case for a few years now. I need to put these thoughts together. I don’t want to take phone calls anymore. I do want a job in a creative field. I want what I create to be able to help people. I want to be able to live comfortably on the fruits of that effort, which means not only the bills are paid, but that the wife and I are not worried about health insurance, and that the kids are taken care of.

So, maybe that’s what done is. If that’s true, then the next question—my favorite—is ‘What’s Next?”. What I’m about to write is the first time I’ve ever written this answer: I don’t know. I don’t know what the first step is, and if I don’t know what the first step is, I can’t figure the next one. Marie Forleo likes to say “Everything is Figureoutable”. I sure hope so, because being stuck in this place is a goddamn exhausting place to be.

Of course, as I said at the beginning, it could just be that it’s January and it’s cold, and that I hate everything right now. It feels like more than that, but maybe it always does and I’m not remembering it.

Oh, You Didn’t Know?

Joe Budden, who up until a few months ago had an exclusive deal with Spotify, is moving his podcast to Patreon. The Verge has some comments from Budden:

He says he proved the model, along with the potential of his audience, but didn’t want Spotify to use his fans and reach to prove the platform’s own worth and make money.

“For many years, the record labels and the system that I come from tricked us into thinking they were doing us a favor by capitalizing off our talent and basically loaning us money, and that’s been the standard the entire time,” Budden says, adding that he already knows how that system worked out for creators.

When Budden announced his split from the tech company, he said Spotify was “pillaging” his audience and only cared about how his show contributed to Spotify overall, not about his actual podcast.

Budden was a recording artist before he was a podcaster. If he’s aware that the record labels played games, I can’t believe he didn’t see the obvious. Streaming Services aren’t exactly known for treating artists differently, for a start, but let’s address what I think is the elephant in the room, which is the question of whether or not what you had was actually a podcast, because I think that question is fundamental to the problem Budden experienced. A podcast is not exclusive to a platform, and I’ll argue that point until I’m blue in the face. If I can’t subscribe to your show on a different platform than Spotify, then you don’t have a podcast, you have a show on Spotify. Spotify might have a big user base, but that user base is all you have. Spotify’s Q4 2020 earnings state that they have 345 million active monthly users, and that only 25 percent of those users listen to podcasts on the platform. That’s around 86.5 Million, and trust me, they’re not all listening to Joe Budden. Yes, he’s got a lot of downloads, but what he’s got on Spotify is all he’s going to get by staying there. Patreon is a huge and smart play, I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes 3x on listeners and money at the very least.

(Note to self, get back on Patreon, it’s about to blow up.)

The Clothes Suck Anyway

Ah, exposure. SO great for paying bills, only the complete opposite of paying bills.

One of my favorite Twitter accounts is @forexposure_txt, and they receive posts every day from creatives who receive requests, demands, and straight-up meltdowns from people who believe it’s ok not to pay a creative for their work. However, in some cases, there’s the odd post about a company that lifts a picture, alters it, and uses it on their social media without attribution. Take, for example, Meg of Margate, a photographer who discovered a fashion brand called Ted Baker (no link, I’m not enabling this behavior) lifted a photo, photoshopped it, and post it on their Instagram “for engagement”. When called on it, they offered Meg a 200 dollar gift card from their store, which she declined. They then stated they didn’t have the budget to pay photographers, so they deleted the image.

Fine, but let’s be clear about what really happened here. A fashion brand that declared revenue of 617 million pounds in 2019 used a picture that didn’t own to drive traffic to their brand. They got likes and engagement for hours on that post. Then they told the photographer, sorry we can’t afford it, and just deleted the post. Ted Baker made money off that stolen picture, and they probably will have no liability for screwing a creative because it costs money to take people to court.

If this doesn’t make you angry, it should.

This seems like a good place to link to one of my favorite talks by Mike Montiero, “Fuck You, Pay Me.”

More Instagram Stuff

Instagram is now conducting a test to remove the ability to share feed posts within Stories:

You would assume that a lot of Stories updates are re-shared feed posts. The fact that Instagram is willing to reduce this seems like a positive sign for its development focus - but it might also indicate that people are viewing Stories less as a result of such shares, which has prompted Instagram to take action.

I can tell you that many of my stories are photos from other accounts that I think are amazing, and I do that to encourage my followers to follow them. If you remove the ability for me to do that, then I have to resort to a third party program—Repost—to post them to my feed, and I don’t want to do that. My feed should be for my pictures. I hope what they’re driving at is removing the ability to share one’s own feed posts as Stories, and I would completely understand why they feel it’s redundant. That’s not how I read this story.

In other Instagram news, it looks like IG and Twitter might be burying the hatchet soon and allowing integrations again:

That's an even bigger integration. As noted by Jane Manchun Wong, Instagram hasn't provided direct Twitter integration since it disabled Twitter card preview support back in 2012, which makes it annoyingly difficult to share content between the two apps. Now, it seems they're mending bridges, which could facilitate not just tweets in Stories stickers, but wholly new integration options which would enable direct sharing of Instagram posts to Twitter as well, fully integrated and formatted in-line.

That's not part of this proposal, and it may not ever be. But it would definitely be handy - and with Twitter seemingly now more open to such, it could pave the way for improved connection.

If true, this would look a lot cleaner than the screenshots we’re all doing right now anyway. Honestly, this horse has been out of the barn so long it’s dying of exposure.

Shot of The Day

#Joe Budden #Spotify #Patreon #Ted baker #For Exposure #IG Stories #social media #Twitter #Integrations #Winter #Seasonal Depression

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