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torukmaktoskxawng · 5 months

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Keep scrolling if you blame Spider

Spider, who is literally still a child by human standards.

Spider, who never gave away Jake's or the Omatikaya's location.

Spider, who cares about the Sullys' safety over his own.

Spider, who didn't want any blood on his hands or a guilty conscience if he left someone to die.

Spider, who just didn't want anyone else to get hurt.

Spider, who never betrayed the Na'vi (unlike Jake but hey, who's counting that, right?)

Spider, who had to fend for himself to survive the toughest events because he didn't have an adult who would tear the world apart for him like the Sully children do.

Spider, who loves Pandora and Eywa.

Spider, who just wanted to be one of Her children because he never knew what it was like for a mother to love him.

Spider, who probably understands Eywa's whole "balance of life" meaning more than others.

Spider, who already lost Neteyam but he couldn't afford to lose anyone else in his life, no matter how terrible they are as a person.

Spider, who helped Jake save Kiri and Tuk when everyone else was still too shocked to move.

Spider, who chose mercy over violence/death.

Spider, who did what he could to survive (I'd like to see how YOU would react under such pressure. It all seems obvious and easy watching from the other side of the screen, right?)

Spider, who was likely being misled, brainwashed, and gaslit by the Recoms.

Spider, who is clearly a victim but hey, let's blame him for simply being a decent human being, right?

Spider, who likely thought he owed Quaritch after he saved him from being tortured.

Spider, who likely thought he owed Quaritch for giving him life.

Spider, who just wanted a father who was proud of him.

Spider, who has been clearly neglected by the heroes (Jake and Neytiri) but doesn't openly or verbally blame them.

Spider, who doesn't purposely threaten children's lives like Quaritch and Neytiri do.

Spider, who just wanted to be one of the People.

Spider, who wouldn't have made those difficult choices had he been properly loved and raised.

Spider, who is as easy to blame as Lo'ak for endangering the people they love (but again, no one's counting, right?)

Spider, who is clearly not a villain, just misunderstood.

Spider, who wasn't raised by the village but didn't burn it down to feel its warmth because he's not petty, not vindictive, not evil, and not a killer.

Spider, who is. A. Child.

#i am sick of seeing the exact same comments on tiktok #sick and tired of always see “its spiders fault”#like what???#no one blames jake for betraying the na'vi but think what he did was better than what spider did #thats fucking crazy #ppl holding the labeled heroes up on a pedestal but forget that spider was literally the one who sunk that ship #ppl praising jake and neytiri for the same things they blame spider for #i hope no one is out there bullying jack champion for portraying a fictional character they simply dont like cause “its his fault”#and yes i understand neytiri went through a lot of trauma and pain #that doesnt excuse harming a child to harm his father #neytiri deserves love and support but so does spider #everyone who says otherwise is a hypocrite #neytiri didnt need to have to stoop to quaritch's level and hurt a child but she did #i hope at least kiri holds her accountable in the future because i would resent my mom for hurting someone i loved #spider avatar #atwow spider #spider soccoro #miles spider socorro #avatar 2 #avatar the way of water #atwow #avatar 2009 #avatar #james cameron avatar #james cameron #miles quaritch #neytiri te tskaha mo'at'ite #jake sully #neytiri sully #no one blames lo'ak for getting his siblings captured BOTH times but ppl will blame spider for letting his father live is crazy

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whereismyhat5678 · 5 months

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I was lying. I actually have more art to show, but it’s just Anton:

The picture I used for the top one:

#ANTONBALL DELUXE #ANTONBLAST #Idk how to explain it but Anton is so hyper but I always end up making him just sad for no reason #He’s the perfect candidate to reflect onto since he’s my main on ANTONBALL DELUXE and I understand his pain well enough #We went through a lot during that game so I understand him just like Cuphead-#Also haven’t drawn his dog much but I might just do it now. His dog is so cute I need to draw him more 💕💕#ANTON #ANTON’S Dog

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givemewallywestorgivemedeath · 1 year

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okay weird q incoming but what ways do you think speedsters can get sick? Like to my understanding, they can’t really come down with normal virus’ like the flu, right? But they could get things like chronic migraines?

NANOBOTS!!! This is one of the best pieces of canon lore ever. I did a whole post on it but TLDR: normal human metabolisms have so much shit going on that they don't even notice nanobots in their body BUT speedsters have hyper accelerated metabolisms that are the equivalent of the straight A's overachiever in school on meth. So speedster metabolisms do notice nanobots and they attack full force, triggering all of the body's defenses and responses.

But the nanobots are metal so it obviously doesn't do anything. It just leaves the speedster lethargic, feverish, vomiting, dizzy, with a headache, sore muscles and a runny nose, ect. It's basically an allergic reaction.

Now, poisoning them can work depending on what the poison is/what the dosage is. You would need a 100% fatal poison and you would need a fairly high dose. Because speedsters heal fast and they have a hyper accelerated metabolism, so any poison that is based on toxicity (alcohol poisoning for example) would be out of their system faster than it could even take effect.

But poisons that can't be cleared out/processed by the body (take cyanide for example, it binds with the chemical receptors in your body making it physically impossible to use oxygen) wouldn't really be affected by their metabolism at all. So while the speedsters could heal the damaged tissues from these poisons fairly quickly (making it seem as though they were only slightly affected) they would ultimately need time to do so, time they would not have if it kills them first. This isn't technically what you are asking because there would be no substance that 'makes them sick', there would only be 'fine', 'not fine for like a minute and then fine again' and 'dead'. (... unless they were hooked up to a steady supply of the toxin)

Likewise, (this is getting more into theoretical territory, less canon) there might be some illnesses that would affect them? Not for long but if you got something super fucking fatal like Rabies, it might make them display mild cold symptoms for a day or something.

I don't know though. They have really fucking good immune systems. And even super fatal diseases can be fought. Take my example of Rabies, while it is commonly thought to be 100% fatal once symptoms show up there actually have been cases of people surviving it. Rabies is a very stealthy and fast disease, so the main problem with treating it is that your body's immune system isn't fast enough to stop it. People have survived by being placed in medically induced comas (slowing their bodily functions and thus the disease) for long enough that the medication can eradicate it. So for a speedster? That's gone in a minute tops. You would need an insane disease that I'm not sure even exists.

There's also like... pregnancy and menstruation. Growing pains, muscle pain from running is a BIG ONE, being dehydrated/starvation, blood loss, ect. Lots of ways to fuck with a speedster in a way they can't immediately fix.

There are also speedster specific ailments. It's basically 50/50 if a natural born speedster gets a weird highly fatal aging disease. Sometimes speedsters can be born without a kinetic energy shield which makes using their powers at all incredibly fatal to them. All speedsters will have connectivity issues at some point that can be fatal. Sometimes Time Gets Bad™ (shout out to when Barry kept chronically stealing time from people/things every time he used his powers). Sometimes they have too much energy and can't maintain human form (shout out to when Wally didn't know what the speedforce was and was accidentally cosplaying Ghost Rider). Velocity 9 is a highly addictive drug that works on speedsters and makes them display typical addiction behavior (and withdrawal). V9 can also cause a speedster to 'overdose' (burst into flames/lightning/energy). They all have the constant urge to yeet themselves into the speedforce. Ect.

#here's the thing: they are made of speedforce but its not a skin deep thing. you feel me? like their CELLS are made of speedforce #so all shit still affects them #i keep saying that they don't need oxygen or food to survive and thats true but its only if they're actively compensating with speedforce #cause they can get energy from the speedforce or they can get energy from oxygen and food or both. they can't do neither #and they don't really *know* or understand that theyd be fine with JUST speedforce energy. they still think they need oxygen and food #so if they were suffocating or something they might instinctively crank up the speedforce to compensate but they're also very stupid #so they might just die. idk it really depends on who it is how much they know and how much SF they're drawing on #cause like... energy beings need energy yo #i hope this makes sense #the muscle pain one is interesting cause Wallys early runs are really big on the whole hitting the wall thing #he would hit a wall that he physically couldn't break through and it caused him a lot of pain.#some of that was not being hooked up properly cause Wally wasn't hooked up properly until he was an ADULT #because he is FUCKING INSANE and he just went 'huh i guess this is my limit and i will stay below it' liKE AN INSANE PERSON #anyway some of it was SF issues and some of it was mental but he actually got really really hurt anytime he got close to the wall #REALLY bad muscle pain. and like... it was potentially extremely fatal. 'breaking down your body into little bits' fatal #he doesn't get that anymore because hes properly hooked up now but jfc that man treated 'entering the death zone' like it was #the high score to beat at his local arcade. he took it as a fucking challenge. absolutely insane dude right there

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nie7027 · 5 months

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WAIT WHAT HOW DID WHISPERS FOUND OUT ABOUT WOLFGANG?? HE WAS THE ONE WHO HAD SHOWED THE LEAST TO HAVE SENSATE CONNECTIONS!!

will Riley and Nomi were obviously found out by the bpo and known to be connected (although I don't remember how whispers learnt about Nomi and Will being connected)

sun was probably the easiest to find out that was related to them since Nomi did a lot of hacking to help her which is something Sun couldn't have done on her own (and while the point of hacking is to leave not trace of you behind every person has its own style and no doubt the obp would be on the lockout for any hacking activity that smelled like something Nomi would do)

After that Capheus and Lito would be next in that order. Both showed out of the blue extraordinary capabilities that didn't make sense they knew and clearly marked them as sensates(just no way to know who they were connected to) just like the people visiting Capheus said. The only difference was that Capheus acts were widely known while Lito only had Dani and Joaquin as witness.

And finally Wolfgang mad Kala who showed it the less. In fact they didn't show it at all.

Kala with her perfect idyllic life never needed to make use of the others abilities (besides that one time will helped her defend herself at the temple).

And Wolfgang although did use the others abilities and pulled of amazing feats thanks to them all of those instances were stuff that would be credible he did on his own because they were in line with the type of person Wolfang is and what he's capable.

So yeah... HOW THE FUCK WAS HE FOUND OUT? While it made sense Lila would tell the obp about him she also said that the Cannibal was specifically looking for him!

So how???

Ugggh it really goes way too fastpaced in the last episodes and it doesn't make sense... the Wachowski sisters would never leave such a big pothole...

I know they had to skip a lot of explanations but...

Dammit netlix

#the way it is implied Whispers could see Kala through wolfgangs connection with her also annoyed me #it had already been established the connections didnt work like that between visitors #and that one annoys me because letting him know through Wolfgang saying the name would be easiest (and kinda did anywa)#wolfganf saying kalas name woulnt take from his characters it wouldnt make him weak actually it would help him #for him to give in to not grit his teeth and bear through it like he does every time #because this is not like pther times this is extreme pain hes endurimg and it is understandable #kala wont hate him for it nor would the others they would understamd amd forgive him #its not his fault #to know there are people out there who will still love him even when hes weak (and that weakness costs them high) is what wolfgang needs #i would also love to know all that went behind to pull of the plan to kidnap whispers and jonas but thats more because it would be so cool #not because its really needed to i can fill in the gaps on my own #sense8

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definitelynotshouting · 24 days

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Can I ask, since you mentioned agreeing 'even if under duress' - how did the Watchers convince Player Grian to join them in hunger au?

So take this with the specific grain of salt that ive never watched Evo directly (but have friends who have ((thank you wren)), so i know tidbits via osmosis from them), but my thought has always been that the riddles the Watchers gave the Evo Players were all tests used to measure cleverness and intelligence-- the whole point of them attempting to copy the mind of a Player into a Watcher larva in the first place was to try and avoid the insanely high infant mortality rate their typical juveniles go through, bc they dont understand their own limits enough to even know they have them yet. So they needed a Player they knew they could instruct and who would listen to them, and, well. Grian, for all he was rebellious and outright defiant of the Watchers, still solved their puzzles and only had to be punished once before he stopped trying to mess with them

What ive always pictured is after the dragon fight the two main elders of the Watcher colony finally revealed themselves to Grian properly-- i have this crystal clear image of the two of them hovering above and next to the central end island, looming over Grian, and like, these guys are big. HUGE. A good 5x bigger than the ender dragon itself, at LEAST. It would be hard not to feel insanely intimidated by that, honestly, especially when there are two of them side by side, blocking your entire view of the End from that direction.

Anyway picture that with the context of these two giant floating winged worms youve never seen before, who have demonstrated their powerful ability to manipulate code in a way you cant.... telling you that they have chosen you to become one of them. Thats an immense amount of pressure, both from flattery and fear, especially considering theyve punished you before for defying them. I like to think even then, Grian balked a bit, and while i dont have exact dialogue beats here, i know the Watchers continued putting that pressure on him (likely while leveraging his friendships too-- like ive always said, if Grian hadnt been chosen, BigB wouldve been, and i can absolutely see the Watchers offering to take him in Grian's stead) until he finally caved and accepted their "offer" of joining them.

Unfortunately, he didnt find out exactly what that entailed until it was far too late.

#shouting speaks #asks #hunger au #evo watchers #watcher!grian #grian #evo smp #tldr they pressured tf out of him to do it #through both flattery and also leveraging his own fear against him #he was a Player after all. they were likely bumping his mood post-dragon fight to make him more suggestible #the most painful thing abt this to me is that the Watchers still werent being deliberately malicious here like #with the way they viewed Players this was NORMAL to them #they just. didnt rlly consider them as much more than food/hosts for their young. in their eyes the Watcher that emerged was different #than the Player it had hatched from #even though it had Grian's mind memories personality and stats #every day i feel shrimp emotions abt this #the horror he went through..... and they never once thought of it as torture #they never once regarded Player!Grian as something that needed to know what was going to happen to him #bc it was normalized to them. yeah sure Watcher juveniles hatch from Player hosts thats NORMAL thats part of their life cycle!!!#the only new thing is this one would still retain the Player's mind #it was a fucked up science experiment basically and grian wasnt told ANYTHING before it actually happened to him #sobs and cries ohhh grian i fucked you up SO BAD huh #also huge shoutout to my friend wren for giving me a little context while i wrote this and confirming my ideas slotted in #rlly well with existing canon. character understander status continues to stay intact im winning #txt

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wat-zu · 14 days

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Absolutely love your art. I want to nom it.

Also, Hollow Heads Siblings my beloveds,,,

Theyre the doomed siblings ever its not even funny

#Oouugh i have thoughts abt the hollowhead siblings. How theyre so intricately tied to eachother since their birth but they'd be #Eachother'd downfall. Esp when it's Dark and his relationship with the others #Dark would never understand what chosen went through. Mainly bc i think chosen is used to fighting his internal battles on his own #While he was in captive as an ad blocker. He loves Dark. He's grateful for Dark bc without him he wouldn't be free #But Dark isnt exactly someone reliable enough for Chosen to get the necessary healing he wants and needs #But that won't stop Dark from trying to fix him. Creates the virus for revenge. As chosen watches his brother spiral and spiral #As he watches him drift further away. Unable to get him back without a shouting match. As he watches with his heart heavy and cracked at-#Their stiffed interactions and strained relationship. He can't remember a time where they shared geniune laughs.#Then tsc coming came and changed everything.#Because this is someone who went through Chosen's pain albeit a lil differently. Someone who knows. Someone who /understands/. And this-#Someone is so much more younger than them and had to go through that pain in such a short amount of time since their birth #He sees himself in them. And he's rather walk up to alan demanding to get his hands cuffed than let tsc fester in that pain.#So tsc became chosen's priority. Healed eachother in many ways than one and are at echother's beck and call if need be.#As for Dark. I think he'd manipulate tsc into using him for his revenge. After stalking out his code and finding out about his potential #And TSC cant help but fall for his manipulations. Since this person is very very important to Chosen and they want so badly to impress-#Them both. They agreed and overtime grew to love eachother. And overtime Dark shifted his goals just a tad bit. Getting TSC more and more-#Involved. Since hey if Chosen doesn't like touching alan with a 10 ft pole why not let this kid do. And TCS agrees to this thinking that-#This is it. This is can finally heal them completely. Finally out of sight and out of mind. Finally can't live without the pain lingering #And chosen watches them with a sense of deja vu. At loss at what to do and so so afraid to lose two of his lil siblings #Then shit hits the brick UBSJDBSJSN #They make me so ill im not even kidding when i said theyre so so very very doomed!!!!!!!!!#This is abt the au btw BAHHAHAHABHA

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dykedvonte · 18 days

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If Ulysses has a million haters, then I'm one of them. If Ulysses has one hater, then I'm THAT ONE. If Ulysses has no haters, that means I'm dead. If the world is with Ulysses than I’m against the world.

#this is slightly joking but like also not but also like am mixed on Ulysses on many factors #infuriating because i sympathize with his pain but it’s like #he is a well written and fundamentally flawed character whose hypocrisy I found doubly in #black characters I can tell were designed by white people with a semblance of an understanding of activism and bipoc oppression #but not enough for the character to not feel like hand holding for the majority white audience #plus personal grips with the whole twisted hairs thing and reference to slave braiding patterns #Ulysses irks me as a black person on a weird personal level and I can go into debt on why him being black is a big detractor for him to me #like he continues this cycle of distancing himself from his roots before remembering over and over again through his actions #he leave so much in his wake that the courier ends up correcting or helping like in honest hearts and old world blues because he’s self #righteous in a subtle way even to himself that he believes he stand out of his one man rule when he does not play an active hand #saw a post talk about how you choose to continue moving through his story and can leave at any moment and this it is partially your fault #but what of the oath that is set before you and is forced to take that he set up #I do not have to walk it but when I do the steps are not my own but those taken for me #you have to go out of your way to change it which is not something he expects because he’s playing by a story he’s been perpetuating in his #head about you two and the effect one man has when he’s continually been that one man more so than you as many of his actions directly lead #to the one you go through also the irony in the flag he continues to bear being the real reason he has no home #like he reps it when the package is likely enclave and thus use the same symbol #also still can’t get over how anyone could have delivered the package and he tries so hard to act like it was the couriers destiny or fate #when this was the one case of chance and that once man was likely a enclave engineer and how it’s really is never one man #it the process and he’s so annoying about it like he’s a cool character but if you don’t believe in his philosophy or already went through #these ideas cause they are very common talking points in poc especially BIPOC spaces he’s just old hashings and stunted #fallout #fallout new vegas #Ulysses you upset me but I’m like I feel you could be better if you weren’t so incessant #I don’t think I ever want to make a serious post stating this about him just because I’d start yapping and it’d never get finished #ulysses fnv #fnv ulysses #lonesome road

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thedrotter · 17 days

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sweet sweet re:kinder community... I would like to ask y'all how you came upon the game and your experiences with it because i wanna know. im genuinely so curious to hear about other people's experiences and little opinions about this game because of how wild the game is (/pos) I'd love to hear it. do ramble to me about it

#re:kinder #not art #so in my case i once saw someone talk about it in a video and some scenes with the very vague context really struck with me #i was like wow...that is so sad... i wonder what goes on #but the thing is i watch videos talking about games like that ALLL THE TIME while im multi-tasking so i FORGOT FOR A YEAR?!?!?#until one day i was sick in pain on my bed could not move. and then it came to me. yes. “RE:KINDER. I SHOULD PLAY IT.” LIKE OUT OF NOWHERE #i will never understand how i dying of pain remembered a game i saw once BY NAME AT LEAST A YEAR LATER when jve heard of so many games #and you wanna know why it stuck with me. i saw in the video an image of the “as if id be reborn as a princess” line #i did not know the context but it was devastating #AND WHEN I PLAYED THE GAME when that scene game i was shocked to silence😭😭 BECAUSE I BASICALLY WENT COMPLETELY BLIND??#I DID NOT KNOW THE LITTLE KID WOULD BE THE ANTAGONIST???? AND THAT HE WOULD HAVE SUCH A SAD STORY??#like. i saw the sad coming i knew it was bound to happen yet i could have never been prepared for how hard it would hit me #I HAD TONS OF FUN but at first when i finished it i was so confused and so lost i was like welll.....what a game... TOO STUNNED FOR WORDS #then i thoughr of it for 20 minutes and bawled my eyes out and realized it was art #so when i got to my second playthrough i CRIED LIKE CRAZYYY😭😭 I WAS BLOWN AWAY IT REALLY HITS YOU #personally it admittedly hit close to home and while it made me bawl my eyes out it was also very comforting i felt very understood #AND IT WAS CRAZY FUN TOO i was not bored once the first time i played through it i was sleepy but i was so excited to keep playing😭😭#its funnt becayse i was initially apprehensive about playing cuz im sensitive to stories where sad things happen to kids #but i played it regardless because i was like “but what if its one of those scary media that hit close to home and i enjoy”#AND I WAS RIGHT. BUT NOT ENTIRELY BECAUSE I DID NOT THINK IT WOULD HIT AS INTENSELY AS IT DID😭😭 IT WAS MYCH MORE THAN EXPEVTED #many ways in which it impacted me but if i started listing them i would not shut up . so for now it is enough #IN SUMMARY WOW.. WHAY A GOOD GAME!! PLAY RE:KINDER!!!#i rambled more than i intended to i do apologize

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giddlygoat · 1 year

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cyrus being a cyborg and also one of the leading technological geniuses of his time getting controlled by the overlord who used his unique powers for evil and zane being a robot who’s one of the greatest technological wonders of his time getting his memory wiped and being corrupted into using his powers for evil… anyone? anyone at all??

#i am normal about them #zane julien #cyrus borg #ninjago #zane #i keep thinking. zane has no one in his circle who could possibly understand the pain he went through #but then it hit me. cyrus has been in his shoes. even if zane objectively got it worse #he’s not alone. and i’m normal about that

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magentagalaxies · 6 days

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#this might be both oversharing and being too vague rn but it's 2am and i'm emotionally exhausted #i can't believe during one of the most traumatic moments i've had in the past year i was lucky enough to have scott as my biggest supporter #the entire time as i was going through it he was so supportive giving me space to process shit and always having my back #and yet there are some people in my life who are always going to villainize him for one comment he said during that time out of context #or even if they're not ''villainizing'' him i now feel like i have to begin every sentence about scott with #''yeah we don't agree on everything but we're still friends and isn't that amazing!''#which yeah that is true and i do genuinely enjoy when scott and i disagree and are respectful about it #BUT WHY DOES THAT HAVE TO BE THE FIRST THING I SAY ABOUT HIM????#and honestly that whole experience made me agree with scott on way more than i started out with #i'm proud of how i was able to grow as a person and for the fact that it brought me and scott much closer together #but that shit i went through at my college was still traumatic. and it did change me as a person #it completely changed my relationship to activism in a way i'm not happy about bc i want to be more of an activist #but when i had someone use social justice language to justify horrible things against me it's hard not to be wary #of how hollow and performative a lot of conversations can be #and like i'll even say it. like people might get mad at me for admitting it #but that whole traumatic situation has irrevocably changed my relationship to gender as well #or at least how i label myself and how i move through these conversations #and in some ways i'm grateful for it bc i do feel like i know myself more and like i don't have to worry about what others' think #or even what other people understand #but it shouldn't have had to go down like that. and as much as the time i got to spend with scott during that time was so much fun #and such a great experience and he was truly the perfect support system during that time #he shouldn't have had to deal with that and neither should i #and the fact that scott somehow got villainized in some people's minds while the person who actually caused that trauma #is instead treated like ''yeah he was a bit misguided and made a mistake but he was probably anxious about it!! he's just a person!!''#that's never going to stop being painful. especially the idea that with the importance people put on labels #i would supposedly have more ''community solidarity'' with that asshole than a cis gay man like scott #idk i think i'm past the timeframe of that traumatic experience bc it's not consuming every day like it used to a few weeks back #but something triggered it tonight so i just need to process it. anyway shoutout to scott for being there for me i really needed it

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withering-iris · 2 years

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obvs i wasnt surprised rick fucked other ricks he fucks everything but i think he was saying hed also fallen in love with himself like beth and thats what got me

#rick sanchez #ram spoilers #ram season 6 #i can imagine with all the pain he went through after losing his family #meeting someone (himself) who understands him knows everything about him…#that could go very much in a certain direction and not just sex

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good-beans · 2 years

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Nobody Touch me I'm emotional over Hamlet again

#i procrastined on my finals to read my new manga LOL but as ridiculous as it is it stayed really true to the story #and just... damn...#theres a reason its my favorite play #but its still so painful #the message isnt so much about madness as it is grief #hamlet and ophelia and laertes are all grieving over completely losing their families #and no one is being properly cared for/reacted to #no ones listening to one another #but its not like one of those stories where everyones yelling at each other but no one's listening #they are all actively crying out for help but no one understands or helps #its about depression and suicidal thoughts and feeling isolated through it all #its about emotions: hamlets emotions were drawn out as he planned revenge and it slowly killed him #laertes' emotions were fast and intense and killed him quickly when he went for revenge #its about family and trust and communication #theres nowhere things could have easily been fixed/gone right #it wasnt doomed because of fate or a single decision or single person #its literally everyone's actions and emotions coming together in several perfect ways that makes the tragedy unavoidable #aaaaaaahhhhhhh #rose rambles #hamlet

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duckyfann9871 · 2 months

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Man

BSD 2 ep 4.

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sleepdeprivedweeblol · 4 months

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If you see any random Si lore drop in my tags feel free to ignore it!

#I might go on another ramble #Usually you have to go through my tags a bit #they cut off a lot because I run out of space and it makes me laugh for some reason sometimes it'll be abt random childhood thing i find fu #Like about the time I fell down the stairs and glass smashed on my back and my little borther covered me w a blancket cuz he thought I died #y know how pain hurts but like dosen't hurt at the same time.#That was ehat ut felt like to 8 yr old me #I seriously didn't understand why my mom was calling an ambulance #I was literally fine #I told her in the ambulance #Which was REALLY noisy btw #the doctors told her too #They gave me butterfly stiches #Which made me sad bc I thought they would actually have butterflies on them #Then after an hour they sent me home #I was rly disappointed i hoped i would be able to get some food or get to stay in a night to see how it was like #But nope I went to schl the next day #I've still got the scars lmao #I've been drawing a bit today and my art style changes every time I draw #Sometimes it looks better sometimes it looks worse #si rambles

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months

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How I got scammed

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/05/cyber-dunning-kruger/#swiss-cheese-security

I wuz robbed.

More specifically, I was tricked by a phone-phisher pretending to be from my bank, and he convinced me to hand over my credit-card number, then did $8,000+ worth of fraud with it before I figured out what happened. And then he tried to do it again, a week later!

Here's what happened. Over the Christmas holiday, I traveled to New Orleans. The day we landed, I hit a Chase ATM in the French Quarter for some cash, but the machine declined the transaction. Later in the day, we passed a little credit-union's ATM and I used that one instead (I bank with a one-branch credit union and generally there's no fee to use another CU's ATM).

A couple days later, I got a call from my credit union. It was a weekend, during the holiday, and the guy who called was obviously working for my little CU's after-hours fraud contractor. I'd dealt with these folks before – they service a ton of little credit unions, and generally the call quality isn't great and the staff will often make mistakes like mispronouncing my credit union's name.

That's what happened here – the guy was on a terrible VOIP line and I had to ask him to readjust his mic before I could even understand him. He mispronounced my bank's name and then asked if I'd attempted to spend $1,000 at an Apple Store in NYC that day. No, I said, and groaned inwardly. What a pain in the ass. Obviously, I'd had my ATM card skimmed – either at the Chase ATM (maybe that was why the transaction failed), or at the other credit union's ATM (it had been a very cheap looking system).

I told the guy to block my card and we started going through the tedious business of running through recent transactions, verifying my identity, and so on. It dragged on and on. These were my last hours in New Orleans, and I'd left my family at home and gone out to see some of the pre-Mardi Gras krewe celebrations and get a muffalata, and I could tell that I was going to run out of time before I finished talking to this guy.

"Look," I said, "you've got all my details, you've frozen the card. I gotta go home and meet my family and head to the airport. I'll call you back on the after-hours number once I'm through security, all right?"

He was frustrated, but that was his problem. I hung up, got my sandwich, went to the airport, and we checked in. It was total chaos: an Alaska Air 737 Max had just lost its door-plug in mid-air and every Max in every airline's fleet had been grounded, so the check in was crammed with people trying to rebook. We got through to the gate and I sat down to call the CU's after-hours line. The person on the other end told me that she could only handle lost and stolen cards, not fraud, and given that I'd already frozen the card, I should just drop by the branch on Monday to get a new card.

We flew home, and later the next day, I logged into my account and made a list of all the fraudulent transactions and printed them out, and on Monday morning, I drove to the bank to deal with all the paperwork. The folks at the CU were even more pissed than I was. The fraud that run up to more than $8,000, and if Visa refused to take it out of the merchants where the card had been used, my little credit union would have to eat the loss.

I agreed and commiserated. I also pointed out that their outsource, after-hours fraud center bore some blame here: I'd canceled the card on Saturday but most of the fraud had taken place on Sunday. Something had gone wrong.

One cool thing about banking at a tiny credit-union is that you end up talking to people who have actual authority, responsibility and agency. It turned out the the woman who was processing my fraud paperwork was a VP, and she decided to look into it. A few minutes later she came back and told me that the fraud center had no record of having called me on Saturday.

"That was the fraudster," she said.

Oh, shit. I frantically rewound my conversation, trying to figure out if this could possibly be true. I hadn't given him anything apart from some very anodyne info, like what city I live in (which is in my Wikipedia entry), my date of birth (ditto), and the last four digits of my card.

Wait a sec.

He hadn't asked for the last four digits. He'd asked for the last seven digits. At the time, I'd found that very frustrating, but now – "The first nine digits are the same for every card you issue, right?" I asked the VP.

I'd given him my entire card number.

Goddammit.

The thing is, I know a lot about fraud. I'm writing an entire series of novels about this kind of scam:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

And most summers, I go to Defcon, and I always go to the "social engineering" competitions where an audience listens as a hacker in a soundproof booth cold-calls merchants (with the owner's permission) and tries to con whoever answers the phone into giving up important information.

But I'd been conned.

Now look, I knew I could be conned. I'd been conned before, 13 years ago, by a Twitter worm that successfully phished out of my password via DM:

https://locusmag.com/2010/05/cory-doctorow-persistence-pays-parasites/

That scam had required a miracle of timing. It started the day before, when I'd reset my phone to factory defaults and reinstalled all my apps. That same day, I'd published two big online features that a lot of people were talking about. The next morning, we were late getting out of the house, so by the time my wife and I dropped the kid at daycare and went to the coffee shop, it had a long line. Rather than wait in line with me, my wife sat down to read a newspaper, and so I pulled out my phone and found a Twitter DM from a friend asking "is this you?" with a URL.

Assuming this was something to do with those articles I'd published the day before, I clicked the link and got prompted for my Twitter login again. This had been happening all day because I'd done that mobile reinstall the day before and all my stored passwords had been wiped. I entered it but the page timed out. By that time, the coffees were ready. We sat and chatted for a bit, then went our own ways.

I was on my way to the office when I checked my phone again. I had a whole string of DMs from other friends. Each one read "is this you?" and had a URL.

Oh, shit, I'd been phished.

If I hadn't reinstalled my mobile OS the day before. If I hadn't published a pair of big articles the day before. If we hadn't been late getting out the door. If we had been a little more late getting out the door (so that I'd have seen the multiple DMs, which would have tipped me off).

There's a name for this in security circles: "Swiss-cheese security." Imagine multiple slices of Swiss cheese all stacked up, the holes in one slice blocked by the slice below it. All the slices move around and every now and again, a hole opens up that goes all the way through the stack. Zap!

The fraudster who tricked me out of my credit card number had Swiss cheese security on his side. Yes, he spoofed my bank's caller ID, but that wouldn't have been enough to fool me if I hadn't been on vacation, having just used a pair of dodgy ATMs, in a hurry and distracted. If the 737 Max disaster hadn't happened that day and I'd had more time at the gate, I'd have called my bank back. If my bank didn't use a slightly crappy outsource/out-of-hours fraud center that I'd already had sub-par experiences with. If, if, if.

The next Friday night, at 5:30PM, the fraudster called me back, pretending to be the bank's after-hours center. He told me my card had been compromised again. But: I hadn't removed my card from my wallet since I'd had it replaced. Also, it was half an hour after the bank closed for the long weekend, a very fraud-friendly time. And when I told him I'd call him back and asked for the after-hours fraud number, he got very threatening and warned me that because I'd now been notified about the fraud that any losses the bank suffered after I hung up the phone without completing the fraud protocol would be billed to me. I hung up on him. He called me back immediately. I hung up on him again and put my phone into do-not-disturb.

The following Tuesday, I called my bank and spoke to their head of risk-management. I went through everything I'd figured out about the fraudsters, and she told me that credit unions across America were being hit by this scam, by fraudsters who somehow knew CU customers' phone numbers and names, and which CU they banked at. This was key: my phone number is a reasonably well-kept secret. You can get it by spending money with Equifax or another nonconsensual doxing giant, but you can't just google it or get it at any of the free services. The fact that the fraudsters knew where I banked, knew my name, and had my phone number had really caused me to let down my guard.

The risk management person and I talked about how the credit union could mitigate this attack: for example, by better-training the after-hours card-loss staff to be on the alert for calls from people who had been contacted about supposed card fraud. We also went through the confusing phone-menu that had funneled me to the wrong department when I called in, and worked through alternate wording for the menu system that would be clearer (this is the best part about banking with a small CU – you can talk directly to the responsible person and have a productive discussion!). I even convinced her to buy a ticket to next summer's Defcon to attend the social engineering competitions.

There's a leak somewhere in the CU systems' supply chain. Maybe it's Zelle, or the small number of corresponding banks that CUs rely on for SWIFT transaction forwarding. Maybe it's even those after-hours fraud/card-loss centers. But all across the USA, CU customers are getting calls with spoofed caller IDs from fraudsters who know their registered phone numbers and where they bank.

I've been mulling this over for most of a month now, and one thing has really been eating at me: the way that AI is going to make this kind of problem much worse.

Not because AI is going to commit fraud, though.

One of the truest things I know about AI is: "we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

I trusted this fraudster specifically because I knew that the outsource, out-of-hours contractors my bank uses have crummy headsets, don't know how to pronounce my bank's name, and have long-ass, tedious, and pointless standardized questionnaires they run through when taking fraud reports. All of this created cover for the fraudster, whose plausibility was enhanced by the rough edges in his pitch - they didn't raise red flags.

As this kind of fraud reporting and fraud contacting is increasingly outsourced to AI, bank customers will be conditioned to dealing with semi-automated systems that make stupid mistakes, force you to repeat yourself, ask you questions they should already know the answers to, and so on. In other words, AI will groom bank customers to be phishing victims.

This is a mistake the finance sector keeps making. 15 years ago, Ben Laurie excoriated the UK banks for their "Verified By Visa" system, which validated credit card transactions by taking users to a third party site and requiring them to re-enter parts of their password there:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090331094020/http://www.links.org/?p=591

This is exactly how a phishing attack works. As Laurie pointed out, this was the banks training their customers to be phished.

I came close to getting phished again today, as it happens. I got back from Berlin on Friday and my suitcase was damaged in transit. I've been dealing with the airline, which means I've really been dealing with their third-party, outsource luggage-damage service. They have a terrible website, their emails are incoherent, and they officiously demand the same information over and over again.

This morning, I got a scam email asking me for more information to complete my damaged luggage claim. It was a terrible email, from a noreply@ email address, and it was vague, officious, and dishearteningly bureaucratic. For just a moment, my finger hovered over the phishing link, and then I looked a little closer.

On any other day, it wouldn't have had a chance. Today – right after I had my luggage wrecked, while I'm still jetlagged, and after days of dealing with my airline's terrible outsource partner – it almost worked.

So much fraud is a Swiss-cheese attack, and while companies can't close all the holes, they can stop creating new ones.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to post about it whenever I get scammed. I find the inner workings of scams to be fascinating, and it's also important to remind people that everyone is vulnerable sometimes, and scammers are willing to try endless variations until an attack lands at just the right place, at just the right time, in just the right way. If you think you can't get scammed, that makes you especially vulnerable:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #social engineering #phishing #ai #swiss cheese security #infosec #finance #fraud #carding

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