The Binding of Unswag

Alright, so...I can explain. You see, once upon a time, there was an askblog... Anyway, I found an old harddrive from like 2013, and wouldn’t you know, a bunch of old, half-finished art and writing were on it! Well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how hard the nostalgia train can hit, Soooo, I finished one. This is expanding on an event that happened on the blog. Some of you may remember. Most of you will have no idea what the hell is even going on, I wrote this for like, seven people. I don’t even know if they’re all still here. This is a tale of our dear Helix, the Swaggiest of all Riddlers, and the one Riddler who was completely dripless. Content warning: LANGUAGE. Our boy has a mouth on him. For @cardwrecks especially, but the rest of you know who you are.

All of his fucks having been used up for the day, and the fucks bank still closed, Swag simply threw on a horrendously tacky bathrobe and settled down to eat some breakfast. As wild nights went, this had not been the style he preferred. Quality time with Puzzles was always appreciated, of course, but the sheer headache left over from consistent inebriation was getting to be a problem again. He'd have to try to do something about that...one more time. Getting sober was a challenge that never actually ended. He had put away two bottles that had been left out-chocolate liqueur and pomegranate vodka, which tugged at something in the back of his mind, blocked off by the hangover fog-and tucked into his pancakes. What to do, what to do? Swag had his greatest enemy tied up and stuffed into the kitchen wastebasket, awaiting trial by Riddler, but really...what was he actually going to do with the guy? His smoldering hatred notwithstanding, Swag didn't think he could just flat out kill the man, if only for the deeply uncomfortable symbolism that would create. If only Unswag felt the same, but not avoiding certain doom wasn't his greatest talent. No one could hate like him, except perhaps for...him. The fog cleared slowly, beaten back by bites of pancake. Puzzles had gotten a photo of Unswag, fuming and defeated on the kitchen floor, bound with fairy lights, in a festive hat. Swag grinned at the memory of the other's humiliation. Happy holidays to him. He was going to have that photo framed. Possibly blown up to poster size. He turned his head-too fast!-at the sound of shuffling and a kitten yawn. A woman, chocolate brown hair, pomegranate colored skirt. Helix. Swag remembered. They'd built a bridge of sorts last night. Opened up. Of course, a little too much alcohol had been involved, but Helix seemed to be handling it well. She barely looked bleary at all. Unfair. Helix yawned again, regarding him with sleepy eyes. “Nice bathrobe. Looks comfy. Hmm. Those pancakes? Thought I was gonna cook. Distinctly remember saying that.” Welp. This was a little awkward. To be so preoccupied with a manifestation of his own self hatred that for a moment he'd forgotten his guest. She'd been here the entire time. Innocently sleeping while he and Puzzles wrestled with his inner demon. God, Unswag had been trying to get upstairs! What if he'd gotten past them? What if he'd made it up there, where she had been resting? He'd been part of Swag right up until the moment he wasn't, he'd probably known she was there! “Did I miss something?” she asked. Swag pushed the plate of pancakes in her direction, and she took a seat next to him. “Here. You're welcome to 'em. Eat up, I've got some explaining to do. Unless you'd like a shower first?” She shook her head, curls messy, like she'd just raked her fingers through them instead of brushing. “Nah, I'll catch a shower at home. I have a specific routine, and I don't think you've got the supplies I need. So, Puzzles was here? Was that what all the racket was?” She'd heard all that? Damn. “Yeahhhhh,well some stuff happened. Unswag showed up, again, so Puzzles and I teamed up to take him down. On a related note, don't go into the bar kitchen. I've got some extra trash in there right now if you know what I mean.” Her gray eyes had narrowed down. “Whooo is 'Unswag'?” she asked.

Ugh, the name sounded utterly ridiculous in her mouth. This was not a woman whose tongue had been built to say a word like 'Unswag'. What loving god could have allowed this travesty to occur? “Just some fuckin' nerd.” Swag griped. Helix's eyebrows went up at his acid tone. “That doesn't exactly narrow it down.” “Oh man, so you really don't know about it?” His hand found its way into his hair. “Heh, probably for the best, but...he's, uh...well. It's just a dumb nickname for the part of me that's a huge douchebaggy asshole who's not nearly as fabulous as me. And the part of me that was the Riddler. So...that's who. He's...kind of awful.” Swag mumbled that last part, quietly slurring the words together, trying not to let the self loathing slip in front of her. “He's was a part of you? Did he split out of you like an evil twin or something? Like Prince did from Puzzles?” Swag didn't even bother to hide his surprised stare. She was taking this rather easily! And how had she even known about Prince and Puzzles? “How did you...?” “Do you remember anything we talked about last night?” she asked. His sheepish smile held a hint of a wince. “I remember that we talked...” Helix sighed. “I'm a witch. Do you remember? Things like this...Well, I'm not going to say that things like this aren't weird, just that I don't find them completely unbelievable.” “Oh.” Magic. Oh joy. Didn't the universe just love throwing that shit in his lap. Not that Helix was in his lap or anything. Not that he was suddenly thinking about it or anything. But Helix didn't seem dangerous, and she had been harassed by the same anonymous, malice-making, gray-faced pranksters as he had. “I guess it is like Puzzles and Prince. This time, at least. First time he showed up, he was in my body. Or. Our body? Replacing me. Or...being me. Or me being him? Us being who we used to be. If I'd never got past it. We were me, if I'd never stopped. That's who he is. But after that, he had his own body. Which is exactly like mine, except not as good, obviously.” “Obviously.” “Anyway, it's really confusing. But yeah. It's not a perfect one to one, but like Puzzles and Prince, essentially. I wanna call him the 'evil' twin, but that would necessitate me being the 'good' twin and...I'm not.” Helix placed her hand over his. “Don't gotta be.” she said, finishing off the pancakes. “Just gotta be better, right?” Swag glanced down at her hand, small in comparison, and a little rough, nails painted a lovely teal-and melted a bit under the warmth of the gesture. “I was...just warning you. That he's down there, in case you hear screaming or something. He's fine, just tied up in the garbage can.” “What are you gonna do with him? Can't keep him in the garbage forever. That's super gross.” “Shhh, I totally can. I own the place after all, I can do what I want. And what I want is to keep an evil nerd in the garbage. Where he belongs. Forever.” He paused, and blew out a long, quiet breath. “I don't actually know what I'm gonna do with him. And I'm too hungover to think right now.” Helix hopped down from her chair, and patted his back. “What's your favorite cure?” “Scrambled eggs.” he muttered. “But you didn't hear it from me.” “I'll keep your secret safe. And I'll make you some eggs. But, uh, If I can't go in the kitchen, how will I do that?” “Oh, there's another kitchen up here, I just didn't want you goin' in there and maybe getting hurt.” Swag stood, offering an arm, which she took. “Lead the way. So is he really dangerous?” “He's a hateful little ball of anger, and he wouldn't hesitate to hurt someone out of spite. He's dumb. But tricksy at the same time, so yeah. Hella dangerous. I need to talk to Puzzles about how we want to resolve this situation, since he's kinda the unofficial Riddler Rehabilitation Program right now-do not tell him I said that-so until then, we have to be careful not to leave Unswag to his own devices. Which...I have done...by leaving him alone...Unsupervised...” His palm met his forehead with the force of a thousand fucks. “Stay here! I'm gonna go check the cameras.” He dashed off, natural speed and knowing exactly how far he could slide in his slippers on this floor taking him to the control room in seconds. The bar kitchen camera showed Unswag, still wrapped in lights like a festive caterpillar, laying on the floor, staring blankly into nothing. He'd managed to knock over the trashcan and wriggle out, but hadn't gotten far. Swag assumed that dragging his face across a kitchen floor had simply proven too much for the mysophobic dickhead. The upstairs bar camera showed Helix, hiding behind the bar, holding the neck of a Chianti bottle like a baseball bat. Swag smiled at that. Decent instincts, that girl.

He returned shortly, clearing his throat to let her know he was there. “Okay, we're good. He's, uh, just sitting there. Doing nothing. Got out of the can though.” Helix replaced the bottle. “Can he get free?” She asked. “I assume Riddlers are good with knots, but I also assume that goes both ways.” “Maybe? Not immediately, I don't think, but maybe eventually. I just gotta make sure it holds until Puzzles can make time. Like, this feels like an emergency, but Puzzlebox has a lot on his plate right now, and he's ultimately my responsibility anyway.” Helix contemplated the bottles on the wall. “Would you accept my help?” she asked. “Uh, sure? Don't see what you're gonna be able to do about it though.” “Got a few tricks up my sleeve.” She was holding a piece of chalk. Where it had come from, he hadn't seen, but it was light blue, and had spirals and flower patterns pressed into it like a cylinder seal. “I can lock him in a circle. Temporarily at least. It'll buy you some time without having to worry, since these bindings can't be untied.” “Not following you...” he said slowly. “Circles and spirals are important in many kinds of magic. They guide. They create boundaries.” Helix explained. “I specialize in spacial and dimensional control. So, if I draw a circle around him, he won't be able to leave that area, and you won't have to worry about him untying himself and running off. He won't be able to cross the barrier. Then, you and Puzzles and whoever have plenty of time to figure out what to do with him.” “Huh, really? That's neat. Okay, yeah! Thanks! Let me go get dressed, and we'll take care of this.” Maybe it was like the salt circles in Hocus Pocus. Keep a witch out. That would be rude though, he didn't mind this witch being here. As long as she behaved. Or at least, didn't go around causing trouble like the gray ones did. He fastened his belt, idly wondering if Helix could wear silver jewelry or not, or if that was just a werewolf thing. When he was dressed down to the gloves and had his hair in order, he returned to her. She had also taken the time to freshen up, arranging those chocolate curls and applying her lipstick. “All good?” he asked. She nodded. “Take me to him. And then I'll see to those eggs.” “Sounds like a plan!” Again he offered her his arm, and again she took it. Acting the gentleman covered up the fear of having to face his worst enemy again. Unswag writhed in anger when the lights went on, only managing to flop like a landed fish. Swag noticed that his feet were getting loose of the fairy lights they'd used to bind him. He paused when he noticed Helix. “What's this? Brought one of your whores to gawk at me?” “Haha, hey, shut the fuck up loser.” “Would it be better or worse if I was?” Helix asked. Unswag paused for just a moment. “So it knows how to speak. You've got this one trained well.” “Listen you weasely motherfucker-” “Why's he got washrags down his shirt?” Swag shrugged. “Cause he hates them. Cause hes an asshole and he deserves it.” Helix patted his arm in a comforting gesture he couldn't put a reason to. Then she let go of him and approached Unswag, kneeling down beside him as he tried to worm away. “The hell are you doing?” he demanded. “Get away from me you filthy hussy! Don't..Don't you fucking touch me!” Helix calmly removed the washcloths and tossed them in the sink, while Unswag spat insults and threats like a rabid ferret. “Welp.” she said, stepping away. “I'm gonna need a strand of hair.” “If you come near me again, I swear I'll tear your hands off!” Unswag screeched. “Gosh, it's almost like you can't make good on any of these threats.” Swag snarked. “She just did you a favor, you ungrateful little twit. I wouldn't have.” “I am not thanking some thick-witted cow-” “Luckily,” Helix interrupted. “I have a secondary source.” She glanced up at Swag. Of course. Right down to the DNA. Swag tugged at the longer portion of his hair until one came loose. He handed it off to Helix with a cruel smirk in Unswag's direction. She wound it around her fancy blue chalk, which she presented to Unswag as if he would have any clue what it was for. “If you're planning on putting that somewhere, you little freak, you've got the wrong guy.” he snapped “Only because you're such a tightass, you couldn't even handle that.” Swag snapped back. “I'm not the sex-crazed manslut in this room now am I? You've made yourself worthless for anything else, you used up rag of a-” Helix tapped her chalk sharply to the tiles and began to draw. The sound of it radiated wrongness, the scratch and squeak melding in an echoing ebb and flow like a Tibetan singing bowl that was more felt than heard. It grabbed both mens attention, held it tight. Color and soft light flowed into an interlocking pair of spirographic patterns Swag was somehow able to identify as the apparent retrograde movements of Saturn and Uranus from the perspective of Earth, and couldn't for the life of him pick out how he knew that. Outside of this, Helix began a new circle, interspersed with runes and sigils, finished with a triskelion, centered by a triangle knot. “Do you know what this is?” she asked. “Yes, bimbette, I too, know basic geometry.” Unswag drawled. “You don't know.” Helix said. “It's okay. You will.�� She raised her hands, sung a few pure tones into the air, and the circles erupted into light. Swag was blinded for a few moments, though he could hear Unswag yelling in surprise. Once he blinked the stars from his eyes, he saw Unswag, standing in the center of the now softly glowing circles, the fairy lights in a messy coil at his feet. A manic, evil expression crawled over his face. “You dumb bitch.” he sneered. “You just made a big-oof!” As he leapt forward, he slammed into nothing, and bounced back, like hitting a glass door. “What...what the fuck?” Unswag pressed his palms against the invisible barrier, slamming them against the impermeable nothingness. “What is-what did you do? How did you do this?” Helix said nothing, eyes locked on his as it broke into him exactly what position he was now in. “You... how-you-you're one of them! Aren't you? The gray things!” He snarled at Swag, who was simply pointing and laughing. “You stupid, gullible waste of air!” he screamed. “You hate these things too, but you're so led by your own dick that the instant one comes to you wearing a pretty face, you crumble! You're even more worthless than I ever took you for, and I didn't think that was even possible!” “Aww, you think I'm pretty?” Helix asked, and Unswag recoiled from her. “You're not bad yourself, you know. Nice cheekbones, cute nose. Such intense eyes. Sensuous mouth, if a little foul.” Swag found himself stuck between laughing more at Unswags obvious horror, and also maybe being a bit flattered. After all, they were also his nice cheekbones and cute nose. “Cunt!” Unswag shrieked, throwing himself at the barrier again. “I'm going to kill you! I'm going to tear open your ribs, rip out whatever organ allows you to do this, and crush it in front of you! And I'll make him watch! I'll cut your face off and shove it down his throat! I will obliterate you for this!” “Okay, that's enough.” Swag said. “She's right, that mouth is downright filthy.” “When I get out of this-and I will. Get. Out. Of this. She's first on the list. On live TV. Even dental won't be able to identify what's left!” “Yeah sure, whatever dude. Just keep wasting oxygen. We've got places to be. Right babe?” Swag glanced down at Helix, whose face was carefully calm, but whose hand tight on his arm betrayed her discomfort. He understood. This little douche rat was kinda hard to take. Even small doses made him sick, and he was him...sorta. “Now you stay in your corner and think about what you've done. Let's go.” He led Helix away as Unswag broke into incoherent rage screaming behind them. Swag found the eggs especially delicious. Whether that was from Helix's cooking, or just the smug taste of victory, Swag did not care. He was going to enjoy every bit of sweet safety this brought him. Helix had left after the victory eggs were had, with the promise to come back and reinforce the magic circle in a few days. He thanked her dearly for her help, and invited her to come back literally any old time, so they could have a proper, uninterrupted by maniacs, breakfast. And if she wanted to spend the night beforehand, he wasn't opposed. Swag got his presents wrapped, a whole load of anxiety gone from his slim shoulders. Once finished, he gave Puzzles a quick call. “Heyyy, Puzzlebox! I've got some good news! And also some interesting info, if you were thinking about continuing to talk to Helix...”

Fanfic Writer Emoji Ask: ALL the answers!

Got sent this ages ago, just found it again today and ah. Decided that I'm feeling especially unhinged and I will answer all of them, whether you like it or not (and whether it is asked or not). Sticking it under a read more so that I don't clog up dashes :)

😅 What’s a story or scene you’ve created that you’re a smidge embarrassed exists?

Somewhere on one of my old harddrives. There exists a snippet of the start of a smut scene between two of my characters from my sim city I turned into a story. It is only about. 300 words. but it makes me blush very much these days

There also exists, in an old notebook, a draft of Crystal Springs in which PYROS was Jack/Jacqueline's real Dad and no, I will not elaborate

🥺 Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?

Any sibling bonding. Makes me soft.

Same with the fucking uh, GIRLFRIENDS (Dite and Jacqueline). ANY time they are romantic I die.

And I wrote those bits

I am dying mySELF! Fuck!

🤡 What’s a line, scene, or exchange you’ve written that made you laugh?

So fucking many, but my all time favourite that nobody caught is the following:

"There's another thing," Curtis said. "The clause involves a sort of de-Santafication process. As we get closer to the date, Santa becomes less Santa and more, well, himself. Before the Santa thing happened. What do we do if Santa notices and finds out about the clause?"

"We send him to Utah," Bernard said. Curtis made an odd noise.

The joke here being that for WHATEVER reason in the Santa Clause 2, the marriage is valid anywhere EXCEPT for in the state of Utah. Why? Idk. But I thought this line was so funny and nobody seems to have picked up on it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

any Elle mentions in Frostmas are written with the intent to cause physical damage, especially to Ana (sorry not sorry boo ;)

When Jacqueline breaks out of Pyros's control and tells Jack to kick his ass, and promptly goes into magic coma >:)

✍ Do you have a beta reader?

No, I do not. I read everything three times before I post; and then a couple days after I post to catch typos I may have skimmed over

Do I want a beta? Not particularly! I already update in long increments of time as is, could you imagine if I had to wait for fics to be beta'd as well? YIKES

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

Evil Uncles (idk why. My two uncles are not evil; one is weird in a bad way and the other is a jerk butt. But not evil.)

Families that communicate their issues; fuck miscommunication as a plotline, all my homies hate miscommunication as a plotline

Pathetic fallacy. I'm always a slut for pathetic fallacy >:)

Hurt/Comfort, Humour, healthy doses of angst

The most chaotic scenes you could ever imagine (perks to writing about magical beings!)

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

FROSTMAS!

This fucking FIC I SWEAR

She has given me migranes. She is a game I play, in which I have to give the heroes a chance but also let them fail bc the real villain of Frostmas is ME

And like. We KNOW Frostmas happens for 12 years, ok, so like. BMan and Jacquie Beans cannot win! Not until Year 12 and even then, THEY DON'T DO THE WINNING

I have to stay three steps ahead of them at all times and it is EXHAUSTING, villains do NOT get paid enough/sppreciated enough, geezus

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

the dialogue is AMAZING

the humour fits in WELL

and man am I good at portraying siblings or WHAT

and why do tsc ocs i write fit so well into the universe, wtf is up with that

💋 First kiss fics. Love em or hate em?

They're nice :)

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

I do indeed!

Panic at the Disoc was on loop for Fusion AU as a fun fact

Usually it's instrumentals tho

LATELY Weezer's been on loop, with their SZNZ collection!

Frostmas has it's own playlist, and usually it's angry loud stuff :)

🛠What tools/programs/apps do you use to write?

Word/OneNote. Nothing fancy. I have it for free from work so, y'know, it gets used :)

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

SEVERAL SMILE SHOTS

They weren't so much as SCRAPPED as they were LOST TO THE VOID when my hard drive got dunked on by a stone floor in 2016

There were two I can recall off the top of my head:

1. When the Twins Met Jack: this one had a solid like. 1k to it. It was a smile shot about the day the Twins realized hey, there's this dude in old photos who looks very similar to us? Whomst tf is he? And rush to ask Jacqueline about it

2. A Trip to Gstaad: Jack takes Jacqueline to Gstaad for skiing/snowboarding. Nasty storm hits and they get stuck at the top with a handful of mortals. shenanigans ensue, mainly "do we magically poof off? stay with these guys? or magically help these guys? decisions, decisions. all of them mediocre. I think the Twins popped over at one point to help keep the humans warm. It was a wild ride

One that I completed then SCRAPPED was Jacqueline and Elle seeing Frozen. They go a lil crazy with the references, and it was funny to indulge in ages ago but when I went back and read it I was like wow! that's cringe, Dani! So it's being reworked to be less cringe. Instead of going full fandom, Elline decides to approach frozen with SCIENCE which, of course, gets everyone very interested.

It's very, CAN WE MAKE CLOTHES WITH JUST SNOW, AND NO BASE? HOW MUCH EFFORT IS A GIANT ICE PALACE? That sort of thing, lol

🙋‍♀️ Do any irl people know you write fanfic?

A handful, yes! My fiance, my best friend, my Mom, and my sister, too. I've opened up to a few other friends about writing fanfic but got poked fun at and it made me less inclined to share with IRL folks, so I don't do that as much 🙃. It took me a LOT to open up to my newer friends and they're so sweetly supportive lmao, I love it

🍦 What’s the sweetest fic you’ve created so far?

Probably the snippet where Dite Comes Out as Ace, or Diteline First Kiss, or an amalgamation of snippets from Crystal Springs's B Arc, which is Jack being home and making amends. OH there's also a Blinter fic that follows their meeting and courtship and shit. It's cute. And unfinished. And has been so for like. 5 years?

🍷 Do you drink and write?

Not frequently, no! Maybe done it once or twice.

🍆 Do you write the spicy stuffs? If so, what’s your most popular nsfw fic?

Ha, no.

🌞 Do you have a preferred time of day to write?

Yeah, during work hours. VERY inconvenient. Either then or well past midnight. Also inconvenient 🙃🙃

💖 What made you start writing?

This is a good question! I don't have an answer! I've made stories in my head as long as I can remember. My very first story was about a hippy who lost his magic button and had to find it. The hippy looked very much like Shaggy Scooby-Doo, lmao.

Once my cousin showed me ff.net, all hell broke loose. I made so many lil OCs for me to experience fun stories in various universes! I was too afraid to post and started with original content (not fantasy, think like. Debbie Macomber Cedar Valley or w/e it was called books) and that was a GOOD experience, but for WHATEVER REASON, it was the freaking Santa clause movies that really had me writing nonstop and posting. I've yet to know why, but I know that these blorbos are now mine and I love them very dearly lol

💌 How do you feel about comments and feedback?

Love love LOVE them! All comments! I love paragraph long comments talking about fave parts or waxing poetic about different little allusions or similarities or symbols and shit I sneak in >:)

I've received ConCrit before and it was okay, but a lot of their criticism was because of like. Names for characters and such and why they were similar to place names and such, and things like. Like for example, someone being like "Why is Blaise still leading Crystal Springs? He abolished the monarchy? but is still leader?" And sometimes it's like, thanks for the crit, but like. Suspend ur disbelief/google Mayor Hazel McCallion lol. If I ever receive proper ConCrit I'll see how I feel about it then! I know it's supposed to be constructive, but the only ones I have seen forget the constructive bit and are just criticisms. Wild.

❌ What’s a trope you will never write?

ANYTHING to do with miscommunication. FUCK miscommunication, all my hommies hate miscommunication 😠😠

💲 Would you ever open commissions?

Ugh, that's a toughie. On the one hand, maybe! I'm decent enough a writer for decent fics and such. but on the other hand, I feel as though writing commissions are hard and I worry too much about getting other characters in character, you know? so probably no

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

Not really, but when I do it's always something weird like, filing systems in the 1700s or weather patterns in Australia in the 2000s. that sorta shit.

🏆 What’s your most popular fic?

So if we base it on reviews, Crystal Springs definitely. But if we base it on QUALITY of reviews and readers, it's Frostmas. Frostmas has a lot of readers who don't read CS, so it's a bit more popular! I've also done some Danny Phantom one shots and those get a good amount of notes on tumblr :)

🎃 Do you write fics for certain holidays? Which is your favorite holiday inspired fic?

The only fic I write is for holidays, baybee. And it's Frostmas I think lol.

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?

YES! One of them guessed like, in Year 6 that Jacqueline was gonna do the big freeze! That was excellent! Here's the moment in question:

ON THE MONEY!

🎨 How do you feel about fan art of your stories?

I've only started getting fanart this year (that is, in big quantities) and I fucking LOVE it. It's been such an ego boost and helped em make new friends and feel really loved and appreciated! 💕💕💕

📈 How many fics do you have?

like 7 or 8 published on ff.net. But one is a collection of onehsots. So like, maybe more??? Also ItS exists but isn't posted and isn't written past Chapter 1 lol, though it is planned through to chapter 7 or 8 rn I believe. So maybe 9????

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

Bit of both! I list scenes I wanna include, or the general idea I want to explore, and go from there! Lots of point form notes that are almost writing. For example:

I am a srs writer, i swear (she claims after reading Blaise say "wtf is up son")

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

Okay, so! We have the sequel to the Santa Dump, AND the proper sequel to the Clifton Manor incident: the highly anticipated Clifton SOCIETY Incident. you can look forward to lots of funky things, including:

Charlie/Jacqueline friendship and being badass mother fuckers!

GOD TIER Jack sass

Santa being sweet to kids

Jack and Jacqueline kicking ass and taking names

The sane Cliftons thinking Jack and Santa are married, courtesy of Jacqueline and Charlie flubbing their cover story lmao

BUT I ALSO HAVE A REWRITE OF THE CALL COMING UP! Along with the part 2 to the original. But with updated lore and ideas and some fun Mother Nature moments and BABY SEASON SISTERS? HELLO?

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

Write for yourself, first and foremost

Mary Sues are FUN. Go crazy!

Double and triple check for grammar/typos :) They sneak by sometimes, and I know it's TEDIOUS but you'll thank yourself in the long run (war flashbacks to snow BOARDER)

PARAGRAPH BREAKS ARE YOUR FRIEND! NEW PARAGRAPH EVERY TIME SOMEONE NEW SPEAKS!

Said is NOT dead. Said is invisible, that's the real secret :)

💞 Who’s your comfort character?

I don't have an answer for this one, lmao. I don't quite have comfort characters like most people seem to have them? I have comfort movies! Comfort VIBES! but no characters :) All of my babies give me comfort tbh!

🧠 Pick a character, and I’ll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

This one's more of an ask box shenanigan so instead I'm just gonna casually put the Crystal Springs FACTS tag right here 👀👀

🤩 Who is your favorite character to write?

Blaise and the Twins! Though I am LIVING for the vibes Jack and Winter are giving in Chapter 18 >:). See:

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

Another one? Well alright, if you insist 😏😏. Have some fucking uh,,,, Clifton Society Incident?? 😏😏

😬 Which of your fics would you be most horrified for friends, family, or coworkers to stumble upon?

Probably The Clifton Society Incident. I mean, they're straight up myth hunters. The Head Dude wants to torture Santa and Jack. That's all shades of ah, fucked up lmao. You all saw what I did to him in the Santa Dump. It only gets worse >:)

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

Long ass reviews and a feeling of happiness with my me, unrelated to the reviews! If I post it and I like it and reading it makes ME happy, then the fic is a success :)

✅ What’s something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don’t mean to?

Evil Uncles? Idk why? Communication, but I know why THAT is. Bad puns, and sass between siblings, and also, a lot of witty snapbacks. Which I can't do on the spot IRL so I guess they have to go somewhere :)

📚 Would you ever want to turn writing into a career?

ABSOLUTELY! I'd love to separate Crystal Springs from it's very itty bitty fandom ties (at this point. this world is so developed y'all I'm. WHEW) and write it. I;ve got like 6?? Crystal Springs stories/spinoffs planned??

⌛ How long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter?

A week at my most productive, 3 months to a year at worst. A year or two for Frostmas. That thing is a monstrosity.

🤯 What’s a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

Definitely mystery and like. Drama/suspense! I don't vibe with those and they don't vibe with me.

💔 Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

The Smile Shot "They Said it Couldn't be Done". That fucked me UP. ANYTHING with smol Jacqueline pre-Day of Darkness gets me heartbroken, but this one ESPECIALLY hits bc it's Jack's POV and hits home how bad curses do be ):

💥 How do you feel about criticism?

Can't live with it, can't live without it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. And the gentler it is, the more it sticks! Being rude/cruel/dehumanizing in your crit makes the reciever less likely to take it and improve! If you're kind and gentle and remember the positives to mention, it'll stick more :)

🤭 Do you have a favorite tag to use when posting your works?

Dani writes! That's where ALL the writing is!

🥰 How do you feel about reader interaction? Are you open to receiving questions about your fics?

YES YES YES AND YES! PLEASE INTERACT I LOVE IT I LIVE FOR IT! IT'S FUN! :D

I have no idea why the hell my motherboard does not accept 4 ram sticks but does 2 and randomly 3.

All I can find online is genuinely so infuriating it's making me genuinely never recommend building a PC to anyone. If the fucking Motherboard has 4 god damn slots there's 0 reason all don't work. I don't care if the "amd cpu poots 2 bips instead of 5 chestnuts" fuck off, PC building should be simple, not complicated because of bullshit.

Like I can't even use 4 of my 6 sata slots because an m.2 apparently uses them, the fuck? Why? Some bullshit, everytime. In a period of time where an SSD costs 4 times a harddrive, the fuck, are you doing, going backwards. Fun fact! This wasn't a problem on my previous motherboard, god knows what the fuck changed, let alone now what the hell I need to research anymore, or what in specific.

Used to get your parts, put em together. Compatibility was the only real fear you could manage anyways. Now, my god, how the fuck is anyone supposed to know this shit? After they drop another thousand dollars and have to google it? Shit, fuck off. It's just bad for the consumer and future of the industry. If I'm dropping thousands, the thing goes in the thing and it works, nothing breaks, that was the bar and it dropped. Ridiculous as fuck.

I don't accept whatever bullshit reasoning for such a ludicrous concept. At no point should slots stop working because another slot was used. At no point should a motherboard have 4 slots for ram and is only capable of 2. It's plain and simple false advertising not to address it completely openly that your product is shit.

Black Mamba | Seo Taewook

Black Mamba | Seo Taewook x Fem!Reader

NSFW, I honestly fried my brain while writing this. This monstrosity was 10 pages in a doc. Also related to the song of the same name by aespa. I also really like Taewook’s tattoos in some of his cards (I’m a die-hard sucker for men with tattoos) so that was the inspiration for this. I guess I’d call this semi-canon compliant but only to an extent, so you aren’t spoiled with something you don’t already know. I hope you enjoy it! Feedback is always appreciated. Requests are OPEN.

THE CURIOSITY HAD TO BE EATING her alive. Taewook could see it in the way she would send him curious, side-eyed looks when he was present for her shoots; the way she would edge to the corner of an elevator they shared so she could have a parallel view of both him and the door; the way she became blatantly unafraid of him when her mind was running a million miles a minute, eyes fixated on what she could make out of his eyes and then the tattoo peeking out above the collar of his crisp dress shirt.

She had been doing it for quite some time and he was certain she wasn’t aware she had been caught just yet. He found it highly entertaining to just watch her out of the corner of his eye while she stared: she had the most fascinating tics when she was thinking too hard. It usually started out with a furrow between her brows, the elegantly plucked hairs pulling down only slightly to express the thoughts running rampant in her head; then, it would slowly morph into the slightest gnawing of her cheek or lip depending on which road those thoughts had taken; the real hook was when she had almost decided on something and drew her lip into her mouth, holding it between her teeth until it was sore, deliciously red and bereft of the lipstick she had worn that morning.

It was almost like a game between them--albeit one with an undecided outcome. Taewook had long ago decided that playing the long version would be far more satisfying than anything he could have done in pressuring her to consider him as an option. The goblins who clung to her like their very existence depended on it had certainly thrown a wrench in his plans; after all, they recognized him for what he was: a threat. [Name], skittishness and slightly confrontational behavior aside, did not. It was laughable how in the dark they kept her by their own volition, or at least from Taehee’s side of things. When she came to him--and there was no if, he had made sure of that--Taewook had no intention of hiding it from her. After all, even if she didn’t come to him when her curiosity finally broke her, it would be interesting to drive a wedge between the five of them and watch as the show played out.

But, of course, he had to wait for that. [Name]’s debut was coming up and so all of the attention she had focused on him had been temporarily diverted to the public’s view of her and the occasional scathing review posted in an attempt to ruin the girl’s morale. Taewook, of course, had gotten his hands on the worst of the lot before they had been run. They now sat in a harddrive in a hidden compartment of his desk where no one would ever find it unless he wanted them to. Even still, he had to let some criticism past his tight security to keep up appearances--even if it kept [Name] up all night wondering what was wrong with her to make people hate her so much.

And then, as silent as a tsunami, it was time for [Name] to debut her first serial photos as an official model. Taewook had decided beforehand, on the decision of the board, to secure a small facility where they would invite reporters, high end magazine owners, and even news outlets to survey the model’s skills for themselves. Himself, [Name], several other investors, and a skeleton crew would be housed in the hotel across the street before the event; then, when it was over, they would retreat to a small banquet, and afterwards, retire for the night and wait for the articles to be posted.

It was a perfect plan. It was only fitting that [Name] herself ruin it in a glorious shower of sparks and a climax worthy of the ages.

TAEWOOK WAS DRIVING YOU INSANE. Only figuratively, of that you were certain, but you couldn’t drown your curiosity no matter how hard you tried. Thoughts of Taehee, Yooha, Biho, or Hansol did nothing to sway your wandering mind from Taewook. He was like a permanent, foreboding figure standing in the midst of your brain, domineering every single muse that darted past his greedy fingers. He would snatch them up and hold them in his hands like the leash of a particularly disobedient dog, then rip them to shreds and replace them with something of him, something that became a fixation even in your dreams.

All because of that gorgeous black ink crawling up the side of his neck.

You couldn’t help the way your brain had fixated on his tattoo the moment you noticed it. It had almost been an accident, really, when you became aware of it--like ‘oh, that’s really nice’ had escalated steadily into ‘I wonder if it hurt’ and most recently ‘how far down does it go?’. You had buckled down on your thoughts more after that, almost horrified at the turn they had taken, but you couldn’t stop your dreams no matter how hard you tried.

In the months you had been working for Taewook it had only gotten worse. It went from an innocent curiosity about his tattoo to deliberately admiring his eyes from a side profile, of which you could admit without any shame that it was a good one. Other women had parroted the same thing and so you could persuade yourself you were only repeating what they said back at him, as futile as it ended up being. Even in your meetings, with other people there, you couldn’t really tear your eyes away from him even if someone else was speaking.

Honestly, you were surprised he hadn’t caught you yet. But a niggling feeling in the back of your brain told you that he had noticed--you just didn’t know what to do about that and so you wiped it from your mind entirely, but the idea lingered and morphed into something else, something as equally as disturbing: he had noticed, but why wasn’t he saying anything about it?

You didn’t share your thoughts with the goblins. They were, after all, vehemently opposed to Taewook even being in your general vicinity. You almost wished you had a female friend to gush to about your issues, but before you could even find a reason to wonder why, your debut was already upon you.

You were thrown into a whirlwind of photoshoots, interviews, and even ad campaigns. Taewook, throughout all of it, remained on the sidelines, content to just watch--observe?--and let you make a mess of everything yourself. At least, that was what you assumed he was doing; Taewook’s motivations were still a mystery to you. He was like an itch you just couldn’t scratch no matter how hard you tried. He was, in short, an enigma, and that made your curiosity even more fixated on him, consequences be damned.

But your mind just wouldn’t let go of him, not even while Taehee occupied you during the banquet, wondering if you were going to come home with them or stay and mingle among the masses a little longer. You knew it didn’t sit well with him to leave you alone with Taewook in the same room, but you had assured him you would be fine and that if it came to it, you would have a room in the hotel with a lock on it. He didn’t seem all too pleased, but Hansol had pulled him away and they had left with excited farewells to you. You weren’t sure what had been so urgent to pull them away; Yooha hadn’t been very interested in the banquet, only you, but you had been monopolized for the better part of the night and he had been getting tired the more people came up to him to ask for his name and modeling agency.

And so you were alone for the better part of the night until everything was quietly wrapped up around one in the morning. Not once did Taewook approach you in the six hours it took to let everyone get what they wanted and you weren’t sure if that disappointed you more than the goblins had left so early.

“You must be dying in those heels,” one of the staff told you as you walked across the street with her to your hotel. There was no way you were riding a bus home in a thirty thousand dollar dress dripping with diamonds and swarovski crystals, much less in the killer heels they had put you in for the night. “How did you survive?”

“Barely,” you joked, but you knew it was because your mind had been elsewhere. Namely, on Taewook.

He had dressed to impress in a sharp suit with a tie designed to match your dress. How much of that had been forethought and simple coincidence escaped you; but you couldn’t help but notice him whenever he socialized with other high society people, smiling politely although it never reached his eyes. You had thought, almost smugly, that whenever he did smile at you, it did at least reach his eyes--and he had a nice smile, that much you could appreciate.

You were on a downward spiral the entire walk to your hotel room. You didn’t even have the energy to ridicule yourself for the thoughts you were having, or even blame Taewook’s magic--this was all you, and that was a fact you couldn’t deny.

You found your room easily enough. The skeleton crew had put your name on the door hook, but as you fished for the key in your purse, you eyes strayed to the other doors in the hallway. There were only two others but both were suites like your own, and only one had a name on it: Taewook. There were little lights on the locks that indicated the room was occupied, and his was lit up with green. You had to physically stop yourself from walking to the door with a quick pinch to your arm.

With a relieved sigh, you opened your door and kicked off your heels. Your toes sunk into the plush carpet, feeling oddly off balance, and you wormed your way out of the expensive dress and took the first struggle free breath you’d had for the night. You put the dress back in its cellophane bag and began wiping off the makeup, taking off the jewelry, and taking a quick shower so that you felt like yourself again.

You took a few minutes to post your pictures of the night on Wannabe, almost cringing at the likes that popped up the second you posted them. In a few of them, Taewook was in the background, but oddly enough his eyes were focused on you in every single one. You hadn’t even noticed he had been looking at you; he was always around other people and speaking to them.

“Huh,” you mumbled to yourself, bringing a lacquered nail between your teeth as you scrolled through the rest of the pictures in your camera roll. Sure enough he was looking at you in each one, almost peculiarly in a position where he was able to see you clearly over the heads of the people he was talking to. You hadn’t even realized he was that tall; but then again, you were never that close to him to find out. “Weird.”

You turned off your phone for the night and plugged it up to replenish the depleted battery. You thought about watching television, but the moment you laid down on the hotel bed you were hit with the image of Taewook’s face--and it wouldn’t go away. You screwed your eyes shut as hard as you were able until you were seeing fuzzy stars, but it wouldn’t go away. Your cheeks flushed hot with blood when you sat up, hair slightly disheveled, and stared into the mirror of a vanity. You just knew if you went to sleep you’d dream of him, and you couldn’t take that tonight.

So you took matters into your own hands.

You were knocking on his door before your brain had time to catch up with you. You didn’t even care that he was about to see you in your pajamas, plain as they were--you wanted him to stop bothering you in your dreams and every waking moment so you could actually get some rest for once.

When he opened the door, all of your irritation left you in a rush as your eyes darted over his face. He had probably just had a shower, judging by the way his hair was slightly damp, but he didn’t seem as remotely as tired as you were. In fact, he looked almost like he was alive, his eyes taking on an interesting glint as he took you in, standing at his door in your t-shirt and almost indecently skimpy shorts. You almost wanted the floor to swallow you up because all of your words had left you.

“[Name],” he said, a note of genuine surprise in his voice. You almost forgot how deep it was and it rattled you down to your core. “I would have thought you were asleep by now.”

What came out of your mouth made you want to cry out of embarrassment. “I want to see your tattoo.”

Taewook blinked at you for an almost infinite amount of time, staring you down--out of shock or bewilderment you didn’t know--and then visibly relaxing right in front of you. He leaned against the door frame and propped the door open with his foot, crossing his arms across his chest.

“You know, I was wondering when you would ask.” You had to swallow the spit that flooded your mouth when his lips quirked up in a half smile. “You certainly seemed interested in it.”

“Can I see it or not?” You demanded hotly. You couldn’t let yourself back out now. Your pride wouldn’t let you.

That little half smile turned into a smirk. “Testy.” He opened the door wider and stepped aside, jerking his chin towards the darkness of his room. You watched his throat bob with the movement. “Come in. I can’t very well show you in the hall.”

You walked inside without giving much thought to it. You honestly really should have, but your embarrassment was fueling your bravado, and no matter how hard your brain was trying to press the issue that you were, in fact, entering the proverbial lion’s den, you couldn’t ignore how hyper aware you were of him as he shut the door and followed you deeper into his hotel room.

His was a perfect mimicry of yours, except most of his lights had been cut off and a desk was situated against a floor to ceiling window that had a breathtaking view of Seoul and the moon above. You made your way to the window without realizing, staring up at the sky with a look of wonder. You didn’t even hear Taewook slip into his desk chair and turn to face you.

“Why do you have a nice view and I don’t?” You asked, mostly to yourself, but hadn’t realized you’d spoken aloud.

“The workers chose the rooms. Not me.” His voice was unusually soft. “Do you like the view?”

You shrugged and turned to him, cupping your elbows in your palms. “It’s nice. So, the tattoo?”

He laughed, then, an addicting sound. It was almost… pleasant. Taehee’s warnings were ringing around in your head, but you didn’t have the courage to face them right now.

Taewook tugged at the buttons of his silk night shirt. Your stomach dropped as each button fell away and the fabric parted to reveal strong shoulders, defined pectorals, and well kept abdominal muscles that tapered down into a powerful ‘v’ between his hips. He shrugged off the article of fabric and tossed it on the desk and with it out of the way, you could see how far the tattoo went.

It was an intricate design of roses, or what you had seen poking out of his shirt, but beneath there was a snake coiling around the stems and accented with falling petals that were in color and not grayscale like you had assumed. The snake looked almost lifelike and you stepped forward before you even realized, wondering if the texture of the scales would be an illusion or real snakeskin under your fingers. Then you paused, eyes darting up to meet Taewook’s, hand outstretched towards the side of his throat.

“By all means.” He reached forward and grabbed your wrist, tugging you the rest of the way to place your cold palm gently against the tattoo. You stood between his legs now, knees pressed against the leather chair and legs brushing the inside of his thighs. “You may touch it.”

Heat crept up the back of your neck. He didn’t let go of your hand and instead kept tracing interesting little circles into your wrist, and you gently followed the lines of the tattoo, tracing each petal and leaning closer and closer to find the lines that were almost obliterated by shadows. You didn’t even realize how close you were until his hair was tickling your temple.

You leaned back at the realization, not far enough to part completely with the tattoo but to look at his eyes, to see his face. His eyes were heavily lidded and half shut, lashes casting shadows onto his face from the moonlight. Those eyes reminded you of a lazy predator, content to lay and wait, and you felt his fingers on your wrist solidify into a strong grip. You almost pulled away, but found that you couldn’t--you were ensnared by his eyes, your fingers pausing over the skin of his tattoo.

“Taewook?” You whispered, a breath in the room.

His lips were on yours before you had even conceived the notion of pulling away.

You had imagined kissing Taewook before, just like you had Taehee, Biho, Hansol, and Yooha. Each of them, in your mind, had a different way, a different feeling they gave you.

You weren’t expecting the savage way he devoured your lips. Savage, and yet thorough, tongue swiping against the raw skin of your bottom lip, teeth grazing the flesh ever so softly but never biting, never brutalizing the skin. You couldn’t help but respond, your free hand coming up to rest lightly on the bare skin of his chest, your other hand darting up and into the hair at the nape of his neck, almost surprised by the softness. What surprised you even more was the way he released your wrist and dug his fingers into your hips, lifting you into his lap in one smooth motion, nestling your legs between his thighs and the arms of the chair, pinning you in place.

A bolt of white hot lightning shot down your navel and left you tingling when the dark haired male shoved his hands up your shirt to draw his fingers on the skin above the waistband of your shorts, each touch feeling like electricity, like fire sundered with sparks. When you made no move of pulling away, your hand fisting in his hair, his kisses became more violent, teeth drawing harsh lines down the swell of your lip. When his tongue entered your mouth it was because you let him, unable to prevent a small moan escaping your throat when his hands traced higher to the smooth curves of your breasts. You were almost painfully aware that you weren’t wearing a bra right then, having forgotten all about it, and could almost envision his hands through your shirt, hands taking a firm grip just underneath them and providing a mimicry of support. His thumbs traced sweeping lines over the flesh, never quite touching your hardened nipples, mimicking the movements of his tongue in your mouth.

Soon you had to part for breath, taking deep gasps of precious air. Taewook continued his assault down your jaw and throat, lips dragging a fire hot trail wherever they went, and soon you could feel the hard pulse of heat settle between your legs, itching for friction. You knew you should have gotten up the moment Taewook found that sweet spot where your throat connected to your shoulder, but you didn’t--Taehee’s warnings completely left your mind. Because this, this was what you had wanted, on some level, as wrong as it was. As evil as they persuaded you he was. As bad as you knew he was.

A high pitched whine had Taewook smiling into the hickey he was sucking onto your neck. “Such a pretty sound. Sing more for me.”

His hand trailed down from your breast and followed the lines of your stomach to rest lightly on the ribbon holding your shorts up. He united them with one quick movement, lips moving to capture your nipple through your shirt. The sparks that erupted throughout your body at the warm, hot contact of his mouth on your flesh, your shirt the flimsiest barrier between you, had you stifling a moan.

“Don’t hide your voice from me.” Taewook’s mouth moved against yours as he spoke, fingers tracing down between your legs over the fabric of your shorts. Your nipple had been abandoned, a damp spot cold against your skin, but you didn’t much care when his fingers pressed against your lower lips with enough pressure to have you wanting more. A desperate whine left your mouth when he refused to move his fingers. “Good girl. Give me more of those.”

“Taewook,” you gasped, moving your hips slightly to gain friction against his fingers. You weren’t even embarrassed by the rush of wetness that he could probably feel. “Please…”

“Please what?” He goaded lightly, lips latching back onto your neck. “Tell me what you want.”

“Please…” You swallowed the words when his fingers moved, finally, dragging across your clit through the fabric. Your hips jerked to follow them, desperate to ride his hand, but his other hand came down and stilled them. “Please touch me. Please.”

You couldn’t stand it. All of the warnings had completely left you until you were focused on one thing: Taewook.

“Your wish is my command.”

You weren’t expecting the way his hand darted up the leg of your shorts, or the way he pushed aside your underwear to sink his fingers into your wet warmth. Your legs almost buckled, but with nowhere to go between his legs and the chair, you had to steady yourself with your hands on his shoulders, fingernails digging crescents into his back. He moved his fingers in hypnotic movements, palm pushing against your clit with every blissful rub of his fingers over your slit. He allowed you to move your hips with him, riding his hand like you would your own, except this--this felt so much better than your own hand. The delicious grind of his callouses against the tiny bundle of nerves was getting you closer and closer, a tight ball building behind your navel.

Your gasps in his ear became faster, louder, higher pitched--and then he stopped.

Before you could angrily pull back, he was already moving you. He pulled his hand out of your shorts and hoisted you up by the back of your thighs, fingers digging red welts into the flesh. You wrapped your legs around his hips on instinct when he stood, burying your face in his shoulder and unable to resist putting marks of your own on him. Your hips moved on their own volition, finding the hardness of his cock pressed against you and rolling into it between the short distance from his desk to his bed.

“Shit.” His curse was light in your ear when you ground against him, wet enough that he could feel you through the thin silk of his pants. “Fucking--[Name].”

You were tossed on the bed unceremoniously, but you couldn’t bring it in yourself to care. He ripped off your shorts and panties in one go, not even stopping to admire the glistening, wet view of you under the moonlight, all ripe and ready for him to devour.

Then your legs were over his shoulders and his face was pressed between your legs, finding your clit almost instantaneously and sucking so hard you were seeing stars. You weren’t even sure if the moans were yours, as wanton and desperate as they were. He slipped a finger inside you, curling it against your walls and touching that spot just-so that you dug your heels into his back hard, tossing your head back with a hard roll of your hips against his mouth and fingers.

He didn’t seem to mind, judging by the groan he let off that had your thighs clamping down on his head, and soon you were gone, your orgasm hitting you with the force of a train. The next one crept up on you like death in the night, ripping through you faster than the last one, Taewook working you masterfully with his fingers and hot mouth. Soon you could barely scream, voice hoarse and faint, and only then did he rise from between your legs, lips glistening with your slick. You couldn’t help the pang of arousal that was almost painful when he licked his fingers off one by one and then leaned down to kiss you.

“Taewook,” you moaned breathlessly against his mouth, legs coming up to wrap around his hips. You settled your hands on his shoulder blades, the taste of yourself on his mouth more than you could take. He was rock hard against your thigh and you rolled your pussy against him, gasping at the friction as his head caught your engorged clit, him groaning in your mouth. “Oh, please…”

You didn’t have to beg this time. He fisted himself with his hand, rubbing his cock between your folds to wet himself, bucking his hips with every movement. And then he was pushing into you, the arousal overpowering the slight pain of losing your virginity. Your fingers caught in his skin and dragged dark red lines down his back, coming back up when his fingers found your clit and began rolling it between his thumb and index. He filled you to the brim, enough that every shallow thrust had you seeing white spots. His hands came up to grip onto your hips and you replaced his hand with your own, fingers darting down to feel him slide into you with a harsh thrust that knocked the breath out of your lungs.

He was rough but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. His hands were tight, bruising fingerprints into your hips, and you could feel them blooming on your thighs as his pace grew faster than you could keep up with, chasing his release, and you somehow felt yourself coming with him, shuddering as the final wave swept through you as softly as a caress.

Taewook caught his breath, softening inside you, and reached up to push his hair away from his face. His eyes weren’t black, like you had thought, but such a deep brown that it devoured his pupil. He looked down at you, breathing hard, almost as if he was waiting for you to instantly feel the regret and leave.

You didn’t.

“[Name]?” He inquired softly, almost confused when you reached up and tangled your fingers in his hair, dragging his head down to your level. “Are you alright?”

“Never been better,” you replied, your voice a rasp, and you kissed him sweetly, pouring all of the emotions you harbored for him into that one kiss because, goblins and gods be damned, you wanted him.

You kissed until the sun rose, casting him in gentle light, and even then, you refused to move, too warm and comfortable and wrapped up in him to care. He was almost like a snake, refusing to part from you, legs entwined with yours and you couldn’t tell where you ended and he began.

The marks on your skin remained, a permanent reminder as you finally were forced to retreat to your room to retrieve your phone, and even when Taehee and the others came to walk you back home.

It was almost curious when you woke up late the next night, a text from Taewook lighting up your screen. You sat up, casting a glance to the door that you knew was locked, and opened the text with bated breath.

You could barely hold in a horrified breath.

Taewook had attached an image of his back and the grisly lines you had gouged into him with your fingernails. They were still livid and looked to be bruising slightly. Underneath that was a single line: ‘You’re quite vicious when you want to be, aren’t you?’ Judging by the smirk you could see in the mirror in front of him, he wasn’t angry at all. Smug, in fact. A little too smug.

You snapped a quick photo of the enormous hand shaped bruises on your hips, each finger imprinted in ghastly detail upon your skin. You sent him to it and captioned it: ‘And you like to leave your mark, don’t you, you snake?’

His reply was almost instantaneous. ‘I think I like my marks on you. Perhaps I should add more.’

You bit your lip and, with one last glance to the door, replied. ‘Maybe you should.’

‘You know what to do.’

And so you did.

Into the night air, you whispered his name.

“Taewook.”

Bloody

There was never a time when Spike Lee wasn’t Spike Lee to me. I seem to remember being born with images from his movies pre-installed on my mental harddrive. School Daze, one of the first few VHS’s in our house, was a favorite of my mom, and seemed to always be on in the background. Watching it recently, I had a this is water realization: “This is a musical?!” The movie’s mechanics and construction were so overly familiar as to be invisible. 

I love Spike Lee the way Americans love Jesus. More than any particular film (He Got Game, Do the Right Thing, and Malcolm X are three favs), I love everything Lee represents, has represented, and what I’m sure he will continue to represent. I knew even before instagram was invented that he would be great at it. And I am sure whatever mechanism comes next that facilitates a creator’s connection to their audience, Spike will embrace and master it like a surfer to the waves. Spike is always Spike, which probably facilitates his uncanny ability to appear comfortable in many worlds, from high art auteur filmmaking, to pop culture fare, to sports documentaries to political commentary. He is unapologetically ambitious, unapologetically confident, unapologetically black; a trio that America works hard to keep separate. He believes in the imperative of his movies and will do anything–hawking merch, launching a Kickstarter, starring in Capital One commercials–to get them made. 

Spike’s work is not just black, but majestically black, sophisticatedly black, dangerously black. This man made Bamboozled, a movie about a television exec that makes a modern day minstrel show! There are obviously a small handful of other successful and busy black filmmakers, namely Tyler Perry and Lee Daniels. Their movies do the necessary, but not-that-interesting work of simply putting blackness front and center. But the vision of blackness of Daniels or Perry has always felt like it was for someone other than me; someone either less black or less smart. Spike’s films, while often informative, never preach or pander. They assume a black outlook as a given and not an oddity. His films are challenging and do not often resolve with easy lessons. They incorporate the broad history of film and culture and do very little to catch the audience up. It is his way of showing respect to us as viewers.

Even when I do not like a Spike Lee Joint, I always admire the chutzpah, which for me is higher praise than simply liking or enjoying a work of art. Spike will go down as one of the most prolific filmmakers. He prides himself on his goal of producing a major work annually, as opposed to many of his contemporaries like Paul Thomas Anderson or Quentin Tarantino who move at a more leisurely clip. I wonder if Spike’s breakneck pace emanates from a conscious or subconscious fear of being forgotten, and having the door closed on him; ending up like so many other promising directors of color or women directors that after successful early work find it harder and harder to secure funds and get new projects greenlit. Spike has spoken candidly of the trouble he has getting movies produced, even as a celebrity director. While historically impressed by the amount of output, I now wish Spike Lee felt the freedom and permission to slow down.

Da 5 Bloods has so much in it that I love, and multiple scenes that I found genuinely moving, but this is a mess of a movie. For a film about finding buried treasure, Lee seems to be unaware of how much gold he’s sitting on. The movie undertakes the meaty premise of having four older black Vietnam veterans return to the site that indelibly changed them, mostly for the worse, to find the remains of their inspiring troop leader, Stormin’ Normin’, and a chest of gold bullion boosted from a crashed plane and hidden in the deep jungle. They returned to America after the war broken by what they saw and unable to partake of the freedoms they supposedly fought for, but like all black folks attempted to make the most of this reality. Their meeting in Vietnam is a college reunion of sorts, if you went to college to major war atrocities, and ptsd. Like any good reunion plot, each man has their post-war war stories; divorces, estranged kids, bad breaks, bankruptcies. 

They are different, almost unrecognizable to each other. Delroy Lindo’s, Paul, once a black militant, is a Maga hat wearing Trump supporter, but they are all family still. I could have watched these dialogues amongst black men who lived through civil rights, survived Vietnam, but are still fighting their own private wars all night. I wanted to stay in this movie. But about halfway through the tone of the movie shifts and whatever this movie was supposed to be about tragically steps on a landmine. The movie changes from a subtle portrait of these GI’s, their relationships to each other, and their quest to lay to rest the ghosts of the past, and becomes a gory shoot-em-up and basic-bitch heist movie, albeit with some still compelling scenes dripped in, mostly involving Paul. 

In New Orleans you can often see a big storm rolling in from miles away. The writhing clouds, tinged with the primordial reds and purples of sundown and coursing with whip snaps of lightning, mesmerize to the point where you forget you’re about to get drenched. Delroy Lindo’s performance similarly entrances as he descends like King Lear into paranoia and madness, enroute to self-sabotaging the mission and his relationship with his fellow soldiers and his doting son, who has stowed away on the excursion. Spike Lee’s casting has always indicted the rest of Hollywood, by highlighting the black actors and other actors with looks were deemed too “ethic” or too “this” or too “that”, but who have more chop in one of their nostrils than many on the A-list could muster sitting on each other’s shoulders. Why is Lindo not considered one of our great actors? 

While some of the creative and plot choices can be forgiven as artistic liberty, the depiction of the actual Vietnamese people in the movie is hard to justify. Other than a compelling cinematic portrait of the historical figure Hanoi Hannah whose radio broadcasts entertained and taunted American soldiers during the war, the other Vietnamese characters in the movie are pretty flat at best and ugly stereotypes at the other extreme. One of Lee’s perpetual explorations across all of his movies has been the destructive violence of racial stereotypes. Do the Right Thing ends when Police indiscriminately kill Radio Raheem, perceiving the imposing black man as only a threat and not a beloved community member and human worthy of dignity and protection. Blackkklansman presents us with a black man who is also a cop and all of the complexity that entails. Strangely, Lee regurgitates the worst stereotypes of the Viet-Cong in the group of Vietnamese mercenaries serving at the behest of bloated Jean Reno’s french gangster (and Donald Trump surrogate?) who ambush Da Bloods for their gold, leading to the films Tarantino-esque bloodbath ending. The climactic scene which sees Da Bloods, like retired athletes, reliving their glory days as soldiers by extension glorifies the Vietnam conflict and the killing of the Vietnamese, which is disappointing and sad. For a director that for decades avoided tidy popcorn conclusions, this film and his previous outing, Blackkklansman, basically end in good guy vs. bad guy gunfights. 

Da 5 Bloods should have been Girls Trip but with Vietnam vets; former friends with divergent lives butting heads and ultimately reconnecting; learning from while burying the past. There’s a strange moment in Da 5 Bloods before the movie breaks bad when the gang finds a pistol hidden by Clarke Peter’s character, Otis, the ostensible leader of the adventure. For battle worn vets they seem weirdly squeamish at the thought that one of them is packing. These astute Spike Lee characters, knowledgeable of movie and theater orthodoxy, understand that if a gun appears, at some point it's going to go off. Perhaps they, like me, were lamenting the inevitable end of the more dynamic and challenging first half of the movie. Maybe through them Spike Lee is voicing his own reservations about the pending violence of the film. Either way, Spike, like Otis, shouldn't have brought the gun.

Fic meme

I was tagged by @primarybufferpanel​ -- thank you darling, this was a ton of fun to do!

This got a bit long, so I’ll put the people I’m tagging here at the top:  @claraaoswald​, @ambitious-witch​, @someillplanetreigns​, and @junoinferno​, if you feel like playing!

My AO3, my old non-updating fanfiction.net

Fandoms I’ve made fanworks for: Oh lord. I’m only going to count fanfiction that has actually been posted, but if I tried to count up every fandom that I’d started writing for and left unfinished fragments languishing on various harddrives and googledocs over the years, it’d be at least double this list. I have two pseuds on AO3, with the fics roughly organized by fandoms that I post about on this Tumblr account (sheliesshattered) and fandoms that pre-date my time on Tumblr that I don’t post about very much (glasscannon). Putting all the fandoms together in one alphabetized list:

Black Sails - 5 Doctor Who - 8 Firefly/Serenity - 1 Game of Thrones - 1 The Hobbit - 1 The Hunger Games - 1 Iron Man - 2 Law & Order: Criminal Intent - 1 Mad Max - 2 Once Upon A Time - 1 Poldark - 3 Star Wars - 3 Twilight - 7 The West Wing - 1

Number of fics: 38, including a big unfinished epic that I never moved over from ff.n, and don’t plan to unless I finish it someday.

Fics I spent more time on: I’m not even quite sure how to measure this. I’m a slow writer, and a single story can easily hold my attention for years at a time, or be something I return to when there isn’t a newer fandom temporarily consuming me. I don’t tend to keep track of how many hours I put into a fanfic, though. The unfinished epic I mentioned is probably near the top of that list, and was a huge part of my life from 2009 to 2013. Other contenders would be the All Hands series (written with PBP!), and Truth Universally Acknowledged, particularly if you include all the massive world-building that went into that one. 

But really probably the one I’ve poured the most hours into, between research and writing, is a Doctor Who epic that hasn’t yet seen the light of day, called Home The Long Way ‘Round. Because I have such a habit of starting long stories and then not finishing them, I’m making myself get that one completely done before I post any of it to AO3, so I don’t have anything to show for it yet, but I’ve put a ton of time into it over the last five years or so. Hopefully someday I’ll actually get to share it. :)

Fics I spent less time on: Like I said, I’m a very slow writer, so any time I can turn out a story in a matter of days I’m just absolutely shocked. I wrote The Message over the course of about 24 hours, which is probably the fastest I’ve ever finished anything in my life ever, lol.

Longest fic: The All Hands series is sitting at 126,800 words, and PBP and I have more finished for it that we’re hoping to post soon-ish. The unfinished epic made it to almost 119,000 words before I ran out of steam. Truth Universally Acknowledged racked up about 54,000 words before my co-writer and I took a break from it, and probably triple that in world-building bibles and timelines, etc. On the works-in-progress side of things, Home The Long Way ‘Round is sitting at about 40,000 words currently and only about a third of the way done, and the For As Long As We Get series is at 21,000 words between what I’ve posted and what I’m still working on, and will definitely continue to grow.

Shortest story: 10 Seconds, at 208 words. Also one of the very first fanfics I ever finished and posted online.

Most hits: Truth Universally Acknowledged, by like a factor of 20 vs anything else I have on AO3. It’s the only time I’ve written for the main pairing in an active fandom (tho my purview in the co-writing was more on the secondary pairing), and that translated to a stupidly large number of hits. Fanfiction.net doesn’t count hits the same way, but the unfinished epic is sitting at about 3500 favs.

Most kudos: Setting The Stuns’ls, the first in the All Hands series -- which is SHOCKING considering that’s a tiny rowboat of a fandom, for a non-canon background pairing that has literally about 30 seconds of shared screentime, and the two romantic leads don’t so much as kiss over the course of 94,000 words (longing looks, significant hand-touches, mutual pining, definitely, but kissing, not so much).

Most bookmarks: Truth Universally Acknowledged, by a long shot.

Fic you want to rewrite or expand: I don’t tend to edit a story once it’s been posted, beyond correcting a typo or adding a missed word. Once it’s published, it’s finished and I don’t change it significantly. I do have quite a few (so, so many) unfinished stories that I would love to finish up at some point.

Total words combined: Counting only published fics, including the unfinished epic (and a companion piece for it) that lives only on ff.n, I’m currently at 376,542 words total.

Fav fic you wrote: How can you make me choose between my children like this, honestly?? Siiiigh. I’m with PBP, whatever I’m working on currently is usually my favorite. I’m having a ton of fun with For As Long As We Get, and can’t wait to publish the next part of that, hopefully sometime this month. I’m incredibly proud of All Hands, and that occupied such a specific time in my life that I’ll always think of it fondly. I’m exceptionally happy with the character voices and use of language in both Breathe Again and Upon This Rock Will I Break Myself, Until It Shows Me Your Beloved Face, and tend to feel like they don’t get enough love vs how much I love them. But my one true favorite is and will always be Home The Long Way ‘Round, and hopefully I’ll actually be able to finish it and post it someday.

Share a bit of your WIP or idea if you have anything planned: Again, how can I possibly choose just one?? Even just within the Doctor Who fandom, I currently have more than half a dozen stories actively in progress. But since I’ve talked it up so much without being able to link to it at all, and just declared it my all-time fav, I’m going to break one of my own rules and post the whole first chapter (eek!) of Home The Long Way ‘Round behind a read more:

Chapter 1: Orange Dreams

The sound of the wind is whispering in your head Can you feel it coming back? Through the warmth, through the cold, keep running ‘til we’re there. We're coming home now, we’re coming home now. —Home, Dotan

 The winds shrieked and howled around her. Clara had never been in a tornado, but she imagined it would feel like this to stand in the eye of one. She could see gusts lifting the tops off the sand dunes in shimmering ribbons, gold against the orange sky. The waves of airborne sand dissipated a few feet from her, leaving only a jagged grittiness in the air.

A woman with long blonde hair was yelling at her, her words ripped away by the wind.

“Tell me again!” Clara called back to her. “Tell me how to find home!”

“It’s just physics!” the other woman shouted, taking a step closer; they were nearly the same height. “No information can ever be lost! Start from zero, and run the math! We’ll be waiting on the other end of that equation!”

There was something Clara desperately wanted to tell this woman who looked at her with kindness behind the steel of her eyes, but in that moment, the words wouldn’t come.

“Look!” someone yelled behind Clara, and though she didn’t want to take her eyes off her, she instinctively looked up, following the line of the other person’s arm up into the gathering storm-whipped dusk. There, silhouetted against the last of the light, was the unmistakable blue boxy shape of the Doctor’s TARDIS, spinning quickly as it flew away—

Clara jerked awake, her heart hammering against her ribs, already sitting up and pulling off her sleep mask before she realised what had woken her was the sound of the TARDIS materialising in the sitting room of her flat. She took a moment to catch her breath, trying to hold onto the details of the dream. In the other room, the TARDIS’s familiar wheezing and groaning came to a stop with a soft thud, followed by the squeak of the door.

“Doctor?” Clara called, not bothering to hide the sleep nor the annoyance in her voice.

He poked his head around her bedroom doorframe, grey hair awry and his most innocent expression plastered on — which meant he knew he was waking her and felt at least marginally bad about it. “Hello, Clara. It’s Wednesday,” he said pleasantly, by way of explanation.

“Is it?” she asked, deadpan.

“Technically.”

“You do know that I have to work today, don’t you?”

“Not for another six hours. So come on, up-and-at-‘em, plenty of time to go out and save the universe and still be back in time for your morning coffee. I’ve an adventure that simply won’t keep, so come on!”

His excitement was infectious, as he must have known it would be, but Clara clung to her annoyance a little longer, mostly for show. “You have a time machine: everything can keep,” she replied, but waved him off before he could launch into a lecture on all the ways that statement was false, at least from a temporal physics standpoint. He lectured anyway, hovering outside her bedroom door as she dressed, though Clara expected it was mostly to keep himself from pacing in anticipation. She followed more than half of it, and worried a bit over how often she let him babble on about the minutiae of time travel these days.

By the time the universe had been set to rights — or at least one small blue world, home to a race of sentient seahorses, that had been facing imminent extinction in the form of a rogue exoplanet — she had nearly forgotten her unsettling, vivid dream.

--

Given the recent events on Skaro, Clara was unsurprised when bits of her experiences there began to filter into her dreams. Truthfully, she had expected to dream of it more often than she did, but in the weeks that followed, more nights than not her sleeping mind instead conjured up the strange orange landscape. She revisited that screaming sandstorm so often it became almost comforting, and before long, other dreams joined it. 

Clara was leaned against a railing on a high balcony, overlooking a large city coming alight as dusk crept on, a rusty sunset that stretched the width of the horizon bathing the world in amber. The woman with the serious eyes and long, straight blonde hair stood beside her, in the middle of a conversation, as happened so frequently in dreams.

“Alright, but what about the last stage?” Clara asked, elbows resting next to hers on the railing. “That bit depends on us actively doing something, and you know we can’t rely on my knowledge. I can’t take any of the engineering or navigation with me, so it’ll be down to him.”

“And he loves a good puzzle,” the other woman said confidently, flicking her hair over her shoulder with a twitch of her head. “He’ll want to find us. He’ll figure it out.”

“Before I die of old age? Are you sure? My mother was one of his professors at the Academy, I’ve seen his test scores. I think we need a fail-safe.”

“He did graduate,” she pointed out reasonably.

“He passed his exams with a fifty-one percent on his second attempt! No, we can’t assume he’ll have all the baseline information to even consider such a solution, much less actually accomplish the maths. We have to find some way to hide it with me,” Clara said. “Or in his TARDIS.”

The woman was silent for a long moment, her mouth set in a thoughtful line. On the distant horizon, the sun had finished its slow descent, but below them the city was coming to life, the light not so much fading as changing sources, becoming ever so slightly more golden.

“By that point in the timeline,” the blonde woman said, speaking slowly, still thinking it through, “you’ll have been exposed to his timestream and to the crack in the universe, so some of your memories will probably start leaking through. If we structure the extraction the right way, we might be able to embed a particular thought or moment into your consciousness before you go into the Schism.”

“What’d you have in mind?” Clara asked, turning her head to look at her.

“This conversation?” she suggested, laughing, her broad smile transforming her face. “No, a phrase would be cleaner, I think.”

“‘Run the math, you idiot boy’?” Clara suggested, also giggling.

“Oh yes, that’d go over well! No, if you want him to do something, call him clever. Works every time!” she laughed, leaning her shoulder into Clara’s.

“The horrid thing is that I know the temporal physics for this is part of my mother’s coursework,” Clara groaned. “If he hadn’t slept through so many of her classes, this would be a non-issue!”

“Ah, but a Doctor who was always responsible? What a boring universe that would be!”

Above them, the stars were beginning to come out, though the glare of the city obscured them. Through the haze of the dream, Clara couldn’t find any constellations she recognised. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I was the one who helped him steal that box in the first place.”

“And if he could take half a moment to remember that,” the blonde woman said seriously, “he might realise the role of his TARDIS in all of this, and start to think of the solution that way.”

“‘Run the math, you—”

“Clever.”

“—boy, and remember when you met me’?”

The other woman nodded, considering. “That could do it. Your chronodeterminate conjugation won’t work until you come into contact with at least a little regeneration energy. Assuming you choose regeneration on Trenzalore, it might start kicking in then, in plenty of time for the last stage.”

“Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me,” Clara whispered up to the distant stars, cradling her chin on her arms against the railing.

The woman mimicked her position, the golden light of the city and the silver light of the stars catching in her long pale hair. “It’s just physics,” she murmured back. “Start from zero and run the math. I’ll be waiting at the other end of that equation. We’ll all be waiting.”

--

As unsettling as they were, at least the orange-tinged dreams were better than nightmares of Daleks, of being locked in the Dalek casing, unable to convince the Doctor that it was her, it was her, she wasn’t a Dalek, she wasn’t a Dalek! Dreams of the Doctor peering at her down an eyestock, this face or the last, or any of the others buried deep in her subconscious, hearing her but not knowing her, seeing her but not saving her.

Clara grasped for that orange sky, let it carry her away in bronze sandstorms, golden cities slowly coming to life, and starlight caught in tawny hair.

--

Monday morning third period found her Year 10 students taking an essay exam while Clara doodled on a scrap piece of paper, trying to pull images and phrases out of the orange haze that had taken up residence in her slumbering hours since Skaro. There were bits that tugged at her memory, like a song she couldn’t quite place but whose tune was intensely familiar.

She’d written Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me across the top of the page, and her eyes strayed to it every few seconds. The phrase had stayed with her after she woke, and had been on the tip of her tongue ever since, as though it was a message she was meant to deliver. Below it she’d rewritten the phrase, but crossed out six words: Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me.

It was too close for comfort to the phrase that had, in retrospect, changed her life, sent her on her current course. The Maitlands’ mnemonic for their wifi password, which she’d said out loud during that first phone conversation with the Doctor, had caught his attention somehow, and it wasn’t until she jumped into his timestream that she understood. It was the last thing she’d said to him before sacrificing herself to save him. Every fragment of her scattered through his timestream had said it to him at some point as well, the words reverberating endlessly up and down his timeline.

Why her dreams would dredge it up now, and in such a strange context, Clara had no idea. They didn’t feel like random images, but more like memory-dreams, like the bits of echo lives that filtered through to her sleeping mind from time to time. It had to mean something.

Half way down the scrap paper she’d written: It’s just physics. Start from zero and run the math. Below this was the very helpful ??? and Clara idly traced over the question marks again. Physics was still a foreign language to her, despite how much the Doctor prattled on about it at times. She could bring this to him, she mused, but what was it, really? Her subconscious doing backflips in the wake of Skaro, that was all. No grand mystery to solve, no universe-altering secret code, just her. She wouldn’t bother the Doctor with this quite yet.

Besides, she was certain she could tease this apart on her own, follow the clues to their logical conclusion without his assistance. The dreams were insistent, and felt familiar, but Clara was sure she’d never dreamed of the blonde woman and the orange sky prior to Skaro. That was the next clue, then, and she jotted it down on her scrap paper. Something had changed after Skaro, something that caused her subconscious mind to dredge up these particular buried memories. 

She needed more information. Dreams about her echo lives were always stronger when she was aboard the TARDIS travelling in the Vortex, sharper and easier to remember. Maybe these orange dreams would be, too. And maybe the TARDIS itself would have some answers for her.

--

Of course, she didn’t sleep aboard the TARDIS very often, with her insistence on returning home for a week of Real Life in between their Wednesday trips. But the Doctor was never adverse to her sticking around longer than she’d planned, and in the end it didn’t take much to convince him: 

“I’ve a staff meeting at work that I’m dreading,” Clara told him on that next Wednesday, when they returned to the TARDIS after their latest outing. “So what do you say I have a little kip and then we squeeze in another adventure before you take me back to face my workday?”

She thought for a moment that the Doctor might question the change in their routine, but he seemed thrilled about the idea. When he announced that he had some tinkering with the engines he’d been putting off that should keep him occupied while she slept, Clara made an excuse to linger in the console room — “just going to finish reading this chapter, then off to bed” — until after he’d gone. Once he’d disappeared down the corridor and around a corner, she quietly set aside her book, then slipped out of her armchair and down the stairs towards the console. The rotors hummed overhead, and somehow Clara knew the TARDIS was aware of her, and was curious to see what she would do.

Carefully clearing her thoughts, she made her way over to the telepathic circuits, pushed up her sleeves, and slid her hands into the strange interface. Focus was the key, she knew, and she was nothing if not focused. She closed her eyes and held two very specific thoughts in her mind: the sand-whipped orange sky in her dreams, and the clear question, Where, please?

She hoped the please would help.

It was a long quiet moment with the circuits warmly cradling Clara’s fingers, and then something on the console beeped. Her eyes flew open and she carefully extracted her hands from the telepathic interface before pulling the monitor down to eye level.

Gallifrey the screen read in English, below an image of a startlingly red-orange planet. Immediately prior to the Time Lock.

Clara felt her heart thud painfully against her ribs as she read the brief text again. She’d been dreaming of Gallifrey? She knew she’d had an echo life on Gallifrey, but she remembered that interaction with the Doctor, and it happened indoors. She had never before dreamt of the Gallifreyan sky. Had it been buried somewhere in her subconscious with the rest of her memories of that life? Why surface now?

More confused than ever, she clicked the screen back to the desktop, unreadable Circular Gallifreyan floating idly across the display. Perhaps she should bring this up with the Doctor — it was his home world, after all. But the whole point of this had been to dream while they were in the Vortex, and if she didn’t get a move on, he’d be ready for their next adventure before she’d even managed to fall asleep. She could talk with him about it later. 

And if things worked tonight as she hoped they would, maybe she would even have a bit more information to bring to him when she did.

--

“Fire suppressant in Pod Four!” 

The frantic call was quickly overwhelmed by the sound of the requested suppressant dispensing from the ceiling. When it ended, the speaker, dressed in the dark red uniform of a technician, brushed soot and foam off his shirt. 

“It hates me, that one,” he said, nodding at the unassuming gray cylinder in the open pod in front of him. It was devoid of features, even its doors invisible now in the wake of the fire, two meters tall and one meter in diameter, just like all the other patients in the workshop. But somehow it did seem to be glowering at him.

“And it always will, stop wasting your time,” his coworker said flippantly. He was perched in front of a console on the other side of the room, deep in his own repairs. “Just get the Impossible Girl to do it, she’ll have it eating out of her hand by lunchtime.”

Their conversation occurred in the time it took Clara to enter the large oblong workshop and make her way to the far end where the two were working. “I heard that,” she said seriously, earning a guilty-looking jump from the man who had spoken most recently. She continued over to Pod Four and leaned against the outer casing, arms folded over her uniformed chest, one booted ankle crossed over the other. “What did you do now?” she demanded of the first technician.

He looked at her with wide eyes, more out of genuine fear than mock innocence, in her estimation. “I just told it—”

“You what?” she snapped, in a tone she usually reserved for misbehaving students.

He wilted a little but started again “…I told it to—”

“Told it?”

“…to give me access to the logs,” he mumbled, dropping her gaze.

“Told it to give you access to the logs?” she asked, voice harsh. “Well first off, Number Four here prefers male pronouns, respecting that might put you on better footing. And secondly, as with all TARDISes, you’ll get a lot further if you ask rather than tell.”

Behind her, the other tech scoffed. “They’re machines, we shouldn’t have to baby them like that. An access request is an access request.”

Clara turned her head to pin him with an icy glare. “Some days I cannot believe I let you work here,” she told him bluntly. “They aren’t just machines, as you very well know. Yes, there’s hardware we need to be able to work with, but that’s nothing more than a radio, at some level — only instead of radio waves, we’re using oswin waves to talk to pan-dimensional beings so large, they can’t have a physical form in this dimension. Who, with a little extra energy, can take us and an infinite amount of folded space to nearly any point in spacetime. Just think about the massive intelligences that speak to us through each of those machines!

“But more to the point,” she said, turning back to the tech still covered in soot, “you have to understand their viewpoint of the universe, and their understanding of time. A Time Lord telling a TARDIS what to do is akin to creating a fixed point in spacetime. It’s in their nature to want to avoid fixed points. Ask instead, let him find his own way ‘round to it.”

Before the beleaguered technician could reply, there came a polite knocking from the far end of the room, and Clara turned to see a soldier standing in the doorway of the workshop, looking a little out of his depth. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have a message for—” he paused to glance down at the datapad in his hand, “for the Oswin. From the Lady President. Top priority.”

Clara was moving towards him before he’d finished speaking, curious and concerned, her attention focused on the message in his hands. But the dream faded out before she reached him, her mind moving on to something more abstract, more difficult to hold on to.

When she woke in her bed aboard the TARDIS, she stared at the ceiling with fond frustration. “If that was your attempt at help,” she whispered to the ship, “then I do not understand the message.”

--

It still wasn’t enough to bring to the Doctor, she decided later that day, watching him spin around the console room in the afterglow of a successful adventure, people saved, the universe bettered. So she was dreaming of Gallifrey, what of it? Many of the details in that last dream matched up with what she remembered of her interaction with the Doctor in that life. And while he occasionally enjoyed comparing memories of all the times her echoes had met him, she’d found he wasn’t especially keen on discussing the one in which she’d helped him steal the TARDIS and leave Gallifrey. Susan continued to be a point of pain for the Doctor, all these centuries later, and Clara understood him well enough to know better than to pick at that particular scab.

Still. That phrase was on a loop in her head: run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me. The emphasis on their meeting hadn’t been part of the original phrase, and now she was dreaming of the life in which they’d met face to face for the first time, from the Doctor’s perspective. Clearly they would have to discuss it at some point. 

Eventually, but not yet.

Secret Case Study

Secret Research Facility

You have been designed to design the physical site security. In point form list the main things you need to protect for the new office, and, led by that, list three key features of your security design.

Quick Thoughts

Main things to protect:

Storage on digital devices/technology

On-going research papers and results

Prototypes

Employees

Key features of the design:

Access required to enter the site via access card (outer layer)

Once inside, a PIN is required. This PIN is changed every 30 seconds via an app on their phone (just like the myGov app). That way, there is no PIN to remember. However, a problem will occur of the person loses their phone.

Hot desking - so no-one is in the same spot such that if an imposter is trying to target a specific person, they would need to find out where their work is in the first place. To access their files on the network, they are required to answer 3 security questions which are reset at the end of the day such that no questions/answer combinations are the same. Employees are also required to lie about these. Failure to answer correctly 3 times will cause the network to shut down.

Prototypes are to be locked away in a special vault. The vault requires two people to type in their ever-changing pins at the one time. Only people working on the prototypes have access. The prototypes are also tagged such that when it leaves the designated area, everyone will be alerted.

Information is stored on the local network, such that once devices are removed off site, the person with the device can no longer access any information. In addition, there is a specific way of opening up these devices (to gain access) and if it is done incorrectly, the harddrive corrupts itself such that no-one can gain access to the information.

Identified weaknesses include:

With #3, there is a possibility that the workers might forget their passwords. This scenario would cause the entire network to shut down, not because there was an imposter, but because a worker forgot their password. This would waste time and time is money.

With #4, the hardware or software itself could malfunction, causing an unintended loss of information. In addition, the user is not error-prone and thus, maybe the whole "harrdrive corrupts itself" is unnecessary.

Discussion

Peer #1 suggested:

Time-locked data

Sleeper building - normal building

Surveillance - security guards are susceptible to corruption, security footage is another thing to protect

Identified strengths include:

With #1, it is a good idea as employees should not be working outsite their expected hours, such as at 1am or during the weekend.

Identified weaknesses include:

With #1, this would mean that overtime is not an option. Thus, I guess, the staff need to have exceptional time management so that they would never have to cram for a deadline.

With #3, having security guards means that they require protecting as well as they are susceptible to corruption. In addition, having security footage means that that's an extra thing that requires guarding.

Peer #2 suggested:

Security at the beginning to check your identity

Compartmentalise - different people have different access

Security at the end to check if someone's smuggling something out - weakness is a USB

Identified strengths:

With #2, this would decrease the possibility that if an attacker were to enter, they'd be able to obtain all the sensitive information. By not putting all your eggs in one basket, you ensure that the data is not easily obtainable.

Identified weaknesses include:

With #1 and #3, similar to the weakness identified in Peer 1's argument, employing security guards is equal to introducing another point of failure as they can be corrupted. The less people who know about the location, the better. It would also mean extra labour costs.

With #3, there is nothing stopping the attacker from smuggling out sensitive information on a USB stick or a small SD card. Thus, the solution would probably only be possible with physical prototypes, not intellectual property.

Reflection

It can be seen that each of our suggestions, though different, have some overlaps. Maybe if we combine some of our ideas, we are able to strengthen our secret facility. For example, compartmentalied, time locked data only available on the local network!

@thisdaymorning tagged (”tagged”) me on a thing but i’m doing it my way which is to answer 6/11 questions posed lol

anyway the rules to this were supposed to be:

Rule 1: Always post the rules.

Rule 2: Answer questions that are given to you, then write new ones.

Rule 3: Tag 11 people.

Rule 4: Let them know you tagged them.

Rule 5: Don’t change the rules.

1. What’s the most embarrassed you’ve ever been?

i hate this i don’t even wanna start to think of embarrassing moments i get embarrassed easily so. but i think the worst is when i say something and i immediately know that it didn’t come out the way that i meant it to sound and in the moment have no idea how to be like wow i’m sorry idk why i said that and in that way i’m so sorry i just end up playing along with my damn self and i lay in bed at night thinking about how can i casually bring it up in a future conversation like hey remember that time i said that thing that clearly put you on the spot and i didn’t mean to do that well i’m sorry i just was upset and didn’t know how to communicate that. so yeah

2. Describe the best meal of your life.

this isn’t the best meal of my life but i was talking about cracker barrel the other day and i remembered this orange marmalade pork chop i had there one time, one of the very few times i’ve ever been there there aren’t any cracker barrels in ny lol but yeah i remembered it and remembered how i was so into it and like kept looking up recipes to recreate it at home

(i’m skipping 3-5)

6. Have you ever lost something you really loved (an object)?

so many things, but one is my ipod. i found it! like some time last year! i definitely found it at my mom’s house, but i have no idea where i put it since that day. like. no idea. and the chances that someone in my family threw it out is WAY too high. which is infuriating bc that was like 200gbs of music and the rarity of the mp3s on that thing, oh man. rare shit i could only find on soulseek or some shit. and the harddrive that i had all that music on, dead. so that was it! fuck man!

7. Who’s your favorite family member? Why?

i really fuck w my nieces and nephews. i have a whole tribe of em, they all rule in their own way. love em. i really fux w emmmmm

skipping 8

9. What’s the nicest thing someone can do for you?

just give me love and affection stupid show me that you care spend time with me trust me communicate how you feel let me in stupid

10. Do you have any surprising hobbies? 

uh idk about hobbies but i started getting really obsessed with highlighter recently lol like i’m not buying any i’m being good but like if i had an unlimited amount of funds i’d have mad highlighter rn i’d be shimmer from head to toe i’d be blinding lmao 

skipping 11

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here’s 5 other questions replacing the other ones:

3. what’s your favorite piece of clothing atm?

4. what’s an album not on spotify/apple music that you really wish was?

5. are you hoarding/saving anything rn that you should probably throw out? if so what is it?

8. do you have a musical artist who’s had very distinctively different periods in their career and you hated one period but loved another?

11. show me a pic on your phone you wanna show me

i’m tagging anyone who sees this just tag me when you do it so i can see

tagged by one of my fave fellow leos, @xsmokexflamesx! 💗

NAME: Sheri

STAR SIGN: Leo

HEIGHT: 5′7″

WHAT’S YOUR MIDDLE NAME? Lynn

PUT YOUR ITUNES ON SHUFFLE. WHAT ARE THE FIRST 4 SONGS THAT POPPED UP? (using my phone because my itunes library is on a separate harddrive)

Sugarcult - Memory

The Veils - Not Yet

The Tallest Man on Earth - Darkness of the Dream

David Bowie - Song for Bob Dylan

GRAB THE BOOK NEAREST YOU AND TURN TO PAGE 23. WHAT’S LINE 17?

That was “how it happened,” or rather, how Helen described it to her sister, using words even more unsympathetic than my own --Howards End, EM Forster

EVER HAD A POEM OR SONG WRITTEN ABOUT YOU?

lol, no.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU PLAYED AIR GUITAR? …. idk, I don’t really do that? I air sing for sure, but guitar, not so much.

WHO IS YOUR CELEBRITY CRUSH? Oh man, so many. Anyone in my dreamboat tag.

WHAT’S A SOUND YOU HATE + SOUND YOU LOVE?

HATE: Open-mouthed chewing

LOVE: Hard rain, the ocean, crackling fire

DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS? I probably shouldn’t, but I kinda do? I’m not sold, I just like to think it’s real

HOW ABOUT ALIENS? I mean, I for sure believe there’s life out there, but idk what it looks like.

DO YOU DRIVE? I have a license. I’m a capable driver. I sold my car a few years back, though, so I don’t actively, currently drive.

IF SO, HAVE YOU EVER CRASHED? Never. I did slide off the road into a ditch once when it was icy, but there was no damage, and no other cars involved.

WHAT WAS THE LAST BOOK YOU READ? I just finished All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

DO YOU LIKE THE SMELL OF GASOLINE? No, but it doesn’t bother me, either

WHAT WAS THE LAST MOVIE YOU SAW? The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

WHAT’S THE WORST INJURY YOU’VE EVER HAD? I fractured my skull when I was a bb. Fell off a horse through a jump when I was 12, screwed up my knees forever.

DO YOU HAVE ANY OBSESSIONS RIGHT NOW? Still on that Dirk Gently/Wynonna Earp bullshit!

DO YOU TEND TO HOLD GRUDGES AGAINST PEOPLE WHO HAVE DONE YOU WRONG? Depends on what they did!

IN A RELATIONSHIP? Perpetually single, ama

TAG: if they wanna do it, @tuntematonkorppi, @thatfaerieprincess, @intricatecakes, @setmeatopthepyre, @sugarpenchant

Some interesting game stuff

Taking a look at games I play,the amount of hours I played more specifically.It’s real interesting,but nothing to brag about in comparison to others,who have spent more than a 1000 hours on some games.i haven’t gotten there yet,as I stay at my grandparents during the day and got the games way after release.

It isn’t even that big a collection of games,since I’m real picky with ‘em,and since they’re really expensive with South African currancy.

Call of Duty:Black ops {1} : 77 minutes - I only played zombie mode and had to eventually uninstall the game to create storage space.

Fallout 3 : 10 hours - I played it for a bit,finished the first DLC,then had to back it up and uninstall it to create storage space.Originally I wanted to just reinstall the game on my other harddrive,but eeh.

Fallout New Vegas : 357 hours - The one I always bragged about,and I still love and play.Never have I finished the game.I’ve modded it to hell,and it’s broken,still amusing to play.It does crash a lot though,and I even got my dad to buy the game for himself.Old World Blues,here I come.

Fallout 4 : 423 hours - The thing I play a lot of these days,building, and crashing my game.It’s competing with Sims at this point.I enjoy running around ignoring the main story line with my companions and building shacks across the Commonwealth.

Gmod : 49 hours - I had to originally move this to my other harddrive because of the amount of addons I have wasting a ton of space.Not as fun to play without pals,apart from one or two maps,and I lot of zombie saves.

Just Cause 3 : More than 41 hours - The reason I say more,is because of the time I played offline when our internet was being weird.I played this again the other day,and I still love it.I don’t bother with questing,I just go blow up stuff and make it real hard for the bad guys.

Left 4 Dead 2 : 3 hours - The three hours of me and my dad playing the game together.I actually enjoy the game,it’s fun.The carnival map was the first one we played,and the zombie clowns were terrifying.Been thinking of playing again.

Life is Strange : 77 minutes - I played for a while,and eventually ditched it.Not for any bad reasons though.Other games just took my eyes off a game I know I’ll cry playing.Had to move it to another harddrive.

Metro 2033 Redux and Metro Last Light Redux : 0 minutes - I haven’t played the games yet,but I bought ‘em on sale.I’ve see nthat it’s pretty difficult,and thus I cannot wait to play it when I am not distracted by other games.

South Park: The Stick of Truth: 11 hours - One single playthrough,two more missions {Beat up Clyde and deafeat Princess Kenny}. I love the game,it’s hilarious.Though I should say there were some parts that scarred me.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole : 12 hours - I’ve also played this a lot since I got it.Again,one single playthrough.I’m at the police station mission,and I destroyed Jared.Also pretty damn funny,and I will do all the side quests before the end of the game.Can’t wait for the DLC.

Undertale : 5 hours - I played this on both my PC and laptop.Two playthroughs,one for my own,one to amuse my cousin {silly voices yee}.Great game,though I suck at not getting hit during battle.

Watch Dogs : 22 hours - At some point I played this a lot,but ditched it because I felt like I’m running through the game too fast.Love the game,though it runs like AC with hacking and guns.Got murdered too many times trying to take out gangs.Aiden’s putting the only family he has left in danger because he’s a stubborn asshole.

Watch Dogs 2 : 31 hours - The greatest game ever.I ditched it because I was at the last mission,and I don’t want to end the game.I want to go do all the side missions,and get all the money bags,components,guns and reasearch stuff.I love all the characters and their relationships with one another.I’ll avenge Wrench Jr.

Minecraft : ?? Hours - I honestly spent too much time on this game.I can tell you it’s over a 100 hours,since I play it a lot of the laptop {The laptop is old,and apart from Sims which it can barely run and Undertale,MC is the only game that can run on it}.I create AUs and OCs from this blocky game labelled as ‘cringey’ and honestly,it’s the root of my love for writing.

Sims 4 : 428 hours - One of the games I play the most.I have over 7000 custom content things in the mod folder and I ain’t going back to the time without mods/cc.I’ve also created so many characters in this game,and turned it into a zombie infested hellhole twice.It’s pretty damn great.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate : 38 minutes - Screwed around after getting the game and after I got the first disc {It wasn’t in the box with the others,three days before I got the first installation disc}.I like it,it’s fun,but eh.I like the parkour and the characters.

Far Cry 4 : ?? hours - For some reason it won’t tell me how much I played,but I guess it’s over 10 hours at least.I really like the game,it’s really colorful and cool.Pagin Min is one of the coolest villains I have the pleasure to murder eventually and I love just running around and doing the eaxct same as I do in Just Cause,making it real hard for the bad people.

Far Cry Primal : 11 hours - Another game I love.I love that you have the ability to tame animals that help you in battle,and the game also looks pretty.The quests annoy me sometimes,but hey,every game has annoying quests.I love sniping people with my bow,and sending the animals to attack.I also found out that the guy I like plays the game so ye.

That is literally it.I have more games,but all of ‘em are old school ‘Only playable on Windows XP’ games.There are also a lot more games I want to play,and which I can’t wait for,and there are also games I want to play,but they’re Playstation 4 exclusive {which sucks} like The Last Guardian,Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy annnnd Days Gone.I sepnd a lot of my life playing games,and I don’t care that I’ll never get those hours back.

#femtoseconds #laser #pulses? #temporarily #monodirectional #meta #material #photonic #qubits @w oz @nsagov .@gchq @wired @wireduk @intel ‎@amd‎@qualcomm @huawei @samsung @darpa @go ogleai@ibmresearch‎ @ornl @energy @tsmc .@intel @nsagov @gchq femto seconds em spectrum pulses? clearer locked qubit after writeout ? onlyopen to repeat whats written out? process that on ? interconnect not enough blocked with meta material traits? and relay on ? not filtered out all calculated spectrums that discard the functi on?  ineed infos what they did likely is the least possible namely sequential sour cedrains around emmitting into a spiralling electron phjoton beam andit wouldbe extremely fast already and or electromagnetic wavelenght miracles tweakable in frequency agility but its  not quite  it ************‎ we must make the function trees which photon combination gets rerouted where on which meta materi al trait   temporarily which function writes out into magnetic resonance effect and puts qubit into  repeat it ondemand stage  process on with this repeated formerly writtenout set of function s remember. it is a blocked source drain gate nothing else is magbetic fixed  resonance effect like harddrives we block certain sets of sourcedrains ***************** ‎without  any infos whatsoever  ithink thismightbe the next direction  after pronably before meta materials oeprated continuously and re repeated reroutes into qubits untilitwas a mess 

#femtoseconds #laser #pulses? #temporarily #monodirectional #meta #material #photonic #qubits @woz @nsagov .@gchq @wired @wireduk @intel ‎@amd‎@qualcomm @huawei @samsung @darpa @googleai@ibmresearch‎ @ornl @energy @tsmc .@intel @nsagov @gchq

femto seconds em spectrum pulses?

clearer locked qubit after writeout ? onlyopen to repeat whats written out? process that on ?

interconnect not enough…

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Something Awesome Blog #5 Finale

Disclaimer:

The reason why I am ending this blog on Number 5 and at the end of Week 7 is because I’ll be completing the Job application before my tutorial on Wednesday Week 8. This is because:

 - It will allow me to manage my time to do other Assignments for all my other courses and thus allow me to adapt to the Trimester changes and performing the best of my abilities for all my subjects.

- I am out of Card resources to analyse and experiment with (Further explained below under Reasoning).

I personally believe that I have accomplished what I wanted to do for the Proxmark device as I have provided a consistent blog post from the end of Week 2 to the end of Week 7 and not only that, I am also out of content to write about since I have run out of Card resources to analyse and experiment with.

Recap:

Throughout this project, I aimed to do as many cards as possible for the Proxmark device. The Proxmark kit I received had given me 5 different types of RFID cards/chips to work with. In my first blog, I discusssed about the Proxmark device and it’s usage and impact on Near-field communication (NFC) and RFID cards. In my second, third and fourth blog, I have explored the usage of 3 different types of card: Mifare Classic 13.56mH High frequency card, HID ProxCard II 125 kHz low frequency card and the EM4100 125 kHz low frequency card. For the low frequency cards, I have always mentioned cloning to a T5577 125 kHz low frequency card and always provided brief explanation of why I chose this card to clone to but I’ve never done a blog post solely about the T5577 which I will explain why I haven’t below and this will apply to other card variations.

Reasoning:

I haven’t been able to talk about other variations of the card such as the HID Iclass or Mifare Ultralights or other variations of the EM cards like EM4012 for the following reasons: 

- Firstly, I usually don’t have a card that I could test out it’s functions and abilities and hence I don’t actually have a practical understanding of what the card can do. This makes it extremely difficult to explain how the card works as almost all online resources require you to have experience working with cards or the explanation is too vague.

- It is also extremely difficult to find any research topic about it as it either usually contains overlapping information with other versions of the card that I already have covered or it really isn’t explained on the internet due to the fact that it isn’t really used by anyone. Of course I can go on the company’s website which discusses about the card but it usually is very vague and tries to sell the card rather than outline it’s functions. 

- Finally, the Proxmark 3 Easy kit that I had purchased for Something awesome is an “beginner friendly” research device on RFID cards and hence doesn’t contain all functions and features to clone all available RFID/NFC card in the market. Sometimes, the low frequency antenna isn’t able to detect what type of low frequency card it is so you would need to go through all reading options for each low frequency card available in the proxmark in order to identify the card. 

The issue with not being able to identify the card is that it is would be extremely difficult to clone the card data to another card for example- cloning a low frequency card to the T55xx card. You could utilise “lf sim” to simulate the low frequency card but unfortunately, it is extremely basic level as it assumes that the low frequency reader only expects to output the ID of the card which can be achieved with “lf read”. This will not work with cards like EM4100 where the card is expected to return 64 bits of read only memory. However, the UID is usually only 8 bits hence the receiver would most likely not accept the simulated version of the card. 

TL;DR Due to the lack of physical resource of not owning a variation of the card, lack of online content and limitations of the Proxmark device, I was not able to explore other variations of cards like Indala Proximity cards or Mifare Ultralights. 

This really applied to the T5577 card as I was unable to find another T5577 card to clone since I don’t really own any T5577 cards except the one provided in the proxmark kit. Even when I tried to perhaps clone the T5577 card to the proxmark device just like how I worked around the fact that I didn’t have a blank card to copy the Mifare card to, the Proxmark device could not simulate the T5577 card as it did not have any options.

(There were no options to simulate a t55xx card as it only contained methods to retrieve data from the card).

Results:

However, despite these setbacks, there were several things that I have learnt in regards to RFID and NFC cards that we use everyday. 

I discovered that no matter how many security measures you place into the card’s hardware and software, there always will be a method to bypass that. You could tell the Mifare card to reject a write if it is a card that is a different version or model however to prevent being copied to Chinese Magic Cards however, individuals could get an exact same model and version of the card and copy it to that instead. Or, if the card is set to read only to prevent any alteration of data, the read data could be copied to make a similar card with the exact same permissions. 

That’s why I think that nowadays, it’s a good thing that card technology like opal cards or debit cards do not only rely on the card hardware security as they also require online confirmations. For example, the opal card requires you to register your card with your bank account online such that only 1 version of the card is in use unless specified otherwise. Since a cloned copy of a card would have a different card ID from the original card, even if the unique ID is the same, it will not work for the cloned copy.

In our case studies, the exploits all existed within the card security and not else where, especially for low frequency cards as they do not contain any security mechanisms since the only thing they contain is read only memory in regards to card type, ID and permissions. Low frequency cards only do simple things and thus should only be used for simple day to day tasks such as access to parking in a parking lot or guest passes. It should not store things like money details or used as authentication methods to access highly confidential buildings or rooms.

However, while the Proxmark does indicate a scary reality of cards being easily cloned and copied without being stolen, the likelihood is relatively small for something large scaled like transport cards. Although there has been cases, countries have now adapted more complicated security measures for cards and eventually will be cardless. While this would resolve many issues regarding card and access safety, it will bring in a whole new realm of possibilities since everything will most likely be digital and thus other methods can be used to steal cards.

Reflection:

There are things that I could definitely have done better, especially with how I structure my blog posts. My blog posts are pretty long due to the tutorial I place at the end of each blog so maybe instead of putting the tutorial and blog in the same location, I could have them separated. This would also give me an opportunity to talk about other cards that I may not have been able to clone but still could be relevant due to the similarities it has with current subject. However, since my something awesome blog posts are already really long, I was afraid that it wouldn’t really add anything except more words and also kind of goes outside of my original proposal. 

Another thing is I wish I could’ve purchased a more advanced Proxmark 3. Most tutorials on how to clone cards through proxmark all use a more updated version of the Proxmark like proxmark 4. Proxmark 3 Easy kit was way too simple for somethings I tried to do and also didn’t really provide a huge variety of blank cards to experiment with so it really limited my ability from exploring more RFID/NFC cards. I realised that I only really know what to talk about if I manage to successfully clone a card and hence making a blog post about a card and making a tutorial was really something that came together rather than done separately as a bonus.

 CONCLUSION:

Overall, I had a great time working with the Proxmark 3 Easy kit, hoped that somethings had worked such as the keyfobs as that would’ve been interesting to talk about. Hopefully in the future, I will also be working with interesting technology and devices (for research purposes) and has definitely inspired me to do more of my own projects like using an Arduino Uno to be a Rubby ducky usb except it’s not a usb it’s more of an external harddrive.

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oh yea so like. after talking to the friend. i went to the library to do my thing. and got so thoroughly into it that i completely missed a text from my mum and then got a call from her asking Where the Fuck I was because it was 4pm and i “said” id be home by 2. which confused the fuck out of me because i was always operating internally on a 3pm finish, which i had failed at regardless but, you know, Leeway?

so then i finished up, attempted to print my fucking photos, had photoshop half crashbecause my photos are just too big, and then gave up, tried to put my files on my harddrive, wasnt able to bc its not fucking formatted for mac, so i had to chuck them in my onedrive instead. fun!

then when i got to knox i arrived basically at the same time as my bus home should have, just a min or two before. and i used that min to top up my myki, though i was waiting behind someone who was... idk, having difficulty with it? had to do money math? who fucking knows. took em a while. and then as im waiting for it to say i can remove my myki, i glance to my bus stop and am POSITIVE i see the bus numbers. seeing its 5:25, i grab my myki and start liiightly jogging to fucking catch the bus. but it disappears.

however there are people at the bus stop! which doesnt make sense! so i assume i must have misread, and start chilling.

anyway the bus didnt fucking come until 5:40. a full fifteen minutes late. and coming only 10 minutes before the next bus

:)

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New Post has been published on http://caraudio.ero-moe.info/products/yatour-for-suzuki-sx4-grand-vitara-swift-jimny-ii-14-pin-pacr-car-digital-music-changer-usb-mp3-adapter-for-fiat-sedici-agila/

Yatour for Suzuki SX4 Grand Vitara Swift Jimny II 14-Pin PACR Car Digital Music Changer USB MP3 adapter for Fiat Sedici Agila

Introduction: This is an Audio car kit.It is a replacement of CD changer. It can be easily installed and used. The installation and usage are the same as CD changer’s installation and usage, Simply plug in USB disk/SD card, you can play audio through car audio system and enjoy music in your car.After conneted with optional Bluetooth module kit,it integratesbluetooth hands free phone call and stream mobile phone’s A2DP music playback into car stereo system Works with the following vehicles: Instruction guidcance: youtube.com/watch?v=5Q5zj4V2CKg Important remind for Suzuki Car: Lots of customers usually will ordre the wrong unit for their Suzuki car. As our YTM06-SUZ1 and YTM06-SUZ2 will fit the same year car but they with the different plug. YTM06-SUZ1 is Clarion CE-NET plug, while YTM06-SUZ2 is 14-Pin PACR white color plug. So before your order, please make sure which plug will compatible with your suzuki radio. if it is convenient, you can move out your radio to confirm it before your order. Or send information to us to confirm it for you. YTM06-SUZ2 is 14-Pin PACR white color plug bellow: YTM06-SUZ1 is Clarion CE-NET plug bellow: YTM06-SUZ2 Recently tested compatible Headunit bellow: If you want to buy YTM06-SUZ1 and Bluetooth bellow? Key Features: • Plug&play, modular design,CDC alternative • Connected with wire harness, not FM signal controlled ,Hi-Fi guanranteed • Controlled by vehicle Head Unit,support Steering wheel operation • With Hi-Fi Decoding Chip,perfectly support MP3 and WMA tracks • Supports SD/SDHC/MMC card/U Disk/Card Reader/Hard Disk • Supports external audio source(MP4 PSP Mobile Phone) via AUX in port • Playlist function same as multi CDs • Supports Last Position Memory(LPM) • Vibration and interference proof • Easy to install,no damage to original car decoration • Different module firmware versions for different types of protocol of car stereos • With BT slot for additional Bluetooth hands-free kit(Opitional). Specification: • Voltage input:12v DC • Signal-to-noise:95DB • Max.Current:600MA • Max. voltage output:12v • D/A Device :24BIT 192KHZ • Total Harmonic Distortion:0.01% • Frequency Response:20HZ-20KHZ • Working Temperature:-10C-80C • Module case in made of aluminium alloy • Module unit: 94 x 66 x 16mm • Packing box: 132 x 50 x 215mm • Net weight: 80g; • Gross weight:300g; • 50units/big carton Operation is simple • Transfer your MP3 / WMA to USB stick / disk / SD/MMC card / drive • Connect this Car Digital Music Changer to your car stereo via CD changer port • Plug-in USB disk / stick / SD/MMC card / drive into your Car Digital Music Changer Compatible with Storage Devices • Most USB disk / flash drive / stick / mass storage devices / external harddrive • SD/SDHC/ MMC Card /Card reader • Any MP3/MP4/PSP/GPS/Mobile Phone/DVD player via AUX Port Includes: How does it work? The Radio Panel: Important Installation Information: Your car head unit should be CD changer capable. This device is applied to orignal car audio equiptment or upgraded car audio equiptment with supporting digital music changer ports only , furthermore , same brand car with different model should use individual digital music changer . Each car use specific device . More options coming soon available for your choice .The in-dash CD changer will remain working, but external CD changer are switchable by a switch on the wire harness. If your car isn’t listed here, we also have a large stock of iPod adapters for many other vehicles. Please send us a message stating your requirement and we’ll do our best to assist. If you are unsure as to whether this adapter is suitable for your vehicle, please feel free to ask before purchasing. Installation Guidance for Digital Music Changer(YT-M06): 1. Turn off car engine and remove key from ignition, If your radio uses a Security Code, make sure that you have the code before unplugging the radio. 2. Unmount the radio from the dash ,disconnect car battery power , find CD Changer port at the back of the radio and disconnect CD changer plug. 3. Attach the wire harness connector to the back of the stereo to the CD changer port. Be sure to make a firm connection but do not force it. 4. Disconnect the battery for minutes or remove the fuse to reset the car audio system. 5.Once the Yatour is connected to the radio, you will need to test the operation of the interface before re-assembling the dash. Insert SD card or USB flash stick, and power on the Head Unit, then press CD (or Disc / Mode / CDC / SOURCE / AUX) button for once or twice to switch to playback mode of Digital Music Changer, with the symbol of LED light being on. Meanwhile, CDC, EX, or CD01 will display on the radio screen(depending on the car stereo type). Now the Digital Music Changer will run normally. 6. After successful test, re-assemble the radio, and put wire harness and module unit box in proper place. Then installation is completed. ​ Supported memory cards and USB sticks:

1.Max 8GB (2GB is most recommended);SD card is more recommended than USB stick.

2.Please format USB stick or SD card with FAT16 or FAT32 format before you save files and folders in USB/SD.

3. Imposed folder naming system: CD01, CD02, CD03 ….

Doesn’t read sub-folder and gets confused with other names in root of the drive.

4.Supports up to 15 folders (depending on the radio type) on your USB/SD.

5.Any number of songs can be stored in each folder, but the display of most radio models can only screen 99 track titles; Saving too big file(over 50MB) in any folder may also cause intermittent performance

6.Using music files formats other than WMA and MP3 may also cause intermittent performance.

7. The playback order of songs is in line with their created date. 8.Sometimes,to remove defect on software of car audio system, you may need to disconnect the battery or remove the fuse to reset the car audio system.

9.To use the Aux-In port, it’s necessary to remove the USB or SD card.

10.YT-M06 may does not work with some of new Kingston brand USB stick.

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