#now privately I can and do warn people more often about specific users but that's not the same as putting them on blast to get harassed etc
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@ the anon asking about whether a specific blogger is reliable:
I completely understand the question. But in general I don't answer things that involve someone who is currently active online, unless they are a present danger to people in the community. By present danger I mean the last time I stuck my nose in was with someone who was abusing several people in the DID community and bragging about it while also sharing peoples' private information to others. This has to do with several factors: 1) as a brown person I get much more frequently called aggressive for even mild disputes, which has happened multiple times for stuff that is as little and nonconfrontational as "stopped talking to someone," so I pick what I speak out against, 2) because I know the nature of this site and its tendency to harass people and I'm not gonna be part of that even if purely by accident, 3) because I prefer to handle things privately, one on one, if there is a serious issue rather than airing it all out, and 4) because for the most part I am very unaware of individual people in the DID community--I don't follow the tags and I get most of my DID Community News from either friends who tell me things or because something got recommended to me. For example for the specific person you asked about, I am actually aware of who they are, only because they've been around for years, but I do not keep up with them or read basically any of their stuff.
The most I will say to you here is this: if you are asking me, then it seems like you don't think they are reliable or at least doubt that they are. I would ask yourself what makes you uncomfortable, but also to trust your gut. It's good to wrestle with your own discomfort and reasons why you might be uncomfortable with someone that could be bias, but it is still a good idea to listen to yourself. Whether you turn out to be "correct" or not, you should have your own back in these matters.
#I like gossip but only funny things...IMO if it's serious it needs to be discussed and attempted to be resolved privately first#before it goes and gets aired out#and if you DO air things out it should be for a good reason#I think there have only been two instances where I talked about someone who still exists online on this blog...I might be wrong but I think#one was the abusive shitstain I mentioned and the other was dissociadid#like I talked about TIND but Kat's had TIND archived for a bit and already had it archived by then#but yeah point being I don't really talk about other people on here#now privately I can and do warn people more often about specific users but that's not the same as putting them on blast to get harassed etc#.log
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Hamefura pirates of the disturbance : Rozy's introduction
Warning : the second part contains spoilers !
I found some information on a fandom and the rest I wrote it.
Rozy Lind :
Background :
Rozy is an engineer from the Kingdom of Quid, an invention powerhouse located in a different continent from Sorcier. He is recruited to the reveal of the luxury liner "Vinklem" as part of the maintenance crew. In the game he is one of the two new capture targets for Catarina.
Appearance :
Rozy is a tall man with maroon-colored hair and jade green eyes. He wears a brown technician uniform with a hat, with black belt holding his tools and gear. Under his technician vest is a black shirt with a purple neckline. He often has a gentle, reassuring on his face. He is a young man of 23 years old but he has a boyish and childish smile and gestures.
Personnality :
He is a kind and meek young man who is a talented technician. He secretly has a sweet-tooth, and is a fan of desserts and pastries. He is a very fast reader. Rozy has a creative mind and is good with tinkering with machines. He is able to make tools out of anything he can get his hands on. It is said that everyone in their family truly wants to protect and keep an eye on those they hold dear. It's in their genes. He is as smart as Geordo and the others but he is more innocent in a way.
Warning spoilers !
Fortune lover game :
Rozy is a character that appears in a fan-book of Fortune Lover. In the game he is not a capture target even though he is handsome. He also got killed by Silva (who is the captain of the Sungreed pirates)
Currently :
Rozy and Catarina are acquainted, and eventually friends, due to their mutual love of sweets. He was on the desk when he caught sight of her and immediatly recognized her. He had a conversation with Silva and told him that no matter what happens he doesn't want her and only her to be hurt. Silva is aware of that and told him that even if it's the first time in 8 years he saw her he shouldn't do anything clumsy and must avoid approaching her. And Rozy accepts painfully.
Rozy's true identity :
It turns out Rozy is not really a pirate and neither is Silva or the rest of the crew. Rozy‘s real name is Rodzion Lindgren and he’s an aristocrat or more specifically a Duke of Queed. So Silva and his crew are actually Rozy‘s private guards that he hired to stop the Chancellor and his selfish scheme of trying to blow up the ship and kidnap the magic users.
Rozy's first meeting with Catarina :
When he first met Catarina in Sorcier he gave her the gummy candy he made because she was hungry while thinking that it was not very appreciate because of its strange texture (like now) and she told him it was beautiful like a jewel and how delicious it was. This made him realize his true ambition to help others and he always wanted to meet Catarina again to thank her. Eventually he was able to find out more about her and fell in love with her when he met her again. Rozy also met Silva on his way back to Queed when he almost got mugged. A younger Silva helped him but then collapsed to the ground because he was weak. Rozy noticed he looked like he was poor or homeless and decided to help him after thinking of Catarina’s smile, ignoring the people who told him not to do it. Thus, both his and Silva’s fates were essentially changed from meeting Catarina. In the game he will listen his escort and leave him here. He also kept an eye on Catarina since then, he sent someone in Sorcier to collect informations about her and know how she is doing while pretenting it was to collect informations on Sorcier, he even drew her one time when he was tired and everyone who know him well know how much he loves "the little girl who changed his life" For him, she was "his benefactor". (He really is a stalker....It's really creepy...) Ah, one thing, when he met her he was 15 years old and Catarina 8 years old... Yes, a real stalker.
They were so cute !!!
My opinion :
I love Rozy as a character (not as much as Silva, sorry) but he is really creepy in a way... I think Silva also mentionned something like that... In a way, he really reminds me Raphael ; his smile, personnality and things like that. And he is really handsome and has a calm, gentle and smart aura. I'm glad he met Catarina when they were children or else he would have no personnality. My favourites scenes are when he save her from the drunk pirate, his talk with Silva when he saw her, and almost all... Except for one thing, I think Albert really spoiled Rozy's route, he is so annoying.... And I don't know when Catarina fell in love wth him either. Unfortunately I don't have the game but I think his route is cute. (without Albert) His confession was adorable and his good ending too. It's my second favourite route.
#hamefura#my next life as a villainess#katarina claes#catarina claes#bakarina#otome game no hametsu flag#otome game no hametsu flag shika nai akuyaku reijou ni tensei shiteshimatta#my next life as a villainess: all route lead to doom#rozy lind#hamefura pirates#hamefura game#My next life as a villainess pirates of the disturbance
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This poll got better response that I expected please keep voting, so for that 1 person so far who voted for more details.
The point is to get all the posts tagged with at least one of the tracked tags and reblog them to single blog.
Here's more or less how it will work (I'm open for suggestions)
Get all the posts from all tracked tags in given timeframe
Get unique posts - so posts with both tracked_tag_1 and tracked_tag_2 will be reblogged only once
Add archival date tags - right now the format would be [date], so for example for post made on 2023-02-31 > [2023], [2023-02], [2023-02-31]; that will allow to browse posts made on specific day, specific month, and specific year.
Copy the tags from original post - in effort to preserve extra content/warning tags, like mermaid!AU, or dragons, or flashing lights, etc. Those won't get the [].
Reblog
How often will it be run?
Everyday, but it will collect posts older than a week - or more, definitely not less. This is to encourage people to keep using the /tagged or /search options on Tumblr, because, as I've mentioned, Tumblr API DOES NOT return all the posts visible on web.
As in, when I've checked #trigunbookclub, API was missing like first 5 posts. And it's like that by design. The difference is due to Tumblr not actually using the API to display posts. I'm looking into alternatives, one looks good so far, hopefully it won't annoy Tumblr just as much as Tumblr annoys me, I don't want to get banned (again, suggestions are welcome).
It's also to give users time to modify/delete their post. And if you end up following the archival blog, you'll get to see the posts again.
Which tags will be tracked?
So far the list is: #trigun, #trigun maximum, #trigun stampede, #trimax, #tristamp, #trigunbookclub
I'll keep the list on pinned post on archival blog (together with most of what I've written here).
If you have any suggestions, go ahead and send me an ask/DM.
What if I don't want my posts reblogged?
Bot will ignore posts with tags: #delete later, #private, #do not reblog.
It can also be set up to ignore specific blogs.
If a post was already reblogged, let me know and I'll delete it.
Will you also filter out nasty tags like plantce-
No.
I want my posts reblogged, but they're often skipped
Let me know, we will see about getting them straight from your blog instead.
Will you start archiving from the newest posts or from the oldest?
Honestly I want to start from oldest, to try and keep the order of posting since you can't filter by multiple tags, so if someone wants to filter all #trimax posts, they will still get them in some chronological order, but I'm probably going to do a poll for that too. But-
For example, #trigun stampede has 4400 pages as of today, let's count 10 posts per page (there's less). I can reblog 250 posts per day (if I'm not mistaken), that's 25 pages. That's 176 days to get up to date just with #trigun stampede.
Yeah, poll it is.
When will it start?
I need to cleanup the code, and add some tests, but I should be able to start next week, IF I don't get any votes against.
What if I have more questions?
Hit me up, my askbox and DMs are open.
#hag talks#trigun#trigun maximum#trigun stampede#trimax#tristamp#trigunbookclub#so far looks like I'm doing it#oh man this is going to be fun#I'm currently running the alternate script for trigun#let's see if it will finish by morning without killing my computer#cause I think the earliest post on API was from 2013?
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*hands you an AU dump to hoard like a little goblin handing a small coin to a dragon*
OKAY so basically: after the doctor's visit where Izuku learns he's quirkless (I hc that they went when he was about five n' a half), Inko does a little bit of research on quirks and more specifically on her son's notebooks, learns that he's even more brilliant at quirk analysis than she originally suspected, and (after looking at some not great quirkless statistics) she instead informs Izuku that no, he's had a quirk all along! It's an analysis quirk!
So she updates the quirk registry, and Izuku goes through his life believing he has an analysis quirk, albeit teased for being a late bloomer, but he still can't shake the insecurity being quirkless for that one and a half year gave him.
He does research on all sorts of things, hacking, knife throwing, first aid, and building his own support gear and takes to all of it like a duck to water. He also does research on UA's policy for support gear in the entrance exam (cause surely they've gotta have a policy for non-offensive quirks like Koda and Hagakure) and finds that he can take one with him if he builds it himself. He goes fuckin bonkers.
Anyways: he trains with Katsuki, cause they're relationship is pretty good since Izuku has a 'quirk.' They both demolish the entrance exam. (Also Izuku kinda swears a lot because Katsuki rubs off on him)
Aizawa doesn't notice a goddamn thing is amiss until the battle trials on the second day (he decides to shadow All Might that day), where when he was using his quirk to silence his students while Izuku was rambling, he just didn't stop, as if he didn't notice anything was wrong. It happens again during the USJ.
So at some point during the sports festival, Nedzu (who is now intrigued because of Aizawa's complaining) invites Izuku into his office during a free period and lets him go ham on analysis, all while Aizawa is secretly there erasing Izuku's 'quirk.' Nedzu invites Izuku to be his personal student (making Aizawa go grey), he says yes, and then Nedzu drops the absolute BOMBSHELL that Izuku is actually quirkless. Cue an existential crisis.
(Also Izuku gets captured at the training camp alongside Katsuki because of his "analysis quirk," wonder how well that goes for him~)
- Goblin anon (sorry this one was kinda long)
GOBLIN?? DUDE???? HOLY SHIT I KNEW YOUR AUS ARE ALWAYS PHENOMENAL BUT THIS RIGHT HERE??? D U D E
i misunderstood the prompt a bit but i genuinely don’t know how to backtrack, so here you go goblin. sorry again o(TヘTo)
ok first of, inko taking on a stronger stance to support her son? love that of her. like, she doesn’t say sorry when izuku turned to look at her and cried that he can’t be like all might. instead, she took him in her arms and assures him that he will be a great hero. at first, of course half of it is lip service because she doesn’t know how to help her quirkless boy be a hero, since, you know, heroes need quirks.. (or do they)
and then she comes across a quirkless self help group which rang many many warning bells in her head. what kind of life do quirkless people live when a google research of them resulted in subsequent pages of results like how to stay safe when quirkless, or how to find jobs when quirkless, or quirkless mortality rates?
she fears for izuku, until she notices that her son’s smart. too smart for his age, but inko thought she’s just being biased. but izuku’s wit is something many people notice, for an instance, when izuku goes to the park to play and his friends’ (the few ones who stayed) parents tell her that her son’s smart for a quirkless person, she realizes that izuku’s wit is far more vast than normal.
then a thought worms into her head but wouldn’t it be bad to lie…but also, no one would be any the wiser.
further pushed by all the statistics she keeps seeing, or the lack thereof, about quirkless people, she makes the decision and pours it to izuku.
izuku who’s far smarter than his age and understood what his mom is asking from him. izuku who already saw the disparities between quirked and quirkless people at the tender age of five. izuku who knows what it means to lie about something as personal as a quirk, but realizes that it’s necessary for him to do so if he wants to live a “normal” life.
so he agrees; he tells inko that he’ll work even harder to sharpen his mind, and to keep expanding his knowledge.
when izuku’s quirk file is officially updated, he watches how his peers and teachers revert back into treating him as izuku. he regains his old friends, but he chose to drop them because he doesn’t want to surround himself with people who thought he was less for being quirkless.
katsuki stayed, surprisingly. katsuki stayed and everyday he kept bothering izuku to “get your quirk already!” katsuki stayed because he can’t fathom that the smartest boy in their class (of course not as smart as him, psshh) is quirkless. deku couldn’t be quirkless. (but if he found out that izuku, indeed, is, i wonder what would happen…)
katsuki was one of the loudest to celebrate when izuku announced that his quirk arrived.
“finally!” he screams and bothers izuku about the semantics of his quirk. he really wasn’t surprised to find out that izuku has an analysis quirk because he thought that nothing else would better be suited for izuku.
he doesn’t know that izuku pours so much of his time into learning and studying, often bypassing basics and intros to take more of the developed courses that are usually recommended for older ages. he doesn’t know that izuku is just a naturally smart kid with the ability to fill the gaps of his young mind with knowledge upon knowledge, storing and stacking them until he feels that he’s laid a sturdy foundation for his fake quirk.
then izuku began threading into different areas. he learns how to get into cyberspaces; hacking into accounts and delving more into how to access private information. he doesn’t thread too close lest he gets caught, but he learns the logistics of maneuvering around the web and burrowing in empty spaces to branch out his own. he creates and designs web algorithms for himself, just so he doesn’t trigger anyone who is looking into the web movements. he hones this and uses it to access more information.
then when he deems it enough, he turns his attention to something more tangible and something more physical. he learns other ways to be a hero; how to fight without a physical quirk, how to win against bigger opponents, how to use analysis quirk in fights.
izuku becomes more than a fake analysis quirk user; he creates it.
mental quirks are hard to describe, more so to compress, thus he creates new definitions of an analysis quirk. what used to be a silly lie is now a tangible fact that izuku believes in. because what makes a quirk? because what makes analysis a quirk? he learns these semantics (often political) and uses it to his advantage.
then he finally threads to hero analysis. at first it were classmates he analyzed; eyes running quickly at their forms and watching with great interest before calculating everything he’s seen and transversing it with the things he learned, and bridges these two facts together to create an analysis. it was a struggle at first: he didn’t know which to put emphasis on until he realizes, he doesn’t need to. he weaves them together and lets his analysis run long and watches how his hobby comes into fruition.
following his classmates are current heroes. these were more tough and more fun, and any of the information is less shared. he doesn’t tell his classmates or teachers about his analyses, only katsuki. and katsuki’s breath hitch every damn time at izuku’s talent quirk.
it is in their second year of middle school that midoriya begins to incorporate the facts with himself to create physical performances. the issues and things he learned through observing are now practiced by himself. he calculates the best way to fight with a body as petite as his, often taking examples from pro-hero hawks and other women heroes. their agilities and physicality suit izuku’s young body; he doesn’t see the merit in punching his way through things when he physically cannot.
so he learns ways to ease his muscles. he learns ballet and gymnastics; lets his muscles contort and mend themselves anew. he finds his balance and roots himself firmly, and learns to calculate his actions so he doesn’t waste his energy. katsuki doesn’t say anything, but he sees izuku’s dance and falls in love.
then in the spring of their third year of middle school, izuku learns how to build and handle weapons.
this is the easiest. izuku learns that weapons aren’t tools, but extensions of his arms and hands. they are not to be revered and not to be depended on because they can fail. instead, he learns to wield weapons as though they are parts of his bodies. he learns how to use swords and often narrowing to wooden sticks that can be picked up anywhere; he learns how to fire guns and how to hide daggers in his uniform. he learns that his body is the best weapon to use and that tools are just arsenal to help him win.
then he learns how to build them.
by summer, izuku begins reaching into UA’s servers. they are hard codes to crack, but not impossible. it takes him five days to access old entrance exam videos. the next day, the videos are snuffed and he is left to try digging deeper into UA.
he fails.
nezu must have caught onto his codes and proceeded to build walls against it.
so he slithers out. but a five minute video of last year’s entrance exam is enough for izuku because he learns two things: one, heroes must defeat villains and two, heroes must save others.
izuku prepares for this. unknowingly, katsuki is taught these same principles. katsuki would grumble and tell him that he knows what heroes must do, but izuku continues to hammer it down to him.
by the time of the UA entrance exam, izuku falls into the ease of having a fake quirk. he passes the written exam with flying colours and although it took three teachers to approve his support gears (present mic had to pull in powerloader, midnight, and hound dog to ensure that the well designed support gears are made by the hero student examinee and not by a support student examinee. majima saw the works and begged nezu to allow izuku to be his student.), izuku still succeeds and dominates the entrance exam.
when the zero pointer was released, he had flung himself towards the girl crushed by debris and yanks her out. he doesn’t waste a modified grenade to explode the zero pointer because through his calculations, doing so would not only create more collateral damage, but would also endanger the examinee in his arms because she still would be caught in the crossfire.
nezu hums in appreciation from the screening room, after all, smart minds always do think alike.
izuku gets a whopping 92 in the physical aspects of the entrance exam.
katsuki gets 85.
aizawa gleefully takes them in.
izuku thinks that no one will ever know of his and inko’s secret, but one look at nezu’s beady eyes and he knew that the stoat knew. it became a game to them, then. a game to see who else would realize.
and while izuku is smart, he doesn’t realize that nezu has basically taken him as his personal student the moment he and izuku had created a bet.
it takes two months for aizawa to figure things out. surprisingly, he is the only one to do so and he only realizes due to the many untimely attacks of LoV.
——
how angst would it be if katsuki realizes that izuku’s always been quirkless during their captivity in the LoV’s hideout.
#goblin anon#my BELOVED#ask#this ones such a damn good au#bamf midoriya >>>#head empty just fake anslysis quirk user midoriya#bakugou going fish eyed at the realization that izukus always been quirkless#bakugou: so u lied to me#midoriya: and to everyone yeah#no bc bkg falling in love w midos hard work#n thinking that he would love midoriya no matter what then ‘no matter what’ happens to be midoriya being quirkless n now hes confused#bnha#midoriya izuku#bakugou katsuki#slight#bakudeku#aizawa shouta#nezu#long post#like long
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Horror move night at Ben’s house with the ms gang! 🍿✨
As promised I’ve written a quick introduction to my Middle School au! All information will be under the read more 😊 :
Main plot (Spoiler warning for Ben 10 (2016) Movie) :
The big plot for this au is there’s a war going on in space. Since the Omnitrix was created fighting against planets emerged all due to Vilgax’s first use of the Omnitrix as a warlord. Though the fighting started off small, it soon escalated and began to grow larger and larger. 2-3 years of nonstop fighting soon formed into one big territorial war. Which is why Argit, Rook, & many other aliens are on earth. Everyone is looking for a safe planet to hide with their families, hoping whatever planet they find themselves in will be spared or undetected.
((I will elaborate more on the space war when I introduce Albedo & Attea))
Basic theme of the au:
The main theme to this au would be “Change” = Change in yourself, your friends, your life, & the universe around you! The reason I picked this specific theme was so each character can have their own arc/growth in this au. It also suits the coming of age themes that many kids go through in that age (their appearance, their morals, who they are,etc.) This au is still very new in my head but below I’d gather enough ideas I have for each of the characters!
((Some of it may change in the future))
Ben Tennyson:
After having the Omnitrix for 2 years, Ben thinks he can handle it all ((but boy is he wrong!)) Ben’s main character arc would revolve around making tough decisions and not being afraid to ask for help.
With beings coming from other planets, he’s gonna face off many new foes! Foes who do not care that he’s a child, beings who are willing to sacrifice a child for their own ideals. He’ll have to make decisions on who to trust and deal with the potential consequences with owning the watch. With bigger threats landing on earth Ben gets the fortunate and unfortunate of meeting new people! (Such as Albedo, Attea, & Julie)
It’s his choice now on who he’s willing to trust, help, and who to fight for. Lucky for him he’s not alone!
Fun Character Fact: Ben wears baggy clothes ((sweaters, hoodies, sweats, cargo pants)) due to a little body insecurity he has! He’s not so much ashamed of his body, just a little embarrassed and would prefer the comfort of his big green hoodie.
Gwen Tennyson:
Gwen goes to a private all ages school and is the top student in all her classes! Gwen’s main character arc would be dealing & learning about her new found powers. Not only that but to learn she doesn’t have to be what others perceive her as.
To elaborate on the second arc: My Gwen has grown into the role of being the Smart Kid™️. By being the top student she’s also pressured to fit a certain expectation by her teachers and peers. She has doubts of herself and wonders what’s deemed as “appropriate” for her intelligence ((like no more kiddy stuff, even if it interests her)).
This would come to fruition when her anodite powers emerge ((in the scariest way possible)) She’d start her daily routine the same only with a slight migraine problem. Migraines soon turn to ache and ache soon turn to her face cracking like a porcelain doll while at school. Afraid to ask any adult she asks help from Ben & Kevin ((Then Rook, Julie, & Argit who end up sneaking through Gwen’s window after they get dragged into hiding Gwen from her parents)). The whole event was scary but with clarification from her grandpa it all became clear.
Fun Character Fact: Ben can’t scan Gwen’s Anodite DNA into his watch due to the Omntrix stating “DNA already attained” since they’re related. He’d have to scan an Anodite not related to him by blood to absorb their DNA.
Kevin Levin:
Kevin in this au no longer wears his Anti-Trix. He took it off the first day of 7th grade and hadn’t put it on since. He’s not sure he’s cut out to be a hero and instead focuses his time on his crafts. Kevin’s main arc is one I have yet to think about fully. I’m not sure whether to have him grow into his osmosian DNA or have him go through a different self discovery. Bashmouth is my favorite alien of Kevin and I’m thinking of having him have his DNA altered like in the OS but with Bashmouth only. It’d make more sense to explain once I introduced Albedo later ((hopefully!))
Fun Character Fact: Kevin has gotten better with his mechanical skills and uses those skills to make the goofiest stuff ((Such as a mobile couch on wheel so he and the homies can ride it to get some smoothies)).
Rook Blonko:
Rook Blonko is a foreign exchange student, as far as anyone knows, who goes to Gwen’s school. Rook's main arc would be choosing to run or fight with the Tennysons.
Rook was originally sent to earth to see whether this planet was safe or not for his family to relocate to. Unbeknownst to him and his family, Rook would be staying with the cousin of the keeper of the Omnitrix. With this discovery Rook should have hopped to another planet to live in but he took the chance to know the user of the watch. Getting to know the Tennysons and the people of earth has changed Rook’s thoughts of his mission. Should he run away and save his own family or should he stay and fight with his new found friends and make sure no one else is forced to abandon their home.
Fun Character Fact: Rook stays with Gwen’s family. He’s introduced to Ben, Kevin, & Argit when Gwn begs them to hang out with Rook ((He’d often stay in his room studying and Gwen wanted him to socialize. She regrets it later when they all come home smelling like garbage)).
Julie Yamamoto:
Julie’s one of Bellwood Junior High’s top tennis players! She takes many AP classes which explains why Ben’s never seen her around school before. Julie doesn’t actually have an arc. She’s one of the characters willing to help no matter what. She’s first induced to alien knowledge when she saves Ben from a DNAlien. Through Ben she learns about the Omntrix, aliens, and what’s going on outside their planet. From then on she’s supported and helped Ben on his mission to save the world and beyond. If she had to give a reason as to why she’s helping she’d have two:
Innocent beings shouldn’t have to flee from their homes.
A 12 yr old shouldn’t have to deal with this alone.
She may be human but she’s willing to do what she can to make a difference in any means possible. ((She maybe reward too with a certain pet from space))
Fun Character Fact: Julie is a trans girl in this au 🏳️⚧️ Julie’s also super into horror media!
Argit:
Argit is the kid in the halls you can get anything from. Candy, chips, test answers, phone numbers, you name it! Like Rook, Argit’s main arc would be choosing to run or fight with the Tennysons.
Argit is one of the kids most affected by the war. He no longer has a planet and was forced to flee to another planet. Since his first foot step on earth he’s only looked out for himself. He adapted to his environment and learned to support himself. Argit’s the most afraid of the alien kid bunch to be outed as non-human. He’s already built so much for himself here on earth that he’s afraid of losing it all just for his appearance.
Argit would rather high tail away from any alien fights then stay and help. He doesn’t care much for the Tennysons but he does respect Kevin. But hanging out with Kevin means hanging out with The Tennyson twins. Hopefully their good nature will rub off on him.
Fun Character Fact: Argit is the treasurer of his 8th grade class! His least favorite person is Ben and if he had to pick a favorite between his friends (aside from Kevin) he’d pick Julie.
This au is still new and it may go through some changes later! Please tell me what you think!
#ben 10#ben tennyson#kevin levin#gwen tennyson#rook blonko#julie yamamoto#Argit#Argit ben 10#ben 10 omniverse#Ben 10 reboot#CherryVamp's art#Ben 10 MS Au#CherryVamp chatter#kevin 11
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Thank you for your request @mister-loverman !!!
I accidentally deleted Portia, Muriel, and Lucio's headcanons smh :'( But I also made you wait a lot so I am posting the main three for now and will add on after I re-write all the headcanons!
Warning: Angst, mention of hurting others (therefore it is NSFW), and politics.
Revolution Leader MC Headcanons (NSFW)
Asra
You actually came to Vesuvia to see how you can recruit more people for your cause
Since MC doesn't have a specific affinity I headcanon that the revolution is about magic users like you
People with no specific affinity, and able to master any field of their choose
Or even more than one field
Since those people can not be controlled and hold a very powerful magical energy within them, they are often seen like time bombs by the people in your hometown/country
So you did your part in your home and freed so many magicians
But the cost was huge
You are on the top wanted list after the trouble you caused to the people with political power
Your cause was more important to you than the possible long life you could choose to live
So you came to Vesuvia to collect more people to join you
The moment you stepped into Asra's small shop, you were actually trying to hide from the suspicious people that were following you
After meeting Asra you started to find excuses to visit Vesuvia every now and then during your journey
Your followers thought that you had serious business in there and were raising their hopes up
In truth, you were just going to the magician you so deeply fell in love with
Whenever you were with him all the troubles disappeared, you had nothing to be scared of or worry about
During the Red Plague, something bad happened between you and your followers
They noticed that you were having an "affair" during the most important revolution of the century
And people wanted to get revenge
They told Asra what you did to people that resisted the revolution
That day Asra left after a heated fight
He disappeared for about a week but eventually returned
The tension between you two was painfully present
You then told him that you wanted to stay and work with the doctors to save Vesuvians from the deadly sickness
Asra broke that day and then left you in Vesuvia
Only to find your ashes in Lazareth after accepting the guilt he had for leaving you
Nadia
Nadia is good with politics
This is a solid fact
But I don't think she would want to get involved in other countries' revolution
Unless the revolution affects her and her people in a harmful way
She is observant and looks at the entire picture unlike many others
Unlike you.
She investigates and gets the defenses, causes, and information from both sides and then objectively comes to a conclusion
You believed in a fairytale
You wanted to change the system regards to use of magic and magician in order to have more freedom
But the less you knew the more romantic of an idea this told freedom was
Some magicians wanted to make forbidden magics such as blood magic to be free to learn without any punishments
Blood magic was useful to heal people and even with small self-sacrifices, it would be possible to make the longest-lasting protections for the innocents
This was the visible side of the picture
Nadia analyzed the details in the painting.
There was a reason to make such magic forbidden
People made you believe that with the right education there was almost no chance of ill intentions that could make with magic
But you can't control everyone
Nadia had a serious talk with you in her private chambers one night
She was worried sick about you and the way people used you as a symbol of the revolution
I mean you came back from death and defeated the Devil
You were just perfect for such a job
When she attempted to make you leave the leadership, you left her instead.
Julian
He is there and will do anything to get your side of the cause stronger
He will do spying and recruit new people
You wanted to free the oppressed from the oppressors and stop the present war
Your leadership gave people strength and hope
Julian worked with doctors to help the wounded one day
Then went to a faraway city to support the defenses there with you the other day
He was also very good with outside relations
He was also good with finding money
He made trades with sailors and even employed pirate crews to do deliveries in the faster way
He will also make plans with you
Will go to dangerous places instead of you so that you don't get hurt
Julian will try to find a way to create a future together with you at the same time
During his travels, any moment he can sit and have a drink, and any second without the presence of danger for your life
He understands the risks, and he also understands the importance of this revolution to you
The critical role everything plays in the history of the world
Julian knows there might not be a danger
But he is also hopeful to end the revolution with success and with the drunk happiness of freedom for everyone
So he works hard
He works so hard
He wants the future he plans to share with you
After years of fighting, you achieve your goal and write a new page in history books
But you are badly wounded
It was intentional
You had to get the last resistance groups to join you
You had to break the only source people in power had to leave them and make them vulnerable
To make them lose.
So you created a scene after the information you got from your spies
There will be an assassination attempt during your speech
Julian fought with all he has to make you stay in a safe place and cancel the speech
But have you ever listen to him before?
Nope.
You got an arrow to the shoulder with the last second movement you made to miss the archer's aim to your heart
It was a nasty attempt made and politically ruined your enemy
You were peaceful at all times and they proved that they were the oppressors with this dirty failed assassination
He will make you retire after that day and move to somewhere silent with you
Even though you have pain that comes and goes he is a skilled doctor
From now on everything will be about building the future together.
Muriel (Coming Soon!)
Portia (Coming Soon!)
Lucio (Coming Soon!)
#count lucio#the arcana lucio#lucio morgasson#portiathearcana#portia devorak#asra alnazar#julian devorak#countess nadia#nadia satrivana#muriel#the arcana headcanons#the arcana#the arcana muriel#the arcana julian#the arcana asra#the arcana nadia#the arcana angst#some writing
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If I never see another post from Franzeska aka olderthannetfic here it will be too soon. How dare she answer questions about racism and AO3 like she wasn’t one of the people who helped build it into the very structure of the site? I am quoting this directly from her post (emphasis mine):
We picked the archive warnings from things that were common on older fic archives. Which, yes, reflects what fandom cared about at the time and is not neutral. (And when I say “we”, I do mean me specifically. I can’t remember how much my committee chose those and how much the Board and others drove the exact selection, but I did a lot of the research into older archives at the time. Including something about racism straight up never occurred to me in 2008.)
And sure, our views can evolve a lot in a decade. But Racefail happened in 2009, and none of the topics discussed at the time are different than those we’re focusing on today, 11 years later. For shits and giggles, here is my archived Livejournal post about the entire mess. If you click through to the other links (synedochic’s in particular), I think you will see this is something that didn’t just pop up with Tumblr and the SJW/anti contingent. (I’m not comfortable with conflating antis/fandom fundies/purity wankers with fans legitimately criticizing racism in fandom, but that is how a lot of it gets lumped together as a dismissive tactic.)
Which brings us to That Piece of Shit Meta in 2016. I am linking to the Fanlore entry for context, because the Actual Piece of Shit Meta is archive-locked (you can access it from Fanlore if you really want to read it, but it’s 16K of garbage).
A selection of commentary about it:
Guys, this was the problem all along. I’m doing fandom wrong by falling in love with the wrong source text. If I’d only understood that this wasn’t my space to enjoy non-white and/or non-male characters, because the majority of characters are white men, imagine how much happier I’d be in my life. (allofthefeelings)
they’ve been spouting yt apologia while fetishizing asian culture for years, this is nothing new. i’m pretty sure i’ve read franzeska saying the same things back when racefail ‘09 was going down. like most of this isn’t surprising bc it is exactly what we saw yt lj fandom peeps spouting in 2007-2010 and i’m personally not shocked that these people learned absolutely nothing. they don’t want to learn and being accountable for their actions. (astro-projection [edited to correct quote attribution and link])
Franzeska goes deep into the history of AO3 to talk about why slash is represented heavily there... But in 16,000 words over 13 chapters, there is not one mention of Racefail ‘09. Not a single reference to the time a popular Harry Potter LJ community used a racial slur as a prompt in 2007. Nothing about the Supernatural RPF Big Bang story that used the 2010 Haiti earthquake as a backdrop for a J2 love story (THAT’S A REAL THING THAT HAPPENED). Nothing about the time in 2006 that comics BNF Te pointed out the marginalization black characters faced on two then-juggernauts of white m/m slash fandom, Angel and Smallville. (snarl-furillo, the entire comment is worth reading so please click through)
This erasure of context and history is violent. Because many of the women of color who originally (and still) critique/d and resist/ed fandom’s normalized racism/misogynoir did so to their own detriment and with not insignificant risk to their personal well-being, safety, and privacy. Women of color were ‘outed’ by other fans for speaking out (doxed). They were attacked and silenced from all sides. They lost friends and community. They had to, with great vulnerability, cut themselves open and drag out their own private, internal experiences to air for all the (white) people who disbelieved them. They often found themselves speaking directly to a fucking wall of over-sensitive whiteness that would just as easily topple right on top of them.
If anything in fandom is precious, it’s white feelings. And it always has been. (halfhardtorock)
In 2017 she was part of a Kickstarter to do a film about fangirls and fandom. I asked (you’ll need to hit “show comment” to see it) her to publicly comment about That Piece of Shit Meta, which she did.
But before she did, Chelsea Woods, the co-creator of the project, emailed me about the comment. I don’t remember what exactly the email said, because it was a really long time ago, but she wanted to talk to me about the meta, perhaps to help formulate a response. Chelsea also reached out to somebody else outspoken about the issue at the time, and this is from a DM exchange I had with them:
I understand why Chelsea reached out, as the head of the project and probably because she thought I would be more likely to respond instead of Franzeska. But tbh it feels like Franzeska's trying to get somebody else (a woman of color) to do the legwork for her. To the best of my knowledge I don't have F blocked on Twitter or Tumblr, and it's not like my email is hard to figure out. I don't exactly relish the thought of talking to her, but as the one who fucked up, I feel like it is incumbent upon her to make the gesture...
I basically told Chelsea the same as you, that at this point there is very little she can do to demonstrate she understood what she did was fucked up, and that she has learned anything from the experience.
And when I tried to reblog her response, I found out Franzeska had blocked me, if that gives you any indication of how much she honestly wants to engage in discussion.
Which brings me to now. I was literally today years old when I learned that Franzeska was head of the Abuse team for A While. (Bess says 2008-2012.) So suddenly a lot of things make sense, especially the lackluster (to put it politely) response about racist nonsense I’ve heard over the years, like in male hockey RPF. [edit: additional context in this post, ty Rukmini]
Certainly Franzeska is not responsible for everything racist about AO3, but she has definitely had a hand in shaping a culture that sacrifices the well-being and comfort of black users (among others) on the altar of “maximum inclusivity of content”. To turn the phrase back on them, who is “our own”? Why is it important to preserve an environment where a racially fetishistic fic that objectifies a black hockey player can stay up but a black fan basically has to go in like Viago checking for sunlight?
There is a balance between draconian content restrictions and letting racism, sexism, transphobia, etc run rampant on the site. I’m not saying it will be possible to find it immediately, or that it won’t change over time. But we have to try, if the AO3 is truly committed to making it a place that includes everybody, and not just the specific group of people who designed the site.
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Negativity and me rambling about discoursey topics below the cut. feel free to keep scrolling. Actually, I encourage it ilaushdfhasd Have a great day!
I want to talk bluntly here.
I know I probably come off like a jackass nowadays, and I don’t want to, but at the end of the day there’s a group of ppl who are going to continue spreading lies about people based on what they ship, how they read characters, or literally anything that they disagree on, and they don’t listen when you try and explain anything.
so I’m kinda tired and grumpy and I genuinely try not to address it because I know no one who i want to get through to will listen, but also I feel like if I don’t just make a big old post whining about it there will probably be more of those small, whinier posts that I delete after an hour or so. But anyway. People are going to call me and my friemds horrible things, and they’re not going to listen if we try and defend ourselves. Which. Old news. Already found that out last July-August.
Guess what? I was here last year. I missed most of the first drama of the year, that being Kittencourse 1.0, but I was dragged along for the ride every other time. And it was anti-shippers starting those dramas, every time. I probably wouldn’t have lebelled myself as anything if not for the fact that for half a year bullies were throwing around their weight and justifying it by being antis, even when their opponents were doing nothing wrong.
I was here when someone was harassed for months over a fanfiction. this person wasn’t some huge presence in the fandom; the fanfic wasn’t some bastion of the fandom. I don’t think most of us knew either person or fic until antis decided it would be fun to fuck with the account for months on end.
I began identifying as pro ship because at least the pro shippers didn’t seem to be going out of their way to be nasty.
You know the funny thing? For a long while the most problematic thing I shipped was Tugger shanks. Even now, the most problematic thing I ship is Munku pounce, which I will not hesitate to tell you is a comfort ship, as pounce is one of my comfort characters. Any other ship is between kittens and those in the nebulous young adult range, which doesn’t seem to match the Anti Council’s definition of problematic, given many of them had no issue following a blog openly labelling itself as pro ship when the spiciest ship was Pounce/Plato.
And that’s the other thing. I’ve been very open on this blog about being pro ship.
Every time I got a wave of followers who seemed v likely to be anti-shippers, I reblogged posts explaining my stance and hopefully making it clear that I was pro ship. Regardless, I ended up having these followers for months; I didn’t block them bc many of them didn’t make it clear either way what they felt, so I dared to assume they were alright following a pro shipper. Then of course a few months later: a pro ship DNI, maybe some soapboxing, and more than once this has been while they are still following me.
And the fact is, it doesn’t matter what I try to explain.
It doesn’t matter how many posts I reblog trying to explain what it means when I use the term pro ship.
It doesn’t matter if I say that incest ships aren’t really it for me.
It doesn’t matter if I say the kittens are not young children to me.
It wouldn’t matter if I compiled every instance of kitten characters being provocative or taking part in sexually charged numbers.
It doesn’t matter that what we’re talking about here are fictional anthro cats played by adults.
It doesn’t matter because antis have already made up their mind and don’t want to hear otherwise.
It wouldn’t help if I changed labels because the label isn’t the issue, it’s the opposition to antis and their mentality. If I changed labels, they’d simply transfer the baggage they’ve given pro ship onto whatever I had chosen instead.
And I don’t think there’s going to be a middle ground reached because both sides are coming at media differently.
Yes, Pro shippers are alright with people having ships between characters who are related, ships with large age gaps, and, yes, even ships between adult characters and child characters. Because this is fiction we’re talking about. No one real is being harmed by this ship existing. The threat of grooming with these ships exists for all ships, all fandoms, all pieces of media, and all things that can be used to gain a victim’s trust.
Also, you don’t know why anyone ships what they do. You don’t know why anyone has the headcanons they do. I think it’s well-documented by now that there are survivors on all sides of this discourse, so that much should be clear. Telling those who do use these more controversial ships or headcanons to cope that they ought to be doing it in private is not only callous but disingenuine, as antis have, multiple times, gone into private spaces and leaked all content thereof so they could call out those within the group.
As it applies to this fandom, I don’t believe I’ve seen any potentially triggering ship in the main tags. Most of us who do ship controversial ships are aware people don’t like them. We provide tags to block, and of course users can be blocked as well.
Speaking of which.
I know who blocks me back. It shows a specific icon when a block is mutual. I assure you very few antis block me, even when they say they do.
Listen.
The truth is, at the end of the day, this is a blog for a musical about cats. I’ve shifted away from interacting with most users, partly so i don’t end up with more followers who end up antis, and partly so other, neutral users don’t end up catching flack for interacting with me.
And yeah, it is true that the current fandom climate is hilariously hostile to several ships that were popular for decades beforehand. It is true that antis have double standards. That their hypocrisy is easy to point out. That’s true of antis and fandoms in general.
But also. No one outside this fandom gives a shit what any of us are shipping, really. We’re all weirdos to them. The block button is right there; the filtering option is right there, Xkit and its blacklisting tool are right there. Yet there are still these dumb as shit outbursts and fearmongering and soapboxing.
And I’m Tired.
I’m tired moreso by general antidom.
There are multiple compilations of anti shippers being horrible people over ships and fiction, and sometimes even just because they think someone is a pro shipper, even if they aren’t. I’ve had many urges to link them, to share them, but often I think about the trigger warnings it would require and I lose steam; I don’t want to share that stuff with my followers.
And I’m Tired.
I’m tired that the same stupid points of drama are probably going to get resurrected again. At least this time I have most of them blocked.
But, yeah.
I’m Tired.
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“Special thanks to BitDefender for helping fix our issues,” DarkSide said. “This will make us even better.”
DarkSide soon proved it wasn’t bluffing, unleashing a string of attacks. This month, it paralyzed the Colonial Pipeline Co., prompting a shutdown of the 5,500 mile pipeline that carries 45% of the fuel used on the East Coast, quickly followed by a rise in gasoline prices, panic buying of gas across the Southeast and closures of thousands of gas stations. Absent Bitdefender’s announcement, it’s possible that the crisis might have been contained, and that Colonial might have quietly restored its system with Wosar and Gillespie’s decryption tool.
Instead, Colonial paid DarkSide $4.4 million in Bitcoin for a key to unlock its files. “I will admit that I wasn’t comfortable seeing money go out the door to people like this,” CEO Joseph Blount told The Wall Street Journal.
The missed opportunity was part of a broader pattern of botched or half-hearted responses to the growing menace of ransomware, which during the pandemic has disabled businesses, schools, hospitals and government agencies across the country. The incident also shows how antivirus companies eager to make a name for themselves sometimes violate one of the cardinal rules of the cat-and-mouse game of cyber-warfare: Don’t let your opponents know what you’ve figured out. During World War II, when the British secret service learned from decrypted communications that the Gestapo was planning to abduct and murder a valuable double agent, Johnny Jebsen, his handler wasn’t allowed to warn him for fear of cluing in the enemy that its cipher had been cracked. Today, ransomware hunters like Wosar and Gillespie try to prolong the attackers’ ignorance, even at the cost of contacting fewer victims. Sooner or later, as payments drop off, the cybercriminals realize that something has gone wrong.
Whether to tout a decryption tool is a “calculated decision,” said Rob McLeod, senior director of the threat response unit for cybersecurity firm eSentire. From the marketing perspective, “You are singing that song from the rooftops about how you have come up with a security solution that will decrypt a victim’s data. And then the security researcher angle says, ‘Don’t disclose any information here. Keep the ransomware bugs that we’ve found that allow us to decode the data secret, so as not to notify the threat actors.’”
In a post on the dark web, DarkSide thanked Bitdefender for identifying a flaw in the gang’s ransomware. (Highlight added by ProPublica.)
Wosar said that publicly releasing tools, as Bitdefender did, has become riskier as ransoms have soared and the gangs have grown wealthier and more technically adept. In the early days of ransomware, when hackers froze home computers for a few hundred dollars, they often couldn’t determine how their code was broken unless the flaw was specifically pointed out to them.
Today, the creators of ransomware “have access to reverse engineers and penetration testers who are very very capable,” he said. “That’s how they gain entrance to these oftentimes highly secured networks in the first place. They download the decryptor, they disassemble it, they reverse engineer it and they figure out exactly why we were able to decrypt their files. And 24 hours later, the whole thing is fixed. Bitdefender should have known better.”
It wasn’t the first time that Bitdefender trumpeted a solution that Wosar or Gillespie had beaten it to. Gillespie had broken the code of a ransomware strain called GoGoogle and was helping victims without any fanfare, when Bitdefender released a decryption tool in May 2020. Other companies have also announced breakthroughs publicly, Wosar and Gillespie said.
“People are desperate for a news mention, and big security companies don’t care about victims,” Wosar said.
Bogdan Botezatu, director of threat research at Bucharest, Romania-based Bitdefender, said the company wasn’t aware of the earlier success in unlocking files infected by DarkSide. Regardless, he said, Bitdefender decided to publish its tool “because most victims who fall for ransomware do not have the right connection with ransomware support groups and won’t know where to ask for help unless they can learn about the existence of tools from media reports or with a simple search.”
Bitdefender has provided free technical support to more than a dozen DarkSide victims, and “we believe many others have successfully used the tool without our intervention,” Botezatu said. Over the years, Bitdefender has helped individuals and businesses avoid paying more than $100 million in ransom, he said.
Bitdefender recognized that DarkSide might correct the flaw, Botezatu said. “We are well aware that attackers are agile and adapt to our decryptors.” But DarkSide might have “spotted the issue” anyway. “We don’t believe in ransomware decryptors made silently available. Attackers will learn about their existence by impersonating home users or companies in need, while the vast majority of victims will have no idea that they can get their data back for free.”
The attack on Colonial Pipeline, and the ensuing chaos at the gas pumps throughout the Southeast, appears to have spurred the federal government to be more vigilant. President Joe Biden issued an executive order to improve cybersecurity and create a blueprint for a federal response to cyberattacks. DarkSide said it was shutting down under U.S. pressure, although ransomware crews have often disbanded to avoid scrutiny and then re-formed under new names, or their members have launched or joined other groups.
“As sophisticated as they are, these guys will pop up again, and they’ll be that much smarter,” said Aaron Tantleff, a Chicago cybersecurity attorney who has consulted with 10 companies attacked by DarkSide. “They’ll come back with a vengeance.”
At least until now, private researchers and companies have often been more effective than the government in fighting ransomware. Last October, Microsoft disrupted the infrastructure of Trickbot, a network of more than 1 million infected computers that disseminated the notorious Ryuk strain of ransomware, by disabling its servers and communications. That month, ProtonMail, the Swiss-based email service, shut down 20,000 Ryuk-related accounts.
Wosar and Gillespie, who belong to a worldwide volunteer group called the Ransomware Hunting Team, have cracked more than 300 major ransomware strains and variants, saving an estimated 4 million victims from paying billions of dollars.
By contrast, the FBI rarely decrypts ransomware or arrests the attackers, who are typically based in countries like Russia or Iran that lack extradition agreements with the U.S. DarkSide, for instance, is believed to operate out of Russia. Far more victims seek help from the Hunting Team, through websites maintained by its members, than from the FBI.
The U.S. Secret Service also investigates ransomware, which falls under its purview of combating financial crimes. But, especially in election years, it sometimes rotates agents off cyber assignments to carry out its better-known mission of protecting presidents, vice presidents, major party candidates and their families. European law enforcement, especially the Dutch National Police, has been more successful than the U.S. in arresting attackers and seizing servers.
Similarly, the U.S. government has made only modest headway in pushing private industry, including pipeline companies, to strengthen cybersecurity defenses. Cybersecurity oversight is divided among an alphabet soup of agencies, hampering coordination. The Department of Homeland Security conducts “vulnerability assessments” for critical infrastructure, which includes pipelines.
It reviewed Colonial Pipeline in around 2013 as part of a study of places where a cyberattack might cause a catastrophe. The pipeline was deemed resilient, meaning that it could recover quickly, according to a former DHS official. The department did not respond to questions about any subsequent reviews.
Five years later, DHS created a pipeline cybersecurity initiative to identify weaknesses in pipeline computer systems and recommend strategies to address them. Participation is voluntary, and a person familiar with the initiative said that it is more useful for smaller companies with limited in-house IT expertise than for big ones like Colonial. The National Risk Management Center, which oversees the initiative, also grapples with other thorny issues such as election security.
Ransomware has skyrocketed since 2012, when the advent of Bitcoin made it hard to track or block payments. The criminals’ tactics have evolved from indiscriminate “spray and pray” campaigns seeking a few hundred dollars apiece to targeting specific businesses, government agencies and nonprofit groups with multimillion-dollar demands.
Attacks on energy businesses in particular have increased during the pandemic — not just in the U.S. but in Canada, Latin America and Europe. As the companies allowed employees to work from home, they relaxed some security controls, McLeod said.
Since 2019, numerous gangs have ratcheted up pressure with a technique known as “double extortion.” Upon entering a system, they steal sensitive data before launching ransomware that encodes the files and makes it impossible for hospitals, universities and cities to do their daily work. If the loss of computer access is not sufficiently intimidating, they threaten to reveal confidential information, often posting samples as leverage. For instance, when the Washington, D.C., police department didn’t pay the $4 million ransom demanded by a gang called Babuk last month, Babuk published intelligence briefings, names of criminal suspects and witnesses, and personnel files, from medical information to polygraph test results, of officers and job candidates.
DarkSide, which emerged last August, epitomized this new breed. It chose targets based on a careful financial analysis or information gleaned from corporate emails. For instance, it attacked one of Tantleff’s clients during a week when the hackers knew the company would be vulnerable because it was transitioning its files to the cloud and didn’t have clean backups.
To infiltrate target networks, the gang used advanced methods such as “zero-day exploits” that immediately take advantage of software vulnerabilities before they can be patched. Once inside, it moved swiftly, looking not only for sensitive data but also for the victim’s cyber insurance policy, so it could peg its demands to the amount of coverage. After two to three days of poking around, DarkSide encrypted the files.
“They have a faster attack window,” said Christopher Ballod, associate managing director for cyber risk at Kroll, the business investigations firm, who has advised half a dozen DarkSide victims. “The longer you dwell in the system, the more likely you are to be caught.”
Typically, DarkSide’s demands were “on the high end of the scale,” $5 million and up, Ballod said. One scary tactic: If publicly traded companies didn’t pay the ransom, DarkSide threatened to share information stolen from them with short-sellers who would profit if the share price dropped upon publication.
DarkSide’s site on the dark web identified dozens of victims and described the confidential data it claimed to have filched from them. One was New Orleans law firm Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann. “A big annoyance is what it was,” attorney Phil Wittmann said, referring to the DarkSide attack in February. “We paid them nothing,” said Michael Walshe Jr., chair of the firm’s management committee, declining to comment further.
Last November, DarkSide adopted what is known as a “ransomware-as-a-service” model. Under this model, it partnered with affiliates who launched the attacks. The affiliates received 75% to 90% of the ransom, with DarkSide keeping the remainder. As this partnership suggests, the ransomware ecosystem is a distorted mirror of corporate culture, with everything from job interviews to procedures for handling disputes. After DarkSide shut down, several people who identified themselves as its affiliates complained on a dispute resolution forum that it had stiffed them. “The target paid, but I did not receive my share,” one wrote.
Together, DarkSide and its affiliates reportedly grossed at least $90 million. Seven of Tantleff’s clients, including two companies in the energy industry, paid ransoms ranging from $1.25 million to $6 million, reflecting negotiated discounts from initial demands of $7.5 million to $30 million. His other three clients hit by DarkSide did not pay. In one of those cases, the hackers demanded $50 million. Negotiations grew acrimonious, and the two sides couldn’t agree on a price.
DarkSide’s representatives were shrewd bargainers, Tantleff said. If a victim said it couldn’t afford the ransom because of the pandemic, DarkSide was ready with data showing that the company’s revenue was up, or that COVID-19’s impact was factored into the price.
DarkSide’s grasp of geopolitics was less advanced than its approach to ransomware. Around the same time that it adopted the affiliate model, it posted that it was planning to safeguard information stolen from victims by storing it in servers in Iran. DarkSide apparently didn’t realize that an Iranian connection would complicate its collection of ransoms from victims in the U.S., which has economic sanctions restricting financial transactions with Iran. Although DarkSide later walked back this statement, saying that it had only considered Iran as a possible location, numerous cyber insurers had concerns about covering payments to the group. Coveware, a Connecticut firm that negotiates with attackers on behalf of victims, stopped dealing with DarkSide.
Ballod said that, with their insurers unwilling to reimburse the ransom, none of his clients paid DarkSide, despite concerns about exposure of their data. Even if they had caved in to DarkSide, and received assurances from the hackers in return that the data would be shredded, the information might still leak, he said.
During DarkSide’s changeover to the affiliate model, a flaw was introduced into its ransomware. The vulnerability caught the attention of members of the Ransomware Hunting Team. Established in 2016, the invitation-only team consists of about a dozen volunteers in the U.S., Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary and the U.K. They work in cybersecurity or related fields. In their spare time, they collaborate in finding and decrypting new ransomware strains.
Several members, including Wosar, have little formal education but an aptitude for coding. A high school dropout, Wosar grew up in a working-class family near the German port city of Rostock. In 1992, at the age of 8, he saw a computer for the first time and was entranced. By 16, he was developing his own antivirus software and making money from it. Now 37, he has worked for antivirus firm Emsisoft since its inception almost two decades ago and is its chief technology officer. He moved to the U.K. from Germany in 2018 and lives near London.
He has been battling ransomware hackers since 2012, when he cracked a strain called ACCDFISA, which stood for “Anti Cyber Crime Department of Federal Internet Security Agency.” This fictional agency was notifying people that child pornography had infected their computers, and so it was blocking access to their files unless they paid $100 to remove the virus.
The ACCDFISA hacker eventually noticed that the strain had been decrypted and released a revised version. Many of Wosar’s subsequent triumphs were also fleeting. He and his teammates tried to keep criminals blissfully unaware for as long as possible that their strain was vulnerable. They left cryptic messages on forums inviting victims to contact them for assistance or sent direct messages to people who posted that they had been attacked.
In the course of protecting against computer intrusions, analysts at antivirus firms sometimes detected ransomware flaws and built decryption tools, though it wasn’t their main focus. Sometimes they collided with Wosar.
In 2014, Wosar discovered that a ransomware strain called CryptoDefense copied and pasted from Microsoft Windows some of the code it used to lock and unlock files, not realizing that the same code was preserved in a folder on the victim’s own computer. It was missing the signal, or “flag,” in their program, usually included by ransomware creators to instruct Windows not to save a copy of the key.
Wosar quickly developed a decryption tool to retrieve the key. “We faced an interesting conundrum,” Sarah White, another Hunting Team member, wrote on Emsisoft’s blog. “How to get our tool out to the most victims possible without alerting the malware developer of his mistake?”
Wosar discreetly sought out CryptoDefense victims through support forums, volunteer networks and announcements of where to contact for help. He avoided describing how the tool worked or the blunder it exploited. When victims came forward, he supplied the fix, scrubbing the ransomware from at least 350 computers. CryptoDefense eventually “caught on to us ... but he still did not have access to the decrypter we used and had no idea how we were unlocking his victims’ files,” White wrote.
But then an antivirus company, Symantec, uncovered the same problem and bragged about the discovery on a blog post that “contained enough information to help the CryptoDefense developer find and correct the flaw,” White wrote. Within 24 hours the attackers began spreading a revised version. They changed its name to CryptoWall and made $325 million.
Symantec “chose quick publicity over helping CryptoDefense victims recover their files,” White wrote. “Sometimes there are things that are better left unsaid.”
A spokeswoman for Broadcom, which acquired Symantec’s enterprise security business in 2019, declined to comment, saying that “the team members who worked on the tool are no longer with the company.”
Like Wosar, the 29-year-old Gillespie comes from poverty and never went to college. When he was growing up in central Illinois, his family struggled so much financially that they sometimes had to move in with friends or relatives. After high school, he worked full time for 10 years at a computer repair chain called Nerds on Call. Last year, he became a malware and cybersecurity researcher at Coveware.
Last December, he messaged Wosar for help. Gillespie had been working with a DarkSide victim who had paid a ransom and received a tool to recover the data. But DarkSide’s decryptor had a reputation for being slow, and the victim hoped that Gillespie could speed up the process.
Gillespie analyzed the software, which contained a key to release the files. He wanted to extract the key, but because it was stored in an unusually complex way, he couldn’t. He turned to Wosar, who was able to isolate it.
The teammates then began testing the key on other files infected by DarkSide. Gillespie checked files uploaded by victims to the website he operates, ID Ransomware, while Wosar used VirusTotal, an online database of suspected malware.
That night, they shared a discovery.
“I have confirmation DarkSide is re-using their RSA keys,” Gillespie wrote to the Hunting Team on its Slack channel. A type of cryptography, RSA generates two keys: a public key to encode data and a private key to decipher it. RSA is used legitimately to safeguard many aspects of e-commerce, such as protecting credit numbers. But it’s also been co-opted by ransomware hackers.
“I noticed the same as I was able to decrypt newly encrypted files using their decrypter,” Wosar replied less than an hour later, at 2:45 a.m. London time.
Their analysis showed that, before adopting the affiliate model, DarkSide had used a different public and private key for each victim. Wosar suspected that, during this transition, DarkSide introduced a mistake into its affiliate portal used to generate the ransomware for each target. Wosar and Gillespie could now use the key that Wosar had extracted to retrieve files from Windows machines seized by DarkSide. The cryptographic blunder didn’t affect Linux operating systems.
“We were scratching our heads,” Wosar said. “Could they really have fucked up this badly? DarkSide was one of the more professional ransomware-as-a-service schemes out there. For them to make such a huge mistake is very, very rare.”
The Hunting Team celebrated quietly, without seeking publicity. White, who is a computer science student at Royal Holloway, part of the University of London, began looking for DarkSide victims. She contacted firms that handle digital forensics and incident response.
“We told them, ‘Hey listen, if you have any DarkSide victims, tell them to reach out to us, we can help them. We can recover their files and they don’t have to pay a huge ransom,’” Wosar said.
The DarkSide hackers mostly took the Christmas season off. Gillespie and Wosar expected that, when the attacks resumed in the new year, their discovery would help dozens of victims. But then Bitdefender published its post, under the headline “Darkside Ransomware Decryption Tool.”
In a messaging channel with the ransomware response community, someone asked why Bitdefender would tip off the hackers. “Publicity,” White responded. “Looks good. I can guarantee they’ll fix it much faster now though.”
She was right. The next day, DarkSide acknowledged the error that Wosar and Gillespie had found before Bitdefender. “Due to the problem with key generation, some companies have the same keys,” the hackers wrote, adding that up to 40% of keys were affected.
DarkSide mocked Bitdefender for releasing the decryptor at “the wrong time…., as the activity of us and our partners during the New Year holidays is the lowest.”
Adding to the team’s frustrations, Wosar discovered that the Bitdefender tool had its own drawbacks. Using the company’s decryptor, he tried to unlock samples infected by DarkSide and found that they were damaged in the process. “They actually implemented the decryption wrong,” Wosar said. “That means if victims did use the Bitdefender tool, there’s a good chance that they damaged the data.”
Asked about Wosar’s criticism, Botezatu said that data recovery is difficult, and that Bitdefender has “taken all precautions to make sure that we’re not compromising user data” including exhaustive testing and “code that evaluates whether the resulting decrypted file is valid.”
Even without Bitdefender, DarkSide might have soon realized its mistake anyway, Wosar and Gillespie said. For example, as they sifted through compromised networks, the hackers might have come across emails in which victims helped by the Hunting Team discussed the flaw.
“They might figure it out that way — that is always a possibility,” Wosar said. “But it’s especially painful if a vulnerability is being burned through something stupid like this.”
The incident led the Hunting Team to coin a term for the premature exposure of a weakness in a ransomware strain. “Internally, we often joke, ‘Yeah, they are probably going to pull a Bitdefender,’” Wosar said.
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Question. does your idea of being anti-callouts also include folks of different belief systems that would involve, say, a much narrower view of sexual morality, or are they fair game to be called out as homophobes and all that just because of their beliefs, even if they’ve never actually displayed any kind of discriminatory behavior? Or what about those who sided with or even remotely supported trump or are from MAGA groups? Are they outside the scope of your anti-callout mission too? Asking cuz imo it’s hypocritical to say you’re anti-callouts but then think its ok for these folks to be ostracized and bullied cuz “they need to be held accountable” for beliefs that you don’t agree with and more often than not, don’t fully understand what they believe or why. And I’m not talking about stuff they said decades ago, I’m talking about present day stuff.
First, I will direct you back to this post, specifically the ending paragraph:
One important thing to internalize is that ignorance doesn’t make you a bad person. This goes for judging your own actions as well as others’. It’s okay to constantly be learning and adapting your behavior based on new information. If you find out from discourse that you had been using hurtful language or promoting a hurtful idea, it doesn’t mean you were secretly a bad person all along. It just means you didn’t know. In an ideal world, we would all be patient and forgiving with people who weren’t acting in bad faith, but unfortunately this is Tumblr. Just try to do your best, and take breaks if you need them.
The key point here is ‘in bad faith’. This blog, and the general disagreement in fandom re: callout culture, usually stems from the idea that it is bad to hold people with taste in unpopular fictional ships to the same standard as unrepentant abusers, pedophiles, racists, and homophobes. The point is not that those categories of people aren’t in themselves problematic, just that shippers shouldn’t get tacked on to that list for liking anime boy 1 and anime boy 2, nor should ANYONE get tacked onto that list based on rumors or anon messages if there is actually no evidence of wrongdoing.
We can debate until the cows come home about what ‘counts’ as bigotry and the right way to deal with microaggressions, but for this post (and because you mentioned MAGA and homophobic Christianity) I’m going to assume you’re talking about standard, run-of-the-mill bigotry. The kind you can look at and easily understand exactly why it is hurtful.
Being against callout culture is not the same thing as being against all callouts, all the time, for any reason. (I did not name this blog, I inherited it. I am now considering a revised URL if that is the impression this one gives.)
I am never going to defend a homophobe. I am never going to defend a racist. If someone comes to me with a tweet from a homophobe’s twitter acct that says ‘God says all lesbians are abominations but I’m not homophobic tho it’s just what the Bible says’ I’m not going to assume they’re an infant who doesn’t understand logic or empathy or critical thinking. I’m gonna block them. If they’re famous, I’m gonna show my friends and my friends are also gonna block them and also possibly talk shit about them on Twitter because they’re bajillionares and it doesn’t matter.
(Except really I encourage people not to do this - not because it’s morally wrong, but because they can use their much larger platform to harass you if they feel like it. See John Boyega’s behavior towards the women who were hurt by his misogynistic language as an example.)
Now, on a smaller scale, if they’re just a regular old member of a fandom? If it turns out everyone blocks them because they won’t stop talking about how much they hate the gays and Jews and SJWs and the fandom is full of gays and Jews and SJWs who don’t want to listen to it, that’s not ostracization, that’s quality control. No one gets to complain that other people won’t listen to their opinions, and that’s not what this blog is advocating for.
I am extremely pro-block. I block people for ALL KINDS of things. I see a comment in the notes of a post I do not vibe with? Block. Don’t care if that user has never spoken to me in my life. I am the arbiter of my fandom experience, as is everyone else.
Furthermore, I want to address what seems to me to be the core of your complaint here:
“... even if they’ve never actually displayed any kind of discriminatory behavior?”
See, this is a bit logically inconsistent and it makes me wonder if this ask was not sent in good faith, but rather to try and catch me in a ‘gotcha, so much for the tolerant left’ type of way.
If someone is not displaying any kind of discriminatory behavior, then they fall under the ‘don’t make baseless callouts’ protection. There’s no evidence of any wrongdoing, no victim, no crime. Thinking gay people are horrible is, like, wrong, but as long as they keep that to themselves when engaging with others, fine. However, the fact that someone is being called out for open homophobia or racism means that... Hm... how do I put this... they kind of are displaying discriminatory behavior, my dude.
If they’re 12 years old and repeating what their racist dad said or homophobic pastor said, then yeah, don’t harass them. Don’t harass anyone, actually, but I am not Fandom God and I don’t control the whims or ways of the internet denizens so I can’t really do anything about that. Harassment doesn’t actually accomplish anything and is a waste of energy. Report them if they’re breaking the TOS and move on. (See my pro-block stance above for the acceptable alternative. Blocking! It’s like Herd Immunity, for fandoms.)
But everyone else in the fandom space has a right to warn each other ‘hey, there’s a 12 year old over there with no filter and they’re super racist, here’s their tweets.’
If they’re an adult and they’re doing that? As you said, present day stuff? It is completely fair game for their tweets or posts to be catalogued and shared as proof that they are a clear and present danger to other people in the fandom. Racists and homophobes have this nasty little habit of attempting to hurt people they hate, fandom needs ways to self-regulate and keep itself safe from actual harmful bigots.
There’s also a lot to be said about expecting vulnerable members of the community to do all the work educating people who are actively being malicious towards them in the hope that one comment will break through their willful ignorance and show them the light of human decency and teach them how to be good people and decent fans. If someone feels bad that other people don’t like them because of their homophobic beliefs, it’s not the fandom’s job to take them under wing and teach them why homophobia is wrong. None of us came out the womb knowing how to treat people; if the majority of us could figure it out by cultural osmosis, so can our racist homophobic strawman here. Either by being told directly, or by seeing that bigots are not welcome and making the single necessary logical leap that maybe it’s because homophobia/racism/etc hurts people and no one else likes being hurt.
So, to break it down:
Private racists: not posting anything racist, not harassing poc in the fandom, how would you ever know? Gross, but ultimately harmless. Can’t do anything about them, hopefully they see enough posts about why racism is bad to finally change their ways.
Past racists: said some dumb racist shit in the past, apologized, aren’t currently doing anything racist? Leave them alone. Be thankful. Hope that other people look to them as an example in learning and humility and growth.
Active racists: do not deserve your pity or protection. Learn to treat other people with respect or get off the internet. Shed no tears when they end up blocked by 90% of the fandom and anyone else with a brain. Their ignorance does not supersede everyone else’s right to feel safe and welcome in a community. Much like with private racists, I hope they learn (with a more direct lesson) that no one likes racists or wants to hang out with them and if they want friends they should learn to treat others as human beings.
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Miniature panics about what photo apps are doing with the personal data they collect happen fairly often. This January, there was a firestorm around Facebook’s “2009 vs. 2019” or “10-Year Challenge,” after Wired reporter Kate O’Neill argued that the meme had been planted as a trick to get Facebook users to create a data set for machine learning. She implied that Facebook’s userbase had been bamboozled, writing:
“Imagine that you wanted to train a facial recognition algorithm on age-related characteristics, and, more specifically, on age progression (e.g. how people are likely to look as they get older). Ideally, you’d want a broad and rigorous data set with lots of people’s pictures. It would help if you knew they were taken a fixed number of years apart—say, 10 years.”
This theory was debunked by other reporters who pointed out that Facebook already has tons of photos of its users — with timestamps — and doesn’t need your help in turning them into a workable dataset. Certainly most people know this on some level, but something about the intimate invasiveness of having your selfies picked through strikes a nerve.
In January 2017, people were antsy about the Chinese photo-editing app Meitu, which also had a fairly racist “hot” filter and was full of code that could pull sensitive identifying data from users’ phones. Most alarmingly, it collected geographic data, and if it couldn’t access it through traditional GPS coordinates, would extract it from the metadata of the photographs its users were taking. All that data was being sent to China, which was cited as particularly disturbing.
However, as The Verge’s Russell Brandom pointed out, much of this attempted data collection was blocked by Apple’s operating system (for iPhone users), and though the rest of the stuff really was invasive, it was most likely used for advertising — not for identity theft or some other malicious scam. In other words: It’s wise not to download it, just like it’s wise to download as few apps as you possibly can and not use Facebook or Google for anything. But the panic, both in that case and in this one, arguably has a tinge of xenophobia as well.
A tweet from New York magazine contributor Yashar Ali that says, “Btw you all know FaceApp is a Russian company, right? Just making sure,” has been retweeted more than 5,000 times as of this writing, though the fact that the app is based in Russia has nothing to do with its privacy violations. Salon contributor Bob Cesca also tweeted, “The company is based in St. Petersburg, Russia,” as though that were, in itself, a mark against it. A PBS News Hour producer tweeted five times, “FaceApp uploads your photos to Russia.”
Several journalists have pointed out the strangeness of this argument, including Splinter’s Libby Watson, who tweeted, “I don’t understand what nefarious thing people think the Russian government is doing with FaceApp data. They’re going to use your photos of your brunch to hack the Florida voter rolls?”
Still, the Russia panic will not be stopped. The Democratic National Committee’s chief security officer issued a warning today to presidential candidates not to use the app, telling them “If you or any of your staff have already used the app, we recommend that they delete the app immediately.” (What would be the point of deleting it if you’d already used it! This question was not addressed.)
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t worry about photo apps. Just that you’d do well to worry about them all pretty much equally. Facebook can figure out if two people know each other by looking at the metadata of photos uploaded in a small time frame in a small geographic area and then comparing the scratches and dust on the lens of the camera that took them. Shutterfly, like Meitu, pulls GPS coordinates from its users or, when that’s blocked, tries to harvest geographic information from the metadata of their photos.
The photo storage app Ever, which promised “free, unlimited private backup of all your life’s memories,” turned out to be using the photos to train facial recognition software, as reported by NBC News this May.
It is definitely weird that FaceApp is retaining your photos for possible “commercial use.” I assume this is so it can continue using them to train new AI-based features, but who knows? Maybe you are Russian stock photography now! However, the biggest motive for FaceApp to collect your information is most likely ad targeting, and the motive to make a scary face-aging filter is likely just to jack up downloads so that more people are dumping info into the data set. There is really no reason to believe that the Russian government is doing something scary with pictures of your face.
“The world is rich in available data — most of it given freely without even the need for a dastardly meme conspiracy theory — and much poorer in attention span,” New York magazine’s Brian Feldman wrote during the Facebook “10-Year Challenge” controversy. “The time a person spends on a site uploading a photo for a meme is likely much more directly valuable to the site than the data from the photo would be.”
For a more direct comparison: Snapchat, which has struggled for years, basically only gets spikes in downloads when it introduces a new borderline-offensive feature. When it introduced its gender-swap filter in May, daily downloads shot up from 600,000 to between 1 and 2 million. Snapchat collects geographic information too, and accesses private messages and photos as well as contacts. We’re just not panicking about it because it’s American and we’ve already accepted it.
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Public Callout: Paradox, Blue, Jay, Bird
This is a public callout post for users Paradox (@rushifaas -- previously @mournins ; @beliisms), Blue (@divinebetrayed ; @halcyonfought), Jay (@loyalbetrayed) and Bird (@soulsbetrayed). They are active in the fandoms Persona, Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Danganronpa, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, Sentai, Power Rangers, and Kamen Rider.
Never in my 15 years of roleplaying have I met a group of abusers and enablers so toxic, and this post is a PSA so that I can hopefully keep others from falling into their hands. Please blacklist them ALL for your own safety, however, DO NOT ENGAGE THEM WITH HARASSMENT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Keep in mind, Paradox’s actions are so egregious, he is already getting charges pressed against him by two different people he abused so far, and more may be on the horizon. The rest all enable this behavior and defend him despite all that he’s done to harm them and people they previously called friends. While this callout has snapshots of receipts proving our claims sprinkled in at the mention of them, for full transparency, the full comment chains will be uploaded at the end so that context for everything will be supplied, with censoring only provided for those who have nothing to do with the conflict and wish to be left out of it.
Strong trigger warning for mob mentality, mental and emotional manipulation, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, transphobia, pedophilia, ableism, and a lot more. Details under the cut. (7,300+ words, be mindful)
[Gdoc link in case Tumblr’s formatting is unreadable]
OPEN ALL LINKS AS NEW TABS, I’M SORRY TUMBLR SUCKS AT THIS
Note: Paradox claims to have Dissociative Identity Disorder, and claims to have many alters which are sometimes go by the names of Abel, Vic, Nikki, Hebel, Cain, and Ana in some of these screencaps. I will not be arguing the veracity of such claims in this callout, but for simplicity’s sake, I will be referring to everyone in his system solely by the name of “Paradox” since there is a considerable amount of confusion based on who said what and it’s not entirely clear who’s supposed to be talking in a lot of these screenshots. He also claims to have several other mental disorders like depression, anxiety, and BPD, but regardless of anyone’s mental illness, they should treat those around them with respect and kindness, which is why this callout has been made.
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MAIN EVENT - Early September 2018 / June 10th
Paradox is the ringleader of this little cult. A few months ago, he was dating my friend Nael (occasionally called Arin, Ciel, Naoya or Hevel in some of these screens). I first got alarmed about the health of their relationship during an incident in early September 2018 where Paradox threatened to commit suicide over a conflict having to do with RPing and prioritizing one blog over one he liked. [September Break Up: Singles] They broke up, but after a lot of guilt tripping from Paradox and others in his group, my friend Nael decided to get back together with him. Even though I had a lot of misgivings about the situation, I told Nael that I respected their decision and wouldn’t pressure them either way. [Scout and Nael: 12, 13]
Months went by, and I didn’t hear much due to specifically asking Nael not to tell me about their significant other and that group of friends, but things were going downhill. There were many more fights over roleplaying and shipping, some of which Blue and Jay expressed concern about privately, especially since it seemed Paradox himself was ignoring his other lover Kieran for Nael. [For Me: 13, 15, 16]
Paradox’s behavior continued worsening until it came to a head in mid March 2019. Blue and Nael were getting invested in an rp campaign I was running on a private server. When Nael showed off a picture they drew portraying their character, Paradox became extremely upset at them. After a solid week of enduring abuse from their lover [Abel Suicide: 1, 2, 6], it eventually culminated in Paradox apparently trying to take his own life after Nael attempted to break off their relationship. [Abel Suicide: 22, 23, 24] Nael was able to contact their mutual partner Kieran (sometimes called Kie or Vampy in screens) so that he could send the police to Paradox’s home and he would be rushed to the hospital. [Nael: 11]
Nael has multiple health issues that include heart disease and problems with their brain, and was so traumatized by the experience, they had to go to the hospital themselves [Nael: 19, 20 ; Before / After Suicide: 43]. Because I was terrified at the possibility of Nael dying from the escalating nature of their toxic relationship, I urged them to go through with the breakup. Nael decided to take my advice and broke up with Paradox and Kieran on a group chat while on a screenshared call with me and another friend who wishes to remain nameless. [Before / After Suicide: 46]
Blue was at first on board for the breakup and supportive of Nael’s decision [Blue Agrees: Singles] but at the persuasion of Jay decided to believe Paradox’s story when he said Nael had misrepresented what he said when he told Nael he would probably drop Blue due to the breakup. [Copy of Group DM: Full] Keep in mind, we have the FULL attempted suicide dropbox [Abel Suicide: Full], and the breakup conversation including Paradox’s abusive behavior before the attempted suicide attempt. [Before/After Suicide: Full] Much of what Paradox says are blatant falsehoods. In addition, Kieran (Vampy) no longer agrees with the things he has said to support Paradox’s argument and says he was pressured to agree with everything, even if it didn’t feel right.
So instead of making it clear to either of us that Blue no longer considered us friends, she instead gave us the silent treatment and leaked what I vented to her in confidence to Paradox behind my back. She only admitted to doing this when I confronted her after finding a vague post Paradox made that used the exact same wording. [Scout vs Blue: 1, 3, 4] I was extra furious with her because Paradox was making it sound as if it was Nael saying those words when in fact they had no idea what I said to her and was highly distraught when they found out about the vague post. Her excuse was that she didn’t think we would find out. [Scout vs Blue: 7, 9]
This is a common theme with their relationship that shows the extent of how complicit Blue is with Paradox’s abusive behavior. Due to her once close relationship with Nael, she often served as the “bait” to bring Nael back, agreeing that the relationship is unhealthy at first [With Blue: 12] only to go back to heaping abuse on Nael for leaving and trying to persuade them to come back [Nael’s Last Conversation with Blue: Full].
By then, Nael had already blocked everyone else in the cult-like group except Blue due to a promise they’d made to her, and she abused this trust right away by pulling Nael into a group chat so that everyone could yell at them. [Scout vs Blue: 10, 11] IF YOU BECOME A PART OF THIS GROUP, THIS IS WHAT YOU CAN LOOK FORWARD TO. If you do anything to provoke Paradox’s ire, you will be subjected to a firing squad full of people yelling at you for whatever you did. You will not have a chance to defend yourself, only grovel for forgiveness until they decide they’re through with you. Nael and other members of the group have been subjected to it many times.
Unfortunately, there are no surviving screencaps of this particular dispute, but I do have the one I was involved with. More on that later.
Eventually Nael left and blocked Blue so that they couldn’t be added back to get yelled at more. For the sake of our RP, we agreed upon a peaceable way to continue the server RP [Scout vs Blue: 12, 13, 14, 15, 16] but Blue eventually exited that too [Scout vs Blue: 17]. During the three or so weeks they were split apart, Paradox vagued continuously about us, copied our behavior and prior ships he had with Nael with others currently in his cult, and sent Nael threatening and unstable messages [“Goodbye, Nael”: Single]. While behind their back, he was privately making light of the situation and even made bets with his stooges about when Nael would return [Betting: Singles].
Here’s where I have to put an important disclaimer: During Nael’s time away from the main cult, we both would snoop on his and Blue’s blogs to see if they had mentioned us. Also, during the period immediately after Blue sold me out to Paradox, I became enraged and sent him a pretty angry message [Scout Loses Their Mind: Single], commented on one of his posts, and indirectly threatened them with my popularity compared to theirs in the community I was in. All of those things were the direct result of piss poor decision making and I apologize for my behavior, because it was simply not right to do, no matter who I thought I was defending. Though the blog snooping continued, I thankfully sent no more harassing messages to anyone from the group once Blue indicated she wanted a clean break from us, and no vaguing messages were made on either of our blogs.
Worse still, I privately speculated if this latest suicide attempt Paradox had gone through was “real” or not, which is totally unacceptable. Though I was just concerned about my friend and worried that this might have been another attempt to manipulate them, all threats of suicide should be treated seriously and the proper authorities contacted, PERIOD, regardless of how “serious” the threat might seem. I definitely agree with Nael’s decision to contact the authorities as it was happening, and I’m relieved to know another life wasn’t tragically lost, no matter what my situation is with Paradox after the fact.
Now, with that out of the way… Eventually, Paradox was able to get through to Nael by convincing them that I had lied about a certain mental disorder he was assumed to have. This is all despite me never having said he didn’t have it as I do NOT have the medical condition described and am NOT a medical professional. Paradox willingly passed medical records through a mutual friend [Consent: Single] that Nael initially found convincing but has recently come to doubt. Note: PLEASE NEVER DO THIS, OBVIOUSLY.
Paradox then convinced Nael to pretend to be my friend for a little longer so that he could lure me into a groupchat under the impression that I was defending him from all his former friends. Here is the entire chat almost in its entirety (a few glitches in captures results in a few repeats and nearly 4 minutes straight of lost content), with screenshots proudly taken by BLUE [Her Discord Drop: Single], who played an instrumental role in helping it happen. While I would encourage everyone to read it in its entirety, please be warned that the amount of abuse I endured is very troubling. [Scout Trap: Full]
Please note that Nael (Hevel), Kieran (Ghostie), and Dave have all come to me and personally apologized to me for their role participating in that group chat and we are friends now. But at the time due to this traumatic experience, my friendship with Nael was officially ended. Even though I was worried sick about them, I knew they couldn’t be saved until they saw Paradox’s abusive behavior for what it was on their own. And of course, after a brief honeymoon period, the abuse started again. (Keep in mind, I wasn’t in contact with Nael or anyone else for most of these, so I’m not as familiar about what happened and when.)
The first sign of trouble started on April 16th, not even two full weeks after I had been "defeated". Once again, it was over RP drama, where Paradox became upset at his two lovers Nael and Kieran for shipping with anyone besides him [Initial Ship Drama: 6], even though he usually continues multishipping on his blog with certain people when he pleases. [With Blue: 2] He complained about this endlessly. [Random Paradox Screen]
He continuously gaslit Kieran for about a week, cycling between saying he was going to leave forever [Initial Ship Drama: 9], telling the Kieran to take care of Nael [Initial Ship Drama: 10, 27], giving conflicting directions [Initial Ship Drama: 22, 38], putting himself down so Kieran would feel compelled to console him [Initial Ship Drama: 30, 41, 58], and asking them not to try to pursue romance with him [Initial Ship Drama: 12, 13, 32, 63], only to flip around and say that the idea of romancing them makes him feel “happy”, so he will [Initial Ship Drama: 45, 46], then become upset when either one of them indicated they might need space to either think or just live life like normal. [Initial Ship Drama: 53] Really, the entire thing has to be seen to be believed. [Initial Ship Drama: Full]
Eventually, Paradox’s behavior got so bad that once again, Blue expressed dissatisfaction with his behavior [With Blue: 4], but apparently it wasn’t enough to dissuade her from luring Nael into yet another trap to be yelled at barely a month later on May 17th. [May 17th: Full]
Confusingly, the reason behind this collective thrashing was that Nael actually overcorrected too much and tried to do more stuff with Paradox, only to be called clingy and possessive when they did. Then, when Paradox told Nael he didn’t want to RP with them anymore, Nael tried to respect his decision and not get involved with group RPs that Paradox was involved with so there would be no pressure either way. This was then held up as an example as to why they were “isolating” themselves from the group. Paradox showed the screencaps to others in the group with very little context to get them riled up and angry at Nael so that they’d be on board to yell at them, again showing his willingness to twist someone’s words to make them a convenient villain, no matter what they do to try to appease him.
Then on May 24th, there was the supposed “death” of the alter “Abel”, (who has since returned yet again). [Paradox: 2] The source of all this drama was that Blue simply mentioned a ship that she was continuing with Nael during a period of time Paradox wasn’t at all receptive to the idea of them interacting. Blue freely admitted to being the source of this conflict in private [With Blue: 21], but had no problem letting Nael take the brunt of the abuse. Once again, she is complicit for enabling actions she knows are wrong and hurtful, judging by the way she expresses concern about them, as long as she’s not the one in the eye of the storm.
Following this conflict, Nael started having serious second thoughts. After getting yelled at yet again about something they didn’t even cause, they had to go to the hospital for a near suicide attempt due to all the stress of being repeatedly attacked by someone they thought they could trust.
After they got out again, they were pulled into a smaller group chat with the newly formed “Paradox” alter as well as Jay, where it was demanded he answer for the wrongful death of an alter that has since returned. Multiple times, Paradox held up the incident from September, (which was over 9 months prior!) as to why Nael was to blame for Blue’s actions this time. [Paradox: 8, 10] Paradox even told Nael, someone who had been in the hospital just a few short hours ago [Paradox: 5], that their “suicide held no meaning to him”. [Paradox: 32] All of this despite the fact that they had talked about the very same ship on May 6th! [Proof Abel Knew: 10 total]
This was also supposed to serve as yet another “My heart is telling me not to get in a relationship with you” conversation -- a breakup convo, and one their third lover, Kieran, hadn’t even initially been invited to. [Paradox: 59] It was mostly just Paradox yelling at Nael with Jay usually only chiming in to agree with or heap praise on Paradox. [Paradox: 67] Several times, Paradox made confusing reversals, at one point musing “another alter might come and love you again” [Paradox: 49] to going back to insisting they could never be together again [Paradox: 70], then accusing Nael of saying they don’t love him [Paradox: 45, 46]. You might remember this erratic pattern from his conversation with Kieran back in April. This is gaslighting in its purest and ugliest form.
Clearly after this, Nael was rattled and eventually decided to leave. Instead of making any sort of formal goodbye, they just decided to delete their old Discord and make a clean break so there was no way they could be dragged into another group chat and yelled at. The group quickly fell into chaos once again. Paradox quickly began pumping out venting vague posts on his personal and RP blogs, sometimes pitying himself over the way Nael had apparently treated him [Single: Singles], and sometimes outright wishing death on them. [Paradox die: Single] Before long, he cracked and started sending desperate messages to Nael directly despite Nael obviously not wanting to talk. [Paradox Desperation: Singles] And when that didn’t work, of course Blue was deployed to try to persuade them to come back. [Last Convo w/ Blue: 22 pages] Luckily Dave warned them beforehand. [Thanks, Dave!: Single]
To try to convince others in the group that Nael was the bad guy and needed to be stopped, Paradox began feeding lies to his followers about bad stuff Nael was apparently doing. Paradox told Dave that Nael had been badmouthing him behind his back. But when Dave went to confront Nael about their behavior, Nael provided proof that was in fact Blue saying bad things about Dave. That’s when Dave decided to leave, too.
More chaos happened within the group. Soon after, Kieran the supposed third in their relationship got tired of Paradox constantly saying how Nael was “the only person he could ever love” as well as the constant torrent of irrational behavior and abuse. [Paradox Flipping Out: Single] So he left, as well. Aside from many, many more aggressive venting and vague posts, nothing much new has happened as far as group dynamics.
So far Paradox has been mostly fixated on Nael’s absence, but without the contributions of everyone who left, this callout wouldn’t be possible, and they should all be commended for their efforts and their courage for coming to me to apologize personally for their part in the abuse I and others have suffered.
As terrible as Paradox’s behavior has been in this retelling of events, mostly centered around Nael’s situation, it’s really only scratching the surface of how toxic this group is. There are many smaller details and other people he’s hurt that couldn’t fit in this brief recap, so here are a few more things you should know about that will hopefully keep you from this toxic group of friends.
First I’ll talk about the accounts of people who used to be in the group and go into detail about all the people who are still backing Paradox up despite everything he’s done.
________________________________________________________________
PARTIES INVOLVED
- Other victims -
Kieran:
While Nael took the lion’s share of the abuse from Paradox, it’s important to remember that he was involved with two different people and treated them both badly. Paradox is an outstanding example of what NOT to do when in a polyamorous relationship.
While there was a brief month long period where everything seemed fine after they started dating on October 23rd, Paradox began heavily playing favorites towards Nael, a pattern that only seemed to get worse over time. Kieran was subjected to long periods of neglect from his lover with Paradox only seeming to remember he existed when he was trying to use Kieran against Nael. Even Blue and Jay noticed this when the relationship was just starting out and rightfully called it out, though only in the safety of a private chat. [For Me: 13, 15, 16]
Several times during their relationship, when Nael would mess up or try to leave, Paradox would say that Nael was “the only person he could love” (he even wrote a diary about it!) [Copy of Journal: 2 pages] and break things off with Kieran as well. Most of the time without even telling him. However whenever he was trying to condemn Nael about something, he would hold up Kieran to say “What you’re doing is hurting US”, often without Kieran’s consent.
Of course, Kieran was still subjected to the same amount of lies, gaslighting, emotional blackmail, and mental instability from Paradox that Nael had to endure, but the fact is that he was also basically used as a weapon against someone he cared about by someone who was supposed to care about them both EQUALLY.
Ruby:
Ruby is someone who’s been fighting a personal battle with Paradox for years, starting with a dispute that happened, of course, because of an argument about a fictional character. For the past year and a half as of writing this (the harassment started Nov 2017, it is currently July 2019), Paradox has been stalking her blogs and harassing her over this perceived slight. He lied about her to all her friends in an attempt to alienate her from the public, and we have a confession from Nael that says not only was Paradox guilty of sending tons of anon hate towards Ruby even after they had each other blocked, he would send other people (Nael included) to send anon hate after her.
I briefly intervened during this dispute on Nael’s behalf in November 2018 because during that time we were both lead to believe that Ruby was targeting both Paradox and Nael. This is despite the fact that the post Paradox was upset about wasn’t even about him and she barely even knew Nael even existed. Thanks to my help, I was able to negotiate a brief ceasefire that lasted a few months up until Nael’s separation from Paradox in March.
The stalking and harassment started up again as soon as I had been branded an enemy, and eventually it got so bad that Ruby was the first (but not the only) one to announce she is going to try to press charges against everyone still remaining in the group. Although we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, and she’s done and said things that were unintentionally hurtful, she has been very receptive to feedback and has made great pains to change for the better. I support Ruby wholeheartedly in her endeavors to make the ones abusing her pay for what they’ve done. If you want to know a little more about her conflict with Paradox from her perspective, visit her page. [Ruby’s page of Receipts: Full]
- Part of Paradox’s group -
Blue:
Out of all the people on this list, Blue is the most disappointing aspect of all this, seeing as I considered her my friend even before Nael came along. We’d been friends for more than a year by the time the March Madness started, meeting somewhere around February 2018. She was the one who introduced me to Nael in the first place, and Nael was so close to her they called each other their long lost siblings.
Unfortunately for all of us, Blue can’t stand up to a bully who insults and abuses her friends, even if she knows what he’s doing is wrong. We have multiple screenshots showing instances where she admits that Paradox is in the wrong or being annoying or excessively guilt tripping others based on trivial matters. However, whenever she’s personally on the hook for getting targeted by the ones she calls her “friends”, she quickly falls into line.
The second Paradox asks her to jump, she asks “How high?” She’s been willingly used as bait to rope Nael back into situations she knows and has even admitted are super unhealthy for them, all because she’s too afraid of being the next one everyone turns on. The only time she shows any semblance of “courage” is when she’s backed up by the rest of the hivemind. She’s too afraid to speak for herself, often parroting what others have already written in a desperate attempt to show external strength and total fealty for her master.
I have to wonder what exactly it is that keeps bringing Blue back to him, even though we have an entire folder showing times where she has come to her own conclusions that Paradox is unhealthy to be around [With Blue: 24 total] and has a penchant for blaming her whenever his relationship with his two lovers ever took a downwards turn. [Paradox blaming Blue: Singles] It’s not my place to speculate, but it’s safe to say that with all the times she’s personally let me, Nael, and others in our group down, there’s no way in hell we’re giving her another chance. She has made her choice to stay with someone she knew to be an abuser and emotional manipulator -- someone who hurt her and her friends -- and she will have to live with that decision.
Bird:
Ruby’s situation with Bird is very much like my situation with Blue, made all the worse by the fact that they were actually dating at the time. Bird purposefully sold Ruby out to Paradox while claiming they weren’t in contact, all the while she was feeding all of Ruby’s words and private thoughts to him. This is a common theme with this group and why you can’t be friends with just one of them if you don’t want to be involved with the cult as a whole.
Eventually she was found out and hasn’t really bothered to hide the fact that she’s on Paradox’s team ever since. We also have screenshots of her calling Nael a brat and useless during conflicts Paradox started, like the shipping drama in September. [Misc Bird Folder: 9 total] [Ruby and Bird’s Breakup: 16 total]
Jay:
Now we get to the biggest sycophant of the entire group, Jay. She’s been the one by his side the longest -- for a whopping 4 years -- and one of his most ardent supporters and biggest enablers. While I didn’t know much about her at first, seeing as she was largely absent from what I affectionately call the “six-person beat down”, she’s an invaluable member of Paradox’s cult and basically functions as his right arm and messenger.
If you have a problem with Paradox and want to talk things over with him, he’ll usually insist upon bringing Jay as an “impartial judge”. Not surprisingly, she usually just ends up agreeing with whatever he says and pushing his narrative, all the while insisting she’s being unbiased. She will lie for him, rope cult members attempting to leave back with excuses for his inexcusable behavior, and always swallows whatever lie he has to say wholeheartedly. If he needs a message from Abel passed on to someone trying to persuade them to come back, she’ll deliver it gladly. But if you need her to send a message to him, she’ll curtly tell you not to have her “fight your battles.”
She tried to send an entire drop box of “evidence” to Dave attempting to prove Nael was manipulative and evidence of the alter “Hebel's” existence. In it, Paradox (or rather, his alter Hebel) admitted to trying to spur Nael to kill themselves so that “Hebel” could apparently take over and get Kieran all to himself. [Potential Manslaughter: Singles] All of this was sent as proof that NAEL was the bad guy BY Jay, which is truly mind boggling and shows how far gone she is with regards to him.
There is a woman in prison the very moment that I’m writing this for spurring her suicidal boyfriend to take his own life [Article], and yet Jay thinks this behavior is okay? And before anyone tries to say that Hebel is “technically” to blame for attempting to push Nael to suicide, this argument hasn’t worked in the courtroom since the 1970s! [Article] IF PARADOX’S ALTER IS A DANGER TO NAEL AND CAN’T BE CONTROLLED, PARADOX HIMSELF IS ALSO DANGEROUS. PERIOD.
This isn’t even mentioning the multiple times she’s seen Paradox himself or his other various "good" alters (everyone in the group has seen, in fact) tell Nael outright that he “wishes [they] would die” [Abel Vent: Single] and that their suicide “holds no meaning to him” [Paradox: 32]. Jay was supposed to be “mediating” the very conversation where Paradox -- not “Hebel” or anyone else -- said that to Nael! And she said NOTHING. Her silence is complicity and she should take the blame for being such an ardent supporter of his abusive behavior.
Amazingly, there’s even MORE awful things that this group (particularly, but not exclusively Paradox) that I didn’t have any space to discuss in the callout itself, but they can’t go unmentioned. I know this is already super long, so I’ll try to run through them all as quickly as possible, and then we can get to the large wealth of screenshots we have linked at the end, where everything is in context for you to browse at your convenience.
________________________________________________________________
OTHER OCCURENCES
Transphobia: Paradox is a terf, and there’s not much else to say. [For Me: 2] Ironically he said this in a group chat with one of the only two people who identify as trans in their group, his then-boyfriend Kieran. Here’s him heavily fetishizing a failed attempted Corrin muse that he described as intersex, too. [FE Abel Problems: 5 pages] (In parenthesis is a user attempting to check their work. He makes a bit of an error concerning outrealms and dragon gates and whatnot, but please forgive him for those small errors considering how much he had on his hands.)
Abuse victim blaming: Paradox would often tell his two lovers, who are survivors of various types of abuse, ranging from mental, physical, and even sexual, how it’s their fault for letting their past traumas affect them. [Victim Blaming: Singles] Please note that these screenshots were taken in May, nearly a month before they separated from him fully, so they would have no reason to lie to each other about the things he said or needlessly malign his character before they left.
Promoting infighting: Paradox enjoyed watching his underlings tear each other apart for his amusement or to influence their behavior by saying their actions affected “everyone” despite him using false pretenses to get them to fight in the first place. He lied to Dave about Nael comparing him to a user that he wasn’t fond of when it was really Paradox and Blue that had done it. He also lied to Kieran and the entire group to get them all to yell at Nael in a group chat about Nael trying to isolate themselves from everyone when it was really done to please Paradox.
Ableism: Nael is unwell and has brain conditions they don’t feel comfortable with sharing. Instead of being understanding and supportive of them occasionally not understanding things or forgetting things, Paradox would immediately use it as a weapon against them. When “Paradox” first surfaced, Nael claimed that it wasn’t fair to them that the “Abel” alter yelled at them for forgetting about their ship with Blue. Paradox immediately countered that he Nael would no longer be allowed to use the excuse that they forgot things to AVOID being yelled at for minor things. [Paradox: 21, 22] He would constantly do things like this while they were together.
Copying and stealing OCs: Besides stalking the people that left and that he’s grown to hate, Paradox also has a peculiar habit of copying their activities on his blog with the few remaining people in his circle. For example, back in March when Nael’s Grima muse began interacting with a Reyson rper I introduced them to, Paradox made Kieran pick up his abandoned Reyson muse so that he could ship him with his Robin. (This hasn’t been linked to protect the identity of the second Reyson.) Worse still, Paradox has even outright stolen characters and backstories from those that leave. Here Kieran tries to ask Jay to tell Paradox to stop using some of his stolen OCs and she questions why it “would matter” to Kieran before promptly telling him to basically take a hike and blocking him. [Jay: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Racism: This group seems to relish in their own ignorance when it comes to matters of race. Here are screenshots Dave took where he discussed Paradox saying that Japanese people are white. [No, seriously: Singles] (Please note the dates -- it was back in December, so he has no reason to lie.) Here’s Nael recounting a time Paradox told them that, because they were partially North African, they had to distance themselves from people of their race because other people would only see them as a terrorist. (No caps of that since it was in a call, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.) Here’s Blue telling me, a black fan, that unintentional racism in a game I enjoyed but was put off by “didn’t matter” and that there was no need for me to “get so salty about it”. [Scout vs Blue: 19, 20] While I don’t think they’re going to any Klan meetings over the weekend, it’s still a bit concerning and something POC muns should be aware of because they can be startlingly insensitive at times.
Pedophilia: Probably the hardest one to talk about for me personally, but definitely one of the most serious. While I must stress that we haven’t noticed any sort of untoward behavior with underaged USERS thus far, Paradox shows an almost unhealthy fascination with underage MUSES that might be off putting to some people and may spell danger. This actually isn’t the first callout someone has made about his behavior. In 2018 while he went by the name “Vic” and was in the Pokemon fandom, he wrote a disturbing post where a 14 year old girl was killed by a literal penis monster that was saying “penetrate” as it ran her through the middle.
Though the mun was fine with their muse dying, the obvious sexual connotations of the post left them feeling uneasy. When they went to approach him about this, instead of apologizing, he got defensive and said that because it was fictional, it didn’t matter. Later he made a bizarre case arguing that because the girl was 14 and thus had presumably experienced puberty, it couldn’t TECHNICALLY be considered pedophilia. [WTF: Single] Which, while correct on only the most technical of terms, flies in the face of all reason. Here’s the full PSA about him back then [Paradox PSA], and screenshots he was booted out of for his terrible behavior. [Paradox Booted: Singles] (His then-lover initially tried to defend him, but his abusive behavior eventually drove them away as well, so care was taken to keep them anonymous.)
Most disturbing of all, though, is a smut drabble that he made this year concerning one of his newer muses, Momo. On his blog, he describes Momo as someone who is “physically” 18 but “actually” seven due to the circumstances of his creation. That would be fine, except he will often portray Momo as also being mentally seven years old even though he continues to write him lewdly. In the smut drabble, he even goes a step further and constantly refers to him as a “child” and constantly fixates on his underdeveloped genitals.
DUE TO THE HIGHLY GRAPHIC AND POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING NATURE OF THIS DRABBLE, DO NO CLICK UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED. It’s honestly not for the faint of the heart and makes me queasy from the first sentence, but there’s no other way to describe the severity of his awful nature unless you experience it for yourself. [To Endure a Fiend’s Heat: full 6 page drabble]
While some would say it’s okay to experience triggering material in a safe environment to potentially help ease the pain of past trauma, Paradox has already shown himself to be unreliable when it comes to respecting the mental health and safety of others, and though we don’t have any screenshots of this, Nael has recounted several times where Paradox said he was sexually excited by RPing his childlike muses having sex with the adult muses of others in the cult. Here's him once again emphasizing the child like element with one and then drawing them in a suggestive "pin up" pose immediately after. [Vector: Singles]
________________________________________________________________
Finally we are at our end. Once again, my purpose behind this callout is not to shame anyone with a particular mental illness or unique set of challenges. Paradox is dangerous to any community he’s in because of his view of other people as simple playthings that he can use and throw away as he pleases. He treats life as an RP, living people as muses, and his apparent mental illnesses as an excuse to do away with any sort of accountability for his actions, and it is simply NOT ACCEPTABLE. Please protect yourself and others by reblogging this -- I feel as though Nael is very lucky to have escaped this situation with his life. Informing others might save another’s.
Complete, unedited list of references, roughly in the order of mention:
(Please note that anything labeled “Single(s)” will not have an entry here, as those are the only screenshots we have about them. We got better about capping things as time went on.)
[Scout and Nael Convo: 13 total] When Nael decided to get back together with Paradox the first time in September 2018, I let them know my concerns, but told them I respected their decision, no matter if I agreed with it or not. Looking back, parts of this conversation feel almost prophetic.
[Didn’t Feel Like…: 9 total] One of Kieran’s first conversations with Paradox. Watch closely how he characterizes the incident in September. He also mentions that his trauma and BPD makes him a sexual fiend, which… idk how others in the community would feel about that.
[For me: 16 total] A loose collection of screenshots Kieran took that shows quite a few odd moments during his time in the cult. That includes Paradox being a terf, Paradox insisting that Kieran to stay with Nael if they broke up (which is something he criticized Nael for suggesting in the March break up, even though Nael only said it once), and Jay and Blue expressing concern for Kieran when Paradox was starting to neglect him back in January. PLEASE MIND THE DATES! They vary page to page sometimes!
[Before/After Suicide: 88 total] A few screenshots showing the tumultuous times immediately before and after the Paradox suicide attempt in March 2019. Afterwards, Nael breaks up with both Paradox and Kieran in no uncertain terms due to the trauma he faced.
[Abel Suicide: 33 total] Paradox’s infamous suicide attempt.
[Nael: 34 total] Nael and Kieran talk as Paradox’s suicide attempt is in progress, and Nael tells Kieran to get the police. Sensitive information blotted out for obvious reasons.
[Scout vs Blue: 25 total] A collection of the conflicts I’ve dealt with in regards to Blue since the incident in March. Also includes her racial insensitivity and back when she agreed with me and Nael before Paradox lied to her.
[Initial Ship Drama: 93 total] Kieran endures like 5 days of nonstop gaslighting from Paradox. At the end (Around page 88) he manipulates Kieran into sparking a confrontation with Nael, telling him to “be assertive” about fixing a problem Paradox caused with his erratic behavior.
[Proof Abel Knew: 10 total] On May 6th, Nael discussed with Paradox or one of his alters about the ship that triggered the May 24th meltdown. Paradox also says that having any ships, including ones that he doesn’t even have to see is unacceptable simply because they exist. He then blames Nael for something Blue brought up. Again. While asking Nael not to blame him for something Blue has done.
[With Blue: 24 total] Kieran talks with Blue about the aforementioned shipping drama, and she immediately expresses frustration and anger with Paradox blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Later she also expresses annoyance with the May 24th incident of the alter “Abel” “dying” due to even more ship drama.
[May 17th: 13 total] Once again, Paradox whips his followers up into a frenzy over Nael, who’s really just trying to do what they were told and prioritize their lover. When they’re told the amount of attention Paradox literally asked for is stifling, they back off, only to be yelled at for it once again. It’s not shown here, but Blue once again acted as a lure to bring Nael into a public flogging.
[Paradox: 72 total] Nael is blamed for the “death” of an alter that has since returned because the alter “wasn’t around” for something they discussed on the 6th of May. This is the introduction to the “Paradox” alter, that I’m assuming now has assumed a fronting role. I don’t really care if that situation has changed since I started writing this.
[Jay: 12 total] Just some screens of Jay kind of being a jerk (mostly in the first set). She won’t tell Paradox to stop stealing someone else’s OCs and stop improperly using Nael’s last name, which is considered legitimate identity theft in France, where he lives! Mind the dates.
[Last Convo w/ Blue: 22 pages] Blue reprises her role as the bait to try to drag Nael back, but they’ve wised up to her game by now. It’s not going to ever work again.
[Jay’s “Evidence” Folder: 122 total] All of the things Jay sent to Dave in order to convince him that Nael was the bad guy. None of it accomplishes that goal. In it there’s a lot of doting between Nael’s alter “Naoya” and Paradox’s alter “Abel”, before Paradox showed the exact same abusive behavior and drove Naoya away as well. Then Paradox’s alter “Hebel” tries to explain his existence. He also admits to attempted manslaughter. So. (Please note: some of these are out of order, and we’re very sorry about this, but it’s not our doing, sorry!)
[Ruby and Bird’s Breakup: 16 total] Ruby tried to get Bird to intervene on her behalf to get Paradox to stop harassing her after she tried making an apology post. Bird totally flaked out, probably due to her dual loyalties to Paradox himself. This spurred a messy breakup between them both.
[Misc Bird Folder: 9 total] Some more random stuff showing Bird and Ruby’s relationship, including her take on Paradox and Nael’s September breakup, where she calls him a “brat”. The entire time during these screenshots, Bird was secretly feeding information to Paradox against Ruby’s will, breaking her trust when she found out. She even told Paradox, Ruby’s abuser, about the new blog Ruby made in order to escape him. That’s why she’s on this callout.
[Discord Server Chat with Blue: 23 pages] The complete chat about the Fire Emblem Heroes event that left me feeling upset about the handling of race in Book 2. While the rest in the server try to be respectful or change the subject, Blue insisted on devaluing my feelings and saying I was accusing her of racism, which was, of course, untrue at the time. Currently, I’m not feeling so generous. (Note: My apologies to fans of Heroes’ Nifl -- I say some strongly worded things here which may be unflattering, but I felt it was important to get the entire conversation down.)
BONUS: [Paradox Guilt Tripping on his birthday: 16 total] In case you needed more evidence of Paradox’s gaslighting behavior, here is him guilt tripping them because Nael, who is not a native English speaker, didn’t understand one video he sent. If this is all it takes to trigger a breakdown, he is probably not ready for a relationship.
#mournins#divinebetrayed#halcyonfought#loyalbetrayed#soulsbetrayed#pokemon#fire emblem#yu gi oh#yugioh#persona#danganronpa#Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor#desu#smt#shin megami tensei#devil survivor#callout#tw: callout#tw: drama#/drama#/callout#Check Mate Let's Go#sentai#kamen rider#ygo#power rangers#atlus#fire emblem 3 houses#fe3h#fe 3 houses
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Might as well give context on the SoD forum thingie
Those who know about soD, might already know about this but if you’re a still-born Viking or are just a passing traveler, then strap in because I’ll explain the fuck be happening at SoD Forum.
Warning: This WILL be long.
Clans were added in V3.0 (not V3.0.0, just V3.0) on 29th of August, 2013, at the time, they were basically useless, only served to hoard on Trophies like maniacs without any real reason to do with them, but as years went on, do they still have a use? Spoiler Alert: Not even one bit. So, in January 2014, the developers thought “why give Trophies a real reason to have them when you can make a thing to hoard MORE on them?”, and so, Clash of the Clans or Clash of Clans, whatever the fuck you wanna go with, was created with the sole purpose of, you guess it: A mess of a tournament where Clans fight each other to hoard on more useless Trophy.
Except at the end, all clanmen get a Golden Item and that’s about it. Literally. At the end of around 4-5 weeks, all they get is a Golden Prize, aka, Gold-Reskined Item. The maybe only exception is the Light Fury Hoodie and that’s about it again. But for some reason, Clans, well, the Popular Ones, seem to cheerish this way to must, nearly devoting their lives to the clans like literal real life clans - I wished I was joking, some Clan Leaders will sing these encouraging songs to the clan or be like “Clan Name Unite!”. The weirdest shit but not the weirdest from my experience. And most of the Clanmen from Popular Clans often hibernate from the Forum until another tournament is announced.
Notice how I said “mess of a tournament”, in classic SoD fashion, the tournament is gltichy but boy, oh boy, it’s not just glitchy, it’s a literal mess of a tournament. How messy?
Hacking accusations towards two specific clans during the 2014 Era, resulting in an actual hacking attack towards the clans in 2015 which the developers didn’t do shit at the time. The clan in question won the 3rd CotC of 2014;
FYI, hacking accusations are stil a thing;
Trophy gathering was often very unbalanced, add a spoon of crashing and everyday glitches and you got yourself a funky lil Soup of Bullshitery;
This also applies outside of the tournament, you want to gather Trophies on your everyday life? Too bad because the Popular Ones are hoarding them all to keep themselves afloat;
Don’t forget that the Popular Ones ended up in always winning because of the constant, nonstop hoarding... and never giving a chance to newer Clans a taste of victory - gotta prove the “newbies” who’s the boss;
Hackers and cheaters are a big thing in SoD, hell, the 2018 CotC ended with a guy and dummy accounts winning, even with proofs, the devs gave them the win because you guess it, they’re from a Popular Clan, therefore, they would n e v e r cheat in spite of multiple proofs proving it otherwise, of course they wouldn’t!!!
The funniest thing is in 2014, a more less popular clan was caught cheating and did got disqualified, yet, a guy playing dummy but it’s from a stronger, Popular clan? Nah, fam, they’re good.
They tried to implement a new mechanism in 2019 but it took the VETERANS of CotC to fucking explain them how it should be in private and it still didn’t do that much;
So after years and years of dealing with unfair, glitchy ass bullshit, the developers finally came to the decision and cancel 2020 CotC because they want to address other important issues and they’re working on a new Event which might replace 2020 CotC BUT CotC will be back in the next year.
Mind you, people all over the Forum WANTED THIS TO HAPPEN for YEARS, this was a legit request, they wanted them to work on CotC in hopes of improving it. How did they reacted?
Well... see it for yourself: http://forum.schoolofdragons.com/content/details-clash-clans-2020
The opinions were divided in 3 types:
The supporters of their decision;
The supporters of their decision but agree that the timing wasn’t the best;
Then... the Sore Losers:
And a bonus:
You heard it right, we can’t complain about this because we never participated on this Event, even though the problems they deal with are EXACTLY THE SAME AS OURS. The entire Thread exploded in these 4 Users attacking others along with side-arguments about word meaning and “fixing what?” even though SoD HAS FIXED BEFORE and STILL DOES... all because they can’t compete due to the cancellation of CotC - literally, the ENTIRE drama happened because of these 4 Users who funny enough, are Leaders (except one) and Members of High Ranked Clans, they belong to Clans that would be sure to win. They are legit angry because they won’t win a Gold Prize, their competitive spirit is so big and strong, they think they can boss everyone around. Someone did even noticed this and commented about it but didn’t attacked them, one of the Clan Leaders (aka one of the Attacking Users) responded with this:
Guilt Trip, much?
And again, all of this because they cancelled CotC FOR NOW to focus on other issues and a possible new event. The game may change, but the SoD Forum will never change.
#its beautiful and sad and funny to see how big of a rollercoaster this was tbh#and i feel like it hasnt ended#school of dragons#lps100 derps#long post
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The Beginning of Everything
Ch. 17: Dorothy Bell & the Osirans
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Female OC x 10th Doctor
(OC Renata’s Face claim: Marjorie de Sousa)
(Gabby’s face claim: Victoria Moroles)
// Story Masterlist //
~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~
DISCLAIMER: This chapter’s plotline is from Doctor Who’s comic stories. Most of the dialogue is directly written from the comic. The plot is NOT mine.
Chapter Summary: The time travelers are back in New York for an interesting auction that leads them to a celebrity and alien Gods.
For some reason, the Doctor had expressed a need to go to New York due to some strange readings he was getting from the TARDIS. None of his companions, including Renata, had much trouble accepting the impromptu visit since it was the perfect chance for Gabby to visit home and catch up with her family. While Gabby was at home, the remainder of the travelers went to a top-notch secret auction of 'alien' objects.
"Do I hear a hundred thousand? 200,000?" a chirpy young woman raised a finger at a gentleman in the crowd responsible for the new bid amount.
Way in the back, the Doctor rudely snorted.
Renata, who sat beside him, shot him a glance for his action. "Would you keep it down? I thought you were the one who said we needed to keep a low profile. Whatever that means."
"It just means staying low and not getting noticed," Donna chimed in from her seat which was on Renata's left.
"Yes, thanks Donna," the Time Lady huffed and crossed one leg over the other then put her hands over her lap. "I don't see the need for us to entertain this silly auction. Why, pray tell, are you making us sit through this, Doctor, when we all know you can just steal whatever you're looking for in its storage room?"
There was an inevitable smirk on the Doctor's face as he glanced at Renata. "Are you saying I can just steal something and be on our way?" Renata rolled her eyes at his sarcasm. "Renée, I am shocked - no, flabbergasted. Maybe I am rubbing off on you."
"You wouldn't be so lucky," Renata flatly said, though there was a hint of pink on her cheeks.
Donna eyed the two aliens as much as she could from where she sat. Those two had been acting...different. And by different, it meant less arguing and more harmless bantering. There was a more clear closeness between the two that, honestly, gave a warmer vibe to the whole TARDIS. Gabby was the only one who often seemed to be on edge about the two aliens, but she wouldn't say why.
"Doctor, why the hell are we here anyways?" Renata asked after watching some suited man pay over a million dollars for an object she was pretty sure was only a hair dryer. Almost all these objects, actually, resembled more human characteristics than alien as they were made out to be.
"I told you, I got some strange readings back in the TARDIS that I couldn't ignore," the Doctor picked up the pamphlet they'd been handed at the start of the auction and went through it again. When he found the item he'd been waiting for, he called one of the employees to inquire over it. The helpful woman informed him the object needed to be bid on privately at the front desk.
So he had the trio get up and go do just that.
"I'm pretty sure you don't have the kind of money to pay for these things," Renata whispered to the Doctor on their way out.
"And I'm pretty sure they don't have clearance to be selling this object," the man retorted with. He pulled out his sonic from his coat's inner pocket and activated its communication feature. "Message to UNIT HQ, NY. Flag this location with a clean up requirement for a few suspicious items, maybe ex-Torcheood - immediate effect."
"What's Torchwood?" Renata dreaded to ask but instead of getting the answer from the Doctor it was Donna who replied. She vaguely remembered the name from her time with the Master, but she could do with a fresh reminder.
"Some facility that was responsible for getting a good half of us killed with their robotic men and weird pepper bottles."
"She means Cybermen and Daleks," went the Doctor who wasn't very interested in retelling the story. He only informed Donna of the full story because she wouldn't leave him alone about it.
"What!?" Renata exclaimed. She honestly could have paid a little more attention while she was trapped with the Master. Once she got to thinking, she did remember a few times the Master mentioned the name 'Torchwood' sometimes but it wasn't like she paid much attention to him. He had a nasty habit of insulting her most of the time so she learned - as a survival mechanism - to ignore a lot of his words.
Before the Doctor could defend himself from any looming argument, he felt a very hard fist connect with the back of his head. He fell forwards, flat on his stomach and with a nose first-down on the ground.
"Doctor!" Renata was horrified at the sight.
"Uh, Ren…" Donna very gently shook the Time Lady's arm, meaning for Renata to look ahead but the woman was too focused on the Doctor.
"Don't make a move," warned a different woman, the culprit of such a blow. She was a young dark skinned woman dressed in all black. She held a high-tech gun on the trio as well as the Doctor's fallen sonic screwdriver.
But instead of being scared, Renata was furious. "And just who the hell do you think you are? And put that thing down before you hurt someone else!"
The woman raised an eyebrow at Renata, as if questioning whether or not Renata was actually demanding things from her when she held the gun. "I don't think you realize your position right now."
"I think I do, actually," the Doctor groaned as he got back on his feet. Renata yanked him to her side and pulled him slightly down in order for her to better check the spot where the woman's fist had knocked him.
"English accents," the woman noted from the trio. "So pompous. Lot 28, the artifact. You bought it and I need it."
"Wait a minute," Donna's eyebrows wrinkled together. "You think we bought it? Whatever the hell it is, we don't have it."
"Ha, sure," the woman scoffed.
"We really don't," Renata's eyes hardened. "And what kind of asking involves punching someone then threatening them with a gun and a stolen sonic?" she pointed specifically to the blue-lit sonic screwdriver in the woman's hand.
"A sonic?" the woman tilted her head at the sonic screwdriver, specifically eyeing the blue glow at the top.
"Unauthorized user alert," went the Doctor all of a sudden and in the next moment the woman was shocked. It was at the same time that the Doctor tackled the woman to her floor. "I haven't got a collection ticket. We're going to look silly at the front desk!"
"Don't be silly with the human who's trying to kill us," scolded Renata.
"We want to know who bought the artifact too," the Doctor informed the woman as he swiped her gun away then sat on the floor like nothing had occurred.
"Really?" the woman sat up, all of a sudden smiling. "Oh, well then we maybe we can work together."
"I think not!" went Renata and Donna at the same time.
"Yeah, I don't think my friends are very keen on you," the Doctor muttered as he disarmed the gun and dropped it to his side.
"Well, we're after the same thing so we can help each other out," the woman insisted as she pushed herself up to her feet. "And in good faith, I'll even tell you my name: Cleo."
"Oh and that's supposed to make us forget you nearly tried to kill him?" Renata gestured to the Doctor still sitting on the floor.
"And us!" Donna reminded with a huff.
"I only wanted the artifact before it got into the wrong hands," Cleo shrugged. "I imagine that's what you all want as well?"
The Doctor swayed his head specifically at Renata, as if trying to say Cleo made a good point. The Time Lady's face indicated pure warning. Do. Not. Do. It.
"We really can't let it fall into the wrong hands," the Doctor reminded her. Renata huffed and looked away, knowing what he was going to do next. "Alright Cleo, you can help us. But don't use that gun again on anything or anyone or it'll just zap you like my—" he swooped up his sonic from the floor, "-little friend did here."
"Oh, so we're just going to ignore my very wise advice not to let the evil woman come with us?" Renata was at his side the moment they started walking again.
"Better to have people who want to kill us near us then far away where we can't see them," he said.
"I'm not sure I like that logic," Donna mumbled to Renata who agreed with a nod of her head.
In a short amount of time, Cleo had taken the lead with a high-tech tracking device the Doctor knew she hadn't gotten out of the local market.
"Where's that Jeridian energy tracer from?" he inquired as Cleo led them out the backdoor of the building.
"Does it matter? I got a signal," Cleo shrugged.
"It really does, though."
"That car right there!" Cleo pointed a car that was just pulling out of the alley into the street.
The Doctor aimed his sonic at the car that was too far to stop. At the same time, Donna yelped that they were no longer alone. A group of armed men were making their way out of the building as well.
"C'mon!" Renata grabbed both Donna and the Doctor to lead them behind a dumpster to hide in. Cleo came as well but she was more interested in the readings of her tracker than the men almost finding them.
"I can't trace the signal!" the woman groaned as she continuously played with the controls.
"But I did," the Doctor grinned at his sonic. "I can pinpoint the power signature to within a few meters once it stops moving."
Cleo lowered her device to look at the man. "Okay, who are you? And what the hell is that?" she nodded to the sonic.
"Oh, right, we haven't been introduced," the Doctor smiled so casually Renata wanted to smack him on the spot. "I'm the Doctor, that's Renata and that's Donna." He then got up, pulling Renata who then pulled Donna towards the street after the men had passed. "Why are you so interested in this artifact, Cleo?" he asked once they were walking on the sidewalk.
"Not me," Cleo put a hand over her chest. "I just hunt that stuff for collectors. A lot of people are interested in that thing but I've no idea why."
"You never thought to ask what you were hunting down?" Renata incredulously glanced at the woman who merely shook her head. "Ignorance is not bliss, you know? You could get hurt."
"I know how to take care of myself just fine," Cleo smiled. "And I don't care where that stuff's from as long as I can put a high price on it."
"Lovely," Donna shook her head.
"Taxi!" Cleo called at the corner of the street, wailing her hand in the air. At her beck and call, a yellow taxi club stopped in front of her. "Come on! See as you're so in charge…" she pointed at the Doctor, "I'm following you. We'll split the proceeds."
"She's not kidding," Renata side-glanced the Doctor with a tilted head.
"Better to have her near," he reminded her of his logic that she could not disagree more with. She was very worried over this mysterious object the Doctor refused to tell her about, saying it was just something that shouldn't be in a human's hands. And this Cleo woman didn't exactly give her a good vibe.
And all those feelings of concern and worriment were, without her knowledge, reaching someone else in the city. A young girl whom Renata wanted far away from them right now.
The tracing had brought them to the upper east side of New York. It was an upscale building that had the end of the trace.
"It's coming from that apartment," the Doctor led the way towards the door marked '4G' at the end of the hallway. Just as he knocked, an small explosion rocked them all to the ground.
Cleo shrieked after feeling most of the explosion hit her. "What did you do to my gun!?"
"Did you seriously just try to shoot us again!?" Renata was about to lose it. The woman had tried shooting them while their backs were to her.
"I told you I didn't like guns," the Doctor frowned at Cleo.
Suddenly, the door he'd knocked on opened up to reveal a ginger woman with another gun pointed at them.
"Oh, that's just great!" Donna huffed at their odds.
"I don't know who you are but you need to come in right now before I shoot you all," the ginger warned and stepped aside.
The group were forced to go in, but secretly the Doctor knew it was their best chance to get the object back anyways.
"Oh my God, you're Dorothy Bell!" Cleo gasped at the sight of a middle-aged blonde woman. Said blonde woman was scowling back.
"What, the movie star?" Donna squinted her eyes for a second before they widened like Cleo's. "Oh my God! It is! You are!"
"I'm your biggest fan!" Cleo laughed in delight as she truly took a look at the apartment. It was full of trophies and awards and pictures. "Is this your Oscar for Tennessee Waltz? They should have given you the Oscar for the love scene in the Great Pretender too. It was so intense—"
"Shut up!" the ginger woman raised her gun as well. "Or I'll shoot you!"
"So shoot me!" Cleo laughed as she picked up a golden trophy.
"Oh my God I'm so confused," Renata deeply exhaled. Since she started travelling with the Doctor, she understood less and less of what went on with her life but this point...this was a new low point.
"Put that down!" Dorothy exclaimed.
"Of course," Cleo's lips suddenly curled into a smirk. "Catch!" she threw the trophy directly at the ginger woman, smacking her in the face and knocking her down. With the commotion, Cleo then reached for a golden object sitting on the table. It resembled a gun but with a wide circular end.
"Don't be so stupid," hissed Dorothy. "Don't touch that! You've no idea what it is!"
"Oh, but I do," Cleo shrugged.
"This—" Renata gestured at Cleo for the Doctor to see, "-is why I told you that she shouldn't have come!"
"Yeah alright, I see your point," the Doctor rolled his eyes. Of course she would pick this moment to say 'I told you so!'.
"I know what you want to use this for, Dorothy! You want to use it to stop getting old. To get young again — to reverse the aging process," Cleo looked at the blonde who seemed now a bit frightened about her knowledge. "People like you think this thing is a fountain of youth. But it isn't. I mean, you can use it for that purpose but it can be used for so much more." Cleo ignited the object and a golden energy struck from it to attack the ginger woman. A golden and orange glow surrounded the woman but it looked like her figure was beginning to shrink. When the glow died down there was a baby girl with a tuft of orange hair right where the woman had been.
"Did that thing just turn her into a baby!?" Donna's eyes bulged to the point of nearly popping from her head.
"This something you can 'use', Cleo? How do you know so much about it?" the Doctor asked the woman who definitely seemed comfortable with the object than an ordinary human would be.
"I could ask you the same thing," Cleo retorted, her eyes narrowing on the Doctor. She dragged the object over Donna first, making the ginger woman squeak in terror.
Renata quickly positioned herself in front of Donna. "Don't you dare!"
"Why? I'm having way too much fun formation point but I'm not a total killjoy. Let's give that movie star what she wants!" Cleo pulled the 'gun' on Dorothy but the Doctor jumped in front of the blonde and received the blow instead.
"Doctor!" Renata exclaimed, almost running towards him when Donna caught her arm. "You need to stop! It's not having the same effect on him!" Renata begged from Cleo as the golden energy surrounded the Doctor.
Unlike the ginger woman, he didn't shrink but instead the energy became stronger, blinding. The Doctor groaned and clutched his head in terrible pain.
"Retro-regeneration!" Renata realized just as the man before him changed. With a new fierce determination, she ran directly for Cleo and tackled the woman down. "GIVE ME THAT THIS INSTANT!"
"Doctor…?" Donna hesitated to help the man on the ground, since he looked nothing like the Doctor she knew. This man had thinner hair and glimmering blue eyes, not to mention more protruding ears.
"It's me, Donna...just...stop them…" the Doctor, in his 9th incarnation, raised a finger towards Renata and Cleo currently battling it out for the damn object causing all the trouble.
Donna turned to the two women but before she even stepped towards them Dorothy beat her to it. All three women had a grip on the object but Renata, being stronger, seemingly was getting the upper hand.
"Renata! You need to stop! The local time field is in flux, be careful!" the Doctor tried getting up but that retro-regeneration was a strong thing. His legs actually felt wibbly-wobbly.
"Doctor — that thing is glowing again!" Donna noticed the golden energy beginning to surge from the object. "But no one's shooting!"
But there came another explosion that threw every women in different corners of the room with only a billowing golden energy afterwards.
At the same time that Renata felt a new surge of energy - the same energy in the air - course through her blood, Gabby felt it from her location. Her best friend, Cindy, was busy babbling about something while they walked the night streets of New York but Gabby had to stop listening. There was something in her head and in her heart that was telling her, yelling at her that Renata was in trouble.
By the time the Doctor and Donna woke up, Cleo was gone with the artifact. The Doctor, now back in his current incarnation, dashed for Renata who was outcold on the ground.
"She's back to normal," Donna pointed at the ginger woman now getting up as well. "Everyone is."
"Hey Renée — wake up," the Doctor gently pulled Renata into a sitting position, but the Time Lady remained unconscious.
"Can somebody help me?" the ginger woman was trying to move Dorothy's body to the nearby couch. Donna figured she was better off helping the humans than trying to wake up a Time Lady. Between the two of them, they moved Dorothy and all the meanwhile Renata stayed unconscious.
"Renée, you're, uh...you're not waking up…" there was a hint of fear in the Doctor's tone as he relentlessly shook Renata's body. He had no idea what happened to her and what could possibly keep her out could like this. What if he had finally hurt her so badly that she was...she was...
Renata gasped awake suddenly. Her eyes flickered from one side to the other as her brain caught up with what happened. "What the — Cleo!" her expression morphed into a deep scowl. "I told you we shouldn't have trusted her!" Her expression, however, seemed to fade when she noticed the Doctor's face. "What? Why are you smiling like an idiot?"
The Doctor had a growing smile on his face, but it was spreading far too much. "I thought you were really hurt..."
"Well, I just got zapped with some energy! I have no idea where it came from but-"
The Doctor pulled her body forwards for a hug, instantly quieting her. "You just scared me," he whispered as he held her tightly.
Renata blinked out of surprise. Slowly, her hands raised to rest on her back, but it was done rather awkwardly. She wasn't used to this type of touch from anyone. She'd made a damn good job keeping the Doctor away from her but it'd been getting harder lately. "Doctor, I'm fine," she patted his back and just barely resisted the urge to bring her hand up to his hair. She could've probably ran her fingers through it to ease his nerves...
But that was probably something a friend wouldn't do. Donna certainly wouldn't.
When the Doctor finally pulled her away, he still held her by the waist. He didn't even let her go when he pulled her up to her feet. He only studied her body to find any obvious injuries. "When we get back to the TARDIS, I'm going to run some tests on you just to make sure you're alright."
"I already told you that I'm fine," Renata rolled her eyes. Honestly, he was making a big deal out of nothing.
But she was thinking like he was. "This isn't the first time you've been hit with an unknown energy."
"Right..." So maybe she hadn't thought about that but she wanted to focus on the bigger problem: Cleo and the missing artifact. However, it was then that ginger woman — who introduced herself as Vivian — brought them to Dorothy and explained her situation.
As it turned out, Dorothy had some type of illness that was going to end life very soon. Hearing about this magical artifact that could cure anything, Dorothy sought out to buy it no matter how much it cost. After running a few quick exam on the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor realized that Dorothy was now connected to the power field of the artifact and that it was giving off even stronger signals than before. It meant that wherever Cleo and the artifact were, they would be able to track it with Dorothy's help.
"Uuh, Doctor…" Renata was the first to spy Dorothy's body levitating off the couch. "Don't think that's supposed to happen."
"Oh my God, what is it now?" Donna stepped backwards while the Doctor rushed to get up close.
"What's happening to her!?" Vivian shrieked in horror.
"If I didn't know better, I would say she was regenerating," the Doctor blinked, clearly flabbergasted with the sight.
"Hello?" they suddenly heard Gabby's voice. Renata spotted the young girl poking her head into the room. Along with her came an Asian girl with black hair.
"How'd you find us?" frowned Renata. She really didn't want Gabby anywhere near this place.
"You...wouldn't really believe me," Gabby smiled awkwardly since even she didn't understand how she'd found this place so fast. All she knew was that someone — Renata — had been in trouble and she just followed that sense. It brought her directly to this apartment. "Are you okay?" she walked up to Renata with a full etched concern on her face.
"Yes, why wouldn't I be?"
"Um, Maybe because you was that with some artifacts energy?" Donna reminded, something that earned quite a look from the Time Lady.
"Energy? What type of energy? Did it hurt you?" Gabby's mind immediately went to the prediction that Ood had made. What if this was the place where Renata would die?
"I'm fine," Renata smiled as wide as possible, almost as if she was reading Gabby's thoughts. She looked over Gabby's head and saw the black-haired girl. "And who's that?"
"Cindy," the girl introduced herself with a small wave since most of her attention was landing on the walls so clearly pointing out Dorothy Bell's life.
"She just followed me, sorry," Gabby apologized. In all her running, she didn't exactly tell her best friend where she was leading her to.
"Uh, excuse me!?" Vivian called back to Dorothy's situation. The unconscious woman was glowing white and still levitating. "She's pulsing now!"
The Doctor hurried to the window to see the reflection of the same glowing energy shooting into the sky.
Dorothy's body moved so that her head was closer to the ceiling and her feet below. The glow around her was becoming unbearingly blinding. But just like that, it died down.
Dorothy Bell stood in front of them, looking younger than ever. She was dressed in all white that consisted of a long pencil skirt tucked over a blouse and with a blazer. She was even wearing a 50s white hat.
"Ooh, so not regeneration but rejuvenation," the Doctor blinked.
"I was a bell and now I'm a key! I'm both!" Dorothy laughed, even the sound of her voice sounded completely new.
"She's now glowing orange," Renata raised an eyebrow and looked at the Doctor. "She's just rejuvenated and now she's glowing orange. How much trouble is this?"
"I have no bloody idea," admitted the man. He brought a hand to scratch the top of his head. He'd never seen anything like this.
The smile on Dorothy's face slowly faded as she looked out the window. "That looks wrong," she said suddenly.
"What does?" the Doctor watched her carefully. "The city?"
Dorothy looked back at the group, letting her bleached blonde hair flip over her shoulder. She walked up to them and smiled at Renata. "You in-took part of my energy."
"Did not mean to, honestly," Renata took a cautious step back.
"I know, and I am so sorry."
Renata tilted her head. For some reason, that didn't really sound like it was coming from Dorothy. "Sorry…? For what?"
Behind her, Gabby gulped. Was this another reminder of what was coming?
But Dorothy suddenly groaned as she staggered on her feet. The glow around her became a little bit stronger in that one moment. Everyone rushed to help her stay on her feet.
"Dorothy?" the Doctor called. "You are still Dorothy, right?"
"Who else is she supposed to be?" Cindy was staring at the entire procession like a true civilian: she was so lost. And a bit scared. What the hell had Gabby brought her into?
"I'm not, yet I am. How strange. We are merged as one. But then again, not quite as one...missing final component," Dorothy spoke in pauses and in different voices. One was hers and another sounded like a computerized female voice.
"We?" the Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. "You and who else? Tell me what's wrong, how are you feeling?"
"Nothing is wrong. I can put everything together they it's supposed to be. The city, I can make it better. More efficient." Dorothy turned away from the group and walked towards the window. She touched the glass with one palm and in that instant disintegrated the glass into nothing. The same blinding light that had her earlier once again enveloped her as she shot into the sky.
"What is going on with her?" Donna couldn't understand and she wasn't the only one.
"She's taking the new ones for a spin! Vivian where is she heading?" the Doctor turned to the ginger woman. "What's the first place Dorothy would go to?"
"The hospital. St. Joe's. Not for treatment though, she's funding a new wing and they're building it now," the woman quickly answered.
"Ah, Now I understand."
"Why we wanted the artifact?" Vivian sighed. "She wanted to be able to see the construction work completed, to be there when it opened."
"It's all sad but defying death is a huge mistake," Renata pointed at the woman, not that she thought a human would understand. It was natural that a human — with such short life spans — would want to elongate their lives.
"Are we going to follow her?" Gabby asked the Time Lady who then pointed a thumb at the Doctor.
"You think he's going to let it go?"
Gabby smiled and shook her head.
~ 0 ~
After leaving Vivian back in the apartment, hoping that they would have some luck and Dorothy might just go back to the apartment where her good friend was, the group rushed to follow the trace they had on Dorothy. Like Vivian had said, Dorothy had come to the hospital she was funding. With swift movements of her arms, she finished the construction herself and left a pretty damn good building.
On their way, however, a black car drove past them and an angry Cleo yelled at them through the passenger's door.
"I really hate her," Renata shook her head.
"Same," agreed Donna with a similar scowl on her face.
The car had stopped not too far from them and out came Cleo with two other men. They were making their way towards them and fearing they would get in the way, the Doctor ushered Renata forwards.
"Renée, try talking to Dorothy," he said as soon as they stood a few feet from the woman. She was still gazing at the newly finished hospital, almost as if she wasn't even aware that they had found her.
"What? Why me!?" the Time Lady frowned.
"Because she seems to like you? Just try it please," the Doctor gently pushed her forwards. "We can't afford to lose her when we don't understand what kind of abilities she now has."
Renata knew he was right. It would be irresponsible to let Dorothy get lost in the city again. "Fine," she huffed and walked towards Dorothy. "Um...Dorothy?"
At the sound of her voice, Dorothy turned around with a dreamy smile. "Hello again. See what I did? Nine extra levels. There's everything they will need," she gestured to the building behind her.
"It's all great…" Renata admitted it was a cool power to have. "But...maybe we should take it easy. It's not very wise to go running about using these abilities when you don't know how strong they are or what side effects can they have on you."
"Well honey, I do feel a bit wobbly. It's all so new and strange but I can't say I'm enjoying it. but to be honest my dear Renata, listen to your instincts. You will totally get what's going on." As Dorothy said those words, Renata stiffened as she had no idea what Dorothy was going on about. Dorothy walked up to the Time Lady with the sweetest smile anyone could have. "Looking at you, I can see a glow around you…it's fading. Unfairly too."
"Oh please just stop," Renata rolled her eyes and stepped away. "I need you to listen to me and just take a breather."
"Um, Ren?" Gabby called from her spot. She'd moved away from the Doctor and was pointing at the man arguing with Cleo and two other men. "That's not sounding very good."
"Yeah, got that," Renata sighed. "Look, Dorothy, I just need you to come back with me so we can make sure everything is okay."
Dorothy backtracked several steps before the glow around her became a dark red. She levitated into the air and struck a hand forwards. All arguments between the others ended when the artifact came zipping out from one of the men's pockets and into Dorothy's hand.
"Goddess, we have awaited for your arrival!" one of the men with Cleo, a man in a white lab coat named Hanif, exclaimed.
"That's ours," Dorothy's voice overlapped with the computerized voice from before. "Mine. That's what was missing."
"Dorothy?" Renata called from below. "Remember that thing I said about taking a breather? Now might be the right time to take it. Please?"
"Internal enhancements in progress. Biogenetic overhaul completed." Dorothy's hand seemed to merge with the artifact and disappeared altogether.
"Dorothy, we really need you to listen!" called the Doctor, but the woman just smiled at him.
"I'm fine," she assured. "Look at you all. So many possibilities. You Cleo, I haven't forgotten about you," she raised a finger at the woman in question. "You going to behave yourself now?"
"Y-yes ma'am," Cleo gave a quick nod of her head. "I really am a fan."
"And Doctor, you are an adept, present in the here and the now and yet not. You move through this reality like smoke, a beautiful, dangerous idea. You are a very complicated space-time event."
"Oh come now, I bet you say that to all the boys!"
"Not the time," Renata shot him a quick look.
"Don't joke," scolded Dorothy, very much sounding like Renata in that moment. "I saw what you did. You made Vivian stay at home. You kept her safe, protecting her."
"It was just an instinct…" the Doctor tried to say, but Dorothy shook her head.
"No, you're attuned to the Flux Of potentialities. If she had come here this man—" Dorothy pointed at the man suited in black, Erik, who'd come along with Cleo, "-would have shot her as she tried to protect me. She would be dead now. In a world parallel to this one, Vivian is dead."
"What?" went the man indignantly. "But I haven't!"
"I can see the possibilities," Dorothy began to lower herself to the ground but even then the glow around her hadn't dissipated.
"We came here only to welcome you," Erik began to say when the second man, Hanif, added.
"And to collect, humbly, our reward."
"Oh really — that's what brought you here," Donna scowled at the two men.
"We know only what our forebears told us," Hanif said. "Generations of us have guarded the secrets of your kind for Millennia. You are a herald, one who the return of the Gods."
"Now wait a minute," the Doctor called for the attention before it got more lost. "Dorothy thought the artifact was a fountain of youth while you think it's a radio for talking to the gods, is that it? It isn't either of those things."
"Let me guess, you've seen this before?" Renata wasn't even asking at this point, she just presumed he had to know.
"Then do tell us what the artifact was for, Doctor," Hanif pointed. "If this woman isn't a goddess, then she is a harbinger of the Gods."
"Lower East gods of yours...you're a religious sect. A cult?"
"Oh but there's nothing anymore," Dorothy suddenly went, raising her head as if she were looking up to the sky. "There's no more Gods."
"Ooh…" the Doctor blinked and slowly turned to Dorothy with a new look in his eyes. "Dorothy, hold on, I think I know what you are...what you've become."
But Dorothy's face had become the place for a stream.
"Oh now you've made her cry! Good going!" Renata exclaimed to the three men. "Dorothy, you should calm down…"
Dorothy shook her head away but seized Renata's wrist and pulled her up into the sky. The Time Lady screamed out of shock, and after realizing how high she was going it turned into screams of fear.
"Dorothy, come back! You're a Quantum Harvester!" the Doctor was left to holler from the ground. His hearts were pounding wildly under his chest as he saw Renata disappear into the sky.
"Doctor, we have to get Ren back!" Donna shook him by the arm while Gabby took hold of his other arm.
"What if she hurts Renata!?" Gabby started panicking, thinking this was yet the way Renata was supposed to go.
"Hello," Cindy suddenly called, "Was like some rustic form of particle physics terminology? Before anyone says anything, yes I do understand science."
"Beginning to like you a bit," the Doctor said but he was more focused on the missing Time Lady. "What was your name?"
"Cindy, and I'd really like to know what the hell is going on here?" Cindy looked more directly at Gabby for the answers. She'd been following Gabby everywhere and sure Gabby had already warned her that this was out of her world but would it kill Gabby to explain it better?
"Cleo warned us that you could mess things up for us," Hanif's words drew the traveler's attention and alerted them to the silver gun aimed on them.
"Thanks to you and your little friends, none of this went the way we anticipated. You are responsible—" Erik had been saying before Cleo pulled him back.
"Wait!" the woman blocked the gun's way to the travelers. "I am strategizing here! This is tactical, what you keeping me around for. Much as I hate to admit it, Doctor, you seem to know what's going on here. If we're going to follow the Hollywood all-high we should join forces."
"I would like to point out that Renata told us not to trust her," Donna quietly told the Doctor while keeping narrowed eyes on Cleo.
"You can walk behind me if you'd like," Cleo offered as another sign of good faith.
"Donna, we don't have much of a choice," the Doctor muttered. He needed everything and everyone at his disposal to get Renata back.
With his sonic, he managed to pick up a trace on Dorothy again and so that's what they did: follow it. With Cleo's help, they now had a car at their disposal to take them around the city as they went on a chase for Dorothy.
"So when are you going to explain what Dorothy is?" Donna asked, though she wasn't sure if the Doctor was listening to her. He'd been keenly focused on his sonic so far.
"She's a fusion of a human being and incredibly advanced alien technology. That's all."
"But is she dangerous?" asked Gabby who kept chewing on her lower lip.
"I don't think so," the Doctor said and that's the only thing keeping him somewhat calm. "I think she's an overwhelmed being who grabbed the person who was making her feel a bit better in all the chaos. Naturally, it had to be Renata. She inspires calmness and peace wherever she goes and I should know. Changed my life a while ago."
Both Gabby and Donna gave him the same strange, tilted-head look that he missed since he was staring at his sonic. He hadn't even realized what he said.
~ 0 ~
Renata only got her bearings back when Dorothy finally brought them back to the ground. And that was only after Dorothy went around the city repairing and building what she thought New York needed.
"You really should start listening," the Time Lady helped Dorothy — who was now weary from all her work — down the sidewalk leading up to her apartment building. "You can't go around doing that stuff when you've no idea what abilities you have nor what side effects you have."
"Something's coming…" Dorothy mumbled the same thing since they'd started to walk.
"You keep saying that but you don't tell me who is coming."
"I don't know," Dorothy admitted. "But it wants me."
"And here you are drawing attention to yourself."
They heard a car skid to a stop beside them and when Renata saw the Doctor jumping out of the car, she so greatly relaxed. If he was here, then Dorothy couldn't be in trouble anymore.
"Renée!" the Doctor came directly to the Time Lady, once again pulling her in for a hug just as when she'd fallen unconscious in Dorothy's apartment. Twice already he'd scared her and it was all because of some threats he hadn't been able to foresee.
"Oh no…" Dorothy stepped backwards when she saw the others getting out of the car.
"No, no, it's okay now," the Doctor tried to bring her back but Dorothy shook her head.
"No, it's them!" she pointed at Erik, Hanif and Cleo. "They're calling whatever's coming here."
The Doctor immediately looked back and saw the lab-coated man holding something in his hand, something he hadn't seen yet. "What are you doing!? Stop—"
But a golden light struck down and took all of them away, up into a clear alien spaceship. The room was huge with dark brown walls and one set of controls set at the end of the room. There was a clear distraught in Gabby, Cindy and Donna but for the other humans - Cleo, Erik and Hanif - they were quick to begin arguing. Cleo seemed to be the one taking the sudden transportation the worst.
"Shouldn't we stop them?" Donna asked Renata since the Doctor had already begun sonicking the entire room. Renata was tending to the even more fear-stricken Dorothy.
"Really? What would I do?" Renata shook her head. "Sounds to me like Cleo is finally getting a reality check. That is what you call it, right?"
Erik caught onto her poor description and turned at the woman. "We are very real! We are the Cult of the Black Pyramid!"
But to be honest, Renata stopped listening after that. She had no interest in learning what they were nor what exactly they worshiped.
"Would you all just stop?" the Doctor called. He had made his way up to the main bridge's control panel. "This is not the place of the 'Gods'. It's just a vessel of an old civilization that died eons ago. The ship is a remnant of the civilization, as if the relic that Dorothy merged with."
Dorothy's eyes widened. She looked at her palms as if the relic was still there, but it was far gone and yet so close.
"So, the ancient Egyptian gods those people-" Gabby jerked a thumb over her shoulder to Erik, "-are just aliens?"
"Yup! They're from a planet called Phaester Osiris."
"How about ancient Chinese gods?" Cindy asked, gesturing herself since she was of Chinese descent. "Got any of those?"
"It's not a game," scolded Renata.
The Doctor pressed a few buttons on the control panel, prompting Renata to warn him that messing with unknown controls of an unknown spaceship could lead to even worse consequences -
But then the spaceship rumbled and a rough voice spoke from the computer. "This is the will of the Seeker…"
"Doctor, what is that?" asked Donna.
"Like a Janitor Robot - an AI."
"And it wants me," Dorothy shook her head. She chose to merge with an alien tech and now the spaceship that owned that tech had come for it.
"And this," Hanif raised his hand with a peculiar ring on his finger. "I'm so sorry but I had to do it. It's said that this ring came from you - the Old Gods - and has been handed down in my family for more than a hundred generations."
"And that was a lie," Cindy rolled her eyes.
"See the mark of our faith?" the man went on, pulling up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of a triangle inside a circle. Erik did the same behind him. "We are your true disciples."
"Did you not just hear that they're aliens and not Gods?" Renata gestured to the clear alien control panel. Why were they still on this plan? They were desperate for their beliefs.
But she was ignored, like Cindy's earlier remark. Hanif went on to explain how his family had cared for an old Egyptian black pyramid centuries ago that disappeared into darkness after some false prophet showed up.
The Doctor scratched the top of his head as he corrected, "The chap in the pyramid was probably the last Osirian. Trust me, he's gone too."
"I've had enough of your blasphemy, Doctor!" Erik pulled out his gun and pressed it to the back of the Doctor's head.
Renata stiffened but the Doctor seemed way too calm for her liking, leading her to believe he had something up his sleeve.
"Erik, there might be some automatic defenses-" Before he would finish, a golden light erupted from the gun in Erik's hand and when it disappeared Erik was left screaming in pain as the gun merged with his flesh.
"Force will be met with force," went the computer.
"This is our reward!?" Hanif cried in anger. "He's an archaeologist, one of the faithful! And my family have served you for centuries!"
"Seriously? He just tried to kill our friend," Gabby scowled at him.
"He wouldn't have used it!"
But now the Doctor frowned as well. "He had already pulled the trigger. That's why the seeker registered it as a projectile weapon."
"The key has been retrieved," the computer suddenly declared, at the same time Dorothy's glow became stronger. "All sentient Osirian devices are reclaimed. Any non-sentient devices will be rendered useless."
"Hey!" Hanif witnessed the glow from his ring die in two seconds.
"My purpose here has been fulfilled. Individuals potentially of value to be historical record will be retained for authentication. Individuals irrelevant to mission parameters will be returned to earth."
Flashes of portals blinded them all before one of theirs were dropped back to Earth. It was only the Doctor and Cindy who were dropped back onto the street. The Doctor quickly attempted to use the sonic to get them back into the ship, but the ship prevented it somehow.
"They've got all of 'em!" Cindy cried as she watched the triangular shaped - the Black pyramid - fly off in the sky. "Now what?"
The Doctor didn't even answer her. He'd broke into a full-fledged run down the sidewalk. He lost Renata twice to that thing, he wasn't going to let it happen again. There would be no more times!
"HEY! Wait up!" Cindy hollered as she ran her fastest to catch up with him. "You're going to have to start explaining things here! I haven't forgotten that you said Dorothy was a 'Quantum Harvester'. You can start with that!"
But the Doctor only explained once he was back in the TARDIS, because that's where he could get work done to get back onto that ship. "The Osirians used them to construct their civilization. They calculate and harvest the best possible outcomes of parallel universes' histories and co-opt them for our own. They are keys to the underlying structure of reality. With them, the Osirian architects reshaped whole galaxies to their whims. And they should all be extinct by now."
Cindy watched him work around that console, something she hadn't yet commented about. In fact, Cindy was the only person the Doctor had met who wasn't shocked about the TARDIS' misleading dimensions.
"Then you clearly misjudged the entire situation!"
"Yeah, won't happen again! Hold on now!" the Doctor pulled the lever of the console, jolting the TARDIS to life. Cindy yelped as she fell flat on her back. "We're heading for the 'Center of Things' - whatever that is!" He'd locked onto the Black Pyramid's location and merely following it. What he would find on the other side, he wasn't sure except for the fact Renata would be there.
~ 0 ~
Renata was getting really tired of being separated from the Doctor when there was an impending alien threat looming over them. The Black Pyramid ship had taken flight as soon as the Doctor and Cindy were teleported out and no matter how much Renata tried figuring the control panels out...she couldn't figure out where they were going. In the meanwhile, though, Dorothy and her merged Osirian half took it upon themselves to heal Erik with the hope that the man would re-evaluate his life choices. Donna loudly disagreed with that hope.
'Commencing disembarkation ritual,' the AI declared. At the corner of the room started creating a blue humanoid figure.
"I-is that an Osirian?" Cleo guessed, her eyes widening as the hologram finished forming.
"No, it's the AI - the Seeker," Renata sighed.
'I have scoured the universe to find and collect the last remnants of our civilization - and now that the task is completed. The debt is repaid.'
The ship embarked onto a new ship, this one making it seem like they were outside with the dark scenery around them. At the end of its short platform was a huge, golden pyramid.
The AI took form of a silver mummified figure with its arms crossed over his chest in the shape of an 'x'. It actually walked over to Dorothy, dismissing or ignoring the others' wide-eyed stares. "Sister, do you remember our home, the Shining Horizon? Here, sleep has long had the countenance of death but now the time of Atonement is over for us all."
"All?" Renata caught on fast to the word choice.
"Hear that?" Erik had turned to Hanif with a new flourished grin on his face. "Maybe we were right after all!"
Renata shushed them with a pointed finger, almost looking like a mother scolding her children for being so imprudent. "No, no you were not! They are still aliens!"
"Why do you speak in riddles?" Dorothy asked the AI. "You always speak in riddles. Can't you make sense for once?'
"Sister, suddenly you speak with acrimony and yet your compassionate nature is evident," the AI noted. "Horus would be proud. It is as if you chose your new human vessel very deliberately - perhaps as a reaction towards your previous owner?"
"No one owns me!" frowned Dorothy.
"You're incorrect," the AI sounded as if it was snapping. "Sutekh the Destroyer owned you! With you and the others like you, he extinguished life on millions of worlds."
"Well, at least now why she came to Earth," Donna remarked sourly.
"He burned a trail of death and destruction through the cosmos until his brother Horus, leader of the Osirians, cornered him on Earth and imprisoned him within the Forbidden Pyramid. You are his instrument - you are the hand of Sutekh."
"Now wait a second!" Renata yanked Dorothy behind her as if she could protect the woman from a 6 foot soldier. "You've no right calling anyone an 'instrument'. So do it again and I'll have my go at you right here and now! And I don't care if I'm dealing with Horus or Sutekh or Anubis - I want you to return me and the others back to Earth this instant!"
"But what he says is true…" Dorothy whispered behind her. "And they're not all dead. I can feel it. It's here."
"What is?" Gabby dreaded to ask.
"Master...architect. Your millenia long fatigue is over!" the AI raised his arms in a worship. "I have served you faithfully. Awake now. Our task is accomplished."
"Renata, what is he waking?" Donna wore the same dread Gabby had.
"Well…" Renata hated that she was actually beginning to figure it out as the situation went along - it made her feel a lot like the Doctor right now. "Remember how I said I'd rather face one of the Gods?"
"Yeah…"
"Well, I might get that wish. Because if these two-" Renata pointed at the AI and Dorothy, "-were the lackeys, and they just re-united...that means they have the keys to bring out the...what do you guys call it? 'The big guns'?"
The ground under them rumbled again as if an earthquake was striking. A black hole started forming out of thin air. With seconds, it formed a tall - a very tall - figure but it wasn't human. It was all black, like the true color of a black hole, but its hands were claw-like and its face...was the head of an animal.
"Anubis…" Renata sucked in a deep breath of true fear. She took a step back for caution but she knew that if her wanted to, he could wipe them out with a snap of a finger.
"Who dares wake Anubis, the son of Sutekh!?"
"Ren…." Donna's voice trembled with utter fear.
The Time Lady was at a loss for their next course of action. She had no idea what she was supposed to do - this is where the Doctor shined! Oh be honest, he always shines, the little voice in her head reminded her. "I-I don't know…the Doctor would know, I...I don't..."
"I awoke you," the AI spoke up. He explained how they came to be on the ship and that the world was at Anubis' hands.
"But these primitives?" Anubis gestured with his staff to the group crowded together.
"Excuse you," Renata said, momentarily getting over her fear to snap on behalf of the humans. "My friend over here-" she nodded to Dorothy, "-had a play in your awakening and you repay her by insulting her? Spoken like a true Noble, or God in your case."
"My key?" Anubis seemed to take a double-look at Dorothy. "I didn't recognize you in this form. You're now...part human?"
Suddenly, they heard the familiar wheeze of the TARDIS and a few seconds later the Doctor and Cindy emerged from the blue box.
"Renée!" the Doctor rushed up to the Time Lady, encasing her in a tight hug.
This time, Renata hugged him back with the same intensity. "Oh thank God you found your way to us! I have no idea what I'm doing here!"
The fact she even admitted that was a clear indication of how scared she actually was. For that, the Doctor may have squeezed her a bit tighter. Today had just been far too crazy, even for them, and if he had anything to say about it would be the last trip that separated them multiple time. "I'm here," he whispered beside her ear, unknowingly reminding Renata of the many times they'd done this back home too.
Each time she was upset, scared, or simply needed him, he'd be right there giving her such comforting hugs and his comforting whispers. Even today, his whispering voice next to her ears gave her the same chills. Funny how time couldn't make those feelings go away, or at least decrease.
Donna awkwardly cleared her throat to get the pair's attention. "Sorry to interrupt but I believe there is an alien trying to kill us all?" She smirked when they pulled apart with the same red blushes on their faces.
She gestured towards the alien and when the Doctor looked over he blinked in shock. "Well, sure missed a lot, then."
"More primitives?" roared Anubis.
"There's that word again," Renata frowned at him.
"They are uninvited," the AI said fast. "I only brought those with interesting historical records since it was one of your interests in the past."
"Historical records?" Gabby repeated quietly. "What does that mean?"
"It means that you, Donna and Renata each hold valuable historical importance to the time lines," the Doctor shrugged, not too worried about it as the three women seemingly were.
"What?" Renata frowned. "But me? I've done nothing important."
"I didn't say it was in your past," the Doctor smiled at her. "Who knows what your future has in store for you." He had no doubt that her future was bright considering all the amazing things she was capable of doing. Who knew where her big hearts would lead her to?
Renata looked away, for the first time feeling guilty about her pending fate. She thought, honestly, she was doing him a favor by sparing him the details of what was (apparently) coming. He didn't need to be burdened by her problems.
"Master!" the AI said, once again opening his arms only this time he had white spheres come into the air. "You must let the nano-meds begin their work. They must rejuvenate you before you start your work."
"Wait, Anubis needs medical attention now?" Cindy shot a look at the travelers as if they had some explaining to do. "Seriously?"
"They're aliens, not Gods," Renata sighed. She was getting tired of reminding everyone that details. "If they're aliens then medical attention makes sense."
Cindy looked between her and the God that was an alien. She shook her head a minute later. "...sure."
Renata glared. She didn't need that right now.
"You, Doctor," called Anubis who had trapped by the nano-meds as they commenced their work, "You are not a lesser species — as is the woman —" he languidly pointed one claw finger at the Doctor then Renata. "You're both long lived. I sense great age in both of you. What are you?"
"Time Lords," the Doctor answered only to be scoffed at.
"Last time I heard the Time Lords were engaged in some petty squabble with a Daleks."
Renata's face instantly morphed into a furious incredulity. "Squabble with the Daleks — are you serious!?" she moved for Anubis, as if ready to charge at him, but the Doctor grabbed onto her arm to keep her at his side. "He just said 'squabble' as if it were—"
"-I know," he nodded at her. He'd love to correct Anubis as well but he didn't want to make things worse. "But it's not really the time to correct him." Renata rolled her eyes but figured he was right.
"It is time for me to ascend," Anubis declared. "To travel beyond this universe!"
"No chance," went the Doctor. "Your 'circle of transcendence' isn't stable anymore. Don't even try it."
"Ha, who are you to tell me I can't do what I was meant to?"
The Doctor glowered at the creature. "Anubis, if you try to pass through that gateway, it will collapse. It will kill you and create a catastrophic effect that will Ripple outward at translight seeds, destroying the rest of the universe." He'd figured out that Anubis wanted to cross over through a 'gateway' promising some sort of new world for him and his people, but it was far too weak to actually work as a proper gateway.
Anubis rose into the air again, gaining a green glow in his eyes as he spoke. "You do not comprehend how long and lonely these final duties would be. I miss my people, my wife, my children."
"But there are ways to counter the loneliness," the Doctor said. "I speak from experience so trust me."
"You know me by what insight, Time Lord? Your race is gone too. You're a fugitive from destiny, as is your partner."
The Doctor unconsciously moved his body slightly in front of Renata's. He could handle whatever was said at him but there was no need to bring in Renata.
"Horus asked two final duties of me. Mindful of the destruction my father brought, the first was to stay behind as guardian of the circle, to keep it turning."
"The second was to seek and collect any remaining of Osirian technology from this universe, so as to help with people's departure from this plane," Dorothy suddenly said, the words seemingly tumbling out of her mouth before she could even process.
It seemed to surprise Anubis. "You remember?"
"Sure," she said after careful thought. "Just like I remember New Jersey, where I'm really from."
"So you see why it is time for me to transcend this universe, to follow the other Osirans through. Do not tell me that I cannot."
"Fact is, there is a lot of stuff in here that are mine and yet not mine," Dorothy brought her hands to her head. She shared a vast knowledge know with an alien and her mind was pretty jumbled up right now.
"What if we find a compromise?" the Doctor offered. "I can help you heal and safely get rid of the circle before it destroys us."
"It is my right to ascend!"
"And so, therefore, your right to destroy an entire universe? Because that's what you'll be doing. And you know what? I met Sutekh," the Doctor confessed, instantly gaining Anubis' and the other's attention. "I know what he stood for and I don't think it's quite you. You're not the same as him, no matter what horrid that to you before trapping you here. You need to forget your father and Horus because one destroyed and one lied but both of them fought. Don't be like either of them. You have power over all life and death. Live Anubis, and let the universe live too."
Anubis retracted a step from them, for the first time looking like words had affected him.
"We don't really have much to lose, do we?" Dorothy offered one small smile at Anubis. "Maybe, sometime in the future, we could fix the Circle and you can cross through safely. Without putting anyone in danger."
"But it would take eons before it'd be fixed!"
"So you would rather die because you're impatient?" Renata found her voice to demand. It was a fairly good question that stumped him for a moment. "Because that's the risk you're taking if you cross through the gateway. Wouldn't you rather wait and see it actually get fixed?"
"Look, Anubis," the Doctor called again, hoping to really drive things home with this last bit especially when he already seemed to be considering, "I'm not telling you that you'll never be able to cross through. I'm only saying to let us find a way of collapsing the circle safely so when the day comes...you can cross safely."
There was a moment of tensed silence as Anubis thought. If he didn't agree, then it would all be over. And truthfully, the Doctor didn't know what else to do.
"...Very well. I agree to delay my voyage to the circle," Anubis' words caused simultaneous relived sighs. "It's always best not to get caught between Horus and my father. I did as I had the misfortune of birthright. What is clear is that I cannot leave, not until the circle is repaired."
"Or until someone can take your place as guardian," Dorothy stepped forward, the look on her face indicating she would volunteer for the job.
"Are you sure about that, Dorothy?" Renata turned to her with concern, as if thinking that the other half of her, the alien half of her, was making Dorothy say that.
Dorothy nodded. "Yeah. I can learn. At the very least I can help. Anubis can train me. I'm only just beginning to explore my powers."
"We'll come back and check up on you," the Doctor offered, putting one hand over Renata's shoulder to let her know they wouldn't be abandoning Dorothy.
"I take that agreement," Anubis announced. " Doctor, I give you five thousand time-cycles, and no longer. I will look in on you and I will expect progress reports."
"I don't quite like the idea of leaving you here," Renata admitted to Dorothy while the Doctor started ushering everyone else into the TARDIS before Anubis changed his mind.
Dorothy still smiled her sweet smile. " I will be just fine. I'm an Osiran-Human hybrid now - I can take care of myself. Thank you for what you've done for me and I'm so sorry that I put you through so many scares."
Renata nodded. If it was Dorothy's choice, then there was nothing more she would say. At least now, she could return home safe and sound.
Until the Doctor would drop Cleo, Erik and Hanif back on Earth along with Cindy. Despite asking Gabby if she wanted to stay home for a few days, to get over what happened, the young girl shook her head and said she would much rather be in the TARDIS. So, she bid goodbye to Cindy and left with the trio in the TARDIS.
And while Renata usually whipped up her famous dinners, this night she seemed to missed it. Gabby and Donna ate dinner alone and it was just regular human cereal.
"Where are they?" Gabby asked the ginger at the table. She moved her spoon in endless circles against her bowl, not really in the mood to eat.
"Don't know," Donna shrugged. "Doctor said he wanted to run some tests on Ren but…" she smiled for a moment, "...Renata refused so it turned into one of their arguments. Kind of funny."
"Wait," Gabby straightened up in her chair, "He was going to run some tests on her? Like...medically-wise?" Donna nodded. "I have to go!" Gabby jumped from her chair and ran out of the kitchen before Donna could even say her name.
It was the perfect time to confirm whether or not Renata was safe in terms of health. If she was lucky, Gabby thought maybe she could be there when the results were in. Of course, she would have to convince Renata to let her stay in the room or at the very least she would have to convince Renata to tell her what the results were. Gabby came to a skidded stop before the open door of the medbay. She was already hearing some of the conversation and she didn't really have the courage to come in.
"So, are we finally done here?" Renata sat on the edge of the medbay bed, looking completely irritated. "And then you can realize this was a waste of time — I didn't even get to make dinner for everyone!"
The Doctor was reading off the results from the computer screen in front of him. He looked far too focused for there to be nothing wrong. Renata came to that conclusion only a minute after speaking up.
"What is it?" she asked quietly.
The Doctor straightened up and looked at her. "I'm so sorry. I keep putting you in danger, don't I?"
"Where'd you get that from?"
"I…" the Doctor drew in a breath then turned to face her completely. "You're...okay, but...you haven't expelled the energy you in-took from when we visited Zhe's art gallery. The Block-Transfer Matrix energy from the apprentices?"
"How could I forget?" Renata sourly said as she remembered the homicidal apprentices Zhe had conjured up. "But that was weeks ago!" Her body, while not being completely invincible, was still more attuned to a higher standard when it came to health. She'd always been very healthy in her previous incarnations. Why would this one be the exception?
"No," the Doctor shook his head. "And then you took in new energy from the Osiran lot. Now that's combined inside of you and…" a new type of fear etched across his face as he willed himself to say the truth, "...you've been contaminated."
Renata blinked slowly, the movements of her body slowing down to awkward shifts. From the hallway, Gabby felt her heart pounding under her chest.
Is this what that Ood meant? She started coming up with terrible ways this 'contamination' could kill Renata. Out of fear, she rushed away from the room.
"Contaminated?" Renata finally spoke up after a minute of processing. "I've been...contaminated? With what?" there was a confused smile on her face but the Doctor wondered — he had to — if it was in place of a growing fear.
"These two different energies have merged to form something new, something a Time Lady shouldn't have — that no Time Lord should have — because remember, we carry a bit of the Time Vortex in order to regenerate. Now couple this new energy with the Time Vortex and we have a triple-way contamination."
"So...am I just going to die, then?" Renata pushed herself off the medbed and walked over to the computer screen to see for herself.
"No," the Doctor said automatically. "You're not dying but...it's something we have to keep a constant eye on. We have to be careful of what you expose yourself to from here on out and see how your body continues to react to these energy forces."
Renata turned the computer screen off and turned to the Doctor. The fear on her face had disappeared, or perhaps stored away for the moment. "Okay, so we'll just do that but is there really any cause for concern? For all we know, my body is just a little slower in expelling the energy."
"No, it hasn't expelled anything," the Doctor urgently reminded her. "We cannot brush this off, Renée." If that was her plan then he was going to be sorry for being himself and making it a priority! He wasn't going to lose her.
Renata rolled her eyes but it seemed more like an action she forced in an attempt to be casual. She put a hand on his arm and wore her best smile. "I'm not brushing it off, Doctor, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. You've been through worse and I don't see you 'raising 'alarm' about yourself."
"Because it's you I'm talking about," the Doctor started to frown. "I don't want anything bad to happen to you. I'd rather it be me than you." He didn't even realize he said the words until they'd left his mouth. But Renata had flinched when he said those words. It actually made her gasp. It was astounding that he'd said it like it was an automatic instinct, but even as he went back to think about it...he wouldn't take them back. He was a terrible man, who cares if he got contaminated? Better him than someone as pure and honest as Renata.
Don't you dare! Renata felt her hearts skip several jolts while her mind went crazy wondering if he truly meant that. Once upon a time, he'd said those exact words to her but during the period where they both knew they loved each other. Right now, they were nowhere near that. They were friends, just friends.
#doctor who#10th doctor#ocapp#ocappreciation#dw imagines#doctor who imagines#10th doctor imagines#10th doctor fics#doctor who fics#doctor who imagine#10th doctor imagine#donna noble#gabby gazonalez#oc: Renata Cartwright#fic: the beginning of everything
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Guide: What exactly is Bitcoin and how does it function?
It's no surprise that crypto is a favorite among the world's most wealthy people.
Elon Musk said to the people using the social media app that Bitcoin was the "good" good thing.
In the wake of this statement, Bitcoin's value has risen substantially. The last time it was worth 3 bitcoins cost 3,600 pounds.
As the debate about Bitcoin is gaining momentum around the globe, the Bank of Singapore has suggested that Bitcoin that was invented 12 years ago, will be a viable currency to replace gold.
Andrew Bailey, governor of Bank of England warned of the Bitcoin crash on May 10th. He also noted that it was "very disturbing".
When you hear stories like this, you'll wonder what Bitcoin is and how it operates.
This page will give you all the information you need.
(I will explain the details the details in private to anyone who is unable to speak up right now.
What exactly is Bitcoin exactly?
Bitcoin is often called a cryptocurrency digital currency, virtual currency or currency. It is not accepted in all shops and certain countries have banned Bitcoin purchases.
Some companies, however, are focused more on their influence. For instance, PayPal announced on the 10th of October that they will allow customers to buy and sell Bitcoin.
The woman who caught the eye of Bitcoin
Introducing the way Bitcoin is made and how you can purchase Bitcoin
How does Bitcoin function?
Every bitcoin is basically the computer program that's saved in the "digital pocket" application on your smartphone. Users can also transfer bitcoins to their digital wallet.
Each transaction is stored on a public record called the blockchain. It stops you from using any coins that you don't own, making copies and reversed transactions.
How can I obtain Bitcoin?
There are three ways to purchase Bitcoin.
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Use https://bitpay.com/ to buy Bitcoin.
Receive Bitcoin payment for your products and sell them.
It is also possible to make use of a computer to create Bitcoin.
Download the Bitcoin Wallet app for your smartphone
How was the Bitcoin 2.0 created?
To make the Bitcoin mechanism work, everybody is able to have their computers do transactions for them.
The computer is made to manage very large quantities of money.Sometimes, as rewards, bitcoins are offered, and the person who owns it can hold it.
Bitcoin mining is the process whereby powerful computers are utilized to buy Bitcoin.
In https://kasotsuka-crypto.com/ to ensure that Bitcoin does not increase excessively, the calculation method is becoming more and more complicated.
If you begin mining now, it may take years to get 1 bitcoin.
The power bill for the computer might be more than the value of Bitcoin.
Why is Bitcoin worth it?
There are many other things than money that have value something. The reason Bitcoin is so valuable is due to the fact that individuals are prepared to trade Bitcoin for real goods or services, as well as cash.
Display on a PC showing the price chart of cryptocurrency assets
Create a Bitcoin-generating computer by assembling a specific computer
What makes Bitcoin become to be so well-known?
Bitcoin is the preferred choice because it isn't controlled by government agencies or banks.Also, Bitcoin can be used anonymously.All transactions are tracked, but no one knows which "account number" is yours unless you inform them.
Elon Musk, a global millionaire, said during an online discussion that he supports Bitcoin. He even changed his Twitter bio to #bitcoin. "He has often expressed support for digital currency in recent times, and has taken a major step in the value of Bitcoin through his personal wealth and influence.With this support, the value of Bitcoin has increased significantly.
Bitcoin is worth the investment because many believe in it.
Is Bitcoin Secure?
Public records of all transactions make it extremely difficult for anyone to copy, falsify, or use bitcoin to buy something they don't.
Additionally, there is the chance of losing your Bitcoin wallet, or even deleting your bitcoin and losing it forever.There are also instances of theft through websites that permit bitcoin to be stored in remote locations.Since the inception of Bitcoin in 2009, the value of Bitcoin has been increasing and decreasing year after year Some people believe that it's unsafe to transform "real" money into Bitcoin.This is a concern that was voiced by Andrew Bailey, the top of the Bank of England in 2020-10.
He said that a lot of people are "very anxious about using Bitcoin as a settlement method and should be aware that it is extremely volatile. Let's take a look at some of these currencies along with their market capitalizations in 2021-12-9.
Side-by-side Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin
Bitcoin Future Predictions and Altcoins
Ethereum
Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency, second only to Bitcoin. It is anticipated to surpass Bitcoin in the near-term.
Solana
Solana It is a relatively young cryptocurrency, was just introduced in the year 2020/3.
Cardano
Cardano was created by Charles Hoskinson, who was one of the co-founders of Bitcoin competitor Ethereum in 2017.It intends to be more transparent and give investors the opportunity to have a say in how cryptocurrencies operate.Cardano with a market cap of $453 billion dollars registered a record 5--172.3091 dollars. 2.3091 to set a new all-time record.
The news came out following reports that the parent company, Input Output, had partnered with World Mobile Group, which runs World Mobile Token (WMT) the mobile network based on blockchain.The popularity of celebrities draws attention to Cardano.Gene Simmons from the rock band Kiss tweeted that he'd bought 3 million dollars (PS30) worth of 216,223, and was a supporter of Cardano.Currently, the price of 1 Cardano or ADA coin is $1.36.
XRP
The Ripple digital currency XRP can be used for money transfers between banks and individuals. Ripple currently costs $0.9112 but it will rise to $4 -$ $1.84 by 2021.
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My journey to Hell
Warning: Long post. Not suitable for dial-up users or those with a short attention span. (For mobile users, just keep scrolling until you see the picture with the inflated Shantae.)
I remember when it all started. It was when I was taking my break from this site (when I should’ve been revising), and I was browsing DeviantArt.
My journey down the rabbit hole began when I came across this account that did fanart involving characters from OK KO engaging in holy Christian activities, like denouncing Atheism as Satanism:
But then, I found out that it was part of this collection...
Most of it was just ironic and intentionally bad art, but then, after some searching, I came across some stamps.
I thought to myself something along the lines of “What the fuck”, and “This must be some kind of a joke. So, I went to this guy’s user page, and it all went downhill from there.
First of all, I must admit, this guy has some form of intellect to him, with him occasionally displaying his expertise with computers, which I can personally applaud.
However, in order to actually get to that point, I needed to go through boatloads of confusing and morally questionable content.
First of all, this guy has made it clear numerous times in the past that he is a sufferer of autism, so it’s likely that you’d find a lot of art based on specific interests, but these ideas and interests are so closed and obscure that they’re truly something to behold.
He describes himself as an advocate for numerous ideas, but they all just appear so trivial. For example:
He really wants to have Luvs (a brand of diapers, by the way) imported to his home country of Australia, Lord knows why:
He protested against McDonald’s on the issue of child obesity, using low quality thinly-veiled weight gain fetish art (more on that later):
He also doesn’t like how Avon (a company specialising in feminine beauty products) has a mostly-female board of directors:
And, to top it all off, he refuses to believe that men can be victims of sexual assault:
(By the way, the generic white man with the Tom Baker-brand thousand-yard stare is how he draws himself.)
He also believes that’s it’s extremely important for cartoon characters (including non-humans) to have navels, and also believes that one of the most important life lessons you would teach kids is why they have one. My best guess is that it’s all just for the satisfaction of his not-so closeted fetishes, but this guy never gives straight answers so I can’t really tell:
Speaking of not-so closeted fetishes, he’s also made a hefty load of fan-art of cartoon characters for the raising of awareness on child obesity, based on this image that you might have seen floating around the web about ten years ago:
The results are rather unsettling. I mean, he’s sticking to an idea that he wishes to advocate for, but you’d think that after about a hundred of these damn things he would have made the message clear enough (yes, he made over a hundred of these things).
Actually, you know what, let’s zoom in on that last image, and think about how he actually communicates to people. I know this might sound harsh, considering that I’m aware of his autism, but I’m well aware, as someone who suffers from a slightly more minor form of his condition, that communication is only really tough when speaking in person, with typing in the privacy of your own room being much easier; and while he does type in coherent sentences, he avoids questions as often as a politician. Here’s a few discussions between him and those who don’t approve of his art:
(you may have noticed that he comments in pre-set messages.)
Oh yeah. He also answers his opponents in a debate with the question “do you drive a Mitsubishi?”, because apparently that company is the personification of evil, because they build vehicles and tools that assist in chopping down trees. I mean, Mercedes do the same thing, but I don’t go around telling their owners that they worship Satan!
Anyhoo, back to his odd interests.
He seems to have some odd fixation for this brand of toilet cleaner, called Toilet Duck, which has an odd duck-shaped head. He says he first gained an interest for the generally-obscure bleach brand, when he first heard a news story about a burglar, who was found pleasuring himself, using the head of the product. Let’s leave it at that for now.
He also has a strong interest in parenthood. (I guess the man has thought to himself that these events would just remain fantasies.)
He appears to be attempting to give his pictures a cutesy-vibe, but his unnatural drawing style stops them from looking anywhere outside of creepy.
And finally, perhaps his most confusing and unexplainable interest of them all: bumpbows!
If you’ve heard of this guy before, then chances are that it was through this. He first found out about bumpbows about two years ago. They functioned as a solution to a minor problem in pregnancy, involving the misshaping of the navel. Since that’s two interests for the price of one, obviously he was going to jump on the bumpbow bandwagon almost immediately after he discovered them!
(This one’s my personal favourite!)
He’s even made a group about them!
(I love how this group doesn’t have any pictures of bumpbows showing their actual intended purpose!)
Now, it might seem all right (if not, only a little bit creepy), but things start getting weird when he starts getting people to use bumpbows, not because they’re expecting children, but as a fashion statement, as well as raising awareness for autism (even though there’s barely any correlation between them), among other hard-pressing issues. I guess I could maybe start wearing bumpbows at anti-war rallies, but, I digress.
(Spoiler alert: There doesn’t appear to be any sign of that group actually going ahead with the plan.)
However, perhaps the strangest of his ideas for bumpbows, would be throwing parties, with them functioning as the primary dress-code.
He’s even thrown his own private parties! (By private, I mean he was the only one there.)
But I’d say the weirdest thing about them is that there’s this strange sexual undertone to them. Now, actually, I wouldn’t say that they’re undertones, considering that he has outright said that they should be adult-only events. He’s even regularly connected them with sex. It all seems so weird, since he usually makes drawings with such an innocent tone (at least on the surface).
(Well, at least we now know why he’s interested in that Toilet Duck bottle!)
I could go on forever about this guy, but this post is getting long enough as it is. So I’ll just leave a couple of links, just please don’t send any hate over to him. I know it sounds hypocritical of me, but this guy’s getting enough flack as it is. He’s got an ED page, a thread on Kiwi Farms, AND there’s even and anti-Dev-Catscratch group on his home base of DeviantArt, so just feel free to explore some of these links, but leave it at that:
His DA: https://dev-catscratch.deviantart.com/
His ED page (NSFW of course): https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Dev-catscratch
His Kiwi Farms thread (gave me easy access to the things I was looking for): https://kiwifarms.net/threads/bryce-cherry-dev-catscratch.17621/
Oh. And P.S: What’s a bad DeviantArt page without a favourites section full of fetish art!
But remember, it’s all for raising awareness on child obesity!
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