#Also the only instance of the emote since it's technically not on this blog �� not transparent anyway

[vynnyal]

I've been having a delightful time stumbling over my emojis being used in random servers, so here's more

[demonsfate]

canon divergent masterpost .

Although I mention a few points in my rules, and in their biographies, I wanted to make a post that specifically points out all major parts of my Jin that diverges from canon. Anywhere from characterization to events that transpired.

● Devil is not Jin's alter ego. He is another, completely different person. He and Jin are two souls in one physical body. [This may be something that's more unclear in canon, but this blog strictly depicts Devil as an unique individual]

● Devil has a true name that was given to him at conception by Azazel. This name is Abaddon. Which is Hebrew for destruction, It matches Azazel's intentions for Devil, which was to punish mankind and cause destruction amongst the world. Nobody else, besides Azazel and other devils, are aware of Abaddon's name unless he told them in threads.

● Jin & Devil have known each other since essentially birth, as they were both born at the same time. Devil is not an extension of Kazuya's devil. He is not his other half, he has never been with Kazuya, nor did he later possess Jin as a teenager. Devil has been with Jin since the very beginning of both their lives. Although Devil hadn't ' awakened ' until Heihachi killed Jin, Devil would sometimes appear in Jin's dreams during his childhood & up until his teen years. Thus, Jin had technically known Devil since they were children, but assumed he was an odd, specific reoccurring dream until his death awakened Devil from his slumber. [Just like in canon, devils can only awaken within the host after they endure a (near) death experience. However, on this blog, Devil has always been present, just in the back of the subconscious]

● Devil was never ' protecting ' Jin. Pre-Tekken 8, there may have been instances where Devil had protected Jin either inadvertently or intentionally, but it was never his priority nor the reason of his existence. Pre-Tekken 8 / Pre-Purified Devil was horrible to Jin, and downright traumatized him on several occasions. Whilst Devil liked Jin, he saw Jin as inferior, and treated him more as a possession (object or pet) than as an actual person. Prior Tekken 8, Devil and Jin were almost constantly fighting each other for control of the body. He was not a guardian devil, and would always pick himself over Jin.

● The Devil Gene was never a good / beneficial thing that Jin had to just ' accept ' . No, Devil was always meant to be a malevolent force that was to punish mankind. Jin was merely a host so that Devil can carry out his purpose.

● Jin is autistic. His neurodivergence is primarily why he's a ' stoic ' , simply because Jin struggles to express his own emotions. He feels deeper than his face lets on. Jin will also struggle to read other people's emotions, too. Ironically, he has an easier time reading those who are more exaggerate in their emotions.

● Devil is responsible for the war, not Jin. Devil began to grow stronger within Jin during the 5th tournament, which was Jin's reason for joining the 5th tournament - to stop Devil from consuming him completely. Ultimately, Jin failed and Devil took over the body. Believing he had ' killed ' Jin within, Devil took on Jin's appearance and identity when acquiring the Zaibatsu to gain trust among humanity, as a means to have a proper army. Devil's motivations solely were to awaken Azazel, take its power, and take over the world for his own. Any excuse of saving the world from something that will destroy it is simply a lie to gain trust and nothing more. This failed when it turned out Jin actually wasn't dead, and was able to take back the body right before Azazel's emergence out of its tomb. Because of this, Jin does not remember anything during the war, nor the people involved. (He didn't even know who Lars was until meeting him in the Middle East)

● As stated, Devil was never good. Therefore, when Jin confronted him in his mindscape during his visit in Yakushima, Devil didn't turn out to be good when Jin learned to ' accept ' the Devil gene and his ' past ' . It was another struggle for control of the body. However, Jin decided fighting wasn't going to work, and instead decided to try to save Devil's soul with the newfound power he felt deep within. This power was the power of purification that the Kazamas possess. Jin managed to successfully purify Devil, and eradicate every influence or intention Azazel had planted into Devil at conception.

● Jin always had the power of purification as the Kazamas seem to often possess. It was awakening during the 8th tournament, another reason why Jin couldn't control the devil powers anymore. Jun simply amplified his powers so that he may be strong enough to reach Angel form, with addition to Devil's help.

● Angel Jin isn't just Jin, but instead a fusion between both Jin & Devil and will have a mix of their personality traits. Angel Jin himself feels like both Jin & Devil, but also feels as if he's his own person. It's a confusing but intriguing existence for him.

● Jin still has the devil gene / Devil isn't dead. Devil didn't die during the struggle with Kazuya at the end of T8. It nearly killed him, but didn't quite. Devil was in a ' comatose ' state for weeks after the battle, but eventually resurfaced, albeit in a weaker condition. Because he's been weakened, Devil cannot give his powers to Jin. Devil is also less likely to be in control as much as he's still in a recovering state. The reason for this is because Devil has always been a primary muse on this blog and I wanted to continue writing him, and because I simply do not think Jin is free of the devil gene for a couple reasons. (Still has the mark on his arm, and was still talking to somebody in the end that clearly wasn't his mother, and nobody else was around)

● Whilst Jin accepts that Devil will always be with him, and they are much friendlier with each other / living together in peace, they're not exactly close buddies. Devil had caused a lot of trauma. To both Jin, and the entire world. It's something that isn't easily forgotten nor forgiven. They will always have a strain in their relationship because of this. Devil wishes Jin will someday view him as a close friend, but Jin doesn't see that happening in the near future.

Things that diverges from popular fanon. There are a few popular fanon takes that I simply... do not agree with. It's not much, but I'll list them here real quick.

● Yes, Jin is a virgin (by default / outside of ships). But... this doesn't mean he's a sexless guy. Jin is still very much interested in sex. He'll even talk about sex and make innuendos. Jin is not shy when it comes to sex. Sometimes, he can be very open about his sexuality, actually. Jin is a virgin due to his busy life, not because he's disinterested or because he doesn't know what sex is. Come on.

● Jin isn't good at socializing, but he isn't an introvert. Jin actually really likes making friends and deeply cares about them. There are a plethora of reasons why he didn't have many for years. The primary reason being he was scared of getting close to anyone due to the fear of Devil or his family hurting them. Jin thought it was best to push people away as to protect them. Now that Heihachi, Kazuya, and Devil are no longer of concern, Jin is very willing to hang out with his friends and make new ones. Jin also doesn't enjoy attending crowded places because they overwhelm him quickly. Jin sucks at socializing due to his quiet nature, haven't been occupied with hobbies in years, and failing to understand other people's emotions sometimes.

● Jin is a good guy, but he isn't exactly boy scout material either. Jin isn't a completely humble guy who has restraint and doesn't know what sex is and doesn't like breaking da rules. uwu. Sometimes, Jin can even be a punk. He isn't afraid to break laws if he believes they're not actually hurting anyone (see; graffiti, vandalization, illegal street fighting). Jin is quick to disrespect authority figures if he does not think they are deserving of his respect.

● Although Devil can speak in ' growls ' , he's very capable of speech. Other than when he was a kid, Devil can always speak beyond growls. Devil is a highly emotional being, therefore he may resort to growling and screaming should his emotions overwhelm him. But not only can Devil always talk, but he has a silver tongue. Devil may seem feral at times, but the intention of his creation was to manipulate both his host and humanity. He needs to be capable of proper speech to do that! That also being said, despite often seeming feral, Devil can be both domesticated & sophisticated. The latter being that he has a taste in expensive suits & material objects.

● Jin isn't as passionate about his rivalry with Hwoarang. He doesn't get as fired up or angry around Hwoarang as Hwoarang may to him. Jin actually sees Hwoarang as a friend, and won't deny it. This, of course, may differ with Hwoarang blogs. But it's generally how Jin feels.

This post is subject to change.

[hexfloog]

#s 1 and 20, for edward? :}c

OMG HIII FRIEND OFC OFC

since i haven't talked about him much on this blog, i'll be interjecting with basic info every now and then to make answers clearer :3

this is edward - he's a demon living in the outskirts of london in the mid-1800s or so:

old pic, i haven't drawn him in yeaarrsss ;^;

he is a fandomless oc and his 15-year anniversary was last year holy shit whaaa

1. What kind of person is your OC in a crisis? Are they calm and collected? Do they panic? Or are they chronically the cause?

i, er.......... "yes"

or D, all of the above LOL

edward has a 0-100 temperament, he's either totally unfazed or has completely gone off the deep end. the latter is relatively uncommon though, very rarely is he faced with something he perceives as a real threat, both because he benefits from his urban legend/cryptid status-- people either don't know he exists, or they're just too scared of him to fuck around and find out-- and because he's unusually careful for a demon of his caliber. he's cognizant of the fact that he's not truly immortal and that he could attract the attention of the wrong force of nature one day and eat shit.

a true panic response for edward typically manifests with a transformation* and a show of violence, but usually his size alone will ward off the threat. doesn't stop the rampaging though - if he's reached this point he's also reached a point where he's decided people will pay until he's satisfied.

*edward is able to shift between his human skin and a towering demonic form at least three times his size

20. Has your OC ever done something terrible and lied about it? Did they run away or blame someone else for it? How long did they maintain the lie and did the truth ever come out?

weirdly enough, edward's less of a boldfaced liar and more of the type to lie by omission... but only to others, not so much with himself. he's very good at twisting words and taking advantage of technicalities and semantics when making deals, but when it comes to having to remediate his own errors, he has a tendency to fumble baaad, especially when improvising lmao

even then, what he considers an "error" is a little hard to pin down. he's done plenty of heinous things, both in his current life and past life as a human, but i think he classes most "mistakes" as actions that could potentially compromise his secrecy. public attention is his achilles heel, for instance, and lying his way out of a self-inflicted scene is weirdly difficult for him. it's just hard for him to go off-script, really, and even harder to run away [skull emoji], and in situations like this, if the truth were to come out it would lead to an immediate panic response.

i guess i can think of one lie that he's maintained for most of his life. naturally, in his current state, he considers himself above anything resembling affection. human emotions suck, they're a waste of time, unfit for his elevated existence, etc. to love or truly befriend anyone would be categorically terrible to him, but... he makes room in his heart for one person only, evangeline, the first who ever showed him kindness when no-one else would. he won't admit this affection out loud, of course, and at this point his feelings for her are merely instinctual, he doesn't even consciously recognize them. but he'd have a panic response above all panic responses if anyone were to ever point it out, and while some people have come close, they've never gotten close enough to confront him about it.

easily his biggest tell is the fact that he continues to blame her death on her. he killed her himself btw

this man will literally set fire to the world instead of just admitting he loves a girl. so the lie has gone on for literal decades in-universe and has, so far, never fallen to the truth

lol look. edward is not at ALL a good person okay, not by any stretch of the imagination, but i still love him :3c

thank you for the assskkkk <3

get to know the oc ask game!

[crimkrai]

Well if we're startin off with an art blog, might as well show off the weird little guy I've been drawing most consistently, Strellona. This post will act as a bit of an initial masterpost for his art going forward.

More Info and art about this goober under the cut!

So! First and foremost, his full TRUE name is Strellona Vie Sha'Lyve. Though other common names he goes by are Sevial Sha'Lyve, Sevial Marin, Barn Cat, Strellona Lumenosa, or simply Sev or Strell. His most common epithet is "The strange Prince from a strange land.", though he has also been refereed to as the Archivist, Medic, and, most curiously, as the only fey who can lie. (On a technicality.) While not being of the fey originally, a chance encounter with a particular fey lead him into getting roped into good ol fashioned fey bullshit after eating and drinking food and drink of the fey. The initial debt to the particular fey who roped him in initially ended up being waived because the only thin that particular fey desired was companionship, which confused the younger Strell as he was already more than on board with being friends, deal or not, which touched the fey deeply. Though now that he was more or less permanently attached to the fey realm, he never really combated it or rejected those new roots, and rather fully embraced them as the weird lil guy he is. The fey seemed to really appreciate his presence as two of the rulers did take him in as a son. Though his shenanigans don't really end there, since he also did later join a kingdom run by humans and the likes, offering various services and serving in a major war that lead to his desires to learn more about the nature of things around him and healing people, as it was discovered in that war that he had a strong affinity to life magic. Though the wars and his new position as someone who archives, heals, and spies did take a lot out of him, so did the death of the king of the country who welcomed him in to begin with. His race, unknown until old texts were rediscovered during the height of the war, was inhumanly empathetic, and not only was he grieving, he could feel the full extent of the grief others around him felt as well. Which sucks! He never really fully recovered from that event and is still prone to carrying the weight of others emotions on his shoulders, despite nobody ever really knowing about it. Personality wise? I'd say for his current rendition he's quiet but polite, sometimes expressive in conversation and a delight to be around, other times hes stoic and silent, more focused on his work or any project he is working on in the moment. Very much a workaholic and worrywart, though he's also incredibly grounded in some instances when it comes to emotional struggles and is definitely a good shoulder to lean on. He is also highly inquisitive and intelligent, sneaky even, since the strong desire to learn about things goes strong even in his fragmented emotional state. Curiously, despite all his shortcomings and struggles, he is also quite genuine as a person and will often fully says what he means. It is very rare that he lies, though some speculate that he may have lied more if it weren't for his ties to the fey to begin with. And as many have stated in his lifetime, "He always seems to know just what to say." Here are some various art pieces I've done of him and characters he's interacted with over time.

[hexoskeleton-anonymous]

H-hi, everyone! You can call me "M." Rotomblr is my home away from home! (...and the Camphrier Academy Hex Maniac Club.)

Blog header source (warning for spider web imagery)

Blog background source

I made my icon myself, with images from Bulbapedia and Canva!

But enough about me! You all want to hear about my cute Pokémon, right? Well, um, have no fear! Heheh...

My team of cute little buggies!!!

Cuddlepie the Burmy!

Cuddlepie was my first real Pokémon! We don't like to battle much, so she's only level 12, but she already learned Struggle Bug in addition to Tackle and Protect, so that's some healthy progress! Her Overcoat ability makes her so soft, and she likes to gently rub it on my face. She's somewhat clownish about it, but that's a boon in and of itself! I keep her by my side in a Heal Ball for when I'm away from other people and in need of emotional support!

Floof the Spewpa!

Floof used to be a household pet, but he recently hit level 9, and the sassy little boy kept shedding his skin in the most inconvenient places. Since I'm the one who caught him for my dad in a Premier Ball long ago, I'm technically his trainer, so he stays with me at boarding school! I'm always finding him shooting string everywhere, but he always likes to fight about it when I try to discipline him. He's a very special boy, though! For instance, he already knew Iron Defense when I caught him all those years ago.

Bebe the Ledyba!

Pronounced "Beebee," my cute widdle Ledyba's only level 3! I found her outside in the berry gardens recently, using Supersonic to wail for help. I couldn't find her parents, so I put her in a Poké Ball. Oddly, she's normally quiet, which can cause some trouble since she's highly curious. Sometimes, the room'll be so quiet you can hear a pin drop, only for her to knock something off the kitchen table. She also knows Tackle, and sometimes I see her using a mysterious move that I don't recognize. It worries me, but I'm told it's normal for baby Pokémon to do that. I sort-of watch from afar, since I don't want to coddle her.

[zeravmeta]

hey since this is my blog and i can do whatever i want im gonna lose my absolute shit at the parralels between Akasha and Heinwald because hoLy BALLS these two

The main thing between the two of them stems not from their interest in knowledge but from their responsibility with it. Akasha from her adventurer story was revealed to originally be this push-over scholar who believed that all the indignities she was made to suffer would ultimately never matter because she was "nothing" and she would eventually reach her own truth. However she's showing this in an illusion to Heinwald, who after seeing her sacrifice/combine herself to the entity within the grimoire (very likely the TRUE Hastur or even the Ancient-One thats referenced multiple times based off the Stirring Shadows event) to truly become Akasha or "Void", immediately questions the truth of the illusion to which Akasha herself says it may or may not be true but the reality is that she doesn't remember how or why she became this way. Akasha also apparently can apply a universal concept of permanence through time to make either past or future events exist in the present which is why the friendship gang know her even though they've technically never met until the "future" and how she can communicate to her younger self and inspire her to actually be selfish for once. This permanence through time was only circumvented by Heinwald, Lathna, and curiously Curran as well.

Heinwald, after learning about all this just laughs at how much of a hypocrite she is and that he would have much preferred to meet her original self who actually wanted to learn because of her natural curiosity rather than amass information aimlessly, which may seem hypocritical from him but a very clear distinction between Heinwald and Akasha here is that Akasha doesnt care about the consequences of her actions anymore while Heinwald cares too much.

Heinwald in his adventurer stories reveals he's massively empathetic of people and that he feels personally responsible for any suffering caused by his investigations and sleuthing habits because it ultimately got his family killed. He goes so far as to call Euden a greater genius than him solely because Euden helps him realize that he shouldn't be responsible for every single problem ever since that's Eudens mission to build a greater kingdom. Heinwald criticizes Akasha because he doesn't seek truth for the truths sake, but he does so to help people. Akasha on the other hand lost any and all empathy for the people around her because she finally believed she found purpose and didn't have to restrain her emotions anymore. Her family was abusive and negligent, her professor was stealing her research and she was hated by jealous scholars for her work, but she was able to keep it all in because she still had an escape in her studies. However when that was taken she decided to fully give herself up to the entity and merge with them (its implied by the dialogue here that Akasha may have thought she would die in this ritual), abandoning everyone and wanting to unleash the Ancient-One for no reason other than that she has freedom to do something for once so she wants to see what happens.

Based on the ending of the Stirring Shadows event, it's revealed that Akashas goal wasn't actually to use Lathna as the key and herself as the gate (which is implied to be ANOTHER attempted suicide since Akasha decribed that she would literally be wrenched open and summon the Ancient-One out of herself) but rather set the pieces in place for Heinwald to awaken his own connection to the abyss, which at the very end Heinwald pulls a reverse uno on her and says he was already awakened and that Lathna was just another necessary piece for whatever her eventual plot is. She planned to fail her ritual by setting Heinwald and Curran up to find her mid-ritual so as to ensure that Lathna awakens.

Overall these two are such opposite characters yet in Akashas final story she understands she's twisted and CHALLENGES Heinwald to see which one between the two of them would be saved, if Heinwald would accept what he is and drown in the Ancient-Ones all knowing or if Akasha would come to terms with what she is and build genuine bonds with others HEINWALD WAS TEMPTED BY HER BECAUSE HES STILL VERY NATURALLY CURIOUS BUT AT THE SAME TIME THE ONLY INSTANCE OF A VULNERABLE AKASHA WAS WHEN SHE WAS SHARING HER STORY OF BEING ALONE WITH HIM THESE TWO ARE SO SIMILAR THE ONLY REASON AKASHA TURNED WAS BECAUSE SHE DIDNT HAVE A CURRAN OF HER OWN HEINWALD WAS PRETTY MUCH NEGLECTED BY EVERYONE AND HE ENDED UP GETTING HIS OWN FAMILY KILLED YET EVEN IF HE WOULD BE BRANDED A HERETIC HE DIDNT CARE BUT CURRAN ACCEPTED HIM AS HE IS HE UNDERSTANDS HEINWALD BETTER THAN HIMSELF AND FOR SOMEONE TRAPPED IN HIS OWN MORAL QUANDRIES ITS CURRANS SIMPLE LOGIC AND ACCEPTANCE OF HIS MANNERISMS THAT CEMENTS HIM AS HEINWALDS FRIEND AND WITH THAT SAME TYPE OF ACCEPTANCE AKASHA COULD ALSO FIND GENUINE COMPANIONS IN THE TWO OF THEN AND IM LIVING FOR THIS ROAD TO EL DORADO TRIO DYNAMIC

[angel-e-v-a]

POSITIVE 20 QUESTIONS TAG GAME

I was tagged by @fierydeans, thanks so much darling, this is fun!!! ❤️❤️❤️

1. Name 4 fictional characters who showcase your personality the best, with explanations if you want.

Ouch, that’s hard, I have a very weird personality. 

Temperance Brennan from Bones: For one part. I love to read, watch documentaries, have a scientific approach to life and little to no knowledge of popular culture and can appear unintentionally cold and offensive, but in fact am anything except cold.

Lucifer from Supernatural: I’m a very bitter bean who’s in more than an instance almost ruined her life and everything else around me because I’ve little to no idea what’s forgiveness. I variate between being very emotional and wanting to burn down everything. I love annoying people who annoy me. Also, family blows. Plus, I literally don’t know how to shut up and pay attention to me, I’m bored sums up 50 percent of my personality. 

Yennefer of Vengerberg from The Witcher: I’ve never been shy a day in my life. I want everything. My biggest dream was to be important to someone, and I also had big self esteem issues on the account of my physical look. I’m super nice and sweet, but only with chosen group of people. Otherwise, I’m that snarky bitch™ .

Dean Winchester from Supernatural: Now, we may not share life views, and I’m definitively not the person that loves flirting, but gosh, do we share a temper. Besides, we have same taste in movies and music, we both don’t hold ourselves back and do what we want to at the moment, whether it’s too eat junk or drink until stupor. Also overly protective, and very much not above crude jokes and random childish innuendos.

2. Aesthetic

Too wild and messy for one. Blog consist of whatever I love/drool on. 

3. Favorite musical/play?

Hamlet or Richard III. How am I supposed to decide?

4. What is the best compliment you’ve ever received?

People telling me I’m the smartest/one of the smartest people they met. It doesn’t do good to my ego or social life, but certainly the only type of compliment that makes me truly content. 

5. How many times have you been in love?

Umm, five times? Though, three of those were more obsession than love. Only two of those experiences were positive, both in term of relationships and emotions, with my ex-boyfriend who I lived with for almost a year, and we parted just because we had nothing more in common, and with my husband, on the account of him being as sane as I’m. 

6. Embarrassing story or fact about yourself that makes you laugh now?

Oh hahahahah, my, I have a lot of those. I once got so drunk on moonshine I just fell asleep at the table and woke 24 hours later. Friends were unsuccessfully trying to wake me up with loudest music all day. The other time my husband (boyfriend at the time, we knew each other for few weeks), made pirozhki and I, who weighted only 35 kg at the time, ate 40 of them!!! Imagine that! 40!!! I vomited all over the apartment, vomited all night and thought I was legit gonna die. And the first time I went to a Chinese restaurant (the worst thing it was with my boss) I loved the food so much, I was just ordering random things from the menu, up to the point the waiter could barely contain laughter when bringing plates. I got so bloated that when I left the place, I had to take of my skirt in the middle of the street because I couldn’t breathe. The luck is I had the tunic, which I sometimes wore as a dress with thighs, and sometimes as blouse with wide belt and skirt, so I wasn’t naked or flashing undies, but man, were people looking at me thinking I’m legit gonna strip bare in the middle of the street.

7. Favorite Disney/Pixar movie?

Hmm, I don’t really like many of them. Toy Story I think.

8. Favorite flower or plant?

Not much of a plant person. But I love roses, and poisonous flowers, and adore venus fly traps. 

9. What’s your favorite holiday?

Birthdays. The only holidays I accept. 

10. Name three things that made you laugh or smile this past week.

I just laughed like mad when recalling the embarrassing stories.

My dog doing dances to get more food, because it’s never enough.

I’m teaching my husband to play chess, because it’s not fair, I have nobody left to play chess with me and I miss it so much. And it’s quite hilarious, especially since he can’t stop thinking he gets a bonus move if he eats my figure.

11. What song would you play to introduce yourself to someone?

Look What You Made Me Do!!! It’s so me.

12. Name something that truly makes you feel peaceful even at your most stressed moments.

It’s usually books and shows and movies I like, and making gifs, but for the last couple of months, whenever I get to the point of blowing up I just watch over and over again that one blasted season of The Tomorrow People. Oh and since coronavirus, I got myself Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist Link Evolution and can’t stop drinking with more than couple of days pause. It’s the year 2020 and all I’m doing is playing Duel Monsters and getting drunk, it feels like I’m back in my teenage-hood, somebody kill me pls.  

13. What do you, did you, or would you study at college?

I'm a vet technician by profession (the one I learned for, never worked as one a day, I somehow wound up being a translator), but what I wanted to study the most is forensic medicine. However it was a no no (nobody wants to specialize those, they are needless around here). Now I just wanna scrape enough money to enroll either molecular biology or biochemistry and not let myself get intimidated by the fact I’m bad at math. I was bad at math before, but I still had top grade in chemistry. Surely college can’t be much worse.  

14. This is kind of a weird one, but which outfit of yours makes you feel most like yourself?

My leather jacket, tights, black shirt and black boots. The blacker, the better. 

15. What is a quote you live by?

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. ―  Nietzsche

16. Name the funniest playlist name you have.

I don’t name them. Pah. Too lazy

17. Make a reference to an inside joke you have with someone you love with zero context.

It’s not dead enough.

18. What is a message you would give your younger self if given the chance?

Please, stop trying to off yourself and drinking all your money. Also stop being a total douche with everyone, not everybody hates you.

19. Who is your favorite family member? (If you have no good blood family members, feel free to mention someone in your found family)

My husband. He’s technically the only family member I have now, unless you count the dog, and a bunch of uncles who don’t really care and it’s mutual.

20. What’s a secret dream of yours?

World domination. Admit it’d be cool.

Thanks again, @fierydeans, I had loads of fun doing this!!!

Tagging: @blakechaos08 @stormborndean @brieflymaximumprincess @mrsimoshen @smolrowena @cherrypierowena @honeyeddeans and everybody who wants to do it. 

[courtingstars]

Notes for The Vanishing Prince, Chapter Five

All right, here we go! Chapter Five has a bunch of stuff that I’ve been looking forward to include in the series for a loooong time. There were also a few surprises that popped up when I wrote it, particularly the revelation about this moment in KnB canon:

So yeah, if you were ever wondering how or why Bokushi came up with that idea, well… I guess I made up a theory about that? //nervous laughter Fair warning, it’s probably about as disturbing as you’d expect. And on that note…

Content Warning: A brief mention of the history of Japanese ritual suicide.

Cut for rambling about Japanese monsters and ghosts, the Akashi estate in Kyoto, the Akashi family crest, and various notes related to the Akashi family’s history…

Youkai and Japanese Ghosts

I like to think that the night scene in Gion is pretty much the moment when this series transforms into a Miyazaki movie. XD There are so many interesting monsters and ghosts in Japanese legends, you could spend a lifetime learning about them! But I figured I’d give a super-quick overview of the supernatural creatures that were featured in this scene. (Also, I definitely recommend yokai.com if you would like to learn about supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore. It’s an amazing resource with a lot of great illustrations!)

Youkai are basically mythical Japanese monsters. There are also yuurei, “vengeful ghosts” who used to be humans. These spirits can exhibit different characteristics and behaviors, depending on the legend. Youkai in particular are generally thought to live in the spirit world, a sort of parallel realm that humans can’t normally see.

The spirit Furihata sees at the shrine is meant to be a kitsune, a fox spirit. (Also my favorite youkai, because they’ve got that whole mythical shape-shifting trickster vibe. //laughs) Kitsune can appear as humans, often beautiful women. Sometimes they even marry humans, and aren’t revealed to be foxes until years later. Or they may lure a human into the spirit world, only for the person to come back and find out that a really long time has passed in the world of the living while they were gone. (There’s also some interesting historical stuff about fox spirits supposedly possessing people, usually young women, but I won’t go into that here!)

The first spirits Furihata sees on the bridge are two types of one-eyed youkai. The hitotsume-nyuudou generally looks like a priest, and can sometimes shape-shift to gigantic proportions. (There are famous stories about them from the Kyoto region, which is one reason I chose to include one in this scene!) Meanwhile, the childlike hitotsume-kozou are weaker, more mischievous youkai.  They appear dressed like little boys, and often have long very tongues. Some of them also have a preference for tofu, which seemed appropriate for this fic? //laughs

The blue flames Furihata sees on the bridge are probably hitodama, which are manifestations of dead people’s souls. This is why in Japanese ghost stories, ghosts are often portrayed as having blue flames floating around them. It’s a classic ghost trope, basically, which is why Furihata is so scared when he sees them. (Even though hitodama, unlike other types of “fireball youkai,” are generally pretty harmless!)

I also briefly mentioned a few more youkai, included the famous tanuki. The female spirit in kimono with the long, stretched-out neck is a rokurokubi. Finally, while I left it pretty vague, the spirit crouching in an alleyway is meant to be a “hungry ghost” or gaki. According to Buddhist beliefs, this is the soul of a person who has been condemned to suffer in the afterlife, often by experiencing extreme hunger or thirst. Believers sometimes leave offerings of various kinds for them, to help ease their suffering.

Supposedly, youkai often appear at twilight. I’ve also read stories where they appear on or underneath a bridge, so I thought that would be a cool element to include in the scene. Kyoto is a common setting for a lot of tales about youkai, although every area of Japan has fascinating myths about them.

“That’s Why I Like You So Much”

This was one of those parts where writing in English didn’t translate easily to a story about Japanese characters… I’m not fluent in Japanese (like, at all XD), but even with the little bit I know, it can get tricky to figure out how to show what a Japanese speaker would say/do in a situation, when it’s not quite what a Western English speaker might say/do? (It’s weird how much language can convey cultural standards, to the point that when you translate it directly, it doesn’t always make sense.)

So Furihata’s line when he’s half asleep would probably be something along the lines of “Dakara suki da”or “Dakara daisuki da.” (I’m leaving the exact line open to interpretation, because reasons? //laughs) In Japanese, when you’re interested in someone romantically, you generally say “I like you” or “Suki da.” (“Suki desu” is the more formal version, or you can also say “Suki da yo” to add emphasis.) So it has strong cultural associations with love confessions and crushes. “I really like you” or “Daisuki da” is a more intense version, closer to “I love you.” Some of the nuances of this are explained in this blog.

Either way, you’re still technically saying that you “like” someone. In fact, it’s the same way you’d say you like your favorite food, or you’re a fan of a certain hobby. Which is why the phrase could be kind of ambiguous, in theory… But attaching it to a person has definite connotations, which is why in the chapter, Akashi goes on to think this:

“He must have misheard, he told himself. The wording was somewhat odd, and out of place. Still, whatever Furihata had said, the emotion behind it seemed clear enough. It was the same simple, honest affection, that Akashi had come to recognize and treasure.”

(Oh, Oreshi. Your denial is so deep at this point? //laughs)

Anyway, this note is really just to point out that a lot of the time, I have no idea what I’m doing when I try to translate cultural norms between Japanese and English. XD; (Especially because I’m a clueless American with zero secondary language skills? //laughs) But it is something that occasionally factors into how I write a scene. I try to make sure that everything still makes sense for English speakers, but it can get kind of tricky when certain cultural things come up, and Akashi’s thought process here was one of those instances.

(On the other hand, it was a little easier to portray why Akashi and Furihata holding hands in public was an odd/uncomfortable experience for both of them… Even though in theory, the cultural reasons for it are a bit different/more complex in Japan compared to Western countries. But there was enough overlap there that I figured it still made sense?)

The Akashi Estate in Kyoto

It was so much fun to finally get to write about the Kyoto estate! It’s been a setting in this series before—mostly in The Fast Train to Kyoto—but those scenes were from Akashi’s perspective. Since it’s so familiar to him, he didn’t really go into detail about what the mansion looks like. I have a lot of headcanons about how the family estate developed… In my head, they used to live in more traditional-style buildings, but various heads of the family decided to update the estate over the years. The current building is a grand Western-style mansion, built by one of Akashi’s great grandfathers. I saved some photos to Pinterest for a general idea of what it looks like, including this and this.

I really wanted it to be a super fancy, over-the-top kind of place—and also visually different from the Akashi home in Tokyo. So it’s bigger and brighter, and the exterior is made of pale stone. Meanwhile, the Tokyo home is smaller and darker and the outside is made of red brick. Plus, the Kyoto residence includes a lot more land around it… Which will be covered in a future chapter!

I also enjoyed deciding what Akashi’s rooms would look like, compared to his rooms in Tokyo. Though to be honest, I see them as pretty similar, just bigger? //laughs The main difference is that instead of a canopy, his bed in Kyoto has a big fancy headboard with curtains built into the wall over it. (I got this idea while hunting for pictures of fancy beds online, no surprise there. XD) For an idea of what it looks like, this is pretty close to what I pictured in my head, but I also really liked this bed, and this is one of the most extra things I’ve ever seen. //laughs I also thought this room was awesome with the darker palette. I have a ton of photos like that on that Pinterest board, which brings me to…

This is probably as good a time as any to mention that I made a Pinterest board for The Vanishing Prince! It has LOTS of cool photos for pretty much every scene in the fic so far (and no spoilers, yay!), including ideas of what the interior of Akashi’s mansion might look like and some seriously GORGEOUS photos of the Gion district in Kyoto at night. There’s also some youkai illustrations and examples of samurai armor and kamon crests. Speaking of which…

The Akashi Kamon (or Family Crest)

Basically, a kamon is similar to the idea of heraldry/family crests in Western countries, in that a lot of Japanese families have one. This is especially true for powerful or “aristocratic” families that can trace their lineage back over many generations, so naturally, the Akashi family needed one! And let me tell you, I went on a JOURNEY to decide what theirs might look like? //laughs I researched a lot of different kamon designs, and while I had already decided it would include a chrysanthemum (the traditional crest of the Emperor and Imperial family, but sometimes incorporated into other family crests in different ways), I didn’t know what else should be in it. I toyed around with some different traditional motifs, like a peony or myouga ginger, but then I got a better idea…

Some of you may remember that a few years ago, there was a line of official Kuroko no Basuke merchandise that included traditional Japanese handicrafts and fabrics. What I liked most about it was the fabric they chose for each of the characters, because they all had some cool symbolism that matched the characters really well. I vaguely remembered that somebody posted about it here on Tumblr (here’s that post, which I dug up after the fact!), but I couldn’t remember what Akashi’s fabric meant. It’s a bit more intricate than everybody else’s because of course it is:

Even though I couldn’t remember what the pattern was, I figured it could be good to include in his family crest in some way? (Since flowers are often included in kamon.) So after some hunting, I figured out that his design includes bamboo and a phoenix flying over a Paulownia tree. The post I linked includes some more details about how these symbols are connected to the Emperor. Also, in Eastern mythology, phoenixes are believed to live in Paulownia trees. They’re believed to bring good fortune to rulers, which is probably why the Paulownia tree is so associated with royalty. Not surprisingly, the tree is also used frequently in Japanese crests—to the point that it’s even used in kamon for the Japanese government. Naturally, I thought the impressiveness of it would be a good fit for the Akashi family as well!

I drew a doodle of what the Akashi kamon in the fic looks like, something like this:

I’ll probably redraw it if I ever use it in actual fan art, but it gets the idea across! The kamon that I added to the Pinterest board includes some examples of how Paulownia trees and phoenixes have been included in other historical crests.

In any case, that’s how the Akashi kamon in this series ended up having a bunch of epic symbols in it! Which seemed appropriate, given the family it represents. XD (There’s also some hidden/secret significance in the design, specifically the part that appears to be two phoenix feathers… But I’ll probably end up going into that later!)

Akashi’s Family History

And now for the big revelation of the chapter… I’ve been wanting to explore the history of the Akashi family for a while, since it’s tied to some of the major themes of this series. The story Bokushi tells in this chapter is definitely meant to be more of a “family legend” than anything historical. But I did do some research on Japanese history, warfare, and legends to try to come up with a story that would fit culturally, while still having a “mythical” kind of feel to it.

I’ve mentioned before that my version of the Akashi family is meant to be a zaibatsu, which is basically a super powerful business family. Their influence tends to get exaggerated in fictional settings like Kuroko no Basuke—in reality, the zaibatsu don’t exist to that degree anymore—and my fic does this as well. It also adds a bit of a twist: before becoming successful in trade and finance, the Akashi family began as a clan of feudal lords.

Feudal Japan was partially governed by local lords called daimyos—who could be descended from the nobility, but weren’t always—and these lords ended up having a lot of power during certain time periods. This could be especially true if they were skilled in warfare and/or employed a lot of samurai. So in the story Bokushi tells, the Akashis were essentially a daimyo family who tried to become even more powerful, and then failed in a really tragic way.

I think most people know the basics about samurai armor, katana swords, and so on, so I won’t really go into those topics…. I did include several examples of samurai armor and weapons over on the Pinterest board I made, so you can get an idea of what the display room in this chapter looks like. (Or you can always google “samurai armor,” that works too! XD) Visors on samurai helmets were sometimes stylized like youkai monsters, to make them appear more intimidating on the battlefield. The Akashi family story also involves an allusion to ritual or “honor” suicide, though the circumstances are different from most samurai stories. (It was meant to show that the Akashi clan’s idea of shame in defeat was much more severe than most.) Since it was such a brief part of the chapter, I won’t discuss the history of ritual suicide in Japan, but it’s easily researchable online. (And as I’m sure most people know, the process is very graphic/disturbing, so please be aware of that.)

As for what inspired the Akashi story, I’m tempted to go on a long tangent here about how Kuroko no Basuke’s overall plot structure takes a lot of cues from samurai tales and Japanese action movies, to the point that this is an ACTUAL MOMENT from the show that I totally forgot about:

(Seriously, a million points to anyone who remembers which two characters were facing off during this moment??? Because I would have gotten one of them wrong for sure. Which actually ties into my point about the structure pretty well. XD)

Anyway, point being, I was definitely inspired by the nods to the Japanese warrior mythos in KnB to include more direct allusions in Akashi’s backstory—and to play around with how that history might have affected his family’s perspective on honor, victory, and defeat.

(I’d also like to note that the way Bokushi says the infamous line about his eyes in KnB canon has a key difference from the way Lord Akashi uses it in the legend… While it’s still emotional manipulation being used as motivation, Bokushi also uses it as a way to say that he’ll take all the blame for a defeat on himself, after intentionally making a shot for the other team. In other words, Bokushi is only holding himself to the Akashi standard. He wouldn’t blame his team for having to give up his eyes the way Lord Akashi blamed his son, because he doesn’t see them as bearing the same level of responsibility—even though he IS extending them the same level of trust, and complete confidence in their abilities. From Bokushi’s point of view, this is all totally obvious—even though it wouldn’t be to everyone else. To me, the distinction is pretty important to my interpretation of his character. But your mileage may vary, of course!)

And A Quick Note on Bokushi’s Theory

Finally, since this story has been exploring Akashi’s mental health, I just wanted to mention something about this line:

“In many ways, the tale had defined him all his life. It had taught him what it truly took to succeed. It was largely inseparable, from his sense of self. Perhaps in a certain sense, it had even caused it.”

Since I’m trying to be as careful as I can with how I portray dissociation, I want to clarify that this isn’t meant to be an explanation for how Akashi developed Dissociation Identity Disorder. Instead, this line is Bokushi’s theory about how/why he developed his personality traits, in comparison to his other self. It’s definitely an oversimplification, since there are many reasons why he behaves the way he does, the same as it is for anyone… But I think it makes sense for Bokushi to point to this family legend, which was told to Akashi at a very formative point in his childhood, as a way to explain his general worldview and priorities.

The question of why Akashi developed more than one self state is more complicated, and will be explored throughout the fic, rather than having one simple, straightforward explanation like this.

Well, that’s it for my notes! To anyone who read all the way through them, I’m very impressed. XD I really was excited to post this chapter—and I hope it was interesting and enjoyable to read in spite of (or because of?) how intense it was. Thank you as always for reading, and I hope to post the next chapter as soon as I can. <3 (It’s already drafted and once again, I’m SO EXCITED. I have a feeling I’ll be saying that a lot for this fic? //laughs)

[cummunication]

Are you Dating a Sociopath?

1 in 25. Research indicates that’s how many people are diagnosable sociopaths. When it comes to psychopaths, (luckily) the number is higher… 1 in 100. But let’s not get them confused. “Sociopaths are often called psychopaths and vice versa but there are differences between a psychopath and a sociopath. … And while sociopaths and psychopaths do share some traits, sociopathy (antisocial personality disorder) is generally considered less severe than psychopathy.” For example, a sociopath might be someone who takes advantage of others for money, fame, sex etc. while a psychopath is more likely to be a serial killer and commit mass murders. You can go your entire life without anyone knowing you’re a sociopath while psychopaths are the people more likely to commit severe crimes and end up in jail.

Antisocial personality disorder is the diagnosis in which sociopathy and psychopathy fall (cluster B) and it has been on the rise over the years. If you’re swiping daily on tinder, how many people do you pass each day? (I wouldn’t know because I’m not on the app but I suspect a decent amount). Let’s say you swipe 25 times each day. That means over the span of one week you have passed roughly 7 sociopaths. This can be alarming whilst dating because sociopaths don’t look like Hannibal Lecter and you can’t tell someone is mentally ill by looking at them. Sociopath’s actually tend to be extremely alluring and charismatic. It’s no surprise you may end up falling for one and not find out until it’s “too late”. So what are signs to look out for? Could you actually be dating a sociopath? Let’s learn more.  

“When you’re in love, it’s easy to gloss over some of your partner’s less flattering traits. But if your gut tells you something might really be off with this person, don’t write off those feelings ― especially if you suspect they could be a sociopath. Sociopaths don’t look like the Joker and show up cackling and howling and ready to manipulate They’re not always so easy to recognize. They can appear to be the guy next door. And until you get to know them, you wouldn’t necessarily know they are sociopaths. So what is a sociopath exactly? Characteristics include a persistent disregard for right and wrong, a tendency to lie and manipulate others, a lack of empathy and remorse, emotional volatility, an inflated ego, and engaging in impulsive and irresponsible behavior. And though the label is frequently used in the media and pop culture, it’s not actually a clinical term. The closest clinical diagnosis would be antisocial personality disorder, which is characterized by a pattern of disregarding or violating social norms, laws and the rights of others without remorse ― not being a loner, as the name might suggest. It’s estimated that roughly 3 percent of men and 1 percent of women meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder. It’s worth noting that some experts prefer to use the term “psychopath” instead. Some use sociopath and psychopath interchangeably to describe a person with a more extreme case of antisocial personality disorder. Others, contend sociopaths and psychopaths are similar, but differ in some key ways ― for example, sociopaths lack empathy but are capable of it, while psychopaths are incapable of it altogether.” If you frequent my blog you are well aware I was in a life-threatening relationship several years ago. Although my ex never sought professional help (as many sociopaths don’t) I would bet my life on him being a sociopath. Since I am not a licensed professional, I can not technically diagnose him but like I said, I’d bet my life on it. I’ve also had my mental health professionals refer to him having a personality disorder… narcissistic, borderline as well as sociopathy. In the beginning, he was beyond everything I could’ve asked for. Little did I know what was to come or who he was behind the mask. If only I’d known what to lookout for I might’ve saved myself years of misery. So due to my own experiences I’m here to help you. Here are some of the most prevalent, common warning signs you or a loved one may be in a dangerous relationship with a sociopath. “RED FLAG #1. Having an over-sized ego. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) notes that sociopaths have an inflated sense of self. They are narcissists to the extreme, with a huge sense of entitlement. They tend to blame others for their own failures. They prey on your good qualities. People with sociopathic tendencies are accustomed to lying, so it’s not as hard for them to fake feelings. Some sociopaths are skilled at pretending they’re wounded and hurt. Sometimes a sociopath will target a woman because she’s big-hearted and maternal and vulnerable to wanting to care for someone who’s been emotionally hurt.” RED FLAG #2. Lying and exhibiting manipulative behavior. Sociopaths use deceit and manipulation on a regular basis. Why? Lying for the sake of lying. Lying just to see whether you can trick people. And sometimes telling larger lies to get larger effects. Their professions of love feel false and hollow. They often will say things like, ‘You’re the girl I’ve always wanted.“ Or, ‘I couldn’t be luckier to find someone like you.’ Sort of pat, trope, cliche expressions, as if they heard that in a movie and they’re merely repeating it. Their professions of love and caring do not feel genuine. Something about it feels off. They do not feel emotions in the same way that regular people do. What they do is see others express emotions in real life or on TV and then they mimic them.” My ex-boyfriend once dropped off a note on my car while we had been broken up and I had gone no contact for several weeks. What first appeared as a heartfelt, long, love letter, I later found out he copied off the internet. Of course he claimed to have created this beautiful poem himself but I guess he forgot the internet is a thing and how easy it would be to access the lyrics. Needless to say, it didn’t mean much after I found out it was copyrighted. “RED FLAG #3. Exhibiting lack of empathy. They don’t really have the meaningful emotional inner worlds that most people have and perhaps because of that they can’t really imagine or feel the emotional worlds of other people. It’s very foreign to them. They treat you or others with contempt and cruelty. You might also want to observe not just how they treat you, but how they treat other people in the room. Sometimes you’ll catch them behaving heartlessly to someone when they don’t know you’re watching. RED FLAG #4. Showing a lack of remorse or shame. The DSM-V entry on antisocial personality disorder indicates that sociopaths lack remorse, guilt or shame. They have volatile mood swings. This person might have unexpected, unstable and abrupt mood swings. You say something and suddenly they go into rage. A sociopath likes to control and manipulate. So if they thought their ability to control was being threatened, that might send them into a tizzy. RED FLAG #5. Staying eerily calm in scary or dangerous situations. A sociopath might not be anxious following a car accident, for instance. Experiments have shown that while normal people show fear when they see disturbing images or are threatened with electric shocks, sociopaths tend not to.” This is due to a difference in biology. FMRI scans show people with antisocial personality disorder have a different sized amygdala than someone without. This physiological difference may explain their constant need for stimulation as the amygdala also known as the “fight or flight” part of the brain, is in charge of emotions such as fear; which sociopath’s display less of. “RED FLAG #6. Behaving irresponsibly or with extreme impulsivity. Sociopaths bounce from goal to goal, and act on the spur of the moment, according to the DSM. They can be irresponsible when it comes to their finances and their obligations to other people. They may have a criminal past and refuse to take any responsibility for those misdeeds. Particularly if they tell you there was a criminal past but say, ‘It’s not my fault. They just did it to me. I happened to be in the wrong place and I was blamed.” Side note - My ex happened to say the same exact thing when he was convicted of a felony. According to him, however, nothing was ever his fault. “They’re constantly making messes you’re left to clean up. There would be regular crises in your life related to money going missing, or other relationships with family or friends breaking down, this is because the psychopath prioritizes his or her needs and enjoys risk-taking and sensation-seeking behavior. You would be left to clean up the mess. RED FLAG #10. Showing disregard for societal norms. They break rules and laws because they don’t believe society’s rules apply to them.” My ex boyfriend would smoke cigarettes inside of public restaurants, and whip out his penis in the middle of a family park. He would also frequently disregard traffic signs and make safety violations while driving. I’m not sure if he did this to be funny, to scare me, or because he felt he was above the law. Perhaps it was a mixture of all three. “They are also extremely controlling. You begin to detect that your partner is excessively controlling, dictating when, where, what time and under what circumstances you’re going to get together. They attempt to manipulate your behavior and control who your friends are and your activities. RED FLAG #7. Having few friends. Sociopaths tend not to have friends—not real ones, anyway. Sociopaths don’t want friends, unless they need them. Or all of their friends are superficially connected with them, friends by association. They don’t have many friends or close relationships. The individual is very, very evasive about their personal life and details of past relationships and very overly guarded and evasive. And if they get irritated when you probe them about it, that could be a bad sign. RED FLAG #8. Being charming—but only superficially. Sociopaths can be very charismatic and friendly — because they know it will help them get what they want. They are expert con artists and always have a secret agenda. People are so amazed when they find that someone is a sociopath because they’re so amazingly effective at blending in. They’re masters of disguise. Their main tool to keep them from being discovered is a creation of an outer personality. They seem too good to be true. They are that man or woman at a club or at a bar who just seems to be paying you too much attention and is too solicitous. However, you quite like the attention. That’s the thing about psychopaths: They can at first be fun to be around, and so you get drawn in. They need to do this, as they are later going to use you and all the information that they have extracted from you during this courting phase. They establish a closeness only in as much as it is useful to them. There’s something glib about their charm. There’s no depth to it. It can be turned on and off. RED FLAG #9. Living by the “pleasure principle. If it feels good and they are able to avoid consequences, they will do it! They live their life in the fast lane — to the extreme — seeking stimulation, excitement and pleasure from wherever they can get it. RED FLAG #11. Having “intense” eyes. Sociopaths have no problem with maintaining uninterrupted eye contact. failure to look away politely is also perceived as being aggressive or seductive.” I’d like to add, even if your partner does in fact, have many or all these characteristics, if you are indeed in a relationship with a sociopath you might dismiss them and brush it off as being “all in your head”. This is due to something called “gas-lighting” which is a manipulative tactic sociopaths use to make you believe you’re crazy. That’s why it can be so difficult to end a relationship with a toxic person. I’d like to reassure you if you suspect something is up with your significant other, you’re probably right. Especially if you spend a decent amount of time researching “am I in an abusive relationship” or look up videos on sociopaths. They’re very good at making you doubt yourself so you don’t leave them. I’d suggest listening to your intuition. Your instincts are there it just becomes harder to recognize while dating a dysfunctional person who abuses you. I hope this helped in even the slightest way. Feel free to reach out with any further questions or comments. Help is available and you are not alone. Contact the national domestic violence hotline for more information/resources.

[redroomcd]

" 𝐦 𝐲   𝐩 𝐚 𝐬 𝐭   𝐢 𝐬   𝐦 𝐲   𝐨 𝐰 𝐧 . " briefly, before i get into my portrayal for nat, it’s worth noting that while i’ve done a fair amount of research into her background, i am not wholly familiar with her various comic arcs. this blog will predominantly be cinematic universe based, with influences from her canon background since marvel waited a decade to make her origin movie, and have given us literally nothing. this post should clarify not only my own portrayal, but my verses for the moment, in forming connections with me. if there is anything you want to include or exclude, mention it, and i’ll likely be willing.

as a final note, you will not find the characterisation heavily prevalent in age of ultron for nat on this blog. she deserved better than an attempt at a beauty and the beast storyline, and she’s never been a damsel in distress. you won’t find any of that here.

🕷  𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞: 𝐚𝐫𝐜 𝐨𝐨𝟏. 🕷 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎.

most of this will be integrated forms of canon, from the comics. born natalia romanova in russia, and believed ( in rumours ) to be related to the last ruling czars of russia. various different reports surround the death of her parents - the only thing that most seem to agree on is that ivan petrovitch was involved in her upbringing, and at a young age, she was taken to the "red room" facility to be trained as a soviet spy, along with other young female orphans. there, she was given by bio-technological and psych-technological enhancements, including a varied strand of the super soldier serum used within the "winter soldier" program. this means that yes, she does have enhanced strength and speed, along with a longer life span, and extended youth. her reflexes are incredibly fast, as well as her cognitive abilities to withstand pain. she received extensive training in manipulation, coding, languages, and various different fighting styles. she has been designed as the perfect weapon, and taught to use whatever women are shamed for - sexuality, emotion - as a tool in her future assignments. she can also withstand high amounts of torture.

various training and conditioning replaced her memories - for example, she had never been trained in ballet in the bolshoi theatre, but has extensive artificial memories of doing so, allowing a deep form of psychological impact on her muscle memory, and making her fighting style much more fluid. it is through the red room, that natasha was trained under the "winter soldier", with the two forming a relationship. when they were found out, their memories were respectively wiped, and james kept in crytostatis to keep the pair of them focused on their work. it is stated on several occasions that natasha is the most memorable asset the red room has produced.

🕷  𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞: 𝐚𝐫𝐜 𝐨𝐨𝟐. 🕷 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆.

not much is known about the time between the red room, and her time within the avengers. what we do know is that natasha spent extensive amounts of time working as an enemy spy - she has ties to the kgb, and was apparently involved in several operations spanning across the cold war. much of this verse is up for negotiation, but it’s worth noting that through this time, she did not have a grasp on her own memories - they weren’t her own.

at a certain point in this time, she met clint barton in budapest, who convinced her to turn to the other side. this is where she joined shield. more details will come on this point in time, in a future post - this was what had the most profound change on nat. we also know during this time, she came across the winter soldier, and was shot by him - her lack of reference to who he is, specifically, implies that she still has no memory of the events.

🕷  𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞: 𝐚𝐫𝐜 𝐨𝐨𝟑. 🕷 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓.

this verse spans across the entirety of the marvel cinematic universe, beginning with her time joining the avengers, and continuing to her death within endgame. her time within the avengers initiative expands on her newfound abilities on the “good” side, and it’s worth noting that she is still unaware of much of her past ( for instance, though , at this point. this verse will include her presence within the following movies, and take all events of each movie as canon, though the characterisation and her personal dynamics are not set in stone :

avengers.

captain america: the winter soldier.

avengers: age of ultron.

captain america: civil war.

avengers: infinity war.

avengers: endgame.

the events of the first few movies see nat forming a leadership role alongside steve in training the newer recruits of the team, implying that she has a hand in working closely with each of them. ultimately what sways her decision to fight alongside steve, instead of tony, following the divide within the team down the line, is her knowledge that at least half the team will end up arrested or in prison - and though she loves all of the team, she would rather spend her time keeping them safe. at this time, it is again worth mentioning that she still has no memory of who exactly the winter soldier is, though she knows what he is capable of as an enemy - and muscle memory seems to take over, when physically fighting him ( for instance, she knows to target his arm with the widow’s bite, rather than any other part of his body, implying she knows there’s sensitivity there ).

following the events of infinity war, nat spends her time attempting to keep the team together, and taking over as “leader” while steve and tony are not there. her decision to sacrifice herself to get the soul stone implies several things - one, whether or not you believe nat would die for clint, we know that he is besotted with her, and that the sacrifice must be what one of them loves the most. for nat, she knows that is her - and yet, she knows if clint dies, it won’t be enough. and two, she knows that returning the stone to where it was in time might bring her back in the future. she’s placing bets on her team to win.

🕷  𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞: 𝐚𝐫𝐜 𝐨𝐨𝟒. 🕷 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉.

this verse can go one of two ways. either, when steve returns the stone, the sacrifice is void and nat is brought back. or, two, following the storyline present within the 616 arc of the comics. within that particular arc, the red room has been creating clones of natasha romanoff, and one of them is given the memories ( and therefore, a variation of her consciousness ) of the real nat, who forms a plan to make it seem as if she is working for the red room facility, but all the while, is “awake” and planning to bring down the red room. in either verse, being brought back means she remembers everything that the red room took from her - and she’s fixated on bringing it down, so that no other woman will ever go through what she did. that means that while natasha is technically dead and gone, her consciousness and memories are present in this new natasha, making her essentially the same as the natasha that they lost. technically, she’s a clone - but she’s nat.

[mythicallore]

... What was that sound?

"This happens all the time," says Darren Evans, a bystander joining the paranormal investigating team of Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures. The target: Zozo, an ancient demon who makes his presence known by rapping on walls and moving objects, and might be doing so in the empty hallway upstairs.

Evans isn't rattled by the sound; he's used to his house making strange noises. For years, he claims that Zozo has stalked, harassed, and tormented his family. Evans even claims to have been possessed by Zozo, who is an ancient supernatural presence who has wormed his way through history, wreaking havoc on participants since the pre-Biblical days. Evans is a self-proclaimed "Zozologist," who regularly tells his stories at paranormal conventions, on supernatural-themed podcasts, and across 236 pages in a recent book. For this television appearance, he's leading a team into the darkness, into the unknown.

Zozo's origin story is riddled with supposition, fabrication, and a hive-mind belief system that keeps his power alive and thriving -- despite giant gaps in its history. But since 2009, Zozo has been a popular internet fixture, so notorious that he's inspired feature films, books, podcasts, and been the focus of entire episodes of both the aforementioned Ghost Adventures and SyFy's Paranormal Witness. A YouTube search of "Zozo demon" turns up more than 80,000 results, with videos ranging from emotional personal encounters to timeline histories to alleged, full-on possessions. Internet lore has one explanation for how it crept out of the shadows; facts tell us something very different.

The demon's story is intertwined with Darren Evans, a man whose stringent belief in the unseen -- and whose obsession with Led Zeppelin -- helped birth a modern urban legend that gains traction with each passing year, its foothold coagulating into an accepted, inescapable truth.

Who is Zozo?

The Zozo demon (sometimes stylized as ZoZo or ZOZO) is a mysterious trickster entity known for stalking people through Ouija boards. Those who claim they've made contact with Zozo – who also goes by Zaza, Mama, Oz, Zo, Za, and Abacus – say he often shows himself by guiding the planchette into figure-8 formations, before frantically zooming back and forth between the "Z" and "O." His interactions start out friendly, but grow malicious; he's known for cursing at and threatening contactees, sometimes personally. While he's often wrangled by a Ouija board, some believe that saying his name out loud can also summon Zozo from the depths of hell.

Zozo believers claim the demon has ancient origins, either African or Sumerian, depending who you ask. While those claims can't be substantiated (they may be confusing Zozo for Pazuzu, a Mesopotamian wind demon who famously appeared in The Exorcist), a supernatural entity called "Zozo" was referenced in the 1818 French text Le Dictionnaire Infernal. The demonological encyclopedia, written by French author Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy, recounts the story of a young village girl who claimed she'd been possessed by three demons named Mimi, Zozo, and Crapoulet.

But according to the website The Paranormal Scholar, accurately translating the text of Le Dictionnaire Infernal shows that the girl's story was faked. "She rattled nonsense," de Plancy wrote, adding that the girl had been publicly beaten years before for faking possession, and was eventually imprisoned for her fibs. He goes on to describe what he believed to be genuine cases of demonic activity, ending the Zozo extract with the sentence: "Nonetheless, there are real cases of possession."

Zozo's first-known textual appearance was technically a non-appearance, but this hasn't stopped people from using Le Dictionnaire Infernal as "proof" of Zozo's existence. A number of websites and videos still cite it as fact, bolstering the belief that Zozo predates the event that seemingly willed him into existence.

Darren Evans (right) on a 2014 episode of Ghost Adventures | Travel Channel

A legend is born

In 2009, an Oklahoma man named Darren Evans recounting his experience with a demon named "ZOZO" on a website called True Ghost Tales. In the post, Evans admits to an adolescent fascination with the occult, citing many Ouija board incidents through the years. But Zozo, he said, was different. The entity consistently showed itself to Evans, "too many times to count," pretending to be a kind spirit before shifting into threatening language, including curses in what "looked like Latin or Hebrew."

"I was genuinely fascinated and startled by how many times 'ZOZO' showed up, even in many different states and many different Ouija boards," Evans wrote. He claimed that the demon also made threats against his toddler daughter, nearly drowning her in a bathtub and later infecting her with a mysterious illness. "We almost lost her, and that was when I began to suspect demonic attack."

Evans' post garnered a great deal of interest, with other readers alleging similar Ouija encounters with Zozo. He eventually set up a website to collect stories, which steadily gained popularity. A film production company called One World Studios took notice of Evans story, acquired the rights, and in 2012, released the independent feature I Am ZoZo, which featured a cameo appearance by Evans. A YouTube video promoting the film -- titled "Scariest Ouija Board Demon ZOZO Possessed Girl" -- went viral; it currently has more than 5 million views. The comments still debate its validity, despite a promoted link to rent I Am ZoZo below the video's description. "Oh my gosh, [you're] not meant to joke with this. She was laughing and insulting Zozo, so that's why this happened," one comments reads. "The thing was going around in a figure eight. That's bad," says another.

In 2014, Evans and his family appeared on an episode of the Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures. The show's paranormal team, led by host Zak Bagans, visited Evans' house in Oklahoma, which he claimed to be plagued by Zozo. During interviews, he added new details to his original story, including the temporary blinding of his daughter, which he blamed on the demon.

In 2016, Evans co-authored a book, The Zozo Phenomenon, with leading paranormal expert Rosemary Ellen Guiley. He once again added new details about his first encounter with Zozo, claiming that he came in contact with Zozo in 1982 after discovering a Ouija board in his then-girlfriend's basement. Engraved on the back? "ZOZO."

According to The Paranormal Scholar, earlier that year in a phone interview with a New Jersey newspaper, Evans told the same story about a mysterious Zozo-engraved Ouija board, only that time, he claimed "Zozo" was written on the front, "where 'Ouija' is normally written," not on the back. Both of these mentions were the first time in the seven years that Evans had been talking about Zozo that he mentioned an engraved board.

The Zoso symbol from 'Led Zeppelin IV' | Atlantic Recording Company

The part where one of the most legendary rock bands of all time factors in

As if the cracks in Evans' story weren't enough, The Paranormal Scholar uncovered another fascinating revelation: the "Zozo" font on the cover of Evans's The Zozo Phenomenon appeared to be lifted from the "Zoso" symbol, an ancient glyph representing Saturn that was widely used by Led Zeppelin frontman Jimmy Page. Though Page has never revealed what Zoso means to him personally, it's possible that his being a Capricorn -- a sign ruled by Saturn -- has something to do with it.

Evans also happened to be an on-the-record mega-fan of Led Zeppelin, a band long been associated with Satanism and demonology. For a time, his Zozo website even linked directly to the official Zeppelin website and had a link to purchase Jimmy Page's autobiography.

Evans, for his part, has attempted to counter the claims that he fabricated his story. He claims the root word "Zo" -- appearing in both Zozo and Zoso -- has some sort of "magical power," which he believes explains its recurring nature. In a blog post from earlier this year, he posted more historical "proof" of Zozo's existence, once again citing Le Dictionnaire Infernal and a Nigerian paranormal website, Nairaland, where in 2005 a user named Makaveli wrote of a friend's encounter with a demon called "Zo-Zo." (Curiously, in the Nigerian languages Hausa and Igbo, "Zozo" translates to "come up.") He found mention of a demon named Zozo in a 1966 play by Jacques Audiberti, and in an 1876 issue of the Catholic Review, where Saint Bernardino of Siena mentions a "Mass of Zozo," some sort of Satanic ritual.

There's little consistency between Evans's personal accounts and his sourced material that relates any one Zozo to the other. Furthermore, none of these instances explain why, before Evans' 2009 True Ghost Tales post, "Zozo demon" yielded next to zero results in Google's search function. If Zozo encounters are such a shared experience, no one felt comfortable enough sharing their own run-ins until Evans came forward with his viral anecdote.

A scene from I Am Zozo | Image Entertainment

Zozo lives on

Even with such traceable and flimsy origins, Zozo lives on in the collective subconscious, seemingly unstoppable. Like Slender Man and other Creepypasta concoctions, his mythology is so entrenched in the niche corners of the web that you'd be hard-pressed to convince believers in his non-existence. From Reddit to YouTube vlogs to message boards, many people remain utterly convinced that they've had Ouija board run-ins with Zozo.

In the 1970s, scientists attempted this on a large scale with a project known as the "Philip experiment." Hoping to manifest a nonexistent "ghost" through fear responses, the scientists created a fictional character named Philip and held a séance with a test group. After feeding the group Philip's story, they tried to conjure his spirit. The experiment was successful: through sheer force of belief, the participants felt the table vibrate, heard rapping sounds, and said they sensed a presence.

Zozo could be like Philip, a presence people decided to believe in and have now willed into existence. It's strikingly similar to Slender Man, who, despite being wholly and obviously fictional, inspired two Wisconsin schoolgirls to stab their friend, hoping to sacrifice her to the figure they were convinced was real.

Perhaps Zozo is real, and Darren Evans is merely the conduit through which we were introduced to him. In lore, demons are known to disappear for long stretches; it's possible his 2009 emergence was by some hellish design, and he's here to prey on the specific fears of a new generation, one who can spread his word through the viral capillaries of the internet, where any unsuspecting soul might stumble on his wrath.

[ellaenchanting]

It came from the drafts folder: Amnesiapalooza

I've seen that some people- notably @enscenic - are clearing out their drafts folders. I decided to look at mine and found this.

Ever since Hypnotic Amnesia came out, I’ve been really interested in working through it with a partner. I mentioned this desire to my friend @minddiver a few weeks ago and he said that he was also interested in improving his skills in amnesia as a subject. Thus, a wonderful partnership was born! He’s already posted at least one scene recap (possibly two by this point) and I’m going to be reblogging the recaps adding commentary. It will be like Hypnotic Amnesia, only without exact transcripts and with a much more fumbling hypnotist. I’m hoping to give some commentary on the good and not-great things I’m doing in these recaps in order to edumucate some of the new hypnosis people who read my blog- as well as give hope and encouragement to my fellow fumbling hypnotists out there. 

Random collected amnesia thoughts:

1. One day I’m going to write a post on the cultural differences between different kinds of hypnosis communities out there- hypnotherapists vs. recreational hypnotists vs. hypnokinksters. Some of these differences are pretty big but some are small and subtle. One is that hypnokinksters, more than the other two groups, seem to have this conception of amnesia as a really difficult suggestion to follow.  In more recreational hypnokink, it's kind of considered more of a medium- level suggestion- harder than, say, a handstick or conjuring up an emotion but easier than invisibility or hallucinations. I think stage hypnotists tend to throw amnesia in mid-show. Hypnotherapists are even worse- they’ll toss out a veiled amnesia suggestion in the middle of talking about something else like it ain’t no thang. It’s really only hypnokinksters who have this idea that amnesia is really hard to do. Thus, ironically, it probably becomes harder for us to do.

2. I think amnesia is hard to do. As a subject, my successes with amnesia have been pretty minimal and far between.* I think that really informs my attitude towards doing it as a hypnotist- I don’t tend to approach it very often and when I do, I will often throw everything at the wall in order to try and make it work. (See: this induction for an example of me doing a bunch of complicated things to make amnesia work.) I think that lack of confidence likely negatively affects people I’m working with in the subject role- if I’m conveying that I’m asking for a difficult thing (even unconsciously) it likely becomes more difficult.**

3. The problem with throwing everything at the wall at once is that you don’t actually ever figure out what works. Granted, sometimes you can talk to an insightful subject and they’ll be able to identify a precise technique that worked for them. But even then it can be difficult for them to distinguish when you’re throwing EVERYTHING at them all at once. So- going through one technique at a time feels much more precise and clean. It feels like an experiment. It’s an opportunity to slow myself down and restrain my tendency to overdo.

4. The good thing about experiments is how impersonal they can be. Doing hypnosis as part of the hypnokink community has given me so many valuable skills. I’ve loved getting closer to people I play with. However, the downside of that is that it’s brought a lot of anxiety into doing hypnosis that wasn’t there as strongly before. I hate how much fear about being disappointing I carry into play (as though I were doing something of Serious Import and not something explicitly called “play”). However, in an experiment, I’m just implementing a procedure. It’s much easier to remove my ego from success or failure- or concerns that I’m going to fuck up an entire relationship through lack of talent. I’m just in charge of giving @minddiver a series of possibilities and letting him pick which ones work for him. If something doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean anything about our relationship or my skill level. That’s relieving in a way.

When I know and care about the person I’m doing hypnotic things with, suddenly this very technical skill becomes much more about the relationship. And that sucks because 

 Anyway, since that book came out, I've really wanted to work through it systematically with a partner to help them experience amnesia as well as really get down some of the techniques. I've floated the ideas to a few partners but it's never really worked out for whatever reason. In one instance, committing time to weekly sessions is definitely a thing. Also, hacking away at a certain skill can be, for lack of a better word, a bit annoying. If someone really wants to be able to do amnesia, it can be very frustrating to go through lots of different techniques to find that none of them work. Especially if other things that you do together are successful and fun, why stay hyperfocused on something that ain't working? It feels like something that could could start to feel like work.

I also find it really comforting to do something that's relatively proscribed for a bit. My brain tends to hate me and has been going through a thing lately where I feel like the world's most terrible, disappointing hypnotist. It didn't do this as much when I did hypnosis monthly at meetups and occasionally with friends outside of that. Now whenever I do hypnosis, my brain has started to tell at me about all the ways I'm screwing up and being extraordinarily disappointing.

*See also- The anxiety spiral I sometimes fall into about what a boring and untalented subject I am.

**See also- The anxiety spiral I sometimes fall into about what a boring and untalented hypnotist I am.

[tabletoppotluck]

A Town Called Malice Potluck Blog

The clouds have passed over Malice. As the rain washes away our fears, we will in turn pour our feelings on this system over your willing eyes and ears. If you don’t have time to listen to the potluck episode, here’s a handy blog post to reference as you decide whether or not you want to click that Buy-It-Now button! So now let’s dig in to A Town Called Malice (ATCM) by David Kizzia and Monkeyfun Studios.

Remember to take our review with a grain of salt since the game is likely to change by the time it is officially released!

Our first discussion topic was the Nordic Horror setting and its effectiveness in this system.  Even our players who were not well-versed in Nordic Horror still really enjoyed the setting and the eerie feel made possible in such a small town. We made sure to touch on the fact that although we made the Darkness something supernatural, the game does not specify that; your Darkness can be as terrifyingly real as you wish! The rules and creation guides leave many options to the players while guiding them along an easily spoopy situation.

The game appears to be very open to possibilities. With that in mind, David Kizzia mentions the possibility of a PvP playstyle. The Beta rules do not go into detail on this, but the entire team is very interested in learning more about that choice! We’re personally hoping for some Betrayal at House on the Hill surprise twisty goodness!

Continuing on, the playbooks fit perfectly in the setting (if you want a sneak peak at every playbook, check out our Session 0 at patreon.com/tabletoppotluck). The archetypal structure of the characters lets you take a very specific role and implement it however you’d like to fit your desired story. It’s very easy to make a community through the playbooks, and they’re all made to build a seamless sense of community. You start the game by creating your characters which includes creating a location in town and an NPC that fits with it. This includes everyone in the world building and makes it more of a group activity instead of just running a cut and dry setting guide. We love the inclusion of the players in worldbuilding in any game and were so excited to see it explicitly asked for here.

On the subject of structure, we addressed a unique feature of ATCM. Instead of a singular GM running the game, the system requires a narrator. This can either be one player (who also has a character in the game) or the role can be shared by all players, each taking turn with the role as the spotlight shifts between them. As lovers of secrets and unknown horrors, a lot of us questioned how effectively a scary story can be told if 1. Everyone knows the secrets or 2. No one knows the secrets and it’s all improv. As a sole narrator, Megan found it a bit difficult to balance knowing the hidden information and trying not to meta-game as her PC. That being said, we all agreed that we wouldn’t want to give up the feature of all players taking turns being NPCs. This fits better with a rotating narrator, or at least a narrator who doesn’t take the sole role of GM, and really solidifies this as a game of community.  You build the town, you continue to help it grow as you create new locations, and you lend your voice to the community. It’s very rounded out between every player and no .

As much as we believe comparing this game to Fiasco is like comparing apples to oranges, we want to touch on the topic because they’re both technically GM-less games. If you want a bit more structure to your improv TTRPG, ATCM has a lot of it. Fiasco is, as the name suggests, more of a chaotic, comedic whirlwind. It’s the different of wanting a fun, Cohen brothers film or a darker Fargo. If you’re a fan of a bit more structure and darker narratives, you’ll love A Town Called Malice.

Some players might struggle with the fact that the existence of full success/mixed success/ full failure endings leads some people to stray a little bit away from natural roleplay due to the innate desire to win. If you want a full success, you most likely will end up meta-gaming at least a little bit as you head towards the final act and confrontation with the darkness. And that’s fair! But if you want that out of your games, you might take up issue with ATCM. At the same time, this leads to very cooperative play which can be a joy if you’ve had problems with adventuring parties that are constantly questioning why they travel together.

On the subject of Scenes: There are 5 different possible scenes you can choose to run on your turn. These either resolve something personal for your character or address a story pillar of the game. As we’ve seen throughout ATCM, that’s a lot of options to keep you from feeling trapped in only one choice. You can help your friends, fight alone, or just go out and do whatever puts your character ahead. And that’s a good concept. We could see some of the scenes growing more from where they currently are, but other than that it’s a pretty good start! Each brings something different in the evolution of the acts, but their effects are still pretty easy to follow. The change between the acts itself can be very subtle and that can let the importance of the ending sneak up on you. It’s important to remember that this game will eventually end and there can be dire consequences for your choices even from the first act. That being said, you need to stay on your toes if you want to win because one dice roll can change the entire game.

As was just mentioned, this game has an ending. This isn’t really built to be played over years and years (though there are notes in the book for continuing the story). If you feel like you don’t have the time to commit to an RPG campaign, ATCM can be a perfect option for telling deep, dark stories on a busy schedule. The team had a bit of a disagreement on if this game can be picked up and played on a moment’s notice, even though it’s very low commitment (aside from emotional). Marquez thinks it depends on the people you run it with. Ray thinks it still requires setup to be run well. Like the Betrayal at House on the Hill boardgame, it requires a bit of setup and a certain level of investment, so it really is up to you if that’s the type of game you’d go for at a party! If that sounds like a party for you, invite Megan.

This is a game for “spooky binches,” those who like mysteries and thrillers, psychological film nerds (Jacobs Ladder), and serious improv troupes (which should totally exist). If you want to play normal people confronting things far above their understanding and normal wheelhouse, then this is a game for you.

So would we play it again?

-Sally wants to experience mixed success endings and failures.

-Marquez wants to play the other playbooks.

-Ray would possibly play it but isn’t chomping at the bit. She wants to see a PvP playthrough though.

-Megan can’t wait to see what changes will be made when the Kickstarter has done.

Some tips for playing:

-If you want more instances of the darkness having a chance to come in to play, play with more than 4 players! And work on confronting the darkness as much as you can!

-Like any game, play with it. If you want to modify the rules for a certain mechanic to fit your group better, feel free! There are so many options in this game, it feels like optimization really fits the spirit of the system.

-Make sure you’re upping the stakes as you get closer to the ending! The game doesn’t necessarily tell you when to do that (aside from Darkness scene failures), so follow your gut and let that darkness shine!

-Sally thinks that this game is a bit difficult for people who have no experience with tabletop roleplaying games. So if you’ve got newbies in your group, make sure you’re checking in with them to make sure they’re getting the most out of the game! Also, probably shepherd them through it with a selected narrator instead of taking turns with that role.

A Town Called Malice is on Kickstarter from April 23rd-May 24th: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/monkeyfunstudios/a-town-called-malice-a-nordic-horror-story-game

[biscuitreviews]

Biscuit Talks About Anthem

This is a bit weird for me. When I started this blog, a rule that I said to myself was that I wouldn’t review MMOs, multiplayer only, or live service games. It’s not that I hate these type of games. It’s just that due to their nature, a review I would make for those genres would be completely obsolete in a matter of weeks. Mechanics and content are constantly changing and evolving. I didn’t want someone looking into the game months later and find a review from a point in the game’s past that is no longer relevant at that point in time.

However, I think I’m going to make a special case for BioWare’s Anthem. This isn’t going to be a review of the game, more like an impression piece. I’m pretty sure that Anthem will improve in a few months. But as it currently sits, there are some things we need to talk about.

Oh and if you're from the future looking into Anthem, this impression piece was posted on March 21, 2019, so keep that in mind future people that stumble upon this considering whether or not you jump into the game.

First, I want to go ahead and talk about the positives of Anthem before going into the negatives.

The marquee mechanic, flying, is actually a whole lot of fun. It feels really smooth and the flying behavior with each javelin is different. Rangers are standard, Interceptors are quick and nimble, Storms are smooth, and Colossus’ are bulky and hard to turn.  Flying also gives a new verticality to the map having caves, underwater areas and other crevices that would not have been explorable if you simply stayed on the ground. It’s fun to fly around and explore these areas to see what they might hold, some of them leading to instanced areas to further explore.

Using the different abilities and shooting feels really satisfying. Something that BioWare has definitely improved on with their experience with the Mass Effect series. Each javelin also has their own unique abilities and roles in combat. You start with one and can eventually unlock the others as your pilot level increases.

Pilot levels serve as milestones. As your level increases, you can equip more things to your javelin to make it more effective in combat. You can also unlock consumable slots which can grant you temporary boosts for one session, something that comes in handy when tackling harder difficulties of missions and the end game content.

The facial animations are also a big improvement from past BioWare games. That's right, I said games as in multiple. This has kind of been a staple with BioWare games, Andromeda was just a lot more noticeable. Granted there are still a few odd animations here and there, but for the most part they are actually really well done.

Exploring Fort Tarsis is also pretty neat and it’s nice seeing little changes happen within as you progress not only the main story, but the faction contracts as well. This gives doing these side missions more weight as they have visible impacts.

Now, before I get into the negative stuff, I do want to discuss some questionable stuff with Anthem. These aren’t necessarily bad things with the game, just things where I don’t understand why BioWare took certain design choices.

First, the story and how you interact with NPCs. When BioWare talked about doing a more linear story, I was a bit eager to see what would come out of it. It was also a risky decision on BioWare’s part as they’re known for having great stories with impacting choices. By not having to consider multiple paths and how they would tie into certain plot points, BioWare knew they were probably going to alienate part of their audience. Especially since that audience has certain expectations after playing their games for over 20 years. I’ll admit breaking from norms can be scary but sometimes you have to take risks if you want to grow and I actually commend BioWare for wanting to experiment.

BioWare themselves even noted how refreshing it was to have not only this type of story, but to prioritize gameplay (an aspect I’ll get into more detail on later). This is also where I’m going to have to question them. In the main story, there are no decision points at all, everything is linear and you just watch the story and cutscenes play out. Again, not bad, but considering talking to NPCs in the Fort Tarsis, that’s where it gets questionable.

In Fort Tarsis you can engage in side conversations with NPCs and there are decision points. Granted there are only two decisions, with some of them impacting that particular NPC’s story and some of them having no impact at all. it’s just weird that these moments are only tied to these side conversations. Why couldn’t we have some light decisions in the main story as well? It’s just odd that we’re impacting the lives of the people within Fort Tarsis, rather than our companions.

That’s not to say you don’t have these types of conversations with your companions, you do. What’s strange is that these conversations with them have no impact on the main story. Why even have these conversations with the main story cast at all if it has no impact on their relationship in the overall narrative.

Customizations and cosmetics I felt were also handled very weirdly. You can customize the color of your javelin anyway you want giving your javelin a bit of an identify. This is great because you’ll need that to stand out as there are not a whole cosmetic pieces you can get for your javelin. Each javelin has one set that can be bought with just Coins, a currency you can only acquire in game. The other pieces, you have to go through the featured store. You can buy items from that store with Coins you gain in game, however it’s apparent that they want you to purchase Shards with real money to buy these items as the Coin cost is pretty high. The selection with the stores is also pretty bare, as it features two armor sets, and four small items, like emotes, metal finishes of the javelin, nylon fabrics, poses, and emblems. These items refresh every few days so if something isn’t to your liking, you just have to wait a couple days for the refresh and maybe something you like will be there.

The weirder thing about the armor sets is they are only for certain types of javelins so if one of those two sets isn’t for a javelin that you use, you’re going to be forced to wait until the store decides to feature an armor set for that javelin. It’s even weirder as this store was a required mandate by EA to have the game be monetizable in someway. You would figure there would be more options and variety but there isn’t. I can’t help but question if there might have been resistance of including this store considering how ill implemented it is.

Now for the negatives.

The current main story of Anthem, feels more like a chapter of the main story rather than THE story. It introduces other plot points that will be touched up on in later expansions. It serves more as an appetizer of what’s to come, rather than going through a main story. I can’t help but wonder why release it now when it’s clearly showing in the narrative that it wasn’t ready.

Remember how I mentioned BioWare said it was refreshing to prioritize gameplay? I guess what they meant by that was doing the same mission over and over again. Mission structure follows this formula: land in mission area, fly to point A, kill bad guys, fly to point B, kill bad guys, fly to point C, kill bad guys. Even the variety of these points is also repetitive. Hold point, save hostages, and collect things and that’s it. 

There are a couple of puzzles that were sprinkled in to try to break the monotony, but they’re super basic and feel tacked on. These puzzles feel like they’re there in hopes that you’ll think the gameplay is varied, but it’s not. They’re just an unnecessary roadblock that is there to pad out gameplay, they’re not fun or challenging.

I also feel Anthem has a bit of an identity crisis. The story and Fort Tarsis act like it’s a single player game. It treats the player like they are the sole hero. The missions even treat you as such. The game is fully playable solo, but Anthem has this insistence that you should play it with people. Even when you go for a private play session. The game will aggressively tell you “Hey, it’s best experienced with a group. Are you sure you want to stay private?” If I want to play privately solo or with friends (in the case of this playthrough, my wife) and it doesn’t make a full group, then let me play without forcing me to make things public. Even Destiny, a game that encourages players to play together doesn’t push its players this aggressively.

Also, because of how weirdly instanced everything is, there’s no sense of community for a game that touts itself as an live service multiplayer game. You can enter into public settings, but it doesn’t feel like a cohesive multiplayer experience, more like you just entered an online co-op mode.

Finally, there’s the technical difficulties Anthem faces. I experienced frequent server disconnections. I was actually surprised by how often this happened as BioWare has made Star Wars: The Old Republic, an MMORPG that to this day, is still considered the smoothest launch ever experienced from a game within the MMO genre. It’s just weird that Anthem, also an online only game, suffers from random disconnects and it doesn’t even have to account for a large number of players on its servers like Star Wars did on launch.

There’s also still quite a bit of random bugs and glitches. Sometimes when you defeat enemies there’s this delay in their death animation where they just remain standing and after a few seconds they disappear. Sometimes armor cosmetics might not properly load. There was a couple of times my wife’s javelin, ended up headless and resorted to the default colors of the Interceptor javelin for a whole mission. This would only appear on my end though, my wife didn’t see that on her end but she did have my javelin on occasion do that on her end. There were times where I would start a mission headless and be unable to jump, which after a few seconds would lead to a disconnect.

So here’s what Anthem can do to be better.

Stabilize their servers. Contact their current staff or the current team that is on Star Wars: The Old Republic for ideas on how to fix the technical side of Anthem. A live service game is nothing without a stable connection.

Add more cosmetics that can only be bought with coins. The fact there is only one set per javelin is laughable. Having more sets can bring more variety to a person’s javelin to where they can make their own unique javelin.

Add more slots to your Feature Store. I get it, EA has mandated that you need this. As much as I would like this to go away entirely, that’s not going to happen. So let’s make it better. As much as I hate saying this (and I can’t believe I’m encouraging this), you need to make it attractive with more options. Have at least two unique sets for every javelin that rotate out every few days. Cut the coin cost by a little bit. 61,000 Coins for an armor set is a bit much. Have a good balance to where it’s easily more attainable, like a 40,000 Coin price. Your players will still have to do a bit of grinding, but not an obscene amount of it. Mark it up to 61,000 for really special sets, like holiday themes or special in-game events. Study how Overwatch does their pricing with cosmetics. Activision/Blizzard found a good balance so maybe find a way to improve that model (I really can’t believe I just said that).

BioWare, you’re already making small improvements to Anthem and it’s showing. I love how General Manager Casey Hudson has admitted the game’s faults and has openly expressed disappointment in how it came out. That type of transparency is well appreciated and should be continued moving forward.

Anthem is a game that I consider frustratedly fun. There is a good foundation here to make way for something great, but there are quite a few design choices, quality of life concerns, and technical difficulties that truly hold this game back. But that doesn’t mean it’s doomed. Destiny and The Division, two games that are also live service looter shooter games, also had rough first impressions. I’m confident Anthem will find its foothold in the future, but it’s not there yet.

As for scoring Anthem, I feel I cannot score this game properly. As I have already previously mentioned, it’s a live service game that will change in time. The version that I played when writing this piece, won’t be the same version 3 months from now or even 6 months from now. It will be different.

I can however, recommend this. Wait. Wait for BioWare to stabilize the servers and patch out the worst of the bugs. Definitely wait until then or until a sale happens, it’s not worth it at its current state.

[sekscamera-blog]

Safe Sex Equals a Healthy Penis

The commonest definition of cybersex is a virtual sexual encounter between two or more individuals utilizing the Internet. It could possibly involve folks viewing each other over a webcam or communicating by Click here for Wikipedia way of text based messages, prompt messaging, webcam, voice, Skype, both in a chat room, on a message board, utilizing a video service, via on the spot messaging or by means of an electronic mail system.

Some have expanded the time period to incorporate on-line pornography, but for us, the definition given above shall be our body of reference. Since the folks involved are often miles and even continents aside, of course no precise sex occurs and what happens is technically thought-about masturbation.

There's nothing inherently fallacious with cybersex itself, and is usually a way for long-distance couples to attach on a more intimate stage than previous know-how would enable. But it surely rises to the level of sex dependancy when a person is doing it compulsively, using it to suppress damaging feelings and maybe substitute sekscam them with false emotions of intimacy and love. A healthy grownup can cut back on online sexual behavior if it threatens relationships, causes them problems or takes over large parts of their life. An individual affected by an habit might use the Web to fill his or her wants and can't reign within the behavior.

Folks, both with an dependancy or with out, exhibit all method of sexual preferences and wishes. A person with sex habit searching for physical gratification may be content material to masturbate to on-line pornography, and one in search of bodily contact together with that gratification may go to prostitutes or visit quite a few consensual companions.

By way of the extent of intimacy and social interaction required, cybersex is one step above masturbating to pornography and one under visiting a prostitute. Even throughout the habits itself are a spread of intimacy ranges. A chat room that makes use of only textual content is the least intimate of an individual's online choices. The intercourse addict knows there is a actual individual on the opposite keyboard interacting with them in actual time, however they could not know every others' names, physical look, gender or anything else except for what they write on a screen. A certain degree of detachment is preserved, and there may be room for fantasy nonetheless. A chat room or text message board is normally the place a cybersex-based mostly intercourse dependancy will start.

Within the chat room, footage may be exchanged between the parties and can then segue into the usage of voice chats, telephone intercourse and or webcams. This does not mean the folks involved have stored the identical companions throughout the transition. Cybersex has the added lure of offering a number of sex companions with whom the addict can have informal, sexual encounters to fuel his fantasies.

A extra problematic side of this specific addiction is the heightened stage of intimacy it gives for an addict, something past traditional pornography viewing. With sex addiction, rational thought may be overridden by the need to fill the necessity, which in these instances might be one thing beyond bodily intercourse. Maybe two folks engage in behavior with one another extra often than they do others. One or both might feel a bond Seks Camera forming, nonetheless this bond will likely be primarily based on filling sexual needs and never contain different points of a wholesome relationship. To a person with a intercourse addiction, this bond will feel real, and just as actual feeling does, it's going to cause ache when it inevitably comes apart. This leaves the intercourse addict with extra unfavorable emotions which he will then suppress with but more addictive habits.

Different issues that may crop up with a cybersex-based intercourse dependancy are the same ones that may be seen in anybody with any kind of intercourse addiction problem. Spending giant parts of time, greater than 10 hours per week online taking part in sexual habits, is an indication there may very well be a problem. The individual laying aside work or other actions so as to interact in online intercourse act can be an indicator. In fact a spouse or romantic companion might not see much of a difference between cybersex and actual intercourse and consider it an infidelity.

Cybersex can expose a sex addict to more regarding problems as properly. Whereas it is important to keep in mind not all sex addicts are sex offenders, the nature of it lends itself to those that are disposed to experimentation. An addict can pretend to be whoever he desires to be on-line or discover someone pretending to be, or who actually is, a minor. An individual in charge of his or herself can avoid authorized problems, but a person with intercourse addiction might not.

Online Courting on net is not seeing that simple as people consider. Of course, effectively-appreciated courting services carry an enormous database of active members so that you can determine your date or pal from, however on one event you have come crossways the right profile, "How do you go on from there?

Grownup personals are the staring level the place you search for profiles Internet in a relationship service. On the first case, you can ship a wink to seek out out browse around this blog if the individual is all in favour of you as nicely. Then you allow him to visit your profile on that dating website once she or he has accepted your enchantment.

Whence curiosity develops extra then you definitely completely will like to know the particular person earlier than assembly face to face. Moreover know as much as about the individual that helps to offer you a proper photo of what sort of person he or she is, and whether or not you discover compatibility with him or not. That is should when you are eager about online matchmaking for enduring relationship or romance and love, and still after you are in seek for a sex companion on long-term base.

(If you're thinking about informal relationship or else informal intercourse then the procedure of evaluating your rendezvous may be shorter, since if factor do not come into sight proper you may say good bye with out emotion uncomfortable or shedding face. This could happen to you as nicely. That's the reason there are particular portals for casual relationship. For no strings connected sex or one nightstand. Gangbang thanks ma'am sort of hyperlink.)

E-mail messaging is ok but not so reliable. Subsequently, online chat is the next step you should to go into and allow messaging continues as well. On no account, give your telephone number or residence deal with until you're very confident. On-line chat is excellent. Arrange for a talk online in the speak division of the relationship website you are a part of it. Chat as a lot as you'll be able to. Chat commonly until you get an ideal picture of the person you'll go relationship with.

Stay webcams ought to be the next step to go after for attending to know the person nonetheless better. Webcam deliver direct picture of the person you might be dialog with. Subsequently, you can get hold of a thought of his or her bodily attributes that will help a lot better so that you can decide to fulfill in person for a date. Live webcams ship chat as effectively however within the first case, you could not desire the particular person to see you till you construct up some confidence. This is particularly smart in case of courting in native space.

There are many utilities accessible on the Internet courting sites for these penetrating for romance, love, and open relationships online. Like dating counsel, dating articles and dating pointers that hone you perceive on relationship and relationship constructing process that with no hesitation is an important a part of your life as a singles.

In the present day's technology just isn't only specializing in making our lives simple and reaching extra nevertheless it additionally tried to make our life fun and exciting. Know-how created advancement in gaming and attracted extra people and players on-line particularly with the introduction of the brand new options animation and graphics.

They come in several variation of on-line games corresponding to card games or sexual twist. Such video games could be performed with a computer generated character or controlled setting with a theme or a really open-ended kind recreation. Video games are made for individuals of various sexual orientations as to completely different races or faith and it doesn't matter what sort of game there's enjoyable to be had for adults using sex games.

There are completely different ranges of interaction to on-line intercourse video games out there now and are being upgraded and in production. Such recreation will only require little input to the player and consist extra of video-kind. The virtual characters may be personalized and might select what they look like and wear, the varieties of activities they engage in, what they say or the conditions they find themselves in. Online intercourse games are also being used to actual interaction with actual individuals versus playing to the computer. And it includes a typed of interaction or actual spoken and visual interplay utilizing microphones and webcams. This is the new strategy to assembly and dating individuals whereas attaining the benefits. Males will get pleasure from an instantaneous intercourse so long as they wanted and ladies can take it slower as to how the boys wish it to do and vice versa.

Other games will also let you entry and update your personal avatar online. Though on-line grownup video games by no means can replace other social mediums individuals might use these interactions to build confidence https://www.sekscamera.nl or to compensate for momentary intervals of loneliness. The characters of the web gaming will be capable to undertaking a steady surroundings wherein gamers can feel safe, satisfied and in management.

Having to play on-line intercourse games doesn't imply that one is sex disadvantaged or a sex freak., In many circumstances it's merely used to spice up or complement an active intercourse life. And generally these games are used as a facilitator for cybersex between couples who are in an extended distance relationship. Also be used as a medium by way of which fantasies that they're too shy to enact in real life can be acted out by the internet.

[siliconwebx]

Pipdig Updates P3 Plugin after Reports Expose Vendor Backdoors, Built-in Kill Switch, and Malicious DDoS Code

Over the weekend, Pipdig, a small commercial theme company, has been at the center of a scandal after multiple reports exposed a litany of unethical code additions to its Pipdig Power Pack (P3) plugin.

On Friday, March 29, Wordfence threat analyst Mikey Veenstra published a report with code examples of the backdoors Pipdig built into their plugin, along with some unsavory and questionable additions to the code.

“We have confirmed that the plugin, Pipdig Power Pack (or P3), contains code which has been obfuscated with misleading variable names, function names, and comments in order to hide these capabilities,” Veenstra said.

These include an unauthenticated password reset to a hard-coded string, which was deliberately obscured with code comments indicating it was added to “check for new social channels to add to navbar.” Veenstra also demonstrated how the plugin contained code for an unauthenticated database deletion, wherein the Pipdig team could remotely destroy any site WordPress site using the P3 plugin.

The code for remote site deletion was removed in version 4.8.0 but it still a concern for users who haven’t updated. Michael Waterfall, iOS Engineer at ASOS, tested the “kill switch” function and demonstrated that it still works with prior versions.

It also confirms they lied. They _still_ have the ability to wipe any blog that hasn't updated to the new plugin version (4.8.0), which they hurriedly released to delete the kill switch after they were exposed the other day. pic.twitter.com/bNMfRQUBpr

— Michael Waterfall (@mwaterfall) March 31, 2019

Veenstra’s investigation also uncovered questionable remote calls in the plugin’s cron events, undisclosed content and configuration rewrites, and a list of popular plugins that are immediately deactivated when P3 is activated, without the user’s knowledge. He found that some of these plugins are deactivated alongside admin_init, so any user attempts to reactivate the plugins will not stick.

Wordfence estimates the P3 plugin to have an install base of 10,000-15,000 sites. The changes made in version 4.8.0 of the plugin are not transparently identified in the changelog, so it’s not easy for users to know what has changed. The content filtering and the plugin deactivations remain in the most recent release. These types of veiled functions performed without permission could have unintended consequences on sites using the plugin, which non-technical users may not be able to fix themselves.

Pipdig P3 Plugin Performed a DDoS Attack on a Competitor’s Site

Jem Turner, a freelance web developer based in the UK, published a lengthy analysis of the P3 plugin the same day that Wordfence released its analysis. She drilled down further into the remote requests, demonstrating how Pipdig has been using the P3 plugin to perform a DDoS attack on a competitor who also provides WordPress themes and installation services to bloggers. The code triggers an hourly cron job on users’ sites, effectively using their customers’ servers to send malicious requests to the competitor’s site.

The code comment tells us this is “checking the CDN (content delivery network) cache”. It’s not. This is performing a GET request on a file (id39dqm3c0_license_h.txt) sat on pipdigz.co.uk, which yesterday morning returned ‘https://kotrynabassdesign.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php’ in the response body.

Every single hour night and day, without any manual intervention, any blogger running the pipdig plugin will send a request with a faked User Agent to ‘https://kotrynabassdesign.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php’ with a random number string attached. This is effectively performing a small scale DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) on kotrynabassdesign.com’s server.

Turner also contacted Kotryna Bass, Pipdig’s competitor, who said she had contacted her host after finding that her admin-ajax.php file was under some kind of attack. Bass’ exchanges with her host are also published in Turner’s report.

Turner’s post explained how Pipdig’s P3 plugin code manipulated links to point to their own products and services when a user includes a link to a competitor in the the content:

Here we have pipdig’s plugin searching for mentions of ‘blogerize.com‘ with the string split in two and rejoined – concatenated – to make it harder to find mentions of competitors when doing a mass ‘Find in Files’ across the plugin (amongst other things). When the plugin finds links to blogerize.com in blogger’s content (posts, pages), they’re swapped out with a link to ‘pipdig.co/shop/blogger-to-wordpress-migration/’ i.e. pipdig’s own blog migration services. Swapping these links out boost the SEO benefit to pipdig, and the vast majority of bloggers wouldn’t notice the switcheroo (especially as if the page/post was edited, the link to blogerize would appear in the backend as normal).

The plugin did not ask users’ permission before performing any of these actions and most of them were implemented with obfuscated code. Turner’s investigation also covers how the P3 plugin could harvest data and change admin passwords. Many of the findings overlap with Wordfence’s analysis.

“I was aware that Wordfence had been contacted for an opinion, although I was unaware they were writing a post and vice versa,” Turner said. “I wasn’t surprised that they wrote about it though, given the risk to WordPress users.”

She has been in contact with authorities regarding Pipdig’s unethical coding practices and privacy violations.

“From my side of things, I’ve been in contact with Action Fraud (submitted a report through their website) and NCSC (who pointed me back to Action Fraud and gave me a number to call). From pipdig’s side, there are threats of legal action in their blog post but I’ve received nothing yet.”

Pipdig’s Public Response Skirts Critical Concerns

Pipdig Creative Director Phil Clothier published a public response from the company which opens by characterizing the recent investigations as “various accusations and rumours spreading about pipdig” and includes an emotional plea regarding how distressing recent developments have been for his company. He claims that his team and their supporters are being harassed.

After pushing out the 4.8.0 version of the P3 plugin, removing some but not all of the offensive code, Clothier opts for a Q&A style format for his post, putting every question in the present tense:

Do you DDOS competitors? No.

Do you “kill” sites? No!

Do you have the ability to kill sites via the pipdig Power Pack? No

Regarding the “kill switch” feature they built in, which detects all tables with the WordPress prefix and drops each of them, Clothier said it was simply a function to reset a site back to its default settings. He deliberately misrepresented what it does:

There was function in an older version of the plugin which could be used to reset a site back to the default settings. This function had no risk of of malicious or unintentional use. I can say categorically that there was no risk to your site if you were using a pipdig theme. This feature has been dug up and labelled a “Kill Switch” for maximum negative impact on us.

Clothier claims the function was available in the P3 plugin in July 2018 when a third party started posting Pipdig themes for sale on their own site:

A 3rd party was able to download all of our themes illegitimately and post them on a clone of our own site. This included previews of our themes and the ability to purchase them. We were first alerted to this by people which had purchased a pipdig theme from there, but were finding that certain features did not work correctly. After investigation, we found that the victim had purchased the theme from the 3rd party, thinking it was us. The 3rd party not only gained the financial benefit of the theme payment, but also used it as a way to inject malware and ads into the victim’s site. The reset function was put in place in order to remove the 3rd party’s ability to host preview sites with our themes. It worked, and they have since disappeared. The function was then removed in a later version of the plugin.

This is a false claim, as Wordfence pointed out in an updated article. The first instance of the code responsible for database deletion was committed to the plugin in November 2017.

The company failed to address the most critical concerns presented in the Wordfence analysis in its first pass at issuing a public statement. Instead, on the matter of coordinating a DDoS attack on competitors, Pipdig blames users and suggests they may have added the competitor’s URL to their sites.

“We’re now looking into why this function is returning this url,” Clothier said. “However, it seems to suggest that some of the ‘Author URLs’ have been set to ‘kotrynabassdesign.com’. We don’t currently know why this is the case, or whether the site owner has intentionally changed this.”

Further investigations published by Wordfence today showed that Pipdig also added DDoS code to its Blogger templates and was actively issuing malicious requests up until yesterday:

During the investigation of Pipdig’s WordPress plugin and themes, we also came across some curious code associated with their Blogger themes. This code is part of Pipdig’s suspected DDoS campaign against their competitor, and was active until April 1, four days after Pipdig’s denial of any such behavior.

Some of Pipdig’s Blogger themes have been confirmed to make external JavaScript calls to Pipdig’s server, specifically to the script hXXps://pipdigz[.]co[.]uk/js/zeplin1.js.

On March 31, as the investigations became public, Pipdig deleted its public Bitbucket repository and replaced it with a “clean one,” removing three years of commit history. Wordfence and many others cloned the repository before it was deleted and saved snapshots of pages to cite in the investigation.

That clean repository @pipdig published earlier today in place of the one containing all of their malicious code… They changed the reported release date of version 4.8.0. pic.twitter.com/YqKASTUZE7

— Nicky Bloor (@nickstadb) April 1, 2019

Pipdig’s public statement contains a number of other false claims that are outlined in Wordfence’s followup piece with code examples. Clothier closes the article by casting aspersion on the press, presumably to encourage customers not to trust what they read from other sources.

I contacted Pipdig for their comment on recent events, but Clothier declined to answer any of my questions. One of those was why the plugin disables Bluehost’s caching plugin without informing customers.

Another one from the @pipdig plugin. If you use one of their themes on @bluehost then they intentionally slow your website down by disabling the BlueHost cache plugin, then they can inject content with the title "Is your host slowing you down?" CC @jemjabella @heyitsmikeyv pic.twitter.com/48DUXsDyBj

— Nicky Bloor (@nickstadb) March 31, 2019

Clothier said he didn’t have any comments beyond what he said in the public statement but encouraged anyone interested to read the new comments added to the code in version 4.9.0:

We’ve also updated version 4.9.0 of the plugin which includes extra commenting in the code, which will hopefully help clear things up like issues with Bluehost caching and the_content() filter.

If anyone is unsure, we recommend updating to the latest version as always. However we also contend that the previous versions had no serious issues too.

Pipdig declined to answer questions about licensing but the products do not appear to be GPL-licensed. This may be why the company deemed it within its rights to take action on those who they believe to have “stolen” their themes.

Pipdig Customers Share Mixed Reactions to Reports of Vendor Backdoors and DDoS Attacks

In what is perhaps one of the most brazen abuses I’ve ever seen from a theme company in WordPress’ history, Pipdig’s user base has unknowingly been used to target the company’s competitors. Regardless of the company’s motive in combatting the unauthorized distribution of their themes, these types of backdoors and undisclosed content rewrites are indefensible. They prey upon user trust and in this case the victims were primarily bloggers.

I think that's why so many of us are so angry. Bloggers are the lifeblood of #WordPress, you create content and for the most part don't have big budgets to spend. So when someone takes advantage of that those at the "low budget" end of the market, those that cant afford devs…

— Andy Powell (@p0welly) March 31, 2019

One of the more puzzling aspects of this story is that many of Pipdig’s users seem to be unfazed by the gravity of the findings in these reports. Without full knowledge of the inner workings of a product, many customers make decisions based on how they feel about a company, regardless of being confronted with facts that should cause them to question their experiences.

I’m not concerned. I trust them. And I’m certainly not panicking and acting on the words of two blog posts citing their competitors. They’ve served me well for years.

— Caroline Hirons (@CarolineHirons) March 29, 2019

Others are angry to have had their sites used in an attack. Getting set up on a new theme is not a trivial task for non-technical users who may have had to pay a developer to launch their sites in the first place.

Honestly? I’m really angry. I trusted them for years, and in return my site has been used maliciously against other small businesses. I’ve been watching this unfold since Friday but even this update shocked me. https://t.co/mPsO8EoHBp

— Charlotte (@bycharlotteann_) April 2, 2019

“My mind is absolutely blown by pipdig’s public response,” Jem Turner said. “I understand that they were counting on their users’ completely non-tech background to bamboozle them, and it certainly seemed to be working in the beginning, but anyone with even the slightest bit of coding knowledge can see that they are lying and I genuinely don’t understand how they think they’ll get away with it.”

The crazy part is if we want to be really real about this, it's more like

The cable guy cut a big hole in my wall and installed a door handle on it. He took some painter's tape and scrawled "THIS IS A CABLE BOX" on the drywall. Then looked me in the eyes and said "No I didn't."

— Mikey Veenstra (@heyitsmikeyv) March 31, 2019

This incident shines a spotlight on how unregulated the commercial plugin and theme ecosystem is and how little protection users have from companies that abuse their power. If you are a Pipdig customer affected by this incident, there is no assurance that the company will not build more backdoors into your site in the future. The plugin updates are not reviewed by any kind of authority. Fortunately, there are a few actions you can take to create a safer environment for your website.

First, look for GPL-licensed themes and plugins, because they grant you more freedoms as the user and are compatible with WordPress’ legal license. GPL-licensed products are also a strong indication that the authors respect user freedoms and the shared economic principles that this open source license supports.

Many reputable theme companies choose to host their products’ companion plugins on WordPress.org for ease of distribution and shipping updates. The official directory does not permit these kinds of shady coding practices described in this article and all of the plugins go through a security review by the WordPress Plugin Team. If you are concerned about code quality and the potential for abuse, do a little research on your next prospective commercial theme provider or opt for free WordPress.org-hosted themes and plugins that have undergone a more rigorous vetting process.

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