#Chase Bank Holidays

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How I got scammed

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

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

I wuz robbed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That was the fraudster," she said.

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

Wait a sec.

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

I'd given him my entire card number.

Goddammit.

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

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

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

But I'd been conned.

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, shit, I'd been phished.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not because AI is going to commit fraud, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[ur-mag]

Chase bank confirms all branches will be closed for the day forcing customers to make alternative plans over holidays | In Trend Today

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[call-memissbrightside]

As a single parent, you worked overtime to make sure your son had a great Christmas… toys, clothes, all a good mixture of needs and wants.

The warm mug of much needed coffee was cuffed in your hand as you pretended to be at awe of all the presents Katsuma unwrapped.

His excitement made up for being woken up so early, a sleepy smile on your face as you watched Katsuma thank you over and over again for all the things you got him.

Christmas was usually a quiet thing in your household, Katsuma would unwrap all his presents, you’d unwrap whatever craft he made you in class, then the two of you would cuddle on the couch to watch Christmas cartoons. Katsuma would fall back asleep tucked into your side, and Christmas would be over.

Yet—

You hadn’t thought of what Christmas would be now that Katsuma had his father in his life.

A text from Katsuki in the early morning hours explained how he’d be a bit late coming over, something about a bank heist?

Right when Katsuma opened his last present did the doorbell ring, both of you perking up.

“It’s Daddy!” Katsuma’s excitement spiked, and he tumbled over all his toys and wrapping paper scattered across the floor to open the door.

“Ho ho ho brat!” Katsuki’s voice boomed, heavy boots from his hero costume mimicking the jolly man’s costume.

You explained to Katsuki that he shouldn’t go overboard with presents, Katsuma really didn’t need a swimming pool nor an electric car because he was just five, so you really thought he’d simmer it down when it came to gifting presents.

You were dead wrong.

“It’s a puppy!” Katsuma jumped around as his father carried in a small puppy in his arms, you noted how he must of just came back from a mission due to the fact that he had scratches and a rising bruise forming on his face. Nonetheless, your ex looked just as happy, carefully handing over the pup to Katsuma.

“A dog?” You were going to kill him.

Katsuma begged for a dog or any pet every year, but you just couldn’t do it. You worked all the time and lived in an apartment, plus all the responsibility would fall to you because Katsuma was five.

Katsuki had his famous smirk on his face, red eyes taking in your disbelief.

“Yea,” he said nonchalantly. “It’ll live with me, but can come visit when I come over.”

Relief made you fall back against your couch, visions of chasing around a teething puppy evaporating as quick as they formed.

Katsuma forgot all his other presents, now all his attention was on the small puppy.

“Mommy hold it!” He shoved the poor puppy in your lap.

Sensing you weren’t as excited as Katsuma, it curled up in your lap and fell asleep once you started petting his head as your son quickly excused himself to go, quote, “take a leak!”

Laughing, you looked at Katsuki. “You’re rubbing off on him.”

Katsuki snickered, collapsing next to you on the couch, clearly tired but still reached out to stroke the puppy on its head.

“Damn right, he’s my kid.” Katsuki smiled.

He truthfully hadn’t been this excited for Christmas in years, and seeing his sons reaction to his present made up for the fact that he had to fight off some lousy villains in the morning.

“A puppy? You trying to make me look bad?” You joked, still in disbelief that Katsuki ‘won’ Christmas. Not that it mattered, but you knew when Katsuma was asked what he got for the holiday, he’ll bring up the puppy rather then all the other toys you got him.

Katsuki tipped his head back to laugh.

“It’s my first Christmas with him,” he shrugged. “I wanted it to be memorable.”

Katsuki took something out of his pants, before handing you a small box.

“Oh Katsuki, you didn’t have to—,” you were quickly cut off.

“Just open it woman, sheez,” katsuki rolled his eyes.

Opening the box, you gasped, inside was a beautiful necklace with Katsuma’s birthstone and a small ‘k’ dangling next to it.

“So you’ll always have him with you, even when the brats at my house playing with my awesome present.” Katsuki knocked your shoulder with his.

You were touched by the sentiment, and the necklace was beautiful. It was thoughtful, and sweet, but you had something up your sleeve.

“Box on the left, it’s yours.”

Katsuki groaned as he got up to retrieve it, but returned to sitting next to you.

“Katsuma? Are you okay?” You called out to your little boy, slightly worried he was taking some time in the bathroom.

“I’s okay mommy!” His little voice called out. “I got a big dump!”

You and Katsuki both laugh, and the hero opens up his present.

It was a photo album of Katsuma over the years, you smiled fondly of all the photos you remember taking of your baby as Katsuki looked at every page. The last four pages had recent pictures of Katsuki with his son, some sly photos you took when they were together.

“I’m always going to be sorry I held Katsuma from you when he was born,” you explained, the similar guilt weighing heavily on your chest. “But,” you jutted your chin to the photo of Katsuki helping Katsuma ride his bike, “I hope we can make more memories together.”

Katsuki was silent. You worried for a moment you did something wrong when he didn’t say anything. Then—

The puppy barked unhappily from being startled when Katsuki hugged you tightly to his chest.

“Thank you,” he mumbled against your forehead. “This is the best present ever.”

You smiled, eyes becoming teary.

“I guess I ultimately won Christmas,” you teased.

Katsuki barked out a laugh, letting you go and petting the puppy again lazily, flipping through the pages again of the scrap book.

“I guess I can live with taking second place.”

[probably-writing-x]

Blushing Boy

Drew Starkey x Reader

Summary: There were few things that made Drew Starkey lose his confidence, in fact, perhaps only one could truly ever do it; you. He didn’t know how, or why, but you just seemed to have that goddamn effect on him.

Warnings: Nothing besties, just fluffy as heck

Author’s Note: Thank you so so much for the love on my other post, I just had to post this one too !! Please please send in any requests you have my angels <3

Not my gif

You were just about nearing the end of press for Outer Banks Season 3, and all bases had been covered - you’d done interviews to see how well you knew your cast mates, ones looking at scenes from the show, and, of course, the puppy interview. Today was your last day, though all of you were split up in different places, on different projects, and so the last day of interviews would be done over zoom. This was your first experience working on the show, having come in to play Rafe’s love interest as the start of the season. Thankfully, the fans had fallen in love with you, and especially with your storyline with Drew. So much so, in fact, that they’d started to ship you two as actors as well, adoring every moment that they saw you spend together. The two of you were just friends, but you can’t say you didn’t find it amusing whenever theories were made. And, being honest, some of the edits did make you two look cute.

That was your side of things, anyway. Drew had fallen for you at the same rate that Rafe had fallen for your character. He wanted to see you every morning you started work, waiting to catch sight of you on set. He wanted to film all of his scenes with you, watching in awe whenever you acted. He was mesmerised whenever he saw you at events, amazed by you from the red carpets to the earliest of mornings. Drew felt like a schoolboy around you, stumbling over his words, blushing at prolonged eye contact, ears pricking up at the sound of your name. And it only got worse the more he saw of you.

“Okay, thank you guys all for joining me today,” The interviewer begins, smiling widely into the screen, “We’ve got Madelyn, Chase, Madison, Rudy, Jonathon, Carlacia, Drew and (Y/N), the cast of season three of Outer Banks, now streaming on Netflix. How are you guys doing?”

“I’m good,” Madelyn smiles.

“I’m tired, I flew back from Paris today and I’m so jetlagged,” Madison laughs.

“Okay, we’ll start off with a question for Chase, how has it been with the new additions to the cast this season - with Carlacia and (Y/N). How does that fit in with the dynamic of you guys working together?”

Chase leans closer to his microphone and speaks, “You know I think we got really lucky again to work with another great group of people, we all get on so well and these two just fit in perfectly with that, and it makes it so easy to go to work when you’re with such a good bunch.”

“Amazing, and (Y/N), what was your experience like being on set?”

You shift in your seat, glancing at all of the faces on screen, “Like Chase said, it was just ideal getting to work with everyone, it’s like being on one long holiday all working together, you’re out in the sun everyday, you’re on the water, you’re doing stunts, it was just such a great experience. And I was so lucky to get to share the screen with Drew, he makes it so easy to come into work everyday and, I mean, it’s not exactly hard to pretend to fall in love with him.”

You glance at him on the screen and the way his eyes seem so transfixed as you speak, like he holds onto every syllable one at a time. He’s wearing a purple t-shirt that brings out his eyes and his hair is messy in that sort of perfect way it always was.

“And Drew, what was it like to be working with (Y/N) so closely?”

“Yeah, I mean,” He coughs over his words, “It was great, (Y/N) is just perfect to work with, I couldn’t have asked for anyone better. She’s so talented, and kind and supportive as an actress and she just made me want to get up every day and come into work.”

You’re sure your cheeks heat with the vulnerability of what he has said. His are bright red too, and you’re relieved for a moment to share the same feeling even across the screen.

A few more questions are asked, Rudy explains about how many injuries he managed to pick up on set and Jonathon tells an embarrassing story about you and Madelyn from the wrap party. And then attention falls back to you and Drew.

“So, whilst I’ve got you guys here, I have to ask Drew and (Y/N) about the rumours that have been going around about you two, can you tell me anything the fans will want to hear?”

You laugh, slightly allowing yourself a bit more time before you figure out what to say, “You know, these things are inevitable when you play a couple on a show. But I think we take it as a compliment if anything, at least it was convincing enough for people to believe us, you know? Right Drew?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Drew chuckles dryly, “I’m just glad they know that we don’t hate each other.”

“Are you blushing Starkey?!” Rudy exclaims, coming closer to the screen.

Drew laughs and looks away, biting the tip of his tongue between his teeth, “Shut it Pankow.”

Everyone laughs but it’s as if you can feel all eyes on the two of you, and in that moment, all you want it for him to be there with you to share the attention. For him to be close enough that your hand could brush his, your eyes could focus solely on Drew’s, your laugh in rhythm with his. And, in that moment, perhaps for the first time, you realise that maybe those edits had realised something before you had.

“Okay, well it’s been great speaking to you guys, thank you so much for joining me,” The interviewer finishes up, closing off before telling you that you’re all done and you can log off from the call.

You shut your laptop and pull out your phone to see notifications already bursting through. They’re all from the groupchat you had with the other girls.

Oh my god did you see his face?

Are you kidding me rn??? That boy is in love with you

I’ll never forgive you if you don’t date Starkey fr

You laugh, fingers hovering over the buttons as you try to figure out a response. You wanted to tell them that they were being stupid, that there was no reason for them to think like that. But you can’t bring yourself to lie to them.

You swipe away from that chat, scrolling the short way down to where Drew’s chat with you was. The last thing he’d sent you was a fan made video of the two of you, a video from set where he had you on his shoulders in the pool and both of you fell under.

When you go to text him, he’s already typing.

And this time, you’re the one that’s blushing.

[opencommunion]

Palestinians from several of the displaced communities described the same pattern to +972: Israeli settlers arrive with their herds and prevent them from grazing on land where Palestinians have grazed for decades; then armed settlers would proceed to harass them day and night, even entering houses, without the army or police intervening. Everyone described the same, overwhelming feelings of fear and distress under the shadow of these settler invasions. “It’s like 1948,” said Mohammed Hussein, a resident of Ein Samia — invoking the year of the Nakba (“catastrophe”) and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland during Israel’s establishment. According to the Palestinian residents, the situation grew worse following the establishment and growth of several grazing settler outposts in the area in recent years; settler violence and further expansion also noticeably escalated since the current Israeli government, led by extremist far-right parties, was sworn in last December. ... The Israeli authorities, along with the settlers, have played a central role in the displacement. For years, the occupation apparatus has banned the Palestinian communities from construction; demolished their homes; denied them connection to water and electricity; stopped them from paving roads; issued demolition orders for schools built with funds from the European Union; established and recognized Jewish settlements; and, of course, stood by during settler violence.  ... “We have always been under occupation, in a prison with checkpoints, but now we live in a prison van,” said Ali Abu al-Kabash, 60, sitting in a tent he had set up in an open area across the Allon Road. Abu al-Kabash, who is originally from a-Samu, near Hebron, moved to the Ramallah area in the 1980s, and to the area near Ras a-Tin in 1995. “Before the [last] election, the settlers would run away if there were a few of us [facing them]. Today, they attack because the government is with them. The police, the army, and the Shin Bet are all with them,” he added. “For 25 years we lived a normal life,” Abu al-Kabash continued. “In recent years, the settlers came and established two outposts [Micah’s Farm and Malachei HaShalom]. They blocked the road between us and Ein al-Rashash, and the one that goes down toward Fasayil. We would herd in the area, but they came to us in the name of the government and the Civil Administration and said that the land belongs to the settlers. They brought sheep to eat the food we grew for our sheep … They enter houses, sometimes with many soldiers, taking photos, even when there are girls, women, and old men present.” According to Abu al-Kabash, the violence increased after the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr in May. “They park at the entrance of the homes. Some of them are under 12 years old, under the age of criminal responsibility. They go in, look in the refrigerator, or at our phones. What can we do? They want Area C for Israel, to take control of the land through the settlers, but without war. But where will we go? The occupation is everywhere.” Ras a-Tin, which neighbors al-Qabun, was subjected to similar harassment and severe violence by settlers. On the day its residents fled, in July 2022, Ahmad Kaabna, the mukhtar of Ras a-Tin — who died suddenly in early August at age 60 — told a group of activists: “The settlers frightened the women, the children — everyone. They came to the homes at night in groups of 10-15 people … the army with them. If you talk to them and say ‘get away, get out of here,’ they call the army or the police, who come and arrest the young [Palestinians].”

[phantomrose96]

Yknow I don't think I've... talked about the absolute smorgasbord of shit what's gone wrong with my condo since I moved in so

day 0 - hadn't moved in yet, was just moving items over, turned the sink on for just a moment. turns out the tube feeding into the sink faucet was full of holes (how???) and this caused a never-ending leak under the sink. the standing water rotted the baseboard under the sink

still day 0 - said leak and water accrual dripped down and damaged downstairs neighbor's ceiling ($$$). she has to call me to tell me about it.

I have to get a plumber out there next day (still not living there yet! empty place! I have to take off work). While waiting for plumber, I discover heat's not working.

Go to basement to investigate boiler. Seller didn't fix the issue they claimed they fixed.

Plumber looks at sink. Declares it full of holes. Says he can come back in a few days to fix it.

(Plumber postpones, then flakes. I chase down a different plumber.)

Plumber 2 says the issue is with the garbage disposal, not the faucet. Can come back x days later to work on that, and the boiler.

Plumber 2 comes back x days later (I have to take off work again), says "oh the disposal was messed up but also the faucet has holes." Says he can come back maybe the NEXT day with a new faucet

Oh also the smoke detector in the back hall is low battery beeping and I don't have a battery for it. It's constant, every minute on the minute.

I bike to a hardware store and buy a faucet and a battery ($$). Get lost on the way home. (All of this back and forth is by bike. I live in the city and do not have a car.)

Plumber replaces the faucet ($$). I replace the smoke detector battery but it's still beeping. Dozens of more stupid minutes later of going up and down and up and down stairs and dragging my big stupid ladder around, I realize it's the carbon monoxide detector which is hidden behind the door I need to open to even get to the back hallway.

Plumber services the boiler ($$$)

I move in. I have a less than great time emptying everything from my apartment, which doesn't have plumbing issues. On a bad foot to start.

Travel for Christmas. Come back. Now the first floor back-hall smoke detector is beeping. (At least I have a fucking battery. Get my big stupid ladder down the back hall, knock every wall on the way down, and replace that battery).

I get first month's heating bill (I'd been living there for 10 days if even.) $334. Jesus christ. Likely due to the boiler issue.

Electricity goes out for the evening, same day as I get this bill from the gas and electric company, because fuck you I guess.

Homeowners insurance log in doesn't work. I haven't received my bill, which I need to pay.

Radiators bang in the middle of the night. Something something about them being old or not level or full of ghosts. Cool I don't need to sleep or whatever.

I've received no correspondence from the bank about my first mortgage payment. It'll be due Jan 1st, which is a holiday, so I reach out early. They say it's in the mail.

I monitor my mail every day. I receive no mail. I contact again. I reach out to my old apartment building in case it's there (they can't tell me). I sign up for a bank account with them online. I jump through various hoops to discover the bank has my address wrong. The address of the place the mortgage is on...

They had the mortgage address right. They had my home address as identical to the mortgage address but with one number missing. No one noticed. They'd been sending my stuff to a non-existent address, or the back of a college warehouse, I haven't quite figured it out.

I jump through more hoops to pay my mortgage payment with a check in the mail (I had to go buy stamps and an envelope) (late, but they assure me there's no penalty, but are you sure.)

^This has all been about 2 weeks. btw.

(I get a therapist, and find my way to being seen by a psychiatrist, which I guess is good but jesus is it $$$. Still figuring out how to use my stupid HSA)

People on floor 1 move out. They've got contractors in constantly renovating the place top to bottom. I get all their paint fumes.

Sound proofing doesn't exist, turns out. I hear my downstairs neighbors' conversations. I hear their tv. I hear street conversations. One night it was pouring rain and I was woken up by the sound of something banging against the house. Like genuinely banging. I go outside and investigate - it's a car idling with their windshield wipers going. Windshield wipers. Why would that be audible. Walls made of paper.

Floor 1 contactors leave the back door open one night. Luckily I wasn't storing anything in the back hall and had the door to my interior locked.

I receive my next month's heating bill. $689. I call the gas company and they shrug. I call the plumber and he shrugs. I turn the heat way down cuz I don't know. I dunno. Something's wrong with the boiler but it just got serviced so I dunno. I have to call someone else.

Speak of the devil, cones appear immediately outside my building declaring there's going to be gas line work. For a month. They start with the jackhammers at 8am every weekday. It's gonna be a month. I miss the windshield wipers.

We have a weekend of arctic freeze. -30F windchill. I go down to the basement Sunday morning to do laundry. Floor 1 contractors have outdone themselves by leaving a window open. Pipe had burst in floor 1 and was pouring water down into the basement, totally flooded.

I have to call the plumber, and flag the Floor 2 people about it and they at least find the master water shutoff. I'm dealing with the plumber and I have no water for half the day and no laundry for me.

I want to lie down in a marsh for a bit.

[beanibon]

Mermaid!Wolfwood x Reader Headcanons

The final part of my little mermaid au, I might do little oneshots of cute antics of all the boys but this is my last headcanon one.

Readers family owns a private holiday cabin with a Saltwater lake at the back, Wolfwoods lil family is a small group of bull sharks common in Lake as they wander from the ocean regularly.

TW: interspecies sex, creampie, overstimulation, marking and general biting (this man is feral you can't tell me otherwise), slight drowning warming on this one too, hinted thalassophobia (reader often avoids the lake due to this), slight exhibitionism, oral (f receiving), belly bulging, breeding kink.

Your family owned a small holiday cabin, often using it for big family reunions or trips during holidays. It came with a seemingly endless Saltwater lake, that every member of your family bar you used to its fullest.

Mer!Wolfwood had lived in the lake for as long as he could remember, preferring the company of his family of Bull Sharks. They were quiet, people didn't go near them, and there was always plenty of food to go around.

Mer!Wolfwood who relished in the solitude the lake offered, minding his business and simply doing his own thing. Spending most of his days sleeping, hunting or getting annoyed by the young Mer!Livio who silently does his own thing besides him. In which Mer!Wolfwood doesn't mind.

Mer!Wolfwood who really, really doesn't like when your family stays at the cabin, the fish scatter, his peace is disturbed by the human children screaming on the bank, the disgusting smell of cooked human food wafting over the waters surface.

Mer!Wolfwood especially despised when your family was in the water, he could hear and sense every disturbance big or small and it pissed him off to the point he grinded his fangs on the rock he slept on.

Mer!Wolfwood who glared at your family from afar, a low, rumbling growl escaping him at each discarded alcohol bottle, food packages, and other various litter at the waters edge. He had half the mind to ditch it back at them.

Mer!Wolfwood tensing at the sight of you, only to relax a little as you cleaned your family's mess, lecturing your younger siblings and cousins on littering.

Mer!Wolfwood favouring watching you instead of glaring at your family, noticing your favourite spot was the wooden dock. Where'd you spend your time painting, reading or simply relaxing. But you never entered the water.

Mer!Wolfwood would hear your family teasing you about this, frowning as you just awkwardly shrugged, shuffling away from the mocking your aunty would spit your way.

Mer!Wolfwood often basked on the shoreline far away from your holidaying family, that's where you found him, eyes peacefully closed as you held your phone dumbfounded at the sight of him. You had quietly approached, kneeling down and tentatively reaching down to touch the strange creature.

Mer!Wolfwood abruptly waking, letting out an aggressive screech, fangs bared as he pushed you away retreating back into the water.

Mer!Wolfwood glaring at you from the water, his growls vibrating the surface at the low octave. Only you didn't leave, instead you sat where you were and slowly brought out your sketchbook, eyes never leaving his.

Mer!Wolfwood raised a brow, creeping closer until he was towering over you, water dripping from his glistening skin as he stared at the sketchbook in your hands. You nervously showed him the picture you drew of him, watching as he let out a deep hum, squinting at it.

Mer!Wolfwood tensing as you reached a hand out to him, feeling your hands gently brush his still dripping hair from his face. The sensation of your touch made his muscles relax, yet he still retreated back to the water disappearing.

Mer!Wolfwood who hissed at a loud splash, chasing away his food, only to see your form struggling in the middle of the lake, eyes darting frantically at the deep water and endless pit at the lakes centre.

Mer!Wolfwood panicked as he swam for you, grabbing your body as you fought against his hold, eyes wide upon realisation that it was him. Hands squeezing his shoulders as he brought you to the dock, lifting you onto the wooden surface.

Mer!Wolfwood trailing a hand over you body as you gasped for air, curling yourself into a tight ball as your body shook along with your cries.

Mer!Wolfwood who blinked in confusion, looking around for your family only to realise they were all still on a boat at the centre of the Lake. Gaining enough confidence to hoist himself up and curl around you.

Mer!Wolfwood who hummed a deep tune, arms wrapped around you as he stroked your damp hair. Eventually resting his chin on your head, eyes glaring out at the boat and your family who hollered loudly on board.

Mer!Wolfwood untangling himself from you to slide back into the water, feeling your soft hands reach out to feel his tail, stopping him in his tracks. Dark eyes fixated on you as you jumped at the attention, but still shuffled forward feet dangling into the water.

Mer!Wolfwood growling as he dove back in, surfacing to pull you in with him. You screamed in response legs instinctively wrapping around him as you desperately clung to him, nails dug deep in his skin.

Mer!Wolfwood who moved your legs till they dangled from his shoulder, teeth nipping at your inner thighs as his hands squeezed your ass. Slowly pulling down the swimsuit clinging wetly to your body.

Mer!Wolfwood feeling you hoist your upper body back onto the dock, yet making no move to pull yourself up and away from him, squeezing his head gently to encourage him on. Submerging a hand to mess with his hair as if to encourage him.

Mer!Wolfwood huffing out as he began hungrily eating you out, sucking, lapping and nibbling at your pussy. Hands pulling your thighs to get closer, wishing he could hear the noises he was certain you making above the waters surface.

Mer!Wolfwood never slowing for a second, despite the boat pulling back up to the dock or the way you tried to yank him away with your hand. Instead slapping you away as he dove back in, this time more ruthlessly than before.

Mer!Wolfwood smirking as he knew how hard you were trying to not give away the fact you were being eaten out by some strange creature just below the water, reassuring them you were just getting use to the water as they walked away, hand clasping over your mouth as Mer!Wolfwood pressed a thumb roughly on your neglected clit.

Mer!Wolfwood cackling as you came on his face, him eagerly lapping up every morsel of your arousal.

Mer!Wolfwood surfacing to look at your blushing face, panting lewdly as you hid your face in your arms, weakly shooing him away as he dragged his tongue up your abdomen.

Mer!Wolfwood startling at the sound of children, feeling you shove him under the water as you tiredly greeted them with a bright smile. Ruffling their hair and indulging their conversations.

Mer!Wolfwood pouted as he watched you return you swimsuit bottoms and get out of the water, your cousins leading you away in favour of food being served in the kitchen.

Mer!Wolfwood risen from his sleep by vibrations in the water rousing him as he lazily swam to find the source, surprised to see you sitting on the beach in a silk robe as quietly tapped at the water.

Mer!Wolfwood crawling up the bank to you, watching as you swallow, face red in the moons light as you shrugged off the robe, your body bare beneath the fabric.

Mer!Wolfwood letting a satisfied deep chirp, a toothy grin stretched across his lips. He gently pulled you closer, teeth grazing your soft flesh as his arms spread your legs his cock unsheathed as he bit down on your collarbone, thrusting up into you as he did so.

Mer!Wolfwood squeezed your thighs as you cried out, eyes wide at the sudden intrusion. It was inhuman, oddly slicked wet and massive inside your equally wet cunt. You would never mention to anyone how you had already prepped yourself prior, face red with embarrassment.

Mer!Wolfwood ruthlessly ramming into you, teeth marking every inch of your body, hands finding your breasts and squeezing. He squeezed so hard you let out at pained cry, hands flying up to try and loosen his grip.

Mer!Wolfwood flipping you onto your stomach crushing you with his weight, thrusts as rough as ever, his teeth began marking your back, a hand pulling your hair back watching your face contorted between pain and pleasure.

Mer!Wolfwood growling as your moans reached his very core, causing the pace to pick up even more. The sound of you two echoing along with beach with the waves lapping at you two.

Mer!Wolfwood who didn't stop even as he came inside you, flipping you back over and pounding into you, the waves washing away the sand sticking to your stomach.

Mer!Wolfwood mesmerised by the way your breasts bounced at each thrust, taking one in his mouth and licking at the perked nipple as he came in you again. Yet he still relented, pounding into you all the while you pleaded him to stop or the very least slow down.

Mer!Wolfwood only tired when the first light of the sun touched the waters surface, stuffing you full one last time. Eyes admiring your fucked out face, shivering body, and the way his cum oozed from your leaking cunt.

Mer!Wolfwood trembled in glee, resting his prickly chin on your stomach, raised slightly from all the loads he stuffed you full of throughout your sinfilled night.

Mer!Wolfwood pulling you into the water, cleaning you up as your fingers brushed his hair. Leaning forward to plant a soft kiss on his lips, scratching his jawline as he purred in response.

Mer!Wolfwood who no longer dreaded your family holidays, happily awaiting your return so he could indulge you with his desires and love. Happy to feel your soft hands claw lines into his back as he bred you dry.

A/N: all done! Hope you guys enjoyed this little AU, I went overboard with Wolfwood I just adore him too much.

[mariacallous]

The flood of text messages started arriving early this year. They carried a similar thrust: The United States Postal Service is trying to deliver a parcel but needs more details, including your credit card number. All the messages pointed to websites where the information could be entered.

Like thousands of others, security researcher Grant Smith got a USPS package message. Many of his friends had received similar texts. A couple of days earlier, he says, his wife called him and said she’d inadvertently entered her credit card details. With little going on after the holidays, Smith began a mission: Hunt down the scammers.

Over the course of a few weeks, Smith tracked down the Chinese-language group behind the mass-smishing campaign, hacked into their systems, collected evidence of their activities, and started a months-long process of gathering victim data and handing it to USPS investigators and a US bank, allowing people’s cards to be protected from fraudulent activity.

In total, people entered 438,669 unique credit cards into 1,133 domains used by the scammers, says Smith, a red team engineer and the founder of offensive cybersecurity firm Phantom Security. Many people entered multiple cards each, he says. More than 50,000 email addresses were logged, including hundreds of university email addresses and 20 military or government email domains. The victims were spread across the United States—California, the state with the most, had 141,000 entries—with more than 1.2 million pieces of information being entered in total.

“This shows the mass scale of the problem,” says Smith, who is presenting his findings at the Defcon security conference this weekend and previously published some details of the work. But the scale of the scamming is likely to be much larger, Smith says, as he didn't manage to track down all of the fraudulent USPS websites, and the group behind the efforts have been linked to similar scams in at least half a dozen other countries.

Gone Phishing

Chasing down the group didn’t take long. Smith started investigating the smishing text message he received by the dodgy domain and intercepting traffic from the website. A path traversal vulnerability, coupled with a SQL injection, he says, allowed him to grab files from the website’s server and read data from the database being used.

“I thought there was just one standard site that they all were using,” Smith says. Diving into the data from that initial website, he found the name of a Chinese-language Telegram account and channel, which appeared to be selling a smishing kit scammers could use to easily create the fake websites.

Details of the Telegram username were previously published by cybersecurity company Resecurity, which calls the scammers the “Smishing Triad.” The company had previously found a separate SQL injection in the group’s smishing kits and provided Smith with a copy of the tool. (The Smishing Triad had fixed the previous flaw and started encrypting data, Smith says.)

“I started reverse engineering it, figured out how everything was being encrypted, how I could decrypt it, and figured out a more efficient way of grabbing the data,” Smith says. From there, he says, he was able to break administrator passwords on the websites—many had not been changed from the default “admin” username and “123456” password—and began pulling victim data from the network of smishing websites in a faster, automated way.

Smith trawled Reddit and other online sources to find people reporting the scam and the URLs being used, which he subsequently published. Some of the websites running the Smishing Triad’s tools were collecting thousands of people’s personal information per day, Smith says. Among other details, the websites would request people’s names, addresses, payment card numbers and security codes, phone numbers, dates of birth, and bank websites. This level of information can allow a scammer to make purchases online with the credit cards. Smith says his wife quickly canceled her card, but noticed that the scammers still tried to use it, for instance, with Uber. The researcher says he would collect data from a website and return to it a few hours later, only to find hundreds of new records.

The researcher provided the details to a bank that had contacted him after seeing his initial blog posts. Smith declined to name the bank. He also reported the incidents to the FBI and later provided information to the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS).

Michael Martel, a national public information officer at USPIS, says the information provided by Smith is being used as part of an ongoing USPIS investigation and that the agency cannot comment on specific details. “USPIS is already actively pursuing this type of information to protect the American people, identify victims, and serve justice to the malicious actors behind it all,” Martel says, pointing to advice on spotting and reporting USPS package delivery scams.

Initially, Smith says, he was wary about going public with his research, as this kind of “hacking back” falls into a “gray area”: It may be breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a sweeping US computer-crimes law, but he’s doing it against foreign-based criminals. Something he is definitely not the first, or last, to do.

Multiple Prongs

The Smishing Triad is prolific. In addition to using postal services as lures for their scams, the Chinese-speaking group has targeted online banking, ecommerce, and payment systems in the US, Europe, India, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates, according to Shawn Loveland, the chief operating officer of Resecurity, which has consistently tracked the group.

The Smishing Triad sends between 50,000 and 100,000 messages daily, according to Resecurity’s research. Its scam messages are sent using SMS or Apple’s iMessage, the latter being encrypted. Loveland says the Triad is made up of two distinct groups—a small team led by one Chinese hacker that creates, sells, and maintains the smishing kit, and a second group of people who buy the scamming tool. (A backdoor in the kit allows the creator to access details of administrators using the kit, Smith says in a blog post.)

“It’s very mature,” Loveland says of the operation. The group sells the scamming kit on Telegram for a $200-per month subscription, and this can be customized to show the organization the scammers are trying to impersonate. “The main actor is Chinese communicating in the Chinese language,” Loveland says. “They do not appear to be hacking Chinese language websites or users.” (In communications with the main contact on Telegram, the individual claimed to Smith that they were a computer science student.)

The relatively low monthly subscription cost for the smishing kit means it’s highly likely, with the number of credit card details scammers are collecting, that those using it are making significant profits. Loveland says using text messages that immediately send people a notification is a more direct and more successful way of phishing, compared to sending emails with malicious links included.

As a result, smishing has been on the rise in recent years. But there are some tell-tale signs: If you receive a message from a number or email you don't recognize, if it contains a link to click on, or if it wants you to do something urgently, you should be suspicious.

[fanficshiddles]

The Redbridge Hunts, Chapter 38

It had been a couple of weeks since school returned after the easter holidays, all of the students and the teachers were nice and refreshed after some well-deserved time off.

One Friday afternoon, after classes ended, a vampire student called Mandy went to see Chris at his office.

‘Come in.’ Chris called through his office door.

Mandy entered, and Chris could instantly tell there was something wrong, she looked very antsy and irritable.

‘Mandy. Is everything ok?’ He asked with a frown.

‘I uhm… I need help.’ She said quietly.

‘Help with what? Take a seat.’ Chris motioned to the chair opposite his desk and he closed his laptop.

Mandy sat down and took a moment before speaking further, she was fiddling with her hands as she spoke. ‘I really want to hunt, I’m craving for blood… but my parents keep telling me to go to the blood bank. But I just… I want to hunt, I feel like I need to. Can you help me? Please?’ She pleaded him, the desperation was evident in her voice.

Chris grinned widely. ‘You’ve come to the right person. Of course, I can. It’s good that there are still young vampires like yourself that have that traditional instinct of wanting to hunt the proper way, the real way.’

That night, Chris had arranged to meet Mandy in the city. It was quite late, so plenty of opportunities with drunken humans making their way home after a night out would be present. They made their way down a quieter street, and saw a couple walking further ahead of them, clearly they'd been drinking.

Mandy was desperate to go for it, to finally feed from a human and get blood. She was about to chase after the two humans, but Chris grabbed her arm to stop her.

‘No, you have to wait and pick the right one. You don’t want to attack if there’s more than one, you go for someone that’s on their own. Follow them, wait until they’re somewhere nice and secluded.’ He said firmly and tried to lead her in a different direction to look for someone else.

‘I’m hungry!’ Mandy snarled, her fangs emerged and her eyes were turning red.

‘I know, but you need to learn to control yourself, or you’ll only end up getting into trouble. Or worse, killed. Now behave and do as you’re told, or’ Chris couldn’t finish what he was saying as Mandy tore herself away from him and ran after the couple she’d had her eye on with a snarl.

‘Mandy!’ Chris roared at her, but she was in a frenzied state and ignored him.

Chris hissed angrily as he watched the scene unfold on front of him. It was a disaster, Mandy went for the woman’s neck but the man turned on her and started punching her to get off his girlfriend, who began screaming hysterically. Mandy tried biting them both, she did get a bite into the woman’s arm but she couldn’t handle two of them.

She got beaten up quite badly when the man got hold of her properly, as Mandy wasn’t that strong of a vampire yet. Chris ended up having to go over when Mandy fell to the ground and was getting kicked. Chris quickly hypnotised the two humans to make them forget about the incident, then he grabbed Mandy and tossed her over his shoulder.

He levitated up off the street, onto the top of the nearest building, just in time as some more people came running after hearing the humans scream.

Chris leapt down the other side, onto the next street, which was where Loki stayed. He didn’t really want to get Loki involved, but he was closest and Mandy was in pretty bad shape, so he had no choice.

Chris rushed to Loki’s house and banged on the door.

When Loki answered, he was about to ask what the hell Chris was doing here, when he noticed their student over his shoulder.

‘What have you done to her?’ Loki yelled at him.

‘Always assume the worst of me, don’t you?’ Chris snapped back at him. ‘Can we come in? She needs help. Call dad!’

‘Come in.’ Loki snarled and stepped backwards to let them through.

Claire was shocked when Chris and Mandy came into the living room. She grabbed cushions and put them at one side of the sofa, for Chris to place her down.

‘I think her ribs are broken.’ Chris said as Loki quickly called Lucius.

‘Can’t you fix her?’ Loki barked at him while he waited for Lucius to answer.

‘You know it doesn’t work like that.’ Chris snapped. ‘What do you expect me to do, tear her flesh open and drool all over her ribs? We need dad to stabilise her before getting her to the hospital.’

Loki glared at him, then spoke to Lucius who finally answered his phone. It was a short call, Loki hung up and walked over closer to them.

‘He’s on his way.’

‘Good.’ Chris said as he ran a hand down his face.

‘What the fuck happened?’ Loki asked, hands on his hips.

‘She came to me for help. She wanted to go hunting, so I took her out. She couldn’t control herself though, wasn’t listening to me and tried to attack a couple.’ Chris said angrily.

‘WHAT? You took her hunting? How stupid can you be?’ Loki yelled at him.

‘She didn’t want to go to the blood banks. She said she was desperate to hunt. It’s about time more young vampires want to carry on the traditional ways. It’s not my fault that she couldn’t control herself though, she wouldn’t bloody listen to me.’

Claire comforted Mandy as best she could while the brothers argued. Mandy kept groaning in pain, she was sweating badly, too.

Lucius arrived very quickly, he gave Mandy some medicine which calmed her down almost instantly. Chris had to explain what happened again, and Lucius was more understanding than Loki was.

‘She was born a vampire, mother and father are vampires, correct?’ Lucius asked.

Loki nodded in response.

‘It’s more difficult for the pure-blooded vampires, their instincts do tend to be stronger at first, when they come of age and start craving blood. I’ve found it’s becoming worse than previous years, they just can’t control themselves the same. It sounds like she would have gone out hunting herself anyway, which could’ve ended up fatal for her. So it’s good that she went to Chris, that he could stop her from being harmed further.’ Lucius explained calmly.

‘He should’ve stopped her from attacking them in the first place.’ Loki growled.

‘Well… Sometimes the young ones need a good hard wake up call like this. She certainly won’t be rushing to attack like that again, she will likely listen next time.’ Lucius said, much to Loki’s annoyance.

Chris smirked a little at Loki.

‘I’ll get her fixed up, don’t worry. She’s going to be fine.’ Lucius assured them as he scooped Mandy up carefully into his arms.

Loki and Claire saw Lucius and Chris to the door. Lucius took Mandy straight to the hospital, Chris turned into a bat and flew off before Loki could say anything further. Loki was just glad to get Chris out of his house.

When Loki slammed the door shut, Claire knew she was going to need to try and help calm him down.

‘I know you’re angry at Chris, but like Lucius said. At least she went to someone for help, it would’ve been much worse if she had been on her own.’ Claire said softly as she wrapped her arms around his arm.

Loki pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. ‘I know… I just wish she had come to any of us other teachers instead. Why go to him?’

‘I think everyone knows that Chris is more… traditional. If the young vampires are wanting to go that way too, of course they’re going to go to him.’

‘She’s learned a hard lesson tonight, that’s for sure.’ Loki sighed as he let Claire drag him through to the living room.

‘I’d say so.’ Claire nodded in agreement as they sat down on the sofa, back to watching TV before they’d been interrupted.

Though Claire could tell Loki was still annoyed, he was just staring at the TV, barely even blinking. His leg was bobbing up and down, and he had his hand up at his mouth, which she knew meant he was deep in thought.

‘Hey… let me help you forget about tonight.’ Claire suggested as she quickly hauled off her leggings and knickers in one go, then she straddled over him. Which snapped him out of his trance and very quickly got his attention.

Loki smirked as she reached down and unbuckled his belt, then slowly undid his zipper. He reached out to stroke her hair while she pulled his cock out and gave him a few strokes to get him nice and hard.

‘I was planning to watch this show… but I think you’ve got a much more exciting idea.’ Loki teased.

Claire lifted herself up and lined his cock up with her. She was aroused just enough, she was almost always ready for Loki whenever he wanted. Though there was a very slight tugging sensation as she slowly sank down onto him, feeling him stretch her wide open and fill her.

She let out a shaky breath as she sank down fully onto him, she paused to let her body adjust. Loki slid his fingers slowly through her hair.

‘Mmm… maybe you could still watch your show?’ Claire suggested as she slid her arms around him and put her head on his shoulder, nuzzling in against his neck.

‘Ohh, you’re going to be my cockwarmer, are you?’ Loki growled and slid his hand under her top to stroke up and down her spine, making her tremble. He felt her body clench around him too at his words.

Claire nodded against him and squirmed a little.

‘How long will you last before you break?’ Loki whispered with a smirk.

‘Before I break? You’ll be first to break.’ Claire said as she turned to face him more and leaned back a little.

‘Oh you think so, hmm?’ Loki moved his hips upwards just ever so slightly, making her whine. ‘I rest my case.’ He grinned widely.

‘No cheating.’ Claire hummed against him.

Loki chuckled and just continued stroking her back as he tried to focus on the programme. He was torn though. On the one hand, it felt so good and intimate just having Claire cockwarming him, part of him felt like he could just stay like that all night. On the other hand, it was so difficult not to move, not to just start thrusting up into her. It was a delightful kind of torture that was messing with his mind.

Claire felt exactly the same. She loved being connected with him in that way, having him inside of her and filling her so nicely felt heavenly, but there was a torturous aspect to it. Her body just loved being stretched around him and being so full, the feeling alone was enough to give her so much pleasure.

Even if Loki hadn’t been able to completely focus on his show, Claire certainly got him to forget about his argument with Chris.

Every now and then, he felt her clenching ever so slightly around him, making him growl and tighten his hold on her. ‘I know what you’re doing, little minx. I can feel every single movement while buried inside of you like this.’

That caused Claire to shiver and squeeze around him even more, making him chuckle.

‘Now you’re cheating.’ She whined against his neck.

‘Me? You’re the one squeezing me.’ Loki rumbled.

‘You’re making noises and speaking. That’s cheating.’

‘Speaking?’ Loki laughed.

‘Yeah. Your voice is sexy. So just speaking is cheating.’

Loki laughed again and slid his fingers through her hair, he then pulled harder on some strands, making her moan as he tugged her head backwards so he could dip down and suckle on her neck. His teeth grazed across her skin, making her tremble some more.

He swore he could feel her trying to push down even further, as if trying to get him deeper than he already was, which was impossible.

‘Please, Loki.’ She whined breathlessly.

‘Do you give in?’ He growled over her skin.

Claire nodded quickly.

‘Very well…’ Loki gripped her ass and lifted her up slightly, then brought her down on him again. It was no surprise to either of them that it only took a few thrusts before they both came together, Loki emptied deep inside her as she came on his cock at the same time.

They both moaned together and kissed roughly, their tongues moved together sloppily as they panted against one another.

‘We need to do this more often.’ Loki hummed.

‘Definitely.’ Claire nodded eagerly as she collapsed against him.

[haeseolar]

the gaze of the angels

guild hunter au - kinnporsche / archangel!kinn, hunter!porsche

rated G, 2.7k words

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based on a scene from the first book in the guild hunter series, angels' blood. for context, angel's create and handle vampires as they work under them. porsche as a hunter tracks any unruly vamp who has escaped and brings them back to their 'owners', in this case, the arch/angels.

----

“Give me one good reason I should be talking to you on my day off.”

“Well, hello to you too, Porsche,” Arm, the director of the Hunter’s Guild, says, his voice no less sarcastic even through the phone line.

Porsche snorts, kicking off his boots into a heap by his front door. He’ll fix that later; right now, he has one thing on his mind: to relax.

“I’m waiting,” Porsche replies, clicking his tongue in annoyance. He’d never hang up on his best friend-cum-boss, but the temptation grows as he wanders into his apartment - his haven, his sanctuary - and feels in his gut that whatever Arm is about to tell him won’t be anything good.

“Well,” Arm begins and then goes so quiet Porsche has to check to make sure they’re still connected. “Your holiday is being cut sh-"

“No fucking way!” Porsche cuts him off, coming to stand in the middle of his kitchen.

The marble top island is more cluttered than he’d like it to be, but he’s been nonstop working for the past 3 weeks on one of the hardest hunts of his life. A rogue vampire had gone insane, slaughtering more people than he could count on his fingers. Despite being a crazy lunatic, the bastard had been smart, and led Porsche on a wild chase until he finally caught up and sent him back to his angel owner for her to deal with. He’d barely had time to sleep, let alone clean.

“Porsche,” Arm’s voice is hard - stoic and with no room to argue, taking the tone that the director of the Guild should have. This wasn’t a friendly chat - this was a business one through and through. “You’ve been requested.”

Porsche scoffs, “That’s nice, but -”

“By an archangel.”

Porsche feels his whole world go quiet. “It’s not April Fool’s Day, Arm,” He says shakily.

“I know, and I’d never joke about this, but…” Arm sighs, and it’s a frustrated one. “We’re between a rock and a hard place. I tried to deny his request and said you’re off duty for the foreseeable future, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Fucking archangels, Porsche thought, the voice inside his head spiteful. He’d never be able to say it out loud without dire consequences, but in the privacy of his own brain, he’ll curse them out as much as he wants. They’re selfish creatures, living in their high-rises to look down upon all mortals, ruling over the cities they claim as their own without a care in the world. As long as they’re happy, nothing else matters.

“What does he want?”

“They wouldn’t say. His lackeys who called up were very secretive, even with me,” Arm grumbles something under his breath with the same amount of disdain Porsche feels. The archangels are famously hard to work with. “I’m really sorry, and I will do all I can to make this up to you - but you have to meet him tomorrow.”

“Which one?” Porsche asks, mind going a hundred miles an hour. He went through all the ones he knew - the ones he’d already worked for. He’s had to clean up more of their messes than he can count, but of course, they do nothing but deposit a grand sum of money in his bank account and go about their day without even a simple thanks.

“Archangel Anakinn.”

The name cut off all of Porsche’s internal ramblings. That name had fear instilled into it, each letter dripping with the promise of death if you defied him. The archangel of Bangkok wasn’t exactly known for his niceties; even Porsche, who had fought rogue vampires twisted with bloodlust beyond any form of rationality, who stood up against anyone or anything not caring about the consequences, starts to feel anxiety creeping in.

“Fuck me,” Porsche let out, leaning against the counter to keep him up. His knees felt weak. “Let me guess, I’ve gotta go on my own, too?”

He could feel the wince through the phone as Arm answered, “Yep.”

Double fuck, Porsche curses. “Ping me the time and location.”

“Porsche -” Arm began, but Porsche hung up before he could finish, not in the mood to talk anymore.

He glances around his apartment, at the warm woods and white accents, at the trinkets and paintings spread around that he’d collected in his travels, and breathes in the scent of incense to try and ground himself. There’s no use in avoiding the inevitable, so he looks outside his window at the hotel situated opposite his apartment building. It towers above him, each window lit with shadows of activity behind them. It’s a building that never sleeps, with all sorts of goings on happening in the secrecy only immortals had the pleasure of knowing.

Porsche’s phone pinged with the details of his meeting for tomorrow.

Director Arm:

Tomorrow, Theerapanyakul’s Hotel, 09:00 am sharp.

Memorising the information immediately, Porsche knows that if he takes a few steps forward, he’ll be able to see the rooftop of the hotel - the Theerapanyakul’s Hotel. It doesn’t have any railing or safety bordering it, as there would be no point. It’s a landing and takeoff point for angels, and they could fly, their giant wings sprawling outwards so wide that even to this day, Porsche finds himself pausing whatever he was doing to stop and watch. He’d spent countless hours since he’d moved into this apartment spying on them, watching them come and go, equally fascinated as he was repulsed by their royalty in society.

Each angel had their own set of wings, and no two were the same. One pair had caught his attention the most out of all he’d seen, and he’d seen plenty at this point. Porsche recalls ones that were so wide that they had almost blocked out the entire sky, so dark in colour that it seemed as if a black hole had opened up in their place, if not for the red tips of the feathers that were visible even from so far away. Porsche has never met Archangel Anakinn - but he knows him. He’s seen him, watched him, studied him the best he could from afar as he admired each descent and take-off from flight, the beauty of his wings too tempting to look away from even for a second.

Porsche walks forward, eyes rising upwards until he can finally see the rooftop, hoping to catch a glimpse of them. To his dismay, the rooftop is empty, so instead he imagines what it’ll be like when he is up there tomorrow, and if he’d survive the meeting long enough to continue admiring the view of the angels he so frequently indulged in

-----

“Alright, alright! I get it, no need to push,” Porsche says, wrenching his shoulder away from a heavy-handed vampire. 

The impudent thing just glares at him, his fangs poking out, just begging for the hunter to act up within the hotel. Everyone knows that you behave when in a general radius of an archangel, let alone when you’re in one’s territory. The vampire looks young, but the smell radiating off of him could only mean age - and Porsche doesn’t mean a few years, but hundreds. He looks overly serious, with his perfect ponytail and miserable atmosphere, which only makes Porsche want to prod at him even more to see if he can get a reaction out of him instead.

“Get in.” The vampire orders, shoving Porsche into an open elevator. 

“Does your boss not teach you any manners?” Porsche mutters under his breath, nose scrunching up in distaste at the vampire’s scent now clinging to him. 

Each one smells different, much like each angel’s wings - it’s part of their DNA, their defining feature. This one smells sour, his scent warped with internal rage and something sad, almost as if he’s left it so long that it’s gone off, twisted and rotten. It’s clear that he hates Porsche, so much so that it’s leaking out of every pore.

“What did you say, guild hunter?” The vampire snaps, eyes narrowed in malice.

“I said, did your boss not teach you any manners?” Porsche repeats, enunciating each word clearly, not caring about the consequences. 

“Why, you -” The vampire begins through gritted teeth until the elevator doors open and let in a gust of wind so strong it threatens to knock him off balance.

Porsche blinks, his eyes drying out immediately as he takes in the scene before him. He hadn’t even noticed they’d made it to the top, caught up in the brewing fight. The vampire grabs his arm, dragging him out and practically throwing him forward. Porsche’s senses are all going off, each one struggling to acclimate to a slew of incoming smells, sounds, and feelings. 

“Khun Kinn, he’s arrived.”

“Thank you, Big. You may go,” A voice replies, so smooth and luxurious that Porsche’s stomach clenches. 

He watches as the vampire - or Big, he supposes - bows and takes his leave, looking like nothing more than a trained puppy in front of his master. Porsche holds back the urge to sneer, but he reigns it in.

 

Even though he’s completely open out here, the wind is strong and loud, it’s warmer than he expected, the sun shining directly into his eyes. He squints, trying to gather his bearings as he looks out across the expanse of the roof, focusing on a shadowy figure at the opposite end. Even without fully seeing him - Porsche knows who it is. 

Archangel Anakinn.

There’s no doubt in his mind, no second guesses, as his mere aura alone is enough to suffice. The great span of his wings flutters, rising and blocking out the harsh glare of the sun, bringing everything back into focus. Porsche blinks, black spots dotting around his vision as he adjusts until he can finally see who he is truly facing.

His breath catches in his throat, eyes widening without his permission as he takes in the archangel. Anakinn’s hair is perfectly styled, not a hair out of place except the purposely left-out strand that catches on his eyelashes, even with the harsh winds that are whipping Porsche’s clothing and hair around relentlessly. It’s as if the earth has stopped moving, stopped existing, covering Anakinn in an eternal peace where he’s untouchable. Porsche’s eyes carry on moving, desperate and wanting to take the man in. They follow his masculine brow bone and down the gentle slope of his nose, cataloguing each mole and curve, straight angle and harsh cut of his jawline. 

Even hidden, Porsche can sense the sheer amount of strength hidden within his body. It’s not all physical, although he doesn’t doubt that he is just as strong in that sense as he is in any other, but the archangel naturally exudes such a vibe that Porsche feels dizzy. Anakinn’s clothes are simple - a white shirt that stands out starkly against his black wings and is open enough to show off the cut of his pecs, along with a pair of tight slacks. He mustn’t feel the chill, either, as any sensible person would at least wear a jacket up here.

 

Porsche’s eyes flicker back up to meet Anakinn’s, and where they are a natural brown colour, there’s nothing normal about them. It isn’t just one shade, but hundreds, maybe even thousands, that meld and entwine amongst each other in his irises, glowing almost golden with how rich they are that Porsche fears if he looks for too long, he will lose himself forever amongst them. 

“Done looking, Hunter Porsche?”

Porsche visibly jolts at the address, shuddering back into reality as he snaps out of whatever daze he is in.

“It’s not often I find myself face-to-face with an archangel,” Porsche retorts, willing the heat on his cheeks at being caught to fade away.

Anakinn smiles, barely a tilt of his lips, and yet Porsche feels he’s being treated like a child. It’s humouring - demeaning - like the angel opposite him sees him as nothing more than a toy to entertain himself with. It wouldn’t surprise him if that’s exactly what was happening, but it pisses him off either way. 

“We’re a private bunch,” Anakinn replies simply, gesturing to the table to the side. Porsche follows his hand to the breakfast spread laid out for them. “Shall we have something to eat, and then begin?”

Porsche shrugs, too stiff to be casual, but it at least forces his muscles to loosen, “Sure.”

Anakinn waits until Porsche moves first, and even with his back turned, he can feel eyes following him with each step. Before he can drag a seat out for himself, Anakinn asks from right behind him:

“Did Big treat you well on your way up?”

Porsche spins around, not having felt or heard anyone creep up on him. His heart is in his throat, his hand on the knife that was hidden in his jacket sleeve, the blade peaking out as he’s ready to attack. It’s lucky he just about caught himself from stabbing the archangel, too on edge from nerves.

Anakinn glances down, catching sight of the knife, “I see you weren’t checked for weapons.”

“I was,” Porsche replies instantly, and even though it’s delayed, he finally gets a waft of the archangel’s scent. His mouth waters - it’s not like anything he’s smelled before. It’s sensual, sweet, and musky - cloying and addictive. “Your people just underestimated me.”

“Oh?” Anakinn’s eyebrow raises, and it’s so unfairly attractive that Porsche feels a pulse of violence rise in him. “I assure you, no one in this building would dare do such a thing.”

“You don’t need to flatter me,” Porsche says cuttingly, sliding the blade back into its rightful place. “I know you chose me for a reason, and I’m damn good at my job, whatever it may be.”

Anakinn hums, eyes appraising as they trace over his face and down his body, and back up again. Each bit they cover leaves hot trails behind, burning his skin even through layers of clothes. “What if I wanted to flatter you?”

Porsche’s heart seizes, his throat clicking as he swallows. “Just add a couple thousand onto my pay check, and we’d be good.”

Anakinn steps closer, boxing Porsche in, pushing his lower back into the chair behind him. It digs in at an uncomfortable angle, precariously balanced on something that could move and leave him unmoored and unstable in his stance. Their chests are almost touching, and Anakinn’s scent gets stronger, sweeter, and more enticing. Porsche can see Anakinn’s wings out of his peripherals, and the feathers look even softer than he could’ve ever imagined. He wants to reach out and touch, but he doesn’t dare.

“Only a couple thousand, hunter?” Anakinn tilts his head to the side, deceptively innocent, “I think you’re worth more than that.”

“You haven’t even tried me yet,” Porsche replies, and he’s not sure what he’s talking about - whether it’s the hunt he’s about to be debriefed on, or something else. Even worse, he’s not sure which one he’d rather be discussing.

“We can change that,” Anakinn says, voice low, words rich and honeyed, as his eyes drop to Porsche’s lips. 

They linger, only for a moment, and then they’re gone, along with Anakinn’s presence. Porsche gasps in shock, turning back around to face the table, where the archangel is now sitting down, poised as if he’s on a throne and not a garden chair. 

“So, you’re not a cheap worker, hm?” 

Porsche drags his seat out, watching as the screeching sound of the metal against the concrete doesn’t make the man flinch. He flops down onto it, relishing in the plush softness of the cushion beneath him. 

Folding his arms over his chest, Porsche replies: “I’ll rinse you dry, but I’m worth every penny.”

Anakinn’s eyes search him again, this time more intense, not even bothering to hide the roaring desire and attraction in them. “Then I suppose I look forward to working with you, Hunter Porsche.”

Porsche smirks, shifting in his seat, leaning into the warm bubbling sensation caressing his skin at such a gaze directed at him, the base of his spine tingling with it. He can’t wait to see what Archangel Anakinn has in store for him.

[film-in-my-soul]

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*this fic also heavily includes the Steve/Bucky ship

2024 Reclists · INBOX · Blog Updates

[laneysmusings]

Hello hello! I've recently acquired the Mike Logan brainrot and I LOVE the fics you've written and I ADORE your tags about him!!

SO. I was wondering if you maybe, possibly, hopefully were willing to share any headcanons you have of him? 👉👈 If not then just delete this ask!

Thank you muchly!

it’s my birthday today, and it’s been a terrible one at that, but this ask literally made my face light up. I feel gifted by you — I would be HAPPY to provide headcanons of this gargantuan idiot, this hunk of massive Catholic guilt, my emotional support beleaguered detective

₊˚.༄ Mike Logan Headcanons

₊˚✦ he’s like, an adequate cook? Most likely good at breakfast in the morning and maybe some basic dishes, self sufficient so he doesn’t solely live off of takeout (but it’s like a quarter of his diet). I can’t say he can’t cook because it’s just not realistic. Boy’s gotta’ eat, y’know?

₊˚✦ Mike has trash coffee taste, takes it straight with maybe some cream or a sugar packet but refuses to try other things like blended drinks, will drink a cappuccino or an americano but hates being in a Starbucks

₊˚✦ UNLESS he gets spoilt and used to better coffee but then he’s doomed and cursed to the shit coffee at work and complains even more than usual. Which is a lot.

₊˚✦ I’ve got a feeling that, with being super progressive in his views, he definitely was one of those police officers in the beginning that everyone was shocked by. This little stinker, a raucous trouble maker, an OFFICER? PUHLEASE

₊˚✦ he’s so quick to fight for one (scrappy more like) he’s just got no fit outlet, so work became his outlet (terrible decision really) — but he’s got such hyperactivity and restlessness, probably born from some childhood PTSD and ADHD/ADD, that it just gnaws at him and lets him get too caught up in his emotions

₊˚✦ the boy needs therapy + AND NOT WITH LIZ

₊˚✦ cuddle bug but doesn’t look like it immediately — like sure he’s probably got some weird stuff with intimacy beyond sex (I can do a WHOLE other set of headcanons about this man’s issues with intimacy, both sexual and non sexual)

₊˚✦ but literally a cuddle bug, he will YANK his partner back into bed. he’s a lazy weekend guy and stands by it — it’s when he catches up on sleep and gets to take his time. He doesn’t shave on weekends either so he gets the perfect “I know I’m hot but I make it look effortless” stubble which is damning. Like fuck.

₊˚✦ I think when he works out he does cardio and maybe weight training but not all too much? Like above the minimum since he’s required to like, apprehend people, run chase and whatnot — but he’s not living at the gym if you catch my drift

₊˚✦ snores. he fucking snores look at that man and tell me he doesn’t snore.

₊˚✦ gets nightmares but doesn’t cope well with them — or have much if any good coping mechanisms honestly. Maybe later in life he’ll adapt some better ones, but everything he’d recommend to others, he wouldn’t do for himself.

₊˚✦ definitely not a “decorate his place for the holidays” person unless his partner is, then he’ll play along and get some fun out of it, but I doubt he’s got a box of decorations tucked away in some closet.

₊˚✦ speaking of closets — this man, oh I swear to god, has owned the same damn ties for like, 12+ years. What magic is in that fabric because I know he’s too cheap to buy good quality shirts and ties, maybe decent suits but still like department store, Macy’s suits. Joseph A. Bank maybe? I’m doubtful on Brooks Brothers, like there’s blood and probably brain matter on them all but fuck it, NYC dry cleaning. There’s also mustard stains, canonically, on them. He’s a slob, someone get this man a tide pen.

₊˚✦ lol all I can see now is him trying to iron his clothes in his apartment with the whole board and iron in like, a tank and boxers and mid-calf socks as he gets ready before work. Oh Dick Wolf you had so much promise with this man.

₊˚✦ he definitely has played and probably would play in the police recreational baseball league, it’s mentioned in an episode and he’s passionate about the Yankees. I’m torn between him actually sporting baseball gear or if it’s really casual with jeans and jerseys and baseball caps. (Pls pls pls PLEASE)

₊˚✦ ooh I’m not sure when he changed it but he used to wear a gold crucifix, fuck my life, but stopped wearing it later on and I’m wondering if it’s due to him taking a bigger step away from Catholicism? Like he’s absolutely a lapsed Catholic with terrible experiences in both home and church, it makes sense for him to be conflicted if not repelled from religion. I’d like to think out of habit he may still go to holiday midnight masses, and sometimes on his own for the quiet and the near-anonymity.

₊˚✦ I’m thinking that leather coat of his he wears around all the time, even in the snow like a fucking moron, may have been a gift or one of his bigger purchases for himself. Like something he saved up for or found and just, let himself have the little luxury. Coats like that are expensive and high quality, he wears the same damn one nearly every episode in both the original series and when he was on criminal intent.

₊˚✦ it may just be me projecting, but I feel like he’s got a record collection. Probably some old record player and some nice speakers, milk crates full of records that he has to bend over to sort through, groaning about his back all the while. Definitely a lot of jazz standards and the greats like Sinatra, as he mentions in the series at some point, Martin, Baker, Fitzgerald, Armstrong, Cooke, Davis, etc plus some classic rock, stuff like the typical dad rock™️ — doesn’t peg me as a frequent flyer for concerts but goes for really good shows, he’s a medium venue person not the intimate ones but not the giant stadiums either. He likes Billy Joel but isn’t vocal about it.

₊˚✦ he’s got clutter in his place, a little too cramped but it makes it homey, not decorative but at least lived in. Things are more out in the open than put away, he’s more visual and muscle memory based than having things stored away.

₊˚✦ lastly, a massive sweet tooth. A snacker, keeps things in the drawer of his desk to munch on between meals. He’s got more snacks than ingredients to cook with in his home kitchen and I stand by that. He looks like he would enjoy pretzels a lot, like a lot. And other salty snacks, but definitely an ice cream, eat out the tub kinda’ guy. I’m betting Raspberry, Chocolate, or Strawberry. Maybe a chocolate fudge if he’s feeling a little wild.

Note: I’d literally be more than happy to expand on any of these if not write even more headcanons

[gravitycircuit]

Patch 1.1.0 is out -- NOW ON STEAM! Just in time for the holidays! Other PC platforms (EGS, GOG, Stove) will follow in due time. However, due to various development circumstances, we could not get this new patch ready for console porting in time before the holidays. We will inform you more later when we are better aware of the release timeline for consoles - so we ask for your patience.

Without further ado though, here are the Patch Notes for Gravity Circuit 1.1.0:

New features

Boss Rush: Guardian Corps HQ now features Combat Memory Bank, a computer which lets you refight any of the game's bosses at your leisure. Good for practice, or for chasing record times!

Armor paints: Prim, a painter NPC that hangs around in the Guardian Corps HQ, now offers swappable armor paints, allowing further customization! These armor paints each bestow new abilities or effects, so give them all a try! Prim will explain to you how to unlock the paints to her shop.

Quality of life additions

Loadout swap: A dedicated button for quickly swapping loadouts on the fly. During gameplay any unset or empty loadouts are skipped when the button is pressed, so you can choose to use only two loadout slots, or all three.

Slide: A dedicated button has been added for sliding. Down and jump will still continue to work, but this button may be useful for those who need it.

Hookshot - vertical: A dedicated button that locks the hookshot's aim only to upwards vertical directions. This may help with any platforming involving the hookshot, for those who might need it.

Mouse control mapping: You can now map mouse buttons on PC, in addition to keyboard keys.

Effect Timer: An additional toggle setting has been added to the game's system options menu. This toggle adds on-screen visuals for certain effect durations, removing ambiguity. This setting is enabled by default, but can be toggled off at any time.

Burst techniques

Cycle Kick: In-game shop price reduced from 2000 to 1500.

Surface Render: In-game shop price reduced from 2000 to 1500.

Gravity Freeze: Affected area increased, damage slightly increased.

Piercing Drill: The chain portion now also damages enemies, not just the tip, making the technique easier to use effectively.

Flying Strike: Fixed an issue involving the Speedrun Mode, where it was possible to accidentally skip acquiring the technique by saving and quitting during the Opening Stage (Central Station). It was still possible to buy the technique, but Flying Strike is intended to be given to the player for free.

Gameplay

Pass-through platforms: Kai can now gain sprinting speed by holding the run button (or having "inverse" run button behavior enabled) when dropping through pass-through platforms.

Sprint jumping when hugging walls: Previously, if Kai was hugging a wall while grounded (holding left/right while up against a wall), Kai would be unable to gain sprinting speed when the run button was held (or having "inverse" run button behavior enabled) when jumping. This behavior has been fixed.

Hopkick: Kai's hopkick (up+attack while grounded) has been sped up by a few frames based on player feedback.

Telefragging: When Kai is struck by a hazard (lava, spikes, crushing), Kai will perform an Emergency Warp to last safe ground. Because this behavior could sometimes lead to Kai respawning inside an enemy, Kai now automatically defeats any enemy around him.

Data chips

"NPC" type data chips: Research cost reduced from 150 to 100.

Stage changes

Highway: Fixed an issue where it was possible to skip over the stage's checkpoints with certain actions.

Ore Mines: Fixed a certain area not having correct camera triggers when entering it in a specific way.

Guardian Corps HQ (visuals): Additional sign has been added to hint towards the location of the training facilities.

Guardian Corps HQ (design): Additional platforms added to make reaching the Training Room easier.

Guardian Corps HQ (training room): When Dave the Training Dummy is hit, the Training Room door will be inoperable for a few seconds. This is to prevent players from accidentally exiting the room while performing combos.

Guardian Corps HQ (NPCs): "Prim" and "Shock" NPCs have switched places. Their dialogue has been adjusted slightly to match these changes.

Final stage: Additional respawn points added in a certain section.

Localization

Chinese: A certain scene had an issue where the talking characters were accidentally reversed, and there were other issues involving few untranslated words. This has been fixed.

English: Fixed a slight typo in Pat's dialogue.

Misc

macOS: Loading times improved by changing some code, that made some of the game's threads run slower on systems with M1 chips.

Speedrun Mode: If the in-game timer is enabled from the game's system settings, Speedrun Mode is enabled by default when launching the game (if Speedrun Mode has been unlocked). This is so that speedrunners do not need to remember to toggle this setting every time they launch the game.

General code performance: Slight improvements across the board in various places, that cumulatively help the game run more smoothly on lower end hardware.