#aka does this blog have malicious intent?

[mvsicinthedvrk]

a friendly psa about (some) asian names ✌️

this is not me coming to you as an admin (though this message has been admin-team-approved), this is me coming at you as an ollie, who is tired. and i am going to attempt to kindly educate, because i have been playing wei wuxian for three years, and there are still occasionally people who call him 'wei.' pls believe that i know it's not intentional and that it's definitely not meant maliciously, but it's still tiring. so!! i wrote this nice little guide to (some) asian names, and i am hoping you will read it, and potentially learn something about a different culture, if this is new to you 💕

east asian names are usually (not always! but usually!) structured as surname + given name. (aka family name first, then first name). so for example, my chinese character who is named mo xi, he's from the mo family, and his given name is xi. i mention this bc i have seen so many starter calls, etc, where people request from my characters using their last names, and i would love for this to stop. for my character named feng yu, his family name is feng, yu is his given name. that's why feng yu's brother is feng xin. they have the same surname, and that surname comes first 👍

**however!! this structure is not a broad-strokes rule; it doesn't necessarily apply to all asian characters or all characters from asian countries/fandoms. a lot of people still submit their apps for asian characters and prefer to list them on the taken/ooc pages with "given name + surname" in that order, so it's best not to make general assumptions. for example, sunny is listed on the ooc as playing an anime/manga character named madoka kaname. in this case, the character's given name is 'madoka' with the last name 'kaname.' how can you tell? if you look on the character's wiki page or on sunny's blog, either place will tell you that she does in fact go by 'madoka.' (so: you wouldn't want to assume that it's flip-flopped just because it looks like an asian name).

therefore, when writing with someone and trying to figure out how to write an asian name appropriately, generally the best thing to do is ask yourself: how is the other person structuring this character's name in their replies and starter calls? and can i look on the character's wiki page to figure it out if i'm unsure? finally, if neither of those help you, you can always just ask your writing partner. personally, i know my dm's are open and i'd rather someone come to me and say 'hey i was wondering how should i write X character's name' rather than see someone call them the wrong name, which makes me sad :((

finally, a note specifically for CHINESE names!!

with chinese names specifically, in mandarin you usually do call someone by their full name, even if it's someone you've known for a while. so whether i was longtime friends with wei wuxian or whether we just became friends recently, i would still call him 'wei wuxian.' this may seem overly formal, but i promise it's not.

now, it is acceptable to call someone by only their given name as long as their given name has more than a single character (syllable). so if i wanted to could call him just 'wuxian' it would be technically fine-- especially if we're talking/writing in english, that's fine. 👍 wen kexing can be called 'kexing.' chu wanning can technically be called 'wanning,' etc. it is odd for strangers, but if you know the person or especially if you're friends/close, it's definitely alright. (there's actually a lot of rules about nicknames/ closeness/ seniority and things like that, but without getting too complicated, you can assume this is generally fine.)

HOWEVER, if someone's chinese given name is one character (usually written with one syllable in pinyin/english), you really shouldn't call them just by that name. it's not technically rude, exactly, but it's awkward and off-putting at the very least. that's not what you call them. xie lian is 谢怜, with both names as one character each, so 'xie lian' can't just be called 'lian.' he can either be 'xie lian' (full name) or something like 'a-lian' if you really want to give him a nickname. likewise, pei ming cannot be called 'ming' even though that's his given name. he needs to be called 'pei ming' all together. mo xi is always called mo xi (never 'xi'), qi yan is always called qi yan (not just 'yan') etc. if you're not sure at a glance whether a chinese muse's given name is one-character or not, simply call them by their full name to be safe.

again, this might sound like a lot of work, but if you just look at my tag for xie lian or read whatever reply of mine you're working off of, you'll see me call him 'xie lian' in the narration, and you can just follow along with that. and once you figure it out one time, then ur good for any later interactions as well.

and that's it !! if you have questions, feel free to ask and i'll try my best to explain! don't feel bad if you've misnamed characters in the past, but i would really appreciate if people keep this in mind moving forward, because it will make my life so much more peaceful and relaxing. thanks for reading; i appreciate your time!!

[jaycrr]

Blog Post Due 10/31

Is the report button against trolling/abusive behavior enough to remove trolls?

When accounts start to troll they fill social media apps with toxicity and it can be difficult to control and protect online users. In the article by Leslie Jones, we see that Twitter tweeted that they are working on improving tools and enforcement systems to prevent abusive behavior. This response suggests they are aware that the platform's current measures are not sufficient for the community. In order to get accounts/trolls taken down it seems like reporting is the only type of action users can take against users. And it's not like one report against an account brings attention, you need multiple people to spread awareness, making it not so effective. It is a positive step, but trolling is still happening showing that the enforcement against these actions is not enough. Twitter states they "rely on people to report this type of behavior" and even admit that "a lot of work remains" showing their inability to prevent abuse consistently

2. Why is the "cyber" label important to abusive behavior"?

Perpetrators are actively engaging in destructive behavior, online or offline including both. It is not just harassment or stalking. The internet has extended the life of destructive/harassment postings. Where as opposed to offline, the memories just fade away. The internet/cyber space makes it impossible to forget about harmful posts. According the article "Hate Crimes in Cyberspace", indexed posts do not have an expiration date, meaning the search engine will produce it, even if they are harmful posts that were created years ago

3. What does the term "troll" mean to us, AKA the digital age? Trolls derived from norse mythology and they were said to be supernatural creatures with less than benevolent intents, but to the digital age is taken on a new meaning. These days, to be labeled a troll on the internet means to have no supernatural powers but you have more of a malicious intent. On the internet to be a troll is to have bad intentions and wanting to harm someone, and you can say that you become a victim when trolled. It is important to note that a troll only wants attention or a reaction to continue on with their trolling, so by responding to them online we are only given them what they want much like how we were talking in class this past Wednesday.

4. What is "trolling" on reddit and what can be some forms of trolling.

A troll can be someone that disrupts discussion in a group, they spread bad advice, and damage the feeling of trust in that group. In Reddit communities, trolls disrupt discussions by posting provocative, offensive or misleading comments to get reactions from people. There are multiple forms of trolling even if they are subtle or very hostile posts meant to focus attention elsewhere. It can be posting aggressive opinions to begin arguments. One and many argue the most popular is baiting people to get reactions through extreme statements, common in popular subreddits for politics for example. Another form that can be spreading fake information. Trolls want to see chaos and they do this simply to make them believe false facts/rumors.

Bergstrom, Kelly. "Don't feed the troll". Shutting down debate about community expectations on Reddit.com

K. Citron, Danielle. Hate Crimes in Cyberspace.

Silman, Anna. A Timeline of Leslie Jones's Horrific Online Abuse

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Hi! What are yours views on the recently released billboard article about bts? I assumed that people agreed on the fact that its was extremely disappointing and disrespectful towards bts but there are many ‘army’ blogs who are still defending that article

From anon: What do you think of the new Billboard article about the boys? 😓

I’ll be honest, I had a bit of a debate with myself if I want to post something about the article or not, if I want to draw more attention to it (like there’s literally anyone left who hasn’t heard about or read it), and if I want to get mad all over again. Since you’re reading this, we all know what conclusion I arrived at.

Usually I try to at least somewhat organize my answers to not jump around or angrily rant, but wow, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get that done this time so please bear with me this once. I’d also usually add direct copy+paste quotes and/or screenshots but I truly don’t want to give this article any clicks, or give that “journalist” and his writing even more direct attention, so this answer will have to do without them, I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ve all read the article, or at least seen parts of it, so you’ll know what I’m talking about in each instance.

You know, in all of this, besides the obvious awful aspects of it all, I also feel bad for the staff (not the Billboard journalist and the editors) involved in this, like for example the photographer who went in and took gorgeous pictures of the members, did his best working with them, only for said pictures to be forever attached to this dumpster fire. And the members who spent so much time during that photoshoot to get only the best results and yet, what does it even matter in the end. As well as the fact that they took time out of their busy schedules to meet the journalist, to answer whatever questions he had, to just end up having to read all...THAT.

As some pointed out, it is though very telling that none of the HYBE/BHM/BTS twt accounts have retweeted the Billboard twts with links to the article. That already basically tells you everything you need to know, as in, that the article isn’t worth our time and our braincells needed to read it.

After so many years I think most of us have come to expect basically nothing from interviews with literally any US publication, but especially magazines like The Hollywood Reporter (remember that mess?) and Billboard, and, well, the bar was in hell and yet they still managed to deliver a result that was, I think, one of or the worst article I’ve ever read on BTS. Especially since large parts of the article weren’t even about them? For a cover story about BTS, what’s up with the lack of interview, the minimal amount of quotes from their answers, the summarization of their supposed words, and the large focus on a “controversy” basically cooked up by haters on stan twt? And the “journalist”, who has shown in older twts that he has a negative bias toward BTS and ARMY, even taking direct quotes from stan twt accounts for western artists to illustrate his point, instead of, I don’t know, legit sources? Showing numbers or anything that would show credibility and a solid foundation for said argument? But instead it’s gossip and malicious accusation based on “I don’t like that this band is successful instead of my fave so I will accuse them of cheating while I ignore all the cheating my own fave partakes in”.

More below the cut:

Of course we were, once again, served the narrative that ARMY are just a bunch of manipulated teens which, let’s like talk about that for a second because there are a lot of layers to this and the further you look, the worse it looks for people like this journalist and everyone else like him openly shading ARMY. 

Let’s suppose ARMY really somehow were millions of girls ages 12 to 18 (who somehow have access to enough money to raise funds for music and also match BTS’ $1 million donation and spend money on so many different charity projects every year) and these journalists, most of them men usually above the age of 30, go around and basically belittle and “hate” on them. Do we see the problem here? The fact that in this case grown adults openly, in publications they are paid to write for, bully teenagers and kids simply because they don’t agree with the musician said teens and kids have decided to be a fan of and support. And because they are girls instead of soccer loving boys, as counter example.

A truly weird hill to be willing to d*e on just to make some kind of (negative) point if you ask me. 

Then of course there’s the whole thing that Mr. Journalist decided to go in with a narrative in mind and seriously sit down opposite Namjoon and basically ask him “hey, listen, what do you think about your crazy TEENAGE fans buying your music (truly the audacity, how dare they) and that they are cheating and manipulating the system? Like that’s not right, right?”. Bless Namjoon and his genius brain for being able to keep his cool and shut down that man with his amazing answer shifting the blame right back onto Billboard and how, if they don’t like people playing by the rules that they themselves have created, maybe they should look at their own system and reevaluate it instead of turning against and point a finger at BTS who, as Namjoon said himself, are simply an easy target because they are foreigners, because they sing in a language that isn’t English, and because they are Asian. And really, is there anything the US music industry hates more than foreigners, POC at that, being successful, or even more successful, than their industry supported artists? Don’t think so.

Also can we talk about how strange the argument of “bulk/mass buying” is when ARMY never goes over the limits Billboard themselves have set up, being four copies of a given song. If they truly were against people “bulk/mass buying” you’d think they would lower the number to one copy per person and that’s it, right, the way iTunes does it. And yet, they did not. Because “bulk/mass buying” is okay, just not when it’s ARMY and Bangtan.

Billboard: Buying multiple copies of the same song is bad and makes no sense. You’re cheating.

Also Billboard: Here, buy EIGHT copies of the same magazine, with the exact same contents but different covers, for $170+ in this neat little bundle.

Make it make sense, will you? Or at least be less obvious with what you’re doing.

It’s a problem when it’s done in a way that doesn’t benefit them, and the greater US music industry and their shady system, but when it does benefit them, it’s totally chill, easy, no problem? It’s so obvious, dumb, and kind of makes me want to laugh but also scream and/or knock my head against my table because it’s just so bizarre yet it’s treated like this all makes sense and is completely normal. And the sad thing is, it is normal. We, or BTS as umbrella term, are a problem because we get things done, we get achievements and #1s and numbers without giving in to payola, paid playlisting, bundles when they were still a thing, and without everything else the US labels do to push their artists into basically false fame. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen and nonbinary friends, is where the issue lies.

While talking about all of this among ourselves (as in ARMY at large) across sns, as well as taking into account some pondering by journalists questioning the intentions of the article, a thought arose and, now that I think about it, it sounds just too obvious and yet here we are. Voting season for the Grammys is coming up sometime soon-ish, and Billboard is one of the major publications that the voting members look at and read when considering who to give their vote to. Now imagine you’re a voting member who until this point had a positive, or at least neutral, opinion on BTS but on Monday you sit down and read this article? Would you still want to vote for an artist being accused of “chart manipulation” and supposedly claiming they didn’t actually want to do music in English but were forced into it despite originally saying something else?

No, right?

And that’s the point. 

This is nothing but a glorified smear campaign against Bangtan across lots, and I mean lots, of publications who picked up the narrative that this article presented and ran with it. The US music industry sees their success and feels threatened because they are showing that when you have true, organic success and a loyal fan following you don’t need any of the paid for tricks to achieve things, you don’t need payola, don’t need paid for playlisting on streaming websites, and don’t need US industry backing. You can do it all on your own, therefore these exploitative systems and institutions don’t make any money off of you which is obviously unacceptable. Even more so when you could actually win, or at least again be nominated, for what is regarded as the supposedly most prestigious music award, aka the Grammys. So, since they know they can’t get rid of ARMY, can’t discourage us from supporting BTS, they go for their image and reputation instead. And that’s what this article tried to achieve. Show that, wow, in the end all the “dark side of K-Pop” stories were true all along because even poor, poor BTS are puppets of their evil agency after all, are forced into things, and are used to manipulate their gullible teenage fans into throwing money at them and manipulating the charts.

How come we’re the only ones who see just how f*cked up all of this is? And the few journalists who are on our side?

Lastly, can we talk about just how weird the use of and the quotes themselves from the members were? Most felt not only out of place, out of context, but also so weirdly out of character some ARMY have started to question how much of their “quoted words” are actually theirs and how much might be, essentially, fabricated/twisted to fit the desired narrative the journalist had from the get go. I know a certain crowd, you know which one I mean, jumped onto what was said about the english songs but also especially the final quote from Seokjin at the end of the article that essentially boiled down to “we were so annoyed and overworked we said screw everything, especially our agency, and now we only trust each other” or something to that effect. Am I the only one who thinks that quote sounded nothing like something Seokjin would say? Yes, he’s said cheeky things in the past, he’s also said bold things, like his entire speech against sajaegi back in 2019, but each time he was polite and stuck to his manners while doing so, yet this? I don’t know, something about it just feels very off. Or JKs quote about how he sacrificed more than just his youth to be who he is now. While we know that is true, after all he became a trainee at a very young age and spent the better part of his teenage years as idol on stage, but has he ever spoken about that negatively? In such a manner?

Someone suggested that interviewers should publish transcripts of the original Korean answers and questions that BTS were asked in order to offer some transparency and also for us to know that what they are quoted saying are actually things they did say. I know that’s very unlikely to ever happen, just wishful thinking on my/our part, especially when a hit piece article is attached to it, but in moments like this, it really would be very helpful. For us, but also to add credibility to such articles and the context in which said quotes are used.

Now, for the ‘ARMYs’ who defended this article, to be honest, I’d very much question how much of an ARMY someone is when they can go and read this article and agree with it. How? I get that for some the things in this article played right into their manti agenda, but mantis aren’t ARMY. And the crowd who decided to, instead of blaming the journalist for the narrative he tried to push with all its negative implications, blamed HYBE/BHM instead? Are you serious? That isn’t how journalism works, or at least it shouldn’t be. HYBE/BHM can’t just go in and say “we don’t like this article, change it”, that’s not how freedom of press works, and also, do you realize how weird it is that you are blaming an Asian agency for a hit piece published by a western publication?

What was interesting though was that, as example, the online merch store Cokodive made a statement on their IG page in which they said the following:

So even they, who could’ve directly benefited from selling the magazine, decided that it wouldn’t be right because that article is a travesty. It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of things, yet it shows that it isn’t just ARMY who are being “sensitive little snowflakes who can’t take criticism” but also others outside the fandom who also see the disrespect within the article and its blatant negativity and lack objectivity.

Personally I saved the pictures but I refuse to give views directly to Billboard when it comes to the “Things you didn’t know about BTS” video as well as the behind the scenes clips of the members regardless of how beautiful they are. And I refuse to give their website and this article any more clicks than I already gave them while reading the article in the first place.

You can be critical of an artists success, you can wonder how they, specifically, managed to become as successful as they did, but what you can’t do is completely ignore shady practices of other artists while attacking those who don’t partake in any of them simply because they manage to fill stadiums and get #1s without those practices. At the end of the day, just like Forbes once said that BTS don’t need the Grammys but the Grammys need BTS, in the same way BTS don’t need Billboard and their shady articles and twts, but Billboard needs BTS for clicks and views and therefore revenue. 

As longtime ARMY it also saddens me having watched Bangtan become more and more disillusioned with the US market, as well as ARMY going through the same thing. Then again, like Namjoon said in the article, it isn’t their goal to become mainstream in the US, all they want is to have a big tour and that’s it. Nothing more.

As twt says: this article should’ve just stayed in the drafts.

[darth-schism]

Malicious Film Cannon Compliance

Fan theories and head cannons, I think, are significantly more valid than what people give them credit for. It can be more than just a suspension of belief/denial of the “intended cannon,” as long as there is at least some objective evidence (aka information seen in film), and enough logical subjective evidence (aka information from behind the scenes/books/Disney’ twitter...I guess) to support it. After that, general estimations can be made. 

So whether the new Star Wars series does well in tastefully retconning/subverting the sequels, or not, these particular cannons can still hold true. Furthermore, if Disney is going to deliver us a poorly executed plot full of holes and lack of explanation, we may as well use that against them.

(And yeah, this post will pretty much be like all the others. But that’s the point of the blog, and I also made some gifs for the occasion so...)

1. Snoke and Palpatine are NOT the same person

- The phantom emperor wanted to possess Rey. Snoke wanted to kill her. The intentions completely contradict each other. The phantom admitted his orders to have Kylo kill Rey was all a ruse. But that is vastly different from Snoke being fully prepared to kill Rey himself, and his guards moving in to kill her even after the Supreme Leaders death. This proves that, artificial life or not, Snoke was more than a mere puppet. 

- The original Palpatine, for all intents and purposes, is dead, and his plan for resurrections failed. What we did get, however, was two artificial life forms absolutely teaming with the force, and imbued with the memories of a dead Sith (hence the overlap). Either that, or the force ghost of the actual Palpatine had possessed a new (albeit reforming) body. Either case separates Snoke from Palps. 

2. There was a power struggle between the phantom emperor and Snoke.

- It was said that Snoke’s take over of the First Order was sudden and hostile in nature. This makes sense, since non-humans are seen as inferior and undesirable by the Imperial regime (even people as powerful and feared as Thrawn were still controversial because of this). What’s more, he took on the title of Supreme Leader, instead of Emperor, as if to further solidify himself as a separate entity. 

- The Snoke project was the effort to return the Emperor back to life. The finished form of both Snoke and the phantom emperor were completed in the same place, the Exegol lab. 

- However...Snoke lead the First Order for decades. While the phantom emperor remained silent and hidden on Exegol. The phantom emperor didn’t even try to make his presence known, until AFTER Snoke died (as a near immediate response). 

- The Emperor was not one for letting someone else hog his glory. Even when he wasn’t around much (like in A New Hope or Empire Strikes Back) everyone still knew he was the one in control. That was Palpatine’s whole deal. It is completely out of character to assume he’d let Snoke take his credit. So in other words, Snoke rose to power from Exegol, the phantom was left in his half finished state, and could only make his move when Snoke was out of the way. OR, Snoke rose to power, the xenophobic loyalist didn’t like that and kept working to create a more “Emperor like Emperor,” and (again) could only release him after Snoke was gone. 

3. Luke had NOT given up 

- For starters, and the most objective bit of evidence, is that you have a map to Skywalker that’s literally named “The Map to Skywalker.” Furthermore, the only part known to the enemy was a tiny sliver, that was sent out all across the galaxy to lead Kylo and Snoke on a constant, wild goose chase, and would be ultimately useless to them even if they did get their hands on it. After that, the rest of the map was entrusted to non other than R2D2, who then entrusted it to select “heroes in need.” Luke did this on purpose. But why this specific tactic? Well... 

- Snoke was ready to blow up any landmass Luke was even thought to be on, and could literally pull information out of people’s mind.

- Luke couldn’t risk the lives of other people like that. And thus he had to isolate himself, and could not risk being found by even his friends. Taking the First Order head on, and publicly, was out of the question, and so implementing the means to keep them chasing their own tail was the first best step to undermine them. (Because even though he had also gone into hiding for all the legitimate emotional reasons discussed in TLJ, he still used his infamy against the enemy). Also...

- It’s not much a “cutting away” of the past, when you can just force lift your X-Wing (that you know Dagobah dang well is water proof) out of the ocean for whenever you happen to need it. And, as we see in The Mandalorian S2 (and even SWBFII if you want) Luke is clearly well versed in taking on covert, solo operations to protect the galaxy.

- Knowing what we know of Luke, we have every reason to believe that his isolation was in equal parts choice and necessity. That he still ventured out to help the galaxy. And that much of his harsh dismissals of those that happened to find him was to preserve his safety (and thus everyone else).

- The hurdle Luke overcame in TLJ was not going out to save people. It was going out to save people in an unavoidably public way, that would solidify him as the Jedi once more. 

[kinkymagnus]

Hey I've read a lot of your posts, where Magnus is a trans boy and I like that a lot, but I was wondering if you don't like the canon cis male Magnus? I'd ask you non-anonymously too, but I'm honestly scared of some people's hate messages for a question like this... sorry

long answer long answer lmao

hmgmgmnggg ok so i, hm. ok, i don’t think this was meant in a rude way at all, and i promise im in Education(TM) mode not Kill The Malicious Evil Transphobe(TM) mode like im not, accusing you of anything here, at all 

but i do have a few Issues with like, the way this was asked i guess

i will answer your question just--give me a sec, im a little uncomfortable here

also like, ok, i get why you’re sending it anonymously, it’s cool--personally i’ve never seen anyone get hate on behalf of trans magnus headcanons (rather than against them) but i mean, hate can come in all shapes and sizes i guess? and anxiety, so. whatever, it’s fine, i get it

but anyway moving on: first, “canon” cis magnus. my dude... my guy... did at any point magnus say I Am Cisgender or pull out his dick.... like... neither trans or cis magnus is really “canon” just as like, you know, izzy isn’t confirmed straight or bi or pan. we know she likes dudes and personally i think the way she looks at clary indicates she sure do like girls, too, but that doesn’t seem to have been intended so it’s debatable, and that’s basically it. 

also, in the context of just like... historical shit, realistically magnus isn’t cis. is he trans in the way i write about (like afab, “pre op”)? no, not necessarily in canon (although he isn’t... not that either i guess--we do see his flat chest, no scars, but HYPOTHETICALLY that could be a glamour, or the scars are magically healed. we know he has an adams apple, but there ways to do that without magic, let alone with magic. so like. i’m just saying.) 

but like, he wouldn’t be cis how we understand it either by the simple virtue of being much older than the western gender binary as we know it. even if he was born with a penis and all of that and identified as a Man(TM) And Nothing Else that wouldn’t mean his idea of masculinity/manhood would be the same as ours, or that it wouldn’t at least be shaped by very different factors. so like. even if my version of trans magnus isn’t confirmed canon, cis magnus certainly isn’t either i think. that might be slicing hairs or getting finnicky with language, but it’s how i feel about it. 

and just assuming that he’s canonically cis rubs me the wrong way, like, characters aren’t cishet by default, you know? obviously the writers probably weren’t intending to make him trans, and cc certainly wasn’t when she stole his character from dark hunters and made it “her own”, or else there’d be a bunch of transphobic tropes in there, but like, you know, death of the authors, we make sense of canon now. intentions arguably don’t matter, we do with the story what we will, especially when working within it.

again i don’t think you were necessarily being like “well magnus is canonically cis so :/” but it rubs me the wrong way and is something i’ve seen before so like, yeah

secondly, “trans boy” magnus versus “cis male” magnus. why boy, anon. why boy

(god why does “why boy” sound like a bizarre t-shirt slogan or a mbmbam segment--NO, BRAIN. WE ARE ON SERIOUS BUSINESS.) 

but seriously tho like the sort of infantilization of trans men is really a thing (seeing them as “soft bois” and “uwu cute boys” and feminine/soft/small/delicate) and like, specifically calling magnus a trans boy versus when he’s cis he’s a “male” (which technically can refer to any age but has those like, Connotations) sits wrong with me. like, magnus isn’t a boy, you know? i mean i get making jokes like “aw my boys <3″ or whatever, but with this it’s not that say memey context AND specifically it concerns a trans man (not to mention him being asian) so like, it feels, yikes? like just. he isn’t a “trans boy”

im sorry i realize it seems like im just like harshly picking apart your answer and i really dont mean to sound like a bitch here but like, again. Education(TM) mode not Anon Hate(TM) mode. just for learning, it’s cool, i’m not angry at you, it’s chill. 

to answer your question with the yikes language gently nudged to the trash chute: do i dislike cis magnus? 

simple answer: yes.

complicated answer: not really. i already stated why i don’t like Cis(TM) magnus as it feels unrealistic and dumb and also he just doesn’t have cis energy lmao, but if you just mean like... well this isn’t really “cis” but kind of what people mean in this context, AMAB magnus (meaning he was “assigned male at birth” aka has a penis and all that) and he’s canonically gnc so like, he’s “cis” even if his understanding of masculinity might be different than ours and obviously we’ve seen him be gnc and all that.... i don’t really hate that, and objectively, i have no issues with it, but personal taste wise, i basically only read/write trans magnus as you see on my blog now. because i’ve kind of absorbed it as “canon” in my head (fanon, i guess, lmao) 

plus, just generally trans magnus is really important to me because like, a) he is #goals i too want to be a muscular gnc hottie, b) he’s relatable and i project all my shit onto him lmao, c) it just feels very validating, in a lot of ways--with the sexual preferences i write about, his insecurities, just the way he looks, and him being trans is just kind of reassuring, you know? also d) i honestly think it fits him/his character/his backstory and he just has the vibes u kno 

so basically, Cis(TM) magnus? no-go. cis magnus as in AMAB/identifies as a man full stop even if it’s wibbly wobbly compared to current times and lbr no one is going to really explore that much beyond him being outwardly gnc sometimes? fine, whatever. trans afab magnus still being gnc as hell? yessssssss

ldkgjfgh anyway im glad you like my posts!!! and hopefully ive Inducted Another Into The Trans Magnus Cult (thats a joke, but seriously, im just like,,,,,maam do u have time for ur lord and savior trans magnus?? maam blease)  

[migleefulmoments]

"That’s because she’s a toddler that stomps her foot and throws a tantrum when she doesn’t get what she wants or the attention she feels entitled to for doing absolutely nothing meaningful with her life." Hahahahahaha, Abby talking about herself again. This miserable woman has some serious psychological issues if she can't recognize that what she is describing is her own pathetic attitude and existence. It really is woeful behavior, Abby. For the love of god, stop and employ some introspection.

I’m always amazed at her complete lack of introspection and her inability to understand who is doing the feet stomping and attention-demanding but I’m more floored that the tinhat enablers can’t see it. The endless narcissism memes and quotes posted without an iota of irony by Leka, Cassie, and Flowers are frankly baffling. How can they not see it? 

I suppose Mia could be a stomping toddler princess-we would have no way of knowing because we hardly ever hear her speak and we certainly do not get to hear her thoughts and feelings about life. The only time we get any access to anything that might resemble a thought or feeling is when a friend reblogs s social media post from her private IG. It’s super rare and we have never seen anything resembling a “toddler princess”.  To get from a smiling photo of Darren and Mia on the red carpet to “she is stomping her feet and making demands” one must believe a long, fabricated backstory created purely to fulfill Abby’s fantasy-a fantasy that is rooted in deep-green jealousy rather than anything real.  

Mia is well-liked by her friends, her bar staff, and Darren’s friends, coworkers, and peers. We know this because they post it on social media. People write really nice -and often very specific-comments about what they like about Mia or what she brings to their lives. Abby, on the other hand, spends her days raging over Darren maybe might possibly could ogle men on the Hollywood set and that would be someone’s fault-ok it would be Ricky’s fault. She’s angry about Darren’s new home-shocker, she doesn’t like it. She’s pissed that D-Criss News reports Darren’s life like it happens aka she doesn’t scrub her blog of all mentions of Mia and/or Photoshop her out of pictures like DACN does. The only one demanding respect is Miss Abs who was quite angry after being called out and argued “I am the one who constantly tries to explain his actions and constantly tries to assert my opinion”

There is only one person stomping her feet and making demands and her name starts with “Abby”. 

“I was just saying to a good friend, with SK, my patience has expired. And that’s how I feel about everything involving d and this tragedy. At least if he was working there would be a distraction. It’s May. We’ve gotten one night about d. One. The rest have been overshadowed and that includes his 3 awards.

And if my patience has run out, imagine how d&c feel. I just wish I knew how we got here. It’s my worst nightmare times a thousand, maybe a million. And I’m disgusted with everyone surrounding him. And angry. Very very angry.

Please may he win. If he wins, this will just be a difficult bump on a long road to the finish line and victory. Please, please, please. This can’t be his life. Because he’s not living”.(X)

“...your one sentence resonates, “fans of d who want him straight see M as the only one who makes him straight…”. That’s not a me problem. That’s a them problem. That’s pathetic. Essentially, what you are saying, and truly what I believe so we agree, they support m because they realize without her d would be allowed to be his queer self in love with another man. And that truth petrifies them.

And this fandom, in which I am a loud voice, points out every damn flaw and they hate it because they know they can’t erase it. So they counter by praising that worthless, vile, malicious, greedy woman. And bullying us. And creating blogs to hate us.

And yes a side effect, m gets same increased praise because of it. And that’s a negative. But we also make her life hell but continuing to publish facts. And we scare the fuck out if her fans. And I have no intention of stopping. Because the truth always comes out in the end. M will lose. Maybe not today or even next year. But in time. And I will take pride in knowing I was a massive thorn in her side and played a part in her demise.

D is going to win. And I will see it happen.

Love this gem of demands 

You know what I miss?

D having projects that I was excited about and looking forward to.  The ONLY one he has upcoming that i am remotely happy about is M/idway, and that makes me sad in many ways as that is the direction his career should be going and instead it has stalled.

Instead, this entire year was things I do not care about and I am not interested in.  

SK? No thank you, not only do many (not all) use him mercilessly, but everything they touch, whether professional or personal, is the PBB show.  And while I appreciate his loyalty, i really do, and I understand he is an owner, he has grown so far beyond them, this should not have been a primary focus of the entire first half of the year.

R/oyalites?  That one is hard no for me. first we have the Jumping Jackass as executive producer. Need i say more?  Of course I will.  It is also in a format i found wholly uninteresting and is being written by 2 people that i don’t believe have grown beyond their college years.  In addition, i think it will be used as a vehicle to promote ass kissers, but that remains to be seen.

TB?  Nope, have not even watched it in its entirety more than once.  A commercial for a food chain i don’t like and that supports Donnie as the ONLY acting he has done until just recently seems like an utter joke.  I recognize it was well done, but not when it is the only thing. Commercials and ads should be supplementing his acting career, not be his entire career.

EF? I should be excited, i have a ticket. But to see who?  6 weeks from Saturday and not even D is confirmed as performing.  And even if it is an amazing line up, RR and PBB have their fingerprints all over it and pull focus. (future Abby LOVED Elsie this year) 

I WAS excited about CG music, but what happened there?  They started a fan club, promised an EP and nothing.  Instead C/huck has released his own album and included at least one song that was supposed to be on the CG EP.  

Fine, there is CIM, that was fun, but fleeting. So i guess I was happy about this.  Wonder what happened to the video?

I think this is the thing that makes me almost more angry than anything. Fine, they forced him to marry that woman, and that breaks my heart and is near impossible to watch. I hate every second of it.  But not only do I have to watch that shit show nearly everyday as their life may as well be a reality show, there isn’t even the work to use as a distraction.

I assume and hope there is a plan and this is temporary. I do.He deserves so much better than what has happened in 2019.

Sorry, in a glum mood and this is what happened.

[greater-than-the-sword]

An Open Letter to Tumblr Staff

I’m sending this right now via email. I hope there are at least a few reblogs on this to preserve the post just in case something happens. For another purpose, signatories to this letter would also be great since I DO think I’m voicing our general sentiment here. Message me for @support ‘s email address if you want to also write them about this.

Dear Tumblr staff/support:

Some time ago I sent a report to you detailing the abuses committed by certain members of the tumblr community against one particular user who is a part of the Christian community on Tumblr. I explained the harassment and hatred directed toward her by what’s known as a “hateblog”, a blog which is set up specifically to mock and deride one particular user. I received a response from this team saying that what this hateblog had done was not against the Community Guidelines, since there was no credible threat of violence. I attempted to persuade the affected user to file a report on her own behalf, but she is so forgiving and open-hearted towards her harassers that she was unwilling to do so.

When I learned that the Tumblr Community Guidelines were recently updated with broader provisions against harassment and hateful speech, I had hoped to see Tumblr finally free to take action against the blogs who were persistently harassing this user. Instead, I was shocked to learn that shortly after this policy was enacted, the blog of the innocent party was deleted.

Now: At first it seemed plausible that this might be a mistaken case of guilt by association; since hateful and abusive messages surround this user who is a target of harassment. But her blog has now been deleted twice by staff, and I am forced to conclude that this was intentional.

What I, and the rest of the Christian community on tumblr, would like to know, is this: How did John15-10 (AKA Mark 16-15) violate Tumblr’s Community Guidelines? Those of us who knew her best know that she never spoke harshly or hatefully to anyone, or dehumanized or incited violence, but always spoke with love and grace and a willingness to forgive that puts the best of us to shame. On tumblr, vitriolic exchanges between blogs and anonymous senders are not uncommon. Staff usually overlooks such matters, but I would ask you to consider the rarity of responses such as this, which surpass mere civility.

Do you think that a person with such a character as not to lash out at these messages would be guilty of malicious speech? I do not think so and neither does the Christian community on tumblr, but we eagerly await your response. We request that you look through your cache (if there is one) and see if there is anything demanding that this user be banned, and if there is, please show us the specific words that got her banned, so that we can be assured that Tumblr Staff is just and impartial, and not arbitrary or discriminatory.

While I have your attention: As you look for evidence of John15-10’s wrongdoing I’d like to request your consideration of several things. One, just because a tumblr user is received with anger does not imply that anger is justified (as we’ve seen with various incidents within the tumblr community). To assume that it is would be injustice and victim blaming. Secondly keep in mind that evangelism is a core part of the Christian identity, and that restrictions on evangelism are de facto attacks on Christianity itself. Thus, if tumblr were to forbid Christian evangelism they would be discriminating against users based on religion. Thirdly, if a post breaks community guidelines, it breaks them regardless of what tags it is posted in, if any. And if a post does not break community guidelines than there is no reason why posting it under a certain tag would change that.

I believe the dispute which has arisen between John15-10 and other members of the website is well within the capability of tumblr users to handle amongst themselves through discussion and does not necessitate banning her. I and the Christian community on tumblr call on you to do the right thing by reinstating John15-10 to reactivate her blog (if possible) and if not possible, to allow her to continue her evangelism in future without retribution from the staff.

Thank you for reading this far,

- greater-than-the-sword

[anearthstruckalien]

[[  Since that post about the nuance to Giegue’s sentiment about hating Psions I figured that it would be appropriate to talk more about the species in question, but not without making something clear first.  The way that I’ve described them (i.e as a society that lacks any moral code beyond ‘rational’ and ‘beneficial for Psions’ and has this really limited comprehension of emotions despite having them thereby leading to this absence of empathy that most would see in them) still holds.  They shouldn’t be seen as anything more or less than that because while outliers (Giegue for instance) do exist it’s such a small handful of people that it’s simpler to describe them as a whole --in grouped terms even though this isn’t true for everyone.

And speaking of these outliers... that’s the main topic of this post!  As such, I’ll start with something of a recap on what I have already mentioned before on this blog some time ago.  The ‘freaks’ of Psion society basically consists of anyone whom is ‘flawed’ from the very beginning in some way (physical, mental, or in some PSI-based way) or becomes that way despite being ‘perfect’ when they were first made by the production machine.  The ‘freaks’ that have been like that as a result of some error in the production process are all given an identifier of ‘Nol’ rather than actual name whereby this identifier more or less equates to calling someone a ‘nothing’, null, zero, someone that isn’t of acceptable benefit to their society to be awarded an actual name.  This is done with the full intent of making that division between the ‘perfect’ ones of society and the ‘flawed’.  They want to reinforce their hierarchy by showing that it isn’t okay to be anything less than what they regard as ‘acceptable’.  The ones that became ‘freaks’ get to keep their names to recognize the contributions they did make to society and acknowledge their ‘usefulness’ before things went downhill for them.

However, being ‘flawed’ whether it be ‘inherent’ or something that was acquired isn’t an automatic death sentence just as simply failing isn’t automatic grounds for receiving some kind of penalty (that all depends on why someone failed aka what the circumstances were).  Rather their aim is to try ‘fixing’ that person so that they can fulfill their predetermined role in society to its fullest extent (i.e what their design parameters intended) because it’s a waste of resources to otherwise discard someone.  And we all know by now just how much Psions hate wasting.  Enough that if they can’t ‘fix’ someone? that person is put to some other use such as being a test subject for experiments.  Now, the topic of ‘freaks’ isn’t really a secret--everyone knows that they exist and that the production machine isn’t absolutely perfect--but it isn’t something that’s passed around in an active way either.  There’s little reason for it to be.  It’s just how it is to most.  And they have better things to do with their time than gossip much about ‘freaks’ anyways.

As such, no one really thinks about the ‘freaks’ much (that’s for the ones in charge of ‘fixing’ them to worry about) unless something big happens or the Psion is a ‘freak’ themself.  In general, I think that three categories of ‘freaks’ can be used to divide up the small handful of Psions that are ‘freaks’ by the standards of Psion society:  the ones whose ‘flaw(s)’ are byproducts of the production machine’s error(s) in the process of making them; the ones whom became ‘freaks’ because of some occurence in their lives and that Psions are wholly aware of; and the ones that became ‘freaks’ because of some occurence in their lives but Psions are not aware of.  The first two have already been covered with regards to how they’re dealt with and all that stuff, but I’ve never actually talked about the third one even though it’s worth mentioning.  To elaborate, it’s more or less talking about someone whom deviates from the standards of Psion society in some way (usually it’s something internal) but keeps that deviation hidden precisely because of how Psion society is.

The result is that you have a lot of Psions that fall under this category opting to dissociate from that or repress it as a means of living comfortably among Psion society (individual situations can vary, but this is the route that’s most commonly taken).  They have no other choice or that’s how they feel at least because otherwise leaving? isn’t a viable option.  The obvious reason for that is because it’s incredibly difficult to do so given how controlled everything is and even if it wasn’t, hardly anyone is truly committed to leaving despite everything because they don’t think that they’re good for anything else.  Thanks to that horrible and intensive societal brainwashing, they truly believe that their sole purpose for existing is to serve their predetermined function as little more than a ‘cog’ in the greater ‘machine’ that is Psion society.  As such, this category of ‘freaks’ is pretty much just stuck there doing their jobs --anyone that does have the guts and willpower to try leaving (a very small subset of an already small handful of people) ends up with an even tinier percentage of success because they don’t want ‘traitors’ to just walk around freely with all that knowledge at their disposal that only Psions should ever have.  That and it’s a ‘waste’ to let their ‘resources’ walk away like that where they can’t otherwise make optimal use of them.

All the same, this does mean that a very tiny number of Psions out there do exist and whom aren’t a part of that society.  And not just those that fall under the third category of ‘freaks’ but any ‘freak’ in general from that society whom has managed to successfully leave and build a life for themselves elsewhere.  What they’re like varies between the individual but it is generally safe to assume that these Psions are different enough from their ‘perfect’ counterparts in Psion society that the same assumptions that one could apply to said society as a whole wouldn’t entirely (if at all) apply here.  They more like actual individuals with independent desires and as such, it’s better to take them on a case-by-case basis rather than make any broad assumptions about them.

With all this in mind, I’m going to conclude things with the sentiment that Psions as a species are irrideemable because as a whole? they’re too far gone in their own thing to ever learn from things in a way that would allow for the required emotional or empathetic growth to change how they do things.  Heck, the only ‘lesson’ that they got out of Giegue’s whole thing was that ‘human emotions’ are dangerous and in general, emotions should never have been meddled with because they could ‘never hope to control or comprehend something whose very pinnacle and nature itself is so irrational’.  Otherwise, they were mainly just disappointed that the Giegue experiment failed because a lot of time, energy, and resources were lost in the process... among other consequences.  They may not have overtly malicious motives for what they do, but the fact remains that they’re too far gone from whatever it is they started out as to turn back.

However, while the species as a whole itself is irrideemable, a small handful of individual Psions are not.  These Psions are the ‘freaks’ of their society and it can range from an inherent ‘flaw’ like having no PSI to being someone that was ‘perfectly-made’ but somewhere along the lines developed a bit more emotionally and started to seriously question what Psion society is doing, what its values are, etc.  It’s (again) a very small handful of people, but it nonetheless illustrates the point that Psions have the potential to be better it’s just being squandered by almost 100% of Psion society.  They aren’t locked into being these terrible creatures --if they were then it wouldn’t even be necessary to apply that societal brainwashing in the first place.  ]]

[tenderlyrenjun]

ex tumblr anon again, i still write, i just moved to ao3 ^^

and yeah i totally get it! similar stuff used to go around in one of the writing spaces for a group i wrote for so it's just really easy to pick up the signs for me i guess. like ah yeah, i remember seeing this. normal people who read and don't like a fic will simply close the tab and find something else so anyone vehemently coming at you like this quite obviously has different intentions and isn't just mad because you're a "bad writer," in fact, they're probably mad for the very opposite.

i still follow you from my new personal account looking forward to your next work! i hope you can find some peace, but i know it's difficult. seen a lot of talented people pushed off this site, and unfortunately one loser being loud will always feel worse than twenty people telling us we're worth it.

<3

I keep reading, like, from actual writers talk about how “normal people” will close out of a fic or how “normal people” don’t, like, send criticism, but really, it’s, like, a Venn diagram of normal people and writers but the diagram is a circle — aka the normal people = writers, and this isn’t to say anything against people who do just that (I’m pretty sure these are mostly silent readers), but idk, I just don’t have any writer mutuals to rely on … ha … that’s my fault. I’m not really likeable (evidence: this blog).

like, I am chronically On Twitter also, and I read off of ff.net/ao3 occasionally (I don’t have an account though because writers on those platforms use Twitter or tumblr anyways for communication), and it’s usually just writers interacting with writers/artists interacting with artists, publicly; it’s v rarely, like, an anonymous reader — which fair, valid; no one owes me feedback, but this makes it infinitely more difficult, on my part, to do anything against that one “loser” because I just … I don’t have any writer friends and the writing community feels so unwelcoming no matter what I do, and again, I know this is my fault — like, maybe if I am a better writer, I won’t get so many criticizing anons.

I don’t think anon is mad at me for the opposite of me being a bad writer; I think it’s that I’m not executing my fics very well (I have an ask, like, two directly under this that kind of(?) address this too) — and, like, again, fair, valid. it’s responsible to be upset that something didn’t go the way you expected it. like, I saw someone request the exact plot of one of my fics on another blog, and just, like, I was kinda heartbroken about it lol (sorry, I know that’s dramatic; I was just sad because it’s literally something that I worked so hard on, and in the end nothing matters because someone always does a drabble better than I do a fic). Idk, it just feels so … intentional; not, like, targeted, but just that nothing matters and my fics do suck because it just keeps going to show that someone else is literally doing everything better and people don’t want fics from me. idk, I’m probably just being overdramatic about it. It’s literally just fanfic; it’s not that big of a deal. sorry, you’re being nice and I’m being negative. I do appreciate the ask; it’s just hard to be here without taking everything to heart; like, I know that no one is intentionally rude or malicious; I’m just ……. overdramatic.

[kurtty-drabbles]

138: “ Are you cold? ”

138: “ Are you cold? ”

Here it is nonny 

@djinmer4 @niuniente @pudimazul269 @girls-are-weird @ohmygillygoshoppler @jaytalkedmeintoit @averytallweirdo-blog

AoA Kurtty (this could be part of the Blutrausch !Verse or can be the yandere!verse as well) here is the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14873384

N/A: No idea how the winter in Bavaria is, but, since this is in another universe I can let my imagination run free.

They say that a perfect snowflake is something rare and almost impossible to find, especially in the winter session in Bavaria. The thick snow is covering houses, land and trees making impossible for anyone to leave, the children are excited with the chance of some free days away from school, snow days are popular around here.

Only one person doesn´t share the childish sentiment in regard to snow, Kitty Pryde(AKA Ariel) is not a fan of winter, cold or even snow and the fact she is in the house looking at the snow with a peeved look in her doe brown eyes.

“You know, if you glare more there´s a good chance of you getting a frown forever” a German voiced(with its thick and deep accent) snap Kitty back to reality, Kurt Darkholme joins the moment at the snow watching with his roughly grin on his handsome face “ is almost like you want to be meme”

Kitty´s eyes scrutiny the blue man(his red scar is very noticeable, especially with the turtleneck he is wearing, of course, is black) then goes back to the snow, her expression is too serious and attentive at each detail outside the house.

“I hate snow” is her only reply, then it follows by something else “it is wet, cold and it gets everywhere”

Kurt blinks his scarlet eyes for a moment and lets a laugh run free from his mouth, his eyes even get watery. (how many years has Kurt Darkholme laughed about something without having a malicious intention?)

“Seriously, Are you Anakin Skywalker of the snow?” he asked as Kitty put her delicate(and deceitful) hand at the cold glass of the window. “I´m sure that if you glare hard enough the snow will know your feelings and will move on”

“Don´t be mean, Rock Star, this weather is the worse” Kitty said wondering, not for the first time if she calls to Ororo maybe she could stop the winter(not a great idea, Ororo often says that nature needs to follow its course)

His velvet and bigger hand touch Kitty´s, humming a national song softly, Kitty has heard before(on the radio) but it seems better coming from him. His long finger(thick than an average human) gently careless her hand, her palm and the cold the woman was feeling vanish completely.

A comfortable silence aired between them, the cold is long forgotten, and Kitty, while still not liking the snow, can replace the frowny face with something else. Moments like this, almost(keyword) make snow bearable in her mind.

“Come, let´s drink hot chocolate and…talk more about how the snow is evil and gets everywhere, that is a sexy talk” Kurt mocks (slightly) and the woman pouts but ended up agreeing with the suggestion.

The winter is a lot more fun if you have someone to keep you warm, even if this said person is the Anakin Skywalker of the snow.

[cloudysfluffs]

Google's Dial

Hi! It’s Serpent! Aka thetickleeraven. Here’s the first fic I’m submitting to this blog. Forgive me for the length. I got carried away. 

Hope this is decent! 

—

When developing something mechanical to imitate a human, senses are one of the most difficult hurdles. How will the being compute senses, and how will it intake information?

Google, being mechanical, can’t sense things like humans. He doesn’t have organs, instead he has intricately designed and advanced robotics.

For example, his sense of touch is controlled by a small dial on his chest. His sensitivity can be heightened or lowered if need be.

After living among the other egos, Google has learned to make sure it is never turned up, after one incident.

 —

“G, take off your shirt please, I need to examine your ribs.” Doctor informed the patient sitting on the examination table, who nodded and slipped his shirt off.

“We need information of physical capability and vulnerability.” Warfstache informed the doctor.

“I understand, Warfstache. Dark explained it to me quite well why we needed to give Google a physical examination. I don’t think you looking over my shoulder is quite necessary.”

“I’m stepping in for Dark who has other responsibilities right now. He’s the boss and he gave a direct request for a physical of every ego, starting with Google, here.”

The doctor huffed. He wasn’t really ecstatic to have Warf looking after him like a child. He was a trained medical professional and it was a simple physical examination.

Well, he thought it’d be simple. But Google was not a human being, he was a highly advanced machine. He didn’t have normal organic human parts that the doctor had been trained to understand.

There was a single dial upon his chest turned to “4” out of 10.

“May I ask the purpose of the Dial is, G?”

“It is a dial connecting to my synthetic nervous system. By turning it to a higher setting it allows me to have more sensitivity to my physical environment.”

“I see. I think it’ll be best for the physical if I turn the dial up. It’ll make it easier to find points of vulnerability.”

“I agree.” Google nodded, unaware to the consequences. He had never turned the dial above 5.

Dr. Iplier turned the dial to “10”.

Immediately Google felt a difference. The air conditioning wafted breezes across his frame and he could feel every single one. He felt each crease and fold of his clothes and every time they so much as shifted in position. The frames of his glasses put pressure on his nose that now felt way more obvious. However these were just a minor annoyance.

“I’m going to feel along your upper body and tell me if you feel any shifts in pain, this will help us account for points of vulnerability or anomalies in your design.” The doctor explained. Google nodded.

“Oh, just get on with it already! If every patient takes this long it’ll be weeks before you get through everyone!” Warfstache groaned.

“Wilford, your impatience and volume are unnecessary.” Google glared at the pink ego, who returned the look. Those two never really got along.

“Let’s continue.” The doctor interrupted their silent fury to get on with the physical. As soon as the doctor rested his hands on Google’s sides he flinched back violently.

“Sorry, G. Did the hurt?”

“No. It felt… odd. I don’t think I recognize the feeling.”

“Should I continue?”

“Yes.”

Doctor Iplier put his hands back on Google sides and began feeling along the skin for anomalies. He did not expect the reaction he received.

Google whirled back, curling into a ball, giggling up a storm.

Both Doctor and Warf were quite amused at the new discovery.

“Whahahat ihihis thihihis?” Google asked through the giggles he attempted to suppress.

Doctor chuckled. “It seems your increased sensitivity has made you ticklish.”

“Ticklish?”

“Hold on… Don’t tell me you don’t know what tickling is!” Warf laughed.

“Please explain to me what this is.” Google was perplexed. He had never felt something like that before.

“Perhaps we should just turn the dial down and contin-”

“Hold on, Doctor. Maybe we should give G a little demonstration.” Warf grinned at Google, who seemed clueless to his malicious intent.

“I thought you wanted me to hurry up.”

“No reason we can’t have a bit of fun!”

Doctor sighed but couldn’t help the amused smile on his lips, he had to admit, it would be pretty funny.

“Fine. If G allows it.”

“Of course. I would like to expand my knowledge of- HEY!” G clutched his sides, immediately overcome with laughter as Wilford began squeezing up and down his sides.

Google didn’t know why but the odd tingling sensation across his body was causing him to laugh against his will!

“Ihihihi dohohohon’t uhuhunderstahahand!”

“Maybe we need to kick it up a notch then, hm?” Wilford began scratching at G’s underarms. The ego threw his head back in laughter and couldn’t help but kick out and squirm at the unbearable sensations.

“Wow I’ve never heard Google laugh before.” The doctor snickered.

“Why don’t you give me a hand, doc? The faster we help Google understand tickling the faster you can get back to your examination!”

“Well, since he’s meant to simulate a human, I suppose that would mean he’s most ticklish where he’s most vulnerable.”

“I like your thinking, doc! So we just have to find where he’s most ticklish!”

“I guess.” Doctor sighed and shook his head with an amused smile.

“Cootchie cootchie coo, G~” Warf teased, his face lighting up when Google’s laughter increased and his face suddenly glowed with a subtle blue hue. “Looks like G blushes blue! How cute.”

“Is teasing really necessary?” The doctor asked, grabbing the victim’s foot and sliding his shoe off.

“You’re a doctor, you should know that feelings of embarrassment or anxiety increase the sensation of tickling.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know many things.” Warf smirked and turned his attention back to the flailing ego before them.

“DOHOHOCTOHOHOR, STOHOHOHOP!” Google shrieked suddenly, his thrashing becoming more violent.

“What’re you doing, Doc?”

“Seems his feet are rather sensitive.”

Wilford laughed along with Google, although not as violently.

“So let’s see. How about we try… here!” Wilford starting scratching along his ribs, sending G into a frenzy of cackles and snorts. “Seems his ribs are veeery ticklish~”

“YOHOHOHOUR TEHEHEASING MAHAHAKES IHIHIT WOHOHORSE!”

“Of course it does. Good to know you can be embarrassed, this information will come in handy in the future.” Warfstache grinned as G’s face was now a deep blue.

“We’ve gotten your armpits.” Wilford shoved his hands under G’s arms and began scratching at the hollows. Google squealed rather high-pitched and rocked side to side, trying desperately to dislodge the tickling hands.

“We’ve gotten your sides.” The pink ego kneaded his fingers into the sides of the victim, eliciting and snort and deep belly laughter.

“We’ve gotten your feet!” The doctor chimed in and raked his hands down the soles of G’s bare feet. He received an ear-piercing shriek and a string of curses and pleads.

“And we’ve gotten your ribs, of course.”

“NOHO- NOHOHOT THEHE- AHAHAHAHA!” Google exploded into powerful booming laughter as Warfstache scratched relentlessly at his ribs.

“Hm, where else do we need to tickle doctor?” Warfstache asked, spidering fingers along G’s ribs to keep in a state of laughter.

“Well… we still have thighs, knees, hips, back, neck, and belly.”

“PLEHEHEASE! TIHI-TIHIHICKLES TOHOHOO MUHUHUHUCH!” Google sputtered through his cackling.

“You’re just gonna have to hang in there, your physical isn’t done yet.” Wilford sang. “Doctor, won’t you test his thighs?”

“Certainly, Warfstache.” The doctor chuckled. He was starting to have some fun with this. He moved up and held the leg down so it wouldn’t kick him in the face. He then used one hand the squeeze up and down the thigh.

Google bucked and tried jerking away, giggling frantically with little hiccups in between.

Suddenly Google began thrashing wildly. Doctor looked up to see Wilford nuzzling into Google’s neck, his mustache hairs tickling the poor victim.

“Found another tickle spot!”

“IHIHI GEHEHET IHIHIT! IHIHI’M VUHUHUHULNERAHAHABLE!”

“We need to know every spot, G. You can handle a little more, can’t you?” The doctor cooed.

“NOHOHOHO!”

“Aww, too bad~” Wilford giggled before drilling his thumbs into Google’s hips.

G bucked and squealed once more, his whole figure bouncing up and down with each laugh.

“Time for your belly!” Warf cooed in a patronizing voice. He was rewarded when G’s neck started turning blue to match his face. Wilford began poking and prodding Google’s belly.

“Wihihihilfohohord! Ihihihi cahahan’t taHAHAHAKE THIHI- FUHUHUCK!” Google’s laughter skyrocketed as soon as Doc decided to help and started swirling a finger in his navel.

In a last ditch effort, Google flipped himself over to shield his ribs and stomach from further torment.

This proved to be a huge mistake, as Wilford decided to try tickling along his spine.

As soon as skittering fingers met his back he thrashed and screamed so loud Dr.Iplier had to cover his ears. G was bucking, rocking, tossing and turning. His laughter was desperate and his eyes began to water with tears of mirth.

“Holy shit! I didn’t know Google could get that high-pitched!” Doctor laughed. Wilford laughed at poor Google’s predicament and clutched his own middle in a fit of laughter.

Google gasped for air as soon as he stopped and scrambled to turn his dial down.

“Sorry, G, but that was pretty funny. And I DID get information on your vulnerability.” Doctor laughed.

Google was panting with a deep blue face and a smile he just couldn’t seem to suppress. As soon as he recovered he glared at Warfstache and the doctor.

“I assume from your earlier reactions that organic beings are naturally ticklish?”

“Well, most are yes.” The doctor answered without a second thought. Warfstache caught on quick, however.

“Oh, it seems Dark needs me! I really must be going.” The pink ego ran off, leaving Dr.Iplier alone with Google, who was already getting up.

“G? What’s wro-”

Oh.

“N-No need to be hasty, G!”

“Let’s see your level of ticklishness.” Google growled before launching at the doctor.

He sought his revenge to the fullest.

_____

Response: !!! YES OMGGGGG

THIS IS 100% HOW THE EGOS FOUND OUT ABOUT HIS DIAL HC ACCEPTED!!

I LOVE YOUR WRITING, MAN!!

[of-another-broken-heart]

heyy! idk if u even want to talk abt this? but tbh u put my thoughts into words with the M guy thing perfectly. Also like idk what kinda made me uneasy was how like persuasive? manipulative? he seemed in the video? Like he's knowingly trying to make u believe him?

I stay out of the tags these days (I use “m dude” so any followers who don’t like Mark/plier have an additional way to block my posts while I also spare myself the White Knights of Mark/plier(TM) onslaught) but yeah... 

gonna slap the rest behind a cut because I ended up rambling =x

Mark is very, VERY aware of the power of his sincere blogs (relies on them to diffuse situations that he lets escalate too long w/o address; relies on them to rally his fan base for big events like fundraisers and twitter shitpost extravaganzas...) and is also very, VERY aware of how blindly loyal a lot of his fans are (he’s made several vlogs and blog posts even criticizing his devout extremist fans). I’m with you 100% on the fact the he knows the effectiveness of these sorts of videos. 

I don’t know that he’s being malicious in this video, but as always, impact is far more important than intent. I think Mark is blinded by his ideals, and that his use/understanding of words like “respect” are very much insufficient compared to their greater use in the realms of social justice, bigotry, etc. In other words, I personally believe his persuasion/manipulation comes from a place of ignorant idealism, and not malicious intent.

Previous “drama” with him (aka, folks pointing out some bigoted or shady things he’s done in the past, which his White Knight fans perceived as an All Out Attack on their Holy Idol) has resulted in similar somber, serious posts. But not before his White Knights got to fully exercise their extremism, to the detriment of his critics’ mental (and sometimes physical) well-being. 

(CW: suicide mention ahead) Like the transmisogyny situation almost 2 years ago - multiple trans women and nonbinary fans (and even some cis allies) were forced to delete/change blogs, leave tumblr entirely, and some were even rumored to have attempted suicide because people were so vicious in response to the existence of criticism of Mark and his “jokes.”

Some details about this vlog are different, and don’t fit with his usual behavior. Mark’s not responding to criticism of himself or his own actions this time. Like before, he’s waited until things have hit some point of extremism. (I guess the “dehumanizing” comments were his tipping point - not the “joke” that an entire subset of humans should die, nooo, but calling bigots “trash” is Just Going Too Far, I guess) This time, he’s taking it upon himself to use that observable serious effect he has, and it’s very much for his own personal reasons. 

Admittedly, that’s what he does - and that’s not inherently wrong - but usually it actually aligns with his “Make the world a better place” slogan. Or, it lines up a hell of a lot more than defending someone (like Felix) who’s repeatedly “punched down” with shitty, bigoted “humor”. Demanding that even bigoted jokes go without consequence, implying that an apology dissolves you of responsibility for your actions, and insisting that everyone deserves respect, regardless of their actions and beliefs towards others?? That doesn’t line up with the “better place” narrative, that’s for damn sure. 

I’m a bit refreshed to see that there is a LOT of push-back this time, though. Previously, critics were a lot harder to find. I can only assume the current political climate of the US/world (fascism on the rise, anti-semitic and islamophobic ideologies and violence more and more evident, etc) has helped push people to actually put their foot down instead of passively sitting on the fence. I’m glad there’s more critical thinking and solidarity for actual acceptance/progress/betterment, in that regard. 

[thecorteztwins]

@askprofessorx  SO I'M REALLY SORRY THIS IS A BIG FUCKING INFO DUMP but these are my muses and my ideas for what we could do with them and Charles

The Acolytes on this blog refers to Fabian Cortez, his sister Anne Marie, and their teammates Chrome and Delgado.At the beginning of the 90s, Magneto had basically retired and fucked off to live in space alone on the humbly named Asteroid M. Then all of a sudden, four mutants show up on his doorstep being chased by SHIELD agents and proclaiming loyalty to him. He lets them in. Three of them are sincere in their claims, but their leader, Fabian Cortez, has a plot. He starts manipulating Magneto, pushing him back into villainy, into doing things that scare the hell out of humans (like collecting fucking MISSILES) because "self-defense". This leads him into conflict with the X-men, who until now he'd actually more or less made peace with, and he sustains grievous injury from Wolverine. Psychologically, this makes him feel that much more isolated and rejected, making him that much more prone to Fabian's manipulation...and physically, he now needs to rely on Fabian's healing powers. Things get worse as Fabian also uses his ability to boost other mutants powers, because it's established that Magneto's powers are to blame for his mental imbalance, so more power equals more crazy for Mags. Fabian's plans all come together when Magneto gathers Xavier and the X-Men aboard Asteroid M, intent on brainwashing them to his side, and the governments of the US and Russia, motivated by Magneto's actions, decide that Asteroid M, and all those upon it, must be destroyed. Fabian, knowing this because THAT WAS HIS PLOT, gets in the only escape pod, leaving the others to die. The X-Men are able to escape, and offer a way out to Magneto and the remaining Acolytes, but Magneto chooses to stay, to use the last of his abilities to hold the asteroid together so the X-Men can make it to their ship...and the other Acolytes choose to stay with him and die at his side. So, why did Fabian do this? Why did he want to get rid not only of the X-Men but also his supposed "leader" Magneto, and his own team, his own sister? Power. Fabian had made Magneto a martyr now, instead of someone who abandoned his cause, and he used his name to rally a cult of new Acolytes, far more bloodthirsty and genocidal than the original squad had been...with himself leading them, of course. These new nasty Acolytes did a LOT of awful things, but Fabian got his when Magneto returned from the dead (typical!) bringing a super duper powerful mutant named Exodus with him who gave Fabs the boot.  Fabian flees to Genosha, kidnaps Luna (Pietro's daughter) to use as a human shield/hostage, demanding that Pietro, Wanda, Crystal (Luna's mom), and the Avengers all protect him from Exodus and Magneto or else he’ll kill Luna. He also gets the Genoshan mutants on his side (damn, this guy is charismatic!) and rallies them into causing a civil war so he can use the chaos to hide. Yeah, seeing the country “awash in a raging river of bloodshed!” is just to save his own slimy hide. What a charmer. Anyway, the good news for Fabian is that Magneto is braindead at this time due to Xavier finally whipping out the telepathic big guns on him after he ripped Wolverine’s skeleton out. The bad news is that Exodus is alive and well and shows up, kills Fabian. But Fabian doesn't stay dead. He comes back to caught more trouble, first with manipulating Joseph (Magneto's clone) and then when Magneto gets his mind back and becomes ruler of Genosha, Magneto comes back to recruit Fabian onto the Genosha cabinet (because as shitty as Fabs is, he's a good politician) and to be his personal battery since his powers are now depleted. Fabian starts secretly working to backstab Magneto AGAIN but then when Magneto's powers fully return, Magneto kills him. It mostly sticks this time. Mostly. He does show up during Necrosha though (an event where another villain mass-resurrected a bunch of mutants, of which Fabian was one, but that was a temporary thing) I play Fabian and the other original Acolytes as having been resurrected by unknown means (that's...not uncommon in Marvel tbh) Chrome, Anne Marie, and Delgado don't remember that it was Fabian who was responsible for their deaths, and have resumed their lives as terrorists with him as their teammate and leader. Naturally, Fabian doesn’t want them finding out the truth, and thus does everything he can to keep them from finding out Magneto is alive and at large, lest they seek him out and he tell them what really happened. Fabian himself also wants nothing more than to leave supervillainy at this point and have a normal life, not because he’s seen the light and turned good, but because he’s tired of getting beaten up and dying. Unfortunately, he doesn’t dare run for it, as he (rightly) believes his sister would kill him as a traitor if he did, and he doesn’t think he can escape her by murdering her again either, since he’s learned nobody stays dead (but he still doesn’t want to go through death again himself because IT’S HORRIBLE) With that setup, we've got the enemies deal down pat. Anne Marie will try to kill Xavier on sight. She can't be talked to or talked down. Chrome, it's possible to engage, and Delgado is actually unlikely to try to hurt Xavier UNLESS Xavier is getting in the way of something they're doing. As for Fabian...he might well try to get Xavier to help him out of this mess. Convince him to wipe the Acolytes minds, or rewrite their memories so they think Fabian is dead, enabling him to escape them before they can find out it was him that betrayed them and Magneto. In an XMCU verse, none of this would have happened. I'd picture it instead as Fabian and the others being fresh Brotherhood recruits, with Fabian having all these schemes in mind to betray and usurp Magneto, but not having done it yet. We could have a plot where they capture Xavier, or the X-Men have captured them, or things like that. Finally, in Evo, they're not terrorists yet, they're just teenagers. Fabian and Anne Marie are a couple of mutant kids, and they're not bad either! So, possibly students. They've actually got their powers perfectly under control more or less, and are quite comfortable with them, but they're interested in meeting others like them...and, frankly, Anne Marie needs to be taught responsible use. Because she's growing up with the ability to control the minds and emotions of other people and no one can tell her "no" on anything and it's not that she's evil but she doesn't have a concept of things like telepathic ethics and telepathic consent so she's kinda super dangerous despite being a sweetheart with no malicious intent. I do the 616 verse a lot so I'd actually be more interested in the XMCU and Evo options? I haven't seen any of the films after First Class, but your About section says that's where your default verse is, after FC but before DOFP or XMA. Over on @mypralaya I've got Haven, aka Radha Dastoor, she's a villain who showed up in seven issues of X-Factor during the 1990s. She's a woman who from an early age felt a calling to help ease the suffering and pain in the world, and worked in the streets of her native India helping the poor, caring for the sick, etc. Great person, total saint. Unfortunately, she fell in love with some cad, he knocked her up and then left her. Then things got worse, because a top-class demon known as The Adversary (demons = pretty regular things for the X-Men to deal with in the comics, actually) possessed her unborn child and started feeding her some major lies. Fast forward twenty years. She's still secretly pregnant, eternally in her first trimester. Her child is a mutant, and she can access its immense powers. She also believes it speaks to her with a divine voice, but that's the Adversary, who has made her amass a cult dedicated to spreading chaos and destruction in hopes of bringing about the Mahapralaya, a sort of Hindu apocalypse after which a beautiful age of painlessness and peace and joy for humanity will come, ending suffering forever. But Haven herself was still a really nice woman who advocated for mutant/human peace as a public figure (international best-selling author + lecturer) and in fact greatly admired Professor Xavier. But the whole "secret terrorist cult causing mass suffering" brought her into conflict with X-Factor, despite her desire to have them as her friends and allies. There's no shortage of bad guys with good intentions in the X-Men, but Haven was especially unusual in that she was a pacifist villain. She actually never attacks the good guys, even when they attack her. In fact, she tries to help them---she rescues Polaris from government agents, she heals Wolfsbane of the Genoshan brainwashing she underwent as a slave, and tries to heal Multiple Man of the Legacy Virus (X-Factor blames her for his death when she fails) We're told her cult is doing all these horrible things offscreen, but it's kinda hard to root against her when she barely even threatens anyone onscreen. Her story ends when the Adversary decides it's time to be reborn into this world and Haven...does not survive that in canon. I decided that she does, because I felt she deserved a better ending. In XMCU, demons don't really fit with the canon, so she could be a human or a mutant. Either way, not a villain, because not being influenced (and I don't really play her villain incarnation anyway, I'm more interested in what comes after) so not an antagonist, but more likely a friend or staff member? I feel like the "inspired by Xavier" thing would also be different, because she's in her early 40s, so she'd be older than your Charles, and that could be neat to explore. I mean, hell, maybe she could be a mentor figure to him, or at least a colleague in the same field (mutant/human relations) I'm guessing that it's rare for him to even meet a mutant who is older than he is, since he and Erik and the original X-Men/Brotherhood are kinda the OGs in the XMCU aside from Apocalypse. Then there's Shaw @sebastianshaw He's not a Kevin Bacon Nazi, he's not concerned with mutant supremacy, he's just concerned with money and power, to the point he'll happily throw other mutants under the bus to human bigotry if it makes him a profit. Seriously, this guy built SENTINELS for the government because it made him money, he gives no fucks about species solidarity. As for the Hellfire Club, rather than being a proto-Brotherhood, they're a worldwide social club for the wealthy elite. Most of its members (which includes the Starks, the Worthingtons, and the Braddocks) are just that, regular super-rich people who wanna hob-knob with other super-rich people at fancy parties, but behind closed doors, the Inner Circle that runs in (Shaw, Emma, etc.) are mutant bad guys bent on political and economic domination of the world. This has brought them in to conflict with the X-men several times, the most notable of which was the Dark Phoenix saga, in which the Hellfire Club recruited the telepath Mastermind to brainwash Jean into their service, resulting in her becoming the Dark Phoenix and the resultant horrors that followed, which ended in her death. Shaw's not liable to just attack Xavier, he's more like Delgado in terms of "I'm not after you, just don't get in my way" but there's still room for conflict there, as well as standard "good guy and villain have a chat" things like Xavier does with Magneto, with none of the affectionate history there. Shaw's shown to put himself on the same level of mutant influence as the likes of Xavier and Magneto  even if he's way overestimating himself (I mean, he's got a lot of economic/political influence on the world but he doesn't influence mutant culture like Magneto and Charles have, he's too private/on-the-down-low as a mutant) and to have opinions on that, as well as the typical 'thinks the heroes are fools wasting their powers' gig. He's also shown to be immune to Charles' telepathy, probably due to the same Hellfire Club technology that keeps Cerebro and other psychic stuff out of the building's walls, and even without it he's trained enough in telepathic resistance he was able to give Emma a very hard fight in trying to telepathically 'get' him.  So Charles can't just tell what he's thinking which makes for a more...normal/even conversation. Not that Charles goes around reading everyone's mind but like, Shaw is a bad guy, so it would be understandable if he tried just to be sure Shaw wasn't up to something, but he can't, so like...he's in the more normal person position of not being able to be sure. Also, he and Charles met in 616 before Charles formed the X-Men and before Shaw joined the Hellfire Club, but the details have never been revealed beyond that Charles embraced him as a friend and that the same young mutant (Tessa/Sage) saved both their lives, but Shaw rejected Xavier’s path and went his own way. In Evo, it's pretty easy to just introduce Shaw and the Hellfire Club as new foes on the scene, probably initially posing as a benign group with similar goals to Xavier, complete with a school of their own for young mutants (Emma Frost ran one in her Hellfire days in the comics) In XMCU...it's more complicated/difficult given the existence of Shaw there, but since that Shaw's real name is Klaus Schmidt, it's not impossible to say he stole this Shaw's identity or something, possibly along with taking/copying his powers via some kind of scientific experiment (since he doesn't display these abilities when he met young Erik) I also play Shaw's son @shinobixshaw and Fabian's son @malcortez. Shinobi is a 616 canon too, he "killed" his dad (Shaw got better) and took over his position in the Hellfire Club...and then proceeded to do nothing except drink and party and be lazy. Shinobi is not a serious threat in any way, even if he thinks he is, and thus really cannot make a decent antagonist, but he can certainly be annoying in his stupidity and arrogance and drunken shenanigans. Malcolm, on the other hand, is not from 616. He's from the Marvel Zombies universe, but has canonically access to a machine that can take him to other dimensions, including, oh, say, the XMCU! So it's perfectly plausible for him to be able to pop up in the mansion or wherever as a fish-out-of-water who needs help getting acquainted with this world. He's technically a villain in his own world, but his goals of "rule my village" won't really apply in any other world, he's just interested in his own home, not anyone else's. So he'd be more like a...very confused guest than anything else. 

[terabitweb]

Original Post from Talos Security Author:

By Nick Biasini, Chris Neal and Matt Valites.

Executive summary

One of the trickiest challenges enterprises face is managing the balance between aggressively blocking malicious advertisements (aka malvertising) and allowing content to remain online, accessible for the average user. The days of installing a basic ad blocker on your web browser and expecting full protection are gone. Between the sites that require them to be disabled and the ability for advertisers to pay to evade them, ad blockers alone are not sufficient.

As this blog will cover in detail, malvertising is a problem not strictly associated with basic web browsing. It can also come with other software programs including adware or potentially unwanted applications (PUA). These latter examples require the most attention. In today’s enterprise, an aggressive approach to advertising is required to be protected against malicious threats. That may include securing your DNS or adding additional layers of inspection through a firewall, intrusion prevention system, or a web security platform. Regardless of the approach, it needs to be thorough and take into account not just the security impacts, but the potential of cascading impact on your users.

Advertising is a key part of the internet as a whole and, whether you realize it or not, is one of the most foundational aspects of it. It is one of the reasons that a large chunk of the content available on the internet is free. It allows people to support their passion projects, their small businesses, and the food blogs of people around the world. However, it is a highly complex and convoluted system that is ripe for abuse. This is an issue that should not be ignored by the public, as these malicious ads can deliver malware out of nowhere and trick traditional internet users who may not be aware of the threats that exist on some pages.

This blog is going to walk through how online advertising works, what malvertising is and why it’s dangerous including real life examples, and finally the options that exist for organizations and private citizens to try and protect themselves from these threats.

Online advertising primer

Online advertising is big business. In 2018, the United States digital advertising revenue exceeded $100 billion. To put that in perspective, that’s as large as the annual revenues for leading aerospace and multinational banking companies. So how does this complicated industry operate and how are ads served to users? There are numerous types of online advertising and associated ways to make money from it. One common distinction is between sponsored content and banner ads. Most users are familiar with banner ads as they tend to be somewhat isolated from the content of the webpage. Sponsored content, on the other hand, can appear on a page mixed in among the original content on the page. It typically will have some sort of identifier saying “Sponsored Content” and when a user clicks the link they are typically taken through the ad network to another site. Inside of each of these categories there are a wide variety of options for the advertiser. However, for the purposes of this blog we are going to focus on the area of online advertising that is the most ripe for abuse, real time bidding (RTB).

Let’s start by talking about the components of an RTB advertising network.

The first piece is the publisher, who gets paid to host ads on their site. To host ads, the publisher utilizes an advertising server. There are several ad servers to choose from, including self-hosted or service solutions. Self-hosted ad server options include open-source and paid solutions. The second key portion of an RTB network is an open ad exchange. This is a public digital marketplace where the publisher posts their site’s ad spots that are available for bidding. The third and final portion of a basic advertising chain are the advertisers. These advertisers can include marketing companies, individuals, or other ad networks. These groups then bid in real time on the ad real estate available on content being rendered. Now, let’s walk through how exactly this works.

When a random user requests a web page, the HTTP request is sent to the publisher and the bidding begins. The publisher leverages integrated code or their ad server to list the ads for bid via the advertising exchange. As part of the HTTP request and response, the publisher can gather additional information about the requestor, including things like demographics, URL, location, browser type, window size, and other identifiable pieces of information. All this information is then passed to the ad exchange where advertisers begin the bidding. The additional information provided by the publisher can allow the advertiser to target their ads more specifically and display only to those users that are likely to be engaged. The winning bid is then chosen and the advertiser provides the ad to the ad exchange. The ad exchange in turn returns the ad to the publisher and it is rendered to the user in the browser along with the remaining content on the page. Keep in mind this all happens in a matter of milliseconds and, as such, there is a potential for abuse.

Monetization

There are several ways publishers can get paid. First, and most common, is pay per impression (PPI). This is basically receiving money any time an ad renders on your page, no user interaction required. Advertisers pay per thousand impressions, in what is known as cost-per-mile (CPM). Next is pay-per-click (PPC). In this scenario, the publisher gets paid every time a user clicks on an ad. This usually generates a higher revenue than PPI since user interaction is required, but for the same reason is also less likely to occur. Finally, there is a pay-per-order (PPO) monetization. This is the highest revenue generation of the monetization avenues but usually requires the user to complete some action. These actions can include things like installing software, signing up for a mailing list, completing a form, or any other actions that constitute an order to the advertiser. This is also the most difficult of the monetization routes because it requires a user to not only click the ad, but also complete an action afterwards.

Tracking

One final point before moving onto malicious intent: tracking. Since advertisers and marketers are spending significant amounts of money in online advertising, they want to know which methods work best and they get that information through tracking data. This provides an interesting glimpse into the ways that the traffic is sourced and driven. You may notice some of this tracking information being passed in the URLs that you visit. Below you will find an example of one of these URL additions.

utm_term=2310109&s=1&utm_campaign=pps_News%20Anchors%20T3%20DS%20LLE%20-%20Desktop%20USA&utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=news_site&pps_term=She%20Was%20Live%20Reporting%2C%20And%20Viewers%20Got%20Way%20More%20Than%20What%20They%20Bargained%20For&utm_content=msn-ie11-us

To better understand how this works we have modified the text formatting. The elements that start with utm are the tags associated with marketing. UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module, the standard way to track marketing in digital advertising. As you can see there is a plethora of information provided in this context. The first couple of fields are tracking for the campaign and other numerical identifiers. Some of the other clues are more interesting. Note the utm_medium field which shows where the traffic originated, in this case news_site. Additionally, you can see what term may have been clicked from fox news’ page. Now these links can be both traditional banner ads or could also be sponsored content, which you now will see commonly on most major websites. The last field is the one that deserves attention and shows why this could be valuable for a malicious actor. Attached to the utm_content variable is a key bit of information ‘ie11-us’ which identifies both the location and the web browser of the system accessing the link. Imagine if you were an exploit kit user and could make your landing pages target systems running specific web browsers or a specific geolocation. Enter malvertising.

Malvertising

Malvertising refers to the method by which malicious actors are abusing the online advertising markets for nefarious gains. The process is largely the same as what is outlined above, but interspersed with legitimate advertisers are a handful of malicious actors, ‘domainers’, and traffic directors (TDS). These groups specialize in generating traffic to a destination, whatever that destination may be. Along the way, they employ multiple layers of obfuscation before finally serving malicious content. Effectively, they bid on ads at ad exchanges and then have those ads move through multiple layers of redirection techniques until landing on some sort of malicious content. That malicious deliverable can vary widely from fake flash players and tech support scams to exploit kits which compromise the requestors systems without user intervention.

What we commonly see is a user getting dumped out to an exploit kit landing page and in triaging the compromise we can see clearly how the ad campaigns try to obfuscate themselves.

This first image walks through the traffic director systems or TDS and the common redirection technique of using HTTP/1.1 302 requests. This technique, 302 cushioning, has been used for a long time with adversaries, but is also commonly used by most websites on the internet, which makes it an effective redirection mechanism.

Here is the final 302 redirection that actually points to an exploit kit landing page, in this particular case the RIG exploit kit. This is the first major challenge that faces advertising networks: validation of ads. How is an ad network able to verify the true purpose of an ad that relies on so many tiers of 302 redirection? Manipulation of any of the 302 redirects along the path the exploit kit could make it completely benign. For instance, if the adversary pointed the final 302 redirect to a legitimate ad and then only shifted it to a malicious location in targeted instances, it becomes increasingly difficult to defend.

Redirections can also happen server-side, as in the case of HTTP 301, 302, or response headers, as well as through client-side code such as JavaScript or HTML elements. Additionally, malicious actors can leverage the effects of certain redirects to their advantage. For instance, redirecting the browser to another site via a Javascript ‘location.replace’ will not leave evidence of the redirect in the browser history, a useful tactic for anyone trying to obfuscate their tracks.

This malicious infection chain involves a large amount of components and moving pieces. This complex environment provides a malicious actor ample opportunity to divert traffic from legitimate sites into malicious territory. Below is an infographic covering this overall process and flow.

Use Case 1: Large-scale exploit kit campaign

Cisco Talos has noticed a marked increase over the past several weeks in the amount of global RIG activity largely driven by malvertising. Before we get too deep into the campaign itself, let’s discuss why malvertising is an attractive avenue for exploit kit users.

Talos has observed three different ways to interact with exploit kits: malvertising, compromised websites and adware. Let’s focus on malvertising to start. The large victim pool is one of the major advantages of malvertising. When leveraging a compromised website to deliver exploits, your victim pool is confined to only people navigating to that website. However, with malvertising you can hit a much larger array of different victims in different locations. Additionally, as we highlighted above, you can potentially target specific web browsers, greatly increasing your infection success rate. Below we can see one set of options presented to advertisers on an established ad service:

Another advantage of malvertising is its negative impact on defenders or threat researchers. An adversary using a compromised website to deliver an exploit kit creates a single point of failure: the compromised site. Defenders and researchers can find the malicious server and block the compromised web site, and potentially even engage the victim to remediate the compromised site, effectively containing the campaign. The same campaign powered by malvertising, on the other hand, has multiple different entry points from a variety of both related and unrelated web pages, making enumeration and mitigation more difficult. Additionally, malvertising networks commonly iterate through multiple ad networks when being served ads. Tracing the malicious ad back to a particular advertiser can be challenging. Trying to recreate the infection chain can be extremely difficult if not impossible, since real-time bidding introduces an element of randomness to the content served.

We’ve also seen a surge in adware delivering malicious ads to users. In today’s world, anything that generates ad revenue could be leveraged by malicious actors. Let’s walk through an example of this infection path that we discovered in Threat Grid during our research into the ongoing campaign.

One of the challenges software developers have is the decision of how to monetize software. There are basically three options: sell it, bundle it, or open-source it. Selling and open-sourcing are fairly straightforward options resulting in either monetary gain from the sale or (hopefully) donations or other methods of support from the open-source community. Let’s instead focus on bundling, or the process of adding additional software to the installation package.

Worms are just one type of threat that analysts are familiar with. Over time there have been high-profile examples of such threats like Conficker, Slammer, Code Red or the more recent WannaCry. Difficult to contain, worms spread quickly and effectively. Due to both their prevalence and the potential difficulty associated with remediation, there are many software solutions to address these types of threats. A quick web search can result in a wide variety of results from the legitimate and expensive to the quasi-legitimate and free. One of those results could lead to a site like USB Guardian.

As you can see, USB Guardian claims to be software designed to prevent you from getting infected with a worm and scan USB devices. This screen pops up when installing the software.

This is where the bundled software comes into the picture, in this case the BestSecurityTips toolbar. This toolbar will be installed along with USB Guardian and is the source of the malicious activity. One red flag to the user should be when you click the toolbar end user license agreement you are met with a blank webpage.

This particular toolbar is the Best Security Tips toolbar, and after some initial research, led to the conduit toolbar. Once installed, this toolbar will change the browser homepage and default search engine, allowing adversaries to change search results and other activities to promote click fraud and excessive advertising, which can lead to more damaging results including malware infection. These changes allow the ad networks to push content onto end systems with higher efficacy. This particular infection chain demonstrates some of the ways ads are requested by this software.

A series of web requests kick off immediately after installation. The first request is to an ad network called “daily ads” and it ends with the user being served an exploit kit landing page.

The request above is to a URL ending in “indexbst.php?idapp=198.” However, there were other tiers of redirects that are occuring being the scenes.

It begins with a request to daily ads for /version/version.php and is met with the first of many HTTP/1.1 302 requests pointing it to a series of other dailyads servers. This eventually results in a get request being delivered to ww7.dailyads[.]org, shown below.

There is one key piece of information to pull from the above packet capture: the header ‘X-Adblock-Key’. This header includes an API key that allows dailyads to bypass one of the most popular ad blockers. In many cases, this ad blocker is the only thing preventing a user from being shown a malicious ad. So the presence of this key implies that at least one of the biggest ad blockers would not have stopped these ads from rendering to the user. Eventually, the user will end up with a request ending in ‘indexbst.php?idapp=198’ as shown above, which is when the user first starts down a malicious path.

This presents the user with yet another 302 cushion. This time, it points to what appears to be an ad hosted on mybetterdl[.]com. That request is met with yet another 302 pointing to a different subdomain at mybetterdl[.]com.Hosting 91Hosting 91.

That leads to another 302 cushion, which this time points to an apparent ad at a different domain bitcoinmaker[.]site — it’s this final ad that results in one final 302 cushion that points the user to an actual exploit kit landing page, in this case, RIG.

Once the user completes the request after the series of 302 cushions, they will be presented with a landing page and eventually will be served a patched Adobe Flash or Internet Explorer vulnerability to deliver some sort of malicious payload.

Scope and impact

The specific example above walks through how a software installation can lead to a user hitting a series of malvertisements. However, most of these infections do not have a nexus of antivirus software or adware specifically and just involve users getting compromised by malicious ads.

These malicious campaigns have hit a wide variety of different sites in various different verticals from news to design, music, racing, and popular culture. Talos has observed sites ranging as high as in the top 5,000 websites, per Alexa. However, Talos has also found evidence of ways that sites in the top 100 have been indirectly linked to this malvertising campaign. These often start with sponsored content, links typically displayed on various high ranking web pages linking to other, smaller web pages. The utm tags that were discussed earlier in the blog are a prime example of this behavior.

We found several examples where a user would start at an Alexa top 50 site, including some of the biggest news sites on the internet. The user would then click on some sort of sponsored content, either wittingly or unwittingly. The user is then taken to a new site, well outside the Alexa top 50 to something in the Alexa top 10,000 instead. These sites will then have ads that move through multiple 302 cushions, similarly to what is described above.

Use Case 2: Malicious content shot from the hip

In June of 2019, Talos discovered a website redirecting Safari browsers to a domain delivering a malicious Flash Player installer. As opposed to the exploit kit use-case discussed above, the behavior for this malvertising campaign is somewhat repeatable, allowing Talos researchers to extract some additional information.

In this case of malvertising, the actors utilize a common service called “domain parking” to enable their campaign. Essentially, parking domainers don’t wait for a user to click on an ad to generate PPC revenue, but take benign traffic that would otherwise return an error, and redirect it into their ad network, acting as an ad publisher.

The benefits of this type of malvertising are similar to the previous use case: ease of use, simple targeting and higher likelihood of traffic. Zero Click traffic is sold in “traffic marketplaces,” where an owner of a domain can purchase traffic and have it directed to their domain. As in the previous use-case, using a parking service, a user can specify the category of the domain to affect bidding, user’s target browser, operating system, geolocation and in some cases the age and demographic of the person viewing the ad.

At the time of the investigation, the initial domain was hosted with a parking service at a cloud provider in Lithuania. Cisco Threat Grid has nearly 700 malware samples with a threat score of 95 or above associated with this host. DNS history data shows the IP has hosted hundreds of domains over time. In a one-week span, 87 domains were pointed to the IP, including some obvious typo-squats such as:

0utlook[.]com

yotub[.]com

gmyail[.]com

yspace[.]com

yyooutube[.]com

During our investigation, more often than not, and while avoiding a server-side request rate limit, a Safari browser will be redirected through a series of sites ultimately landing at the fake Flash Player installer. A non-Safari browser, on the other hand, will redirect to a default domain parking page, offering the end user a chance to buy the domain through sedo.com, one of the long established domain parking providers with more than 16 million domains for sale.

Several different redirect methods were used in the request chain that delivered malware, as can be seen in the example in the table below.

A number of domains are visited multiple times during the redirect chain, with different query paths on each visit. The HTTP flow shows how difficult and convoluted the online advertising process can be to follow and how easily it can be compromised.

When the visitor issues an HTTP GET for the site in the first sequence, client-side JavaScript redirects the host to two subsequent sites. Site 2 sets a tracking cookie containing a user ID and closes the connection. Site 3 redirects to site 4 using an HTTP response header:

{"Cache-Control": "max-age=0, private, must-revalidate", "Content-Length": "11", "Date": "Wed, 03 Jul 2019 17:27:44 GMT", "Location": "http://usd.franciscus-ful[.]com/zcvisitor/de20fa7f-9db7-11e9-9522-1264782e7ac8?campaignid=77a8d2a0-8209-11e9-bf85-0a5f8f5656fe", "Server": "nginx", "X-Cache": "MISS from bc01", "Via": "1.1 bc01 (squid/3.5.27)", "Connection": "close"}

Here, we can see a clue to the domain’s role in Zero Click parked traffic via a response header for all requests to site 4:

"Server": "ZeroPark-Traffic"

The code on site 4 contains capabilities for both HTML and JavaScript redirect methods, and redirects to two more sites. Our test setup executed the JavaScript element to redirect to site 5, but not before collecting and attaching identifiable information about the browser such as page width and height, as well as whether the current window is the topmost window in the browser:

setTimeout(function () { var pageWidth = window.innerWidth ? window.innerWidth : (document.documentElement && document.documentElement.clientWidth ? document.documentElement.clientWidth : document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].clientWidth); var pageHeight = window.innerHeight ? window.innerHeight : (document.documentElement && document.documentElement.clientHeight ? document.documentElement.clientHeight : var iframeDetected = window.self !== window.top; window.location="http://usd.franciscus-ful[.]com/zcredirect?visitid=de20fa7f-9db7-11e9-9522-1264782e7ac8&type=js&browserWidth=" + pageWidth +"&browserHeight=" + pageHeight +"&iframeDetected=" + iframeDetected; }, 1);

Site 5’s redirect via JavaScript to Site 6 is immediately redirected through two more HTTP redirects before ultimately being served the fake Flash Player.

All 3 buttons are HTML href’s to the same path on the current domain, which, if clicked, would download the malicious .dmg installer. This particular installer would infect your system with a well-known piece of malware called “Shlayer.”

Defending against malicious advertising

Defending against malicious advertising is a difficult task for a variety of reasons. Online advertising is the reason that internet content is free, and there needs to be a balance between blocking ads and still allowing sites to generate revenue. In recent years, there have been some major shifts in this space, notably websites requiring users to turn off ad blockers to view content. While this is understandable from a revenue perspective, it does introduce risk and, in the campaigns we’ve seen, you can trace the infection path back to a user-clicked sponsored link on some of the most popular sites in the world. Additionally, there have also been reports that some of the big advertisers have been paying a premium to bypass popular ad blockers. In fact, in both uses cases that Talos researched for this article, advertisers paid to bypass an ad blocker, thus rendering the ad blocker unable to stop any ad served from that advertiser.

In the end, this is no more than risk assessment, with various options available as a compensating control. On one end, you have an unfettered user experience with the highest possible risk associated with malicious advertising. As you add controls to address malicious advertising you will reduce risk, but also hinder your users. One step may be adding an ad blocker to web browsers, which will reduce risk with minimal impact to the user. However, some sites will no longer be available even at that low bar of protection. There is also a danger of a user whitelisting sites that eventually host malvertising or the aforementioned advertiser opt-out. The next phase could be to start adding other technologies like a web proxy or IDS/IPS to analyze the traffic on the wire. This again will increase the security and decrease risk, but comes with a significant cost increase and adds possible points of failure along the way. Then you have more aggressive options including attempting to block all ad networks. This will give you the greatest reduction to risk, but also has the largest impact on your users.

There are many different ways to block ad networks at the domain or nameserver level, but it does require you to make use of some sort of DNS product like Cisco Umbrella to achieve that goal. Another advantage to a product like Umbrella is its ability to block the gate and TDS domains. This may allow the organization an extra layer of protection that will stop known bad domains from serving content to users, without blocking ads unilaterally. Below is a table illustrating how the controls need to balance between risk and user impact.

From a consumer perspective there are plenty of options, including open-source solutions that can help mitigate the issue at home, as well. Among them is the pi-hole project which leverages a raspberry pi to achieve ad protections. We at Cisco also offer some options for consumers to take advantage of the protections available in Umbrella.

Regardless, of how you approach it, digital advertising is one of the biggest battlegrounds on the threat landscape for drive-by attacks delivering malicious content around the globe. Both enterprises and consumers need to be prepared and make a decision on how aggressive they want to be on blocking it. However, it’s a unique challenge since the risk is eliminating large chunks of free content on the internet as it becomes increasingly difficult to generate revenue from that content. These are just a couple of the major issues we will be forced to confront over the next several years and the quicker you realize you are going to need to address it, the better served you will be.

Coverage

Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) is ideally suited to prevent the execution of the malware detailed in this post. Below is a screenshot showing how AMP can protect customers from this threat. Try AMP for free here.

Cisco Cloud Web Security (CWS) or Web Security Appliance (WSA) web scanning prevents access to malicious websites and detects malware used in these attacks.

Network Security appliances such as Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System (NGIPS), and Meraki MX can detect malicious activity associated with this threat.

AMP Threat Grid helps identify malicious binaries and build protection into all Cisco Security products.

Umbrella, our secure internet gateway (SIG), blocks users from connecting to malicious domains, IPs, and URLs, whether users are on or off the corporate network.

Additional protections with context to your specific environment and threat data are available from the Firepower Management Center.

Open Source Snort Subscriber Rule Set customers can stay up to date by downloading the latest rule pack available for purchase on Snort.org.

Indicators of Compromise (IOC)

Use Case 1: Rig Exploit Kit Campaign

IP Addresses:

185[.]246[.]65[.]115 185[.]246[.]65[.]118 185[.]246[.]65[.]119 176[.]57[.]217[.]135 92[.]53[.]124[.]156 185[.]246[.]64[.]222 185[.]246[.]64[.]233 185[.]246[.]64[.]236 176[.]57[.]214[.]193 176[.]57[.]217[.]89 185[.]43[.]4[.]106 185[.]246[.]64[.]155 92[.]53[.]124[.]176 82[.]146[.]49[.]141 188[.]225[.]25[.]248 92[.]53[.]124[.]167 185[.]43[.]4[.]66 188[.]225[.]35[.]239 188[.]225[.]18[.]213 188[.]225[.]34[.]73 188[.]225[.]34[.]66 37[.]230[.]117[.]169 37[.]230[.]117[.]43 37[.]230[.]117[.]77 37[.]230[.]117[.]87 188[.]225[.]35[.]55 188[.]225[.]24[.]229 185[.]246[.]64[.]144 185[.]246[.]64[.]148 185[.]246[.]64[.]157 188[.]225[.]25[.]246 176[.]57[.]217[.]134 185[.]43[.]7[.]162 94[.]250[.]253[.]147 94[.]250[.]253[.]29 188[.]225[.]33[.]219 185[.]43[.]6[.]90 185[.]43[.]6[.]106 188[.]225[.]26[.]80 176[.]57[.]220[.]7 176[.]57[.]220[.]28 37[.]46[.]135[.]254

Use Case 2: Shoot2020 Campaign

Domains:

shoot2020[.]com axiomatic[.]world charmolivia[.]com sleepdiploma[.]pw usd[.]franciscus-ful[.]com cdn[.]formatlog[.]com cdn[.]detectioncache[.]com cdn[.]browsedisplay[.]com cdn[.]essentialarchive[.]com cdn[.]alphaelemnt[.]com cdn[.]megaelemnt[.]com cdn[.]originaloption[.]com cdn[.]entrydisplay[.]com cdn[.]initiatormaster[.]com

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Go to Source Author: Malvertising: Online Advertisings’ Darker Side Original Post from Talos Security Author: By Nick Biasini, Chris Neal and Matt Valites.

[verasbookreviewsandstuff]

STORY-LINE AUDREY'S PROMISE:

Although classified as a romantic suspense novel,  the reader finds much more in Audrey's Promise.  Author Susan Sheehey filled this novel with emotion, suspense, and intrigue.  Audrey Allen's poised at the pinnacle of success.  Running for senate in the great state of Texas, if elected Audrey, aka the Peacemaker, would be the youngest member elected.  Supporting the establishment/funding for a much-needed crisis center as well as running for office, Audrey has a busy life.

However, on her trail tabloid journalist Ethan Tanner, intends to bring down another politician with their hidden secrets or dirty laundry.  All he has to do, is discover the Peacemaker's dirty secrets, write the article of a lifetime which will sabotage her political campaign, and his boat will sail into the New York Times.  He knows she cannot really be as squeaky clean as she appears; after finagling an invitation to her small home town family Thanksgiving, he is ready to strike.

Things heat up as Ethan and Audrey face off.  The family is not happy in the Biddinger household nor is small town Mackineer, Texas when Audrey shows up..  To say they are less than happy to see Audrey after 10 years is an understatement.   Ethan finds more than he ever expected as he meets a hostile family and town ready to tar and feather Audrey. Holding grudges and malice, and with malicious intent, they turn from Audrey with word and deed. Ethan finds Audrey very much alone without friends or family for support.

Why is Audrey's last name Allen instead of Biddinger?  What grudge does everyone hold against Audrey?  What sin did she commit?  Ethan's determined to find the story behind all the hostilities and dropped hints. He knows he has hit the big time, all he has to do is what he does so well, ferret out Audrey's secrets.  However, fate has other ideas as the attraction between Audrey and Ethan heats up.  Ethan finds himself in a quarry; what will he do?

Grab a comfortable seat, my romance suspense novel review of Audrey's Promise follows.

CHARACTERS, PLOTTING, DEVELOPMENT:

Firstly, let me say, what a power packed novel the reader finds in Audrey's Promise.  Author Susan Sheehey expertly lays the ground work and plot lines in such a way the reader's hooked immediately.  Leaving hints all through the story-line, Sheehey does not reveal the plot lines until the last possible minute; and what plot threads she has crafted!   As a result, the reader finds suspense and mystery  in abundance.  As Sheehey reveals the plots, have a box of Kleenex handy as Audrey's Promise is a heart wrenching book.

Secondly, filling small town USA with less than stellar citizens, Sheehey expertly demonstrates the human trait of blaming others for your own misfortune and life disappointments.  Family dynamics are at high peak in Audrey's Promise as we watch Audrey stand alone against everyone including her beloved brother and father.  Sheehey character development of Audrey and Ethan was intense and strong.  Each character's independent, strong-willed, and determined.  As the story-line's revealed the reader can not help but feel heart weary for Audrey.  I cried many times during my reading of Audrey's Promise, as well as, rooting for both Ethan and Audrey by the end of the story.  Can love conqueror all?

Finally, in concluding my romance suspense novel review of Audrey's Promise, I found a story-line full of twists and turns.  Sheehey wove emotion and suspense throughout the novel weaving the plot lines expertly.  Creating an intensely intriguing and entertaining read, Sheehey crafted a tragic story-line and then redeemed it with forgiveness.

This is a an intense story of human emotion, misconception, tragedy, heartbreak, redemption, and forgiveness.  I found Sheehey's writing fresh and easy to follow with an original premise.  I highly recommend this book to young adults and adults.

AUDREY'S PROMISE RECOMMENDATION:  STARS 5

In addition, I felt I must give this novel, 5 well-deserved stars.  I would not hesitate to buy this book for my self or a friend.  I look forward to reading other books by talented author Susan Sheehey

FINALLY, PLEASE NOTE:

Additionally, I received this book from the author and chose to voluntarily review the book with an honest  romance suspense novel review.  Lastly, book reviews of any novel are dependent on the book review author’s opinion.  Consequently, all book reviews on-line and on my blog, are my opinions.  In addition,  the ARC did not affect my romance suspense novel review.