#also Disa looks awesome

[eri-pl]

after watching some YT...

Opinion: You have no right to complain about characters' skin colors in RoP etc if you don't also complain about Aragorn and Boromir having beards in PJ's movies.

(The beard question is answered by the canon, the skin color is not, even for most of the canon characters) (not commenting about the story or anything else just the characters' looks)

[rings-of-power-realm]

The Great Tale of our age is being written

The Rings of Power | Season 2 Trailer

[myfanfictiongarden]

My thoughts on s2ep8 “Shadow and Flame”

my hands are actually shaking as I write this

why does the recap alone already make me so emotional…

alright, already the first visual we get of golden light in a dark tunnel is freaking beautiful

wait, so king Durin really fought off all these dwarves by himself? wow (but I’m glad Disa stayed unharmed)

Disa and Durin kiss!!! yay!

ok, king Durin looks actually really scary and possessed by the ring (its a bit weird that he went so coockoo after only a month or two (?) in possession of the ring, but I know its not the writers fault but the simple fact that shows nowadays are only allowed 8 ep per season and you can do only so much in that time)

was not a fan of the Balrog appearing so early in the show, but its design is freaking awesome

not king Durin taking of the ring to protect his son… 😢

SHUT UP ALL YOU HATERS, THIS IS PHENOMENAL! THE WRITING, THE MUSIC, THE VISUALS- I´M ABSOLUTELY SOBBING!!!!!! 😭

good that we have the intro back this episode, because I need a minute after that opening scene…

now back to the Stoor village

“Manwe promised you would come”- not me having recently finished Unfinished Tales and learning that it was Manwe who urged an reluctant Gandalf to join the wizards in fighting Sauron´s rise to power, omg

not really on board with the theory that the Dark Wizard might be Saruman, but maybe if its true they could make it work…?

the White Tree of Numenor in a golden light… I know I’m repeating myself but THIS SHOW IS GORGEOUS

Pharazon framing Miriel of working with Sauron is kinda brilliant (but also disgusting)

the prosecution of the Faithful becomes serious (do you now see what you started Eärien? Yeah, now you’re scared for your father?)

again, the music while the Tree is “crying”, omg

Elendil recievess Narsil from Miriel and I´m crying

now back to Eregion, I’m sure everything is fine here

Yes! Galadriel helping evacuate the survivors!!!!!!

and she’s captured again (at least the other female elves are spared)

no... blood on stone floors… I’m not ready 😩

Sauron just casually shooting arrows into a blood covered Celebrimbor, while still playing the “look what you made me do, dear friend” card…

mention of Gondolin!

Brimby, I can’t, you are the hero we should all aspire to be, omg, you deserved so much better

“But the Rings are beyond your reach. As I should be ere long, for soon I shall go to the shores of the Morning, borne hence by I wind you can never follow!” Badass Brimby

“No, hear me. Hear me! Shadow of Morgoth. Hear the dying words of Celebrimbor. The Rings of Power shall destroy you. And in the end, I foresee one alone shall prove your utter ruin!” OMG

“You are wrong! I am their creator. I AM THEIR MASTER!” “No. You are their prisoner, Sauron, Lord of the Rings.” SHUT UP, CELEBRIMBOR IS THE GREATEST CHARACTER THIS SEASON, AND CHARLES EDWARDS DESERVES ALL THE AWARDS!!!!!!

Celebrinbor´s words and death bringing genuine tears to Sauron´s eyes, omg

I guess we kinda got the Brimby-banner with Celebrimbor impaled into the air on a spear…?

And Sauron is already sauroning with Glüg and the orcs- sorry, uruk

Lol, glad for the bit of humour from Theo and Isildur after everything up till now, love their brotherly bond!

also, Estrid and Isildur kiss!!!!

oh, nice, Kemen is placed in charge of Pelegir, completely dismissing Theo as their leader

did I already mention that I hate Kemen?

back to the forests of Eregion- why is Adar kneeling face away like he is praying…?

… wait, Nenya on his HEALED hand, omg, omg, omg

“When last I looked like this, I was known by another name.” “What was it?” “A meaningless name. A name I was given. Adar is the name I earned.” - guys, there is now room to fully headcanon him as Maeglin and I will do it!

DID NOT SEE THIS COMING, wth?!!! Adar, no!!!!

The parallel of Adar being stabbed by the orc like Sauron was before…

“My children…” “They are no children anymore.” - dang, Sauron knows what’s up and how to use it

The Galadriel- Sauron confrontation is here and I’m not ready (also, Sauron immediately focused/in love with Nenya, completely ignoring Galadriel for a moment? Perfect characterisation)

“I do not wish to harm you.” “Do you wish to heal me?”- dang, what a burn girl

not Elrond ready to give his life to save the books and scrolls of Eregion 😭 (also, Arondir is alive!)

the sword-crown fight is pretty cool

Omg, Sauron fighting her while changing from Annatar, into Halbrand, into herself, then Celebrimbor is beyond brilliant writing- he is literary presenting himself as a mirror to her!!!!!

“I see you, I know your mind. The door is still open.” “The door is shut!” GIVE IT TO HIM GIRL

“I would have placed a crown upon your head.” says Sauron while he stabs her with his own crown

The dwarves came to help!!!!!!!

“You wish to heal Middle-earth? Heal yourself.” Now, if this isn’t the most badass equivalent to F-yourself then I don’t know what could be

Galadriel and her ring escape, Sauron is pissed and Glüg pays for it

Yay, Gil-Galad and his healing ring to save Galadriel! (Her “injury” of the body and soul reminds me of Eowyn in LotR)

Also, Elrond using her ring to help heal her after such disdain to the rings 😭

Poppy sharing wisdom Mr Burrows once gave her while we witness again the ruin and devastation that has just spread everywhere… 😭

the Stoors calling Stranger “Grand-Elf” because they don’t know the difference between giant, human and elf is literary how Gandalf came to his name in the books

Nori and Stranger taking separate ways is sad but also makes sense (I bet they will meet again)

Grand-elf found his staff!!!

“Gandalf. Thats what they are going to call me, isn’t it?” YES IT IS 🥰 (also, Tom and Gandalf simply sitting by the fire, drinking tea and singing is the most wholesome Tolkien thing ever)

Come let the song begin, let us sing together 🎶🥰

Alright, so the drama with the dwarves will continue next season with the Lords of the Blue Mountains as well as Durin´s brother staring up trouble

Gil-Galad dissing Galadriel moments after she wakes up from a terrible injury is how you show love to your family 😂

“What is this place?” “A sanctuary, protected by the Elven Rings.” Rivendell?

Galadriel para-quoting Celebrimbor´s speech about Light overcoming Darkness is my everything (also, this is definitely Rivendell!!!!)

Galadriel in a simple white tunic THE FUTURE WHITE LADY OF LOTLORIEN!!!!! 

Also, Arondir, Galadriel, Gil-Galad and Elrond posing on the cliff overlooking a new sunrise is just epic

What do you mean I need to wait now two years agin for the next season? Although, for such quality its really worth it

[trans-elrond]

This is spurred by my social anxiety, and your very well written and interesting post about the insidiousness of the ROP critiques. So ignore if you want.

I’m someone who has not watches the show. I definitely had the initial aggressive reaction of Amazon is Evil don’t touch MY 2nd Age!!!😡

I decided to see if I changed my mind based on tumblr osmosis, and hold off on watching dependent on if I liked what I saw.

I personally liked what I saw of the dwarves and the Nùmenor designs and casting. Like I’d have enjoyed a beard on Disa but otherwise she looks awesome and I have no complaints whatsoever about how Nùmenor looks.

But I have a visceral (shallow and petty) negative reaction to Elrond, Gil-Galad, Finrod, and Celebrimbor’s faces. The “just some guy” complaint.

Is that racist and fascist? Like I know it’s nitpicky and petty, but I don’t want to buy into the toxic conservatism, you know?

hey friend, thanks for asking, always happy to discuss rop in good faith!! the casting of elrond, celebrimbor, and gil-galad is something i've seen a smattering of criticism about, so you're not alone. and i genuinely don't see disliking the casting as a problem (esp not related to anything racist/fashy since they're all white dudes playing white dudes lol!!) but honestly, i'd suggest watching the show and seeing their performances, since it'll give you a far better picture of who the characters are than just in still images/gifs.

i was not sold on robrond (robert elrond) for a long time, because i kinda thought he looked like peter pan--till the culmination of his storyline with durin. then i was 100% fucking SOLD because of the performance and chemistry. that made me reappraise the casting, which imho is GREAT for a young elrond still figuring out his place in the world. short hair and all—i feel like there's a distinct possibility we'll get long hair elrond in future seasons :)

similarly with celebrimbor. i know silm celebrimbor and popular fanon interpretation is very different from charles edwards celebrimbor. but over the course of the show, it was the charm and energy that won me over. and... i get the thirst now. i do. his energy is incredibly charismatic.

gil-galad unfortunately isn't a huge part of s1 (though it's confirmed he'll be more major moving forward--bear mccreary is also composing a gil-galad theme for the soundtrack already!!) not everyone has been convinced, but i'll be honest there is a s1 episode 8 moment that actually really endeared him to me and now i'm similarly sold!

i think it's totally fair to have that initial petty/shallow negative reaction if you don't think they look right for elves/don't think they're hot (sorry 2 the actors lol!!!!) because that's a pretty personal metric anyway. but watching onscreen is a very different experience from just seeing still images and gifs. you might be surprised--i certainly was (...i've written the elrond x durin fanfic i wanted to see in the world and i am now SUPER attracted to robrond. rip my life.) let me know what you think, i promise i'm happy to receive asks and messages and i'm not scary :D

[coe-lilium]

Copy-paste from this Reddit thread:

1. Potentially plot related:

Daniel Weymen (The Stranger/Meteor Man) said that his character had a "deep source of purpose,... a primal need". The character also seems to have very few lines. You may draw your own conclusion what that says about who he actually is.

Apparently the Harfoots' storyline is pretty isolated from the other storylines since they never met the cast from other sets (with maybe one exception?). The Stranger also apparently stayed with them, at least during the first season.

2. Cast/characters related:

The theatre/stage background of some of the actors (especially the actors of Celebrimbor, Elendil, Pharazon, The Stranger/Meteor Man) really shows. Their voices and the way they use their voices are just different, and it fits their characters well. Lloyd Owen (Elendil)'s voice, just wow! I want to listen to this man reading all of Tolkien's books.

Charles Edwards (Celebrimbor) is knowledgable about the lore. He not only knows the Tolkien books, but also what Christopher said about his dad's work. He became a big fan of Tolkien from a very young age, he would copy the Elvish script, he even wrote his own LOTR play (he has a deep background in Shakespeare)! I feel like he's a great pick for a complex and tragic character like Celebrimbor, even though his appearance may not match people's imagination.

Robert Aramayo (Elrond) started out not knowing that much about the lore (he didn't know the First Age stuff), but after he got the role, he started reading everything to the extent that people on set would consider him a sort of expert. I really liked his motivation for doing this: he said that he felt Elrond would eventually become such an accomplished lore-master that he had to read a ton of Tolkien lore to become the Elrond he plays.

Trystan Gravelle (Pharazon) has a great grasp of the lore. His explanation of Numenor's politics and what mortality means for Numenoreans and how Pharazon fits into all this told me that Pharazon is in safe hands.

Lloyd Owen (Elendil) also gave a nice explanation of Numenor's history. He also made a great meta joke when he was chatting with Isildur's actor. He said: "Isildur is not a problem child in any way shape or form."  But of course we all know how Isildur caused a lot of problems down the road lol. He went on to say: "All I can say is, don't always blame the parents." It probably takes a decent level of familiarity with the lore and maybe also the memes to slip in an offhand joke like that.

Ismael Cruz Cordova (Arondir) spent many hours working with others to create a new Elvish fighting style that combines dancing and Brazilian martial arts and more. His fellow actors said he was in the stunt gym all the time. He also said he would sneak into other sets of the show to have a peek (they're technically not allowed to do that). I found that pretty funny.

Daniel Weyman (The Stranger) had very few lines, so he had to rely a lot on non-verbal acting. But according to one of his fellow actors, he was so good that in one scene his acting made her cry without saying a single word.

Owan Arthur (Durin IV) has a ton of energy and fun. He's just the kind of person you'd immediately want to have a beer with. Great pick for a young Dwarf prince. Go listen to his story about how his beard and costumes would get in the way of him eating and going to the bathroom. It's hilarious!

Sophia Nomvete (Disa) attended the audition 2 days before she gave birth. The costume department custom made her costumes so she could get out of them easily to breast feed her baby on set. She just looks like a regal Dwarf queen.

Benjamin Walker (Gil-Galad) has a good sense of humor while maintaining a sort of deadpan face, which is surprising but awesome.

3. Production and details:

There are Tolkien experts on set in case people need to consult them on lore. Sometimes people would also argue about the lore on set to try to get everything right.

Most of the Numenorean and Elf actors had to take calligraphy lessons with Daniel Reeve (the artist who designed the awesome calligraphy and cartography in all the PJ movies) so they can actually write correctly. Emma Horvath (Earien, Elendil's invented daughter) had to spend 3 hours with Daniel Reeve every week to learn how to write and draw because her character is an architect. Apparently Daniel Reeve also had to invent a brand new alphabet for Numenor.

The actors (especially the Numenorean and Elf ones) put a lot of care into the pronunciations of words and language in Tolkien's books. You can hear it when they speak. It sounds pretty Middle-earth already.

Numenor has large practical sets that you can explore and interact with: full alleyways and flowers and everything. They even had incense burning in some places presumably so the sets have the right smells even though the audience can't necessarily see that.

The Harfoots have mobile proto "hobbit holes" they carry with them on carts when they migrate. The carts have everything in them that you can probably live in them.

The person that designed Galadriel's armor said she's gonna really make the cosplayers have to work hard for this one. I thought the mental image of the costume designers consciously competing with cosplayers was pretty funny.

They imported giant rabbits from Europe so they made the Harfoots look small. Also, potential easter egg for Radagast's rabbits?

Obvious caveat: it's possible (even likely) that most of the questions were sent to the cast in advance. But I feel that you can still learn a lot about the show and the cast from the Q&A sessions.

[makiruz]

Oh man! That opinion was actually interesting! I could’ve had such a good time explaining to them why Rings of Power is Tokenism.

Well, I’m gonna tell you:

1. The black elf isn’t “tokenized” the whole show is. Yes we have multiple black characters but they’re side characters and it’s like there’s one black character per group; the Harfoots are a bit better because they’re canonically dark skinned, but they’re stilly very light in the show

2. The protagonist Harfoot girl is very white; okay maybe she is mixed like her character but she looks white so best case scenario this is colorism. Her mom is black, why is she so damn white? Her best friend is also very white.

3. More of less all the protagonists are white, Galadriel, Halbrand, Elrond, Isildur and his family, Nori, Poppy, Durin

4. There are basically no Asian characters (I think there’s like one) and no East Asian characters. There are no Indigenous actors either, no Polynesian, no anything other than a handful of black actors. I don’t think you have to have one of everything or anything like that, but diversity means representing multiple kinds of people

5. The Southlands were canonically populated by dark-skinned people, so why is Halbrand white? Halbrand should be dark skinned or even black. People from the Southlands shouldn’t be white

6. Tar-Míriel. I’m not familiar with that part of the story, but apparently her deal is that her husband (Ar-Pharazôn) steals her power and abuses her and shit; and it’s super awesome to have a black woman being used by a white man, not problematic at all! /sarcasm

7. Disa doesn’t have a beard. I know that’s not about race but it bothers me. It’s nice that they’re casting a black actress, but dwarfs have beards, she should have a beard. Actually there’s a lot of things about gender I’d like to complain about, like girlboss Galadriel, but I’m gonna leave it at handling of women falls into tokenism in my opinion

8. Arondir has no hair, like I’ve mentioned before he looks more like Grey Worm than an elf; male Elves having short hair in general is a bad take (specially with the beardless female dwarfs) but giving USA’s history with black hair, him having even less hair than other male Elves feels like the hair and make up people were white (contrast with the black Targaryens who look fucking amazing)

So in conclusion, @jeddiapplegist no I’m singling out Arondir, the whole show is bad and the casting is bad, and Arondir deserves pretty long hair

[darklordsauron]

Last things about ROP (before the final episode(s))

Not gonna lie, I expected a lot worse. It is still awful in my opinion (because I am a die hard book fan, not a racist or sexist idiot) but, there are some qualities to the show that is not bad.

It is over-dramatic when it should not be. When Arondir was taken to be a slave for the orcs and they try to escape this one elf dies. The show goes into slow motion, the music becomes tragic ect. but we have known this character for a few scenes in two episodes where he barely talks. They had no reason to make this scene so dramatic as I had no feeling towards this character. Whether he died or lived means nothing to me. If they killed Arondir however, I would have been shocked and his death would have added more drama to the show that actually adds weight (character development wise) to the characters.

The amount of clichés in this show is nauseating. Nori, Bronwyn, Arondir and Galadriel are tropes you can find in every fantasy series. Nori- The chosen one who nobody really understands, Bronwyn- The hardworking single mother who cares about everything and everyone while still being stern, Arondir- The stoic warrior who has a soft spot for only one woman and Galadriel- The war hardened warrior who cannot think of anything anymore except revenge but they learn to be more understanding. Tropes that can make anybody yawn in other words. I will not be discussing Bridie Sisson's character as that will just open can of worms.

There are a few characters in this show that gives it their all and they are my favorite. For example Disa and Durin, the best characters. They are energetic and delights to have on screen. I wish we had a show just about them. Adar is so cool and I want him to murder everyone, if they make him Sauron, the witch-king, a nazgul I will have no complaints (I am fairly certain he is just going to be an OC but still, he is just so cool he can be anything). Tar-Miriel has this royal and snobbish attitude I adore as well as Celebrimbor (man may not look the part but he plays a Fëanorian so damn well).

The dialogue in ROP is robotic and sometimes just plain weird. Galadriel's OC brother (why did she need an OC brother in the first place, she has enough already) says this weird quote about rocks and ships and it is supposed to thought provoking but, I was sitting there like- '...huh?!' My friend who actually likes this show even said that that line was stupid. Also, when the humans help Galadriel when she was swimming back to Middle Earth, they call her a liar after she said something that cannot be a lie or the truth. The writing does get better as the show goes on but, the robotic-ness of the dialogue stays.

The VFX and CGI are bloody, drop dead gorgeous. They deserve an award for the set designs/best special effects or something because the locations and sets of this show are masterpieces.

Sadly the same cannot be said for the wardrobes... They suck, the material is cheap and they do not fit the characters in any good way. There is a strange phenomenon with this show; sometimes a character comes out wearing something that actually looks nice and cool but, the rest of the characters wear clothes I believe they found in the darkest vaults of Amazon. I have seen cosplayers with better wardrobes.

The props are competent and some look awesome! I would buy a few of these and hang them up on my wall because they are beautiful to say the least.

This show did not meet my bad expectations but, it also does not fall into the good category. Perhaps season 2 will bring it some redemption? (Fingers crossed it does).

For fun, here are my top 5 favorite and most hated characters-

Favorite

Disa

Durin

Elrond

Adar

Tar-Miriel or Gil-Galad

Hated

Nori

Arondir

Theo

Bronwyn

Galadriel

That is all I have to say. All in all not a completely bad show but definitely not worthy of Tolkien.

4/10

[malkaleh]

Hi I binged watched Rings of Power episodes 3-6 because I finally wrangled my brain. Disclaimer: I am The Tolkien Dork and like yes, do I have issues (not the diversity though if anything please increase the diversity)? Absolutely. But I’m also having a good time/a lot of feelings so that’s the part I’m going to talk about.  @nocompromise-noregrets @isagrimorie

It’s not that the actor who plays Elrond isn’t good (he is) it’s just I really really want a biracial actor to play Elrond, because they are doing this thing with biracial themes (Elrond Half-Elven*) and I, a biracial person want a biracial actor. Also look, I do not read fic for Tolkien and yet somehow I would read so much about Elrond and the experience(s) he has had as a mixed raced person. SO MUCH. I do also appreciate we are getting kind hearted Elrond here as well. 

Elrond and Tar-Miriel need to hang out and he needs to tell her about his twin and her ancestor like, I need that to happen. 

Is Halabrand actually going to end up as The Witch King rather than being Sauron? (I mean, still could be Sauron tbh. Could also just be a good guy). 

Tar-Miriel kind of knowing her fate, her people’s fate is…Something That Is Ow. 

Stabby!Galadriel is Stabby! (And awesome)

There’s definitely some lore dropping for Tolkien Nerds (aka me) that they mostly manage to do without like, directly referencing stuff that happens in The Silmarillion (which is possibly why we don’t get Kidnap Dads references? Yet?)

I love Disa SO MUCH. SO MUCH. 

What they’ve done with the orc origin story is fascinating and beautiful - because you know, Eru probably has a way for them to be brought back (the backstory is that some of the first Elves were taken and tortured and twisted and then just imbued with pain and hate All The Time by Morgoth - at least that’s one version Tolkien had)

*Elrond is actually ‘divine being/human/elven’ biracial. 

[crazyfreckledginger]

Ikemen Vampire x Reader - “Residents In Modern Times”

Requested by anon: “Hello glorious author-chan! I have a request for you. I have a fun little imagine for you. Can you make an Ikemen Vampire imagine of what their reactions would be like in modern times?”

A/N: I honestly don’t know what this is, like it ended up as the child of a drabble and a headcanon.

Warning: implied smut and nudity (come on Arthur is here)

Napoleon Bonaparte:

He’d be shocked and in awe at the same time.

Wanting to know EVERYTHING about how people live in the 21st century.

Is it a better, easier life? Is everyone treated equally and safe?

He’s astonished by the night lights as well, so bright and beautiful.

It’s absolutely unforgettable and he stays up at night a little longer to watch the busy city below, drinking the beautiful view until he falls asleep. 

Also more content with the clothing fashion.

Yes it’s very unusual to him since he’s not used to it but clothes used to be so uncomfortable, especially for women.

Though he really didn’t feel comfortable with such revealing clothes. 

He’s very cute about it around you though, hiding in your neck with flushed, embarrassed cheeks. 

Leonardo Da Vinci:

Doesn’t show his amazement as much except through his tone of voice.

Wants to know how a phone works.

Surprisingly -- or unsurprisingly --  not having to explain it regularly, he picks up on it very quickly.

He’s very impressed. 

Your days were divided into visiting shops, showing him technologies, public transport, probably every single thing about the city and cuddling in bed and showing him how the TV works because “the mattress is so comfortable”.

Even though you know how comfortable a surface is, never stopped him from falling asleep.

He really likes it in the modern day.

I think he would be one of the residents that would fit in rather quickly and easily. 

Comte De Saint Germain: 

It’s not that much of a shocker for him for obvious reasons but because you’d spent your life in modern day, he got to see your view and had a much positive outlook on it.

Not that it was negative to begin with, he just didn’t pay as much attention to it before and now that he has, it’s eye opening, in a way. 

He loved the sparkle in your eyes as you rejoiced in the things you used to know before you travelled back in time. 

It was a sight for sore eyes. 

He enjoyed visiting with you, even though he spent more time seeing the twinkle in your eyes than being happy over the smaller things. 

Comte is much more open about PDA for obvious reasons and he feels the modern day is something the both of you share as a precious memory now.

Arthur Conan Doyle:

His demeanour is one of someone who’s seen everything already but the huge smile and eyes just showed that he was a little boy excited about discovering everything.

Arthur dragged you around to tell him how things work if he couldn’t pick up on by himself. 

You went to a mall and Victoria’s Secret caught his eye so fast it was S C A R Y.

“Try this sweetheart, and this and this-” 

Yes, despite all your protests, you spent the whole day in the store trying on clothes for him. 

He enjoyed it very much.

Arthur promised he would discover something new with you that didn’t involved being naked.

How nice of him *chokes*

It was a tiring day for you since you did all the standing, changing and displaying for him.

But the night provided to be very rewarding hehe

If you know what I mean

;)

You know what I mean, why am I saying this.

Theodorus Van Gogh: 

He has a similar behaviour to Arthur at first, indifferent behaviour but very curious eyes.

You can tell he doesn’t want to ask questions but wants the answers. 

So you just start talking and explaining things.

He’s a little flushed because he would have told you to stop talking by now but he doesn’t since you’re informing him on everything.

Theo would keep visiting until you got tired and wouldn't hesitate to carry you back to your place and cuddle up on the couch.

Showing him how the TV works but he prefers sleeping in your bed because it’s so comfy and he can hug you.

Vincent Van Gogh:

“WOW!” *sparkly eyes*

Asks you about EVERYTHING

Holds your hand the whole time.

Also he apologises for always inquiring about everything.

Reassuring him that it’s alright.

Proceeds to go back to questioning everything.

Politely asks if you guys can go to an exhibition the next day to see paintings and saying yes.

Very gladly cuddling in your neck and saying how amazing everything is.

He’s too cute T-T

Vincent was smiling in his sleep because he got to discover so many new things with you and he couldn’t express how content he was.

Your heart is constantly melting as he acts like an overjoyed puppy.

He’s forever thankful to you and this will always be engraved in his memory.

Amadeus Mozart:

The pianist can’t physically hide his amazement. 

“Can we go to an instrument store?” 

Holds your hand tightly and keeps you close like he’s protecting you.

When in fact it should be the other way around given that you have lived your entire life in the modern day.

But you already knew that 🤦‍♀️

His eyes light up more than they already did when you enter an empty store and there are three or four pianos. 

Mozart let his fingers caress the smooth surface, taking in all the details of the instruments.

He’s relieved that they didn’t change as significantly as everything else in the world. 

Lowkey wants to buy all the pianos because he wants to try them. 

A very confused boy at attire.

And blushing at how more ‘revealing’ they are. 

He could get used to this.

Jean D’Arc:

He would be in silent shock, staying close to you and looking around in amazement. 

Jean would be pretty shy about asking too many questions, not wanting to bother you.

Reassuring him that it was fine, similar to Vincent.

Jean was somehow more considerate about it, not wanting to bother you with his inquiries.

Whispering questions and trying so hard to try and make sense of things himself, sometimes it works, kind of!!

Like Napoleon, he’s relieved the world is happier and fairer. 

It was a huge shock for him at first, everything was different, but he was fortunate enough to be with you.

Now he reminisces of the experience as a magical moment that will forever be engraved in his memory.

Isaac Newton:

Absolutely astonished.

He has so many questions but he didn’t know where to start.

Similar to Jean, he was a little shy about asking questions and trying to solve things on his own.

Being surprised at how complex things turn out to be.

Isaac has mixed emotions about knowing that the foundation of physics are his three famous laws. 

Because the world seemed overwhelmingly unknown and huge, he nearly clung onto you.

You locked your arm with his, seeing his unease but also not wanting to trouble you.

He felt better instantly and silently thanked you, blushing in embarrassment. 

The first thing you taught him was what a phone was and about the kindergarden/school system.

You reminisce about how he went along into town with Napoleon to attempt to teach children.

It wasn’t a particular detail he would have inquired about but he feels strangely relieved about it.

He was touched by the small details you remember about him and he keeps it in mind.

It was an unforgettable experience for him to have with you.

But something he does not want to let go is the bed, it’s shockingly comfortable for him.

Osamu Dazai:

“Wow, are you seeing this (Not Y/N)-chan?” 

“That’s not my name-” 

“What is this?” 

No shame about asking whatsoever. 

“Miraculous!” 

A lot of him grinning and praising everything and anything, including you.

“You’re delightful (Y/N)-chan, such an interesting answer!” 

“D-did you just call me by my nam-”

“Are you coming (Not Y/N)-chan?” 

“Nevermind,” you grumble, pouting as you follow behind him.

He chuckled, finding you so cute before cupping your cheeks and openly kissing you in public.

Dazai finds even more amusement with how flushed you are for a while as you clung onto his arm, answering questions with a breathy tone.

Despite his second degree humour throughout everything, he’s actually thoroughly enjoyed spending time doing this with you and becoming a treasured memory.

William Shakespeare: 

He was actually rendered speechless for a long while.

Which was unusual for him obviously.

But it was a little disconcerting for him since he always had something to say. 

You couldn’t help but eye him admiring everything.

Despite his unnerving silence, the way his eyes lit up was something that you didn’t know you needed to witness. 

It looked like he found something to look forward to in life. (can’t relate lol)

That thought alone made you hopeful and sad at the same time.

He was always very polite and considerate about inquiring about things. 

As in, he always read the ‘room’ before asking, wanting to stay in your good graces, even though he is already in them.

Finding the bed in your place being painfully heaven-like.

If he wasn’t as invested in learning about the modern world, he would totally examine and savour the beauty that is a bed.

Without you knowing, however, he would spend a lot of time studying you as well.

It was fascinating to him, seeing you enjoying yourself in your natural habitat.

Sebastian: 

I mean he lived there before so there isn’t much to say.

He does reminisce a lot though, all previous memories rushing back.

Just as if the residents were a long dream. 

One thing that surprised him a little was that he enjoyed spending time with you in the modern day so much that it’s in a smal, different compartment in his brain altogether.

Basically nostalgia but also happy new memories.

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[drainthehero]

Ultraboy

It was a crisp spring afternoon and the sun was shining down over Aston City. People minded their own business, going about their day as usual.

The calm was not to last though. A commotion disrupted the peace as two black SUVs pulled up outside the First Reserve bank, and a team of people carrying heavy weapons moved with speed and precision to subdue the guards and secure the building.

This squad, known as The Cleaners, had already wiped out 4 banks in a month leaving the police outclassed and without leads. They wore a simple black outfit which was light and allowed fast movement. On their heads each wore a pair of high tech glasses designed to feed them information about their environment.

After having secured the foyer, four members moved directly to the large vault and placed charges at carefully determined soft points in the design before moving out of range.

Back in the SUV a scout was watching for signs of interference, but so far there was no sign of police or Ultraboy, so their scrambling technology was working.

Back in the bank, the charges were set off and an explosion rocked the building. The explosion tore the vault door open but left the pieces on their hinges. Dust and debris was sent across the room, obscuring vision of the vault entrance momentarily.

The four members moved toward the door and prepared to enter the vault. But as the dust settled, they could make out the image a figure floating in the air just inside the vault. Even though his flight gave him away, Ultraboy floated forward through the dust to be clearly visible.

Ultraboy floated above the ground looking down at bank robbers and said almost apologetically, “I’m sorry but you have insufficient funds for this withdrawal,” and gave his most disarming smile.

Ultraboy was a vision of male perfection, and his costume certainly left little to the imagination. He wore only a cape, speedo and boots in purple with yellow highights. He also wore a glowing purple gem around his neck on a gold chain and a purple mask over his eyes. This glowing gem was actually a mystical UltraGem and was the source of his powers. He had tanned skin and a hairless body. His lack of costume showed his awesome physique, with muscles bulging on his arms, chest, legs and back.

Ultraboy had first revealed himself to the people of Aston City a year earlier, when he had intervened to save a car which was out of control on the main highway. He had flown down to pick it up and move it to safety. Since then he had appeared fairly regularly with major and minor superheroic acts.

As Ultraboy hovered there, taking in the scene, the hostages sighed in relief knowing that Ultraboy would take care of The Cleaners.

Ultraboy glided down to land in front of the four, as they rushed into overpower him. He looked a little surprised at their bravado, but raised an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders. The first two robbers threw punches toward him, which he easily dodged and – grabbing their outstretched arms – threw them both into a wall off to his right. The third landed a kick to Ultraboy’s titanium-like abs and the fourth landed a wild right to the chiselled jaw of the hunky young hero. Neither made Ultraboy even flinch and he gave them a both knock to the head to take them out of the equation.

While this was happening a few more robbers had pulled their weapons and were firing toward him. Ultraboy was practically impervious and bullets did not bother him – in fact nothing had yet managed to pierce his steel-like skin – but he was worried that a stray shot might hit a hostage. He jumped forward, grabbed the weapons and broke them in two with his bare hands. “Sorry fellas, these are for grownups only”. He quickly bound their wrists behind their backs to prevent them causing any more trouble.

That left only one man standing. He had some kind of weapon shaped device pointed toward Ultraboy. The young hero looked at the remaining robber and a hard line formed at his mouth with his head shaking disapprovingly. “Surely you realise that won’t have any effect on me. You are wasting your time,” he almost sighed.

Without speaking, he pulled a trigger on the device and a flash of energy surged forward and hit Ultraboy on the chest. Energy played around the young hero for a few seconds and the glowing gem at his neck went dim. While this happened Ultraboy rocked back on his heels and his eyes rolled up in the back of his head. He appeared to be fighting for consciousness as his muscular frame swayed in a valiant attempt to keep him standing. But ultimately the fight was lost and slowly sank forward landing with one foot and one knee on the ground and a hand reached down to the ground holding him up.

“Ughh… feel… weak…” he uttered quietly. The young hero teetered for a moment on one knee but even that effort was proving too much. The robber had moved over to stand beside Ultraboy by this point and with one boot, kicked him in a muscular shoulder and sent all the muscle to the ground, him lying on his side.

“Not so strong now, hey boy?” Leered the leader of The Cleaners. It had been a risky bet he’d taken doing this job, but the biggest rewards come from the most risk. He reached down to grab the gem from the young studs neck, but received a painful shock when he touched it. “Ow! Fuck that hurt.” He gave Ultraboy a kick for good measure and to soothe his pride.

He motioned to another Cleaner, who had managed to recover from being thrown against a wall. “Quick, grab it and bring it over before he recovers. We don’t have much time.” As if in response, Ultraboy started groaning softly. With three of them now conscious, they quickly hauled the young hero to his feet and recovered an item from one of their bags. They assembled a makeshift frame and bound his wrists and ankles to keep him in an upright position.

“This pleasure will be mine,” said the man with the mystical weapon – clearly the boss. He moved around behind Ultraboy and lowered the back of his speedo. He then lubed the dildo and put it in position just at the entry to the young boy’s hole and signalled to the other robber.

At the cue, they splashed Ultraboy’s handsome features with water to bring him back to consciousness. “Eh.. wha..” he shook his head groggily. As he focused his eyes and noticed that his arms and legs were held he flexed his muscles but felt no surge of strength in response. A look of fear came over his handsome features when he realised his predicament. “What.. what have you done to me?” He asked nervously.

“We have merely disrupted that pretty gem you wear Ultraboy”, said the leader quietly from behind Ultraboy. “Unfortunately, the effect will be only temporary, so we are going to try something else.”

At that, the young muscle stud flexed his muscles again, hoping that his powers would return.

As the boss whispered into Ultraboy’s ear, “we found something that has a more long-term effect on your powers,” he slowly inserted the dildo into the bubble butt of Ultraboy.

The young hero’s eyes widened as he realised what was happening to him. Any sense of calm escaped him and he gave in to hysteria. “No. Please. You can’t!” he begged to the unseen assailant behind him. Ultraboy had no idea how they had worked out his weakness: that he was unable to access the powers of the gem while being penetrated anally.

“Oh but I can Ultraboy. I will.” And even as he spoke, he pushed the dildo with more force, and felt it break through the tight hole of Ultraboy. At the same time, the gem started to flicker with it’s glowing light, as the effects of the energy beam wore off.

Ultraboy felt the dildo penetrating his hole and knew he was helpless under it’s influence. A pained look crossed the face of the handsome young man as he felt it sinking between his bubble cheeks and deep into him. “Ugghhh… arrgghh…” he groaned in pain. To provide additional pain, as the dildo rammed it’s way inside of him, he felt the gem return to life and could sense it’s power – now out of reach behind an impenetrable door, thanks to the dildo.

“Feel so weak. What are you going to do with me?” Ultraboy asked, in an attempt to buy some time and hope the police could arrive.

The boss looked around and saw that his team had once again brought the bank under control, using sleeping gas on the hostages and guards. But he knew there would not be much time. “I am going to get what I came for.”

Ultraboy felt a brief surge of hope and gave a defiant smile. “Well I hate to disappoint you, but this bank had all it’s funds removed. So you will get nothing.”

The boss gave a half smile and said simply. “I didn’t come for money, young hunk. I came to get you!” The look of confidence on the face of Ultraboy was smashed and he looked even more dejected. “We will start with your seed and see where it goes shall we?” Ultraboy was silent. “What, no smart quip? Let’s see if we can’t get some noise of out you then.”

The boss retrieved an aphrodisiac oil from a bag and one of his team rubbed it over each and every inch of the wondrous body of the young superhero. As the oil was applied Ultraboy started to moan from the heightened sensitivity of his muscles.

The boss rubbed at the spandex covered shaft of the young hero while working a tongue over one of the nipples. This elicited more moaning from Ultraboy as his young body started to take over and run on autopilot.

The boss now pulled the speedo down and the 8 inch cut cock of Ultraboy sprang to full attention, obviously pleased to be free of the restraints. His big hairless balls hanging happily below the shaft, the juice of the young hero already churning inside those super balls. Ultraboy looked down at his cock and gave another pleading look at the boss.

“No, please,” he begged. Gone was the heroic voice and confidence, replaced with the sometimes breaking tone of the 19 year old youth behind the mask. “Please don’t, he asked again”, almost pathetically.

The boss ignored his pleas and instead applied the arousing oil to that hard shaft and began to work it up and down with his hand. He began with a steady rhythmic jerk and avoided the head. He knew time was short, but the boy was also very young and the boss did not want this to end too shortly.

As the stroking continued, the pleas of Ultraboy faded away and were replaced with moaning and heavier breathing. The boss decided to get value for money and took a finger and slipped it inside the tight hole beside the dildo. Once inside, he explored that sensual cave and was rewarded by a look of bliss crossing the beautiful features of Ultraboy as the prostate was stimulated. Ultraboy now had his mouth wide open with eyes wide and unfocussed. He made the occasional murmur of appreciation from the many and varied stimuli.

The boss decided it was time to move things along. So he increased his attention to the crowned head of the cock of the young hero and increased his momentum.

This was met with pelvic thrusting from Ultraboy and shallow ragged breathing which the boss meant he was not far away now.

Just before the orgasm was reached, the boss pulled away all contact and Ultraboy shuddered in frustration and pent up energy. Ultraboy yelled in frustration. “Arrghh. No! Why!” The boy looked at the boss with a desperate pleading look in his puppy eyes.

“But… please.” He whimpered. The boss waited patiently and realisation dawned over Ultraboy’s face. “Please sir, please let me cum.” The boss waited longer. “Please make me cum, sir. I need you to make me cum, sir,” He finally said, the defeat dripping from his words.

The boss resumed his efforts, stroking and prodding. After a short while the young hero was back on the brink and this time the boss did not deny him.

The powerful orgasm shot through the body of the young hero, his waist thrusting and his legs twitching and the orgasm activated neurons all across his body and draped him in a sense of euphoria. “Urrgghh.. arrgghh.. ohhhh… fuuuuuckk!”

One of the team was there to catch the man juice of Ultraboy, and it was a very large specimen indeed.

The boss was not willing to let the boy bask in the glow however. He activated the vibrator on the dildo and started to mercilessly stimulate the sensitive head of the cock of Ultraboy. “Urgghh. Arghh! Nooo!” he cried out in pain and frustration. “Please, no please,” he begged. But the boss would not relent.

At that moment, however, he received a signal from his men outside. “Well I’m afraid our time here has come to an end Ultraboy”. He tweaked the nipples of the young hero once and said, “Oh, this is for all the trouble you have caused us this past year. We’ll be seeing you again!”

With those comments, he reached back and delivered a powerful uppercut blow directly to the super balls of the young hero. Twice for good measure. Ultraboy cried out in genuine pain and tried to bring his legs up to protect himself, but of course he could not. Tears streamed down his face and he felt an awful splitting pain travel from his balls to his stomach.

The Cleaners rapidly exited the building and made their escape.

Within minutes the police arrived to find a nightmarish scene. A young officer was the first to locate Ultraboy, hanging in the restraints with his now soft cock hanging out and his speedo around his legs. Dried tears could be seen on his mask and down his face. “Please, remove it,” the young hero begged. His waist was gyrating strangely.

That was when the young officer heard a buzzing sound from behind Ultraboy. He looked around and saw a handle sticking out of the perfect bubble butt of the young hero. “Please”, he pleaded again.

The officer realised he might get in trouble for tampering with the scene, but he also admired all the good that Ultraboy had done in the past year. Secretly, he was also very much in lust with Ultraboy and could not see him hurting for a moment more. He immediately removed the dildo and turned it off, realising it had been buried some nine inches into that young superheroic ass.

Ultraboy shivered a sigh of relief and said “thank you, officer… Trenton,” making out the name on his badge. “Could you please also fix my speedo?”

“Sure, and you can call me Chip,” said the young officer with a smile. He carefully adjusted the speedo so it sat back on the waist of the young hero.

Ultraboy was rapidly feeling much better, with his powers returning after the removal of the dildo. When Chip had restored his modesty, Ultraboy was able to rip his hands and feet free and stand unaided before the officer.

“I probably don’t want to know what happened here, do I?” Chip asked hesitantly.

“No, you probably don’t. But I want to thank you for helping me. I hope I can count on your… discretion?” Ultraboy blushed as he referred to the situation he was found in by Chip.

“Of course, Ultraboy, anything for you!” He noticed his colleagues coming closer. Well I better check in and think of something to tell them. Call me if I can do anything to help. I’m at the four-six.” With that Chip was pulled aside by other officers.

Before he got caught up in the questions, Ultraboy decided he had better make his exit. He found the captain and said, “This was a trap set for me Captain. I need to find some answers but will be in touch.”

The Captain just nodded in agreement and watched as Ultraboy flew out of and away from the building.

[vincenttsaisecurity]

Something Awesome 2

This time I will be completing the bof challenge, which presumably standards for buffer over flow as it is mentioned in the description. This time around, the setup is different as it does not involve sshing in, instead using the nc command to connect.

We need to download the bof binary file as well as the source code for this challenge in bof.c. Starting off by analysing the bof.c file, we get:

Looking through this, we have a main function in which 0xdeadbeef is passed into func, where all the magic is happening. We have overflowme[32] which is 32 bytes of input that gets(overflowme) uses to store the users input of up to 32 characters. If the key we passed in earlier, 0xdeadbeef, equals to 0xcafebabe, we will have solved the challenge, otherwise printing “Nah..”. Seeing as the argument key never gets changed, I assume that means we need to overflow the buffer and cause the variable to be changed to 0xcafebabe. 

Looking up gets() shows that it is vulnerable to buffer overflow, due to it not limiting the amount of input entered by the user, so if over 32 chars are entered in this scenario, it will overflow. We need to exploit this so that we can change the variable of key, matching 0xcafebabe.

Testing my theory, I first tried inputting ‘12345678901234567890123456789012′ which just gave me Nah.. as expected. I then tried echo -e ‘123456789012345678901234567890123′ which is 33 chars and a stack smashing detected message appeared. Thus I tried inputting 33 chars then 0xcafebabe in little endian format, \xbe\xba\xfe\xca\. However, unfortunately it was not that easy and it did not work.

I then had a discussion with some other students as well as Adam during the tutorial, finding out that I would actually need to find out the address in which the variable was stored, so that I could input the number of bytes to overflow before overriding the variable. This meant that I probably needed to input a longer string before the hex.

Here is where I got stuck for a long time, unable to figure out how to approach this problem, as I had no prior experience with decompiling binary files and interpreting the assembly code from it. I had to google a lot on information such as the registers and how read the assembly code in general. It definitely helped having taken the microprocessors as well as operating systems courses previously, as they helped me pick up the required skills much faster. It would’ve taken me a lot more time if I had no prior knowledge at all. Some of the terms I had to learn about include the EBP, ESP and how functions are called with the stack pointer.

By calling disas func in gdb on bof, we get the following:

From here, we can see the 2 crucial lines of code, marked with the (1) and (2). (1) is the if statement comparison between cafebabe and the key variable, which is stored at address ebp+0x8. Looking right above it we can see the gets() being called in line 13 and 14. This means that at line 12 it is most likely the variable being moved into eax, which is at address ebp-0x2c. Thus through these 2 numbers, we can determine just how many bytes of overflow we need so that we can override the value of the key.

Taking ebp as 0, this means the local variable is started at 0 - 0x2c into decimal which is -44 and 0+8 = 8, hence we get a difference of 52 bytes. This means that we need to input 52 bytes of randomness before entering \xbe\xba\xfe\xca\, as we had deduced earlier. This gives us the flag ‘daddy, I just pwned a buFFer :)’ and thus successfully ending this challenge. 

This challenge was definitely a lot harder than the last 2, taking a lot of time as I had no prior experience with disassembling the binary file and interpreting the assembly code. Using gdb like that was also new for me so it took a lot of learning before I could understand what was happening. This should help me with future challenges which will only get harder and harder though.

3 challenges done now!

[dylanobemineforever]

My Savior - A Mitch Rapp Series / Chapter Three

Chapter One << Chapter Two << Chapter Three << Chapter Four

Author’s note: Sooo... idk what to think of this series. Should I continue or not? I don’t get a lot of feedback so idk *shrugs* Also I didn’t really proofread this, so there are probably a lot of mistakes here.

Warnings: swearing... but other than that nothing really... (smut will follow though and I am actually kinda nervous about writing it, because I haven’t done that yet, so if anyone here is willing to maybe help me with that part, that would be awesome *winks*)

Word count: 3,5k

Pairing: Mitch x Reader (not yet, but we are getting there ;) )

The days passed by and were all pretty much the same: getting up at five, going for a run, taking a shower, breakfast, more training like combat, shooting or swimming, lunch, language practice and culture studies, dinner. After dinner you usually had the rest of the day to yourselves to relax and clear your heads, but you always seemed to find yourself back in the gym either swimming track, running on a treadmill or kicking a punching bag or a dummy. It’s been over a week now since the incident happened and for some reason it still weighed heavy on you. Since then you had barley slept and all the physical training started to wear you down. Mitch hadn’t said anything to you, hell he didn’t even look at you! Of course you couldn’t blame him, but you still felt shitty about it. On more than one occasion you tried to approach him, seeing him always alone and on his own, but he would always just walk the other way. And again, you couldn’t really blame him, but you were trying to make up for it and you didn’t understand why he was so pettish about it and it made you angry, but you were still not giving up. Something told you that his behavior wasn’t solely because of what had happened but something else too and usually your intuition was never too far off. You were good at reading people and seeing straight through them. Mitch was just a bit harder to read, but definitely not impossible.

You took your food tray and looked around for a place to sit. Most of the trainees weren’t there yet, you being one of the first that evening, so many tables were still unoccupied. A heavy and long sigh left your lips as you made your way to one of the few tables that was not unoccupied, wanting to give it another shot. The knuckles on your hand started turning white from how hard you were gripping the tray, gripping even harder with ever step that you took. When you arrived at his table you just sat down opposite of him, not even giving him the chance to reject you from sitting there if you asked. He looked up briefly as he felt the table shift softly. His honey colored eyes glanced over to you with an annoyance in them that made it pretty clear that he didn’t want you there. You gave him an awkward smile and just as you were about to say something to him, he pushed his chair away from the table, taking his only half eaten food to get up and away from you. You thought he was going to sit down on another table, but instead put his tray away in its designed place and left through the big double doors. Needless to say, you were furious. How could he be such a girl, honestly? From the outside he looked like a tough guy but inside he was just wimp and you weren’t having any of it. You stood up so quickly your chair fell backwards and a loud shattering noise could be heard through the whole dining room. You mumbled a quick apology and ran through the doors. Determined to catch him before he was in the safe confines of his room.

“Hey dickhead!” You yelled as you saw him up ahead. His movements faltered for a second but then he just kept on walking as if he heard nothing. What a fucking jerk! “I am talking to you, you fucking asshole!” Again, you didn’t have any right talking to him like that, because a little over a week ago your hands were wrapped around his neck ready to squeeze the dear life out of him. And God did you wish right in that moment that you actually did it. What agitated you was that you tried so hard throughout that whole week to be nice to him and in return just got ignored. For fucks sake, he was training to become an assassin and granted he was pretty damn good at what he did, so him being a little bitch about the incident just didn’t fit his profile. So, you just wanted some answers. There was still no reaction. “All mighty Mitch fucking Rapp would thou arouse a little pity for the not so mighty in thou presence and grant those sad figures thou all too precious time and patience…” You said dramatically and he actually stopped dead in his tracks, turning slowly to face you and sending you a death glare that if looks could kill would set you six feet under by now, but you didn’t care. Having put up with his shit for far too long. “my fucking dickhead and asshole of a majesty?”

“What did you just say?!” was all he responded with. Not angry, even though the look on his face said something different, his voice sounded more irritated than anything else.

“That you’re a fucking asshole! Want me to draw you fucking picture?”

“That much I gathered. So, no thanks.” Wow look who could finally talk! “I meant what you said at the beginning. What did you call me?”

And now you wished that you hadn’t talked. How could you be so stupid? Stupid, stupid, STUPID. I am a fucking retard! “I don’t know what you mean.” Your voice was dripping from fake innocence.

“Oh, Malia or what the fuck your actual name is, cut the freaking horse shit and spill the beans!” Now he sounded angry. “Where do you know my fucking name from?” At this point he was nearly yelling, but tried to keep it toned down so no one would hear you two arguing and therefore arouse unwanted attention.

You gulped as he quickly closed the distance between the two of you. You could practically feel the heat radiating off of him, setting your skin on fire and he wasn’t even touching you. Suddenly you weren’t as cocky anymore as you had just been a few minutes prior. The close proximity between you seemed to have taken the wit out of your seals. Ha, Y/N good one. A stupid grin made its way on your lips while you thought of the stupid pun you had just made, but it was gone instantly as you looked into Mitch’s eyes once again. They were cold and not their usual honey brown anymore. They were darker, more threatening. “I – I“ You cleared your throat, unable to form a whole sentence. Your face probably beamed bright red and you were embarrassed. Never, NEVER in your life did you not know what to say and much less where at a lack of witty or sarcastic responses to ease a tension filled moment. What was it about him that made you turn into a high school girl, trying to talk to their crush?

“You – You … WHAT?” he whisper-screamed the last part, making you flinch.

Okay, Y/N once and for all, get your fucking shit together! Sure, he looks good, gorgeous even with his long brown locks, the honey colored eyes, his upturned nose and … ugh! Really, Y/N? Really? I am disappointed in you! Yeah, you heard me right! Disa-fucking-ppointed! Now, pull yourself together before you start drooling!

“I have my sources.” You shrugged, attempting to make a step backwards and get a little more space between the two of you, but he just simply followed your movements. Your back hitting the wall behind you as you attempted to escape his captivating and intense gaze.

“What sources?” Now his anger was only noticeable through his squinted eyes and clenched jaw. But not in his extremely sexy and raspy voice. OMG Y/N, seriously?

“Oh my God dude, you need to tone it down a bit, because you are sending all kinds of mixed signals.” Look who found their voice again. God, took you long enough!

Mitch took a step back, raising his eyebrows in a questioning manner. Urging you on to elaborate, but you just started back. Eventually he gave the unspoken staring contest up which made you the obvious winner, duh and just shook his head at you. “So back to your sources. Care to elaborate?”

“Nope, not really.” Even you would have wanted to punch you in the face right now, with the biggest shit eating grin on your face the world has ever seen, you looked up at him. You actually were surprised that he hadn’t done it yet.

Against anything that you anticipated him doing, screaming in your face or threatening you, he did the one thing, you wouldn't have expected in a hundred years... nothing at all. He threw his arms up in fake surrender and sighed heavily. "Okay, well … I apparently can't escape you and I suppose you won't stop bothering me any time soon?" You shook your head, another sigh left his mouth. "So, what do you want? You got my attention, so spill it."

Actually, that was an excellent question! What did you want? To be honest, you didn't even think that you would come this far, so what now? Obviously, you didn't think that through...

"I wanna be friends... You know? Bury the hatchet, or whatever."

He seemed to consider the offer for a few minutes, but you could tell he was just playing you. Wanting to make it seem like he would reject you and that he had the upper hand here, but eventually he nodded. The edges on his mouth curling up a little.

 "Only a few more weeks and you are officially a part of an elite unit. Something that is bigger than yourselves! You've trained hard to come this far, but do you have what it takes to survive in the field? Are you up to the task? Are you really good enough for Orion?" Stan glanced between all the trainees, until his eyes landed on you. "From today on, you are entering a new phase of your training. Now we will see how compatible and transformable you are out there. Everyone who can't live up to a certain standard is out, no slacking from this point on. A simple screw up, be it a huge one like forgetting how many rounds you fired or something as simple as pronouncing a single word incorrectly, can now cost you and possibly your comrades life! First thing for today is a simple simulation. You have a target. Eliminate it, without getting discovered or killed in the process! Sounds simple? Well, only problem is, you don't know what your target looks like. Figure it out and don't disappoint me!" Stan paused and then pointed at you. “You and Mitch first! Now, get ready everyone!”

You walked around aimlessly or so you let outsiders believe you were. Your senses were on alert and your instincts kicked in. Out of the corner of your eyes, you saw Mitch trying to look particularly interested in kitchen utensils. He looked up and send a wink your way, having caught you staring for a little too long. A blush rose to your cheeks and you casually strode towards him, scanning the area as you went when someone or rather something caught your eye.

“Need help?” Mitch asked you with a shit eating grin.

Ever since you two had your argument and you admitting that you just wanted peace between the two of you, you actually became friends. Of course, at the beginning it was kind of awkward because you didn’t know how to act around one another, but eventually it got easier. Now you ate together, teamed up when you had to and as the weeks passed by he noticed your habit of you getting up in the middle of the night to train until utter exhaustion. He never said anything though or asked why you did it, he just simply got out of bed when he heard your footsteps, indicating that you had just passed his room. He rarely slept the night through -nightmares of that dreadful day always hunting him- and soon picked up on someone always passing his room on nearly the exact time of the night that peeked his curiosity. Eventually he just got up one night, followed the sounds of the footsteps through the maze of corridors and finally came face to face with you letting everything out on a poor punching bag that held absolutely no responsibility for your aggression whatsoever.

You hadn’t noticed that you had an unwanted audience standing by the door and watching your every move.

“You need to set your feet a little wider apart, then you can swing your hip better. This’ll give you more momentum and the punch is going to knock your counterpart out cold.” Your head swiveled in the direction of your intruder’s voice. It was Mitch. Of course, it was. “Here” he strode towards you until he was directly behind you. He stood so close that you could feel his hot breath hitting your exposed neck and it send shivers down your spine. “Let me show you.”

Mitch squatted down and rearranged your feet, then came up again to take the same position as before. You wanted to fire a sarcastic remark his way, but your voice was stuck in your throat. His large and veiny hands set onto your hips, setting your skin aflame. As you didn’t say anything he took that as a sign to continue and then started to rotate your hips. “See? Easier, isn’t it?” Still not trusting your voice, you only nodded. “Okay, let’s see what you got!” He said enthusiastically while making his way to the other side of the punching bag. You instantly missed his close proximity and how his touch revived every cell in your body. Mitch now hold the punching bag, signaling you to start punching. The new stance making it a lot easier to deliver powerful blows, but Mitch looked unimpressed. “Oh, come on Malia. You can do better than that!” You rolled your eyes at him and put even more force behind your punches. The first one took Mitch so off guard that he nearly lost his balance which made you giggle. For some reason you felt like you could be yourself in Mitch’s presence. You felt safe around him and you had the feeling that he wouldn’t judge you for whatever reason. The reason alone that he got out of bed at three in the morning to see you furiously punch the living shit out of a punching bag and not even asking a single question as to why, showed you that you made the right call to ask him to bury the hatchet a few days ago.

Mitch couldn’t help but smile at the sound of your shy laugher. He rarely ever saw you smile during the day, so it was even more precious to him when you actually did. In that moment he swore to himself that he would try to make you laugh or at least smile as often as the opportunity presented itself. Maybe he was just selfish, because hearing you laugh made him want to laugh along with you and he hasn’t really laughed since the day on the beach two years ago.

From that day on it became a regular thing for Mitch to follow your footsteps whenever he would hear you pass his door in the middle of the night. He never questioned you and you on the other hand never questioned him. You helped each other expelling the horrible images of your pasts out of your head. And you were both eternally grateful.

 “Nope. I know who I am tailing.” You shrugged nonchalantly and a cocky grin set on your face as his shit eating one fell from his face.

“What? Are you kidding me? We are, what? Ten seconds into this and you’ve already figured it out?” He hissed in a hushed voice.

“What? Now it’s my fault that I am better than you?” Mitch feigned that he was shocked by your comment. “That this even comes as a surprise to you. That is the real shocker here.”

Mitch had easily passed Marcus and Oliver on your scale of friends and it was kinda scary how fast you grew comfortable around one another.

“So, who is it?”

“Yeah, right.” You mocked him. “As if I tell you! Keep on dreaming.” You patted him on his shoulder and walked in the direction your target just went. During your whole conversation you always had an eye on him and the conversation with Mitch helped you to blend in more and making it seem like you hadn’t found out already who your target was. Often patience was crucial in your line of work. You had to wait for the right moment to execute the mission. In your head you already played out every possible outcome and your best chances at getting your hands on your target without raising suspicion either from him himself or innocent passerby’s who could get harmed in the process.  

From behind you, you could hear Mitch following you, but you didn’t give him any mind, now the mission was what counted. You drew your pistol, but kept it concealed by your jacket. Quickly, you closed the distance between you and your target as soon as he was in a less crowded area.

“If you as much as raise one eyebrow suspiciously, I am going to shoot you right here, right now.” You hissed into his ear while pressing the silencer of your fake 9mm Beretta into his back. “We are going to walk out of here civilized, understood?” The young man, probably in his early thirties, nodded nervously and began walking slowly as you nudged him with the attached silencer. You pressed your body against his side and tangled your left arm with his right one, your gun in your right hand, still concealed by your jacket, now pressing against his side at an angle that if you had to shoot you would perfectly hit his heart.

As smoothly as everything went to this point, shit started to hit the fan like a tornado soon after, destroying everything what was accomplished until this point. All of a sudden someone kicked in the backside of your right knee, causing you to lose balance and therefore the grip of your target who was now running away from you to the exit. What in the world? Before you could leap to pursue the runaway, you were tackled to the ground, knife to your throat. People around you started screaming and trying to get away from the scene that unfolded before them as fast as possible, stumbling over one another. You looked up at the man hovering over you. He must have been in his late twenties. He was way taller than you and also pretty built. It wouldn’t be easy to get out of his hold, but not impossible. “Any last words, you piece of shit?” He laughed with the expression of a mad man. Wow, where does Stan get these people from? They are better actors than some high ass movie stars. Just as you were about to try to wiggle out of his hold, something behind the man above you caught your attention.

“Yes.” Your voice was calm, no trace of being scared was evident. “Look behind you.” You winked at him, leaving him momentarily bewildered, but as soon as he as much as lifted his head, Mitch shot him with his fake gun. One bullet to the heart, one through his throat. The man collapsed on top of you, leaving you helpless under his weight. Damn, he sure weighs more than he looks like! When Mitch finally got that you needed help, he lifted the man of off your body and helped you to your feet.

People were still screaming and shouting in the fake IKEA building. The exits were crowded, people struggling to get out which gave you hope that your target was still somewhere between the mass of people. Mitch had the same idea and was close behind you as he nudged your side, trying to get your attention. And really there, not too far away from the two of you, stood your target, trying frantically to get out.

“I got this.” Mitch nodded and let you pass past him, shoving your way past everyone that blocked your way. As soon as you were face to face with your target once again, you brought your silencer up and shot him through the heart.

In chaotic situations like this, it was easier to just kill your target right away. People didn’t care about their surroundings in moments of panic and therefore no one noticed the man going down. And even less that a gun was involved. Later, it would just be believed that he was part of the shooting that had happened here and the security cameras weren’t able to trace this incident back to you, especially because you wore a hood over your head and you were utterly careful to not look directly into the cameras.

As soon as you were done you walked back to Mitch and you both shoved your way to the exit.

>> Chapter Four

[remnantoforario]

TitanSlayerMagic’s Top 10 Anime of 2019

With the year coming to a close, I thought it would be fun to join the “Year End” trend. I also thought of doing a “Best Anime of the Decade” list, but that would take much more time than I am willing to invest right now (though I may still do it). 

A lot of good shows came out this year, but unfortunately some I either didn’t see for various reasons or didn’t have the time to finish before the end of the year so they didn’t make the list (that means no Beastars, Dr. Stone, or Vinland Saga). That being said I watched enough shows to at least make this list. So here we go:

Disclaimer: These are just my personal favorites. If you agree, awesome. If you disagree, that’s cool too. Enjoy. 

Honorable Mentions:

Hitori Bocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu

Synopsis: Bocchi Hitori is a girl who suffers from social anxiety, making it hard for her to talk to others. Upon entering middle school, her only friend Kai Yawara, who is attending a different school, tells Bocchi she is breaking off their friendship until she can make friends with her entire class. 

Thus, Bocchi is left with the task of befriending everyone in her class before graduation.

Thoughts: This was a show that came out in the spring season that I feel kind of flew under most people’s radar, which is a shame since its a pretty fun little SoL (Slice of Life) show. Bocchi is an adorable and relatable lead and her circle of friends are all fun to follow around as well. If you have a chance I recommend trying it out. 

To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts

Synopsis: 100 years after settlers on the continent of Patria established a democratic nation, the discovery of an energy source called Somnium ore sparked a conflict. The nation of Patria split between the industrial Northern Union and the mining towns of the Southern Confederation, and began fighting a civil war. 

While the South had greater numbers, the North had a secret weapon: The Incarnates, soldiers who could transform into giant mythical beasts and single-handedly destroy enemy emplacements. 

However, when the war ended and a peace treaty was negotiated, the Incarnates were supposed to be destroyed. Instead, an officer named Cain betrayed his superiors and fled with the surviving Incarnates across the continent. 

Two years later, an Incarnate named Hank has made it his mission to hunt down the surviving Incarnates, assisted by a young woman named Schaal who blames him for killing her father. 

Thoughts: As someone with a passing interest in the manga (I’ve read a few volumes), I also had an interest in the anime. The premise is intriguing and the characters are fine enough. Even so it barely makes it out of the list on the sin of feeling “incomplete”. Obviously its incomplete because the manga is still ongoing, but the show seems to set itself up for a sequel that will more than likely never come. 

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka

Synopsis: When a dangerous race of beasts known as the Disas attacked, spirits from another world formed an alliance with Earth and granted certain girls the power to become magical girls to fight against them. 

Three years after the war against the Disas, one of the magical girls, Asuka Otori, is trying to return to living a normal life. 

However, Disas Bears reappear from an unknown source, leading Asuka to come out of retirement and join a squadron of magical girls to fight this new threat.

Thoughts: This was another series that I was interested in because I was reading the manga. On the surface it looks like another “Madoka clone”, what with the whole “dark magical girl” thing, but I think this show goes in a direction the other ones don’t, the idea of magical girls being created for military use. The show tackles things like survivor’s guilt, torture, PTSD, and the like but it doesn’t go too in depth with it to make the story stand out much from its contemporaries. That being said I think it was still worth a watch. 

Now onto the actual list.

10.  Kemono Michi

Synopsis: Genzō Shibata is a famous pro wrestler, known in the world of wrestling as Animal Mask.

The night of the match for the title of World Champion, he's suddenly teleported into a fantasy world by a princess, who asks him to act as a beast killer and free the kingdom from the evil beasts infesting its forests. 

However, Genzō is also a true animals' lover, and he immediately refuses the order, knocking out the princess with a German suplex and leaving the castle.

Alone in a new world, Genzō sides very soon with the wolf-girl Shigure, joining alongside her to the local guild and starting a new career as a beast hunter. 

However, instead of killing them, his goal is to befriend and capture as many monsters as possible, in order to realise his greatest dream: become the owner of a pet shop.

Thoughts: Anyone that knows me personally knows I love two things: anime and pro wrestling. Mix those together and add a dash of the writer of Konosuba and you get Kemono Michi. The isekai genre has been getting more and more outrageous as the years go by, and Kemono Michi just adds to it what with the crazy characters involved. Whether it be the failure of a vamipire, Camilla, the gluttonous Hanako, or Genzo himself. The comedy can fall flat at times, but its an otherwise enjoyable show. 

9.  Quintessential Quintuplets

Synopsis: High school student Futaro Uesugi is an academically gifted student that leads a difficult life — his mother has died, he has no friends, and on top of all that, his father has incurred a large amount of debt.An opportunity presents itself when the rich Nakano family transfers to his school. 

Futaro is promptly hired as a highly-paid tutor. However, much to Futaro's dismay, he discovers that his five charges — identical quintuplet sisters of varied personalities — have no interest in studying at all and abysmal grades. 

Some of the quintuplets are against having Futaro, whom they view as a stranger, in their apartment, but Futaro's diligent tenacity gradually convinces those girls to accept him and to improve their grades.

Thoughts: I’ve always had a soft spot for harem shows. Call it fantasy if you want because it is and I have no problems with that, but it doesn’t mean I like or even watch every harem show that comes out. There has to be something that stands out, and in my opinion Quintuplets does in a good way. The set up is pretty much identical to “We Never Learn” but I chose to stick with Quintuplets because the character designs appealed to me more, and I’m glad I did. 

Each of the girls have a unique personality as well as a unique chemistry with Futaro, who himself is fairly interesting as well. I thoroughly enjoyed this series and eagerly away the start of season 2 in a couple of weeks. (Nino best girl btw) 

8. Isekai Quartet

Synopsis: One day, a magic button suddenly appears. The protagonists in KonoSuba, Overlord, Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World, and The Saga of Tanya the Evil all press the button and move to a parallel world — another brand new isekai — where a new story featuring high school life begins.

Thoughts: This is really something that should have happened years ago when you think about it. With over one hundred isekai series being mass produced from the minds of Light Novel writers every hour, it only makes sense that someone would isekai the isekai. 

Isekai Quartet is, in a word, hilarious. From the way the characters get to the school to the way they all play off one another is done very well and true to every character. I honestly couldn’t find one dull moment while watching. This was a gem in every sense of the word and I can’t wait to see what the Shield Hero leads bring to the table in season 2. 

7.  How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?

Synopsis:  Hibiki Sakura is a second year high school girl who has a voracious appetite; this habit leads to her gaining weight. Once this is brought to her attention, she reluctantly thinks about joining the Silverman Gym. 

At the gym, Hibiki finds out that Akemi Soryuin, a schoolmate of hers, is also thinking about joining. Upon meeting Naruzo Machio, one of the trainers, she falls heads over heels in love with him and joins the gym. Motivated, Hibiki vows to lose weight.

Thoughts: This was a show that I didn’t realize I would end up liking as much as I did. The premise was already intriguing to me, a CGDCT (Cute Girls Doing Cute Things) show about lifting weights, but what I found was something not only genuinely funny, but educational as well. The friendship between the girls in their quest to get fit is fun to watch as well (All aboard the SS Hibiki/Akemi). 

Even with all the fun this show has, the most interesting thing to me is that the author of this series also created Kengan Asura, and that the series are in the same universe and share characters. That alone is worth the watch. 

6. Fire Force 

Synopsis:  Shinra Kusakabe is a third generation pyrokinetic youth who gained the nickname "Devil's Footprints" for his ability to ignite his feet at will. He joins Special Fire Force Company 8, which features other pyrokinetics who dedicated themselves to ending the Infernal attacks for good while investigating Companies 1 through 7 for potential corruption in their ranks. 

Shinra begins to learn that his younger brother's abduction during the fire that killed their mother 12 years ago is caused by a mysterious doomsday cult that is behind the Infernal attacks. 

Company 8 and their allies oppose the White Cloaks and their Knights of the Ashen Flame, who seek certain individuals like Shinra and his brother to enact a scheme to repeat the Great Disaster.

Thoughts: Fire Force is a pretty fun show all things considered. It has the same energy to it that Okubo’s previous series, Soul Eater, had. The action scenes are great (most of the time) and the characters are all more or less memorable. However, as much as I like it, it’s just barely edged out of the top five because there was nothing that made me HAVE to watch it. Even the best episodes never left me itching for more. That’s not really a knock per se, that’s just the way I felt about it. 

I do still recommend it though if action shonen is your jam. Its one of the better ones. 

 5. Oresuki 

Synopsis: Amatsuyu "Joro" Kisaragi is an ordinary high school student who is invited out alone by two beautiful girls: the upperclassman Sakura "Cosmos" Akino and his childhood friend Aoi "Himawari" Hinata. 

Expecting to hear their confessions, he triumphantly goes to meet each of them in turn. However, both Cosmos and Himawari confess to Joro that they like his best friend, Taiyо̄ "Sun-chan" Ōga, instead of him. 

He reluctantly agrees to help both girls pursue Sun-chan on the hope of dating the loser, only to suddenly be confessed to by the unremarkable bookworm Sumireko "Pansy" Sanshokuin, who is, ironically, the girl Sun-chan is in love with.

Thoughts: Here we are in the top 5 and honestly these shows weren’t that hard to pick. Oresuki is the newest one (having just ended last week with an OFFICIAL OVA ending coming in summer), but it firmly secured its spot. 

Honestly, this is the one of the best romance series I’ve watched since Oregairu. From the twists and turns in the plot, to the characters, to the way it deconstructs the formula of harem anime as a whole, Oresuki is a treat to watch from start to finish. I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it already. 

4. Astra Lost in Space

Synopsis: In 2063, space travel has become possible and commercially viable; a group of students from Caird High School departs to the nearby planet of McPa for their Planetary Camp. 

Soon after the group arrives on the planet, the nine children encounter a mysterious and unforeseen intelligent sphere of light; it attacks them, transporting them into the distant depths of space. 

Floating in orbit around an unknown planet, they discover an old abandoned spacecraft nearby. Finding it in working order, they resolve to use the ship to return home. To do so, they must cross the 5,012-light-year gulf of space separating them from home by visiting alien planets harboring life to replenish and manage their limited resources.

The long and dangerous journey home aboard their vessel, which they name Astra, brings with it new character revelations, strengthening the bonds they share, and the eventual realization that the stakes of their journey are far higher than any of them could ever have realized.

Thoughts: When I mentioned the twists and turns in Oresuki, they have NOTHING on Astra. This is pretty much “Plot Twist: the anime” and I mean that in the best possible way. Corporate espionage, altered history, time travel, political intrigue, regicide, clones, and everything in between. It all amounts into a space drama that pulled me in every single week begging for more. 

Once the journey was over I found myself wanting to spend even more time with these kids and was sad the adventure had come to an end. Aye Yeah!

3. Rising of a Shield Hero

Thoughts: I don’t even need to go into the plot summary do I? Thanks to the wildfire known as the internet, everyone pretty much knows the basic gist of Shield Hero. 

At first I followed this show because of the panic of the internet. “It’s misogynist!”, “It’s a show for incels!”, “the MC is a slave owner” and blah blah blah. Now some of this is accurate sure, but honestly those who quit in the early episodes honestly missed out on a fairly good series. 

The characters are interesting enough to follow, the world is well built, the magic and power system is fairly balanced, and there are a lot of little nuances that make it stand out just enough from run of the mill power fantasy isekai. 

The show was renewed for a second AND third season after all. Must have did something right. 

2. Dororo

Synopsis: The greedy samurai lord Daigo Kagemitsu’s land is dying, and he would do anything for power, even renounce Buddha and make a pact with demons. His prayers are answered by 12 demons who grant him the power he desires by aiding his prefecture's growth, but at a price. When Kagemitsu's first son is born, the boy has no limbs, no nose, no eyes, no ears, nor even skin—yet still, he lives. This child is disposed of in a river and forgotten. But as luck would have it, he is saved by a medicine man who provides him with prosthetics and weapons, allowing for him to survive and fend for himself. The boy lives and grows, and although he cannot see, hear, or feel anything, he must defeat the demons that took him as sacrifice. With the death of each one, he regains a part of himself that is rightfully his. For many years he wanders alone, until one day an orphan boy, Dororo, befriends him. The unlikely pair of castaways now fight for their survival and humanity in an unforgiving, demon-infested world.

Thoughts: This was another series that I feel fell under people’s radar this year (damn you, Amazon) and that is truly a shame. This is how you update a classic for the modern age. 

In terms of story, Dororo was easily the best anime I saw this year. The characters were complex and layered, the world was vivid, and the story was all too human. To be honest this anime came dangerously close to making me cry on numerous occasions (The two part “The Story of the Moriko Song” being the chief offender). It’s truly amazing how the show makes you feel for a character who is essentially a living doll. 

I don’t want to spoil anything because you really should go and watch it. Seriously. Go watch it. Also Dororo is precious child that must be protected at all costs. 

1. Demon Slayer

Thoughts: Is anyone really surprised? I mean come on, Demon Slayer was one of the most hyped anime of not just the year, but the decade! 

To be honest, it was a bit hard to decide on number one between this and Dororo, but while Dororo is leagues above Demon Slayer in terms of story (Dororo is written by Japanese Walt Disney himself Osamu Tezuka after all), what gave Demon Slayer the nod in the end was the visuals. 

Call its superficial if you want, because it is, but Ufotable never disappoints. As beautiful as Dororo’s story is, sometimes the visuals were not up to par (looking at you, episode 15) but Demon Slayer never disappointed. 

Add in the memorable characters and even more memorable fights (I guarantee Tanjiro v. Rui will be on many “best fight” lists for years to come), and it’s easy to see why Demon Slayer is my favorite anime of 2019.

[z5205292]

Something Awesome: Week 3

Based on last weeks challenges, I decided the topic I would focus on would be binary exploitation. I chose this as although I found all areas challenging, I had the most crossover knowledge for this topic, which I believed would give me a better chance in attempting further challenges as they progressively get more difficult. Also, exploitation challenges seemed the most useful towards what I actually do, as I don’t do any web development etc., and I also just enjoyed this topic the most out of the challenges I tried.

Since I enjoyed the ‘fd’ challenge I attempted last week on http://pwnable.kr, I thought I’d continue making progress through the various challenges they had to offer this week.

Challenge 1

The first challenge I attempted this week was titled ‘collision’. Upon connecting to the ssh server, I had the following files in my directory:

As shown above, the only permissions I had was the read permission for the ‘col.c’ file. I was also initially unsure about what the s permission meant for the ‘col’ file, yet  it turns out that it tells the system to run the executable as the owner with the owner’s permissions. Hence, this means I can execute this file as well.

When I attempt to execute the ‘col’ file, it states I need to give it a passcode as an argument. When I tried simply any passcode, it then told me the passcode should be 20 bytes. When I gave it a passcode of length 20 characters (with each character being 1 byte) the output said the passcode was wrong. This gave me the goal of determining what this passcode is, and whilst brute force is always an option, I know there is definitely a smarter way that would also be far quicker.

I then used ‘cat col.c’ to see how this program runs, and I found two interesting parts. Firstly, I found that my command line argument is passed into a function named check_password, is altered in some way, and the returned value is compared to a variable ‘hashcode’. If they are equal, the flag is displayed. The function in question is displayed below:

So, I was now tasked with figuring out what string I can pass into check_password that would return 0x21DD09EC (to match the hashcode variable). Converting this hexadecimal value to a a decimal values gives 568134124. Since the for loop repeats 5 times, this suggests that I need 5 values that will add to get 568134124.

Dividing this by 5 gives 113626824.8, which is not very useful because of the remainder. However, if I multiply 113626824 by 4 and then add the remainder, I would get  113626824 * 4 + 113626828.

To feed this in as a command line argument I first have to convert it back into hexadecimal. Using a calculator, this gives 06C5CEC8 * 4 + 06C5CECC. I used python to convert this into a string that can be passed in as an argument, yet when doing so I was still not successful.

I initially thought I maybe made a calculation error, yet after redoing all my working I still got the same results. I did some research and after quite some time discovered the reason it was not succeeding was because of the ‘little endian’ format being used by the system, meaning the order should be reversed to store the least significant byte first. Hence, I rearranged my hexadecimal and when entering it I succeeded.

The most challenging part of this exercise was navigating around the hexadecimal arithmetic, which suggested to me that I should brush up more on my skills using them. Also, I got very stuck when my hexadecimal string was in ‘big endian’ format, which is something I am now sure to remember to check when using hexadecimals.

Challenge 2

Unlike the previous two challenges that used an ssh connection, the next challenge ‘bof’ instructed me to download two files, alongside a command to run. The first thing I did was cat the given c file to see how it ran.

As demonstrated above, the main function calls ‘func’ with the argument ‘0xdeadbeef’, and then through an if statement determines if it is equal to the value ‘0xcafebabe’, if so changing my current directory. I’m going to assume our goal is to execute this if statement, yet from first looks It seems I have no control over the argument for func, hence making it very difficult for me to alter it such that it equals the desired value. 

However, the comment for the gets command in the line above says ‘smash me’, suggesting I need to create a buffer overflow when this is called. Checking the man pages for gets suggests this is the right strategy, as it outlines how gets is susceptible to buffer overflow, since it continues to store characters past the end of its given buffer.

So, given this information I decided my goal was to determine the address of the key variable and attempt to overwrite it when gets is called. If I overwrite it so it equals ‘0xcafebabe’, I should be allowed access to the required directory.

To begin working on this, I loaded gdb and ran ‘disas func’, which will disassemble the machine code for the function ‘func’. Whilst I only have a pretty low level of understanding surrounding machine code, I was attempting to find anything that would show where the ‘key’ variable may be stored.

One thing that immediately stood out to me was the ‘cmpl’ command, which was used on the values ‘0xcafebabe’ and ‘0x8(%ebp)’. Since I knew that key is compared to ‘0xcafebabe’ in the c code, I figured that ‘0x8(%ebp)’ must be where key is stored in memory.

I used the gdb command ‘x $ebp+8′ to find the address of this and got the following, confirming that this was indeed where ‘key’ is held:

From this, I then had to figure out where the ‘overflowme’ variable was held, as this is what is passed into gets. Looking further at this machine code, I noticed right before this ‘cmpl’ command that a function is called (which has to be gets since it is called right before the if statement).

Now, two lines above this I saw that a value at ‘-0x2c(%ebp)’ is loaded into %eax, which after doing some research I discovered is where gets expects its buffer to be. Hence, it seems that ‘-0x2c(%ebp)’ is the address of ‘overflowme’.

I then ran the program and entered ‘test’ when gets asked for input. Using the command ‘x $ebp-0x2c’ in gdb afterwards proved that this was the address of overflowme:

Now that I had the addresses of both ‘key’ (0xffffdc40) and ‘overflowme’ (0xffffdc0c), I simply had to figure out their distance apart in memory, with a hexadecimal calculator giving me a difference of 52 bytes.

So, this meant to alter the value of key, I simply had to add 52 bytes (of what I presume can be anything) and then once I had reached the address of key, I have ‘0xcafebabe’ to overwrite it. This looked something like this (note the order of bytes had to be reversed such that it was in ‘little endian’ format):

Feeding this in when gets requires input initially appeared to do nothing, yet it had actually succeeded and redirected me to the directory  /bin/sh. From here, I looked at all the files available, amongst them being a file ‘flag’ which contained the solution.

Final thoughts:

Like last week, I still found these challenges very difficult, alot of the time finding myself stuck on where exactly to go next. However, the ‘collision’ challenge I found much easier than ‘bof’, mainly due to my struggles using machine code and overall understanding of how memory works. Hence, this highlights I should definitely improve on this area, alongside sharpening up on my hexadecimal knowledge as I outlined earlier.

However, despite all of the difficulties I am facing in these challenges, it is still somewhat rewarding slowly making progress through each one. I’m definitely glad I chose this topic, as at least I feel the skills I am learning are not only helpful for future CTF and security endeavours, but also just being a more security aware programmer. For example, understanding how buffer overflows can be exploited ensures any programs I write should not have similar vulnerabilities within them.

For the coming weeks, my current plan is to most likely continue doing these pwnable.kr challenges, yet if I decide I want a new challenge I might move on to the overthewire ‘Narnia’ challenges.

[faceoffdoodles]

FaceOFF AllStars: EP2 LIVEBLOGGING - MEAN NEVILLE EDITION

I haven’t been able to watch ANYTHING and I’m so impatient to see who goes home

Although, Ben and Evan don’t look too good and I accidentally came across just PICTURES of them on Twitter, so I can make some conclusions that maayyyybee they were the ones eliminated? 

Who knows, let’s watch!

Also PLEASE HAVE THE INTRO THIS TIME, 

I did notice the lack of intro before but forgot to overreact to it

Adam is in the thumbnail... interesting

“McKenzie scares me” - Cig, me too, Cig

I really was wondering if someone feared McKenzie sometimes, she can be a little creepy and I like that a lot about her, she’s not just plain voice but she really sets the tone for the episode sometimes

YYYYES. THE INTRO

Both teams on bottom last time seem to be struggling

I wonder how logan feels seeing his own makeup on the intro

CAT, OH MY GOD

Her idea that Niko was planying to to marry them was so cute

I actually laughed, fuckiiing love them

Also I like the callback to McKenzie being a minister

“For this challenge you’re going look really....deep....inside” MCKENZIE!! Language!!

does anyone wonder if thats the line she uses in bed? no? sorry

So good and evil challenge, GREAT! Love these

Niko’s hair update: It seems the same height, but a little spread

Cool idea for a challenge, good and evil in one person, let’s go!!

This episode could also double for “every contestant’s backstory” episode

Evan delivers confessionals so stoic and plain it actually sucks some life out of me

I mean they are both in danger of going home today and he’s like “This is the only opportunity of creating a really cool makeup we dont want to be on the bottom this week. I don’t want to go home. No. Not at all”

I think I’ve seen Melissa’s design before, in a horror challenge from season 6 I think

The one with a Teletubbie ring on the head

Okay, picture the above creature but with some gold color on top, that’s the design they’re gong for and I think it’s a good idea

Stella wants to like, destroy the creature anatomically

YOU’RE GOING TO DESTROY YOURSELF IF YOU TRY TO SCREW WITH ANATOMY

GLENN WILL BE LIKE POW! RIGHT IN THE KISSER

Adam’s getting some highlights this episode when I felt he didn’t get a lot last episode, cool!

Was he always this serious tho?

Happy Birthday Tyler Green!!

I love Team Funny’s ideas, Love it! Hope it looks good ebcause I’ll be drawing that

Okay I thought fo sure Team Benevan was going home but Team Sassy don’t look too good today

THey came up with a decent idea

Oooh Team Talent have a really interesting concept

“THAT’S DOOOPE” - Says Emily as she hits a blunt and dabs

YEA THAT REALLY HAPPENED

Okay no it didn’t

Oh I ahven’t seen Ben this worried

Learn from Nora Ben, she could totally redo herself if she was doubting

LET NORA GIVE YOU POWERSSS

I wake up like this in the morning

I wish people were a little more creative this episode instead of being “One Half Evil, One Half Bad!”

To be fair if I were on time constraints that tight I wouldn’t think out of the box that quick

I love when Westmore walks in and the thing that Team Rage presents is just a mascara on a mannequin

Logan and Adam seem to be doing the dullest of ideas right now, it looks like a simple warrior

MICHAEL WESTMORE SCREWS TEAM SASSY OVER 

That was savage, they were doubting themselves already and he comes like “WHAT IS THIS?!!”

Mold Drama today??

Who knew sassy ladies were a bit stubborn??

TYLER’S PARTY!!!!!

I LOVE HOW THEY SET UP A CASUAL PARTY FOR HIM HAHAHA

“Tyler come here a little, come chill out with us! what a tiring day huh, it sure wooould be grrreeeeat if someone brought in some CUPCAKES!”

That was so sweet

THEY EVEN MADE HIM A CARD

You can kindaa see a bit of what everyone put in there, seem like standard happy birthdays and a You Rock!

“From Your Second Family <3″ makes my heart melt though 

It seemd a little bit acted out

NIKO “JOGGING” GONZALES

Team Love are wearing matching exercise outfits for all the RUNNING THEY’LL HAVE TO DO IN THE LAB TODAY

I lvoe Keaghlans shining blue outfit today

Keaghlan just made a huge amazing devil voice

Like the deepest “NOO!” you can imagine

“The devil just came out of me”

I’M GETTING TO KNOW YOU KEEGS, YOU’RE AWESOME

The episode keeps flashbacking to Team Benevans Long Daddy Legs alien and its hilarious

Team are making really cool hands and fingers everywhere

Mold Drama!!!! 

I think Stella opened it too early, damn

Team Sassy in danger!

“I have no fight left in me” Aw man, first time I’ve seem someone completely give up, it’s sad that it’s Stella

You know what I’ve always appreciated? I love how the show tells us the things the contestants use to make these makeups, I love learning how Niko makes wings

Holy moly Team Funny are doing some seriously creative stuff

Thanks for the church window lifehack, Cig!

STELLA GETS A BREAK, FINALLY

She’s moving a mile a minute

TEAM Benevean are really proud of what they’re doing

That’s really important to believe in your makeup

I’m digging this creature a lot so far

God knows the judges love fancy spiral work

Team Love are also doing really amazing paintjobs

AND THEY’RE LEARNING NOT TO BREAK A MAKEUP EXACTLY DOWN THE MIDDLE

Neville Page hates that stuff

THIS IS THE RUSH HOUR NOW, LAST LOOKS

I seriously love Gage, I thinks he thinks the most like me

Nope

I’m fully convinced Stella and Jasmine are going home today

All their edit today was downhill and they’re not happy at all

The editors even left us in the dark for it to be revealed in the stage instead of a little sneak peak

Time to take a look now

AND STELLA AND JASMINES ARE THE FIRST ONE TO SOME ON

It looks better than I thought but it looks so, bland and normal, specially compared to the ideas the other teams have, though sometimes that can be for the better. Their makeup has killer paintjob and details though!

The chest piece is preeeety awful though, like, really out of place awful, and it has no color

And it looks silly, yeah, it looks like they didn’t finish painting it.

OH. MY. GOD

NEVILLE JUST HAD THE MOST EVIL, MEAN AND DISAPPOINTED LOOK I’VE EVER SEEN ON HIM

LOOK. AT. THIS. GEM

I AM SO AFRAID OF THIS NEVILLE PAGE

HE EVEN DID A MENACING BREATH

Stella: “and maybe we will be safe! I don’t know!”

Neville: *mean face*

I can see all the rage forming on his head, I can hear his words through his teeth, I can see my self looking at those eyes, full of hatred, and pissing my pants like Jason from Season 9 whenever Glenn Hetrick said his name

The Master of Terrified reactions has come back, everybody!!! Long time I haven’t used you Jason, welcome back!!!

Okay Ben really knows how to pull gold celestial makeup so his angel looks GREAT

I think his devil could have used a little more

I CAN BE YOUR ANGLE.... AND YOUR DEVIL

Team Funny’s stone sculpting is GORGEOUS but if I didn’t know what it was about I would be pretty confused

HOLY SHIT!!! EMILY AND TYLERS CREATION IS BEAU- TI- FUL

Love it, love at first sight, love IT

It totally nails the challenge and it’s just, magnificent

It’s like something from Season 5

I like the way it goes from perfect arches to crooked putrid remains,  I love the different colored eyes and the gray pupil, it’s like something mythical. I love mythical ceratures on FaceOff. This is right up my alley!

I hope the judges love it because I do, so much

Logan and Adm’s creation is pretty awful and silly

It looks like it belongs on another challenge

The 80′s wig is pretty out of place there, too

It has some things on the face but it can’t really read that well from afar, I think it’s too skin-colored

The chest piece is cool tho

I’m not sure about the hand coming out of the neck

TEAM BLUE’S MAKEUP is also pretty great looking, great color sceme and design.

OH MY GOD, THE EYE CHEST PIECE TOTALLY WORKS

One of the most creative chest pieces for sure, man I really like this makeup as well

I’m not sure who sould be Top Spot at this point

I really like the ring on the head too, good job, Melissa and Keegs.

Team Rage made something that I presume will be safe, it’s pretty safe looking 

Team LOVE’s makeup has a GREAT color sceme but I think the wings are too high

Does it fly with her EARS???

Love the paintjob on it though, great, GREAT contrast

The wings are AMAZING too, so

Good on Cat for making the call for the feathers!

Glenn says Team Sassy’s chest piece looks like it was just pasted with glue, it’s true

And I hadn’t noticed but the horns do look too squishy lmao

TEAM FUNNY HAS A DEMON FACE ON THE SHOULDER I DIDN’T SEE EITHER, that’s pretty creative

Glenn has a point in that the makeups feels very Native American, i had that on the back of my mind but didn’t know exactly what i reminded me of

Thanks Glenn!

The judges LOVE the arch creature, LOVE IT

The judges also LOVE team LOVE’S makeup!! I’m glad!!

Niko and Cat really do make an amazing team together

Did they skip Team Blue’s makeup??? I don’t recall any critiques of it

Team Love and Team Talent on Top 

Team Logam and Team Sassy on bottom, those are my bets

I went back a bit and yep, they skipped Team Blue’s makeup, certainly safe

WOAH This is weird, there are 5 people in the BEst and Worst

It usually is in pairs

I think it’s because Ben and Evan were on danger last week but did alright this week so it was just to recall who is in danger

Their makeup is pretty alright

The judges do like it

Jasmine and Stella are definitely going home, how sad

God the love angel looks so beautiful from afar

I like this shot of Logan and Adam, hold on

Like “Yep. We fucked up”

Logan even does an eyebrow disa`ppointment look

Team Talent is so POWERFUL

THE BACK WINGS ARE AWMAZING I HADNT SEEM THEM

I love how sad they look, and I love that they’re gold

Man this was just very beautiful

Oh man I’m not ready for Glenn to bash Stella and Jasmine

It breaks me, it really breaks me

Stella looks very sad, like she’s about to cry

I can’t take this

However, I’m gonna love seeing Cat and Niko get praised

Go Team So-Sweet-You’re-giving-me-Diabetes!!

VE NEILL CANT CONTAIN HER GLEE AT HOW AWESOME SHE FINDS THIS ANGEL!!

And even she says this is the best beauty makeup she’s ever seen on the show, GOD yes!

I like seeing them get praised because  on other places they were so bashed, and I feel like sometimes it went too far. Like Cat had great talent but was put on a horror-themed season (and even then she failed on the most fantastical of challegnes, how ironic) but I liked her, Niko made it all the way to 4th but everyone said it was a fluke and that he got lucky everyone else just did worse than him all the time and that he was just a pretty face, but together they seem really great so far. 

It makes me feel nice, totally rooting for them

“I THINK ITS AWESOME *HEH*”

Love Ve Neill’s laugh

And God knows she loves big wings

HAHAHAHAHAHAH

NE VEILL PAGE POINTING OUT HOW NIKO’S HAIR IS RIDICULOUSLY DEFYING OF ALL KNOWN PHYSICS

“Big, Profoundly Strong in regards to his silhouette,  and defying the laws of physics, I’m referring to your hair.” - Ne Veill “No Hair Up There” Page

“How the hell do you do it, man!” - Neville “Bald Mage” Page

I think he always wanted to make this joke since Season 6

I mean even after all these years HE STILL HAS THE SAME HAIRSTYLE

Poor guy just wants to have hair, 

I also love this Nevilla Page reactions picture, by the way.

“BIG!”

Neville is impressed at the SIZE

the TECHNIQUE

the SILHOUETTE

the ANATOMY

the CORRECTNESS OF THE WINGS

I love Neville Page so much

They totally spot the highlight from Glenn

I think Niko and Cat are totally winning this

“His horns looked like SLUGS!” - Ve Neill, made me chuckle

Just the way she said it

Its painfully obvious Jasmine and Stella are going home, no need to hide it

I’m surprised they didn’t mention Team Talent on top

Cat n’ Niko have to win this

AND THEY DO!! I’M SO HAPPY!!!!

Cat finally wins something!!!!! YESSS!!!

“YAH WE WIN!!! IT AHSOM!!!” - NIKO’S HAPPY EXPRESSIONS ARE HILARIOUS, i love youuu

It’s sad this is Stella and Jasmine’s second chance, like

Really sad

Too soon

Goodbye, sassy girls

Stella shrugs it off but I know she is very sad

Jasmine has the same facial expression as ever

Tragic second chance

Also I wish Jasmine was focused on more

I feel like I didn’t see her at all

Well I was rooting for her so much since I thought the Gauntlet was a bit unfair ro Jazz but well, she didn’t really show up in here

See ya next time everybody!

And yes, Stella cried

CONCLUSION:

What. a. great. episode. The first half of building and sculpting went by pretty normal, standard, almost looking like a middle of the road episode but the second half had me stitches, it was so funny and the judges seem to be enjoying themselves more and more and I love that! Neville is letting his comedic side take over, Ve Neill isn’t afraid to express how happy she feels about a makeup and Glenn makes a great stoic to contrast the funnier judges, also the makeups the teams created were astounding! Agree with the top spot, I’m so glad that Team LOVE are finding their ground and the elimination was also very fair, I thought Stella and Jasmine had some serious talent to show everyone else but I think it was the team dyamic of that season what did them in, I think they’re better individually, (Stella more so), but you gotta get with the times.

[crazyfreckledginger]

Ikemen Sengoku - “Motonari Dating A Virgin Would Include... (+ his Kinks)”

Requested by @odissey061​: “Lol, so is fine asking in which kink he’s in? Or a headcanon with a virgin mc?"

He’s pretty wild in bed and it was honestly extremely intimidating. 

Like he’s extremely experienced and kinky so you were terrified to do it with him. 

(In comparison to the other routes), when you got together with Motonari, you didn’t have sex for a whiiiiile.

He didn’t question it at the beginning but progressively, he started suspecting, were you not into sex? 

Or not sexually attracted to him?

That would be a problem, he’s VERY horny for you. 

One evening, you started making out and his hands traveled somewhere they weren’t as insistent about before and you pulled away bashfully.

“Hmm?” he gave you an inquiring look once he pulled away from your neck. 

You couldn’t meet his gaze in embarrassment, you stared at your lap, that was placed on top of his as you straddled him.

“What’s wrong huh?” despite his gruff tone, his slender fingers delicately laced around your chin. 

There were no negative emotions in his eyes that would scare you. But it was going to be his reaction to the inevitable that was shaking you to your core. 

"Have you never… done this?" he attempted to be subtle about his vocabulary not to be too harsh or making you more embarrassed than you already were.  

"W-What makes you think that?" you inquired, cheeks burning so much you felt like they might just melt off. 

He raised an eyebrow at you, 'really?' 

A big sigh escaped you and you looked away again. 

"I haven't." you murmured in defeat, he was too smart to let something like this over his head. 

He was too observant. 

"Why didn't ya tell me, sweetheart?" 

“W-well I mean- I’m- and you’re-” you gestured widely in embarrassment.

A grin tore on his face.

So cute

He cupped your cheek and kissed you hard to shut you up. 

But also your lips looked VERY attractive at that moment. 

You decided to do it  and he took his time to make sure you were comfortable. 

The next morning you spent cuddling naked beside each other and it was a little too fluffy for the both of you. 

Because you realised how smitten you were with each other. 

From there, he didn't bring any kinky shit until a while after you were doing it for awhile just to make sure you were one hundred percentage comfortable in bed. 

Okay now onto his kinky shit level lol. 

He has alot of kinks. 

It's pretty freaky at first. 

You were actually more nervous about trying out his kinks than your first time. 

He did sit you down and tell you a few things he’s into first in case you change your mind.

Motonari definitely has a daddy kink but because it's not something you're entirely comfortable with from the start,  he builds it up. 

He's also into light bondage, on you or him, either way. He does prefer fucking you into  the next week but seeing you use his body at your own pleasure is a huge turn on as well. 

He's definitely an ass type guy so he does have a tiny preference for anal over pussy.

But it does depend on the day, with you he also has a tiny breeding kink so on some days he needs your ass and others your vagina.

Either way it’s always a little painful the next day- which is nearly everyday because of his high sex drive.

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