#and why e.g. is generally undetected

[x-i-l-verify]

Oooh, you like Trigun! Do 3, 9, 12, and 25.

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you’ve seen on tumblr

On tumblr specifically? Um... every single one that insists that either of the twins having any kind of incestuous obsession with each other (usually on Knives' end) is the correct reading of the story and that anyone who disagrees is willfully misinterpreting the source material. I don't go into the main tags anymore. -_-

-

9. worst part of canon

Nightow's tendency to under-explain his worldbuilding or just toss in elements that make no sense just because he thinks it's cool. Some amount of mystery is fine, but there comes a point where it just becomes frustrating. Take, for example, the canon explanation for Legato's powers in the manga, e.g. that he can just randomly control people with tiny, undetectable metal threads implanted in their muscles. Like no, I'm sorry, Mr. Nightow, that explanation is the stupidest thing I've ever heard and I am throwing it in the garbage. I've come up with my own explanations for all the the weird, unexplained abilities random characters in Trigun have to make my brain hurt less, but I shouldn't HAVE to. And this is just one example.

-

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

I... hm. You know, I can't really think of a super underrated Trigun character, come to think of it. The fandom is generally pretty good at giving characters that deserve it love. I guess I could say that Marlon is kind of underrated, given the fact that he only shows up in 1 episode of the old anime and only makes sporadic appearances in the manga, but he's cool, I like him.

-

25. common fandom complaint that you’re sick of hearing

"StAmPedE's AnIMAtioN iS So BaD, iT loOKs TerriBle-"

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Eddie Waldrep, PhD, MSCP

Published: May 15, 2023

This is a guest post by Edward E. Waldrep, Ph.D, M.S.C.P. Dr. Waldrep is a Veteran of the War in Iraq, Purple Heart recipient, and is currently a clinical psychologist for the Department of Veteran Affairs specializing in PTSD. Views expressed here are those of the author and are not the views of the Department of Veteran Affairs.

Our country, and indeed the world, has gone through a lot in the past couple of years. The COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd by a police officer, a racial reckoning, rioting, and a tumultuous transition of presidential power that has marred our democratic institutions to name a few. With so much going on, the radical political changes within the American Psychological Association (APA) may have easily escaped the attention of many.

For example, the APA has been gradually changing the way race is approached. Officially, in 2017 it updated standards on multiculturalism to include embracing “intersectionality,” a conceptualization of the myriad ways in which one is oppressed via group identity. In 2019, a Task Force on Race and Ethnicity Guidelines in Psychology noted drawing upon Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a guide and in 2020 the definition of racism promoted by the APA was officially changed. The redefinition changed it from internal prejudicial beliefs and interpersonal discrimination to a “system of structuring opportunity.” What led to this change and why does it matter so much?

Social Justice versus Critical Social Justice

These changes came as a result of the changing focus of APA, and academia in general, from traditional social justice movements to Critical Social Justice (CSJ). Traditional social justice sought to end institutional oppression, discrimination based on immutable characteristics, focus on universal humanity of every individual, and for equality of opportunity for each to pursue their own self-directed goals. These are indicative of aspirational goals found in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech. There are contemporary organizations promoting the same pro-human ideals such as the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) and many others. On the other hand, there is CSJ that has skyrocketed in the public sphere in recent years and is much more pernicious.

The boom of CSJ is not a mere phenomenon. It is the result of decades of planning referred to as “the long march through the institutions,” a neo-Marxist approach to establish the conditions for revolution. This built upon the work of Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci who developed the concept of “cultural hegemony.” Cultural hegemony was posited as an explanation for why the grand Marxist revolution and utopia had failed to manifest itself. Basically, if people were able to have a comfortable life in a free market society, then they lack the motivation to burn down western society to make way for the grand utopia.

Critical Critical Theory Theory

The hegemony is thought of as an invisible, largely undetectable, ubiquitous force that nobody intentionally directs but by which all are influenced. This is where the “fish in water” analogy stems from the that is commonly used to explain “white privilege.” In their book, Black Eye for America, Swain and Schorr (2021) note that the strategy to bring about communism is to dismantle or undermine western society by attacking five societal components that maintain the hegemonic “oppression”: educational establishments, media, the legal system, religion, and the family. Douglas Murray also noted this attack in his recent book, The War on the West.

CRT is just one iteration of the application of Critical Theory(1) to different aspects of society (e.g., race, gender, sexuality, queer, colonialism, etc.) and often is presented as diversity, equity, and inclusion. CRT and intersectionality have been encouraged to be adopted in cultural competencytraining and stem from the same origin. Intersectionality, applied socially, is designed to get people to think of how they are constantly oppressed, in any variety of ways, in any given situation, to promote social divisiveness. The concept of intersectionality was popularized by Marxist lawyer and key developer of CRT, Kimberle Crenshaw. In her 1991 article for the Stanford Law Review, she argues that universal humanity ought to be rejected and focusing on race should be retained and be used for political power.

This is the exact opposite of Dr. King’s approach.  She makes the distinction between “I am black” vs. “I am a person who happens to be black”. She is critical of the latter and states, “’I am a person who happens to be black,’ on the other hand achieves self-identification by straining for a certain universality (in effect, “I am first a person”) and for concomitant dismissal of the imposed category (“Black”) as contingent, circumstantial, nondeterminant” (pg. 1297). Hence, the CRT focus on “centering race” to achieve ideological and political goals associated with imposing Marxist ideology to “dismantle” western norms and practices centering individual human rights and liberties.

The Modern Echoes of the Ugly History of Collectivist Ideologies

This ideology has a horrendous track record for humanity. Simply relabeling the ideology does not change that fact. American Psychologist, the “flagship publication” of the APA, went so far as to dedicate an entire special issue promoting this ideology in 2021. The edition editors criticize the field of psychology for “failing” to focus on structural power dynamics and for not creating “lasting social change” (Eaton, Grzanka, Schlehofer, & Silka, 2021). These are references to postmodern philosophy, Marxist structural determinism and social engineering. The authors go on to state “articles in this special issue build the case for a public psychology that is more disruptive and challenging than simply aiming dominant, canonical, and mainstream psychological research and practice outward” (pg. 1211).

Flynn and colleagues, 2021, discuss civil disobedience and criticize nonviolence as the only acceptable form stating, “we encourage psychologists to think critically about the effects of privileging certain acts of civil disobedience over others on the basis of decontextualized tactics alone, such as the assertion that property destruction invariably denotes a protest tactic outside the bounds of civil disobedience” (pg. 1220). They go on to describe strategies to twist and manipulate APA Ethics to justify any means they appear to see fit to dismantle “systems of oppression”. For example, regarding Principle C: Integrity, they state, “we also read it as authorizing clandestine methods of civil disobedience to contest injustice (e.g., deception, evasion) when methods maximize benefits and minimize harm” (pg. 1224). This stretches the intent of the use of deception from research methods, a researcher pretending to be a student for example, to justifying outright dishonesty.

And of course, the special issue would not be complete without an article criticizing “good” psychology. Note, the use of “Critical” in this context is related to neo-Marxist “Critical Theory” and not critical thinking. Grzanka and Cole, 2021, make an argument for what they describe as “bad psychology”. They argue that “good psychology” (maintaining rigorous methodological, scientific, and objective standards) is a problem because it gets in the way of the radical political agenda of transforming society the way that they think is best.  They state, “we contend that what is commonly thought of as ‘good’ psychology often gets in the way of transformative, socially engaged psychology. The radical, democratic ideals inspired by the social movements of the 20th century have found a voice in the loose network of practices that go by the term critical psychology and includes liberation psychology, African American psychology, feminist psychology, LGBTQ psychology, and intersectionality” (pg. 1335).

The authors do, conveniently, leave out the fact that the ideology underlying the radical social movements of the 20th century are attributed with mass murder on an unimaginable scale. Throughout the special edition, the argument is made, consistently, that this ideology, advocacy, and radical social transformation should be incorporated through all aspects of psychology: research, training, and delivery of clinical services.

How could the American people continue to trust the organization if this ideology is being actively promoted? What would psychotherapy look like within this ideological framework? I would argue that society would not and should not continue to trust APA if this continues. This is not sound, competent, professional, empirically informed psychology. This is Psychological Lysenkoism.

Critical Theory Ideas are Bad Psychology

APA has allowed, even endorsed, the miscommunication of psychological science that has the potential to negatively affect the mental health of individuals and society overall. Concepts such as implicit bias and microaggressions have questionable validity yet are so prominently displayed that they have the effect of gaslighting society. The net effect is to have people wondering if every interpersonal interaction is racist or bigoted and second guessing each encounter for intent and impact. These are reflective of the precepts and goals of CRT itself. The implicit idea is that almost everything is or can be racist is a central tenet of the ideology. From there, the goal is to then create the critical consciousness necessary to give rise to social unrest and revolution. The first paragraph of the intro to CRT, written for high school students, sets itself aside from traditional civil rights, and “questions” equality theory, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law. Delgado and Stefancic (2017) state, “Unlike traditional civil rights discourse, which stresses incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law” (pg. 3).

An additional tenet is that the voices and “lived experiences” of marginalized groups ought to be accepted unquestioned. However, the hypocrisy of the framework is laid bare when the “voices of color” dissent from the prevailing narrative. Prominent examples are those of John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Wilfred Reilly, Roland Fryer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Darryl Davis, Jason Hill, Coleman Hughes, Eric Smith, Ian Rowe, Thomas Sowell, and the list goes on and on. The same dissociation occurs with members of various marginalized communities when anyone of that community doesn’t toe to line with the ideological framework. The individual does not matter, only the prevailing ideological narrative and political agenda. Anything, or anybody, that interferes with that agenda is inherently loathsome. The most common response to any individual expressing skepticism or dissent is to label the individual (any applicable variation of -ist or -phobic) and should not even be allowed to have a voice!

APA Should Adopt a Pro-Human (All Humans) Orientation

In psychological practice, we should focus on the individual with inherent dignity, value, and careful consideration of how factors influence the individual. APA ought to return to a pro-human orientation. The “critical” movement denies the individual and views them as simply a representative of a superimposed group identity or combination of identities. This is antithetical to our field. The adoption of radical political ideology has even led to the resignation of at least one leadership role in protest. When we focus on our universal humanity, we can celebrate our differences. If not rejected as morally abhorrent as it is, then the American people would rightly lose trust in the organization and damage trust in our profession.

--

(1) “Critical Theories” (Critical Race Theory, most varieties of postmodernism, fat studies, etc.) have taken that name because they endorse deep skepticism of liberal democratic norms and practices that pervade … liberal democratic societies. I (this is Lee writing here) sometimes have a bit of fun with this by referring to critiques of Critical Theories as Critical Critical Theory Theories — i.e., turning the lens of critique that includes revelations of implicit, empirically flawed or moral dubious claims & assumptions back on Critical Theories themselves, as Ed Waldrep has done here with respect to APA.

[noctv]

Greetings!

I have to share bad news with you. Approximately a few months ago, I gained access to your devices, which you use for internet browsing. After that, I have started tracking your internet activities.

Here is the sequence of events:

Some time ago, I purchased access to email accounts from hackers (nowadays, it is quite simple to buy it online). I have easily managed to log in to your email account @gmail.com.

One week later, I have already installed the Cobalt Strike "Beacon" on the Operating Systems of all the devices you use to access your email. It was not hard at all (since you were following the links from your inbox emails). All ingenious is simple. :).

This software provides me with access to all your devices controllers (e.g., your microphone, video camera, and keyboard). I have downloaded all your information, data, photos, videos, documents, files, web browsing history to my servers. I have access to all your messengers, social networks, emails, chat history, and contacts list.

My virus continuously refreshes the signatures (it is driver-based) and hence remains invisible for antivirus software. Likewise, I guess by now you understand why I have stayed undetected until this letter.

While gathering information about you, i have discovered that you are a big fan of adult websites. You love visiting porn websites and watching exciting videos while enduring an enormous amount of pleasure. Well, i have managed to record a number of your dirty scenes and montaged a few videos, which show how you masturbate and reach orgasms.

If you have doubts, I can make a few clicks of my mouse, and all your videos will be shared with your friends, colleagues, and relatives. Considering the specificity of the videos you like to watch (you perfectly know what I mean), it will cause a real catastrophe for you.

I also have no issue at all with making them available for public access (leaked and exposed all data). General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): Under the rules of the law, you face a heavy fine or arrest. I guess you don't want that to happen.

Let's settle it this way:

You transfer 1.1 Bitcoin to me and once the transfer is received, I will delete all this dirty stuff right away. After that, we will forget about each other. I also promise to deactivate and delete all the harmful software from your devices. Trust me. I keep my word.

That is a fair deal, and the price is relatively low, considering that I have been checking out your profile and traffic for some time by now. If you don't know how to purchase and transfer Bitcoin - you can use any modern search engine.

You need to send that amount here Bitcoin wallet:

(The price is not negotiable). You have 5 days in order to make the payment from the moment you opened this email.

Do not try to find and destroy my virus! (All your data is already uploaded to a remote server). Do not try to contact me. Various security services will not help you; formatting a disk or destroying a device will not help either, since your data is already on a remote server.

This is an APT Hacking Group. Don't be mad at me, everyone has their own work. I will monitor your every move until I get paid. If you keep your end of the agreement, you won't hear from me ever again.

Everything will be done fairly! One more thing. Don't get caught in similar kinds of situations anymore in the future! My advice: keep changing all your passwords frequently.

[gamebunny-advance]

1010 Headcanons: Bootlegs

There are no official public documents about the design and inner workings of a 1010, but nonetheless many imitators and bootlegs have popped up in Vinyl City over the several years of 1010 being an active group.

A Brief History

Bootleg 1010s have been around since even MKI, but they were generally constructed by enthusiasts and hobbyists that were more interested in having personal 1010s than trying to make a profit.

MKI was very easily “bootlegged” due to them being based on the just recently retired battlebots. Strictly speaking, most imitation MKIs are not “bootlegs” but simply use the same battlebot base that 1010 uses. Some “true” bootlegs of MKI do exist, but they’re very rare due to not being in high demand and also competing with war paraphernalia collectors who want to have their battlebots in their original condition.

MKII bootlegs are a little less common as the design is original and the 1010 molds/factories are strictly “in-house”. However, dedicated fans have been able to recreate their look using public images as a guide. None have ever been 1 to 1, but due to the popularity of this series, bootleg MKIIs are still in demand.

MKIII, similar to MKII does not have any public documents or outside factories, so they did not have any convincing duplicates during the early years of the series. However, since the B2J incident, this has become the most bootlegged series to date.

Note: The weaponry of a 1010 has also been a point of interest for some, but due to the danger and high illegality associated in handling those parts, most are content to focus on recreating just their civilian forms without the added weaponry.

Garage Band 1010s

Many MKIII 1010s were scrapped and subsequently disposed of after their encounter with B2J. This made it very easy for fans to gather the parts needed to recreate a full MKIII 1010. Since then, and with the rampant rise of file sharing, fans have released documents detailing a full build of a basic 1010 (including each member’s face plate). This has allowed anyone with the materials and know-how to build their own 1010.

Since the released files are public, some people have taken to making and selling “1010 Kits,” so even those without direct access to materials can make their own 1010 given that they can afford the kit and have the materials to put them together. This combined with the ease of making modifications to a kit has caused a subculture to form around “garage band 1010s,” aka “GB 1010s.” Members of this subculture aren’t as interested in recreating 1010 as they are but are instead focusing on making their own designs and modifications to the base 1010.

Popular mods include:

Uniform redesigns and new hairstyles

Color changes (pink and teal are especially popular)

Face modifications

New tuning to expand their sound range and make them suitable for more genres of music

However, some full body modification GB 1010s are out there and are completely distinct from the original base. Some fans have commented that modifying 1010s has been their gateway to an interest in robotics.

Despite having access to the parts, there has yet to be a true recreation of the 1010 A.I. The difficulty in obtaining this information mostly lies in the fact that a 1010′s A.I. will self-destruct if it detects that it has been out of range of Barraca Mansion for a certain amount of time. As of now, no one has been able to completely preserve the A.I. after reactivating it and it subsequently self-destructing, though some bits and pieces have been saved from the handful of attempts at this task.

What has been preserved has also been worked into a popular homebrew A.I. called “Jayjay.”  It can be loaded into a GB 1010 (or any robot capable of running the program) to grant basic singing and dancing capabilities and limited interaction. This program is still in its early stages, but many community members are working together to refine the A.I. and make it both accurate to the original 1010s but also easy to modify. Currently, the main focus of the Jayjay team is recreating the 1010′s “Personality System” as all current iterations of the program have the same personality to keep them from bugging out when attempting to run more complex functions. Since the program is open source, members outside the team have attempted making modifications to this system with varying results.

NSR’s Response

NSR is very quick to crackdown on any factories attempting to sell and create bootleg 1010s, especially if they’re loaded with weaponry. Part of the Metro Division’s budget has gone into making PSAs detailing the differences between official and bootleg 1010s to keep fans from being swindled by those holding false concerts or other fake events. Since bootlegs became especially bad during the MKIII era, 1010 has lost some footing in the Metro Division as the top charter, but they have managed to stay at number 1 despite these difficulties.

GB 1010s however fall into a legal gray area. NSR has not officially acknowledged GB 1010s, but they generally turn a blind eye to hobbyists as long as the GB 1010 in question is distinct from any already existing member and also makes it clear that they are in no way officially affiliated with NSR. Aside from a handful of incidents where someone has tried to pass off a GB 1010 as the real thing, NSR generally leaves them alone. However, some GB 1010s have gained pretty big followings of their own, and there have been talks among the community about what may happen if a GB 1010 were to ever become a serious competitor with the real 1010.

[opalsiren]

i will admit that part of this is probably nostalgia goggles. but i also must say that i think the fashion on h2o far surpasses that of mako mermaids, both in how distinctive and how memorable the various looks are. for the most part each of the h2o merms has their own personal taste in fashion, with recurring theme colours and styles. there is definitely some overlap, but emma likes to look sporty and practical, cleo boho and romantic, rikki edgy and cool. if either were to swap looks for a day the change would be obvious

the mako merms have nothing but overlap when it comes to their style. there's little consistency in individual tastes, nor much to distinguish each mermaid from the other. the fashion is generic and interchangeable, usually either sundresses or shorts and a t-shirt. they look pretty and polished, sure, but not very real. you'd think that the costume team would put a little more effort into injecting the girls's personalities into their looks, but for the most part the fashion is pretty bland

[unproduciblesmackdown]

i love the like conspiratorial feel to the opening & likewise closing numbers of gtm:pota, “goosebumps” & its reprise (ft. r.l. stine god bless us)....i love the >:3 and the playful quality and the way the song starts a bit downtempo and mezzopiano kind of Creeping Out at us. it has the sense of umm. an air of secrecy. some unauthorized activity. we are slyly having this covert meetup in a graveyard for this Song to happen. love that lmao like, those are my roots here as [little kid intrigued by / interested in / seeking out Horror at all] like, that being in the midst of kind of suspenseful conditions feels like oh yeah of course (lol...) and that Nighttime and the idea of being Up for those hours and all the more for kind of sneaking around & seeing what’s up / doing some secret shit oneself is an engaging enticing concept (lol....lived that dream to be sure, at later ages & nowadays) and wherein more generally it’s liiiike. new paragraph

i always enjoyed horror ft. Mystery the most (& comedy, really) which applies to goosebumps, there’s a ton i didn’t read but so far as i know they’re all written to be funny & have an underlying mystery. and i always found like, Mysterious Characters / Suspects to be fun & fascinating themselves lol wherein it’s like, whoa who’s This suspicion arousing person, what strange thing are They up to. when like, sure, a lot of times there might be like “oh you accidentally solved some whole other mystery” approach where like, xyz other suspects Were up to something, they just weren’t up to the main thing you’re actually trying to figure out. but it was always extra delightful when it’s like, oh really this is just some guy hanging out doing his thing. why was he doing some shit at night? idk, he felt like it. an Eccentric Character, who may have even been threatening, but it’s like, nah. they’re just like that, but they’re Innocent, nonthreatening in actuality rather than “idk. vibes,” perhaps even helpful. like, e.g. cue that photoset of bailey school kids series “[supernatural entity] don’t [occupation a child may encounter]” cover illustrations and captioning it like “schoolchildren gawk at flaming homosexuals” lmfaoooo b/c that’s kind of always how it pans out. my Queer Analysis: Horror experience isn’t one where i ever cared about like monsters type deal but certainly when horror is about Thee Other it’s like, well, the queer & the neurodivergent is othered, that sure applies to me lol, plenty of times that’s just used to Cue that something’s Off about someone and they’re dangerous &/or evil, but when that’s subverted like, oh this suspicious person was just hanging out / is cool actually, then that’s kind of aspirational / relatable all the more straightforwardly like oh shit lol i just innately Vibe with that impersonable loner man they saw wandering out & about the night that some shit went down....truly, same. operating suspiciously covertly? like that’s me and the cptsd, baby, i like the vibe of The Cover Of Night, i loved the idea of a house with secret passages and you just Can move undetected, loved like the idea of tiny quiet hidden places, v cozy, loved the idea of Secret Communication, some covert underworld in which to freely operate, sneaking out at night & traveling to some destination with a coded signal inviting one over / providing direction and a light in the distance to head to lol. it all has context in retrospect lmaooo. and the invariable Queer Vibe of like ooh this person’s styling / fashion is so Weird, what’s up with them....like idk but that pwns, the “yeah hmm Why look different vs the ‘normal’ way that surely everyone just Wants to / naturally chooses to look & operate” right along the lines of the intrigue of Why be someone up to anything at night when surely one would only want to or ever even think to operate in the daytime, the normal way. i do dare follow, and am ware. what’s that shit, are you afraid of the dark? (series) i Never saw where i think the framing every time is a bunch of kids who like scary stories all go secretly gather in the woods at night & do that for fun lmao like right the hell on. my people

anyways idk that went off the rails but yeah love that song (genderdivergently) (neurononconfirmingly)

[homestuckexamination]

Combat Character Stat Builds

Oh my this is a lot, so I am Readmore-ing it. X3

I’ll just be talking about archetypal character builds and classes in terms of purely RPG combat builds rather than story or meta-affecting capabilities for simplicity’s sake.

Oooh, I think Dirk is a Lightning Bruiser as well. He has the same skillset as Bro had with flashstepping and being able to slice enemies rather easily. Collide never featured any of the Striderstep (idk why), but I guess they did it offscreen? He also got wrecked more times than Dave and Terezi did in Collide. Idk why either, maybe because Dave is directly sabotaged/taught by Bro Strider himself while Terezi went through more combat using misdirection than him in general? Dirk is very much an action man who, if he has a list of RPG stats, would be pretty high on at least almost everything with a focus on offense/ATK.

What differentiates Lightning Bruiser from Jack-of-All-Stats is that a Lightning Bruiser is absurdly great at anything, often trading it off with certain drawbacks (e.g. high cost, difficult-to-execute maneuvers, etc.) to keep them from being too overwhelming.

LE would count as one too, but he’s that one dirty hacker ruining everything online. The Peixes, Zahhaks, and Dave may also count. To separate them, Feferi and the Zahhaks are more straightforward unless you count their risen doomed versions. Although, the clear line between Equius and Horuss is that the former is a Close-Range Combatant because he keeps breaking his bow unless he’s equipped with the same strength-limiting device Horrus wears, making him a Monk with his Fistkind default. Horrus would be a Master-of-All player but doesn’t feel very fulfilled about it. Meenah being an archetypal Thief shows through her stealing and being very fast. What prevents her from being a typical Fragile Speedster-kind of thief is that she’s very physically sturdy with high endurance to the point that she’s able to daydream about her alternate self with no bother while being beaten over and over. She also has high strength as a fuchsia blood much like Feferi is able to leap dozens of feet off the water. If Dirk is more Ninja-esque, Dave is, in Final Fantasy terms, a straightforward Fighter. He’s offensively-oriented and has a good amount of stamina to last long. Being a Knight in RPGs in general also comes with support abilities (e.g. being able to shield allies, give buffs, etc.).

Psychics/psionics like the Megidos & Captors would be Long-Range Fighters. They mainly use their psychic abilities to reach and lift something from afar to compensate for having less physical prowess (unless you’re Indigo-blooded Roboradia) and psionics for the Captors to incinerate. They’re the equivalents of Black Mages if you go for Final Fantasy terms. Offensive Magicians, if you’re unfamiliar. With their different Sgrub titles and special abilities though, it’s best to differentiate them more as different types of “Mages” in RPGs as a whole. Psychics are also a class of their own in certain games.

Jane is a Combat Medic because her main role is healing and reviving while having the Egbert/Crocker strength to lift a fridge and stab people with her fork. She’s the White Mage of the party that has some offensive skills.

Tavros and Jake have Magicarp Power- very slow buildup, but great potential is a tradeoff in being Pages. The Nitrams in general can be Puppet Fighters in a “control fauna into fighting for you” way- Summoners or Beastmasters in RPG-speak (hence The Summoner title).

Roxy also is the RPG archetype of a Thief, albeit a passive version. She’s a Stealth Expert, being sneakier and having an easier time staying undetected through the void. Similarly to Meenah, Roxy also doesn’t have the fragility archetypal thieves have in that she has high strength- being able to leap several meters fast enough to snatch Rose away, uses Fistkind like Equius, and if her Beta version is anything to go by, being able to knock out giants with one punch. She also has a Ninja theme going on with all the slinky escapes with a dash of Monk in terms of martial prowess.

Rose is a support-type of Mage. She’s the Scholar. Or a Wizard. As the name suggests, scholars are studious and rely heavily on processed information to analyze opponents and buff allies. They are usually the ones who are fond of lore and through that, they are often equipped with the ability to supernaturally foresee what an enemy’s next move would be, their strengths, and their weaknesses..

Terezi fits the category too, but while Rose is more magical with light beams and stabs every now and then, the former fights more physically. Terezi is more of a Jack-of-all-Stats as a Scholar. She doesn’t possess any fighting prowess that exceeds outstandingly compared to her teammates, but she’s balanced. She is neither particularly swift nor very STRONG, but Terezi carried on being tossed, suplexed, stabbed, and survived through a few apocalypses.

Gamzee is the Joke Character that’s pretty ineffective in most cases but with ridiculously high stats that can turn him into a Lethal Joke Character. The Bard is often the butt of jokes in RPGs ever since DnD, usually performing to buff allies and weaken enemies.

*I could go on with other characters, but I’m doing other things.

I. Honestly don’t have much to add, this is really nice analysis on itself! I agree with a majority of it but, yeah you went deep there. X3

[fallenhound]

IZUKU’S SECRET QUIRK THEORY

Right, I have had this spinning in my head for a few weeks now and just had to put it down somewhere.

Disclaimers: This theory is reliant on:

A) Midoriya Hisashi being All for One

B) The toe joint identifier being discovered or a trait of the later generations of quirks users, i.e some first gen users possessing it, a larger amount in the 2nd, and by the 4th gen every quirk user has it.

This is where the theory begins

1) Dependant quirks

The core application of AFO & the First’s quirks are essentially genetic manipulation through transfer, the most important part of this being the process of transfer.

However, the difference between the brothers is that AFO’s quirk is capable of two-way transfer, whereas First’s is only capable of one-way. This difference is what make’s the First’s quirk undetectable in the first place (if the toe-joint connection wasn’t known), whereas AFO (the quirk) was essentially ‘Give and Take’, First’s quirk was only ‘Give’. The problem being that he had no other quirks to give.

Presumably if both brothers are capable of possessing multiple quirks then they share the same tolerance for quirk load - they don’t receive brain damage - and this must be a secondary mutation of their quirks (e.g. Stain’s blood paralysis coming with and extendable tongue and Kouda’s ‘rock-head’ even though his quirk is talking to animals.) that would be present in their descendants.

This is where Izuku being AFO’s some becomes important. If we assume that Dad For One is true, that the toe-joint only became a global mutation in one of the later generations and that Izuku does have a hidden quirk, he would then technically be 2nd gen quirk user, so he could both posses a quirk and have the joint.

My theory on Izuku’s quirk is that it’s something I’ve dubbed ‘Arsenal’ - the power to possess and have full access to multiple quirks. Where his father could take, hold and give, and his uncle could hold and give, Izuku is only capable of holding. A quirk that cannot be activated by itself given that it requires a form of Transfer, but it would explain the following points:

2) The Point of Singularity

First’s speech to Izuku in Ch. 193

The most important part of this speech to me is the “long since passed the point of singularity”, because when you consider the time frame; Izuku has in no way posted OFA long enough to contribute an amount of energy to it that would have ‘long since passed’ the point.

So when we consider this, it was not Izuku who passed the singularity, so why does he have access to the quirks of the previous users. What makes him different?

I theorise that the quirk was always capable of granting its users the quirks of its previous users, but it was missing a key component that would have allowed it to do so. Said component being Arsenal’s ability of full access. Full access is essentially what it sounds like, upon intake of a new quirk it allows total usage of it, though not control. This would explain why Izuku was able to use 100% of OFA immediately after receiving it. The reasons I believe this are:

A) The ‘Limb Explosion’

I view the ‘limb explosion’ warning from All Might as a slight continuity error. That it does cause damage if the quirk is used in an area of the body that is already damaged (AM’s frail arms at Kamino.) but given Izuku having competed his training and it seeming like his body didn’t develope that greatly after the exam, the self-damage aspect of the quirk seems like something the writers choose to include when we’re they want.

Also consider that if OFA is powerful enough that AM with the embers of the quirk can cause a tornado with a punch, how likely is it that OFA users were capable of breaking limbs as early as the Third, and if they were, how many users had access to a healing quirk to repair the damage - I believe it is mentioned in-universe that they are rare, so it’s unlikely that they all had access to one.

I think that it’s mentioned the only way to master control of OFA is to keep using it until your body adapts to no longer breaking - that’s not how biology works. (Case in point: Izuku breaking his fingers to launch air blasts at the sports festival, however when he does this after the overhaul arc it only causes slight pain - this is because when now has access to 20% of OFA, which doesn’t make sense - unless the quirk is sentient and choosing not to Inuit it’s weilder now.)

B) Full Cowling

Full cowling is introduced as a way for Izuku to use his quirk without causing damage to himself, the continuity error here continues on from the ‘limb-explosion’.

Considering that both AM never had a problem with controlling OFA (he wasn’t breaking his bones every time) we could presume this is either due to natural aptitude or because using a larger amount of energy in the quirk takes time and training to access.

Full Cowl was something Izuku created by himself because he had problems with energy output, he wasn’t taugh it by AM. So if we presume that AM and all previous users didn’t have the same problem (they never had to develop their own versions of FC) the question once again becomes what makes Izuku different?

If he does posses a hidden quirk like ‘Arsenal’ which have him ‘full access’, this would explain it. OFA is a reservoir of energy, that is what the quirk does - it stores energy, if we assume that using the quirk is like opening a dam, you begin with a small amount of water being let through and work your way up - this is what the previous users would have to do. The began using a small amount of energy and naturally worked their way up to larger amounts.

However the problem with Izuku is that ‘Arsenal’ gave him 100% off-the-bat - the dam was opened completely, all the water came rushing out. This is what would have caused his energy control problems, because his quirk allows completely usage of any quirk he possesses, not control.

2) The Swelling of the Core

Izuku’s conversation with the 5th in Ch 213

The important part of this conversation is ‘seriously’ (and here is where I sound like an English student). The use of this word suggests surprise. That the core has suddenly (recently) begun to change and this change is what allows access to all the quirks. We as the readers can presume this change has come about due to Izuku gaining possession of the quirk.

Given that Ujiko has also mentioned signs of the Quirk Singularity being noticed as early as the 4th gen, why has no signs of the singularity been noticed by OFA users? Why have they never encountered the vestiges?

So once again, if a change has occurred within OFA in the time it’s been in Izuku’s possession, the questions are ‘Why has it changed?’, ‘What is the change?’ and ‘What make’s Izuku different?

[jcdenton40]

The Visitation

For what was supposed to be the most monumental event in the history of human civilization it was actually pretty anticlimactic. No giant mothership; no shadowy figure emerging from the mist; no tense standoff with guns drawn... Hell, we never even saw him coming.

The morning of 12/12 was really just like any other, other than the fact that there he was, standing outside the White House, just waiting for us to show up. We found out later he'd actually arrived before sunrise and had been waiting out there for exactly two hours and twenty-nine minutes before anyone saw him. Not that he was trying to hide; he was just too polite to even try knocking.

If it had been some kind of crazy giant alien ship, I'm sure he wouldn't have had to wait so long. But right there next to the bushes just a few yards outside the front door to the White House was the most basic landing pod you could possibly imagine. At least we all assumed it was just a landing pod; we didn't find out until later that it was his actual ship, which he'd actually used to travel the entire 32+ light years from his home planet even though it was nothing more than a tube, barely big enough for him to fit in, with no apparent means of propulsion or external features whatsoever. And even later, when he showed us the interior, it was just completely empty; no apparent life support systems, no avionics, no control systems, no instrumentation, nothing.

And I wish I could say it was due to its hyper-advanced stealth technology or some kind of undetectable cloaking device that it was out there for so long before anyone saw it. But even if it did have something like that (and we still don't know if it did), that really wasn't why; as crazy as this sounds, it was just too small, and came in too fast, for any of our systems to even detect it on its way in. And by sheer coincidence, it just so happened to land in a "dead spot" where the security cameras could barely see it. It still should have been spotted right away, sure. But I saw the footage myself and can't say I would have spotted it either.

As for the lack of a "tense standoff" (or any standoff), the fact that he spoke perfect English had a lot to do with that. That plus the fact that he looked just barely humanoid enough that the Secret Service guy who first saw him thought it must have been a guy in a suit.

We later learned that his perfect English was actually due to the translation device attached to his mouth (which appeared to be his mouth). It turns out he knew how to speak and understand English with complete mastery—learned from nothing but the TV and radio transmissions they were able to pick up from halfway across the galaxy—but their species was simply incapable of actually speaking in any way that a human could actually understand due to the inherent limitations of their vocal systems, and physical inability to reproduce enough of the sounds necessary for human language. The perfectly understandable assumption from that, of course, would be that they had already evolved far beyond vocal communication (i.e., to telepathy). But no, they still spoke with each other with words, more or less like we do.

He later explained that their vocal limitations were a fairly recent development, at least from an evolutionary standpoint; it was just a few thousand years prior that they had vocal capabilities much like ours, with the capacity to speak countless native languages, some of which were quite similar to English. But at one point they had decided to standardize upon one global language, and it was from then onward that as their language continued to evolve over time, so did their vocal systems. Eventually, through a combination of evolution and bioengineering, their species came to be uniquely and perfectly suited for the reproduction of their one language with near-perfect clarity, though at the expense of all other potential languages.

Oddly enough, their language (and language in general) was one of the things he was most interested in talking about. Not how to speak it per-se, though he did teach us some of that (fortunately the limitation only went one way, and we were able to at least reproduce the basic sounds well enough to say words and phrases that he could understand—just barely). Rather, his primary interest was in sharing some of the features that their language possessed, possibly with the idea that we might someday decide to incorporate some of those elements into our own.

One of the things he spoke about at-length was how their language had gone through several "redesigns" throughout its history, where its vocabulary, pronunciation, and even its most fundamental rules were altered and simplified in order to enhance its efficiency at conveying information as accurately as possible while eliminating virtually any possibility for misunderstanding (or misrepresentation).

From the way he described the process, I can't say we have anything comparable when it comes to written/spoken languages, though I suppose the closest analogy would be the way computer programming languages go through intentional revisions over time, or the way that computer operating systems might be rewritten and revamped dramatically from one version to the next while fixing bugs and improving efficiency.

One of the first things they did, in in the earliest of their "major" revisions, was something which made their language unlike any on Earth: the complete elimination of homonyms (different words that sound the same), homographs (words that are spelled the same but mean different things), and synonyms (different words which share the same meaning).

Think about that for a moment; what they did was essentially recraft their entire language in such a way that every single word was unique in spelling, pronunciation, and meaning. And not only did this require the modification (or outright elimination) of most of the words in their entire vocabulary, but it also necessitated the creation of an almost incomprehensible number of entirely new words in order to serve the same functions as those which had been eliminated due to lack of uniqueness, but were not redundant to any "surviving" words.

On top of that, a smaller (yet still fairly vast) number of new words was also needed for cases where a word with multiple definitions was standardized to its primary (now, only) definition, but where no surviving words could accurately convey those eliminated definitions.

And adding even further to this herculean undertaking was the simple linguistic inevitability that in order to maintain the uniqueness of every single word in an entire language, you would need to use some combination of longer words (both letters and syllables); more letters that can be chosen from; more possible spoken sounds, accents, and intonations; or, in their case, all of the above.

To use an example from English, let's take the words "so", "sew", and "sow". All three are homonyms since they're pronounced identically, but "sow" also has an additional pronunciation which has a different meaning (a female pig, as opposed to the act of planting seeds), while "so" has one pronunciation but two different meanings (either to emphasize the extent of something, or as a conjunction).

Thus:

1. "Sew" would be eliminated and replaced.

2. Only one of the two definitions of "so" survives while the other must be replaced.

3. The female-pig definition of "sow" can remain (due to its unique spelling and pronunciation) while the planting-seeds definition must be replaced (due to its non-unique pronunciation).

The final tally: two words survive, one word eliminated and replaced, and three new words created.

But there's also another, less drastic option for #1: Since the spelling of "sew" is already unique, you could keep its spelling unchanged and simply modify its pronunciation to something unique (e.g. "soo"). And that's exactly what they did, where practical, to keep as many of their original words as possible, or at least as familiar as possible, either with just a slight tweak to the spelling or by appending an extra syllable.

But in most cases a simple "tweak" was simply not an option, due to an inviolable rule that they established before even the first change was made: None of the changes to any words could violate their universal, standardized rules for spelling and pronunciation (and this rule was retroactive as well, thereby requiring a rejiggering of all previous words which violated these rules).

This meant that they couldn't simply change the spelling or pronunciation of words arbitrarily, nor could they, in most cases, change one without that directly impacting the other. And by imposing this rule on themselves, they dramatically limited the number of options available for modifying existing words—at least not without adding more syllables.

Thus for all of their linguistic genius, it didn't take long after this first phase was implemented (which, almost inconceivably, they were able to complete within just a few years) that they ran headlong into a fairly serious problem: Their language now required vastly more syllables to be spoken, and vastly more letters to be written, in order to convey the exact same amount of information as before.

But this was something they had fully anticipated, and out of necessity had planned to address in their second major revision which came a few years later, now that the vast majority of the population had become fully fluent with what was essentially an entirely new language.

It was at this point—after putting up with several years of extreme linguistic inefficiency (during which they suffered tremendous losses in global productivity, albeit with the lowest unemployment levels in their recorded history)—that they finally implemented the solution via the Second Revision. To do so, they borrowed a concept which was also straight out of computer languages (including our own): a concept known to us as "single instruction multiple data" (SIMD).

The basic premise of SIMD is that you take a frequently-used combination of computer instructions and replace them with a new  which performs exactly the same tasks; then, any time you need to use that same set of instructions, you simply use the new one which does all of the exact same "work", but in a single step.

In their case, they did the same thing but for words, taking their most frequently-used combinations of words (even in some cases fairly complex concepts) and "grouping" them into a single new word which conveyed all of the meaning and nuance of what would have taken multiple words and far more syllables to convey. And not only did this solve their problem, but once the Second Revision was completed they found that their speaking and writing/reading rates were actually even faster than ever before.

Since then, they've continued to implement even more of these "grouped" words over time (based on real-world frequency of use) and in some cases even created grouped words which contain previously-grouped words. So far, the most densely-grouped of these go three "levels" deep, though there is theoretically no limit to how many "levels" of meaning could potentially be consolidated into a single word.

These First and Second Revisions were clearly the most significant, both in effect and the sheer magnitude of their undertakings, but it was actually the Third Revision which I found most interesting; it was then that they implemented two features which had, to some extent, always been present in their language, but not in the universal and standardized way that it would eventually become.

The first was what could be considered a complete integration of mathematics into their language. Which actually sounds more complicated than it is; essentially they established clear grammatical rules which stated that any time there is a potential range of conceptual values to what someone is attempting to communicate, that value must be quantified—not just with vague words like "few", "many", or "most"—but numerically, with an actual mathematical value, every single time.

And this rule applies even to situations that we probably wouldn't even think of as being mathematical in nature. To use some examples from English, let's say something will "protect" you, or "prevent" you from being harmed; does that mean it offers total protection and prevents harm completely? Or just partially? And if just partial, at what point of the infinite points along the spectrum do you qualify as being "protected" vs unprotected?

Or how about a more common example; if you express that something "doesn't work", does that mean it's completely non-functional and isn't working at all? Or just that it's not functioning at a level of performance that you would consider acceptable?

Situations like these simply do not exist in their language since in every potential instance, the available words that they can choose from have either been firmly established as expressing absolutes, or there would always be an expression of quantification accompanying it to eliminate ambiguity.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that a precise number must always be given, even when a precise number isn't warranted, or simply isn't feasible. Because that's where the second feature comes into play: if the numerical value conveyed is intended to be just a rough estimate, that would also be directly incorporated into their syntax, thereby pairing every numerical quantification with an indication of confidence/precision. So if you want to say, "most", i.e. "more than 50% but less than 100%", you can still do so; or you can just as easily convey "somewhere in the 55-65% range", or "exactly 70%" and do so while using far fewer letters and syllables than it would take in any human language.

And it was soon after they came up with this idea that they also very quickly realized it would be equally useful in non-mathematical contexts, as a general "confidence" indicator in order to express whether something is being stated as absolute fact, as pure opinion/speculation, or anywhere in between.

Once all of these features were implemented (subsequent revisions did occur every few years, but they were far less wide-ranging in scope), their intended effects became very quickly realized; virtually all misunderstandings, miscommunications, and the inevitable conflicts and pseudo-disagreements which inevitably arise from them became a thing of the past. He was very careful not to overstate his point here, and made clear that arguments remained plentiful throughout their society; however, after these changes such arguments only occurred as a result of actual disagreements, not just people "talking past" each other or simply saying the same thing in different ways.

Just think: How many times have you seen two people arguing over a particular idea or concept where they were clearly operating under different definitions, and thus it was entirely possible that they did not even actually disagree on the matter being discussed?

And how many pitiful arguments have you seen in your lifetime which essentially consisted of nothing more than one side saying, "Not all [noun] are [adjective], but some are!", and the other saying, "Some [noun] are [adjective], but not all!"

Too many. And it is exactly those kinds of pseudo-arguments which simply never occur in their society, since their language has essentially been inoculated from the toxic effects of such rhetoric.

And perhaps most importantly, once these first three Revisions were in place, propagandistic bad-faith misrepresentation and rhetorical sleights-of-hand became, if not impossible, far more difficult to attempt and far easier for anyone to see. With every word having one clear-cut meaning, equivocation fallacies became, quite simply, impossible; after all, how can you try to exploit the fact that one word has multiple definitions in order to mislead, when there are no longer any words with multiple definitions to exploit?

Just take a moment to imagine where might our state of scientific progress be today—and whether the 21st century Science Riots would have even occurred—had our language been like theirs? Or just imagine the ripple effects throughout history if just ONE of our words had this feature, i.e. the one which has been exploited through equivocation more than any other, with at-times devastating consequences, i.e. "theory"?

Anyway, enough about that. It was after almost a full month of discussing nothing but their language that we eventually moved onto other topics like their culture, beliefs, and philosophy.

And at this point I know exactly what you're wondering: What was his take on "war"?

I guess you're wondering how I knew that. Well, we actually had some surveys done in those first few days after he arrived (all conducted via third parties, of course) just to get a feel for what kinds of questions the general public might eventually have, and maybe even get some ideas for questions we should ask him that we might otherwise have not considered (which turned out to be hopelessly optimistic; the grand total of useful ideas we got from those surveys: zero).

But one of the common threads that came up over and over—being the first mention in almost 100% of the surveys—was this notion that he (or any hypothetical alien visitor) would find the very concept of "war" to be utterly preposterous, possibly even to the point that he would be completely baffled that such a thing could possibly exist.

Unfortunately that wasn't anything close to the reality, for reasons which should have been fairly obvious. I mean, sure, on his home planet his species no longer practiced anything remotely resembling "war", and hadn't in countless generations. But certainly they had engaged in war throughout much of their recorded history, and had even come close to global self-annihilation on multiple occasions.

But even if that hadn't been the case, he revealed to us that war is something which virtually every single advanced alien civilization they have ever observed or encountered had clearly engaged in on a frequent basis, in the past if not currently, thus making it one of the most universal of all societal concepts.

The only exceptions? He said there were actually a handful of civilizations throughout the galaxy–though these were vanishingly rare–where the entirety of their archaeological and recorded histories had absolutely no record of war. But, he noted, in every one of these cases their histories also had suspicious and clearly unnatural "gaps"–just total voids where it's as if literally nothing happened for years, decades, even centuries. Most likely, they concluded, these histories were either systematically erased in order to hide something in their past, or that everything prior to those points–all history, all archaeological evidence–had been completely annihilated... most likely by war.

Oh, and speaking of those surveys? The second most common response, regarding human behaviors that an alien might be baffled by: laughter. And when we told him about that, and asked if their species has anything like laughter? Well... he laughed (not that we knew that's what it was at the time, we actually thought we had pissed him off).

It turns out that laughter (or the alien equivalent), rather than being some kind of nonsensical, bizarre quirk of human behavior, is also virtually universal among alien civilizations. He explained that its evolutionary value in any kind of social/communal society is so great that they have never observed a single advanced species which doesn't possess it. Essentially, he confirmed that our theories about the purpose of laughter are correct: originally evolving as a means to indicate that an apparent threat actually isn't one (or that an apparently dire situation isn't as serious as it appears to be), then eventually evolving to become a means for establishing rapport, bonding, and trust.

As for something which wasn't universal, but would actually make their culture unique among Earth societies? Well, how should I put this... Are you familiar with the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment? It's one of the oldest of all psychological experiments, which in its original form presented each of its participants (all children) with two options: Have one marshmallow now, or wait 15 minutes (while that marshmallow sits within reach), at which point they would be given that marshmallow plus another one. Just a simple test of delayed gratification, to see whether the kids were able and willing to forego immediate reward for the prospect of double the benefit. And as you might expect, about one-third of the kids ate the first marshmallow right away, about one-third tried waiting but eventually ate it, and about one-third waited the full 15 minutes and were rewarded with two.

Which sounds pretty mundane, maybe even fairly ridiculous as far as experiments go. But the interesting part is what came later–far later–as they tracked the progress of these children throughout their childhoods, and in some cases even into adulthood. And what they found was that the last set of kids–the ones who were willing to wait for that second marshmallow–turned out to have significantly better test scores, better grades, better health, and even, as adults, more-successful careers than the other kids, whereas those in the first group fared these worst.

So what does all of this have to do with him, and his culture? Well, imagine a society in which every single person–kids and adults alike–fall into the latter category, but to the greatest theoretical extreme imaginable. So not just a society in which procrastination and short-term thinking no longer exist, but one in which present and future have essentially ceased to have any meaningful distinction, and where every decision made–from the grand to the day-to-day mundane–is based on the pure calculation of total benefit, from now until eternity.

This was a natural progression over the course of their civilization's development as they became more and more forward-thinking over time, but it wasn't until what could be loosely translated as their "Renaissance" that they fully completed this philosophical transformation on a complete societal level over a period of just a few years. And the effects of this transformation became immediately evident, with dramatic improvements in crime reduction, health (particularly addictions, which were virtually eradicated), productivity, education, scientific advancement, and general happiness.

It was then a few decades after that, perhaps as an inevitable consequence, that they went through a Second Renaissance–one which also involved the near-total dissolution of another distinction, this time not between present vs. future but between the well-being of self vs. the well-being of others.

Essentially it was during this time that they came to the society-wide realization that there is ultimately no moral justification to put your own interests above those of anyone else's, particularly since—as he put it—the person you happened to be "born into" was ultimately decided by sheer chance, and you could just as easily been born as anyone else, past or present, living or dead.

Which isn't to say that every member of their society places everyone else's interests on perfectly equal footing with their own; as he explained it, it is simply not possible to know anyone's needs and desires better than you intimately know yours, and thus they still consider society's interests best served by doing your best to fulfill your needs and desires, and to strive for personal improvement to the fullest extent possible. And nor was it the case that this caused them to become some kind of collective "hive mind" where they lost all sense of individuality; if anything, the degree of freedoms and the range of avenues for complete self-expression/realization available to each member in their society went far beyond anything ever observed on Earth.

But the effect of this Second Renaissance was at least equally profound as the first, as all decision-making became pure cost/benefit analyses of what would result in the greatest total benefit, whether to the individual or society at large. And this was achieved through no coercion, and without even any change in laws (in fact, a tremendous number of laws were ultimately eliminated since they no longer served any purpose).

And it wasn't long after this Second Renaissance that they began reaching out to the other civilizations throughout the galaxy that they had previously just observed from afar, and began sending out emissaries in their speed-of-light ships, like the one they sent to visit us.

You know, it's funny... As I'm recording this, I can't help but think about all the time I've spent arguing with crackpots online, ridiculing and debunking the biggest, craziest conspiracy theories: That the Moon Landings were faked. That the Mars Landings were faked. 9/11 was an inside job (or faked). The 2020 Election... But the 12/12 Visitation is the one I never touched. Go back and check out my social media archive and my entire posting history if you don't believe me. And here I am, 32 years later, not debunking a conspiracy, but confirming the biggest one of all.

So why am I doing this? I'm not sure, really. But I think more than anything else, I just feel bad for how much we did him wrong. He was completely up-front with us, right from the beginning: He didn't come here to share anything about their technology—just their culture, beliefs, and way of life. And he was 100% clear that this was for our benefit, not theirs. He even clued us is in to the fact that of all the alien civilizations they had ever monitored, the only ones that had ever suffered total irreversible extinction did so as a result of their own technologies gone awry (or, in a few cases, the technologies of other planets' civilizations, if you know what I mean).

Of all the rest–even those which faced extinction-level events on a scale that our planet has never even seen in its history (gamma ray bursts, direct comet strikes, even in one case a micro-black hole which tore right through the center of their planet)–all of these civilizations managed to survive, and in some cases eventually recover.

As for us specifically, he said our current level of technological progress is already far beyond what they would consider our capability to responsibly handle, and thus anything they could possibly contribute to that technological progress—no matter how seemingly benign such technologies may be—would only serve to further increase that divide and further magnify our chances of complete self-annihilation.

And we were OK with that stipulation at first, or at least we pretended to be. After about six months with him, during which he shared everything he could (or would) for 24 hours a day (one thing I forgot to mention earlier: he had no need for sleep), we eventually exhausted things to ask him about. And yet after all that, we still knew no more about their technology than we did on day one.

Even his ship was a complete non-starter. Had it been anything even remotely similar to our own, I'm sure we could have reverse-engineered it, or at least gleaned something from it that could have put us light years ahead of any other county on the planet. But there was absolutely nothing about it that had even the slightest corollary to what we currently have, or had ever even theoretically conceived of. It was basically the equivalent of taking the most advanced supercomputer on the planet and sending it back in time to the Stone Age. Or to an ant colony.

Maybe someday we'll be able to unlock its secrets, but my guess is we're at least hundreds of years from even having a chance at cracking its most basic functions (at which point, maybe we'll realize it really was just a landing pod).

So of course, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone what we did next. Now, I say "we" loosely, since I certainly had no say in it. Which I'm sure might seem incredibly self-serving at this point, but all I can give you is the truth: The day we got everything we could out of him and he refused to divulge any more secrets, we finally resorted to what we've always resorted to. Enhanced interrogation techniques. Coercive interrogation. Learned helplessness. Torture.

And do I even need to say that this turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of all time? First off, it didn't work; months of almost non-stop torture using every method we could possibly come up with, and we got nothing more out of him. He was completely unfazed, and not because it didn't hurt him; some of the... methods we used sent his biometric readings off the charts. He was clearly experiencing tremendous physical distress, vastly more than any human could conceivably handle.

But no matter what we did, he just took it. And if he even cared, he kept it completely internalized. Just completely stoic, from beginning to end. Even his demeanor and attitude towards us never changed; after all of that—45 days of almost non-stop agony—he still wanted to tell us more about their language. And he was still just as polite as that first day waiting patiently outside the White House.

It's always been rather amusing to me... Of all the many believers in the 12/12 Visitation, how many wildly different, even completely contradictory reasons they've come up with for why it would've been kept under wraps all this time.

Either, "It would cause a total collapse of the world's organized religions", or "It would cause unprecedented numbers of people to turn towards God, and away from The State".

Either, "It would cause mass chaos and a total breakdown of society", or "It would cause everyone to unite behind our common humanity, and thus end all war and conflict which would cause a total collapse of the military-industrial complex".

The truth is, it wasn't originally anyone's plan to keep it under wraps. Some of the details, sure. But we all figured we would make the big announcement eventually. We even commissioned a task force of some of the brightest minds on the planet—under the guise of a purely hypothetical scenario, of course—and they all came to the same general conclusion: Of all the possible reasons for why a government might keep an alien visit a secret, those fears were pretty much completely overblown.

Realistically, they figured, there would be no mass chaos, no mass peace, no collapse of religion or of society or really anything else just because an alien decided to come visit us. A hundred years ago maybe that would have been a different story. But after everything we've seen in our lifetimes? I think we could have handled it. And all of the experts did too.

But how the hell could we have revealed him to the world after all that? After everything we did to him?

And I still can't help but wonder... What if it was all a test? I mean, clearly, in a figurative sense it certainly was—and one we failed horrifically. But what if it was actually a test?

I just can't get past the question of why they would even bother sending a representative in-the-flesh, instead of just some kind of A.I. or digital representation or even just a recording with all of the information that he shared with us.

Were they just trying to see how we would treat him?

And if we had treated him humanely, and respected his stipulations (as any reasonably-civilized people would have), what then? Would he have opened up to us with their technological secrets? Would he still be sharing them with us today? And more importantly, would we still have—metaphorically speaking—our souls?

Ultimately, I suppose this is all fairly moot anyway, given what's coming next. By our calculations it's just five days away, give or take a day. And all I can hope for at this point is that some of us make it, and that maybe what I'm recording here makes it through. And maybe someday we can recover, countless generations from now, and maybe they'll give us another shot.

But if not, I can't say it wasn't deserved.

Photo: "they are alien" by son.delorian is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

[dirtyallodyke]

On self-harm via going through the ace discourse tag

CW: discussion of self-injury, mental illness

Okay, regardless about your stance on ace discourse and whether you're an exclusionist or an inclusionist, we need to leave that behind right now and have a conversation about the concept of looking through the ace discourse tag as a form of self-harm. Because there are some serious, harmful issues around this. I'm going to preface this post by saying that I am literally a self-injury researcher who is part of a research group on youth mental health, with a specialty in self-injury and LGBT youth mental health, so I know what I'm talking about.

Firstly, let's talk about what self-harm is, and what it is not. In order for a behaviour to be considered self-harm, it needs to satisfy these conditions:

Intentional / deliberate,

Not an unintended side-effect of another behaviour (e.g. smoking, eating disorders, drug use),

Not part of a socially- or culturally-sanctioned behaviour (e.g. body modifications, tattoos, some cultural rituals that involve damage to the body),

Results in, or is intended to result in, damage to bodily tissue.

That last one is the most important here, because it specifies that self-harm must be physical in nature. It doesn't specify the extent, so this can include anything from scratching oneself with pins through cutting or burning oneself to more extreme forms such as breaking one's bones or ingesting poisonous substances.

A lot of people insist that what I'm talking about is actually self-injury, whereas they're referring to self-harm, which doesn't have to be physical and can include deliberately exposing oneself to material that will make them experience negative feelings. This is perhaps a misunderstanding more than a deliberate attempt to deny facts – maybe where people get confused is the difference between what is known as Deliberate Self-Harm (DSH) and what is known as Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI).

The above definition refers to DSH, and the defining characteristic of this versus NSSI is that DSH may include behaviours that are intended to result in death, i.e. suicidal behaviour. This is why it includes things such as taking large overdoses or ingesting poison or any other behaviour that we might not conceive of as being self-injury because the person is attempting to take their own life. What we usually think of as self-injury is, in fact, NSSI, where there is an additional condition: the behaviour is NOT intended to cause death (hence the "non-suicidal" part of the name). It may possibly still result in death, but this would be accidental and not the intention of the person doing the behaviour. NSSI often predicts suicidal behaviour in that people who start off engaging in self-injury are at a higher risk of later attempting suicide, so they are related but distinct concepts.

So, the difference between the two is subtle, and there is overlap, but both still require the act of deliberately causing physical harm to one's body. When people talk about self-harming via ace discourse (i.e. deliberately generating feelings of distress), what they're talking about is not actually self-harm in any form … instead, what they may be doing is deliberately triggering themselves. This is not a value judgement, as in, I'm not making light of this behaviour or suggesting that it is frivolous or anything like that. But it is not self-harm.

Let me explain. Self-triggering is, again, often related to self-injury, but it is a completely separate phenomenon. For example, people who don't self-injure but may have other issues can self-trigger. The most obvious, and probably most common, example is people with eating disorders. Most people, whether or not they have lived experience with eating disorders, know about "thinspo" or "pro-ana". As someone who has struggled with eating disorders for 16 years, I am very familiar with this concept and have definitely engaged in it myself when I was younger and unwell. For those that don't know, "thinspo" or "pro-ana" involves viewing material that triggers or reinforces existing disordered thoughts and feelings, in order to "inspire" continued adherence to eating disordered behaviours. You might say, "That's stupid, they're basically giving themselves an eating disorder, why don't they just not do that?" but remember that people who do this are already unwell and the way they think and behave makes sense to them even if it doesn't make sense to people who don't have that illness. I am oversimplifying, there is a lot more to it than this, but I'm just using this as an example to illustrate my point.

This has also been observed in people with addictions, and people with depression, often in the form of attentional bias – they tend to pay more attention to stimuli that are related to the substance they are addicted to (for people with addiction) or with negative undertones (for people with depression) than non-related or neutral/positive stimuli. This isn't deliberate and they usually aren't aware they are doing this, but it is one of the many ways in which their mental illness maintains itself.

This self-triggering is very often a precursor to physically harming behaviours – but notice I am talking about people with eating disorders or addictions, and the definition of self-harm specifically excludes side-effects of illnesses like these because physically harming oneself is the main goal of self-injury, but not of eating disorders or addictions.

However, self-triggering is also very common in people who struggle with self-injury. This is something I have witnessed first-hand (and participated in) when I was younger and struggling with self-injury. There is a lot of material online that is the self-harm equivalent of thinspo/pro-ana: people sharing photos of their self-injury, sharing "tips" on how to self-injure more effectively or how to hide self-injury from others in order to continue doing it undetected, etc. It's awful and dangerous, but it is something done by people who are unwell and should not be judged negatively. The reasons we do these behaviours are numerous and complex and not relevant to the discussion.

The point is, self-triggering is a PRECURSOR to self-harm, but is NOT self-harm in itself. Now, when I have argued with inclusionists about the concept of self-harm via discourse tags, and how this trivialises actual self-harm, many have said "Uhhh I actually physically self-harm as well as this kind of self-harm so stfu you nasty aphobe!" And, you know, it's really sad when ANYONE is in enough distress that they resort to self-injury to cope with this – but just because you also self-injure, it still does not make self-triggering the same as self-harm. You may self-trigger which may then lead on to you self-harming, but it also may not lead to you self-harming. The act of self-triggering alone is NOT sufficient to be called self-harm.

You might say, "Who cares? This is just semantics! I still self-harm!" but it DOES matter because it trivialises self-harm. There are many people who also consider themselves self-harmers because they self-trigger by going into the ace discourse tag but don't actually physically self-injure – do you REALLY think their experience of self-injury is the same as someone who cuts themselves???? As someone who also started self-harming 16 years ago, I think the fuck not! I can tell you that the way I have been treated as a self-injurer has been horrific in the past, and the negative consequences of my self-injury are still impacting my life today, years after I stopped self-injuring. The pain and the mistreatment and the stigma I have been subjected to is not even in the same ballpark as someone who deliberately makes themselves sad because a bunch of mean aphobes are saying that cishet aces aren't lgbt, and it is deeply insulting to any person who has ever self-injured.

It is also pathologising what is actually a normal behaviour – most people seek out stimuli that reflect how they are feeling (think of listening to sad music when you are sad as an example), and this is very common. By perpetuating the idea that looking through ace discourse to make yourself sad is actually self-harm, and not a completely normal and human behaviour, you are causing people to self-pathologise/self-stigmatise, and that has been shown in research to have deleterious effects on mental health that would likely not occur otherwise. So, not only does it harm actual self-injurers by trivialising their experiences, it harms non-self-injurers by pathologising their behaviour.

There is also the problem of whether or not you can actually say that ace-discourse-tag-viewing counts as self-triggering, because I feel like that is pretty trivialising of especially PTSD, but also other mental illnesses in which triggers may be a component. I'm not going to discuss that here because that is an entirely different conversation, but I think it bears thinking about – is being "triggered" by ace discourse anywhere near the same as being triggered by reminders of severe trauma? I don't think so. But again, that's another conversation.

TLDR: looking through ace discourse tags in order to feel worse is not self-harm. It may be a precursor to self-harm, but it is not self-harm itself, and calling it such is harmful to both actual self-harmers, and non-self-harmers. Regardless of your take on the discourse, stop spreading this harmful idea! Ableism and minimisation of the experience of mental illness is NOT relevant to ace discourse!

[Edit: breaking up paragraphs for increased readability ]

[zepdeans]

there’s not a lot I can say about s3 that hasn’t already been said (and articulated 200x better) but! here are some of my (albeit dumb) thoughts :~)

ep1 -isak leaning against the bathroom wall gets me EVERY time its such a powerful scene esp introducing you to s3 and tarjei..... spare some talent for the rest of us please -LiTeN gUtTeN fRa StRaNgEr tHiNgS -isak rly ties his pants w a shoelace...... -isak noticing even for the first time bc of his laugh.. whew.... also. i love this intro SOOO much bc its so non-monumental? theres no dramatic music or whatever but its not subtle.... like you know right away o shit love interest!! hello sir!! bc isak’s expression watching him :’) i could go on -isak is a bad liar HOWEVER this only applies to stupid nontrivial things e.g. the black sweatshirt. but when you look at him lying about like, his sexuality, he hides that shit well -”c00l” isak. i hate u so much -honestly all u have to do is look at even for .2 seconds and u can tell this boy has had a crush for a solid month bc he just looks awestruck (HOWEVER henrik’s acting is *chef’s kiss* bc its subtle enough to go undetected b4 you actually know eVEN SAW HIM ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL) -even isak and emma all sitting on the bench together is funny enough on its on but then a song called threeway comes on and like. julie sdshjsfdjfkjskd ep2 -there’s something so endearing about even’s handwriting idek what -i LOVE even’s video w mikael it reveals so much about him to us- how weird (ok we saw how weird he was w the paper towel thing but) and dorky he is? and his love of film! his view on love stories and how he sees the world :( but it also shows a lot abt isak because he saw even making stupid jokes about vladimir putin and was like yeah we about to fall in LOVE love -isak not using headphones to watch even’s video or r+j?? bde or general incompetence what’s the verdict guys -the isak watching r+j scene hits so hard like yall ever think about isak lying in bed at 3am staring at the ceiling probably thinking about how he’s never gonna get a beautiful world-shattering romance like that like ..... also him changing positions skam get out of my life go away ur too realistic -not to make this even more self-projection-y but isak simultaneously being the least emotionally vulnerable person ever but crying during r+j > -i made a post abt this already but even’s INTENSE staring vs isak’s “i have never looked anyone in the eye in my life” gets me it says so much about their characters -even said i see your bde move (asking me to buy you beer) and i raise u with my own (inviting you to my house after faking not having my id) -”if you listen to music” even is such a dick fsdjhsdff -when the message comes on...... i rlly do owe julie my life huh -”have you heard about my rapping?” “I have actually” have we talked about this enough????? 1. isak finally feels comfortable enough w even to flirt and his first move is to RAP for him jesus christ. keep in mind this is the same man who pulled that smooth af ibuprofen line w emma like...... 2. even has heard about isak’s rapping. either this means im-not-on-social-media even went out of his way to go thru homeboy’s instagram OR isak’s rapping is actually talked about. i- -the group chat messages. cant believe i forgot about the 2016 clown epidemic

ep3  -mahdi is a good friend and i love him. thank u -even wearing isak’s cap until he chucks it at him sjksfjsdjsd -how much yall wanna bet isak’s been listening to illmatic on repeat since last friday thinking abt even (even tho meeting sonja shattered his heart a lil) [also kinda an aside but i think a lot about how isak n even bonded over rap and how some homophobic lyrics in 90s etc rap might have impacted them? or how that little detail ties into julie’s story? e.g. halftime by nas, which is on illmatic] -whats worse. even staring into isaks soul wearing a size xs see-through white t shirt or isak staring at even for five (5) seconds before chugging his beer and immediately making out w emma. OR even crashing that party before it can start “i think you guys are bonding too much” cheesy ass shjhfsdhskdf -yall act like evak didnt invent hands. did even shaking isak’s shoulder telling him his apartment is nice mean nothing to u -im convinced robyn wrote call your girlfriend for this scene specifically bc how could anything fit so perfectly by coincidence -is anything better than egging isak on- even bech naesheim (2016) -idk if yall have read the scripts but i love the sock thing so much bc its soo true to how isak thinks and it makes everything so much more interesting and !!!

ep4  -i will never get over even sending isak bad seinfeld memes -even smacking open isak’s locker. first of all whew second of all u think as soon as he got into the stairwell he lowkey cried bc ow -parallel of isak saying “it’s 2016, why are you religious?” to sana vs. emma’s “it’s 2016, get out of the closet” to isak anyone :( -”takk sanasol!!!!” thank u isak for my life -I wanted to be with you aloneeeee -even’s face when he sees the pool like we get it youre a director -how many times do i need to say even is such a dick sjkfsd “does it look like i care about my hair?” “usually but not right now” like this would only work on isak i love soulmates!! -even just.. fully choking isak out ssdhgfd got em -when the first notes of im kissing you start ooh boy -even going in for the kill kiss and isak going from huh to oooo shit and pushing his lips out at the last minute. phenomenal 

ep5 -ngl as soon as im not in love comes on my heart goes uwu bc like!!!! that song the meaNING.... them......... i jus love this scene sm like theyre in their own little bubble and they both feel so comfortable and at peace :((  -even leaving isak comics about an inside joke of theirs like yall mind if i scream -isak feeling left out from the conversation and his friends whew i felt that... and having them talk about how gross it is to makeout with a girl w facial hair?? blease :( -taking stock of isak’s nicknames: issy k, isabell, izzy, baby jesus, -im not even gonna bother trying to articulate thoughts on Pause bc it’s a literal masterpiece. thank u tarjei henrik and julie for inventing television with this one  -MAGNUS SDFKJSDFJKDSHK "oooh my name is Jonas and I love idealism and reading klassekampen and I don’t like plastic and I skate on a skateboard made of sustainable wood and wear old clothes because new clothes are bad for the environment and I only drink recycled water” screAMMM -what i said abt pause also applies to pride ugh its such a powerful scene and!! the beginning of kicks to isaks stomach. honestly what i fucking love about this episode is how it goes from hell yea best day w even ever to crying in the street within one week (s3 had the best balance of angst and payoff thanks) -even’s Soft Party Flannel... forever tainted by this scene rip -not knowing why even kissed sonja keeps me up at night -speaking of. how used and stupid isak must’ve felt when he saw even completely unbothered, hooking up w his ex at this party?? whew :( -bros is one of my all time favourite clips solely bc of the music?? lift me up gives me chills and when hold my liquor starts i LOSE it -ep5 and 6 remind me of that quote “to see what your characters are really made of you have to break them” because julie rlly goes all in and god it hurts so good

ep6 -never have i ever seen insomnia portrayed as accurately as tarjei did here and i remember when i first watched the cantina scene i was like. winded bc its SO true to sleep deprivation whew -i really like that isak wasnt together with even when he reached out for help and came out to jonas. bc it was him, on his own, being strong enough to talk to his friends and then eventually he was confident and secure enough in himself to be in a good place when even started reaching back out!! -i have no idea what its like to come out to someone, to be afraid of your friends rejecting you, everything isak went through. but tarjei’s acting of when, like, you have something you KNOW you have to tell someone, and youve put yourself in the position where youre going to have to tell them, but youre terrified and eventually just force yourself SAY the words??  -and isak’s smile when he realizes jonas is gonna be his bro no matter what :’)))

ep7 -weirdly one of my favourite isak looks (black t-shirt grey snapback c-c-c-combo) -”what’s your name again?” have i mentioned i love sana and isak bc i love sana and isak -jonas truly is the best friend oh man. perceptive, thoughtful, loving, laidback, a friggen BRO. tbh i was wary of him in s1 and thought he didn’t treat eva well (tho I recognized he loved her a lot, he was just bad at being a boyfriend) but jonas in s3?? just goes to show how powerful your perspective of someone can change viewing them in a different role!! because while jonas was a crappy bf, he literally is SUCH an incredible friend and his actions and words and just! him! in s3 completely redeemed any illwill I had towards him :’) -maybe im a little gay (up there with other s3 comedy classics such as “thats a boys name”) -mahdi season WHEN ugh a legend -’when someone asks isak if hes going to a family party’ literally what other reason for living do i have if not to read the boy squad text convos -isaks locker finally opening and his smile at evens drawing whewwwwwww!! also even rlly is that guy who wont text you back but will leave hand written love letters in ur locker -also. another stellar look from valtersen -slutt a meld meg is a whole masterpiece like what other piece of media has the RANGE -eskild: play hard to get. jonas: no smiley!!! isak: nah fam im good B)

ep8 -this episode is BEAUTIFUL bc you feel practically euphoric?? like hell yeah theyre finally together!! isak is out and accepted and even is done with sonja! but theres also this unsettling undercurrent of worry bc you know deep down something isnt right? why is sonja calling isak? why is even acting kinda strange? whats going on? yknow?? -literally never going to get over 5 fine frokner :~) even is such a goddamn nerd and he’s the man of isak’s dreams can u believe!!  -sana’s little speech is SO important in so many ways ooo i love her so much -also have we discussed eskild making evak do a photoshoot for him. highkey those are my favourite pictures of ALL time u can tell even was like hm strange but im down while isak was more omg guys stop🙄 omg haha eskild i cant believe youre making me cuddle with even for a photo🙄 i cant believe ur making me snuggle this dude for a pic!!!! definitely would not have done this otherwise!!! -magnus only realizing it’s THAT even after seeing how isak looks at him. whew -isak is so brave i rlly love that kid! his text to his mamma <3 -no r*make will EVER nail text conversations like mari/julie did w evak’s this week thanks for coming to my ted talk. i'd quote the best ones but it would literally double the length of this post (ok ill cave. “hahaha shut up❤️” GETS me) -you dont know whats in store but you know what youre here for. hallo -isak running around oslo with even’s clothes looking for him :( his heart is so big he cares about even so so much -when Part II (on the run) comes on in the credits its like a kick in the teeth honestly

ep9 -ive already screamed enough about cherry wine but god it fucks me up -cannot put into words how much I love eskild and how good of a person he is, he just has so much love in his heart  -”wait they have waffles here? see ya” -this convo is why i love skam so much!!!! magnus giving insight and good thoughtful advice to isak was such a brilliant move by julie (also truLy heartwarming) bc like. magnus is a flawed layered character! he’s dumb and ignorant and not very careful with his words BUT hes also such a sweet guy. i genuinely dont think he would hurt a fly and him talking about vilde (in ep10) is ;-; bc he really likes her and respects her and wants to be a gentleman! hes so loving and just. yeah. also i wonder if isak and magnus (and vilde) ever talked about having mentally ill parents and lent on each other for support bc like....<3 [sidenote- this is why i HATE b***** like they absolutely massacred magnus’s character and magnus did not deserve that!] -det er bare slutt........ very cool of tarjei to invent acting here. also the character development makes me WEEP like at first isak lied and told his pappa it was over bc its easier to brush stuff off and say you were joking than be vulnerable especially about 1. having a boyfriend and 2. saying youve already broken up?? but then isak was like hey im done with lying about who i am bc i want my life to be REAL and he told his dad the truth even if it was hard and even if he was trying rlly hard not to cry  -isak reaching out to even<3 standing up for even<3 -o helga natt. another scene i genuinely cannot comment on bc u cant really put into any written language how magical and breathtaking and heartbreaking and powerful and brilliant this scene is. so. -jk. obvs i cant say anything intelligent enough to give this scene justice but probably the most stunning piece of television i have ever had the privilege of watching. even’s text breaks my heart every gd time (esp since we never really see this side of him before finding out he’s bipolar? his guilt, insecurity, feeling like a burden, being scared of losing everyone in his life because he thinks he’ll hurt them). the music is SO beautiful i cry real tears as soon as the strings start. also the brilliance of JUST o helga natt playing and no dialogue except for isaks one line? isak’s realization when he sees the cross. him RUNNING across oslo to go to even. the FLASHBACKS all going backwards in chronological order until them smoking on the bench. isak looking at the bench and not seeing even and u can feel his heart breaking and urs breaks too! but then he remembers the bathroom and he turns and theres even and whewwww. du er ikke alene<3

ep10 -minutt for minutt is THE most healing clip im telling u. and like.. seeing even depressed really is hard and as someone who was very very depressed for 4-ish yrs of their life it rlly hits me? like when youre in an especially bad funk and you cant get out of bed and youre just numb and exhausted and feel so shitty and u want to be alone but you really dont???? could go on but literally i owe henrik holm my life for his portrayal of even  -not to be a soft bitch on main but when isak tucks the blanket over even and it keeps getting pulled off his back so isak just. covers that spot with himself? -i do love that call between sonja and isak bc once again! a flawed (realistic) human being -and isak thinking its his fault even is depressed? it means a lot that sonja told him its no ones fault, even is just bipolar. and i wonder if isak felt that way about his mamma as well, guilty for her being ill, and if what sonja said made him feel better about that situation too :( -lowkey random but when isak is rambling really fast and he goes “maybe we’ll get bombed tomorrow and talking about all this is a waste of time” it continually punches me in the throat bc that is /exactly/ how i ramble and think like tarjei........ pls -like eskild said. there really is so much love in isak’s little grumpy teenage body<3 -isak no longer just passively accepting life as its given to him, now he fights for him and even!!!!!  -isak is such a forgiving person and seeing him able to just accept things and move on? incredible -i remember when i first watched ep1 i was like oooo even and isak are gonna be kosegruppa partners and thats when theyll first get together, cooking food or smth!! but lmfao after episode 3? kosegruppa whomst???? also hilarious vilde thought isak of all people would willingly sign up for kosegruppa just to go to revue parties -even and linn friendship!!!! -cannot articulate how mf heartwarming it is to see even smiling and being more himself after being depressed (also thank u julie for having ups and downs coming out of his depression- its so true to life having one day when youre feeling awesome and then the next you feel awful again for no reason and its SO frustrating) -I had to stop watching passe pa meg cause it made me toooooo crazy! it would just be like: “I like seeing you laugh” and I was like: *SCREAMS* -im the fucking master of lying 😤 -literally don’t know why isak and even ragging on kosegruppa is so funny but “did you think I joined to have fun” gets me every time -I SAW YOU THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL -also even literally radiating love @ isak watching get snarky w vilde on the phone bc it reminded him of the first time he saw him! even rly is that boyfriend who thinks isak being pissy is the Best Thing he has Ever seen -halla boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiz -literally the glo up of isak telling his friends the order in which he’d bang them -No filter! wow I love symbolism -so nice to see the girls together for a lil bit :) -the boys hyping up mags while also telling him to be respectful awwwwww -take desperate to a whole new level- Confucius  -who’s going to show isak how to properly hold a beer can -literally evak banter gets me thru the day. thank u tarjei and henrik for having phenomenal chemistry + improvisation skills + making isak and even the dumbest nerdiest boys i have ever seen -biology partner. and friend. ;-; -even literally is the biggest stoner blease -isak’s talk with eva is just sooooo<3 and not to be emo on main but every single word of the last few sentences he says hit me so gd hard because i feel the exact same way in my BONES -livet er nå 💛

final thoughts :( <3 -this season is so special. it feels like one really long oscar-worthy movie or smth?? i cant even exblain, its just magical. ALSO very dear to my heart. -julie really said you guys have seen isak sad and alone and repressed for the past two seasons so heres him falling in love with the best person in the world and coming to terms with who he is and being brave and opening up and finally being happy and living a real life -this season definitely feels different from s1/2/4 to me editing or production or music smth wise? as in, its got a lot fewer aesthetic shots and the cinematography seems a bit different if that makes any sense???? I also think this is the season most focused just on the main (i.e. not many- if any? sideplots going on) -literally will never get over the thought, love, and detail put into this season. when i say there is literally nothing i would change about it, i mean it and coming from my nitpicky ass??? means a lot lmfao. the acting, directing, music choices, symbolism...... sublime -s3′s cold rainy autumn aesthetic makes me ACHE for fall and also nostalgic for a highschool experience I never had lmao?? also. all the nighttime clips >>> -don’t know what else to say except thank u skam for my life

[actuallyadhd]

I was diagnosed with adhd in middle school bc I had a lot of trouble doing assignments on time - I sort of blew it off at the time and said that adhd was overdiagnosed. Later I stopped taking meds for it (sophomore year) bc I felt like they slowed me down n made me robotic. In little ways I feel like I haven’t grown out of it (trouble getting in work, having to rewind tv shows all the time, hyperfixations). I convinced myself I didn’t have it - how ��overdiagnosed” is it really?

Sent January 21, 2019

It depends a lot on demographics. Are you male or female? What is your race? What class are you (e.g., upper, middle, lower)? What type were you diagnosed with? What is your age (generation)? What type of environment did you grow up in (e.g., rural, suburban, urban)?

See, people with Inattentive ADHD tend to be underdiagnosed, or misdiagnosed with depression.

Females tend to be underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder, depending on type.

White upper-class boys are sometimes overdiagnosed because school personnel overstep their bounds or they have unethical doctors or their parents don’t want to actually parent their kids, while African-American lower-class boys tend to be written off as criminals and put in detention (as in juvie) or prison (depending on age).

Your age is also a factor, as which generation you belong to has influence on whether or not you’re likely to be properly diagnosed.

For example, I am Generation X and was diagnosed with Combined ADHD in adulthood; I’m also a middle-class female who grew up in rural communities, and I was a gifted student who had no access to more advanced education in elementary, middle, and secondary school. Do you see how my demographic slot is rife with reasons why I went undetected for 28 years?

If you are struggling now, it may be worth getting reassessed to see if you still meet the diagnostic criteria and, if so, to find out what your options are for treatment, accommodations, and other supports. That’s your call; you have to decide if knowing is something you want.

-J

** Note: Huge apologies if I misspoke at all in my discussion of the demographic factors that affect diagnosis of ADHD. It is entirely possible that I have misremembered some of the details here, or that I used incorrect terminology somewhere.

[him-e]

Hi!! I am thinking about to watch Netflix You... would you recommend it? I have read some reviews say that Beck (the leading girl, i suppose) is kind of annoying/ not relatable/unlikable.... What do you think? And what do you think about the show general?

I liked it with some reservations. Overall it’s an enjoyable show, even entertaining at times (the tone is not as dark as you’d think, though it’s still obviously worth a million trigger warnings for the topic it deals with—also mind that there’s no rape scenes or anything, but the entire dynamic between Joe and Beck is based on a fundamental, irreconcilable lack of consent on her part, because Joe essentially manipulates her into starting a relationship with him. And, massive trigger warning for child abuse). Plot wise, there are several things that require a stretch of imagination and are borderline implausible imo (e.g. how easy it is for Joe to gather personal info on Beck via google/social media, the fact that he keeps reading her messages and knowing everything she does via her old phone, the whole… locking people in his special chamber in the basement thing and nobody noticing, how easily he gets away with the shit he does in general despite not being particularly accurate at covering his tracks which is only possible because his victims’ friends seem to not be asking any questions, and other stuff).

I know some viewers were uncomfortable with how sympathetic Joe comes across, but honestly that’s par for the course when your main pov *is* the villain (specifically, a stalker, abuser and murderer who absolutely refuses to think of himself as such, and seems to genuinely believe he’s doing all the right things for the right reasons). I will say it’s a bit jarring because, if you don’t consider what Joe does *behind the scenes*, a lot of the time especially in the first half of the season he superficially seems to be saying and doing all the right things a boyfriend *should* be saying and doing, you know? He’s supportive of her writing, hangs with her friends, even encourages her to stand up against a professor who molests her. His abusive behavior is actually well concealed when Beck is actually around to see, in contrast with the high-key stalking he does behind her back. So it’s kind of subtle, but also not subtle at all given our added insight into what Joe does to manipulate this relationship unbeknownst to Beck. If you will, it’s a pretty interesting commentary on how this sort of behavior can easily go completely undetected, or even pass off as romantic and caring, and how an abuser can entirely hide behind the facade of a good, kind, supportive partner, particularly in the early stages of a relationship (also, you don’t need to be an entirely bad person in every aspect of your existence to be an abuser; Joe is genuinely trying to protect Paco from domestic abuse, and is also himself an abuser towards Beck—neither thing invalidates the other. On the other hand, given how things… end with Beck and Paco, I think the narrative is ultimately suggesting that Joe’s toxicity cannot be compartmentalized, and that abuse is a cycle that keeps perpetuating itself: having known only abusive behavior as a kid, Joe unwittingly replicates that pattern with Paco even while trying to protect him from a violent stepfather—making Paco dependant on him and eventually complicit).

I think the reason Beck might be perceived as unlikeable/unrelatable/a manic pixie dream girl or whatever (? I didn’t read any opinions on her, I’m just guessing) is precisely because we see her from Joe’s skewed perspective: he’s attracted to her but also wants to change the parts of her that he considers superficial and frivolous. He likes her for what she could potentially be in his hands, rather than for what she is. Like, there are a lot of Joe’s internal monologues that drip with contempt towards the way she conducts her life, her everyday activities, her (perceived) obsession with social media, the friends she surrounds herself with and so on. He wants to change her. He thinks she’s stuck in a superficial basic millennial girl life and he’s the knight in shining armor coming to give her a purpose AND a personality, save her from the life she chose, the friends she thinks she likes but who in his eyes are all manipulative jerks, etc. But he essentially fails to understand her, which is ironic considering how he believes to be the only one who *sees her real beauty* or something. 

Once you take the Joe goggles off, Beck is a pretty interesting character—interesting precisely because she’s flawed and at times, yes, unlikeable. The further she moves from Joe’s romanticizing/objectifying gaze, the more nuanced she gets. There’s an episode that starts with her pov, which remains sadly an isolated event in the entire season, and you can physically feel the switch from Joe’s paternalistic monologue to the real person she is—a person, rather than an object of desire or an idealized concept. She can be selfish and self centered. There’s a huge lie she uses with basically everyone to cope with past familial trauma. She’s a small town girl under the pressure of societal expectations, living probably beyond her possibilities and struggling to keep up with her much richer friends, whose world she’s desperate to be a part of, but also kind of resents. She’s into *bad boys*, apparently—according to Joe, assholes who dgaf about her and will never understand her, unlike him, Mr Nice Guy of course—but really, she’s just an average sexually active woman in her twenties who lives in a big city and has a social life, which Joe clearly sees as something awful and corrupt that she needs to be “saved” from, and if you uncritically absorb his skewed (and very patronizing) perspective, it’s very tempting to condemn her as superficial, promiscuous, insecure, immature or whatever.

(I’ve also read some people going like “why would Joe be obsessed with someone like Beck, she’s so boring”, which is completely missing the point imo? First, I don’t think she’s boring, and second, you can be 100% ordinary and still attract a stalker. To Joe, Beck is a blank slate to project whatever he wants on, so her actual personality is kind of irrelevant beyond what superficially fuels his imagination.)

I mentioned the episode with the pov switch and I’m still scratching my head at the decision to introduce Beck’s pov to keep it around for only half an episode and then immediately drop the ball. It would have been so great to watch the second part of the season (when Joe starts unraveling and reaches peak sociopathic behavior), if not entirely, at least partly from the perspective of the victim, who slowly starts seeing his abusive behavior for what it is, and contrast it with Joe’s pov casting himself as the hero in this story. It would have made for a more interesting and complete narrative, with a much clearer message. Instead, they basically used Beck’s pov for like 10 minutes as a plot device to cover a part of the story that was a blind spot for Joe at that time, only to revert permanently to Joe’s pov for the rest of the narrative, and it felt really random and frustrating and pointless. That’s probably my biggest beef with the show—it’s a missed opportunity.

[monitoringprocess]

What Does CCTV Stand For?

CCTV Is popular across the world for a safety and surveillance instrument. This guide will look at exactly what CCTV stands for, a concise history of the technology and a few of the chief applications of CCTV in society.

What exactly does CCTV stand for?

CCTV Stands for closed circuit tv. CCTV differs from tv you see your favorite soaps on because it does not broadcast a signal to the general public. Rather it transmits a picture from video cameras to tracks either through cable, a wireless transmitter or on the net. This picture is recorded and saved on disc.

History of CCTV

One Of the first important applications of Jual CCTV was in the 1940's from the US Military. To examine V2 missiles closed circuit cameras have been utilized to track security evaluations. This technology was valuable because it enabled officers to watch carefully, looking outside for flaws and potential problems whilst remaining out of harm's way. Without CCTV issues with the missiles might have gone undetected.

At the UK in the 1960's CCTV was set up in Some people areas to observe crowds during marches and rallies. Since the technologies developed and became hi-tech CCTV was broadly utilized in public areas to track action. Further uses comprised preventing theft from retail outlets.

Main Uses

Now in the UK CCTV is broadly utilized to monitor public places like train stations, streets, city center squares, buses and shops. But, it will not stop at public places as a lot of men and women are currently investing in CCTV to guard their houses. Together with 9.5 million crimes in England and Wales last year it's obvious to see why CCTV is indeed significant.

CCTV Is a Superb offense Deterrent as perpetrators understand it's more than likely they'll be recognized. Regions with no or less CCTV will most likely be at greater risk of crime due to this. In the event the existence of CCTV does not dissuade a perpetrator then hopefully it'll capture enough info to help with any police investigation.

For companies CCTV may behave as a Deterrent from outside thieves nevertheless it may also help identify offenders in a organisation. For supervisors and company owners CCTV can provide you a helpful insight into how efficiently your employees are functioning. It may help protect your employees from being wrongly accused e.g. when a client claims they've been miss-sold a item, and may also protect the business from bogus allegations e.g. onsite injuries.

Alternative Uses

Even though CCTV is principally utilized to avoid offense it will have a huge array of alternative applications. Edinburgh Zoo not just uses CCTV to track website security but they've setup CCTV to attract the clients closer to the creatures. By paying additional clients can carefully find a few of their favorite animals without endangering their security.

Tracking Traffic is important when planning new street designs however it is sometimes a time-consuming and more pricey if you use individuals to rely and take notes. Rather CCTV was used to correctly capture traffic moves.

Grand Prix racing Can Be Quite harmful; nonetheless CCTV along with a movie Movement detection process is used to assist officials respond quickly and Appropriately to any emergency or accident. If a vehicle were to depart the Monitor the CCTV would pick this up instantly displaying a picture to the Control area. This conserves crucial moments That Could be the difference Between death and life for a motorist.

[him-e]

The “subtle” anon you received made me sit and think for a bit, and it’s absolutely your pejorative if you want to respond to this ask as well. Why do you think many viewers “don’t see it” with Reylo? Most SW fans and casual viewers who I’ve seen on social media seem to say this, that they “don’t see it.” Unlike the previous SW romances, which were widely accepted as romantic even if the fan reaction to them was poor, there’s a debate on whether or not Reylo was romantic in the first place.

WELLLLL I think it’s a combination of:

the general audience not being used to read between the lines, or think of overarching themes and stuff; the vast majority of the audience has only seen each movie of the st once, and probably doesn’t remember or even register the smaller details, so romantic cues might fly over their head if literal romantic action isn’t involved (e.g. an onscreen kiss)

rey’s parentage puzzle—most fans were primed to believe that Rey was either Luke’s or Leia’s daughter, and they’re so attached to the assumption that she must have Skywalker blood somehow (even after TLJ) that a romance with the other known Skywalker isn’t even taken into account

the “Twilight effect”: a hero/villain ship in which the hero is a heroine and the villain a dangerous but pretty tortured boi is considered trashy young adult material and ~Not Like Star Wars~ (because we all know Star Wars is catered primarily to 40-something dudes and not kids and young adults at all, most of whom are actually… drum roll… GIRLS!)

to better explain the point(s) above: reylo is in the very peculiar position of being a female-centric romance ( = a narrative that prioritizes the female perspective) in a franchise that is neither specifically female-centric nor romantic. This makes it particularly hard to grasp especially for male fans, who aren’t used to see a romance develop this way, or to understand romance beyond what’s catered specifically to them. Male fans, and the general audience too to some extent, expect romance to be spoon-fed to them via unequivocal signs (obvious flirting, kissing, love-making, declarations of love, etc.). They also expect the male lead to be very straightforward and explicit in his pursuit of the girl, who in turn has to be made desirable through his male gaze—because that’s how most hollywood romances look like. Rey and Kylo are nothing like that. Kylo, on his part, has never expressed any interest in Rey’s “beauty” (and you know calling the female love interest beautiful is a staple in EVERY standard romance). He’s also very, shall I say, passive in his pursuit of her, especially in TLJ. He was more aggressive in TFA, but that could be brushed off as typical villainous behavior. In TLJ, he’s sexualized for Rey’s benefit but makes no move to seduce her, and in general he acts like a stunned princess in the tower, waiting for the brave knight to come and break the spell. Rey, in turn, might be beautiful but that doesn’t seem to have any relevance to her story, nor is noted by anyone, especially not by Kylo—this, to the general audience who is used to hollywood romances, doesn’t scream “romantic heroine”. Rey and Kylo don’t kiss, they don’t talk directly about their feelings, they don’t comment on each other’s attractiveness, so even though it’s written all over their faces in ANY interaction they have that they want to touch each other BADLY, this fact can go undetected in the absence of the aforementioned unequivocal markings of a romantic arc;

As Kylo is still a villain in no immediate danger of redemption, the odds of reylo getting a happy ending (or even just romantic consummation) seem rather low. Not being able to see it as endgame = the ship is JUST not happening, for a lot of people;

the fact that there’s so much going on between Rey and Kylo beyond romance (his redemption, her hero’s journey, the balance of light and darkness, his rivalry over her, her tension between wanting to save him and protecting the ones she loves, etc.) that viewers can choose to focus on those things and completely ignore the romantic aspect, even though it’s actually integral to all of the above. This is actually a good thing though, because it means their dynamic is complex and layered enough that it can be experienced and enjoyed from multiple point of views, even non-romantic ones.

One final thought is that this discourse (seeing/not seeing it, debating on whether there’s “evidence” and romantic signs) only exists because of the specific format of the trilogy (it’s an ongoing serialized narrative, we’re 2/3 into it and they still haven’t kissed, whereas both han/leia and ani/dala did in the second chapter, so there’s nothing definitive yet) and the controversy surrounding reylo in the fandom is not helping. Many people are just so opposed to the idea (whether it is because they ship another pairing, they vehemently hate Kylo, they want to watch Rey follow Luke’s trajectory of celibate heroism or else) that they’ll keep NOT seeing it even if it kicks them in the fangs (as TLJ did, as far as I’m concerned).

[dailykhaleej]

Thunderspy: What it is, why it’s not scary, and what to do about it

There’s a brand new assault that makes use of off-the-shelf tools to take full management of a PC—even when locked—if a hacker will get only a few minutes alone with it. The vector is a well-known one: the Thunderbolt ultrafast interface connects graphics playing cards, storage techniques, and different peripherals to thousands and thousands of computer systems.

The hack, which took years to develop, is elegant. Its adept mixture of cryptanalysis, reverse engineering, and exploit growth punches a serious gap in defenses that Thunderbolt creator Intel spent appreciable time and assets to erect. In the end, although, the approach is an incremental advance in an assault that has existed for greater than a decade. Whereas the weak point it exploits is actual and must be closed, the overwhelming majority of individuals—assume 99 p.c—shouldn’t fear about it. Extra about that later. For now, listed below are the bare-bones particulars.

Accessing Reminiscence Lane

Thunderspy, as its creator Björn Ruytenberg has named the assault, most often requires the attacker to take away the screws from the pc casing. From there, the attacker locates the Thunderbolt chip and connects a clip, which in flip is related to a sequence of commodity parts—priced about $600—which is related to an attacker laptop computer. These units analyze the present Thunderbolt firmware and then reflash it with a model that’s largely the identical besides that it disables any of the Intel-developed security measures which can be turned on.

With the defenses dropped, the hacker has full management over the direct reminiscence entry, a function in lots of trendy computer systems that provides peripheral units entry to the pc’s primary reminiscence. A Thunderspy attacker is then free to join a peripheral that bypasses the Home windows lock display.

The next video exhibits the assault in additional element as it’s used to acquire entry to a Lenovo P1 laptop computer that was purchased final yr:

Thunderspy PoC demo 1: Unlocking Home windows PC in 5 minutes.

Whereas the bypass within the video takes slightly greater than 5 minutes, an attacker would want extra time to set up persistent and undetectable malware, copy the contents of the exhausting drive, or do different nefarious issues. The assault hasn’t labored towards Apple Macs for greater than three years (so long as they run macOS) and additionally doesn’t work on Home windows or Linux machines which have rather more current updates that implement a safety, referred to as Kernel Direct Reminiscence Entry Safety.

Kernel DMA is the OS technique for implementing the Enter-Output Reminiscence Administration Unit, which is an Intel-developed mechanism that connects to a DMA-capable bus and controls or blocks accesses to reminiscence, together with stopping malicious transfers of reminiscence by related peripherals. The safety is usually abbreviated as IOMMU.

A variation of the assault includes getting entry to a Thunderbolt peripheral that has already acquired permission to entry the weak pc. An attacker can clone the peripheral and use it to acquire entry to the DMA on the focused machine. Right here it is in motion:

Thunderspy PoC demo 2: Completely disabling all Thunderbolt safety on a Home windows PC.

Safety practitioners have lengthy made clear that an skilled adversary getting bodily entry to a tool—even for a brief period of time—represents a game-over occasion. The one affordable assumption is that the pc, cellphone, or different digital system is compromised. The one significant response on this state of affairs is to discard the system, since it’s conceivable that the compromise includes the undetectable rewriting of firmware in one of many system’s many parts (a hacking group dubbed Equation Group and linked to the US Nationwide Safety Company was doing this as early because the early 2000s).

Regardless of the admonition about bodily entry, some practitioners stay cautious of so-called “evil maid” assaults, through which a housekeeper, co-worker, or authorities official will get fleeting entry alone to a tool. The evil maid menace is exactly the explanation {hardware} and software program builders—Intel included—have poured incalculable quantities of cash into devising hard-drive encryption, chain-of-trust boot-ups, and related protections. Individuals who take Thunderspy critically do so as a result of it reopens such a assault utilizing {hardware} that got here preinstalled on thousands and thousands of units.

Sabotage ain’t hacking

Even amongst those that purchase into the evil maid menace, many are dismissing Thunderspy as a hack that stands out from different viable assaults on this class. Loads of different firmware-driven pc parts have related entry to extremely delicate pc assets. The chip that runs the BIOS—or the firmware that initializes {hardware} in the course of the booting course of—is a first-rate goal for hackers who’ve bodily entry and the flexibility to take away case screws.

One other doubtlessly less complicated different is to take away the exhausting drive and backdoor the OS. If a pc has Trusted Platform Module or an identical safety that cryptographically ensures the integrity of pc {hardware} earlier than loading the OS, the attacker can sniff the crypto key off the low-pin depend bus, assuming a person hasn’t enabled a preboot password. Some Embedded Controllers that deal with keyboard and energy administration are one other goal, as are different controllers (Thunderbolt or in any other case) if they’ve DMA entry (e.g. Ethernet and USB3 controllers).

“There are seriously tons and tons of things you can do to a PC once you open the case,” says Hector Martin, an impartial safety researcher with intensive expertise in hacking or reverse-engineering the Nintendo Wii, a number of generations of the Sony PlayStation, and different units with sturdy defenses towards bodily assaults. “The evil maid threat model is interesting when you restrict it to plugging things into ports, because that can be done very quickly when e.g. the target is just looking away.”

Alfredo Ortega, a safety advisor who makes a speciality of vulnerability analysis and cryptography, instructed me largely the identical factor.

He stated:

I do not assume this can be a important assault, as a result of it requires bodily entry to the pocket book, and in case you have bodily entry to the pc, there are a lot less complicated assaults that will have the identical impact (for instance, inserting a key-logger within the keyboard, hiding a mic contained in the pocket book, putting in a malicious motherboard, and so on.)

Particularly, I do not agree with the primary declare of their paper “Inadequate firmware verification schemes” as a result of the firmware is certainly verified adequately at flash time. In the event you can bodily flash the chip, arguably you could possibly flash another chip within the pocket book and take away all protections and even utterly exchange the pocket book with a malicious one.

There are a lot of pseudo-attacks like this one which are also not actually very harmful as a result of they require bodily entry, for instance, many so-called car-hacking assaults really need to set up dongles in connectors contained in the vehicles. In the event you get contained in the automotive, you could possibly additionally reduce the brake strains: a a lot less complicated assault, with the identical impact. This is identical idea.

That is actually a type of sabotage, not hacking.

If they’ll discover a manner to remotely flash a malicious firmware, then sure, this might make this assault harmful. However they could not do that for the time being, and they require disassembling the pocket book.

Whereas evil maid assaults that do not require disassembly are exhausting, they’re not inconceivable. In 2015, safety researcher Trammell Hudson created a tool that, when plugged in to the Thunderbolt port of a totally up to date Mac, covertly changed its firmware. The feat, which required solely fleeting entry to the focused machine, did not require any disassembly or any entry to an already trusted Thunderbolt system. Apple promptly mounted the flaw.

Ortega stated Thunderspy does establish a number of weaknesses that characterize actual flaws within the Thunderbolt system, however he doesn’t contemplate the weaknesses important. He famous that underneath the Widespread Vulnerability Scoring System, the weaknesses are rated a comparatively low 7, a sign, he stated, that others don’t imagine the failings are extreme, both.

Critics additionally notice that over the previous decade there have been a number of assaults that concentrate on weaknesses in Thunderbolt to obtain largely the identical outcome. Examples embrace this one and this one. One of many newer ones is named Thunderclap.

The reception to Thunderspy on social media has been much more scathing. A small sampling consists of pretty much every tweet made over the past 48 hours from Pedro Vilaça, among the many best-known macOS reverse engineers and hackers.

Whereas the refrain of criticism has been nothing in need of excessive, loads of safety professionals say Thunderspy is a crucial assault that must be taken critically.

Intel assurances torn asunder

“People arguing that physical access to a computer means you’ve lost: why do you think laptops should not be at least as resistant to physical attack as an iPhone?” Matthew Garrett wrote on Twitter. In the identical thread, fellow safety researcher Saleem Rashid added: “ignoring the “physical access = game over” crowd, a practical concern is that you can open a laptop and make drastic hardware changes in a way you can’t with a smartphone.”

ignoring the “physical access = game over” crowd, a sensible concern is that you could open a laptop computer and make drastic {hardware} modifications in a manner you possibly can’t with a smartphone..

— Saleem Rashid

(@saleemrash1d) May 11, 2020

One other researcher who has given Thunderspy his certified approval is safety researcher Kenn White. He was clear that the assault represents solely an “incremental advance” in earlier Thunderbolt evil maid assaults, however he stated it’s nonetheless essential. He summarized his evaluation of the findings this manner:

It is attention-grabbing to many in the neighborhood as a result of it bypasses Intel’s most up-to-date mitigations and is evident proof that the bodily safety mannequin for Thunderbolt, for thousands and thousands of units, is damaged.

Individuals who say “there are much easier ways to compromise a device” are appropriate, however that is not the purpose. Ignoring for the second any undue exaggeration of influence, that is an incremental enchancment in our understanding of complicated interdependencies. Perhaps not sudden in precept by practitioners on this specialised area, however an incremental analysis advance nonetheless.

If a sufficiently resourced attacker can tamper with bodily {hardware} of the sufferer, significantly for commodity x86 Home windows techniques, generally, sure, that system might be compromised. Particularly although with Thunderbolt, Intel makes particular anti-tampering safety ensures of their most up-to-date firmware/software program which have been bypassed right here.

In the meantime, White stated, each Apple and Google have managed to implement settings that block many Thunderspy sort bodily DMA assaults, together with USB-C, from working towards Macs and Pixelbooks, respectively. “Apple and Google device engineers seem to have anticipated this issue and have stronger IOMMU defaults and therefore expose their users to less risk.”

For its half, Intel has printed an announcement that factors out what Ruytenberg had already made clear—that Thunderspy is defeated by Kernel DMA protections, which have been launched final yr for Home windows (Home windows 10 1803 RS4 and later) and Linux (kernel 5.x and later), and in early 2017 for macOS (macOS 10.12.4 and later, which got here greater than two years forward of the Home windows and Linux fixes). The assertion additionally characterised Thunderspy as a brand new bodily assault vector for an previous vulnerability.

Neglected of the put up is one thing Intel has but to acknowledge: that thousands and thousands of computer systems stay caught with an inadequate safety Intel as soon as promised used cryptographic authentication to “prevent unauthorized Thunderbolt PCIe-based devices from connecting without user authorization.”

What’s a person to do?

Readers who’re left questioning how large a menace Thunderspy poses ought to keep in mind that the excessive bar of this assault makes it extremely unlikely it will ever be actively utilized in real-world settings, besides, maybe, for the highest-value targets coveted by secretive spy businesses. Whichever camp has a greater case, nothing will change that actuality.

The really paranoid can run instruments right here and right here to test if their computer systems are inclined. Customers of computer systems that stay unprotected towards this esoteric assault can then use their BIOS to disable Thunderbolt altogether. Customers also needs to guarantee full disk encryption is enabled and flip computer systems off, as opposed to placing them to sleep, when leaving a PC unattended.

The larger influence of this analysis is the rift it has uncovered amongst safety researchers and the pc customers who look to them for steering in assessing hacking dangers.

“I actually made one put up simply quoting [Wired’s earlier] story [on Thunderspy] and some man despatched me 65 replies/tags for six hours final evening,” White stated. “There’s a lot of hostility out there.”

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2LkSEp1 via IFTTT