#atm security system

[securens-systems]

Securens offers advanced ATM security systems designed to protect financial institutions against theft and vandalism. Our innovative solutions include real-time monitoring, rapid response teams, and cutting-edge technology to ensure the highest level of security for ATMs, keeping your assets safe.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How I got scammed

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

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

I wuz robbed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That was the fraudster," she said.

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

Wait a sec.

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

I'd given him my entire card number.

Goddammit.

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

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

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

But I'd been conned.

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, shit, I'd been phished.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not because AI is going to commit fraud, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[errorid-mt7lt7k7unfr9ttfua5]

me when companies try to force you to use their proprietary software

anyway

Layperson resources:

firefox is an open source browser by Mozilla that makes privacy and software independence much easier. it is very easy to transfer all your chrome data to Firefox

ublock origin is The highest quality adblock atm. it is a free browser extension, and though last i checked it is available on Chrome google is trying very hard to crack down on its use

Thunderbird mail is an open source email client also by mozilla and shares many of the same advantages as firefox (it has some other cool features as well)

libreOffice is an open source office suite similar to microsoft office or Google Suite, simple enough

Risky:

VPNs (virtual private networks) essentially do a number of things, but most commonly they are used to prevent people from tracking your IP address. i would suggest doing more research. i use proton vpn, as it has a decent free version, and the paid version is powerful

note: some applications, websites, and other entities do not tolerate the use of VPNs. you may not be able to access certain secure sites while using a VPN, and logging into your personal account with some services while using a vpn *may* get you PERMANENTLY BLACKLISTED from the service on that account, ymmv

IF YOU HAVE A DECENT VPN, ANTIVIRUS, AND ADBLOCK, you can start learning about piracy, though i will not be providing any resources, as Loose Lips Sink Ships. if you want to be very safe, start with streaming sites and never download any files, though you Can learn how to discern between safe, unsafe, and risky content.

note: DO NOT SHARE LINKS TO OR NAMES OF PIRACY SITES IN PUBLIC PLACES, ESPECIALLY SOCAL MEDIA

the only time you should share these things are either in person or in (preferably peer-to-peer encrypted) PRIVATE messages

when pirated media becomes well-known and circulated on the wider, public internet, it gets taken down, because it is illegal to distribute pirated media and software

if you need an antivirus i like bitdefender. it has a free version, and is very good, though if youre using windows, windows defender is also very good and it comes with the OS

Advanced:

linux is great if you REALLY know what you're doing. you have to know a decent amount of computer science and be comfortable using the Terminal/Command Prompt to get/use linux. "Linux" refers to a large array of related open source Operating Systems. do research and pick one that suits your needs. im still experimenting with various dispos, but im leaning towards either Ubuntu Cinnamon or Debian.

[sysmedsaresexist]

what are your thoughts on the community theory that autism may cause more fictives?

I come to you, anon, a broken man. I am in shambles. My life has been ripped apart.

I just spent a straight hour writing a response. It was a beautiful response, with sources, and pretty colors, and oh, about 2k words.

And it's all gone.

BUT!!! I, Quill, am not one to be discouraged. I'm going to redo this. FROM THE TOP!!!! (and now saving draft every 5 seconds istg-)

TL;DR: I really genuinely love the theory and think it has a lot of merit. However, I also really disagree with how some parts of the community handle this theory, and the stereotypes of autistic systems that come from it.

Alright. Mod Quill here, yes, I am an autistic system, currently a bit itchy inside because I should've been almost done this post and nearly into my latest fixation (don't starve together), and instead I'm rewriting this all and delaying my gratification. I am being so strong and brave right now.

[EDIT, before I actually get started, now that I'm done my ramble: in the following essay, I discuss introjection as a whole, rather than just fictives. I personally only have fictional introjects, but we all absolutely despise the term fictive being used on our system, so we avoided the term.]

Let's start with the fact that introjection is incredibly normal. My GOAT, Piaget, discusses at length how schema develops, and that's based a lot in introjection. Introjection, as a concept, is the idea that we, as people, unconsciously take on the beliefs, personality traits, sometimes even emotions of those around us. This can be for a lot of reasons.

Introjection (Defense Mechanism) was an interesting article I found discussing this idea, especially as it discusses introjection VS internalization, identification, and incorporation. Basically, when y'all try to find good articles online about introjection, those other words are usually fair game as well. This article is largely setting out to define various types of introjection. It describes normal introjection (bringing up Piaget, love that guy, he's my main man as a teacher) and brings up how introjects (i.e. the emotions/traits/beliefs/etc) can be distorted via fantasy. When that happens, it's considered secondary identification, and (she cites Freud here but I am not going digging more for MORE research atm), "Such secondary identification aims to reduce feelings of separation and hostility, and increase feelings of closeness, between the self and the external object, and thus it is regarded as a defense mechanism." So, in basic terms, introjection as a coping mechanism is often meant to reduce separation and increase closeness between an individual and the object of their introjection.

This can be seen very readily in CDDs. For instance, a hypothetical child is seeking more secure attachment with an abusive parental figure; they then form a dissociative part that is literally that abusive parental figure, making that person a part of them. This is a highly pathological defense mechanism.

So where does autism come in? Well... It's a disorder featuring:

A constant feeling of loneliness or ostracization for many individuals (discussed here)

A feeling of requirement for masking or mimicry of others in order to fit in (discussed here)

Diagnostic criteria that clearly show an inability to connect with others, rigid thinking patterns (akin to a fixed-mindset, just musing here), and an inability to maintain healthy relationships.

So... autistic CDD systems would then be individuals with a dissociative disorder, who (due to their autism) often report feeling more disconnected with themselves than their peers, who already rely on imitation as a conscious form of survival in an attempt to achieve closeness...

So you mean to say, Autistic CDD Systems Introject More???? HUH.

It's spelled out right there. It's fairly blatantly obvious. And genuinely, I don't think anyone was really doubting this. I don't think anyone is really out here saying that autistic people don't experience significant dissociation/introjection.

However, there's a lot of people recently shouting to the hilltops that there's no proof that autistic systems experience higher amounts of introject alters. And...

Duh? Obviously? There's already a significant lack of research into introjects in CDD systems. Why on earth would they then skip forward to research into introjects in autistic CDD systems? The medical world isn't going to skip around like that -- particularly, well... because why would they even research this to begin with?

Genuinely, I think that's my frustration with the recent discourse about this topic. There really is no reason, in my eyes, why the medical world should focus on this topic. What benefit would it have for patients? Introjects are simply another form of alter, same as any other. I suppose, potentially, it could lead to more ideas on how to help autistic CDD systems with their introjects in particular, but... is it that much different than just treating autistic CDD systems as a whole?

There's really no reason to be so up in arms about this idea. You're not going to be getting proof that this theorized correlation is actually scientifically valid; that's just not going to be happening anytime soon, unless someone has a really invested interest in autistic CDD introjects.

However...

HOWEVER!!!!!

That also does not mean I necessarily agree that every autistic system is like this. Because, for instance, I am not like this.

If you don't know, hi, I'm Quill, a mixed-origin CDD system featuring 15 parts. The origins aren't really important to this conversation, but we like to use accurate labels. We have 4 introjects, all of whom are fictional in nature. One is very close to source, one is so separated we forget she's an introject, and the other two are somewhere in the middle. And, despite what most people would assume, as I am a level 2 autistic individual as well as a system...

Only one of those introjects is from a hyperfixation of ours -- one that was brief, lasting only about 2 days, and that has never caught me up again -- and she's the one who immediately source separated.

Now, I am someone who struggles with hyperfixations. I scream internally while I autistically click the next 5 hour FNAF marathon when I'm supposed to be grading. I know so much lore. But yet, despite the sheer number -- undertale, MLP, FNAF, Petscop, most recently DST -- I haven't split introjects from any of those fixations.

And, well, that makes sense. Because introjection isn't just about attachment to an object. It's about taking something you need from that object. And it's unconscious in most cases.

(Semantically, I suppose that means that introject isn't really the best term for created parts who are fictional in nature, but I do not care about semantics all that much when it comes to people's self-identified labels in a minority group).

So, in the cases of my introjects:

At a time when we felt incapable, angry, and confused, we split a confident, strong, and (healthily) angry part.

At a time when we felt we were at risk of losing everyone and everything because we couldn't keep them happy, we split a character who found her lost loved ones and kept everyone happy.

At a time when we felt we needed distance from our conflicting emotions, we split someone who canonically has never been conflicted.

At a time when we were in desperate need of love, we split someone we knew would seek that love out without fail.

It wasn't based on our hyperfixations; it was based on our needs.

I think that large swaths of the system community online forgets that CDDs are borne of childhood trauma. Splits in CDD systems are caused by trauma-responses* -- you're stressed out, so your brain puts what you need to handle that stress (such as the memory of the event, the feelings you need to handle it, the personality traits that would be helpful) into a new part. In the case of introjection, a CDD brain is still doing that -- it just relies on a blueprint provided by the world around them. In the cause of autistic systems, I think they find it especially easy to rely on those blueprints.

I mean, autism comes with its own difficulties with personhood, dissociation, and lack of feeling like oneself. There's evidence to indicate that, rather than an autobiographical sense of self based on seamless memories, autistic individuals lean toward a patchwork sense of self. Extend that to CDD systemhood, an inherently dissociative, traumatic experience that comes with memory problems that further prevent autobiographical self memory, and you've got a compelling reason why introjecting whole characters (with themes and narratives that fit the experiences trying to be integrated) might be more common in autistic systems.

And... all of that -- all of the nuance, all of the discussion of trauma and the inherent struggles of being autistic -- somehow has been boiled down repeatedly, on both sides of the argument, to "Autistic systems split more introjects because they hyperfixate."

This idea led to me feeling completely isolated in system communities. I found myself in groups with the following (incredibly limited) views on autism and systemhood:

Introjects are not more common with autism at all, and anyone saying so is spreading misinformation.

Introjects only split due to traumatic experiences, and autistic people experience more trauma than others, so they split more introjects.

Introjects split more frequently in autistic systems due to hyperfixations, so if you're really autistic, you have more introjects.

And... none of these are right. All of them lack nuance, and all of them patently ignore the facts about trauma and how it impacts the brain in CDDs.

Based on the community experiences I've seen, there is a blatant correlation between autism and introjects. To ignore that correlation is to be blind to the community entirely. However, to say the correlation is only due to hyperfixation is to ignore many, many other possible reasons why autistic systems split more introjects -- of which my post only addressed some potential reasons -- and, in doing so, isolates many systems. It also stereotypes autism to hyperfixation, which is only one of the thousands of potential sprinkles on someones autism sundae, and leaves some individuals (such as myself) feeling even further isolated.

(And to suggest that it is because autistic people experience "more trauma" than others is to begin the 2025 Trauma Olypmics, and I refuse to entertain a torch bearer for those particular games.)

I understand where many individuals are coming from when they express frustration over the theory; I've been in that exact position myself, demanding proof of the correlation due to my own isolation from the community. And, with a disorder that already, inherently, feels so isolating already, on top of another disorder with its own share of isolating feelings...

I just desperately hope that people can be open to others experiences. I think it's entirely possible that someone attaches so firmly to a hyperfixation that they split a new part from it. I also think the theory I presented here -- that autistic individuals introject more readily due to a propensity for introjection in part borne of trauma -- is also entirely possible. I think there's thousands of possible explanations, and I think there's thousands of "right answers."

And I also think that none of this matters beyond a simple intellectual curiosity, and coming to understand myself more. I wrote all of this up due to my passion for the subject. I am autistic, and I want to be seen, and heard, and I want people to understand it more. I want people to broaden their perspectives and maybe see someone else's shoes, even if they aren't comfortable wearing them yet.

If another system is like mine, yay! If another system is unlike mine, yay! Regardless, every system is unique -- just like how every representation of autism is unique. And I think we should find beauty in the theories that present themselves, and enjoy the ideas more than the outcomes.

Fun additional reading that came up in the process of my buzzing about this for multiple hours:

Experiencing Self and Others: Contributions From Studies of Autism to The Psychoanalytic Theory of Social Development -> According to a friend (paraphrasing a tiny bit), "the abstract, in my reading, is basically saying that comparing autistic and non-autistic kids can help us understand more about how theory of mind and mental modeling of others can develop, particularly in relevancy to concepts of internalization/introjection." They did read through the whole article (while also warning me to never use scihub) and indicated for me that this really doesn't discuss autism in correlation to introjection, and even seems to suggest that autistic people can't introject (in the non-pathological sense) due to their inability to connect to others. (I genuinely think this is in direct opposition to the first study I mentioned, about how introjection is a defense mechanism, especially as autistic people experience significant amounts of trauma due to their disorder anyways.)

Making the thought thinkable: On introjection and projection -> Can only access the first page, which discusses a bit about echlalia and inner worlds. However, the title makes me curious about what this could offer in terms of the Autistic System Introjects Debate(tm). I want to go digging a bit more to see if I can get around the paywalls on this. This is a complete wild card to me.

Whose memories are they and where do they go? Problems surrounding internalization in children on the autistic spectrum -> A very interesting article that came up while my friend was reading the Experiencing Self article. Again, I cannot access anything but the abstract myself (fucking pAYWALLS) but it's promising. Here's a quote: "The author suggests that, instead of internalizing shared experiences leading to growth, children with autism can feel that they add to themselves by taking over the qualities of others through the ‘annexation’ of physical properties that leads to a damaged object and can trigger a particular sort of negative therapeutic reaction." (Emphasis mine) Friend suggests full article is a goldmine. I'll leave that for you all to go digging for, if you'd like to know more.

(*Footnote: I mean splitting in the most basic, CDD medical understanding of the disorder way possible. Obviously, as a mixed-origin system, I understand there's more than one way to split a part than simply through traumatic/stressful experiences.)

[sixth-light]

https://x.com/csoandy/status/1814252032884146636

good commentary on the crowdstrike incident

Yes, this is good technical commentary. It's noticeable that different companies have had very different levels of difficulty managing the incident and preparation will certainly have played a role, along with the timing and the number and distribution of systems.

For the less technical (because I've noticed some confused reblogs): Crowdstrike is an enterprise-level, i.e. for large organisations managing many computer systems, set of antivirus tools. It is very good - this is why many, many large organisations with high security needs (such as banks and airlines) use it. Since it defends against malware and viruses, its tools are constantly receiving automatic updates.

About eighteen hours ago, one of those automatic updates accidentally blue-screened Windows machines and servers worldwide that had one particular Crowdstrike tool installed. This was quickly deemed to be fixable without too much hassle, except for one really major issue: individual systems need someone with technical expertise to start them up *directly, in person* in order to be fixed. Imagine you're an airline with computers at every airport. A bank with ATMs nationwide. A retail chain with computers in every store...

Anyway, this is going to take some organisations a while to fix. It is extremely, extremely fixable! But it's gonna take a minute. And some of the orgs not directly affected are reliant on other ones which are. So yeah, soz to IT teams everywhere about their weekend.

[wasongo]

I think I got a lot of new followers recently because twitter keeps going to shit. However, as you probably know I can't and don't post nsfw art here.

You can find my NSFW socials on my pinned post. I think a lot of people are hesitant to join platforms which aren't fully available to the public yet but if you'd like to keep up with my nsfw art I'd like to:

Urge you to visit my website and subscribe to my RSS feed for gallery updates!

Suggest you follow me on either Pillowfort or Cohost (18+).

In the last year I have started using PF and Cohost more than Mastodon, as they've implemented new features and their posting system is more in line with what I enjoy: robust tagging and filtering, ability to post MANY images, and readmores for long posts.

If you've been hesitant to join either of those platforms since you don't know what to expect here's a small-ish review of both purely from my experience as someone who: a) enjoys profile customization b) likes to have an organized art gallery that is filterable by tags.

This review is aimed at artists looking for NSFW spaces to post! UI screenshots might have suggestive terms and images. Proceed with caution.

Edit: Good grief tunglr, if you open this on the web dash the images aren't shown in the neat galleries I put them in to make the post shorter. Head on over to the permalink if you'd like a better looking post!

Let me just say that if you're looking for a review on more technical aspects of these platforms, like security and moderation policies. I'm not your guy. You'll have to look elsewhere for that. I'm focusing on QoL UI and community aspects.

Though both these platforms allow nsfw, please make sure to read their ToS/Community Guidelines for rules on what is and isn't allowed. Though as far as I'm aware they have pretty similar rules.

Pillowfort

Overview::

Pillowfort has more years under its belt being available to users than Cohost does, as such I THINK the artist/fandom userbase atm is larger, which means you might see more activity there. UI as of right now is very comfortable and the site runs pretty smoothly. Loading times are very decent. Posting is easy, though the image uploader is a little wonky (they are working on fixing this). You are able to create and manage communities based on interests or themes, which people can follow or join and all post in the same space. You can personalize your profile by adding images, links, and formatted text to your sidebar, as well as customize your own profile colors. Tag searches in my experience yield results of both art and aesthetic irl porn and gifs. If that's something you miss from ye olden tumblr days it might be worth a look.

Pros:

Posts have privacy options (everyone, logged in, followers, mutuals, only me)

Has a DM system

Posts have Commentable, Rebloggable, NSFW toggle

Can post MANY images on a single post

Readmore feature for long posts

Robust tagging system

Robust filtering system: hide or click-through warning (by installing Tassel userscript only)

Customizable profile colors, Light/Dark mode for whole website

Communities you can follow/join for shared interests

You can filter posts on profile by tag

You can filter posts on profile by "original poster" or "reblog"

Cons:

wonky image uploader, cannot upload multiple images at once

Cannot search for multiple tags at once

Search for terms with periods in them is currently broken (ex. "D.Gray-man" will not yield any search results)

Communities have few moderation features atm

Without Tassel installed the filtering system is pretty garbage atm (you can either show or hide nsfw or filtered tags completely, with no click-through warnings)

No multiple account/side blog feature yet

Some inline image formatting options are broken atm

Default endless scrolling

No progressive web app for mobile atm

For a more in depth explanation of PF's UI and features you can check out this official post.

Here are some images of the UI.

---

Cohost

Overview::

Cohost feels like it has a small artist/fandom userbase at the moment. However, to make up for that it has a pretty slick UI, it works great as a progressive web app on mobile, and it recently implemented an ASK system similar to tumblr's! Everything loads pretty quickly, and you can switch between your "latest posts" feed and your "bookmarked tags" feed. You can access your likes as a bookmark system, but as a whole "notes" and engagement numbers except for comments are not visible anywhere (this is wonderful for my personal mental health). It has a simple post editor and though the image uploader only allows 4 images that will load with lightbox, there's a workaround to upload MANY inline images if you want. The catch is you'll need to use a bit of markdown or html to do that. (more on that below) Though you can't personalize your profile colors, you can add personality to your page by making very cool pinned posts and adding images to your sidebar.

Pros:

Animated avatars! (listen i like having my animated komui icon)

You can make multiple "pages" (blogs) which function independently for comments/asks. switching between pages is effortless

Ask system, with anon toggle (you cannot reply privately atm tho)

2 Factor Authentication

Progressive web app for mobile works like a charm

You can preview your post before you post it

Posts have a NSFW toggle and you can save drafts

Can post MANY images in a single post (bit of a workaround as you'll need to upload your images to a draft first and then add them to a new post with some markdown or html code)

Readmore feature for long posts

Robust tagging AND filtering system (show, click-through, hide completely), plus CW system to give your posts additional click through warnings you deem necessary

You can do incredibly cool things with HTML and inline CSS on your posts

You can filter posts on profile by tag, and you can have pinned tags

Toggles for hiding reblogs, replies, and asks on profiles

Paginated browsing instead of endless scrolling (things load faster)

No engagement numbers visible ANYWHERE

Cons:

Image uploader does not let you upload multiple images at once. Limit to 4 images (can upload more as inline images with code)

Advanced post formatting (ex. bold, italics, bullet list, inline images etc.) has to be done through markdown or html + css which is not the friendliest for those who don't know any code (there's a button for a markdown cheatsheet when you post tho!)

No dark mode, or customizing profile colors atm (however there are workarounds to changing site colors with Stylus extension)

Cannot search for multiple tags at once

Cool things you can do with CSS on your posts might look very bad on mobile

Since you can do some crazy things with CSS on posts, you might come across eye straining visuals and movement on some posts. There are settings to tone this down, and people are pretty good about tagging things, so with some good filtering you should be able to avoid this however.

A little quieter on the artist/fandom front (but we can change that)

Here are some images of the UI.

If you made it to the end of this review thanks for giving it a look! If there's something vital you might want to know that I missed in regards to UI and posting features let me know and I will try to answer. But again, this is not a technical/security issues/bugs review so don't ask me about that.

Lastly, I've been seeing a handful of NSFW artists I follow on twitter hopping on bluesky. I REALLY suggest you do a little research on the owners and platform to see if you think joining is worthwhile, since I have a feeling many artists might not want their alternative to be a site owned by crypto advocates (and also a billionaire). Some basic research will get you there. Just take heed and use your best judgement. On that note Cohost is strictly against crypto (I'm guessing PF might be too but I don't have a link that I can point you to confirming this atm).

I believe community driven and supported platforms are the way to go. If you end up thinking either of these two places are worth your time, do consider getting your friends and favorite artists on board or supporting them! You'll get added perks on both platforms if you become a supporter. PF recently added the ability to have MULTIPLE AVATARS (PFPs I think they're called nowadays) which I think is super cool (i really miss that from LJ days).

Again, thanks for reading and I hope to see some of you there!

[orangez3st]

🖤,💔?

Thanks for the ask! 🤩 Since I'm working on my entries for clone x oc week I'll be sharing some of those (not that I have any other OC's #yet)

🖤 what are your MC names?

Nic Erlonna (× Wolffe)

Lesiil Thrace (× Fox)

Sho'cye (× Rex) aka my first ever star wars oc

Giala (× Echo)

[Bianva DID System] Jenne, Eurus, Siaris (× Fives)

💔 give a brief character bio of your 3-5 MCs

Nic Erlonna, affectionately known as Nico to those close to her, lives as a thriving high-profile A-list human actress, 14 times nominated in various Osk'arr categories and 5 wins in the Best Actress category. Living in Coruscant, she's outgoing, cheeky, philanthropic, relentless woman with unlimited bragging rights. Her great breakup with fellow actor Shon Vatore, a charming silver-haired Pantoran, made headlines in gossip columns for weeks, due to the relationship being revealed as toxic and obsessive on the ex-boyfriend's part.

Lesiil Thrace works for the Coruscant Security Force, specifically in the Criminal Investigations Department as a Detective. Being a part Lorrdian, she specializes in interrogation due to her mastery of precisely identifying nonverbal communications. Her speech is somewhat formal much like Sherlock Holmes. A hard-working woman, her sharp and analytical mind is often reliable in her line of work, especially in high-profile cases where her expertise is needed.

Sho'cye had been nameless for eternity, until the first generation of clones in Kamino named her with the Mando'a word for 'ocean'. Because that's what she is; a primordial deity of the Force who rules over the natural waters of the galaxy. Her tenderness and enormous care for the clones, along with her patronage and protectiveness, eventually leads to the shaping of a delicate yet abstruse creed among the clones of the entire Grand Army of the Republic.

Jenne Bianva suffered heavy loss and trauma at a young age during her childhood on the planet Serenno, and is driven apart from family due to the blame ever since. Her fractured mind developed a coping mechanism; different identities now reside in her head, also known as dissociative identity disorder. Her first alter was Siaris, a sharp-minded and resourceful Chiss male. Then came Eurus, a captivating and bold Twi'lek female. There's also a human female child alter named Kore, suspectedly developed after Jenne's cherished relationship with her late little sister. Together as a system, they work to maintain their shared lives and thrive.

Okay well that was 7 OC's... But still counts as 4, I guess? 😆🫢

Haven't developed Giala yet. Still working on Wolffe atm!

i made chibi icons for these guys too | join taglist

Coming to grace your dash in February for the event ✨

No pressure fyi taglist?: @yoursrosie @hellfiresky

Those who might be interested to learn a little about Nico: @cloneflo99 @ulchabhangorm @ladylucksrogue

[lavender-teardroplettes]

Si x Friend headcannons mayhaps🥺👉👈

......ANON I LOVE YOU!!!!!!

God it's been a minute and Si's lore got lumped in with me first trying to make an oc for the game before switching into self insert-

Friend 100% was Si's first crush even if he pushed Si away at first and while keeping in mind that neither of them knew what a crush was at that point.

Even before Friend's family dies, Si's family would hold up appearances and let him hide out at their house occasionally. Si's house was nowhere as clean as Friends no matter how much clutter and other junk were cleaned up, but to both of them, because it was happier together than alone, it was home. After the accident, Si was allowed more in Friend's household and Friend was allowed to travel more frequently between his and SI's place to get what little comfort and sense of normality he could hold onto.

Keagan caused a REALLY big rift in Si and Friend throughout high school until the two of them had their initial falling out. A lot of it was Keagan super hitting on Si, and one of Keagan's friends (blanking on his name atm) not only putting down Si, but putting down Friend at the same time. It was stupid and chalked up to peer pressure and SI not actually having a good support system that he distanced himself from Friend, when in reality they were each other's biggest rocks and something Si regrets betraying before the events of the demo.

The day Si calls Friend to pick him up after breaking up with Keagan and not wanting to ride in a car with a drunk driver was one of the hardest days in Si's life. He finally allowed himself to be vulnerable and rely on the one person he knew he could count on....and oh god was he glad it was still true.

During the events of the demo- I see Si being on the side of still harboring old feelings for Friend, but not wanting to mess up the second chance they have. He assumes Friend is being his usual flirty self since Si had heard about him being more of a playboy, and you expect your friends to change over the years, so he mostly pushes his feelings down and feels like he's the only one stuck in the past.

^ This also causes him to be a little too nice and friendly with people since he's used to his best friend "casually flirting" with him and doesn't think too much of the more subtle approach most people take....like Carter for example.

I don't see Si getting kidnapped to the basement in the way that most do in that sort of route. I see Friend playing on Si's paranoia and convincing him that he can't trust anyone in the way he trusts Friend, and that it would be just like Keagan all over again. Why start all over with someone new when you can be with someone you've known....trusted....loved....your whole life? I see maybe one friend that Si makes outside of Friend possibly dying if they pry too much into Si's disappearance, but I would also like to think that if Si went willingly, Friend would try his best to scare them off instead of risking Si being upset with him more than he already is with the confusion of being gaslit and essentially talked into living in a fancy cell.

Alternatively....we can have two dorks who have been love with each other since there were kids where one person knew all along and the other took longer to realize it until their sense of love and comfort suddenly wasn't there anymore. Si and Friend are both on the demi spectrum iirc, but it takes longer for Friend to realize it and they fall victim to stupid high school bs in between everything. In this case, I see the cat cafe date being canon, with SI wearing a cute outfit just to TRY and shoot his shot again hopefully picking up on Friend's signals in the right way this time. Of course, this still means that Friend is weary of every move Si makes, but it opens up for more measures of security on Si's end. Si'll never know who killed the man who touched his arm or the woman who got to close to him while he was walking, and slowly Friend has more of a grasp on Si's day to day life to make sure he NEVER leaves Friend in the same way his sisters did. To Friend....he has nothing left to hope or LIVE for if he doesn't have Si, and he's not giving an inch of an opening for it to happen again....if he can manage it.

[sinnabee]

quick life update:

I BOUGHT A FUCKIN HOUSE!!!! AAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it’s absolUTELY crazy you guys!!! i had to pull from my retirement to do it, there were a few oh god it’s gonna fall through moments, but i did it!!!! :DDD

not gonna be online as much for a bit, because i’m moving!!!! i paid my rent for april and my roommate is giving me the month to move out. the plan is to get as much stuff moved over in boxes myself before renting a truck so my brother can help me cart all the furniture over there ^^

ideally myself, my girlfriend, and some friends are also gonna try and get the rooms painted before we get the BIG stuff in there.

to all of you who still have sticker or charm orders that haven’t gotten to you yet: i know!!! i’m so sorry, but this is what’s been putting it off and off and off! i’ll try and send out what i can, but most likely, i won’t be able to get anything out right now until the end of april. i probably also won’t be able to stream much if at all, since i’m packing! (this is why the shop is closed atm also)

i’ve gotten most of my utilities sorted out, but i’ve still gotta file my 2023 taxes and do some other house things, like mess with the security system (??) they left.

but yeah!!!! i’m really pumped!!! i can finally have my furniture and stuff in more than one room! paint the walls! hang up shelves!!! once i’m settled i should finally have a dedicated space for stickers and art and streams, instead of doing it all out of my bedroom haha. so hopefully in the future, i’ll be a LOT more capable of keeping up with demand. ^^

i also just wanted to say thanks for all of the support from all my friends and moots and just!!!! everybody!!! special shout-out to the dca fandom for getting me into streaming and sticker making and just being a delight in general, y’all have changed my life for the better <3

ANYWAY. that’s what’s going on with me! i love u guys and i’m still around, just busy for a while! <3

[altraviolet]

'remembered how he used the groundbridges on the Nemesis'. any chance you still remember/have the notes for whatever slice of detailed sciencey explanation worldbuilding you came up with? that sounds interesting, pls elaborate. what do you meaaan :D

I didn't worldbuild anything sciencey for it, but I can talk about it a little bit

here are the times it's mentioned/hinted at in the fic (that I can find easily/remember atm):

The ability to summon/make space/ground bridges is a fundamentally powerful one. SW associates it with his "mythological" self- his hypercompetent self on the Nemesis. So when you trace this thread, you will find it's interwoven with how SW regards himself.

First mention/hint in Ch 4:

Soundwave had never made a habit of sleeping... 2) it contributed to the mythology the crew of the Nemesis developed about him...

That mythology was based in truths. No, Soundwave couldn't read minds. But he could patch into any part of the Nemesis to access its audio/visual feeds. ... And, no, he couldn't generate his own ground bridges. He wouldn't have been stuck in the shadowzone for years if that were true. But he had been able to direct the Nemesis's considerable power for that purpose- a feat undoable by any other.

Soundwave is a master at information manipulation, but masters work better with tools: Soundwave was a master, but masters needed tools to reach their fullest potential. The Nemesis had been his finely crafted tool. He used the Nemesis to create ground/space bridges. He did this in the show several times- even sending Airachnid REALLY far away into space. This is an incredible power. In order to nerf SW for the fic, I made it so he specifically needed the Nemesis to do this. And also, wouldn't he have gotten out of the shadowzone, if he could do it himself? So yeah, it's not explicit in the canon, but I think he needed the Nemesis. It's not a thing he can just do on his own. But! It implies that he knows how the bridges work, and were he to get the right materials, he could build/use bridges again.

Anyway. He almost spills this secret (that he can make ground/space bridges, (with tools)) to Rodimus in Ch 21:

[Rodimus] "So, mythological Soundwave. What... what did you do?” “Complete access to all communications.” “Oh.” “Complete access to all security systems.” “Ah.” “Complete control of deep space navigation and sp- other technology.” “What other technology?” Soundwave said nothing.

"sp-" is "space bridges" cut off

The concept goes away for a while as Soundwave turns into a person.

Then in Ch 37 SW remembers he was able to do the groundbridge thing. This part also mentions Astrotrain's song! which we touched on in your last ask.:

Not to mention the other part of the mythological Soundwave. How could he have forgotten it? He had been too focused on his previous areas of competence: the all-seeing optics, the all-hearing audials. But face to face with enemies, those things had never been his greatest asset.

Astrotrain's song brought that which simmered at the back of Soundwave's processor to the forefront. A fascinating possibility. Not the focus of his great work, but a diversion that would serve him well nonetheless. If it manifested beyond the theoretical.

The other part is using the Nemesis to create ground/space bridges.

the but a diversion part is literally Soundwave thinking on the possibility of making a portal to return to 0001

I didn't spell it out because I didn't want to be too blatant with where the story was going -> that SW would build a portal to return to 0001.

Actually wait yeah, here we see that Astrotrain's song helps nudge SW's old Nemesis-bridge knowledge back to the forefront of his mind, and therefore he goes "oh! I can do my great work, but I could also make a portal"

yeah yeah. it was there in the fic. I remember having a hard time keeping everything in my brain, so yeah, sometimes things are a lil nebulous. but it's there xD

Sooooooo yeah! That's all I can recall at the moment. Going back to your original question: If I had written "SW makes the space bridge" in the story, I would've used music as an abstract way to describe it, as Soundwave does with other things.

It's really good people are asking questions about this now because I'm sure eventually I'll forget all these little details xD we're only a few months away from it having been finished for a whole year! wrow :u

thanks for the ask :)

[gayguybln]

Prison revolt at the Morton prison - part 1

Morton is a prison in the Nevada desert. In the prison system of the Federal Republic of Dystopia it's on grade 5 of the 7 grade security scheme - ranking from grade 1 "Low security" to grade 7 "Super Max security". In 2098 a huge prison revolt happened and lasted for 3 weeks with several guards wounded and 3 guards dead. The revolt was planned, organized and started by the "Honourable Council of the Ten". This self-styled council saw themself as leaders of the inmates. This council was part of a trial of inmate self-administration and was introduced in some pilot prisons of grade 1 to 5 prisons. Within the legislation it was called "Help council" and was planned to be an elected body of 10 inmates. It quickly switched to be an instrument of criminals to control other inmates and use ressources to continue criminal activities. In most prisons it was renamed by the inmates - inofficially - and never elected freely. It was abolished after the Morton prison revolt.

All participants of this riot will be charged - all 904 inmates of the cellblocks that participated in the riots are counted as participants - under the Prison Mutiny Law (PML) that sets draconic measures.

In this first part we look at the 10 members of the former council who were the ringleaders. Under the PML the ringleaders are charged for the murders committed in a revolt or mutiny regardless wether they did the murder(s) or someone else.

They were split into 5 groups and sent to different places in the Federal Republic of Dystopia to reduce their influence.

Giorgio (28, left) and Vittorio (30, right) Marconi are brothers and grew up in a crime family. Their father, uncle and the two brothers were accused several times for drug trafficking but acquitted each time. They were sentenced two years ago for the brutal beating of two police officers. They were sentenced to 31 years prison sentence each. Three months before the revolt, new evidences emerged about their connections to drug trafficking, human trafficking and murder of two witnesses in a case against their father. They saw the revolt as their last opportunity to be in freedom. It was quite sure that the new evidence would send them right into a life sentence in a grade 7 prison, most likely in solitary confinement.

Their new sentence is: 5 life sentences, 90 years, 12 strokes of the cane after this trial and every second year 10 strokes of the cane until they turn 60. They'll spend the rest of their lives shackled in solitary confinement in a grade 7 prison.

Eric Mosley (24, left) and Damian Hintz (23, right) are both bisexual and fell in love in prison. They were molested and tortured by homophobic guards after one guard saw them having sex and instigated his colleagues to mistreat the couple. They killed that guard while the revolt was running. Mosley was at Morton for six months when the revolt broke out. He was sentenced to 9 years for an armed robbery with possibility of parole after 7 years. Damian Hintz was sentenced to 13 years of prison for manipulating ATMs, gambling machines and hacking into computers. He was a mastermind and made for his bosses more than 11 million $. They promised him 10%. He never saw a penny. He was offered to snitch his bosses to see his sentence reduced to 3 years under house arrest but he refused as the bosses threatened his wife, his parents and his young sister. He was 21 as he was arrested.

Mosley and Hintz got three life sentences in addition to their former sentences. They'll spend the rest of their lives shackled in a double cell in a grade 7 prison. They'll get 8 strokes of the cane each after the trial and 4 strokes every second year until they turn 60.

In the aftermath of their trial 7 former guards of the Morton prison will be tried for molesting and torturing inmates.

Ciro Vallanzasca (34, left) and Marvin Colb (25, right) will be the two lucky guys of the ringleaders. Ciro is the nephew of a senator of the Federal Republic of Dystopia and Marvin is his assistant. Ciro had a long criminal career but avoided prison until he turned 32. He was sentenced to 7 years for money laundering. He was transferred to Morton prison after he beat his cellmate on his second day after his sentence. Marvin Colb was sentenced 5 years ago for drugging other people - men and women - and selling their explicit pictures on porn sites or blackmailing them. He was nearly killed by one of his victims what led to his arrest and trial. He turned assistant of Ciro Vallanzasca a short time after they became cellmates. The remainder of his prison term was just 1 year. Both guys were against the revolt and expelled for that from the council a few days before the revolt. At the court they told everything about the council decisions and about the plannings. At the end they were acquitted from the murders of the three guards but had to face another harsh punishment for prison mutinies.

They were sentenced each to 5 additional years for enabling conspiracy and mutiny (instead of telling the guards beforehand). In addition they'll receive 5 strokes of cane each and additional 4 strokes six months before their planned release. They'll get a mandatory vasectomy as ringleaders of mutinies as these people are barred from reproducing (along with some other crimes). It will be a so-called "ultra vasectomy" removing large parts of the vas deferens to make a reversal operation impossible. They'll spend the next five years shackled in a grade 7 prison together in one cell. After these five years they go into a grade 4 prison where a cousin of the Marconis cut the word "traitor" into their faces.

Timothey "Red Timmy" Claus (30, left) and Marlon Estrada (32, right) are communist activist who planned a terrorist attack on an economic meeting three years ago. That plan was foiled but they were sentenced to 60 years in prison each. At the beginning of the revolt they beat two guards nearly to death.

They got an additional sentence of four life sentences, 12 strokes of the cane after the trial and 10 strokes each year until they turn 60. They'll spend the rest of their lives shackled in total solitary confinement of a grade 7 prison. These two convinced the other members of the council to start the revolt. They planned a huge prison break out and were in hope that all prisoner support their communist ideas. Claus and Estrada have three weapon arsenals that remained undiscovered and they wanted to infiltrate army posts with their fellow inmates. Claus styled himself as general secretary of the council and Estrada styled himself as president of the council despite these titles didn't exist. On the way to the prison Claus and Estrada tried to kill a guard in the prisoner transport van in the hope to get killed to avoid their life sentences. But that didn't work. Both tried to go on hunger strikes but were force fed and started eating after few days of force feeding. They lived until their 70s in prison.

Steve Lee (19, left) and Kevin Calvert (25, right) are the last two of the ringleaders to be sentenced. Steve Lee split from his religious family at the age of 15 and began his short criminal career. He sold drugs and convinced friends to take drugs while being abstinent. He loved to make videos of people who got the drugs from him. At the age of 16 he stole a car as cops chased him. With that car he injured two guys. Despite his criminal behavuiour he stopped and tried to help the two injured. So he was arrested. He was sentenced for drug selling, for the car theft and for the accident. His sentence was 15 years in prison with possible parole after 12 years. Because of his calculating nature he was sentenced as an adult and transferred immediately to the adult prison. He gained huge respect in prison quickly and forced another inmate to retire from his post in the council.

Kevin Calvert worked together with two cops to set up a trap for a group of four pedophiles. He killed all four by torturing them to death. He was sentenced to life in prison. He was called up into the council on the first day at Morton prison.

Both guys were sentenced to additional three life sentences and 7 strokes of the cane after sentence and 4 strokes every year until they turn 60. They were set to spend the rest of their lives shackled in solitary confinement in a grade 7 prison. But Steve Lee was offered to take part in a "harvesting program". This was set up to get blood donations. Inmates in this program get special food and a fitness program. This treatment makes it possible to recreate blood quicker - and donate more often. Inmates of the harvesting program are released at the age of 35 into a 5 year probation period. After 4 years of solitary confinement Kevin Calvert was sent to a grade 3 prison. At the age of 35 he got sterilized and pardoned next day. He lived a good life later as he got donations from several groups fighting pedophilia.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A "secure" system can be the most dangerous of all

Two decades ago, my life changed forever: hearing Bruce Schneier explain that “security” doesn’t exist in the abstract. You can only be secure from some threat. A fire alarm won’t protect you from burglaries. A condom won’t protect you from mass shootings. It seems obvious, but how often do we hear about “security” without any mention of who is being made secure, and from which threat?

Take the US welfare system. It is very “secure” in that it is hedged in by a thicket of red-tape, audits, inspections and onerous procedures. To get food stamps, housing vouchers, or cash aid, you must navigate a Soviet-grade bureaucratic system of Kafkaesque proportions. Indeed, one of the great ironies of the post-Cold War world is that the USA has become a “Utopia Of Rules” (as David Graeber put it), subjecting everyday people to the state-run bureacracies that the USAUSAUSA set endlessly ridiculed the USSR for:

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/02/02/david-graebers-the-utopia-of-rules-on-technology-stupidity-and-the-secret-joys-of-bureaucracy/

(The right says it wants to “shrink the US government until fits in a bathtub — and then drown it” — but not the whole government. They want unlimited government bloat for that part of the state that is dedicated to tormenting benefits claimants, especially if its functions are managed by a Beltway Bandit profiteer who bills Uncle Sucker up the wazoo for rubber-stamping “DENIED” on every claim.)

The US benefits system has a sophisticated, expensive, fully staffed anti-fraud system — but it’s a highly selective form of anti-fraud. The system is oriented solely to prevent fraud against itself, with no thought to protecting benefits recipients themselves from fraud.

And those recipients — by definition the poorest and most vulnerable among us — are easy pickings for continuous, ghastly, eye-watering acts of fraud. These benefits are distributed via prepaid debit cards — EBT Cards — that lack the basic security measures that every other kind of card has had for years. These are simple magstripe cards, lacking basic chip-and-pin defenses, to say nothing of contactless countermeasures.

That means that fraudsters can — and do — install skimmers in the point-of-sale terminals used by benefits recipients to withdraw their cash benefits, pay for food using SNAP (AKA Food Stamps), and receive other benefits.

It’s impossible to overstate how widespread these skimmers are, and how much money criminals make by stealing from poor people. Writing for Businessweek, Jessica Fu describes the mad scramble benefits recipients go through every month, standing by ATMs at midnight on the night of the first of every month in hopes of withdrawing the cash they use to pay for their rent and utility bills before it is stolen by a crook who captured their card number with a skimmer:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-06-28/ebt-theft-takes-millions-of-dollars-from-the-neediest-americans

One of Fu’s sources, Lexisnexis Risk Solutions’s Haywood Talcove, describes these EBT cards as having the security of a “glorified hotel room key.” He recounts how US police departments saw a massive explosion in EBT skimming: from 300 complaints in January 2022 to 18,000 in January 2023.

The skimmer rings are extremely well organized. The people who install the skimmers — working in pairs, with one person to distract the cashier while the other quickly installs the skimmer — don’t know who they work for. Neither do the people who use cards cloned from skimmer data to cash out benefits recipients’ accounts. When they are arrested, they refuse to turn on their immediate recruiters, fearing reprisals against their families.

These low-level crooks stroll up to ATMs and feed a succession of cloned cards into them, emptying account after account. Or they swipe cards at grocery checkouts, buying cases of Red Bull and other easily sold grocery products with some victim’s entire SNAP balance.

Some police agencies are pursuing these criminal gangs and trying figure out who’s running them, but the authorities who issue SNAP cards are doing little to nothing to stop the pipeline at their end. Simply upgrading SNAP terminals to chip-and-pin would exponentially raise the cost and complexity that thieves incur.

Indeed, that’s why every other kind of payment card uses these systems. How is it that these systems were upgraded, while SNAP cards remain in mired in 20th century “glorified hotel room key” territory? Well, as our friends on the right never cease to remind us: “incentives matter.”

When your credit card gets cloned, it’s your banks and credit card company that pays for the losses, not you. So the banks demanded (and funded) the upgrade to new anti-fraud measures. By contrast, most states have no system for refunding stolen benefits to skimmers’ victims.

In other words, all of the anti-fraud in the benefits system is devoted to catching benefits cheating — a phenomenon that is so rare as to be almost nonexistent (1.54%), notwithstanding right wingers’ fevered, Reagan-era folktales about “welfare queens”:

https://blog.gitnux.com/food-stamp-fraud-statistics/

Meanwhile, the most widespread and costly form of fraud in the benefits system — fraud perpetrated against benefits recipients — is blithely ignored.

Really, it’s worse than that. In deciding to protect the welfare system rather than welfare recipients, we’ve made it vastly harder for benefits claimants who’ve been victimized by fraudsters to remain fed and sheltered. After all, if we made it simple and straightforward for benefits recipients to re-claim money that was stolen from them, we’d make it that much easier to defraud the system.

“Security” is always and forever a matter of securing some specific thing, against some specific risk. In other words, security reflects values — it reveals whose risk matters, and whose doesn’t. For the American benefits system, risks to the system matter. Risks to people don’t.

It’s not just the welfare system that prioritizes its own risks against the people it exists to serve. Think of the systems used to fight drug abuse in clinical settings.

Medical facilities that use or dispense powerful pain-killers have exquisitely tuned, sophisticated, frequently audited security systems to prevent patients from tricking their doctors or pharmacists into administering extra drugs (especially opioids). “Extra” in this case means “more drugs than are strictly necessary to manage pain.”

The rationale for this is only incidentally medical. Someone who gets a little too much painkiller during a medical procedure or an acute pain episode is not at any particular risk of enduring harm — the risks are minor and easily managed (say, by keeping a patient in bed a little longer while they recover from sedation).

The real agenda here is preventing addiction and abuse by addicted people. There’s a genuine problem with opioid abuse, and that problem does have its origins in overprescription. But — crucially — that overprescription wasn’t the result of wimpy patients insisting on endless painkillers until they enslaved themselves to their pills.

Rather, the opioid epidemic has its origins in the billionaire Sackler crime family, whose Purdue Pharma used scientific fraud, cash incentives, and other deceptive practices to trick, coerce, or bribe doctors into systematically overprescribing their Oxycontin cash cow, even as they laundered their reputation with showy charitable donations:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/12/monopolist-solidarity/#sacklers-billions

The Sacklers got to keep their billions — and people undergoing painful medical procedures or living with chronic pain are left holding the bag, subject to tight pain-med controls that forces them to prove — through increasingly stringent systems — that they truly deserve their medicine.

In other words, the beneficiary of the opioid control system is the system itself — not the patients who need opioids.

There’s an extremely disturbing — even nightmarish — example of this in the news: the Yale Fertility Clinic, where hundreds of women endured unimaginably painful egg harvesting procedures with no anaesthesia at all.

These women had complained for years about the pain they suffered, and many had ended up needing emergency care after the fact because of traumatic injuries caused by undergoing the procedure without pain control. But the doctors and nurses at the Yale clinic ignored their screams of pain and their post-operative complaints.

It turned out that an opioid-addicted nurse had been swapping the fentanyl in the drug cabinet for saline, and taking the fentanyl home for her own use.

This made national headlines at the time, and it is the subject of “The Retrievals,” a new New York Times documentary series podcast:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/podcasts/serial-the-retrievals-yale-fertility-clinic.html

If the pain medication management system was designed to manage pain, then these thefts would have been discovered early on. If the system was designed so that anyone who experienced pain was treated until the pain was under control, the deception would have been uncovered almost immediately.

As Stafford Beer said, “the purpose of any system is what it does.” The pain medication management system was designed to manage pain medication, not pain itself.

The system was designed to be secure from opioid-seeking addicted patients. It was not designed to make patients secure from pain. Its values — our values, as a society — were revealed through its workings.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/13/whose-security/#for-me-not-thee

[Image ID: A down-the-barrel view of a massive, battleship-gray artillery piece protruding from the brick battlement of a fortress. From the black depths of the barrel shines a red neon 'EBT' sign.]

Image: Bjarne Henning Kvaale (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oscarsborg_28cm_Krupp_cannon_4_-_panoramio.jpg

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

[ask-the-sagents]

Ask the Agents Masterpost

This is gonna be the post for pretty much everything about the universe and the characters. It'll be updated on occasion and will remain pinned on my profile - more under the cut:

Edit: I've made a lot of changes so consider this an AU

Edit: (also check out the tags. Usually, I'll add in additional info (: )

Discord Server

Patreon (Early posts + Exclusive art!)

Most recent update on this post: 12/27/24

Character Pages

What is Sanitization?

Start Reading Here!

Askblog Stuff

The idols will be available for questions sometimes, but not all the time. I'll make a post and update the askbox with whoever is available for questions currently.

Magic Anons are allowed!

Posts will be posted as they are completed and will be a mix of answering questions and random comics!

If a main character (3,4,5,8)is unavailable, you can still ask them questions, but they won't answer it til after they get back

If a character is available but spotty, it just means they won't answer filler questions for the time being

World Info

The Idols:

Marie - Age: 30 - she/her - bisexual

Callie - Age: 30 - she/they - pansexual, trans

Acht - Age: 27 - they/them - lesbian, nonbinary

Pearl - Age: 27 - they/she - Lesbian, nonbinary

Marina - Age: 26 - she/her - lesbian

Deep Cut - Coming soon!

General World Info:

In the beginning, it takes place a few months after the events of Octo Expansion. Currently (as of 8/8/24) it has been a little less than a year

Spawn points don't exist outside of Turf Wars/Ranked battles, etc.

Octavio has been captured and currently resides in a high security prison. He is never getting out.

Octavio had used sanitization and hypnosis as a tool for control and punishment during his reign. He never had any intention on liberating his citizens.

There is only one hospital on the surface that handles Sanitization cases atm. This is due to it being rarely seen on the surface during octavios time, so not many people were researching it.

Squidjumping within city limits is illegal unless if it's an emergency

Instead of sewers, there are tunnels connecting the surface and the underground.

NSS:

Their current goal is to find out where all of the sanitization infections are coming from, helping to acclimate octolings to the surface, and helping to establish a working government/system to the citizens below the surface who are too afraid to leave (works alongside other agencies) Sometimes, they help around the community as well.

To their knowledge, there are no more hypnotized octolings.

Although small, NSS is a publicly known and important government organization

Captain Cuttlefish is deceased, NSS is run by Marie and Callie currently, although marie takes on a bigger chunk of the responsibilities.

There's a temporary housing area set up for octolings new to the surface not far from the clinic. They stay there until homes are found for them, which usually takes just a couple of weeks. They work with social services to help them beyond that as well.

Marina and Pearl are agents 6 and 7, however their role is much smaller and mainly help on the side of helping misplaced citizens find homes.

There is a single clinic near octo canyon as of this point that the NSS helped to establish with Inkopolis Memorial (due to a large chunk of sanitizations being found in that area) It's fairly small and typically only has one person working at a time, usually Agent 5 or another doctor from one of the local hospitals.

Inkling/Octoling Stuff:

They take more after the human side

They bleed actual blood instead of ink

They have claws that they can use for defense - ink will fill the tip of the claws.

Everybody has a limiter, which is a chip installed in their arm. Without this, they could use up too much ink when battling and possibly die due to their bodies not being able to keep up with production. When low on ink, their tentacles will become extremely dull and lose almost all color. They'll become extremely weak and lethargic until their hearts finally stop.

They have more flexible bones, but they can still break

They have 3 hearts

Inklings and Octolings gain their squid/octo form around puberty - they are in human form up until then.

Development of a person's squid/octo form can be stunted during puberty if they have health issues

They are able to swim in any water

It expends energy to change from an ink color that's not the natural one so typically they will dye their ink if they want it changed for longer

Ink burns are rare but can happen. It's caused by consistent exposure to enemy ink in a single area or an extremely strong shot. They can be painful, but they will heal and fade over time - they turn blue in color despite the color of the enemy ink.

When a cephalopod feels intense feelings of romantic love for another, their ink color will subconsciously change to match their partner's. They don't technically need to be together for this to happen.

They cannot fall asleep while in squid/octo form; if they do, they will change back automatically.

They have to use special shears to cut their tentacles or else it would be painful and cause possible damage.

Octolings only have some control over their tentacles, and usually, their tentacles can give hints to their mood. Typically, the older they get, the more control they have, but this isn't always the case. The amount of control changes depending on the person.

Inklings and octolings reach full maturity in their 20s-30s. This is where they develop a secondary color at the tip of their tentacles, and octolings will also have their fingers matching their ink color. Typically, octolings reach this earlier than inklings, but everyone is different.

They can get grey/white ink streaks due to age or extreme stress or anxiety

this will be updated as more information becomes available or as things change!

Updated hylian Font chart

Hylian Font chart (old, ignore this one!)

[scotianostra]

On June 27th 1967 the first cash dispenser was opened by Barclay’s Bank in Enfield by actor Reg Varney.

The idea of an automatic money dispensing machine had been mooted and tried without success in the early 60's but it wasn't until Scotsmen John Shepherd-Barron and James Goodfellow successfully designed the "cash machine" and Personal Identification Number (PIN) technology which is still used over 50 years later.

Goodfellow lodged his patent in May 1966, more than a year before the first cash machine was ceremonially opened in a blaze of publicity. A machine was developed by John Shepherd-Barron, who was born in India, to Scottish parents, and lived much of his later life in Portmahomack in Ross-shire.

Shepherd-Barron's ATM beat Goodfellow's machines, which were installed at branches of Westminster Bank (later to become NatWest), by just a month.

So Shepherd-Barron became known as the "man who invented the cash machine" and not Goodfellow, the man who patented the system we use today.

Shepherd-Barron says he was inspired by chocolate vending machines, he stated "It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money, anywhere in the world or the UK. I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash.

The two devices were very different.

Shepherd-Barron's did not use plastic cards, instead it used cheques that were impregnated with carbon 14, a mildly radioactive substance.

The machine detected it, then matched the cheque against a Pin number.

Shepherd-Barron worked for banknote manufacturer De La Rue, which never patented its machine.

Before he died in 2010, he told a documentary that he didn't patent the idea because he did not want fraudsters knowing how the system worked.

He also said that the chief executive of Barclays had been quick to say yes to the idea when they had discussed it after a couple of Martinis.

Shepherd-Barron then had to go back to his team and get them to develop his idea.

In recent years, his claim to have been the real inventor of the cash machine has been recognised more widely.

Mr Goodfellow now does not like to talk about the years in which Mr Shepherd-Barron got all the credit but in a 2009 BBC documentary he said it "really does raise my blood pressure".

The engineer, from Paisley, told BBC Scotland: "My patent was licensed by all the manufacturers. They thought that was the way to go.

"The race to get it on to the street was not as important.

"Getting it right was the answer, not getting it first."

Mr Goodfellow was working as development engineer for Glasgow firm Kelvin Hughes in the mid-1960s when he got involved in a project to design a machine that could dispense money to customers when banks were closed.

He said in an interview that the driving force for the move was unions putting pressure on banks to close on Saturday mornings.

He said most people worked during the week and could not get to the bank, which closed at 3pm on weekdays.

Many people went to the bank on Saturday mornings but the unions were pressing for staff to work a five-day week.

The banks wanted a way to give working people access to their money when they were closed. Goodfellow said "The problem with cash machines was access.

"How would a genuine customer, and only a genuine customer, get money out of it?"

They considered biometrics - fingerprints, voice prints or retinal scans.

"But in the 60s the technology to do this was not there, it was impossible,"

So the next approach was an "exotic token", a piece of paper or plastic with "uncommon characteristics" that a machine would recognise.

His "eureka moment" came when he hit upon the idea of the Personal Identification Number (PIN).

This was the vital security measure that would make the system work, the number would be known to the customer and the bank and could be related to the card but not read by anyone else.

Goodfellow's invention was patented in May 1966, more than a year before his rival unveiled the first ATM in London.

But he still had a battle to make his concept reality.

"We had to meet some of the banks demands which were pretty severe," he said.

"They had a million customers and they wanted 2,000 machines across the UK.

"They wanted any one of the one million customers to be able to access any one of the 2,000 machines.

"You've got to remember there was no IT network in those days. The banks had no IT equipment. The bank's branches had nothing.

"We spent a lot of time developing the code. We had to submit something like 1,000 of these cards to a consultant, who would try to decipher it."

The cards he used were one quarter of a "Hollerith" punch-card, which just happens to be the same size as today's credit card. It contains just 30 bytes of data.

His patent for the card and Pin ATM was licensed for millions but Mr Goodfellow, as a humble technician, did not own the rights and did not get rich from his invention.

He said he signed patents for 15 countries around the world and got a dollar for each - worth about £10.

Mr Goodfellow left the firm in 1967 when it moved its operations to England and he went to work for IBM.

There have been arguments for years over who should officially go down in history as "the inventor of the ATM".

In 2005, Mr Shepherd-Barron received an OBE in the New Year honours list for services to banking as the "inventor of the automatic cash dispenser".

However, since then Mr Goodfellow, the man who patented the invention, has regained his place.

In 2006 Mr Goodfellow received an OBE for services to banking as "patentor of the personal identification number".

He has also been placed in the Scottish engineering hall of fame alongside John Logie Baird, the inventor of the television.

According to the ATM Industry Association (ATMIA), as of 2015, there were close to 3.5 million ATMs installed worldwide. However, the use of ATMs is gradually declining with the increase in cashless payment systems.

[thisismeracing]

https://www.tumblr.com/thisismeracing/737177411791257600/httpswwwtumblrcomthisismeracing7364627668739?source=share

bono!reader head-canons (pt. 4) (glad yall like this insanity)

constantly falls asleep w/out taking her earrings out. whether it be when taking a nap or falling asleep while working in bed those earrings are staying in. so mick has taken up the mantle of taking them out and putting them back in her jewelry box

had those glow in the dark stick on stars on her childhood bedroom ceiling and maybe she still does in her grown up bedroom that she shares with mick

gets a cartilage piercing on the ear that doesn't have her piercings dedicated to working for merc. and the jewelry that she puts in it is a small “47” stud that she got custom made. her piercings represent her biggest achievements in life and her being able to let herself be loved and be in love took a lot of work to get to, so it absolutely gets acknowledged in what she considers to be an achievement

calls james allison “allie” because when she says james she means vowles, and when james a. came to merc in 2017 she needed a way to differentiate the james’.

has an orange cat [purely based of this tt: https://www.tiktok.com/@mildwestsami/video/7136290369683131690] im leaning towards either diesel or luna for the name, but i can be persuaded into considering other ones. those are just the two that seem the most fitting atm

carries her cat like a baby and buys mini furniture for said baby

i think it would be funny if this cat was a stray that was roaming around a gp and she decided to adopt them after checking if they had a microchip and owners

steals micks hoodies/sweaters and they have a bartering system where if she wants one of mick’s newly purchased article of clothing she has to give him one of his old ones back to secure the new one. great economically for her, not so much for this boy

pulls mick in by his belt loops when she wants him close to her

loves being close enough to her lover that she can feel and hear the rhythms of his breathes

having her head resting on top of her papa’s chest where his heart is, listening to the beats of his heart will, without fail, soothe her. it started when she was a smol babe but just because she’s a grown up now doesn’t mean that it wont work

her team headset is covered in small stickers around the merc logo

ok so the jewelry she has in her first cartilage piercing she got for being hired at merc is this [https://www.etsy.com/listing/729980335/arrow-earringscartilage-earring-16g?click_key=198d47f7f1895e88c7eef3638427353c6eef89af%3A729980335&click_sum=65e3a9a5&ref=user_profile&pro=1&frs=1]

has a guest room just for her in certain team members houses [lew, the wolffs, james v,]

i could also see drivers having a room for her (seb, kimi, jense, nando)

constantly tries to persuade (poach) hannah schmitz from working at rb to merc

i could see her meshing well with oscar

her first australian gp she got gifted a small koala plush from one of the drivers (im leaning towards michael) and for the years following it’s been a tradition for all of the drivers who wanted to participate to nominate and vote who would get her a new plush to add to the collection. the only rules being it has to be a koala and it cant be one she has already gotten in years past. best believe there have been fights for the privilege of being the koala giver

[and with that i will end this segment of head-canons, yes i breached the second google doc page again i dont want to talk about it]

happy new year and i can't wait for the 2024 season to start so i will grace the inbox with more bon

(also yes i know this isnt in the usual bulleted list format that i usually do for these hcs but i dont have the patience to re-format this ask on my phone cause tumblr decided to delete my bullet points)

☕️

prev

omg yes to everything sagksjgksdjg I won't even add, just appreciate this whole ass headcanon <3

tiktok link (it says unavailable for me :/)

i think it would be funny if this cat was a stray that was roaming around a gp and she decided to adopt them after checking if they had a microchip and owners // like corinna did w a dog during the Brazilian gp *crying into my hands*

piercing link

*virtual hug* its perfect

[nyaagolor]

Paldean League Worldbuilding

aka how Geeta is reshaping the poke-economy and making herself the most hated woman ever in the process

I generally try to keep any sort of real world analogues out of my HCs for Pokemon bc I think it's more of a utopian society and doesn't need to operate on the same logic of economics or politics as irl, but swsh and sv seem more grounded in our reality so I've been thinking about them (especially sv) a LOT. Decided I would just dump all my musings and HCs about the paldean league here if only to organize it all. Also disclaimer that I am not an economist and will never pretend to be so it’s more than likely this system would never work irl but it’s pokemon so it’s fine

The Galarian and Paldean Leagues always struck me as relatively recent, at least in terms of their current operation, and mostly spearheaded by a super ambitious head of operations who restructured the entire place as soon as they got there. I'll talk about Galar in another post, but atm Paldea has my brain in a chokehold so this is all about them

My main HC about the Paldean League is that up until extremely recently (20 years ago give or take I'm not doing specific timelines here) the Paldean League was extremely corrupt and poorly run. When the Paldean empire collapsed, the League was formed as a way to try and maintain the status quo and keep power in the hands of those who previously held it. It was, and continued to be for the next few centuries, an oligarchy. No one in the system was elected, and those in lower positions had to be personally selected and approved by their superiors. There were no checks and balances, so the people at the top could and did maintain power indefinitely. By the time we reached 20~ years before the main story, the structure was as follows:

Chairman: The leader of the entire thing. Has absolute power over everyone else in the system. Does all the boring stuff Top Champion: A battler and figurehead for the public. The "face" of the League, but generally not in charge of anything and has no political power. Their battle with up and coming trainers determines whether they get champion rank ^ If ur thinking this is similar to the Galar League, you'd be correct. They were based off the same model for a while Elite Four: Originally called the Council of Four, they act as a council that makes decisions along with the Chairman and test trainers' worthiness. Typically in charge of a handful of gym leaders Gym Leaders: Local political leaders that operate under the Council of Four and ensure things don't get too rowdy on the town level. In charge of testing trainers, protecting the town from wild threats, keeping up appearances, and union busting (they mostly did that last one) Everyone else: Salary workers. They have not yet unionized

The system, ultimately, was corrupt as hell. There was no job security, and the hierarchical nature of the league ensured you had to suck up to and do the dirty work for your boss if you wanted to get paid at all. Unions? Idk her. Corruption and embezzlement was the name of the game, and Paldea was basically flat broke because of it, with infrastructure decades behind neighboring regions and a bevvy of shitty trainers. The champion, unlike other regions, was not decided by who unseated the current champion. It didn't matter how good someone was, they had to be selected by the chairman to be Top Champion, and the Chairman would only select someone who would work with them without question. Paldea was basically the laughingstock of the world because of their complete and utter incompetence in any and all battle tournaments and lack of advancements in literally every sector. Then shit hit the fan and we moved onto the system we see in-game

I'm not sure what the event was (a recession, investigative journalism, doesn't really matter) but the newfound understanding of just HOW corrupt the league was and the resulting scandal made the Chairman resign and shook the very foundation of the League. Luckily or unluckily, a young upstart politician named Geeta was quick to fill that void, and through a few political loopholes and charisma, she managed to secure herself as Chairwoman. She had long since hated the current Paldean system, thinking that it held her beloved region back from greatness. She had always been gunning for higher and higher positions, a dark horse of Paldean politics with undetermined motives, extreme intelligence, and frightening levels of ambition. The Chairman had always had their eye on her, personally keeping her in check, but when they were gone Geeta immediately seized the opportunity to grab as much power as physically possible. Getting the position made her effectively untouchable, and that was the ultimate goal, because her plan for Paldea was about to make her the single most hated woman in the region's history

Geeta, upon gaining a position where they legally could not get rid of her, decided to fire every single person in the upper echelons of the league. Every gym leader, elite four, and the top champion were all fired, and she withdrew Paldea from every battling tournament and public appearance until she could workshop the league into something servicable. It was the boldest move since the dissolving of the Paldean Monarchy and it did NOT make her any friends

Though her ultimate goal was to reform the entire Paldean league, her early changes were only possible because of the old system. She could and did reform the system to her liking without consequence only because of the old hierarchy system already in place. Her ability to hand select her coworkers and fire people indiscriminately was one of the greatest abuses of power Paldea had ever seen, whether for noble reasons or not, and the people she fired tried to smear her as much as they could. Though these radical steps were necessary to undo and reshape the corruption hellscape the League had become, it wasn't exactly a good look for the new chairwoman (not that she cared)

Geeta also combined the top champion position and chairwoman position, which was so shockingly unpopular and suspicious-looking that she effectively cemented her godawful reputation. She saw the top champion as an unnecessary expense and decided to take on the responsibilities herself so she could funnel the top champion salary into public projects. This is part of the reason why she’s so Bad at being champion: she’s doing it to save the league money and only needs to the absolute bare minimum. Most of her job for the first decade was analyzing the current hierarchy, finding trainers to fill positions, and trying to figure out how to fix things so that would be sustainable after she left and wouldn't fall back into old corruption. She took on a job in the academy schoolboard to keep an eye out for younger trainers, put as much money into research and economic opportunities as possible, then got to work shaping the League to her vision

Her main vision for the league was to make as many parts of the system economically self-sustaining as possible, which was vital for her gym leader choices. She picked people who had *enough* skill in battling, but who all had other careers that would generate interest in and revenue for the gym. Paldea didn't have the pure battling talent yet to make a name for itself on any kind of world stage so Geeta was completely unconcerned about the actual battling skill of her picks as long as they were good enough and making cash. In terms of gym challenges, she mandated that they had to be free or extremely cheap and somehow tied to the town itself-- the giant contraptions of other regions were NOT in the budget. She wanted the gym system to be a celebration of the towns they were in and to inspire people to visit in the same way Galar's stadiums did, all in the hopes that gyms wouldn't need money from the league itself

The gyms would maintain a similar system as before, with each town and gym operating like a smaller independent organization. Most day to day operations and decisions like numbers of workers and salaries would be handled by the gyms themselves, but with all details publicly available so interventions could take place if things got fishy. All revenue generated by the gym would stay within the town-- it would be used to pay salaries, do upkeep, etc, and anything left over could be used to make renovations / add more stuff to gym challenges / support local businesses. If the revenue generated wasn't enough to cover upkeep and salary, the league would fill in the rest

The reason the gym buildings Look Like That is because the old league funneled most of the money into the pockets of the higher-ups and very little was allocated for building gyms. Geeta kept the design bc it's cheap, Paldea is broke, and the uniformity of the gyms allows trainers to find it more easily. it's also convenient if there's a turnover of the position-- no need to build a new gym! It's mostly an administrative office anyway, only there for paperwork and to house office staff, and Geeta is under the (correct) impression that most gym leaders prefer having stages at their favorite places instead of a specific building. Only two gym leaders have strong negative opinions about the building itself: Grusha, who can't have an outdoor reception area because of the snow and hates sitting in the lobby all the time, and Brassius, who thinks it's ugly as shit (he's right) and wants to paint a mural on it

The gym system is actually run much better than it was before-- it's still hitting its stride at the time of the game but is shaping up into a system that will work long after Geeta retires. The gym leaders also like how things are run quite a bit-- they just hate Geeta as a person (but that's smth I plan on exploring in another post)

The Elite Four is something Geeta admittedly hasn't put much thought into: her main focus was on redoing the administrative side of the league and ensuring the gyms were generating enough money to function + helping the towns they were in. The Elite Four, in her mind, were an afterthought, especially since she stripped them of their political power and distributed that power amongst regular office staff. She uncoupled politics from battling in the upper spheres of the league, allowing for more concentrated and specialized attention to issues so the Elite Four could just battle

In the new league, the Elite Four isn't a council of politicians, just people who test the strength of trainers looking to be champion-- every current Elite Four member is an employee in another sector working the job for a bonus (except for Poppy-- her parents are accountants and she ended up in the position as a joke that went a liiiiittle too far). In the future, the Elite Four and Top Champion might be dedicated battlers rather than a side hustle, but Paldea doesn't have the talent nor money for that at the moment

In terms of economics, Geeta decided to set an inflation-adjusted salary rate for each position that was viewable by the public and that couldn't be changed without a public vote in the hopes this would limit corruption. She also redid the League Points system— it used to be how employees were paid, but now it’s mostly for trainers, allowing the league to subsidize common trainer goods and make things easier to buy (all employees are paid with regular money). Paldea doesn’t have designated trainer routes like other regions and cash is far easier to mug than digital currency, so trainers are encouraged to use LP as a precaution so they don’t get robbed while in the Paldean wilds. However because the LP system isn’t very popular and NOT secure, Geeta is debating phasing it out

In the new system, gyms operate mostly on their own, so the central administrative stuff (aka everything that happens in the league building by the academy as well as E4 salaries and whatnot) gets their money from returns on investments— mostly from Tera Orbs. Fees from defeating trainers also helps, but Geeta made sure not to tie it to anyone’s salaries so that they wouldn’t thrash trainers for money, as encouraging them is the whole point of the challenge. Side note about Tera Orbs: once the league got the patent, Geeta didn’t think twice about the professors, being far too busy with Everything Else to think about her old business partner. Not keeping an eye on them is one of her greatest regrets

In terms of future plans, Geeta has already implemented checks and balances on every position but her own. When she’s confident in how the League is progressing and is sure the system won’t fall back into corruption, she plans on turning her own position to an elected one. Geeta isn’t stupid, she knows that everyone hates her and will lose her position as soon as she puts proper checks and balances on it, so she’s waiting until she’s confident in the League’s system to let the rest of the league get rid of her. By that point, she hopes that the League will be organized, financially stable, and balanced enough so that it can run smoothly long after she’s gone. Also, the league is likely to enter back into international batting conferences by the end of the decade, since there’s a LOT of up and coming battling talent that can make Paldea proud (and hopefully bring enough positive attention and money back to the region so they can actually make the league profitable)

To me Paldea’s league always felt like it was in a transition period, building itself from the ground up again. We happen to see it right at the middle, just before it’s really up to a properly functioning and self-sustaining entity. I don’t really have a closer for this but if u read all the way here I’m very flattered and apologize for being a lil delusional about this :)