#but rant about t///c///m game and the couples and stuff

[connie-taylor]

tldr: dumb rant about ppl acting like anyone who ships danny/julie and le.land/ana are wrong and heres why!!!! just tired of seeing the same arguments everywhere. obviously danny/maria and le.land crushing on julie are canon, just leave the d/j and l/a shippers alone damn

everytime someone brings up "hey why does danny call julie sweetie if he is supposedly dating maria" people always say "uhm its common in the south in the 70s for old women to call everyone petnames" or "uhm julie calls the girls babe does that mean shes dating them too".

and, it just genuinely frustrates me.

first of all, danny and le.land are not old women. they are 21 and 18 year old men, respectively. saying "sweetie" is common for older women to use as an endearing pet name doesn't apply when the people using the petnames are teenage/young adult men?

also, even IF you use that as your reasoning, why then does le.land not call connie or julie sweetie? why does danny not call connie or ana sweetie?

danny ONLY addresses julie with the petname, no one else in their group.

le.land ONLY addresses ana with the petname, no one else in their group.

some people then use the argument that le.land is older than ana (by a year) and was friends with maria (her older sister), so he sees ana as a younger sister figure too and is using it platonically in that way and that's why he doesn't call any of the other girls petnames because the other girls are older than him. that'a fair, but still fails to explain why danny (21, oldest in the group) only addresses julie, specifically with the petname, when she is the same age as him.

then when you get into "julie calls the girls ____", "ana calls julie _____". whether or not you hc any of the group as lgbtq (which i do, lol) - you cannot hold the girls saying those names to their other female friends to the same standard as young men saying those names to one specific girl in their friend group each? as much as i'd like to say hell yea, equality!!!! it just doesn't make sense for the character personalities (strong headed 18 yr old jock, rough around the edges guy from the wrong side of the tracks) that GUN wants to push for le.land and danny to have, for them to use petnames in the same way that a hyper feminine girl from cali would use them.

as a side note, i have seen many people say that if they (maria) heard their boyfriend (danny) calling one of the other girls in their friendgroup (julie) sweetie like that, that they would be very uncomfortable which makes sense because sweetie is almost always used, in the context of a young man and woman together, romantically. absolutely no one is saying that the term is ALWAYS romantic or the petnames ALWAYS are romantic in general, but within the context of the group and their personalities, it is a very odd choice by GUN to have each guy single one girl out with the petnames.

in horror movies as well, it's extremely common for there to be 1 or more couples within friend groups, that's just common tropes, even within the original tcm film there is kirk and pam, and sally and jerry then franklin tagging along.

to me, in my honest opinion, it really seems that GUN originally planned to have ana and le.land as a couple, and julie and danny as a couple. i have no clue what happened between then and now, but even pre-release one of the devs had posted "maaaaybe" in reply to someone asking if le.land and ana were dating, which of course originally set people into thinking that they were. obviously, that was not a confirmation of that, but it was misleading if the answer was firmly no. i just think they had other plans in mind for the victims but already had voicelines recorded. i'm sure in the upcoming lore stream they will give some half assed reason like "oh julie is marias bff so danny calls her sweetie cuz maria liked her" or something, but oh well.

i just wanna like my ships in peace without people throwing that stuff at me. at the end of the day they are my ocs anyway, and GUN lore is sloppy and half assed anyway so we ignore most of it. the pals all date and kiss and smooch and thats it

[xdangan-imaginesx]

Alright, can I get HC’s for Tsumugi, Komaru, Chiaki, and Kaede with a Male S/O who is a huge fan of DC comics (especially Batman)

Tbh, I literally know nothing about DC so I hope this is okay lmao

~Mod Chiaki ♡

Tsumugi, Komaru, Chiaki, and Kaede w/ a Male s/o who loves DC comics

Tsumugi Shirogane:

Though Tsumugi isn't the biggest fan of DC, she knows some stuff about it so you can talk to her about it

She likes when you ramble on about Batman and your favorite characters, she finds it cute for some reason

Overtime hearing you talk about it a lot, she'll eventually get intrested and ask to borrow some of your comics

The amount of e x c i m e n t that went through you when she asked you that, you would be able to rant about it more!

Once Tsumugi has read a few, she started to like it more and more and eventually a lot of your guy's conversations surrounded DC

She'll even ask if you want her to make a Batman cosplay for you!

She'll secretly hope you'll say yes, since she really wants to make you one

If you do say yes, she'll start working on it right away, wanting to get it done but making sure it's the best quality

Once she finishes it she immediately tells you to put it on

Once she sees you in it, she's literally so happy

Overall, she's not as obsessed as you, but she does like it as well and is done to talk about it with you

Komaru Naegi:

I'd assume that Makoto had a time were he liked stuff like that, so she knows a little bit

She'll get kinda nervous when she hears you ramble about it, but she'll listen just to make you happy

She doesn't want to seem rude and tell you to stop, so she'll just let you ramble

Though, she does think it's cute whenever your eyes lit up when you found a new comic in the store or you got more merch

Sometimes she'll get genuinely curious about DC and ask you questions, which you're always happy to answer

You can tell that sometimes she's not listening, but it doesn't really bother you

Since she likes seeing your excited face, she'll sometimes get you DC stuff she thinks you'll like

And you do like the stuff she gets you, you thank her like a millions times

Chiaki Nanami:

She has her own intrests as well, so she's completely fine with it

She'll listen to you ramble on while she's playing video games

And you'll listen to her ramble about video games while you read your comics, so it's mutual

She'll get so many video games based on the DC comics it's not even funny

You guys stay up till like 4 am playing them, couple goals

One time you guys pulled an all nighter playing all the Lego Batman games

Overtime, like Tsumugi, she'll start to like it as well

Definitely not as much as you, but she still kinda likes it

Honestly, she really likes that there's something that makes you so happy out there

Kaede Akamatsu:

Kaede knows absolutely nothing about DC or Batman

I mean, during her freetime she would mostly play and practice on her piano, so she never got into stuff like that

She'll listen to you talk about it and actually ask questions, like she's actually interested

She'll sometime get a little nervous and overwhelmed when she sees how excited you get when you're talking about it

But, it does make her happy that it makes you so happy

Honestly, even if Kaede read some of the comics she wouldn't really get into it

But sometimes she'll play the games soundtracks on piano just for you to be happy

And she finds your litte fanboy-ing kinda cute

[savrenim]

I gotta say I think my favorite part of Jeremy as a DM is that he takes the stupid half-jokes that I make offscreen and just. turns them into things for me. that also fit perfectly into the plot and the story seamlessly but feel special 

like I was making goddamn jokes about “okay but. but I want a bloodsword. we do blood magic. please. Jeremy. Jeremy what if I could make my blood into a sword. b l o o d s w o r d. I could go to parties and never be unarmed because mY BLOOD IS A SWORD. YOU CAN’T DISARM ME YOU WOULDN’T PART AN OLD ELF FROM HER BLOOD WOULD YOU, SO LONG AS I HAVE BLOOD I HAVE SWORD.” and then, like. because it was only half a joke and I got attached to the aesthetic I actively started planning on how to make one of my own, which was pretty much going to be that there are some shadow weapon spells either on the cleric/oracle or witch lists and I was just going to take one of those as I was leveling up in Caedic magic and request that because it’s blood magic can we please flavor it descriptively as being made of my blood and not of shadows like, just as a cool aesthetic piece, and I’d have my bloodsword. 

and then halfway through Book 4 Galen fucking Torus out of nowhere makes a really fucking rad bloodsword from his own blood and hands it to me and I kill a bunch of enemies of the Empire and feel hella cool and I go “c a n  y o u  t e a c h  m e” with starry eyes the next day and he goes “okay sure” and starts teaching me how to make a bloodsword and there are cool bloodsword mechanics and just. Iria Strell got a bloodsword. after I spent six months joking about it. this is an actual legitimate bloodsword not a cheap knockoff made from a flavored shadow spell, real genuine Caedic blood magic here.

and, like, there are a couple of other obvious things (I spent a while being excited about a Feat tree that I’ve now totally forgotten because I think I was looking for some weird way to add Int to attacks and there was something similar to feinting you used bluff for a round and I’ve forgotten about it because it became irrelevant because Iria has developed mechanical combat spurs that give her a pretty similar option, not a “sooo then in five levels I’ll be able to do this!”) I guess another one was joking for months okay not joking about how much in love I was with Arcadia Dominus and holy shit she liked me back and the “gay murder elf bachelorette” bit actually becoming a part of the campaign, this campaign got literally infinitely more gay because I made a dumb joke and then Jeremy went “okay” and followed up on it, we went from no gay to one of the longest running and at least emotionally important plotlines is “oh no Iria is so gay you utter disaster fire of a lesbian how are you going to mess everything up now because Pretty Girl”

but, like

the one that is hitting me really really strongly now-now is that I have been half-jokingly complaining for months and months that I regret So Much Iria Strell’s background as a minor noble because it limits the fanciness and quantity of dresses that I can get for her and goddamnit I want to put her in all the shiny things all of them and how Painful it is to pass all these cool costumes that I Want To Pull just in fashion posts and stuff but uuurgh I can’t because Iria Strell isn’t the sort of noble who would wear all those and she kind of isn’t allowed and that just goddamnit I need to make a character next game who whatever the context wears Cool Clothes so that I would get to actually do a shit-ton of character design and costume design 

and I am 1000% sure that this didn’t change from the original plans, like, the outlines have been in place for months well before I got obsessed with noble costuming, but the big objective of this book is Iria is investigating a maybe heresy/conspiracy that maybe involves nobles, and to do so, she has to go to a bunch of noble parties, and Galen Torus gave her an unlimited credit card and went “material resources are no worry go ham request whatever you want” and what her wardrobe is actively affects all the interactions she has with people and how well she can gather the information she needs to

which means that OOC I get the chance to design a full and changing wardrobe for Iria Strell to look cool as it is now her job as the secret leader of an investigation to actually do noble business and look pretty sometimes and talk to a bunch of nobles and go to parties but just. I’m limited in interesting ways by what is tasteful, but I have been given the full resources and an active in-character reason to utterly go ham on costuming, which makes me so excited as a person

and it’s just. super tiny details like this that idk make the games feel....more than just special? or maybe it’s that I’m not used to being listened to? like. the game is so good. I’m having so much fun. we have gotten to book 5 and it is once again the coolest fucking thing I could imagine. and so was book 4, and book 3, and book 2, and book 1. it is completely unnecessary to throw in tiny things like the bloodsword in order to make me happy and it is all done so....seamlessly? like. if one of my hunches is correct. the bloodsword and a ritual that Galen Torus performed telling Iria it would make her better at the bloodsword wHICH IT DID BUT THAT WAS NOT THE MAIN POINT OF THE RITUAL, THE MAIN POINT OF THE GODDAMN RITUAL WAS TO CONSECRATE PRIESTS AND PRIESTS HAVE MORE ACCESS TO BLOOD MAGIC SO A SIDE EFFECT IS BETTER THAN A BLOODSWORD BUT A CONSECRATED PRIEST IS A SUPER HIGH RANK AND THIS MAKES HER A CONSECRATED PRIEST AT AGE EIGHTEEN WHICH IS VERY VERY VERY UPSETTING TO HER AND POSSIBLY UNPRECEDENTED EARLY 30S IS CONSIDERED RIDICULOUSLY EARLY TO BE A CONSECRATED PRIEST FOR INCREDIBLY TALENTED AND FAST-CLIMBING CAREER-FOCUED NOBLES NOT A MINOR DISGRACED KIND OF EXILED LESBIAN DUMPSTER FIRE LIKE SHE IS

but consecrated priest thing aside and that being one way or another a major plot point and that coming so seamlessly and so perfectly a surprise from the fact that she asked an Exarch if he’d teach her how to make a bloodsword

again I’m pretty sure “Book 5 is noble politics book” was always going to be a thing so it’s not “oh Jeremy wrote it into the plot that I get to be ridiculous and pick out every single dress and everyday wear and hair and makeup for my character all the time multiple times a session and have that matter” because it was always abstractly going to matter as that matters as a part of being a Caedic noble but just 

here and is everything I wanted and was everything that I was totally joking about for months except no joke I just. get to do it. which I’m just actively so excited about. I guess it just...feels weird to me because I’m... sometimes used to making my own fun? or just, like, making things happen in my own life? there have been way too many “well if you want to survive it’s only you that you can rely on” situations not even in a bad sense of my life is horrible like. I could go on a rant about how I....not don’t trust people as people but don’t trust people to be 100% reliable and so always make a backup plan so that if a person falls through I can still get what I need done to be done and it’s just more pleasant for everyone involved if I don’t pin pressure on people or things? but in a different way I do the same thing for the games that I’m involved in, I will find things to make me have Feelings and will make my own fun and write letters and befriend NPCs and insist on staying in touch and, like...I dunno I guess I’m not used to trusting any world, be it fantasy or real, to give me what I want, if I want a thing I have to carefully plan and invest time and energy to earn and take it and be prepared to fail and just because Jeremy’s my friend and I goddamn narrate everything jokes or not of how I/my characters feel and “okay but here is the 1000th picture of a cool dress that I’m sending you and because Iria Strell doesn’t get to wear cool dresses we’ll say it’s the Gothicus Maximus Spring 2019 collection” and just

I guess I’m really not used to a world that cares about what I want

and, like, is sometimes fucking brutal Iria is dealing with slowly losing her mobility and ability to fight to an injury that was her fault and she is descending into a lot of really fun mental health places that push fun buttons and Marian is spelljammer and is Marian don’t even get me started on Marian’s family suddenly reappearing or just. characters from the thousands upon thousands of words of backstory showing up but just idk it feels like even when things are really brutal to the characters......the world is still kind to me? it’s aware of what I care about and it cares about me?

and I’m just so not used to the world being kind

I don’t need the world to be kind to love it. I love this world even with how fucked up and hard it is, and I love the games that I play and the stories that I get to be a part of without them caring about me at all, I don’t need them to care about me, that’s not why I’m playing

maybe I’m just hella tired and the move has been awful my old housemate gave me a deadline less than 12 hours before when there was never a deadline in our original conversations and then she and her mother were also going through my room and my stuff I guess to try to determine how quickly I’d get out of there but, like, I do not like it when people go through my stuff and there was a scare about the landlord selling the new place and the new landlord would have to honor the lease for a year but then maybe not wanting me to have my cats so suddenly for two days even my new living place was up in the air and I was already jet lagged and stressed and barely slept to try to finish a week’s worth of work that I was under the full impression I had a week to do in a day and a half and definitely sprained my ankle but got to keep walking on it and internet took forever to set up and trying to fix my furniture and all my stuff is in boxes and I’m still walking around on a twisted ankle because it’s just me there’s no one here to help me, if I want things to be okay and to get done I have to make them be done myself and these boxes need to be unpacked by Saturday morning because the landlord wants to fix the floor and just. I’m stressed and emotional so maybe I’m hella overreacting to “oh you like costumes? well an aspect of this book is noble interactions and parties so sure I’ll let you pick out literally every dress that you’re wearing” but it just

it matters so much to me

Jeremy is really really good at the DnD thing

[s-lay-ing]

Alphabet tag! 🐙

Hello everyone! I was tagged by Cat aka @softlysweetlystan to this tag and tbh I was WAITING for someone to tag me in it soooooooo thank you so much! 😁

A: AGE - 21

B: BIRTHPLACE - Chile!

C. CURRENT TIME - 2am

D: DRINK YOU HAD LAST - water

E: EASIEST PERSON TO TALK TO - oh boy, trick question 😅 it’s complicated rn but I have two friends who allow me to rant about stuff and yeah

F: FAVORITE SONG - a lot of people think you can’t have favorite songs but I kind of disagree ?) anyways: of all time? currently? overall? western/eastern???? - of all time: (I’m naming only ten to avoid making this longer) la vie en rose - grace jones, ghost town - cheap trick, rock the casbah - the clash, walking on the moon - the police, flawless - george michael, the last day of summer - the cure, d’yer mak’er - led zeppelin, the killing moon - echo & the bunnymen, the shadow of love - the damned, sunday morning - the bolshoi - currently: svt’s clap and astro’s crazy sexy cool!

G: GROSSEST MEMORY - hmm, idk. Can’t think of sth rn :o

H: HOGWARTS HOUSE - Slytherin

I: IN LOVE? -  sure jan 😂

J: JEALOUS OF PEOPLE - not really ?) except people who have lots of money and waste it

K: KILLED SOMEONE - YESS, I’ve killed lots of bugs mercilessly 😭

L: LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT OR SHOULD I WALK BY AGAIN - walk by again ?) first sight is mostly about looks so if you don’t focus on their personalities then you’re bound to let a disaster happen 😁

M: MIDDLE NAME - which one of the two I have? 😂😂😂

N: NUMBER OF SIBLINGS - two, I’m the middle one

O: ONE WISH - I want my band to be legendary for fucks saaaake!!!

P: PERSON YOU CALLED LAST - my mom probably, I rarely to never call people 😂

Q: QUESTION YOU ARE ALWAYS ASKED - “You are not a minor??? You look fifteen!“ or the all time classic: what are you going to do with your life? 🙃

R: REASON TO SMILE - so many reasons to smile tbh!

S: SONG YOU SANG LAST - lips like sugar - echo & the bunnymen

T: TIME YOU WOKE UP - I think around 2pm ?)

U: UNDERWEAR COLOR - i r r e l e v a n t ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

V: VACATION DESTINATION - that I want to go? Greece and the Maldives, after that I’m up for everything. That I’m going to? Santiago and Viña in a couple of weeks! 

W: WORST HABIT - GOING TO SLEEP AT SUCH UNHOLY HOURS I mean yeah being awake at night is peaceful but you can’t do a thing! Can’t make noise bc the rest is sleeping so 😅 also I kind of suck with social media ???? I have accounts for everything yet I barely use them 😂😂😂 twitter is mostly for info and fb to keep up with friends and ig…idfk what’s up with ig but yep 😂

Y: YOUR FAVORITE FOOD - Italian food!!! I adore it! Same with chinese food (even tho the owner of the restaurant where I get it isn’t even chinese apparently???)

X: X-RAYS - I’ve had some 💀

Z: ZODIAC SIGN - scorpio

tagging: @strawberryboo @ilyjs @sparkleskwan @king-hao @triplehsofresh @whatsol @jeongjarsofhannie @aceshua @jisoosmeoli @babybyuny @sambashua (mir I’m p sure you’ve been flooded with tag games so I’m tagging you just because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and whoever wants to do this!

As usual, it’s okay if you don’t feel like doing it :))

[shockcity]

DD #5 - Distance

Rating: T 

Summary: Matt owns a coffee cart. 

Category: M/M 

Pairing: Matt Murdock/Tony Stark

Warnings: none 

_____________________

The cart was passed down from Jack’s Uncle, who had owned and maintained his little business in midtown west for nearly twenty years until his death. The whole enterprise started when Jack came to him and said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“You could rent the cart,” said Uncle Mike. “I’ll give you a fair price, Jack, but you’ll have to give the Fixer the boot.”

Which was easier said than done. You didn’t just give the Fixer the boot, unless you wanted a boot to the ribs. Or the head. Followed by a bullet. But Jack knew that life wouldn’t get any better for him and Matty if he kept on legbreaking for Sweeney. He needed a way out, and it came in the bizarre form of Ajax Chemical Company and a broken hip.

“Your boy is blind, and we at Ajax extend our sympathies,” the suit said. “But what he needs now is his father, not a convict.”

“You wanna say that again?” Jack asked.

“Look, Mr. Murdock,” said the other suit. “Let’s be plain. If you go to the press, or file a complaint, or hell - get an attorney somehow – a little bird is going to tweet in the ear of the NYPD about your employment with the Fixer. Are we clear?”

So without a hope of retaliating against the company that had blinded his son, Jack fought every fighter thrown at him, from amateur to bum to underground brawler. It was hard on him, and it was hard on Matty.

Then Uncle Mike broke his hip.

“Rent the cart,” he’d insisted, when Jack hesitated to say yes. “Couple of years at it and I’ll give you the license. Fair and square.”

So Jack took up a coffee cart.

_____________________

42nd and 8th had been Uncle Mike’s spot ever since he took it from Freddy Four Fingers back in ‘78 in a poker game. It was a pretty standard coffee and tea cart, though it did have a stove for cooking dubious breakfast sandwiches for the adventurous.

What was different about this particular coffee cart was the giant ugly devil face painted on the side. Below it, it said, “Hot Coffee from Hell’s Kitchen,” with flames shooting out around the sides. It guaranteed some kind of special brew, though Uncle Mike’s coffee wasn’t any different than coffee from, say, Brooklyn. And his sister, Jack’s mother, hated it. She cried “sacrilege” and told Uncle Mike to go to church. (By the time Matt was in charge of the cart, the awful motif had grown on him).

Vendoring didn’t pay much, so Jack still had to box on occasion, but for some reason life seemed to look a little brighter after that. And when Mike gave Jack the license, it somehow became Jack’s little business in midtown west, and then later — it was Matt’s.

Later was now, and now there was an altercation.

“I am 18 inches, I am 18 inches,” said Rico from the fruit stand. He was crowding the curb, and the cop knew it. “I sell fruit–”

“I know you sell fruit, you listen–no, no, you’re too close to that building there. You’re too close to the building, hey–”

Matt hopped down from his cart. “Rico, you okay?” he called out.

“Get back in your truck!” hollered the officer, but Matt walked closer.

“Rico, what’s happening?”

“Hey, get back in the truck!”

“What’s wrong with Rico?” Matt clicked over, looking disheveled and worried. The cop moved forward, one had on his belt, and Lewis at the newsstand yelled out from behind his counter, “hey, man, he’s blind!”

“Is Rico ok?”

“He’s blind, man!”

“I sell fruit!”

“He’s blind!”

“Alright, alright!” the cop yelled. “When I come back, this cart is on the curb, understand? Stay away from the building, you hear me?”

“He’s blind, man, not deaf, heh heh.”

Matt went back to his truck as the officer left, and Rico and Lewis moved the fruit cart two inches to the left, but no closer to the curb.

“Nicely handled,” said Tony Stark, having watched the entire thing over the top of his sunglasses. “Flat white, and your phone number.”

“As always Mr. Stark,” said Matt, pouring espresso shots. “That’s a dollar fifty.”

______________________________________

Like clockwork, Samuel Chung arrived at 4pm to drive the truck to the garage and wash it down. “They fined Hassan again,” he said today. “A grand! Racist dicks.”

Hassan ran the hot dog cart on 43rd. “What did they fine him for?”

“Apparently he didn’t show his permit fast enough,” said Sam wrathfully. “And they got Chen the other day for littering while a little white girl dropped her empty coffee cup on the sidewalk. Right in front of him. I posted a link to my tumblr on twitter about it. Tell Foggy, man, he’ll rant with me.”

Sam was a social justice blogger.

Matt liked him anyway.

_________________________

Matt had a good business, good friends, and a good life. He should have been on top of the world. But he wasn’t. In fact, he seemed to exist in a continuous state of exhausted irritation.

And the problem was Stark.

He’d frequented the cart before even the Afghanistan incident, and when he got back to New York his habit of buying Hell’s Kitchen coffee hadn’t changed. Matt was in his early twenties back then (and Stark was way too old for him, honestly), and had sort of worried about the man when he’d heard what had happened. Then the whole Iron Man thing…well, Matt was concerned and really hoped Stark knew what he was doing. He made the mistake of not saying so.

“Flat white, Stark, or do you need a gas station?”

For some reason, Stark thought this was hilarious. “The suit doesn’t run on gas but thanks for thinking of me,” he said, grinning. “Did I ever tell you I have a thing for redheads?”

Matt’s jokes and his hair (apparently) were what made Stark a loyal customer, and Matt would appreciate that but Stark was different from Matt’s other regulars on account of his being supremely annoying. He also had a big mouth, and told everyone about Matt’s ass coffee. So business picked up, but Matt also got a lot of weirdos at his cart.

“I will partake in some of your delicious dark beverage, good vendor! Friend Tony assures me that you serve the best smooth black drink in the city!” Thor boomed, and everyone heard, so business picked up.

“A cappuccino is fine, none of that pumpkin latte venti skinny mad cow stuff,” said the guy in the bright purple suit. “Tony sent me, by the way, he wants your number. He’s kind of a perv.”

The purple suit did not scare customers away, oddly enough, nor did the sudden appearance of the Black Widow. Matt really liked her, and she told him to call her Natasha. He gave her his number. Stark made a big deal about that.

“Um, Tony sent me,” said Captain America, tone full of awkwardness. “Regular coffee, please.”

Matt handed the American national treasure a coffee. “Let’s pretend you appealed to me and I politely rejected the pleasure of whatever it is he’s offering today. You tried your best. That’ll be a buck fifty.”

“Thanks,” Rogers sighed, sounding very relieved.

Later, he caught Foggy before Nelson’s Meats closed and told him that he had met Captain America. Foggy was reasonably impressed. Matt not so much.

“They won’t leave me alone,” Matt grumbled. “And it’s not like they’re close. The tower’s on 5th.”

“Could be worse,” Foggy shrugged, slicing carefully. “The Hulk could want your number.”

Matt shook his head. Bruce came to his cart sometimes, always right before four when Matt had begun cleaning up and no one else was around. He asked for a chai tea and Matt charged him fifty cents less than everyone else. “I like his voice,” he explained to Foggy.

His best friend only sighed. “I don’t get anyone famous in here,” he moaned. “And no one asks for my number.”

“I don’t see why not,” Matt said. “Passing up a chance with you would be a miss-steak.”

Foggy chopped a section of the steak clear in half. “I hate being a butcher. And I hate you.”

___________________________

Matt was perfectly happy being a coffee vendor for the Avengers and victim of a persistent Tony Stark if it meant he could still live a relatively normal life. But it just wasn’t in the cards for him.

There was an incident with the Hand, and Stick blew back into Matt’s life, and he found himself in the middle of a fight with an ancient Japanese ninja clan. Matt hadn’t seen Stick since he’d failed his final test, so their reunion wasn’t too friendly.

“Matt, what happened?” asked Sam Wilson, one of Matt’s favorites that also got a discount. “Who did this to you?”

His face was pretty beat up, so Sam Wilson wasn’t the only person that was concerned. Stark had unfortunately come by that morning and had actually entered the sanctity of the cart to force ice onto Matt’s bruised face. “Do I need the suit? I’ll get the suit. Someone is going to hurt. Who was it?”

“No, Tony, leave it,” Matt told him. “I got mugged, it’s no big deal. Now get out of my truck.”

Unfortunately, this meant the Avengers came around a lot more, and to make things even worse – they began to patrol Hell’s Kitchen.

“This you?” said an irritated Jessica. “Captain America’s in my backyard, Murdock. Tell your friends I’ve got your back, I don’t like them hanging around our turf.”

But Jessica’s super strength wasn’t enough to reassure them. Just when it seemed like Matt would be stuck forever with a bunch of bizarre babysitters, an incident with Rico and the cops prompted a huge change in the life of street vendor Matt Murdock.

Or more like a change of heart, as it were.

_______________________

Matt had often considered becoming a costumed vigilante. If he’d had less control, less focus, the constant noise of murder and assault in Hell’s Kitchen might have driven him to take the law into his own hands.

But Stick had taught him well, and Matt kept up with all of his teachings despite not needing to ninjutsu anyone on the daily. He did it to drown out the sea of pain and hate, and also to keep his six pack. There was, after all, a very good reason Tony Stark was so persistent.

So when Stick asked for his help Matt was in good enough condition to do it, and it followed that when Rico and the cop pissed off a super villain, Matt was able to handle it without breaking a sweat.

“FOOLS.“ Matt heard Rico’s stand crash into the street, fruits toppling every which way. “Doctor Doom has no need of fruit! I generate adequate nutrition through the use of my mystic powers.”

“Hey, man, chill!”

“I am the master of the universe,” said Doctor Doom, apropos of nothing.

The officer that so often fought with Rico over his 18 inches came around the corner just as Lewis said, “you ain’t the master of shit!”

“Whoa, what happened here?” Rico’s cop friend asked.

“I demand satisfaction!” he shouted. “This pestilential creature accosted me with his foodstuffs. I require no fruit!”

“Jesus,” said the officer.

Matt figured it was time to leave his truck. “Rico? Who’s that?”

“Some nut in a cape with an ugly metal face,” Lewis called out. “He messed up Rico’s cart!”

“I am no nut.”

Before the nut in the cape began extolling the virtues of all the amazing things he thought he was, Rico’s cop moved to intercede. “Alright, alright, fellas,” he said, then in a whisper to Rico, “get your stuff out of the street while I call Richards over here.” But Doom heard and blew a gasket. “RICHARDS.”

Having had enough, Matt tapped over and reached down idly to pick up a few of Rico’s oranges. Then he straightened, cleared his throat, and chucked one at Doom’s face.

__________

“You had to have been there,” said Tony, to everyone in line for Matt’s coffee. “We’re in the process of recruiting him.”

Matt thought that this was rich, seeing as Tony only came along at the end of the fight (if it could even be called that) with Doom, and his one attempt at ‘recruiting’ Matt had been met with the silent treatment.

“Did you really beat him with your cane?” asked one of his customers.

“I tripped him,” Matt corrected with a sigh.

“I heard you set him on fire.”

Matt frowned. “Close. I threw hot coffee in his face.”

“You threw watermelons at him?” asked Steve Rogers, aghast.

“Oranges,” said Matt, wondering where people came up with this stuff.

While many of the superhero crowd just assumed that Matt was some sort of mutant, Stark was the only one that really asked for any specifics. Matt gave him the cliff notes version while trying (unsuccessfully) to remove Tony from the cart.

“Senses and training or not,” said Matt, “I’m not a superhero. I sell coffee.”

Tony considered this. “It is good coffee,” he allowed.

“Thank you.”

Suddenly holding up a finger in a gesture of ‘ah-ha!’, Tony said, “how about we keep you on retainer?”

“Draw up a contract and we’ll talk,“ he said, charmed despite himself and beginning to thaw.

And honestly, he’d been gradually warming up to the idea for a while now. Matt supposed that Doom’s tantrum had shaken something loose, and Stark just didn’t seem all that ridiculous anymore in comparison.

Seeing Matt’s soft smile, Tony grinned, sensing victory. “I wouldn’t screw you over,” he told Matt, and he probably wouldn’t. Stark was admittedly good people.

Oh man, when had he begun to actually like Stark? Was he flirting back? This was a disaster.

“Then you have nothing to worry about,” Matt said cheekily, definitely flirting. Fuck it.

“Were you a lawyer in a past life?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.“ He smiled. “I could have been a costumed superhero instead.”

Laughing, Tony edged a little closer to him. Matt allowed it, tipping his head up expectantly

“Why not both?” Tony whispered, and closed the distance.

[shirlleycoyle]

A Roundtable of Hackers Dissects ‘Mr. Robot’ Season 4 Episode 4: ‘File Not Found’

The fourth episode of Mr. Robot’s final season left a lot to be desired, but still gave us a little bit to talk about. We discussed [SPOILERS, obvs] social engineering, audio surveillance, signal jamming, operational security, encrypted chat rooms, and more. (The chat transcript has been edited for brevity, clarity, and chronology.) This week’s team of experts includes:

Emma Best: a former hacker and current journalist and transparency advocate with a specialty in counterintelligence and national security.

Jason Hernandez: Solutions Architect for Bishop Fox, an offensive security firm. He also does research into surveillance technology and has presented work on aerial surveillance.

Harlo Holmes: Director of Digital Security at Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Trammell Hudson: a security researcher who likes to take things apart.

Micah Lee: a technologist with a focus on operational security, source protection, privacy and cryptography, as well as Director of Information Security at The Intercept.

Dark Army Surveillance

Yael: So, uh, how obvious is that white van?

Harlo: I'd just like to say, really appreciate that Audacity hasn't changed in over a decade. Van guy definitely had it open.

Yael: So the best way to get audio surveillance is to put a bug in the actual room and then sit in a white van outside the building?

Jason: Yeah, seems like the kind of wireless microphone setup you can buy at a spy shop.

Harlo: We're seeing some terminal stuff for rtl_tcp, which is SDR (software defined radio) software. So yeah, it's a bug.

Yael: I guess one would think that if you were going to do this, you'd be discreet, so maybe it’d be less obvious breaking and entering and hanging out in a blue van or a green van or something. Something other than a white or black van. But maybe the point was for him to know he was being listened to?

Jason: I once had a chat with a DEA agent about surveillance and he said he preferred minivans—"nobody pays attention to minivans."

Emma: If you wanted to be discreet, you wouldn't even break and enter. You don't need to plant bugs inside buildings anymore.

Yael: How would you bug them?

Emma: For Elliot's situation, the window is a perfect vector. It's glass, I'm sure. Dark Army has access to the kinds of lasers and sensors needed to bug the room from that alone.

Yael: It sounded like when the "mic went out" they just had the bug too close to the speaker, but it's really hard to find bugs.

Micah: I think maybe while Elliot was talking, he was starting to jam signals at the same time to cause the Dark Army guy to get out of the van and investigate.

Yael: How do you do that?

Micah: Well, he'd have to know what frequency to jam, which you're right, isn't easy. But he could use an SDR radio himself to do the actual jamming.

Trammell: Maybe he was messing with the antenna. I think he had pulled the bug out from somewhere. It was sitting on the table with the note "they're listening. " So when Darlene came into the room, she saw the note and the bug.

Yael: I thought if he pulled the bug and brought it closer to the recording device, it could make that noise, but not if he left the bug there. And also I don’t know if that's true; I just know it happens sometimes with mics too close to recorders.

Harlo: I want to look at the man pages for that program, because if I recall correctly, the only options supplied were an IP address and a port for listening.

Cyprus Bank Op

Yael: So Darlene said Olivia was not authorized to transfer anything— “all their authentication goes through a proxy and everything else in their domain is read-only.” So they need to break into Virtual Realty. But I didn’t quite get what Virtual Realty was.

Emma: They didn’t say what Virtual Realty is yet. That was dangerously brief surveillance—only one day. Darlene only saw one shift of security officers; you can't generalize schedules off of that. And no prediction for Xmas, really. It's blind faith. Not that they have a choice.

Trammell: What was going on with Darlene’s OpSec? I realize she was venting and planned to erase the voicemail, but screaming the entire plan to the world while standing on the street was a serious WTF.

Harlo: VOICEMAIL. That's our lil OpSec fail. Maybe she’s on coke? Thus the rant? Then she realizes what she said was really really mean…

Trammell: V O I C E M A I L? Even in 2015, that's such a faux pas.

Harlo: LET'S TALK ABOUT OUR CRIMES ON AT&T'S VOICEMAIL PROGRAM. Like, I have never even left carrier metadata between me and my best friends. Because that's why Signal exists.

Emma: The whole thing was very poorly done on Darlene’s part, but realistically so, given the circumstances. They're all cracking, and they're not playing a long game anymore. They know they aren't getting away clean.

Yael: Yeah, I kind of feel like they're careless because they have nothing left to lose.

Emma: Nothing to lose and they HAVE to proceed, it's now or never.

Encrypted Chat

Yael: Do we, uh, want to talk about Dom’s Adium chat room?

Micah: Dom was using Adium as an IRC [Internet Relay Chat] client, but it also used to be a popular Jabber client for Mac that people would use for OTR-encrypted chats. But she was talking to the person on IRC, which doesn't have built-in encryption, and there was no sign of her using OTR in her private messages

Jason: Yeah, I think she connected to Freenode, which has publicly available/searchable chat logs.

Harlo: The screen shows a little lock icon.

Lost in the Woods

Micah: This was very much a 404 File Not Found themed episode. Mr. Robot had this monologue: “Seems like we're always thinking of ourselves when looking for something that's lost. But we never think much about the lost. Whatever, whoever is unable to be found. Whether it’s a set of keys left somewhere and forgotten, a couple guys wandering aimlessly in the woods, or someone who's disappeared inside himself. What if that's what they wanted all along? Not to be found?”

Emma: Can we talk about the attempted social engineering at the gas station and the three different tactics they each used? Desperate and reserved, straightforward and insistent, and finally just snapping and losing his patience.

Yael: I feel like they COULD'VE used some social engineering. She totally would've given them a ride.

Trammell: There was an interesting minor point about what happens in a cashless society when the internet goes down. Always online systems fail in very brittle ways.

Harlo: I kind of like the idea of overusing the term “social engineering.” Like, where does one draw the line between social engineering, and saying-whatever-because-I-just-want-you-to-shut-up?

Yael: WHAT IS THE GODDAMN SHORTCUT?

Trammell: The shortcut was a bit tropy…

Yael: I just have to say that Tyrell telling Elliot he “didn't care” because he was wearing the standard hacker uniform (black hoodie) instead of an overpriced suit really pissed me off. As if everybody in expensive work clothes gives a shit.

Emma: I got the sentiment. I just think it was expressed poorly. To me it was Tyrell talking about how he thought he and Elliot/Mr. Robot were a team. But Elliot was never of that mindset and would never see Tyrell as his equal—which I felt was the other betrayal. Tyrell has always presented himself as someone with technical chops. In his first appearance, there's the bit about him still using Linux and surprising Elliot. But while he's far from incompetent, he's not on Elliot's level. And that realization hurt, along with learning that he didn't get the E-Corp position on his own. It was because of Elliot.

Yael: Oh, did he figure that out?

Emma: I thought he did from the discussion with Elliot, that it's Whiterose’s maneuvering, not him being recognized as valuable. And at this point he knows he's going to die. He's lost everything. His wife is dead, his son is gone…

Yael: I don’t even know what to say about this scene. Even before he got shot. Like… learn some survival skills? You're probably not going to die because it's cold out and you're walking for an hour? Also one of the things they teach in survival schools is "what's going to kill you first." You make decisions based on what will kill you first—so like, yes you might drink possibly contaminated water if the alternative is dying of dehydration. So, like, you don't bleed to death because you're worried about Dark Army at the hospital and how they'd kill you. Also, you're telling me there's no first aid supplies in that van? Like what the fuck.

Emma: The metrics of success are different here than in the usual survival situations. In the survival situations that those schools cover, your ONLY goal is to survive and help your cohorts survive. The remnants of FSociety see it as a struggle to save the world. Survival becomes secondary to success.

Yael: I think it was just badly written for Tyrell to go from "you don't care!" to, like, not caring.

Emma: Definitely a rushed final arc for Tyrell that could’ve been handled and explored better.

A Roundtable of Hackers Dissects ‘Mr. Robot’ Season 4 Episode 4: ‘File Not Found’ syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[seacharge]

Creating meaning

Hi,

Just some updates on life. That adjunct lecturer thing? Didn’t happen, someone else got the job before me. I knew it was too good to be true. I’m not terribly saddened by it, i’ve gone through enough sadness and disappointment to prep for it. When you have low expectations, nothing feels sad when it doesn’t happen.

Today my two friends, K and P were talking about couple stuff. It was fun listening to them rant, I love being a listening ear for them, they are my friends. K is currently in a relationship and P just broke off from one, as they both share their experiences I can’t help but imagine myself having these memories. How does it feel like to have someone to miss? How does it feel like to have someone to care for?

All these questions, I ask yet I still can’t find the answer to.

---

Sometimes people tell me not to give up looking for my other half. You know the standard forest or fish story. I keep telling them that I do not want a relationship, there’s a difference between not wanting a relationship and being unable to find one.

I blame myself for my own incompetence, it’s pretty terrible, considering that I’ve only ever crushed/dated a handful of girls.

pq, e, t, m, c.

Oh crap, that’s literally five girls I remember dating. Obviously, none of them bore any fruit. And if out of the five, nothing came out of it, I can only assume that I’m just a terrible person.

I think out of the five, I only ever crushed hard on M. Funny, we even held hands for a while, albeit we weren’t on a relationship. Holding hands... It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it? Every time my brain decides to play a memory of us holding hands, I bury my face in my hands and hurt a little bit.

But those days are over I guess. I’m done being in pain, I really can’t subject myself to the mental torture of the game of love any more. I’m so sorry society, I’m just trash. I’ll leave love and procreation to others.

ciao.