#chaos krew

[iamheadphones]

Saw a Draw-Your-Squad-Like-This image and knew I had to do it before pride month ended

Color version

[iamheadphones]

This was too funny to not draw. Also also Jess would totally do this

Draw your squad like this

[konstarnacja]

— Magia (…) jest w opinii niektórych ucieleśnieniem Chaosu. Jest kluczem zdolnym otworzyć zakazane drzwi. Drzwi, za którymi czai się koszmar, zgroza i niewyobrażalna okropność, za którymi czyhają wrogie, destrukcyjne siły, moce czystego Zła, mogące unicestwić nie tylko tego, kto drzwi uchyli, ale i cały świat.

Andrzej Sapkowski „Krew elfów”

[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

[vaguely-concerned]

can you imagine how good it must have been for gideon -- scared and disheveled and starved, scrambling back into the world with nothing but a bunch of bad memories and absolutely no one to rely on -- to meet up with a guy whose first impulse to something awful happening is '*sigh* I'm gonna make waffles about this. what does everybody want. yeah okay we can do chocolate chips'

(follow-up thought: is that even kremy's first impulse when he's alone and has no one to cook for. how much did he cook between stopping doing it as a job and meeting gideon. also imagining the rest of the krew sometimes helping him do meal prep now and having to rest my face in my hands while emotions wash through me. just think about how patient he is with twig through the whole electrum chef challenge even as she's a hurricane of chaos and attempted cannibalism, that's a man who's reached perfect kitchen zen after having to tell gricko off for Cooking Crimes Against Kremys And Also Humanity a million times. (gricko says it's goblin cu-asine kremy says not in my kitchen it isn't))

[beifong-brainrot]

If worked for the team who made Avatar TloK. How would you rewrite TloK?

To be completely honest, rewriting tlok wouldn't fix all it's issues. Tlok just needed to have longer seasons, an actually established amount of seasons so they weren't pressured to make every single season a complete story for fear of not getting more time.

But let's say, hypothetically that I murdered mr Crabs or whoever is in charge of Nickelodeon and removed any studio meddling from the show.

My perfect world would include:

More filler episodes that focus on a singular character. Think Sokka's Master or the Painted Lady. The Krew are all fascinating characters with a lot of potential, however, due to the runtime of the show, their storylines are rushed... or completely nonexistent. Give me more details of Mako and Bolin's childhood. Show me emore of Asami struggling with her father's arrest.

I'd try to cut down on the westernisation of the show. I can see why these foreign aspects slipped in, since the closer the Avatarverse inches to our modern times, the more blurred the lines become. At least to my whiteass. I'd try to lean towards silkpunk, rather than the much more west based steampunk. It would be a fascinating endeavour to imagine what a world with mostly eastern influences would look like.

I'd make Vaatu the overarching villain/final boss of the story... it would require a bit of moving around of the timeline but I think I'd structure it as: Red Lotus> Kuvira> Amon> Vaatu. However I'd blur the timeline more. Make Amon a background threat in the eariler seasons, only for him to rise in popularity and power after people see what benders like Kuvira are capable of, for example.

This would also allow for certain villains to become redeemed or at least helpful in some way, later on. Mayhaps Amon and Kuvira team with the Krew to defeat Vaatu in some way.

Also, instead of destroying Vaatu completely, I'm leaning towards Korra absorbing him, in a way. Yes Vaatu is a dark spirit, but 'darker' urges are necessary for humans' survival and happiness. Korra embodies the duality of man very well. I think it would be a fascinating idea to see the Avatar become the embodiment of both light and darkness.

In general, making Vaatu and Raava more morally ambiguous, rather than the simple good spirit/bad spirit thing they had in the og show would be a fascinating concept.

I'd do my best to pull away from the show's original centerist narrative. Have Korra learn from the villains and make active changes to the world, showing her growth as an Avatar and person. Perhaps she's reluctant to see the Red Lotus' point of view at the beginning of the show, but sympathises with Amon at the tail end of the story.

Make the entire Krew queer. And talk about queerness more, in general. Have the characters have open conversations about queerness in their respective enviornments and cultures. Tlok already has a very queer undertone to it, even before korrasami became canon, but touching on this subject more overtly would provide great opportunity for characterisation and worldbuilding.

Have the story span several years. Watch the Krew grow up. Tlok works very well as a coming of age story even in its original form. Have Vaatu and his darkness and chaos symbolise the uncharted waters of maturity at the end of teenagedom. This especially works if Korra merges or accepts him like i suggested.

There... that's some basics. I think that most of my criticisms of the show could mostly be solved if the studio wasn't being a bitch but well. We can't have nice things, can we?

I took a while to answer this ask because it was genuinely such an interesting, but overwhelming question.

Also now I have wayy too many ideas about a potential tlok rewrite, so feel free to ask me about that if you want to hear me ramble.

[glitchgw2]

OC deput post!

Meet Autopsist Luccem (Lucc for short)

An Inquest "scientist" who's tasked to perform autopsies on deceased fellow Inquest members, experiments (asura only), or asura brought to him from elsewhere by the Inquest to determine their cause of death or...just because! They don't even need to be dead; but if they get in Lucc's hands, their demise is guaranteed. Low scum are often sent to him to be dealt with, to get rid of, be tortured, or have their brain removed for proprietary knowledge. He is quite renown for his enthusiasm about his job, and so people hope they never get sent to him for anything.

Some more art:

Some trivia, toyhou.se link and a bonus art piece (cw gore) is below the read more!

QnA!

How did he get into the Inquest?

After one too many arrests, the Inquest felt like a warm welcome, where his genius and love for unethical cadaver handling wasn't to be punished.

Can he use magic? Does he fight?

He's rather a science guy. He can name every bone in your body but can't conjure fires or anything. He can use a gun though. And he also has a bonesaw. But still, he prefers to rely on defense golems and security systems. Outsmart your enemies and always be two steps ahead of them, you know.

What does he do in his free time?

He likes to play the latest version of digital ecto-gambling on his datapad.

More trivia:

No one knows for sure where his lab is and one can only guess; any and all entry is only available through asura gates placed in different Inquest headquarters. This is also the method he gets bodies transferred to him.

He refuses to work with other asura. He has assistant golems in his lab (and well, technically krewe) exclusively.

He handles a lot of bodies contaminated with chaos magic, hence his yellow pupils.

He's a fan of my goth asura band, Mortis Twins.

He speaks with a slight French accent for some reason.

Bonus art: (cw gore)

I keep saying to myself he's professional, yet his autopsy table is long overdue a fix/upgrade. 😭

And finally, Toyhou.se link.

(Note: he's an AU for an existing character of mine and both of them have content warnings. I hid some darker things behind the content warning because my OC has everything wrong with him in every universe ever.)

[yikes-kachowski]

what abt toph x aang kids??

I like Lin and suyins story too much to change it tbh, so I haven't thought about taang kids.

Here are some ideas though. Since, as we know, they perfectly balance each other out, I think they would actually somehow stumble into being very good parents. Where toph is firm and not enough loving, aang is loving and not enough firm, you know?

I think three kids would suit them nicely. Earthbender, Airbender, and then Earthbender.

Let me quickfire some characters here:

Kipu would be their first. He would be happy, like his name implies. I see him being very spiritually inclined, but still very grounded and even overly skeptical at times. I can see him thinking things through very carefully and being disciplined. I feel like bending wouldn't come as naturally to him as it did to his parents, but once he found his groove in his tween years, he'd be on track to be a master. He would grow up with the most strict childhood because Taang feel like the kind of parents who loosen up their rules with every kid.

Tashi, the airbender, would definitely take after his mother. He'd be smart-mouthed, but still think before he speaks. He'd be observant and quiet until he has something sarcastic to say. But he's definitely the most considerate and empathetic of the three. He would be raised with a strong sense of leadership and responsibility that makes it hard for him to have fun. A nation rests on his shoulders, as well as the eventual training of the future avatar. The death of his father hangs heavy over his destiny.

Anyway, on a lighter note, Diki is all the fun-loving prankster chaos you get when you combine Toph, Aang, and being brought up with two older brothers. She's tough and tomboyish. She laughs in the face of danger and is extremely overly competitive. Anything that can be made a game will be made a game with her. She's also very good at reading other people. This makes her as considerate as it does manipulative. But she uses her powers for good... Mostly.

Anyway, I hope those concepts satiate you! I like to imagine next gen characters in the context that the krew meets you, so here's a bit of ideas for that.

Kipu is a metal bending teacher in Republic City, taking over his mother's role. He helps teach Korra and does his best with bolin. He's reserved but very sweet. He tells lots of stories from his younger years of travel and training alongside the two greatest benders of all time. He and his long-term partners are elder gays for the krew.

Tashi is jaded and always seems exhausted from all of his monastic, government, and familial duties. He and his family train Korra in airbending. He's hard on her and a little offensive at times, but he and Korra become very close.

Diki shows up for some sort of big-fight and absolutely comes in clutch. I can also see her giving unexpectedly profound advice. As a woman, her relationship to Korra would also be very important. Gals gotta stick together and I feel like they would have some deep conversations, and give advice to each other.

These characters are completely free to you to use in any capacity. Ty for the ask, and, again, I hope this is a good enough answer for you ❤️

[ratasum]

The Lost Asuran City of Rata Cautis

The destruction at Quora Sum was chaos. Lives were upended, families were separated and destroyed, and thousands of asura went fleeing in every direction. Most wound up above ground, founding the capital city of Rata Sum in Metrica Province.

But not everyone wound up there.

A much smaller contingent of those that fled wound up on the border between the Straits of Devastation and Mount Maelstrom, in a cavern high up a cliffside overlooking the Unending Ocean.

It was here they would stake their claim, slowly rebuilding from the ruins of the homes they'd lost. Far fewer in number than the group that found their way to Metrica Province, they were forced to eschew their cultural values to take a more community-forward approach. Gone were the days of inner-krewe fighting, shoving responsibility off on someone you didn't like.

With so few of them left, barely enough to sustain a breeding population, they had to find a way to take care of one another. They're uniform, close knit, and while their population has grown in the years since they fled Quora Sum, the cultural shift required by their founding has not left them. There is a deep sense of obligation to the community, and the foundations of helping their fellows through knowledge and invention have formed the basis of their small, branched off society.

(The actual city looks a bit like this concept art of Quora Sum, just without the dragon in the background)

The city is focused on three colleges, the deans of which form the Rata Cautis Arcane Council, led by a single elected member from the alumni of each of the three colleges. An opening in the cliff face, too high up for the city to be seen from the water, provides natural light, and light pipes and arcane crystals absorbing solar energy provide light and energy through the darkness.

The asura of Rata Cautis still speak old asuran, and most have not bothered to learn New Krytan, as only recently did they even witness any other races and survivors during the occupation of Fort Trinity. In the years since Icebrood Saga, as they continued to observe the world around them changing, some scouts took tentative trips deep underground to the ruins of Quora Sum.

Since the end of End of Dragons, some scouts have started to gather information to learn the languages of the outside world so they can begin to scout, reaching out to their distant cousins in Rata Sum and reconnect the descendants of survivors of the exodus separated centuries ago...

Coming later: the three colleges of Rata Cautis. I'm having a lot of fun working on this, but please feel free to use Rata Cautis for guys of your own if you'd like as I hammer out more details!

[vegalocity]

It’s honestly a crime that the writing just brushed Syntax’s becoming a Spider under the rug. No, he’s fine with it, don’t worry about it. No we’re not gonna explore this, they’re bad guys and we’re killing them off anyway, don’t worry about it.

There was so much room to explore, especially with how Goliath and Huntsman might’ve felt, but no.

I MEAN RIGHT?

Admittedly it's a running thing with LMK to IMPLY a lot and then look at the audience and say 'no followup questions' with their full chests, (like all of the implications of Red Son's home life being kinda fucked but it barely gets touched upon again after season one despite clear evidence that things aren't all fixed in S3 and we're just supposed to believe everything's aces by S4) And the Spiders i think are probably the most egregious example

the deleted character (rip Spindrax regulated to the shadow relm), one of the characters never gets a dedicated episode to see how he acts as an independent agent and that spider doesn't even have a real NAME (which im sure drives you crazy in particular Twinkle) there are IMPLICATIONS of character arcs and backstories and overall POTENTIAL that just got thrown away to show everyone how cool and dangerous LBD was and gave NO hope of rescue.

Back when s2 was airing i thought LMK was sort of like- Building a rogue's gallery- a sort of batman rogues are we type cabal that could keep the adventures fresh and fun and... nope. I would have KILLED for a sort of 'Harley and Ivy' type episode that was focused entirelhy around the spiders, and possibly run it like essentially an Ed Edd N Eddy episode as the spider boys tried running a heist or smth without SQ there to keep them from feeding off of eachother's vibes too hard and it all turning to complete chaos.

LMK has a lot of stylistic influence to Adveture Time, and you can tell they WANT MK to be a Finn type (I mean his place in the mythological system seems to be essentially Finn's Catalyst Comet arc truncated significantly) but you kinda can't make an adventure time style world without understanding that the world belongs just as much to the semi-reformed wizard kidnapping princesses as it does to the hero that kicks him in the boingloins, you know?

and LMK very much belongs ONLY to the Monkie Kid Krew (I mean ive gone on record to say that Tang's arc would have been MUCH more interesting if he WASN'T actually the Monk in a past life and really was Just Some Guy and fully earned his own magic, but that would mean the world was bigger than just the characters designated as important so that couldn't be) and the villains are just pins to set up and knock over in a season and a special's time (if they even get that, sorry Nine Heads)

But as for Huntsman and Goliath's perspectives on Syntax- man i WISH i knew those... I think the ones i like the best are Goliath being... nice but distant to the new guy in like a 'whatever the queen clearly thinks its fine' type way and Hutnsman being like- INSTANTLY thinking Syntax is gunning for his 'position' (whatever it is) and is HYPER aware of him, Syntax is living RENT free in this spider's head because he's CONVINCED that he's after his position in the 'loyalty to the queen' social ladder or smth and meanwhile Syntax, genre savvy as he is is like "oh we're gonna do that thing where we start out as rivals but grow closer to respect eachother and eventually become very close friends and playfully compete with eachother sometimes to keep the spice in the banter! this is fun! ^.^"

Idk sounds like more fun than a pile of dead bodies that don't even get the dignity of being brought back in flashbacks

[peachyblkdemonslayer]

All the shows I watched in 2024

Spoilers for some of the shows being talked about

Fright krewe EP 12

7.5/10 Fright Krewe is the story of 5 teens from New Orleans being brought into the world of Voodoo by the Queen of Voodoo herself to stop an ancient demon from wrecking chaos on their town with the help of the Lwa who have chosen them. 

I enjoyed the show overall especially with getting some more knowledge about the Lwa and other spirits and creatures. The problem I do have with the show mostly has to do with it begin the age of streaming and budge restrictions. it feels a little empty despite being set in New Orleans in terms of the back ground shots. The animation also feels very stiff at times as well and makes the characters come off as a bit emotionless when the voices aren't making up with it.

I also would have preferred if that whole main cast was of black kids instead of it being 3 out of the 5 of them seeing as Voodoo is a African based religion and culture. I couldn't really tell what Missy was ethnicity speaking and they could have easily made Stanley afro-latino too. And finally the show felt way too rushed and short in the first season since we're not really given time to explore this world way more in depth especially when it comes to the spirits and monsters that inhabit the world. Still an enjoyable show but I wish it was given more time to flesh it's self out. 

A sign of affection EP.12

8.5/10 Ahhhhhhhhh!! This show is so cute and nice and comforting for me. The way Itsuomi takes the time to make sure Yuki is comfortable and that's she's at peace makes my heart melt. And it's really nice that so many people in Yuki life take the time to learn hot to communicate with her and be accommodating to her needs.

And I would have given the show a 10/10 had it not been for the whole side plot with Emma and Shin. I didn't care to much for their story in general since didn't overlap too much with the main plot also cause their romance wasn't really giving anything. Loved all the side characters and getting a more in depth look into how deafness effect people depending on a multitude of things 

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity can make you a wizard? EP.12 

9/10 Oh my god this show is so good and wonderful. I love that it shows a realistic deception of how some people may struggle to communicate how they feel to their partners. Along with how Adachi had came to depend on his powers too much when it came to telling Kurosawa how he felt at times.

Also adore that they talked about their relationship and got through the rough patches instead of doing the miscommunicate trope that I hate so much. Their matching rings and moving in together at the end made me so happy that my face kinda of hurted. Wish we got to see more of Minato and Tsuge relationship but i could see if there's a side manga for that. Overall really good watch and will come back to watch again one day. 

Tadaima Okaeri EP 12

8.5/10 When I heard about this manga getting an anime I was surprised and excited since it was one I used to re read a lot a while back. And to no one surprise I loved the show as well, not only is is super cute and just a all around very good comfort show this has to be one of my favorite deception of the omeagverse I've seen. In an average one they tend to only knowledge some of the problems that come with the hierarchy in the world but here we cover a lot more.

One being that things like birth control, as Masaki has to take a shot since the pills he was used to taking had stop being affective. They show the side effects of him doing so which is a nice touch I really like as it reflects the real life struggles people go through when trying different forms of birth control. 

And how someone like Mochizuki might feel being around alphas as omegas are treated as second rate citizens. Though we dont spend too much time on that story line it was nice that they were being realistic on how someone who doesn't have the support system they can depend on may feel in that situation. Overall love the show and kinda hope the mangaka comes back and adds more to the universe on day 

Twilight out of focus EP 12

7.5/10 Like a lot of shows I've been watching this year I had a really great time with this. It so nice to see that not only are we getting more queer anime with good budget to show off some great animation, but also something super cute and endearing to see unfold. I liked all of the cast including the reoccurring characters that popped up here and there. Through the 3 couples we had I have to say Mao and Hisahi were my favorite but the other two were nice.

My only complaint I have is that everything went at rapid speed which I can't really blame the show for since more then likely the manga went at a neck breaking pace. Also loved the transition shots from TV to wide screen like the movies. I even looked liked a film term when it came up if I wasn't already familiar with it. Also loved that we started the show with Mao and Hiashi and ended it with them too. Overall a really good and easy watch and wouldn't mind coming back to it again.

Wind breaker EP 13

9/10 Really enjoyed this show and the premise that it laid out. Our main lead Haruka is a nice slight change to the usual lead we have in these types of series. Someone who feels the need to be by themselves cause of how the people around him treated him terribly let a mark on him. But Haruka learning to get closer to other characters and depend on others and seeing that getting/being the top dog isn't as what it seems makes him feel a lot more fleshed out.

The show also does a great job of getting you to like and get attached these characters very quick and craving more interactions between them. The fight choreography is some of the best I've seen in any show ever as each punch and kick feels like it has weight to it. Along with a great ost and plenty of good build up I see this being a sleeper hit for the year. Hate that we left off at a cliff hanger but will be seating for more next year.

​​​​​​​ Higurashi when they cry EP 25

8/10 Ah yes one of the most iconic horror animes to ever exist. Higurashi when they cry is most definitely the show 13 year old you looked up for it most gore scenes but if you sit down to actually watch it way more then that. Despite the fact that I've watched many videos explaining the storyline and backgrounds of the characters I couldn't help but be fully immersed in the story. Finding out more details about the little rural village was slow but worth.

And coming to connect the dots yourself as more of the time loops happened made me feel good. And you really get to love these characters and understand why they did the things they did. I can most definitely see why this is such a staple in the anime horror space and I can't wait to start watching Kai.

[radioactivepeasant]

Chaos Wednesday (doesn't normally happen): Demon Slayer Baby au!

Two back to back snippets: how DJ got his nickname, and how Damas caused A Misunderstanding (long post, be forewarned)

Nickname

"Daxter!!"

Tess brightened, flinging her arms open.

"Angel!"

Daxter leaped up onto the bed, careful to avoid the stack of pillows Tess was using to prop up her swollen ankle.

"How's my best gal doing?"

Tess fell back against the headboard with a groan. "Booooooored. Nobody can get out to check Dead Town for old medpacks, so I'm stuck in here for now. I hope Krew isn't being too hard on you!"

Daxter scoffed. "Pssh. Me? Never. He finally appreciates my skill in drink mixing."

A snort of derision from just below the bed contradicted this. Tess noted the pitch of the voice and raised her brows.

"No fights on the way here to get the eco out?"

Daxter cuddled up next to her and shrugged. "I think he just wanted to feel safe, actually. He's getting better at transforming at will!"

Tess smiled and patted the bed. "Hey goober! Come on up!"

Little black claws appeared at the edge of the blanket and scrambled for purchase. Tess didn't really understand why he didn't just adjust his height -- he had full control over the proportions of his limbs like this. But she didn't mention it. Jak was so much happier in this state, acting more like Daxter said he did before they came to Haven. Tess may not have had a full picture of what was going on in that prison when Daxter rescued Jak, but she knew what complex trauma looked like. If it made Jak feel happier, feel safer to be some kind of little goblin, then who was Tess to stop him?

"C'mere, kiddo." Tess reached over to help him up.

With a little gasp of triumph, Jak scooted up over the edge and flung his arms up in a victory pose. His sleeves, sized for a teenaged boy of regular size, unrolled themselves with the motion and flopped over his hands. The travel-sized dark warrior shook them in annoyance, sending them flapping back and forth.

"Awww, come here you cutie!"

Tess scooped him up and danced her fingers over his sides.

"Tickle tickle tickle!"

Jak hissed, but his ear to ear grin gave him away as he batted at Tess’s hands.

"Weirdo sis!" he signed with a snort. "Daxter help!"

"Look bud, she was gonna go after one of us. You gotta take one for the team," Daxter said. "I just got this fur combed flat."

"Who's my favorite murderbuddy? Dee-Jaaaay! DJ's my favorite murderbuddy!" Tess sang, scrubbing her knuckles across the hissing eco being's scalp.

Daxter scratched his nose and frowned. "Huh? DJ?"

"Yeah!" Tess grinned at him. "Dark-eco Jak! DJ! Get it?"

The ottsel looked over at Jak, who was clearly enjoying being fussed over for a change.

"DJ...huh. Whaddya think of that, pal?"

"Yop!"

A soft look overtook Daxter. He reached out to muss Jak's hair. "Alright, DJ it is."

"Yee!" The newly nicknamed DJ flailed his arms even faster in excitement. The sleeves smacked Tess and Daxter in the face. It was absolutely on purpose.

He didn't know why everything was more fun at this size -- was it because there were more things to climb on? Because fights were more of a challenge? Because people were nicer to him? -- but he loved how wild and big all the eco -- and even all his feelings were. Most of the time.

He didn't like Big Sad and Big Scared. He had to go back to tall DJ during those feelings to get them under control. Or let Sig carry him around, but sometimes that was embarrassing.

"Torn is going to come back here before long," Tess warned the boys, "So if you didn't want to do some work today you'll have to make yourself scarce."

DJ began to snicker and pulled his scarf over his head like he was hiding before flailing his arm out from underneath. Daxter cackled, knowing immediately what Jak was suggesting.

"No, bud, I don't think Tattooed Wonder would appreciate it if you hid under the bed and grabbed his ankle when he walked by. It would be funny though."

"Nooo that's so mean!" Tess giggled.

DJ kicked his arms and legs up in the air, made a croaking screech, acting out what he thought Torn's reaction would be before collapsing into giggles as well.

"You're a menace, DJ," Tess cooed, scratching the base of Jak's horn nubs.

"Why yes," DJ signed, "Yes I am."

Damas Causes Problems (on purpose)

"No leads on Mar yet."

Sig slouched in the corner booth, eyeing the empty bar as he spoke quietly into his talk-box. "Been trying to work out why Jak does the...the thing. Why he looks like a desaturated Mar when he does it. All I got is that Praxis picked up a hu'men experimentation hobby."

"I wish I could say that didn't sound like a logical progression of his depravity," Damas hissed on the other end of the line. "Do you...know which form is Jak’s natural one?"

Sig knew what Damas was thinking. He'd wondered it himself. Was Jak made in Praxis's lab? Was the tiny child resembling Mar his truest form and the young teenager a disguise to protect him?

But to the best of his knowledge, it was the other way around.

"The taller one -- with- with Mar's kinda hair -- that's his base shape. He's still learning how to control the dark stuff. That's why he gets stuck in Baby Mode as often as he does. Used to make him real mad, now he just thinks it's funny. But while we're on the subject...I have a request. I know you don't want to get involved in the civil war beyond runnin' guns, but-"

"Spit it out, Sig."

Sig rubbed the skin under his prosthetic eye and groaned.

"I'm scared for Jak, man. Every time I see him, he's weaker. Kid’s about to drop over the edge of exhaustion and he keeps trudging on because he says "they" told him to. And I'm pretty sure he's talkin' about the Underground. Now, I know it's off agenda, but- I wanna follow him back. Find out whose trying to work him to death and straighten em out."

He could almost see the shrug as Damas answered.

"Why're you asking me? He's your kid."

Something warm fluttered in Sig’s stomach and he grinned despite himself. "Yeah. He kinda is at this point, isn't he?"

The line was quiet for a few seconds. Time enough for sounds to begin emanating from the street. Then,

"When you find Mar-"

When. Not if. As if his success wasn't even in question, even after two years.

"When you bring him home, bring Jak, too. I want to meet this kid -- in person, this time."

"You think I'd let him and Daxter stay here?" Sig scoffed.

Just then, the door swung open, bringing with it the ottsel's familiar voice.

"I'm tellin' you, sweetheart, it's all about the pine-pears. Slice em, grill em, put em on the steak. I guarantee even Hoverboy will love it."

Tess walked in with the boys -- Sig didn't blame them for walking together. This wasn't the nicest neighborhood even without the KG -- and she giggled.

"Daxxie, I've never even had pine-pear. How am I supposed to convince Krew to put something on the menu if we can't get any?"

Jak looked worse than before. The circles beneath his eyes were deep and purple, and he looked dehydrated. Daxter perked up from his shoulders to glance in Sig’s direction.

Crap. He loved the boys, but they weren't ready to know about Spargus yet.

"Hey, shift's gonna be starting soon, hon. Imma have to call you back."

"I beg your pardon!?"

Damas sputtered, not sure whether to be offended or amused. After a beat, in which he must've heard the other voices, he sounded calmer. "Ah. You have company. Carry on."

"Yeah yeah yeah. No, I'll remember. Don't worry about it," Sig said quickly, and a little louder than necessary. "Milk, eggs, paper towels. You need me to grab anything else when I clock out?"

Jak stopped next to his table and cocked his head with a soft frown.

"Who you talkin' to?" he asked.

With a sardonic lilt, Damas’s voice grated in his ear.

"Oh, is that my "stepson"? Tell him to take a nap."

"Tell him yourself!"

"Sure. Watch your ears."

And before he had time to brace himself, Sig had his ears ringing as Damas raised his voice and loudly called,

"Hey kid! Be good for your old man today. Take a nap when he tells you to this time."

Sig flushed scarlet from the tip of his ears to his neck when he heard the usually stoic king burst into uncontrolled cackling.

"I am going to get him for this," Sig muttered as Jak’s face twisted in confusion.

"Who the heck is that?"

"A menace, that's who," Sig growled. "Ignore him."

Jak, unfortunately, did not.

[pico-digital-studios]

Into, Across and Beyond! Credits Post

Sonic the Hedgehog: Into, Across and Beyond!

Based on Spider-Man: Spider-Verse by Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures Animation, alongside Spider-Man: No Way Home by Marvel, Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures

Written and directed by Pico Digital Studios, NOT solely to be yet another EXE work, but as a loving tribute to all things Sonic

Based on the Sonic the Hedgehog IP by SEGA and Sonic Team

Co-Writers

@becdoesthings

@mcgamejolter

SFG1235

Sprite Work

CartoonAnimates22

Cylent Nite

Xeric

Mod.Gen Project Team

AkumaTh

jrm10071322

Octluigi

deltaConduit & Pebble

Dolphman

paveldechev0604

Deebs

Jack Gore and darck12exe

NotSoDevy

miniluv73

SuperGoku809

RatherNoiceSprites

khalifax10

DerZocker

LegoLoco7

Miles The Duck

GalaxyTrail

SFG1235

KostyaGame the Fox

JunkeyBot

Nebula

randidesu

Gardow and Overbound

Gabriel_aka_Frag

FlewayAmysprite

TheCrushedJoycon

MarkeyJester

NickyFan7

Shinbaloonba

Willosonic

ManiaMadness91

Lone Devil

mtallic

Rosabelle

NightAkio

Louplayer

Tonberry2k

Smoke-the-Pyroling

KoolTimYT

LiefBnuy

HyperTails12 and LillyDragon

RaulHedgeBomber

DanielMania123

Pics and Pixels

Hyperknux6

And everybody else I forgot to mention

Chosen Official Content

The games by SEGA and Sonic Team

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) and Sonic Underground by SEGA of America and DiC

Sonic X by TMS Entertainment

The comics by Archie Comics, Fleetway Comics and IDW

Sonic Prime by Man of Action Studios and WildBrain

Sonic Boom by OuiDo! Productions/Technicolor Animation

The Sonic film trilogy by Paramount Studios and Original Film

Sonic OVA by Studio Pierrot and ADV Films

Chosen Unofficial Content

Sonic.EXE: One More Saga by Mr. Pixel Productions

Crossover Realm by @becdoesthings

Sonic EX: A Prophet's Tale / A Player's Requiem by AetherAsterisk; Xenophanes by ASTRANOMICON

Friday Night Funkin': D-Sides by DastardlyDeacon and the D-Sides team

Black Knight Amy AU designed by @emistations

ChaosIIUniverse / Sonic: Next Dimension by Toonsite Comics

Errorverse by myself

Mobiverse by SFG1235

Mobius' Freedom Fighters by @becdoesthings and JordanGaming101

Hog the Tenrec by Jack Gore

Myths of Yamaha by HarbingerBeats and danicorelove

What If Sonic Lost His Memory? by The Sega Scourge

Sonic CD: Alternative Ending by Lucsan 2015

Sunky.MPEG by LooneyDude

Needlem0use by ShutUpJojo

Sonic/Avalice Blitz by @bobtheguyyyyy

Sally.exe Discovery, SONIC Lost Drive and Sonic: Shifted Reality by NotSoDevy

Somari by Hummer Team

Sonic Limited Edition: The Lost Cartridge by JordanGaming101

Sonic.exe: Spirits of Hell by Danuha2526

Sonic.exe: Nightmare Beginning

Sonic.exe: The Glitch Chaos by NikoGlitchArts

Sonic 1: The Next Level by MarkeyJester

The .EXE Saga by Oldum77

Hues of Metal by kkirby999

Sonic: EXtraterrestrial Encounter by @mcgamejolter

Sonic Robo Blast 2 by Sonic Team Junior

Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers by Kart Krew

Sonic Legends by Ultra Ring Team

Angry Birds by Rovio and SEGA

GlassCD AU by HarbingerBeats

Sonic Chaos Adventure by Team Chaos

Sonic.exe by JoeDoughBoi and ASTRANOMICON

Sonic.exe - The Game by MY5TCrimson

Green Mountain by grenmoun_s o n i c

Naturagenso by @bluebun69

Friday Night Funkin' AUs featured

Funkinverse by @robovoidfrog

ErroRhythmic Beats by myself

Arrow Funk by Yoisabo

Friday Night Funkin' Soft by ShinyTrexx

Funkin' MIX by Namdam_096

Mega Man: Funkin' Heroes by Merchanto

The Return Funkin' by badre

Wii Funkin' by Sulayre

FNF - Childhood Memories by NotSoDevy, me and BEC

Friday Night Funkin' Neo by JellyFish

BluBuni by leideri

Salty's Sunday Night by Tsuraran and Maqua

VS OURPLE GUY by kiwiquest

Saturday Night Swappin' by Roaming_Pikachu

Wednesday's Infidelity by Box Funkin'

HoloFunk by Codexes

Vs. Sonic.exe by Saster and CommandoDev

Friday Night Funkin': D-Sides by DastardlyDeacon and the D-Sides team

Friday Night Funkin' Minus by LagoAnims

Twinsomnia by Sock.clip

Electro Funkin' by Hannimal

The Blueballs Incident and Alice: Mad & Hopeless by MaliciousBunny

Friday Night Funkin' DJX by valengarfy and Pyschocat

FNF Vs. Uzi by Redpanzee; Murder Drones by Liam Vickers and GLITCH Productions

Friday Night Funkin': B3 Remixed by Biddle3

Friday Night Fever by Helloitsmako and CesarFever

Friday Night Funkin' Logic by GameToons (god forbid)

Friday Night Monster of Monsters by CumiNashe

Friday Night Funkin' WITH LYRICS by RecD

Girlfriend Mode Boyfriend by NoLime

Friendly Night Funkin' by AjtheFunky

Other Featured Non-Sonic Content

Freedom Planet by GalaxyTrail

Spark the Electric Jester by LakeFeperd

Rollin' Rascal by Curiomatic

Penny's Big Breakaway by Evening Star Studios

Kinoko and the Cult of Galaxy by @cultofgalaxy

Mega Man by Capcom

Undertale by Toby Fox

The Smiling Critters by MOB Productions

Amanda the Adventurer by jpgamedesign

Other Featured Content only present in AUs

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic by Hasbro

Featured Original Characters (prominent and cameos)

Nitro, Amelia, Evo, Wade, Karilvatch and Lucia by me

Mr. Needlemouse and Kyuzi by @mcgamejolter

Antho the Hedgehog by SFG1235

Devy and Smol Devy by NotSoDevy

Emi Leafy by @bluebun69

SunFIRE and Creamy by the respective owners

Milly Prower by SallyAc63038470

Millie the Fox by CartoonAnimates22

The various characters, including Kaede/Detective Ghost, by ApocalypseTitan

Special Thanks

@trocyte: for helping get all the FNF/Funkinverse information correct.

SFG1235 and @bluebun69: for showing support for the project and being alright with both your AUs being featured here.

@btnfstudios: thanks for the sweet questions you provided for the Q&A so far!

Marvel and Sony Pictures Animation: for designing a wonderful tribute to all things Spider-Man!

NightAkio: for contributing your OC and Candy's as cameos, alongside the idea of Lord Mortis showing up.

All those I've seen crafting wonderful NU retakes behind the scenes, such as Stitches, PrimalKoopa and @chicaseptic!

SEGA and Sonic Team: for bringing the way past cool blue blur into our lives!

And, of course, you guys! Thanks for giving the webcomic/fanfic a read!

Sonic the Hedgehog is (C) of SEGA and Sonic Team as of 1990.

[system-architect]

i took some of my friends/guildies on a run through 'story mode' (listening to all the dialogue) of shattered observatory recently and some of them learned new stuff despite running fractals often, which made me realize a bit there's actually a decent amount of fractals lore that people might not know or have picked up on, especially if you ran through the fractals pretty fast?? imo it's genuinely one of the most fascinating and well-written areas of the game

so, here, some of my favorite fractal/dessa/arkk lore tidbits (and why i Really Love Fractals):

1. arkk and potentially dessa are implied to be ex-inquest-- in the nightmare fractals, arkk mistakes the players for inquest debt collectors, and in his chaos fractal journal entries mentions his 'witless subordinates', so the implication feels to be that his mists research was inquest funded before he ghosted them. in thaumanova, dessa mentions two of the inquest npcs as having been krewemates of hers-- in ls1 she refers to them as being from her 'old krewe', and still describes them as friends (she also refers to them as 'good technicians', like yknow, the inquest rank). also, it may be for aesthetics, but tiles with the inquest logo are used throughout fractals (and in mistlock sanctuary)

2. simon, the cat obtainable from fractals, is implied to have been arkk's cat as per the headstone next to it (does this make arkk's cat golems make sense? maybe! they're also a cheeky reference to the other cat golems throughout fractals)

3. there was a little incident back in ls1 that revealed the fractals lobby is, itself, a fractal, and it and all the creatures in it loop continuously just like the regular fractals. shattered observatory is also vaguely foreshadowed in it, in a sad way :")

3a. similarly, by the way, the mistlock sanctuary is a fractal too-- ever talked to the npcs in there? go speak to ilia-- and the bartender

4. dessa hates the consortium, supposedly 'lost' her boyfriend (potentially arkk's father?) to them, and is not aware that the consortium are the ones who started promoting the fractals to tyria as an 'attraction'

5. dessa is, in some way, connected to the asura boss at the end of uncategorized fractal-- a small fact we only know from the dreamer collection, combined with dessa freaking out and having to leave when the fractal begins. we don't know their relation

6. dessa seems somewhat aware that she is non-existent/a mists magic construct bound to the timeloops. in a now-lost lore interview from wartower, she is described as being afraid to leave mistlock observatory in case she can't return to it. at the end of shattered observatory, she is much quicker to have the revelation than arkk is-- to the point where you could read it as her having known the whole time

7. and now, my favorite, which is more of a headcanon with a solid lore basis that i tend to go full pepe silvia about-- there's two types of fractal we see: ones that are sort of 'possible' or somewhat alien alternate realities, and then ones that are repeating loops of events that actually happened.

chaos, nightmare, and shattered observatory are all evidently loops of events that actually happened. arkk very much does smash into the fractals, you very much do stop him, dessa and arkk very much do effectively sacrifice themselves to stop the fractals from becoming destroyed, and then the loop repeats-- as they explicitly state it will

here's the thing... during the dialogue at the end of shattered, dessa states that arkk did successfully account for all variables except for the reality that they themselves aren't sentient and are just echoes bound to the fractal loop. thus that arkk's DDR would have successfully worked to extract them from the fractals if they were real, corporeal entities.

but since the shattered observatory is an echo of an event that happened, then just like all the other 'echo' fractals, then there needed to have been actual people acting upon the mists to create the event that's echoed in the first place. that is, it didn't just pop into existence of its' own accord. and while we encounter the fractal looped versions of arkk and dessa, they definitely were real people outside in tyria at some point in time

so... in the original version of the fractal... what actually happened? did a real, corporeal arkk meet a real, corporeal dessa? if so, did his DDR work? did they actually escape the mists, and then the loop in the fractal only ended up like it did because the copies couldn't follow in the originals' footsteps? or was arkk real, only to find that dessa wasn't? if the arkk and dessa we meet are only impressions or echoes of the real things, then where on tyria are the real arkk and dessa?

we don't know!! we simply don't know! we also know very little about the consortium, their connections to the inquest, or the uncategorized fractal! there is SO MUCH lore they could expand upon in future fractals and i really really hope they do ;_;

[rainbowbobatea]

Thief of the Night 🌙🎭🌜

Mish was always down for a good celebration…

But not today. That can wait.

For now, she had better things, more important things to worry about than wearing masks, eating gumbo, and joining the Mardi Gras parade.

Mish crouches in the shadows of an alleyway, her eyes fixed on the opulent building across the street. The krewe's headquarters looms before her, its facade adorned with gaudy Mardi Gras decorations. Music and laughter drift from the nearby parade, but Mish tunes it out. She's got a job to do.

She checks her watch. 9:45 PM.

Perfect timing.

Mish slips out of the alley, blending seamlessly with the crowd of revelers. She's decked out in a flashy sequined dress and feathered mask, the perfect disguise for tonight's festivities. As she approaches the building, she spots two beefy security guards flanking the main entrance.

"Time for Plan B," she mutters.

Circling around to the back of the building, Mish finds what she's looking for – a service entrance, likely used by staff and caterers. She waits in the shadows, watching as a harried-looking waiter hurries out for a smoke break.

Mish seizes her chance. She saunters up to the door, swaying slightly as if tipsy from the night's revelry.

"Oi! Hold the door, will ya?" she calls out in her best American accent.

The waiter glances at her, clearly annoyed but too rushed to argue. He props the door open with his foot.

"Thanks, love," Mish chirps, slipping inside.

She finds herself in a bustling kitchen. Staff rush about, prepping trays of hors d'oeuvres and refilling champagne flutes. Mish snags an empty tray and apron from a nearby cart, donning them with practiced ease.

A frazzled manager spots her. "You! New girl! Take these upstairs to the VIP lounge. And hurry!"

Mish nods, accepting the tray of fancy canapés. "Yes, chef!"

Heart racing, she navigates through the chaos of the kitchen and out into the main hall. The krewe's headquarters is a maze of opulent rooms and winding corridors. Mish keeps her head down, playing the part of a harried server as she searches for her target.

After what feels like an eternity of smiling and nodding at drunk partygoers, Mish finally spots it – a heavy oak door with an "Authorized Personnel Only" sign. Two more guards flank this entrance, looking bored but alert.

Mish sets her now-empty tray on a nearby table and slips into a quiet alcove. She pulls out her phone, tapping rapidly.

"Come on, come on," she mutters.

A moment later, alarms blare throughout the building. Panicked shouts erupt from the party guests.

"Fire! Fire in the kitchen!"

The guards exchange a worried glance before rushing off to investigate. Mish grins. Sometimes, the oldest tricks work the best.

She darts forward, producing a small device from her clutch. It's a skeleton key of sorts, courtesy of her tech-savvy partner back home. Mish presses it against the electronic lock, holding her breath…

A soft beep, and the door clicks open.

"Well, yes!" Mish whispers triumphantly.

She slips inside, finding herself in a narrow hallway. At the end, another door – this one even more heavily fortified.

The vault.

Mish approaches cautiously, aware that she's racing against the clock. It won't take long for security to realize the fire alarm was a false alert.

She examines the vault door, whistling softly. "Now that's what I call security."

It's a state-of-the-art biometric lock, requiring both a fingerprint and retinal scan. Mish grins. Good thing she came prepared.

From her clutch, she produces what looks like a thin sheet of clear plastic and a small vial. Working quickly, she presses the plastic against the fingerprint scanner, watching as it molds to match the last print used.

Next, she uncaps the vial, revealing a contact lens. This part's always tricky. Mish carefully places the lens over her eye, blinking rapidly as it adjusts.

"Alright, let's see if this works."

She presses her finger to the scanner, then leans in for the retinal scan. For a heart-stopping moment, nothing happens.

Then, with a soft hiss, the vault door swings open.

"Fucking finally," Mish breathes.

She steps inside, eyes widening at the sight before her. The vault is filled with priceless Mardi Gras memorabilia – elaborate costumes, historic photographs, and glittering jewelry from parades past.

But Mish only has eyes for one thing – the crown.

It sits on a pedestal in the center of the room, bathed in soft light. Mish approaches slowly, almost reverently. It's even more stunning up close – a masterpiece of gold filigree studded with rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. At its center, a massive emerald gleams.

"Hello, beautiful," Mish murmurs.

Mish's heart races as she stands before the crown, her fingers itching to grab it. But before she can make her move, a smooth, playful voice breaks the silence.

"Beautiful indeed, huh, cher?"

Startled, Mish whips around, her eyes widening as she sees a large shadow looming behind her. Adrenaline surges through her veins, and she snaps.

“Who the fuck are you?!”

The shadow steps into the light, revealing a tall, lean figure with a roguish grin. It's Gambit, the renowned thief, his silhouette taking form as he steps forward. He smirks, his red-on-black eyes glinting in the dim vault.

"You know how looong I've been waiting to steal this?" He pauses, looking the crown up and down, whistling. "Whoo. Imma 'boutta make a name for myself here."

Mish stands her ground, unimpressed by his sudden appearance. She's come too far to let some smooth-talking charmer ruin her heist.

"Back off. I got here first," she retorts, her voice laced with irritation.

His lazy smile widens, and he leans against a nearby display case with casual grace. "Well... technically, Remy was born here in New Orleans... so I was here first."

"Oh, fuck off."

To her surprise, Remy laughs - a large, booming sound that echoes through the vault. The damn bastard not only has the nerve to laugh in her face, but to also look so freak'n handsome while acting like such a fucking prick: His chiseled features, that roguish smile, those mesmerizing eyes...

"I know the tricks you have up ya sleeve," Mish says, her voice steadier than she feels.

His eyes sparkle with amusement as he leans closer, the scent of his cologne teasing her senses. "Oh, do you now?"

Before Mish can react, he makes his move. With a swift flick of his wrist, he produces a handful of playing cards. They glow with an eerie pink light for a split second before he releases them. The charged cards whiz through the air, pinning Mish to the wall behind her.

“Hey!”

Caught off guard, Mish struggles against the cards, which seem to have fused with the wall. She tugs at her sleeves, but it's no use - she's trapped.

He chuckles. "Oh, I thought you knew the tricks I had up my sleeve. If you did, you woulda avoided my attack—"

"Oh, fuck off," Mish interrupts, her voice dripping with annoyance and a hint of embarrassment. She hates being outmaneuvered, especially by someone as infuriatingly charming as him.

The Cajun thief saunters closer, his smirk growing wider. "So, a little birdy told me that you know da pattern of the lasers in the middle of the room..."

Mish freezes, her mind racing. How did he know about the laser security system? More importantly, how did he know that she had figured out the pattern? Her plan to let him get fried by the lasers was ruined before it even began. And as if reading her thoughts, his grin widens.

"I know everything, mon chéri."

Before Mish can process what's happening, Remy's hand glows with that same pinkish energy. To her horror, she feels a tug at her pocket, and her journal flies into his waiting hand. He catches it with a flourish, flipping it open and leafing through the pages.

Mish watches nervously as his eyes scan her notes. She's always been meticulous about her planning, jotting down every detail of her heists. Now, that very thoroughness might be her undoing.

But suddenly, his expression changes. His eyebrows shoot up, and a look of intrigue crosses his face. Mish's heart skips a beat.

What important information did he just find?

She raises an eyebrow, trying to mask her anxiety with bravado. "What? Just get the pattern and let me go, you motherfucka."

To her surprise, he begins to read aloud from her journal. His smooth Cajun drawl gives a whole new flavor to her words.

"Client warned about possible interference from Mr. LeBeau. Renowned thief, mutant, former X-Men. Powers include kinetic energy manipulation, enhanced agility, and charm."

A pause.

Then, he continues, a mischievous glint in his eye.

"Wouldn't mind bumping into that handsome motherfucker, actually. Could be an interesting challenge..."

He looks up from the journal, his smirk now a full-blown grin. "Well, well, cher. Looks like you got your wish, non?"

"…I…" Mish opens her mouth to retort, but no words come out.

None.

Damn it. She's mortified that he has read her private thoughts, yet a part of her can't deny the thrill of finally meeting the legendary thief in person.

Remy takes a step closer, close enough that Mish can see the flecks of red in his mesmerizing eyes. "So, you think I'm a handsome motherfucker, eh?" he teases, his voice low and playful.

Mish rolls her eyes, trying to regain her composure. "Don't let it go to your head. I've seen better men in Louisiana."

Remy clutches his chest in mock pain. "You wound me, cher. And here I thought we were having a moment…"

"We're not."

A smirk. Remy leans in close, his breath tickling Mish's ear. His voice is smooth and low, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine. "Ah, but I haven't seen a better woman than you, even during the Mardi Gras."

Mish curses herself as her heart skips a beat, her resolve momentarily wavering. She's acutely aware of his proximity, the heat radiating from his body. The scent of his cologne mingles with something uniquely him, making her head spin. She struggles to maintain her composure, fighting against the urge to lean into him.

"Let me go," she mutters, her voice lacking its usual bite.

Remy notices her reaction, a smug smile playing on his lips. He doesn't move away, instead letting his gaze roam over her face, taking in every detail. "Mmm, see how your body just responds to me?" he murmurs, his voice low and husky. "Look at those goosebumps. Look at how you shiver... your heart is racing. Too hot in here, eh?"

Mish feels exposed, vulnerable. A trickle of sweat slides down her neck, further evidence of her internal struggle. She tries to deny it, but her voice comes out weak and unconvincing.

"No."

Remy's eyes follow the bead of sweat as it travels down between her breasts. He leans in even closer, his lips nearly brushing her ear. "Oh, so is that just nervous sweat? Nervous because I have you pinned? Because…I can do whatever I want to your body..."

Mish's breath catches in her throat.

Suddenly, Remy's voice drops, becoming a bit more sinister. "I can slice you with my cards, dice you up, and send your body remains to my boss... or..."

Remy presses closer against her. Mish's eyes widen as she feels his hardness against her thigh. His voice drops once more.

"…Or I can give you what you want, chérie."

Mish's mind reels. She fights to keep her voice steady, to maintain some semblance of control. "The only thing I want is that damn crown," she responds, proud that her voice doesn't waver.

Remy chuckles softly, clearly amused by her stubborn response. His eyes sparkle with mischief and admiration. "Oh, you're a stubborn woman. I like it. I like you..."

"I hate you-"

Mish tries to respond, to fire back a witty retort, but Remy has other ideas. In a swift movement, he silences her with a kiss. His lips crush hers, demanding and hungry, tasting the unfinished words on her tongue.

Mish is caught off guard by the sudden passion, her breath catching in her throat.

His tongue dances with hers, skillfully stirring something deep within her. She moans softly into his mouth, her hands fighting against her trapped sleeves to tangle in his hair.

He knows what he's doing, that's for sure.

And damn, is he good at it.

As Mish loses herself in the kiss, she vaguely registers the faint pink glow of Remy's charged card slicing through the air. With expert precision, he cuts through the straps of clothes, leaving her bare, exposed.

Remy pulls back slightly, breaking the kiss but leaving their foreheads pressed together. His eyes are dark red, and full of desire as he takes in the sight of her partially undressed, her breasts heaving with shallow breaths. He swears softly in French, his accent thick with want.

"Merde, you're something else, cher. Forget the Mardi Gras. I haven't seen a woman this sexy in all of New Orleans."

"Less talking, more doing."

Remy's grin is immediate, his eyes sparkling with appreciation. "Oooh, I love a woman who takes charge."

Without further ado, he begins worshipping her body with his mouth. He showers kisses along her bare shoulders, tasting the exposed skin of her neck and shoulders. His lips leave a trail of fire along her collarbone, down to the tops of her breasts, which strain against the fabric of her dress.

Mish inhales sharply, her head falling back as a soft moan escapes her throat.

"J’aime ta peau chocolat," Remy murmurs, planting soft kisses along her torso, her stomach, and the curve of her hips. Mish's breath quickens, her fingers tightening in his hair, urging him on without words.

With a swift movement, Remy shrugs off his cape jacket, letting it fall to the floor. The rest of his clothes quickly follow, revealing his sculpted abs and erect manhood. Mish's eyes widen at the sight, her pulse quickening.

Oh…

He positions himself between her legs, their bodies fitting together perfectly. As he enters her, Mish lets out a soft gasp, her head falling back against the wall. Remy's breath is hot against her neck, his lips brushing her sensitive skin as he thrusts slowly, deliberately.

"You're wetter than the Mississippi River, cher," he whispers with a smirk.

"Oh, am I?"

"Ah, yes…"

Mish can only whimper in response, her body arching to meet his. Remy's hands grasp her hips, guiding their rhythmic dance. He moves with an expertise that speaks of many such encounters, yet there's an urgency to his touch that suggests this is far from routine.

Their bodies move in sync, the air thick with the sound of heavy breathing and soft moans. Mish feels her senses spiraling out of control, pleasure building within her like a storm. Remy's thrusts become more frantic, his breath coming in harsh gasps against her skin.

"Tu…te sens tellement bien," he grits out, his voice hoarse with desire. "Y-you feel so good…"

Mish's body surrendered to a primal force as she moved with Remy, her wildness matching his relentless rhythm. She dug her nails into the skin of his back, leaving her mark, claiming him in that moment.

"You like that, cher?" Remy whispered, his breath hot against her ear. "You like leaving your mark on me?"

Mish answered with a fierce kiss, her lips devouring his. Their mouths moved in perfect sync, raw and passionate. In her frenzy, Mish bites down on his lower lip, tasting the metallic tang of blood. Remy hisses, his hands grasping her hips tighter as their passion spirals out of control.

"Fuck, that's what I'm talking about, petite," he groaned, his hands tightening on her hips. "Mark me some more, show Remy how much you want this."

Mish feels powerful, licking the wound she created, savoring the taste of him. She grinded against him even faster, rubbing her sensitive nub against his pelvis as his hard cock buried deeper into her warm hole. Remy's eyes widened in surprise. His hands roamed over her body, his thumbs brushing against the sensitive peaks of her breasts.

"Oooh, you nasty, mon petite," Remy groans, his hands squeezing her hips as if he can't decide whether to push her away or pull her closer. "Trying to make me come before you kill me, eh?"

"Mhm."

Their breaths were coming in ragged gasps, their moans growing more frantic with each thrust. Remy's hands tightened on Mish's hips, his fingers digging into her soft flesh as he buried himself deep within her.

With a powerful motion, he lifted her legs, their bodies pressed tightly together. The change in position allows Remy to thrust even deeper, the new angle sending sparks of pleasure through Mish. She moaned loudly, her head falling back as she surrendered to the intense sensation.

"That's it, ma chérie," Remy growled, his voice hoarse with desire. "Let go... come for me."

Their moans filled the vault as they moved in perfect harmony, their passion igniting the air around them. Mish's body tensed, every muscle coiling tight as she teetered on the edge. Remy's breath was hot against her ear, his lips trailing kisses along her neck as he thrust once, twice more...

And then-

They reach a powerful climax, their cries of pleasure mingling in the air. Mish's body trembled uncontrollably as waves of pleasure rocked her, her senses overwhelmed by the intensity of her release. Remy buried his face in her neck, his warm breath tickling her skin as he grunted with each spasm of his release.

For a moment, they stayed locked together, their hearts pounding in unison. Mish's mind was blissfully blank, her body humming with the aftershocks of her orgasm. She felt Remy's heart thundering against her chest, his breath warm on her skin.

Then, suddenly, Remy's hand glowed with that familiar pinkish energy. Mish's eyes widened as she saw him pull out a deck of cards from seemingly nowhere. With a wink and a roguish grin, he fanned them out between them.

"Sorry, chérie, but Remy's got a job to finish," he drawled, his accent thicker than ever.

Before Mish could react, Remy flicked his wrist, sending the charged cards spinning around them in a dizzying whirl. The air crackled with kinetic energy, and a vibrant pink smoke billowed out from the cards, quickly engulfing the room.

"What the—" Mish's words were cut short as she felt Remy's strong arms wrap around her one last time, pulling her close in a final embrace.

"Au revoir, mon coeur," his voice whispered in her ear, already seeming to fade away.

As the smoke cleared, Mish blinked rapidly, her brain struggling to process what she was seeing. The room was empty.

The crown, which had been positioned on its pedestal in the middle of the vault, was gone.

And so was Remy.

[donotstealoc]

Blorbo Spotlight: Trynnt

Howdy gamers! In today's spotlight we have a character from Pip/Pyppyn (he/they) @pyppyn. Go check out their blog!

Who do we have the pleasure of speaking with today?

Excelsior! I'm Trynnt! That's Explorer or Artificer Trynnt if we're using titles, but I just like my name.

What's your background? Where do you come from?

I'm from a smaller settlement on the Tarnished Coast called Rata Kasus. It's a good way away from Rata Sum but there are just as many krewes and labs at work out there. Fishing too, your regular coastal town. I graduated from the College of Synergetics and apprenticed with a few different krewes before making my own way in the world. These days I live in Lion's Arch with my family!

What are some important relationships in your life? (romantic, platonic, familial, etc)

I'm lucky to have two romantic partners - my wife Seffi and our other partner Welxx. His name may not be on our marriage contract but he's every bit important to us. They both mean the world to me and I'm glad to have made a life with them.

My other closest relationship would have to be my older brother Czoll. He and Seffi always looked out for me when we were little and to this day he's the kindest, most caring person I know. I love 'ya, big guy.

I have some great friends as well! i could talk to Zexx for hours about jewelcraft and chronomancy and the same goes for Neffh's understanding of the magitechnical use of necromancy. It's been a delight to work and learn with them and I'll always enjoy the time we spend together. True geniuses and great people, both of them.

This ah- this list would get really long if I kept going, so I'll move on!

Have you done anything you'd like to brag about?

You're giving an Asura an opportunity to brag? You're either very brave or very foolish and will regret this by the time I'm done!

I'm an elementalist - a weaver specifically - and I've always been fascinated by the way different kinds of magic interact. It all exists in a kind of balance across a broad spectrum. Not just the four elements, but everything! It's always changing, working in harmony at one point or total dissonance at another. That kind of ordered chaos got me thinking.

I'm also an artificer - an inventor. I make machines and technologies that I hope to use to better the world around us. Tyria's changed a lot in the past decade, and now more than ever is it important that we rebuild and we've been given an amazing opportunity to do that thanks to Aurene and Her unique fusion of different magics that should react violently - but don't!

-ah bolts, I'm rambling. I made a machine that uses prismaticite to alter the state of magic from one input to another! I call it the Prismatic Aetherconverter. Turns out if you cut those crystals in the precise way, you can alter their output of magic. Put that assembly in a channel and feed magic through the whole system, you get a means of shifting its attunement to your exact specifications.

I use this for my other craftwork. It's a great way to speed up enchanting or charging magitech and it's a great source of magic for study in lab environments! I hope to improve its scalability and introduce a number of different form factors in the coming years, make magic more accessible to the masses.

What's your profession? What does a typical day look like for you?

I'm an explorer with the Durmand Priory. I joined almost ten years ago now and my responsibilities there vary from day to day.

If I'm out in the field it probably means I'm part of an expedition or a Pact taskforce looking to discover something or solve a problem. For me that often means I'm a small part of a much bigger team. Excavation, ruins-delving, anomalous materials handling. Everybody's important and everybody's got their role to fill. What we uncover tends to end up in my lab for analysis and adaptation into artifice.

If I'm working back at the Priory proper, I serve a logistics role. Any equipment requests for advanced technology, enchanted items, and specialized tools flow through me and artificers like me - a golem suit for hazardous environments, a camera designed to look into the Mists, or special munitions for use against dragon minions, for instance.

I find the work to be quite fulfilling!

What are some hobbies you enjoy?

I like to collect and restore old technology for starters! Really old - stuff my grandparents would have used. Datapads, audio devices, communicators, golems and golemites, that sort of thing. A lot of it doesn't work but it has a history all the same. We Asura don't have many connections to our past because of the Elder Dragons, so it feels like a way to look back on where we came from.

I play Polymock too. I was never good enough for the pro leagues but what could be more fun than some simulated holographic violence between Tyria's deadliest monsters? There's a card game variant too that makes for good entertainment on longer expeditions.

If all of that wasn't enough, Seffi's good at keeping me active! We swim or go on hikes or head out to Tyria's different mountain ranges for rock climbing. We don't bother with climbing back down though - that's what gliders are for! She calls me a cheater for using earth magic to speed my way up the cliffs, but she sure doesn't complain about more airtime after the fact. The Festival of the Four Winds is the best time for it - tall rocks, strong currents, and the summer sun? Alchemy, that's just perfect.

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That's all for today! If you're an UWU guild member and would like to put your character in the spotlight, use this form!