#it is far too inconsequential for me to try and report it as a bug

[roseofhybrids]

OK,

so 2 days when I made this I took a screenshot of the list in question, and today it looked like it changed again so I took a second screenshot.

left is from a few days ago and right is from today

I took them into Krita, overlayed the right image on top, lower the opacity, then lined up the Tumblr logo/the F in following/the create button

our results:

So in conclusion, I'm not that crazy yet

but why, why does it do this?

Does the options list on the left change font size every few weeks

or I am just losin' it?

[purpli-writes]

Hunting for Love

Summary:

Makoto Naegi is the disgrace of the Naegi monster-hunting clan.

With the recent attacks, Makoto believes that he can finally prove his worth.

Will he be able to slay the monster or will he stay as a failure?

You can read it on AO3 here

It was a hard existence being the son of a well-known Monster Hunting clan. His family always stared at him with eyes filled with disgust.

He was the weaker child, a bit too kind-hearted. How could he even think about showing monsters kindness after what the monsters did to humans?

“Makoto,” his mother had said softly. “This world wasn’t made for people like you.” The sadness in her eyes was almost too much for Makoto to bear.

That’s why he was here, with his only friend, Sayaka Maizono. There had been reports of a lone werewolf ravaging houses on the outskirts.

“Are we sure that it’s only one werewolf?” Sayaka had asked nervously, there were barely any houses left.

“Apparently only one werewolf has ever been spotted,” Makoto confirmed. “But jeez, how strong could this thing be?”

“Not strong enough to beat you Makoto!” Sayaka cheered. “You’ll be hailed a hero in no time.”

Makoto nodded and smiled appreciatively. “You’re right, let’s do this!”

And thus, the two went straight into the forest, unaware that they were already being watched by the werewolf they sought to hunt.

Bravery, the trait of the foolish.

A trait commonly shared by hunters.

It seemed these two hunters were no different. Unaware of the situation they were entrapping themselves in.

Izuru Kamukura found himself watching the two hunters despite their actions being usual and boring.

The girl with blue hair followed eagerly after the shorter boy, seemingly holding on to every word that he muttered.

Said boy looked almost familiar. The way he held himself was anything but confident. As if he was forcing himself through every step.

The two seemed wholly unprepared for what awaited them in the forest even without the werewolf issue.

This would be quick, that was obvious.

But when he thought about ending the short boy's life, he was filled with a feeling akin to disgust.

That would be interesting.

“Maybe we should set up camp for tonight,” Makoto said, staring at the sky. “It looks like we aren’t going to encounter anything today.”

“Good thing we came prepared,” Sayaka said. “That was a smart idea, Makoto.”

“Really?” Makoto asked. “I thought it was just common sense…”

“Nope!” Sayaka said. “You’d be surprised about the sense of some of the people in our town.”

Makoto laughed as Sayaka began to complain about the boys who were always after her.

Even if they didn’t catch the werewolf, at least Makoto could be free from the chains of his last name.

He didn’t like to think about his family when he didn’t have to.

The Naegis were an all-powerful clan, saviors of the town.

And then there was Makoto, who was barely able to wield a weapon. Too soft for his last name but too human to be killed.

The world was cruel to those who didn’t fit in, and unluckily Makoto fit right into the not fitting in box.

“Makoto,” Sayaka said, interrupting his train of thought. “Were you paying attention to what I was saying?”

“Huh…?” Makoto said. “O-of course!”

“If you were paying attention, you’d know I said we needed more firewood,” Sayaka said, staring at Makoto.

“Oh, oh…!” Makoto said, noticing that they did in fact need more firewood. “I’ll go get some more.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Sayaka asked. “It could be dangerous out there.”

“I’ll be fine,” Makoto said quickly. “You should stay at the camp so I can find it more easily.”

“Alright, Makoto,” Sayaka said. “But stay safe, alright?”

“Of course.”

Makoto walked away from the camp, carrying a silver knife and a flashlight. Nervously, he wandered the forest, looking for branches that would be big enough to be used for the campfire.

Makoto had the feeling he was being watched although when he looked around, he didn’t see anything.

So he continued deeper into the forest, grabbing spare branches when he noticed them. It was silent, too silent. Even the bugs had stopped making their nightly noises.

What does it mean when it gets too silent…? Makoto thought, trying to recall his training. Is it something about a predator…?

Makoto didn’t have much time to ponder. As he took another step, he was met by a low growling noise.

Makoto turned around just as he was jumped by the mysterious animal.

Izuru watched as the boy got jumped by a wolf, deciding it would be a fitting end for him. But before he could leave to watch something else, a surge of emotion stopped him right in his tracks.

Although only for a few seconds, Izuru was reminded of a lifetime of memories. The relative peace he had in his head being disrupted by something both new and old.

What are you doing ? The intrusion hissed. You can’t just let him die.

Izuru subconsciously bared his fangs, emotions that weren’t his started to flood his system.

That boy is inconsequential, Izuru responded. He was here to kill me, so why should I save him?

The voice didn’t respond, but Izuru could feel its anger.

This was annoying.

There would be no reasoning with the voice as Izuru already knew what it was like. Stubborn to a fault, the original owner of the body he was in.

Hajime Hinata.

The boy, who Hajime had identified as Makoto Naegi seemed to be in dire straits. With the feeling that Hajime was going to be more of a nuisance if Izuru didn’t save Makoto, Izuru jumped down.

The wolf was going to be an easy target.

Dealing with Makoto would be less so.

Makoto saw his life flash through his eyes, trying his hardest to fight against the animal that was constantly going for his neck.

He was losing strength quickly, wondering if the sight would be too gruesome for Sayaka to discover.

Just as he was about to give up, the animal was thrown off of him at a terrifying speed. Makoto scrambled for his flashlight, shining it at the shadow of his savior.

When Makoto got the light on its figure his heart sunk.

His “savior” was the same werewolf he was hunting. In his current position, there was no way he could do anything.

His knife was far away from his hands and his whole body was scratched up.

“Please,” Makoto began to beg. “Just take me and not my friend.”

The werewolf tilted its head, staring at Makoto as if it was confused.

“If you’re going to kill anyone,” Makoto continued. “Please just have it be me.”

“Why aren’t you trying to sacrifice your friend instead?”the werewolf growled out. “That would at least be the normal reaction.”

Makoto frowned, not expecting to have lived long enough for a conversation. “People will miss her.”

“And they wouldn’t miss a Naegi?” the werewolf asked, clearly not buying his explanation.

“They wouldn’t miss me,” Makoto corrected. “I’m only a Naegi in name, at least to them.”

“You’re still a hunter.”

“Not really,” Makoto said, looking away from the werewolf and putting his flashlight down. “I have the training but no skill to go along with it.”

The werewolf stayed silent and Makoto wondered what was going to happen. Should he feel thankful that the werewolf saved his life or should he at least be trying to kill the werewolf?

“Wait,” Makoto mumbled. “Why did you save me if you knew who I was?”

“It’d be easier to show you,” the werewolf said. “Wait here.”

As the werewolf disappeared into the foliage, Makoto decided to wait. His arms and legs ached and burned, and if he was going to die here he’d rather it be quick.

When the werewolf came back, it wasn’t in the form of the wolf but in the form of a man.

Makoto ran his flashlight over the werewolf’s body, noticing the long ink-like hair. When Makoto got to look at the werewolf’s eyes, he was surprised to see a red iris and a green one.

“Your eyes,” Makoto said. “They’re two different colors.”

The werewolf only nodded, staring at Makoto with what seemed to be desperation. What was Makoto supposed to be seeing here? 

“Have we met before?” Makoto asked, trying to put a name to the werewolf’s face.

“You can say that,” the werewolf responded, voice cold. “My name is Izuru Kamukura, although you wouldn’t have originally met me under that name.”

“Huh…?” Makoto asked. “What do you mean…?”

Just let me take control, Hajime hissed. It’d be easier for me to explain it to him.

No, you’d only make things worse, Izuru answered. I don’t need any attachment to this human.

You can’t just ignore our feelings for him, Hajime protested. We’re not just going to leave him.

Your feelings for him are not my concern, Izuru responded.

“Originally there was a boy named Hajime Hinata,” Izuru began to explain, and Makoto audibly gasped. “He agreed to an experiment which changed his personality, outward appearance, and abilities.”

“The experiment made him a superhuman,” Izuru said. “And the new personality, Izuru Kamukura, was quickly bored with the life around him.”

“I don’t understand,” Makoto stammered out. “Why would he, why would you ever agree to an experiment like that…!”

“Hajime Hinata wanted more than what he was given,” Izuru answered simply. “He was willing to throw away his life for a chance at success.”

“But why did you save me if you’re no longer Hajime?” Makoto asked. “We’re strangers and I came here to kill you…!”

“That is because Hajime has made his way back,” Izuru said, voice developing a growling undertone. “Because of you.”

“Because of me…?” Makoto asked. “That doesn’t make any sense at all…!”

“You apparently meant a lot to him,” Izuru said. “And because of that, you’re causing problems for me.” 

“Huh…?”

“His feelings are now mixing in with my own,” Izuru spat. “I want you to fix it.”

He’s not going to be able to change your feelings, Hajime informed him, sounding a bit smug.

Shut up.

“I don’t really understand…” Makoto mumbled. “I don’t know how to fix your feelings, but if you told me them I could try to help…!”

“It’s almost as if I cannot avoid looking at you,” Izuru began to explain. “There’s this strange feeling in my chest and I cannot decide if I want it to stay or if I want to rip it out.”

Makoto’s face began to flush, “U-um, could you describe anything else…?”

“I also feel this strange need to be close to you,” Izuru said, beginning to inch his way towards Makoto. “As if something bad might happen if I let you get away.”

“That’s um…” Makoto said, face fully red. “That sounds like… you might have a crush.” 

Izuru’s face was inches away from Makoto when he next spoke. “Is that so?” 

“Y-yep…!” Makoto said, voice higher pitched. “S-seems to be the case!”

“Do you have any solutions to this issue…?” Izuru asked, breath caressing Makoto’s face.

Izuru was way too close to Makoto. This man, no, werewolf was inhumanly attractive, sure, but there was no way this was happening… right?

Deep breaths, Makoto thought. He’s probably just messing with me… right…?!

“A s-solution…?” Makoto choked out. “U-um, well usually s-some people kiss who t-they like but-”

Before Makoto could finish his sentence, his and Izuru’s lips met.

What… the crap...?! Makoto thought. What is even happening…?

“He was taking too long,” Izuru said as he pulled away.

“H-he…?” Makoto stuttered out. 

“Ah yeah,” Izuru said. “And it’s Hajime right now, not Izuru.”

“Then he wasn’t lying about that…?” Makoto asked. “You’re really Hajime Hinata…?”

“Yep,” Hajime answered. “Sorry that I’ve been gone for a while.”

Makoto stared, mostly awestruck. The only other person from his town who had cared about him was back.

Oh, and they also kissed, but that could be dealt with later.

“Wait,” Makoto said, reality catching back up to him. “Aren’t you a werewolf…?” 

“Oh, yeah,” Hajime said. “That’s Izuru’s fault, I don’t really know much about it.”

Before Makoto could ask any more questions Hajime was standing up and examining him.

“Jesus,” Hajime muttered. “That wolf really got you good.”

Suddenly reminded of the scratches littering his body, Makoto winced. “Yeah, I guess you could say that…”

“Ugh that asshole should’ve came in sooner,” Hajime said, mostly to himself. “Do you have a camp or anything like that…?”

“Camp… oh yeah,” Makoto said before quickly remembering Sayaka. “Sayaka…! She’s got to be worried sick by now!”

“Sayaka?” Hajime asked before quickly saying “Oh, Sayaka.”

“Huh… you know her?”

“You could say that.”

Makoto began the laborious task of trying to get up. Hajime, who soon realized Makoto’s problem helped him up with ease.

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to walk?” Hajime asked, staring at Makoto worriedly. “I could carry you.”

Makoto’s legs were screaming at him as he responded, “No, it’ll probably be best if I walk there. Makes it easier to explain to Sayaka.”

Hajime nodded uncertainly at Makoto, letting the smaller boy take the lead.

Watching Makoto limp was worrying. Although he pretended that he was fine, it was obvious that his body had taken some sort of toll.

You should’ve let us carry him , Izuru said. It’s obvious he’s in pain right now.

We have to respect his wishes, Hajime said, silently agreeing with Izuru. It’s going to be hard enough to explain to that Sayaka girl without us carrying him.

If there is any explaining to be done with her, Izuru said. It seems she might be a bigger problem than Makoto is expecting.

What do you mean…?

She seems fiercely protective of Makoto, Izuru said. We should be on our guard .

Hajime acknowledged Izuru’s concerns before focusing wholly on Makoto.

“Um for this part,” Makoto said, nervously looking at Hajime. “It’d probably be better if we held hands…”

“Huh…?!” Hajime yelled. “What, why…?”

“All the trees are closely packed together,” Makoto explained. “It’d be a lot easier to lose each other if we aren’t holding hands.”

“A-alright…” Hajime said, reaching for Makoto’s hand.

You kissed him before, Izuru commented. Why is this any different…?

It’s different because he’s the one doing it…! Hajime bristled You just wouldn’t understand!

As they got closer to the camp, Hajime could make out the faint smell of fire and smoke. It seemed Makoto hadn’t noticed yet, judging by how he went only based on sight.

His senses aren’t as good as yours, Izuru explained. He’s a human and you’re not.

Hajime wanted to complain, but so far it seemed to be helping. He could admire Makoto without looking too weird.

When they made it to the camp, Sayaka ran over to Makoto and hugged him.

“Makoto!” Sayaka yelled. “I was so worried about you…!” 

“I’m sorry,” Makoto said. “I got caught by a wild animal…”

After hearing that, Sayaka released her grip on Makoto and saw his injuries. “Oh god, Makoto, you’re hurt!”

“I’m fine,” Makoto protested. “Nothing that can’t be helped with a few bandages.”

Let me take control, Izuru said, watching Sayaka faun over Makoto. I have medical expertise.

We wouldn’t need your medical expertise if you didn’t let him get hurt, Hajime grumbled, reluctantly letting Izuru take over.

Izuru walked closer to Makoto and Sayaka. “I believe I can offer existence.”

Sayaka finally noticed them, glaring up at him. “And who are you…?”

“These are my friends Izuru and Hajime,” Makoto said quickly. “They’re the ones who saved me from the animal!”

Sayaka examined Izuru. “I feel like I’ve seen you before.”

“Perhaps you have,” Izuru said. “Could you give me the bandages and antiseptic so I could treat Makoto?”

Sayaka glared at Izuru before reluctantly giving him the bandages.

“Don’t hurt him,” Sayaka whispered into his ear before walking off to tend to the fire.

“This might hurt,” Izuru warned, gently cleaning the wounds on Makoto’s arms and legs.

Makoto hissed, grabbing onto what remained of the fabric of his pants.

You’re hurting him, Hajime said.

It has to be done, Izuru said. Otherwise, they’ll get infected.

After cleaning and bandaging the wounds, Izuru turned Makoto around.

“I believe we were having a ‘moment’ before Hajime interrupted,” Izuru said, once again putting his face near Makoto’s face. “Were we not?”

The effect was near-instantaneous, Makoto’s face lit like it was a match.

“U-um, y-yeah,” Makoto stuttered out. “I guess we w-were.”

Izuru grabbed Makoto’s face softly, tilting it up before lining up their lips. 

Unlike Hajime’s kiss, Izuru was gentler, more skilled but less forceful. Izuru noticed Makoto reciprocating much quicker.

But the moment couldn’t last too long, not with Sayaka as a spectator.

“You,” Sayaka growled, glaring daggers at Izuru. “What are you doing with Makoto?”

“Kissing him,” Izuru said plainly, pulling the smaller boy into his chest. 

I thought we weren’t going to piss Sayaka off? Hajime asked.

We never said anything like that , Izuru responded. If she wants to start a fight, we’ll give her one.

Sayaka gripped at her own silver knife, pointing it at Izuru. “You’re that werewolf that is terrorizing our town, correct?”

“Correct.”

“If I killed you and gave the glory to Makoto,” Sayaka continued. “Makoto and I could live a happy life just the two of us…”

Makoto pushed himself away from the protective hold of Izuru. “Sayaka, what are you talking about…?”

“Makoto, I loved you for so very long…” Sayaka said, moaning out the last word. “With this kill, we could finally be together forever…”

“Sayaka, please…” Makoto whimpered, but it fell on deaf ears.

Sayaka charged for Izuru, filled with adrenaline and rage. It was an easy attack to dodge, no skill was placed into it.

Grabbing Sayaka’s arms once she got close enough he forced her down on the ground. Growling into her ear, “Give me one reason not to kill you.”

Before Sayaka could say anything, Makoto’s arms were around Izuru’s chest.

“Please,” Makoto murmured. “Don’t hurt her.”

Izuru removed the weapon from Sayaka’s hand before releasing her.

You should’ve killed her, Hajime growled. She tried to hurt us and take Makoto.

You heard Makoto , is all Izuru replied.

Once released, Sayaka ran towards the town.

“I didn’t really see that one coming,” Makoto said, relaxing onto Izuru’s back. “I always thought we were just close friends.”

“You’re naïve, Makoto,” Izuru responded, slowly moving around to wrap Makoto in his arms.

There’s no way he can go back home, is there? Hajime asked.

No, Izuru answered. Sayaka will probably have the town rally to try to kill us.

“I don’t think I can go home,” Makoto muttered as if reading their mind. “But I don’t mind, as long as I have you two.”

“Oh?” Izuru asked.

Makoto smiled up at them, “In fact, I think I might be owed something from all of this.”

Izuru stared blankly waiting for Makoto to continue.

Makoto pulled Izuru’s face down and captured his lips in a kiss.

“I don’t think I mind spending my life in exile,” Makoto said after their lips parted. “As long as it’s with you two.”

[myaekingheart]

The Day Kakashi’s Mask Slipped

Written for Day 2 of the Kakashi Lounge Discord Server’s September Event. Prompts: Disguises | “Well, I/we tried” | Rainy Days

[Read on AO3] Pairing: Gen/None Rating: General Audiences @the-kakashi-lounge-blog

The truth is finally revealed. Team 7 finally sees Kakashi's face. 

               Dark clouds hung heavy over Konoha as passerby rushed into nearby shops to avoid the rain. From inside the dango shop, a small group of friends gathered around a table to sip tea and enjoy one another’s company. It was so rare that they were able to do something like this, the obligations of adulthood keeping them distanced. But in this moment, with the four of them together, none of that mattered anymore. It was like they were naïve little genin all over again laughing and joking without a care in the world.

               Hinata snuggled close to her husband as he joked about his hokage duties, specifically the paperwork. If only he had known there would be so much paperwork. Despite his complaints, however, it was clear that he still genuinely adored his role in the village. After all, it was all he had ever wanted—a fact which Sasuke would not let him forget. Sakura chimed in to remind her friend that if he thought hokage paperwork was bad, he should see all the forms at the hospital. Mental healthcare was no joke and Sakura took great pride in how hard she had worked to create an exceptional treatment center for Konoha. No matter what duties may have pulled them away from each other, however, the one thing that always brought them back was their children. Sarada and Boruto were especially full of great potential and it warmed their hearts to see both of them following in their parent’s footsteps. The four of them had all come so far since those halcyon days, it was hard to believe they had all gotten everything they could’ve ever wanted. The only missing link in this nostalgic little afternoon was their sensei, Kakashi.

               As they mused where he might be, flinging Icha Icha jokes at one another, a familiar face scurried down the street. With his one hand, he shielded a camera from the rain. Naruto’s gaze locked on him, his mind warping back to childhood attempts at uncovering their sensei’s face. With his scruffy brown hair, purple face paint, and long coat, he was unmistakable: Sukea, the freelance reporter. The others followed Naruto’s gaze, cocking their eyebrows in question.

               “You know, after all this time I’ve still never seen that guy show up in the ninja registration” Naruto commented. “Is he even from around here?”

               “Hell if I know” Sakura replied. “Why? Do you think he might be a spy?”

               “Maybe we should tail him” Sasuke suggested. “Figure out where he’s going and what he’s up to.” Naruto didn’t want to admit it, but Sasuke made a valid point. Hinata left some money on the table and together, the four of them ran off to track Sukea down.

               So much about this man was truly a mystery and the longer Naruto thought about it, the stranger things seemed to become. He remembered Sukea mentioning he had been a part of the ANBU. Even if he no longer lived within the village’s jurisdiction, he still should have appeared in archival files at the very least. And yet as far as he knew, there was nothing on this man. Not even a history of his rise through the ranks. Not even a birth certificate.

               The four of them crept through alleyways and leapt across rooftops, taking great care in being as quiet and undetectable as possible. They followed Sukea all the way to an apartment complex in the center of town, someplace cheap and unsuspecting. He slipped inside the lobby and ascended the stairs, glancing behind him as he shook the rain from his hair. There was no way the others could follow him inside. It would be far too obvious. Hinata stood in the walkway, shielding herself from the rain, trying to come up with a plan.

               “What about this tree?” she then asked, pointing to one of the large oaks in the courtyard. “Maybe we can climb it and peek inside.”

               “It’s too dangerous” Sasuke countered. “With a storm like this, we could get struck by lightning. Trees are always the first to get hit by lightning.”

               Sakura narrowed her eyes at her husband, replying, “Well, do you have any better ideas?”

               After a long stretch of silence, Naruto raised his fist triumphantly in the air and exclaimed, “Okay! Up the tree we go!” He helped Hinata up onto the highest branch, then gave Sakura a hand as Sasuke crouched down to provide her a footstool. By the time the four of them had perched themselves comfortably on the branches, Sukea had entered his apartment and began making himself comfortable. As luck would have it, his unit was right in the front with a large window overlooking the village.

               Kicking his shoes off, Sukea approached the large bathroom vanity and idled on his reflection for a moment. It was always so strange seeing himself like this, staring back at a face that was not his own. A sigh broke past his lips as he then reached up toward his eyeball. Sakura cringed.

               What is he doing? Popping out his eye? She thought to herself. He pinched the contact lens between his fingers, dropped it into the little container of solution, then removed the other eye. He blinked once, twice, three times in order for his eyes to readjust. Their usual stormy gray was now black and abyssal. He rubbed away the face paint with a cotton pad, cleared his throat. His voice fell a few octaves. He tore away the stickers on his cheeks, revealing a long, rugged scar cutting right down his left eye. And then he reached up to scratch his head, sighing, before removing what was evidently a wig. Underneath that brown scruff was a mess of silvery, spiked hair. And that was when it hit them: Sukea was nothing but a façade. Standing before them, completely unmasked, was none other than Kakashi Hatake.

               “No way!” Naruto shrieked. All the blood drained from his face, his mouth agape. He slapped Sasuke hard on the chest, who fell backward and stumbled out of the tree. Sakura screeched, both at this suspenseful realization and at her husband’s fall. She was far too stunned, however, to jump into any action.

               “O-Oh my goodness…!” Hinata clapped her hands over her mouth as blood trickled from her nostril. How embarrassing.

               Kakashi froze before slowly turning toward the window. His former students hadn’t exactly taken much care in keeping quiet and now here he was faced with the four of them staring back at him in absolute shock. His face turned bright red as he rubbed the back of his neck and waved at them sheepishly. “You should’ve told me you were stopping by!”

               With bugged-out eyes, Naruto shouted back, “What the hell, Kakashi-sensei! Are you telling me that Sukea was you the entire damn time?!”

               “Why didn’t you say something?” Sakura chimed in. “I can’t believe you’ve been hiding this for all these years!”

               Sasuke groaned and propped himself up on his elbows in the grass below. “Well, I definitely didn’t see that coming” he muttered. Then, squinting up at the others, he shouted, “Naruto, you idiot! Watch where you hit next time!”

               Naruto looked down at him, shouting, “What are you blaming me for?! I wouldn’t have hit you if Kakashi-sensei hadn’t freaked me out!”

               Through gritted teeth, Sasuke replied, “That’s not a good enough excuse.”

               It was admittedly refreshing to see that after all these years, they really hadn’t changed. Sakura grimaced at what had become of her husband, turning her wrath to Naruto who immediately raised his hands in surrender. He was too late, however. Sakura whacked him so hard, he stumbled out of the tree himself. Hinata called after him, scrambling to his aide, as Sakura descended ready to unleash her vengeance.

               In any normal capacity, Kakashi should have been angry. After all, his students had finally uncovered his best kept secret. There was no telling who else would find out about this now. His true identity was a powerful piece of information and the results of this circulating could be disastrous. However, considering the circumstances, Kakashi couldn’t help but laugh. Down below, Naruto and Sasuke attempted to avoid Sakura’s wrath, using one another as human shields and arguing over who deserved it more. Meanwhile Hinata stood on the sidelines anxious and begging them to stop fighting. Truly, Kakashi expected nothing less.

               Realistically, he doubted anything would come of this anyway. The memory of his true face would vanish quickly from their memory and even if they did try to tell others of what they say, who was to say anyone would believe them? It was inconsequential. Kakashi stifled his laughter as he reached for his mask on the dresser. As he tugged it up over his face, he shrugged and muttered in amused defeat, “Well, I tried.”

[scrollsofeternity]

mahari yuware | kushiko | mm trial 1

Contrary to the loud, grand entrance of the dead into their courtroom, the entrance of the screenwriter with a hero complex is remarkably quiet.

Kushiko - better known as ELYSIUM, though she thought that maybe it was a little inappropriate to keep calling herself that in light of recent events - walks in alongside the others as an unassuming peer, rather than the larger than life protagonist syndrome woman who’d joined them in the game thus far. Even her sadness was exacerbated, her anger never simmering, always burning...but the person here now was calm, and dignified, and carrying herself upright and firm. A mature adult, quiet and methodic. It was time to end this, for better or for worse.

The people wanted their blood, after all, and who was she to deny them?

“Sorry for the delay. I wanted to hear what everyone had to say, first, and I wanted to really review what we’ve been faced with. I think at this point it’s pretty safe to say that any explosions that may have taken place at the college either did not happen and are a cover for the fact that 24 of us went missing, or they did happen, and it’s why there’s an issue with the code now. I’m leaning towards the former, like, a lot, but I guess there’s nothing wrong with laying out all of our options.” She nods at Ami. “I know you said the same thing, but I do want to point out they said specifically the Arts and Sciences building had a leak, or...didn’t? That’s an odd thing to include. I didn’t really spend much time there, either, so I don’t know why I’d have died in an explosion over there. The business majors, too. So I think our deaths being faked makes the most sense, considering as Oshiro said, we had to sign a waiver. How did they coax everyone into doing that, do you think? Can’t imagine half of us, or...even 2/3rds of us, agreeing to anything like what was laid out.”

She doesn’t say anything further regarding the culling, or the roles, or the perfect community, though it isn’t that she has nothing to say. It just feels like it’s their time, rather than hers. It isn’t until a bit later that she pipes up again, her voice as loud and wavering (from an inability to hear, not from a lack of confidence) as ever.

“Regarding the points system, there’s something super off about it, right? Or I guess not super off. It’s more like, there’s a bunch of tiny things that are weird, that add up to the whole thing being weird.” She taps her finger on her chin as both a thought and an exaggerated gesture. “Let’s look at it again, shall we? Some of these things are simple enough. Doing good deeds or being helpful gets you points, while being cruel or inflammatory, or murdering someone, results in them being taken away. But when it comes to the actual, easily missed bits, things start to get more interesting. For example, the tyrant king - or whoever wrote this - very much dislikes swearing. Anyone who swore was docked points. It just seems like an odd choice to me, since it doesn’t necessarily reflect character, which is ostensibly what this is trying to quantify. They gave points for something like ‘beautifying the groupchat’, which is significantly inconsequential compared to other things, and I think gives insight into what they value. They also seriously dislike Shimizu, which like, okay, fair, anyone who’s sane does.” Sorry Arisa. “But to go so far as to single him out when it comes to giving points to others is notable in my opinion. Also notable is that for nearly everything on this paper, the action itself is what is rewarded. But in a few cases, it seems that the reward was for the action being performed towards a specific person. This comes up a couple of times, but with two of the people named on the sheet, the context is totally different from the last one - and that last one comes up, uh, multiple times. To the point where it seems suspiciously like someone is playing favorites. After all, every other time someone was mean or bullied, it was just put down as that. But towards a specific person…it was specifically bullying towards them, or an insignificant kind act towards them. Weird, huh?”

Kushiko leans back on her heels, keeping most of her weight on her good leg. It’s difficult for her to keep up in this place, and she’s only really trying because it’s important. Doesn’t mean she looks particularly enthused. Really, she doesn’t look particularly anything at all. There’s a resignation on her face, a smooth, unmarred neutrality, that says she’d rather this just be over and done with because there are sequels to write and merchandise to design. The great tale of heroes, over at last in one final grand curtain call. If this is a video game, can’t they just noclip to the end?

“They punish cruelty, but they encourage it, to the point of forcing us into it. Maybe because they know they have to in order to get the results they want? Because they have a narrative, a story, and things have to fit that? Or, as you said, because the tyrant king and the people running this little experiment are at odds. The bug report noted that there were alterations, or changes, made from within the program itself. Could that have been the king? I mean, they sure as hell didn’t seem to know what was going on with it, and it wasn’t phrased as if it was a simple glitch. Someone intentionally changed something. Maybe that’s where we got Calantha The Sequel from. And - look, what’s all this diary stuff about? This person, this king. They believe they have to be reborn in order to stop their tyranny. Are they too far gone? Why now? Why did they begin this murder game in the first place, already so sure they were doing something wrong, enough to label them as such? Kind of strange, right? But I guess it’s easier to start over than to just be different. But, hey. Maybe it was easier to change stuff from the inside considering Elysium wasn’t even done...which, by the way, begs the question of why we were even brought in in the first place before it was complete.”

Kushiko crosses her arms, finally, looking suddenly bored and more interested in the perfectly clipped nails on her left hand than the trial or anything she’s saying.

“Wonder what that whole thing was about, when it mentioned rallying after the fourth trial in that what, diary entry? Suitability report, I think. Something about a flame, giving us something to come together over, huh? It’s not like they gave us anything in the end. Nothing even happened after the fourth trial. Nothing changed.”

[biofunmy]

This Was The Decade State Surveillance Became Our New Normal

Giulia Marchi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

A police officer walks past surveillance cameras mounted on posts at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

We live in a world where school cameras monitor children’s emotions, countries collect people’s DNA en masse, and no digital communication seems truly private.

In response, we use encrypted chat apps on our phones, wear masks during protests to combat facial recognition technology, and try vainly to hide our most personal information from advertisers.

Welcome to the new reality of mass surveillance. How did we get here?

Wael Eskandar, an Egyptian journalist and technologist, remembers documenting his country’s revolution at Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011. It was known then, he remembers, that people’s phone calls were being monitored, and that workers like parking lot attendants and security guards were feeding information back to the police. But few suspected emails or posts on Twitter and Facebook would ever be monitored in the same way — at least not at scale.

The revolution toppled the brutal regime of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak, but by 2014 the country was under the sway of the equally repressive President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Now, Egyptians are being arrested for political posts they made on Facebook, and some have reported having their texts read back to them by police during detention. Demonstrations all but stopped.

In 2019, rare protests did take place in Egypt over government corruption. Demonstrators avoided posting about them on social media, wary of ending up in detention, but ultimately it didn’t matter — dozens of people were rounded up anyway.

“It’s like there’s no space left for us to speak anymore,” one woman who had participated in the demonstrations told me earlier this year.

Egypt and dozens of other authoritarian states have increasingly employed mass surveillance technology over the past decade. Where human monitors once had to listen in to phone calls, now increasingly sophisticated voice recognition software can do that at scale, and algorithms scour social media messages for signs of dissent. Biometric surveillance systems like facial and behavioral recognition also make it easier for security services to target large swathes of their population.

Khaled Desouki / Getty Images

Egyptian security forces block the road leading to Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Sept. 27.

But mass surveillance is not just the domain of repressive regimes. Companies are using their own forms of surveillance — data collection to target consumers with ads, and biometric screenings to watch their moods and behaviors. In 2012, the New York Times reported Target had figured out a teenager’s pregnancy before her father; now it’s using Bluetooth to track your movements as you wander its store aisles. Five years ago, the US Federal Trade Commission called on Congress to regulate data brokers, saying consumers had a right to know what information they had on them. In 2019, these companies remain largely unregulated and hold reams of information about individuals, almost none of which is known to the public.

Powering these surveillance systems is an increasingly complex web of personal data. In 2009, that data might have included your neighborhood and purchasing history. Now it’s likely that your most personal qualities — from your facial features to your search results — will be slurped up too. Cross-referencing seemingly inconsequential data from different sources helps companies build detailed and powerful profiles of individuals.

Surveillance systems are being built by some of the world’s biggest technology companies, including US tech giants Amazon, Palantir, and Microsoft. In China, companies like SenseTime, Alibaba, and Hikvision — the world’s largest maker of surveillance cameras — are moving quickly to corner foreign markets from the Middle East to Latin America. And other players like Israel’s NSO Group are making it easy for governments all over the world to break into the devices of journalists and dissidents.

This all-seeing surveillance seems straight out of the dystopian fiction of George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. But centuries earlier, novelists had imagined surveillance as a cornerstone of utopian societies. As far back as 1771, the French novelist Louis Sébastien Mercier depicted a futuristic society exemplifying the rational values of the Enlightenment in a hit novel called L’an 2440. This imagined social order was enforced by a cadre of secret police.

For most of modern history, mass surveillance, when it has been implemented, has been laborious and expensive. The Stasi, infamous for spying on the most mundane aspects of East Germans’ lives, relied on massive networks of informers and on bureaucrats picking through letters and listening in on phone calls. A friend who grew up in Dresden before the fall of the Berlin Wall once told me she remembered being asked by her kindergarten teacher whether her parents were watching West German TV.

Without this level of human participation, these systems would simply not work. They might function well enough for governments who wanted to monitor individual troublemakers, but when it came to quashing dissent altogether, it was a lot tougher.

In less developed parts of the world, such as Nicaragua and North Korea, state surveillance still works this way. But in richer countries — ranging from democratic societies like the US and the UK to authoritarian ones like China — the burden of conducting surveillance has shifted from humans to algorithms.

It’s made surveillance in these places far more efficient for both governments and companies, and as the technology improves and becomes more widespread, it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world adopts similar techniques.

Maynor Valenzuela / Getty Images

Anti-government protesters demonstrate at the Metropolitan Cathedral during a protest in Managua, Nicaragua, May 26.

In 2012, I wrote an op-ed with the author and journalist Peter Maass arguing that we should think of cellphones as “trackers” instead of devices to make calls with. That idea now seems quaint — of course cellphones and the apps we download to them are monitoring our activities. We published the article not knowing that less than a year later, a 29-year-old former NSA contractor named Edward Snowden would leak an unprecedented cache of documents showing some of the true scope of the mass surveillance programs in the US.

Snowden’s leaked documents revealed, among many other things, that the NSA was collecting phone records from millions of Verizon customers, and that it had accessed data from Google and Facebook through back doors. In Germany, the intelligence service was also listening in on millions of phone calls and reading emails and text messages in a surveillance program often compared to that of the Stasi.

By the time Snowden vaulted to fame, hiding out in a hotel in Hong Kong, I had left the US too. I arrived in Beijing to begin work as a journalist for Reuters in late 2012, and fully expected to be the object of some government snooping. After all, there are only a few hundred foreign journalists based in China — a country of more than a billion people — and the things they write are closely scrutinized because of their ability to shape the world’s view of China.

At the time, a constant subject of debate among junior reporters over kebabs and beer was whether the government was really keeping an eye on our communications, or if we were too small potatoes to matter. I often joked with an old boyfriend, an American who worked in foreign policy, that somewhere an unlucky state security intern was monitoring our cutesy volley of GIFs and emojis. We imagined our eavesdroppers as disheveled bureaucrats, not as lines of code.

One year, a Chinese police official pointedly commented that my apartment looked cheap and untidy — it was a way to let me know he’d seen the inside of it. On other occasions, police arrived at my door supposedly to check if my water heater was up to standard, but spent more time eyeing the contents of my bookshelf and asking about my work. My colleagues, like the Financial Times’ Yuan Yang, have had private messages on WeChat — the ubiquitous Chinese social app made by tech giant Tencent — quoted back to them by government officials.

At my annual China visa renewal:

Police officer: I saw you posted on social media about organising an event for journalists on the 8th

Me: I don’t think I did…

Me: *thinks, does he realise he saw that by surveilling my private messages and not on my public feed*

04:36 PM – 09 Feb 2018

But by and large, none of us ever found out definitively whether our flats were bugged, our emails read, our phones monitored. We just acted as if they were.

Snowden was all over the state-run news in China — the story of an American dissident outing the US surveillance system was far too juicy to pass up. To this day, Chinese officials sometimes bring up Snowden and what he revealed about America’s surveillance program in response to questions about the Chinese nanny state.

At that time, surveillance seemed like an invisible web — something everyone knew was a problem, but was tough to actually see.

What I never predicted was the expansion of surveillance technology into a form so visible and widespread that it became as much a part of the atmosphere of China as Beijing’s infamous smog. Facial recognition cameras, for instance, are now ubiquitous in the country after first appearing in the western region of Xinjiang, where more than a million Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim ethnic minorities are now in internment camps. The region has become the global epicenter for high-tech surveillance, which the Chinese government has combined with heavy-handed human policing including officers asking dozens of highly personal questions to individuals and plugging their responses into a database. There, police collect data at people’s homes, police stations and roadside interrogations to feed into a centralized system called the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, which spits out determinations for whether Muslim citizens should be interned or not.

It is the first example of a government using 21st-century surveillance technology to target people based on race and religion in order to send them to internment camps, where they face torture and other horrific abuses. According to some estimates, it is the largest internment of ethnic minorities since World War 2.

The collection of such data for security purposes is often called “predictive policing,” a technique used in many countries, including the US, to spot the potential for individual criminal behavior in data.

When I visited Kashgar, a city in southern Xinjiang, in the fall of 2017, it felt like catching an uncanny glimpse of a suffocating future — one where DNA collection was mandatory and even filling your car with gas required a scan of your iris.

Bloomberg / Getty Images

A demonstrator wears a face mask featuring Chinese President Xi Jinping while shining a light from a smartphone during a protest on Queensway in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong in December.

Since then, much of the technology being used in Xinjiang has been sold to other parts of the world. Companies and the governments that contract with them point to the many benign uses of some surveillance tech — security, public health, and more. But there are few places in the world where people have been asked to consent to surveillance tech being used on them. In the US, facial recognition technology is already widely used, and only a handful of cities have moved to ban it — and then, only its use by government authorities. Campaigners against mass surveillance systems say it’s tough to convince people these technologies are genuinely harmful — especially in places where public security or terrorism are serious problems. After all, digital monitoring is usually invisible and security cameras seem harmless.

“I don’t think people are happy about tech or positive about tech for the sake of it, but they don’t know the extent to which that can go wrong,” said Leandro Ucciferri, a lawyer specializing in technology and human rights at the Association for Civil Rights in Argentina. “People don’t usually have the whole picture.”

When, in the course of reporting, I peered at the back ends of surveillance systems that claimed to track individuals by their clothing, their faces, their walks, and their behavior, I wondered how I could continue to do my work in the same way. Could I go out to meet a source for coffee without immediately outing her in front of a camera whose video streams were being parsed by an algorithm?

“The tech developments themselves have enabled the Chinese government to implement its vision,” said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch and one of the leading authorities on mass surveillance in Xinjiang. “That’s why we see the rise of the total surveillance state — because it’s now possible to automate much of the surveillance and be able to spot irregularities in streams of data about human life like never before.”

What happens to the myriad facets of our private lives — going to a therapy appointment, buying birth control, meeting a date — when it’s so easy to monitor us?

What happens when it’s our faces, not our phones, that are our trackers?

Str / Getty Images

Surveillance cameras are seen above tourists as they visit Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Eritrea, a small nation in the horn of Africa, is one place where the government’s approach to monitoring people remains decidedly 20th century. Only 2% of people have access to the internet, largely consisting of the urban elite. There’s little evidence the government is investing in the sophisticated surveillance systems of the kind China uses.

My friend Vanessa Tsehaye, an Eritrean-Swedish journalist and activist, believes deeply in grassroots campaigns for human rights in the country. A recent college grad, she spent her teenage years campaigning for the Eritrean government to free her uncle, the journalist Seyoum Tsehaye, from prison.

Tsehaye is the most relentlessly positive campaigner I know — but even she feels bleak thinking about the rise of the surveillance systems of the future.

“Their main methods of censorship are limiting access to the internet,” Tsehaye said. “Eritrea is the most censored country in the world, and despite that, people are slowly but surely mobilizing.”

“But if you add sophisticated surveillance tech,” she said, “the government could do whatever they wanted. It would destroy everything.”

Early this year, I met a Nicaraguan scholar at a conference and asked him about protests critical of President Daniel Ortega that had gripped the country. I was curious whether protesters there were concerned about facial recognition.

He told me to search “Nicaragua protests” on Google images. Sure enough, every photo showed demonstrators covering their faces with handkerchiefs and sunglasses.

Sopa Images / SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett

A protester destroys a surveillance camera at Wan Chai MTR Station during a pro-democracy march in Hong Kong.

There are many reasons besides facial recognition that protesters might like to cover their faces — tear gas being one of them — but regardless, masks have begun to show up in demonstrations all over the world. In Hong Kong this year, the government has even banned their use. It’s one way that people are coping with surveillance in the modern world.

Most demonstrators I’ve met in my time as a reporter are not activists who are willing to risk imprisonment for the causes they fight for. Rather, they are ordinary people with jobs, families, and responsibilities. I have wondered how the protest movements of the future would be possible in the presence of newly sophisticated surveillance tech. Would anyone be willing to complain about their leaders online, swap political texts with a friend, or go out and join a street protest if they knew they’d be immediately outed by an algorithm?

“I worry tremendously over whether human beings will have freedom in the future anymore,” said Human Rights Watch’s Wang. “We used to worry about the age of AI as robots annihilating humans like in science fiction. I think what’s happening instead is that humans are being turned into robots, with the sensory systems placed around cities that are enabling governments and corporations to monitor us continuously and shape our behavior.”

In some parts of the world, anti-surveillance campaigns have picked up steam as the technology has become more ubiquitous. Facial recognition bans are being discussed by politicians across the US, for instance, and the EU passed the GDPR in 2016, a sweeping set of rules aimed at the protection of personal data.

Citizens of authoritarian states, however, have fewer options. What many pro-privacy groups fear is a bifurcated world where citizens of democratic systems have privacy rights that far outpace those of people who live in authoritarian countries.

Eskandar, the Egyptian technologist, believes there is still room for optimism.

“Nonconformity was the fuel of the revolution,” he told me by phone. “I’ve seen it happen. A few people with very few resources have outmaneuvered a state apparatus — it’s happened time and time again. I really believe that people who are proponents of freedom rather than fascism can think freely. So there is hope.”●

Sahred From Source link World News

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