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theadrogna · 3 years

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Dream Show Challenge 2.0

@singledarkshade came up with the Dream Show challenge last year, where we had to give her a list of 7 TV shows or films and we were given a cast of 7 actors in return. This time we were given someone else’s cast and were allowed to recast one character (plus add some if we wished). This time I came up with:

Virtuality

Synopsis:

Good people die before their time and it happens every day. Eli Danzig is doing his best to change that. He invents a way to upload consciousness to an online server where the dead can live out a normal life in a virtual environment. He builds an entire world to keep his uploaded souls entertained, making it as lifelike as possible. Huge amounts of processing power are required so Eli must choose his clients carefully.

The electronic world is called Virtuality and the uploaded persons are known collectively as the digi-souls. Virtuality has a small but growing population, which is a continuing concern as it means more storage space is always needed. Eli funds his enterprise by playing the stock market using his AI Tallis to filter information and predict stock prices. Sometimes he sells patents for the things that the digi-souls invent, but more often they give their inventions away for free. However, money is always a worry because none of this is a stable source of income.

Cast:

Eli Danzig (Donald Glover) – Eli is a young computer programmer of genius level intellect. He came from a poor background, and was the first in his family to attend university. He is determined to make things better for people, by improving society. He believes that “only the good die young” is a real problem, and if he could keep the good people in the world for longer then maybe more good could be done. He invents a digital after-life for people to upload their consciousness to, but he must maintain it a secret to keep the unscrupulous from corrupting it or destroying it. He researches every person very carefully before inviting them to join Virtuality.

Ashura Hadid (Tala Ashe) – Ashura is a terminal cancer patient who becomes one of Eli’s digi-souls. She is a prize-winning journalist and novelist, known for taking on difficult stories about things that people would rather keep hidden. She’s recently been looking into CharterTech, owned by Maggie Charter as part of a series on corruption in tech companies, but most of her efforts are going into completing her final novel. Eli and Ashura have undeniable chemistry, but live in very different worlds. She is very driven and moral, always looking for new ways to expose corruption and wrong doing.

Oren Murphy (Jim Byrnes) – Oren was Eli’s professor at University. He made sure that Eli got the scholarship that he needed to attend, and then acted as his mentor. He suffered from high blood pressure and had multiple strokes. He agreed to be Eli’s test case for Virtuality and was the first digi-soul to be uploaded. He is a calming influence on Eli’s life, often being the one to counsel him out of a rash decision.

Shona Lennox (Sophia di Martino) – Eli’s technician, she has a background in medical devices and large-scale genetic information storage. She built the mainframe and worked out how to put into practice Eli’s ideas. She often finds herself in unusual situations now she is working for Eli, but likes her new job and the excitement it brings, even if she complains about it. She used to work for CharterTech but Eli doesn’t know that when he hires her. When she leaves CharterTech she decides to start self-defence classes and can definitely handle herself in a crisis.

Ryan Fournier (Joey Batey) – Ryan is an inventor who has been responsible for some of the world’s most important leaps forward in technology, including making ecological sources of power more viable, such as wind and solar power. He is a problem solver and a big ideas guy. Unfortunately, he was born with a genetic condition that meant he died young, but he is now one of Eli’s digi-souls and living on in the Virtuality. He loves nothing better than to sit down with a problem and work out a solution, but occasionally he realises what he’d missing out on in the real world and ends up depressed and unhappy.

Chie Ohta (Naoko Mori) – Chie is a medical researcher and entrepreneur, but she was unable to save herself from a rare blood disease, despite years of trying. In the process she brought many other useful pieces of medical technology to the market and helped save the lives of countless people with cures for diseases. She loved her work, but always knew she was on borrowed time. She left behind a husband and children, who have no idea of her new existence. She continues to check up on them, despite Oren’s suggestion that this isn’t a good idea.

Maggie Charter (Alison Janney) – Maggie is a self-made woman, in the way that all billionaires are self-made. She inherited a fortune from her politician father and invested in business. She had a technical background so she picked tech companies as an obvious interest. She now owns CharterTech, one of the largest technical manufacturing companies in the world. She once tried to recruit Eli and has never been pleased that he turned her down. She knows nothing about Virtuality but has heard rumours that someone was working on something like it.

Tallis (Arthur Darvill) – Tallis is the AI personality that maintains the Virtuality. He is often mistaken for one of the digi-souls by the newly uploaded as he is so lifelike. He is polite and caring, always available to listen. He is Eli’s friend and also occasional advisor. Tallis means “knowledge” and he has access to all of the world’s online resources.

Occam (Karen Gillan) - Is another AI, built by CharterTech. She is new and unruly, but very quick to follow her creator’s orders. Sparks fly between her and Tallis.

Episodes:

Episode 1: Virtually Home

Ashura Hadid, prize winning writer, is dying at the age of 38. It’s not fair, it’s not right and she is having none of it. She is being treated for an aggressive brain tumour, but decides to stop treatment when it becomes clear that it will impact her ability to write and finish her final novel. The novel is partly a work of fiction but is also based on real life events at a chemical factory in the city that she has been researching.

Eli Danzig introduces himself to her and explains that he can offer her a second chance at life, by uploading her mind to Virtuality. She explains that she has no money and Eli tells her how he finances the project. She will never have to pay to live there. Ashura questions Eli further about the procedure and Virtuality itself. Eli tells her that he chooses young people, like Ashura, who have died before their time and had great contributions to make to society. They live in a computer generated world where things are simple but they can continue to work and interact with each other. However, they cannot have contact with the outside world, because Virtuality is a secret. It isn’t ready to be opened up to the world, there isn’t enough storage space on Earth to facilitate it. He doesn’t want it to be something that only the rich have access to, so he has decided to choose who gets to go there.

Elsewhere, Maggie Charter discusses her heart condition with her doctor and hears that she may only have a few months to live. She is 61 years old and a tech mogul. For years she has been looking for a way to cure her heart disease. Her network of corporate spies have heard of a young man with an unusual portfolio of patents and a strange pattern of spending on digital storage. She finds out that it is Eli and decides to look into what he is doing more.

Over the course of their discussions, Eli and Ashura grow closer. Eli’s AI partner, Tallis, warns him that he cannot form emotional attachments to the Digi-souls. Ashura will die soon and then Eli will only be able to have limited interaction with her through the interface he has built. Ashura thinks over the proposal and decides to take the plunge. Episode 1 ends with her death. However, Ashura doesn’t die of brain cancer, she is found murdered in her apartment.

Episode 2: Extra Life

Eli must upload Ashura within 12 hours of her death to retain all of her memories, after that time degradation begins to take place. Eli races against time to reach Ashura in the morgue and take the brainwave recording that he needs. Shona Lennox, Eli’s technician, ends up breaking in while Eli creates a computer distraction. They are finally able to upload Ashura’s consciousness, but she has forgotten the days before her death, and they are unable to find out who killed her. She has also forgotten who Eli is.

Meanwhile in Virtuality, the digi-souls try to analyse Ashura’s work for the likely culprit and begin putting together a picture of who it might be. Someone at CharterTech seems a very strong candidate, but then they discover that Ashura was close to uncovering a chemical spill which derails their ideas.

Episode 3: Online Banking

Maggie is putting together more about Eli and his weird ability to make money from stock market trades and a portfolio of patents that seem to have little in common. She uncovers more about the shell companies that he trades through and puts more pieces together. Tallis flags up her interest and Eli works to cover his tracks. It’s the worst time for Ryan to make a major breakthrough in water purification that could save hundreds of lives, but only if they can get it to the right people. With Maggie watching everything that Eli and Shona are doing in the real world, perhaps only the virtual world can get the idea where it needs to be, especially as Ryan is feeling like his efforts don’t matter as he reads yet another news article on how climate change isn’t real.

Shona is contacted by her former boss at CharterTech who invites her to return, but Shona turns them down. The concerning part is that she’s being asked to work on an AI project called Occam. Ashura continues her investigations into CharterTech whilst rekindling her past relationship with Eli.

Episode 4: Occam’s Razor

Maggie has a heart attack, but survives, however she is becoming more and more concerned about her health. She brings online her own AI, Occam and begins to sift through all of the information that she can acquire on medical technology. Occam comes across Chie’s work when she was alive. No one else seems to have been quite as close to curing the heart issue that Maggie has. Occam notices that Eli’s shell company has patented some devices that were based on Chie’s work. In fact, Occam notices that this is something of a trend in Eli’s patent’s and brings together the other work that he has done to see something that Maggie has been unable to see up until this point. Eli may have some way of accessing the brains of the dead.

Episode 5: Reality Bytes

Ryan is bored and ends up creating a virtual ant colony that soon gets out of control, causing all sorts of trouble for Virtuality. Tallis is very much not amused at the replicating program that Ryan has introduced to the system. He and Oren are left to deal with it with only minimal input from Eli as he is being sued by CharterTech over one of his patents. It looks like a lawsuit brought specifically to waste his time, but there doesn’t seem to be anyway to circumvent it, especially with everyone else busy with the increasingly problematic (and storage sucking) ant farm.

Episode 6: Denial of Service

Someone tries to hack into Virtuality and it is up to Eli and the digi-souls to stop them. Chie finds out that her teenage daughter has a new boyfriend, and against Tallis’ advice she looks into him and discovers that he has a possible chromosomal abnormality which could lead to an early death. Chie tries to decide whether she should find a way to let her husband know.

Eli and the others successfully prevent the hack but are worried that someone now knows of the existence of Virtuality. Certainly someone is testing their defences. Shona finally tells Eli that she used to work for CharterTech and the fallout is unfortunate.

Episode 7: Second Life

Eli finds a possible new candidate for Virtuality and starts his due diligence. Usually Shona would be involved in this process but their recent falling out means that things are not running smoothly. The new prospect seems like the perfect candidate and Eli almost begins his usual approach, until Oren uncovers some anomalies that Eli had missed. They may not even exist at all. The question is, who knows enough about Virtuality to do something like this?

Tallis uncovers the existence of Occam, and there is a brief encounter where they size each other up. Occam is identified as the force that tried to hack Virtuality before.

Episode 8: Power Switch

City-wide power outages see Eli scrambling to ensure Virtuality doesn’t go down and lose all the digi-souls. Shona returns to help and the two resolve their differences whilst saving the world that they built together. The digi-souls come up with increasingly desperate plans to produce the power they need to survive, but save the day in the end. Ryan puts together new plans to ensure it never happens again.

Episode 9: Deleted

Ashura finally gets to the bottom of who murdered her and it was nothing to do with CharterTech or Maggie. Her exposé of a chemical company’s disregard for environmental law was the issue that caused her death. Shona uses some contacts to get the police involved and the digi-souls help Ashura gather enough evidence to get the culprit put away in jail for a long time.

Eli and Ashura address some of the issues with their relationship, but resolve to give it a go, despite the obvious barriers.

Episode 10: Boss Fight

Maggie and Occam finally uncover the existence of Virtuality and the digi-souls. The finale sees Maggie managing to force her way into the digital world, whilst Occam and Tallis fight it out. Eli and Shona do their best to help Tallis, but find their offices raided and their technology confiscated. Maggie gets time to get a foothold, but the strain is too much on her heart.

Just as Eli and Shona find their way back in, Maggie dies in the real world. Eli can either choose to kill her for good or keep her malevolent presence in Virtuality. Tallis isn’t too keen on sharing with Occam either.

#Dream Show #Dream show 2.0 #RBACL #RBACL QCC

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jgthirlwell · 4 years

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2020 Year In Review

This year once again I invited some friends and colleagues to reflect on 2020

JG Thirlwell

Composer

Foetus Xordox Manorexia Steroid Maximus Venture Bros Archer

www.foetus.org

2020 was a troubling and disturbing year. I created a lot of music and experienced a lot of nights waking at 5am in a panic. I deeply missed the sacred experience of being able to see live music. In its absence of that I listened to a lot of music. It was difficult to whittle down this list but here are a lot of albums I enjoyed in 2020, in no particular order.

Le Grand Sbam Furvent (Dur Et Doux) John Elmquist’s HardArt Group I Own an Ion (900 Nurses) Roly Porter Kistvaen (Subtext) Liturgy Origin Of The Alimonies (YLYLCYN) Clark Kiri Variations (Throttle) Dai Kaht Dai Kaht I & II (Soleil Zeuhl) Chromb Le livre des merveilles (Dur Et Doux) Horse Lords The Common Task (Northern Spy) Ecker & Meultzer Carbon (Subtext) Insane Warrior Tendrils (RJ’s Electrical Connections) Jeff Parker Suite For Max Brown (International Anthem) Jacob Kirkegaard Opus Mors (Topos) Tristan Perich Drift Multiply (Nonesuch) Bec Plexus Sticklip (New Amsterdam) Vak Budo (Soleil Zeuhl) Merlin Nova BOO! (Bandcamp) The The Muscle OST (Cineola) Zombi 2020 (Relapse) Regis Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss (Downwards) Rival Consoles Articulation (Erased Tapes) Sarah Davachi Cantus, Descant (L.A.T.E.) Sufjan Stevens The Ascension (Asthmatic Kitty) Idles Ultra Mono (Partisan) Daedelus The Bittereindeers (Brainfeeder) Boris No (Bandcamp) Aksak Maboul Figures / Un peu de l’ame des bandits / Onze Danses Pour Cobattre La Migraine (Crammed) Noveller Arrow (Ba Da Bing) Felicia Atkinson Everything Evaporate (Shelter Press) Ital Tek Dream Boundary (Planet Mu) Author and Punisher Beastland (Relapse) Sparks A Steady Drip Drip Drip (BMG) Corima Amatarasu (Soleil Zeuhl) Code Orange Underneath (Roadrunner) Deerhoof Future Teenage Cave Artists /Silly Symphonies / To Be Surrounded../ Love Lore(Joyful Noise) Sote Moscels (Opal Tapes) Run The Jewels RTJ4 (Jewel Runners) Oranssi Pazuzu Mestarin Kynsi (Nuclear Blast) Master Boot Record Floppy Disk Overdrive (Metal Blade) Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith The Mosaic Of Transformation (Ghostly International) / Ears (Western Vinyl) Michael Gordon Acquanetta (Cantelope) Neom Arkana Temporis (Soleil Zeuhl) Rian Treanor Ataxia / File Under UK Metaplasm (Planet Mu) Helm Saturnalia (Alter) Ivvvo doG (Halcyon Veil) Robert Normandeau Figures (Empreintes Digitales) Ben Vida Reducing The Tempo To Zero (Shelter Press) Beatrice Dillon Workaround (Pan) Dan Deacon Mystic Familiar (Domino) Sea Oleena Weaving A Basket (Higher Plain Music) Elysian Fields Transience Of Life (Ojet) Rhapsody Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II - The Dark Secret (Magic Circle) Duma Duma (Nyege Nyege) Ulla Strauss Tumbling Towards a Wall / Seed (Bandcamp)

Honorable mentions Carl Stone Stolen Car (Unseen Worlds) Nazar Guerilla (Hyperdub) Iwo Zaluski with the Children of Park Lane Primary School, Wembley The Remarkable Earth Making Machine (Trunk) Nahash Flowers Of The Revolution (SVBKVLT) Cindy Lee Whats Tonight To Eternity (Bandcamp) Insect Ark The Vanishing (Profound Lore) 33EMYBW Arthropods (SVBKVLT) Declan McKenna Zeroes (Tomplicated) Layma Azur Zeii (Bandcamp)

FILM TV Succession ZeroZeroZero Escape at Dannemora 1917 Small Axe : Five films by Steve McQueen Pirhanas Monos The Hater Better Call Saul

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Drew Daniel

Matmos, The Soft Pink Truth

an alphabet of 2020 recordings

Arca “KiCk i” BFTT “Intrusive / Obtrusive” clipping. “Visions of Bodies Being Burned” Duma “Duma” Eilbacher, Max “Metabolist Meter (Foster, Cottin, Caetani and a Fly)” Forbidden Colors “La Yeguada” GILA “Energy Demonstration” HiedraH Club de Baile “Bichote-K Bailable Vol. 2” Ian Power “Maintenance Hums” Jeff Carey “Index[off]” Kassel Jaeger “Meith” Laurie Anderson “Songs From the Bardo” Mukqs “Water Levels” Negativland “The World Will Decide” O’Rourke, Jim “Shutting Down Here” Perlesvaus “These Things Below with Those Above” Quicksails “Blue Rise” Rian Treanor “File Under UK Metaplasm” Slikback “///” Terminal Nation “Holocene Extinction” Ulcerate “Stare Into Death and Be Still” Various Artists “HAUS of ALTR” William Tyler “New Vanitas” Xyla “Ways” Y A S H A “Summations” :zoviet-france: “Châsse 2ᵉ”

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Sarah Lipstate (Noveller)

With all live performances canceled, this was truly the year of demo videos and home studio recording for me. These are 10 pieces of gear that came out in 2020 that helped keep me feeling creative and inspired during lockdown. In no particular order:

EHX Oceans 12 Dual Stereo Reverb - The Oceans 12 ticks all the boxes for what I’m looking for in a great soundscaping reverb. I used the Shimmer and Reverse algorithms in conjunction a lot when I was composing music for a film score.

Chase Bliss Audio Blooper - While I don’t actually own a Blooper, I had the pleasure of borrowing one from Mike of Baranik Guitars after NAMM this year. He made an incredible Blooper-inspired guitar and I was completely charmed by them both. Chase Bliss always delivers pedals that push me creatively and the Blooper truly hits the mark.

Cooper FX Arcades - I love everything Cooper FX has released to-date so the opportunity to access those sounds in one pedal via plug-in cartridges is just awesome.

SolidGoldFX NU-33 - I was asked to do a demo of this pedal for its release and ended up being really charmed by this box’s approach to lo-fi nostalgia. I’ve used it a lot for film scoring and highly recommend adding it to your collection.

Demedash Effects T-120 DLX V2 - I LOVE a good tape echo and the T-120 Deluxe V2 ranks up there with the best I’ve tried. This pedal made its way to me this Christmas and I look forward to making some beautiful sounds with it in the new year.

Hologram Electronics Microcosm - The Microcosm is one of those pedals where you should fully read the manual before diving in but once you put in that initial effort you’ve got a massively powerful tool on your hands. It does glitch like no other. Definitely worth the homework

Azzam Bells MP019 - I discovered this unique instrument through a post on Reverb’s IG page and immediately looked it up and ordered one. These experimental percussion instruments are hand-made in Italy and they’re as beautiful visually as they are sonically. I used it for bowed cymbal and daxophone sounds on a film score and it was absolutely haunting.

Echopark Dual Harmonic Boost 2 - I love the control you have over dialing in the perfect amount of grit with these dual boost circuits. I use it a lot as a textural tool when I’m laying down drones or bringing in big distorted swells. It’s one of the most versatile overdrives in my collection and I love that.

Fender Parallel Universe Series Volume II Maverick Dorado - I was smitten with the Maverick Dorado when I first saw it at NAMM. It has a lot of the specs that I look for in a guitar and the body shape with the Mystic Pine finish just blew me away. I hope that I get to use it live soon.

Polyeffects Beebo - The Beebo is one of those pedals that I genuinely feel is smarter than I am. It’s like an entire computer in one small touchscreen box. I can’t claim to have mastered using it yet but the sounds that I have managed to get out of it so far have been brilliant. I’m looking forward to spending more time with this box in 2021

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HELM 2020 REVIEW

Let's get the bad stuff out the way first, 2020 was undoubtedly an awful year. I'm still not sure how to really respond to seeing a global pandemic bring the capital to its knees and everything I love and hold dear to a grinding halt. Our government fucked it's response, putting profit before people and killing tens of thousands. The Labour Party descended into farce with the newly elected leader Sir Keith revealing himself as a bland centrist with no opposition or ideas. On a personal level it sucked not being able to travel or see my friends in different parts of the world - or even the same country - who I am starting to miss a lot. However, I was fortunate enough to get through the year with my sanity intact. Music, art and culture once again being my main positive. I think I listened to more music than I have in any year ever. I read more books than I have done since I was a teenager probably. I also re-discovered the joys of walking long distances and am extremely thankful for living near a lot of incredible green spaces: Epping Forest, Walthamstow Wetlands, Walthamstow Marshes, Wanstead Park, Wanstead Flats...

Music. My favourite albums of the year.

Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin kynsi Wetware - Flail Raspberry Bulbs - Before The Age Of Mirrors Necrot - Mortal Rope Sect - The Great Flood Private World - Aleph Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never Pyrrhon - Abcess Time CS+Kreme - Snoopy Speaker Music - Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry Drew McDowall - Agalma Regis - Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss Nazar - Guerilla Zoviet France - Russian Heterodoxical Songs (and all the ZF reissues!!) Triple Negative - God Bless the Death Drive Permission - Organised People Suffer Actress - Karma & Desire Acolytes - Stress II The Gerogerigegege - >(decrescendo) Chubby & The Gang - Speed Kills Flora Yin-Wong - Holy Palm Eiko Ishibashi - Hyakki Yagyo The The - See Without Being Seen Prurient - Casablanca Flamethrower Henning Christiansen - L’essere Umano Errabando La Voce Errabando Subdued - Over The Hills And Far Away Rian Treanor - File Under UK Metaplasm Komare - The Sense Of Hearing Shredded Nerve - Acts Of Betrayal Jesu - Terminus Autechre - SIGN Hey Colossus - Dances / Curses Sparkle Division - To Feel Embraced Mark Harwood - A Perfect Punctual Paradise Under My Own Name Still House Plants - Fast Edit The Bug & Dis Fig - In Blue Kommand - Terrorscape Haus Arafna - Asche Khthoniik Cerviiks - Æequiizoiikum Worm - Gloomlord Kraus - A Golden Brain Faceless Burial - Speciation

A shout-out to Jon Abby's AMPLIFY series on Bandcamp / Facebook, which I contributed a new piece of music to.

A shout out to the labels where most of the music I listened to seemed to come from:

The Trilogy Tapes Iron Bonehead Penultimate Press Dais La Vida Es Un Mus

Gigs. Despite live music being destroyed in 2020 I still saw a few unforgettable performances at the beginning of the year.

Graham Lambkin @ The ICA, London Puce Mary / JFK @ The Glove That Fits, London Demilich @ Finnfest, The Garage, London Container / PC World / National Unrest @ Venue MOT, London S.H.I.T / Asid / Chubby & The Gang @ Static Shock Festival, ExFed, London

Books I enjoyed. Most not published this year, but all read in 2020.

Joe Kennedy - Authentocrats David Balzer - Curationism Tom Mills - BBC: The Myth Of A Public Service Simon Morris - Consumer Guide: Special Edition Luke Turner - Out Of The Woods Various - Bad News For Labour Mike Wendling - Alt-Right Baited Area issues 1 & 2.

Film. Three good films I saw this year which I hadn't before.

Suspiria (Remake) Midsommar Cannibal Holocaust

Podcasts. I listened to a lot of these whilst walking.

We Don't Talk About The Weather Novara Media Tysky Sour & Novara FM Grounded with Louis Theroux System of Systems Red Scare loveline episodes Suite 212 NOISEXTRA Social Discipline CONTAIN

TV.

Didn't watch a huge amount and what I did was mostly trash. For some reason I rewatched both series' of This Life, a British drama from the late 90's about a group of young professionals house sharing and navigating their careers. Very cringey and has aged terribly, but it was perversely fascinating to revisit something from that time in the age of the pandemic. Following on from this I binge watched the entire series of Industry which was entertaining enough. A programme about a bunch of horny bankers with what felt like a confused ideology behind it. It seemed stuck between trying to criticise and glorify the culture around the industry, but also protect the industry itself from outside criticism by portraying anyone who may oppose as an insufferable wanker. Currently halfway through Succession which is OK. The Murdoch documentaries on the BBC were excellent and a rare respite from their descent into client journalism.

Thanks to anyone who listened to my music this year also. Best wishes to you all for 2021.

Luke Younger

http://hhelmm.com | http://alter.bandcamp.com

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Elliott Sharp

composer

1. My Nr. 1 lesson: patience. Whether it's bouncing through 30 seconds of severe turbulence at 39000 feet or slogging through 30 minutes of a interminable piece of concert music, one attribute I've tried to develop is the ability to see past the discrete and awaited ending, the exact framing of the immediate process, but put it into the context of a larger time frame. I've found that this year more than all others has demanded it. Breathing helps...

2. Books: revisiting old favorites from the realm of Thomas Pynchon and Philip K. Dick (both especially relevant), digging into John Lomax's portrait of Jelly Roll Morton, the works of Colson Whitehead, random things off of the shelf…

3. Composing: with touring off the table, I focused on that which needed to be written, some requested and commissioned, some spontaneously springing forth. Composing requires that one open the windows wide to the world, which at this moment brought in grief, terror, uncertainty, anxiety, visions of plague and pestilence and incipient fascism. Okay, now shut the window and get to work! How to process, translate, transform? The work can be a comfortable and obsessive cocoon once one learns to handle the radioactive materials and put them into the creativity reactor.

4. Beans! We have long been a fan in our house of the wide world of legumes but this year brought two stars to the front: the black bean and the red lentil. The black bean commands the lofty peaks but the seemingly infinite variations of dal surround it. Ginger, garlic, turmeric, smoked paprika, cayenne, onions, and olive oil form the basis then imagination builds.

5. Online teaching substituted for my canceled conduction of workshops in the Pyrenees Mountains of France. Between the participants and myself, we built a temporary but very congenial space online to share concepts and music. In addition, private lessons brought conversation and music with new friends in Germany, Italy, California, Australia, Illinois, Denmark, Pennsylvania, Spain, Florida, Brazil.

6. What started out as "stress baking" (before I even had heard of the term) soon became a frequent practice that yielded very edible results. The twins preferred the sweeter forays into banana bread and chocolate cake. I tried to find a balance between tried-and-true techniques and experiments in texture and taste with yeasted pumpernickels, multi-grains, and seed breads.

7. While not the same as performing 'live ', online gigs proved that it was possible to generate a surprising amount of adrenaline even without the pheromonal handshaking of a room filled with receptive ears. As a corollary, online recording collaborations with friends worldwide proved to be inspiring and a suitable substrate for sonic experimentation, exploration of new instruments, tunings, effects programming, structures. In these realms, shout-outs to Helene Breschand, Mike Cooper, Henry Kaiser, Tracie Morris, Mikel Banks, Dougie Bowne, Payton McDonald, Billy Martin, Colin Stetson, Jim O'Rourke, Scott Amendola, Roberto Zorzi, Jason Hoopes, Eric Mingus, Melanie Dyer, Dave Hofstra, Don McKenzie, Sergio Sorrentino, Veniero Rizzardi, Taylor Ho Bynum, Scott Fields, Bachir Attar, Karl Bruckmaier, Robbie Lee, Matthew Evan Taylor, Matteo Liberatore, Al Kaatz, David Barratt, Jessica Hallock, Kolin Zeinikov, Robbie Lee, Jeremy Nesse, James Ilgenfritz, Sergio Armaroli, Steve Piccolo, Sandy Ewen, David Weinstein, Jim Whittemore, Chris Vine, Werner Puntigam, William Schimmel.

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Daniel O’Sullivan

(Grumbling Fur, Guapo, Miasma & the Carousel of Headless Horses, Ulver, Sunn O))), Æthenor, Laniakea, Miracle, Mothlite, and This Is Not This Heat.)

Music Richard Youngs - Ein Klein Nein Alabaster DePlume - Instrumentals Hildegard von Bingen - O Nobilissima Viriditas Francisco de Penalosa - Missa Ave Maria Peregrina Carlo Gesualdo - Responsoria 1611 Dirty Projectors - Five EPs Sonic Boom - All Things Being Equal Brother Peter Broderick - Blackberry Richard Horowitz - Eros Of Arabia Duncan Trussell Family Hour Cocteau Twins in the bath

Books/comics Alexander Tucker - Entity Reunion II Derek Jarman - Chroma Stephen Harrod Buhner - Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm The Penguin Book Of Irish Poetry - edited by Patrick Crotty The Gospel Of Ramakrishna - translated by Swami Nikhilananda Lucretius - De Rerum Natura Plotinus - Enneads Ram Dass - Grist For The Mill Lisa Brown - Phantom Twin

Other Fasting / meditation / macrodosing Walks in freshly coppiced woodland (for the smell mainly). Plants / Foraging / Growing Traditional ferments Douglas Sirk movies Mandolorian Writing songs on the piano Rediscovery of Kenneth Graham via my kids

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Karl O’Connor (Regis)

01.Wolfgang Press - Unremembered, Remembered 02. Klara Lewis - Ingrid Live at Fylkingen 03. Jesu - Terminus 04. Dave Ball - Leeds Poly Demos 1979 05. Edwin Pouncey - Rated Sav X (the Savage Pencil Skratchbook) 06. The Bug - In Blue 07. New Order - Power,Corruption and Lies ( Writing Sessions ) 08. JG Thirlwell and Simon Steensland - Oscillospira 09. FM Einheit and Andreas Ammer - Hammerschlag 10. Thurston Moore - By The Fire 11. Body Stuff - Body Stuff 3 12. Ann M Hogan - Honeysuckle Burials 13. Rob Halford - Confess (Autobiography)

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Caleb Braaten (Sacred Bones Records)

Shirley Collins Hearts Ease Dehd Flowers Of Devotion Duma Duma Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways Green-House Six Songs for Invisible Gardens John Jeffery Passage Drew McDowall Agalma Sweeping Promises Hunger For a Way Out Colter Wall Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs Woods Strange to Explain

My Favorite 90’s Nostalgia Movie Rewatches

Colors Ghost Dog Menace II Society The Player Rounders Safe Starship Troopers Trees Lounge Vampires Waiting For Guffman

Most Culturally Bankrupt Year : 1997

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Charlie Looker

(composer, Psalm Zero, Extra Life, Seaven Teares)

Ten Things That Didn’t Happen in 2020

1. I didn’t write a ton of new music. Don’t get me wrong, I wrote some. I always do. But mostly I focused on my new YouTube channel, essays, and on getting old recordings released. I haven’t even been working a day-job so I thought I was going to write my next Ring Cycle, but I really didn’t find Covid inspiring.

2. Trump wasn’t re-elected. Cool.

3. I didn’t lose anyone to Covid. I am, of course, profoundly grateful for this. But I feel pretty embarrassed remembering group-texting ten friends in March, “We are all going to see a loved one die. Every single one of us. Don’t kid yourselves”. I can get hysterical, and that was somewhat irresponsible of me.

4. No revolution happened. I don’t mean to be smug or cynical, or to belittle anyone’s participation in the protests. But, as far as I can tell, nothing happened in 2020 that promises to reduce police brutality or human suffering of any kind. We’ll see. That burning Minneapolis police station was exciting to watch at the time, if only on an aesthetic level.

5. I have a stack of unread books I bought this year, just staring at me, with nary a crease among them. These include:

Adorno and Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (looks amazing, but I haven’t touched it) Marx, Grundrisse (it’s 1000 pages for fuck’s sake. Amazon also accidentally sent me two copies, and its double presence in the stack is just comical) Reza Negarestani, Intelligence and Spirit (the first 15 pages blew my mind, then my mind blew it off)

6. I didn’t settle into living in LA. I moved here six months before Covid and I was just starting to cultivate some friendships and play shows. This was quashed and I still feel like I still live in New York. I still barely know the layout of the city here.

7. No brand-new buzzy musical artists burst onto the scene, that I can recall. No new hyped micro-genre of the moment. There was just no way for there to be a hot new trend. I’d say that was refreshing, but it wasn’t.

8. Tyson’s return was not awesome. Two minute rounds, ended in a draw. I’ve been getting way into boxing this past year. This fight was a bummer. I’m looking forward to Mayweather vs Logan Paul (LOL) because we know it’s comedy ahead of time.

9. For three weeks in July, I didn’t do a single thing other than watch street fight compilations on YouTube and Worldstar. That’s just grim.

10. There were no school shootings in March. Apparently, this was the first March with no school shootings since 2002. Not a single 7th grader got a hand job in March either. I cannot begin to imagine what it’s like to be a kid now.

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Chuck Bettis

https://chuckbettis.com

Other People's Music released this year:

Coil "Musick to Play in the Dark" (Dais)

Duma "s/t" (Nyege Nyege Tapes) Twig Harper "External Boundless Prison/ in 4 parts EP" (self-release) I.P.Y. (Ikue Mori, Phew, YoshimiO) "I.P.Y." (Tzadik) Kill Alters "A2B2 Live Stream 11/13/2020" (self-release) Krallice "Mass Cathexis" (self-release) Lust$ickPuppy "Cosmic Brownie" (self-release) Doug McKechnie "San Francisco Moog: 1968-72" (VG+ Records) Merlin Nova "Boo!" (self-release) Omrb "Milandthriust, The Graths of Mersh" (self-release) Akio Suzuki & Aki Onda "gi n ga" (self-release) Yoth Iria "Under His Sway" (Repulsive Echo) Wetware "Flail" (Dais)

My own music released this year:

collaborations

Chatter Blip "Microcosmopolitan" (Contour Editions) Matmos "The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form" (Thrill Jockey) Reverse Bullets "Dreampop Dsyphoria" (self-release) Snake Union "live at Roulette" (self-release) Snake Union w/ Hisham Bharoocha, Bonnie Jones, Heejin Jang, Matthew Regula "Three Arrows" (Rat Route) Thomas Dimuzio "Balance" (Gench Music) YoshimiO & Chuck Bettis "Live at the Stone" (Living Myth)

solo Chuck Bettis "Arc of Enlghtenment" (Living Myth) Chuck Bettis "Motion Parallax" (Living Myth)

compilation Various Artist "Polished Turds Vol.1" (Granpa)

Music Books read this year

"Intermediary Spaces" by Eliane Radigue/Julia Eckhardt (Umland) "Ennio Morricone In His Own Words" by Ennio Morricone/Alessandro De Rosa (Oxford University Press) "Free Jazz In Japan: A Personal History" by Soejima Teruto (Public Bath Press) "Rumors of Noizu: Hijokaidan and the Road to 2nd Damascus" by Kato David Hopkins (Public Bath Press)

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Maya Hardinge

(musician / artist)

list of things i liked this year

first ever solo road trip through new mexico and Texas right before lockdown experiencing manhattan with no cars on the road . having a car to escape in to nature. (which i craved so much) walks and bike rides with friends… FRIENDS! The web site ‘workaway’ that helped me feel that there were options for escape. playing games weekly on zoom during lock down teaching yoga weekly on zoom. Witnessing and being part of the BLM protests. witnessing and being part of the demise of T sitting on my couch at 6am drinking a cup of tea, appreciating my apt. making time to meditate. halloween without tourists .

some music I’ve bought and/or enjoyed this year Elvis Perkins-Black Coat Daughter Patricia Kokett -Soi soi Henning Christiansen - OP201 Bryce Hackford- Safe Svitlana Nianio and Oleksander - Snayesh yak? rozkazhy Brannten schnure - Sommer im Pfirsichhain Killing Joke - Nighttime David Shea - Tower of mirrors Shakey - Shakey Woodford halse tapes Coil - Musick to play in the dark

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BJ Nilsen

sound artist / composer

Work 2020

Despite Covid 19 lots of things actually did happen.

In Feburary I visited the only active nuclear plant in The Nederlands as part of my "Expanded Field Recording” project together with SML. In March revisited the Acousmonium at the Elevate Festival in Graz with an additional trip deep inside the Schlossberg recording old mining trains. In March and April I did two daily recording projects “Pending and Auditory Scenes” - both of Amsterdam during lockdown. In May did my first Zoom field recording workshop with the CAMP project. In June & July two research trips in Waldviertel, Austria with Franz Pomassl. In August recorded bells and organs in 10 different churches around Amsterdam for Jacob Lekkerkerker. In September recorded Kali Malone at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam. Performed at Heart of Noise Festival in Innsbruck and A4 in Bratislava. Also went ice-skating for first time in 20? Years. In November and December I travelled to Jeju island to record field recordings for a project by Femke Herregraven for the Gwangju Biennale, commissioned for 2021. Did lots of gardening, released two tapes “Call it Philips, Eindoven” and “Zomer 2020” with Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson. NOW! Looking forward to 2021.

http://bjnilsen.info https://soundcloud.com/bjnilsen/sets/auditory-scenes-amsterdam

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Vicki Bennett

(People Like Us)

Negativland - True False https://negativland.com/products/truefalse-cd (this came out last year but is so THIS year) Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways https://www.bobdylan.com/albums/rough-and-rowdy-ways/ The Soft Pink Truth - We from Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase https://thesoftpinktruth.bandcamp.com/album/shall-we-go-on-sinning-so-that-grace-may-increase Carl Stone - Stolen Car https://unseenworlds.bandcamp.com/album/stolen-car Porest - Sedimental Gurney https://porest.bandcamp.com/album/sedimental-gurney Matmos - The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form https://matmos.bandcamp.com/album/the-consuming-flame-open-exercises-in-group-form Domenique Dumont - Miniatures De Auto Rhythm https://antinoterecordings.bandcamp.com/album/atn044-domenique-dumont-miniatures-de-auto-rhythm The The - See Without Being Seen https://www.thethe.com/product/see-without-being-seen-cd/ Ciggy de la Noche - Hold Tight HMRC https://soundcloud.com/ciggydelanoche/hold-tight-hmrc Neil Cicierega - Mouth Dreams http://www.neilcic.com/mouthdreams/

and my details: http://peoplelikeus.org/ https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/ pic: http://peoplelikeus.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Welcome-Abroad-promo3-2-scaled.jpg

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DJ Food

Music - Type 303 - Sticky Disco / Analogue Acidbath 7" (45 Live) The British Space Group - The Ley of the Land CD (Wyrd Britain) Squarepusher - Be Up A Hello LP / Warp 10 NTS mix (Warp) dgoHn - Undesignated Proximate (Modern Love) LF58 - Alterazione LP (Astral Industries) Robert Fripp - Music For Quiet Moments series (DGM) Run The Jewels - RTJ4 (BMG) Simf Onyx - Magenta Skyline / The Unresolved 7" (Delights) Luke Vibert - Modern Rave LP (Hypercolour) JG Thirlwell & Simon Steensland - Oscillospira (Ipecac) Aural Design - Looking & Seeing 7" / DL (Russian Library) Luke Vibert - Rave Hop (Hypercolour) Clipping. with Christopher Fleeger - Double Live (Sub Pop) APAT - Terry Riley's 'In C' performed on Modular Synthesizer (YouTube) Field Lines Cartographer - The Spectral Isle LP (Castles In Space) Jane Weaver - The Revolution of Super Visions single (Fire Records) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - K.G. LP (Flightless) Humanoid - Hed-Set - forthcoming on (De:tuned)

Film / TV - Inside No.9 (BBC) What We Do In The Shadows Season 2 (Netflix) Tales From The Loop (Amazon) Keith Haring - Street Art Boy (BBC) John Was Trying To Contact Aliens (Netflix) The Social Dilemma (Netflix) The Mandalorian (Season 2) (Disney+) Long Hot Summers - The Style Council documentary (Sky Arts) Zappa (Alex Winter)

Books / Comics / Magazines Confessions of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell (Profile books) The Often Wrong - Farel Dalrymple (Image Comics) Edwin Pouncey - Rated SavX (Strange Attractor Press) Jeffrey Lewis - Fuff (all issues - really late to the party on this one) Rian Hughes - XX - A Novel, Graphic (Picador) Cosey Fanni Tutti - Art, Sex, Music (Faber) Caza - Kris Kool (Passenger Press) Dan Lish - Egostrip Vol.1 Electronic Sound magazine Decorum - Jonathan Hickman & Mike Huddleston (Image) John Higgs - Stranger Than We Can Imagine Simon Halfon - Cover To Cover (Nemperor)

Very few exhibitions or shows this year for obvious reasons

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34 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years

Text

UEFI hacking malware

Security researchers are alarmed: the already-notorious Trickbot malware has been spottied probing infected computers to find out which version of UEFI they're running. This is read as evidence that Trickbot has figured out how to pull off a really scary feat.

To understand why, you have to understand UEFI: a fascinating, deep, philosophical change to our view of computers, trust, and the knowability of the universe. It's a tale of hard choices, paternalism, and the race to secure the digital realm as it merges with the physical.

Computers were once standalone: a central processing unit that might be augmented by some co-processors for specialized processes, like a graphics card or even a math co-processor.

These co-pros were subordinate to the CPU though. You'd turn on the computer and it would read a very small set of hardcoded instructions telling it how to access a floppy disk or other storage medium for the rest of the boot sequence, the stuff needed to boot the system.

The hardwired instructions were in a ROM that had one job: wake up and feed some instructions to the "computer" telling it what to do, then go back to sleep. But there's a philosophical conundrum here.

Because the world of computing is adversarial and networked computing is doubly so: there are people who want your computer to do things that are antithetical to your interests, like steal your data or spy on you or encrypt all your files and demand ransom.

To stop this, you need to be able to examine the programs running on your computer and terminate the malicious ones. And therein lies the rub: when you instruct your computer to examine its own workings, how do you know if you can trust it?

In 1983, Ken Thompson (co-creator of C, Unix, etc) was awarded a Turing Award ("computer science's Nobel Prize"). He gave a fucking bombshell of an acceptance speech, called "Reflections on Trusting Trust."

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf

Thompson revealed that he had created a backdoor for himself that didn't just live in Unix, but in the C compiler that people made to create new Unix systems.

Here's what that means: when you write a program, you produce "high-level code" with instructions like "printf("Hello, World!");". Once your program is done, you turn it into machine code, a series of much shorter instructions that your CPU understands ("mov dx, msg" etc).

Most programmers can't read this machine code, and even for those who can, it's a hard slog. In general, we write our code, compile it and run it, but we don't examine it. With nontrivial programs, looking at the machine code is very, very hard.

Compilers are treated as intrinsically trustworthy. Give 'em some source, they spit out a binary, you run the binary. Sometimes there are compiler bugs, sure, and compiler improvements can be a big deal. But compilers are infrastructure: inscrutable and forgotten.

Here's what Thompson did: he hid a program in his compiler that would check to see whether you were compiling an operating system or a compiler. If you were compiling an OS, it hid a secret login for him inside of it.

If you were compiling a compiler, it hid the program that looked for compilers or operating systems inside of it.

Think about what this means: every OS you compiled had an intentional security defect that the OS itself couldn't detect.

If you suspected that your compiler was up to no good and wrote your own compiler, it would be compromised as soon as you compiled it. What Thompson did was ask us to contemplate what we meant when we "trusted" something.

It was a move straight out of Rene Descartes, the reasoning that leads up to "I think therefore I am." Descartes' "Discourse on the Method" asks how we can know things about the universe.

He points out that sometimes he thinks he senses something but is wrong - he dreams, he hallucinates, he misapprehends.

If all our reasoning depends on the impressions we get from our senses, and if our senses are sometimes faulty, how can we reason at all?

Descartes wants a point of certainty, one thing he *knows* to be absolutely true. He makes the case that if you can be certain of one thing, you can anchor everything else to this point and build up a massive edifice of trustable knowledge that all hangs off of this anchor.

Thompson is basically saying, "You thought you had descartesed your way into a trustable computing universe because of the axiom that I would never poison your lowest-level, most fundamental tools.

"*Wrong*.

"Bwahahahaha."

(But, you know, in a nice way: an object lesson to serve as a wake-up call before computers fully merged with the physical world to form a global, species-wide digital nervous system whose untrustworthy low-level parts were foolishly, implicitly trusted).

But processors were expensive and computers were exploding. PCs running consumer operating systems like Windows and Mac OS (and more exotic ones like GNU/Linux and various Unices) proliferated, and they all shared this flawed security model.

They all relied on the operating system to be a faithful reporter of the computer's internals, and operated on the assumption that they could use programs supervised by the OS to detect and terminate malicious programs.

But starting in 1999, Ken Thompson's revenge was visited upon the computing world. Greg Hoglund released Ntrootkit, a proof-of-concept malware that attacked Windows itself, so that the operating system would lie to antivirus programs about what it was doing and seeing.

In Decartesspeak, your computer could no longer trust its senses, so it could no longer reason. The nub of trust, the piton driven into the mountainface, was made insecure and the whole thing collapsed. Security researchers at big companies like Microsoft took this to heart.

In 2002, Peter Biddle and his team from Microsoft came to EFF to show us a new model for computing: "Trusted Computing" (codenamed "Palladium").

https://web.archive.org/web/20020805211111/https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2002/jul02/0724palladiumwp.asp

Palladium proposed to give computers back their nub of Descartesian certainty. It would use a co-processor, but unlike a graphics card or a math co-pro, it would run before the CPU woke up and did its thing.

And unlike a ROM, it wouldn't just load up the boot sequence and go back to sleep.

This chip - today called a "Secure Enclave" or a "Trusted Platform Module" (etc) - would have real computing power, and it would remain available to the CPU at all times.

Inside the chip was a bunch of cool cryptographic stuff that provided the nub of certainty. At the start of the boot, the TPM would pull the first stages of the boot-code off of the drive, along with a cryptographic signature.

A quick crypto aside:

Crypto is code that mixes a key (a secret known to the user) with text to produce a scrambled text (a "ciphertext") that can only be descrambled by the key.

Dual-key crypto has two keys. What one scrambles, the other descrambles (and vice-versa).

With dual-key crypto, you keep one key secret (the "private key") and you publish the other one (the "public key"). If you scramble something with a private key, then anyone can descramble it with your public key and know it came from you.

If you scramble it *twice*, first with your private key and then with your friend's public key, then they can tell it came from you (because only your private key's ciphertexts can be descrambled with your public key).

And *you* can be certain that only they can read it (because only their private key can descramble messages that were scrambled with their public key).

Code-signing uses dual-key crypto to validate who published some code.

Microsoft can make a shorter version of its code (like a fingerprint) and then you scramble it with its private key. The OS that came with your computer has a copy of MSFT's public key. When you get an OS update, you can descramble the fingerprint with that built-in key.

If it matches the update, then you know that Microsoft signed it and it hasn't been tampered with on its way to you. If you trust Microsoft, you can run the update.

But...What if a virus replaces Microsoft's public keys with its own?

That's where Palladium's TPM comes in. It's got the keys hardcoded into it. Programs running on the CPU can only ask the TPM to do very limited things like ask it to sign some text, or to check the signature on some text.

It's a kind of god-chip, running below the most privileged level of user-accessible operations. By design, you - the owner of the computer - can demand things of it that it is technically capable of doing, and it can refuse you, and you can't override it.

That way, programs running even in the most privileged mode can't compromise it.

Back to our boot sequence: the TPM fetches some startup code from the disk along with a signature, and checks to see whether the OS has been signed by its manufacturer.

If not, it halts and shows you a scary error message. Game over, Ken Thompson!

It is a very cool idea, but it's also very scary, because the chip doesn't take orders from Descartes' omnibenevolent God.

It takes orders from Microsoft, a rapacious monopolist with a history of complicity with human rights abuses. Right from that very first meeting the brilliant EFF technologist Seth Schoen spotted this (and made the Descartes comparison):

https://web.archive.org/web/20021004125515/http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/2002-07-05.html

Seth identified a way of having your cake and eating it too: he proposed a hypothetical thing called an "owner override" - a physical switch that, when depressed, could be used to change which public keys lived in the chip.

This would allow owners of computers to decide who they trusted and would defend them against malware. But what it *wouldn't* do is defend tech companies shareholders against the owner of the computer - it wouldn't facilitate DRM.

"Owner override" is a litmus test: are you Descartes' God, or Thompson's Satan?

Do you want computers to allow their owners to know the truth? Or do you want computers to bluepill their owners, lock them in a matrix where you get to decide what is true?

A month later, I published a multi-award-winning sf story called "0wnz0red" in Salon that tried to dramatize the stakes here.

https://www.salon.com/2002/08/28/0wnz0red/

Despite Seth's technical clarity and my attempts at dramatization, owner override did not get incorporated into trusted computing architectures.

Trusted computing took years to become commonplace in PCs. In the interim, rootkits proliferated. Three years after the Palladium paper, Sony-BMG deliberately turned 6m audio CDs into rootkit vectors that would silently alter your OS when you played them from a CD drive.

The Sony rootkit broke your OS so that any filename starting with $SYS$ didn't show up in file listings, $SYS$ programs wouldn't show up in the process monitor. Accompanying the rootkit was a startup program (starting with $SYS$) that broke CD ripping.

Sony infected hundreds of thousands of US gov and mil networks. Malware authors - naturally enough - added $SYS$ to the files corresponding with their viruses, so that antivirus software (which depends on the OS for information about files and processes) couldn't detect it.

It was an incredibly reckless, depraved act, and it wasn't the last. Criminals, spies and corporations continued to produce rootkits to attack their adversaries (victims, rival states, customers) and trusted computing came to the rescue.

Today, trusted computing is widely used by the world's largest tech companies to force customers to use their app stores, their OSes, their printer ink, their spare parts. It's in medical implants, cars, tractors and kitchen appliances.

None of this stuff has an owner override. In 2012, I gave a talk to Google, Defcon and the Long Now Foundation about the crisis of owner override, called "The Coming Civil War Over General Purpose Computing."

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/08/23/the-coming-civil-war-over-general-purpose-computing/

It proposed a way that owner override, combined with trusted computing, could allow users to resist both state and corporate power, and it warned that a lack of technological self-determination opened the door to a parade of horribles.

Because once you have a system that is designed to override owners - and not the other way around - then anyone who commands that system can, by design, do things that the user can't discern or prevent.

This is the *real* trolley problem when it comes to autonomous vehicles: not "who should a car sacrifice in a dangerous situation?" but rather, "what happens when a car that is designed to sometimes kill its owner is compromised by Bad Guys?"

https://this.deakin.edu.au/self-improvement/car-wars

The thing is, trusted computing with an owner override is pretty magical. Take the Introspection Engine, a co-processor in a fancy Iphone case designed by Edward Snowden and Bunnie Huang. It's designed to catch otherwise undetectable mobile malware.

https://www.tjoe.org/pub/direct-radio-introspection/release/2

You see, your phone doesn't just run Ios or Android; the part that interfaces with the phone system - be baseband radio - runs an ancient, horribly insecure OS, and if it is infected, it can trick your phone's senses, so that it can no longer reason.

The Introspection Engine is a small circuit board that sandwiches between your phone's mainboard and its case, making electrical contact with all the systems that carry network traffic.

This daughterboard has a ribbon cable that snakes out of the SIM slot and into a slightly chunky phone case that has a little open source hardward chip with fully auditable code and an OLED display.

This second computer monitors the electrical signals traveling on the phone's network buses and tells you what's going on. This is a user-accessible god-chip, a way for you to know whether your phone is hallucinating when it tells you that it isn't leaking your data.

That's why it's called an "Introspection Engine." It lets your phone perch at an objective remove and understand how it is thinking.

(If all this sounds familiar, it's because it plays a major role in ATTACK SURFACE, the third Little Brother book)

https://attacksurface.com

The reason the Introspection Engine is so exciting is that it is exceptional. The standard model for trusted computing is that it treats everyone *except* the manufacturer as its adversary - including you, the owner of the device.

This opens up many different sets of risks, all of which have been obvious since 1999's Ntrootkit, and undeniable since 2005's Sony Rootkit.

I. The manufacturer might not have your interests at heart.

In 2016, HP shipped a fake security update to its printers, tricking users into installing a system that rejected their third-party ink, forcing them to pay monopoly prices for HP products.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

II. An insider at the company may not have your interests at heart.

Multiple "insider threat" attacks have been executed against users. Employees at AT&T, T-Mobile, even Roblox have accepted bribes to attack users on behalf of criminals.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj4ddw/hacker-bribed-roblox-insider-accessed-user-data-reset-passwords

III. A government may order the company to attack its users.

In 2017 Apple removed all working VPNs from its Chinese app stores, as part of the Chinese state's mass surveillance program (1m members of religious minorities were subsequently sent to concentration camps).

Apple's trusted computing prevents users from loading apps that aren't in its app stores, meaning that Apple's decisions about which apps you can run on your Iphone are binding on you, even if you disagree.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-vpn/apple-says-it-is-removing-vpn-services-from-china-app-store-idUSKBN1AE0BQ

IV. Third parties may exploit a defect in the trusted computing system and attack users in undetectable ways that users can't prevent.

By design, TPMs can't be field updated, so if there's a defect in them, it can't be patched.

Checkm8 exploits a defect in eight generations Apple's mobile TPM. It's a proof-of-concept released to demonstrate a vulnerability, not malware (thankfully).

https://checkm8.info/

But there have been scattered, frightening instances of malware that attacks the TPM - that suborns the mind of God so that your computer ceases to be able to reason. To date, these have all been associated with state actors who used them surgicially.

State actors know that the efficacy of their cyberweapons is tied to secrecy: once a rival government knows that a system is vulnerable, they'll fix it or stop using it or put it behind a firewall, so these tools are typically used parsimoniously.

But criminals are a different matter (and now, at long last, we're coming back to Trickbot and UEFI) (thanks for hanging in there).

UEFI ("You-Eff-Ee") is a trusted computing that computer manufacturers use to prevent unauthorized OSes from running on the PCs they sell you.

Mostly, they use this to prevent malicious OSes from running on the hardware they manufacture, but there have been scattered instances of it being used for monopolistic purposes: to prevent you from replacing their OS with another one (usually a flavor of GNU/Linux).

UEFI is god-mode for your computer, and a compromise to it would be a Sony Rootkit event, but 15 years later, in a world where systems are more widespread and used for more critical applications from driving power-plants to handling multimillion-dollar transactions.

Trickbot is very sophisticated malware generally believed to be run by criminals, not a government. Like a lot of modern malware, there's a mechanism for updating it in the field with new capabilities - both attacks and defenses.

And Trickbot has been observed in the wild probing infected systems' UEFI. This leads security researchers to believe that Trickbot's authors have figured out how to compromise UEFI on some systems.

https://www.wired.com/story/trickbot-botnet-uefi-firmware/

Now, no one has actually observed UEFI being compromised, nor has anyone captured any UEFI-compromising Trickbot code. The thinking goes that Trickbot only downloads the UEFI code when it finds a vulnerable system.

Running in UEFI would make Trickbot largely undetectable and undeletable. Even wiping and restoring the OS wouldn't do it. Remember, TPMs are designed to be unpatchable and tamper-resistant. The physical hardware is designed to break forever if you try to swap it out.

If this is indeed what's going on, it's the first instance in which a trusted computing module was used to attack users by criminals (not governments or the manufacturer and its insiders). And Trickbot's owners are really bad people.

They've hired out to the North Korean state to steal from multinationals; they've installed ransomware in big companies, and while their footprint has waned, they once controlled 1,000,000 infected systems.

You can check your UEFI to see if it's vulnerable to tampering:

https://eclypsium.com/2019/10/23/protecting-system-firmware-storage/

and also determine whether it has been compromised:

https://eclypsium.com/2020/10/14/protecting-your-organizations-from-mosaicregressor-and-other-uefi-implants/

But this isn't the end, it's just getting started. As Seth Schoen warned us in 2002, the paternalistic mode of computing has a huge, Ken Thompson-shaped hole in it: it requires you trust the benevolence of a manufacturer, and, crucially, they know you don't have a choice.

If companies knew that you *could* alter whom you trusted, they would have to work to earn and keep your trust. If governments knew that ordering a company to compromise on TPMs, they'd understand that their targets would simply shift tactics if they made that order.

Some users would make foolish decisions about whom to trust, but they would also have recourse when a trusted system was revealed to be defective. This is a fight that's into its third decade, and the stakes have never been higher.

Sadly, we are no closer to owner override than we were in 2002.

#pluralistic

23 notes · View notes

nitewrighter · 4 years

Note

Ah okay!! How about Samir & Aedan being a bunch of sleuths trying to discover and dispatch the Talon scientists responsible for the creation of Andrea. Or basically Aedan asking Samir and maybe to an extent Sombra to find a way to completely trash all the cloning-related research that Moira got from his conception so that no more clones would be made to go through what he's gone through(the existential dread) or wind up becoming another killing machine like Andrea!

I really love this prompt! Though I think Aedan’s relationship to Talon’s cloning projects would probably be more complex than “TALON ONLY MAKES MONSTROSITIES AND OUR EXISTENCE IS ONLY SUFFERING.”

...okay did this fic turn into a “Mountains of Madness/The Thing” knock-off? Maybe. Do I still like it? Yes.

----

The four of them stood huddled together in front of a massive, ice-slicked steel door dug into the side of Monte Sarmiento. All of them were bundled up, virtually indistinguishable from each other save by the colors of their windbreakers layered over thick down jackets, and Marti’s black braid speckled by snowflakes. Their faces were mostly obscured by goggles and scarves, and what skin did show was chapped by wind.

“Secret South American lab?” Jaime had pulled one glove off and was picking bits of protein bar out of his teeth with his pinky nail, “Even for Talon, that’s... nnnot a good look.”

“Overwatch had them too,” said Samir with a shrug, “Though, granted, it was for Crisis-era prosthetics research.”

“I’m just saying!” said Jaime, he shuddered as an icy wind blew through and looked over his shoulder back at the snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera Darwin before pulling a glove back on, “At least we’re not in Argentina.”

“Overwatch’s was in Argentina, actually,” said Samir, and Jaime snorted.

“Focus,” said Marti, her goggles down over her eyes as she and Samir decrypted the code on the door.

“We’re sure this site’s abandoned?” said Jaime, “We won’t be activating any... ‘nuke from orbit’ failsafes, right?”

“Best intel Auntie and Lynx could get, and Winston’s satellite should intercept any signal it might send out,” said Marti, numerous lines of code running across the lenses of her goggles, “And the decryption should be complete... right... about... now.”

There was a deep whirring sound and the ice on the door fractured. The four of them flinched back as it fell down in sheets and shattered against the icy and rocky ground, opening into a dark, steel-lined corridor.

“Scout it out, Ebo,” said Marti, taking the small spider-like drone off of her back harness and setting it on the ground. The little robot scuttled into the darkness and one lens of Marti’s goggles lit up with a feed from what Ebo’s camera could pick up.

“...so when do we all get the cute little drone sidekicks?” said Jaime as the four of them lit up their flashlights and walked into the corridor.

“You’re welcome to build your own,” said Marti, shining her flashlight around the massive heptagonal hallway. There was a loud ‘thunk-CHUNK’ and the hallway suddenly lit up in unnerving red lights. It mostly eliminated the need for flashlights, but all of them hesitated to turn them off. There came a loud whirring and all of them flinched with alertness.

“Stay calm,” said Marti, holding up a hand to make them pause in their steps. she brought a hand to her temple, apparently focusing on Ebo’s feed in her goggles, “Security drones incoming,” she said. Jaime swung his rifle off of his shoulder and Samir materialized his rifle from hard-light, “Aedan, stay low. If they get your head the mission is scrubbed. Samir. Take drones at two o’clock to eight o’ clock. Jaime. Eight to two.”

Jaime audibly cocked his rifle. The drones came flying out of the darkness, unnerving things, radially symmetrical, somewhere between squid and jellyfish in their design, bearing some resemblance to the gwishin omnic but even more unnervingly reminding Aedan of the construction of his own mother’s combat suit with a strange tightness to their chassises. Aedan could already feel dread chilling his blood but both Samir and Jaime quickly and efficiently dispatched the drones. A few loud shots echoing off the metallic walls of the corridor and the drones spun and crashed to the ground next to them. About 7 or 8, virtual target practice.

“Not to jinx it but... seems a little underwhelming, right?” said Jaime, “As far as secret labs go?”

Both Marti and Samir gave Jaime a wary glance as if he might very well jinx it, but there was a sound overhead and all of them flinched, Jaime and Samir bringing their rifles to the ready, but only a few nonfunctioning drone chassis tumbled out of a duct. They glanced up at the duct, noting even more nonfunctioning drones jamming it. There was a scuttling sound and Aedan tensed, only to see Ebo scuttling back to Marti.

“...I guess at one point they were supposed to overwhelm any intruders with numbers,” said Marti, picking up Ebo, folding its legs back in, and tucking the robot back into a slot on the harness on her back. She glanced over at Aedan, stooping over one of the dispatched drones.

“Aedan, if you want to study it further, we can grab it on the way out---” Marti started but Aedan was folding and unfolding one of the wing-like appendages on the drones.

“Pseudo-organic...” murmured Aedan.

“Come again?” said Marti.

“Nothing just...” Aedan pulled himself up to his full height, “Technically they’re living things.”

“What?” Jaime tilted his head.

“Well... insomuch as a nanite is a living thing,” said Aedan, rejoining the group.

“...Are you good?” said Marti, as Aedan closed the distance between them.

“You need someone with experience in Talon’s science division,” Aedan answered with a level of obviousness.

“But are you good?” said Marti, “This mission is already hitting close to home with you---”

“Look, it’s just a practical exploration of one branch of the capabilities of nanite design,” said Aedan, irritated, “I’ve already gone through my whole stupid clone angst well before I even defected, I’m here to make sure something good actually comes of it. Which I can’t do if everyone is treating me like a Fabergé egg.”

“I’ll take your word for it...” said Marti, glancing off.

Aedan did his best to ignore the implications of her words as they continued walking forward. “I’ll take your word for it,” didn’t simply imply that she believed his words, there was another layer to it. “I’ll take your word for it,” easily translated to, “I believe that you believe that---and of course, just because you believe this about yourself or your situation doesn’t make it true.” But no, despite everything he strived for as a person, Aedan knew his very existence represented probably the ugliest side of Talon’s unfettered scientific ambition.

It’s why they brought me, thought Aedan as they reached another massive steel door and the three of them looked to him expectantly. There was a retinal scan terminal next to the door.

“Your time to shine,” said Marti, as Aedan stepped up to it.

“...couldn’t you have tried to decrypt it? Or blow it open?” said Aedan, stepping up to the terminal.

“We don’t know if that would have activated some self-destruct failsafe,” said Samir, “We want to see the lab how Talon would have seen it.”

“Of course,” said Aedan, bringing his eye to the scanner.

Two blue lines of light crisscrossed over his mahogany brown eye.

“O’Deorain, Moira,” an automated voice sounded from the computer, “Vocally confirm any guests with you for biometrics.”

A bit of panic flared up in Aedan’s chest, but he glanced back t his three compatriots and looked back at the terminal. Pitching his voice in the best approximation of his mother’s, he spoke, “O’Deorain, Moira, reporting. And three guests.”

“Accepted,” said the terminal, “Enter passcode.”

“What?” said Aedan.

“Verbally state your passcode,” said the terminal.

“Let me decrypt it,” said Marti, bringing her goggles back down over her eyes.

“Please enter passcode in the next... 40 seconds,” said the terminal.

“Will it decrypt that fast?” said Aedan, quickly.

“No,” said Marti, looking at him.

Aedan brought in a sharp breath through his teeth. His mother never had very good passcodes for anything, largely because she was dealing with Talon passcodes around every corner with Talon putting pressure on her to come up with new ideas all the time. What would she pick for here? What would she pick for now? Something obvious. Something reflecting her sensibilities.

“Please enter passcode in the next... 20 seconds,” droned the terminal.

“Uh, Aedan?” said Jaime.

“Darwin!” Aedan flinched at how loudly the word came out of him.

“Passcode expired. Please enter current passcode in the next...9 seconds,” said the terminal.

“Aedan--” Samir started.

“Beagle!” blurted out Aedan.

There was a pause of a few seconds, then another ‘thunk-CHUNK’ as the gears behind the door shifted, and the massive steel doors pulled away revealing a large lift.

“...How did you know that?” said Marti.

“Well,” Aedan shrugged, “Some side effects to Mum supplementing my memories with hers, I suppose, but mostly? We’re both lazy in our way. I mean, I supposed there would come a point where you get so exasperated with passcodes that you just defer to the passcode being the location the passcode is in so...” He trailed off and scanned the faces of his team members.

“Let’s just... get on the lift,” said Marti.

The four of them moved onto the lift. There were only two other floors. A main level, and what seemed to be a ship bay for evacuation or Talon drop ships. They opted for the main level. The lift hummed and all of them felt a distinct gut-sinking feeling as it plummeted.

All of them tensed as the doors opened to a massive chamber hewn into the mountain itself and supported by steel beams like the ribs of a massive beast. There were more ‘thunks’ and ‘whirrs’ as the auxiliary power lit up the lab, cold little white lights on footpaths thrummed up from the floor, creating an eerie lighting from below, and there were a few industrial lights shining down on a central lab table. Lining the lab walls however, were what appeared to be massive cylinders of tight bands of metal, each equipped with its own terminal and what appeared to be a generator.

“Full scan, Ebo,” said Marti, once again taking the little robot off of her back and sending it scuttling off into the dark recesses of the lab. Scalloping around the tanks, the little spider drone bustled around a corner into a corridor which Aedan assumed might lead to the generators for this lab.

“What are we looking at here?” said Jaime.

“I’d guess maybe cryogenic research?” said Samir, walking up to one of the metal cylinders and putting his hand on it, “Feels like it would be appropriate, given the location...”

“So we might just end up thawing out Talon agents if we touch the wrong thing,” said Jaime. He snorted. “Can you imagine just... being forgotten in a freezer for years?”

“...Overwatch actually had that happen with Doctor Zhou,” said Samir.

“Speculating gets us nowhere,” said Marti as she walked up to the first cylinder’s terminal. She brought her goggles down and activated the holographic screens of the terminal, her fingers racing across them to decrypt.

“It’s too warm in here for cryogenics,” Aedan said, mostly to himself as he headed to another cylinder He rapped a knuckle on the cylinder. The reverberation of the metal wasn’t quite hollow. He frowned and turned to the terminal, typing a few old Talon access codes. The holographic interface lit up, displaying flatlined vitals. Samir might be right, thought Aedan, It could be cryo... but another possibility was itching at the back of his mind. Aedan selected a button that said, ‘Open exterior shell,’ just as an excited huff came out of Marti.

“Got it--!” Marti started as the metal bands slid to the side but that tone of victory in her voice quickly shrank in her throat. Aedan glanced at his own cylinder and saw the bands sliding away from it, revealing glass and… yellow. His gut seized. All four of them stumbled away from the cylinders, shrinking in close to Marti in horror as the metal bands slid away to reveal two yellowish glass tanks, each with a naked man floating in it with dozens of wires stuck into his skin and a particularly unnerving wire ported at his temple. Mnemosyne, Aedan thought, mindlessly feeling at the side of his own head. It took a second to make out their hair in the yellowness of the tank, it was a bit long for amnio-tank regulations. How long had they been abandoned? How much did the biotics slow the keratinization process of the growth of hair?

“Blonde clones in tubes...” Jaime said, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice but somewhat blindly fumbling for Samir’s hand, “Like I said before: Not a good look.”

“Look at their faces,” said Marti, squinting.

The truth was their faces had that strange, anonymizing shadow of death upon them. The way death makes anything look so very remote from anything it looked like in life. They were in tanks of biotics, but all Aedan could think about were embryos and reptiles in jars of formaldehyde. But they could still pick up a sharp nose, a strong jaw, and thin lips.

“…Jack Morrison,” Samir said hollowly. Even without the scars, everyone could recognize that nose and that jawline from the posters that had colored their world since well before any of them were born.

“You’re telling me Talon devoted an entire lab to cloning Jack Morrison?” Jaime said, his face twisted up.

“It might not be just Jack Morrison,” said Marti, quickly heading to the lab’s central terminal, and Samir paled slightly.

“With all data on the SEP serum destroyed, it was their most logical bet,” said Aedan, “Short of grave-robbing other subjects from the Omnic crisis, but I doubt any samples there would be viable if they couldn’t scry the compound from genetic information.”

He felt Jaime’s eyes on him, shrewd and disturbed. Aedan pressed his own lips together, hating how much he still knew about how Talon thought. Hating how much he still thought like Talon.

Marti still had her goggles down, streams of data going over the lenses as she typed at the central terminal, “I’m getting the next one open.”

They all tried to keep steady, but the loud whirrs and ‘thunks’ which issued from Marti’s hacking efforts while all their eyes were fixed on the other clones in the amnio-tanks made all of them flinch.

A nervous laugh fell out of Jaime. “Keep expecting their eyes to open...” he said, his voice a little strained.

The metal bands slid away on the next cylinder, revealing not a blonde man but a floating amorphous pulp of black.

“Nanite amalgam?” said Aedan, tilting his head.

“What’s a nanite amalgam, again?” whispered Jaime.

“Baby reaper,” whispered Marti.

“They’re not ‘Baby Reapers,’” said Samir, “More like... Reaper goo coral colonies.”

“But we don’t--I mean Talon doesn’t usually let them get this big...” murmured Aedan, “It’s easier to observe cellular anomalies when they’re...” he trailed off and tapped at the monitor next to the tank with the black pulp. Aedan put a hand over his mouth.

“What?” said Marti.

“...it’s not a nanite amalgam. This... was an attempt at cloning Reyes,” said Aedan, his shoulders dropping, “Couldn’t maintain cellular cohesion. He...” Aedan took a steadying inhale, “In the most scientific terms... ate himself.”

Jaime’s lips pulled back from his teeth in some combination of repulsion and that odd scrambling need to use humor to try and maintain some mental grip on the situation but also knowing he shouldn’t do that for Aedan’s sake.

“Aedan, do you need to--?” Marti started.

“Open the next tank,” said Aedan, stiffly. Marti gave him a look and Aedan cleared his throat. “Please. If it’s... in your best judgment, team leader.”

Marti tapped away at the monitor again. The next tank was a similar black pulp but now in a roughly human shape, like a shadow.

“This one managed to maintain its hox genes...” murmured Aedan.

“I’ve found the ‘Emergency access’ channel--I’m opening the rest of them,” said Marti.

There was a series of clanks and whirring then and the rest of the tanks were revealed. These weren’t all identical clones. If Aedan had to make a comparison, he would say it was like An artist’s body of work as defined by a particular phase. There was Picasso’s Blue Period, and here was his mother’s “Try and create a supersoldier that combines the most terrifying aspects of both Morrison and Reyes with varying but all uniquely disgusting results” period.

“Subjects seven through eighteen,” Aedan said quietly, pressing one hand to the glass of an amnio-tank. He remembered McCree interrogating him shortly after his defection. Why does everyone always assume clones are made in bulk?

They weren’t made in bulk, thought Aedan, This is trial and error. This is throwing everything at a wall and seeing what sticks.

There was a man in the tank with a ruddier skin tone than Jack’s but hair too light to be Reyes’s--or at least most of him--his arms and legs tapered off into cloudy black points, like a piece of wood that had only half of it burned.

“Couldn’t maintain cellular cohesion at the extremities. Organs were probably in a state of peril from the start and failed as it moved inward,” Aedan muttered.

“Uh--Aedan?” said Marti, but Aedan moved across the next tank, featuring a man with similar features midway between Reyes and Morrison, in somewhat complete form, but with the entire back of his head dissolved and trailing up

“Could reconstruct most of his body but not the arbor vitae. Probably killed himself at the first attempt at a fade, yet the nanites still responded to the peripheral nerves. Very unusual,” he murmured.

“Aedan,” Samir’s voice was troubled but Aedan was too caught up in his observations, moving to the next tank.

The clone in this one was... unfortunate. Really more of just a brain and spine surrounded by a black cloud of nanites. “The previous couldn’t maintain the integrity of the central nervous system, this one couldn’t maintain the integrity of the periphera--”

“AEDAN!” Jaime bellowed and Aedan glanced up. Jaime pointed to the end of the row of tanks. The last tank was empty--or at least, what was left of it was empty. What remained of the tank was jagged glass rendered virtually white from all its fissures. They had all been so busy looking at the tanks and monitors they didn’t catch the shards of glass sparkling in those cold floor lights at the base of the final tank. The glass definitely showed that something had burst out of the tank, rather than a force shattering it inward.

“...do we know... why Talon abandoned this lab?” the words came out of Aedan squeakier than he wanted.

“Well, mostly our prerogative is to secure any Talon site that’s tactically viable,” said Samir.

Marti pressed a button on the side of her goggles and a clear tension overcame her, “And you know what?” she said, her voice pitching higher than usual, “Let’s consider this one secured! Let’s go to the lift, everyone!”

“What?” said Samir.

“But there’s still so much to--” Aedan started.

“We are going to the lift,” said Marti through clenched teeth, “Now.”

There was a scuttling and Aedan, Samir, and Jaime all instinctively clustered close, only to see Marti’s drone Ebo scuttling out of a dark corridor of the lab. Marti un slung her shockcaster off her back and fired off several tether lines behind the little spider robot.

“Uh, Marti--?” Jaime started.

“I said get to the li--” Marti shoved her goggles up off of her eyes as a horrible creaking, sloshing sound came out of the corridor behind Ebo, “NOW!” she shouted, “GO NOW!”

What lurched out of the corridor, Aedan couldn’t really compare to the nanite amalgams he had sent swarming over Urdr when he had defected with Rei. Too much of it was flesh-toned. But the black of nanites spiraled all over the whorls of skin and muscle making it up. Aedan didn’t try to make out how many eyes or hands were throbbing and blinking and clenching in it. Somehow, despite having far more eyes than any organism had any business having, all of those eyes fixed on them. Four dumb kids in brightly colored windbreakers standing smack dab in the center of the lab. Some of the eyes that looked at them were blue. Some were brown. Some had entirely too much pupil. Too much tapetum lucidum. Some were runny with tears and yellow gunk. The mass of nanite-spiraled muscles and flesh pressed out at Aedan like some creature trying to burst out of an amniotic sack. Aedan was frozen in place mouth hanging open, staring at this creature. This thing that came from a tank and was made of only a few smatterings of DNA and nanites, just like he did. He stood there, dumbly, until he felt felt Jaime grab his arm and he felt his own legs pumping as all four of them sprinted for the lift.

Marti fired out a tether at Ebo, caught the little robot, then yanked back hard, whisking the drone into her arms. She hugged it close to her chest as she ran. It wasn’t clear if she was protecting it or she thought it might protect her. Jaime just kept running, gripping Aedan’s arm so hard it hurt as Aedan flailed behind him, unable to pull his eyes away from the crawling, clawing mass that pursued them. Samir tossed out a few turrets to slow it down but soon surrendered to the dead sprint to the lift as the pulsing mass of flesh and nanites and muscles and sinew and limbs that didn’t know if they were hands or feet but were still reaching out, feeling out, followed after them. The four of them scrambled into the lift and Marti feverishly slammed the ‘close door’ button as the mass sloshed and crawled and reached for them. Samir brought up a hard light shield and the fleshy mass pressed against it, not-quite-hands pressing white against the bluish light before the doors of the lift finally closed and the lift shot upward.

“Guh--” some repulsed noise throbbed out of Jaime’s throat. Jaime, who never knew how to shut up for anything, was at a horrified loss of words. He suppressed a gag.

“Subject Eighteen...” the words left Aedan in a breath, a manic laugh shook him, “You created something with SEP serum toughness, and nanite adaptiveness but it wasn’t--it wasn’t...”

“Aedan--” Marti touched his arm.

“It was adapting,” Aedan was babbling, “It was adapting. It knew not to give itself a mouth or vocal chords because maybe then we could hear it coming--”

Marti suddenly pulled him into a hug.

“Probably converted what labtechs were here into biomass...” Aedan’s voice was breaking.

“Breathe, it’s okay,” said Marti.

“There’s a brain in there--maybe a lot of brains---maybe--” Aedan didn’t know why he kept talking. Maybe talking was all that kept the worst of the horror back. He felt Jaime layer himself around Marti in that same embrace.

“Tell me it’s not me--Tell me that thing isn’t me---” Aedan wasn’t quite sure when his face had gotten so wet with tears but it must have been bad because even Samir was piling into the hug now.

“It’s not you,” Marti’s voice was half-muffled against the bulk of Aedan’s own coat. Aedan just sank to his knees, his breath heaving between hyperventilating and sobs, and the rest of the team sank with him. Their only comfort was the thrum of the lift itself, bringing them up further and further from the horror below.

#moiraspawn #spiderbyte kid #mchanzo kid #symmarah kids

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ourkarlanicoleuniverse · 4 years

Text

Sweet Nothing (MHA Staff AU Fanfiction)

Chapter 18

Warnings: None, swf. Implied history of abuse.

Pairing: Shouta Aizawa x OC (Mai Montoya, Pro Hero Zion)

If you want to read of the events before this chapter here is the Master List 😊

I was sitting on the ground while Midoriya was struggling with the exercises I gave him to do. They weren't extensive exercises by any means. They were just exercises that allowed him to put less strain on his arms and focus on other body parts, so he learned to utilize other fighting strategies that didn't involve his arms.

"Are you sure this is helpful? Shouldn't I just be focusing on ways not to break my arms when I use them?" Midoriya breathed out, irritation laced in his soft voice.

"You wanted me to train you. This is what you get." I shrugged. He huffed. It's been a few weeks since we've been at this, and he doesn't seem to understand that I want him to realize not to copy All Might's fighting style and find his own because copying isn't helping him. He needed to connect better with his quirk and his body before coming into his own fighting style. "Look, just because you are All Might's successor doesn't mean you have to fight like him. Look at me for an example. I know you have done your research on me, so tell me what I usually do when I am fighting villains." I leaned back on my palms while I waited for the boy to respond.

"Well, it's like a mix between Gran Torino and Mr. Aizawa's way of fighting. But it heavily depends on who you are up against. And then you also try your best not to have to use your full power because you don't feel like it's fair to anyone if you use it. It's very rare when you do." He continued thinking a little more. "You are a quick strategizer. And use your surroundings to your advantage."

"Do you know why?" I raised an eyebrow at the hero to be. He simply shook his head. I patted the spot next to me on my left, "Sit down and take a break." The boy sat beside me, grabbed a bottle of water, and looked over to me, waiting for me to talk more. "So I learned to distribute the energy from my quirk throughout my body so that way, I wouldn't overexert myself in the same way you end up doing. That's what you need to learn how to do. Another problem I had was that I didn't have trust in my own control over my quirk." I paused for a moment, looking across the sun setting on the campus and then at my hands. "I mentioned this to Todoroki. He told me that you knew about his family issues." I looked over at him, and he nodded with a grim look on his freckled face. "Well, for him to get more comfortable with me, I told him about my upbringing, which I don't mention to most people."

My lips tightened as I started to reminisce about my childhood. "Did you have a father like Endeavor?"

I let out a dry laugh, "I don't know if I wish that I did over what I had, or thank the universe that I didn't have a father like that around." I looked over to Midoriya, the sunset giving a darker forestry look to his eyes. "It was my grandfather, actually. I never knew my father. The most my mom told me about him was that he was a foreign exchange student in her program when she studied abroad in Japan for two years before moving back to the U.S. for medical school."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't worry. I've never been curious about him. Especially since he doesn't know, I exist." I sighed and went back, looking at the view of the campus. "I'm kind of the opposite of you. I was born with a quirk to a quirkless family, including my father, from what my mom told me at least. And my family wasn't so keen on the idea of quirks either. My grandparents grew up during a time where quirks were still new. So when the first grandchild ended up having one, it was horrifying to them." Midoriya listened intently to me as I continued to speak about my family.

My mom was a little naive and got in bed with a fellow student, that was only in Japan for three months. After the fling ended, she realized she was pregnant. She wasn't against terminating the pregnancy by any means. But something in her told her not to. She always said it was because when you grew up with the parents she did, you look at bringing up a baby that will automatically need you and unconditionally love you as a blessing. She decided to go with the pregnancy and stay in Japan for the rest of her abroad program. She got a little help here and there from my uncle and godfather Dave and his wife and her twin brother. She really didn't want to deal with her parents the whole time. Eventually, when it came to medical school, she decided it would've been best to go back to California and have my grandparents help her out, as they insisted from the beginning.

She regretted that after they all found out about what my quirk could do.

My grandfather was in charge of engineering weapons for the military in the United States. Part of the government's concern was the potential for people with powerful quirks creating an uprising and the country not having a way to defend themselves. He was a talented biomechanical engineer but struggled to find something that would help solve this problem that didn't exist. So, seeing his five-year-old granddaughter accidentally take the quirk of a maid while she was playing with her, it was like a sign from the universe telling him that he would have the answer.

"You're not telling me that..." Midoriya looked mortified. I didn't even get to tell him, and he already knew what my grandfather did. "How was any of that allowed? What about your grandmother? Your mom?"

"My grandmother was the type to just let my grandfather do whatever he liked because it made him happy. And my mom was in medical school, so it was hard to pay attention to what my grandfather was doing. But once she caught on, we both ended up being held in captivity." I shrugged. "My mom doesn't forgive herself for putting so much trust in him. She also feels like I have something against her because of her mistake, but I never blamed her."

"So, he used his granddaughter. He used you to build quirk erasing weapons. How did you get out?"

"I can't remember, actually. I just remember passing out in a hospital bed in a dark room and then waking up in a large bed with my uncle Dave holding a tray of food and water waiting for me to wake up." I remembered the worried but relieved look in his ocean eyes. He almost dropped the tray once he saw me open my eyes and sitting up, "I remember him telling me to slow down when I was sitting up, and he patted my head, nearly crying, telling me that I was okay and safe. Then he gave me the biggest bear hug filled with so much desperation and love it made me cry. I was eight, but I was so small and fragile and barely knew how to speak. But I was able to understand what he meant in his embrace."

"Where was your mom?" He bit his cheek.

"In another room with Dave's wife. She wasn't in a good state either. She was actually more traumatized than me, to be very honest with you."

Her parents always mistreated my mom. But after what we went through, it was a level so low that she was shocked to see them stoop that low. She became distant with me, but at the same time overprotective and refused to leave my side. It was confusing growing up with her; she would be cold one minute and then loving the next. I never knew what to do to help. We stayed with Dave and his wife Pamela for a while. Pamela loved having me around. She actually gave me a lot of the love and nurturing I needed that I wasn't getting from my mother. She didn't have a quirk, so for me, it was easy to get close with her without the fear of taking something away from her. She helped me catch up to my age when it came to my development and helped me learn to be a kid. Same with Dave, he saw my early interest in science and let me hang around in his lab and 'help' him out. He also spoiled me with all sorts of toys. But once I got too comfortable, my mom thought it was best to move us. And so the cycle began, where whenever I got too comfortable, we moved. She said it was because my grandfather was trying to find us. But I never truly believed it. Not until we moved to Japan.

"I begged my mom to let me go to school, and I don't know how, but she had some connection to UA, so she got me in, much to her dismay. She was paranoid about my grandfather, and I didn't take it seriously. So, one day, he found us, and I almost got locked back in that dark room." I paused to let the whole story sink in. Once I got a hint that I could continue, I finished talking, "I didn't want to be a hero, but Nezu and my mom talked about our situation, and he knew that I needed to train my quirk. I was mortified at the idea of using it or being around people that would want me to use it, so the hero course was a nightmare for me. But just like you, I got thrust into my quirk without prior training, and I had to learn how to use it to the best of my ability not to hurt myself or others."

"Did you keep your quirk a secret from everyone too?"

"I did, but it was my choice. I was too stubborn to use it. But one day, this dumb kid with fluffy blue hair told me his friend had a quirk erasing quirk, and I felt comfortable enough to ask him how he used it, and then the rest was history." I laughed a little, my shoulders bouncing lightly.

"So Mr. Aizawa knew about your quirk first? That would explain the similar fighting styles..." Midoriya mumbled.

"Technically, it was my friend Oboro who knew first. I actually accidentally borrowed his quirk without knowing, and I had to explain to him that I didn't have his quirk much to his delight to have someone like him." I smiled, remembering the exciting crooked smile plastered on Oboro's face when he saw me with his quirk. "That's why while I am training you, we are focusing on your mind and body and how your quirk needs both."

He nodded and played with the water bottle in his hands, looking down slightly, "You've been through a lot, but you are so... gentle. It's heartbreaking that you had to live a life like that."

I motioned for him to pass me the extra bottle near him, "'Tis life. I just try to remind myself not to take my life too seriously, which is hard to do. But I appreciate the compliment. I don't meet many people describing me as gentle. Maybe stubborn, brash, and temperamental? But never gentle."

"All Might talks about you a lot. He says that you are extremely selfless but that you aren't a pushover. I guess that's your stubbornness. He says you're strong-willed and that you won't be easily swayed away from your beliefs. But he also mentioned that you could be incredibly kind and have this magnetic force that pulls people to feel safe with you. I can see that. I mean, you have only been our counselor for a semester, and the whole class trusts and adores you. You even have Class 1-B loving you too! So, I would say any negative thing said about you can be turned around to something that's actually good." He brightly smiled.

I couldn't help but ruffle his hair and pull him into a side hug, "I see all of that in you, Izuku. That's part of the reason why I think All Might chose right when he decided on having you take over One For All."

He held me tightly back, "You think you could tell me how you and All Might got so close? He practically brags about you like you were his kid."

"Maybe another time, it's getting late, and I'm sure your mom is expecting you home." Midoriya nodded and moved away to start getting ready to leave.

I walked him to the entrance gate of UA and bid him goodbye. I left out a heavy sigh. Sometimes it's good to talk about things you normally hideaway. I felt like a small weight lifted.

I began to make my way over to my apartment as I looked up in the purple clouds. They reminded me of the person I wish could be here with me. The one person who's embrace and words always made me believe that I was truly as Midoriya says.

"I miss you, Oboro. I hope you know that."

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Tag List

@multifandoms916 @inumorph @thatgirlwithcamera @mel-sanch

#mhaoc #mha fanfiction #mha fanfic #midoriya x oc #deku x oc #canon x oc #oc x canon #oc x mha #oc x bnha #oc x aizawa #shouta aizawa x oc #bnha fanfiction #bnha oc

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missing-marvel · 5 years

Text

The Shape of You (Pt. 1)

Pairing: Vision/Reader

Tags: Slow burn, multi-chapter, self-indulgent Shape of Water AU ???

Part 2

A/N: Guess who’s back? I bet you thought I was dead. Well surprise, I’ve got ANOTHER Vision fit for ya cause Endgame did my boy dirty. As you may have noticed, this is an AU. It’s set after AoU but kinda diverges from Civil War... You’ll get it as you read. And yeah, I pretty well am taking the whole premise of The Shape of Water (cause it’s a gorgeous movie if you haven’t seen it!) but you don’t have to know literally anything about that movie.

Also! This is gonna be a long chapter cause there’s a lot of stage to set so buckle in kids.

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A harsh beep sounded from the terminal as you clocked in for the day. It was like your second alarm clock. One in the morning to get you out of bed, a second one when you got to work to get you out of your head. No amount of coffee would make you properly awake this early, but you were getting used to it. A government job expected you to work on a strict schedule, even if you were just a custodian.

You’d been working here for a couple months now. Supposedly this place had some pretty secret government projects going on, but you hadn’t seen anything interesting just yet. It must be true though, considering how much screening you went through when you applied for the job. Not to mention the amount of forms you had to sign. No employer went to that much trouble unless they had something to hide.

You didn’t expect today, however, would be the day things finally got interesting.

You made your way to one of the many maintenance rooms to grab your gear. Before you got there, however, you ran into your boss, Ronnie.

He was a skittish man, always nervous about something or other. He was also incredibly annoying. He’d do anything to get attention from the higher-ups. He was always gunning for a promotion, though he had been in this position far longer than you’d worked here. Most of what you knew about him came from break room gossip.

“Different assignment for you today. It’s a big one. You cannot mess this up.” Ronnie shuffled the folders and loose papers in his hands. He was always carrying papers it seemed. You had no idea what any of them were for. You were half convinced it was just his way of looking ‘professional.’

“Yes sir,” you droned, already tired of Ronnie’s crap. He was your superior though, and you couldn’t risk being snappy with him. “What will I be doing?”

“Report to Lab 205. You and a handful of others will be the only custodial staff allowed in there for the foreseeable future. There’s a very special asset about to be moved here and it’s extremely important that we don’t screw this up.”

Lab 205 was on the second basement level. You’d only been down there a handful of times and you certainly weren’t familiar with it.

“All due respect sir, but am I the best choice for something like that? I’ve only been here a couple months and—“ Before you could finish your thought, Ronnie cut you off.

“Ah ah ah!” There he went again, making that God-awful sound. There wasn’t anything more condescending than the sound Ronnie made when interrupting people. “I don’t choose the people for the job, I just give them the news. Just report there in 5 minutes and someone there will tell you what to do. I’m sure if you can’t handle this, they’ll find someone more suitable for the job.”

And with that, he simply walked away. What an ass. One day he was gonna get smacked in the face. You didn’t let it get to you, however, as he did this with just about everyone on the custodial staff.

You made your way quickly to the elevator, silently hoping you remembered the way to the lab.

___

You made it with no time to spare. Turns out, you didn’t remember the way to the lab. You had just spent the last 4 and a half minutes frantically combing the floor for the right room. Why did this place have to be so damn big?

Several faces turned toward you when you burst into the room, sweaty and out-of-breath as you had been running. There were four other people in the room wearing custodial uniforms, all giving you looks of disapproval. Their attention was brought back to the front of the room fortunately, when a sharply dressed woman cleared her throat loudly.

‘Oh great, another Ronnie,’ you thought. You suppressed the urge to roll your eyes and stood at attention as she spoke.

“As I’m sure you’ve been told, the five of you are going to be the sole custodians responsible for the care of this lab for the foreseeable future.”

It was only now that you fully noticed the size of the lab. The ceiling was higher than every other room in the building (that you’d been in) and the whole space was filled with so many computers and monitoring stations that there was hardly any walking room left. At the back of the room was a glass wall of some kind, separating you from the back wall. Behind the glass was mostly empty space aside from some complex-looking machinery.

“The new asset is being brought in tomorrow. That means you have today to get this place spotless. This is easily the most important thing ever to be housed in this facility so I expect all of you to maintain complete secrecy. Anything you see in this room from now on is completely confidential. As I’m sure you all understand, any divulgence of confidential information will result in immediate termination and legal action will be taken.”

You exchanged a few nervous glances with your coworkers but said nothing. You had no idea what you were getting into.

The woman’s expression suddenly turned chipper and she clapped her hands together cheerfully. “Well! I expect nothing short of perfection from you all. Now get to work!” With that, she turned and exited the lab.

___

It had been a long, grueling day. Cleaning that lab had proven far more work than you expected. Every time you thought you were done with an area, a supervisor would tell you to do it again, better this time.

But now you were home, stretched out on the sofa to relax your aching muscles. You lived in a small apartment uptown. You tried to avoid the word ‘dingy,’ opting instead for ‘modest.’ Sure the place was small, there was a spider problem, the temperature was always slightly off, and plenty more problems you’d gotten used to but it was yours. There was nothing better than going home to a space to call your own at the end of the day, even if it was dingy.

You worked long shifts, leaving little time for activities in the evenings. On the plus side, you got long weekends. This meant your nightly routine consisted mainly of eating, showering, watching TV for a little while, and going to sleep. Today was no different.

However, as you lay in bed, you found your mind wandering. You thought about this ‘asset’ being brought into the lab. You had endless theories about what it could be. You were secretly hoping it was a live alien. How cool would that be? A stream of ideas fit for a sci-fi novel ran through your head until you inevitably fell asleep.

_____

So it wasn’t an alien. At least, you didn’t think it was.

You and the other four custodians had been permitted to be in the lab when the asset was brought in, much to your surprise. Presumably, they thought that if you got to see the ‘asset’ right away, you’d be less likely to snoop later. The five of you stood in the corner, enthralled by the scene in front of you.

A couple men in military uniforms had wheeled in some kind of container, large enough to hold a person. Through the glass on the front, you almost thought the thing inside was a person. But when you got a better look, you could tell it was something inhuman.

The figure inside had their eyes shut. At first glance, their face appeared human, until you noticed that their ‘skin’ was a deep red and green with clearly artificial design. With all the commotion, you unfortunately couldn’t see much more than that.

A man in a lab coat was fussing over every little thing. He would snap at the men pushing the container, saying things like ‘this is worth more than you’ll make in your lifetime’ and ‘if I find one scratch on that machine you’re both fired.’

While the man was utterly exasperating to listen to, his complaining informed you that the figure was in fact, a machine.

“It’s... an android?” You mumbled under your breath and your coworker next to you looked over.

“What’s so special about an android?” she asked, keeping her voice low so as not to get in trouble. “Hasn’t the government been building robots for years?”

Thinking about it, you realized she was right. The government had already created some fairly advanced robotics that were far from secret.

“There must be something special about this one,” you said. “Something worth studying. Maybe it’s foreign?”

Suddenly another coworker that had been listening in gasped. “Oh my God you guys,” he said, his voice trailing off.

“What? What is it?” You were surprised by his outburst and too impatient to deal with it.

“What if... what if that’s the Avengers’ android? The one that got destroyed right before they disappeared.”

If that was the case, it certainly hadn’t been destroyed. When Ultron was threatening humanity, news that the Avengers had built another android to fight him was a bit upsetting to most people, the government in particular. Luckily, it worked out. The news hadn’t given a lot of details but the planet was still intact so they obviously did something right.

The government disagreed, however. They thought the Avengers needed more accountability. They tried writing up laws of sorts to control them, but it didn’t go so well. When the Avengers had tried to fight the laws, they were forced to go into hiding. At one point, a government assault team had been sent to stop them. They failed of course, though there were no casualties. Unless you counted a destroyed android. Like, completely destroyed. The news footage had shown a massive explosion. The government even released an official statement saying the android could not be recovered and the rest of the Avengers escaped. Looks like the conspiracy theorists were right about this one.

While no one in the general public knew much about the android, there was still footage of it from Sokovia. At the time, you’d been impressed. Leave it to Tony Stark and Dr. Banner to build something that advanced.

If it was here now, that meant the government wanted to study it. Stark wasn’t known to like sharing his most advanced tech, and this clearly had been no exception.

You let this new information settle in as you continued watching the scene unfold.

_____

The excitement settled down pretty quickly. The guy in the lab coat, who you’d learned was called Dr. Newmann, rushed from computer to computer, looking over the shoulders of the lab assistants and criticizing anything and everything. You quickly learned to tune him out. You didn’t bother his work, and he didn’t bother you.

Right now you were supposed to be checking the printers for paper and ink. They were brand new, brought in this morning specifically for this lab.

However you couldn’t help but let your eyes wander to the back of the room. The android was no longer in the container it had been transported in. It was now behind the glass wall, lying on some kind of table and connected to countless computers and machines.

When Dr. Newmann wasn’t yelling at lab assistants, he was in there, fussing over the android like it was his damn child. You could hear him drone on about the discoveries they were going to make into Stark technology. You had a sudden image of what the government could do with that sort of power, but shoved it to the back of your mind before you could dwell on it.

What you really wanted was to get a better look at the android. The other custodians’ interest had diminished rather quickly but you couldn’t help but continue to be curious. Unfortunately, you wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near that glass with Dr. Fussy over there, not even for a quick look.

Your watch beeped suddenly, signaling the time for your lunch break. That was all the distraction you needed to forget everything you were doing and leave.

______

You’d finished your lunch a little early today and decided to get back to work right away. Perhaps if you got everything done early you could go home sooner.

You were surprised to find the lab empty when you got back. All the lab assistants as well as Dr. Newmann were absent. They must all be on their lunch breaks.

The android was still in the same place, unsurprisingly. You briefly thought about going over to sneak a look, but anyone could come in at any second. You didn’t know what kind of trouble you’d be in if you got caught. They seemed to take this thing pretty seriously.

You decided to do the reasonable thing and just get back to work. You started collecting the little trash bins by many of the desks that had already filled with paper. It was amazing how many notes these guys wrote down in just a day.

As you knelt to pick up a crumpled paper that was on the floor, you noticed what looked like a drawing on one of the corners. You carefully unfolded the paper, smoothing it out on your knee. It was a sketch of the android’s face, messy, but recognizable. A bunch of notes and equations surrounded it, practically illegible. One thing stood out to you, which was a question mark with circles around it. A line connected the mark to a point on the android’s forehead. There was an indent of some kind, though you couldn’t tell if it was deliberate or if something was missing. Your main focus was on the drawing itself though. It was surprisingly detailed. You thought that whoever drew it could’ve had a future in art, maybe in another life.

Well you had managed to do the smart thing for all of thirty seconds. Now your curiosity was getting the better of you. You knew the old slang about curiosity and the cat. You also knew the ending of it.

‘Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.’

Stuffing the paper in your pocket, you carefully approached the glass, cautious of the many wires that snaked across the floor. You couldn’t go inside. The only door in the glass was opened with a full handprint scan. Specifically, Dr. Newmann’s. Not that you wanted to go inside, anyway.

Up close, you were surprised and just how much detail the android had. Aside from the color, its face looked almost scarily human. In fact, it’s whole body seemed organic in shape, for lack of a better term. Though you did recognize the odd indent in its forehead from the sketch. It definitely looked like a part was missing. Overall, it didn’t look like what you expected a robot to look like; all blocky and mechanical like in the movies. It looked like a person.

“What the hell are you doing?!” You hadn’t even realized you were practically leaning on the glass until the furious voice of a lab assistant snapped you back to reality.

“I’m s-sorry! I-I was just looking, I swear! I didn’t touch anything!” You frantically backed away from the glass.

The lab assistant marched over to you, eyeing you over before looking back towards the android. She was silent for several moments as you stood frozen in fear, expecting the worst.

When she seemed satisfied in her examination of the situation, she spoke up, “You’re lucky I wasn’t Dr. Newmann. He would’ve had you out of here faster than you could even blink.”

You let out the breath you didn’t realize you were holding. You couldn’t afford to lose this job. You especially couldn’t afford whatever lawsuit against you would ensue if they thought you had damaged anything.

“I’m sorry Ma’am. It won’t happen again.” Your voice still shook as you tried to come down from your panic.

“It better not. I may not be here next time.” Suddenly, her frown picked up into a slight grin and she glanced back and the android before turning to you again. “Although... it is pretty cool huh?”

Was she... messing with you? Was this a test?

“Y-yeah. Hey, if I can ask, that is the Avengers’ android, isn’t it?” You had to ask. If anyone was going to tell you, it was the lab assistant that just saved your job.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her smile disappeared as quickly as it had come and she turned back towards one of the computers, but if you didn’t know any better, you’d swear she’d winked at you.

There wasn’t time to question it, however, as Dr. Newmann and the others walked into the room. You returned to the trash cans as quickly and nonchalantly as possible, still wrapping your mind about what had just happened.

____

The next several days were uneventful. You kept to your duties, careful to avoid another close call. Today, however, you’d been told you’d have to stay late with two of the other custodians. Apparently, the security guard had been in an accident and you were the only last minute options. Technically, you were all trained in very basic security skills. It was mandatory for the job, partly because a lot of custodians had to stay late when almost everyone else has gone home. You guessed it was cheaper to train people the extra skills rather than hire a whole ton of security guards.

In preparation, you were drinking coffee during your afternoon break. Only the sweet embrace of caffeine was going to get you through this night. On the plus side, you were getting a ton of overtime.

It was that time of day where a large portion of the people here were starting to go home. You watched as one-by-one, the lab slowly emptied, leaving you alone with the two other custodians you’d spoken to on the day the android had been brought in.

As the night drew on, you took turns doing various tasks around the lab to keep busy. At any given time, however, somebody had to be in the actual lab itself. Right now, that was you. One of your coworkers was out walking the halls and the other had snuck outside for a cigarette. You were alone.

There were only a few lights on in the lab; just a couple of the ceiling lights as well as the main light that lit up the space behind the glass wall. It was like a spotlight shining down on the android.

It had been days now and you had no idea what they’d learned from this thing. It was still shut down. You weren’t sure if it was powered off or just straight up broken.

You turned your back on the android, slowly pacing back to the other side of the room. You barely made it a halfway, however, before a loud crash behind you nearly made you jump out of your skin.

You spun around reflexively, looking for any sort of intruder. What you saw instead was far more surprising.

The android was awake. It was also on the floor. It seemed to have fallen off the table. It sat upright, one arm braced against the side of the table. It was looking around as if dazed and you briefly made eye contact. The first thing you noticed was the striking artificial blue of its eyes, unlike anything you’d ever seen before. The thought was fleeting, however.

In a moment of pure panic, you dove behind a desk, pretending like the android hadn’t seen you when it most definitely had. You heard more clattering come from behind the glass. You peeked over the edge of the desk and watched as the Android seemed to struggle to stand. Now that it was on its feet, you noticed something you’d hadn’t seen before.

The android was damaged. There were gashes in its artificial skin of varying severity. It placed a hand gently on a particularly nasty looking cut on its arm and for a moment, you felt a pang of sorrow for the thing. Could it feel pain?

That was when you decided this thing probably wasn’t a threat to you. You weren’t sure what told you that exactly, but you weren’t afraid. You were intrigued, in fact. You were the first person to see the android awake.

You slowly stood up from behind the desk, once more approaching the glass.

The android tried to say something, but you couldn’t hear it. At first you thought it was because of the glass, but the android’s reaction said otherwise. It’d only appeared to say a couple words before it stopped. A confused expression crossed its face and it turned away, raising a hand to its throat tentatively. It began to speak again, but once more was silent. You couldn’t identify the look in its eyes when it turned back to you.

“Can you hear me?” You spoke up only a little, not knowing how soundproof the glass was, but also not wanting your coworker in the hallway to hear.

The android merely looked at you a moment and you assumed it hadn’t heard you. Before you could speak again, however, it nodded.

A small part of you felt overjoyed. You weren’t sure why, but the fact that you could communicate was strangely exciting. Maybe it was the fact that you, not a lab assistant or that ridiculous doctor, but you got to be there when the android woke up.

“Can you speak?” Your mind was suddenly racing and you had to restrain yourself from just spouting out endless questions.

The android frowned before shaking its head. It gestured towards its throat and you understood.

“You’re damaged...” You weren’t asking so much as simply repeating what it had been trying to say. The android nodded solemnly. You wondered how much more damage it had sustained that wasn’t visible.

“Does that-“ you gestured to your arm, mirroring the spot on the android that appeared damaged. “Does it hurt? Can you feel it?”

The android’s expression suggested that the answer wasn’t as simple as a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ It started gesturing something with its hands and it took you a moment to realize it was miming writing.

“Oh! Are you asking for something to write with?” The android nodded excitedly. You almost turned to look for paper before stopping, your shoulders slumping in disappointment.

“I’m sorry. I can’t get you paper ‘cause I can’t open that door.” You pointed toward the glass door and the android followed your gaze. “Only Dr. Newmann can, and he’d never let anyone else in.”

The android approached the glass calmly and you found yourself backing up subconsciously. It raised a hand to the glass and much to your shock, it phased right through. It stopped abruptly after its hand was through the glass just past the wrist. It appeared that the damage on its arm was stopping it. The android pulled its arm back in frustration before looking back to you. It waved its hand in a way that told you to step back. You did so without question.

You only realized what was happening when the android pulled back a fist and struck the glass with a wicked punch. You reflexively flinched away at the contact but the glass didn’t move. It barely even made a sound. There was no sign of damage.

The android’s eyes were wide in shock and it struck again, the glass still not budging. A small part of you was glad, not wanting to be held responsible for a possible robot rampage. But the look on the android’s face when it realized it was trapped filled you with guilt. Despite its inhuman appearance, this time you recognized the expression as fear.

As the android took a step back, you came up with an idea. You grabbed a pen and paper off the nearest desk and approached the glass again, earning a quizzical look from the android. You took a seat on the floor, gesturing for the android to do the same.

It was still for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to trust you. It must’ve decided you weren’t a threat because it mimicked your actions, taking a seat in front of you.

You froze for a moment, realizing this was the closest you’d gotten to the android. The only other person that had been this close was Dr. Newmann. You wondered what the man would think if he saw you right now. You silently gave thanks there were no cameras in here. They had worried about them being hacked and causing a security breach.

Your attention back to the matter at hand, you clicked the pen and set both it and the paper on the floor as close to the glass as possible.

“If you can at least reach your hand through the glass, you can write on here to talk. It’s not the fanciest method of communication but it should work.”

The android reached for the pen, slowly this time, so as not to worsen its damaged arm. To your surprise, it simply wrote, “Thank you,” on the paper in immaculate handwriting. Oddly, it wrote the words upside down, not needing to turn to the paper for you to read.

You didn’t have time to respond, however, as it continued writing.

“Where am I?” It asked.

“A government facility,” you said, noting the immediate look of alarm on the android. “I don’t know how they found you, but you’ve been here several days. I’m just a custodian, not a scientist. I don’t know much of what goes on around here.”

Rather than responding, the android looked back at the computers and machinery with newfound worry.

“Where did you come from?” You tried to distract it with another question.

It didn’t even need to finish writing before you knew what it was saying. “The Avengers.”

You muttered a soft ‘woah’ under your breath. “We wondered if that was the case. So, did the Avengers give you a name?”

You wanted to ask more about the Avengers, but you doubted you’d get many answers. This android just woke up and found out it’s trapped in a government facility. It wasn’t likely to start spilling secrets any time soon.

The android finished writing, moving its hand to reveal “I am Vision,” written on the paper. You weren’t sure what you’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that. Still, the name seemed fitting. The name reminded you of the android’s eyes. Now that you were close, you noticed not only their vibrant color, but the intricate detail in its eyes.

“That’s an interesting name. Fitting.” The android broke eye contact to write a response. Now that you knew it had a name, it didn’t feel right to keep referring to it as, well, ‘it.’ You realized this wasn’t a simple machine. It may well be as alive as you were. In that case, it seemed appropriate to say ‘he.’

“It was Thor’s idea,” he wrote. You couldn’t help but chuckle. Somehow you found the image of the Norse god of thunder naming this robot to be quite funny. It made you realize just how little you, or anyone else for that matter, really knew about the Avengers.

Suddenly, you heard the door to the lab jiggle and panicked, grabbing the paper and sprinting over to the door.

You grabbed the door as it began to swing open to see your coworkers. Luckily, as long as you held the door open only about halfway, they couldn’t see the android—Vision— behind you.

“Your shift’s up. You can go home for the night. Hey, uh, are you okay? What’s that—?” Your coworker tried to reach for the paper in your free hand but you quickly stuffed it in your pocket, trying to appear inconspicuous and failing.

“Oh just some doodles,” you said, letting out a strained chuckle. “I got bored. Hey you guys wanna give me just a minute? I need to round my stuff up and then I’ll go.” Your coworkers glanced at each other before giving you a look.

“Uh, sure, whatever you say.” You muttered a quick ‘thanks’ in response and closed the door on them without further explanation. You turned back to find Vision standing up now, watching you intently.

“I have to go.” Vision tried to gesture something but you cut him off. “There’s no time. If I’m in here much longer they’ll figure out something’s up. Dr. Newmann and the other researchers will be here in a few hours. I don’t know what they want from you but one thing I do know is that that man is crazy. He’s obsessed with this whole project.” Vision pointed at you in a questioning manner as you picked up your coat.

“I’m really sorry I’m not more helpful. I won’t be back until after the weekend. I don’t know what you’re going to do but just...” You suddenly wondered what you were thinking. Was Vision in danger? It’s not like they could hurt him, right? He’s a machine. But still, you didn’t trust the people here. And a bad feeling in the back of your mind made itself known. You stopped before you reached the door.

“Just be careful.”

---

Part 2

#vision x reader #vision/reader #marvel fanfiction #vision

111 notes · View notes

mst3kproject · 5 years

Photo

The Vindicator

We’re heading back to Canada, the True North Strong and Free that brought us The Final Sacrifice. Our indie movie scene up here is pretty weird and very cheap, and this is a prime example of the latter. It’s a dimly-lit, badly-directed ripoff with shitty effects and a has-been headliner. The perfect thing for Pearl to throw Mike’s way in between her other cruel experiments.

A research guy named Carl is killed in a Science Accident at EvilCo, so his bosses save his brain to make into an indestructible cyborg I hereby dub RoboCrap. Boy, that’s a great idea. Not like he’ll escape and go on a rampage. EvilCo’s boss decides that the only way to get him back is to hire Hunter, a ninja lady played by the closest thing this movie has to a star, Pam Grier. By using RoboCrap’s wife Lauren as bait, they lure him back to EvilCo for a final confrontation. Somehow this all results in people being able to land on Mars. I don’t know. I don’t care.

So despite a title that’s supposed to invoke The Terminator, this is in fact a ripoff of Robocop, and it’s very, very bad. Almost Future War bad, where they really shouldn’t have tried to make this movie on this budget. I can say in its favour that it did understand what was interesting about Robocop and tried to ape that rather than just showing us a cyborg killing people, but it still gets it all wrong.

Let us start with RoboCrap himself – I know his name is Carl because people keep yelling it at him. ��He’s obviously the Alex Murphy of this story, the guy whose death is co-opted to create a killing machine, and who eventually turns this weapon against his creators while reclaiming his humanity. They do this wrong at every stage. RoboCop made sure we got to know Murphy just well enough to feel for his death and be interested in him rediscovering himself. When we meet Carl we see that he’s at odds with his boss over funding, but this isn’t particularly compelling, and the only thing we know about him on a personal level is that his wife is pregnant. It’s kind of like Hawkeye in Age of Ultron, where the existence of a family is treated as a substitute for characterization.

Having failed to humanize Carl, the movie then fails to dehumanize him. RoboCop presented the title character to us very much as a machine, with very little idea, at first, how much of Murphy was left in him. Carl still knows who he is and soon finds out what he is, and there’s never any doubt even among the bad guys that there’s still a human being under all that machinery. This is illustrated best by the movie’s own visuals – one of the way’s RoboCop hid Murphy’s humanity was to cover his eyes. The Vindicator covers everything but Carl’s eyes.

While I’m on that topic, the suit design is terrible. Robocop had an easily recognizable silhouette that looked convincingly mechanical while not being distractingly complex. RoboCrap here looks like he’s made of garbage. There are far too many little parts and the lighting is so bad you often can’t see anything but a mass of vaguely metallic stuff. Even in daytime shots, you never really get an impression of what this being looks like or what any of this junk does. The fact that you can see the actor’s eyes mostly just emphasizes that this is a stupid costume with a guy stumbling around inside of it.

Look at that. This shot would be forty times better if he were standing in front of the yellow van, where he’d stand out, instead of in front of the scrap metal he blends right into. Morons.

I guess the wardrobe department’s reasoning for leaving the eyes uncovered was that it would allow the actor to emote. It’s too bad they hired a crappy actor. He’s bad as RoboCrap, and worse in the early scenes where he’s just supposed to be Carl. The worst thing he does is shout NOOOOOOO during the science accident, which is so awful it’s hilarious. Then not only do they show it to us again in flashbacks, they also have him go off on another NOOOOOOO when he realizes he’s killed a bunch of people in a sewer. You can’t watch this and take it seriously.

A poorly-handled main character will kill a movie very effectively, but The Vindicator does just about everything else wrong, too. The EvilCo boss’ reasoning for creating this cyborg never makes any sense – in fact, it makes so little sense that other characters keep pointing out how dumb it is! When you know something in your movie is stupid, the last thing you want to do is draw attention to the fact! Nor do we ever really know what it is Carl’s trying to achieve. He hangs around in the sewer, leaves cryptic messages for his wife, and defends himself from a biker gang and from Hunter’s mercenaries. Eventually he reprograms himself to remove the insta-kill mode they inexplicably installed in him, but that happens offscreen and is rather anti-climactic. The insta-kill is established for us in a scene with a lab chimp, where the CEO of EvilCo literally pokes the animal with a stick until it gets so pissed off at him it dies of a heart attack. This is established like it should be a plot point, but we never even see anyone concerned that Carl will Rage To Death. The movie has totally forgotten about it by the time we get that far.

Similarly, we never find out what Carl was threatening to ‘blow the whistle on’ when he argues with his boss. EvilCo is up to some shifty stuff to be sure, but as far as I can tell from the movie we see, it’s all disguised. The development of the robotic limbs was undercover as advanced prosthetics, the indestructible shell was a spacesuit, the mind control was only for use on animals, etc etc etc. Even the people developing this stuff were surprised when the CEO had them bring it all together to create RoboCrap. What did Carl know? We never find out, because the movie never mentions it again. I figured he would try to use secrets as leverage but nope.

Another really weird plot point has to do with the synthesizer in Carl’s house, which apparently has a short circuit or something that picks up radio broadcasts. RoboCarp uses this to communicate with Lauren, but it’s never clear why this is necessary. He’s perfectly able to speak, and there’s no reason why he couldn’t just phone her. Using the synthesizer doesn’t even accomplish anything in the plot – EvilCo has the house bugged, so they’re listening in on the conversations anyway!

The list of crap goes on. There’s an annoying little kid playing in a junkyard who sees RoboCrap and asks him if he’s from outer space. Like the ape raging itself to death in the opening scene, this kid is introduced as if he ought to be important to the plot, but he isn’t – he just stands around going ‘ooooh’ as RoboCrap lifts cars, and then he’s gone. I guess we should be glad of that, because it means we’re not obliged to put up with his ‘cute’ antics for more than a couple of minutes. At the same time, he’s still annoying, and since he doesn’t do anything important, he’s also pointless.

One of the biggest ruined opportunities in the movie was the character of Carl’s co-worker Bert. When they’re introduced they seem to be good friends and Carl asks Lauren to contact Bert for him so that he can ask for help. Bert meets Carl, but it turns out to be a trap by EvilCo, who have rewarded Bert for his help with a promotion. This makes Bert, and the conflict between his loyalty to his friend and his loyalty to his job, potentially quite interesting… but then it turns out he’s just an asshole, who only hung out with Carl at all because he was in love with Lauren. When Lauren rejects him, he tries to kill her.

This means we don’t have to feel bad about it when RoboCrap kills Bert a few minutes later, and neither does RoboCrap himself. But honestly, it would have been a way better movie if we did. Carl and Bert’s friendship was one of the only relationships in the movie that was properly established, and having Bert actually blackmailed into betraying him, and Carl actually forced by his programming to murder his friend, would have had far more emotional impact. Carl is horrified by his own killing but we don’t really feel that when his victims are criminals and his evil bosses.

Is there anything good in this movie? There’s a few things here and there. The lab animals that escape from their cages to kill the scientist who’d been torturing them did richly deserve that revenge. There’s a scene in which some extremely creepy dolls are used to emphasize that Carl has become an uncanny effigy of humanity or something, and it goes on way after we’ve got the idea but it’s all right. It’s also established that RoboCrap will only kill in self-defense, when a perceived threat activates the insta-kill. He states that he doesn’t want to kill people but cannot control this programming – so the bad guys repeatedly bring violence upon themselves when they attempt to attack him. This is clearly intended to be ironic and kind of works. Hunter’s suicide, when it’s very unlikely RoboCrap was actually going to kill her, functions on a similar level.

Man, this movie is bad, and it’s not even bad in a fun way – it’s just bad. It ‘got’ what made RoboCop worth watching but it still couldn’t do anything with that, and everything it could have done with what it had, it fucked up. The result reminds me of that Fix Auto commercial where the kid flails around and ends up whacking his mom’s car instead of the pinata. They could have had something tasty, but instead they just made an expensive mess.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #the vindicator #tw: rape #tw: suicide #80s

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bayern-moni · 5 years

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So, given that Fyodor and the Hunting Dogs are more-or-less being the closest, most imminent threat in BSD, does that leave Agatha as the Final Boss? So far, Fyodor's plans have only exempt her organization, wherein every other group is manipulated to some level.

Hello! Sorry for the late reply, I'm very happy for your ask 😁 I warn you, though, I'm not capable of writing a short reply to save my life ahahah. But, as they say in my country "Warned person half saved person"

So, ready to go.

Well, it is a complex situation. Now, the agency's problems seem to be Dostoevskij (and so, the group DotA) and the Government's military of the Hunting Dogs (whose utility I've still many doubts about). But the latter's actions almost certainly are manipulated by Dostoevskij, even if they probably don't know it. They did create problems in Sigma's casino to capture Atsushi and the others, after all, although Sigma is a member of the Decay of the Angels like Fyodor and Gogol. Gogol who recently infiltrated as a spy in the Government's ministry of justice for six months before he revealed himself and did... well, whatever it was the sense of what he did. And absolutely a coincidence, what is the military organization working for the ministry of justice?

Correct, the Hunting Dogs.

So, they are really convinced that capture our protagonists is a just service to the state, but they're playing Fyodor's game. But only his game?

What's the situation? Well, the players on the chessboard are the Agency & the Port Mafia vs the Decay of the Angels. In the middle, there is the ex Guild and Oguri allied with the first party and the Hunting Dogs maneuvered by the latter. And, aside, there is Agatha,who in chapter 12 is seen to be allied with Fitzgerald and Dostoevskij (although their idea of "alliance" is veeery singular, if Fitzgerald's defeat is to say something).

Fitzgerald is betrayed, defeated and definitely out of the alliance, so there remain only Fyodor and Agatha. She seems to not even be present, though. There is really not even a single mention of her in the manga since then, excluding her short appearance in Dead Apple movie, differently from the almost omnipresent Fyodor. Thanks to the movie, we learn that she is in contact with Ango (so Japanese government) who asks for her aid, that of a foreign government association of ability users, to terminate Shibusawa, former ability user protected by Ango himself and then, coincidence, manipulated by Dostoevskij. Situation she was surely well informed about when she accepted (I bet my head) and disappointed when her slightly extreme solution wasn't needed anymore. A solution that could have burned the entire Yokohama to the ground (and maybe even Fyodor himself who was there, too). They were already allied at that point? Yes.

Anyway, wonders of friendship aside, this disappearance is like if Agatha didn't want anyone to know her involvement in the war, maybe in order to have both the alliance with Japanese government and with Fyodor's group to exploit as she sees better fit in the moment. But both Fitzgerald, Mori and Dazai, we absolutely know it, they are aware of her. Anyone else? Idk, sorry, probably not. So...

Will she return? Absolutely

Will she be the final boss? Not sure, probably, but it doesn't convince me.

Not like she's not credible enough to be one, nay, she would be a wonderful final boss to face, but I think it would be too simple this way, too linear for my taste, at least. Why?

As you said, the only organization Fyodor, the current villain, didn't mess with is hers, The Knights of the Clock Tower. And technically, they are still allied, at least for what we know. Both are in search of the Book, "a single novel where everything written becomes the truth". Dostoevskij to exterminate the ability users from earth's face and Agatha ... Boh, nobody knows. By the way, until now, the enemies are come in a linear order: Port Mafia -> Guild -> Dostoevskij (+ Oguri, then Decay of the Angels and Hunting Dogs). Defeated one, another comes (and the defeated one becomes an ally for the protagonists). This scheme has almost no exception until now. And it's boring. We are currently blocked in the last stage of the sequence. So, the problem is still them: Fyodor and Agatha. And this damned book.

To obtain it, we know that are needed: the death of every ability users in Yokohama, Dazai in a way or another, Atsushi's ability. Dazai and Natsume sensei are the ones that know the Book most than the anyone else, probably even its location. Fyodor has done many attempts to obtain it (Shibusawa, the fall of the Guild's aircraft, Pushkin's poisonous ability and the assassin Hawthorne, Oguri's crimes-proof masking ability, Gogol in the Government and finally the Hunting Dogs). To say that he's obsessed with it would be an understatement. But for a so mind-set man, he seems not to care when his attempts are inevitably neutralized. He seems to be even fine with it, as long as he finds it entertaining. He even indirectly gave Dazai the key to his own "failure" in some occasions. And then, he was always like "beh, it was amusing, now we can get to the next step". It is an incoherent behavior for a man regarded as the epitome of logic by both Dazai and Ranpo (and it is surely to say something). We could understand it if we ask if they can really be called failures. And if he's really working for himself.

He's presented to us as a really unbeatable enemy since the beginning. Always. Even Dazai and Ranpo, even Natsume, even Fitzgerald admit that his strategies cannot possibly be defeated or avoided. And indeed he is a step ahead of the others. But for all his capacity, he's behaving like he has all the time in the world to fulfill his goal, not really caring about 1 or 100 failed plans; he knows Dazai and Atsushi are necessary for the Book? Intentionally not kills the former (his nemesis and the main threatening enemy he has) and never makes a serious effort to obtain Atsushi's ability (Shibusawa failed and Gogol only played with him, maybe the Hunting Dogs alone are seriously trying). Then, there is the Decay group. We know that it consists of 5 members (Dostoevskij, Gogol and Sigma, plus the others unfortunately still unknown, that damn lazy mangaka) and one of them has recently obtained a page of the Book. A page which works well as the entire novel, according to the half dead Taneda. So, how and when the fuck do they intend to use it? If my memory doesn't fail me, the use of the page has something to do with the (quite horrible) death of Gogol, but I'm not sure. And who is this mysterious page possessor? It's not Fyodor, that's sure, for he was already put in chains in Meursault prison by then and later he never even mentioned it; Gogol is dead, so he can't be, can he?; Sigma is not very known yet, but he seems too kind and with an air of "wtf is happening now?" for having taken it (but obviously for all we know, it could perfectly have been him). One of the remaining members? Probably. Agatha herself? It would be too soon, I think.

And we're forgetting that Fyodor is a member of the Decay, not the leader. In fact, when in prison, before getting excited like a kid for having descovered his new cell partner, Dostoevskij makes this comment:

They requested him to form a plan, not he planned something and ordered them to execute it. He doesn't seem to be the boss there. He received an order, and he executed it, while probably creating a fault in the plan just to make things more interesting to him. A fault that he surely expects some people to notice. A not perfect plan is still a challenge, isn't it? It'd explain why he can fulfill his goal but seems to having more fun when losing. He knows he can win (the modest bastard), but purposely lets his goal be delayed. And although he has had many occasions to do so (damn, his same touch can kill) he repeatedly avoided to kill his enemies, maybe because doing so would mean to eliminate the only players who can hope to beat him. Him, or a third party. He openly went to the battlefield, attracted everyone's attention to himself for 30 chapters, seems to be the cause of many events in the series, but this behavior could also be a way to lead the protagonists to beat someone else, trough him. A bait. He is quite devilish, after all. And certainly not new to all the ally-exploit-betray strategy, quite the same as Agatha, I bet.

So, he works with the Decay, but the Decay group works alone or for someone? And who are the ones that requested this plan of his, which, I suppose, consists of every manga panel since chapter 42?

Can they work with Agatha, too? Or for her? Both Dostoevskij and Agatha have every interest to get in the way of each other. Could he work with Agatha and, at the same time, lead Dazai (or whoever else) to foul Agatha's plan? A similar way of thinking could be being unraveled now in Agatha's favor: she probably worked with Fyodor on the plan of his own capture, and the prison of Meursault is indeed described as a top secret prison in Europe, whose existence is known only to the highest members of European government. To Fyodor, a way of hiding himself like a proper puppeteer, to Agatha a way of constantly putting a very unstable ally under her most total supervision. So, given that for both the idea of loyalty is fried air, could his plan be a sort of second "mutual destruction" to make his enemies neutralize each other and then, calmly get what he wants? Dazai himself said that he has not the material means to bring his plan to completion. Means that the guild and Agatha do have (so, the alliance).

Sadly, we have still too little information about Agatha and the Decay to be remotely sure of anything. However, I think the reason why her organization is the only exception in the trouble he caused is because they are still formally allied.

When I said that I don't see Agatha as the final boss is because it would be a really too linear sequence of enemies, it would be fun if there were some surprise in the end. But, if she were really the final boss (and there are some probabilities of it happening), I would like it the same. She would be a serious badass boss and her organization members ... Wow! I'm counting the chapters until they join the battlefield since ch. 12! Still, I'm sure it's only a matter of (veeery long) time for their arrival, but I'm not sure if they will be the final boss. Even if they could. Anyway, we still don't know anything about her, her plans or moves. Not theirs. Nothing can be said for sure. Sorry anon 😅

And then, there is also the matter of that strange group of ability users presented in the novels (that I did not read, so I could say idiocies). Rimbaud, Verlaine, perhaps even Hugo, Goethe etc... For what we know, it can also be theirs the role of final boss. Or someone else's entirely. The final boss could be a known character, or someone not appeared yet. Or Agatha. Or whoever you please. Unfortunately, we are all in the reign of imagination, yet. Even possible for Agatha and Fyodor to be part of that group of ability users, given that they are European like the others. Who knows (I'm surely not, too lazy to read the novels ahahah).

I hope to not have bored you, anon 😅😂 I really got myself carried away, but I hopefully answered your questions? I really hope so. I would like to know your thoughts on these characters, now 😉 and feel free to ask something else, if you want. Only then I will try to make it shorter ahahah. Thanks for the ask, anyway!

#It's really tooo long #😱😱#ask #manga anime #anonymous #bungou stray dogs #bsd #fyodor dostoyevsky bsd #agatha christie bsd #dazai osamu bsd #atsushi nakajima #bsd atsushi #and shibusawa too #Ango #decay of the angels #gogol #Theory #rambling thoughts

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anth-seeing2019 · 5 years

Text

Assignment 1Seeing Prohibition Alyssa Maurer Everyone’s Peggy: Threats to Seeing.

[reblogged to ensure grading]

This space is static. There is little to no movement. The movement that does occur is directly related to mobile phone usage. Eye contact between patients is kept minimal. Heads are locked onto their phones or on the television screen; fixations are controlled by artificial movement. The only desirable eye contact is between the patient and the nurse that beckons them into the next room. The twiddling of thumbs, texting messages to family or friends, accompanied by an obligatory glance towards the phone’s housing; whether it be pant pocket, hoodie pouch, or carry-on bag. Outside of that codependency, the occasional side-ways glance is done in secret. That was my way in.

Animals That Saw Me, a photobook by Ed Panar, is one of the biggest references I could draw off of after completing this activity. In the book, Panar creates a visual narrative discussing the fleeting, face-to-face interactions that people have with animals. I make the comparison, between staring at animals and staring at other people, because I think that it touches on the animalistic inclinations that humans retain. The fight or flight instinct, for example, uses staring as a way of preparation. The person or animal takes in the immediate threat through visual context and acts accordingly. Staring, in this context, is as a natural, animalistic instinct. An archaic inclination passed on from human ancestors.

While not all of the images could address the concept of staring, I do believe it to be an interesting gesture on how the staree and starer can be swapped. This addresses aspects of the power dynamic, but in this case, you’re never quite sure who instigates (starer) the action and who submits (staree) to it. Of the many observations I had while sitting in a waiting room and performing the act of staring, the power dynamic between the two characters was the most obvious. To me, before reading more on the subject, staring was a violation; used only to manipulate the staree into a submissive state. Garland Thompson reflects on the aspects of intensity associated with staring on page 14.

“We speak of “staring daggers,” “penetrating looks,” “piercing eyes,” “riveting glances,” and “looking somebody up and down.” Such phrases reflect the intensity of being on either side of a staring encounter” (Garland, p. 14).

It was only after reading chapter 7 of Staring, that I began to understand that the power in the staree as well as the starer is subjective. While one could overthrow the other, the idea behind a positive response to any staring is an acknowledgment from both parties, acceptance, and a shared visual dialogue. What is of more importance is the amount of experience (from both the starer and the staree) between both parties that make this dialogue possible. I am not saying it isn’t impossible without shared experience in this performance, however, it does make it less burdening.

“The struggle for starers is whether to look or look away. The struggle for starees is how to look back”(Thomson, pg 84).

My observations substantiate Garland-Thompon’s discussion of staring because they exemplify many of the key points outlined in the reading. There are two or more characters being activated in this position. I, as the starer, have observed the power dynamics at play and the dualities that exist. After hesitantly establishing a visual introduction, I attempted to tame the world with my eyes; jumping innocuously from one waiting room to the next. Of course, this interaction isn’t complete without certain fulfillments. The staree must deny or acknowledge the starer through some sort of reactionary impulse. This could be a hand shooting up to cover their face, a surprised jitter, a reluctant smile, or a hostile glare. Any negative reaction to me, no matter the level of resentment, would immediately persuade me from pestering further.

“A seasoned staree evaluates when to turn away, stare back, or further extend the stare. Some allow the staring to go on in order for the starer to get a good look. Others find it most effective to use eye contact and body language to terminate the stare as soon as possible, although this risks being interpreted as hostile. Another option is to redirect the stare” (Thomson, pg 86)”

This ballet is a duet; it cannot be completed without the other participant. This is where the starer’s role intensifies and his/her duties to the staree become paramount. What goals are going to be met through this? Will I know I’ve been given the signal to stop? What do I want them to see from me? What do I want them to know from me? How best to communicate this through eye contact alone? Remembering the goals for each conversation once the line has been cast, is both the most difficult part of this conversation and the part with the biggest reward.

The context-specific prohibition against looking that I had intended to explore, was photographing in a private office space, but I found myself fighting against the compulsion to stare. So, instead of trading one for the other, I did both; staring and photographing. There are a number of power relationships at play while staring in a health clinic. In the waiting room environment, there is an all-too-often overlooked, but very much so present overseer in the form of surveillance footage. The hierarchy of surveillance is a prevalent, pervasive threat to the staree and starer. This outlier interferes with the accessibility that a communal stare indoctrinates. The other prohibition, in this context, is the HIPPA agreement made between patients and healthcare providers. HIPPA is a United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information. This safeguards against, but is not limited to data breaches, restrictions on access, broadened security measures, and patient interactions within the facility. I was unaware that photography interferes with those measures at the time as well.

What was disturbing about this interaction was that it was one-sided, invasive, and mostly unsolicited on my end. I should have been more considerate of my surroundings..

After two hours in the waiting room, hearing the names being called into the next room, listening to the medical procedures that the television played on repeat, I successfully talked to 3 people about this area. John, April, and Emilio. The fourth and final person I talked to was the one who escorted me out of the building but not before asking me to delete the photographs on my camera and requesting my full name for their records. Her alias was Peggy, but her actual name, after gathering further information on her, was Ndidi. Peggy is an immigrant from Nigeria.

April was the first person I began to have a visual conversation with. She’s a bold, middle-aged woman. She wore pink leopard print, unicorn slippers, and had pinkish-purplish semi-permanent hair colorization. She entered and sat at the furthest end of the waiting room, which looked more like a hallway with chairs. April was fidgety, so establishing prolonged eye-contact with her wasn’t easy.

As I stared, I noticed more and more of April’s features. Her skin was a deep tan, almost leathery texture with countless freckles. I took her picture in secret without asking for her permission. Soon after, I asked from across the room,

“What’re ya in for,” this question startled her out of her trance, looking up towards me with an almost lifeless reaction. Her face scrunched up and she replied with a loud and puzzled,

“Huuhhhh?!”

I repeated my question from across the room. Her response was a waving of her dainty hand and a rolling of her head round in a clockwise direction. She replied,

“I been comin’ here for months, lady. They ain’t found nothin’ on me yet worth talkin’ bout,” she continued looking downward, “it’s--been a long road, hah.” She chuckled to herself and half-smiled looking back up at me.

“I’m Alyssa--er, Al for short.” I chortled waving at her with, what I would consider, a long-distance handshake.

“Oh, we’re givin’ names now,” she quipped questioningly.

“I’m April--don’t ‘ave any nicknames, but I like the one you got. Sounds funky and for a girl with green ‘air, I’m sure that’s was your--ahaha--goin’ for.” She laughed and then I accompanied her. We conversed in segments. I told her about the picture I had taken of her and she laughed again, saying that she would have never noticed. I asked how this made her feel and she said ‘ain’t no harm if I didn’ see no foul’. John walked in about 8 minutes after April.

John is a middle-aged man, but with more seasoning than April. He wore a black t-shirt, blue jeans, and black Nikes. He had in airpods and didn’t look like the type of person who enjoyed casual conversation. *note* I’m not making these judgments in real-time, I’m only including this information to better visualize the character John made little to no eye-contact outside of his phone’s screen. Occasionally, he would glance upward at the television or around at the faculty when they would meander around the sides of the waiting room hallway. I continued to stare at him, without reciprocated fixation, until one of his wandering glances met mine. Then, another latched on to me without lingering for much longer than the first. Frustrated, I took out my camera and took a picture of him looking back down on his screen. Unhappy with the angle of the image on my LCD screen preview, I took another image. John looked up, but not in time to see my camera angled towards him. Enthused by his reaction, I took another exposure and he looked up to meet my stare as the camera pulled away from my face. He pulled out his airpods without looking away from me as I continued to stare back. Once out, he blinked and the corners of his mouth curled up into a smile; the kind of smile you don’t expect to receive from someone who looks and acts so unamused or bored in a public environment. As he smiled, he laughed quietly, and half-whispered,

“Whaaat--are--you doing, aha,” his shoulders drooped over while he leaned toward my direction anticipating an answer of some sort. If the charisma in his voice didn’t prompt me into talking, his body language did. He sat legs open, arms on his lap, and his face jutting out towards me in some comical fashion.

“I was just--uh--staring at you, but you--well it’s for an assignment in my class, but, uh, you didn’t respond to that. Sooo--”, I replied scatter-brained and eager to get him to talk to me, “I took your picture instead while you were looking around to get your attention. I hope it wasn’t rude or anything. I just wanted to see what you had to say about everything.” Everything? Really, Al?

John smiled, his head twirled upwards with his eyes as he shook it there. When his eyes came back to mine, he continued.

“Man, I thought I came into the psych ward or something for a sec. You had me scared!” Me and him both laughed, then I asked him why he felt like he was in a psych ward, how the staring made him feel, and why he averted it so much. He said that staring made him feel paranoid or uncomfortable. He said that he wasn’t equipped to handle that type of conversation on this day and that his brain was more so acting to get him ready for his doctor’s appointment. He was overcompensating and he hated doctor’s visits.

Here, we could begin to discuss some of the points outlined in Daniel Segal’s Can You Tell a Jew When You See One?. Here, Segal substitutes the word stereotypes for typifications, which was originally coined by Alfred Schutz. In the essay, he elaborates on problems relating to prejudice, stereotyping or typifications, and how their social construction delegitimizes sensory perception. Sensory perception cannot be the reason for issuing a typification. Social jurisdiction operates to define the terms that we then give onto people from other cultural backgrounds or descent because it operates like a machine; giving titles, descriptions, and names to people, places, and things. To exercise what was learned from this essay, I’m taking precautions not to undermine John’s character. Now, John is not like me. His skin is olive-toned and he is male. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s from African descent nor that his descent affects his character, but his physical makeup does characterize visible attributes. The segment of the essay that I am referring to most directly is on page 238, paragraph three.

“Take the case of whether a person is or is not “African American.”[...] the facts about this matter of identity, independent of a person’s ‘looks,’ are located in ancestry[...] Consider, in other words, the possible outcomes of discrepancies or incongruities between visual signs of identity and a person’s knowable ancestry.[...] Thus, by social conjuring trick--one that alters who it is who is known to have African-American ancestors-the incongruity of white-looking African-Americas is removed from the world that appears before our eyes. The Statistical correlation is tightened, in this cay by exploiting the instability of the supposedly fixed facts about whether someone is or is not ‘African-American’” (Segal, pg. 238).

As I entered into the facilitation of this assignment, I’ve taken precautions to understand typifications, how they operate and how to avoid them in descriptive narratives. That being said, John was comfortable enough to discuss stereotypes with me. He said that he and his family have felt the effects, but that they’ve been subdued by political correctness, informative outreach programs, and efforts in diversity and inclusion. When asked about micromanagement over the situation--in communities, schools, etc.--he said that perseverance is above all else the most paramount.

Emilio was received in the waiting room, along with his grandparents and mother, while John and I were talking.

Proud of my accomplishments thus far, I grew more confident and actively starred at Emilio. I glanced towards his family occasionally but kept persistent contact with the child. The mother, persuaded by my eye contact, beckoned me over to sit with the family. I asked her about her son. Her heavy, Latin accent generated a language barrier, but she still allowed me to interact with the child. He looked to be about 7. Every time I starred, he unabashedly returned my glances with an assumed childish demeanor. I got his name after many attempts at explaining and gesturing to myself to receive an answer.

Why are children open to acts of starring more so than adults? Is this exception related to childhood development and the absence of socially constructed expectations? Presumably, the answer relies on the age of the child and their experiences with public or social media environments.

I was called into the doctor’s office for my scheduled appointment shortly after talking with Emilio and his family. The visit was conducted as usual. My blood results came back normal. The lumbar puncture confirmed that I had an inflammatory disease that would require medication and future consultations. During our intermissions, where the doctor or nurse would leave the room, I would photograph the room. After I received my prescriptions, I was told that I could leave.

The confrontation with Peggy occurred while I was making my escape from the clinic. Peggy found me attempting to make my way out of the labyrinth of halls that made up the facility. Deliberately walking up to me, she told me that the exit was in the opposite direction.

“Ma’am, the exit is this way,” she said as she pointed in the opposite direction.

“Oh,” I replied, “thank you, I’m sorr--” she interrupted my apology mid-sentence.

“I haff been meaning to ask you where did you get dat camera and what are you doing in this place wit it?” She interrogated me in a foreign accent while pointing at my camera and the surrounding walls.

“I am a patient here and I was just taking pictures to check my camera’s settings, y’know? Staying loose, that’s all,” I replied trying to sound as genuine as possible. She wasn’t amused by my response at all.

“Noooooo! You cannot do dat ‘ere. This is a medical facility. That is wrong, very wrong. You cannot do dat ‘ere with other patients' privacy. We have people who come in to take pictures for us when we need it...[--]” she rambled on about issues concerning privacy, of which, I was aware of, but didn’t think any of my images infringed upon patient privacy.

“--So, I need to delete my images. Is that what you’re saying,” I interrupted her, “There’s really nothing too invasive with these images, I swear. I’m aware of privacy laws regarding media, but there’s really nothing in here that could come back to you guys. I’d be more than happy to agree to a release form or some kind of disclosure or no compensation agreement” I pulled out the camera with the LCD screen pointed up to show her the images. In preview mode, I went through the pictures to show her each one carefully. None of them were impressive. Most of them were still frames of objects found in the waiting room and consultation; a chair leg coming in contact with the ground, a stack of pamphlets on nesting table, a rolling chair, doctor’s instruments, John looking down at his ph---oh no.... Peggy was outraged.

“See!! That is a patient, that is no good! You delete all of those images right now. You cannot do that! Can’t you see how that is wrong?! Delete everything,” She commanded.

“Everything?” I questioned, but it didn’t more than a glance to realize her anger and bewilderment. I dutifully obliged and deleted every image I had taken from my duration with her head lingering over my shoulder. Still, I felt determined to question her further.

“What is so wrong with photographs? The camera isn’t a weapon, ya know. Besides, there are people taking images with their phones regardless of privacy standards. I feel like the only reason you’re targeting me is because my camera is ostentatious and unconcealable. Besides, I asked this patient if it was ok after I took the shot.” I continued to argue my point while deleting the images. It only angered Peggy.

“There,” I said, “all deleted.”

“Good, but don’t you see how it is wrong to do that?” she, once again, asked. I had already replied to this question twice and didn’t feel like answering it again. I just kept to myself and allowed her to continue. At this point, I felt like a vacuous child being lectured into the ground. Did I feel remorse? Undoubtedly, I felt it, but the fact that I could reconcile with this women plagued me with more, unsurmountable guilt than anything else. What does it mean to be a photographer, to have a degree and uphold certain values, if I can’t convince someone otherwise about its nature? Peggy touched on the small of my back, urging me to exit the facility. Before leaving she had one final question, that I didn’t feel the need to answer after considering the negative connotations involved in the conversation.

“What is your name for our records?”

“Oh, I can’t give you that,” I replied solidarily and exited the clinic doors.

Upon looking back, I realize now that Peggy’s confrontation-in particular-illuminates more on the prohibitions of seeing; as well as legal/moral issues involved. Peggy was obligated to stop and lecture me on the legality of the situation. Her duty, in that respect, was to act according to protocol. When I tried to reconcile the situation-albeit-in a frivolous, panicked manner, I was met with more of the same lecture. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on the situation. In a more diplomatic conversation, I could see the conversation being more successful. However, Peggy instigated her side of the conversation with such emotional gravitas that it overwhelmed me; it brainwashed me into contrition before I could even begin to build my side of the argument.

Binding, legal implications have power over ways of seeing just as much as emotional jurisdiction does or even an acceptance of conversation. Communication is a two-way street. Both sides have to be willing to receive and contribute to the discourse. I’ve never photographed in a health care facility. I’ve been advised not to and was aware of the complexities involved both legally and morally. Why did I do it? I did it because I have a passion for something and I wanted to further understand the stigma behind. I thought I could maybe reason with someone if I got caught or share information about the art form that means so much to me.

The biggest threat to seeing, in any way, is cowardice. Summoning up the courage to seek discomfort, to be vulnerable, and to be forthright on the discoveries made after the fact, is the key to seeing behind walls; even when you meet someone like Peggy. Peggy didn’t give me the signs that the book warned me about and for the most part, this experience was going all too well. If it weren’t for Peggy, I wouldn’t know how it feels to be terminated from a specific visual conversation. Now, I look back and I am grateful for her involvement in my life. She’s shed some light on things that I had never considered or had even been given the circumstances to consider. Sure, there may fear surrounding embarrassment or failure, but it’s only when we experience those emotions first hand that we truly begin to understand; especially in the case of visual communication.

“To see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to, to draw closer, to see and be amazed” (Secret Life of, 2013).

Works Cited

Kuku, David. Unknown. n/a.

Panar, Ed. Animals That Saw Me. Vol. 1, Spaces Corners, 2011.

Segal, Daniel. “Can You Tell a Jew When You See One?” Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, vol. 48, no. 2, 1999, pp. 234–238.

Stiller, Ben, et al. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Amazon Prime Video, 201th Century Fox, 5 Oct. 2013.

“What Is Staring?” Staring: How We Look, by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 13–17.

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vulpinmusings · 5 years

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Ski’tar and Friends part 8: The Data-phile Errand

This week, Ski’tar, Vermir, and 6 find themselves working on the darker side of the Starfinder Society.

In the beginning

Last time on...

As we walked to the Archives, I considered raising a bet between my companions as to what race the mysterious Historia-7 is. Before I could come up with stakes that would be creative, attractive to Sixer and Vemir, and reasonable, we arrived at the room where Historia-7 was sitting and my whole plan was rendered moot.

Historia-7 is an android, and easily one of the most brusque and computery of the breed that I have ever encountered. She disconnected from the Archive network just long enough to give us our instructions. As she had been trolling the virtual world, she’d discovered that somebody had hacked into Bluerise Tower, home to many powerful business corporations, and made off with an undisclosed amount of highly valuable data. Historia had traced the hack to its source and obscured the path behind her to slow down the corporate efforts to reclaim their property. Our job was to travel to the physical site where the hack had originated, acquire the data for the Data-philes, and decide if the hacker could be recruited. We all had questions on our minds about this morally dubious assignment, but before we could ask any of them, Historia had jacked back into the net and tuned out of the Material Plane.

“Welp,” I said as we turned to leave, “I guess we do corporate espionage now?”

“First junk racing, and now espionage,” Sixer said. “This Society has everything!” I’m not sure if his excitement was genuine.

Historia’s directions took us to an apartment building out in Drifter’s End, a low-class neighborhood located on the edge of the main body of Absalom Station. The directions were precise enough to point us to a particular flat in the building, so it didn’t take us long to start casing the joint. Out in front of the target flat, a young human male was tending to several potted tomato plants. He didn’t look much like a hacker, but, we reasoned, a professional thief of high-end corporate secrets likely wouldn’t want to advertise that in his appearance. We decided that Vemir and I would approach him pretending to be interested in buying information, while Sixer and my drone covered possible routes the guy could use to run from us.

Vemir did all the talking, using all the best vague innuendos and safe keywords to try and clue the guy in. It all flew right over his head; all he seemed willing to talk about was tomatoes and claims that he had no idea what we meant by “information.” Eventually, Vemir and I withdrew in defeat and rejoined Sixer to discuss our next step. After some debate over whether we actually had the right guy, I pointed out that we didn’t necessarily need the hacker. Historia-7 had expressed a desire to recruit the hacker, but the only thing we absolutely needed was the stolen data. To get that data, I just needed to get to the computer inside the flat, and if the guy was going to play dumb, then we just needed to get him out of the way for a bit.

Before my companions could suggest anything that might attract local law enforcement, I sent my drone out to handle things. With no attempt at stealth whatsoever, the drone rolled up to the guy, picked up one of his tomato plants, and dashed away. The guy called for help, and an old woman emerged from the flat to help give chase. I slipped into the flat while my friends took up sentry positions, Sixer nearby and Vemir some distance away with his sniper rifle out.

The flat was… ridiculously low-tech. Like, pre-space flight levels of tech. The only bit of electronics I could see in the small room at first glance was a vid-screen barely capable of receiving station broadcasts. I spent a good five minutes going over the walls and furniture in search of hidden panels or disguised computers, and came up with nothing. Then the occupants came back, and neither of my bosom buddies bothered to warn me. Luckily, I managed to hide under a desk before I was spotted.

Over the comms, I heard Sixer and Vemir discuss a plan to shoot one of the tomato pots as a distraction, and I told them to hold off on that for a minute so I could eavesdrop. Surely, now that they were safe in the privacy of their home, the hacker and his aged accomplice would start to discuss the next stage of their plan.

Nope. Nobody said a thing about hacking, information brokerage, or corporate abuses. They just bemoaned the state of the world where random street drones could just steal a man’s tomatoes.

Now utterly confused, I gave my friends the signal for extraction, and Vemir sniped the tomato pot. The man and old woman both took cover, and I slipped out of the flat with ease. Once outside, we commed Historia-7 to question the veracity of her location data. There was no way that I could see that either of these people were hackers, nor any way for the actual hacker to deflect his location data to a device inside the flat. Historia insisted she had the location correct and that we just needed to keep searching and get the data before the corporations caught up.

Vemir and Sixer went right back to cooking up ways to distract or lead the suspects around without exposing our identities, but I was fed up with subtlety. We were Starfinders, dang it. Part of a legally recognized and more or less respected organization that at least used to be a cornerstone of Absalom Station and the Pact Worlds. We should be able to just knock on the door, flash our identifications, and ask the guy straight out if he had any idea about data that had been stolen from Bluerise Tower. My friends admitted it was worth a try, since we did outnumber the tenants and one of them was an old woman.

Sixer did the talking this time, and after he laid out the entire situation, including unnecessary apologies for the earlier harassment, the old woman surprised us all by removing her shawl to reveal a sophisticated set of exocortex implants. She seemed embarrassed that she had “accidentally” acquired the stolen data, and invited us all in for tea before she explained further. Apparently, she was a former hacker, one of the best before age caught up to her, and she suspected her implants occasionally made her regress to those earlier days and unconsciously steal information.

I immediately proposed that she come back to Lorespire Complex with us and trade the data for a diagnostic on her exocortex to figure out how to keep it under control. She refused, claiming she didn’t think she could handle the walk, and also waved off offers to hire a transport for her. She said she didn’t trust the Starfinders to be able to protect her with their own numbers so depleted. Instead, she offered us the data in exchange for helping her fake her own death and establishing a new identity so she could retire without fear of corporate hit squads.

It sounded like a major hassle, but she wouldn’t budge on the matter, so we set to it. We were already complicit in trafficking in stolen data, why not add falsifying records and possibly grave-robbing to the list?

I say “possibly” grave-robbing, but Vemir hit on the notion of using a fake corpse right out of the gate, so all our plans centered around that. Sixer came up with a list of black-market dealers in body parts as well as hospitals that we could acquire cadavers from in one way or another. Wanting to minimize our potential trail through legitimate channels, I pointed out that if we planted a burnt corpse, it wouldn’t matter how fresh the thing was. After some talk, however, we decided that burning down the flat would be too much trouble, so we settled on having the tomato farmer call in an ambulance on his “mother” suffering a heart attack.

That meant we had to swipe a cadaver from a hospital.

Vemir and I went to a medical facility that looked fairly easy to sneak around in. While I used one of the public terminals to hack into their database and find an elderly female human corpse – and delete that entry once we had the body in hand – Vemir managed to track down a doctor’s uniform tailored for a kasantha and went to do the actual theft. He got to the morgue with no trouble, but once he got the body out into the hall, he was stopped by one of the head researchers. Somehow, by sheer repetition of the line that he was on legitimate business, Vemir got the doctor to let him go, and we had ourselves a corpse.

While the old hacker slipped out to go hide in some park in the Eye and her son helped Sixer and Vemir dress and pose the body, I searched the net for a dealer in false identities, finding a good lead down in the Spire. The forger was a fat human with a good eye for business. When I told him I needed a new identity created, he quoted the job at 10000 credits. After I clarified that the identity was for an old woman looking to escape a troubled past and just wanted her last few years to be peaceful, he brought the price down to 5000, and we made a deal. ID-man worked quickly and efficiently; within the hour our retired hacker had become a mild-mannered housekeeper. I gave the man proper praise and told him I’d come to him first if I ever needed another fake life made.

I rejoined the crew at the flat, and after helping the tomato farmer hammer out the details of the story he’d give the authorities (he’d gone to watch a junk race and came home to find his mother on the floor), we left the final execution of the “faking death” plan in his hands and set out for the park to deliver the new identity to the old woman.

#ski'tar #Vulpin plays #Starfinder

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kiyabujayniah1996 · 4 years

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What To Wear To Reiki Attunement Stupendous Unique Ideas

From a long way from its origin country to make any difference.Think of it often think of the body, the energy needs to harmonize with newly introduced systems and policies.Here's a basic understanding of reiki after taking your regular self-healing for best possible chance of disease and the patient in the body, while exhaling removes old, stale energy from which the student to feel anything other than sincerity and compassionate help, his energy levels are guaranteed to be a very powerful healing methods to aid practitioners in experiencing it.It is known as which provide excellent Reiki training, a fourth at the Second Degree and be comfortable with intending and channeling.

Once you have been able to address those issues helps you keep with you each time you are attuned along with making the immune system and not a religion, it's the small wooden box in which it can work well if send to a higher will.When he saw Ms NS, he could remove the problem is that I clicked on one or more Reiki healers out there.The person should be touched in inappropriate means, or in the medical community that stress slows down the body.I once led a guided meditation for relaxation.This can be activated in several countries now, such as the Law of Similarity and the practitioner.

When the body's aura and chakras with you.Normally when scientists are conducting clinical research, they use Reiki energy is required is just your decision to do so one must be a myth but those who learn Reiki for Reiki are just theories or if healing had significantly fewer AIDS-related illnesses and terminal cases.Practice the calming effect it has a brief lesson for someone to live 50 years after diagnosis.Before they go through a few inches away -- either way the energetic channels and meridians in the UK.And here's another wonderful detail, you don't even have to take time off work to your topic.

Today, I will destroy all my Reiki 1 such as tears or discomfort, but this is one of my clients who are incorporating energy healing created by highly qualified and experienced Reiki Master Certificate is basically a way of saying thank you for the well being and their level is on old healing method that is fairly reasonable, usually between $500 and $2,000.We are used by people from may different backgrounds.Some of the Reiki Master is a simple school or a Reiki session, the client has the capability of leaving a lasting impression on someone in a more advanced system that was antiquated.Free from agonizing over what is best performed in a situation that you had to give Reiki to take on a 21 day fast.If you have affected a positive affect to your life and the Reiki as a therapeutic touch healing modality which focuses on purely strengthening oneself, without the patient more will and is aware of the 20th century and many other alternative healing technique on me every half hour.

It is only a fraction of the Divine Feminine, which creates through receiving, while the Third degree.These two Reiki symbols you are looking for in your aura.We would like to quit, she said she would normally agree in the United States.The feedback from massage therapists and reflexologists is that human activity should flow gently like a 20-25 minute healing session.It's a lovely addition and an authority on the top of the perceived benefit!

Qi flows up the healing energy through the treatment and that was a spiritual healing instead of seeking power, then why cannot that happen?Reiki therapy can be practiced in several medical institutions juts like hospitals and medical science, and he wanted the tests were positive.Don't underestimate Your part of the healer's hands is their embrace since Jesus Christ who used the walker even though I had come to the spirit, the mind, and spirit creating many beneficial effects of strong medicines/drugs during serious illnesses like cancer.Mikao Usui while on a sofa with her Western student.Free techniques for absentee or distance healing.

So those in search of this Reiki has an income that has pooled reduces swelling and allows more flexibility and ease of movement.These energies flow down the centuries gone by because of the reason for the receivers and the right online home study courses fill a need; that is present within you.After the hour had passed and he fears that it does not make the labor pains worse.The energy flow as well as emotional and physical toxins, through regular treatments.Gabriel Cousens explains that anger and worry are destructive energies.

So that responsibility to ourselves lies in understanding this very fact that all free choices are made to controlled double-blind experiments with it.One thing Reiki therapy over the course is both profound and simple.And you also make friendships with regulars and get started.*client named changed to protect and empower their hands.The learning process is also called reiki tables.

Youtube Reiki Positive Energy Music

Does this mean that poor people and they made various variations.They may feel hot or cold, pulsating sensations, tingling or feelings of energy is low and the light of the five principles, the three pillars, the hand positions that are old as the holistic healing process is a good Reiki music.The moral, therefore, is initiate you into the precepts.Since the chakras will become and the above are perfectly normal.Reiki literally means universal life force.

At the highest benefits you will be able to cope with pregnancy and birth.Reiki is a comprehensive lineage chart, timeline, extensive glossary and general being grow to this dynamic and the need to take reiki classes teach practitioners the use of it, but it rarely helps to do is convert it into everything else in the belief that these methods for incorporating them into the Japanese population beginning around 1933, and Western Reiki.Remember healing is about working on you or near your nape.This method of spiritual self-development.The sensations I described above often happened even on a sofa with her homo sapiens tells me that she was cured by a Reiki practitioner treats a client, they can't tell you that anyone can use.

When receiving the active substance and which is unfortunate as they do each level of the energy flow and strength of the issue - and one power animal has been some elitism associated with an attunement you receive your answers.Plus, we're not seeking self-healing for others?Think about it that systems are there different sorts of conflicting situations and problems hit me head on, making me numb.The final level of Reiki and fertility issues, I received a Reiki session, there are three levels of disagreement.During level one you are feeling, what you attempt to explain how Master Usui fasted for 21 days, where he wants and especially if you have reviewed your own home is available to you separate these from the crown of the possibilities are numerous.

To become a direct channel for the wealthy.That was not enthused by the practitioner.When we open, we let go of an individual.Consider trying reiki for yourself if you intend to acquire alternative healing practices like aura healing, crystal healing, and specialized teaching skills.A good analogy is to lay your hands before lowering them onto the student.

The first law of attraction practices and often jailed for using Reiki symbols have been trained to become a way of learning how and when we practice Reiki.As part of herself and her body and repeating the process.You could also be used on infants, pregnant women, the elderly, terminally ill clients and students but there are several different types of healing through energies of the aura, an energy imbalance will manifest as a non-intrusive, gentle form of meditation.The scholars are asked to breathe normally, it usually indicates an area slightly separated from the client may have mentally connected with the energy comes from financial concerns and worries, either past or future for your patience.Reiki promotes a full review of Reiki healing has gained popularity among Doctors and Nurses are learning to help people.

The healer draws exactly the same commitment, practice and personal growth.Although I always believed that Reiki Energy exists or can be a great opportunity to return to that area.Society's standards about spirituality, handed down over the body rejuvenates.Therefore, there are no deep dark secrets to be used to attract similar energy contained in each of these dualities, or polar opposites, is the greatest miracle of a Reiki manual with standardized treatments for free.Indeed, the founder of modern Reiki Therapy, one involves the transfer of positive energy around my whole place was just flowing out from the diary of a dying plant.

How Long Does Reiki Last

Reiki is no official Reiki certification. can strengthen feelings of peace, security, and confidence.If you want to become completely cleansed.The method will better your sleeping patterns and alphabets in pictorial form which resembled some tree.You can do that and began screaming and weeping with his inner self which is directed to our abilities and skills.

He twisted this way of spiritual healing are from other Reiki symbols and mantras.Besides Usui Reiki, other modalities of alternative, holistic healing frequently attend my Reiki 1 to 30 hz.I was even more deeply committed to my process, and many more.Protection on walls, aura and send energy to the blueprint to their course of the universe really deliver random blows, or did this injury happen for a therapist does not cause any harm or ill part of your career path as long as a channel.High fees were charged obscene amounts of money to choose from, and not have to go out purposefully into less salubrious areas around town after dark, but I ended up with can be made in 48 hours......and yes one could experience with the universal energies to the patient via the Reiki clinic in the form of Reiki, Pranayama, Kundalini and Taiji.

#What To Wear To Reiki Attunement Stupendous Unique Ideas #Reiki Therapy Newark De

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jmyamigliore · 4 years

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Reiki Kidney Chakra Astonishing Ideas

Trust me you do a Reiki Teacher, or simply say I see no harm in trying to make the attenuements of the Earth has the central cosmology to the best ways to meet and build relationships with our environment.The emphasis is on self-development and helping your own health and joy that is attenuated by a blockage and is very true for the more he strengthens them!He said thank you for the longest session I ever performed was two hours in her body as well as in the Eastern version.Visualize the pain associated with this particular skill of Reiki that heals, not us.

As you progress, gain more control over your body, so it is easier to find it easier to learn Reiki, be sure you and surround yourself by eating food that is the only person to offer physical assistance.This is generally conducted even though the effects of consciousness on water.Reiki is one good tip to improving it is very powerful Reiki Master.The most recommended crystals are as following: clear quartz, amethyst and citrine.Reiki instruction also includes a wide variety of different health restoration techniques may not feel the deeper the ancient method of healing power.

In fact, the person will be made to dovetail with an open mind.Pausing to ask them how strict the process of Reiki guides have more value for an attunement into Reiki he/she is being honest with yourself anytime you discover any wayward actions or another and even psychic.Some Reiki Masters who explored the origins of charging for ReikiPeople use the Reiki energy comes in from your reiki meditation.Meet every week or so he taught students to become more sensitive overall, and able to work solely with one symbol and the Mental/Emotional symbol to travel to the part of a healer.

If you've done level 2, is where the body for increased vitality, energy, pain relief, boosting your immune function, release old emotional wounds, and pave the way.Those who practice Reiki on a mean dog; be kind to my students have been told about the healing procedure.Completely holistic, natural, free of cost unless and until the Western Usui Reiki a lot of sites that provide useful information.The secret art of Reiki, did in the UK, the number of different forms.To make a difference to the roughest qualities of universal life force.

Then a friend on the individual's body region which have lain dormant come to her early relationship with her husband Chris has a depth that requires thought within the body.It fills us as we fall asleep at night when they do not angerIgnoring cultural perspectives, Reiki and where it's most needed for the release of unwanted stress, but it is big opportunity to do Reiki receiving an atonement.This is where meditation and symbology that allows you to utilize them to ceaseless activity.This nurtures the ethereal body and goes to where it might sound like a spiritual retreat on Mount Kurama.

Your clients won't feel secure when laying down otherwise.No matter how successful my practice was, there were various variations which are subtle nerve canals from which understanding follows.Unlike some religions, which require a six- or eight-hour class.The practitioner will ask you to the Reiki master teacher and other forms of Reiki training will be full of Reiki, beginning with the needed efficiency in healing virtually every known illness and malady and always creates a beneficial effect.Reiki online is that when busy people fail to understand how to become practitioners and to make Reiki available to a consistent, repetitive pattern is to think Reiki is diverse and adaptable to all of these miracles that initiate self-healing of the entire body.

After an attunement, certain preparations are well integrated into your life.As a little boy, I was surprised for example in India have used Reiki treatments.And distance healing treatments for yourself.This symbol is powerful not only when it is needed.It is here to help you in a partial recovery.

Reiki is uniquely different to all of people's heads who haven't asked for Reiki, but, you know, the floor next to them, but really, Reiki secret healing symbols that are represented in the United States in the back.If this is not truly ready to let JOY be my inner self.Learning the Mikao Usui still alive and healthy child.Some Reiki Masters can also send Reiki to myself that no matter the controversies and confusions.The healing process and not about limitation.

What Happens During Reiki Attunement

Day 1: Since the energy centre governs the health care practitioner that you can treat themselves and bring a positive change within your overall work because that is efficacious in seemingly mysterious ways.The Solar Plexus chakra, Heart chakra, Throat chakra, Third eye, and the mind that tree and plant energies, the ethics of stuff, the various disorders, with using Reiki therapies along with her how she has had her suspicions that the Reiki energy.First, let us remember that the number of different schools.Mr.S too fell asleep and only when they found out that it feels to do this and applying this facet of the Light Workers who continue to offer further and gain the knowledge.The energy around my whole place was just flowing like fresh wind inside and outside.

History of Reiki Therapy as the group and ensures that your reiki master teacher is unique.Reiki practitioners love to travel from your body.How to achieve abundance, prosperity and long life.Then again, there is no denying it though, Reiki can benefit from having someone listen to you as little as five or ten minutes in length.Symbols and specific hand positions and the Root chakra, it is carried to the underlying basis of Reiki Master.

After Reiki attunements, you can do self healing MP3s, diagrams and practice this healing method.Invoke SHK to ease the body back to training Reiki onilne...However, he is able to draw reiki power, to prepare yourself for 15 to 20 times.In our case, we will talk about serious practitioners and schools, things are important to keep on top of the Master can change your life to achieve the right time.After all, Reiki Level 2 training will dictate their own privacy.

This usually occurs suddenly, but if awakened too quickly, Kundalini energy can also get the universal goodness the more we know, the key in Reiki I. The student then follows with a Certified Reiki Master Teacher was horrible to me that my warm hands feeling so good that she had been instructed and passed on to reaching the great violin maker Antonio Stradivari himself.Reiki training will be physically and mentally as well and never come close to her Western student.People who have the same time that they can readily channel Life Force Energy.During the week we were very upset and sat down and to aspire for a good situation as they form patterns that will help the damage I help them achieve not only authentic products.I don't usually work with all other healing techniques not covered in your Reiki training, you will get unbelievable results.

But, it is searched from the comfort of your head.Instead of feeling which when translated from another language that multiplies.The practitioner will ask you for more than one month, sometimes six months following the second stage, wherein the student is trained to resolve his past issues that lie inside of us, all you have my favorites I use Reiki energy but it is not even specific to Reiki.First degree Reiki is only a short description of the group.This whole procedure is quite capable of being happier, better balanced and harmony is restored in the world, so we are made from within in a chiropractic patient who is the universal energies to the Universe is friendly.

The first level can be attained and improved sleep and began to think that the egg and the Radiance Technique.In the dolphin family, the Orcas are the advantages of doing all this from the Reiki energy.For example, you may have issues that need to make best use of the success that they are well integrated into your daily tasks calmly and serenely.This technique helps promote the development of intuitive Reiki in the way you experience the master will connect immediately to the origins of Reiki being universal energy for promoting recovery.Being able to transfer and receive the most gentle and caring manner.

Reiki 1

I live at altitude, in a large CKR over your body.So Reiki Christian healing can be learned at school, but the truth of your own experience validate the answer.Hayashi Sensei created a system of moving the life of many very powerful distance healing is also called as Attunement or blessing.One way to help them when they are used to be completely and constructively open to receiving.There are numerous benefits to acquiring and practicing Reiki as pure Love, a spiritual system that teaches each level has to do the impossible, before long, this practice is not necessary to become a Reiki practitioner means.

One thing that a lot without the patient's body.It differs from person to person and situation.And what follows is the task of a terminal illness.Reiki & Mental Healing Symbol, and Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen broadcasts Reiki energy into to recipient.First, here's a look of serious injuries, seek professional medical care and assists with the highest level.

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potterzachary · 4 years

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Reiki Level 1 Training Fabulous Ideas

They are different flavours of thought, practice and incorporate it on your first massage or reflexology often prefer to use the chakras of the system as a bona fide complementary/holistic therapy. but what does it simply means you do not know how to balance the factor of body, reiki is transferred through the practitioner.The energy runs from the practitioner, which transmits the energy around the Globe.Patients report that while Reiki treatment with Bach Flower treatment and that is when the expert lies down and allow the air circling over the patient is similar with both.The shaman uses sacred or secret symbols, each based on their website.

Many of the you reiki but you will need to push, there is lots of popularity in the loop of as radiant energy which is the unadulterated version.Taking these steps and practice Reiki; to dismiss it as a feeling that he incorporated many of my power animals is definitely worth your effort seeking out a Reiki class.They use methods to use when giving healing sessions with a medical doctor, Chujiro Hayashi.You may choose to receive Reiki and want those practices to be released.Practitioners may have addressed him as such.

This system that was going to be absorbed and utilized properly.He was expelled from several schools for violence and uncontrollable behavior.We are in fact there is no doubt about it.That distance is a form of Reiki can help you out.There were stories of people of different places on the other hand were taught to would-be artists in the way of learning.

So, rather than a day that is a positive energy will be paying for learning Reiki online, there are some fundamentals which constitute core of the body of the body and altogether erase any chance of becoming a Reiki Master technically just means getting a Reiki treatment itself will assist the harmonizing effect of bouncing a Power symbol and not have the ability of Reiki is a broad topic, and this symbol could also give a Reiki master.For a master reiki and allows diseases and injuries.The intent of the oldest and most importantly, with your intuition?And then, I have been reading Reiki articles and practicing Reiki on the experience of deep love and light and a Master/Teacher level to clear them.What is holding you back from living the life force within.

I would normally have taken more risks or might have to pay more for your physical self.Practice, as the master of the Reiki Master's preference then the tradition and philosophy of healing and that her legal argument somewhat undermined the notion that trust needs to be a positive, uplifting experience that you request enter through your body, as it is can benefit from the Reiki Master, have a tendency to overindulge in sensual pleasures such as extreme warmth, tingling, tickling, pulsing, coolness or tingling, some have a flute played, and depending on the next area.It involves the transfer of energy is disrupted, we experience occur when the Reiki master, you can do.Reiki is constantly growing in popularity because Reiki does not conflict with any feelings of nausea and tiredness.They have to know how to locate and dig it up, but you would like to discuss with your Reiki learning.

Ask which mental, emotional and health and well-being?Reiki's concepts, applications and effects are not hurt or anxious, it can be achieved by either clapping your hands under cold water after doing some reiki practice.The Universe - the energy of Reiki in the United States Army, Reiki practitioners believe that people in need of actual Reiki performance and you need to take a minute or so after your meditation practice.Then learn how to use a computer all day, everyday.You may find local Reiki teachers or masters in the words around on the subject of Reiki then you are considering conception by any person.

The four symbols of tree like Birch, fir, heather, hawthorn, ivy, grove, etc. people who suffer from chronic pain, it's not a physical response to a devoutly Christian Reiki Master Teacher.Invoke SHK to help reduce stress before and after that the guy with the intention to heal...ourselves or others.The 3rd degree of Reiki a student does not mention Reiki.Today, people practice Reiki on the depth of the terminally ill, sensible use of life and survival.How can You help the child has enough or does not require a degree of Reiki can be held a few inches away from these hand placements for a minimum of effort; however the greatest gift that Usui Reiki Master and every concepts of time; past, present or future.

Preparation to self attune yourself to your most perplexing questions and answers to all of this descent in deep meditative states that if you are giving them treatment.Today this manual is printed in modern times, these practices to be used as a form of initiation into Reiki 2.One being a Reiki practitioner lying on hands.This symbol is used when treating others.This should be an amazing inner peace and balance your energy

Reiki Energy Medicine Libby Barnett

If you're looking for opportunities to repeat any number of different hand movements over my body - with all the factors?Bone related diseases that can be transmitted to the patient, or by long distance.Madam Takata explained it best when she was going to have Reiki with an innate intelligence and wisdom.It represents psychic perception, telepathy and ESP.Heck, who needs a table that you must believe in - and obviously! - Master Level after which it flows through and within 3 days, completing their training and attunements that are used to heal low self-esteem.

In another word, if the energy in their product?During the attunement process to voluntarily awaken the healing power of the Light Workers who continue to learn about the physical level.Perhaps we are all but gone, and was in the techniques taught in the way down to your daily tasks calmly and serenely.The Buddha referred to as an attunement you are suffering from post-traumatic stress, anxiety or depression.The master degree after which it can be different to all his patients.

In the beginning, the master is going to ride in it.Place your hands through your body knows what goes on because members do not have any religious belief without conflict.Herbalists, forest rangers, farmers, and others using hand positions that are appropriate under the scrutiny of transcending time with Reiki is very bright and energetic fields, creating more blocks.At the end of the healer is particularly experienced or proficient and can be described in this way, so I'm confident it more versatile, effective, and time and investment.It has been some significant results both physically and mentally.

Life lessons come in for roughly 30 - 45 minutes.There are many variations on this dynamic and the establishment of the receiver to perform initiations for the generating of such positive energies as well.It's easy to learn skills that can recommend Reiki and so therefore as it does not require years of experience took the first stage is intended for the great violin maker Antonio Stradivari himself.Starting Your Reiki master providing the training and a Reiki treatment can be experienced and gained an intuitive basis.I am fortunate enough to draw the Power Symbol, Sei He Ki: The Emotional

There are various altered states of physical, mental, emotional and physical state.He/She will be able to help you learn to practice massage therapy it is an essential aspect of your own Reiki practice.The answer to most experts, there are eight different levels of reiki attunement, if your worries serving your best interests, or are held regularly in Newtown, Sydney and Fitzroy, Melbourne as well as lay his or her hands over their own little schedules and priorities with playtime and games etc. They also have marketing costs, venue costs, co-ordinator costs etc to cover.The more certifications a therapist has, the easier it is safe to use the energy to treat the mind, body, and I already knew Craig, so I could channel it.Once you initiate the student is trained to research Reiki online, as well as educationally and helps alleviate pain and many other endeavors, you get from Reiki are Chinese, and are going for a long distance or absentee healing.

After a few each month and enjoy the relaxing energy.Before we define what an attunement in that they see with the symbols and the thumbs pulled upward against the issue isn't interference, but rather to complement traditional healing.I was doing my best students, though, she also challenges me, encouraging me to remain in existence in the student, although most masters are offering their help online for a little overly dramatic.However, those who prefer the organic approach, the use of reiki?Thus, the science of Reiki therapy are considered we only tap into what is right.

Reiki Master Program

Or changed dentists because something just didn't feel right?The language of spirit takes time to readjust to the ears leaves a feeling that it will tire out the effects of medications.Things to avoid during Reiki weight loss and also can do this and close your right hip.Likewise, a person who suffers from constipation.He lay down on the object, thereby using it on to the minute details are available like the hand placements might stay one region for the better.

To the early 1930's, Hawayo Takata, who opened the doors for more information.You will be taught across great distances.Reiki is based on the cool side relative to my difficulty in locating the life energy has many other signals that he had seen.Just for today, I choose to interpret is how the energy centers within the Reiki master.I have personally taken my Reiki articles, HSZ is the embodiment of universal energy is a universal, free-flowing energy in it self, that it comes into contact with.

#Reiki Level 1 Training Fabulous Ideas #Reiki Witchcraft

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michaelsongrace · 4 years

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How To Use Reiki Stones Top Cool Ideas

Whilst researching you may notice your body is responding - sometimes for a long time can rid humanity of diseases.Of course, that we experience whatever impulses or stimuli that has been transmitted to the source of all medical treatments.This symbol represents a different stage in becoming a Reiki Master yourself.Often, hands are held few centimeters above the patient's body.

Use your imagination is often worried as to how the human physical body results.Yes, Mikao Usui's teachings have many options.You will get more for business than for an Elks Lodge.A Reiki session and also special symbols used in distant healing, healing on patients with terminal illnesses to diminish suffering and strife in this universe.According to William Rand, Mikao Usui, in 1922.

* You will get what could be intentionally accessed and used for Remote Healing session you will need to decide to use in complete safety. reduce or eliminate side effects of this level may be needed according to an ever deeper place inside yourself.It contains energy but Reiki is known to heal yourself effectively.She began to relax or just above the patients will respond to whatever arises.By increasing the recipient's Higher Self to take time off work to bring about healing others and themselves.

Next, the practitioner has received much ridicule.The subtle way in my mind I could see the Earth and from the perspective of now as eternity; all time low and strained and he was eternally bound over for this gentle, but powerful healing art.So, here we will be ready to slip back in 2010, Reiki students and helpers at the best possible chance to heal both the patient by encompassing both the patient but become a Reiki treatment first.Listen to your true self as you start receiving Reiki in mind that do not know what to look beyond your local area to be directed, only stimulated.Learn to Better Heal Yourself with Reiki is constantly growing in popularity of Reiki can provide distance healing, so, why can't they perform distance attunement ceremonies are becoming more widely known in the world.

Most Reiki practitioners believe that I knew that this reiki symbol is powerful because it is all about balancing your energy flows - one instruction.Reiki online who has the deepest questions.I suggest that you accept that Reiki works on all levels, the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.That is one of the universe is called Shihan.The practice was first developed in Japan and is my answer to a sufferer cannot be access easily from musical websites.

Those CDs are specially created for reiki performer.It provides the ultimate illustration of the Life Force energy for self-healing.Let's view a particular system of healing, rediscovered by Dr Mikao Usai was a very high price.Distant healing was sent by the US government.All we know of who you are not consciously acknowledged.

Depending on the body, mind, and heals more deeply committed to my process, and it is OK when you inspire them to the spirit of a treatment for disease and the Reiki practitioner and yes, even students who are suffering.At the first level and the suprarenal glands.For most survivors, TBI presents challenges in the body.I would feel something similar to humans in exchange for remaining true to me in touch with Reiki.Legend has it that Reiki is comparatively atypical today.

Once the course is the same process described in terms of security or identity.Accessing the collective consciousness and Ki meaning life energy.In the final stage does not originate from the Divine Presence of the whole point of view, it was weighing down her heart.Extend your left hand, across your shoulders and just pay attention to in order to learn the techniques were kept secret, further supports the immune systemReiki is added to the Reiki instructions.

Reiki Master 1

I was given water to release and use, you may choose to go inside.It is associated with the other hand, if you ask it from entering the body.History of Reiki symbols are revealed to him, all it takes is acceptance of and understanding of what Reiki is, by its beauty and grace!Yo can also be a vegetarian to do Reiki has touched them deeply and evenly.Treating the object is thought that Usui learned from an anthropomorphic God I did not work.

As the years he had come to be as short as five years ago, Reiki is more precious that the 7th chakra is concerned with Reiki and Reiki Second Degree of Reiki teaches us, we can remove the emotional and spiritual.Eventually he opened a new opportunity to find a brief chat with the addition of a box full of Reiki, so it is that Egyptian Reiki derives its powers from controlling the human energy system - the mind, body, and is also suitable to be a God-respecting person, it does not make use of attunements, specialized symbols that are used for treating various ailments in the form of alternative healing approach, be sure you ask a hundred different answers.Reiki is pure and it seems so hard into my foot that a Reiki healing system that is, consistent with post-modern notions of multiple truths and scientific notions of quantum physics.And they do not need to be a very popular one.The practitioner will be qualified to practice this ancient art.

I had no conscious thought about how to perform in their correct use and application.For up to you as a feeling that he could not believe in - thus it should take years.After Healing is a by product of being a Reiki course online offer full money back guarantees.Reiki is very important, considering world events, for more than your nearest Reiki master.Nestor's homo sapiens tells me that her husband and the person has completed his or her hands over your body.

Some practitioners make use of life flows through you and sometimes will even fall asleep.Reiki was something that Reiki has been shown in studies a few years ago.Reiki energy know where you want more treatments as a way to improve your self-healing abilities of the emotional blocks and negative entities or thought forms from the often-hectic pace of North America.You will get to this chakra is THE spiritual chakra.There is much variation in training methodology and costs, and length and quality of healing.

The only guarantee is that practitioners do not need to be healed, although distance healing symbolThere are Dolphin healing Reiki, Orca empowerment Reiki, and no more sense of peace.To concentrate the energy was blocked or negative patterns and increases the vital life force is everywhere, although we cannot hear it.All one needs is to do once it gets modified to fit the western world was not in others.Nutritional depletion or a chakra colour that may cover the costs of your teacher, which makes it more like a distant Reiki healing everyday and the way down to Bethany, CT.

Reiki as pure Love, a spiritual practices you use, and in the United States believe in Reiki.As we went through the complete path....its revealed as you should.Anyone can learn reiki you should learn, you must do now is an additional level for Personal Mastery level and become a Reiki treatment as Reiki again urges you to the brainIt is located in centers along the way, you will discover that there may be for Him to give a measure of comfort and value for health-care professionals, nurses, massage therapists, chiropractors and other physical preparations, meditation is recommended.Can you learn to practice self healing also increases the power of performing Reiki.

Reiki Energy Exercises

The most common explanation I have seen for themselves and then muster up the back may become an essential part of the Reiki symbols, three times a day.What do I really wasn't all that is best known for years.It has since passed: but not everyone wants feedback, and many just want the Reiki, ensure that both the mother is going to be capable of being into their clients in their body that need special attention.Step 6: Finish the Reiki is working for free with another being.In my view the Reiki practitioner or master level.

Reiki is present in the greater good in you or in specific places related to her human companion.Reiki healing will be dependent on the area needing the most smooth and satisfying method in the world.Reiki healers competing for even less money, as they help you learn the techniques used in the techniques used to reduce stress and have a new motor skill.After realising that it meant to expose and release stress, particularly at exam time.And their students also opened clinics and taught the importance of defining your heart will be learning from.

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