#Matrix Reloaded analysis

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MOVIE: The Matrix Reloaded

Watch The Full Movie Here: https://bit.ly/409aUaw

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Theme through Story (The Matrix)

This is another review/writing article, this time based on the Matrix series, by the Wachowskis. (Stay tuned for the second part.)

The Matrix has always been a favourite movie of mine. When I first saw it, it really blew my mind! Just the core idea of the world not being what you thought it was, the trippy, all-encompassing surreality of it all was super engaging to me as a kid.

Great effects, some kung-fu, some explosions... great fun.

It was small-scale, big-concept. It's all about a small group, fighting for survival against just 1 - 3 agents, that looked cool with bullet-time and all that. And the idea of living in a simulation and not realising it brought it this weight, and brain-melting quality in the background of the whole thing.

Now... with my review out of the way, the article will begin.

In this two-part series I'm going to go deeper into the themes of each movie, and how they are expressed through the writing. The themes I'm particularly zooming in on are all closely linked between films, so it's a great opportunity to compare different ways of expressing the same (or at least comparable) theme.

scroll down to find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes ▊

Bear in mind, this is written for people familiar with the source material--the "Matrices." If you've not watched them, this will spoil all sorts of things with no warning. And what's more, you'll probably not understand what I'm talking about in the first place.

Films are sometimes referred to by the shorthand: M1: The Matrix, M2: Reloaded, M3: Revolutions, M4: Resurrections.

I'll also leave time codes like this [M1 1:20:34] so you can find the clips yourself. I would embed them as youtube videos, but I'm pretty sure they'd be taken down in a heartbeat.

I'll skip to the end and say, the theme is "choice." Choice as a concept runs through all 4 movies, and is explored from different angles, in different ways in each.

What I'm going to delve into is, how the theme is written into the stories themselves, and how that affects the viewing experience.

Everything here is from my subjective opinion. Yours may differ. I hope that you can learn about "theme" from this analysis either way.

The first scene to look at is... Neo's boss tells him off about being late. Bear with me, you'll see why soon. [M1 0:12:04]

BOSS: You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson. You believe that you are special, that somehow the rules do not apply to you. Obviously you are mistaken. ... The time has come to make a choice, Mr. Anderson. Either you choose to be at your desk on time from this day forth... or you choose to find yourself another job. Do I make myself clear?

This is not a real choice. The boss doesn't expect Neo to think about it and choose between these options. He is given the choices, with the expectation that only one of them will inevitably be selected.

The framing of the choices is given by the "truths" that preceded them. As if saying, "Given that you're not special and the rules apply to you"... these are your options, but we all know which you should go with.

If believes those "truths," he has no choice but to go with that first option.

Now, this scene doesn't really do much, on the face of it. It establishes the boss's office, and the window washers' platform, both of which come back in the next scene.

But nothing really happens. You could say you should just cut this scene, or else spice it up to make it actually interesting. But that seemingly mundane, unimportant conversation is setting up something very important theme-wise.

Consider the pattern:

He is told about himself. "You believe that you are special, that somehow the rules do not apply to you."

He is told what is real or true. "Obviously you are mistaken." ...As in, the reality is you are not special and the rules do apply to you. Or perhaps, no one is special, the rules apply to everyone.

He is given a choice to make. A) "be at your desk on time," or B) "find another job."

He makes a decision. "Yes Mr. Rhinehart, perfectly clear."

This time around, Neo accepts what he is told and makes the choice they want him to make.

And that is how his character arc is tracked--we see how he responds to these "manipulations" and "choices." How free is his mind from relying on what others say is true, and therefore how capable he is to make his own choices.

In the first film, this same situation comes up over and over again. And it becomes so clear once you know what you're looking for.

Later he is spoken to by Agent Smith in the interrogation room. [M1 0:17:00]

You are a program writer for a respectable software company. You go by the hacker alias "Neo." You wish to do the right thing. You are interested in the future.

Reality: We need your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice. The meek programmer life has a future, the hacker life does not.

Choice: The choice is implicit--which life has a future? The programmer, who helps us, and gets his slate wiped clean. Or the hacker who's locked away for life.

Decision: How about I give you the finger, and you give me my phone call. He chooses the "hacker" life, and imprisonment.

Smith presents those truths, because if Neo believes them he will choose to help them. It's set up to manipulate Neo into effectively doing as he's told. But, as his boss said, he does have a problem with authority.

Neo rejects Smith's truths, and rebelliously chooses to not help the Agents. He's disbelieving what's presented to him in this case, but the choice is still a passive one. He accepts the inevitable, that he's going to jail, and simply wants his right to a phone call.

There's only really one time where Neo expresses his own beliefs. [M1 0:26:47]

MORPHEUS: Do you believe in fate, Neo? ... NEO: No. ... Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.

While meekly put, Neo believes--or perhaps wants to believe--that he is in control of his own life.

This is how he rejected the belief from Smith that it was inevitable that he'd give up the hacker life and embrace the programmer life. Because he's in control of his own life.

This core belief of his own is key to the movie.

In that same scene, though, Morpheus pulls the same trick as Neo's boss and Agent Smith does.

You feel like Alice tumbling down the rabbit-hole. You accept what you see because you are expecting to wake up. Reality: you are a slave, in a prison you cannot smell or taste or touch. Take the red pill and I will show you the truth. Choice: Blue pill, or red pill?

Blue pills? Red pills? It's so abstract as to have no meaning, and Morpheus doesn't really inform him to be able to knowingly make this decision in the first place. What Neo is really doing is choosing between believing Morpheus (only symbolised by taking the red pill) or not believing him (symbolised by taking the blue pill).

That's the real choice that Neo is making in all these interactions... whether he believes what he is told, or not. And looking at it from the perspective of choice...

"Believing" can be defined as "choosing to know."

People an believe in things that are proven or unproven, true or false. But they choose that it is true, and live their lives accordingly.

Neo doesn't believe in fate, not because he knows fate isn't real. But because he doesn't like the idea of fate--that he has no control over his life. He chose to know--he believes--that fate is not real.

Of course, here, the fact he'd been searching for Morpheus for who knows how long, and has gone through all the rigamarole to even get to speak to him in the first place... means he believes in Morpheus pretty implicitly at this point.

So this choice is more like a formality. A performance, where Neo pretends he knows what Morpheus is talking about, and goes through the motions of pretending to make the informed choice of taking the red pill.

This is touched on in Resurrections when Bugs speaks of her "pills" offer. "The choice is an illusion. You already know what you have to do." [M4 0:11:22]

You could look at it more like a placebo, a way of preparing his mind to be extracted and accept what is happening without imploding--because he "chose" it to happen in some way. A form of consent, while not really understanding what he is consenting to.

In the dojo, "Morpheus is fighting Neo!" Morpheus tells Neo, "You are faster than this. Don't think you are. Know you are." Reality: "I'm trying to free your mind, Neo." Speed has nothing to do with muscles, in the simulation. [M1 0:52:44]

As they fight, Neo starts to believe that. Starts to "know" he's faster than he thinks.

As Morpheus says at the jump, he is teaching Neo to "let go of fear, doubt, and disbelief." That is how to "free your mind": to believe, separate from anything your senses are telling you, beyond any evidence proving it.

That's his view, anyway. And while it's true to an extent, it's not the full picture.

This situation is made clear with a line from Morpheus in the fight.

MORPHEUS: I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it.

There's the choice. The only real choice that Neo is presented with again and again.

Morpheus shows him a truth to believe. No one can make someone else believe something by force. Only Neo can choose to believe. Choose to "walk through that door," and choose what options to take as if "knowing" it to be true.

And that is what happens over and over. Doors Neo can take, shown by people who want him to take them.

In Reloaded, the Oracle also shows him to a door--the door of light. Or at least sends him towards it. [M2 0:49:31] And the film is about how Neo gets there, and goes through that door. On the other side, the Architect offers him 2 more doors. [M2 1:56:36] The One always chooses a particular door, so surely Neo will as well? This is meant to just be a formality, like the pills.

Later the Oracle pulls the same maneuver. "You already know what I'm going to tell you." "I'm not the one." Reality: Morpheus or Neo will die. The choice is up to Neo. [M1 1:15:06]

Neo believes the Oracle. Why? Because really she didn't tell him if he was the One or not. She let him decide in that moment. And confirmed whatever he said. So of course he believes her; she only said he was right in whatever he already believes.

And he thinks he's in control of his own life, which she encourages too.

Later, when Morpheus is going to die, he decides Morpheus will live, accepting that Neo himself will die in his place somehow--just as the Oracle said. [M1 1:34:10]

It's funny, the Oracle said to Neo "You don't believe in any of this fate crap. You're in control of your own life, remember?" [M1 1:16:31] But in fact, he's really taken control of his own life because he believes in the "fate crap" she told him. (Stay tuned.)

From here on, Neo is on his own. From what he believes about himself and reality, he considers his own choices, and makes his own mind up on what to do.

Neo is not the One. Reality: Morpheus is going to be killed by pulling the plug, sacrificing himself for Neo because he believes Neo is the One. For the first time he really believes he does have a choice. He believes he can simply choose to save Morpheus and he will do so. This allows him to act, to take proactive action to make what he wants to happen, happen.

Later he sees Trinity go down in the helicopter, knowing she will die if he does nothing. But, believing he has a choice to remove the tether and save himself, or hold on and hope to save her... he decides to save her. [M1 1:50:40]

She chooses to trust in Neo in that moment too, which is part of how she is tied up in him becoming the One.

In the subway station, he starts to believe, to know he is the One. He can choose between running from and agent like he's meant to, or fighting. He decides to believe he is the One, and acts accordingly: he stands and fights. [M1 1:54:22]

This rejects Cypher's suggestion that it doesn't matter who you are, you do what they do... "Run! Run your ass off."

Smith tries to manipulate him again on the tracks. He always calls him "Mr. Anderson," telling him over and over that he's just a regular guy who pays his taxes. Reality: "That is the sound of your inevitability. That is the sound of your death." Thomas Anderson has no choice. No one can change the inevitable. [M1 1:57:42]

Neo can choose to accept the inevitable, choose to believe what Smith is saying... or choose that it's not going to happen. He decides with the line: "My name is Neo," rejecting his meek programmer self that goes along with what the world says is true. He hops out the way, Smith is run over. For the first time that anyone knows, someone has beaten an Agent!

And why? Because Neo chose to. Despite the inevitability. Despite what he's been told is true or untrue. He's beyond that now.

Like the Oracle says, "No one can tell you you're in love, you just know it. Balls to bones." [M1 1:14:14] Morpheus can tell Neo he's the One all day until he's blue in the face and it won't do any good. Neo has to just know it, to believe it, independent of any kind of argument or evidence.

"Know thyself." [M1 1:13:54] Believe whatever you want to believe about yourself. Choose to know something is true about yourself.

And now he does.

He knows he needs to exit so the Sentinels don't destroy the ship. This time he chooses to run. [M1 1:58:31]

In the hallway, Neo knows there's way too many bullets coming his way to dodge. Do they hit? He decides they don't with a simple, "No." [M1 2:04:51]

Through all the significant events of the movie, Choice is worked in again and again and again. Neo is told what to believe and given false choices to test whether he believes the "beliefs"truths" or not.

Until he "frees his mind" of what is apparently true, and even what people tell him is true. And makes his mind up, ignoring reality entirely, and essentially deciding what is true.

As Morpheus says, "Your mind makes it real." [M1 0:55:22] Only with Neo, with the One, with someone who has decided that they control what the Matrix does or does not do... it goes beyond the apparent damage to his own body. His mind makes "it" real in the Matrix. "It" being... whatever he chooses is real. He has the ability to "remake the Matrix as he sees fit." [M1 0:45:12] Because he's freed his mind to this superlative degree.

He was dead. That's reality. He--or perhaps Trinity--decided to ignore that and chose to believe he couldn't die. He would not survive three agents firing a ton of bullets at him at once. That's reality. He ignored that reality and choose to believe the bullets would not reach him.

But more than that, the other characters also interact with the theme--in a way that all feeds into the main story line of Neo becoming the One.

Morpheus chooses to know that Neo is the One. Which puts the idea in Neo's head that when he's ready, he won't have to dodge bullets.

Trinity chooses to love Neo, which somehow helps Neo believe. And her kiss saved him, brought him to life, and sort of locked in the fact that he is the One.

Cypher chooses the Matrix as a better way to live. Which is how the situation was set up for Morpheus to need saving, and for Neo to have a choice to make in the first place.

Smith loves "inevitability," where no choice can have any impact. Which gave Neo a clear thing to reject. He chose that he did have a choice. Which is kind of what encompasses "The One" as a concept.

Which brings us to the Oracle.

Did you notice that what the Oracle said was not true? Neither Morpheus nor Neo died. And Neo was the One. It turns out that she's not telling their futures in the first place.

As Morpheus says after Neo saves Trinity: "She told you exactly want you needed to hear, that's all." [M1 1:51:53] Really what she is doing is the same thing everyone is doing to Neo. She tells people what to believe. Why? So that they make certain choices.

All she needs for this to work is for them to believe what she tells them. And they do because she's "The Oracle." I man... she's called "The Oracle," so she must be right... right?

Morpheus goes on to say... "There is a difference between knowing a path, and walking a path." Those that see the Oracle:

Come away thinking they've been told what their path is. They think they "know the path."

Believing that causes them to behave in accordance with that belief. Moves them to make certain choices they wouldn't have made before.

Those choices naturally lead them to "walk the path" the Oracle wants them to walk down.

It's pure manipulation. Just like the Matrix. Just like most of the characters in this film.

Most of the things people believe in this film simply are not true. Many are false. Some are unproven. But they are believed anyway, and pushed onto Neo to believe them as well.

These "truths," these "beliefs"... they don't free his mind. He still cannot see for himself what is true, he needs someone or something outside of himself--Morpheus, the Oracle, electrical signals piped into his brain--to tell him what reality is.

Looked at a certain way, it's a "prison for his mind" he cannot perceive. People tell him what is true, to make it more inevitable he will make certain choices.

But Neo does get onto the path of eventually becoming the One because of what the Oracle has gotten various people to believe--her manipulations worked.

Finally though, he becomes the One by choosing for himself to be the One. Seeing his own reality, seeing the code around him. Choosing for bullets to stop. Choosing to live. Choosing to fly into Agent Smith, and choosing for Agent Smith to flippin' explode from the inside!

His mind is finally free... of believing what anyone tells him, of relying on others to tell him what is true and what is false, of making choices based on what others decide he should do.

The Matrix is dripping with theme. And there's more to discover along these lines if you look hard enough in just this one film!

But does not beat you round the head with it. At no point is a character just talking about the concept of "Choice" and "Belief" what it all means. It's all-story, all-the-time! And only when you stop and think about it, does it really become clear.

To me, that's the ideal way of exploring theme in a film. Not through exposition, but between the lines of the events of the story itself.

Which brings us to Matrix: RE. (Reloaded, Revolutions, and Resurrections.) Continue reading about the themes of the Matrix.

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[synthient]

All right, time for: obsessive shot-by-shot analysis of the neosmith fight scene

There's a part in the making-of doc where Lana talks about how, in the original trilogy, almost everything was shot indoors with controlled artificial lighting. She and Lilly were paranoid about sunlight and the uncertainty it threw into shooting. In Resurrections, she tried to embrace the sun. And this is one of the scenes that really shows it

This has nothing to do with anything lmao. It's just one of my absolute favorite exchanges in the movie, and I love that they lead into the Smith fight with "Neo's a dilf now (affectionate, gay)"

enter: He

Bugs is the first one to notice Smith watching them. Morpheus draws his gun next (Morpheus has the whole interesting "assigned Agent Smith, but rejected it to become Morpheus" thing going on, so I'll be watching those two's interactions closely). Lexy and Berg have a slightly belated reaction, and Neo's the last one to turn--he really wasn't paying attention to ~Their Connection~

We get our first appearance of the White Fashion Sunglasses (while Neo was off in Io, Smith must have stopped by the mall)

The first Matrix movie had a definite sunglasses motif going on with Smith. He takes them off during the fbi interrogation with Neo, right before pulling the "my colleagues think you're a lost cause, but I really do want to recruit you and work together" thing. He takes them off again while interrogating Morpheus, when he reveals that he wants to be free too. Over the course of the movie, the lenses get less opaque, and we can see more of Smith's eyes and expressions (contrasted with Jones and Brown, whose glasses aren't see-through in the same shots). They get broken and tossed aside during the subway fight, where he totally gives into emotion.

(the head tilttt...the little jogggg.....)

Each time Neo sees redpilled!Smith, he gives a little despite-himself smile.

In the first movie, there’s an exchange (“Ah, the great Morpheus. We meet at last.” “And who are you?” “Smith. Agent Smith.” “Huh. You all look the same to me”) where Smith seems, like. Grievously Offended that Morpheus doesn’t recognize him lmao. He gives a huge smile here when Lexy knows who he is. He’s got individuality now! He’s famous! (for trying to destroy the world)

The glasses come off almost immediately. Remember: back in their first meeting, that signified I’m trying to make a genuine (““human””) connection with you and I want us to be on the same team. Smith will keep the glasses off for pretty much the entire rest of the movie.

From Smith’s expressions, you get the vibe that he genuinely wants this to work. Even if he knows it won’t.

Neo nods at Bugs and co to put their guns down. Throwback to the “Thanks to you, I’m seemingly free.” “...congratulations.” moment in Reloaded. And to that deleted scene phone call where Neo tries to invite Smith to join him. 

We get a couple minutes of perfectly affable conversation. Most of the fun is in the acting and chemistry here, so I won’t bother to screencap most of it. Of note: when Smith says “you never appreciated our relationship. Not like the Analyst,” Morpheus asks “Who?”, and Neo says “My doctor.” Smith follows Neo’s lead and keeps calling the Analyst a “doctor” for the rest of the scene, without airing Neo’s mental health laundry.

gjdfhgk the little look he gives Neo like “well? what do you think of my eyes?”

Neo’s pretty sure there’s a catch, but he still can’t stop smiling. Smith goes on a nice face journey before whispering “I have such dreams, Tom.”

is it possible he could have a type

Neo’s still smiling on “Sounds like conflict.” Smith tries to make his “stay out of the Matrix” pitch, and ominous music kicks in (there was no score before this).

Here’s the real conflict: Smith doesn’t want to kill Neo. But he wants to be chained by their bond again even less. He knows--from their last fight, where Neo stared at him like a sad puppy rather than fight back--that Neo will definitely get recaptured if he goes after the Analyst now.

At this point, Seq sees the Merovingian Gang start to enter through portals. Smith gets in nice and close to murmur his final appeal, for Neo’s ears only:

Neo would give up his freedom and go back to sleepwalking through life, suicidally depressed, for his soulmate’s sake. Smith says “huh! interesting! I absolutely the fuck would not :)”

Now here’s something interesting: Neo strikes the first blow. Basically unprovoked.

In every previous fight, Neo has been so deep in some mix of “pacifism” and “terror that he’s actually having a psychotic episode and could hurt an innocent person,” that he’s basically refused to fight at all.  

Smith’s shoulder grab doesn’t look hard or aggressive. It’s a hey wait, we’re not done talking gesture. But it’s still enough for Neo to instinctively shove him across the room.

Before this rewatch, I actually forgot that Smith had a gun in this scene. He only fires it once.

As soon as he sees that Neo has some level of bullet time powers back (and isn’t just going to do the Sad Puppy Stare), Smith puts the gun away. He doesn’t try to shoot the Mnemosyne crew either, even when Bugs starts firing at him. He dodges, ignores her, and goes straight into the kung fu fight with Neo.

I would read the thought process as if you’re not going to fight back, I’ll make this as quick and painless as possible. But if you are, then let’s have a fair fight. This is a test, with Smith hoping that Neo will prove he’s strong enough to handle the Analyst after all.

He gets a few seconds of uninterrupted combat with Neo before Morpheus intervenes.

There’s a pretty nasty arm-snapping sound effect here :( (might be a callback to Neo breaking Smith’s arm right after gaining his One powers?)

Multiple times in this sequence, Morpheus goes out of his way to attack Smith, while Smith keeps trying to knock him away (but without killing or permanently injuring him) and get back to fighting Neo.

For most of the movie, Morpheus has gone back and forth between being pissed at Neo for abandoning him, and being concerned for Neo (he has a complicated relationship with his dad). Does he keep attacking out of protectiveness? Or is he trying to get an Ultimate Showdown with the program whose role he was forced to play? (His, uh...other dad? Second of three dads?)

For his part, I don’t think Smith has any idea that Morpheus is Kind Of Him. I wish the movie had let them have a real conversation.

Unlike Morpheus, Lexy sees Smith coming, remembers the he’s gonna get us all killed conversation, and jumps the hell out of the way. Good for her lol

Wheeeee!

(Sidebar: take note of Smith’s ankles here. Jonathan Groff says that when he walked on set the first day, Lana Wachowski went “hm. take your socks off actually. I’ve decided Smith is going to be a no-socks guy”)

Smith only uses “Anderson” twice in this movie: once 30 seconds after he wakes up, and in this scene while musing about “Anderson and Smith.” He’s not even referring to Neo directly this time, but the deadnaming seems to be the catalyst that finally gets Neo fighting back in earnest (Neo doesn’t seem to mind “Tom” as much. Maybe because it’s a reminder of their bluepilled sort-of-friendship?). Some psycho strings kick in in the background music while they bullet time around

Neo agrees with him, then uses the distraction to kick him to the floor and dislocate his jaw. They do this dkghdkf:

They’re evenly matched for a minute, but before long, Neo starts doing the Anime Protagonist Coughs Up Blood On The Floor thing

The mirror symbolism has been amped up in Resurrections. They’ve taken over for phonebooths as the portal in and out of the Matrix. We get the whole thing with altered reflections, where only Neo and Trinity can see each other’s true selves.

Smith follows up his broken mirror soul-searching with “I feel bad about this, Tom. After all, you are the one who set me free. Again.” So we’re probably supposed to take something away about Smith’s real motives/desires getting cracked and distorted

Speaking of Morpheus being Kind Of Smith:

If the stakes here are “prove to me that you’re strong enough to handle the Analyst, so I’m not forced to kill you for my freedom”...I think they might have both been going for the same outcome 

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

“The Matrix Resurrections” movie review:

Short review:

Lana Wachowski must really love Danganronpa V3 since this movie feels more like that game rather than a Matrix sequel. I give it a 6/10. 

Long review:

So...this movie is...challenging to discuss. Because on the surface, I can just say that the movie sucked on a technical level. The fight choreography was terrible, the Matrix-ness of the franchise is missing (for example, the green gradient that the series is known for), and it doesn’t really justify its existence. By the end of the movie, I didn’t really feel like we needed a continuation, which is a shame since the trailers did a good job hyping the movie up.

But that’s not the full story, is it? No, we need to talk about the “meta-ness” of the movie, the one thing that people took away from the story. That’s why I compared Matrix 4 to Danganronpa V3; it’s not really a sequel, it’s a meta self-critique that challenges the whole idea of the franchise. 

I can definitely see why the first act is so divisive. In a not-so-subtle sequence, Neo goes through a series of discussions about how to approach the next Matrix game. So, aside from the obvious meta point about having the Matrix literally be a franchise within the Matrix, the discussions that unfold focus entirely on deconstructing the series as a whole. It seems to mock the aspects that people loved about the Matrix trilogy, such as bullet time and its political commentary.

Then you have Bugs (Jessica Henwick) literally encountering a cutscene which acts as a recreation of the first scene in the original Matrix, with Trinity running from the Agents. And that’s not the only callback to the original trilogy that we get in this movie; there are clips taken right from the trilogy inserted in various scenes which are meant to draw a deliberate parallel. 

Why? As Agent Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) says, “Nothing comforts anxiety like a little nostalgia”.

Other people have made a more in-depth analysis of how nostalgia plays into the story of Resurrection. For me, I’m a bit of a mixed bag. It’s mainly because I get what Lana was trying to do. It’s a deliberate send-up to the fact that Hollywood has been taken over by the need to reboot every single famous franchise and, coupled with the fact that Warner Bros has been pushing the Wachowski sisters to make another Matrix movie, you could read the movie as Lana venting out her frustrations with the company. I mean, she even namedrops WB in the movie, the jabs are not subtle.

You can also read the meta-aspect of the movie as Lana questioning her own legacy. Unfortunately, as most people should know by now, the Matrix has inspired a toxic following where people say they have been “red-pilled” by rejecting more leftist/liberal values and taking on more right-wing views. There’s also the misogynistic angle of being “red-pilled”, namely with the infamous subreddit r/TheRedPill. It’s just extremely ironic that this was the legacy of the Matrix movies, especially when you remember that the Matix movies are left-leaning and were meant to be an allegory for the trans community. 

So, I don’t really mind the meta commentary. Even though it’s in your face and blatantly told to you, it’s an interesting idea that really forces the audience to think about what they’re consuming. My issue with this is that although the idea seems interesting, I don’t think the execution was there. 

I feel that’s a common criticism when it comes to the Wachowskis. They’re obviously really creative writers and have a ton of great ideas. But, just like with Reloaded and Revolutions, the execution of those ideas was not the greatest. Specifically for Resurrection, I felt like I was watching a series of interesting ideas that didn’t really come together as a whole. 

For example, I like the idea of humans and machines working together. I like the idea that the Matrix is using itself within the simulation as a way to maintain control over Neo and Trinity (the Matrix being a franchise within the Matrix). I like the idea of Agent Morpheus being a combination of Neo’s memories of Morpheus and Agent Smith, which goes back to the theme of humans and machines joining forces. I like the idea that this movie was primarily a Neo-Trinity love story rather than trying to save the world. I even like the idea of Agent Smith sort of becoming this anti-hero/anti-villain who will work with Neo if their interests are aligned. 

But just because those ideas are good doesn’t mean they compensate for the flaws of the movie. At times, it felt like I was watching a first draft of the script since a lot of concepts felt half-baked. For example, the Analyst explains that by making it so that Neo and Trinity will always meet but never come in contact with each other, that leads to more power being produced for the machines. Apparently, Neo and Trinity can exert power by just being around each other. 

My question: How? 

Since when did Neo and Trinity turn into Cloak & Dagger? There is no basis for this sudden change in how the machines generate power, especially when you remember that machines harvest humans for their body heat and electricity. You’d think we’d get a solid explanation behind this new development but instead, all we get is the Analyst talking about hope and despair (Danganronpa again?) Just accept that this is the story and move on.

Also, Trinity is now part-One. Why? Just accept it, move on. And that’s the pattern for a great deal of the movie. This is why it feels like Resurrection was a first draft, a lot of the ideas feel like they weren’t fully realized or thought through. Which makes the whole meta-aspect a little ironic since even though the movie criticizes reboots for being soulless and uncreative, Resurrections doesn’t change the wheel either. Instead, it just pushes forward ideas that seem intriguing, but doesn’t really do anything with them.

Then there are the other problems plaguing this movie. Dialogue was clunky and constantly broke the “show, don’t tell” rule. Bugs’ crew and the Io characters were extremely forgettable (I remember there was a Neo stan and a Trinity stan, that’s about it). For the new characters that I did remember, they were mostly under-written and bland. Action scenes were badly choreographed, which is jarring since this is a franchise known for good action. 

And in the end, I didn’t really feel moved by the movie. It was just an underwhelming affair, mainly because it didn’t feel like the movie was needed and that the people making it were just phoning it in. Or perhaps Lana was trying her hardest, but she needed help in fully realizing her ideas. I’m leaning on the second possibility since this movie was missing Yuen Woo-Ping, Lilly Wachowski, Bill Pope, Laurence Fishburne, and Hugo Weaving. Trust me when I say that you can feel the absence of those people in this movie. 

Then there’s the third possibility; Lana made this movie to vent out her frustrations against Warner Bros and the red pill movement. That’s why the “cool” aspects of the Matrix are nonexistent in Resurrection, a sort of cinematic ‘fuck you’. If that’s the case, then Lana succeeded; she made an intentionally underwhelming movie/Matrix sequel meant to frustrate audiences. Well, I’m pretty underwhelmed, so...job well done?

Side note: Before anyone brings it up, I don’t care if this movie was meant to be a parody of the original trilogy. You can’t just use the fact that movie is self-referential as carte blanche to do whatever you want. Even movies that are self-aware need to follow the basics of telling a good story

[joecial-distancing]

2019 in review in review:

A few years ago I started tracking yearly goals, books read, movies watched etc in a year, along with overview blurbs, in private posts. End of 2019/beginning of 2020 I was really frazzled/burned out about a lot of stuff and just never finished up making the thing. 8 months later, got the urge to read back what I’d got done, then figured I’d maybe go ahead and see about finishing. 

Media tracking below the break. thoughts/blurbs written in 2020 italicized, 2019 not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_____________________________~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Didn’t do so hot on explicit personal goals, but had a lot of stuff go ok around them this year.

School’s been fine/better than fine.

Job’s probably the biggest failing. Still with same job, haven’t made the firm moves to jump off, dragging my feet too much on exploring stuff w/ Columbia/NASA GISS.

Did not get better with covid, lol

Dating life still non-existent, but I’ve registered on apps, gotten more comfortable with selfies, improved general social life dramatically, been flirted with, updated my wardrobe, and generally started to get comfortable accepting that I’m a hot person.

Somehow got extremely better during covid.

Books

Grant (finished)

We stan a taurus legend

Guy was good at exactly one job, and was fortunate enough to have been in the right place/right time to get to do it.

Mort (discworld)

Definitely best discworld I’ve gotten to so far.

Don Quixote p. II

Really entertaining in a way that part 1 wasn’t; I was shocked how much the meta element landed for me.

Consider the Lobster (DFW collection)

had zero context on who DFW is/was when I read, and still don’t exactly tbh. Wanted to wait for a pause in The Discourse before diving into more of him, but dunno if I’m ever going to get that.

Crime and Punishment (revisited)

Weirdly didn’t get much more out of this than I did the first time I’d read it

Better Than Sex (HST Gonzo papers)

Xerox/widespread fax accessibility opening citizen access to mass media in a manner really reminiscent of what social media would go on to do at a much larger scale. Has a much more deliberate narrative arc than the other gonzo papers collections, also has that excellent HST richard nixon eulogy

The Brothers Karamazov

SPQR

Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Didion collection)

Pet Sematary

Not my favorite King, but not bad

Sourcery (discworld)

still funny/charming, but Mort really made clear/reminded me how much the hapless sadsack Rincewind mold of protagonist wears on me after a while.

The Devil's Teeth

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Liked it a lot more once I realized it was doing a Fear and Loathing thing.

Homage to Catalonia

This should be the Orwell that gets taught in schools. Make it a followup to All Quiet on the Western Front or something, jeez.

Lyndon Johnson I

Having now finished all of them, this one’s probably the least-interesting but sets up a bunch of important context that the others still then feel the need to retread.

The Razor's Edge

Recommended to me as a “white guy discovers eastern mysticism” book, but also is more interesting in its treatment of that than I’d expected (helps it was written in the 40s). 

Cat's Cradle

There’s a part in this where Vonnegut’s making fun of people who try to bond with strangers over being Hoosiers, and my dumbass immediate thought was “ooh, Vonnegut’s a hoosier? Me too!”

Lyndon Johnson II

Robert Caro felt compelled to apologize for spending so much words lionizing Coke Stevens, segregationist opponent to Johnson’s senate run. His goal was pretty clearly to show lbj’s lack of campaign charisma by contrast, definitely definitely overcommitted in his own narrativising.

Libra

I want to go back to this after reading some more De Lillo.

Gravity's Rainbow

This book absolutely kicked my ass

Overstuffed and referential in a specific way that really keeps me hooked in instead of put off. When I learn about some piece of cultural context that I retroactively recognize as being referenced in this, I want to go back and reread the entire thing.

From Caligari to Hitler

Kind of fails both as film criticism and cultural analysis, but absolutely made me want to run for the hills when considering current relationship between mainstream movies and demands of pop culture.

I took a class on Weimar cinema in undergrad that I now realize was probably biting pretty heavily from this and never once referenced it.

Movies

Venom

Movie itself is not as fun as the Tom Hardy hype coverage. PG13 was the absolute worst space to aim for, PG- or R- versions of this could have been a blast.

Harryhauser Argonauts

Was tripping when I put this on, and it was all kinds of fun.

2001: a Space Oddyssey

First time seeing this, all-time classic for a reason!

A Good American (the NSA doc)

Dr. Strangelove

Mel Brooks History of the World p. I

Not my favorite Brooks, best joke was at the beginning.

In Bruges

Had been a while since I saw a proper dark comedy.

Spiderverse

Fukkin awesome!

Visually great, and extremely better than usual superhero stuff for being aimed at PG instead of PG-13.

You Only Live Twice

Highlander (Revisited)

I watched The Old Guard on netflix recently and it mostly just made me wish I was watching Highlander instead, because at least Highlander knows exactly how goofy it is

Moonraker

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Much like The Shining, I though this would have been 100% spoiled for me by cultural osmosis, but turns out it wasn’t, and even the scenes I had seen *totally landed* in-context still.

Kung Fu Hustle

Ichi the Killer

Really gross, really fun

Matrix Reloaded (watched thru highway scene) (Revisited)

The highway scene was not nearly as cool as I remembered it being.

John Wick 3*

Probably dumbest plot of all of them, best choreography. I like how every single fight had its own distinct flavor. “Knife museum fight” “horse fight” “halle berry dogs fight” 

Akira

A classic

Pet Sematary * (ugh, bad)

Why can’t john lithgow be in good movies anymore

The Revenant

MCU Spiderman

Fuck this was awful.

MCU Spiderman 2*

Really weird, complete Rorschach Test of a movie: it’d be totally valid to read into this that global warming is Fake News, for instance.

Lmao this was completely awful

Rites

Dredd (non-stallone)

oh hey Lena Headey’s in this

For All Mankind!

Watched in honor of moon landing anniversary

Lion King *

Watched it way too stoned, was like dark side of the moon + wizard of oz except instead it’s a lion king script reading + nature footage edited for lip syncing.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood *

Many scenes of very long setups for really stupid shaggy dog jokes, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. I do kinda want to rewatch now knowing more about manson, which I knew pretty much nothing about beforehand

Blowout

A good john lithgow movie

also I think I like travolta in things.

Lord of War

A Good cage movie

I like when Eamon Walker shows up in stuff.

Taxi Driver

A classic

Snowpiercer

Watched in a bar with only one speaker working, which is the correct way to watch. Weirder and funnier than I thought it was going to be, which still doesn’t make it good, but,

dbz big green dub

Exorcist III

Brad Dourif just tearing it apart

Deep Red (argento)

Suspiria (1977)

Watched the remake in 2020, which was ok, but nothing tops the Goblin score.

Elf Bowling

Thanks, Gnome

Parasite *

Interesting to me that this one seems poised to hang around people’s good esteem for a while

TV

FMA: B

Rick & Morty

Saw some episodes, generally pretty funny, some misanthropy that’s probably appealing to a certain type of teen al a something like House, but ultimately I don’t totally Get the intensity of discourse about it.

Leterkenny

Mob Psycho 100

One Punch Man

Deadwood

Watchmen

Only watched like half of it. Was playing around with a lot of hefty imagery/thematics, but didn’t really seem ready to rise above playing (tho also I feel like it’s weird on some level to *expect* them to rise above that in the first place)

Music

New Avantasia

HEALTH/ show

lol remember concerts

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard/ show

Just learned about King Gizz in 2019 and got completely obsessed with them. I don’t tend to expand my music selection very readily, and a lot of what I currently *do* know is old/inactive stuff, so it was/is incredibly exciting to have an active group with good momentum just immediately win me over like that.

Mistimed the edibles and ended up with a really good finale and a really long subway ride home.

New Yeasayer

Sad they split up

Steve Wilson Tull remixes

Aqualung’s a good album and the sound mixing’s kinda bad, so I liked this project.

Stonefield

Opened for Gizzard. Really good as studying music

Video Games

Civ VI: Gathering Storm

Hades

Turns out Supergiant’s design proclivities all work *extremely well* on a roguelike

Baba is You

Untitled Goose Game

Cute, if maybe a bit overhyped

finally fucking finished Pillars of Eternity

Had fun with it, but too long, and really dour for how long it is.

Pillars II

Kinda drifted off it eventually, but I do genuinely like that the flavor of the fantasy is colonial era rather than medieval.

There’s a Balancing Bastard Factions element where it’s like the writers are just being smartasses after a while. Having to go extremely out of their way to make siding with colonizers seem like a competitive option.

Pokemon shield

Cuphead

pisses me off, which was a nice outlet when I was stranded by flight cancellations during thanksgiving

Celeste

Also very difficult, but really easy to stay patient with, which is nice.

Disco Elysium

None of the discourse made me want to play this, but people talking about the mechanical stuff it did got me extremely interested. Mostly Delivered IMO.

Breath of the Wild

You can approach the nodes of the main quest in the order you choose, and the second one I chose made ninjas start fucking spawning everywhere when I’m just trying to explore, and there’s no way to make it stop. May go back to it one day.

Podcasts

Relentless Picnic Patreon feed

The treats really helped me start distinguishing individual personalities, compared to the regular eps.

Picnic Discord!

<3

FatT Counterweight

Fun, but also I think Mechs are not my shit.

FatT Spring in Hieron/ end of that particular world

8 months since I’ve last tuned into FatT. ah well.

Law School

He’s in everythiiiing!

You Must Remember This: Manson family

*There’s* the context

Misc.

Kindle train guy

Times Square sleeping guy + kids taking selfies w/ him

toddler singing along after Psycho killer (a, ya, ya ya, ya)

drunk and dragged to a drag show

Central park football family

Soft Steel Drum Subway Busker

Weird old lady going to grand central for oysters

2018 in review (cards):

MySelf (CC)

Self: Tower

Blocked: 10 Cups

Ethereal/subconscious: 8 Swords

Material: 3 Swords

Past: Justice

Future: Page Wands

Attitude: Sun

External: King Swords

Hopes/Fears: 5 Coins

Trajectory: High Priestess

Also Self:

Hierophant

7 Cups

7 Coins

Blind Spot:

(self & others): 5 cups    ||    (others not self): High Priestess

(self not others): Moon   ||    (nobody): 3 Cups

[chicagoindiecritics]

New Written Review from Mike Crowley on You’ll Probably Agree: 10 Reasons Why ‘Blade Runner 2049’ is better than ‘Blade Runner’

If you haven’t’ seen the movie, see it then read this. No intro, let’s jump right in.

1. K is a replicant

The reveal of K’s genetic code, or lack thereof, flips everything we assume the movie will be on its head. We are learning along with K what it means to exist. Do we as humans, live like replicants? Do we obey a society that treats us like trash but breath anyways out of the fear of death? Where we viewed “Blade Runner” mostly through Deckard’s eyes who didn’t have much of a personality, K’s lack of a character is his entire purpose for existing. For K to emote is to face death.

Where Harrison Ford’s Deckard entire arc was us questioning if he’s human or not (despite what Ridley Scott unequivocally says), there’s nothing much of substance to Officer Deckard. He gets drunk, retires replicants, that’s it. Name one thing that makes Deckard standout? I’ll wait. Ryan Gosling’s Officer K goes from a machine that is dying spiritually on the inside to someone wanting to have a purpose in life. All while maintaining his composure, if perhaps too much poise for the film. Anything with a conscious can feel. Whether or not how it was made is as relevant as where you were born or what skin color you are. The importance is that you’re here.

K doesn’t seek gratitude nor affirmation. He doesn’t suffer from a narcissistic personality. All he wants is not just to be another useless piece of metal.

2. Deckard has depth this time

Being a daddy changes you a lot. Rick isn’t just a slouchy drunk who likes to shoot robots out of legal obligation. He’s a man who’s principles and love for forbidden things cost him his life. What kind of soul did Deckard have in the first film? Who did he care for? Please don’t say, Rachel, we all know why he was attracted to Rachel. Like Winston in 1984, Deckard rejects Big Brother for a life of pain to gain a glimmer of happiness. 

3. It’s horrifyingly relevant

Denis Villeneuve based the imagery in 2049 on a planet that has become degraded with pollution. The buildings are extrapolating enormous amounts of water into the atmosphere, the sea wall at the end of the picture will be our new Mount Rushmore, the orange Vegas is happening now. Denis Villeneuve didn’t predict the earth looking like this, but his production team was still spot on. A picture that transcends its very style, developing a look that will be discussed on its merits separate from the ubiquitous original, is a stunning achievement.

Everything isn’t dystopian because that’s the way it was in the book. It’s what will happen to us in real life, why we’d look for colonies to live on if we had the technology or funding towards NASA to do so. God help us all.

4. The love story questions the essence of relationships

The story between K and Joi further examines the meaning of love, sex, and mortality, with the two being different versions of artificiality. When the default sexed-up version of a naked Joy pops up on the screen, we are emotionally mortified. Some of us may be repulsed to observe a character we care for utilized like a thirsty Godzilla.

The towering ad tries to seduce K tempting him to buy it, rendering everything Joi said to K throughout the picture questionable. Its manipulation solidifies his final decision in life to help another man. We’re not sure if she loved him or said what it thought it wanted him to hear throughout the narrative. Possibly Joi herself didn’t know her intentions. An unusual amount of nuance and uncertainty rests in the love story. Who do we love? Why do we love? Do we love by the heart or the heart of our designers whom we don’t know?

Meanwhile, Deckard was just drunk and horny when he bashed Rachel up against the wall. Sorry, that really was all there was to their passion despite what Wallace says.

5. The movie was an honest commentary about how the world views woman

Here’s a controversial one. A lot of women were disgusted by the way they were depicted in the film. Outwardly watching the movie, I can’t blame them. I’ll let Mr. Villeneuve speak for himself. “I am very sensitive to how I portray women in movies. This is my ninth feature film and six of them have women in the lead role. The first Blade Runner was quite rough on the women, something about the film noir aesthetic. But I tried to bring depth to all the characters. For Joi, the holographic character, you see how she evolves. It’s interesting, I think. What is cinema? Cinema is a mirror on society. Blade Runner is not about tomorrow; it’s about today. And I’m sorry, but the world is not kind on women.”

Villeneuve is right. Women today are still sexualized. Even with the Me Too movement, women are continually seen as sex objects or subservient slaves in a male-dominated society. Villeneuve isn’t interested in painting a rosy picture that Hollywood does for female roles to make the audiences feel comfortable. It’s an honest reflection on who we are. What we see is what we don’t want to see, but that’s part of the honesty of cinema.

6. The score is mesmerizing

Another point in which I may face some contention. Yes, Vangelis’ score is iconic, but it only works for the era it was composed in. Much of its mixture of bleeps, blops, and wind chimes are a product of its time. A lot of emotion is missing from the score other than the opening theme and “Tears In Rain.” Hearing much of the soundtrack while on the road, I sometimes thought I was listening to something from a porno. Take a listen to “Wait For Me” in the soundtrack and tell me otherwise. Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Walfisch’s score is timeless while also paying respect to Vangelis’ synthetic use in the original. It dives into the character’s mind providing a replication of something more human than what Vangelis composed.

7. It thematically ties more directly to “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” than “Blade Runner” does.

“Blade Runner” got the overall gist of Phillip K Dick’s novel. Replicants are scared, trying to find a way to survive as Deckard hunts them down. However, the Andies in the movie almost deserve to die. In their quest for more life, they torture and kill multiple civilians. What did the guy making the eyes do to deserve being frozen to death? What about J.R. Sebastian? He was nothing but pleasant to Roy and Pris. Did Roy eye gauge him when he was done with Tyrell?

Aside from Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), our replicants are fully rounded people. Sapper Morton is a watchful protector who was meant to be a NEXUS 8 combat medic; Joi’s true intentions come into question for herself and us. K’s inner conflict is the central core of the story. All of this revolves around the meaning of existence within a world that has forgotten about you. The introduction of Robo procreation is an evolution of Dick’s ideas, widening his notion of why life exists in the first place.

8. It doesn’t get lost in the scale

Many sequels love scope over characters. Remember “The Matrix”? Remember how they talked about Zion and all these other things we didn’t see? When the sequels brought in Zion, the focus got lost in the spectacle. “The Matrix Reloaded” was a bumbling CGI mess of Agent Smith Clones and cave orgies. “The Matrix Revolutions” was a glorified “Space Invaders” game. Shoot as many sentinels as you can before becoming overwhelmed. Amidst the sequels bumbling chaos, I missed the smaller scale of the Nebuchadnezzar crew.

The story of “2049” could have focused on the replicant uprising with thousands of robots slamming into humans. We could have gone off-world to finally see what all these other colonies we’ve heard about are like. Some have argued that the movie could have borrowed some of its source material from the later novels about replicants creating humans, so on and so forth. All of that sounds incredible in theory. In execution, you would likely get “The Matrix” sequels.

A movie that overreaches in scope, attempting to please fans by showing everything. What we got was an incredibly meaningful story that further explores the themes of the original while building upon its world without going too far. We see what’s beyond L.A. on the dilapidated west coast. The answer is not much. The film aims at minimalism over extravaganza.

9. We’re still talking about it

After being MIA for decades, “Blade Runner 2049” isn’t forgotten. I can’t say the same for “Superman Returns,” “Monsters University,” “The Incredibles 2,” “Live Free or Die Hard,” and “Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull.” In fairness, people do talk about Indy 4, but not in a positive fashion. “Blade Runner 2049” returned to the limelight with disastrous box office results yet high accolades, even gaining the Academy’s attention. Ironically it seemed destined to live the life of its predecessor.

“2049” may have tanked because it was a multimillion-dollar art film that respected its audience’s intelligence. Maybe “Blade Runner” was too far gone amongst the public to gain an interest geared almost entirely towards comic books and Disney. I think the trailers after the reveal teaser looked too generic for my own two cents, turning me off from the film for a short while.

Here we are with Honest Trailers in 2020, making a video about a film that came out in 2017. Bloodsoaked orange skies from the headlines mention the atmosphere of this film. Somewhere, about 100 other people are writing their analysis of “Blade Runner 2049” as I type right now. Seven years from now, we’ll be talking about why the world is still like “Blade Runner 2049.” Villeneuve made a timeless sequel to be remembered.

10. It’s better than the first film and one of the best films in the last ten years

Here’s why you’ll probably agree with this one when you put your pitchfork down. Remove your nostalgia goggles. I know it’s hard to do, please, trust me. Look at the points I made above. Think about how ironic the love story is to our lives. The layers of meaning behind K’s existence is lightyears beyond the featureless Rick Deckard. The picture isn’t flawless. Niander Wallace is spectacularly corny in his scenery-chewing grim monologues. Dr. Eldon Tyrell had some ambiguity regarding the morale of his intentions. For that, I’ll give the original the benefit of my doubt. I understand Ryan Gosling was cast to be intentionally deadpan, but it’s okay to emote once. His distant stare in all of his other performances made it difficult for me to discern myself from the actor’s rather dull persona.

With this said, “Blade Runner 2049” understands cinema. Its atmosphere is why we venture into a dark room that takes us to a different place. Denis Villeneuve’s masterful follow up is one of the most orgasmic cinematic experiences I have witnessed in the last ten years that demands a re-screening in 2022 when theatres reopen at an entirely safe capacity. The style doesn’t overshadow its substance, which is far richer in detail than the original without grasping at blatant metaphors. “Blade Runner 2049” is slow cinema at its finest, letting us into the character’s heads, knowing when to be quiet and when to be loud.

Like “The Empire Strikes Back,” not everyone appreciated the movie at first. Time has been incredibly kind to it, though. I wish the Academy recognized “Blade Runner 2049” beyond its technical marvels in 2018. I suppose it wasn’t the type of picture that catches Oscar voter’s eyes. But it has acquired the audience’s to this day. Now, if you could just look up and to the left for me?

from you’ll probably agree website https://ift.tt/3kxHs7O via IFTTT

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[monasticcellphone]

Lacan’s analysis would seem to confirm Marx’s well-known claim from vol. 3 of Capital that the limit of capitalism is capital itself (developments in productiveness lead to a fall in the rate of profit). The argument is fairly straightforward: what initially gets lost (surplus-jouissance) through the process of valorization, does not disappear, but returns in the shape of masses (millions) of excluded, ghostly subjects. To put it in psychoanalytic terms, the repressed substance returns with a vengeance as radically dislocated humanity, people who are symbolically dead.

F&V, “The Matrix Cannot Be Reloaded” States of Crisis and Post-Capitalist Scenarios 

symbolically hear with all its psychoanalytic connotations - with out language. Not represented. The subaltern which cannot speak. 

[lunias-takes-on-homestuck]

My Classpects Through the Years

I started getting into Homestuck in late 2012, about a year after [S] Cascade dropped, and like most of y’all I got pretty interested in the system of Classes and Aspects.

...Okay, I got obsessed with it. Who wouldn’t? A highly-flexible system of essentially taking an aspect of reality and interpreting it through the lens of a key verb or idea, creating unique and self-determined power sets limited only by your own imagination? That’s wild. And when I say I got into it, I mean I really got into it. I dove deep into Homestuck’s lore, reading up on popular and somewhat fringe theories about what each Aspect related to, how the Classes utilized them, what the potential Active/Passive pairings were, and how certain Aspects seemed to oppose each other. I even went so far as to contribute to a theory regarding the future of Tavros Nitram, which... didn’t exactly pan out as expected... but it was a ton of fun! And of course, while I was certainly interested in what this all meant for our cast of characters, I was also interested in how it could be interpreted and/or applied to real people.

People are, of course, far more complicated than a simple personality test could possibly explain, but I still got a lot of entertainment out of trying to pin down the classpects of characters or people I knew irl. Which naturally included me. Looking back on it, I think it’s very interesting to see the progression in ideas that led up to my more recent musings, so I figured it would be cool to dive into that and share my past and current classpects here!

Credits:

All images are pulled from the Homestuck Classpect Chart Updated posted by JosiahR94 on DeviantArt.

Artists: Zynchilada (compiled, partially drawn) and Owyn (updated at original resolution). Both blogs listed on the artwork have since been deactivated.

2012-2013 - Knight of Breath

This one is the byproduct of some test manipulation on my part - the fan test I was using was based on MBTI and Jungian archetypes, and honestly I’ve never found them to remain accurate for longer than a couple months at a time. I’ve wound my way around four different MBTI results over the years so I’m not inclined to use them as the basis for much, especially since the original test included fan-created classes and aspects that I really didn’t understand or jive with. But even once I narrowed it down to strictly canonical classes and aspects, I still wound up going with the 3rd-most accurate one. At the time I saw the Knight as the Active Exploiter class, the type to jump into action and wield their aspect as a weapon. I really related the idea of a detached loner who was fiercely protective of their friends, and John had shown off very, very recently (for me, anyway) just how powerful wind could be. The powers were sick, the outfit was neat, and it was absolutely wrong in nearly every way. Nearly. But we’ll get to that.

2013-2015 - Seer of Doom

You’re probably a little familiar with this one if you’ve been keeping up with Homestuck theorists lately, as there are two prolific content creators I know of who identify as Seers of Doom. For some time, I did too! The change was largely brought about because I thought my initial Knight of Breath result hadn’t been accurate enough, and also because I wanted to try my hand at classpecting myself without the aid of tests. At the time I was really feeling the Doom aspect and I saw myself as a guide (or maybe a teacher?) so it felt like it fit. There was just one sliiiight problem - I was entirely focused on how the Doom aspect related to the problems I was having in my life, rather than how I viewed the world around me and interacted with it. I still felt like I was sort of onto something with Doom, but it took some major life events to give me the nudge I needed to see things a little more clearly...

2015-2020 - Sylph of Life

For me, 2015 felt like the year I was finally coming out of my funk and figuring my shit out. It’s the year I started taking college courses (well, a college course), getting into meetups, making new friends, and reinventing myself. At some point I decided that the issue with my initial Doom analysis was that I was overly focused on the challenges I had instead of how I actually dealt with them, and my new aggressively-optimistic outlook would simply not mesh with Doom. Not one bit. I also felt that my class didn’t quite fit, and Sylph was sitting right there with their magick-y healing and creation powerset -- the ultimate support, and the type of person who makes their own way through life by simply refusing to accept they could be stopped or put down by anything. By the time the Extended Zodiac Quiz came out in 2017 and confirmed I was Lifebound, I had already proven to be on top of my game in college in a creative field. I joined our LGBT+ club and started somewhat aggressively railing against overly-restrictive labels and social constructs in Contemporary English to the point that I was exceeding the page limit on our essay assignments on a regular basis and still felt I wasn’t saying everything I wanted to say. Sylph of Life just clicked for me in a way the Knight of Breath and Seer of Doom never had, so I figured I’d nailed it.

Then, earlier this year, I found out I was actually a girl.

2020-Present - Knight of Life... or maybe Heart???

Imagine for a minute that you’re at a theater watching some movie through the perspective of the protagonist. You think you’ve got the plot all figured out, you’re guessing every story beat, and then in the last 5 minutes the big twist reveals the protagonist has unwittingly been an unreliable narrator for the last two hours. Literally everything you thought you understood has been flipped on its head, and it’s still good but it’s all very confusing. You leave the theater wondering what you just watched, and as you turn on your car you suddenly realize there were subtle hints foreshadowing the twist for over half the film. With every passing second the pieces start coming together, and you just know that watching it again would leave you going “How the hell did I miss that?!”

That’s about the best way I can explain what I’ve been experiencing for the past four-ish months. All the puzzle pieces I had put together were thrown totally out of whack and I’m finding every day that there are aspects of myself and my personality that I never knew where there. Discovering myself is hard work, but it’s a wonderful feeling, and it’s no wonder that on the heels of this I’m seriously vibing with the aspect relating to Personal Identity. That said, I still find myself parsing labels and identity through the lens of Life - words which are too restrictive to properly convey who I am, and an experience that can’t be explained or constrained by the stereotypical narrative people tend to have about people who are bisexual, polyamorous, transgender, and at once more complicated than those words can really describe. When I take the Extended Zodiac Quiz I find that I’m still Lifebound, but changing even a single question by a single step leaves me Heartbound instead, and I think that dichotomy really mirrors where I feel I’m at as a person.

Class-wise, I feel drawn to both Sylph and Knight to a degree, but in the years since I first chose the Knight of Breath classpect I have come to understand the class as a Passive Server - one who gives for the benefit of others - and that speaks to me. The wonderful Mythological Class Quiz by @homestuckexamination has only confirmed my suspicions about that. I have yet to decide between Knight of Life and Knight of Heart, but they’re both very interesting classpects imo, and either way I’m sure I’ll be spending far too much of my free time developing powers and things for them :P

Takeaway

Whew, that’s a lot of words! But what exactly does it all mean? Well... if you ask me, Classpecting is sort of a process. I’m sure that, years down the line, I’ll probably say I had it all wrong and I’m actually some other combination of class and aspect, and I’ll reminisce about the days when I was so obviously misreading myself. But that’s kind of the fun of it, isn’t it? It’s just another form of personality quiz, albeit one where you get sick powers and a nifty set of pajamas at the end. And for all the good that introspection can do to help you understand yourself a little better, you better believe I’m going to be spending the next hour or two debating whether passing out heals and buffs while tanking everything would be more cool than body-surfing and turning enemies into clones à la Agent Smith in The Matrix: Reloaded.

[kaos-sverige]

On Finally Understanding The Matrix Sequels

Published on Sep 29, 2018

The first 500 people to click this link get 2 months of Skillshare for free: http://skl.sh/justwrite5 Support the channel here: https://www.patreon.com/justwrite For fifteen years, I’ve assumed that the Matrix Sequels were irredeemable failures. But looking back on them with fresh eyes reveals a pair of films that are exhilarating, interesting, and sometimes hilarious. In this video I try to make sense of these two movies, and what they have to say about free will and the systems that control society. Join the community! Website ▶ https://www.justwritemedia.com Twitter ▶ https://www.twitter.com/SageHyden Facebook ▶ http://ow.ly/6u9Z30iyp8J Works Cited: DRAGUNOIU, DANA. “Neo's Kantian Choice: ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ and the Limits of the Posthuman.” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, vol. 40, no. 4, 2007, pp. 51–67. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44030393. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44030393... For more on Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative read: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. More Matrix analysis: Chelsea L. Shephard. “Call Trans Opt: Transgender Themes in The Matrix.” http://ontologicalgeek.com/call-trans... Moviebob’s “Really That Good: THE MATRIX.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGopT... Wisecrack’s Matrix videos: The Matrix Reloaded: What Went Wrong? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TROA_... The Matrix Reloaded: What were they thinking? – Show Me The Meaning! LIVEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsBtJ... The Matrix Revolutions: What Went Wrong?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27rhH... The Matrix Revolutions: Profound or Poorly Thought Out? – Show Me The Meaning! LIVEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPUI5... Freewill, Fate, Causality in The Matrix Reloaded: http://montalk.net/metaphys/70/freewi... Music by Epidemic Sound: http://epidemicsound.com

[rhamex20]

Assasins 's Creed Odyssey Comparison and Analysis

https://g.co/kgs/KB9Ug4

I'm a fan of the franchise. I started with the first game of them all and the concept have evolved a lot since then.

Many people have the opinion that it had drifted far from the original concept, after #Origins and now #Valhalla. Even when the latter isn't out yet (July '20). The trailer and the interviews hace shown that's its more directed to war and open conflict with very small stealth opportunities.

I haven't played #BlackFlag. because I didn't like the idea of the naval battles that much, however they were included in Origins, Odyssey and now Valhalla. In Origins that's small, but in Odyssey it's a big part and while you can avoid it, it's necessary at the beginning and at some game missions. Let's wait to see how big part of Valhalla it's going to be.

Going against the hard core fans I have enjoyed the most Odyssey and then Origins. You would believe that after all the games created the staff should have a better guide in how to make the games better, but in some cases they go backwards. By example, in Origins your're able to travel through the realms and choose where do you want to appear; in Odyssey this can't be done, you are transferred to a central point in each realm.

What else have changed? Now it's more difficult to kill the low level NPC's. At the beginning of the series, you had access to daggers or ballestas and usually a head shot was enough to kill them, But now they need to be shot several times unless you have a lot of damage and critical.

Another dumb thing is that you can be killed by a hen or a rooster, I get it by large game, but chicken??

In Oddysey, you're allowed to kill anyone including civilians and because you're a mercenary you can have contracts to remove someone. But if somebody see you even if it's a bounty, you get yourself some points to be included in a bounty too. This is when it gets crazy, your gauge allows a maximum of 5 bounty hunters in your back. And as soon as one can hunt you, they just appear as if they're notified by cell phone. It's kind of the matrix effect, you do something wrong and they just appear. In top of this, as the chicken the civilians can attack and even kill you. For that, you should not fight in populated areas.

Now, with the gigantic open maps, you would believe that the areas are more spaced, but not. There are areas completely empty, only game, while others are saturated, you can found one group, Athenians, in a camp and some steps next the enemy, Spartans or bandits. How they don't kill each other?

Other hateful thing is the loading time and the score (music), it last a long time, at least 1 min but it can be more, to reload or to refresh. And because the music doesn't help, it's like you start falling asleep. Previous versions allowed you to move the character around in an empty virtual environment which helped starting awake. So let's cross fingers the next one is better about this.

Ohh a cool thing is that there's a max lvl, 99, but then you can receive extra ability points and increase your stats by getting master levels. Those don't stop at 99 but continue even after that with a max XP requirement of 2,491,000 points.

And I think this will be the last point, quests, I love them, the main ones and the secondary. For the main ones, it's understandable that you have to go back with the result to the originator, but not with the secondary ones!! There's a lot of wasted time because of the traveling to and then coming back. Also, there are some generic ones that ask you to kill some sharks, or sink some ships, but instead of sending you to a specific zone they can be done anywhere in the map, not whining about that but the actual dialogue for the quest make you think they should need that quest done in some specific area.

Coming back to the game mechanics, you would use face to face combat here more than stealth, later in the game you could use ranged attacks effectively with your bow.

Alexios or Kassandra can be chosen, everything happens the same except for an armor that's specific for Kassandra.

In addition to the original map, there are three additional realms, Elysium, Underworld and Atlantis, and two extra quest lines that can be obtained through DLC.

The only thing that wasn't closed was the side story of the contemporary assassins, the main character is left stranded in Atlantis waiting for transport after killing without remorse one of her allies because she's corrupted by the power of the staff. Hopefully it would continue graciously in Valhalla.

#asssasin's creed #odyssey

[musicmanstuff]

💖

“‘Give Me Bread and Roses’: Ethical Solutions to the Starvation of Oscar Between Breakfast at 8 a.m. and Dry Snacks at 10 a.m.”

“‘Ghost in the Machine’: Learning Curves Regarding What a Laptop Is and Why It’s So Important to Him That Oscar Not Touch It”

“‘Fear Thy Neighbor’: What Is the Deal with the Dog Downstairs and Do We Think It Can Get Up Here if It Wanted to or What?”

“‘. . . the Abyss Gazes Back’: Doomed Investigations Into What It’s Like Under His Bed, 2019 to Present”

“‘Take the Pink Pill’: Linear Associations Between When He Forgets to Take His Meds and How Many Times He Watches ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ That Day”

“‘Still Waters Run Deep’: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Having Three Water Dishes for Oscar Instead of Two”

“‘Did I Just Fucking Hear Fucking Car Tires on Wet Pavement Outside or Did I Not?’: Post-Traumatic Stress Within the Ex-Street-Cat Population”

“‘Sunrise, Sunset’: Inverse Proportionality and Oscar’s Warm Nap Spot on the Floor Throughout the Day”

“‘Is the Printer Pooping? Does the Printer Poop? Is That All It Does?’: A Three-Part Study”

“‘Chasing the Unchaseable’: Interrogating His Misuse of the Laser Pointer When Drunk”

“‘Crisis of Conscience, Conscience of Crisis’: Colonial Expansion of Nascent Midwestern States in Consideration of Global Trends Regarding Westward Movement, the Writings of Thomas Jefferson, and Eventual Representation in Mainstream Media, 1698 to 1776” (Oscar is a clever boy.)

Dissertations Written by My Cat Oscar By Graham TechlerSeptember 28, 2019 https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/dissertations-written-by-my-cat-oscar  https://www.barrietoday.com/local-news/therapy-cat-oscar-will-live-out-his-golden-years-at-roberta-place-1538923  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_(therapy_cat) 

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/technology/entertainment/whats-new-on-netflix-hulu-and-amazon-for-february/

What's new on Netflix, Hulu and Amazon for February

Streaming platforms have hundreds of exciting films and television programs arriving today!

Interested in Netflix?

Add Netflix as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Netflix news, video, and analysis from ABC News.

From classics like “The Matrix” and “Caddyshack” to new seasons of “The Voice” and “Real Housewives of New York City,” there’s something for everyone.

If you’re looking for a new show to marathon or a film to check out on movie night, refer to these options from Netflix, Hulu and Amazon.

Here’s the full list:

NETFLIX

Feb. 1

About a Boy

American Pie

American Pie 2

American Wedding

As Good as It Gets

Billy Elliot

Dear Ex

Final Destination

Hairspray

Hostel

Jaws

Jaws 2

Jaws 3

Jaws: The Revenge

Personal Shopper

Pretty in Pink

The Edge of Seventeen

Velvet Buzzsaw

Free Rein: Valentine’s Day

Russian Doll

Siempre bruja

True: Happy Hearts Day

Feb. 2

Bordertown: Season 2

Romance is a Bonus Book

Feb. 3

Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua

Feb. 5

Ray Romano: Right Here, Around the Corner

Feb. 6

Feb. 8

El árbol de la sangre

High Flying Bird

Kevin Hart’s Guide to Black History

Nailed It! México

One Day at a Time: Season 3

ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke

The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants: Season 2

Unauthorized Living

Feb. 9

Feb. 10

Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj: Volume 2

Feb. 11

Little Women

Flavorful Origins: Chaoshan Cuisine

Feb. 14

Dating Around

Ken Jeong: You Complete Me, Ho

Feb. 15

The Breaker Upperers

Yucatan

Larry Charles’ Dangerous World of Comedy

The Dragon Prince: Season 2

The Umbrella Academy

Feb. 16

Black Sea

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Studio 54

Feb. 21

Feb. 22

Paddleton

Paris Is Us (Paris est à nous)

Firebrand

The Photographer of Mauthausen

Chef’s Table: Volume 6

GO! Vive a tu manera

Rebellion: Season 2

Suburra: Season 2

The Big Family Cooking Showdown: Season 2

Workin’ Moms

Feb. 25

Feb. 26

Feb. 27

Feb. 28

The Rebound

Jeopardy!: Collection 2

AMAZON

Feb. 1

Agatha Christie Presents: ABC Murders (Prime Original series), Season 1

In Plain Sight, Season 1-5

Just Add Magic (Prime Original series), Season 3

23 1/2 Hours Leave (1937)

A Romance of Happy Valley (1919)

A Strange Adventure (1932)

Along Came Polly (2004)

Barefoot (2014)

Bounty (2009)

Brand of the Devil (1944)

Broadway Danny Rose (1984)

Chaos (2009)

Delta Farce (2007)

Flesh+Blood (1985)

Foolish (1999)

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

Gambler’s Choice (1944)

Generation Wealth (Prime Original movie) (2018)

Gorilla Ship (1932)

Guru, the Mad Monk (1970)

Hay Foot (1942)

Headline Crasher (1937)

High Lonesome (1950)

High School Girl (1934)

Hollywood Without Make-Up (1963)

Hunters of the Deep (1954)

Irish Luck (1939)

Jacaré (1942)

Joan the Woman (1916)

Lady from Chungking (1942)

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

Little Miss Hoover (1918)

Loaded Pistols (1948)

Lost Canyon (1942)

Lucky Ghost (1942)

Lucky Terror (1936)

Lying Lips (1939)

Marathon Man (1976)

Marie Galante (1934)

Men of the Plains (1936)

My Lady of Whims (1925)

Neath Canadian Skies (1946)

Neath the Arizona Skies (1934)

Next Day Air (2009)

No Substitute for Victory (1970)

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

Oriental Evil (1951)

Orphans of the Storm (1921)

Outlaw Express (1938)

Outlaws of the Desert (1941)

Paradise Express (1937)

Partners of the Plains (1938)

Pirates on Horseback (1941)

Private Snuffy Smith (1942)

Queen of the Jungle (1935)

Racing Blood (1936)

Raiders of the Border (1944)

Rawhide (1938)

Reckless Decision (1933)

Rogue of the Range (1936)

A Romance of the Redwood (1917)

Round-Up Time in Texas (1937)

Rubber Tires (1927)

Secret of the Wastelands (1941)

Secrets of Three Hungry Wives (1978)

Sepia Cinderella (1947)

Sisters of Death (1976)

Sparrows (1926)

Spirit of Youth (1938)

Star Kid (1997)

Stella Maris (1918)

Swamp Fire (1946)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Texas Jack (1935)

Texas to Bataan (1942)

That Gang of Mine (1940)

The Blues Brothers (1980)

The Border Legion (1940)

The Ghost Walks (1934)

The Hoosier Schoolmaster (1935)

The James Dean Story (1957)

The Jesus Trip (1971)

The Kid (1921)

The Kid Ranger (1936)

The Last of the Clintons (1935)

The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

The Love of Sunya (1927)

The Married Virgin (1918)

The Matrix (1999)

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

The Money (1976)

The Phantom Broadcast (1933)

The Portrait of a Lady (1996)

The Proud and Damned (1972)

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

The Quiet Ones (2014)

The Shadow Strikes (1937)

The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)

The Violent Years (1956)

Thelma & Louise (1991)

Three Husbands (1950)

Three Men from Texas (1940)

Tombstone Canyon (1932)

Tomorrow at Seven (1933)

Tracy the Outlaw (1928)

Unforgettable (2017)

Universal Soldier (1992)

Untamed Heart (1993)

Vigilantes of Boomtown (1947)

Wacky Taxi (1972)

Wagon Trail (1935)

Wagon Wheels (1934)

Water Rustlers (1939)

Wayne’s World (1992)

Wayne’s World 2 (1993)

West of the Law (1942)

Whistling Bullets (1937)

White Pongo (1945)

Wild Country (2005)

Wildfire (1988)

Winning of the West (1953)

Ye Shanghai (1941)

Yodelin’ Kid from Pine Ridge (1937)

Young Dynamite (1937)

Feb. 5

Feb. 6

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

The Expanse, Season 3

White Dragon (Prime Original series), Season 1

Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (Prime Original movie) (2018)

The Promise (2017)

Feb. 15

Lorena (Prime Original series), Season 1

Feb. 16

Feb. 17

Feb. 21

Odd Squad: Odds and Ends (2018)

Feb. 22

This Giant Beast That Is The Global Economy (Prime Original series), Season 1

Feb. 23

Feb. 25

Feb. 28

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013)

HULU

Feb. 1

A View to Kill

Bad Santa

Barefoot

Born on the Fourth of July

Broadway Danny Rose

Caddyshack

Caddyshack II

Capote

Chaos

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Chasing Liberty

Dazed and Confused

Deep Blue Sea

Delta Farce

Dr. No

Equilibrium

Escape from Alcatraz

Field of Dreams

Flesh + Blood

Foolish

For Your Eyes Only

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Freedomland

From Russia with Love

Goldeneye

Hairspray

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

How to Deal

Kingpin

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Lars and the Real Girl

Licence to Kill

Marathon Man

Metro

Mississippi Burning

Moonraker

Moonstruck

Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat Annihilation

Mystic Pizza

Next Day Air

Old Fashioned

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Space Jam

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

The Animal

The Big Lebowski

The Bounty

The Bourne Ultimatum

The Madness of King George

The Purple Rose of Cairo

The Quiet Ones

The Royal Tenenbaums

The Secret Garden

The Thomas Crown Affair

The Thomas Crown Affair

The Toybox

Thelma & Louise

Three Kings

Thunderball

Tomcats

Tomorrow Never Dies

Unforgettable

Universal Soldier

Untamed Heart

Wayne’s World

Wayne’s World 2

Wedding Crashers

Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000

While You Were Sleeping

Into The Dark: Down: Episode 5 Premiere

Record of Grancrest War: Season 1

The Portrait of a Lady

Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatre

Feb. 2

Cabin Fever

Pick of the Litter

Feb. 3

Feb. 4

Dog Days

Experimenter

Real Housewives of New York City: Season 10

Saints & Sinners: Seasons 1-3

Feb. 8

Feb. 9

Feb. 10

Feb. 14

False Flag: Season 2

Zac & Mia: Season 2

Feb. 15

Next

Bondi Harvest: Season 1

Jamie’s Quick and Easy: Seasons 1-2

Feb. 16

A Perfect Day

Proven Innocent: Series Premiere

Feb. 17

Feb. 18

The Party

The Sisters Brothers

Elvis All-Star Tribute: Special

Feb. 20

Stan Against Evil: Season 3

Feb. 23

Feb. 25

Every Day

The School

Archer: Danger Island: Season 9

Feb. 26

Three Identical Strangers 

The Enemy Within: Series Premiere

The Voice: Season 16 Premiere

Feb. 27

Tickled

World of Dance: Season 3 Premiere

Feb. 28

Digging for Fire

The Guilty

Whiskey Cavalier: Season 1 Mid-Season Premiere

[terabitweb]

Original Post from Trend Micro Author: Trend Micro

By David Fiser

Jenkins is a popular open-source automation server for software development teams. Used for managing the development side in DevOps, the main purpose of Jenkins is to perform tasks, called jobs, such that software project builds are automatically developed in the CI/CD process.

Jenkins has a distributed architecture: A master machine manages a group of agents (aka slaves), which are Java executables running on remote machines and that execute build jobs. Jenkins is also based on a modular architecture, and most of its features are implemented inside plugins that extend its core functionality, for example, post-build tasks.

The convenience offered by Jenkins also covers security aspects through its matrix-based model, not to mention how it’s easier to just pull an official Jenkins image from Docker Hub. However, working under default settings and enabling Jenkins’ matrix-based security might lead developers to assume that it’s already a secure setup. Unfortunately, we discovered that this can lead to potential security problems.

In our analysis, we observed that a user account with less privilege can gain administrator rights over the automation server if jobs are built on the master machine (i.e., the main Jenkins server), a setup enabled by default. An exploit for this can be easily written using shell spawn — a default build step. If an exploit is successfully deployed, an attacker can perform remote code execution (RCE) on the master, which can result to Jenkins being completely overwritten.

An unsecure or lax configuration of these settings makes servers susceptible to attacks that abuse the said design feature, and we have already disclosed our findings to the Jenkins project. They responded that what we reported is not a security vulnerability, referencing their user handbook and wiki.

A look into Jenkins’ default security settings

According to Jenkins’ security page, many security options in version 2.0 were enabled by default to ensure that Jenkins environments remain secure, unless certain protections are explicitly disabled by the administrator.

Security can be configured using the Configure Global Security page. By default, Security Realm (authentication) protects Jenkins’ own user database. It’s worth noting that the Master stores the user database and under that setting, logged-in users have access to everything.

Figure 1. Jenkins’ matrix-based security model

Under Authorization, options such as matrix-based security and project-based matrix authorization strategy can be enabled to allow the administrator to limit access to certain Jenkins features.

Executing shell spawn on the master

A loosely configured setting is at risk of being taken advantage of by a malicious actor. Before illustrating how that can happen, first, let’s look into the steps that take place in performing a job. The following is basically an analogy of the CI/CD pipeline:

Triggering the build

Source Code Management (SCM) – polling the source code

Setting the build environment

Performing build steps (configuring compiler, etc.)

Post-build actions (running tests, deployment, etc.)

The scripting capabilities of build steps can be extended with plugins installed within Jenkins. One of the default features within build steps, called Execute shell, is what we will focus on.

As opposed to implementing every single possible feature of the build script within the web application, scripting a build process – a common practice –  can be done to speed up the process. However, executing shell spawn inside the web application poses security risks, especially if user permissions aren’t properly assigned.

Allowing Jenkins users to have unnecessary permissions is concerning as it can potentially lead to security being compromised. For instance, a plugin called Script Security helps address that risk since it can limit the execution of untrusted Groovy scripts using a whitelist-based sandbox. Groovy script can only be executed with admin approval or if it’s inside a sandbox. The purpose of using a sandbox is to avoid situations where the user is able to interfere with the Jenkins instance and call internal functions, e.g., Jenkins.getInstance().

In contrast, the Execute shell feature is not restricted and doesn’t need to be approved by the admin, allowing users with less privilege to spawn a shell and execute their scripts. This poses security risks if jobs are executed on the master, which, as mentioned, is set by default. The master stores Jenkins configurations, application binaries, job definitions, and user database. Since jobs are executed under the same user as the Jenkins application and the job working directory is inside JENKINS_HOME, configuration file access using a relative file path will be permitted, allowing Jenkins files to be read, written, and executed.

Possible attack scenarios

To illustrate how relying on Jenkins’ default settings can pose security risks, let’s look at the following scenario. Jenkins is installed under a setting that has suggested plugins, Matrix-based security model, and no configuration for the agent. In this setup, a user with less privilege is logged in with the following permissions:

Figure 2. User permissions that can allow exploit code execution on the master

With the above user permissions, an attacker can create and/or modify a malicious job by spawning a shell script. In this setup, the availability of tools the attacker can use is limited to the platform. If Jenkins is running on the Linux platform, e.g., an official Jenkins Docker container, where the environment includes binaries like echo, sed, Python, and wget, among others, an attacker can have a variety of options to conduct RCE. The following actions can be carried out:

The attacker can achieve full control of Jenkins.

The attacker can leak user password hashes, Jenkins configuration files, job configuration files, secrets or badly stored credentials.

The attacker can change user passwords.

The attacker can kill the Jenkins instance.

The attacker can replace Jenkins binaries with his/her own.

Proof of Concept (PoC)

An attacker could use sed and execute the following shell command:

sed -i ‘s#true#false#g’ ../../config.xml3.

Figure 3. Exploiting shell access on the master

This will unmark the Enable security checkbox in the Configure Global Security page, providing all users admin access once Jenkins reloads its configuration files from the disk.

Figure 4. Upon the execution of the exploit code, Jenkins’ security will be disabled

Security recommendations and mitigation steps

Admins are fully responsible for the security and proper configuration of Jenkins. Generally, the principle of least privilege should be implemented; limiting access to the bare minimum permissions needed by users to perform tasks can reduce the risk of account abuse or hijacking. If services and software are not utilized by users, limiting, replacing, or even completely disabling them should be considered.

The risks involved in relying on default security settings are not limited to the abuse of shell but also include the execution of malicious code on the master. So we recommend, more specifically, the execution of jobs on the master node to be disabled. In comparison, using shell spawn to maliciously manipulate configurations on slave environments, e.g., containers, will not transpire since they are isolated from the master. The Jenkins project, for their part, has already issued a warning and a recommendation related to this authorization issue. To limit job execution permissions on the master, they advised admins to use the Authorize Project plugin.

To further prevent potential abuse, shell, among other plugins, should be disabled if it is not necessary for a user. The shell execution can be limited by setting Shell executable to /bin/false at the Configure System page. This way, the /bin/false binary will be executed, but an argument passed to the shell script will make the app exit and discard any input.

Figure 5. How to disable Shell executable

Organizations can take advantage of Trend Micro DevOps security solutions, which help in baking security into development processes via APIs to improve development cycles and reduce human touch points and errors. Such security solutions can also reduce disruption of development schedules and workflows with protection for images, containers, and hosts by quickly closing the security feedback loop.

The post Jenkins Admins: Relying on Default Settings Could Put Master at Risk of Remote Code Execution Attacks appeared first on .

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Go to Source Author: Trend Micro Jenkins Admins: Relying on Default Settings Could Put Master at Risk of Remote Code Execution Attacks Original Post from Trend Micro Author: Trend Micro By David Fiser Jenkins is a popular open-source automation server for software development teams.

[pcloudy-ssts]

Mobile Responsive Testing and Debugging on Real Devices

Introduction – Mobile Responsive Test

Mobile Responsive Test across range of Mobile Devices and platforms is extremely important for superior User Experience. However, Mobile Responsive Test and debugging can get knotty, especially when there are issues like obfuscated HTML/CSS/javascript code, improperly implemented HTTPS, browser inconsistencies, page load performance and so on. So how do you overcome these issues? Using a Web Developer Tools or debugging extensions make debugging your web application easier. Here we’ll talk about the most popular one – Google Chrome Developer ToolsGoogle Chrome Developer Tools.

The Google Chrome Developer Tools is a consolidated environment built into Google Chrome Browser. It is used for web authoring, debugging, monitoring, optimizing, and understanding web applications or websites. (Sourced from Google Chrome DevTools)

A responsive testing simulator provides a virtual environment where you can test the functionalities just like in a real device. You can also test websites on mobile devices online and test websites on different screen sizes. It is easy to perform responsive design testing across devices on a simulator.

Here are some of the key Chrome DevTools features

Inspect and edit the DOM and CSS of your website in real-time

Run code snippets from any page

Debug Obfuscated code

Set advanced breakpoints and debug JavaScript using graphical debugger

Troubleshoot Security issues

Analyze run-time and page performance to improve the speed of your app

Trace reflows and repaints as your app loads

The Chrome DevTools provides almost all the gears required to inspect, debug and monitor the performance of a Web App/mobile web. It also provides additional capabilities to simulate Mobile Devices to test and build mobile-first, responsive web sites. You can even debug web content on a real Android Device from a development machine. But, is it enough to perform Mobile responsive test on one or two devices?

Remote debugging using Chrome DevTools in integration with pCloudy’s Mobile Device Lab

Device fragmentation is a very real problem when testing Web apps on real devices, particularly for UI and functional tests. The number of devices with unique specifications and proprietary build variations has increased. At an advanced level, to perform Mobile Responsive Testing and to check performance of the Web App on real devices, you will need to experiment your site on various platforms, across a number of device form factors. pCloudy’s Mobile Device Lab offers complete integration with Chrome DevTools to test your apps on real devices. This integration allows you to test Web Apps on a myriad of android devices with different sizes and configurations.

Here’s how most App developers test their Web Apps

Inspect and live edit your site’s design and content

Test and edit your site in live mode by inspecting all the HTML and CSS in your page. In the Elements Panel, you can live-edit a DOM node by simply double-clicking a selected element and making changes.

You can even live-edit style property names and values in the Styles pane. Examine and edit box model parameters.

It is also possible to edit the current element’s box model parameters by making changes to top, bottom, left, right values for the current element’s padding, border, and margin properties using the Computed pane.

Remote Debugging on real devices to fix errors in the code

Debugging Obfuscated Code: Make your code readable and easy to debug even after you’ve combined, minified or compiled it. You can easily change the formatting of your minimized code by clicking on { }.

Test and optimize the performance of the Web App

The Network Panel allows you to see how your page renders, and time taken to render from start to end. To do this click into the “Network” panel, click on the camera icon and refresh the page on the device.

The Timeline panel helps you to record and analyze all the activities in your application as it runs. It’s the best place to start investigating perceived performance issues in your application.

To make a recording of a page load, open the Timeline panel, open the page that you want to record, and then reload the page. The Timeline panel automatically records the page reload. You can also record page interactions on the page and view the performance details through the recorded timeline.

Here are some more details you can view using the Record Timeline

Record the Timeline to analyze every event that occurred after a page load or a user interaction

View FPS, CPU, and network requests in the Overview pane

Click on an event within the Flame Chart to view details about it

Zoom in on a section of a recording to make analysis easier

There are some things to be kept in mind while performing responsive testing: Device selection It is better to ask your business analyst or your manager which devices we need to perform the testing. Creating a device matrix is a tedious job due to device fragmentation with frequent browser and OS updates. Even if you spend a lot of time on making a strategy for the combination of devices, that may not get approved by the product manager or scrum master. Automation testing and Manual testing It’s better to use both automated and manual approach to perform testing. Based on the type of testing you can share the effort like 70% automated and 30% manual. It is obvious that sometimes automated testing will miss something that a human eye can see. A tool clicking on a link or zooming in and out is different from doing it manually. Emulators, simulators and real devices If you wish to test your app on many verities of devices then you can also opt for emulators and simulators. It won’t be possible for you to set up a device lab as it will cost a lot. So you can use a real device that is popular in the market and emulators for the devices that are not that popular. Prioritize Mobile app testing including mobile responsive testing needs to be perfectly prioritized as testing is a time-consuming process. Responsive testing priority should be discussed with the BA and the product manager well in advance and take some suggestions from them. The issue is that there are a plethora of devices and while prioritizing, the most popular devices will be used first for testing.

Conclusion

“Using the right tools for the right job” is an old aphorism that applies to all domains including Software Development. As we’ve seen, Chrome DevTools has several features that help you develop better, debug faster, and measure efficiently the performance of your website or application. An ideal choice for you for Mobile Responsive Testing.

The features discussed in this blog are some of the most common ones used by developers, designers, and testers to write, debug, monitor and optimize Websites and Web Apps. Using these features in integration with Mobile Device Lab like pCloudy can transform the entire process of creating, testing and launching Websites and Web Apps.