#computer tricks and secrets

[agentravensong]

ghost trick is a video game that's about these questions: "when something bad happens to you, what do you do with that trauma?" and "when you do something terrible, when you make a terrible mistake, what do you do with that guilt?". it's about fate and family and hope and truth.

but, equally, crucially, it's also propaganda for the best little doggie in the whole world

[xxsamhainxx]

ghost who bakes in secrecy. not because he’s embarrassed, no. he likes the idea of keeping it to himself, having this one thing for himself only. he makes soap a lemon custard cake for his birthday. soap can’t believe how good it is and asks where he got it from. ghost stills for a moment and names a bakery that doesn’t exist, because he knows soap won’t actually seek it out. price gets a box of cannolis. ghost mentions that imaginary bakery had a new batch this morning. gaz has to put a box of raspberry jam cookies in the fridge or else he'll finish three rows in one night. that imaginary bakery seems to always know what everyone likes in detail.

[hackeocafe]

Secrets of Windows Notepad

There's a lot you probably didn't know about Notepad 🤔

[antivancathedral]

My big secret is that I thought that your lover would be the one Solas tricks you into thinking is dead after Ghilan'nain is killed and when I found out it's Lucanis no matter what, that Rook screams and runs to Lucanis no matter what, I lost my damn mind and I've been riding that high ever since.

Let me be clear in that I think Rook loves all their companions deeply. Let me also be clear in that I am very biased. But there's something so raw in that moment, after Rook shouted for Neve/Bellara before Elgar'nan stole them away, after Rook shouted for Harding/Davrin after Ghilan'nain kills them.

Rook has lost two companions already, snatched from him in a blink and irretrievable. No bodies to bury or burn. They are completely lost. And there is something so raw and aching in the fact that it's Lucanis that Rook can run to. Lucanis's body they can touch, whose coldness they can feel, whose stillness.

I imagine that is when it all really felt terribly real, that Rook had lost people and wasn't getting them back. This is the moment where the price of victory sinks in as deep as a blade. It's Lucanis whose "death" drives that point home, Lucanis who briefly shifts into Varric to remind Rook about the loss that started it all.

Since I romanced Lucanis first, I assumed that the game would replace him with whoever you'd committed to. But to see that it's him no matter what, that the final resounding crash and culmination of all Rook's losses thus far ends with Lucanis?

Solas says "Did you think you'd win the day without some painful sacrifice?" while Rook gazes down at Lucanis. My god, there is so much love in that. I can't talk about the tender look on Lucanis's face when he ran to Rook when Ghilan'nain dropped them or I'll start biting my computer but my fucking god, there is so much love between them.

[cyberlsk]

having INSANE di!leon brainrot rn so here goes:

dilf-coded neighbor leon that’s always gone and you can’t decide if it’s from crazy benders or some top secret governmental job (you decide it’s probably both) and you KNOW you should stay away but man full of secrets…and sexy…why would you?

one day you get a knock on your door and it’s him, and he’s asking for tech support (bcs old man) but all you can focus on are his low sweatpants and the way his shirt tightens when he moves (dear god) and his slutty little glasses??? i firmly believe that leon wears slutty frameless spectacles (like that one kole guy from tiktok…iykyk)

and you’re helping him reset his computer, hunched over the kitchen counter and trying every trick in the book, but it just won’t work, and he comes up behind you while you’re rubbing your temples in frustration like “it’s okay, honey, i’ll look at later.” speaking in this low soothing voice that makes you unconsciously hitch your breath. and he knows, because he’s pulling you into him, asking if you can help him out with something else instead

technical difficulties long forgotten, he’s spreading your thighs on the counter and eating you out messy and loud. he’s a talker. like he won’t stop moaning into your pussy and saying things like, “you like it when this old man takes care of you?” and praising how pretty you look rutting against him.

he gets his WHOLE face in there, nose constantly nuzzling against your clit, tongue flattening against your insides. he’s the kind of guy to experiment with his movements until you squeal and not let off when you finally do, drawing so many noises out of you that you have to bite the back of your hand.

and!! i thoroughly believe he would shortcircuit when you suck on his fingers. like, he has the impulse to move your hand away from your mouth and swipe his thumb along your bottom lip, but then you part your mouth to suck on his finger and he moans at the sight of it. and then he picks you up and throws you on the living room couch, no matter your weight! pretty soon he’s fucking you senseless while swearing that he’ll get a desk job, transfer departments, just so he can come home and spoil you every night like this <3

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Amazon illegally interferes with an historic UK warehouse election

I'm in to TARTU, ESTONIA! Overcoming the Enshittocene (Monday, May 8, 6PM, Prima Vista Literary Festival keynote, University of Tartu Library, Struwe 1). AI, copyright and creative workers' labor rights (May 10, 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building, Lossi 3, lobby). A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation (May 10, 3PM, University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037).

Amazon is very good at everything it does, including being very bad at the things it doesn't want to do. Take signing up for Prime: nothing could be simpler. The company has built a greased slide from Prime-curiosity to Prime-confirmed that is the envy of every UX designer.

But unsubscribing from Prime? That's a fucking nightmare. Somehow the company that can easily figure out how to sign up for a service is totally baffled when it comes to making it just as easy to leave. Now, there's two possibilities here: either Amazon's UX competence is a kind of erratic freak tide that sweeps in at unpredictable intervals and hits these unbelievable high-water marks, or the company just doesn't want to let you leave.

To investigate this question, let's consider a parallel: Black Flag's Roach Motel. This is an icon of American design, a little brown cardboard box that is saturated in irresistibly delicious (to cockroaches, at least) pheromones. These powerful scents make it admirably easy for all the roaches in your home to locate your Roach Motel and enter it.

But the interior of the Roach Motel is also coated in a sticky glue. Once roaches enter the motel, their legs and bodies brush up against this glue and become hopeless mired in it. A roach can't leave – not without tearing off its own legs.

It's possible that Black Flag made a mistake here. Maybe they wanted to make it just as easy for a roach to leave as it is to enter. If that seems improbable to you, well, you're right. We don't even have to speculate, we can just refer to Black Flag's slogan for Roach Motel: "Roaches check in, but they don't check out."

It's intentional, and we know that because they told us so.

Back to Amazon and Prime. Was it some oversight that cause the company make it so marvelously painless to sign up for Prime, but such a titanic pain in the ass to leave? Again, no speculation is required, because Amazon's executives exchanged a mountain of internal memos in which this is identified as a deliberate strategy, by which they deliberately chose to trick people into signing up for Prime and then hid the means of leaving Prime. Prime is a Roach Motel: users check in, but they don't check out:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

When it benefits Amazon, they are obsessive – "relentless" (Bezos's original for the company) – about user friendliness. They value ease of use so highly that they even patented "one click checkout" – the incredibly obvious idea that a company that stores your shipping address and credit card could let you buy something with a single click:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click#Patent

But when it benefits Amazon to place obstacles in our way, they are even more relentless in inventing new forms of fuckery, spiteful little landmines they strew in our path. Just look at how Amazon deals with unionization efforts in its warehouses.

Amazon's relentless union-busting spans a wide diversity of tactics. On the one hand, they cook up media narratives to smear organizers, invoking racist dog-whistles to discredit workers who want a better deal:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/amazon-chris-smalls-smart-articulate-leaked-memo

On the other hand, they collude with federal agencies to make workers afraid that their secret ballots will be visible to their bosses, exposing them to retaliation:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-violated-labor-law-alabama-union-election-labor-official-finds-rcna1582

They hold Cultural Revolution-style forced indoctrination meetings where they illegally threaten workers with punishment for voting in favor of their union:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/business/economy/amazon-union-staten-island-nlrb.html

And they fire Amazon tech workers who express solidarity with warehouse workers:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-fires-tech-employees-workers-criticism-warehouse-climate-policies/

But all this is high-touch, labor-intensive fuckery. Amazon, as we know, loves automation, and so it automates much of its union-busting: for example, it created an employee chat app that refused to deliver any message containing words like "fairness" or "grievance":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/05/doubleplusrelentless/#quackspeak

Amazon also invents implausible corporate fictions that allow it to terminate entire sections of its workforce for trying to unionize, by maintaining the tormented pretense that these workers, who wear Amazon uniforms, drive Amazon trucks, deliver Amazon packages, and are tracked by Amazon down to the movements of their eyeballs, are, in fact, not Amazon employees:

https://www.wired.com/story/his-drivers-unionized-then-amazon-tried-to-terminate-his-contract/

These workers have plenty of cause to want to unionize. Amazon warehouses are sources of grueling torment. Take "megacycling," a ten-hour shift that runs from 1:20AM to 11:50AM that workers are plunged into without warning or the right to refuse. This isn't just a night shift – it's a night shift that makes it impossible to care for your children or maintain any kind of normal life.

Then there's Jeff Bezos's war on his workers' kidneys. Amazon warehouse workers and drivers notoriously have to pee in bottles, because they are monitored by algorithms that dock their pay for taking bathroom breaks. The road to Amazon's warehouse in Coventry, England is littered with sealed bottles of driver piss, defenestrated by drivers before they reach the depot inspection site.

There's so much piss on the side of the Coventry road that the prankster Oobah Butler was able to collect it, decant it into bottles, and market it on Amazon as an energy beverage called "Bitter Lemon Release Energy," where it briefly became Amazon's bestselling energy drink:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/#the-bitterest-lemon

(Butler promises that he didn't actually ship any bottled piss to people who weren't in on the gag – but let's just pause here and note how weird it is that a guy who hates our kidneys as much as Jeff Bezos built and flies a penis-shaped rocket.)

Butler also secretly joined the surge of 1,000 workers that Amazon hired for the Coventry warehouse in advance of a union vote, with the hope of diluting the yes side of that vote and forestall the union. Amazon displayed more of its famously selective competence here, spotting Butler and firing him in short order, while totally failing to notice that he was marketing bottles of driver piss as a bitter lemon drink on Amazon's retail platform.

After a long fight, Amazon's Coventry workers are finally getting their union vote, thanks to the GMB union's hard fought battle at the Central Arbitration Committee:

https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2024/04/26/amazon-warehouse-workers-in-coventry-will-vote-on-trade-union-recognition/

And right on schedule, Amazon has once again discovered its incredible facility for ease-of-use. The company has blanketed its shop floor with radioactively illegal "one click to quit the union" QR codes. When a worker aims their phones at the code and clicks the link, the system auto-generates a letter resigning the worker from their union.

As noted, this is totally illegal. English law bans employers from "making an offer to an employee for the sole or main purpose of inducing workers not to be members of an independent trade union, take part in its activities, or make use of its services."

Now, legal or not, this may strike you as a benign intervention on Amazon's part. Why shouldn't it be easy for workers to choose how they are represented in their workplaces? But the one-click system is only half of Amazon's illegal union-busting: the other half is delivered by its managers, who have cornered workers on the shop floor and ordered them to quit their union, threatening them with workplace retaliation if they don't.

This is in addition to more forced "captive audience" meetings where workers are bombarded with lies about what life in an union shop is like.

Again, the contrast couldn't be more stark. If you want to quit a union, Amazon makes this as easy as joining Prime. But if you want to join a union, Amazon makes that even harder than quitting Prime. Amazon has the same attitude to its workers and its customers: they see us all as a resource to be extracted, and have no qualms about tricking or even intimidating us into doing what's best for Amazon, at the expense of our own interests.

The campaigning law-firm Foxglove is representing five of Amazon's Coventry workers. They're doing the lord's work:

https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2024/05/02/legal-challenge-to-amazon-uks-new-one-click-to-quit-the-union-tool/

All this highlights the increasing divergence between the UK and the US when it comes to labor rights. Under the Biden Administration, @NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo has promulgated a rule that grants a union automatic recognition if the boss does anything to interfere with a union election:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

In other words, if Amazon tries these tactics in the USA now, their union will be immediately recognized. Abruzzo has installed an ultra-sensitive tilt-sensor in America's union elections, and if Bezos or his class allies so much as sneeze in the direction of their workers' democratic rights, they automatically lose.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/06/one-click-to-quit-the-union/#foxglove

Image: Isabela.Zanella (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ballot-box-2.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[foone]

Have you heard about the Polish Train company, Newag, and the bullshit it turns out they got up to?

So, the regional rail operator Koleje Dolnośląskie bought some Newag Impuls back in 2016 . In late 2021, some of them need to have major maintenance done, as they've been in service a while. So the company SPS (Serwis Pojazdów Szynowych) gets the contract to fix them. They basically take the train apart, replace a bunch of it, following all the rules in the documentation Newag gave them, and... it won't move. The train says everything is fine, the brakes are off, there's plenty of power, but you push the throttle up and it won't move.

SPS spends a while trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong, with no luck. So they hire some hackers from the Polish security group Dragon Sector. Dragon Sector figures out how to get into the code of the computer system that runs the train, and OH MY GOD.

So it turns out there's a secret train-lock system. If it's on, the train won't move. This will be triggered in some situations you might think are normal: the clocks are wrong, the serial numbers of the various parts have changed, and a firmware mismatch between the main computer and the power system. Now, the fact that it makes sense to not run the train in these situations until someone can check it? that doesn't extend to the fact the train uses a SECRET lock system, rather than just popping up an error message telling you what's wrong. There's also the problem that while these are all potential error problems, they can't be cleared by anyone with the technical manuals, which are supposed to cover everything about how to run these trains. Only Newag themselves can reset this system.

Which, you know, keeps SPS from properly fixing them. Only Newag can fix them now, but not because SPS lacks any technical ability, but because Newag sabotaged their own trains. But don't worry: it gets worse.

So now that Dragon Sector knows what's happening, they get to look at other trains. It turns out the trains aren't all running the same software, and there are other tricks in there.

One of them is a "how long has the train been stopped?" check. If the train hasn't hit 60 km/h in 10 days, the train locks itself and won't move until Newag can clear it. So, like, if a train is ever out of service, like it's going to a repair place... it'll break itself. Unless the repair place is owned by Newag.

But two of the trains go further: See, these trains have GPS built in, right? You may be able to guess where this is going...

THEY JUST MAKE THE TRAIN CHECK IF IT IS PARKED AT THEIR COMPETITORS' REPAIR YARD AND BREAK ITSELF IF IT WAS.

The sheer audacity of this move. This is frighteningly bullshit anti-competition self-sabotage.

This has, obviously, made some parts of the Polish government to start investigating this. Newag may be (and hopefully will be) in a lot of trouble.

For more info, there's a great video of a presentation by the three people from Dragon Sector who did the hacking, which was presented at the 37th Chaos Communication Congress in Germany.

Ars Technica also has an article on it, but it predates the presentation so it doesn't have some of the later details.

Anyway, the good news is that in the end the hackers at Dragon Sector were able to unlock most of the trains: A few had additional trickery that they didn't want to hack around, because it might break the train's certification. For the others, they discovered undocumented "cheat codes" in the software that they could use to bypass the secret lockouts... presumably the same ones that Newag would have used when they "repaired" trains.

[criminalyapping]

due for trouble | the secret’s out

the pitt masterlist main masterlist

pairing: jack abbot x f!reader

a/n: finally time for some other beloved pitt characters to join the fray!! also can you tell i’m not the most knowledgeable about how buying a house actually work? bc i can lol

next time is baby shower!!

warnings: unplanned pregnancy, age gap, language

< part 12 | part 14 >

At work, most of Jack’s personal life remains a mystery. He considers himself close to Robby, being genuine friends outside of the walls of the hospital. The others, not so much.

The bottom line is that Jack’s a private guy, and doesn’t want to air out his business to be discussed and speculated about down every hallway of the hospital.

One thing he does love, though, is the feeling of smug satisfaction he feels when he surprises people.

“Ellis, Shen,” he calls to his night-shift coworkers as he sees them, backpacks on and ready to leave early in the morning.

They both turn towards him, waiting.

“What are you guys doing on Saturday afternoon?” he asks.

They both open their mouths to speak, but Jack interrupts them before they can make a sound.

“Well, you’re invited to a baby shower, so actually don’t do anything,” he instructs with a carefully crafted look on neutrality on his face. “My house, 1pm.” he finishes with a smile.

The two doctors in front of him gape, questioning looks on their faces as they stare him down. He keeps his smile bright.

Shen snaps out of it first, unflappable as always.

“Cool man, I’ll be there.” he agrees.

Ellis shakes her head in disbelief.

“I’m sorry, I’ll need a few more details,” she says sarcastically, “what?”

“A baby shower.” Jack reiterates.

“Yeah, I got that. For who?” she asks.

“Typically they’re kind of for a baby.” he replies matter of factly.

“Oh my god,” she mutters under her breath. “Who’s pregnant?” she asks.

“My girlfriend.” he tells her with another smile.

“You-“ she stutters, “since when do you-?” she stops herself. Sighing and rolling out her tense shoulders. “Whatever, I’ll be there.” she agrees.

“Awesome, thanks, I’ll send you guys my address.” he smiles, leaving them standing there with unanswered questions as he walks back toward the hub, looking for Robby.

He finds him, hands on his hips as he observes the boards. They had already done turnover, so the ED is alight with movement and all the day shift doctors.

“Hey man,” Jack greets as he claps Robby on the back.

“Hey,” Robby greets as he takes on his glasses.

Dana looks up from her computer, eyeing Jack skeptically.

“You better get out of here Jack, we know you and sunlight don’t get along.” she jokes.

“Yeah, yeah; I’m getting better about it, though.” he says, pointing at her.

“Baby shower, Saturday at one, can you make it?” he asks Robby.

His friend nods his head, “Yeah, yeah I’ll get it covered.” he agrees.

“Invite whoever isn’t working from day shift, just send ‘em my address, they’re all invited.” he tells Robby.

Dana slides herself along the counter closest to the two, looking at Jack expectantly.

“I’m sorry,” she starts, “I think my ears are playing tricks on me. Baby shower?” she asks.

Jack nods. “Obviously, you’re invited too, I hope you’re not working Saturday.”

“I’m not.” she says, deadpan. “You’re having a baby?” she asks, a wide smile crawling over her face.

“Sure am.” he confirms, a matching smile on his.

“Well I’ll be…” she trails off with a grin.

“Invite the people,” he says, turning back to Robby, “and come early to set up.” he tells him.

“Aye aye, captain.” he agrees.

Jack turns and leaves, watching as Dana’s eyes turn to Robby with a look like she’s about to sink her information-seeking claws into him and not let go.

He heads home, eats a quick breakfast, and falls asleep hard.

He’s in the trenches of trying to buy that house, so he wakes up earlier than he wants to be able to exchange some messages with the working public while the day isn’t almost over. Working night shift makes doing normal human tasks much more difficult.

He’s able to exchange a few texts with you while you work, smiling as you tell him about your work problems.

You had sent Jack pictures of decorations you wanted for the baby shower, so he picks himself off the couch to head to a party supply store.

Yes honey, whatever you want honey, he had told you when you stressed to high heaven about how you would have enough time to get all the decorations, send invitations, cook the food, and set up for the party before Saturday came. He volunteered to get the decorations, assured you that you don’t need invitations, and asked what food you wanted to be catered, not made my either of them.

He enjoyed life much more when you weren’t stressed about things that didn’t need to be stressed about, and happily does whatever he can to take some of the stress off of your shoulders.

Today is shaping up to be a good day, he thinks, after dropping the baby bomb on his coworkers, successfully buying everything on the list you had made for him, and especially now, he things looking down at his phone.

He had just gotten an email from his realtor that his offer on the house was accepted, and he was now under contract. With how quickly that went, he has a sliver of hope that they could move in before they have their December baby.

Right now, Jack Abbot could not be happier with his life, and can’t wait for Saturday.

tagging: @michasia24 @veggieburgerwrites @bruher @ahopelessromanticwritersworld @catmomstyles3 @qardasngan @fuckalrighty @rae4725 @beebeechaos @thatssomebadhat89 @cari87 @livingdeadblondequeen @wowitsafemale @neonpurplestars89-blog @starswin @celiacallsitcausal @vinceelser @glamorizethechaos @nerdgirljen @namgification @li22ie2017 @misshoneypaper @gardeniarose13 @peachjellyy @babybatreads @spooky-librarian-ghost @foolishseven @cannonindeez @wisps-writes-fic

let me know if you want a tag, too!

[meathunt]

Alien yan idea

This story has been brought to you all by inspo from Chaos's Arkuma oc and also the though of "Human spacecrafts are the equivalent of a cardboard box to aliens" Hope yall enjoy! ---

Your fist slammed against the control panel.

The escape pod that you were shoved in was malfunctioning, you bet that your luck is so great that the madman that decided that blowing up the main ship was their God given task was throughout enough that they most likely messed with the pods to ensure they took everyone down with them.

You were fortunate enough that when your boss decided to drag you into the pod he gave you a very generous emergency package, med kit, tools and both food and water rations that would suffice for months if you measured yourself.

The first weeks you were hopeful that you would receive some response to the distress signal you were sending, but as the time passed you hope slowly diminished. And when the alerts of malfunctions started to pop up you felt even more hopeless. You didn’t want to give up, for the people that were waiting for you, and for the people that helped you get out of the station you will survive. ---

Oyrehn was overlooking the work of his crew, checking up on the borders of their territory, and as one of the most renown captains of his organization he took pride on doing a flawless job.

That being said it still was mind numbing work, after all this part of the territory was most times completely unremarkable at best, it was a space dumpster if you will, filled mostly with space debris and the occasional smartass that thought could use it as a secret road only to end up needing help to get out of the occasional meteor rain.

So when he noticed an out of place shinny object he took the initiative on looking deeper into it. Setting the computer to analyze it, the results that the computer gave him took him by surprise.

A human? So far out on here?

Humans were a bit of a hot topic around the network, they were a new found species still a bit archaic in terms of technology, but their biology was the most interesting of all. No claws or fangs, no external carapace or protection, just squishy soft creatures that don't grow taller than most their hips. Their survival has been credited to their ingenuity and mostly straight up luck and chance.

Things that make them very interesting creatures, and in some cases sought out creatures. As they have been rumored to be living lucky charms.

He is one of the ton of interested aliens in humans, but not exactly because he believes in those rumors, but because he is enamored with how soft you all look, warm blooded beings that are moved by curiosity and motivation, how is he supposed to not gush over you all?

But the thing is that, you are in no level to be able to explore space safely, much less survive or thrive in this environment.

With that thought in mind he gave the order to catch and bring your ship aboard, and that he will deal with the issue at hand. ---

You felt the pod shake before being able to register that you were moving, indicating that something was very wrong.

The sudden movement waking you fully, you were going to check the system to see what the fuck went wrong now when you saw it.

A behemoth of a space ship that was slowly getting closer. You wanted to believe that somehow this was a rescue crew that came for you.

But you couldn’t trick yourself, you knew the team had nothing of this magnitude and the closer you got you could notice just how big it really was. No human could build something like that without it being public knowledge.

As you felt your ship touch ground and noise outside of the pod filled your ears your only thought was how did you end up here?

[viharbinger]

✨ How Fred Weasley Would Be Dating A Muggle HCs

Pairings: Fred Weasley x muggle!reader

Warnings: just a load of fluff and also Freds alive !!! No mentions of the Wizarding war

Once holiday break, Fred is away from the WWW and everything to do with magic. He wants to experience something new, maybe he was with his father somewhere for awhile exploring the customs of muggles.

From there, he meets you. He's so taken aback by your first impression, he wants to meet you again. But he doesn't exactly have a phone or computer to contact you. So, you took it upon yourself to teach him how to use public postal services.

You find it a bit weird how he has absolutely no clue how to do these types of things, or even have a phone in this day and age. Fred would love to learn everything about muggles from you— discreetly of course. It would actually be really silly why someone would be so fascinated by telephone booths and airplanes but he'd cover it up by saying he lives in a remote village or something.

Finally, he's taken the initiative to ask you on a date. He asked you in person, of course. He'd end up at your doorstep or workplace conveniently on time one day and casually suggested you two go out. And then he arrives at your doorstep... Conveniently. Everytime. It's almost like he teleports! You never question how he's so punctual, you just assume he has a knack for that.

Just before your date, he would be self conscious of his appearance before he knocks. He would check his reflection on a window that had the curtains on, sweep his hair back, check his breath, and charm up a bouquet of flowers out of nowhere like a magician. This is someone he really likes, he's not going to mess it up!

He'd probably go crazy whenever you want to do something that could have been easily done with magic like folding clothes or washing the dishes. But seeing as you're a muggle, he has to keep the urge to take out his wand because with just a flick and simple incantation, it would be done.

Overtime, it's endearing to him watching you do what you do— when he could do it all with his wand, because he's not quite used to the muggle lifestyle after all.

He finds muggle toys absolutely boring compared to his joke products back in the Wizarding World. But if you have little siblings, he'd take the time out of his day to exchange his galleons and sickles for some muggle money to buy them gifts.

But of course, making up excuses why you can't visit his joke shop is extremely difficult. He'd probably be fed up having to keep this big of a secret from you and just tell you everything if you simply kept asking— luckily you didn't.

One day, when you're both deep into the relationship, he'll eventually let you in on his secret. And he loves the expression on your face contorting from a confused one to adoration. He loves if you ask him to do some tricks or charms, how a simple spell a first year student at Hogwarts could do would easily excite you makes him really proud.

Now all your questions are answered and everything makes so much sense. How he managed to hide this whole world from you is crazy for sure. But I guess your relationship would always be unexpected. Not to mention, he's the best at gift giving now that you know he's a wizard! You're allowed to own magical products now that you're registered into the ministry of magic to be allowed to see and hear things about magic.

Oh, he loves you. A few weeks after telling you the truth about him, he'd wanna marry you for sure. He's not letting someone as brilliant as you just slip away from his hands. He'll make sure you meet and get to know his family, especially his twin brother.

You've heard all sorts of stories about his family and twin brother, and now seeing them and meeting them for real was an experience. The Burrow had an overwhelming presence of magic you'd definitely never seen before from the self washing dishes and self knitting jumpers. Fred would be really proud to have you so excited to be at his home, even though it's not the best home in all of Britain.

[woradat]

Hold me tight

SUMMARY - before you drift away, into the galaxy —too far for him to reach, he should have held onto you tighter, but he didn't (pre-war)

PAIRING - jetfire x reader, skyfire x reader

·

·

He should have left the moment the projector’s beam sliced through the dim chamber and cast the silhouette of another onto the polished obsidian floor

The light cut across the dust-moted air like a blade of frozen sunlight—soft, but unyielding. The silhouette did not shift. Merely stood there, tall and still, as if carved from old starlight and authority

Jetfire’s vents caught in his throat

He remained rooted. Not out of defiance—no, never that—but because the variables of movement and consequence had suddenly multiplied beyond calculation. His body refused to obey logic. The simplest action—turn, retreat, explain—felt like a catastrophic misstep on a precarious quantum equation

He could feel the temperature change in the air. Not with heat, but with presence—that ineffable shift when another mind steps into your radius and rewrites the gravity of the room

He tilted his gaze upward, slowly. Reluctantly. Bracing for a voice made of judgment and protocol

Expulsion. Citation. Public apology. Reclamation

A thousand outcomes bloomed in his mind like faulty computations

Instead, the voice that came was neither clipped nor cruel

It was curious

“If the universe is a question... are you attempting to answer it with a nobleman’s equation?”

The words rolled out with a peculiar elegance—like poetry smuggled into science, soft and sharp in equal measure. The voice was stately but playful, as though both mocking and indulging him

Jetfire blinked. His vocalizer crackled slightly before functioning

“I’m sorry. I just… the datapads fell, and I—”

“And you chose to pick them up” the other said, stepping closer. Their silhouette became clearer in the light, glinting at the edges—like moonlight caught on the lip of a goblet “And you read them”

Jetfire stiffened

“Not the worst choice. But don’t expect praise for daring to think without permission. Not in this building”

He looked down, shame creeping like corrosion through his circuits—until the next words caught him off-guard

“But I commend you”

His gaze snapped back up, optics wide

The other offered the datapad back to him with a delicacy that bordered on reverence—like handing over something fragile, alive, and perhaps forbidden

“Are you the kind who reads to believe, or the kind who reads to question?”

It wasn’t a trick question. And yet it felt like it held a lock to something far beyond data

Jetfire opened his mouth—but the question was too rich, too strange. Not designed for swift answers, only quiet undoings

The stranger smiled. It was not warm, but it was honest

“I ask for one hour of your time. Each day. In the lower chamber. The one they abandoned after the war scare. I wish to see whether your gravitational equations map the stars as I do”

“You mean… you want me to research with you?”

“No” A quiet, indulgent laugh “I want you to answer one question a day. No more”

They stepped past him then, their field brushing faintly against his like the edge of magnetism—unseen, but undeniable

“Here’s one to begin: do you believe the sinusoidal fluctuations in the gravity of dying stars suggest any pattern in the behavior of consciousness?”

Jetfire made a choked noise

“What?”

“Too soon? Forgive me. I tend to start conversations in the middle.” They turned, pausing in the doorway like a scholar on the brink of forgetting their own name

“Let’s begin again. What’s yours?”

“…Jetfire”

The figure did not offer their own. They merely studied him—as though reading a newly named particle—and murmured:

“Fitting. One day, perhaps, you’ll fly”

Then, without waiting for response, they vanished into the hall—leaving Jetfire to stare at the flickering projector still humming softly, and wonder if he had just been inducted into a secret society of one

—

No one had ever once suggested to him that silence, in a space built to amplify the smallest of sounds, could resonate in such a peculiar, almost devastating manner. Silence in a laboratory wasn’t a void, not quite. No, it was a substance, something that wrapped around you like an invisible fog, as if every molecule of the room itself was holding its breath, waiting for the next disruption, the next event, the next explanation. But tonight, the air felt particularly thick with it—as though the universe had paused for a heartbeat, just for him

It had taken him years of training, of learning how to concentrate in the face of chaos, of adapting his mind to the punctuated rhythm of data and deductions. Yet it was in this silence, this suspended moment, that Jetfire realized with a sudden jolt of clarity: he had been waiting

Waiting for what? He wasn’t entirely sure, but the answer lingered just at the edge of his awareness, like a half-remembered dream or a word you knew was on the tip of your tongue but couldn’t quite pull to the surface. Perhaps he had been waiting for the familiar hum of his sensors to be disturbed by the singular presence that always found him here, at the desk beside some unfinished analysis, surrounded by research notes, and the faint scent of machine oil

“You're two and a half minutes late”

The words—no, the voice—cut through the stillness with a precision Jetfire could never quite predict. Dry. Unfazed. The perfect example of an observation made simply because it was there to be noted, like the path of an asteroid traversing the cold void of space

Jetfire smiled faintly—a rare, slanted curl of his mouth that he never showed to anyone else

"I was detained by an emergency briefing. Apologies, I—"

“Mmm… A grave offense indeed” you replied in a drawl, lifting a bottle of lubricant and giving it a shake like someone mixing a midnight cocktail

A faint snort interrupted him, not mocking, but amused in the way that only someone who knew how to reduce the weight of all things could manage "Grievous misconduct. And as for your punishment, I’m afraid you’ll have to endure my complete and utterly enlightening lecture on The Gravitational Philosophy of Dream Oscillations"

Jetfire let out a soft, incredulous laugh, shaking his head slightly "I... didn’t realize that was an actual field of study"

"No, of course not" came the immediate response, with an exaggerated lift of the speaker’s shoulders as if it were entirely unimportant whether or not they were speaking of any truth

"But you see, I had a dream last night—a dream—and in it, the entire universe existed without a gravitational core. It was, naturally, quite difficult to navigate, because everything, every matter, every thought, just… drifted. But strangely, there was one constant. One force"

The absurdity of the words struck his mind like a needle to the most tender part of thought—sharp, precise, and disturbingly accurate

Jetfire lowered himself into the lab's rickety swivel chair. The metal frame groaned in protest

“And in that dream of yours… did anyone survive?”

There was a pause. The other bot stilled, set the bottle down, and looked up with an expression halfway between amusement and strange clarity

“There was one. The one who created gravity themselves… and pulled all the stars toward them — with sheer will of heart"

Jetfire didn’t reply right away. He simply sat there, listening as the scientist across the room rambled on in whimsical metaphors—half-poetry, half-forgotten philosophy. And while his logical mind attempted to separate fantasy from fact, his spark was doing the opposite

It was pulling everything inward. Toward a center

Toward you—the one who always sounded like you were joking, but never once lied

At first, he had merely been here because the lab offered access to rare instruments—free from bureaucratic rituals. Then he had chosen to stay because you understood the language of science. But now…

He didn’t want to leave

"Do you always dream like that?" Jetfire asked, his voice softer than he intended. It wasn’t just about the dream, of course. It never really was. But this—this peculiar pull, this gravity between them, that wasn’t the kind of thing Jetfire could admit easily. And so, he hid it behind his inquiry

You smile, when it came, was a quiet thing, edged with a knowing that only made Jetfire more uncertain of his own thoughts "Sometimes" they replied. "I think it’s the only way to escape the weight of everything around us. Dreams don’t have to make sense, after all"

He wanted to argue with that, wanted to say that dreams weren’t supposed to be some ethereal escape, but the truth was, he couldn’t. Not when the room itself felt so real when it was just the two of them standing at its center

There was a tension here, one that neither of them had asked for, but neither could escape. A strange, compelling force between them that felt like the pull of unseen stars—a pull neither had the strength to ignore. And yet, there was no admission. No declaration. Just an ever-growing understanding that, in the quietest moments, they both understood the same thing without ever speaking it aloud: the universe, in all its infinite complexity, could very well be shaped, and bent, by the simplest of forces—whether gravity, or will, or even something as unmeasurable as a glance

It was when the silence stretched again, both of them sitting side by side, neither of them quite able to leave, that Jetfire realized with a sudden clarity that the silence between them had changed

It had shifted, imperceptibly, but undeniably

And the only thing left for him to do now was to accept that it had happened. And maybe… maybe he didn’t need to fill it with words

Maybe the absence was the answer

—

After day and after day, Jetfire returned

He told his superiors that he was conducting field surveys around the Senate Tower perimeter. In truth, he just kept finding reasons to enter the lab again. To sit across from you—the planetary scientist who seemed less like an academic and more like a verse carved from the cosmic dust itself

You explained quantum entanglement with the cadence of a bedtime tale. Your hand gestures painted orbit lines in the air. You labeled your document drawers with star charts instead of numbers

You once asked, in a perfectly serious tone: “If stars could write letters to one another, what grammar would they use?”

It wasn’t a question he could answer. But he remembered it

—

Each day, once the experiments ended, there came a brief, weightless moment—just the two of you, sitting quietly beside cooling machinery. Watching an unfinished star map flicker on the display screen. Sometimes, no words were exchanged. And yet, the silence felt full—like a breath the universe was holding in

“You know” your voice broke the hush, “in this vast universe… perhaps we’re nothing but space dust. Maybe none of this means anything"

Jetfire turned to look at you. He had never considered the thought in quite that way before. But then, unexpectedly, words slipped past his lips

“Maybe… it means something to us. Just now.. like this”

You gave him a faint smile. You looked like you were going to say something else, but chose not to

The silence that followed wasn’t like the one from the first time you met. It wasn’t hollow. It was full of questions that didn’t need answers

“Do you have a plan for what comes next?” Jetfire asked, voice almost hesitant

“Explore the whole universe” you replied at once, mischief dancing behind your optics “And you?”

He paused, then smiled too “I’d like to go with you.. but I don’t know where to start"

And in that moment, he realized: it wasn’t just about the stars above, or the trajectories he could calculate. It was that with you beside him, even the smallest questions in life felt like they carried immense weight

“Sometimes, it only takes one strange little question to lead us away from everything we thought we knew” you said gently, your voice already drifting into another realm

Jetfire looked at you, and the universe suddenly felt smaller

Maybe… the journey didn’t need a destination

“And what if there's no path to follow?”

“Then we’ll find one. Or make one. Together”

The answer came clearly, as if it had been waiting inside you all along

And for the first time, Jetfire felt as though he was beginning to understand his own journey—not through drive or ambition, but through a stillness that could not be measured by instruments

—

Jetfire was hunched over a data console, utterly immersed, when they leaned on his side—too close, of course, deliberately so. They always had a knack for standing where they weren’t needed, asking questions that twisted like Möbius strips and left interns fleeing for quieter company. But Jetfire never asked them to leave

You didn’t speak at first, only watched the patterns scrolling across his screen, their chin resting in one servo, optics half-lidded like a cat watching a bird it wasn’t quite hungry enough to catch

“So"

You murmured eventually “if quantum field fluctuations respond to proximity and intent—what do you suppose that says about us, hm?”

Jetfire didn’t turn. He paused, one servo frozen mid-input, then resumed typing with a sudden stiff precision “It says you’ve been reading fringe journals again"

“And flirting, if you noticed"

“I noticed"

A beat. Then another, long enough for them to step back like they usually would, laugh it off with a joke about social experiments gone wrong. But you didn’t. You stayed

“You always act so composed” you said softly “but your EM field is terribly loud when you're pretending I don’t affect you"

Jetfire’s digits stalled again

They continued, letting their words fall with the kind of offhand rhythm that made people forget how sharp they really were

“Do you know what I think? I think you like being bothered. I think you find me—” Their digits lightly tapped the back of his shoulder, where circuitry was most sensitive “—stimulating"

Now he did turn, ever so slightly, not enough to meet their gaze but just enough to suggest caution “You’re not usually.. be like this"

“I’m not usually this serious” you replied, smile lopsided and voice light as starlight

“But you are. You’re always so precise. So heavy with your truths. So terribly fond of structure. And I… well” you stepped closer again, tone dipping into something uncharacteristically tender “I’d like to see what happens when something... unstructured gets under your plating"

Jetfire inhaled sharply, and for once, didn’t have an answer ready. Not a theory. Not a quip. Just the steady thrum of his field responding, betraying him

You tilted your helm and added—half playful, half hopeful “Would you permit the hypothesis that I’m fond of you?”

Jetfire stared for a moment, then—slowly, achingly—nodded

A beat passed

Then you smirked

“Excellent. Expect several invasive follow-up experiments. Peer-reviewed, of course"

He sighed, the sound brittle with half-swallowed laughter, and muttered under his breath “I should’ve known”

“Oh, you did” you grinned, optics bright “You just hoped I’d be subtle"

.

.

They didn’t leave that evening

Not when the lights dimmed for shift-change. Not when Jetfire’s screen flickered into idle starlight. Not even when silence began to pool between them like liquid static, heavy with unsaid things

You stood beside him, arms folded, posture languid—but your optics gleamed with calculation, as though you were calibrating an orbit

“Did you know” you began in that infuriatingly smooth tone “that shared frequency alignment over time can be... accelerated, if both subjects are in prolonged proximity?”

Jetfire glanced at you warily “Are you proposing that we sit closer?”

“Oh, sweetspark. I’m proposing far more than that"

You stepped in until your helm nearly brushed his shoulder, their voice a low hum—part mockery, part invocation “I’ve been circling your orbit for cycles, Jetfire. Tapping at your shields. Reading your footnotes. Tuning myself to your silences and you—” your servo brushed his arm, a fleeting contact that felt measured, deliberate, almost reverent “You always flinch like truth is a wound. But I wonder... what happens if I don’t let you look away this time?”

Jetfire inhaled sharply. His optics flicked to theirs, wide, vulnerable—and caught

“I ..I didn’t mean to mislead—”

“Oh, I know” they interrupted gently, stepping closer still “You were trying to protect yourself. You always do. But I’m not here to dissect you, Jetfire. I’m here to choose you. Again and again. With all your walls and silences and nervous, noble spark"

He swallowed thickly “You can’t just say things like that"

“I can” you whispered “and I will"

A moment passed. And then, as if gravity had given up—

Jetfire reached for them

It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t rehearsed. It was the startled, breathless motion of someone who had spent too long holding back—and now couldn’t

Their bodies met in a slow, deliberate collision, a hush of metal and warmth. His arms enfolded them like he was afraid they’d vanish, and they leaned into him with a smile that tasted like triumph and tenderness all at once

“I love you” he whispered, almost inaudible “Primus help me"

The confession landed like stardust—soft, infinite, real

They leaned up, brushing their mouth along the edge of his jaw in a kiss so subtle it felt like a secret, and murmured “I know. You were terribly obvious. But adorable about it"

He gave a shuddering laugh—and when they kissed him fully, it was slow and breathless and aching, like two minds syncing after endless static. No rush. No chaos. Just resonance

When you pulled back, they pressed their forehead to his and added with mock-seriousness “Now that we’ve aligned... may I begin the real experiments?”

Jetfire exhaled, optics fluttering shut “Primus. What have I unleashed?”

“A lover with a lab and very ambitious hypotheses”

—

The world was already fraying at the seams

Cities once humming with philosophy and particle dreams now bristled with paranoia, blared slogans through smog-thick air. Everywhere, signs were changing—banners raised, sides drawn, colors worn not with pride but with the desperation of identity carved into metal and flame. War had not yet come in name, but its scent was already in the circuits of every thinking mech

You stood in the hangar of the survey vessel they once treated like a daydream—tall, sleek, built for long-term celestial research. It was the kind of ship only a handful of scientists could even touch. But you had clearance. You had always been too curious, too vocal, too exhausting for bureaucratic comfort—but undeniably brilliant

Enough to be tolerated

Enough to be trusted

Enough to leave

You had recalibrated the nav systems two cycles ago, quietly. Stocked the coolant, loaded rations. Ran diagnostics under cover of "long-range sub-quantum testing" All ready and now, Jetfire stood before them, half-shadowed by the cold white light

“You knew I wouldn’t come"

You smiled softly. Not sad. Not angry. Just... aware

“Yes. I knew” your voice was like paper slowly folding in firelight—delicate, measured, but glowing from within “But knowing doesn’t dull the wanting, Jetfire. I wanted to believe we’d chase nebulae together. That we'd map the gravitational poems of the void and argue about nothing for a few million years"

He looked away. His Decepticon badge wasn’t fully painted yet—half-dried on his plating, like a promise he hadn’t learned to carry “There’s too much wrong here to run from"

“I’m not running” you stepped closer “I’m leaving. There’s a difference"

Jetfire’s optics flicked up, stricken “Don’t say it like it’s noble"

“It’s not..” A small, tired laugh “It’s cowardice and dreamdust and a touch of statistical pragmatism. There’s nothing noble about solitude, Jetfire. But... I have to go"

You reached up, gently resting two digits on the badge’s edge. Not to peel it away. Just to feel the heat of it

“I know what this means to you. I know why you chose it. And I don’t blame you for choosing a war over the stars. Someone has to stay and fight for the ones who can’t escape"

He looked at them as if they were already a ghost

“And what if I regret this?” he asked quietly

“Then I hope you find me” they said simply “Out there, among the dark harmonics of some distant system. I���ll be cataloguing the spin of dying suns. Waiting. Not for you—but for the version of you who’s ready"

Silence bloomed between them like a nova

No kiss. No hug. Just two minds, once aligned, now drifting—still caught in each other’s gravity, but on diverging trajectories

And then you turned, boarding the ship alone

As the launch thrusters powered up and the docking bay peeled open to the black, star-speckled vastness, they allowed themselves one final indulgence—a line spoken softly to the emptiness beside them: “You were my favorite hypothesis, Jetfire. I hope the data proves me wrong"

And then you were gone

—

Some nights,

he sits in front of the console, reading through your logs—the ones detailing anomalous gravitational phenomena you were trying to make sense of

And in one of them, there’s a single line that has nothing to do with science at all: "If I became a star no one could see, would someone, somewhere, peer through a lens and know that I was lonely?"

Jetfire quietly closes the datapad

He understands now… you weren’t asking for an answer. You were reaching out, wondering if someone was listening

And he—he always was

Even if he never said a word back

·

·

NOTE - don't be so surprised. I mean yeah and they broke up like that. Ha

[yanderedbdimagines]

Hi ! I love your work and I saw requests were open !! I was wondering if you could write something about Trickster going sentient, like reader is a DBD player and Trickster is their killer main and he's becoming sentient ! He starts acting yandere, getting mad when they buy another killer, talking to them through the game etc ? Pleaaase !!

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Thank you so much for appreciating my work!

And of course! Trickster has always been one of my favorite go-to killers as well. He still kind of is! He may not look terrifying at first glance, but what he’s capable of is what truly makes him scary to me. I tried to capture that feeling in this piece as well. Also, I believe his anger would actually be quite subtle, put potent in a way. He's called the Trickster for a reason after all. :P Especially towards his obsession.

PS: If any character in the game somehow became sentient, I’d throw my computer out immediately. Let alone a killer! I would totally freak out! xD

PSS: I don't know any Korean. If I messed it up by using translators wrong, I'm sorry in advance!

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Warning!: NSFW elements present!

The Trickster

Ji-Woon Hak had always been your go-to killer. Maybe it was the thrill of playing him. The way he laughed in insanity, coupled with that crazed giggle as he chased survivors down, and the sheer passion and arrogance laced through his Korean voice lines. His presence in the game simply felt different from the others. All the way down to his disturbingly good chase music, which is an excellent representation to his character.

And as such, he’s indeed a star. Effortlessly charming and dangerously captivating. Before the Entity took him, the crowds adored him for a reason, oblivious to the gleam in his golden eyes when the screams began behind closed doors, embedded into his music like secret, bloody confessions. They never recognized the torture hidden in his music, layered beneath the melody like a secret only he was twisted enough to understand.

Killing wasn’t just second nature to Ji-Woon. It was the purest form of his self-expression.

And to you, that was the real horror. Because unlike many others in the Entity’s grasp, he wasn’t a monster made. He was a monster born. Just another handsome face, smiling for the cameras, waving to his adoring fans. His darkest secrets not buried, but hidden in plain sight. Or more so within earshot. And no one ever dared to hear them until it was too late.

Maybe that was why, after months of playing Dead by Daylight, you never really strayed from him. You bought his skins, experimented with his builds, mastered his mechanics and the precise arc of his blades. He was your constant pick.

So at first, the strange things that eventually started to happen didn’t really bother you.

It began in the character selection screen. His model glitched once. A wide smirk suddenly etching itself onto his features. He turned around more often while you waited in lobby, flashing you that saucy wink of his. There was a slight lag when you hovered over another killer, an occasional stutter in his idle animations, a minor bug where his eyes tracked your cursor just a bit too smoothly.

You decided to ignored it.

Then the loading screens started taking longer. Freezing for a second too long when his face suddenly appeared, as if the game itself hesitated. And once, in the middle of a match, you left the desk for a moment to grab something from your drawer, letting the killer stand idle in a house in Springwood.

That was when you heard it, just as you returned. Faint. Threading between the distant caws of crows and the crackle of the Entity’s realm. A voice, which sounded silky and teasing. Familiar.

"Getting distracted, 자기야1?"

Your hand jerked on the mouse. It had to be a bug. A voice line triggering where it shouldn’t. You brushed it off as a trick of the mind.

Then, after a while, the disconnects started. Not often, but just enough to be annoying. Almost every time you played another killer, you’d be booted mid-match. No error message. Just a sudden return to the desktop. Whenever you played survivor, you almost always found yourself facing the Trickster, with a hint of a stutter as you tried to get your character away from him.

But when you played as Ji-Woon himself? Smooth. No lag. No crashes.

Still, you pushed it aside. Games had bugs. Maybe the servers were acting up. You refused to get paranoid over minor issues, or the fact that barely any other killer ever appeared when you played survivor. Perhaps you just had a weird streak of fate.

Then, one night after watching a video, you tabbed back into the game and noticed that his theme music in the killer selection menu was different. Slower and warped. Like it was played underwater. The Trickster was staring at you. Not in his usual cocky way, but with his head tilted slightly, his smile smaller than usual and his golden eyes literally locked onto yours. As if he were waiting for something.

The screen glitched once, then again, and everything returned to normal. But matches grew even more strange after that. Survivors went down faster, their screams more real and distorted and their models twitching unnaturally. It scared you.

If you played as a different killer, you’d get disconnected mid-match much faster. Yet whenever you switched back to Trickster, the game stabilized.

Then one night, you apparently made a mistake. Out of curiosity, you went up and purchased another killer. the Oni, which you considered to be a change of pace. The moment you returned to the killer selection screen, it flickered; static sprinkling the menu. Trickster’s model was there on the right, but his grin had vanished. His head tilted, his bright pupils narrowed into thin slits of displeasure.

Your hands trembled over the keyboard. “It’s just a game…” you murmured, shaking your head and blinking a few times. Then his voice, unlike any recorded line or in-game effect, but unmistakably real, echoed through your headset. Smooth and cold.

"Not to me, 공주님2."

Deep down, you knew this game was no longer the same. But you played it off as a lack of sleep this time around, shut down the PC, and took a well-earned break.

You naively came back a few hours later. You loaded into the Temple of Purgation, picking the Oni. You’d bought him for a reason, after all. But as the match began, the camera panned over the environment and, for a split second just before it faded to your POV, you saw him.

Not the Oni. The Trickster.

He stood at the very edge of the mists, just beyond the temple’s crumbling stone archways. The fog curled unnaturally around him, clinging to his figure like something alive, shifting and parting just enough to reveal the glow of his golden eyes. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t part of the match. He was just… watching.

The moment you took control, he was gone. Your fingers twitched over the keyboard. That wasn’t normal. Maybe a graphical glitch? Some weird overlap from previous matches? You shook it off and pressed forward.

At first, the game ran fine. You chased down survivors, activated your power, played the match as you normally would. But something felt off. A heaviness in the air, a strange, crawling sensation at the back of your neck. Then the game began to stutter. Not lag and neither was it a bug. The frames dragged deliberately, as if the game itself resisted your input. The Oni’s movements felt sluggish, like wading through thick and invisible muck.

And then came the laughter. Soft and breathy, slithering between the sounds of gameplay.

"Tch. This isn’t like you, 자기야1. You’d rather be that clunky old fossil than me? Where’s your sense of taste?" His accent runs heavy alongside the bite in his tone.

Your blood ran cold. That wasn’t an in-game line. Your eyes flicked to one of the killer’s perk icons. Oni’s nemesis perk, just as you’d chosen. For a brief moment, Ji-Woon’s smirking face in a similar art style replaced it before snapping back. Your stomach twisted as another hitch in the frame rate distorted the screen. Pixels twisting as if a presence bled into the code.

"You're ignoring me," he observed, his voice still smooth but tinged with bitter distaste.

The game audio warped beyond recognition, the chase music slowed to a sickening drag then sped up erratically, like a scratched CD skipping. The survivors’ animations twitched unnaturally. Every time you activated the killer’s skill, the deep, guttural roar sounded way off. Higher, smoother, mocking. Obviously replaced with the voice of a certain Killer. "Not so fun, huh?" You hear him huff in amusement, teasing you as he does.

Frustrated, you slammed the Escape key. Nothing happened. The match wasn’t over, but you couldn’t do this anymore. With shaky hands, you forced your PC off manually, the screen cutting to black. Your reflection stared back at you in the dark monitor with wide eyes reflecting unease. You ripped off your headset and exhaled hard. It was just a game, you told yourself. You even debated uninstalling it. But that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? It’s just a game.

So you didn’t play it for the rest of the night.

The next day, curiosity won out. You had planned to delete the game. To scrub it from your system and be done with whatever hellish events had occurred. But after you booted up your PC, a Steam pop-up appeared.

Your pulse quickened as you skimmed the message.

Dead by Daylight – Security Update

A large leak had been addressed. Some players had reported strange in-game activity. An exploit that allowed hackers to take control of matches, resulting in unusual interactions. The developers apologized for the inconvenience. As compensation, a DLC of your choice would be free upon logging in.

Your fingers hovered over the mouse. This had to be the reason. Just some script kiddies messing with the servers, triggering audio or animation glitches. You exhaled a sigh of relief and launched the game.

The menu loaded smoothly, the music creating a subtle backdrop as you navigated the interface. Your gaze shifted to the killer selection screen. Trickster stood in his usual spot after you’d selected him. His stance casual yet confident, the infamous bat balanced nonchalantly on his shoulder. He executed that distinct head tilt. The one accompanied by an unnecessarily seductive "ah,". At that moment, his animation seemed to hesitate, his eyes lingering on the screen a fraction longer than usual. The light caught his left earring, making it glint momentarily before falling back against his neck due to retaining the previous angle of his head. Then, just as smoothly, the bat returned to his side.

Despite the brief, unsettling pause, his expression remained unchanged. A confident smirk played across his lips when he moved to inspect his bat, his golden eyes glinting with sharp amusement, as if privy to a joke you hadn’t yet figured out. No flickering. No static. Everything appeared perfectly normal.

Your tense shoulders loosened slightly. Maybe you had imagined it all. The breach is fixed, after all. You claimed your free DLC, already planning to test out the desired killer and survivor later. But first… just one more match with the Trickster.

Your cursor hovered over the Play button for a second before you clicked. The match queued instantly. No lobby, no loading delay, no lag. Your gut twisted. As the screen transitioned, unease slithered down your spine. The game had loaded, but something was obviously wrong.

The usual environmental sounds; distant caws of crows, the occasional metallic groan of the Entity’s influence, were gone. You panned the first-person camera over the map. No survivors moved between cover. No crows startled into the air. No gens sparking in the distance. Just you. Alone.

Your eyes darted to the UI. The HUD was intact- your abilities, perks, and power displayed as they should be. And yet, there were no objectives. No unseen timer counting down. No signs of life. Just silence. A cold prickle crawled over your skin.

Then, a soft chuckle. Rich, amused, present. "Finally. Just us." Your breath hitched. The sound came through your headset. Close. Way too close.

The screen flickered. Your blood ran cold.

No…

You tried moving Trickster forward, pressing the left mouse button to swing through the empty air. He responded as normal. Smooth, precise, as if performing a well-rehearsed act. But there was nothing to do. No generators humming to life, no players fleeing, no exit gates. The map lay barren, stripped of its usual chaos. Each time you struck the environment in boredom, a mocking chuckle, sly and knowing, echoed in your ears.

Desperate, you opened the pause menu, but there was no option to leave the game. Your fingers trembled over the keyboard as you muttered, “What the hell is it this time?”

Then a soft laugh, closer and intimate, as though whispered from right beside you. "Aw, don’t look so spooked,공주님2. Isn’t this what you wanted? More time with me?"

Without warning, the camera shifted. Its movement not commanded by you, but as if pulled by an unseen hand. The perspective tilted down ever so slightly, as if the Trickster was studying himself.

No. As if he was studying you.

"You play me so often," his voice purred, smooth as silk and dripping with amusement. "Devoted, aren’t you? You never thought I’d actually notice, did you? Never thought I’d appreciate your little habits?" A chill crawled up your spine.

 “This can’t be it. This isn’t real,” you whispered, almost pleading. “You are not sentient,” you insisted, but your voice wavered- thinning into uncertainty.

"Mmm, that's what you keep telling yourself," he replied, that familiar, teasing lilt threading through his tone. "A cute little parrot, endlessly repeating the same little song. 정말 웃기잖아, 자기야3. If only you repeated my name like that instead. I’m as real as I can get. " Your breathing grew shallow.

Then something shifted in the distance. A subtle, unnatural shadow moving where it shouldn’t be. You spun the camera up and to the side, heart hammering, but the map remained empty. Still, the sensation of being watched crawled over your skin. Your hands grew clammy as you gripped the mouse like a lifeline. You needed to leave. Now.

Alt + F4. Task Manager. Nothing worked. Your pulse pounded in your ears. Your body braced for a potential scenario- the chase, the hunt, the moment his blades would sink into your flesh. You weren’t special. You were just another victim…

Right?

Then the screen flickered. A brief stutter, a pause. For a fraction of a second, the game froze, and when it stabilized, Trickster’s weapon was gone. He wasn’t on it anymore.

Your hands froze over the keyboard for a second, before you abruptly stood up and took a step back, already leaning down to forcibly shut down the computer. A hand suddenly shot towards you after it suddenly angled its way back onto the screen. Distinctively bloody as it reached for you. You gasped audibly as you almost fell backward… But the hand never breached the screen. It halted abruptly at the boundary, suspended between the digital world and your reality. Crimson droplets clung to its outstretched fingers as it quivered against an invisible barrier. For a fleeting moment, you caught a glimpse. A flash of yellow fabric and a hint of a naked, muscular chest splattered with blood. But the view was distorted, obscured by the in-game camera’s interference, as if the interface itself rejected his intrusion.

Then came a low murmur. A string of curses in Korean, rough and frustrated. Though you couldn’t make out every word, the anger in his tone was unmistakable, raw even, as he cursed the limits that kept him at bay. Almost immediately, the bitterness dissolved into his familiar, self-assured mockery before he slipped off the screen.

"이건 정말 불공평해요, 공주님4," he drawled, voice dripping with playful disdain. A mind game. It had to be it. "If only this screen wasn’t in the way. 당신은 아직 모르는 재밌는 것들을 놓치고 있습니다5."

The taunting words slithered through your headset. His crazed laughter, edged high with mischief and frustration, filled the silence afterwards.

In that moment, your heart pounded with a mixture of terror and panic. At the end of the day, the screen itself remains unchanged. A game paused on an empty map, the digital world eerily still. Yet Trickster’s presence still lingered at the edge of reality. You could sense it.

With eyes wide, you forcibly shut down the PC, yanking out every cable from the back of your computer screen and desktop afterwards. You vowed to never, ever play Dead by Daylight again. Not after everything you’d just experienced. After all, who knows what might have happened if he had truly breached his way into your room. You believe that he’d most definitely would have tortured you to death, unaware of his true intentions. You could only shiver in fear and disgust at the very thought of it.

----------

1 = 자기야 = jagiya = babe.

2 = 공주님 = gongjunim = princess

3 = 정말 웃기잖아, 자기야. = jeongmal usgijanh-a, jagiya.= It's so funny, babe.

4 = 이건 정말 불공평해요, 공주님 = igeon jeongmal bulgongpyeonghaeyo, gongjunim = This is so unfair, princess.

5 = 당신은 아직 모르는 재밌는 것들을 놓치고 있습니다. = Dangsin-eun ajig moleuneun jaemissneun geosdeul-eul nohchigo issseubnida. = You're missing out on fun things you don't know about yet.

[whereserpentswalk]

There's a chess board out there that's eternally bound to a fae lord. The pieces all look like strange insects, and nobody can tell what the two colors are, no matter how much they look at them, they just know that they're different.

When you move a piece the fae will make his own move, and you'll see him on the other side of the board. Nobody who hasn't played knows what he looks like. And once you start playing, you're not allowed to stand up.

Nobody can see the fae but they can hear him, everyone even a bit close to the board can hear him speak. He promises so many things if you win. "I can make you ruler of the world." "I can make you the richest person to ever live." "I can make anyone on earth fall in love with you." "All you have to do is play and win." "It would all be so easy if you just chose to play."

But you should never choose to play him. When you lose, he will eat your existence, not your current existence, but your existence in the world. Your impact of the world will be erased, and nobody will ever remember you. Everyone who ever knew you, loved you, hated you, will have never met you at all.

It's only a few scholars and sorcerers have figured out what happens to the losers of the game, by finding the holes in people's lives. It's unknown if the people who lose the game die or disappear when they're forgotten, or if they just walk away, anonyms, with no lives to go back to. Perhaps some throw the game on purpose, just to have their name disappear.

Many have played the game and lost, those who thought they would be sure to win. Chess masters. Great wizards and occultists. Military tacticians. People blessed by gods, and those with demons bound to their flesh. Nobody knows their names, only what the fae lord brags about them, only their lives as he saw them.

The fae is not the greatest at chess. He is good, but not the greatest. But he is clever with words, and just as he knows what to tell people to make them play, he knows what to tell people to make them lose, to trick them, to throw them off, to make them cheat, or to make them throw the game. His kind is not permitted to lie, but he does not require lies.

He speaks all languages. He has manipulated people in the tongues of countless nations. He has spoken the secret languages of ancient cults to their followers and spoken to dragons in their tongue of inaudibly low song. When they called on a deaf man to play against him, he signed to them what he needed to sign. And when the great universities of the world brought out a computer to play him, a computer that could defeat any human play, he was even able to psyche that out, and tricked it into leaving it's king open at the wrong time.

They say there is only one person who the fae lord was afraid to play. It was a young woman who had no name, no family, and no official identification. She had been tracking it down for years, since the first record of her existence she had been searching for the chess board, and she seemed to already know a lot about it. He has begged everyone he could, from scholars, to wanderers, to other fae, to not let her near him. If she does play him, and if she does win, who knows what will happen, we do not know if anyone has won before, and if anyone did, we do not know why.

[ihaznoclue]

*Slides in a slip*

'May I request Donnie, aka my favourite turtle maybe that him and Reader is hanging out in the lab, enjoying the peace and quiet while the Reader does homework and Donnie does his science stuff?'

Please and Thank you!

Pairings -> Donatello/Donnie x Reader

Warnings -> None

Note -> Donnie and you are just hanging out in the lair, doing your own things as you do your homework

Genre -> Fluff

DONATELLO

The soft hum of the lab’s machinery was the only sound that filled the air, featured by the occasional clinks of tools or the soft scribble of a pen on paper

Donnie's eyes were fixed just on the complicated assignment in front of him as he sat at his workbench among a variety of devices, cables, and incomplete projects

At the table next to him you were sitting, your textbooks spread out in front of you as you tried to focus on your homework

It wasn’t the easiest task, especially with Donnie's constant tinkering, but you couldn’t help but enjoy the atmosphere of the lab

The peace, the quiet and the way everything felt so natural with Donnie by your side

You glanced at him and he smiled softly while adjusting something

There was something about these moments, the ones where the two of you could simply exist in the same space without needing to speak every second, that made the world feel just a little bit better

“You know,” you spoke up, your voice breaking the silence

"You’re making this look way too easy.. How do you do it?”

Donnie didn’t even look up from his work, but you could see the corners of his mouth twitch up in a smile

“Science is never ‘easy' It’s just… important. Once you understand the principles behind it, everything becomes easier.. The trick is to never stop experimenting”

You nodded, even though you didn’t fully understand the science part, but you were okay with that

You had the feeling that if you ever needed to know, Donnie would explain it in a way that made it sound more simple

The quiet returned and for a moment, the only sounds were the low beeping of Donnie’s computer and your occasional sigh as you worked through equations and formulas for your maths assessment that will be coming up in a few days

Despite how different the two of you were, him with his genius intelligence, and you with your focus on your studies

You both seemed to fit here in the lab together

There was a comfort in the shared silence, the mutual respect and the sense of peace that came with simply being in each other's company

“So...” you said after a while glancing up at Donnie

“How’s that project of yours going? The one you’ve been obsessing over for the past week?”

He glanced up, his glasses reflecting the soft lab lights, his face showing just the slightest hint of pride

“It’s almost finished.. Just a few final things to do and it’ll be ready for testing"

You smiled, glad to see him so focused in his work

It was rare that he was this calm and this focused

Usually his mind was racing a hundred miles a minute, hopping from one idea to the next

But right now, in this moment, everything seemed to slow down

It was nice

“Well, don’t blow anything up” you teased.

Donnie’s smile grew a little more

“I never blow anything up" He paused, his voice dropping to a secretive tone

“On purpose.."

You laughed, shaking your head and turned your attention back to your homework

The world outside of the lab didn’t matter

Here in this space with Donnie, you were exactly where you needed to be

-A<3

[artzval]

Tales of Featherbug and

Catastrophe

— Stolitz Miraculous Ladybug AU —

•|| Link Art and comics ||• ~ •|| link One shots ||•

Welcome to my AU!

Brace yourself, this AU is basically the perfect lovechild of Miraculous and Helluva Boss but with extra chaos, extra gay panic, and extra Blitzø being a little shit.

Of course, misunderstandings and secrets are going to make y'all mad from exasperation, but stay with me, it's going to be worth it I promise!

First things first: it wouldn't be a miraculous au without a good old and nervewracking—

Love Square™:

Blitzø (Civilian) → Stolas (Civilian): Blitzø sees Stolas as this insufferable, spoiled rich kid with too much money and not enough spine. He assumes Stolas awkward stammering is just snobbish arrogance (spoiler: it's not, he's just really bad at dealing with his massive crush)

Blitzø (Civilian) → Featherbug (Hero Stolas): Blitzø is OBSESSED with Featherbug. He thinks Featherbug is the epitome of grace, charm, and pure perfection. The fact that he's secretly Stolas? Yeah, Blitzø has no idea. He would have a heart attack.

Stolas (Civilian) → Blitzø (Civilian): Poor Stolas is head over heels for Blitzø. He's charmed by and envies his fiery personality and the way he seems to defy the world. But he can't figure out why Blitzø always gives him the cold shoulder. (Stolas, sweetie, the can incident didn't help.)

Stolas (Civilian) → Catastrophe (Hero Blitzø): Stolas finds Blitzø's hero form exciting and reckless, but it's bittersweet because no one could ever compare to his Blitzy. He's happy to have him as his Best Friend and partner tho, he never had a friend before! (Also, Blitzø as a hero is 100% a flirty mess, and Stolas cannot compute, he's getting tired of rejecting him)

The rest of the Chaos:

Aka all the lore I came up with for this AU.

There are probably going to be some changes, but at the moment this feels like a good enough base.

1) Marinette was the One that left the Miraculous in Stolas and Blitzø’s world through a multiversal portal. In her universe, the fearsome The Supreme was nearly defeated but managed to escape, too weakened to be an immediate threat. Fearing he might still be working in the shadows, Marinette temporarily hid the Miraculous in a faraway place, out of reach from anyone who could use them for evil. She instructed Tikki and Plagg to reveal themselves in case of necessity.

2) The Supreme followed the Miraculous into the new universe. Although he is too weak to wield them himself, he managed to slip into the shadows and manipulate Barbie, preying on her pain and her longing to have her mother back. This makes him a silent but constant threat, waiting for the right moment to seize the most important miraculous and make a wish himself.

3) Barbie is the one misusing the miraculous of the butterfly, akumatizing people to bring her mom back. She’s just as desperate and unhinged as Gabriel, but with chaotic edgy teen vibes. (Not so different from org Gabi)

But how did she acquire such a powerful artifact??

THE SUPREME. The supreme found her at her worst, after running away from home and pried on her grief and incapability of forgiving her twin.

4) Blitzø works with his family in the circus section of the city zoo, they try to scrape by day by day. They're new in town, a year and half after the accidental fire that killed his mom and disabled him.

Blitzø had bad days where he needs to use a cane to walk ( like Adrien in the first script). Considering he's now not capable of amazing tricks, he's forced to sell nuts and cotton candy all night.

5) Andrehalphus as Chloé: Andrehalphus is here to bring ALL the petty, privileged AND RACIST drama. And speaking of drama, must be fun being homophobic and having a crush on Stolas. Good luck 🤨

Stella is also Chloé.

6) Millie and Moxxie as Alya and Nino. Also I.M.P is a band.

7) Loona is an illegitimate daughter of Blitzø's father. Her mother just passed away and CPS left her at their "doorstep". Blitzø will start taking care of her as if she were his own daughter, Cash Buckzo is incapable of taking care of anyone outside himself.

8) The Gum Incident™ from the Origin episode is now called "The Can incident"™ : Canonically happens, canonically NEVER explained. Blitzø is salty about it forever.

Honestly?

Who wouldn't be ? Imagine get to class after a piss and the rich kid had messed up your can making you fall in front of the whole class.

#Tales of Featherbug and Catastrophe AU

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Demon-haunted computers are back, baby

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

As a science fiction writer, I am professionally irritated by a lot of sf movies. Not only do those writers get paid a lot more than I do, they insist on including things like "self-destruct" buttons on the bridges of their starships.

Look, I get it. When the evil empire is closing in on your flagship with its secret transdimensional technology, it's important that you keep those secrets out of the emperor's hand. An irrevocable self-destruct switch there on the bridge gets the job done! (It has to be irrevocable, otherwise the baddies'll just swarm the bridge and toggle it off).

But c'mon. If there's a facility built into your spaceship that causes it to explode no matter what the people on the bridge do, that is also a pretty big security risk! What if the bad guy figures out how to hijack the measure that – by design – the people who depend on the spaceship as a matter of life and death can't detect or override?

I mean, sure, you can try to simplify that self-destruct system to make it easier to audit and assure yourself that it doesn't have any bugs in it, but remember Schneier's Law: anyone can design a security system that works so well that they themselves can't think of a flaw in it. That doesn't mean you've made a security system that works – only that you've made a security system that works on people stupider than you.

I know it's weird to be worried about realism in movies that pretend we will ever find a practical means to visit other star systems and shuttle back and forth between them (which we are very, very unlikely to do):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

But this kind of foolishness galls me. It galls me even more when it happens in the real world of technology design, which is why I've spent the past quarter-century being very cross about Digital Rights Management in general, and trusted computing in particular.

It all starts in 2002, when a team from Microsoft visited our offices at EFF to tell us about this new thing they'd dreamed up called "trusted computing":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/05/trusting-trust/#thompsons-devil

The big idea was to stick a second computer inside your computer, a very secure little co-processor, that you couldn't access directly, let alone reprogram or interfere with. As far as this "trusted platform module" was concerned, you were the enemy. The "trust" in trusted computing was about other people being able to trust your computer, even if they didn't trust you.

So that little TPM would do all kinds of cute tricks. It could observe and produce a cryptographically signed manifest of the entire boot-chain of your computer, which was meant to be an unforgeable certificate attesting to which kind of computer you were running and what software you were running on it. That meant that programs on other computers could decide whether to talk to your computer based on whether they agreed with your choices about which code to run.

This process, called "remote attestation," is generally billed as a way to identify and block computers that have been compromised by malware, or to identify gamers who are running cheats and refuse to play with them. But inevitably it turns into a way to refuse service to computers that have privacy blockers turned on, or are running stream-ripping software, or whose owners are blocking ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

After all, a system that treats the device's owner as an adversary is a natural ally for the owner's other, human adversaries. The rubric for treating the owner as an adversary focuses on the way that users can be fooled by bad people with bad programs. If your computer gets taken over by malicious software, that malware might intercept queries from your antivirus program and send it false data that lulls it into thinking your computer is fine, even as your private data is being plundered and your system is being used to launch malware attacks on others.

These separate, non-user-accessible, non-updateable secure systems serve a nubs of certainty, a remote fortress that observes and faithfully reports on the interior workings of your computer. This separate system can't be user-modifiable or field-updateable, because then malicious software could impersonate the user and disable the security chip.

It's true that compromised computers are a real and terrifying problem. Your computer is privy to your most intimate secrets and an attacker who can turn it against you can harm you in untold ways. But the widespread redesign of out computers to treat us as their enemies gives rise to a range of completely predictable and – I would argue – even worse harms. Building computers that treat their owners as untrusted parties is a system that works well, but fails badly.

First of all, there are the ways that trusted computing is designed to hurt you. The most reliable way to enshittify something is to supply it over a computer that runs programs you can't alter, and that rats you out to third parties if you run counter-programs that disenshittify the service you're using. That's how we get inkjet printers that refuse to use perfectly good third-party ink and cars that refuse to accept perfectly good engine repairs if they are performed by third-party mechanics:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

It's how we get cursed devices and appliances, from the juicer that won't squeeze third-party juice to the insulin pump that won't connect to a third-party continuous glucose monitor:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

But trusted computing doesn't just create an opaque veil between your computer and the programs you use to inspect and control it. Trusted computing creates a no-go zone where programs can change their behavior based on whether they think they're being observed.

The most prominent example of this is Dieselgate, where auto manufacturers murdered hundreds of people by gimmicking their cars to emit illegal amount of NOX. Key to Dieselgate was a program that sought to determine whether it was being observed by regulators (it checked for the telltale signs of the standard test-suite) and changed its behavior to color within the lines.

Software that is seeking to harm the owner of the device that's running it must be able to detect when it is being run inside a simulation, a test-suite, a virtual machine, or any other hallucinatory virtual world. Just as Descartes couldn't know whether anything was real until he assured himself that he could trust his senses, malware is always questing to discover whether it is running in the real universe, or in a simulation created by a wicked god:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/28/descartes-was-an-optimist/#uh-oh

That's why mobile malware uses clever gambits like periodically checking for readings from your device's accelerometer, on the theory that a virtual mobile phone running on a security researcher's test bench won't have the fidelity to generate plausible jiggles to match the real data that comes from a phone in your pocket:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/google-play-malware-used-phones-motion-sensors-to-conceal-itself/

Sometimes this backfires in absolutely delightful ways. When the Wannacry ransomware was holding the world hostage, the security researcher Marcus Hutchins noticed that its code made reference to a very weird website: iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com. Hutchins stood up a website at that address and every Wannacry-infection in the world went instantly dormant:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#the-matrix

It turns out that Wannacry's authors were using that ferkakte URL the same way that mobile malware authors were using accelerometer readings – to fulfill Descartes' imperative to distinguish the Matrix from reality. The malware authors knew that security researchers often ran malicious code inside sandboxes that answered every network query with fake data in hopes of eliciting responses that could be analyzed for weaknesses. So the Wannacry worm would periodically poll this nonexistent website and, if it got an answer, it would assume that it was being monitored by a security researcher and it would retreat to an encrypted blob, ceasing to operate lest it give intelligence to the enemy. When Hutchins put a webserver up at iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com, every Wannacry instance in the world was instantly convinced that it was running on an enemy's simulator and withdrew into sulky hibernation.

The arms race to distinguish simulation from reality is critical and the stakes only get higher by the day. Malware abounds, even as our devices grow more intimately woven through our lives. We put our bodies into computers – cars, buildings – and computers inside our bodies. We absolutely want our computers to be able to faithfully convey what's going on inside them.

But we keep running as hard as we can in the opposite direction, leaning harder into secure computing models built on subsystems in our computers that treat us as the threat. Take UEFI, the ubiquitous security system that observes your computer's boot process, halting it if it sees something it doesn't approve of. On the one hand, this has made installing GNU/Linux and other alternative OSes vastly harder across a wide variety of devices. This means that when a vendor end-of-lifes a gadget, no one can make an alternative OS for it, so off the landfill it goes.

It doesn't help that UEFI – and other trusted computing modules – are covered by Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which makes it a felony to publish information that can bypass or weaken the system. The threat of a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine means that UEFI and other trusted computing systems are understudied, leaving them festering with longstanding bugs:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/09/free-sample/#que-viva

Here's where it gets really bad. If an attacker can get inside UEFI, they can run malicious software that – by design – no program running on our computers can detect or block. That badware is running in "Ring -1" – a zone of privilege that overrides the operating system itself.

Here's the bad news: UEFI malware has already been detected in the wild:

https://securelist.com/cosmicstrand-uefi-firmware-rootkit/106973/

And here's the worst news: researchers have just identified another exploitable UEFI bug, dubbed Pixiefail:

https://blog.quarkslab.com/pixiefail-nine-vulnerabilities-in-tianocores-edk-ii-ipv6-network-stack.html

Writing in Ars Technica, Dan Goodin breaks down Pixiefail, describing how anyone on the same LAN as a vulnerable computer can infect its firmware:

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/new-uefi-vulnerabilities-send-firmware-devs-across-an-entire-ecosystem-scrambling/

That vulnerability extends to computers in a data-center where the attacker has a cloud computing instance. PXE – the system that Pixiefail attacks – isn't widely used in home or office environments, but it's very common in data-centers.

Again, once a computer is exploited with Pixiefail, software running on that computer can't detect or delete the Pixiefail code. When the compromised computer is queried by the operating system, Pixiefail undetectably lies to the OS. "Hey, OS, does this drive have a file called 'pixiefail?'" "Nope." "Hey, OS, are you running a process called 'pixiefail?'" "Nope."

This is a self-destruct switch that's been compromised by the enemy, and which no one on the bridge can de-activate – by design. It's not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last.

There are models for helping your computer bust out of the Matrix. Back in 2016, Edward Snowden and bunnie Huang prototyped and published source code and schematics for an "introspection engine":

https://assets.pubpub.org/aacpjrja/AgainstTheLaw-CounteringLawfulAbusesofDigitalSurveillance.pdf

This is a single-board computer that lives in an ultraslim shim that you slide between your iPhone's mainboard and its case, leaving a ribbon cable poking out of the SIM slot. This connects to a case that has its own OLED display. The board has leads that physically contact each of the network interfaces on the phone, conveying any data they transit to the screen so that you can observe the data your phone is sending without having to trust your phone.

(I liked this gadget so much that I included it as a major plot point in my 2020 novel Attack Surface, the third book in the Little Brother series):

https://craphound.com/attacksurface/

We don't have to cede control over our devices in order to secure them. Indeed, we can't ever secure them unless we can control them. Self-destruct switches don't belong on the bridge of your spaceship, and trusted computing modules don't belong in your devices.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/17/descartes-delenda-est/#self-destruct-sequence-initiated

Image: Mike (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/stillwellmike/15676883261/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/