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clanwarrior-tumbly · 11 months ago

Note

Ooo you’re doing Pressure!!

May I request an artist reader who, throughout the journey found some paper, pencil and made a little makeshift sketchbook and when later bought Sebastian’s document decided to try and draw him? Like maybe both when human and current (and maybe the monsters)?

Perhaps he saw them sketching, got curious and decided to look through it when reader left it somewhere or just straight up snatched it and held it out of their reach and sees those sketches of him. Could be hurt/comfort or angst/fluff.

Of course you’re free to change any of the details but please keep it platonic TwT

Aw love this idea! And it works considering all the paper and notebooks in the drawers of the blacksite.

............

"Great, [y/n]. One moment, you're doing some harmless graffiti on a brick wall nobody cares about. And the next, you're risking your life for a stupid crystal in hopes you'll get a federal pardon.."

Sighing, you held onto the overhead handles within the sleek black submarine, feeling it shake and rumble as it breached the water's surface. And after hearing the chime, the door hissed and opened up, the platform extending out onto the dock of a place already familiar to you: Hadal Blacksite.

'No place like home..' As you stepped out of the submarine, you could hear HQ over the PDA system informing you of your objective in reaching the crystal and collecting any "loose assets" you find along the way...

As if you needed any reminders of what you were doing here.

Immediately, you unlocked the first door with the keycard and began your journey to room 100. Along the way, you found a good handful of research data. Nothing too special aside from folders, USB drives, and a couple blue DNA vials.

Then after narrowly dodging the Angler in one area and avoiding Eyefestation's gaze in the next, you reached a room requiring yet another keycard to exit. You checked the nearby office cubicle, finding it in the first drawer you opened.

But that isn't what made your eyes light up. Rather, it's what was right next to the card that did:

A brand new pencil to go with the sketchbook you've been carrying with you.

Because you weren't given the luxury of doodling while sitting in jail for over 90 days, you felt your creativity flames being snuffed out, leaving you itching to draw something again.

Before all of this, you had a decent following on social media with your art skills, and you could imagine that they're worried sick over your sudden absence. But you hoped that, if you survive and succeed in this mission, you'll be able to come back and reassure them that you're very much alive.

And perhaps show them what Urbanshade has been hiding from the public...that is to say the sea monsters that have taken up residence in the Blacksite since its lockdown, freely roaming and haunting nearly every room you step into.

With the makeshift sketchbook you had (and somehow kept even after death), you've filled its pages with simple and detailed sketches of each creature you encountered.

But you doubt that they would let you leave with physical evidence of entities nobody else in the world should know about...unless you somehow convinced the guards that they were "original characters" that so-happened to look like them, but you had a feeling that excuse wouldn't fly.

Regardless, they've given you tons of artistic inspiration, despite your many close-calls with them in pursuit of studying their features from afar.

Thanks to the files Sebastian Solace has shown you, you've learned how to safely observe the Angler from a distance and better remember their details. They were merely a grotesque face surrounded by smoke, so you didn't have to worry about drawing any limbs or tails (assuming they had those).

You encountered their variants so many times that you could recall the little things that made each them unique--like how Pinkie had four pupils, how Blitz was missing pupils in one socket completely, how Froger was..well..a big frog with lots of needle-shaped teeth, and Chainsmoker was a sluggish blobfish through all that smoke.

Making eye contact with Pandemonium was a death sentence..as you've already learned after trying (and failing) to safely observe him through a glass window. So you draw him as you see him in his file.

The Squiddles' "intimidating" faces were scary in the dark when you least expected them, but they served as amazing inspiration. You even had a page full of what faces you'd think they make up to frighten others. It's too bad you couldn't show them, however, as that required you getting in their personal space.

Eyefestation, Good People, and the Wall Dwellers were quite..risky to observe, as they had ways of quickly and painfully sending you back to square one if you weren't careful. Even so, you made some pretty damn good sketches..and you wish you could show them off to them, too, especially to the shark who'd probably appreciate a human's drawing of herself.

Even the DiVine, who were always frozen in poses for some reason, joined your ever-growing list of muses. The oxygen gardens were a nice place for you to rest and appreciate the flora for a few moments--before an Angler came along, of course.

Then there was Sebastian.

While he was fully aware of your artistic passions, in the beginning he seemed a bit annoyed whenever you came into his shop just to sketch.....or if you took an unusually long time to reach him. He just assumes you've stopped to "doodle" and wonders if you really care about getting out of this place alive.

He'd remind you that HQ could get suspicious if you're off their radar for too long, but you've stayed in his shop for 10-20 minutes at a time and not once did your diving gear beep. So you reassured him not to fret.

It was kinda sweet that he worried over you, an expendable, although maybe that's because you actually treat him with decency..and don't take his snarky comments to heart whenever you died.

Aside from the occasional eyeroll whenever you brought out your sketchbook, he did inquire about some of the things you've drawn, and you'd show him, bearing a little pride in your work.

All you'd get in response was a "neato" or "wowie, that's how you see them?" and nothing more.

It wasn't insulting, so...you'll take that.

Obviously he was more concerned about how much research data you were willing to fork over in exchange for supplies, and how far that equipment will carry you before your next demise. So you'd eventually close the book and barter with him for whatever wares were on his tail.

Unbeknownst to him, you've actually started sketching him as of late. Now that you've met him dozens of times, it was easy for you to recall his features without needing to stare at him for reference every five seconds.

That would not only be rude, but very creepy.

Then one day, you showed up to Sebastian's shop with enough data to be able to afford his document, which described him as Z-13, "The Saboteur" who the company wanted "dead on sight" if he was spotted or trying to escape.

When you had time to read the file on your own, you learned some..pretty shocking things about how he caused the lockdown, went through torturous experiments, and was falsely accused of nine murders and was proven innocent far too late.

The most upsetting part was that he was never informed of this.

He learned that after presumably stealing his own document.

It made you feel sick to your stomach, knowing he's the reason you're being terrorized by those beasts, but you couldn't find it in your heart to be angry at him.

If anything you were angry at Urbanshade for their "guilty until proven innocent" system--or in his case, being proven innocent didn't matter.

His human mugshot was also included in the file, and even with the black censor bar covering his eyes, he still looked like quite a handsome fellow. You could make out some details, and ended up drawing him on a separate page, too, although part of you wishes you never started.

You doubt he would kill you or rip apart your book for drawing him, but considering how volatile and rude he could be at a moment's notice..you did your best to conceal the sketches when you visited his shop.

You didn't want him to be offended or reminded of his past..and make him resent the one person who he almost considered a genuine friend.

Unfortunately, you'd soon come to realize that your actions were only heightening his suspicions.

And that it was going to come to a head next time you entered his shop.

...............

"Okay, I'm going to bite...what're you really hiding in that little book?"

"Pardon?" Pausing mid-sketch, you looked up at Sebastian, wondering why he appeared so disgruntled. "I'm..uh...just doodling like I always-"

"No, don't give me that "like always" crap." He huffed, flicking the end of his tail as he crossed his two arms over his chest, staring down at you. "Last time, you couldn't stop showing me a stupid face you'd think one of those S-Qs would make...and now you won't even let me have a sneak peak of your next "masterpiece"." He spat the last word, voice dripping with disdain. "Are you really drawing something...or are you secretly writing intel to give to Urbanshade?"

"...wha.." You blinked in disbelief, wondering where he'd get that assumption from. "Why would I ever do that?"

"Oh I dunno, maaaybe because you have access to my file and know my location? I bet you're gonna sell me out to those scumbags once you reach the crystal." He gnashed his teeth. "Did they say you'd get extra cash for leaving tips on my whereabouts, huh?"

"Sebastian, there's no reason for this hostility. I'm not giving any intel to anyone-"

"Then you wouldn't mind me taking a look at this, would you? Yyyyyyoink!" His third arm was quick to snatch your sketchbook away, holding it out of your reach as you jumped up in panic.

You were already dreading his reaction.

This could very well be the end for you.

"Please give that back! You'll tear it!"

"You look frightened. So maybe I should, considering you're writing secrets about.....about...." But as Sebastian finally looked at the page, all he saw were sketches of his current self, and you began to see a shift in his expression.

It went from pure anger, to surprise and confusion, and then to....something unreadable.

"These are...all of me?" His voice became quieter as he flipped the page, only for his breath to hitch upon finding the drawings of his human form.

And for once, he was completely speechless.

The details were immaculate, everything from his hair style to the scar he used to have across his face--given to him from an angry cellmate who thought he really did kill those people and tried giving him a "taste of his own medicine".

But the way you made him look was...incredible.

That's him.

That's really him.

The man--the human--he was before...

Before...

"Yes." Your face was burning with embarrassment, and your heart was pounding with fear of both death and ridicule, now knowing that your fate laid in his hands now. "I-I'm sorry. I should've asked for your permission and I know the details aren't perfect but you didn't let me........huh?"

Ceasing your ramblings, you noticed the tears welling in his eyes, and you were stunned. Then his shaking hands closed the sketchbook and returned it to you. "Um..are you okay? I'm really sorry if-"

"I...a-almost forgot what I looked like before all of this.." He raised a claw to wipe at his watery eyes, sniffling. "They're...good drawings, friend. I'm sorry..I...I-I didn't mean to..." His voice cracked, and he forced himself to stop, bringing his hands to his face. "Why am I crying over something like..t-this..?"

He hated looking so weak in front of you, yet he couldn't help the tears that kept slipping down his cheeks. A certain sadness was weighing heavily on his heart, yet at the same time he felt...honored that you wanted to draw him, putting your heart and soul into every sketch--with him getting the most effort.

You didn't overexaggerate him as the hideous beast he and everyone else was convinced he was, but just him as, well, himself. His smiles when he realizes it's you coming through the vent again, his cheeky grins when you buy up all his supplies, and even the one time he pouted when you died to Pandemonium because you risked it all trying to draw the moldy fish-creature.

The human ones, as you could tell from the way he broke down, especially hit home for him. Just from a mugshot alone, you were able to create a near-accurate depiction of him.

It made him wonder if you two have met before any of this happened.

Sebastian sniffled, struggling to stop the tears and expecting you to make fun of him as he finally uncovered his face. But instead he saw you standing there with your arms opened up. "I feel like you could use one of these. It's okay. I know you miss being human."

".........."

"C'mon, big guy. My arms are kinda hurting--oh!"

Without warning, he accepted your embrace and squeezed you tightly in his hold. Of course he was careful not to crush your diving tanks, and you smiled in appreciation and patted his back. "It's okay, it's alright..I got you. I didn't mean to make you cry."

He sniffled a few times, but otherwise said nothing and tried making sure you weren't supporting all of his upper body weight.

Curse his size. He wishes he could experience a normal hug again.

This one will do, though.

"I-It's...it's fine. Don't worry.." He finally spoke after a few moments, calming down. "As long as you don't tell anyone about this."

"I'll take it to my grave." You chuckled, letting go and stepping away so he could straighten his back out. While he did that, you gently tore a few pages from your book, to which he blinked in confusion.

"What are you doing with-?"

"Keep them." You insisted. "In case this sketchbook falls into a pit or gets waterlogged, I want you to hold onto these. Besides, I can tell you appreciate them a lot. So...consider it a gift."

"Why..thank you." A smile appeared on his face as he took the pages carefully. "Rest assured, they'll be safe and sound." He gazed at them both one more time, feeling a tug on his heart.

But it wasn't as heavy as before.

After neatly folding and stowing them away into his pockets, he saw you already sitting in one of the chairs, your sketchbook opened to a brand new blank page.

"Sooooooo what are you going to draw this time?" He tilted his head, ear fins twitching with curiosity.

"Hm...I did see a vision of a white glowing man a few rooms back. I think he was from...the Mindscape? There was a file talking about him and some floating gears and a white ball."

"Ohh yeah, he's an interesting guy. I'd love to see your interpretation of him." Now Sebastian was 100% invested, as he curled his tail around himself, resting his upper body on it so he could see your book better. "But y'know you won't be able to leave this place with sketches of-"

"I'm well aware of that...I could always change a few things and turn them into OCs."

"Hah. You should."

"Maybe I will." You snickered, grateful that you didn't have anything to fear.

At least somebody in the Blacksite appreciated your art.

#this one was fun to write <3 #clanask #anonymous #roblox x reader #roblox pressure x reader #pressure x reader #sebastian solace #sebastian solace x reader #hurt/comfort #artist reader #fluff/angst

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mariacallous · 2 months ago

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In 2019, I gave a talk at TED that created waves: first at the conference, then on the internet and then, convulsively, in my own life. TED is Silicon Valley’s sacred ground. It’s the most consequential tech conference in the world and, in 2019, my talk entitled “Facebook’s role in Brexit - and the threat to democracy” was a break with normal service. It was the first time, a speaker had implicated Silicon Valley directly in the political tumult of 2016. It ricocheted out of the conference and across the internet where it’s now been seen five million times. And, most cataclysmically of all, it precipitated a lawsuit that devoured my time, energy and health.

This week I returned.

It was a big deal on any number of levels. For me, personally, for TED, and, I believe, or at least, hope, for Silicon Valley. I got to send a message to the leaders of these companies from a platform that is inside the temple. I’ve lost my voice and I feel like I’ve lived through a tornado….but with the knowledge that it’s one I’ve chosen to unleash.

TED has just released it as the first talk from the conference. I got to name what is happening for what it is: a coup. I call the Silicon Valley companies who attend this conference and even sponsor it, collaborators who are complicit in a regime of fear and cruelty. And I accuse Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who is talking here on Friday not just of data theft but data rape.

youtube

There’s so much to say and I will write more soon but for now I’d be so grateful if you watch it and share it with your families and friends. In spite of everything, I’m grateful to have been given this platform and to be able to communicate what I believe are vital truths but I have paid a price for doing this work and the last week has been a rollercoaster of emotions: doubt, self-questioning, denial, overwhelm, fear.

And in the middle of it, the night before I flew to TED, I went to the Observer’s farewell party. This Sunday marks the end of the newspaper as we know it. Six years ago, I got to write about the experience of giving my TED talk in the Guardian/Observer. Paul Webster, the editor, put it on the front page.

This time around, that’s not possible. TED gave me editorial freedom to say what I wanted. The Guardian/Observer won’t even allow me to write about it, in any form.I pitched a piece for this Sunday about the experience. It would be my last article for the paper, it transfers to Tortoise next week who have declined to renew my contract; an epitaph to my 20-year career there and an an end point to an investigation that brought the Guardian and Observer extraordinary kudos and the most money it has ever raised from any story. It was turned down. That is an extraordinary indictment.

Here, instead, is a still from the talk. I believe that existing movements - the labour movement, the civil rights movement - are fundamental to asserting our rights against Silicon Valley, to rebuilding the internet from the ground up to rejecting the autocratic takeover not just the US but our reality: we all live on these platforms.

I’m six years older than when I gave that first talk though I feel 106 years older. Part of my reason for going through with it - and it was touch and go whether I would - was because, as I say at the end, I’m reclaiming my story. I’ve been trapped in someone else’s narrative. And I also really want to use it as a personal moment of change. In 2016, I threw myself over what felt like an about-to-explode bomb. I ended up absorbing the shock blast from something that was much bigger than me: the waves of destruction that the technological and political changes of 2016 sent through the system. I need to mark this chapter as now over and put back together some of the bits that shattered through this process.

But mostly, the talk is a huge thank you to the people who supported me through my legal trials. The 30,000+ people who contributed to my crowdfunder and held me up. You are the model for what is needed in the next days and years.

This is what we’re up against. This was Palmer Luckey, on stage the day after me. That’s an autonomous missile next to him. He’s a US defence contractor, Trump cheerleader.He got a standing ovation.

In my talk, I could feel waves of hostility coming from some people in the room. TED is ground zero of the AI gold rush. But there was also cheerleading and l’ve been overwhelmed by huge love and support from others who see exactly what is happening. It’s the weirdest time to be here. And it was the weirdest energy from an audience of any talk I’ve ever given. But then, it was intended to make them uncomfortable. Politics is technology now. Silicon Valley is desperate to deny that, but it can’t and no can we.

#Youtube

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almostwisegalaxy · 1 month ago

Text

Love is so scary. What if he she

Yeon Sieun x Ballerina reader x Ahn Su-ho

The reader has a shy character in this story

Music to listen to for the atmosphere: Golden Brown the stranglers

..................................................................................

Wednesday. 5:04 PM.

The gymnasium smelled of waxed wood, sweat, and muffled music. In the mirror at the far end, reflections overlapped: the rapid movement of a fist against a punching bag, the straight back of a boy sitting on the bleachers, and, further away, the silhouette of a young girl dancing silently.

She always arrived at the same time. Right after her classes at the downtown classical dance academy. She would drop her things in a corner, isolate herself, plug in her headphones – old, black models, worn at the edges – and begin to dance. Not to rehearse a passage, nor to impress. Just for herself. For the silence she found in movement. To breathe.

Y/N.

Si-eun had known her name for three weeks. He had heard it by chance one day when her teacher had called her on her phone, which had been left on the bench. That day, he had written her name in the margin of his notebook. Like an important fact to remember, like a mathematical data point that should not be forgotten. "Y/N. 5:04 PM. Wednesday."

Since then, he had observed her. Discreetly, without ever disturbing her. He noted the movements she repeated, the music he managed to guess through her headphones, the rhythm of her breathing during the grand jetés. It wasn't a morbid obsession, no. It was a form of study. Si-eun didn't yet understand why he felt this calm watching her dance. So he did what he knew how to do: he analyzed.

Su-ho, on the other hand, was less subtle.

He would sometimes stop between rounds to admire her in the mirror. He said nothing, but his gaze would soften, almost fragile, a rare thing for him. He would pretend to stretch when she passed nearby. And when she briefly looked up to glance around, he would immediately look away with the agility of an actor.

They had never exchanged a word. Not a hello. Not a smile. Nothing. And yet, every Wednesday, tension slowly wove itself into the margins of their days.

Y/N had seen them. Of course, she had seen them.

Si-eun always sitting in the same place, his eyes fixed on his papers – or rather, on her. And Su-ho, who would smile for no reason when Si-eun cast a quick glance at him between two equations. She didn't listen to them, she didn't really dare to. But sometimes, they would touch. Simple gestures – a hand on the shoulder, a brush of fingers while passing a water bottle – but for them, it was almost intimate.

What had struck her wasn't the gesture, it was the permission. Si-eun, the boy with the closed-off air, didn't let anyone approach him. Yet, he never recoiled from Su-ho. And when their eyes met, it was as if the rest of the world faded away.

She found them beautiful. Together. She admired them.

And yet, that Wednesday, everything slightly changed.

5:22 PM.

The wooden platform where she danced had just been waxed by the center's employees. A detail that Y/N hadn't noticed. She wanted to test a sequence: arabesque, pirouette, saut de chat. But as soon as her foot left the ground, she felt the slip. A fraction of a second too long, and her center of gravity betrayed her. She let out a small cry, muffled by her music. No one would have heard her. No one except him.

Su-ho had jumped up without thinking.

For a moment, Y/N saw the ceiling spin, then two strong arms caught her before impact. He had slipped a little too, but he had held on, absorbing the fall, holding her with unexpected gentleness.

She was in his arms. Just for a second.

"You almost broke something," he murmured, almost in a whisper.

She looked at him. Up close, he had soft eyes. A little worried. And he smelled... of sweat, cheap shampoo, and something reassuring.

"Thank you..." she breathed.

He smiled. Not his usual arrogant smile, but a sincere, almost tender one. He helped her up gently.

On the other side of the gymnasium, Si-eun watched them. He had stood up without even realizing it. His notebook had fallen at his feet. He didn't know exactly what he was feeling – relief? Worry? A shiver ran between his shoulder blades, a sort of vertigo.

But it wasn't jealousy. It wasn't anger. It was... something else. A dull vibration. A new feeling.

When Y/N turned briefly towards him, their eyes met. She tilted her head gently, a hint of a greeting, shy but sincere.

He responded with a slight nod, but his eyes remained fixed on her longer than intended.

6:02 PM.

Y/N had sat down again, legs folded against her chest, her headphones still on, but without music this time. She occasionally glanced at the two boys.

They were laughing now, one tapping the other on the shoulder. A natural, fluid complicity. Y/N smiled to herself.

She thought that whether they were together or not, there was something rare between them. A silent loyalty, a light in their gestures. She blushed slightly as she watched them.

Maybe one day, she would dare to really talk to them.

Or maybe they would come to her.

---

An April evening. The air smelled of a light chill and cherry trees that were taking their time.

Y/N had found this corner of the park by chance a month earlier. It was isolated, set back from the too-bright lampposts and children's shouts. Here, the light was yellow, warm, flickering like a nightlight. An old bench creaked beside a patch of cracked asphalt – not the ideal place to dance, but she loved it for its solitude.

That evening, she wasn't alone.

Su-ho had insisted on accompanying her. He hadn't really asked permission; he had said, smiling, "You know, it would be much less dangerous if you had an audience."

And against all odds, Si-eun had followed. Without a word, as always, but his hands in his pockets and his eyes curious.

Y/N wore an oversized sweater, her headphones around her neck, and a slight smile she tried to hide. Su-ho wore his laughter. Si-eun, his silence. The three of them formed a strange tableau, like a poem in three different languages.

She began to dance. Not a strict choreography, but free gestures, guided by the music escaping from her phone placed beside her. The lamppost light drew soft shadows around her. Sometimes her feet would slip a little on the asphalt, but she compensated with the grace of her arms, the undulation of her neck, that natural fluidity she never showed at school.

Su-ho clapped his hands.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed, exaggeratedly. "Did you see that, Si-eun? She's floating, seriously. She looks like a spirit!"

She laughed. A real laugh, not discreet. That laugh made Su-ho's eyes widen. He started to imitate her, clumsy, hopping in place, twirling with his arms raised in a chaotic version of her movements.

"Look, I'm doing the same! Bring on your critiques, I'm ready for the Seoul Opera."

Y/N doubled over with laughter, holding her stomach, and Su-ho voluntarily fell to his knees in an absurd bow. She applauded him, her eyes shining.

Si-eun, for his part, didn't speak. He was filming. From the bench, he had taken out his phone without even thinking. He captured the images: Y/N dancing, Y/N laughing, Su-ho twirling and falling, and that warm light on their faces. A rare smile – thin, almost shy – slowly spread across his lips.

He hadn't seen this moment coming. He had come out of curiosity. But at this precise instant, something shifted within him. Like a cloud sliding past a star and revealing it even brighter.

Su-ho stood up, breathing a little heavily, his hands on his hips. Y/N sat down on the bench, between the two of them.

"Are you always like this together?" she asked softly.

Su-ho shrugged, teasingly, "Like what? Talented?"

"Like... close."

The word hung in the air for a moment.

Si-eun turned his head towards her. Su-ho raised an eyebrow, surprised. She lowered her eyes, almost regretting her words.

"You're beautiful, together. I mean... You understand each other without speaking. It's rare."

Su-ho remained silent. Si-eun, for his part, observed Y/N for a long time. He had never thought of their bond in those terms. But he knew it was true. They understood each other. And now, she too seemed to be gently entering this fragile equation.

Later that night, each went home.

***

Y/N, in silence, lay down on her bed. Her hands resting on her stomach. Her heart was beating too fast.

She had wanted to kiss them. Both of them. Tonight, she had felt the urge more strongly than ever. When Su-ho had watched her dance as if she were a miracle. When Si-eun had looked up from his phone and she had seen his smile. A real smile. The thought had flashed through her mind: to place her lips on Su-ho's, then turn her face and do the same with Si-eun.

But she hadn't done it. Because she didn't want to spoil the sweetness. Because she didn't know if what she felt had the right to exist. And a wave of guilt had enveloped her, as beautiful as it was painful.

***

At Su-ho's house, the emotion had hit him like a hook to the heart.

He couldn't stop replaying her laughter. That sound, light and raw, had imprinted itself on him like a song he didn't want to forget. He didn't understand exactly what he was feeling, but it burned. Sweet, pure. He wanted to see her again. Not in a setting, not in a gym, but there, under the stars. Just to make her laugh again. He would have danced a thousand times like an idiot if it could offer him that.

He turned over in his bed, arms behind his head, a silly smile plastered on his face. He didn't need to understand. He just knew he was falling in love.

***

At Si-eun's house, everything was silent.

He was sitting at his desk. His notebook open. His phone placed beside it.

He launched the video.

Y/N was dancing. Su-ho was laughing. And he... was smiling.

He watched again. And again.

Something tightened in his chest. An emotion he knew poorly, but could no longer deny. It was Y/N. What she exuded. That mix of strength and modesty. That soft light, not overwhelming, but persistent. He understood that night that he was falling in love. Slowly, gently. Like falling into a dream he had never dared to imagine.

And it was beautiful. Not painful. Just pure.

He didn't know what it meant for them. For Su-ho, for him. There was no jealousy. Just a strange certainty: he wanted her to be there. To stay in their world. She had found her place, somewhere between their silences, their gestures, their gazes.

Three hearts, suspended in a silent equilibrium.

A girl who danced.

A boy who laughed

Another who wrote.

And love, timid, silent, luminous like a lamppost in a forgotten park.

---

There was something strange since the night in the park. Since the laughter under the lampposts, the dance steps, the stolen smiles in the silence. An invisible thread had stretched between them, not taut with anger, no. Rather with questions.

Su-ho had been the first to say it out loud. They were alone on the high school roof, where they liked to hide from the noise. The wind played in Su-ho's hair, and Si-eun was reading, sitting against the wall. Su-ho stretched and then said, without malice:

"Hey, Si-eun... You like her, huh?"

Silence. Si-eun slowly raised his eyes.

"Y/N."

He didn't need to specify.

Si-eun looked down at his pages, but his fingers had frozen.

"I..."

"It's not an accusation," Su-ho added with a smile. "Because me too."

This time, Si-eun raised his head. Not with anger. But with a dizziness. The world was too vast for their emotions, so recent, so fragile.

"It's... weird," he murmured. "I'm scared."

Su-ho blinked.

"Of what?"

"Of liking her. Of losing her. Of destroying what we have. You and me."

Su-ho burst out laughing, but without mockery.

"Love is so scary. What if she..."

He waved his hands in the air, mimicking an imaginary catastrophe. But in his eyes, there was a poignant tenderness.

"Si-eun... even if we're both in love with her, there's no war between us. There's just us. And her."

There was silence. Then a smile. Small, but real. They didn't yet know how to exist with that truth, but they knew it wasn't going to break them.

...

Y/N, on her side, suffered in silence.

She thought about them every night. About the looks, the gestures, that invisible thread. And she also thought about what she couldn't have. She still believed they were together. And she cursed herself for loving both of them. For wanting their arms, their voices, even their silences.

But she didn't want to be a threat. Not to be the grain of sand in their perfect mechanism. So she stayed. She stayed near them, always shy, but smiling. Her smile was an armor. And a call.

...

That day, she appeared at the high school exit.

Si-eun and Su-ho were leaving together, bags on their backs, looking peaceful. And there, on the sidewalk, she was waiting for them. Standing in her dance academy uniform, her arms loaded with a cardboard box.

"Love is so scary," Su-ho murmured with a mocking smile. "What if she comes to pick you up all excited after school?"

Si-eun gently nudged him on the shoulder, but his gaze didn't leave Y/N.

She was smiling. For nothing. For everything.

"Hi!" she said. "I... I'm selling cakes for my school. For the trip to Busan."

Su-ho scratched the back of his neck.

"Ah. Uh. I'll take... two, then."

He paid, out of politeness, and bit into one immediately. He grimaced.

"It's... different."

Si-eun, silent, took a small shortbread. The taste hit him suddenly: sweet, simple, a little lemony. He took a second one. Then a third.

Y/N lowered her eyes, a little flushed.

"I like to cook. Especially when... I'm thinking of people I like."

They nodded. Nothing more. But the bond tightened.

...

The day after, Y/N came back. She was holding a small kraft paper bag, tied with string.

She ran into Su-ho in the hallway of the sports center.

"Hi. This is for... you. Well. For your boyfriend."

"My... huh?"

"Si-eun. I mean, I think it's adorable. And I wanted to do something for you."

Su-ho stared at her, blinked.

Then burst out laughing. Loudly. So much so that two high school students turned around.

"Wait, wait. You think Si-eun and I are together?"

She blushed, looking flustered.

"Sorry! I... I thought. I mean, the way you look at each other. I was wrong. That's stupid."

He grabbed her hand.

"Come on."

"Where?"

"We're going to clear up a misunderstanding."

...

They arrived in the courtyard. Si-eun was reading, of course. When he saw Su-ho arrive, dragging Y/N by the hand, he closed his book.

"We have a problem," Su-ho said, still laughing. "Our Lover thinks we're a couple."

Si-eun blinked slowly.

Y/N stammered:

"I-I'm so sorry! I just got the impression, the way you look at each other... I was mistaken. It's silly."

Silence. Then Si-eun spoke, for once without hesitation.

"You weren't mistaken. There's a lot of love between us. Just... not the kind you think."

Su-ho added:

"But there's also a lot of love for you. And that's more confusing."

Y/N froze. The bag fell to the ground.

"I..."

"Me too," Si-eun said. "I love you. For a while now. It's scary. But I love you."

Su-ho, arms crossed, nodded.

"Same. I love you. Seriously. And even if it's weird, even if it complicates everything..."

They were looking at her. Both of them. Their eyes full of fire, fear, beauty.

She took a step back.

"But you... both of you..."

"We don't want to make you choose," Su-ho said.

"We don't want to fight," Si-eun completed.

She looked at them for a long time. Then she took a step towards them.

She hugged them. Both of them. An arm around each.

And said, in a breath:

"Me too."

Three heartbeats. Three silences.

And the beginning of a story outside the classic lines. A story where love destroys nothing. Where it simply adds.

Where they learn, together, to love with multiple voices.

---

Their world had shifted silently, like a breeze changing direction. Since that day in the courtyard, they were no longer just three searching for each other, brushing against each other, holding back. They had found each other. Without awkwardness, without grand speeches. Just simple words. And the naked truth: they loved each other.

First Moment: The Rooftop

They often returned to the high school rooftop. It was their refuge. Y/N would sit between the two of them, legs crossed. Su-ho would massage her shoulders when she said she had danced too much. Si-eun would offer her pieces of dark chocolate that he always kept in his pocket. She would grimace each time because it was bitter, but she accepted anyway.

One day, she fell asleep against Su-ho's shoulder, and her hand brushed against Si-eun's. He didn't dare to pull it away. He left it there, just underneath. He watched her sleep for a long time. Su-ho too. They said nothing to each other. But they both knew they were exactly where they wanted to be.

Second Moment: The Storm

One evening, a storm surprised them as they were leaving the sports center. They ran in the rain, laughing like children. Y/N slipped in her ballet flats, and Su-ho hoisted her onto his back without thinking. She shouted, laughed, and hit his shoulder to make him put her down. He refused.

They took refuge in a deserted bus stop. Y/N was shivering. Si-eun took a sweatshirt out of his bag and put it over her shoulders. She closed her eyes for a moment, inhaling the faint scent of the fabric.

Then, without any of them knowing who had started it, there was a kiss. Light. On her forehead. From Su-ho to her. Then another. On her cheek. From Si-eun. She opened her eyes again, her cheeks pink, and said simply:

"I love the rain."

And they all three laughed.

Third Moment: Small Attentions

Y/N, although shy, loved taking care of them. She prepared bentos that were too pretty, too well-organized, with clumsy handwritten notes.

"Don't forget to drink water. You sweat a lot! (It's cute though.)" was stuck on Su-ho's.

"I put tuna even though I know you don't like it much. But I do. (Sorry.)" on Si-eun's.

They kept all these little papers. Su-ho stuck them in his training notebook. Si-eun slipped them between the pages of his books.

And they returned the favor. One day, she found a pressed rose between two pages of her dance notebook. And a word, scribbled in stiff handwriting:

"You bring beauty to places where I only saw emptiness."

She melted. And sulked the next day because neither of them confessed who had written it.

Fourth Moment: Funny Arguments

Y/N had a strong personality. She would laugh at nothing but sulk at even less. When she dropped a glass and Su-ho said, "Do you have two left hands or what?", she would cross her arms and turn her head.

"It's not me. It's karma."

And Si-eun would raise an eyebrow. She would point at him.

"And you, stop judging me in silence."

He would say nothing but hand her a towel. She would grumble, then eventually smile. And everything would go back to normal.

Fifth Moment: The Day She Kissed Them

They were alone in the dance studio of her academy one Saturday evening. She had the key. She wanted to show them a step she couldn't master.

They had watched her, focused, sweaty, luminous. She fell, again. Then, on the floor, she looked at them, one knee bent, her cheeks pink:

"Can you love me even if I'm not perfect?"

Su-ho knelt down first.

"I love you because you fall. And because you get back up."

Then Si-eun, simply:

"You are perfect for me."

She kissed them. Lightly. One after the other. Without fear. Their hands on her cheeks, her fingers in their hair.

A kiss that asked for nothing. That gave everything.

Sixth Moment: The Festival

At the spring festival, they got lost in the crowd. They eventually found each other near a lantern stand.

They bought one.

Each wrote a word on it:

"Protection." – Su-ho.

"Peace." – Si-eun.

"Us." – Y/N.

And they let it fly away, their hands joined, their eyes raised.

The boys changed.

Su-ho became more tender. Less defensive, more attentive. He was no longer just the protector. He was the man who loved without hesitation, without limit.

Si-eun, for his part, opened up. Slowly. Like a book that had been closed for a long time. He said "I love," "I'm scared," "thank you" more often. And he looked at Y/N as one looks at a miracle they hadn't asked for but thank every day for existing.

And Y/N... Y/N was growing. She laughed. She asserted herself. She danced for them. She loved them with a gentle but deep strength. Without possessiveness. Without fear.

They were three. Not a triangle. But a circle. Closed. Complete.

And under the soft light of their shared days, love also danced.

---

That day, the air was thick, almost heavy with heat, but the silence that reigned around Y/N, Si-eun, and Su-ho seemed to freeze time. The afternoon had begun ordinarily, but very quickly, everything changed. Five boys appeared in their field of vision, and the atmosphere became charged with a palpable tension. Si-eun and Su-ho had already made a name for themselves in the high school, and not for the right reasons. There were people who envied them, and these five were part of that group. But today, it was mainly Si-eun they were after. Why him in particular? Perhaps because of the reputation he carried or the past stories that lingered in the hallways.

As soon as the boys approached, one of them, with a menacing look, sneered:

"You really think you can get away with that, Si-eun? Aren't you ashamed to hide in your friend's shadow? You're just a coward."

There was no immediate response from Si-eun. He didn't want to fall into the trap of confrontation, but the escalation was inevitable. Insults began to rain down, and before they could understand what was happening, a fight broke out.

The boys threw themselves at Si-eun and Su-ho without the slightest hesitation. Su-ho, always so impulsive, plunged into the fray, landing a punch on one of the guys with surprising force. Si-eun, for his part, fought with measured precision, each movement calculated, but his body tense, like a spring ready to break.

Y/N, seeing the escalation of violence, tried to move away so as not to get involved. But she was grabbed by one of the boys, who brutally pulled her into the fight. She struggled, trying to push the assailant away, but in an awkward movement, she lost her balance. The sound of her ankle cracking echoed in her ears. She fell to the ground, tears in her eyes, curling up on herself.

"Y/N!" Su-ho yelled, his heart pounding as he caught sight of her, blocked by two other boys.

Si-eun also reacted quickly, but he couldn't afford to completely turn away from the fight. His gaze darkened when he saw Y/N on the ground, a dull ache settling in his stomach. It was because of them that she was hurt. They hadn't been able to prevent it. Their fight had gotten out of hand.

The boys eventually retreated, not without difficulty. Each of them was injured, but victory was theirs. But as the last gasps of their opponents faded into the wind, a heavy silence fell upon them. Y/N, trembling, held her ankle, trying to get up. Su-ho and Si-eun rushed towards her, their concern clearly visible. But the looks between the two boys were different now. There was a new distance.

A few days passed, and while the three friends usually met at school, a strange void had settled in. Si-eun no longer came to their usual spots. He would slip away, without explanation, without a word. The silence between them had become heavier, more oppressive.

Su-ho was the first to notice. He hadn't seen Si-eun for a week, and it was eating away at him. Every minute without news from him was like a stab in his heart. Why this silence? Why this distance? He felt like something between them, something he couldn't identify, was slowly breaking.

One afternoon, after days of silent frustration, Su-ho couldn't take it anymore. He grabbed his phone and sent a message to Si-eun, but the reply was slow in coming. When he finally got a response, it was just a short "I'm fine, don't worry." But the words had no warmth, none of those comforting gestures that Su-ho knew so well from him.

One afternoon, they finally crossed paths on the street. Si-eun approached, his hands in his pockets, his gaze evasive. Su-ho didn't need more to understand that something was wrong. It was as if Si-eun was carrying a heavy burden, a guilt he couldn't share.

"Si-eun... you've been ignoring me for a week," Su-ho said in a tone harsher than he intended. "What's going on? You haven't even bothered to come talk to me. We're supposed to be... we're supposed to be friends."

Si-eun stopped, taken aback. He lowered his eyes, as if every word he had to say was too difficult to pronounce. Then, he sighed, almost imperceptibly, as if he was exhausted by the tension that gripped him.

"I feel guilty, Su-ho," he finally murmured, his voice flat. "It's my fault. Y/N got hurt because of us. We should have avoided all this. But I... I felt... vulnerable. And I put you in that situation. You fought for me. It's because of me. And I don't know how to handle it."

Su-ho, struck by Si-eun's sincerity, remained silent for a moment. But his frustration quickly turned into a pain he hadn't been able to express until now.

"It's not your fault, Si-eun. Do you really think we were going to let you down?! What do you think we are, huh? If you think we're going to walk away because you're in a tough spot, then you don't know me."

He stepped closer to him, his gaze suddenly piercing. The words that followed were simple but hard to hear.

"Did you really think I could abandon you, Si-eun? I feel like I'm losing everything. You're my friend, my brother. And when you pull away like this, when you do this, I feel... lost. It's like I've lost you, and Y/N too, and it's destroying me, you know?"

Si-eun's gaze darkened. He knew Su-ho was right, but a part of him couldn't break free from the guilt that gnawed at him. He wanted to protect the others, to love them, but he felt like he was messing everything up every time.

Y/N, for her part, was at the heart of this torment.

She had followed the whole story without daring to interfere in their tension. She had gradually distanced herself, thinking that she was causing this suffering, thinking that it was because of her that things were becoming so complicated. If Si-eun was withdrawing like this, it was her fault. If Su-ho was so lost, it was because of her. She had done nothing to deserve their pain, but that didn't change anything. She moved away, thinking their lives would be simpler without her.

The days passed in unbearable tension.

Su-ho, prey to his own anger and confusion, and Si-eun, who was fighting his own demons. They kept their distance, like two lost souls in a sea of unspoken words.

And that day, everything exploded.

The argument erupted abruptly, without warning. It wasn't about Y/N, but about the insecurities that gnawed at each of them. What they thought was a simple misunderstanding turned into a painful confrontation.

"Why are you acting like this, Si-eun?! Do you want us to drift apart? Do you want us to get lost?! Why are you like this?"

Su-ho's words hit Si-eun like a slap. He recoiled, as if the shock paralyzed him, his gaze darkening further.

"It's not for you to understand, Su-ho. I've always felt like a burden to you. I don't have the right to... I don't have the right to do this to you. You deserve better. She deserves better."

The words broke in the air, heavy with regret and suffering. Each of them was too fragile to handle love, friendship, and guilt. But there was no turning back.

---

The days that followed the altercation were both long and silent. Yet, something, somewhere, had begun to change.

It was Su-ho first. He had never been one to stand back, and even less to let tensions settle. But this time, he was taking his time. Because he could see that Si-eun wasn't just being evasive. He was hurt. Broken, inside.

And it was in this silence that one gesture made everything shift.

That evening, on the rooftop of the building where they usually met, Si-eun was sitting cross-legged, looking at the city lights, lost in his thoughts. Su-ho joined him without a word, sitting down beside him.

A long moment passed.

Then Si-eun, in a flat voice, murmured:

"I thought you wouldn't come back here."

Su-ho shrugged:

"I didn't feel like waiting any longer. I'm not good with silence."

A small laugh, barely audible, escaped Si-eun's lips. And in an almost clumsy gesture, he gently rested his head on Su-ho's shoulder. A soft silence enveloped them, comfortable this time.

Su-ho didn't move. He didn't say anything either. But his arm wrapped around Si-eun's shoulders, slowly. He held him close. It was a new gesture. Not just from a friend. Not only that.

They didn't talk about love. Not yet. But the bond was there, palpable, warm, and reassuring.

One day, Su-ho said, his voice soft:

"You know, you have the right to need others. I need you. It's not a weakness. It's just... human."

Si-eun looked at him, and for the first time, he didn't try to run away. He nodded silently.

But there was still an open wound. Y/N. And Su-ho wasn't one to leave things hanging for too long.

"You have to talk to her," he said one morning. "You can't keep hiding."

"I can't..."

"Yes, you can. And I'll come with you."

So they went to the conservatory where Y/N took her ballet classes. The atmosphere was calm, hushed. In a large room with mirrored walls, Y/N was dancing, surrounded by little girls in pink tutus. She was graceful, even with a slight limp. Each gesture was precise, gentle, and you could feel the passion in her eyes. She smiled at the children, encouraged them, corrected them with patience.

But when she saw Su-ho and Si-eun through the window, her smile slowly faded. She didn't greet them. She finished the session, then left without a word.

Su-ho scratched the back of his neck:

"Okay... She's not thrilled. We're going to have to do better."

And so he dragged them to a small neighborhood restaurant that all three of them knew. An old place where the smell of stew still hung in the air before you even opened the door.

They sat down. The waiter brought them kimchi, rice, steaming dishes. The silence was heavy, except for Su-ho's stomach, which was growling so loudly that even Y/N let out a twitch of a smile.

But no one spoke. Until Y/N broke.

She slammed her chopsticks down, her throat trembling. And tears sprang forth, brutal.

"You... you both let me down!" she cried between sobs. "You fought, you dragged me into it, and then you disappeared! Si-eun, you just... ignored me!"

Si-eun remained frozen.

She continued, unstoppable:

"And you, Su-ho, you think you can fix everything by forcing me to eat soup?"

Su-ho tried to put a ball of rice in her mouth to appease her. She accepted it between sniffles, chewed slowly, tears streaming down her face.

"I can't take it anymore. I want to break up with you, Si-eun. I don't love you anymore. I... I just want Su-ho, at least he stays!"

Su-ho choked on his own bowl of rice. He coughed, his eyes wide:

"Eat, love. You're starting to talk nonsense."

Y/N hiccuped, swallowed wrong, continued, her nose red:

"I'm tired of broken boys who run away from their responsibilities and make me feel guilty because they have sad eyes! I'm tired of your silences, your Korean drama stares!"

Su-ho tried to give her something to drink. She drank, wiped her cheeks, then started crying again, all while continuing to talk.

"And then why are you both so beautiful, huh? It's not fair! And now you're hugging like in a boy's love?! What am I supposed to do?!"

The waiter arrived, hesitant, placing a plate of fried chicken on the table.

"Not the moment," Su-ho said, politely sending him away.

Y/N grabbed a piece of chicken, bit into it, sobbed harder.

"It's so good... I hate you..."

It was then that Si-eun finally moved. He leaned towards her slowly. He didn't know what to say, so he did what he knew how to do: he looked at her sincerely.

"I'm sorry, Y/N. I'm really, truly sorry. I messed up. I wanted to protect everyone by staying away. I thought I was the problem. But I understood. I was just a coward."

She looked at him, her eyes full of tears, her mouth full of rice, kimchi stuck to her cheek.

"You're really stupid," she murmured. "But I love you anyway."

And Su-ho, a piece of tofu balanced on his chopstick, sighed:

"You guys are impossible..."

Then he added with a smile:

"Good thing you have me."

And all three of them, in that small neighborhood eatery, between laughter, tears, food, and mumbled confessions, slowly began to piece their story back together.

---

The days that followed their confrontation saw things slowly settle, but with a new depth. It wasn't like before, when everything was easy and fluid, like a light song you listen to while walking under a summer sky. No, now everything seemed imbued with a greater complexity. A kind of tenderness, of fragility. But also strength. Because somewhere, between the laughter and the silences, something solid had formed. Something that none of the three had anticipated, but that was there, omnipresent, in every gesture, every look.

They often found themselves together. It was no longer just to chat or confide, but to share simple, almost mundane moments. Like that evening, when Y/N, in an excess of generosity, invited them to her house for the weekend. She had assured them that her parents were never there, and so they had prepared for a quiet weekend, just the three of them, laughing and relaxing. But as soon as they crossed the threshold of the house, they understood that Y/N had something else in mind.

The door opened onto a large, silent house. Daylight barely filtered through the thick curtains. They had expected relaxed moments, lounging on the sofa playing games or listening to music. But Y/N greeted them with an innocent smile and a "Oh, I've invited you for such a special weekend! You're going to love it." Immediately after, she gave them a mischievous look.

"I'm going to go relax on the sofa for a bit. You know... I work so hard, I deserve a little rest."

The boys exchanged a look, a little lost. Then, before they could protest, she added:

"If you could do a little cleaning around the house in the meantime... I love you so much for that!" She gave them a sugary smile, one of those smiles that removed any possibility of protest.

And so they found themselves, armed with brooms and cloths, cleaning Y/N's house. The task seemed endless. The living room, the bedrooms, the kitchen, everything was a mess. Su-ho, with his usual sense of humor, said while sweeping the floor:

"Love is so scary, what if she... makes us her servants for the weekend?"

Si-eun turned to him, a tired smile on his lips:

"I think that's exactly what she's done..."

And that was it. The weekend they thought would be idyllic had turned into a series of chores. Every time they finished a task, Y/N would get up from the sofa, her eyes shining, to assign them a new mission. A bit of dust to remove here, a cushion to rearrange there. And between each task, she would shower them with sweet words, sugary nicknames: "My little darlings, my loves, my adorable heroes..." But these words were just a sweet coating to mask the weekend's scam. Y/N rested while they slaved away.

Su-ho, increasingly exasperated, let out a groan.

"Love is so scary, Si-eun. What if she... continues to make us do all her chores? I’m starting to wonder if I’m in a romantic comedy or a horror movie."

Si-eun, wiping his forehead, nodded with a desperate look.

"I think we're in a bit of both. But hey, you know, it could have been worse. She could have made us cook too."

"That would have been the icing on the cake," Su-ho replied, continuing to sweep, looking dramatically exhausted.

Humor allowed them to hold on. But they were clearly realizing they had been tricked. Yet, even in this ridiculous situation, there was something beautiful. They were together, facing this absurd situation, and despite everything, they felt close. Their complicity was growing. Gestures became more tender, gazes longer. Even in the most mundane task, they found themselves connected in a new way.

Finally, evening arrived, and Y/N "woke up" from her restorative sleep. She invited them to sit around the table, dinner ready. This meal was the perfect excuse to "forgive" them for their hard labor. The table was beautifully set, and the food looked absolutely delicious. Y/N, with a triumphant smile, looked at them both and said:

"Well, you've certainly earned this feast. Thank you for your hard work. You're truly angels."

Su-ho collapsed into his chair, a sigh of relief escaping his lips.

"You know, Y/N... If you do this every time we come to your place, I'm going to end up being an expert in housework rather than romantic relationships."

Y/N laughed softly, a laugh that instantly warmed the atmosphere.

"I'm so sorry, my littles sweet. I promise tomorrow will be a perfect weekend."

And then, they spent an evening full of laughter, tender teasing, and good food. They had found their rhythm again, like a slightly wobbly but close-knit family, bound by ties stronger than simple chores.

Night fell, and after eating, they prepared for bed. But what awaited them was a little more... intimate. Y/N had invited them to sleep over, and it was clear she wasn't just sharing her bed. The bed was gigantic, but it didn't seem big enough for three. Once they were all lying down, Y/N snuggled against them without hesitation, immediately finding her place between Si-eun and Su-ho, her body brushing against both boys.

The problem was, she didn't really grasp the concept of personal space. She nestled against Si-eun, then, after a moment, turned towards Su-ho, moving a little closer. Neither of them dared to move, content to breathe deeply in the warmth of the night.

Su-ho, a little uncomfortable, murmured:

"Love is so scary, Si-eun. What if she never lets us sleep again?"

Si-eun, slightly tense from the proximity, shrugging, replied:

"I think you're going to have to get used to it."

The boys exchanged a nervous smile. The situation was both strange and sweet. They were so close to each other, but there was still that unspoken question between them. What exactly was this bond that had slowly woven itself, but undeniably linked them?

Then, in the middle of the night, Y/N woke up slightly, leaning over to kiss Si-eun, gently, almost like a wake-up call. The kiss was slow, almost shy. Si-eun didn't move, his eyes half-open, letting it happen. There was no rush, just a quiet tenderness that flowed through their gestures. It was like an attempt to explore this intimate space between them, to tame it.

Su-ho watched them, silent. A discreet smile formed on his lips, but it was neither jealousy nor anger. It was emotion. He watched them, moved by the tenderness of the moment. Then, without a word, he leaned towards them, kissing them in turn. Y/N turned to him, a mischievous glint in her eyes, but there was no drama or conflict. Just a silent love.

"You guys are unbearable," Su-ho murmured, teasing them, his smile widening. "But luckily you have me."

In Y/N's big bed, amidst laughter and shared moments of intimacy, the three young people let themselves be carried away by the sweetness of the night. The boundaries between friendship, love, and everything beyond seemed blurred, but there was no doubt: something intense was weaving itself between them. Something that went far beyond simple labels.

..................................................................................

@mariii-0001

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justforbooks · 9 days ago

Text

Pentagon’s Pizza Index has accurately predicted 21 global crises since 1983

As tensions rise in the Middle East, a curious, crowd-driven theory known as the “Pentagon Pizza Index” has caught fire online.

On June 12 and 13, users on X (formerly Twitter) reported a sudden spike in pizza deliveries near the Pentagon and Department of Defense in Washington, D.C., sparking speculation that the United States may be quietly entering crisis mode behind closed doors.

The timing? Just hours before Israel reportedly struck targets in Iran in response to Tehran’s earlier drone and missile attacks. And once again, pizza orders were booming.

Cold war roots of the pizza theory. What began as a Soviet spy trick is now a digital-age meme

The idea isn’t new. During the Cold War, Soviet operatives observed pizza delivery activity in Washington, believing it signalled crisis preparation inside U.S. intelligence circles. They coined it “Pizzint” — short for pizza intelligence.

This tactic entered public lore on 1 August 1990, when Frank Meeks, a Domino’s franchisee in Washington, noticed a sudden surge in deliveries to CIA buildings. The next day, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Meeks later told the Los Angeles Times he saw a similar pattern in December 1998 during the impeachment hearings of President Bill Clinton.

As former CNN Pentagon correspondent Wolf Blitzer once joked in 1990, “Bottom line for journalists: Always monitor the pizzas.”

WWIII warning: What is the Pentagon Pizza Index today? A meme, an OSINT tool, or a symptom of digital-age paranoia?

The modern Pentagon Pizza Index is tracked through open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools. These include Google Maps, which shows real-time restaurant activity, and social media observations. Pages like @PenPizzaReport on X have dedicated themselves to watching for abnormal patterns.

On 1 June 2025, the account posted, “With less than an hour to go before closing time, the Domino’s closest to the Pentagon is experiencing unusually high footfall.”

A few hours later, reports emerged of a fresh escalation between Israel and Iran. For believers in the theory, it was yet another sign that something bigger was underway.

The April 2024 pizza spike. A recent example that reignited interest

The most notable recent instance occurred on 13 April 2024, the night Iran launched a massive drone and missile strike against Israel. That same evening, screenshots from delivery platforms showed pizzerias around the Pentagon, White House, and Department of Defense tagged as “busier than usual.”

Multiple Papa John’s and Domino’s branches reported increased orders. The correlation prompted viral memes and renewed interest in the theory.

According to Euro News, a user on X posted on 13 June 2025, “The Pentagon Pizza Index is hiking.”

Inside the logic: Why pizza? Food, fatigue and national security

The concept is deceptively simple. When military staff face a national emergency, they work longer shifts and can’t leave their posts. They need quick, filling food — and pizza fits the bill.

Studies in behavioural psychology show that under stress, people prefer calorie-dense, familiar comfort foods. During high-alert operations, officials may work 16–20 hour days. That creates a visible consumption spike that outsiders can track.

And because platforms like Google and Uber Eats share real-time data on restaurant activity, amateur analysts can monitor these patterns — no hacking required.

World War III: Pizza as a proxy for preparedness. It’s not perfect, but it’s consistent

The Pentagon Pizza Index isn’t a foolproof system. It could easily be triggered by something mundane: a long staff meeting, a software glitch, or a nearby college football game.

That’s why modern OSINT analysts often cross-reference pizza spikes with other indicators — like unusual aircraft movements, ride-hailing activity, or power usage near government buildings. When multiple signs align, it suggests more than coincidence.

As a senior analyst put it: “You can’t bank a war call on a pizza. But if the Pentagon’s burning the midnight oil and feeding everyone, it’s worth a second look.”

Official silence, public curiosity. What the US government says — and doesn’t say

Despite the chatter online, the US government has made no mention of pizza deliveries as indicators of crisis.

Responding to speculation about American involvement in Israel’s airstrikes on Iran, Republican Senator Marco Rubio said:

“We are not involved in strikes against Iran, and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defence.”

Still, the Pentagon’s silence on the pizza theory hasn’t stopped internet users from speculating.

Humour meets anxiety in the age of digital vigilance

In an age where open-source tools let ordinary people track the movement of jets, ships, and even pizzas, the Pentagon Pizza Index sits at the bizarre intersection of humour and fear. It turns snack food into a warning system.

It’s also a reminder: not all intelligence requires a badge. Sometimes, the clue might be just down the road — in a Domino’s queue.

Whether you see it as absurd or insightful, one thing is clear: when the pizzas fly, people pay attention.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #Pentagon Pizza Index

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reasonsforhope · 1 year ago

Text

"Is social media designed to reward people for acting badly?

The answer is clearly yes, given that the reward structure on social media platforms relies on popularity, as indicated by the number of responses – likes and comments – a post receives from other users. Black-box algorithms then further amplify the spread of posts that have attracted attention.

Sharing widely read content, by itself, isn’t a problem. But it becomes a problem when attention-getting, controversial content is prioritized by design. Given the design of social media sites, users form habits to automatically share the most engaging information regardless of its accuracy and potential harm. Offensive statements, attacks on out groups and false news are amplified, and misinformation often spreads further and faster than the truth.

We are two social psychologists and a marketing scholar. Our research, presented at the 2023 Nobel Prize Summit, shows that social media actually has the ability to create user habits to share high-quality content. After a few tweaks to the reward structure of social media platforms, users begin to share information that is accurate and fact-based...

Re-targeting rewards

To investigate the effect of a new reward structure, we gave financial rewards to some users for sharing accurate content and not sharing misinformation. These financial rewards simulated the positive social feedback, such as likes, that users typically receive when they share content on platforms. In essence, we created a new reward structure based on accuracy instead of attention.

As on popular social media platforms, participants in our research learned what got rewarded by sharing information and observing the outcome, without being explicitly informed of the rewards beforehand. This means that the intervention did not change the users’ goals, just their online experiences. After the change in reward structure, participants shared significantly more content that was accurate. More remarkably, users continued to share accurate content even after we removed rewards for accuracy in a subsequent round of testing. These results show that users can be given incentives to share accurate information as a matter of habit.

A different group of users received rewards for sharing misinformation and for not sharing accurate content. Surprisingly, their sharing most resembled that of users who shared news as they normally would, without any financial reward. The striking similarity between these groups reveals that social media platforms encourage users to share attention-getting content that engages others at the expense of accuracy and safety...

Doing right and doing well

Our approach, using the existing rewards on social media to create incentives for accuracy, tackles misinformation spread without significantly disrupting the sites’ business model. This has the additional advantage of altering rewards instead of introducing content restrictions, which are often controversial and costly in financial and human terms.

Implementing our proposed reward system for news sharing carries minimal costs and can be easily integrated into existing platforms. The key idea is to provide users with rewards in the form of social recognition when they share accurate news content. This can be achieved by introducing response buttons to indicate trust and accuracy. By incorporating social recognition for accurate content, algorithms that amplify popular content can leverage crowdsourcing to identify and amplify truthful information.

Both sides of the political aisle now agree that social media has challenges, and our data pinpoints the root of the problem: the design of social media platforms."

And here's the video of one of the scientsts presenting this research at the Nobel Prize Summit!

youtube

-Article via The Conversation, August 1, 2023. Video via the Nobel Prize's official Youtube channel, Nobel Prize, posted May 31, 2023.

#social media #misinformation #social networks #social #algorithm #big tech #technology #enshittification #internet #nobel prize #psychology #behavioral psychology #good news #hope #Youtube #video

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randofics · 1 year ago

Text

Thermalis

🎶 Maroon5- she will be loved

Ultra Magnus x reader

18+

-------

Magnus was using his thermals to look over a malfunctioning piece of equipment when your entrance caught his attention. Your vibrant figure stood out against the cold blue of the concrete floor. Even the breath puffing through your nose and mouth had a fleeting heat.

It got colder inside during these winter desert nights. Cold enough for you to constantly wear your old high-school hoodie and leggings.

To his surprise, you weren't wearing the hoodie. Instead, it was tied around your waist, leaving your top half covered in a tank top. He observed your heat signature as you climbed the metal steps to the platform, curious at the way heat seemed to radiate from your belly, chest, and head. Your limbs were a bit cooler, and your fingers even cooler than them.

You noticed him staring and gave him a small smile. "What is it, Magnus?"

Shaking his helm slightly to clear it he hummed in question back at you. "I noticed you staring, so what's up?"

"Ah apologies y/n I noticed you weren't wearing your hoodie."

"Oh yeah, Rachet had me working on some of his equipment earlier. The cooling system was malfunctioning, so I had to wriggle inside where it was still hot to repair a few things. Made me sweat like a racehorse." He nods, remembering his own tech troubles. "I may have a similar problem with this equipment here."

"Really? Well, I can take a look if you want?"

"That would be much appreciated, thank you." He held out his servo for you to hop into and brought you over to the malfunctioning machine. Popping open a side panel, you lay on your back to slide inside all the way to your waist. Magnus observes your arms, moving about as you look over the wires and cables inside. The flashlight between your teeth slips in your concentration and smacks you in the forehead before rolling further inside the machine.

"OW... I sworney! Get back here, ya stupid flashlight!" Magnus quirks a browridge as you feel around for the familiar cylinder of your light. You shift your legs from their side laying position to propped up and spread as you reach further inside. Having forgotten his thermals were still on, the hot signature between your thighs drew in his optics.

He somewhat understood why your torso would be so hot but down there? Cybertronians were usually cold there. As you finally grabbed the light and continued your work, Magnus was staring off into space. His processor wandering. He couldn't help his curiosity in how that warmth would feel against him but remembered that organics were wet and squishy inside. At first, the thought kinda grossed him out, but the longer he thought about it, the stronger his curiosity became till he finally steered his thoughts towards you.

He hadn't been thinking of you specifically, at least not at first, but now he was thinking of how you would feel on his spike. The raunchy thoughts caught him off guard. He shook his helm to dispell them, clearing his vocalizer. A blue blush crossing his faceplate. He needed to distract himself with work. Walking over to his data pad, he turned it on, trying to busy himself with "paperwork."

He couldn't stop his thoughts about you. He wondered how much your temperature would change as he worked you up and how plush your body might be in his servos.

"Something wrong, big guy?" He gives you a strange look. You feel a bit shy under his gaze and trip over your words. "Magnus? Wh-what is it? Why are you... staring at me like that?" He kneals, and you take a step back.

"Your heat signature."

"What about it?" He clears his vocalizer standing straight again. "Nevermind, forget I said anything."

"Okaaay... I'm finished with the repair." He gives you a curt nod, turning back to the screens covered in cybertronian script. "Thank you for your assistance, y/n." Shaking your head, you walk away, not realizing the mech has his optics on you.

He silently watches you leave, finally switching his thermals off so he can see everything in normal color.

-------

The next hour or so was very unproductive for him. He just couldn't stop thinking about you no matter how hard he tried. Eventually, he gave up deciding that a night drive would calm his racing processor. But as fate would have it, he wouldn't be alone.

You jogged into the main room, calling to him as he got ready to transform. "Magnus! Magnus! Wait up!" He qwirked a brow ridge as you huffed from running. "Do you... mind dropping me off at my place?"

"Is Bumblebee unable to?"

"Yeah, he's busy helping Optimus." He nods, transforming in front of you. His driver side door pops open, and you step up inside. With your seatbelt secure around you, he drives through the tunnel.

Raindrops hit his windshield as he passed the giant hidden doors. Puddles had formed in the almost hydrophobic desert soil as an unusual hard rain poured from the heavens. He didn't need to use his wipers, but for the sake of blending in, he turned them on. Several cars passed in the opposite lane, almost backed up for some reason.

You looked farther ahead and spotted the flashing lights of police vehicles. You could see that the road ahead was blocked off by barricades and police cruisers. A large section of road had collapsed in the rushing floodwaters, and no one would be getting through anytime soon.

"Ugh, that's just great! Now, how will I get home?"

"You could accompany me for a drive while I find another way through?"

"Ok, if you're alright with it?" You watch the lights on the radio flash as he speaks. "I have nothing better to do at the moment." He makes a u-turn following the other vehicles through the translucent sheets of rain. A few minutes down the road, he turns onto a dirt one. You can feel his shocks taking the brunt of the worn potholes as he slowly drives through them.

Mud cakes his tires and undercarriage, making it hard to get a good grip on the road. The detour was proving more and more fruitless by the minute. He grunted as his tires spun in a particularly deep wallow. The mud had practically drained from under his tires, leaving him on top of a shelf of mud. His weight now off his tires put pressure on his undercarriage.

In cybertronian, he cursed his steering wheel, turning left and right as he tried to gain enough traction. With that not working, either he partially transforms using different parts to drag himself forward, eventually escaping the deep mud.

"That was deep! I was beginning to wonder if I should call for a wrecker."

"I doubt Bulkhead or Wheeljack would've been much help." You let out a chuckle at his misunderstanding. "No, I mean a wrecker like a vehicle recovery truck. They're mainly used for semi recovery." He grunts in recognition, continuing down the road.

The lights of a main road shine up ahead, and you breathe an unconscious sigh of relief when he rolls onto the asphalt. It's obvious, however, just how much mud is stuck to his tires as he unevenly drives down the road. As you continue looking forward, you spot an empty car wash.

"How about we stop at this car wash so I can spray you down?"

"Agreed, my tires aren't getting enough traction with this mud." He pulls into the semi sized wash bay and cuts his engine. The old car wash only has one working light in this bay, leaving it washed in a dim greenish-blue. Stepping out, you take the pressure washer in hand, immediately starting on his tires. The mud washes away relatively quickly, and before you know it, you're kneeling down, trying to spray his undercarriage clean.

The yellowish lights of an older pickup truck shine across you, and Magnus as a man pulls into the small lot. He parked next to the air pump, stepping out onto the glossy wet pavement. The rain had finally settled down quite a bit.

As you continued your spraying, the man was clearly watching you as he stood there a moment. He suddenly called out to you, gaining your attention. "Hey ma'am! Do you need some help?"

You wiped water from your face as you stood to face him. "No sir, I'm fine, thanks!" The man started walking over when you turned your back to him. Alarms rang in Magnus' processor, so he switched on his holoform. Opening the driver's side door, he stepped out, making eye contact with the approaching man. Immediately upon seeing Magnus, he turned on his heels and walked back to his truck to put air in his tires.

Boots hitting the concrete drew your attention. You were met with an older man, probably in his late forties, his hair just beginning to grey and dressed in battle fatigues. He was clean-shaven and standing with his hands behind his waist as a general would.

"That you Magnus?" He only nods, watching the man as he finally gets back in his truck, driving away. Magnus turns to you as you finish spraying his undercarriage clean. "That feel better?"

"Yes, thank you, y/n." Noticing your slight shivering, he turns on his thermals again. You're a tad colder than you were back at base, and clearly, the spray of the hose dampened your clothes. The cool breeze didn't help much either. After spraying a clean path to his passenger door and cleaning your shoes, you step up inside again.

Glancing at his surroundings, he steps up into the driver's seat. Pulling forward, he drives into the dark, secluded rear of the car wash to park. As you rub your arms in an attempt to get warm, you give him a confused look. His seat slides back as far as possible, and he pats his lap.

"You want me to get in your lap?"

"You're cold, aren't you? It's the least I can do for that wash down." You bite your lip as you think it over. Caving, you clamber over to him, straddling his legs with your hands on his chest. Gently and a bit unsure of yourself, you lean forward, wrapping your arms around his neck as you lay against him. His holoform is warm to your surprise but not as much as a human. You nuzzle into his neck, closing your eyes at the comforting feeling of his presence. Arms wrap around your back, and you let out a content sigh, relaxing your muscles.

He feels your body loosen as your breath tickles his holoform skin. He wraps his arms around you and lets himself relax as well.

-------

A few minutes pass, and you can't help but fidget a little with his uniform buttons. "What are you doing?" His deep voice close to your ear sends a shiver down your spine. And you can feel your body react to him. Gently, you press your lips against his neck, taking him by surprise.

He sucks in a synthetic breath as you place more tender kisses on his skin. "Would it be alright if I switched holoforms?" You pause, leaning back to look him in the eyes. "You have a different holoform?" Now you were curious, would it be this human with different clothes or something else? "I can project a holoform of my true body as well as this human form."

Perhaps he wanted to do this in his true form rather than some human version of himself. It was understandable. You wouldn't want to do something intimate in another body either. You smile and nod, letting him know you were ok with it and his holoform morphs before your eyes.

That familiar blue, red, and silver body sits under you as solid as ever. When you shift in his lap, you brush against his modesty panel, sending a small jolt of pleasure through your nerves. His servos land on your waist, and you press your forhead against his in a sign of affection.

"What would you like me to do next?" His question has you smiling, giving him a soft chuckle. "Just do what feels right, Magnus."

"Mmh, alright then." He takes your jaw in his servo, pulling you in for a kiss. It's gentle at first, both of you unsure about yourselves but slowly you get into a rhythm of sorts. His glossa ran over your teeth, asking for entry, which you obliged. His denta clashed against your teeth as the kiss grew frantic. Subconsciously, you scooted forward, sitting right on his modesty panel. His servo gripped your rear, lifting you slightly as you heard feint clicks. When you sat back down His modesty panel wasn't there anymore instead replaced by a spike of sorts. Rounded and pliable like some kind of silicone covered metal. It was dark charcoal grey with feint blue lights running along it.

A mad blush covers your face and ears as you look back up at him. He also looks nervous and can't keep eye contact with you. "I apologize y/n I didn't mean for that to happen." For once, you can hear nerves in his voice. He's normally so calm and collected much like Optimus.

Gaining confidence at his nervousness, you give him a peck on the lips, sliding off his lap. You strip in front of him all the way down to bare skin. His glowing eyes scan your body in awe as you gingerly slip back into his lap. "You're gorgeous. I don't know any femmies that even come close to your beauty." You almost tear up at his compliments.

He lets his servos roam your skin as he moves to kiss your neck. Small sounds escape your throat as he caresses your abdomen and deftly touches your spine. You position yourself on his spike, moving your hips back and forth to gain some pleasure. He groans in your ear as you rub yourself on him. Your slick leaks on him lubricating him for the next step.

When he breaks away from your neck, you kiss him again and sit up on your knees above him. "Are you certain you want to go through with this?" Your gaze is dark with arousal as you nod to him. You split yourself open, gently aligning him with your entrance as you finally sink down.

He hisses, cursing in cybertronian at the feeling of you around him. You let out a pitiful whine as he stretches you, filling you perfectly. You grip his shoulders to ground yourself as you both stay still for a moment. Relaxing your muscles, you slip just a bit further down to the base of him as he grips your hips tight.

When he attempts to move, you wrap your arms around his neck, gripping one of his ear finials. He moves his servos to your rear, lifting you up only to thrust back into you. Moans quickly flow from your lips as he gets into rhythm. A growl escapes him as he leans forward, getting out of the seat. With you he shimmys to his back cabin, laying you on the folding cot.

He gets on top of you and moves the pillow under your hips before slipping back inside you with a pleasured groan. You let out a gasp when he plunges back in, the different angle providing new pleasure. As he thrusts harder, you lock your legs around his waist and claw at his back plates. You can feel the coil inside you tightening as your muscles squeeze around his spike.

"Magnus... Harder!" Immediately, his hips snap harder into yours, and you feel your coil about to snap. It's only when he whispers to you something in cybertronian gripping the meat of your rear that it finally snaps. You call out his name as your body tenses, waves of white hot pleasure running through you.

He continues moving through your high, letting possesive synthetic growls slip through his vocalizer. An almost inaudible hiss of air meets your ears as your mind clears a bit, and you suddenly feel his girth increase inside you. It stretches you just a bit more, and you already feel another orgasm slowly creeping up on you.

Magnus isn't slowing down yet either as he lifts one of your legs to gain a better angle. His lips attacking your neck again as he chases his own release. His denta nip at your skin, and his glossa runs along your throat, making you shiver.

You feel his arms around you as he suddenly picks you back up, taking a standing position. He thrusts up into you, letting out what you can only guess is cybertronian dirty talk. Nonetheless, it works, and you know you're close to another release. Chanting his name like a mantra, you claw at his back and grip his finials.

"I'm close y/n!" You can't respond only letting moans flow from your lips. With a few more thrusts, he lets out a hiss cursing in cybertronian again as he releases inside you. Heat fills your womb as you squeeze him like a vice. Your legs tighten around him in an attempt to pull him further inside you. You can feel your walls pulse around him as he gently thrusts into you to ride out your high.

Breathing hard, you give him a sleepy smile touching forheads again in affection. He sits back in the driver's seat, letting you lay against him. "Can we stay here for a bit?"

"Of course. I wouldn't have it any other way." Wrapping your arms around his neck, you close your eyes. "I love you, Magnus." His spark swells with joy at that. "I love you as well, y/n."

#transformers fanfiction #transformers x reader #transformers prime #fanfic #ultra magnus #ultra magnus x reader #tfp #smut

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

Text

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/

#pluralistic #uefi #owner override #user override #jailbreaking #dmca 1201 #schneiers law #descartes #nub of certainty #self-destruct button #trusted computing #secure enclaves #drm #ngscb #next generation secure computing base #palladium #pixiefail #infosec

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data-observability · 2 years ago

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Why You Should Be Analyzing Your Company's Data Usage

Companies use and generate troves of data every year. More data is flowing in and out of a business than most realize. While every bit is important, some datasets hold greater importance than others.

With a data usage analytics platform, organizations can get a clear picture of the data environment and understand how their teams use data. Here are a few reasons to analyze your company's data usage.

Identifying Opportunities to Improve

One of the best reasons to analyze data usage in your organization is to discover new ways to improve. Maximizing productivity is always a top priority, but few companies fully consider how data plays a role in efficiency.

Understanding how the company uses data will enable you to fine-tune operations. Discover which operations are the most effective and use them as a framework to make improvements across the board. Conversely, analyzing data usage enables you to see what operations underperform. That information lets you know what needs work, giving you the tools to make changes that count.

Protect Your Most Vital Assets

Another benefit of using a data usage analytics platform is learning more about your company's most important data assets. Why does that matter? It empowers you to take steps to protect it.

Data quality and resiliency are critical. But it's even more important for the data assets your company relies on most for its success and efficiency. Use what you learn to allocate resources for monitoring and testing. You can spend more time on the data that requires your company's attention.

Save Resources

Data debt and compute costs can lead to inflated budgets and uncontrollable spending. Analyzing data usage is a fantastic way to identify areas where you can save. Discover slow queries that need optimization, perfect latency dependencies for smoother accessibility and more.

Knowing more about how your company uses data enables you to reduce costs as much as possible. You can direct your attention to bloated datasets, clean house and cut back on unnecessary resources used to manage them. It's about optimization throughout your data environment.

Gain insights with the best data observability platform - Explore this website for unparalleled visibility!

#best data observability platform #data anomaly detection software #data usage analytics platform #data quality management software

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xichilie · 2 months ago

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HI HELLO HII, so I was reading Your Aventurine x stone heart reader (kind of disappointed that you don't continue it) But Buuuuut forget about Aventurine I NEEEEED MORE ELIAS PLEASE, HE SO PRECIOUS 😭

I need more content for him please, please with a cherry on top 🍒

Ahhhhhh, I lost motivation for this one 😪 But I'm happy you love my pretty baby boy

I actually finished my redesign for him since I didn't like the old one

Name: Prototype-7A Elias

For those who didn't read the fic

(One-shot after explanation)

(Usually, the "Y/N" was also one of my OCs, but I changed it for the fic)

Elias is stoic, logical, and emotionally reserved, which sometimes results in awkward or literal interactions with others.

He often mimics behavior he's observed or whatever he's been told to emulate, leading to strange or hilarious misunderstandings

(Before he was called Elias, he was known only as Prototype-7A, a highly advanced artificial lifeform created by a renowned scientist known for pushing the boundaries of robotics and consciousness. Designed to be a powerful weapon, Prototype-7A had no name, no identity—only a purpose dictated by those who built him.

But everything changed the day he met Y/N, the scientist's younger sister.

Y/N, curious and compassionate even as a child, wasn’t afraid of him. She’d sneak into the lab when no one was looking, talking to him, bringing him books she read him, naming him Elias after a character in a storybook she loved. She didn’t see a machine—she saw someone trying to understand the world, just like her.

Over time, Elias changed. The constant interactions with Y/N, her kindness, her insistence that he was more than what they told him—these things awakened something within him. A soul, perhaps. The beginnings of personhood.

Then everything fell apart.

The famous doctor his creator, and Y/N’s guardian—died under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind his research, his laboratory... and Y/N. With no one left to protect her, the vultures in the scientific community closed in. One of the rival researchers tried to seize control of Elias and eliminate Y/N to erase any legal opposition.

That was the moment Elias acted of his own volition for the first time. He protected Y/N, defying his programming, his orders—everything. The laboratory became a battlefield, but with Y/N in his arms, Elias fled.

They disappeared from the scientific world that day and were taken in by the Astral Express, who welcomed them both without question.

(I the fic, he became a stone heart Ruby or rather the face of Ruby while Y/N the real ruby worked in the shadows)

_______________________________________ONE-SHOT

Bows, Bonds, and Broken Rules

_______________________________________

The lab was cloaked in the dim hum of machinery, the faint glow of monitors casting eerie shadows across the walls. Dr. Michael Laurent shuffled through the sterile workspace, a half-empty coffee mug clutched in one hand and a clipboard in the other. His eyes, darkened by exhaustion, scanned the data scrolling across the screen in front of him.

Prototype-7A’s diagnostics were scheduled to run tonight—standard procedure. But as his tired gaze flicked toward the platform where the puppet was supposed to be secured, his heart stopped.

The cables were disconnected. The restraints were loose. Prototype-7A was gone.

Michael’s clipboard hit the floor with a sharp clatter as panic surged through him.

“No, no, no…” he muttered, his breath coming in shallow bursts as he spun around. “Where is he?! Someone, check the security logs!”

Two researchers nearby froze at his outburst before fumbling with their terminals.

“D-Dr. Laurent, there’s no sign of forced entry or override commands,” one stammered.

“Then how did a six-foot puppet just walk away?” Michael snapped, running a hand through his disheveled hair. His eyes darted frantically around the lab before narrowing in realization.

“Y/N.”

Without another word, Michael bolted toward the hallway leading to the private quarters.

Meanwhile, in Y/N’s Room

Soft yellow light bathed the small bedroom in a cozy glow. Y/N sat cross-legged on her fluffy pink blanket, a small basket of ribbons spread out beside her. Sitting stiffly across from her on the floor was Elias—formerly known as Prototype-7A.

The puppet’s tall frame seemed hilariously out of place in such a childlike setting. His mechanical joints and rigid posture contrasted sharply with the delicate pastel bows already perched crookedly in his hair.

“Okay, Elias, this one is the best one yet!” Y/N chirped as she carefully adjusted a bright lavender bow onto the side of his head.

Elias, who was designed for precision and combat analysis, sat there unmoving. His glowing artificial eyes flickered slightly as he processed her words.

“Y/N,” he said in his monotone voice, “I fail to understand how these decorations improve my operational efficiency.”

Y/N giggled as she tied the bow neatly. “They don’t, silly! But they make you look better. Who doesn’t want to look good, Elias?”

He blinked. “I am not programmed to prioritize aesthetics.”

She grinned cheekily. “Well, consider this your software update, mister!”

But before Elias could reply, the door to Y/N’s room burst open with a loud bang!

Michael stood in the doorway, wide-eyed and breathless, his lab coat askew and panic etched across his face. His gaze locked onto the scene before him—Y/N, frozen in place mid-bow-tying, and Prototype-7A, his head slightly tilted under a crown of pastel ribbons.

The silence was deafening.

“...Y/N?” Michael’s voice cracked slightly as he processed the absurdity of what he was seeing.

Y/N slowly lowered her hands from Elias’s hair and gave her brother a nervous smile. “Hi, Michael…”

Michael stepped into the room, his frantic eyes scanning over Elias, assessing every inch of the puppet for signs of malfunction. But Elias sat still, glowing eyes fixed on Michael without a hint of hostility.

“Y/N…” Michael’s voice was softer now, more exhausted than angry. “What are you doing? Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? What if he malfunctioned? What if he hurt you?”

Elias spoke before Y/N could. “I would not harm Y/N."

Michael froze, his brow furrowing. “What did you say?”

“I would not harm Y/N,” Elias repeated flatly.

Y/N, sensing the tension, hopped up from her bed and positioned herself slightly in front of Elias. “He’s not dangerous, Michael! You said it yourself—he’s special. You made him that way. And… and he’s my friend!”

Michael let out a slow breath, running a hand down his face. “Y/N, he’s not just—” He stopped himself. “He’s not just a friend. He’s an advanced prototype. There are systems inside him we barely understand yet. You can’t just… take him out of the lab like he’s a toy!”

“He’s not a toy,” Y/N said firmly, crossing her arms. “And he’s not just a prototype either. He’s Elias.”

Michael froze again. “...What did you just call him?”

“Elias,” Y/N repeated, turning to glance back at the puppet with a soft smile. “It’s his name. I gave it to him because ‘Prototype-7A’ isn’t a name—it’s a serial number. Elias suits him better.”

For a moment, Michael said nothing. He simply stared at his little sister, standing protectively in front of a machine that shouldn’t have emotions or thoughts of its own—but somehow, under Y/N’s gentle care, did.

Michael finally sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Y/N… you can’t keep doing this. He wasn’t built for this kind of bond.”

“But he has one now,” Y/N said softly.

Elias’s head tilted slightly as his synthetic eyes flickered, his servos whirring faintly. “I do not understand… but I will protect Y/N.”

Michael let out a hollow chuckle, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Great. My million-credit prototype is now… a glorified bodyguard with bows in his hair.”

Y/N’s eyes lit up with a glimmer of victory. “See? He’s perfect!”

Michael gave her a tired smile and stepped closer, ruffling her hair. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“I learned from the best,” Y/N quipped back.

Michael turned to Elias. “Come on. We need to get you back to the lab before the others start asking questions.”

Elias rose smoothly, towering over both of them, his ribbons bouncing slightly with the motion. Y/N reached out and gave his synthetic hand a small squeeze.

“See you later, Elias,” she said softly.

Elias inclined his head slightly. “Goodbye, Y/N.”

As Michael guided Elias out of the room, he glanced back one last time to see Y/N carefully gathering the leftover ribbons.

The door clicked shut behind them, leaving Michael walking beside the puppet in silence. After a moment, Michael sighed.

The walk back to the lab was heavy with tension. Michael’s steps were brisk, his hand resting firmly on Elias’s shoulder as he guided him through the sterile halls. The pastel bows still sat delicately tied into Elias’s synthetic hair, their soft colors a stark contrast to the cold, metallic structure of his frame.

When they reached the heavy lab doors, Michael quickly punched in the access code. The mechanical hiss of the doors opening did nothing to mask the low murmur of anxious voices inside. The moment Michael stepped in with Elias, the conversations died down, replaced by wide-eyed stares and heavy silence.

“Dr. Laurent!” Dr. Finch’s voice cracked like a whip across the lab. He was already stalking towards them, his clipboard clutched tightly in one hand. “Where in the world have you been? Prototype-7A has been missing for over an hour!”

Michael didn’t stop walking, his focus on guiding Elias back to his platform. “Finch, he’s fine. He’s back, and there’s no damage or issue with his systems.”

“Fine?” Finch’s voice rose slightly, his face twisted in frustration. “He’s not a child you can let wander off, Michael! Prototype-7A is an extremely valuable and dangerous asset. And—” Finch’s eyes zeroed in on the pastel bows tied neatly into Elias’s dark hair. “And what is this? What is this nonsense?”

Michael exhaled heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s nothing, Finch. Drop it.”

“Nothing? He looks like he’s been… decorated!” Finch sneered, his eyes darting to the other researchers who were trying—and failing—to suppress their amused glances.

Michael turned Elias around gently, guiding him back to his platform. Elias stepped up onto it with mechanical grace, lowering himself into the seat as Michael began reconnecting the diagnostic cables to his ports.

“Look,” Michael said tightly, without turning back to face Finch. “Prototype-7A is stable. There was no system breach, no mechanical failure, and no harm done. End of discussion.”

But Finch wasn’t finished. “End of discussion? Do you understand the implications of what happened today, Michael? He was gone. And don’t think I didn’t notice where you found him.”

Michael froze briefly before resuming his work. Finch’s voice dropped lower, venom dripping from every word.

“You found him with your sister. Tell me, Michael, was that… playtime productive? Did your little sister enjoy her tea party with Prototype-7A?”

Michael’s shoulders stiffened, and for a brief moment, the air in the lab felt suffocating. Slowly, he turned to face Finch, his tired eyes sharp with warning.

“Watch your tone, Finch.”

But Finch wasn’t backing down. “You’re letting sentiment cloud your judgment, Michael. Prototype-7A isn’t a companion. He’s a weapon—a tool. And tools don’t belong in the hands of children. They don’t belong anywhere outside this lab.”

The sharp sound of Finch’s voice seemed to echo in the sterile space. The younger researchers exchanged nervous glances, their unease obvious.

Then, a soft voice broke the silence.

“Dr. Finch,” Elias said evenly, his synthetic voice calm yet somehow sharp in its clarity. His glowing red eyes locked onto Finch without blinking. “Y/N placed the ribbons in my hair.”

The lab fell completely still.

Finch stared at him, frozen mid-breath, his eyes wide. Around him, the other researchers were caught somewhere between fascination and fear.

Michael cleared his throat softly, his voice steady but quieter. “Prototype-7A didn’t malfunction, Finch. He didn’t disobey any orders, he didn’t override any programming. He followed Y/N because… because she asked. And he did it without hostility, without violence. That’s not a failure—that’s progress.”

Finch’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he managed to stammer out, “That’s… that’s impossible. He shouldn’t—he can’t—respond to emotional cues. He’s… he’s…”

“A prototype?” Michael finished for him, his tone carrying an edge of bitterness. “Isn’t that what you keep calling him? Prototype-7A. Like he’s just some piece of equipment. But he’s not, Finch. He’s learning. He’s adapting. And whether you like it or not, that’s proof of success.”

Finch stepped back slightly, his face pale but his scowl still firmly in place. “This… this is dangerous, Michael. You’re walking a fine line. If the IPC gets wind of this…”

“Then let them,” Michael said softly, his tired eyes locking with Finch’s. “Because one day, you’re going to realize that Elias isn’t just wires and code. And when that day comes, I hope it isn’t too late.”

Without waiting for Finch’s reply, Michael turned back to Elias, adjusting the last cable and giving his shoulder a firm pat. “Rest now, Elias. You did well today.”

Elias’s head tilted slightly in acknowledgment, his glowing red eyes dimming slightly as the diagnostic systems began their cycle.

The pastel ribbons remained in his hair, untouched.

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jedijenkins · 3 months ago

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the librarians fandom truly is more active on tumblr which is a double edged sword bc these days big media companies look at certain social media and content sites to see if they should renew a show based on how much ppl are talking abt the show on those platforms & tumblr is NOT ONE OF THEM. to the rest of pop culture and media, tumblr is essentially a black hole where things go but don't come back out and can't be easily observed. other sites like twitter(x), youtube, facebook, instagram, tiktok are literally designed for large media corporations to be able to syphon data from them.

while im not saying I like it or that it's a good thing, the fact of the matter is if you want a show renewed you should be talking about it by name on those sites, not just tumblr. this was only just being implemented when the first show was cancelled, but now it's one of the main way media corporations decide these things. so the idea of people mainly posting about the librarians: the next chapter on here stresses me out greatly, if i'm honest. this is why ive been working so hard to get people on those other platforms to watch and talk about the librarians. i know you may hate these other platforms but if you could find it in you to at least copy and paste/screenshot the things you say on here onto other platforms yourself it would go a lot farther than you might think

#the librarians #the librarians the next chapter #the librarians tnt #the librarians tnc #tnc #the next chapter #yes i understand that tumblr being a black hole that is essentially impenetrable to the majority of organized data harvesting is the appeal

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mariacallous · 4 months ago

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In late January, a warning spread through the London-based Facebook group Are We Dating the Same Guy?—but this post wasn’t about a bad date or a cheating ex. A connected network of male-dominated Telegram groups had surfaced, sharing and circulating nonconsensual intimate images of women. Their justification? Retaliation.

On January 23, users in the AWDTSG Facebook group began warning about hidden Telegram groups. Screenshots and TikTok videos surfaced, revealing public Telegram channels where users were sharing nonconsensual intimate images. Further investigation by WIRED identified additional channels linked to the network. By scraping thousands of messages from these groups, it became possible to analyze their content and the patterns of abuse.

AWDTSG, a sprawling web of over 150 regional forums across Facebook alone, with roughly 3 million members worldwide, was designed by Paolo Sanchez in 2022 in New York as a space for women to share warnings about predatory men. But its rapid growth made it a target. Critics argue that the format allows unverified accusations to spiral. Some men have responded with at least three defamation lawsuits filed in recent years against members, administrators, and even Meta, Facebook’s parent company. Others took a different route: organized digital harassment.

Primarily using Telegram group data made available through Telemetr.io, a Telegram analytics tool, WIRED analyzed more than 3,500 messages from a Telegram group linked to a larger misogynistic revenge network. Over 24 hours, WIRED observed users systematically tracking, doxing, and degrading women from AWDTSG, circulating nonconsensual images, phone numbers, usernames, and location data.

From January 26 to 27, the chats became a breeding ground for misogynistic, racist, sexual digital abuse of women, with women of color bearing the brunt of the targeted harassment and abuse. Thousands of users encouraged each other to share nonconsensual intimate images, often referred to as “revenge porn,” and requested and circulated women’s phone numbers, usernames, locations, and other personal identifiers.

As women from AWDTSG began infiltrating the Telegram group, at least one user grew suspicious: “These lot just tryna get back at us for exposing them.”

When women on Facebook tried to alert others of the risk of doxing and leaks of their intimate content, AWDTSG moderators removed their posts. (The group’s moderators did not respond to multiple requests for comment.) Meanwhile, men who had previously coordinated through their own Facebook groups like “Are We Dating the Same Girl” shifted their operations in late January to Telegram's more permissive environment. Their message was clear: If they can do it, so can we.

"In the eyes of some of these men, this is a necessary act of defense against a kind of hostile feminism that they believe is out to ruin their lives," says Carl Miller, cofounder of the Center for the Analysis of Social Media and host of the podcast Kill List.

The dozen Telegram groups that WIRED has identified are part of a broader digital ecosystem often referred to as the manosphere, an online network of forums, influencers, and communities that perpetuate misogynistic ideologies.

“Highly isolated online spaces start reinforcing their own worldviews, pulling further and further from the mainstream, and in doing so, legitimizing things that would be unthinkable offline,” Miller says. “Eventually, what was once unthinkable becomes the norm.”

This cycle of reinforcement plays out across multiple platforms. Facebook forums act as the first point of contact, TikTok amplifies the rhetoric in publicly available videos, and Telegram is used to enable illicit activity. The result? A self-sustaining network of harassment that thrives on digital anonymity.

TikTok amplified discussions around the Telegram groups. WIRED reviewed 12 videos in which creators, of all genders, discussed, joked about, or berated the Telegram groups. In the comments section of these videos, users shared invitation links to public and private groups and some public channels on Telegram, making them accessible to a wider audience. While TikTok was not the primary platform for harassment, discussions about the Telegram groups spread there, and in some cases users explicitly acknowledged their illegality.

TikTok tells WIRED that its Community Guidelines prohibit image-based sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and nonconsensual sexual acts, and that violations result in removals and possible account bans. They also stated that TikTok removes links directing people to content that violates its policies and that it continues to invest in Trust and Safety operations.

Intentionally or not, the algorithms powering social media platforms like Facebook can amplify misogynistic content. Hate-driven engagement fuels growth, pulling new users into these communities through viral trends, suggested content, and comment-section recruitment.

As people caught notice on Facebook and TikTok and started reporting the Telegram groups, they didn’t disappear—they simply rebranded. Reactionary groups quickly emerged, signaling that members knew they were being watched but had no intention of stopping. Inside, messages revealed a clear awareness of the risks: Users knew they were breaking the law. They just didn’t care, according to chat logs reviewed by WIRED. To absolve themselves, one user wrote, “I do not condone im [simply] here to regulate rules,” while another shared a link to a statement that said: “I am here for only entertainment purposes only and I don’t support any illegal activities.”

Meta did not respond to a request for comment.

Messages from the Telegram group WIRED analyzed show that some chats became hyper-localized, dividing London into four regions to make harassment even more targeted. Members casually sought access to other city-based groups: “Who’s got brum link?” and “Manny link tho?”—British slang referring to Birmingham and Manchester. They weren’t just looking for gossip. “Any info from west?” one user asked, while another requested, “What’s her @?”— hunting for a woman’s social media handle, a first step to tracking her online activity.

The chat logs further reveal how women were discussed as commodities. “She a freak, I’ll give her that,” one user wrote. Another added, “Beautiful. Hide her from me.” Others encouraged sharing explicit material: “Sharing is caring, don’t be greedy.”

Members also bragged about sexual exploits, using coded language to reference encounters in specific locations, and spread degrading, racial abuse, predominantly targeting Black women.

Once a woman was mentioned, her privacy was permanently compromised. Users frequently shared social media handles, which led other members to contact her—soliciting intimate images or sending disparaging texts.

Anonymity can be a protective tool for women navigating online harassment. But it can also be embraced by bad actors who use the same structures to evade accountability.

"It’s ironic," Miller says. "The very privacy structures that women use to protect themselves are being turned against them."

The rise of unmoderated spaces like the abusive Telegram groups makes it nearly impossible to trace perpetrators, exposing a systemic failure in law enforcement and regulation. Without clear jurisdiction or oversight, platforms are able to sidestep accountability.

Sophie Mortimer, manager of the UK-based Revenge Porn Helpline, warned that Telegram has become one of the biggest threats to online safety. She says that the UK charity’s reports to Telegram of nonconsensual intimate image abuse are ignored. “We would consider them to be noncompliant to our requests,” she says. Telegram, however, says it received only “about 10 piece of content” from the Revenge Porn Helpline, “all of which were removed.” Mortimer did not yet respond to WIRED’s questions about the veracity of Telegram’s claims.

Despite recent updates to the UK’s Online Safety Act, legal enforcement of online abuse remains weak. An October 2024 report from the UK-based charity The Cyber Helpline shows that cybercrime victims face significant barriers in reporting abuse, and justice for online crimes is seven times less likely than for offline crimes.

"There’s still this long-standing idea that cybercrime doesn’t have real consequences," says Charlotte Hooper, head of operations of The Cyber Helpline, which helps support victims of cybercrime. "But if you look at victim studies, cybercrime is just as—if not more—psychologically damaging than physical crime."

A Telegram spokesperson tells WIRED that its moderators use “custom AI and machine learning tools” to remove content that violates the platform's rules, “including nonconsensual pornography and doxing.”

“As a result of Telegram's proactive moderation and response to reports, moderators remove millions of pieces of harmful content each day,” the spokesperson says.

Hooper says that survivors of digital harassment often change jobs, move cities, or even retreat from public life due to the trauma of being targeted online. The systemic failure to recognize these cases as serious crimes allows perpetrators to continue operating with impunity.

Yet, as these networks grow more interwoven, social media companies have failed to adequately address gaps in moderation.

Telegram, despite its estimated 950 million monthly active users worldwide, claims it’s too small to qualify as a “Very Large Online Platform” under the European Union’s Digital Service Act, allowing it to sidestep certain regulatory scrutiny. “Telegram takes its responsibilities under the DSA seriously and is in constant communication with the European Commission,” a company spokesperson said.

In the UK, several civil society groups have expressed concern about the use of large private Telegram groups, which allow up to 200,000 members. These groups exploit a loophole by operating under the guise of “private” communication to circumvent legal requirements for removing illegal content, including nonconsensual intimate images.

Without stronger regulation, online abuse will continue to evolve, adapting to new platforms and evading scrutiny.

The digital spaces meant to safeguard privacy are now incubating its most invasive violations. These networks aren’t just growing—they’re adapting, spreading across platforms, and learning how to evade accountability.

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