#for context. i do not own an android device but i know you have more control on that and can sideload apps | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

appture-digital-media · 11 months

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Here’s Everything You Need to Know About Instagram’s Twitter Alternative, Threads (For Now)

Threads has quickly become the fastest-growing social media platform in history since its launch on July 5. Within the first hour alone, it received an astounding five million sign-ups, a remarkable feat accomplished just three months after Meta confirmed its development as an alternative to Twitter. The buzz around Threads is making waves among marketers who have been distancing themselves from Twitter since Elon Musk's takeover last year, resulting in a significant 59% drop in ad spend in the US. Marketers are now exploring new platforms to host their campaigns without compromising reach or quality. What is Threads? Threads is a new social networking app operated by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Platforms. Closely integrated with Instagram, the app is currently only available on iOS and Android devices. Meta has described Threads as "Instagram's text-based conversation app." Threads offers users the opportunity to post updates, share text, images, videos, and interact with other users' posts through likes, reposts, and replies. On the app store, Threads is described as: " where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what'll be trending tomorrow." "Whatever it is you're interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favorite creators and others who love the same things – or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions, and creativity with the world." While the app shares similarities with Twitter, Zuckerberg has emphasized the key difference of focusing on "kindness" and being "friendly." In a post on his Threads account, he wrote: "The goal is to keep it friendly as it expands. I think it's possible and will ultimately be the key to its success." "That's one reason why Twitter never succeeded as much as I think it should have, and we want to do it differently." "We are definitely focusing on kindness and making this a friendly place." It's important to note that Threads is closely integrated with Instagram, to the extent that users cannot sign up without an Instagram account. How Many People Have Joined Threads? Since its launch, more than 100 million people have signed up for Threads. Mark Zuckerberg himself celebrated this milestone on his Threads account, stating: "Threads reached 100 million sign-ups over the weekend." "That's mostly organic demand, and we haven't even turned on many promotions yet." "Can't believe it's only been five days!" For context, when Instagram launched as an independent platform in 2010, it took a week to reach just 100,000 users. What Brands Have Signed Up to Threads So Far? Nine out of the top ten retailers, including Walmart and Kroger, have activated their accounts on Threads, according to the National Retail Federation. The only retailer yet to do so is Costco. Among the top five consumer brands, only Reese's has activated its account. Similarly, among the top ten fashion brands, only Nike has signed up. Advertisers are being cautious, waiting to see how Threads develops before making commitments. However, other major names, including Calvin Klein, Kith, Allbirds, Shein, and Uniqlo, have been quick to sign up and already have active accounts. Which Celebrities Have Joined Threads? Several famous faces, including Oprah, Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, Shakira, and Sarah Jessica Parker, have joined Threads. Sarah Jessica Parker, known for her role in "Sex and the City," announced her presence on Threads via her Instagram account, expressing her hopes for the platform: "I am giddy with the hope that @threadsapp will be a new opportunity to continue to share book titles, images of my day in NYC and elsewhere, support for our libraries, a divinely cooked thin-cut pork chop on the bone, or anything else I think deserving of your time. "I hope that @threadsapp might prove to be a platform where folks are kind, thoughtful, don't feel encouraged to be mean, aggressive, or hostile... this could be a new day." Will Threads Have Ads? Currently, marketers cannot purchase ad space on Threads. However, according to Axios, the Instagram team is working on making branded content tools available in the near future, with the expectation that ads will be introduced when Threads reaches a critical mass. In the meantime, marketers are advised to disclose paid partnerships clearly using hashtags or text. It's worth noting that Meta's other brands, such as Instagram, initially launched without ads but eventually integrated them, becoming a significant source of revenue. Why Isn't Threads Available in the EU? Although Threads is available in over 100 countries, it is not currently accessible in the European Union. This is due to concerns that its data privacy operations do not comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act. Carissa Veliz, an associate professor at the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford, voiced her concerns, stating: "Meta has not only not changed its business model, it continues to want to do targeted ads, essentially surveillance advertising." "To that end, the company is trying to collect as much data as possible and trying to continue in the same direction as it has from the very start despite all the scandals, despite the public backlash, despite warnings from regulators, despite fines. It's not reimagining its business model to make it a more respectful business model towards users." "It can include sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity, biometric data, trade union membership, pregnancy status, politics, religious beliefs. And all these data can potentially be sent to third parties." There are currently no plans to launch Threads in EU countries. However, Meta is awaiting further guidance regarding the Digital Marketing Act from the European Commission, with more details expected in September. How Will Threads Track Its Users? Threads will collect a vast amount of information about its users, similar to how Meta's other platforms, Facebook and Instagram, do. This includes sensitive information such as health and fitness data, financial information, location, browsing history, search history, home address, email address, phone number, cameras, photos, IP information, device type, and device signals. Additionally, Threads stores data on how users interact with posts and whom they follow. This level of detail raises concerns about data privacy among EU officials. Is Threads Safe? Threads enforces Instagram's Community Guidelines for content and interactions. Users must be at least 13 years old, and those under 16 (or 18 in some countries) will automatically have a private account by default. However, parents are still advised to monitor their children's online activities. Users have the option to filter their settings, giving them control over who can reply to their texts. They can also block unwanted accounts, and any accounts blocked on Instagram will be automatically blocked on Threads as well. Meta has invested over $16 billion in protecting people using its platforms since 2016 and has stated that safety remains a top priority on Threads. What Can You Search for on Threads? Unlike Twitter, Threads currently does not allow users to search for hashtags or topics. Currently, users can only use the search tool to look up other users, whether they already follow them or not. When profiles appear in Threads' search results for users who don't already follow them, users have the option to instantly follow them or view their full profile. Why Do You Need an Instagram Account to Join Threads? Meta announced that Threads would be linked to users' Instagram accounts. They explained this decision on the Instagram blog: "Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas." "Just like on Instagram, with Threads, you can follow and connect with friends and creators who share your interests – including the people you follow on Instagram and beyond." "The benefits of open social networking protocols go well beyond the ways people can follow each other. Developers can build new types of features and user experiences that can easily plug into other open social networks, accelerating the pace of innovation and experimentation. Each compatible app can set its own community standards and content moderation policies, meaning people have the freedom to choose spaces that align with their values. "We believe this decentralized approach, similar to the protocols governing email and the web itself, will play an important role in the future of online platforms." "Threads is Meta's first app envisioned to be compatible with an open social networking protocol – we hope that by joining this fast-growing ecosystem of interoperable services, Threads will help people find their community, no matter what app they use." How Can You Change Your Username on Threads? As Threads' profile is connected to users' Instagram accounts, certain details, including the name and username, are transferred between the two platforms. To change the username on Threads, users need to change their Instagram username. They can do this by following these steps: - Tap the profile icon in the bottom right-hand corner to load the profile. - Select the 'Edit Profile' button located underneath the bio. - Enter a new Instagram username in the Username field. - Once the new username is entered, select the checkmark in the top right-hand corner to save the new settings. Are There Any Posting Limitations on Threads? Threads imposes limitations on posts and videos: - Posts: Users can share posts with a maximum of 500 characters, including links, photos, and videos. - Videos: Videos must not exceed five minutes in length. How Does Threads Work? Threads is a user-friendly app that operates similarly to Twitter. Here's a step-by-step guide to get started: - Ensure you have an Instagram account. If not, you'll need to sign up. - Download the Threads app and sign in using your Instagram login details. - Upon logging in, the app will ask if you'd like to follow the same accounts you follow on Instagram. - The app will then suggest other profiles to follow based on your interests. - Begin using the app. Your feed will display a combination of posts from people you follow as well as recommended content. You can engage with these posts by liking, replying, reposting, or quoting them. - Similar to Twitter, you can also share posts, videos, and pictures on your own profile. How Do You Delete Your Threads Account? To deactivate your account, go to your profile tab, access the settings menu in the top right-hand corner, and press the 'Account' button. You will then be asked if you would like to deactivate your profile. Deactivating your profile will render your previous posts and interactions invisible on Threads. However, it will not impact the data collected or affect your linked Instagram account. If you deactivate your Instagram account, your Threads account will also be deactivated. Reactivating your profile is as simple as logging back into the app. If you wish to delete your account instead of deactivating it temporarily, you will need to delete your Instagram account. Is Threads Replacing Twitter? Meta CEO Zuckerberg believes Threads will eventually surpass Twitter, but acknowledges that it will take time. "I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it," he said. "Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn't nailed it. Hopefully, we will." Since its launch, Threads has already demonstrated promising success. During its first two days, Twitter traffic was down 5% compared to the same period a week earlier, and 11% compared to the same period the previous year, according to web analytics company SimilarWeb. Read the full article

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scubagreys · 2 years

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Android league of legends images

Android league of legends images how to#

Android league of legends images Pc#

The onboarding process is a good thing for Riot, too, because League of Legends is the tip of the spear for many other, smaller projects. The game also gently alerts us when big objectives are up, so we know when we can kill Baron Nashor and get his powerful buff, or contest the enemy team over the river dragon.

Android league of legends images Pc#

Wild Rift has taken out some of the more intense aspects of the PC version, replacing text communication with a powerful set of pre-made ping messages for nearly any context. I can play a 20-minute match in bed, or while soaking in the bath. The onboarding tutorials are short, snappy, and completing them all allowed me to unlock a champion of my choice. These are concepts that PC players puzzled out on their own, but Wild Rift delivers it all on a platter.

Android league of legends images how to#

It’s also loaded with tutorials, which go over every aspect of the game, from how to choose your target and attack to how to deal with turret aggro and bigger objectives. The skill ceiling may be lower, and so the highs aren’t quite as high as the base game, but the positive side of that is that Wild Rift is much more accessible than League of Legends. I’m not pulling off high-intensity jukes and scraping out kills with fancy keyboard combos … but I do get the satisfaction of landing a powerful laser beam on a bunch of enemies, frying them, or charging into the other team with a perfect rush and stun. I just don’t have the time to invest in 40 minute games, I’m intimidated by the new champions and their learning curve, or I feel a little slow and stiff physically for a game with such a high skill ceiling.īut Wild Rift captures about 90% of what I enjoy about the PC version. I still like League of Legends, at least theoretically. I’ve also logged on less and less over the years. I saw the evolution of runes, survived release Xin Zhao, and played literally thousands of games. I remember when the lane designations were decided on by players, then formalized by Riot. I’m a long-time League of Legends player on PC, dating back to the game’s earliest days. Wild Rift isn’t just a good fit for new fans, however. On the PC, I’m very used to constantly moving the camera around the map and off my champion on Wild Rift, I stick with my champion and rely on the game’s minimap to see what’s going on elsewhere.Ī breakout camera will also pop up if I use certain abilities that exist outside of my vision range, which gives the game an enjoyable, live-sports-like feeling in the presentation. PC League asks me to constantly click on and manually select my targets, in fact, while Wild Rift focuses more on getting into position, activating my auto attack, and then choosing which targets to prioritize. Wild Rift, on the other hand, is more like a smooth walk to and fro - I’m just shifting my thumb back and forth instead of click-click-clicking my mouse. A good example is movement while playing on PC, I’m constantly clicking back and forth in my lane, like a player shifting weight from foot-to-foot during a really intense game of dodgeball. The meat and potatoes strategies feel roughly the same between the PC League of Legends and the mobile Wild Rift, but certain habits I’ve learned from the PC version are absent. The first thing Wild Rift does right is bypassing one of the most intimidating parts of League on PC by letting you know what your champion does, where they go, and most importantly, why you’re going there via screen prompts and guided arrows. That’s the simple elevator pitch, but adapting a game this intricate to play well on phones isn’t easy. Wild Rift is the same basic game, but redesigned for mobile devices. A jungler floats around, trying to pick up kills where they can on unsuspecting enemies, while mage characters usually try to control the mid lane, and so on. Much like football, different roles take different positions on the field. Then, the two teams fight in a 5v5 matchup, with the ultimate goal being to destroy the enemy base, called the nexus. Players choose from a roster of champions who fill different roles. League of Legends on PC is incredibly dense and competitive, known for inspiring players to climb the ranked ladder or even to watch the best players compete in esports tournaments. League of Legends: Wild Rift feels too good to be true, especially for new or lapsed players.

#Android league of legends images

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signpiner · 2 years

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Lightpaper computer screen

#LIGHTPAPER COMPUTER SCREEN MOVIE#

#LIGHTPAPER COMPUTER SCREEN ANDROID#

#LIGHTPAPER COMPUTER SCREEN PRO#

#LIGHTPAPER COMPUTER SCREEN PC#

If you happen to own a device with an OLED display, great! Dark mode can extend your battery life.

#LIGHTPAPER COMPUTER SCREEN PC#

And as for computers? No laptops from Apple, and hardly any PC laptops, use OLED displays. Any phone that costs less than $1,000 probably doesn't have an OLED.

#LIGHTPAPER COMPUTER SCREEN ANDROID#

Android phones are similar: only the most expensive Android phones, like the Samsung Galaxy Note 10, offer OLED displays.

#LIGHTPAPER COMPUTER SCREEN PRO#

The iPhone 11, for example, does not have an OLED display-only the more expensive iPhone 11 Pro does. OLED displays are expensive, meaning only premium products offer them. On these displays black pixels actually cast no light. This is changing, however, because of OLED, which is a new kind of screen that's currently only offered in premium devices.

#LIGHTPAPER COMPUTER SCREEN MOVIE#

This is why even totally dark scenes in a movie or game can still light a dark room. This is because backlit LED screens, which are still found in most computers and phones, don't actually use less energy to project black. The truth is a little more complicated: dark mode really can save battery life, but only if you're using a premium device with an OLED display. Dimming a lightbulb uses less energy, so why wouldn't darker screens work the same way? Most companies claim that dark mode can save battery life, and that doesn't sound ridiculous. But is dark mode helpful in other ways? Dark mode can improve battery life (but probably not on your device) It's just to say that research suggests that, for most people, it won't result in a productivity boost, and if anything it might make you slightly less productive. None of this is to say that you shouldn't use dark mode, assuming you like it. Which is part of why designers switched from the light-on-dark interfaces in the early age of computing (think MS-DOS, or UNIX terminals) to the dark-on-light interfaces most of us know today. I found plenty of studies like this, which suggest that dark mode would, if anything, make you less productive. Part of this has to do with light levels: with a bright display (white background) the iris closes a bit more, decreasing the effect of the "deformed" lens with a dark display (black background) the iris opens to receive more light and the deformation of the lens creates a much fuzzier focus at the eye. People with astigmatism (approximately 50% of the population) find it harder to read white text on black than black text on white. Jason Harrison, then a postgraduate researcher at the Sensory Perception & Interaction Research Group at the University of British Columbia in Canada, wrote about this: They detected more errors and/or read faster when dark text was presented on a light background than under reversed conditions.ĭark mode is also objectively worse for people with astigmatism, an eye condition which is surprisingly common. In six different studies she found that subjects have a higher reading comprehension while reading black text on white backgrounds. A Wired article mentions research by Susanne Mayr, a researcher at the University of Passau in Germany. Research shows that this has consequences. Those objects are by definition darker than the background because they’re illuminated by the sun, or indoors, by whatever lights may be on. What we care about are the objects in front of the background, whether food, tools, predators, or whatever. Humans evolved outside, and we are generally active during the daytime and asleep when it’s dark. To summarize: there are very few contexts, in the natural world, where bright things show up against a dark backdrop, and this shaped how our eyes evolved. It may be hip and trendy, but put bluntly, Dark Mode likely makes those who turn it on slower and less productive The human eyes and brain prefer dark-on-light, and reversing that forces them to work harder to read text, parse controls, and comprehend what you’re seeing. The backlash against dark mode arguably started with Adam Engst's extremely detailed article for TidBITS, which argues that light text on a dark background is objectively worse than the traditional black on white.Įxcept in extraordinary situations, Dark Mode is not easy on the eyes, in any way. Dark mode might lower reading comprehension But do the benefits of dark mode live up to the hype? Let's dig into some research. It looks really cool, and tech companies are arguing that dark mode will improve the time you spend at a screen.Īpple says that dark mode "makes it easier to stay focused on your work." Microsoft says dark mode can "reduce eye strain and improve battery life." Google says it "improves visibility for users with low vision and those who are sensitive to bright light." The marketing message got through: people want this.ĭevelopers are rushing to offer dark versions of their apps, and people get excited when an app like Slack offers a dark mode. All the major operating systems-Android, iPhone, Windows, and macOS-now offer dark themes, which default to light text on a black background.

#Lightpaper computer screen

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earlgreytea68 · 3 years

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Heyyyyyy, I bet you were DYING to know stuff about that Google v. Oracle decision, huh?

You may have heard recently about a big deal Supreme Court decision called Google v. Oracle, a litigation that has dragged on for many, many, many years and focuses on Google having copied some pieces of computer programming owned by Oracle and known as APIs. Most of the write-ups I’ve seen about it have focused on its enormous repercussions for the technology sector, which makes sense since it’s a case about computer programming and APIs and other tech-y things.

But the thing about the decision is that it’s a fair use decision. The Supreme Court could have found that the APIs weren’t even protected by copyright. But instead, the Supreme Court used the doctrine of fair use, and this means that the case potentially has ramifications for all fair use situations, including fanfiction!

So, if you don’t know, fair use is a main defense to copyright infringement. Basically, you can use somebody else’s copyrighted work without their permission as long as what you’re doing with it is considered a “fair use.” E.g., you can write a story in somebody else’s fictional universe or draw art of somebody else’s fictional copyrighted characters without their permission as long as your use is a “fair use.”

“What’s a fair use?” is an incredibly complicated question. The long and tortured history of Google v. Oracle illustrates this: a jury found Google’s use was a fair use; an appellate court found that it wasn’t and basically said the jury was wrong; and now the Supreme Court says no, no, the jury was right and the appellate court was wrong. Like, this is not unusual, fair case rulings are historically full of disagreements over the same set of facts. All of the cases reiterate over and over that it’s a question that can’t really be simplified: every fair use depends on the particular circumstances of that use. So, in a way, Google v. Oracle, like every fair use case, is a very specific story about a very specific situation where Google used very specific APIs in a very specific way.

However, while every fair use case is always its own special thing, they all always debate the same four fair use factors (these are written into the law itself as being the bare minimum of what should be considered), and especially what’s known as the first and fourth factors. The first factor is formally “the purpose and character of the alleged fair use,” although over the decades of fair use jurisprudence this has come to be shorthanded as “transformativeness,” and the fourth factor is “effect on the market.”

Most of the energy and verve of a fair use case is usually in the transformativeness analysis; the more transformative your use is, the more likely it is to be fair (this is why AO3’s parent organization is called the Organization for *Transformative* Works – “transformative” is a term of art in copyright law). To “transform” a work, btw, for purposes of copyright fair use doesn’t necessarily mean that you have edited the work somehow; you can copy a work verbatim and still be found transformative if you have added some new commentary to it by placing it in a new context (Google Image Search thumbnails, while being exact reproductions of the image in question, have been found to be fair use because they’re recontextualizing the images for the different purpose of search results). The point is, transformativeness is, like fair use itself, built to be flexible.

Why? Because the purpose of copyright is to promote creativity, and sometimes we promote creativity by giving people a copyright, but sometimes giving someone a copyright that would block someone else’s use is the opposite of promoting creativity; that’s why we need fair use, for THAT, for when letting the copyright holder block the use would cause more harm to the general creative progress than good. Google v. Oracle recommits U.S. copyright to the idea that all this is not about protecting the profits of the copyright monopolist; we need to make sure that copyright functions to keep our society full of as much creativity as possible. Google copied Oracle’s APIs to make new things: create new products, better smartphones, a platform for other programmers to jump in and give us even more new functionality. The APIs themselves were created used preexisting stuff in the first place, so it’s not like anyone was working in a vacuum with a wholly original work. And, in fact, executives had thought that, the more people they could get using the programming, the better off they would be.

Which brings us to the fourth fair use factor, effect on the market (meaning the copyright holder’s market and ability to reap profits from the original work). There’s a lot of tech stuff going on in this part of the opinion but one of the points I find interesting from that discussion is that the court thought that Google’s use of the APIs was not a market substitute for the original programming, meaning that Google used the APIs “on very different devices,” an entirely new mobile platform that was “a very different type of product.”

But also. What I find most interesting in this part is the court’s explicit acknowledgment that sometimes things are good because they are superior, and sometimes things are good because people “are just used to it. They have already learned how to work with it.” Now, this obviously has special resonance in the tech industry (is your smartphone good because it’s the best it could be, or because you’re just really used to the way it’s set up?), but there’s also something interesting being said here about how not all of the value of a copyrighted work belongs *to the copyright holder* but comes *from consumers.* Forgive the long quote but I think the Court’s words are important here:

“This source of Android’s profitability has much to do with third parties’ (say, programmers’) investment in Sun Java programs. It has correspondingly less to do with Sun’s investment in creating the Sun Java API. . . . [G]iven programmers’ investment in learning the Sun Java API, to allow enforcement of Oracle’s copyright here would risk harm to the public. . . . [A]llowing enforcement here would make of the Sun Java API’s declaring code a lock limiting the future creativity of new programs. Oracle alone would hold the key. The result could well prove highly profitable to Oracle . . . . But those profits could well flow from creative improvements, new applications, and new uses developed by users who have learned to work with that interface. To that extent, the lock would interfere with, not further, copyright’s basic creativity objectives.”

This is picking up on reasoning in some older computer cases (like Lotus v. Borland, a First Circuit case from decades ago), but I think it’s so important we got this in a Supreme Court case: if WE bring some value to the copyrighted work through our investment in it, why should the copyright holder get to collect ALL the rewards by locking up further creativity involving that work? Which, incidentally, the Court explicitly notes is to the public detriment because more creativity is good for the public? This is such an important idea to the Supreme Court’s reasoning here that it’s the first part of the fair use test that it decides: that the value of the work at issue here “in significant part derives from the value that those who do not hold copyrights . . . invest of their own time and effort . . . .”

This case is, as we say in the law, distinguishable from fanfiction and fanart. APIs are different from television shows, and this case is very much a decision about technology and computer programming and smartphones and how old law gets applied to new things. Like, fair use is an old doctrine dating from the early nineteenth-century, and here we are figuring out how to apply it to the Android mobile phone platform. That, in and of itself, is pretty cool, and it’s rightly what most of the articles you’ll see out there about this case are focusing on.

But this case isn’t just a technology case; it’s also a fair use case that places itself in the lineage of all the fair use cases we look at when we think about what makes a use fair. And, to that end, this has some interesting things to say, about how much value consumers bring to copyrighted works and where a copyright holder’s rights might have to acknowledge that; about the fact that there are in fact limits to how much a copyright holder can control when it comes to holding the “lock” to future creativity building on what came before; about what part of the market a copyright holder is entitled to and what it isn’t. Think about the analogy you could make here: Given the investment of fans in learning canon, which is what makes the creative work valuable in the first place, allowing enforcement against fanfic or fanart would allow the canon creators to have a lock limiting future creativity, which would be highly profitable to the original creator (or, let’s be real, to Disney lol), but wouldn’t further copyright’s goals of promoting creativity because it would stifle all of that creativity instead. And just like Google with the APIs, what fandom is doing is not a market substitute for the original work: they’re “very different products.”

This is not to say, like, ANYTHING GOES NOW. Like I said, fanfic and fanart are very different from APIs. Fictional works get more protection than a functional work like the APIs at issue in this case. And there’s still a whole thing about commercial vs. non-commercial in fair use analysis which I didn’t really touch here (but which obviously has limits, since it’s not like Google isn’t making tons of money, and their use was a fair use). But this decision could kind of remind a big media world that maybe had forgotten that the copyright monopoly they enjoy is supposed to have the point of encouraging creativity; we grant a copyright because we think people won’t create without a financial incentive. (Tbh, there’s a lot of doubt that that is actually a true thing to believe, given all the free fic and art that gets produced daily, but anyway, it’s what the law decided several centuries ago before the internet was a thing.) Copyright is a balance, between those who hold the copyright and the rest of us, and the rest of us aren’t just passive consumers, we have creative powers of our own, and we might also want to do some cool things. And this case sees that. None of us are starting in a creative vacuum, after all; we’re all in this playground together.

#copyright #copyright law #legal #long post

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mechamastermind · 4 years

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Piecing it together

So this is a better formatted version of an idea I came up with during a reblog, but this one is more well put together and honestly less cringey, I wrote the other in a fit of excitement, but I believe it to hold some merit, but here we go.

This is my entire thoughts on Neon J, including what I think to be his secrets.

First off, the facts

Neon J was a toy maker, Fact.

During the 1010 boss battle after Neon J has been defeated he exclaimed about the things he did in an event called the “Border war”, he was deployed to mountains. He’s had military service, fact.

He exclaims about the things he’s done in the name of NSR with some regret, “The things i’ve done in the name of the NSR!! I would not wish upon my worst enemies!!” Fact.

He clearly has a face and lungs, at least believes he as them as he says as much about himself, but this much cannot be confirmed as we do not see the “Blood he spills from his mouth.” but i’ll get into that later.

He mentions how he has been changed, with somberness in his voice “Oh, what have I become... I have... changed so much.”

He talks about home as if it was another location “Home? I remember what home was like...” and continues to speak about it as if he’s no longer there. He also speaks of “His people” which is a very vague point as we do not know what his “people” are, but with the context of how he’s speaking it’s safe to assume he’s actually not from Vinyl city, but i’ll get into that later.

He mentions his deployment to the Azkar faction, in the year ‘68. which I find ESPECIALLY INTERESTING, Azkar faction, not Vinyl city. And furthermore through the ridges of Kewan. Further going on to mention how cold it was, “The chill was enough to brittle the spirit of any battle hardened warrior.”

He then mentions mountains, and how he only had a parachute and compass in his pack.

Sadly that’s the last piece of dialogue we get from him, but I think enough has been said for me to piece together something of a narrative, so here it goes.

I believe Neon J is a war veteran, that much is obvious, but there’s something deeper here. I believe he was a human before this border war, a full blooded human, and in fact was a simple toy maker. until this Azkar faction came and started this “Border war”, now I do not believe that Neon J lived in Vinyl city itself, at least not at first. What I believed happened was he lived in a nearby territory, that was then invaded by this Azkar faction... or... was the azkar faction? It’s hard to determine, but he clearly has some passion and love for the NSR empire, so I believe the NSR came to his people’s aid, much like a world war 2 situation, where it was not the NSR vs the Enemy, but rather the enemy invaded and NSR came to their aid.

Neon would then volunteer to join the military, he’s patriotic enough that I believe it wasn’t just a draft. He would join the navy. if we take a look at his attire I believe it’s obvious he was in the equivalent of the Navy. His Limo is a battleship afterall. but I think it goes deeper than that. I think he was a part of the NSR equivalent of the Navy Seals. and I’ll go into my reasoning here shortly.

He clearly is a decorated soldier, as he has some medals on his coat that he wears to this day.

I think the way he is designed plays a big part into why he’s a navy seal equivalent. Looking at his modern day design, he’s clearly very slender and elegantly designed, not some front line combative unit, and his radar face determines that perhaps he has devices in him that can determine distance, since he has a lack of eyes, he might have a spotting device like many sniper pairs have. Yes, sniper pairs. Snipers are deployed with Spotters who use their equipment to watch where the sniper hit, and adjust for their aim in the unlikely case they miss. I believe Neon was transformed into being both the Sniper and Spotter, built in with spotting equipment, his radar, and of course expert marksmanship.

It would also perfectly explain his deployment location, ridges and mountains are perfect locations for snipers, not front line soldiers.

So he’s a navy seal sniper fighting in a cold environment during a border war.

but there’s more, I believe he was at some point fully human, and that his “Changes” that he regrets, are physical changes to his body, either done as attempts to save his body after severe injuries, or upgrades performed by the NSR to increase his combat effectiveness. Either way, his body has not become accustomed to the augmentations even all these years later. He mentions his blood, his mouth, and his lungs, as he coughs at Zuke. but we do not see any of these things, and taking a look at his design, no matter how cartoony it may be, you cannot tell me that he has a head, there is no way, that is a flat radar monitor on top, imagine fitting your head into a flat screen or laptop monitor. I believe he is suffering from a severe case of Phantom limb syndrome. Now i’m no expert, I will not claim to be, but I do believe it’s possible for a human, who’s been augmented to the point of no return, to still believe they are performing normal human things, like bleeding, coughing, possessing lungs and a mouth, when it is shown otherwise.

I believe he has a highly decorated deployment record, but here i’ll get into a point that’s more speculative, as I have determined his kill count potentially, and it will shock you.

in our world, the sniper with the one of the highest kill counts, was a man by the name of Simo Häyhä, a finnish sniper who had 505 confirmed kills, during his deployment in a winter war.

A sniper deployed to a frozen environment? Sounds familiar if you ask me.

but it goes further.

With all his augmentations it’s safe to assume that Neon J, with his spotter equipment, is twice as effective as the best human, it’s just safe to say a robot is at least twice as good as any human, especially a military grade android/cyborg. and what do you get when you multiply 505 by two?

1010.

Pretty crazy right? actually yes, at the moment I have no way to confirm his actual number of kills, but I think 1010 is a fair bare minimum for his kill count, and would warrant a regret like “I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemies.”

it’s also stated that he was deployed for several years, so having a kill count like 1010, for an augmented robot soldier sniper with built in spotting equipment, is reasonable I believe.

I will now summarize my points.

Neon J (If that is his real name) was a humble toy maker from a neighboring territory that was absorbed into the NSR empire after the NSR came to their aid during a border war. He signed up and joined the navy seals equivalent of the NSR as one of their best, if not their best Sniper. over his deployment to the frozen ridges and mountains, he sustained damage, and this most likely was the source of all his augmentations as he slowly was modified with spotter technology built into his hardware. No longer needing a spotter on his sniper deployments, he became more and more like an assassin, possibly holding down entire choke points or taking out high ranking members of the opposition during his many years, potentially 1010, but that’s just a rough estimation and a fun number to say. But more importantly, I think he’s suffering from a form of Phantom limb syndrome, where his mind and body have still not entirely adjusted to his augmentations, as he mentions his blood and face, despite both very clearly not being there, and I would not leave it up to the cartoony design of the game, you cannot fit a face into his radar, his radar which I believe was his primary sniper augmentation, as it took over the place of his spotter partner for him, and allowed him to go solo. He was highly decorated when he came back, but was not the same man he once was. as now, the war has been built into him, and thus, he treats everything like combat, even his own sons are like soldiers, he cares for them immensely, but every aspect of his life has now become ingrained with his service as a navy sniper, the outfits, the themes, his mannerisms, even his limo is a battleship. and seeing as the NSR has only been around for a decade or two, it’s safe to assume this is just a few years after his deployment, so him battling with the changes made to his body, the things he did for the NSR (Which could range from simple sniping, to full on solo assassination missions) and him still coping with no longer being in the military, is not only reasonable, but it explains alot.

If I think of anything else, i’ll make a follow up post, or edit this one.

but for now, let’s show him some more love, as he still seems to be fighting his own wars, internally.

Have a lovely day, and stay safe soldiers. <3

#nsr neon j #NSR #neon j #no straight roads

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user-2-electric-boogaloo · 3 years

Text

A Comparison of RTD and Steven Moffat: Saving The Day

So for this analysis I’m going to compare when Moffat and RTD save the day well and when they save it poorly. There are a few bits of criteria I need to explain.

First I will only be including main series, no Torchwood, no spin-offs, and no mini episodes.

Second, I have to define what makes a good and a bad ending (my examples will come from episodes written by neither of them):

Bad endings include when the sonic saves the day (see The Power Of Three) (there are exceptions, see below), when a character spouts some useless technobabble that doesn’t make any scientific sense/when it doesn’t make logical sense in general, when the Doctor invents/presents a machine/equipment that miraculously stops the baddy and is never referred to again (see Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS), and any other ending I deem to be bad (see The Vampires of Venice)

Good endings include when the sonice activates a device that has been well established to save the day, when technobabble is used that actually makes some scientific sense, and just generally when the baddy is destroyed in what I deem to be a creative manner that makes sense with all the things that had been set up in that episode (see The Unquiet Dead).

There will also be cases where there isn’t really a day to be saved, however this happens more often with Moffat.

Let us begin (obviously there will be spoilers but the last episode in the list aired nearly 4 years ago so what you doing with your life).

RTD:

Rose: Bad

What even is anti-plastic?! Like seriously, he’s faced the Autons loads of times and has never thought to use it any other time.

The End Of The World: Bad

The Doctor just goes up to the appearance of the repeated meme (ha meme) and rips its arm off. He then just summons Cassandra back by twisting a knob which apparently everyone can do if “you’re very clever like me”.

Aliens Of London/World War Three: Good

Just nuking them all was a bit dodgy but I’ll give it to him purely because it had been set up earlier in the episode and it is a genuine option that could have been taken.

The Long Game: Good

The heating issue was set up within 2 minutes of the episode starting. It’s always good to see the Doctor using his enemies weakness against them.

Boom Town: Good

Only just. It’s technology that hadn’t been showcased ever before and came out of nowhere, but I’m allowing purely because it was setting up The Parting Of The Ways.

Bad Wolf/The Parting Of The Ways: Good

See above. It was set up the story before so it works.

The Christmas Invasion: Bad

This was so close to being good. If RTD had just let the Sycorax leader be honourable then everything would have been fine. Instead he had to let him be dishonourable and then the Doctor through the Satsuma at a random button that for no apparent reason caused a bit of floor to fall away.

New Earth: Bad

It only makes sense if you think about it for less than 10 seconds as just pouring every cure to every disease ever into a giant tub and then spraying said supercure onto them all, then having them hug each other to pass it on. That is suspending my disbelief just a bit too far.

Tooth And Claw: Good

Everything is set up in the episode so I’ll allow it but I fail to see how Prince Albert had the time to ensure that the diamond was cut perfectly.

Love And Monsters: Bad

It’s Love And Monsters. Need I say more?

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday: Good

It was very clearly set up throughout the episode.

The Runaway Bride: Bad

I don’t like how a few bombs can supposedly drain the entire Thames.

Smith And Jones: Good

All the events were well established

Gridlock: Good

It’s a fairly bland way to save the day, just opening the surface to all the drivers. But how else could he have done it?

Utopia/The Sound Of Drums/Last Of The Time Lords: Bad

As much as I like the idea that he tuned himself into the archangel network, he basically turned into Jesus. It is arguably the least convincing ending in modern Doctor Who history.

Voyage Of The Damned: Bad

Why was he the next highest authority? If he’s the highest authority in the universe why didn’t they default to him in the first place? If not then why not default to Midshipman Frame? And if he’s somehow in between them then why? Also Astrid killed herself for no reason when she easily could have jumped out of the forklift.

Partners In Crime: Good

It works in the context of the episode, but I don’t see why they needed two of the necklace things.

Midnight: Good

It’s human nature, you can’t get more well set up than that.

Turn Left: Good

It works logically

The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End: Bad

Donna just spouts a load of technobabble whilst pressing buttons and then the Daleks are magically incapacitated.

The Next Doctor: Bad

Why do the infostamps sever Hartigan’s connection with the Cyberking? As far as I remember it ain’t explained.

Planet Of The Dead (co-written with noted transphobe Gareth Roberts): Good

A good couple scenes are dedicated on getting the anti-gravs set up.

The Waters Of Mars (co-written with Phil Ford): N/A

The day isn’t really saved cause everyone still dies anyway.

The End Of Time: Good

Using a gun to destroy a machine is much better than using the sonic to destroy it.

Summary for RTD:

Out of 24 stories written by him, I deem 10 to be bad endings with 1 abstaining. That’s 41.7% of his episodes (43.5% if we don’t count any abstaining).

Steven Moffat:

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: Good

You’ll see this a lot with Moffat, he knows how to explain things without stupefying levels of technobabble. “Emailing the upgrade” is a perfect example of this.

The Girl In The Fireplace: Good

Some basic logic, the androids want to repair their ship, but they can’t return to it, they no longer have a function so they shut down.

Blink: Good

Always loved this one, getting the angels to look at each other, however they do look at each other sometimes earlier in the episode.

Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead: Bad

This is more of a problem with the setup of the episode, I don’t like that he can negotiate with the Vashta Nerada. I’d rather see them comprehensively beaten, but I guess it’s good for the scare factor that they can’t be escaped from.

The Eleventh Hour: Good

He convinced the best scientists all around the world to set every clock to 0 all in less than an hour. In the Doctor’s own words “Who da man!”

The Beast Below: Good

The crying child motif pretty much ended up saving the day (well for the star whale, life went on as normal for pretty much everyone else).

The Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone: Good

The artificial gravity had briefly been set up earlier so I’ll allow it.

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang: Good

Everything had been set up perfectly, the vortex manipulator, the Pandorica’s survival field thingy, the TARDIS exploding at every moment in history.

A Christmas Carol: Good

Literally the entire episode is the Doctor saving the day by convincing Kazran not to be a cock.

The Impossible Astronaut/Day Of The Moon: Good

The silence’s ability to influence people is their whole thing, so using it against them is a good Doctory thing to do.

A Good Man Goes To War: N/A

The day isn’t really saved, Melody is lost, but River shows up at the end so is all fine? I love the episode it’s just the day isn’t really truly saved (yes I know Amy was rescued but she still lost her baby).

Let’s Kill Hitler: N/A

There isn’t really a day to be saved. They all get out alive but no one is really saved other than maybe River but we all knew she was gonna live anyway.

The Wedding Of River Song: Good

Whilst opinion is divided on the episode, the ending still works. the Tesseracta was established in Let’s Kill Hitler, and the “touch River and time will move again” was established well in advance.

The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe: Bad

I don’t like how the lifeboat travels through the time vortex for no reason but to rescue the dad. It don’t make no sense and I don’t think it’s explained

Asylum Of The Daleks: Good

Oswin had access to the Dalek hive mind so of course she should be able to link into the controls and blow everything up.

The Angels Take Manhattan: Good

Paradoxes really do be something powerful, and they even acknowledge how nobody knows if it’d work so I’ll let it slide.

The Snowmen: Bad

Lots of people cry at Christmas, why are the Latimers anything special?

The Bells of Saint John: Good

The whole episode is about hacking so why shouldn’t the Doctor be able to hack the spoonheads

The Name Of The Doctor: Good

It was the story arc for the season pretty much, so of course it was explained well in advance.

The Day Of The Doctor: Good

Both the storing Gallifrey like a painting and the making everyone forget if they’re Human or Zygon works in the context of the episode.

The Time Of The Doctor: Bad

Since when were the Time Lords so easily negotiated with?

Deep Breath: Good

I like the dilemma over whether the half-face man was pushed or jumped.

Into The Dalek: Good

It’s set up well with this new Doctor’s persona of actually not being too nice of a guy (at first).

Listen: N/A

There isn’t a day to be saved. It’s just 45 minutes of the Doctor testing a hypothesis and I low-key love it.

Time Heist (co-written with Steven Thompson): Good

It works logically so I’ll allow it however it isn’t very well set up at all.

The Caretaker (co-written with noted shithead Gareth Roberts): Good

The machine to tell the Blitzer what to do was set up well in advance so I’ll allow it.

Dark Water/Death In Heaven: Good

The fact that Danny still cares even as a cyberman is set up fairly early on after his transformation.

Last Christmas: Good

He does use the sonic to wake up Clara but he convinces the others to wake up through talking so I’ll allow it.

The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar: Good

It’s set up well with that little scene from actually inside the sewers.

The Girl Who Died (co-written with Jamie Mathieson): Good

IDK why the vikings would randomly keep electric eels but they’re set up well so I’ll ignore it.

The Zygon Inversion (co-written with Peter Harness): N/A

Not including this one as it’s only the second part and I’d argue the ending is most likely Harness’.

Heaven Sent/Hell Bent: N/A

Again there isn’t really a day to be saved, yes Heaven Sent really is amazing but it’s only the first part and, being completely honest, he dies several billion times before finally getting through the wall.

The Husbands Of River Song: N/A

Again there isn’t really a day to be saved here.

The Return Of Doctor Mysterio: Good

He gets Grant to catch the bomb which is good. But he does just sonic the gun out of Dr Sim’s hand and says UNIT is on its way which just sort of wraps it up very quickly.

The Pilot: N/A

No day to be saved here.

Extremis: Good

You could technically call it the sonic saving the day, I consider it to be the Doctor emailing the Doctor to warn him of the future.

The Pyramid At The End Of The World: Good

The fire sanitising everything makes sense and it’s in character for Bill to love the Doctor enough to cure his blindness in return for the world

World Enough And Time/The Doctor Falls: Good

Yes it is the sonic just blowing the cybermen up, but it’s blowing them up with well established pipelines so I’ll allow it (also the story is amazing).

Twice Upon A Time: N/A

No day to be saved here. Just Doctors 1 and 12 getting angsty about regenerating.

Summary for Steven Moffat:

Out of 39 stories written by him, I deemed 4 to be bad with 7 abstaining. That’s 10.3% of his episodes (12.5% if we don’t count any abstaining).

Conclusions:

Moffat was much better at saving the day than RTD

Moffat liked telling stories where the day didn’t actually need to be saved

I’ve spent way too long on this and I need to sleep

If I spent as much time on this as my coursework I’d probably pass

If you’re still reading this, you probably need to get a life

#doctor who #steven moffat #rtd #in case you can't tell I really don't like RTD #Remember the Superwholock days when everyone ripped the shit out of Moffat #what am I doing with my life #tardis #rose tyler #martha jones #donna noble #amy pond #rory pond #rory williams #river song #clara oswald #Bill Potts

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

Note

I’m slow and just realized that the “Ironwood cutting off his arm is him cutting off his humanity” was about getting his arm removed post having it in a cast. Which ok maybe he shouldn’t have but a few things. He’s want to have a functioning arm given how back thing a have escalated and how much he’s have to do. If that prosthetic isn’t just for show then it’s a functioning limb so what’s the problem.

Making an argument about what RT is trying to say is difficult - if not outright impossible - because I don’t think they know what they’re trying to say. The message about Ironwood, if it exists, is convoluted and inconsistent, so that’s always worth bearing in mind. Trying to decipher authorial meaning in a text is doomed if the authors are throwing out things willy-nilly. It’s like trying to make sense of a cookie recipe with gravel listed as an ingredient. I really don’t think the inedible bits of stone should exist in this recipe, the creator likely doesn’t realize they included it, and if they do come back with some ridiculous justification like, “Gravel adds delicious crunch!” we should not get caught up in trying to determine whether gravel is actually crunchy and whether we like that crunch in our cookies. The gravel should not exist in the first place.

That being said, we’ve got two distinct readings here:

1. The claim that destroying his own arm - doing “whatever it takes” - is representative of Ironwood losing his humanity because he’s supposedly crossing boundaries no human should cross. The problem with this reading is that Ironwood doesn’t cross any inhuman boundaries in this scene. Freeing himself from a trap and saving the city from Watts are good things. This is why, as I’ve mentioned before, if they wanted the scene to represent a loss of humanity Ironwood needed to do something arguably inhumane: kill off Watts unjustifiably, team up with him, etc.

2. The claim that cutting off his arm and replacing it with a cybernetic is representative of Ironwood losing his humanity because he is, literally, a little less human now and a little more machine. The problem with this reading is it’s ableist garbage. The answer to the question “Why does him losing parts make him less human?” is “It doesn’t.”

Frankly, I don’t know which reading RT is trying to stand behind - the destroying his arm as a representation or replacing the arm as representation - but both readings fail. Either RT doesn’t understand that the context in which Ironwood lost his arm is heroic, or they don’t understand that the need for an assistive device doesn’t have any impact on a person’s worth and morality. I sincerely hope it’s the first option. I’d much rather be watching a show with authors struggling to craft the messages they’re aiming for (we thought we were writing Ironwood doing something worthy of criticism but didn’t succeed) vs. authors who believe that if you replace enough (whatever that means) of your body with tech then you in turn become an emotionless machine (we wrote Ironwood losing another limb because he’s bad now. In our minds we equate disability with villainy). If I had to make a case on either side, I’d give them the benefit of the doubt based on Penny and Yang, given that they did attempt a (at times well done) arc with Yang and Penny’s whole thing is being real despite being made of metal... but then again, Yang didn’t choose this. It was something traumatic that was done to her. Penny also didn’t choose this. She was born an android and has no control over what her body is like. Ironwood, unlike both girls, had agency here. There’s an incredibly uncomfortable implication that his decision to sacrifice his arm is what makes him inhuman. AKA, the concept that being disabled is so horrific, so unwanted, so utterly terrifying that anyone who chooses to become that must be insane. They can’t be human because no human would willingly go through that. It’s a message that simultaneously undermines Ironwood’s heroics - look at what he was willing to do to keep the people safe! - as well as mischaracterizes disability as a purely horrible thing. I would hope that if I were put into the incredibly unlikely position of sacrificing my arm to keep others safe that I would make that choice too, both because helping others is worth the sacrifice and because losing an arm, while no doubt immensely difficult, would not be the end of my life, my potential, or my worth as a human being. Far from it.

Implying otherwise sends a staggeringly insulting message to every disabled viewer watching RWBY.

Which circles right back around to that authorial intent. I still don’t want to make claims about what RT means to say because I’m not sure they know what message they’re aiming for. I will, however, make a claim that what they are saying - regardless of intention - is becoming a problem. Conflating Ironwood’s decent into antagonism with the loss of a limb reflects badly on their disability rep any way you cut it. Things could improve in Volume 8. What we start getting on Saturday may heal or damage things greatly, but for now the talk of “Ironwood cutting off his arm is him cutting off his humanity” reads as really, really bad.

#rwby #ableism #mymetas #long post #pixie-mask

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shinyquagsire23 · 3 years

Text

Tying It All Together - Pwning To Own on LG phones

Last year I detailed a secure EL3 vulnerability which affected (and still affects, for devices with discontinued updates) LG Android devices. However, this vulnerability alone isn't actually all that useful for a number of reasons, the more immediate being that many phones simply do not allow writing to eMMC without root or a custom recovery. Additionally, gaining full control over all privilege levels requires draining the battery to below 0%, which while it would be possible to create a modchip that facilitated this, is impractical. To finish off my exploit chain, I would like to detail two additional vulnerabilities that I have found and utilized in my coldboot process. It's worth noting though that these vulnerabilities were reported to LG and may be patched on updated units.

Live, LAF, Love

The first exploit is an obvious necessity: In order to write the rle888 payload into the eMMC's boot graphics, I need to be able to achieve an arbitrary partition write. While exploiting Android *is* an option for this (as are hardware methods), I instead opted to attack LAF, LG's recovery/flashing component. While many Android phones in the past have used fastboot in order to flash radios and other system components to eMMC, fastboot has been completely removed on the Q710/Q720. Some phones such as the Nexus 5 actually maintain both fastboot methods and LAF, but for maximum spread, LAF is the clear target.

LAF is designed to work with LGUP, a frequently-leaked LG-internal flashing tool that allows flashing KDZ update files. While LAF in the past was able to read and write eMMC partitions without any restriction, in recent years LG has opted to sign all of their KDZ files in order to make it more difficult for things like cross-carrier flashing, version mixing/matching between partitions and other modifications to occur. Flashing is done via USB, and most of the protocol has been documented at https://github.com/Lekensteyn/lglaf.

The LAF update process largely consists of an ioctl-over-USB shim: The OPEN command is able to open a partition block device, and READ/WRTE will seek into the file and write contents. However, reading and writing are explicitly blocked until a list of partitions, their eMMC offsets, their KDZ content offsets, and their content hashes is sent via the SIGN command, all of which is hashed and signed by LG. If the contents of the partitions in the KDZ are modified, the partition list hashes will fail to verify, and modifying the hashes in the partition list will make the SIGN check fail. The private key is not stored in LGUP; KDZs are downloaded from LG's servers, signed presumably by their build servers.

So, how can we manage to activate WRTE commands, with valid partition content hashes of our arbitrary contents, if we cannot sign our own? To start, I investigated how the WRTE commands actually handled hash checking--if the partition list is sent with SIGN, then at some point the WRTE command must be able to figure out which partition the current write is for, and the current partition's contents must be buffered in RAM somewhere along with an updating SHA context, because if the SHA check fails, then it shouldn't write at all. As it turns out, most of the checks in this area were fairly solid (the write must be in the range of a partition in the list, the entire transaction is one bulk packet of the hashed size, etc). However, this led me to realize: The partition list signature is only checked once, and there is nothing stopping me from, say, sending another SIGN command.

The SIGN verification process works as follows:

The partition information is sent along with a signature in one bulk transaction.

The partition information is copied into a global .bss array from the USB buffer with a fixed size.

The partition information hash buffer is prepared: An allocation is made for N partitions and an optional string, the string being the device model (to prevent cross-flashing). The number of partitions is determined by a signed portion of the header. If the allocation fails, an error is returned.

The partition information is copied again into this allocation along with the string, and the contents are hashed. The signature is crypted with the public key and the signature hash is verified against the partition info hash. If the check fails, the global .bss array is cleared and an error is returned. If the check passes, some write threads and structs are initialized and a success value is returned.

The .bss buffer storing partition info (used by other functions) is copied to before the packet is verified

The .bss buffer is cleared when the signature mismatches, but not with this malloc fail...?

The flaw here is subtle, but not terribly difficult to notice: The number of partitions is user-controlled even though it is signed, and the partition info was copied into a global variable before verification. In all other error conditions, LAF will memset the partition information before returning an error code, however if the hashing allocation fails (ie by setting the number of partitions to -1), then the allocation will fail and an error is returned without clearing the partition information. Thus, we can fakesign our own update KDZs by

Sending a valid SIGN command, which will start the write threads

Sending a fakesigned SIGN command with the number of partitions set to -1, and all partition information set however we want. The partition information in .bss is now set without a signature being checked.

While this fakesign has the potential to hang WRTE commands while due to the number of partitions being set much larger than the global partition array, all loops when WRTE checks the partition list hashes will break once a valid partition is found. So, as long as the hash contents of the WRTE command are existent in the first few entries, it will not hang, however any writes sent that do not match will hang lafd.

Another S-EL3 vuln to wrap it all up

This might seem a bit pointless given that the former vulnerability paired with 🔋 📱❄️🥾🔓 at aboot is more than enough to unlock bootloaders, since aboot is usually the code that handles bootloader unlocking/wiping/boot image signature verification, but the downside to unlocking your bootloader is that you lose SafetyNet. To most effectively mitigate SafetyNet issues you basically need an S-EL3 exploit in order to patch Qualcomm's TrustZone to spoof a locked bootloader. While 🔋 📱❄️🥾🔓 has a vector for S-EL3 code execution via SBL1 and its charging graphic, it only triggers at extremely low battery voltages and it would be more convenient to find an alternative means to gaining S-EL3 code execution via aboot, which runs at EL2/EL1.

One of the first things I noticed when I began to look for SBL vulnerabilities, and actually the reason I looked at SBL in the first place is its crash handler. Since at least the Nexus 5, LG has shipped its "Demigod Crash Handler" which can print registers and stack information and RAM console logs from EL1 kernel, S-EL3 SBL, TrustZone, etc. I first discovered it while trying to exploit a kernel stack overflow. It also allows the user to dump memory contents over USB via its Sahara protocol which also gets used in PBL for Firehose bootstrapping.

Naturally, SBL cannot know the exact details of every execution environment it displays stack dumps for, it requires the faulting environment to store that information before warm-resetting into SBL. Consequently, this means there are portions of RAM writable by EL1 which will be later parsed at an S-EL3 execution level, and of course to make matters worse it also expects EL1 to handle the memory allocation for both the RAM console as well as for the framebuffer. These structures are also plainly visible in LG's kernel sources available in their Android OSS zips.

Above roughly shows the arbitrary write which is possible with this ramconsole parsing. The ramconsole offset is not bounds checked, so we are able to achieve an arbitrary write to a limited set of addresses based on ramconsole_offs, the limit being that the offset factors both into what you write and where you write it. However, I found that since DRAM takes up such a significant portion of the address space, it was more than enough to specifically write a function pointer to the stack. To keep the exploit as simple as possible, I chose to force console_init_maybe to return to the missing battery graphic draw routine, which then triggered 🔋 📱❄️🥾🔓 without the need to drain the battery below 1% and made loading additional payloads significantly easier.

As an interesting sidenote, this vulnerability is extremely similar to hexkyz's Wii U boot1 exploit, which also abuses warmboot behavior to take over the secondary bootloader of the Wii U's ARM boot processor. In that case, however, the Wii U encrypted its PRSH/PRST structure in RAM, and rather than displaying syslogs, it uses the structure to store boot timings and other info between IOS reboots.

For most practical usecases, this vulnerability is a bit difficult to exploit, due to SBL's text and stack differing between devices. However, S-EL3 vulnerabilities aren't all that frequently documented on Android, so I hope that it will at least be useful for anyone interested in examining Qualcomm's TrustZone components or avoiding weird SafetyNet junk.

Code for both of these exploits can be seen at https://github.com/shinyquagsire23/Q710-SIGNhax-EL3-Warmboot

#LG #SBL1 #S-EL3 #exploit #bootloader unlock #SIGNhax

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behind-the-gloves · 4 years

Text

A B5 glossary

I saw an excellent post about Star Wars that lists that universe’s vocabulary for different things, and decided one of these needs to exist for B5, though it probably already does. This is not a complete list, it’s just what I came up with from looking at the Star Wars list.

The Star Wars post opens by saying there is no official name for the universe, so people in the fandom say “GFFA” (Galaxy Far Far Away). This reminds me of another rant I never posted about how much I hate the term “the B5 universe” because THE UNIVERSE DOESN’T REVOLVE AROUND THAT ONE SPACE STATION, but if you say anything else, no one knows what you’re taking about.

Anyway, on to the words.

* Glass exists and it’s called glass. There are other glass-like materials, however, especially used off-world, because you can’t make space station windows and domes over colonies from ordinary glass. One such material mentioned in canon is called “monomolecular glass,” and I don’t know why it’s called that because it’s obviously not one molecule thick, but the point is that there are other glass-like materials used in space.

* Steel exists and it’s called steel.

* Concrete exists, but they call it “duracrete,” which I think is a brand name in that world like we say “Kleenex” here.

* If you see another weird material name, assume it’s a brand name. “Vibralite” is another example. It’s cheap, (nearly) indestructible, and brightly colored. Poorer countries and neighborhoods on Earth are full of Vibralite.

* Tablet computer/PADD/data pad device - I know it’s called something, but I can’t recall it right now. I generally say, for example, “he handed her a device” and context specifies the rest. I think there’s a more specific name for it, though.

* Data storage device - very large files are stored in the latices of actual literal crystals, hence, “data crystals.” I don’t think they did this in past generations... it’s a new thing.

* Cars exist. Usually the ones on the ground are generically called “groundcars,” but you can specify that you mean a pickup truck or sedan or something else. On Mars, everyone goes everywhere by train (above and below ground). I’ve never heard of a groundcar used off-world.

* Guns exist, and there are different types (naturally). “Gun” is generic, and probably means the kind that shoot bullets, but you can also be specific about the type of gun you mean. Guns that shoot bullets are colloquially known as “slug throwers” (but this is slang). PPGs (phased plasma guns) are specific guns used in space, because they can’t punch a hole through the hull of a space station/colony and kill everyone. If a cop is assigned off-world, he or she will be issued a PPG. Back on Earth, they’re rare - a regular old gun will do. But a law enforcement officer who is sometimes sent off-world could be carrying one. (I think Bey has one, for example.)

* Knives exist and are called knives, unless you want to be specific about an unusual kind of knife, like the one that almost cut off Ysidra’s arm (a specific type of blade used on Mars, for mining). That was monomolecular again, but in that case, the blade really was super thin.

* Humanoid androids are illegal in the Earth Alliance. I don’t know what the heck was going on in that “vicar” (human VCR) episode, and since that all got essentially ret-conned out when Talia left, I’m just going with that. It makes no sense.

* The internet sort of exists... there are “the Nets,” which is like a proto-internet. You can look up information, you can place bets on gambling sites, and you can make video calls with everyone, but for some reason, what happened to good old fashioned email?

* The Earth Alliance currency is “credits.” Aliens have their own money.

* You don’t “warp,” you “jump,” but unless your ship is outfitted with Minbari tech, you’re only jumping through specific “jumpgates.” Hyperspace is hyperspace because what else is it called? If a ship can jump, it has “jump engines.”

* That thing they call “bacta-patch” in Star Wars is similar to a “regen pack” in B5, and they have them at the time of the show, but not in earlier generations, so I assume it’s a new thing.

* Aliens do dates differently, but I don’t know anything about that.

* Drugs have their own names (”stims,” “Dust,” other named examples in canon).

* Earth Alliance ID is called an “identicard.” It’s very large, not rectangular, and doesn’t fit in anything. I don’t know how people carry these. But it does have biometric data on it. (And if you’re in the Corps, that comes up, too. There is no separate Psi Corps ID. There is a separate license if you are a commercial telepath, but you don’t have to carry a separate document for that - it’s all on the identicard.)

* Newspapers exist, too - and you buy them/recycle them at kiosks. If you return a newspaper, you get another at the regular price, but if you don’t have one to recycle (yours or one from the trash), you have to pay more. You can also customize at the kiosk which sections you want (e.g. more off-world news, less sports).

* There are different foods mentioned in canon (usually off-world), but I really don’t know anything about that, either. Aliens eat alien food and drink alien drink. (I shocked some people a couple years ago when I didn’t know Minbari can’t drink alcohol. Like, how was I supposed to know that? What do I know about Minbari? And just a couple of months ago, someone expected me to know about some alien drink served in a bar on the station. Sorry, but huh?)

That’s all I can think of right now.

#behind the gloves #b5 #babylon 5 #babylon five #babylon5

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ticktickblog · 4 years

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New School Year, New Chapter

Special Offers for Students and Educators

Gone through the “Sci-Fi movie” called 2020, life goes on and unfolds new challenges for us all, especially for those students and teachers who have just experienced not-so-efficient remote learning and for those who are new to the college this autumn. At this key stage, turning life into a new page and getting more focused on what’s happening next is obviously important.

TickTick is here to help you gain more control back over the new challenges in the coming school year, with the special educational discount for all qualifying students and faculties!

There are up to three benefits that you can enjoy:

1. All enrolled students and educators are eligible for a 25% discount when upgrading to TickTick yearly premium. This is a long-lasting program. Learn how to apply.

2. From today to 30th of September, everyone who successfully upgraded to premium through our special offer for education, can get 3 extra one-month TickTick premium gift codes! This is for you to share with any of your schoolmates, colleagues or friends, which means they can enjoy the one-month TickTick premium service totally for free!

3. If any of your friends who used your codes continue their subscriptions for TickTick’s yearly plan, you’ll then get one more month automatically extended to your current premium status too!

Ready to kick off the new school year? Here’s a step-by-step guide for students.

Be prepared for school with simple to-do lists

Before the school starts, preparing for the move from home to uni can be very daunting, particularly difficult if the uni is in another city or even country. To help yourself a little bit, writing everything down and getting reminded is what should come in the first place.

For example, creating a packing list by using the “Packing Template” in TickTick and then divide the lists into multiple “Sections”: clothing, stationeries, electronic gadgets, and etc. A reading list regarding one of your newly chosen courses can also pre-equip you with a general idea and get you ready for shifting to the study mood. Meanwhile, a social list for the events you’d like to attend in the welcoming week, and societies you’d like to join will prepare you for a new start of uni life. A document list for enrolment, or a sightseeing list to explore the new city where you’re going to stay, are also essential for your quick settling.

Build a study-based workaround

Step 1: Creating different Lists for different courses you’re enrolled in.

Step 2: Creating different Tasks for components of the course within each list.

For example, in the list called Sociolinguistics, there could be three tasks: Task A: Lectures, Task B: Seminars, Task C: Workshops. Here, you can set the tasks as recurrent, for example, 10-12 am every Friday for Task A: Lectures.

Step 3: Adding Subtasks within the tasks. I suggest you create those subtasks according to the topic of each class.

For example, under Task A: Lectures, there could be many subtasks: Lecture 1: code-switching, Lecture 2: translanguaging, Lecture 3…

Subtasks can be further split if necessary. For example: Lecture 1: code-switching can be divided into three new subtasks in the second level: Preview, In process, Revision.

Step 4: Defining the context of your tasks/subtasks with Tags.

In the daily study life, it’s common to have different types of tasks, e.g. Reading, Discussing, Researching, or Writing. Therefore, you can actually add different tags to the tasks to make sure they are well sorted out, and then plan out accordingly based on their contexts.

Step 5: Prioritizing your tasks and identity what’s important.

I believe you may have heard about the Eisenhower Matrix before (sorting your tasks based on urgency and importance). Important and urgent, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, not important and not urgent. Based on this, TickTick offers 4 choices of Priority: High, Medium, Low Priority and No Priority, to help you decide what needs to be done first.

Step 6: Taking notes and connecting everything related to the course.

When taping into a task/subtask, you’ll find a wide blank area for task description. You can write down/upload more details here regarding your tasks, whether it’s reading resources, professors’ contacts, random ideas, or lecture notes from the class. Markdown (a way to quickly add formatting like headers, bold, bullet points, and so on to plain text) is supported here in the task description section, in order to help you take notes easily and beautifully on your digital devices.

Not a fan of digital writing? Not a problem. You can also add attachments in the description, to include any files you feel relevant to your tasks, like notes written on paper.

With these steps above, you’ll find all your course-related materials and tasks can be well organized and scheduled just in one place.

* Would also like to plan out social and daily life? Then creating multiple Folders to collect lists is what you need to do. Move all lists for study in one folder, and get another for social life. Easy, right? Or simply subscribe to other calendars, and all the events from there could be synced into TickTick.

Beat procrastination with Time Blocking

When the courses begin, the struggle comes in the form of knowing exactly what to do but just can’t find enough motivation to actually do it. With so many tasks at the same time, like readings and group assignments, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The 48-hour essay writing and one-night-oil exam reviewing are probably the most often heard stories in the uni.

How to be a master of time management and stop being the last-minute person, is perhaps the most important skill we should all learn in uni life. One of the solutions for this could be practicing Time Blocking with TickTick’s built-in Calendar.

Step 1: Customizing when week 1 starts at the Date & Time Settings in TickTick.

The first week you set can be the first week when your courses begin, and the following weeks will be able to show in sequence in your TickTick calendar.

Step 2: Arranging tasks in the calendar.

After going to the calendar, you’ll be able to see tasks you’ve created before, as long as they have a due date. For example, it will show the timetable of your classes, social events synced from your local calendar, or other tasks in daily life.

If you’d like to add, move and arrange new tasks, simply use the feature “Arranging Tasks”, where all your tasks are displayed by Priority, Tags and Lists. Via drag n’ drop, anything can be put into time blocks in the calendar. What’s already in there can also be moved.

Learn more.

Be more focused with Pomodoro Technique

With so many distractions around us, it’s even harder to stay focused than we thought. One of the main features designed to help you keep focused in TickTick is actually called Focus.

Within Focus, there's a Pomodoro Timer. Based on the Pomodoro Technique, it’s a pre-set timer normally combines a 25-minute work session with a 5-min break. This goes in cycles at least four times, and you’ll then get a longer beak (normally 15 minutes). You can always change the settings for these sessions.

So, to get Pomo started, you may first have to choose a task you’d like to focus on, and then a white noise as the background sound. Start working till the Pomo timer ends, and you can’t back out of the app, otherwise you would lose this Pomo. But if you’re an Android user, there is actually an allowlist in which you can add other apps. You’re then able to use other apps with your pomo timer keeping running in TickTick.

Find more about Focus.

Be active in group work with Kanban boards

Group assignments take a big part in uni life. What may become the hindrances sometimes are the responsibility division within the group, disconnection with others’ progress, or inefficiency in group communications. Kanban in TickTick offers a solution.

First used by line-workers in Toyota’s factory, Kanban is a project management method to visualize your workflow. Group work can be displayed on different Kanban boards, so that you can clearly see what should be done by who, when it needs to be done and what’s the progress of others. Commenting on tasks on Kanban also makes it more efficient to communicate with other group members.

Go to TickTick and enter a list, you can then choose to switch it into the Kanban view. Here, you can place tasks onto different boards divided from person to person or phase to phase. Each task can be assigned to others, as long as you share the list with them. The progress of each member can also be easily marked to keep the whole team informed. Commenting on your own or others’ tasks also makes the communication in the group come in real time. Besides, not only available on desktop, Kanban also works on mobile. This literally turns the group work into something that can be done anytime and anywhere!

Ready to kick off the new school year? Take this guide and the unique discounts we offer to wrap TickTick in your starter pack!

Apply now.

#educationdiscount #newschoolyear #getreadyforschool #starterpacks #ticktick #productivityapp #timemanagement

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keatonphjo076 · 4 years

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A Easy Prepare For Embed Google Map

just How Does Google Maps generate Income?

By downloading this file as well as opening it in Google Earth, users are able to browse hillshades with two lighting angles for faults in the north San Andreas fault system. The degree of the LiDAR data is revealed by the cyan colored details. The hillshades will load when the customer has zoomed into a location of interest.

Why is there no voice on my Google Maps?

How to resolve “Google Maps not talking” issue in Android. Check your device's volume. Make sure voice is turned on in the Maps app. Clear the app's cache.

With one click of the computer mouse, a Google Planet customer can switch over to Sky Mode and reverse the perspective. With hi-res pictures from NASA, the Digital Study Consortium as well as the Sloan Digital Skies Survey, Google Earth has actually created an accurate and fascinating look at celestial spaces. Individuals can fly around, just like in Planet setting, to look the much reaches of room. Google Earth has actually produced 3-D structures for numerous significant UNITED STATE cities. Generally, they're not outlined replicas-- they're simple, gray 3-D drawings-- but you do get an excellent feeling for the city when you turn on this layer.

One can likewise upload an entire documents of places and also addresses and also pick different base maps. It's additionally very easy to export maps as KMZ documents and also open in Google Planet to produce an excursion. All this and also extra is explained in their Assistance Overview. These maps may be seen inGoogle Planet with our KML links in My Places or in the Gallery layer of Google Planet, Rumsey Historical Maps layer, or directly in the no download Google Earth Internet browser.

Quick & Easy Tips For using Google My organization and Also Google Maps For search Engine Optimization.

A minimal group can also be seen in the Google Maps audience on this website. Planet Map's information is split right into thematic teams and allows the customer to imagine layers as well as to produce data to explain the areas of rate of interest.

Scroll down under the editor as well as discover the https://googlemapembed.com MapPress area.

Most likely to the page or article that you want to include a Google map too.

Insert your Google API secret right into the proper box and click the "Conserve Modifications" switch.

This short article illustrates exactly how nonspecialists made use of Google Planet ™, a complimentary program, to produce community maps. In 2006, Google Earth started supplying detailed photos of identified areas in Israel. Likewise revealed was the supposed headquarters of Mossad, Israel's foreign knowledge solution, whose area is extremely categorized. The Google Earth API was a cost-free beta solution, enabling individuals to place a variation of Google Planet right into websites.

Each of these versions of Google Planet can be used to review as well as produce information in KML style, which makes it possible for instructors, pupils, and various other users to share data. Google Planet for Web - A simple to utilize, browser-based variation that offers ease of ease of access however is restricted in regards to performance. The sound, pictures, photos, as well as videos are credited under the media property, with the exception of marketing pictures, which typically link to an additional page that contains the media credit report. The Legal rights Owner for media is the person or group credited.

reasons To add Your service To Google Maps.

How many miles should you walk a day?

The average American walks 3,000 to 4,000 steps a day, or roughly 1.5 to 2 miles. It's a good idea to find out how many steps a day you walk now, as your own baseline. Then you can work up toward the goal of 10,000 steps by aiming to add 1,000 extra steps a day every two weeks.

Creation devices are currently offered in Google Planet on web. You can view your tasks on mobile and tablet gadgets making use of the most up to date variation of our iOS or Android app. Many thanks to a combination with Google Drive, you can share your stories with your target market and also they can see it anywhere-- their phone, tablet or laptop. Most importantly, you can welcome others to team up as well as co-author tasks with you. With creation tools in Google Planet, you can attract your very own placemarks, lines and also shapes, after that connect your own custom-made text, pictures, and videos to these places.

How can I track my husbands car without him knowing?

Spyine is the most popular phone monitoring solution on the internet. You can use it to keep an eye on your husband 24x7, without him finding out about it. It can monitor your husband's phone regardless of whether it is an Android smartphone or an iOS phone. All this happens with complete data security in mind.

The mobile variations of Google Earth can utilize multi-touch interfaces to proceed the world, zoom or revolve the sight, and also enable to choose the present place. An automobile variation of Google Earth was made available in the 2010 Audi A8. On February 27, 2020, Google opened up its online variation of Planet to web browsers like Firefox, Edge, and Opera.

How far back can Google Earth go?

Earth Engine is a platform for scientific analysis and visualization of geospatial datasets, for academic, non-profit, business and government users. Earth Engine hosts satellite imagery and stores it in a public data archive that includes historical earth images going back more than forty years.

Some are constructed right into the application, however mostly Google is currently letting users produce and import 3-D illustrations themselves making use of the cost-free Google SketchUp program. Just like any kind of various other view, you can make use of the "tilt" as well as "rotate" buttons in the navigator panel to obtain the full 3-D view. In this section, we've covered the majority of the basic functions of Google Earth.

This Is Google's New Smart screen device.

With a collection, for instance, there is a huge operational benefit to having a real location, an actual audience and a trusted community goal as a structure for the future. The shelf-life of modern technology firms, their applications, their tools as well as also details itself is unnervingly brief, about the transformative drift of an area.

Earth Map consequently gives users both a temporal and also a spatial viewpoint to their locations of interest. Its attributes are based on Google Planet Engine's big data capacities, enabling individuals to take on complex evaluation of planet monitoring, ecological as well as environment information in a straightforward fashion. Fish and also Wild animals employees appropriately use Google mapping software program and recognize its limitations and uses. There are several scenarios where Google mapping software can be a valuable and efficient device to help our job. FWS team need to comprehend the proper application and use Google software.

They counted produce types by aesthetic inspection or by examining a menu. Supermarket and also dining establishments were ranked according to a system created by the authors that utilized the selection as well as top quality or freshness of produce. The score and address information were tabulated and also moved from a spreadsheet to the Google Earth And also program, which outlined geo-coordinates for the data points. Maps are made use of to track illness and illustrate the social context of health issue. Nonetheless, commercial mapping software program requires unique training.

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tacittherapist · 4 years

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Rhizomes & Rifling: Caring for Your Jade

Jade Harley Appreciation Walkthrough Version 1.0, January 18, 2020 By tacitTherapist [tentacleTherapist] =============================== TABLE OF CONTENTS =============================== 1. Exceptions and Exceptionalism..................... [A000] 2. Walkthrough (Incomplete).......................... [B000] 2.1. Broodfester Influence & You..................... [B100] 2.2. The Turing Test................................. [B200] 2.3. Domesticity, Deconstruction, and Delirium....... [B300] 3. Iteration & Recursion............................. [C000] ?. Rose: Egress...................................... [ZZZZ] ================================================================================== [A000] Exceptions and Exceptionalism ================================================================================== It is of the utmost importance that you understand this: Jade Harley, and all versions thereof, are driven by exceptionalism. Whether it be in rocket science, gardening, combat, or romance, Jade Harley will throw herself into it, with a rigor generally reserved for those passions of the heart only middle-aged men with basement train sets can fathom. Jade Harley is an asset in any endeavor, in no small part because of her natural intelligence and gumption to work on those aspects where her talent cannot carry her. That said, there will be things she is not good at. Often these small shortcomings are met with a calm collection, the frustration kept suppressed until a later time when it comes pouring back out with vindictive fervor. Other times, it’s a thrown tool and a verbal release of said frustration. A Jade’s emotions will tend to bubble near the surface. In either case, it is important that you address these feelings. Whether by consolation or encouragement, the worst thing to do is ignore how she feels. Jade Harley must be seen. ================================================================================== [B000] Walkthrough (Incomplete) ================================================================================== Caring for your Jade is much like caring for a succulent. Physical resources mean little, they are both hardy as the Paradox Nights are long, and your greatest asset is simply a bit of your spare time and attention. Generally this would be the point in the walkthrough wherein I, a privileged, sheltered person would ramble for an unacceptable length of text, and mention completely unrelated topics such as my recent summering in the Swiss Alps or the time my petulant child’s unhealthy fixation with a cereal mascot, but I’ll deign to spare you the pedantry. It pains me to admit that caring for your Jade is actually not as easy as previously stated. Unlike a succulent, Jade will make their admiration for you subtle. Where a succulent will dry out or wilt in unhealthy conditions, Jade will grin and bear it, convincing herself that she only needs to try a little harder and that her own needs come second. This is dangerous and unhealthy, and I must humbly confess that there are still plenty of moments wherein I’ll be too caught up in my own ideas that Jade’s wants and needs took a back seat. So, as mentioned, time and attention are your greatest assets. However, you will also want mindfulness to hold it all together. I do not mean mindfulness as in the practice of meditation; I mean the capacity to assess her emotional state at any given point in time. As a soul with affinity for Space (regardless of whether your Jade is a Space player), Jades tend towards isolation. Whether it be on a remote Pacific Island or a golden ship, Jades of the Harley variety tend to be left to their own devices for far too long. Granted, a fermentation like that inevitably leads to a completely fascinating personality, but that’s for another guide. One can really only imagine: what does a fully realized Jade, given all the nurturing, love, and attention she needs, look like? Is she more or less outspoken? Is she more charming, or was that a mechanism adapted to make herself more amenable? What are her interests? If you have the answer to all these questions: congratulations! You don’t need to read any further. For everyone else: are you writing this down? Find a pen. You’ll want to remember this. In all ways, caring for Jade Harley is never a chore, but a pleasure. However, as in all things, you can succumb to too much pleasure. Like a Faustian curse, every second you spend with Jade, you forget to manage your own interests. I cannot overstate this: a relationship with Jade Harley is an ambrosia so sweet, I’ve more than once forgotten who I was. This is not an admission of weakness. In fact, I’d describe the times I’m not in sheer awe of our relationship as the most lucid moments of my life. But therein lies the catch: while mutual admiration and attention are cornerstones of an ideal relationship with Jade Harley, so too are small pockets of separation. This may seem counter-intuitive at first; after all, I devoted a good portion of this walkthrough to emphasizing the importance of spending time and attention on your Jade. However, like all flames of passion, you must temper it with distance. And like a flame, the source must be pure. A pure expression of self. In many ways, this walkthrough is not just a guide to caring for Jade, but also for caring for yourself. You should care for yourself, not just because it helps you better care for Jade... but because Jade would want you to. ================================================================================== [B100] Broodfester Influence & You ================================================================================== So you’ve made it this far. Well done. Caring for someone else and practicing self care is a delicate balance, but one that is well worth the effort. Unfortunately, this is also a balance ripe for the harvesting by otherworldly beings. If you aren’t familiar with the Horrorterrors (formally The Noble Circle of Horrorterrors) consider yourself lucky. To be brief: The Horrorterrors are an ancient race of horrible creatures that reside in the Furthest Ring, a dimension that exists within all timelines and all dimensions and all realities. These creatures only truly care for their own self preservation, but thankfully only tamper with the most well-laid plans. They seem to thrive off suffering or other negative emotions... but they also seem to be attracted to ambition, because ambition sets the stage for disappointment and failure, which are suffering-adjacent. If you are more well-acquainted with The Horrorterrors, my apologies. But I’m going to assume that the fact that you are still able to read and parse this is an indicator that you’ve survived. If this is the case, do know that I’m proud of you. It takes more than strength to survive even one encounter with any of the Horrorterrors. Hell, even a Smaller God is a sight to behold. It is commendable that you’ve not only survived, but also made it this far after the encounter. Incidents involving Horrorterrors tend to leave scars that never completely heal, and I do mean that both physically and figuratively. There is a portion of me that will never truly be the same. In fact, even if you personally have not encountered a Horrorterror, their influence tends to spread across all timelines (given they, again, exist across all timelines) and thus you may have been influenced by them in another reality without knowing it. It is hard to tell. Even with distinct, quantifiable knowledge, it is hard to tell what is real sometimes. But a Jade that has been touched by the Horrorterrors is another matter altogether. The corrupting influence of the Horrorterrors never really goes away. It retreats and goes dormant and may sometimes seem to disappear... but it isn’t really gone. A Jade afflicted by the grimdark throes is a frightening maelstrom of energy and raw, unchecked emotion. This presents you with a conundrum. The only way to calm a broodfester Jade is to assure them that everything will be OK. But everything will not be OK. Simply by virtue of experiencing the woegothic trance means everything will most certainly be not OK. But you have to sell it. You must become the best liar you have ever been, lest you succumb to the weals of terrible calamity. And, as is fitting, not only must you convince Jade to calm her dark, broiling energies, but you must convince yourself as well. Jades are adept at detecting insincerity, especially those attuned to weird powers. If you cannot convince yourself, you will not convince Jade. ================================================================================== [B200] The Turing Test ================================================================================== The Turing Test, simply put, is a test designed to tell whether a machine is capable of human behavior. Obviously Turing was a hack and the test was dogshit that flagged more false positives than a broken pregnancy test. However, his test poses a good question: what separates humans and machines? Supposing they are indistinguishable behavior-wise, where does human end and machine begin? Do prosthetics count as machinery? Are androids machines or humans? Is there a ratio of flesh to synthetics at which the threshold is crossed from human to machine? Do androids dream of electric sheep? I’m not adequately prepared or experienced to answer these questions, but I can at least posit this: the distinction between machine and human is irrelevant. What matters is behavior. My Jade is full of electronics. I mean this literally. Her body is some percent machine. Perhaps close to or above 50%. At first I was horrified. Disgusted. But after a bit of processing, I realized... this was beautiful. Jade was beautiful. Yes, this is simply a consequence of her fixation with gadgetry, but outside of that context, it is a beautiful act of rebellion against nature itself. Why should nature decide what we look like? Or how our bodies function? Who put that bitch in charge? Fuck nature. No one ever asked to exist. So existing on our own terms is the ideal existence. Jade is incredibly sexy because not only has she actively subverted nature’s intentions for her, but she’s also cultivated a cute little garden in which nature is her subject in a sexy role reversal. Meanwhile, what have I done? Kept all my original flesh? Had all my original teeth fall out just for more original teeth to grow in where the old teeth were? Lost an innumerable numbers of hairs throughout my lifetime? There’s no decision there. No agency. I haven’t shaped my own destiny the same way I was always too afraid to get a tattoo. Ironically, I’ve also found myself in situations wherein I may have failed the Turing Test. My calculating, analytical personality has likely done more to resemble a predetermined machine-like behavioral schema than anything Jade has done to herself. So, to care for your Jade, do be sure to examine your own prejudices. Question what is ‘natural’ and what is ‘desirable.’ Don’t fall back on the laurels of hokey, inaccurate tests. ================================================================================== [B300] Domesticity, Deconstruction, and Delirium ================================================================================== A life with Jade Harley is generally domestic. Regardless of setting, be it in a barren, war-torn wasteland, or even in a Victorian Manor amid political turmoil and societal upheaval, a life with Jade Harley is generally domestic. She craves domesticity, and hopefully you do too. Domestic means pertaining to the home. And home is where the Jade is. And if home isn’t where the Jade is, Jade will build one there. But therein lies the issue. Even if she weren’t a Space player, Jades tend to have and affinity for isolation. Be it because she sits at the top of her educational hierarchy or through literal physical isolation, Jades may have houses, but not homes. And in an attempt to create homes, Jades tend to create limitless expanses of home-related paraphernalia. So much, in fact, that it tends to become a mess. This is where you come in. As the foil to her constructive personality, you must serve as the deconstruction in harmony. Here, deconstruction is actually a force of growth. It clears away the debris, the unnecessary, to create space for the new. This isn’t to say you’ll be going around destroying everything though. Deconstruction in this sense is moreso acts of change: the ceasing of old traditions, the storing of dated antiquity, and the slow, low burning of ancient ritual. This also isn’t to say you are relegated to this role. Any harmonious relationship will have participants share in the construction and deconstruction of various tradition. Just know that Jade Harleys tend to gravitate towards creation. They tend to gravitate so much towards creation, that they will sometimes isolate themselves through excessive creation. Or on the other side of the spectrum, they may pull everything and everyone towards themselves, trapping it all in inescapable singularity. This brings us to delirium. Delirium is the erosion of rationality due to immense external forces. Typically delirium finds Jade caught in the haze of her own isolation. However, delirium may also find you, caught in the anxious active management of your relationship’s deconstruction. This is the catch-22: just as delirium sets in when ridden thin against isolation, so too may it set in as you find the perfect balance between construction and deconstruction. Unfortunately, in this case you have just one avenue of recourse: you must practice balance subtly, in temperance. You must practice so often that it becomes second nature to know when things are out of balance, but not so often that you become fatigued. This is a difficult, nuanced aspect of a relationship with Jade Harley that not many are ready for. And that’s OK. No relationship is perfect. But I write this here to commit to words the weighty task I grapple with each day, that which betters me in all ways. ================================================================================== [C000] Iteration & Recursion ================================================================================== Iteration is the repetition of a process, and recursion is the repeated application of a procedure, generally self-contained. I bring these two concepts to mind to emphasize that the Jade Harley I’ve described thus far is simply one instance of Jade Harley. There is, undoubtedly, a macrocosm of Jade Harleys in existence. Thus, you should use this walkthrough as more of a guide than an actual walkthrough. In fact, throughout the macrocosm, I’d say I’ve Seen not even a fraction of all Jade Harleys, let alone Jades as a whole. Though I have Seen more than my fair share, which is how I feel I have enough expertise to warrant this text. My larger point is that generally things tend to repeat ad infinitum. Time, for the sake of brevity, is a circle. Things repeat themselves. People make the same mistakes over and over again because no one lives long enough to see the pattern. But armed with knowledge and foresight, one may be able to perhaps glimpse the curvature of the event horizon. Problems you encounter while caring for your Jade will occur again if you don’t take steps to prevent them. Those things in mind, please feel free to use this guide as you see fit. Of course, there will be scenarios in which none of the advice contained herein is useful at all, but in those cases I can’t imagine you’d have read this far. In those cases: what are you doing? Go care for your nonconforming Jade. And perhaps consider writing your own guide, and putting it up on the Furthest Ring. ================================================================================== [ZZZZ] Rose: Egress. ================================================================================== I make no claims to the accuracy or efficacy of the information left here. This is simply a repository of the scant few items I’ve learned since entering into a relationship with Jade Harley. It feels overly sanitized to refer to her so often in the third person like this. Generally I’m speaking directly to her, making her the second-person and not the third-person object. There must be some more eloquent way to essay thoughts regarding a subject without making that subject an object or objective. Perhaps it is the science that is flawed. Or perhaps I am flawed. Perhaps this entire bit of nonsensical rambling about my lover carries no weight or significance at all. Perhaps this thing is the errant nonsensical misfiring of dying synapses just before my imminent demise and this entire consciousness has been one long death-induced moment of insanity. That is, ostensibly, not the case. But if it were, I laud myself for going through so much trouble to make this scenario so air-tight. Think about it. She’s had a crush on me since childhood? And those feelings haven’t wavered even for literal years? Nigh on a decade of separation did nothing to dilute it? That’s incredible. By some stroke of luck, I’ve managed to not only make concrete my own wavering sexual identity, but also manage to solidify a relationship with my best friend who has unflinchingly reciprocated. What sort of sordid, half-baked young- adult fiction is this? It’s unbelievable. I experience euphoria every time I see her. Just thinking about her rests my anxious psyche. And I get to sleep next to her... every night? Again, if it was my own dying grey matter that orchestrated this reality, I must admit I’m a bit more well-composed in the moments before death than I realized. Regardless, this is neither the time nor the place to become overly sentimental. There are a number of events on the horizon that are posed to shake up my own reality beyond the scope of these shallow, melodramatic ramblings. I am glad to have finally put these thoughts to words, though. Did they need to be shared with the multiverse? Perhaps not. And yet, perhaps so. After all, what better indicator of my unyielding adoration for Jade Harley than a written record of it, accessible to any given dimension? Pardon my egress. I do hope that by this time you’ve somehow found value in reading this. You’re welcome.

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hollowcrovvn · 5 years

Text

The Ostensive Fumblings of Being Human (part 3)

Pairing: Connor x female!reader Rating: T (please note rating change) Summary: Set two months after the ending of Detroit: Become Human, androids are living in government created “pop-up” communities while efforts are being made to integrate them into society. You are a grad-student volunteer with the Detroit Crisis Response Unit (DCRU), working to help with relief efforts. And now, finally it’s time for that coffee.

Notes: Disclaimer: I am obsessed with Machiavelli so it was only a matter of time before I threw him in here. And by obsessed I mean I loathe most of his points of view and like some of them. It's a love-hate thing. One of my first “date questions” is always on Machiavelli and I feel like it is very relevant given the upheaval and changes in the “government” in the end of the game as a result of the revolution.Though his bit on Moses is making me have all the Markus-needs-to-eventually-appear inklings. (part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) (ao3)

It had started as just a regular conversation on interests, tucked in the back of the coffee shop where there were nice sleek couches to lounge in, but had divulged into an intense debate on one of the most important topics of the past-- Kindles.

“Okay. The world treated eReaders like the devil in the early 2010s. Now? Can barely find a printed book anywhere.”

“Which has cut down on mass deforestation since paper is no longer in high demand.” Connor noted, playing devil’s advocate so perfectly it was enough to make a conflict addicted girl swoon.

“Exactly! So why all the fuss back when? Cause of some preoccupation with nostalgia ? Even now you got guys like Hank who bemoan the loss of paperbacks, as if we’re all gonna forget how to read in the meanwhile.”

Connor smiled and reached out, plucking the sleeve of your jacket aka the remake of the 2003 Canada Goose brand. He sat back, looking pleased with himself as you grumbled into your second latte. Granted, it hardly looked like coffee at all but more like chocolate milk with the amount of creamer you’d had them use. You’d refused to order your usual, to Connor’s chagrin. He had not yet it seemed formed an opinion to what your actual favorite was.

“It’s different! They responsibly source the materials for those coats now.” you insisted, but Connor only smiled and smiled, refusing to concede to your point. As if he had any room to talk. This man had at least four different styles, alternating between professional, casual professional, street and hipster circa 2010. He mixed them sometimes to interesting effects. You were pretty sure he spent the majority of his paycheck on clothes.Then again, after spending most of his life being forced to wear the same damn android branded attire, you could hardly blame his enthusiasm.

“One could argue the shift to electronics however, is contributing to the climate change phenomenon.” Connor added, picking up the paperback book in question that had started this conversation. It was one of Hank’s, which was shocking. The Prince by Machiavelli. You half wondered if it was meant to be a joke on Connor’s expense or if Hank had actually recommended something halfway decent, if not a bit pessimistic, for the Android to learn about.

You huffed, “So we’re killing the planet no matter what. Great. Cheery. I need another coffee.”

Connor’s LED whirled, blinking before settling a solid blue. “Your pulse is elevated to 97 beats per minute and your blood pressure has raised by 8 and 6 points in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respectively. I would advise switching to water.”

“How do you know that's from the caffeine and not your innate magnetism .” you said, trying to lower your voice to a “sultry” level, but only managing to laugh.

“That would be highly improbable. I emit no traceable magnetic fields.”

Then the mother fucker winked .

You had begun to realize the parts of his personality you thought were intentional deadpan humor, were in fact, just deadpan facts. That one though? Definitely intentional . He picked up the book, thumbing open the pages that were dogeared and worn.

“Published in 1532, a political treatise by Italian diplomat and political-theorist, Niccolo Machiavelli. Considered one of the first books of modern philosophy, it’s topics range from human nature, military prowess, governments and history.”

He flipped to a specific page that you could tell had been once been highlighted and circled several times, now faded with time. Once upon a time, maybe Hank had noted it.

“Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel.” he read aloud, perfect and clear. You shut your eyes and listened.

“Every one sees what you appear to be, few--” he stopped abruptly, drawing your attention upward. He swallowed, his throat bobbing, “Few... really know what you are.”

His LED flickered yellow for a few seconds and then faded back to blue. You didn't really have the heart to tell him the quote was being taken wildly out of context, because it fit too well. It spoke to him. Let it mean what he wanted it to mean.

“This should be a very interesting read. Have you read it?” he asked, turning to the beginning of the book.

“Oh yeah, me and about 100 other people in PHI 1100. “Contemporary Moral Issues”. After I limped my way through the introductory course, I managed to do somewhat decent there.”

“Do you enjoy philosophy?”

“I tolerate it. Barely. With clenched teeth. I think it’s all well and good to “feed your mind” as Dolce would say, as long as your stomach is full. That’s not a common thing for the poor though so philosophy has always seemed to me as… well, a rich-man’s way to kill time.”

You swished the remaining dregs of your latte around in the bottom of your cup.

“I think it’s real easy to sit on high telling people they need to think of this, or that when you don’t have to worry about where your next meal is coming from.”

Connor gave a wry smile, “Then it is a good thing I don’t eat. I will need to read a few more selections before I form a more in depth opinion.”

“Knock yourself out, hipster. I’ll send you all my ebooks I had to get for the classes if you want.”

He perked up, the LED on his temple spiraling.

“My designation code should appear now on your phone for upload.” he said with excitement. His eyes held onto yours patiently, the intensity of it making you flounder, quickly grabbing your phone. Sure enough there was a message that a “RK800” unit was attempting to sync to your device.

[ allow synchronization? y/n? ]

You clicked yes and watched as the phone took on a mind of its own, files opening and flipping at rapid speed until it settled upon your digital library. You set the phone down carefully, eyes flicking between Connor and the device. He had that same far away look Josh got when accessing the web. It took only a few seconds before your phone flashed the words the same time Connor spoke them,

“Upload completed. Thank you, reading these should be very…” he paused, “Fun.”

“And I thought I needed to get out more.” you said, enjoying the bright look of wonder on Connor’s face as his eyes flickered back and forth, clearly already browsing the new selection.

“It doesn’t bother you, does it?” he said, tilting his head, “I should have clarified if you meant to send them now.”

“It’s definitely gonna take some getting use to if you make a habit of connecting to my phone, but nah, it doesn’t bother me.” you said, but Connor still looked skeptical so you continued, “I’m a little jealous to be honest, woulda made reading those bricks easier if I knew you three years ago.”

“It is very efficient. However, no more so than any other academic assistant android you could have purchased then.”

You felt a twist in your chest at the way he said “purchased” so easily when you could tell by the faint grimace on his face that the idea was as disturbing now to him as a “deviant” as it was to you.

“I meant like a classmate,” you quickly added, “Like the way we are now.”

“You study urban planning, not philosophy. Perhaps I should browse those texts as well so we can have more “classmate” simulate conversations.” he said, tilting his head to the other side as if considering the idea further.

“We can always talk about you.” you said, “What do you like?”

His head tilted slightly further, he almost looked like a puppy when he did that, brown eyes soft and always, always curious.

“I enjoy solving cases with Hank-- Lieutenant Anderson. I enjoy calibrating my reflex drive with coin tricks. I like talking with--”

You held up a hand, “Whoa whoa, back up! Coin tricks?!”

Your sudden enthusiasm seemed to take him off guard, but within a moment he produced a quarter from his pocket. He let it slowly walk across his knuckles one way and then faster backwards. You watched, rapt in attention and smiling bright.

“What else?!” you asked and Connor gave a lopsided smile, standing up.

“I need a bit more room for this one. Okay. So-- first you flip.” he said and did so, flipping the coin up once in the air, “And then--”

He flicked it so fast from one hand directly into the other that you almost missed it. Your entire face broke open, “Ooooohh my god! Do that again!”

He was more than happy to oblige, this time flicking the coin back rapidly and then ending by catching it between two fingers.

“Okay you have got to teach that one to me.”

“I’m not sure if you’d be able to get it without a lot of practice, but-- here.” he took your hand in his, carefully directing you to hold your fingers in a scissor shape the way he had. His eyes were intensely focused as he moved you exactly where he needed, carefully stepping behind you and placing his hands on your hips.

“Stand a bit more grounded.”

He nudged your shoe with his and you complied, hoping he wasn’t registering the heat rising up in your face. Was he holding on just a bit longer than was really even needed? A bit tighter? You could just barely feel the brush of his shirt at your back, leaning towards it.

“Don’t move.” he said, a soft command. You stood back up straight.

He came around to stand at your side, not even noticing the small gathering of people who were now watching the pair of you.

“Alright. Ready?”

You nodded.

“Just... hold… still.”

He paused, LED whirling for a moment before he flicked the coin and it found itself, trapped perfectly between your index and middle finger. You all but squealed, laughing with unbridled delight.

“That was so freakin’ cool! Can we do it again?”

But before Connor could take the coin from you, a man pushed over to the sitting area and scowled.

“Hey. No fuckin’ tin-can’s. Did you not see the sign lady?”

You were caught off guard, but Connor immediately straightened.

“Sign? There aren’t anymore signs.” you said, remembering that there was no tell tale red sign with a blue triangle issuing that androids were not allowed when you entered.

“There should be. There was. Now we gotta deal with these plastic freaks acting like they own the damn city.”

He looked Connor up and down with measured disgust, eyes lingering on the LED that was quickly flashing yellow.

“You should keep your pet at home.” the man continued, “You don’t see people bringing their dogs where others eat.”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to please return to your table.” Connor’s voice was more mechanical than you had heard it before, measured and even, despite the yellow light flickering.

“I detect levels of ethanol on your breath. A bit early for a nightcap, isn’t it?” Connor continued and the man’s expression switched quickly to shocked and then pissed.

“Keep your fuckin’ eyes off me, freak.” he said, shoving Connor, who did not even move a fraction. “Public intoxication is a misdemeanor under Section 750.168 of the Michigan penal code. I advise you take your coffee home, sir, and sober up .” Connor said, standing up way too far into this guy’s space to be mistaken for anything but an invitation that said, Hit me, do it. I dare you.

You moved forward, quickly slipping your arm between the two men, curling it around Connor’s abdomen. You slid your entire body between them, the asshole guy stepping back.

“Hey, he’s a cop . See?” you pushed aside Connor’s jacket, displaying the DPD badge on his hip.

“You wanna add assaulting an officer to that rap sheet he’s already typing up from his head?”

The guy noted the badge and despite his initial aggression, he took a step back.

“Whatever, bitch.”

You sighed, relieved he was backing off, until Connor lurched forward from behind you. You spun around, pushing your palms flat against his chest. He didn’t resist you, but he didn’t take his eyes off the guy either.

“Apologize to her.” he said, each word punctuated with rigid coldness, LED flashing red.

“Fuck you and your plastic-fuckin’ girlfriend.”

“Hey!” a voice drew all three of your attention up to a barista wearing a different uniform than the others, designating her a manager, “How about you all take a breather somewhere else before I call the real cops?”

“Fine.” you said, pushing back at Connor who had stepped forward again trying to outmaneuver you.

“It’s a nice sunny day and I’m not a fan of the smell of shit and espresso.” you said, giving the guy a glare of your own. You took Connor’s hand, ignoring any comments from anyone else as you headed out the door. Connor didn’t fight you, but walked briskly away from the coffee shop to the point it was now like he was leading you.

His grip was tight, unrelenting. His LED was still a vivid circle of red. Once you were far enough away, you dug your heels in and released his hand. He stopped, but still held on. He snapped his eyes to yours, looking confused and just so-- lost. Like he wasn’t even sure where he was or where he was going.

You didn’t even know where to start.

“… Connor, I am so sorry.”

What else could you say? You were the stupid one who invited him there. His brows furrowed tightly, anger still twitching in his lips as he shook his head.

“Don’t.” he said, voice strained, “Don’t apologize for them .”

His jaw was tight, working and unclenching. He was rubbing your hand in his own, a tick similar to his coin. People walked around you as you both were standing in the middle of the sidewalk, giving Connor nervous glances as they passed. He noticed finally and stepped to the side, filing into an empty alley facing the street.

“I need a minute.” he said, his pulmonary functions attempting to slow. You stepped closer, reaching up to gently touch his back. You stroked up once.

“Of course, just… take all the time you need.”

He was tense, every carbon fiber cord in his body ready to respond, to act. His LED began flickering, slowly turning yellow and holding.

“It’s becoming more common.” he said, disappointment evident in his voice.

“I’d say it was always common, people feeling safe to express their stupidity has just gotten worse.”

“Not that.” he said, sighing, “My… temper. Hank says I have a temper .”

A deviant android with a quick fuse, that wasn’t entirely unheard of, but yet Connor seemed disturbed more so by his own behavior than the other guys.

“I detected a significant jump in your pulse and breathing rate. You were upset. I upset you.” Connor said, going to release your hand. You snapped it back up before he could, squeezing tight.

“Connor. Look at me.”

He did.

“I wasn’t upset because of you, I was upset for you.” you said, searching his eyes, making sure you confirmed his understanding before you continued, “That guy was being a grade A dickhead and I… I made you show me those tricks and it just drew all that attention to you. It’s dumb and it’s unfair , but I should have known better.”

“I wanted to show you.” Connor said, insistent, “I knew it would make you smile. I… like that. When you were asking what I like. I like receiving positive feedback from you. It’s very informative.”

That got a laugh from you, quiet and resigned.

“Like that. I don’t know how I got you to do that, but I’m attempting to work it out. So far the data has been inconsistent.”

“Really?” you said, “How so?”

“You laugh even when I am actually not trying to be humorous.” Connor said, as if you were a bit silly for not knowing.

“You’re a funny guy.”

“Hank would say otherwise.”

Connor’s LED had returned to blue, holding steady.

“Your temperature is dropping. You should be getting home so you can warm up.”

“No.” you said, grinning. This time when he furrowed his brow it was not as sharp.

“Your current core temperature is not a debatable subject, ---. You are at 97.9 degrees.”

You hummed, “So question. When you do that, are you scanning my entire body or just the surface temperature?”

Connor opened his mouth, thought better, and then it closed it. You swore if he could blush he would be. You inclined your head expectantly.

“What else does the scan pick up?” you asked, both curious and enjoying the look of semi-panic rushing over Connor’s features. The blue LED flickered just for a moment.

“I know that you have not eaten in the last four hours and will begin to feel hunger pains in approximately the next twenty to thirty minutes.” he stated matter-of-factly, “You have a healed fracture on your left ankle, most likely from rolling it sometime within the last two years. Also, your pupils dilate when you look at me, indicating that you find me aesthetically pleasing.”

“Ho-kay.” you said, interrupting him and snatching your hand back, “You had me at the beginning there, I’ll admit.”

“Did I successfully embarrass you, ---?” Connor said, putting his hands into his pockets and following after you with a renewed smugness.

“Um. That’s such cheating. I can’t control my pupils!”

“Of course. I understand it is not conscious. Besides. I was designed to be pleasing .”

“Yeah? Then I’m gonna need you to tell me where to file a product complaint.”

Connor laughed and it sounded so human it infected your own smile.

“”Hello, yes Cyberlife?”, you continued, using your hand to mimic a phone, “”Do you take constructive criticism? Because your RK800 model is becoming a royal pain in my ass.””

“I’ve never had a bad review in my life!” he asserted, placing a hand over his chest in mock offense.

“That’s because you’ve only been alive for seven months! God. You’re an infant. I am literally on a date with an infant.”

Your laughter subsided when you noted Connor was no longer part of the chorus, turning to look at him, you found his own eyes trailed on you with the barest of smiles.

“This has been… different. Good, but different.” he said, choosing the words carefully, “I’d like to do it again.”

“Yeah, yeah, you smug bastard. You probably already know I’m going to say “yes” by the micro expressions of my eyebrows or some crap.”

Your joke was cut short as Connor stepped forward, gingerly reaching up and letting his hand trace the side of your face, thumb rubbing in gentle circles for a moment over the spot right next to your brow. His eyes were hooded, intent.

“No. I don’t think I see anything.”

He was so close-- god damn him for being so close. You couldn’t read his face at all on whether he was being serious right now or was being a tease. The LED light on his temple gave nothing away in it’s blue aura.

“Wait...right there.”

You felt your breath catch.

“I detect the forming of premature wrinkles.”

“Oh, you asshole. ”

You swatted at him, but he was too fast, dodging out of range with a school boy grin.

“I’m freezing and I’m hungry and I think you need to go home and think about what you’ve done.” you said, crossing your arms against the frigid breeze.

“I told you all of those things a minute ago.” Connor said, returning to arms reach long enough to offer his hand in what you assumed was to be a handshake. You scoffed and submitted, letting him take your hand again lightly. He squeezed and let go.

“I’ll text you later.” he said, mirroring your own words. For a moment it almost felt so normal. Just a boy and a girl on a date. It hadn’t turned out to be what you expected, but that was something you were beginning to think you could live with.

“You better.”

When had it become so hard to concentrate? You rapt your stylus against your desk, oblivious to the crowd and the constant hum of conversation as people moved around the facility. You hadn’t heard back anything from Josh regarding the files you brought, in fact, you hadn’t seen an android inside the DCRU office in several days. You leaned back in your chair, hoping to catch a glimpse but instead found yourself looking right into the pencil skirt of London Fog-- aka your supervisor, Miranda.

“You interested in getting out of here?” she asked, curly brown hair tied back in a bun. You think she must been a librarian in a past life based on how she dressed. Nothing else would explain those cat eye glasses.

“Depends.” you said, voice wary. She laughed, because honestly you didn’t have too much choice in it.

“We’re doing a quick run through. We’ve gotten reports that there have been some break ins through the fence perimeter around the--” she stopped, trying to avoid the word “camp” like most people in charge. It was not a good connection to form.

“-- housing facilities. Just need to assess the damage and estimate cost. The androids asked specifically for the director to come, but she is busy elsewhere.” Miranda shrugged, “If I have an intern following me, I look more important!”

Ah, the director. Cinnamon dolce.

Knowing that there was not much more discussion to be had, you picked up your tablet and your coat.

“Where’s the damage?” you asked, voice weary.

“We’ve got a ride to the other side of the facility all lined up for us.” Miranda said, flicking through some documents and sending them to your tablet.

“It’ll be a good learning opportunity!”

Sure. Yay. Fence maintenance.

By the time you arrived it became very obvious that this was not some accidental damage or wear-and-tear, this was a full on someone-took-pliers-to-the-fence-and-cut-a-hole damage. You recognized Josh out of the crowd of humans and androids. He gave you a faint smile and then turned his attention to Miranda.

“Was it a break out?” she asked, earning a narrow look from Josh.

“We’re not prisoners here. Everyone knows they can come and go as they please.” Josh said, voice edged with warning.

“So break in?” Miranda said, confirming to herself. You flipped to the incident report she sent to your tablet and began to jot down notes.

“It would appear so. But nothing was taken. No one has seen anyone strange around the homes either.”

The “homes” for lack of a better word, were simple modular buildings, stacked in sets of three with outside stair railings. A few androids stood on said stairs, peering over the side down at them. The entire facility sat in an old parking lot formerly used by GM back in the late 2000s. It had been sitting vacant for years now and taken by the government for use in the re-homing process.

The modular homes were efficient, if not always “cozy”. The androids were able to file comfort requests, but you’d seen the stacks. It was hard to imagine it was easy to get much of anything, but it was safe . Safer than outside, where humans might attack an android on the street. Here there were soldiers and fences that were meant to keep the outside world out, not them in.

Markus would have not accepted anything less.

“I don’t like that. Have the military units informed to be looking for someone who doesn’t belong and pull any CCTV footage from this area.” Miranda said, stepping forward and examining the fence more closely.

“Tracks say three people!” a voice yelled from above. There was a young looking blond man, standing at the very top of the modular complex. He quickly made his way down, easily constructing a safe path to the ground.

Josh smiled with familiarity, taking the hand offered to him by the man warmly.

“When did you get back into the city?”

“A few days ago. Glad to be back though. D.C. is somehow even colder.”

Miranda turned her attention back towards the two men, greeting the newcomer with nothing more than a faint nod.

“Simon. You said three people?”

Simon nodded, pointing to a variety of spots that now showed traces of mud and slush disturbance.

“Three. They circled in, came this way…”

He moved ahead, heading behind the modular unit. There was a good fifteen feet between it’s back and the fence.

“Then this way. Stopped here, but then one set of tracks keeps going while the other two circle back.” Simon’s eyes narrowed, giving Josh a strange look.

“Something isn’t right. I smell--”

A flash. Blinding and loud. So loud that suddenly your ears were filled with unbearable ringing. You felt your feet lift from the ground, heat bursting across your skin. There were quick flicks of pain, as if a hail storm had pelted you. And then you found the ground again, hitting hard to the concrete as the ringing just kept on. Something heavy fell on your chest, knocking the wind from you.

Your vision blurred, arms shaking as you tried to find something, anything to hold onto to make the world stop spinning. Someone was ontop of you, arms curled around your frame. The smell of thirium and smoke was thick in your nostrils and when your vision came to, there was blue andJosh.

All cradled in a backdrop of red flames.

#dbh connor #dbh fanfiction #dbh fanfic #dbh connor x reader #dbh connor x f!reader #detroit become human #detroit become human fanfiction #detroit become human fanfic #the ostensive fumblings of being human

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