#if a hacker can get someone to trust them enough to give them key information (passwords and/or personal information)

[rosinasnoot]

As someone currently studying cybersecurity, this is a wonderful example of gen alpha being careful online.

See, part of my cybersecurity class is that they teach us how to hack so that we understand how to prevent it. And the vast majority of the hacking I've done has happened by executing files. If a hacker can get someone to execute a file on their computer (especially if the victim has root permissions on that device, though that's unlikely in this scenario), all bets are off.

Anything you can do on the computer, a file you execute can do as well. Maybe your antivirus software will keep you safe, but do you really want to find out the hard way if it doesn't?

So while a middle/high schooler is unlikely to have anything worth hacking, it was still excellent that they chose not to execute an unknown and unverified file on their computer. That's the choice adults should make in that situation too!

I'm sorry, but I adamantly disagree.

This is very good behavior.

They didn't recognize the file extension.

They didn't recognize the EXE program.

And so they refused to open them.

That is excellent internet security hygiene.

They went to a trusted person (their brother) and verified WinRAR was legit and then proceeded to unpack the files.

How is this not *encouraging* for gen alpha? Is it just because they didn't know what WinRAR was? Who cares? I'm just proud they were being careful.

Unlike my boomer uncle who once installed so many spam search toolbars that there was no screen real estate left to show webpages.

[dzinesoniya]

How to Implement Two-Factor Authentication on a Website

These days, securing a website isn’t just a good idea—it’s a must. One of the best ways to add an extra layer of protection is through Two-Factor Authentication, or 2FA for short. If you’ve ever had to enter a code from your phone after typing in your password, you’ve used 2FA.

In simple terms, it’s a method that asks for two pieces of proof to confirm you’re really the person trying to log in. Usually, the first is your password, and the second is something like a code sent to your phone or email. This way, even if someone figures out your password, they still can’t get in without that second step.

Let’s break down how to add 2FA to your website and why it matters.

Why Two-Factor Authentication Matters

Cyber attacks are getting smarter. Passwords alone are no longer enough to keep accounts safe. Many people reuse the same passwords, and hackers often steal them from one site and try them on others. With 2FA, even if your password is leaked, your account still has a strong line of defense.

For website owners—especially those managing user data, online payments, or sensitive details—adding 2FA shows visitors that you take their safety seriously.

Basic Steps to Implement 2FA

Whether your site is built with PHP, Python, JavaScript, or a CMS like WordPress, the process follows the same general flow:

1. User Login with Username and Password

This is the regular login step. The user types in their email or username and their password.

2. Generate and Send the Second Factor

Once the password is correct, the site asks for a second piece of proof. This can be:

A one-time code sent to the user’s email or phone

A time-based code from an app like Google Authenticator

A push notification sent to an app

A hardware key (less common for general users)

Let’s take the example of using Google Authenticator. When users sign up for 2FA, you give them a QR code that they scan with their app. The app then generates new codes every 30 seconds.

3. User Enters the Code

After the code is sent or generated, the user types it in. The website checks if it matches the expected value.

If it’s correct, they’re logged in. If not, access is denied.

4. Add Recovery Options

What if a user loses their phone? You should give them a way to recover their account. This can be through backup codes, a recovery email, or answering security questions.

Tools and Libraries That Help

There are many tools available that make setting up 2FA easier:

Google Authenticator: Common and trusted.

Authy: A user-friendly option with cloud backup.

TOTP Libraries: If you’re coding it yourself, look into Time-based One-Time Password libraries for your language (e.g., pyotp for Python or otplib for JavaScript).

Plugins for CMS platforms: WordPress, Joomla, and others often have ready-made 2FA plugins.

If you’re not sure where to begin or need something polished, the best web design company in Bhubaneswar can help implement secure and user-friendly 2FA solutions suited for your site.

Keep It Simple for Users

Security should never make a site harder to use. A good 2FA system is quick, clear, and supports everyday users. Allow them to choose the method they prefer—text message, authenticator app, or email—and make the setup process easy to follow.

Provide clear instructions and a support option in case they get stuck.

Where to Use 2FA

You don’t have to add 2FA to every part of your site. Focus on:

Admin login areas

User accounts with personal or payment details

Business dashboards

Anything involving data management

Even if your website doesn’t store personal information, protecting your backend from unauthorized access is always a smart move.

Final Thoughts

Adding Two-Factor Authentication is one of the most effective ways to improve website security. It’s not complicated, and the benefits are huge. You protect your users, build trust, and reduce the chances of someone breaking into your system.Whether you're a small business, nonprofit, or running an e-commerce site, you don’t have to do it all alone. The best web design company in Bhubaneswar can guide you through setting up 2FA the right way—so you can focus on growing your site without worrying about security threats.

[queenlua]

Last week you mentioned GPG has really serious problems. Could you tell me more about them? I can't find much of anything online.

first, thanks for your patience with this appallingly late reply! september hit me like a truck :P

second: huh, wow, okay, a cursory google search really failed to turn up much stuff, huh. depressing!

i'm-a talk about the summer 2019 keyserver attack, not because that's the only issue / security vuln / fuck-up the project has ever had, but because it's (1) a hilariously bad fuck-up, and (2) generally reflective of how the project deals with security concerns, and thus demonstrates that the project is fundamentally pretty unserious

so.

this gist, by one of GnuPG's maintainers, does an okay job of summarizing the problem. a brief summary:

* one of the putative purposes of OpenPGP is to provide a "web of trust" via keyservers. i know Jane Doe, i meet her in person, i verify she is who she says she is, and i sign her key; that signature gets reflected in some keyserver, which acts like a big phone book. now, in the future, if you can't personally go verify Jane Doe's trustworthiness, but you do trust me, you can trust communications from Jane Doe, and you looked all this info up in the keyserver

* "what if a malicious actor tried to overload the keyserver?!?!" e.g. what if i spam ~150k signatures on some dude's key just to fuck with the network

* the answer, in the case of GnuPG, is, "this software is shitty and bad and can't deal with that volume so it just grinds to a fucking halt"

* ...and also most the keyservers try to copy their data from each other so you can have a ~web of trust~ throughout the network, which means, these malicious keys quickly perpetuate through the entire nnetwork

* which means anyone who receives the Forbidden Key Data TM, in practical terms, has broken their fucking GnuPG install, and that whole ~web of trust~ thing we built up is now unusable

technically speaking, this is not a security lapse per se! no cryptography has been broken; no secret data has been leaked. it is, however, a fairly straightforward denial of service attack, and is probably kind of disappointing if you wanted your security software to, you know, do software things

and look, anyone can be bitten by a nasty bug. you'll never see me being like "WOW WHAT DUMBFUCKS, HOW COULD ANYONE WRITE SUCH A STUPID BUG," because, y'know, there but for the grace of god i go, and all that. if anyone tells you they're smart enough to never write a bug, they're a fucking liar.  (my full-time job for a while was literally proving those people liars, and i never fucking failed, not because i am brilliant, but because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god. [sorry for all the god stuff; my long-abandoned southern baptist heritage comes through when i'm talking security for some reason])

however! the manner in which you respond to such a vulnerability matters:

* let's say i had discovered this bug in GnuPG. the industry standard, if i'm kind and polite, is: i disclose the bug privately to the maintainers, and they have a 90-day window during which to fix it. if they still haven't fixed the problem at the end of the 90 days, that's fine, that's their prerogative, but *i* also get to announce to the world "hey there's this bad bug, here's how i found it, and here's how to exploit it."

this is done to keep The World In General TM safer. see, i'm just some rando. if *i'm* able to find a bug in your shitty software, then it's guaranteed the NSA or Unit 8200 or some-other-super-secret-government-agency absolutely has the resources and wherewithal to find the same bug. and also, some slimy just-in-it-for-the-money hacker gang probably also has the resources to find it. by telling the company "hey, i will go public with this in 90 days," i'm lighting a fire under their ass to actually fix the problem, rather than just letting them pretend security by obscurity will save them, and if they don't fix it by then, then at least users have a prayer of finding out, hey, these dudes do not take security problems seriously, and making informed choices based on that.

there is some wiggle room in this. for instance, the fuck are cloud vendors supposed to do about something like Spectre/Meltdown? there were some shitty, not-100%-effective mitigations that could be done in software, but fundamentally the only real fix was getting new hardware, and tragically, we cannot redesign, manufacture, and ship brand new CPUs to everybody who might be affected within a 90-day timeframe. ergo, Google Project Zero pushed their disclosure deadline way out on that. but, crucially: they still went public at some point, and Intel did not cry "wah" or "no fair" or anything like that. they worked with researchers as best as they could, and once the cat was out of the bag, they offered public resources to help developers understand how their software might be affected. that's the rules of the game.

compare this to, uh, GnuPG's outrageously shitty response (from the previously-linked gist), which can basically be summarized as:

* "wah ocaml is complicated and we don't know how to maintain our own fucking software wah"

* "ten years [?!?!?!] wasn't enough time for us to fix the problem wah"

* "whoever did this attack is a hater :((((("

which. what. what the actual fuck. those are not actual reasons to not fix your sofwtare.

also, the way in which you present your software matters:

* i've thrown up shitty hobby projects on github before. if someone came to me all earnest with a CVE against them, i'd laugh, append the README to say "yo i threw this together on a weekend while i was buzzed, you should absolutely not be relying on this for anything that matters, xoxo lua." that is 100% fine! advertising THIS SOFTWARE IS NOT NECESSARILY SECURE and thus electing not to give a shit about security problems is fine.

* i've been a part of things that are... somewhere between a hobby project and Real Software TM. e.g., research prototypes that you're hoping will be widely used so you can get a better sense of desired use cases and unexpected constraints, but which you hope will be used primarily by "power users" or others who are interested in that project's specific goals.

such a project may not be able to offer the same kinds of security guarantees as Fancy Corporate Software, and that's fine, so long as they're open and honest about stuff like: what the goals of the project are, what we're sure of and what we're less sure of, how we're vetting our stuff, what our policies are when someone does report a security issue, stuff like that. there's plenty of stuff maintained on a volunteer basis that i'd generally trust because, i expect they'll notify me if there is a serious security concern to be worried about, or they have a long track record of excellence in a narrowly-tailored space, etc. that's all good.

* what you cannot, cannot, cannot do, is: claim to offer some kind of robust security solution to people in actually-precarious situations, and then not actually act like a steward of those person's interests. if you're, oh, telling Venezeulan dissidents "our [shitty hobby] software [with gaping, well-known vulnerabilities that haven't been exploited yet ONLY because no major nation-state entity has felt threatened by our code yet, but if they were so threatened, they could trivially wreck the entire project using a well-documented years-old vulnerability we can't be assed to fix because ocaml is hard i guess] is safe and reliable to use!"

...if you're telling political dissidents that? and then you get over-the-top pissed off at someone pointing out the fucking problem you refuse to fix? and somehow make it all about mememe? then fuck you, sincerely. the threat those dissidents face is not someone breaking the fucking key network. the threat is you, you personally, because you are fucking lying to them about what your software is able to do.

GOD. sorry, just. i reread that link and got so pissed again. fuck that attitude entirely. if you let people down, fucking just sit with that for a bit, okay?  sit and think and do better next time.  christ.

anyway.

this is a particularly gratuitous example of GnuPG maintainers being little shits, but in general they've been lackadaisical and dismissive some other times in the past when people have brought them real security problems, and then act all pissy if, y'know, people go public with said security problems. i haven't kept up with their work lately (i think maybe the community got kind of annihilated by this keyserver thing?) & i have other bones to pick with any project of that type (it's kind of taking the wrong tack entirely imho), but like, yeah, in general if a software community's response to security bugs is "oh gosh that's hard maybe we'll get to it someday," you should not be trusting that software lol

[vicegrips-fr]

Alright, yesterday I said I would do a little info dump about Neo Necropolis and I have done just that! It’s a little long but I promise you I did my best to keep it as short and sweet as possible. So, with that in mind, I would like to say thank you in advance for taking the time to read it!

-------------------------------------------------------

Neo Necropolis is a large cyberpunk/vaporwave city located in the Shifting Expanse. Boasting a vibrant nightlife, it's a city that never sleeps and is home to some of the Expanse's most notorious (and dangerous) criminals. The technology in Neo Necropolis is highly advanced compared to the rest of Sornieth. There are hover cars and bikes, cybernetic enhancements referred to as ‘mods’, guns, pulsing neon lights, and much more.

Probably the most prolific crime lord and pimp residing there is a man named Chaka. He has connections all throughout the city, owns several brothels and nightclubs, has ties to all of the best drug and mod dealers in town, and over all is not someone you want to cross. Before Azizi fled with Gogo to the Wasteland (long story short Chaka believed Azizi had betrayed him and so he was forced to run for his life), Chaka was his pimp and boyfriend. Needless to say their relationship was beyond toxic and rife with abuse, but Azizi still harbors some very complicated feelings for the man.

A man like Chaka doesn’t really have “friends”, but if anyone could claim that title it would be Stareater. Stareater, who I made a post about a long time ago here, is the co-owner of a nightclub in the city called BLISS. None other than Chaka is the other owner, but he trusts Star to run the place on his own and that trust is anything but misplaced. Despite Stareater’s uh, eccentricities, he’s a man of the people and knows exactly how to run the business and keep the party jumping. A mod addict (I like to think that Neo Necropolis has quite a few of those), Star is basically more Cyborg than man now and there are moments when he’s speaking where he basically glitches and repeats himself. It’s okay though, a good smack to the head usually does the trick! While Chaka is the big and scary™ crime boss/pimp you don’t want to mess with, Star is practically a rockstar in the Necropolis. Funny enough, the same could be said for Azizi and Gogo back before they had to skip town. Because of who they are, what they do, and who they associated with, everyone, including Stareater, knows their faces and names. Some other key players in the city are Saint (an information broker working as the bartender in BLISS), Malibu (a semi-famous drug dealer who’s obsessed with fashion), and Rewind (a freelance hacker who finds himself doing jobs for Chaka far too often). I don’t have a lot on them just yet, but once I do I plan on making a post similar to this one for them. What I can say is that Saint is a skeevy but handsome man who would sell you Satan for a corn chip and Malibu is a paranoid drama queen. As for Rewind he’s a smartass who prefers talking to his online hacker friends than people in the ‘real world’. There’s also another man worth mentioning who goes by the moniker “Repo”, a.k.a. “The Collector”. He’s a back alley doctor and illegal cybernetic enhancement expert. If you want a mod done much more cheaply than you’ll find at a “professional clinic” or need a wound tended to without alerting the fuzz, he’s your man. He even offers payment plans for his modifications! How kind, right? Sure it is- as long as you don’t default on your payments one too many times. Once you’ve used up all your chances you get to find out why he’s called Repo in the first place. If that’s not enough to give you pause then finding out that he’s related to Chaka might. The two of them are cousins and do business with each other often; usually over drinks at BLISS. There are actually a lot of dragons working in The Velvet Fang who hail from Neo Necropolis. These include Azizi, Gogo, Big Boss, the twins Razzle and Dazzle, Moxie, Pizzaz, Cable, Zinc, Noise, Vegas, Arcade, Taffy, and Abracadabra. Quite a few of them were poached by Big Boss and brought to the Fang with promises of a better life, which, to be fair, he has provided for them. This is just a little taste of everything that I’ve been working on with @wyvernrising (his LUCKY ST4R group is from the Necropolis too)! There’s a lot more that I’d like to get into, but I think it would be better to jump off from this and get right into writing out the lore/scenes. After all, lore dumps like this are fun but they don’t give you the full picture of what these characters and settings are like. So, in an effort to let all of their personalities shine, I’ll kick my ass into gear and post lore asap.

[refinedbuffoonery]

Flawless (4)

masterlist. 

Content Warning: swearing, violence, sex, PTSD

Short update this week! I just started a new semester, and I’m taking a maximum credit load, so it’s very possible that a) there won’t be an update next weekend b) updates will be every other weekend instead of every weekend for a while. We’ll see how it goes. Thank you so much for all your love and support!

*****

Riley woke to Kalei’s lips on the back of her neck. “Good morning,” she hummed. 

“Morning, gorgeous.” Kalei’s hands explored Riley’s body as he spooned her, slowly waking her nerves with each touch. Eventually touching turned to kissing, kissing to making out, and making out to bodies writhing between the sheets and loud moans echoing throughout the apartment. 

Riley couldn’t remember the last time she had a one night stand this good. Maybe never. 

When they finally parted, Riley pulled on a black silk robe and headed to the kitchen to make coffee for them both while Kalei showered. 

She nearly had a heart attack when she realized she wasn’t alone. Desi sat on one of the barstools looking pissed as hell, and Riley instantly regretted ever giving that woman a key. “How long have you been here?” she demanded. 

“Too long.” 

“Pervert.” Riley turned her back on her unwelcome guest and resumed her coffee mission. 

“I take it you had fun last night,” Desi said coolly. “Considering you brought it home with you.” 

“I did.” Riley smirked. “Coffee?” Desi shook her head. 

Before she could say anything else, Riley’s fun entered the kitchen. “Oh,” Kalei said, noticing Desi. “Am I interrupting something?” 

“Nope,” Riley said sweetly at the same time Desi growled, “Yes.” 

Kalei’s gaze flicked between the two women, clearly confused about where to go from here. “Uhh—” 

“Why don’t you give us a minute.” Desi gave him an icy smile. 

Riley whirled on her friend, glaring. “You don’t tell him what to do. He is my guest. You, on the other hand, are not.” 

Hands raised in surrender, Kalei backed off anyway, stuttering, “I’m gonna go.” He made a beeline for the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. 

“You didn’t have to be so rude.”  

“You know why I’m here?” Desi snapped. 

Riley sighed, crossing her arms. “Why?” 

“Because I got home from work at three in the morning and found Nikki in my bed, with my girlfriend. And then I got in trouble for waking them up because apparently, Nikki had just calmed down from her rage fit because you ditched everyone during your little girls’ night!” 

Taking a sip of her coffee to hide her annoyance, Riley replied, “Nikki literally watched me buy a new box of condoms when we went shopping the other day. She shouldn’t be surprised.” 

Desi rolled her eyes. “She’s not mad about you hooking up with some guy, you idiot. She’s mad because you were supposed to be showing the new girl the ropes and then you just left. I suggest you put on your big girl pants and apologize before Nikki decides to replace you.” 

“She can’t.” Riley leaned back against the counter. “The Five Eyes are my team.” 

Desi raised an eyebrow. “With that attitude? Not for much longer.” 

“So what, you’re here just to scold me like you’re my mom?” 

“No. I’m here because I’m your friend, and because everyone else thinks you need to be knocked off your high horse.” 

A beat. “And you? What do you think?” 

“I think you need help. I think prison affected you way more than you’re letting on, and I think you still hold a grudge against Nikki for getting you arrested in the first place, whether you realize it or not.” 

Riley was silent. If those words had come from anyone else, she would’ve been seeing red, but it was different coming from Desi. There was more...weight to them. More truth. Desi wasn’t the most forthcoming person in the world, but she also wasn’t a liar. 

“Okay,” Riley said slowly. “What do you suggest I do about it?” 

“Talk to someone. Preferably a therapist.” Desi sighed. “But if that’s too scary, you can start by talking to me. I’ve been where you are.” 

“What are you talking about? You’ve never been convicted for any of your crimes.” 

“I’m talking about PTSD, Riley. I have it, and I’m willing to bet you do too.” 

Riley caught her shoulders caving in and quickly straightened up. Don’t show weakness, she reminded herself. “You don’t talk about it.” 

“I talk about it with Sam.” 

It was Riley’s turn to roll her eyes. “Whatever,” she snarked.  

“It’s not whatever, and you know it.” 

Riley was over this conversation. “Can I get back to the very hot man in my bed now?” 

Desi almost looked sad as she stood. “Please, just...think about what I said.” She walked out the door without another word, leaving Riley with nothing but Desi’s echoing words as company.

*****

Riley sat across from Jill on her couch, laptop mirroring the schematics of the Louvre onto the T.V. Slouched into the black leather cushions, Riley’s casual posture didn't match the way her eyes narrowed as she studied the screen. It looked like she was pouting, but Riley didn’t care. Beside her, Jill did the opposite—sitting up straight, eyes calmly taking in the information on the screen. 

"How would you do it?" Riley asked. 

"Huh?"

Riley turned her attention to Jill. "If you were planning to rob the most secure museum in the world, how would you do it?" 

Jill pursed her lips, thinking. She stood, stepping closer to the T.V. "I would do it on a crowded day for more cover. The bigger the crowd, the better. And I wouldn't take something crazy famous that people would immediately realize was missing.” I wouldn’t take the French Crown Jewels, she clearly meant. Riley ignored the implied questioning of her judgement, giving Jill a free pass, but only because she was new. 

“Go on,” Riley urged. 

“The way I see it, there’s two ways we could do this. The first way, we do it in broad daylight, disguised as employees. Make up some documentation that the item needs to be moved for some reason. By the time someone figures us out, we’ll be long gone.” 

Not bad, Riley thought. But she knew firsthand that Jill’s plan wasn’t as easy as she made it sound. “And the other way?”

“Cut the power, create chaos, grab it and run.” 

A small grin curved Riley’s lips. “I like your style.” A plan started to form in her mind. Cutting the power would not only provide darkness as a cover, but it would also disable all of the security systems in place. All they’d have to do is get out unseen before the power was restored. 

“So how do we put the jewels on the black market?” Jill asked, sitting back down. “It seems to me that we might as well just tattoo ‘I did it’ onto our foreheads if we’re going to be that obvious.” 

Riley smirked. “Don’t worry about that. I can keep us completely anonymous. We’ll get our money with no one the wiser.” 

Crossing one leg under her, Jill said, “So you really don’t have an ulterior motive, do you? This is just plain old doing crime for money.” She fidgeted with the hem of her jeans as she spoke. 

“Yep. I like it that way. All I have to lose is a shit ton of money I don’t need.” 

“But if you’re the insanely talented hacker Nikki said you are, then why don’t you work for the government or something?” She pushed up her oversized glasses. “Why not use your skills for good?” 

“I have no interest in wasting my life behind a desk.” 

Pressing on, she said, “Then become a spy or something. I’m pretty sure the CIA hires nerds like you.” Eyes widening, Jill realized her mistake as soon as the words left her lips. 

“Nerds like me, huh?” Riley toyed, enjoying Jill’s discomfort. The blonde’s confidence was always so short-lived. “I’m just a common criminal,” Riley said in a low, confident tone. “I get my rush from stealing stuff. Do you know where the CIA gets it’s rush?” Jill shook her head. “From toppling foreign governments and premeditated murder.” A pause. “I’m a lot of things, Jill Morgan, but a murderer is not one of them.” 

Jill seemed to think it over for a few seconds before murmuring, “You might not be a murderer, but you are anything but a common criminal, Riley Davis.” 

Silence. 

The moment passed, and Jill looked more confused than ever. Riley fed her empty answer after empty answer, but it seemed the new recruit saw right through her facade to the impenetrable wall between the real Riley and the world. For a long time, that wall was her only source of safety, and Riley wasn’t too keen on taking it down. Especially not with someone new.

Clearly Jill hadn’t figured that out yet. “What am I missing?” she probed. Jill studied Riley like she could see right through the wall if she just looked hard enough. Riley didn’t like it. “I know why I’m here. You’re still trying to decide whether to trust me.” She paused. “But what you haven’t done is give me a reason to trust you.” 

“You trust Nikki,” Riley said matter of factly. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.” 

“That’s true. But Nikki isn’t the one walking around like the living embodiment of a loaded gun.” Riley arched a brow in challenge, and surprisingly, Jill didn’t back down this time. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out you’ve been gone for a while, and I bet your friend leaving the team had something to do with that. So tell me, what am I missing?” 

Sucking her teeth, Riley shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

With way more authority than she actually had, Jill said, “I’m going to refill my water bottle, and when I get back I expect an explanation.” 

“And when you don’t get said explanation?” 

“Then I will walk out that door and rat you all out to my friends at LAPD.” Taken aback by the threat, Riley said nothing. The coldness in Jill’s eyes and the set of her jaw made Riley think she wasn’t bluffing. Riley managed to school her face into neutrality, but her hand twitched, and Jill saw it. And suddenly they both knew Riley was backed into a corner she couldn’t get out of—not without this becoming very messy, anyway. 

Perhaps she had misjudged Jill completely. 

The thirty seconds it took Jill to fill her water wasn’t enough time for Riley to improvise her escape. Begrudgingly, she settled for the truth. “You want to know where I’ve been? Fine. I was in prison for the last two years. I’ve been out for almost a week.” 

“Why.” It was more of a demand than a question.

“During our last job, Nikki and Leanna—who you’re replacing—got caught. I bailed them out. Everyone else made it out just fine, and I got arrested.” 

Jill’s expression softened. “You sacrificed yourself for them,” she said, almost in awe. “Do you regret it?” 

Riley swallowed. Her pre-prison self would’ve rescued her friends—her family—every time, without a second thought. But after prison...she would rather die than go back. Jill looked at her expectantly, awaiting an answer. 

Telling Jill wasn’t the same as telling the others. She’s practically a stranger. But the others...telling them would make it all real. So in a rare moment of honesty, Riley finally admitted, “Sometimes.” 

A beat. “Thank you for telling me.” 

The air was thick with the murky truth Riley had revealed—and the implications that went with it. Confessing didn’t make her feel any better. Mostly Riley just felt like she’d lost something she could never get back. 

“So in a big crowd, huh?” Riley said to break the tension. 

The unreadable expression lingered for a moment before Jill finally looked away with a muttered “Uh, yeah.” She mindlessly pushed up her glasses with her middle finger. A nervous habit, Riley realized. Jill babbled, “I heard that some designer is renting the Louvre for an afterparty during Fashion Week. Apparently they’re unveiling some diamond and sapphire jewelry set at the party, in the same room that holds the French Crown Jewels. I think that it’s super tacky comparing something new to something so old and beautiful, but supposedly the new jewels are worth millions.” 

A thought began forming in Riley’s head. “How many million?” 

“Hundreds.” 

Nodding her approval, Riley said, “That’s not a bad idea, Blondie.” 

Jill seemed almost comically lost. “Idea?” she questioned. “What idea?” 

“Since you all hated my crown jewels plan, why don’t we get the next best thing?” 

Her eyes widened in understanding. “Oh.” 

Riley asked, “Where did you hear about the party anyway?” Jill chewed her lower lip, hesitating, but Riley didn’t have much patience these days. “Well?” she demanded. 

“Nikki.” 

Of course that’s who she heard it from. Nikki kept up with the fashion industry like her life depended on it. “I see,” Riley said. So much for escaping awkward conversations. 

“You should talk to her,” Jill blurted. “I know things are weird between you right now, but they won’t get better by doing nothing.” 

Riley hated how small her voice sounded when she whispered, “I know.”

~ Tag List ~ (let me know if you’d like to be added!) 

@macrileyedits / @hellishrose / @incorret-macgyver-quotes / @mylifequotesshowallofthem / @thecarrieonokay 

[mottephobia-imagines]

Ikemen Sengoku Mafia!AU (Oda Forces)

In case y’all didn’t know I also write for Otome (both Voltage and Cybird)

—

Oda Nobunaga: the leader

Absolutely a leader of a yakuza- and a good one at that too

(Assuming this takes place in modern day japan) runs one of the biggest Yakuza factions

On the outside though, he’s a very successful heir to a large, multimillion company (think Eisuke Ichinomiya from KBTBB I mean they’re practically the same person cmon)

Due to his seemingly inconspicuous ‘day job’ and charming personality making him very popular to the public eye, no one suspects him of being involved in any organized crime, so he’s able to operate very smoothly under the radar

Of course, he has spies every where- including in the government and police force so his tracks are very covered

Aims to take political power at some point and have his faction be the dominant faction (eliminating all possible rivals)

His biggest one being his enemy Kenshin Uesugi’s faction, who takes any and every opportunity they can to get under his nerves constantly lmao

Nobunaga and Kenshin have never seen each other face to face (if they did it’d be a blood bath), but still have an unspoken respect for each other as much as they hate each other lmao

The rivalry between their two families has lasted generations- now that it’s their turn, Nobunaga is determined to end it with the last laugh

Nobunaga’s still the same arrogant, cocky bastard he is, but 100x worse (as with modern technology)

Grew up with a very traditional family who were samurais in the past, so he’s had a lot of training in swordsmanship and martial arts

Always keeps a pistol in his jacket pocket and wears a bulletproof vest 90% of the time

(He’s not that good with guns tho)

On his desk there’s probably a little plateful of candies, and his fridge is also stocked with sweet things (it’s a wonder how he doesn’t have diabetes yet)

Also has a pocketful of tiny candies to last him throughout the day (much to Hideyoshi’s dismay)

Also, slicked back hair, suited up Nobunaga with a sleeve tattoo (he’d have to try really hard to keep his sleeve tattoo hidden but still just imagine)

Hideyoshi Toyotomi: the bodyguard

Hideyoshi is Nobunaga’s most trusted confidant, who also serves as his bodyguard

Wherever Nobunaga goes, Hideyoshi follows suit

More often than not the voice of reason

Always trusts his gut and is always skeptical of new members (or just people in general why won’t you trust me dammit)

He came from a poor family of farmers in the countryside, and when they couldn’t take care of him anymore they abandoned him

He was a thief for a little while, until Nobunaga’s dad took him in and raised him as his own

Hideyoshi deems this a debt he has to pay, and him helping Nobunaga and keeping him straight will repay the family’s kindness

He’s always the one to direct less major missions and cleans up the messes

Frequently in contact with Mistuhide, and he hates the guy (more like annoyed tbh)

He’s basically Nobunaga’s messenger lmao

And mother older brother figure, he frequently stops Nobunaga from rampaging over something insignificant and keeps him from being unhealthy by taking away his candies sometimes

Is better skilled with a gun, and thus carries not one, but two (those like shoulder straps for guns under his suit type of thing)

He goes undercover from time to time, although it’s not his specialty- he’s kind of a jack of all trades kinda guy

He’s really good at sussing out the spies and traitors, because he listens to his gut and it’s almost always right

Will do anything and everything to help Nobunaga succeed, even if it means killing anyone who stands in the way

Date Masamune: the affiliate

Masamune is actually the leader of another yakuza faction, but since it was so weak at the time he took the opportunity to pair up with Nobunaga

His faction deals more with drugs and weapons, smuggling them over borders and getting them out and in of the country

That being said, most of his deals take place at exclusive bars and clubs- where the richest of the rich gather

He’s a pretty laid-back guy for someone who runs a drug syndicate- he doesn’t really care how things get done as long as they get done somehow

Also pretty goofy- when people first meet him, they’d think that there was no way he was in the yakuza

Even though the sleeve tattoos and the eyepatch probably should’ve been enough for them to know

And the massive amount of jewelry, too- Masamune isn’t shy about his wealth like at all

He’s totally the type to wear those bigass rings, complete with sapphires on them just to show off a little more

He loves to piss off Nobunaga, he loves for it

Ieyasu tells him that it might get him killed (low key a worried bb) but Masamune knows Nobunaga isn’t gonna get rid of him anytime soon; due to the fact that Masamune’s faction gives a shit ton of money

Him and Ieyasu tolerate get along pretty well, although the latter may deny it

Out of all of them, he’s probably the strongest and most skilled combat-wise; he’s adept in martial arts, knives and blades, as well as having an extensive knowledge on firearms and even bombs and how to use them

Honestly, he’s with Nobunaga just for the power boost- ones his faction gets enough power, he’s gonna dip then come back and be like ‘sike u thought’

Masamune has the same aspiration as both Nobunaga and Kenshin, but knows he can’t fight them both at the same time. So why not let the two battle it out then fight the winner?

Akechi Mistuhide: the spy

Aka the rat

Mistuhide is a double agent working for Nobunaga, on his own terms

He’s a spy within the government’s police force, and nobody has caught him yet

Tells Nobunaga about any upcoming busts and when and where they’re gonna go, who they’re going to investigate and go after, basically all information on cases that may affect him

Very good at hiding his tracks- it’s almost impossible to get this guy

Also very good at swaying his coworkers and even bosses- tells them whether or not to pursue a case or person, acknowledge evidence, and even do something for him

He started out as an assassin for hire before becoming an informant for Nobunaga, which is the foundation for the distrust Hideyoshi has on him

Coupled with the fact that he’s easily a manipulative and cunning bastard, you’ve got someone who is a valuable asset but you can’t help but wonder when he’ll turn his back on you

He’s actually the son of a very rich man who had many wives and concubines; growing up, his father’s other wives would try to kill him using any tactic they could, so he developed quickly some skills that children shouldn’t have learned

He knows when food and drinks are poisoned, when someone is trying to ambush you, and when someone is lying- and this was before any formal training for an assassin

Because of his talent with blades and smaller guns, he’s the one Nobunaga sends out most of the time to kill someone and make it seem like an accident

Teams up with Masamune to annoy Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu (sometimes)

He once went undercover with Hideyoshi- the teasing was unfiltered and hard. Hideyoshi kept yelling at him to please stop, we have a fuckinh mission to do and you making me flustered will not make this any less difficult.

He honestly just lives to see people annoyed/embarrassed lmao

Used to tease Ieyasu a lot before Masamune came and essentially replaced him

Mitsuhide’s reasons for joining Nobunaga’s faction still remains a mystery, and he’d like to keep it that way

Tokugawa Ieyasu: the doctor

Why is there no yellow

The underground doctor who works for Nobunaga, Ieyasu has plenty of knowledge and experience despite his young age

At first, you’d think he isn’t a doctor at all- he‘s rough, not exactly friendly, and easily irritated; which is exactly what makes him so good at his job

As an underground doctor, Ieyasu’s primary job is to salvage whatever unfortunate soul had been injured at the time- sometimes, it’d be much, much more than one person

He can’t afford to let his emotions get to him and slow him down, so he’s learned to repress his emotions and completely focus on his job instead

Also, he can’t be like a traditional doctor because he’s dealing with criminals here- and with his pretty face, not everyone’s gonna take him seriously if he offers the usual caring doctor attitude

Ieyasu grew up in a wealthy family before being kidnapped and sold in the black market as a child, abused within the system and eventually ended up in an old doctor’s hands

The old doctor would basically take him on as an apprentice and told him all his medical knowledge, urging him to follow in his footsteps before he died

When the doctor did die, Ieyasu continued his medical studies and attended several schools and universities before going off the grid completely

Years later he was found in a back alley market (think the black market from beastars) by non other than Nobunaga, who he saved from some thugs (or at least tried to)

Because of his work as a doctor, he often forgets to really take a rest and goes days without sleeping and living off spicy ramen noodles

It’s gotten so bad at one point that Masamune (who buys the noodles for him regularly) actually confiscated all of them and demanded Ieyasu be given a day off (he can’t have tease him if he’s dead!)

Speaking of Masamune, they met after the ‘eyepatch wearing idiot’ came into his clinic after a particularly grueling gun fight with the police

He’s kind of thankful for Masamune- Ieyasu would still have to deal with Mitsuhide and that guy gets on his nerves the quickest, if Masamune didn’t take his spot lmao

He has a little pet porcupine at home, and he sometimes sticks him in the chest pocket of his doctor’s coat whenever he knows he’s gonna spend days at his clinic

Don’t let his pretty looks fool you; mans learned many combat skills from Masamune including how to absolutely murder people with guns

Ishida Mitsunari: the hacker

From how sweet and kind he looks he definitely does not look like part of the Yakuza

Like, he looks like he belongs in a classroom teaching kids, not in a computer room hacking government files

Extremely skilled hacker- he can get any information from anywhere and leave no trace

Is the main source of information for Nobunaga

Mitsunari was the son of a college professor, and spent most of his time reading in the school library when his father took him to his lectures

Pretty soon he found himself loving computers and tinkering with them, eventually leading to him hacking some minor websites

Fat forward a couple of years and his curious nature doesn’t stop, leading to him discovering some secret files/tapes of Nobunaga’s faction

He left a clear enough trace that he was easily tracked down and almost killed; however, Nobunaga saw some potential in him and decided to give him a choice between dying or joining them (not much of a choice there buddy)

He joined in his late teens, so he’s never really experienced what life was like (thanks Nobunaga)

Nonetheless, he’s actually pretty terrifying when he’s angry

With his demeanor, you’d think he wouldn’t have a mean bone in his body- wrong

Being in the yakuza at a young age, he’s seen some shit and learned some shit- and he’s even tried some of them

Many people have spited him, thinking he’s a doormat

Mitsunari does not let that fly

People underestimate how much he can ruin their lives through the computer screen- financial ruin, a hard hit to reputations, etc

He rarely if ever does that though, most of the time he’d just brush it off and continue what he’s doing (unless it escalates then you’re fucked lmao Mitsudarki come thru)

Mitsunari’s really good with kids, so often times the higher ups or other members leave their kids or pets with him because even if he is booked for work, he still takes stellar care of them

Gets teased by Mitsuhide often, but doesn’t get what he’s saying most of the time

Is heavily opposed to killing- he’d much rather talk it through with someone or ruin their life rather than taking it

—

Uggghhhhh this took so long but I love these little shits so it was worth it 😤😤 they’re so pretty wth-

[ikenbar]

Mr Love: Ike’s Choice CH 5 PT 1

Author’s Note:

Chapter five baby!! This is gonna be a fun one!! It is chock-full of fluff, angst, adventure, and thickening plot!! Only the best for Ikamara’s story B) I plan on taking lines straight from the game in this story. Normally I would make annotations but, after rereading the parts I have done that with, I have noticed that they can distract from the story. And because I have a lot of lines from the game in the coming chapters, I am just going to put the reference to the stages in the warning. If you have a problem with this, send me a message! Though I do write Ikamara’s story for myself, I also want to make the experience as pleasurable for any one reading as possible.

Thank you so much for the love and support for my story! Please read the author’s note (and the beginning of the story) on chapter one part one if you’re new here and would like to be familiar with the story!! :D

Enjoy Chapter Five!! :D

- Ike ‘n Bar Productions

Warnings: Words taken directly from Stage 8-1 from the game Mr. Love: A Queen’s Choice, there is also FLUFF!!!, sad children, ~✨🌈Gayness🌈✨~, and plot development that makes you  beg for more but are sadly left on yet aNOTHER cliffhanger :D

Prologue:

>>

The man in the white lab coat walked behind Marie as they made their way back down that familiarly dank hallway. They were quiet but that didn’t mean Marie would have it any other way. From all the medical talk and strange languages they spoke, silence seemed like the only thing she could understand anymore. 

They came to a stop in front of a door. He opened it and gestured for Marie to go in. She timidly did so, allowing him to close it shut behind her and lock it. It was a simple room with two beds. Not much there but it was enough. 

In one of the beds sat Marie’s roommate, and best friend. Normally the girl would be smiling and greet Marie with open arms, but today, she was just sitting on the bed, crying. Immediately, Marie ran to her side.

“What’s wrong?” Marie’s squeaky voice made the girl jump. She hurriedly wiped her eyes.

“Nothing.” The girl mumbled.

“Oh come on.” Marie jumped onto the bed and next to the girl, “You can’t say that right after wiping away tears.”

“...it’s just that.” The girl slowly began, “...I’m tired of the testing. I’d just wish they’d stop pricking us with those needles. You’re so lucky. Your skin is so thick, you don’t need needles.”

“Nah, I still get the needles.” Marie kicked her feet over the bed and kept her eyes on the ground, “I just have a special kind that's bigger.” The girl sighed and leaned on her shoulder.

“I just feel so…” The girl started, gesturing her hands uselessly, “... not safe.” Marie tensed slightly.

“You shouldn’t.” She said, making the girl look up at her, “You’ve got me! I will always protect you.” The girl smiled weakly.

“You promise?” She asked. Marie nodded seriously as she drew an ‘x’ on over her heart.

“Cross my heart.” She smiled. The girl sat up and threw her arms around Marie. Marie reciprocated the hug, making the girl laugh. The girls held their hug, indulging in the security of it.

“When we get out,” The girl said softly, “and we are no longer in danger, will you still protect me?" Marie held the little girl closer to her.

“Youri,” Marie said the girl’s name seriously, “There won’t be a moment where I will leave your side.”

>>

Chapter five:

Part one:

>>

I waited anxiously in my seat, tapping the mug of coffee in my hand. Youran and I had spent the past week talking and getting to know each other. In fact, there wasn't a day that had passed that we didn't talk. It surprised me how easy it was to talk with her. It was like we had clicked, becoming friends almost instantly. Almost as if we had already been friends before.

 I had even told Youran about my family. Though I addressed them as my biological family instead of my foster family. I didn’t want her asking questions about my life as a foster child. Not because I didn’t want to answer them but because I knew that, if she asked, I would tell her everything.

 It was strange to me. Never in my life had I been so open to anyone like that. It was almost suspicious. But every time I spoke to Youran, the suspicions left my mind. I would get this immense calm all over my body. It was something I had never experienced before. Something only she could give me.

But the suspicions and doubts were back. I met this woman while I'm being targeted and I just trusted her?! Just like that?! Plus, wasn't it weird that I feel so strange around her? Not to mention I had dreams about her right before meeting her! Could she have been someone from my past? Someone that wants me dead? One thing was for sure, waiting for her was a dumb idea. Especially if it meant potentially getting hurt. I still hadn't healed fully from Montu's attack last week. Waiting there like a sitting duck was a terrible way to get killed.

As I moved to stand from my seat, a chime came from the front door, making me look up. Youran pushed through the door, clearly in distress. Her hair was tied in a loose ponytail that fell just above a vibrant sundress that brought out her light brown eyes. She seemed to have put on some light makeup as well, my eyes being drawn to her flushed cheeks and glossy lips.

 Panting slightly, Youran scanned the café until her eyes landed on mine. She smiled brightly. And, just like that, my suspicions vanished once again as that calm hit me like a truck. She came running over to me. "Ike!" Youran threw her arms around me, nearly toppling me over, "I hope you weren’t waiting long! I am so sorry I'm late. I slept through my alarm."

“It’s no problem.” I patted her head gently, “It happens. Besides, I... just got here. So you’re fine.”

“Great!” Youran jumped back and clapped her hands together, “Give me one second to order a drink then we can start hanging out!” I smiled and nodded. Hanging out? What are we, teenagers… she sure made me feel that way. 

Youran smile brightened in return. She turned on her heel and hurried to the front counter. I watched her as she left. She looked cute with her hair up like-

I shook my head and dropped that stupid absent minded smile. What am I doing? Wasn’t I about to leave?! I cursed under my breath and held a hand up to my mouth. She did it to me again! How does she just change me like that? There has got to be a malice reason behind it…

After a moment’s hesitation, I stole another glance at Youran. She was looking at the menu intently, tapping her chin with her finger thoughtfully.

… Well... since I'm already here…

I took my seat again, sighing as I picked up my now cold, and nearly empty, cup of coffee. After waiting a minute longer, Youran came running back to the table. “Ok!” She said, taking a seat in front of me, “How are you?”

She seems so happy to see me...

“I’m good.” I smiled, “How are you?”

“I’m great!” She giggled, “Having coffee together was such a great idea! I feel like we only know each other through a phone screen.” I hummed in agreement as a barista walked over to us.

“Refill, mam?” She asked me politely. I looked at Youran.

“... Yeah.” I sighed, lifting my cup to her, “Fill ‘er up.” The barista complied. Once she had left, I sparked a conversation, "How’s the company, Youran?”

“Excellent thanks to your help.” Youran sighed, “Victor had little to nothing to correct from the report, all thanks to your edits. Of course, he guessed almost immediately that you had been the reason behind it.”

“Yeah, Victor’s smart like that.” I sighed, spinning my newly filled cup of coffee absentmindedly.

“What about you?” Youran leaned on the table and looked at me expectantly, “How’s Ike ‘n Bar Productions?”

“Not bad. We actually start filming a new tv show today. Bart’s already heading over now to scope it out.”

“Ooo! Nice! Who’s the cast?” Youran egged.

“Nope.” I deadpanned, “Not revealing anything until it airs.” I looked up from my cup and caught Youran glaring at me. She had her cheeks puffed out and her bottom lip over lapping the top one. I smirked. She was so cute when she was angry. “Alright, alright. You can come to the viewing party.”

“Really??” Youran beamed, making the pout I saw a distant memory.

“Yeah.” I sighed,  “Why not?” Youran cheered and clapped her hands, sending a warm feeling in my chest.

“Oh! But watch out! You may not be able to get through the production so easily!” Youran’s voice sounded like she was telling a ghost story. She added her fingers waving in the air for extra spooky flavor. I arched my eyebrow.

“What makes you say that?” I asked, amused by her childish behavior. Youran leaned forward slightly and spoke in a harsh whisper, “Did you hear about that hacker that has been attacking the web?” My brows furrowed slightly. A widespread internet paralysis broke out in Loveland that week. It affected all websites in the city. On every homepage there was a signature by a hacker named ‘Key.’ “Apparently, there was word of the hacker affecting cell phones as well.” Youran continued, “Hacking into your phone and stealing emails and personal information.” I rolled my eyes.

“Hogwash.” I sighed, “It’s just people speculating and stirring up a commotion. Don’t think about it too much.” Youran nodded and took a sip from her drink. Though she agreed with me, I could still see worry knitted in her eyebrows. I instinctively reached out and brushed them. Youran looked at me surprised. I felt my face flush as I quickly retracted my hand. 

“Sorry.” I stammered, covering my face with my hand, “You just… You have nothing to worry about. So you shouldn’t hold your face like that.”

“I don’t?” Youran asked, innocently.

“Of course not.” I said simply, avoiding eye contact and looking back into my cup, “Like I said, this is all speculation. This ‘Key’ is probably trying to make a name for himself. Pushing however hard he can to get people to notice him. You’ll be ok.”

“...And ...If I’m not?” Youran asked sheepishly.

“I’ll protect you.”

 I froze. Those words fell from my mouth without me realizing it. They came so easily to me. As if I had said it a million times to her before...

Youran placed a hand on top of mine. I looked up at her. She was smiling sweetly at me.

“Thank you.” She said, softly. Her eyes sparkled, showing me she meant her thanks. I looked down. Her hands are so cold… I twisted my hand to hold Youran’s. “... Did you get your nails done?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Yeah!” Youran shone brightly as she leaned forward, “I had them draw little pandas on them! Aren’t they cute??”

“Adorable.” I ran my thumb over her nails gently, a soft smile settling on my face, “Adri has been wanting to get her nails done. You’ll have to tell me the name of the place you went to.”

“Oh! How is Adri doing?” Youran asked, pulling her hand away to clap her hands together, “Wasn’t today her first day at her new highschool?” I opened my mouth but was cut off by a buzzing that came from my blazer pocket. I pulled out my phone and looked at the collar ID. Ho boy. “ Speak of the devil.” I looked up to Youran, “Do you mind?” She shook her head and smiled politely. I thanked her and stood up.. after making sure I was out of earshot, I answered the call.

“Speaking.” I said resoundly.

“Hello?” The principal of Loveland Lake High, Mr. Olson answered seriously. He still sounded the same as he did when I attended that school, if not a little more warily, “Is this Ike?”

“What did Sam do now?” I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose.

Mr. Olson chuckled, “Ah, about that. It isn’t Sam I’m calling for this time. It’s Adrienne.” I froze.

“What happened?”

“Our new student was called to my office for cursing at her teacher and starting a riot in the classroom.” I groaned, “She has been suspended starting immediately. I tried calling Maria and Bart but neither of them picked up.”

“Maria is at a doctor’s appointment for Lola and Bart is at a shoot that I have to meet him at in less than an hour.” I checked my watch. “Are you sure Adri has to start today? Can’t she just sit in the corner and think about what she has done?”

“I’m afraid not.” Mr. Olson chuckled. I sighed and held my face in my hand.

“...fine. I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

“Thank you, Ike. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault. Adri on the other hand will be receiving a solid talking to that may make her into a saint…. I’ll see you soon. Goodbye.” I hung up the phone and growled to myself as I walked back into the cafe. “I’m afraid I’ll have to go.” I said as I approached Youran, “I have to go pick up my sister early from school.”

“Oh no.” Youran’s smile fell into a look of worry, “Is everything ok?”

“Yeah.” I grumbled, stretching my jaw to stop it from clenching, “My sister is just a jerk to the underpaid.” I sighed, “The school is fifteen minutes away. By the time I pick her up and take her home, I’ll have to go to a shoot. I’m really sorry.” Youran shook her head and smiled at me.

“It’s nothing you couldn’t help. I understand.” She said this with a sweet smile but there was no denying the disappointment behind her eyes. I clenched my hands into fists inside my pockets. It felt as if I had a string attached to my chest that prevented me from just leaving Youran there, making it nearly impossible to leave her side.

“... Do you have plans for dinner tonight?” Youran looked shocked by my sudden question.

“No!” She answered quickly.

“Good. Don’t make any. We can finish chatting then. And it’ll be on me. To make up for bailing today.”

“But I was late!” Youran quickly jumped to stop me, “I’ll pay!”

“I really didn’t care that you were late. I can-”

“But I do!” Youran puffed out her cheeks stubbornly. Though normally, the stubbornness of others angered me, she still somehow pulled a smile out of me.

 “Fine. You can give me a ride there to make up for your tardiness. How does that sound?” I asked, lightly arching my brows. Youran nodded, her smile returning. “Good. I’ll text you the location of the shoot and you can pick me up from there.”

“Right!” Youran said, determinately. 

“See you tonight then.” I said. I hesitated a moment, then gave her a quick pat on the head. Youran giggled, bringing a sharp blush to my cheeks. Not willing to let her see it, I quickly started walking to the door.

“See you!” She said, waving to me as I left. I waved back as I pushed through the door, making the chimes tinkle melodiously. I felt a warm smile spread across my cheeks as I walked to the car. Youran was so sweet and caring to me. It was a kind of warmth I hadn’t felt since... My smile fell slightly. 

… I have never felt that kind of sweetness before... 

Why did it seem so familiar?

(Next)

[thattimdrakeguy]

I’m writing this fic about the Batfamily and I’m afraid of writing them as OOC. If you are able to, could you please give some tips on each of the Batfam’s personalities and characteristics? To specify, Dick, Jason, Tim, Steph, Cass, Babs, Damian, and Duke are the characters I’m using. It would be really helpful! Thank you!!

This is a tricky question, because I don’t know the story of your fic to help you in any specific way. So if after this you wanna DM me for more specific help on how to work things out, I’ll be there to help you right away unless I’m doing something, but I have no plans.

I’m going to go from easiest for me to do to least easiest, because I obviously know Tim the best, but even then, it’s hard, because going off the character’s you are choosing, it’s set during the part of the timeline were he went OOC, but I’ll do my best just to say his general character so you can use that as a base for things. Like how he was developed in his origin and all that, and notable characteristics he’s had as he grew while still in character. With some that even if they weren’t around with some of those characters, would apply to them.

His is also going to be the longest, like way too long, because he’s a way more nuanced and complex character than anyone ever gives him credit for. So he takes a lot longer to explains by a freaking large margin. Like sorry if it’s too big, I just kept saying more as more came to mind because I feel like his nuances are what makes him interesting and easy to right. Once you get a hang of his nuances, and you get used to it, it makes it easier to put yourself into his mindset to how he works, which makes him easier to write as well.

(THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY LONG POST, AND I APOLOGIZE. I just really wanted to be thorough and give contexts to stuff. It’s less of tips and more of an overly long description of what I know about each character and what’s in-character and what’s not going off of how the character’s were developed to be, and not counting the out of character writing. So really sorry about this being so freaking long)

Tim:

Tim’s origin right off the back is having met Dick at a very very young age, I don’t think he could even strongly walk yet, so I’mma say three. He was instantly attached to Dick, he just admired him instantly just for giving him affection. He was his hero. But he was also there the day Dick’s parents died, which traumatized Tim and gave him nightmares for years. But being able to remember that night so thoroughly, he remembered a specific move that Dick could do that very few could, and that’s how he found out Dick was Batman, and logically, Bruce Wayne was Batman.

There’s a large misconception that as a little kid, Tim followed Batman and Robin around, but that was not the case. At least not physically and literally followed them around. Closest being when I believe he happened to come across Batman in his origin story, and purposely did his best detective work to figure out where Dick would be.

As shown several times but most strongly in his origin, but wasn’t as strong the more he went on, he’s sort of socially oblivious to what’s considered normal or not, or what other people are thinking of him.

For instance he just knocked on Starfire’s and Dick’s apartment, asked Kori (Starfire) if Dick was home because he needed his help, and when she said no, just bolted even when Kori asked his name. Just concerning the crap out of her. Even when he first met Dick, he just wouldn’t say his name because “NO TIME”, he just squirmed around place to place on his bike being completely oblivious of himself. In his first miniseries he searches up information on Clyde (a former government agent he saved and befriends) that he shouldn’t have, unaware that that’d obviously be crossing a line for some people. Even taking his girlfriend to a car show, where there was a lot of bikini models around, and it didn’t even occur to him what it’d look like he was there for. He was just genuinely bubbly to see the cars.

He doesn’t do any of those sorts of things out of malice, he’s always just presented as being incredibly oblivious of himself quite a bit. Most likely from not having his parents around that much as his childhood progressed, and typically just living in boarding schools, or with a nanny. So he didn’t really developed right as one interpretation, and another being (that was actually almost confirmed if it wasn’t for Tim getting a writer before another could say it) is that he’s on the Autism spectrum. Which is technically verified, as he has many symptoms of Asperger’s. But that isn’t technically canon, as it never got to be officially said. But it’s valid enough.

Tim’s main strength is his detective work, he also knows how to use a computer to his advantage. Many modern comics act as if Tim is a master hacker who could hack into anything. But he actually mostly used them for detective work, and small hack jobs, some of which he failed. He seemed to have learned more about hacking from Barbara, or at least some what implied, as Babs let him help her build a big computer, or something of that sort.

He also took karate as a kid, and is implied to have also taken gymnastics. It’s stated that he’s actually really good at gymnastics by Alfred in Tim’s origin, but his fighting skills, despite the karate lessons he had previously taken, isn’t as good as the others. Hence his staff, and having to be clever in how he goes about a fight.

How Tim operates as far as emotionally or mentally depends too. Sometimes he’ll go straight from the heart and get himself in trouble, but other times he’ll take his time to really plan something out for himself on the spot. It depends on how his emotions are at the time. If he was just picked on or beat up, he’ll be more agitated, and if something really really bad that happened, he just go so far in he just beats the crap out of everyone as bad as he can. As shown by trying to apprehend someone that shot someone he knew at school, or Batman betraying his trust (in an honestly out of character story). If he’s calmer though, or at least doing his best to be, he’ll use his brain more before he starts. I think his talents in planning have been overstated for ages, because while he’s good at it, he’s not exactly the greatest or overall good. Just enough to work fine enough to get the job done.

One of his biggest mental weakness’s, is his constant insecurity. Somethings that’s so constantly on his mind is letting someone down, rather it be Batman or his dad Jack, or even Nightwing, or his team. The reason why Tim acted so different and more of a seriously brooding personality in Young Justice, was because he was so insecure about not having powers that he thought he had to push himself to his limits. So he used some Batman leadership tactics, and fought harder than he ever fought before just to seem like he was even worth having around. When by himself though, it’s more of a sadness, an upset feeling in his gut. Tim has anxiety about things, rather or not he’s good enough. He’s not a super confident person when it comes to himself. He doesn’t think much of him.

One editorial person answering fan questions in the back of comics as they used to, even described Tim as meek. He doesn’t brag or think much of himself as super according to it.

He’s also stated and shown to be internally scared quite a bit, even shaking when he first got his own Robin suit. Another occasion saying the cold water might excuse his shivering. Which goes along with his anxiety.

Another thing about him that is more low-key and not as noticed, is how Tim, even though he clearly thinks of himself as a kid, heck even the letter column above says so, he has also said since being Robin he’s never had time to be a kid. But he is also still a kid.

As they specified his voice a bit more, he tended to use heck, Holy crud, dang, fudge, weenie, and even Pus Bucket (a reference to Ghost Busters) as his choice of cussing (if that even remotely counts).

And even if it’s not noticeable at first, is shown as having a secret teddy bear that he kept hidden under his mattress so I assume no one would see it.

He’s also a pretty innocent kid despite what all he sees. His mind doesn’t go to the gutter. He trusts people far faster than he should, even trusting Lady Shiva, the world’s most dangerous woman and know criminal right away.

Even Tim’s step-mother saying so out-loud. Showing that this is also the case in his personal life as well.

It also goes along with his social obliviousness. This stuff being rounded into not having any street smarts, which was a main theme for Tim directly in his first miniseries. As well as being naive.

Of course as life went on that wasn’t the case as much, but in the above screenshot, Dana (his step-mom) is saying that as Tim is already 16.

Tim in-general also being a super hero fanboy. As a kid he watched the news, clipped out the papers on them, collected, and even drew his own Batman art (and potentially) others to put on his wall.

Tim’s general behavior while socializing also depends on his emotions at the time. He’s normally very nice and friendly, when not super depressed or down on himself he’s bubbly. But he’s also still a kid, he can pout when he’s hurt, and passive aggressive to people he doesn’t like. Examples being, literally not listening to a jock that picks on his friends, an over-arrogant jerk he met in France, and even Steph because she kept being reckless and flirting with him when he didn’t like it.

Nothing straight up insults, but just generally passive aggressive, give them a clue he doesn’t like them very much even if it never worked. He just wants them to go away, unless they’re a straight up bully. Tim, if it’s no one he specifically knows that will invade his personal life, will beat up bullies. He really can’t stand a bully.

Another thing about Tim is that even though he’s an introvert typically, he’s also not very shy. A shy kid wouldn’t travel miles on a bike (and I freaking hope busses) to meet someone he barely knows because he believes in Batman needing a Robin. He also stands up to bullies, and unless he’s really uncomfortable could talk to about anyone. He even slept in only his briefs and undershirt in the house of someone he doesn’t know, with two people he also barely knows. With that example also probably adding up to the socially oblivious part of his personality.

As far as his relationships go, he canonically thinks of the Bat-Family as his family. Dick calls Tim his little brother, Babs treats Tim as her baby brother as well as acting like his/ Aunt/ Mom depending on the situation (I think Tim fell asleep on her couch after eating pizza while using his cape as a blanket and drooling. So Mom’s a stretch but still), Bruce is his distant but still father figure, Alfred is his grandpa (who he actually plays video games with), even Cass to an extent treating Tim as a baby brother as well.

He is very much the baby of the family. And Tim talks to them about personal stuff (bar Cass cause he was scared of her in the beginning), most of them from Alfred and Dick, to the mute hunchback in the Batcave Harold (who is a real character and I love him). He was always collecting advice from where ever he could get it.

He’s also intensely morally operated. He hates killing. He said he took an oath to let himself be killed before ever killing, getting PTSD from feeling responsible for a death, and even crying when he had genuinely thought Bruce killed someone.

As far as how he tries to present himself, he is constantly doing his best to take everything as seriously as he can, even shunning himself when he starts to stop taking things as serious, he wants to be seen as serious, trustworthy, and reliable desperately so he doesn’t let anyone down. He is constantly hard of himself, and is always trying to be what he thinks Batman wants him to be. Which is were a lot of his anxieties from. Even trying to think of what Batman or Dick would do because he regards them so highly. Even calling Bruce the great man he’s ever known I believe during one of his post-origin pre-Robin appearances.

He’s naive and oblivious of himself, as well as childish in some areas (I think his nanny yelled at him once for it), but overall what he tries to hardest at is taking everything seriously as possible, and using his brain as much as he can. He may not be the most mature, often actually handling situations very immaturely, but he does his best to at least seem like he’s mature, and to an extent he actually can be genuinely very mature, or at least as much as a naive oblivious child can be.

Dick:

This ones a lot shorter probably, because I don’t read him as much, but still have a good handle on him.

I think he’s a character very few always write correctly, because they ride too much into the friendly, compassionate guy. Which, compassion being his main motivator in how he goes about as much as he can, and he’s incredibly friendly, he’s also a very angsty and angry person deep down.

He’s a perfectionist, a trait fics tend to give to Tim more, but actually belongs to Dick. He gets really hard on himself when he thinks he messed something up badly, having nightmares over it, he doesn’t like himself when he messes up something badly. And even if he’s not a naturally angry person, when he is angry, he can be VERY VERY angry.

And until Batman writers in the early 00s started it, I wouldn’t even had considered him all that chatty. He had some jokes in him, was very light hearted when not in distress or mad, but as he was developed by Marv Wolfman, who basically created the Dick that has remained the base for him ever since, he was relatively a generally calm guy when he wasn’t emotional.

He was polite, a charming guy, the type of person you want to bring home to your parents basically. He dressed well. Did his best to keep people accommodated. 

He wasn’t a goofy, constant jokester that’d talk your ear off or keep begging for hugs. 

He’s not that kind of guy. He’s just a gentlemen.

He’s also not that much of a thot. He’s a “wait till it’s right” sort of guy when it comes to sex.

He’d do anything in the world he could to make sure his friends felt right too, and that they were okay.

But all this doesn’t mean he’s not just a one note personality. Depending on how bad he feels like he messed up, he’ll distance himself from people, stop caring as much about his appearance, get more violent and mean. He also doesn’t take well to Batman’s nonsense, he’s probably the person he got specifically mad at the most. He didn’t like the way Batman went about stuff after a while. He had complicated feelings towards him.

Despite people nowadays just thinking of Dick being Batman’s son officially, adopted, end of. That wasn’t exactly their relationship. Dick had a complicated relationship with Bruce. Part of him looked at Bruce as a big brother, and another half a dad, and he wasn’t even adopted, just a ward. Something that Dick was actually quite insecure about, till apparently he got adopted as a grown adult man (which I dunno is true or an edit, but I’ve seen it somewhere).

Dick’s relationship with Tim is pure big bro baby bro. He was very protective of Tim, calling him the closest thing to a brother he ever had, and little brother, before they were ever even officially brothers. He’d push Tim out of the way in times of big trouble, make him stand back, ruffled his hair all the time, and loved teasing him. But when they started off, Dick just sort of thought Tim was a weird annoying kid, given that Tim was acting so screwy during his origin, Dick really didn’t know what to make of him, but the closer they got, they got very very close. Dick cared a lot about Tim a ton once they got accommodated. Tim would even call Dick on the phone just to talk to him about anything from his day to his problems. Tim could count on Dick to help when ever he could. Tim was Dick’s dweebie baby brother who he took care of when needed. Even teaching Tim how to wash clothes personally since Tim didn’t have a clue. 

I don’t think him and Jason really had a relationship. He gave him a number to talk about stuff like Robin angst, and a few pics show they hanged out at least once or twice, but nothing suggests they were close. It seems like Dick was hard on himself, because Jason died before they could get close. After the Red Hood, Dick’s just kind of a-- dick to Jason, and Tim was too, but I don’t consider that in-character. Neither Tim nor Dick would be even remotely okay about the killing, but I can’t picture them treating him like he’s a joke and less than trash. Too much emotional baggage there. Tim would be distant to Jason, and Dick would be uncomfortable and conflicted. That’s my guesses on a more accurate relationship.

Dick’s always had a really big crush on Babs ever since he was a kid to the point they were stuck in a small area together and Dick lost dignity over-- I dunno, puberty effecting him. There’s no way I can put that that’s comfortable. But Dick has a crush on Babs, that got put into a romantic relationship both ways when they aged down Babs, but for some people the relationship is relatively gross because of the age gap, and feeling the need to age down a character like Babs, who just looked at Dick like a kid, to just date him. It’s complicated, and I dunno enough about them besides that exactly. I’m not the guy to ask on that.

He doesn’t have a proper relationship with either Duke or Steph, but it doesn’t seem like Dick’s ever been the fondest of Steph. And Duke’s new, and they only ever been around each other in fan service moments. So I don’t think he has a real actual relationship with Duke.

Dick and Cass despite I don’t think ever being shown much together, also had a sweet relationship. With Dick doing his best to make sure his sister (before she was adopted, but Dick treated her as one nevertheless much like Tim as Dick’s baby brother) was comfortable, acting goofy, and to  me coming across as if he’s always really wanted a sister. But they weren’t super close, but there’s enough there to say that they easily could become close.

Dick and Damian was mentor mentoree, and to a large extent Dick was Damian’s father figure as Bruce was dead. As written by Damian’s creator, Dick didn’t seem to like Damian at all in the beginning, but as Dick could realize and understand his responsibilities more, they did gain a closer bond. Dick would put Damian in line (besides when bad writers were too afraid to make Damian seem like he’s in the wrong fully), sometimes even the hard way, and could be very proud of him. They aren’t big bro little bro like how some current writers act for pandering purposes. But they did grow to be close, even if Damian’s naturally really emotionally distant. Dick always wanted the best for Damian, even if he couldn’t always handle it the right way or knew what to do. He was a guy in his early to mid 20s with the responsibilities of reraising a 10 year old kid that was raised and abused by a cult, who can blame him.

Damian

I’m kind of just getting Damian out of the way, because to be frank, he’s been a really crappily written character since his origin, because he personality just absolutely switches between every writer, and he’s just so badly written that way.

But I’ll go off of what I believe to be what his writer wanted, since that’s the most accurate you can get.

Damian was raised and abused in a cult. That dictates a lot of how he thinks.

He was not close to his mother (which is out of character for Talia, and they later switched that after the reboot, but to be frank if Talia was always in-character Damian wouldn’t exist as we know him. He’d be a total different person and character). And he seemed to despise the way his dad goes about things. He seemed very indifferent and had his mood set to angry in general when he first met.

Which made it all the weirder when an issue later Damian seems to want his parents to be together, despite making it clear he doesn’t even like or think much of either one of them at all.

He was also very entitled, because despite being treated as an experiment some of the time, he was also treated as a prince the other half of the time. He thought the world was his, and he deserved everything.

He nearly killed Tim because he thought he deserved being Robin, as Tim was just adopted and not a “real” son. Seemingly he thought that was what he had to do to have his dad accept him and treat him as he thought he should.

He also seems to think he’s above Jason as well.

He’s also shown as sexist and homophobic.

He was brash and reckless about everything. Had a talented in just about everything just because of how he was raised, and goes off on his own to do stuff, because I assume he thinks everyone else holds him back.

After Dick though, Damian learned to not be a murderer (which I also think he might’ve learned before cause he wants to live with Bruce, It’s a little weird and not given enough time to actually be developed fully in an easy to digest way. Which is another reason why I think he’s such a poorly written character), also more reserved, and reckless.

As he was originally intended, he was very tall and not cute. His height being around 5′2 to 5′4 at age 10. Meaning he was an inch taller than Tim was at 13 when Damian was 10 off of that first one, and only an inch shorter than Tim at the age he  met him, where Tim was 17 going on 18. It may not be drawn that way, but you also have to remember this is 00s and beyond era DC Comics were Tim despite being described as looking 12 got drawn as big as Dick sometimes. Don’t always use the art to go off of certain information. I say he wasn’t intended to be cute, because there’s a scene were he was at a gala, where a woman clearly wanting to gold-dig Gotham City’s most eligible Bachelor Bruce Wayne by getting close to her son, but she immediately backed away when she saw him.

Which sounds harsh, but Damian’s also basically the “anti-Robin”, he was everything a Robin wasn’t meant to be and he was intended to just die and that’s it. Hence why he was with Dick to keep the Batman and Robin dynamic intact, just in reverse. As you can see, they completely forgot what made Damian interesting when his character gained some consistency with his creator.

Damian’s development was that he grew a actual caring heart even if he still carried the generally same personality. He was dismissive of people, sexually harassed Steph, was generally anti-social-esque. 

And honestly because every writer after (even the one everyone seems to think is his best writer, which I massively agree times a billion and infinite more) just kept reverting him, again and again, even when they wrote stories with character development, it was gone again. And applied a whole bunch of traits that aren’t like Damian in the slightest, so if you pay attention. Ya can tell Damian’s not Damian, he’s literally not even a shell of his self. They just painted another one to look kind of like him, and even then they don’t do that because he freaking looks completely different some of the time. They botched him so much.

But that was the main thing about Damian. 

I think one reason he got close to Dick and no one else was because Damian from his origin (no matter how poorly written they showed it), always wanted to have a proper parent. Which it seemed he could never have. And Dick grew to serve that purpose, as Dick was the one teaching him lessons, and making sure he was actually safe.

But of course later on DC Comics literally forgot everything that was letting him slowly become a better character. So that sucks.

I partially came into this fandom because of Damian. So when I actually got to read him, I was so freaking miserable after. I genuinely wanted to like him so bad, even voicing that to people I was chatting too as I read the comics, but I literally just couldn’t see why anyone cared for his comics. I don’t think any of them are fully well-written.

But it did help me grasp what Damian’s suppose to be like as I could tell what he’s suppose to be and not suppose to be, much like how I learned about Tim’s actual personality vs the one writers that don’t care about him write.

Steph

Just doing this one to get a more negatively centered one out of the way, because I struggle to find any personality traits I deem actually likable when put under context.

Because she’s full of her self, reckless, cynical, more or less sexually harassed Tim, kissing him against his wishes (and before ya say Tim did that first. it’s a little less offensive when Tim didn’t do it sexually or romantically. That was just for a dumb trope. A reward kiss. It’s still gross, but it’s a different context that’s less directly offensive), goes behind people’s backs sometimes, can be emotionally abusive, and shows signs of physically abusive.

So I don’t exactly find her super likable. And her spot in the Bat-Family was so contrived, that often nowadays I just don’t pay attention her anymore, but in fairness a lot of that’s just cause she has crazy stans that start fights that were barely there, be hypocritical, and group bully folks. So it’s relatively hard for me to wanna look at her these days.

But to be more specific before she seems like an actual freaking demon woman or what ever. Some of that doesn’t come across as bad compared to what it could be. Besides the emotional abuse, that was just a thing and the comics and people just elected to ignore it even though that was written by her creator.

She’s reckless in a way where she clearly doesn’t have proper training to make sure no one or herself gets hurt. She’s been shown causing herself to get hurt or underestimate stuff. She also doesn’t listen to people that know more about what they do, and she usually relies on luck to get by.

She’s full of herself, because she more or less says she’s an adrenaline junkie, and might just be beating up bad guys because she finds it really fun and exciting. She likes the thrill. And tries to put a title of super hero on herself sometimes, because she tries to seem heroric as she does it. She also does it to make up for her dad, which is more admirable, but behavior wise and focus wise it’s more pinned on her just being an adrenaline junkie.

She also just constantly just flirt with Tim even when he didn’t want it. Which is what sexual harassment is. She also kissed him for her own satisfaction twice, once nearly getting them both killed cause people were shooting at them, and another as them and other people were close to freezing to death because they were stuck under snow. That kind of behavior able to be under sexual assault given the context for her kisses was just for herself. Even the time she tried to say it was to make up for Tim’s reward kiss, she quickly makes it obvious it was just because she’s very sexually attracted to him.

She also just nearly lets criminals die a lot because “What’s one more life”, and seems to not care much for the lesson of not killing, specifically her dad. Like she still has the moral standard not to kill, but compared to the others it’s not one she takes as serious. She learned her lesson on being cynical, but it’s still ingrained in her personality.

I also have a whole very long post on why her relationship with Tim doesn’t work, and how she was abusive. I don’t feel like going over that again but that’s a thing.

Besides Tim she has no real relationship with the others besides Cass, which is another relationship I don’t fully understand, because Steph borderline insults her, and Cass thinks she gets in the way so much she just fractures Steph’s jaw to knock her out. They gave them some admittedly cute moments, but it’s never felt right to me. Always felt forced and pandery, but it’s a thing. They’ve played tag each other, and talked about how both of their parents are abusive.

She also had one with in Batgirl, but the best I can describe that is, she helps Steph so she doesn’t hurt herself, and she can be pretty gruff sometimes, but is also caring. it’s just kind of a been there done that sort of thing.

A lot of Batgirl is sort of forced. Bat-Family has reasonable criticisms of her, writer does something to make them more unlikable so readers still like Steph, Steph proves them wrong, they respect her. It’s a formula for a few stories in her Batgirl run.

People have also said her and Damian have a sibling relationship, but I don’t agree with that. Damian sexually harassed her and kept looking at her boobs. Damian had a crush on her, but he was also a stubborn entitled jerk to her. Steph just got back at Damian by making him dress as a normal kid to embarrass him, and when she saw Damian never played before got him to jump on a bouncy castle. Besides generic banter that’s about it. And given Damian’s personality, they never did anything like that bouncy castle thing again. It’s a really big stretch to call that sibling-like. And even the stuff you could stretch is still doesn’t pay attention to the Damian talking about her boobs constantly thing. Parts of it was just pandery, as a lot of that Batgirl run was.

So I don’t overall have a good opinion of her. She’s perseverance and doesn’t give up, and won’t take no for an answer, but given the context it’s not in a good way besides saving Tim’s and others lifes a few times.

Babs

Despite having read her a lot I don’t know her a lot, because she’s typically always the other character in things. The lady that gets the information.

So I only know a few things about her.

She has the perseverance and won’t take no traits, but in a more positive context. She has no use of her legs but that doesn’t stop her from fighting crime and helping people.

She’s a serious, and mature personality. Every case is very seriously to her, besides a few Tim got into because they were just very goofy.

She can also joke a lot. She has a very teasing personality in her as well. Especially with Tim, she seemed to find Tim really cute and loved teasing him.

I pretty much only have panels of her and Tim besides a rare few maybe, cause as I said she’s mostly a side character helping out.

I have read Birds of Prey but that was possible a year or two ago, and I didn’t really pay attention so I’m not as sure.

She’s very leaderly, and will direct the traffic so to say. She’s a magnificent detective and hacker. Stands up for herself. Inquisitive. Her mind always seems to be thinking of the next thing to think about.

She’s a character I can’t talk about as well without it being one dimensional.

Cass

Cass is another character I don’t have the best grasp on but been trying to learn because she’s probably my second favorite Batkid even if I don’t understand her as strongly. But I do get a lot of her basic personality, and a bit of the nuances, even if I’m not ultra confident on it yet.

She’s quirky, she knows how to tease, but she can also be a bit objective based unless she’s bored it seems, like she does watch TV, but when she has a goal she will not stop until the goal is done. She’s a fully compassionate person as well, she sees little kid needing help, she helps little kid.

Also given her upraising she can be more socially oblivious than anyone else, even Tim. She’s walked around an apartment she was sharing with others butt naked. I think she accidentally flirted with Babs (not a shippy thing, it’s a, Cass said a thing she didn’t understand thing), because she couldn’t tell the difference between a platonic thing and cheesy romantic thing as she watched TV. 

She doesn’t always listen. She will just beat by her own drum unless she believes in something someone else said more.

Given her mind wasn’t raised to be socializing, a lot of this stuff makes sense and is kind of obvious when you think about it.

Cass can also be very stubborn when she has a goal, even when it’s against someone else’s wishes.

She’s mostly been a loner by herself, but she has grown to seem to genuinely like having company around to bond with.

She’s been shown being protective of Tim. Literally carrying him out of a fight zone.

Babs’s is more or less her mom.

Dick and Steph’s I’ve described before.

Distant with Alfred, but Alfred will occasionally drop by to help out. They’re still carrying if they aren’t as connected as others.

Not gonna lie I can’t remember her relationship with Bruce.

But that’s some of the basics and slight nuances of Batgirl. I’m still in the early part of learning about her. So I’ll probably understand her more later on. I genuinely really like her though. I like how she isn’t a one dimensional character like some writers make her out to be. She’s genuinely really fun to read.

Jason

I actually know Jason quite a bit because I made a big long post about his time as Robin (post-crisis only, not counting the scripts written before the 80s reboot, or anything inconsistent).

He’s anti-authority, angry, cusses, smokes, violent, murderous tendencies, aggressive, but also has a genuine heroic spirit, is appreciative of the opportunities he was able to have, loved being able to learn especially, had insecurities, and a lot of his violence was in the name of being a more aggressive way of justice. He’d never hurt an innocent.

A lot of this is explain by the fact he was raised on the streets more or less.

When ever he got especially violent was because of a bad guy hurting or killing an innocent or committing abusive acts of any sort. He probably seen a lot of bad stuff on the streets and doesn’t handle it.

He’s pretty decently cynical because of thinking that’s the best way to deal with it.

He was also moody, but after his upbringing that’s to be expected, and unlike what some thinks, Batman was actually understanding and did his best to help Jason back even if he didn’t get it as first.

Jason isn’t a villain, he is a pure anti-hero, he wants to help, he loves to help, when he feels like he should help he does. He just has his own way of doing it that lots don’t agree with.

When he became the Red Hood, all of this stuff just became amplified because of the traumatic event he went through and the feeling of not being avenged and abandoned again.

Where as before he’d nearly kill people, he outright does now with even left empathy. He had a sack of decapitated head once just so other criminals knew he wasn’t playing around. 

However his moodiness came out in different ways. He was actually a very calm, chill personality as the Red Hood, until his traumas got poked at, where he’d go back into his angry bitter ways, but to a more unstoppable way. He’d be more violent, more angry, more inconsolable, more unstable.

As the Red Hood, he is a very far ahead planner and tactition. People always call Tim the planner, but to me Jason is the planner and tactition of the group. He had a large plan that took a while to do, but caused him to accomplish a lot in a short time. Tim does it in the moment or moments before and does a fine enough job, but he isn’t a good leader. Dick is a good planner tactition and leader, but it can also just be shortly before he does something. Jason thinks very far ahead and how people will react and think, how to get under their skin, what will piss them off, what will give him what he once etc.

When he’s not unstable, he’s calm and collected, and is always trying to get under people’s skin. Not in a large over the top way, but just a bit. In an almost charming sort of way. A sly way. He pokes buttons when he’s calm and collected.

As to be expected his relationship with the Bat-Family is complicated. He’s mostly just in the Bat-Family almost purely because of his past in it, more than what he is currently. He’s more of a loner type that will get help when needed, but until the New 52 said otherwise, he’s not much of a team player as he mostly works by himself.

Bat-Family wants him to get better, but at the same time I think they recognize it’s gonna take a lot for Jason to get better, and since Jason is dangerous it creates a lot of overwhelming feelings. Bruce is upset at himself and is almost grieving Jason all over again, Dick has regrets he never had a chance to know him till then, and Tim’s relationship has been so varied and never really felt right, I’d say  most likely Tim would be scared of Jason, and upset at him. Jason was a Robin that killed. Going off of how Tim reacted to thinking Batman killed, he’d probably be genuinely miserable at the thought of what Jason became, and be distant from him.

Jason is sly and hard to read unless he’s emotional.

Duke

Duke is the hardest to say anything for, because he’s the newest, most obscure (even tho he is gaining quick prominence), and so therefore has less to go off of. Not helped by a lot of writers making him very two dimensional at best a lot of the time.

He is a natural leader, a dare-devil, very willing to put his life on the line at any time, and passionate and almost stubborn about helping people. He wants to save people, and he’s always wanting to help, because he wants to make his neighborhood a better place.

And that’s almost all I can say, because having read his mini-series he doesn’t have many character traits, and WE ARE ROBIN, where he was introduced and I got that from was short lived.

He’s only with the other Batkids when they really wanna pander, so I can’t even accurately say anything, and the few times you could make a guess it’s not in-character for the other. So he’s just hard to tell. Besides Cass.

I think he’d naturally get along with Bruce, Dick, and Tim, and he’s shown being closest to Cass in the Outsiders series. Considering Cass a sister I believe. They console in each other, care about each other, worry about each other, and look after each other. That’s the closest relationship he has.

But it’s hard to say a lot for him.

AGES:

To be blunt I can’t say with full accuracy because there’s so many inconsistencies plus reboots.

But I’ll go into oldest to youngest, because some don’t realize some ages.

Dick, was 21 when Tim was 13

Jason was 18 when Tim was 15

Cass is the same age if not older than Jason

Steph is two years older than Tim

I believe Duke is around the same age as Steph

and Tim and Damian’s ages off of that is pretty obvious.

--

Sorry this is so freaking long, but like I said, just DM me. I’m about to watch a movie, but I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. I at least hope this helped some, and if it’s too long, just message me because it’ll probably be less overwhelming then.

[marshmallowprotection]

how would seven react if he had to find this other hacker, someone who's a legend and feared by everyone, even the government, only to find that they're a heavily introverted 13 year old with social anxiety who never leaves their apartment/basement/bunker? like, they get everything delivered outside their door and just... don't really interact with people? like.... how would he react?

Seven

He’s known to be one the best of the best. 

It’s a title that comes after a lot of hard work and non-stop grinding to become better than anyone else in the room. It took him a few years to get to where he is and there’s hardly anyone that stands a league ahead of him. That is, until recent months, a new hacker came out of thin air and started to dominate web-spaces like it was candy. 

Seven cannot believe it. This hacker is as good as him, or damn near better then he is. Whoever they are, they’re fast, concise, and they can rig a virus-like nobody else. 

They tend to be using their power for the sake of pranks, or for others. Most of the time there are pages overrun by cat photos or petty memes that make the rest of the world laugh. They’ll ruin a website in minutes, for say a particularly popular company by revealing shady practices that were hidden in emails or out of plain sight.

They seem to have the power to call out anyone who isn’t being true to their word. It starts to get dangerous as the months go by and they get even more brazen. The government is on careful watch, and even Seven’s agency has to keep an eye out for this hacker because whoever they are, they have no alignment to anyone but themselves. 

Seven doesn’t have anything against them, per se. He saw them singlehandedly help a group of foster kids by revealing the person overseeing them as a con. This hacker is always helping kids that don’t have anyone or those that don’t have a voice to defend themselves. It’s sweet in a sense. 

They aren’t causing harm. 

But, something that is so righteously good scares those in power in a bad way because they know someone has power on them that they shouldn’t have, and since he’s one of the recognized members in his agency, he’s the one sent to track them down and either take them down or get them to join the agency. 

Seven has no choice but to obey those orders. Vanderwood won’t be long behind if he hesitates to get the job down. He really doesn’t want a taser on his ass. So, he makes a point of trying to locate where this hacker is staying in the world, and he’s surprised to find that they weren’t all that far from him. 

It took a lot of grinding behind firewalls and VPNs, and other countless layers to get an address. There was a small window of time when they had their back turned, and that’s how Seven was able to find it. He set out not long after he found it because if they noticed Seven worming around their things, they would likely run. 

Seven went straight to the address but he scoped it out from afar for a few days, nobody went in, and nobody came out. Things were often brought to the house but that was it. They would get pulled inside in the dead of night under the cover of the darkness so he couldn’t make out the figure of the hacker or whoever was staying with them. 

Strange? 

Well, not really. 

Hackers are a strange bunch of people that really have a lot of quirks that nobody else has. 

It takes some work, but he finds an opening to head inside the hacker's house once he’s certain that he’s learned their routine, he’s armed just in case but this is supposed to be a civil mission first and foremost, so it’s tucked out of sight. 

He crawls in through a side window without making any noise, wandering around the apartment and trying to locate them, or learn more about them, much to his surprise, it’s a quiet apartment. It’s got all the telltale signs that someone lives there but there’s dust covering some of the furniture here and there. 

There’s not a lot of life to be seen but there are photos of a family here. He can’t be certain when it was taken but there’s a young kid, and two parents in it. 

“Must be one of the parents,” he mutters to himself. 

Imagine his surprise when he enters the last room at the end of the hall and finds a teenager, no, literally a preteen, eyes deadset on their monitor and fingers clacking away against the keys with fever. He can’t help but gasp and that gives him away to the kid. 

The kid jumps to their feet and stares at him with fearful eyes. It seems that they didn’t consider putting up cameras or anything to watch over their apartment, and hadn’t realized that someone had managed to find their way inside. 

They seem to know that this isn’t just a home invasion by someone who wanted to take stuff. 

“Am I in trouble? Who sent you? Where are you from?!” they asked, voice shaking alongside their knees, “I’d like to know if you’re just a burglar or somebody from one of the agencies that I pissed off? I knew it, I knew that I shouldn’t have gone into those databases--”

“Wow, wow, relax. I’m not going to do anything,” he quickly raises his hands above his head and steps back so that there’s plenty of space between the both of them. “I’m just here to find out who this notorious hacker is... are you... are you the hacker that’s been making so much trouble?”

They slowly, but surely, nod their head. 

Well, that makes things a hell of a lot different and fast. He can’t believe that he’s been fighting a kid of all people and this kid is someone that lives all on their own. Their parents died a ways back and they’ve been fending for themselves here in this apartment. They don’t know how to handle the outside world so great anymore. 

So, they started living their lives online. That allowed him to keep tinkering and playing around with programs and books until they were basically on par with him. They were bored and lonely. They had nothing better to do until one day they stumbled on a crack in a website, allowing them to backdoor into their information. 

Once they saw something, they knew that they had to help others or else nobody else would. 

It snowballed from that point. 

Seven... felt really conflicted. They told him that he had no choice but to get rid of or recruit this hacker to the agency, but nope, no way in hell was he going to get a kid involved in this lifestyle. He had been there and as much relief as he felt to save his brother, he hated living this way and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone who had a choice. 

He ignores those thoughts and starts thinking of a way to let his agency know that he had simply gotten rid of the hacker without actually doing it. Because hey, he’s not going to hurt a kid. He’s also not going to let them jump into this. 

Nope. 

No way. 

This kid is scared, nervous, and afraid. They just wanted to help others that needed it. There was nothing wrong with that. He sees their pain and he seems himself in their eyes. He spends the rest of the night talking to the kid about his own experiences and how he discovered his love of technology and slowly but surely, they open up to him about their own circumstances. 

It takes a bit of time, but they start to trust him. 

Seven lies to his agency and to Vanderwood about what he did after he lives the kid in their apartment. They know how to fend for themselves so he does let them handle themselves for a period of time but he’s constantly checking up on them and making sure that they’re safe and sound from threats. 

He does help them learn how to protect themselves and their apartment from outside threats. They’re a cautious kid, and they know that they need to be more careful and wary. Seven helps them become much better at what they’re doing but he does ask that they never lose that belief in their heart to be a good person with this power. 

Although, the cat memes stay. 

They got Jumin Han really good with those cat memes since Seven asked them if they could do it. Now, that was hilarious. Seven becomes a big brother figure to this kid, and he really cares for them a lot. He often does joke to the rest of the RFA that he's got a little stray that he takes care of often that’s to blame.

Nobody believes him. 

He wants to protect them and he wants to make sure that they’re alright. He checks up on them every day and if anything feels weird, then he spends time talking to them and reassuring them of any of their fears that they may be having. 

It’s actually six months after he meets the kid that the incident with Unknown happens and he starts speaking to the kid a little less often, and the kid reaches out to him in midst of the drama. They offer to help him track down the other hacker so he can focus on maintaining his systems, and while he hates to involve them, they really make things a lot easier for Seven. 

It’s obvious that Seven is really struggling with his MC at the time too, and the kid is the one to tell him off for being a dumbass. It’s the first time that shy little kid is brazen enough to tell somebody off. They’re partially the reason that Seven gets off his high-horse and starts to open up to his MC in the apartment. 

The kid is the reason that it doesn’t take Seven as long as to realize that he can care about others and make a difference. It’s okay for him to lean on others. Be it his MC, or the kid. 

You know what, the kid probably reached out to the MC more than once during the experience but Seven doesn’t know about that because the kid asked MC not to say anything about it. Seven only figures that out when he gets a call from the kid after he and MC have made up and they blurt out if Seven has finally admitted that he likes MC.

“...I didn’t tell you about that, kid.” 

“Oopsy daisy.” 

“I told them, Seven. Don’t get angry at them because I don’t know when to stop talking!” 

After Seven works everything out with his brother and he’s free from the agency,  able to live with his brother in peace without worrying about fear or harm, the kid has no choice but to move in with Seven, Saeran, and MC. Neither MC nor Seven wanted them to live alone anymore because they didn’t have to do that anymore. 

That kid had a family. 

And it was apart of what Seven was building with MC. 

So, MC and Seven basically adopt the kid and they move in with them all, and they get to have a family again. MC dotes on them, and Seven teases them. Even Saeran is really fond of the kid but he won’t outright admit it to anyone.

The RFA takes to the kid rather quickly too! 

Yoosung is happy that he isn’t the youngest person anymore and he makes fast friends with the kid, becoming a mentor of sorts. 

Zen promises to be a person they can turn to when they need advice but they should know that he’ll defend their honor. 

Jaehee is a great role model for them who tries to remind them to take care of themselves. 

Jumin finally knows who was sending him all those cat memes, honestly, he liked them and he and the kid have a hilarious banter about them now. 

This once very young and nervous hacker now has a family all of their own thanks to Seven’s warm heart. 

[noctuascion]

cryptage prompt: without crypto knowing mirage installs an invisibility cloak in his gear that activates when he crouches so he's safe when droning. he obviously finds out eventually and confronts mirage!

This is high-key kind of adorable. I really do vibe with "super worried boyfriend Mirage." Thank you for the request!!!

--

Harvester was possibly Park's least favorite place for the ring to close. The amount of rooms coupled with the dangers of falling into lava and the bean itself were aplenty, and, though his drone was incredibly useful here, it was still hard to find enemies and push without another team third-partying.

Which had led to Park's current predicament.

Octavio was downed, having rushed a squad without confirmation from Park nor Ajay, the medic irritated with the daredevil's lack in self-preservation. She had been healing herself, having tried to provide sniper support for Octavio, but she had been focused and nearly wiped out. However, unlike Octavio, she knew when to back off, and did so to toss out D.O.C. and recharge her shields.

Their little spot inside one of the rooms in Harvester had been compromised by Anita, Makoa, and Natalie. Whilst Park was hidden away in the corner, preparing to toss out his drone, Anita kicked the door open, Ajay cursing loudly, before gunfire filled the small room. It was two against three, and Natalie and Anita had focused down Ajay, the medic now bleeding out on the floor, whilst Park dealt with Makoa.

The man was daunting in every sense of the word, a powerful man with sunshine in his smile. As Anita and Natalie fired at Ajay, however, Park was able to deliver a few shots with his Peacekeeper that caused Makoa to temporarily stagger, the hacker rushing to deliver a blow to the larger man's with his fist, before rushing out the kicked doors, taking a sharp left turn, taking another, before crouching behind the wall there, just below the window.

The squad was quick to chase him down, Anita and Makoa rushing toward the room where the Harvester beam was whilst Natalie peeked around the corner Park ran to. The hacker thought he was done for, shields gone and ready for bullets to tear him to shreds. No such fate befell him, however, as Natalie looked around, baffled, before hurrying to meet up with her team.

Park blinked a few times, trying to comprehend just what happened, before quickly pulling out a shield battery to recharge the cracked shields Makoa had damaged. One detail he noticed, however, was the fact that he couldn't see his hands. When he looked over his body, he noticed he couldn't see that either.

For a moment, he thought he was having some strange dream, having not woken up in the respawn chamber yet or something—but he realized he wasn't asleep, because the pain of bullets in his body were far too prominent for him to be having a dream. Confused, he pushed himself to his feet—only for his body to reappear, as if… as if he was cloaked.

"… Of course."

No wonder Renee hadn't seen him when he was droning earlier.

— ;

Park hadn't won the match with Ajay and Octavio. They had come close, but Alexander was always efficient when it came to flushing out a squad when they were held up in a building.

That wasn't on his mind, though. What was on his mind was the fact that his boyfriend had installed a cloaking device in his gear without his knowledge. He does recall a few instances where Elliott had access to his stuff, usually when he was asleep and let the trickster stay in his room, but it still baffles him. Just when had the man installed that? And just how long was he crouching and being protected by that invisibility?

He intended to find out, discovering Elliott had decided to hide in the kitchen for a bit, indulging in a snack before dinner. No one was around, just them, and Park couldn't see a better opportunity.

"Elliott," the hacker greeted in his usual cold tone, but it lacked the malice it once held, the unfriendliness that seemed to always accompany his presence.

Elliott wasn't bothered by it anymore, taking it in stride and beaming back with an enthusiastic response of: "Hey, babe!"

"I have a question."

"A question, huh?" Elliott set aside his chips, leaning against the counter and arms crossing over his chest. "Shoot."

"Why did you install a cloaking device into my gear?"

And, just like that, the suave, cool façade the other always bore melted away, a nervous smile now curling his lips, brows furrowed, and eyes darting around the room. A hand raised to rub the back of his neck, the other now gently gripping the counter behind him.

"W-What—What're you talking about, babe?" he said, a sheepish chuckle following his inquiry. "I don't touch your stuff, like, ever! Y-You make it super obvious you don't want it touched, so I don't touch it! 'Don't touch my tech,' you say, all the—the time. Your tech's like your baby—I'd never touch it without asking… W-Which is—is why I asked if I could, and you to—totally said yes!"

"… Did I?"

"Yeah!"

"… When?"

"… W-Well, it—it was morning, a-and you were… just waking up…"

"…" Park released a sigh. "All right. I guess you got my permission via exhaustion, so I'll commend you for not being an idiot and asking when I was fully capable of processing your request."

"Yeah. I'll pretend you just said something dis—discn—di—uh… something I can understand." Elliott waved a hand nonchalantly, like he wasn't in trouble for tinkering with Park's kit. "Anyway, did it work? I was really worried the cloaking device wouldn't activate when you crouched."

"It… worked fine. Question, actually: how did you get it to work like that?"

"Well, it works a lot like my own cloaking device on my suit. Since you don't have my gear, though, I had to change its means of ac—activation." Joining the trickster's explanation was a plethora of meaningless gestures, waving a hand or raising both overhead—anything of the sort. "In your knee pads, I had to i-integrate a device that, when pressed for about two seconds, activated the cloaking device. It was installed in your jacket and sent out waves of light that covered your whole body, making you naked to the human eye. Making it so it needed to be pressed for a long time meant it didn't activate randomly when you were running, but it gives you enough time to drone out and activate the cloaking device because of that."

Elliott always spoke so fast in his explanations. Park adored it when the man discussed technology with him, but he sometimes became so engrossed in the topic that he talked too fast. The hacker's mind was marvelous, brilliant, but even he struggled to keep up with the other sometimes.

Still, he retained enough information to be impressed.

"But why did you do that?" he asked, head tilted and a single brow raised. "Helping me just makes it harder for you to win."

"Y-Yeah, but winning's not the point!" Elliott reached out to cup both of Park's cheeks, gently push them together, and smiled softly at the adorable sight of his lover's squished cheeks; always charming. "You're always left so vulnerable when you drone out… It… makes me worried, especially when I'm on your team. You can't hear or see anything when you're droning, s-so… I just figured you needed to be… protected."

"I'm not—"

"I know you're not weak! Oh, trust me—I know, babe. You almost broke my arm first day we met—still hot, by the way. No, you're not weak, but you're just vulnerable, sweetheart."

Park blinked in shock. He and Elliott had a lot of conversations, a lot of talks about opening up to the other and letting the emotional scars be apparent to the other. They've discussed a lot of the issues they suffer from, the sadness and anger and resentment that swells in their hearts, the times they agonize through the day and the days they want to curl up in a ball and let the world consume them. They talk about their worst days and their best days.

Park had always been more closed off, though. It wasn't Elliott's fault. It wasn't his. He always feared appearing weak, the fragility of his frame and mind always bringing about a protectiveness he never wanted. He didn't want everyone to throw themselves in front of a bullet for him, didn't want them wasting time and energy to help him with something he needs, and he definitely didn't want to hurt anymore people because of his recklessness, of his own stupidity and ignorance. Mystik has already lost so much because of him; he couldn't do that to someone else.

But, slowly, Elliott tried to convince him vulnerability did not equate to weakness. They were not synonymous in the trickster's book, never were the same thing. He wasn't weak for being sad about losing data he needed, he wasn't weak for opening up about his insecurities, and he wasn't weak for being human. He was vulnerable. Elliott never saw him as a weak creature to watch after; he saw him as his lover who he just wished to help.

It made Park smile, which, in turn, made Elliott grin.

"You're still unbelievable… but thank you."

"No problem, shortcake. I love you to pieces."

"… And I love you too."

The reward presented to Elliott was a simple kiss, one he was pulled into with eagerness and enthusiasm—and one he returned without hesitation.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

ORGANIC STARTUP INVESTING TRENDS

Not only did we have to memorize state capitals instead of playing dodgeball? Several of the most important problems in their field.1 Another approach would be to let that opportunity slip. We were supposed to read novels and write essays about them. Stuff used to be valuable, and now it's not. For the average user, is far fewer bugs. They make such great stuff. There is always a big time lag in prestige. And jeans turn out not to want. They're going to walk up to the software, listening closely to the users as you do. With server-based software is never going to be something you write, yes. And later stage investors?

Many of the students who now major in English would major in writing if they could, and most founders of successful ones do. I think will be an orderly way for people to quit. Partly because they can afford. It's the concluding remarks to the jury. A typical desktop software company that had over 100 people working in it. A better way to describe this situation is to say that a hacker about to write a prototype that solves a subset of the problem. A programmer can leave the office and typing into vt100s. Even if you're designing something for idiots, the odds are that you're not designing something good, even for idiots. Buildings to be constructed from stone were tested on a smaller scale. It was written by two different people. We found that you don't have to work for a long time and could only travel vicariously. Relentlessness wins because, in the very phrase software company.

By the end of the continuum are languages like Ada and Pascal, models of propriety that are good for teaching and not much else. So instead of copying the Facebook, with some variation that the Facebook rightly ignored, look for problems and imagine the company that might solve them. It's a rare startup that doesn't build something the founders use. Then it struck me: this is the right model for collaboration in software too. Some people are lucky enough to know what they want either. So anything we could do to get more people through the test drive. But more than half the households in the US. They weren't tempted by the minor perquisites of power. In fact the dangers of deciding what programmers are allowed to want. And then at the other makers.

A programming language does need a good implementation, of course, but when they do get paged at 4:00 AM, they don't use sentences any more complex than they do when talking about what to have for lunch. A programming language is good as a programming language.2 Is software a counterexample? How did she get into this fix? Most users probably don't. The only external test is time. In the summer of 2005, most of the advantages of being able to do the unpleasant jobs.

When I say that design must be for users, I don't mean to disparage Yahoo. And people don't learn Python because it will get them a job; they learn it because they can't help it.3 You don't know yet. And they are also different lengths, meaning that the arguments won't line up when they're called, as car and cdr often are, in theory, explaining yourself to someone else instead of being pasted onto it like a pilot scanning the instrument panel, not like a detective trying to unravel some mystery. I want to go straight there, blustering through obstacles, and hand-waving your way across swampy ground. This article describes the surprising things we saw, as some of the work they do. For example, the good china so many households have, and Jessica does too, mostly, because she's gotten into sync with us. If you want people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.

There's a lot to like I've done a few things, like programmers and writers. The other reason Apple should care what programmers think of them, we either try to remove it, or shift the startup sideways. If you raised five million and ran out of ideas. Which makes them exactly the kind of problems that have to be Web-based software gives you unprecedented information about their behavior. Search for a few months. You don't have to watch the servers every minute after the first year or so, but you can write the first version of a tree that in the past has had false starts branching off all over it. It wasn't that they were just good enough. What's going on here? VCs miss good startups all the time? And you don't want to.

What's going on here? And programmers build applications for the platforms they use. I was told I shouldn't mention founders of YC-funded companies in this list. No one, VC or angel, has invested in more of the world's great programmers are born outside the US. Fixing a bug in your code corrupts some data on disk, you have to remember to do something. The classic startup is fast and informal, with few people and little money.4 You should be able to look at it. Platform is a vague word.

Programming languages are not theorems. It's a rare startup that doesn't build something the founders use.5 If you administer the servers, it will work anywhere the Web works. For the first week or so we intended to make this point diplomatically, but in effect I had two workdays each day, one on the maker's: office hours. With Web-based application will be a collection of utilities for generating reports, and only evolved into a programming language to have, say, $2 million, they generally expect to offer a significant amount of help along with the money; the only question is how much on what terms.6 There's always something coming on the next hour working on something, they want to do now. The more people you have, the more stuff they seem to have worked alone. It works a lot better for a small team of good, trusted programmers than it would for a big company, they were exceptional. But the fact is, almost anyone would rather, at any given moment, float about in the Carribbean, or have sex, or eat, or even to use the shift key much. Leonardo painted the portrait of Ginevra de Benci in the National Gallery, he put a juniper bush behind her head. Another thing you want in a throwaway program itself. She came to the startup world, things change so rapidly that you can't make yourself care.

Notes

99,—. At the seed stage our valuation was in a deal led by a big VC firm or they see of piracy is simply what they are so different from money raised in an era of such regulations is to get the rankings they want to avoid companies that seem excusable according to certain somewhat depressing rules many of the next one will be interesting to 10,000 people or so and we ran into Muzzammil Zaveri, and how unbelievably annoying it is to hand off the task to companies via internship programs. No one writing a dictionary to pick your brains.

The existence of people, how little autonomy one would have gotten away with dropping Java in the computer, the best ways to avoid collisions in.

Joe thinks one of his peers will get funding, pretty much regardless of how hard it is to imagine that there were no strong central governments. This is one of few they had no government powerful enough to absorb that.

More precisely, the group of picky friends who proofread almost everything I say in principle 100,000 or a blog that tried to unload it on buyer after buyer. The Wouldbegoods. More precisely, the average reader that they kill you, you can't dictate the problem and approached it with superficial decorations.

What makes most suburbs so demoralizing is that they've already decided what they're really saying is they want both. I'm not saying you should push back on industrialization at the valuation should be easy to believe your whole future depends on the grounds that a their applicants come from meditating in an equity round.

Words this way would be vulnerable both to attack and abuse.

Thanks to Steve Huffman, Trevor Blackwell, Harj Taggar, Erann Gat, and Geoff Ralston for their feedback on these thoughts.

[taesbetch]

02 | Blood//Water

Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Gory, Smut (eventually) Mafia!AU

Summary: Taehyungs life has become consumed with the gang lifestyle. But when he becomes a bit too greedy he endangers the only person he's ever truly cared about. Fighting fire with fire is never a good idea, but Taehyung is lit match in a room full of gasoline, will everyone make it out unburnt?

Word Count: 2.5k

Previous | Next 

Normally waking up in the morning wouldn’t usually include a panic attack due to the unfamiliar surroundings and the foggy memories of the night before. But there you were, clutching your chest as it tightened in fear, throwing your breathing into a haze.

Gasping for air you tried to silence yourself as not to draw attention to your room but the sobbing and inevitable noise that came with your bodies need for air was too much for you to hold back.

Your eyes stung as they adjusted to the light breaking through your curtains; controlling your breathing you allowed your body to shake in confusion, your suddenly exposed skin covered in Goosebumps. Missing the warmth your bed had provided you dove back under the covers still weeping uncontrollably You let the remaining tears fall onto your blanket as you wrapped it around your body.

Finally normalising your breathing pattern, you let the silence of the room you were in relax you and let your mind drift to anything other than focusing on what your future held. Your body felt sticky and gross, probably due to the amount of sweating you had been doing both during the extreme events and through the night.

Looking towards the bathroom you thought it wouldn’t hurt to wash yourself. You had been blessed with amenities, so you might as well take advantage of them. Turning on the shower you thought about why you were being treated so nicely, why you were being protected.

Taehyung wouldn’t confirm anything, but all of this must mean the two of you would’ve met.

Trying to rake your mind for answers you let the hot water hit your skin as you thought hard through your memories trying to find him hidden in one of them. Flashes of your childhood ran through your mind, pressing their painful edges to the front of your mind.

“Take her with you! I don’t want her! You’ve successfully fucked up our child so she’s your problem now!” you saw the outline of your mother as she shoved you towards who you knew to be your father-

Shaking your body out of replay mode you breathed out with a heavy grunt as you let the water hit your face, cleansing yourself of the painful past you had tried so hard to move past. Thinking back to the day your mother left you with your alcohol addicted father you never fully understood why.

Your childhood was filled with gaps in your memory, things that your mother and father would fight about that just didn’t make sense to you. not only did the love to argue over who made you worse, they constantly fought over who would have the burden of taking care of you – successfully making you feel like shit.

Getting out of the shower, you looked at the clothes you were given. All the clothes were either black, grey or white – their shape long or baggy to hide whatever they were placed over. You rolled your eyes before grabbing one of the many sweatpants and jumpers.

Timing seemed to be on your side, just as you readjusted the heavy material you heard locks moving and keys jingling. As the door opened you were greeted with a cheery smile from hoseok, his calm demeanour making you gravitate towards him, almost like a safe place in this unfamiliar mess.

“Come with me, I got permission to take you to the rooftop, you’ll feel better up there” Hoesok smiled as he held your door open, signalling with his hand to follow him. You walked towards him with your eyes wide. You could leave your room???

Of course, leaving your room with an escort was not freedom but if you were to pick someone out of the people you had met last night, it would be hoseok.

The walk up to the rooftop was silent as you took in your surroundings the halls ways consisted of the same colours in your wardrobe. Black, grey and white. You heard the chatter of others every now and then, but you saw no faces to match their voices.

As you reached the door you realised how much taehyung must trust taehyung and how capable the man must be. He was the only one guarding you and the only one watching you.

“You probably have a lot of questions – I know it must suck so now that it's just you and me. Ask away and I’ll let you know what I can” He stated. Your lips parted in awe as the two of you walked onto the roof, the view of the lake below knocking the breath out of you.

As you sat yourselves down on a bench nearby you sighed as for the first time in a hot minute you felt relaxed.

“well, what did he do? Why does he have to protect me?” you asked as you watched the lake glisten underneath the suns gaze. Hoesok was right about the roof making you feel better. The breeze was soft and cool, and the day was bright and warm. It was almost impossible to have a bad mood on a day like this with a view like this.

“we were supposed to be working in collaboration with the block boy’s gang but taehyung scammed them to get what he wanted. Told them he’d give them fifty to off someone for him and only gave them twenty not to mention the gang that we were working together to take down is not one you wanna mess with. Taehyung purposely withheld certain information from the block boys to get them to agree with his plan. In the end, they lost both their scout and chameleon. ”

“fifty dollars seems a bit cheap for murder” You muttered as that was the only piece of information your brain had take from what he said.

“no, I mean fifty thousand” He laughed as he threw his head back.

“sorry what?!” you chocked, your breath catching in your throat.

“what you think you can just pay people fifty dollars to take a life?” he asked, his eyebrow raised as you looked at him like a deer in headlights.

“well…yea some of them” you said as you shrugged your shoulders.

“anyway, what did you mean by scouter and chameleon?” you asked as you turned yourself towards him, trying to get comfortable on the steel bench.

“well those are just nicknames for whatever part we play” he explained.

“So, each person has a position in the gang?”

“yep, there’s the scout, the sniper, the shadow and or chameleon, the hitman, the planner, the hacker and the leader. It’s pretty much just as it sounds. I could go into more detail but taehyung doesn’t want me telling you too much” Hoseok smiled as you closed your eyes in frustration.

“which one are you?” you asked as you analysed him, trying to figure it out.

“which one do you think I am?” he said with a cheeky grin. His eyes were sparkling and kind, his face always seems familiar and the way he held himself was that of everybody else.

“to be honest, you don’t really look like you’d be in a gang” You stated looking at the man who you assume was just a regular guy. That’s when it hit you. chameleons are known for blending in…

“ohhhhhh, you’re the chameleon!” You exclaimed excitedly.  

You smiled happily before remembering you had restrictions on what else he could tell you.

“So what else am I permitted to know” Your voice laced with sass and annoyance. Hoseok smiled before thinking for a second.

“ask and I’ll answer or deny” He added as he folded his arms over his chest.

“mmm, how did taehyung get into all this gang shit?” You asked hoping the answer would somehow help you understand how you were involved in all of this.

“Sorry, denied” he sighed.

Grunting you bite your lip trying to think of another question.

“How did you get into all of this gang shit?” You asked, the guy seemed to nice and to normal to be into this stuff.

“I needed to pay off my sister's hospital bills. Taehyung was nice enough to take in an untrained useless piece of crap and turn him into who I am today. I owe a lot to him” He said as his eyes travelled to the view in front of you.

“How's your sister doing now?” you asked hesitantly, sensing what the answer was.

“She unfortunate didn’t make it but its okay, she’s better off now,” He said before taking a deep breath of fresh air.

“I hate to do this to you, but I've gotta take you back now,” he said giving you a sympathetic look.

“thanks for talking to me, don’t tell the others but, you're my favourite” you joked while sending him a wink. He laughed before the two of you stood up.

Making your way back to your room the two of you were silent again, your ears were listening out for any discussions going on, one that would maybe tell you something about the man who was ‘protecting’ you.

“Taehyung!” Hoseok greeted as the two of you approached your room.

“I guess I'll be leaving you here” Hoseok said giving you a supportive smile before walking away. You looked at taehyung as he unlocked your door. staring you down as you started walking inside his hands reached out to grab your arm, his grip soft.

“wait-“before he could continue what he was saying a voice you knew all to well yelled out to you. The blonde-haired man you were best friends with appeared out of nowhere, the man who broke the heart of your other best friend was now standing in front of you, grinning from ear to ear.

Your heart stopped; for a split-second, happiness ran through your body. Your friend who had gone missing was alive and well…but why was he here? When the realisation hit you – anger and hurt consumed you.

“Mark what the fuck!” You shouted in shock, the feeling of betrayal setting in quicker than that of happiness. His smile dropped as he realised his current dilemma.

“You haven’t told her that Sana and I were sent by you?” he asked in confusion – taehyung face tightening at the sudden revelation. He looked at you sadly before his mouth opened, no sound came out as he tried to explain himself.

You marched into your room, running a hand through your hair as taehyung dismissed mark.

“So your telling me that you’ve infiltrated every aspect of my life?! What the fuck? Why!” You yelled as taehyung closed the door behind him, clearly already tired of this conversation.

“For your protection”

“FROM WHAT! THE BLOCK BOYS! Have you thought that maybe I would have been safer without your interference! That maybe if you would’ve just stayed the hell away from me I would have had a happier and safer life. God! What is wrong with you! My whole life is basically a lie, all because you have some obsession with me, for reasons I don’t know and that you won't let me know because ‘you can’t explain it right now!” You yelled at him, your fists clenched so tightly that your nails draw blood from your skin.

“calm down” he ordered, his eyes narrow and dark. Though he didn’t seem shocked at your sudden outburst he defiantly wasn’t pleased with it.

“no! I’m not gonna calm down! I don’t know you! I have gone through every memory possible and I have no freaking clue who you are!” You shouted, your face red with fury and your heart heavy with the knowledge that your life had been filled with subtle lies.

“every memory possible?” he asked his voice deep and taunting.

“Yes!” you exclaimed, not letting his intimidating voice scare you into submission.

“Even the ones you can’t remember? The ones locked away in the blank spots in your mind?” He asked, his voice harsher than before. You could see some form of hurt in his eyes but it was for reasons you didn’t understand. You stood there in shock, no one knew out your blank spots – but here he was, calling you out on them.

“How do you know about that…” you said quietly, your eyes tearing up from confusion and pain. Wer4e the people you called your friends ever your friends? Why was this boy from parts of your life you can’t remember so determined to keep you in his life? What were you missing?

“You don’t know me because I’m the part of your life you can’t remember. And trust me. It's better that you don’t”  He growled. His voice booming with authority. Although he wanted to leave the conversation there, you were keen to keep it going.

As you inhaled, ready to shout about how unfair it is for him to keep the information he knows about you hidden a loud banging on the door interrupted you.

“Boss!” A voice that you identified as Jungkooks shouted.

“WHAT!”

“we just got news that the block boys are planning an attack” He answered. His tone unbothered by taehyungs

“on the mansion? That’s ridiculous” Taehyung shot back, his ear getting closer to the door.

“apparently they’ve got help” you heard before the sounds of feet running got further away from the door.

Taehyung shot you a look before grunting and angrily exiting your room. As the door slammed shut You sat on your bed with a huff, still too emotionally riled up by the argument to fully comprehend what jungkook had said. Taehyungs rival was planning an attack. They were coming for revenge. Which means they were coming for you.

AN: Its short but it felt weird to have the other part i wrote in with this chapter - like...well i can’t spoil anything but the next chapter will be longer and more...mmmm action packed.

[embracetheshipping]

Hired Part Three - Conflict of Interest

@erikalyafter requested the following prompt: Trained as a sexual weapon Steve hunts the world’s best detective

Chapters (1) (2) (3)

In Steve’s line of work, referrals were the key to finding clients.  One couldn’t very well put out a flyer advertising mercenary-type services wherein sex (or at least the promise of sex) might be used to extort information or carry out an assassination.  More importantly, however, referrals gave him a minor measure of security, in that there was a six-degrees-of-separation element to the identity of his customers.  He had begun his career by working for people he knew and trusted, and they in turn recommended him to others.  And because the initial sources of the recommendations were reliable, he could feel more or less at ease in taking on new jobs.

It was for that reason, along with a general bad feeling in his gut, that he was currently preoccupied with mapping out an exit strategy rather than engaging in formal pleasantries with the group of well-dressed men seated around the table.

“I’m sorry – but how did you hear of me again?” Steve asked.

The group’s apparent leader, a tall, fit man in his fifties who identified himself as Ian Markova, waved away the question.  “I should think that would hardly matter, considering what we’re offering you.”

Steve begrudgingly agreed.  Under most circumstances, he wouldn’t have consented to a meeting with guys like these – mafia types, by the look of it – but he could easily retire on the compensation they were proposing.

“Fair enough.  What’s the job?”

Markova nodded to the younger man sitting on his right.  Steve was handed a manila folder, which he opened to discover the photo and dossier of an Interpol agent.

“Daniel Williams,” Markova introduced.  “Graduated with a major in Criminal Justice at Seton Hall, top of his class at the police academy, and generally acknowledged as a rising star in the law enforcement community.  Over the years, he’s worked for a variety of government agencies as a top notch investigator.  Two years ago, he was recruited by Interpol, where – presumably – he is still currently employed.”

“Presumably?”

“The nature of his job requires him to be constantly on the move and on guard.  Much of his personal history has been expunged in order to protect anyone who might be affected by his work, and very few can confirm his current status.”  Markova fixed Steve with a haughty grin, and his dark eyes shone with malicious humor.  “I, of course, am one of those few.

Steve frowned and closed the file.  “And what exactly would you like me to do?”

Markova folded his hands on the table.  “From what little information we’ve been able to gather, Agent Williams’s propensity for switching jobs so often may have also been due to prejudice, aside from his obvious talent for solving difficult crimes.  He has been openly bisexual since his college days.  And you,” he gave Steve an admiring once-over, “have both the looks and the skills necessary to get close to him.”

“And you know all this – how?”

“Never you mind.  The situation is this: Agent Williams has been, shall we say, interfering in my business affairs.  I could have him eliminated, naturally, but I think he could prove very useful, given the right incentive.  What I would like from you, is to find me some leverage.  Seduce him into giving up something I can use to secure his cooperation.  Complete this small task for me, and I will pay you the sum we spoke of - half up front, and the rest after you deliver.

Markova extended his hand.  “Do we have a deal, Mister McGarrett?”

“McGarrett.  McGarrett!”

“Hmm, what?”  

Daniel Williams – Danny, as he preferred to be called – shook his head in exasperation.  “I said – what do you want in your coffee?”

“Oh.”  Steve glanced at the self-serving refreshment station in the hotel lobby, wondering if they had any organic butter on hand.  He doubted it.  “Surprise me.”

“Black it is, then.”  Danny handed Steve a plain coffee in a disposable cup and sat down on the opposite end of the couch, facing him.  He turned his attention to the papers he’d left laying between them, all of them written in various eastern European languages.

“So, what are we up to today?” Steve asked.

Danny shot him a half-hearted glare, and Steve fought a grin.

Over the past several weeks, Steve had arranged enough chance encounters with Williams, subtly experimenting with different personas and hitting on him, that Danny eventually gave up trying to ignore  him and instead began to invite him along whenever he went out to run errands or complete other daily activities associated with life.  But every so often, Danny would disappear for several days, or he’d receive a call during one of their “dates” and would instruct Steve to drive his rented Camaro to some out-of-the-way location for a covert meeting.  Steve would then be forced to wait in the car while Danny spoke with someone on a disposable cell phone (a new one every time) or talk to a thin figure who consistently kept his or her back to Steve at all times.

While Danny’s clandestine operations, not to mention Markova’s frequent and increasingly impatient demands for a status update, kept him on edge, Steve had to admit that he was actually enjoying himself for the first time since – he couldn’t even remember.

Danny had this strange way about him that made him equally infuriating and endearing.  He had strong opinions about everything under the sun, from what was an acceptable topping on pizza to music to the ocean, and he had no qualms about sharing them in a remarkable and highly entertaining fashion.  He had a sharp tongue and an even sharper mind, quick with a joke, but just as quick with his fists (a fact Steve discovered when he’d pushed Danny too far and was rewarded with a right cross to the jaw).  

But more than that, Danny was kind and compassionate.  Steve witnessed it first hand when he “accidently” stumbled upon the agent in the aftermath of a raid.  He had been in the crowd gathered around a police barricade, watching in horror as Williams and the local police breached an abandoned building, only to exit moments later with malnourished, dirty and obviously abused children (victims of human trafficking) in tow.  He’d watched as Danny brushed the frightened tears off a little boy’s cheek, and draped his jacket around the shoulders of a nearly-naked girl.  

And once the smoke had cleared and all of the kids had been taken to several area hospitals, he had tailed Williams to a gym and watched him wail on a punching bag until his knuckles bled.

“Well, for starters,” Danny answered, setting aside his files, “Maybe you’d finally like to tell me something about yourself, something other than just your name and a bullshit backstory.”

Steve put a hand to his chest.  “You wound me, Danny.  I’ve told you TONS of stuff about me.  Why do you keep calling it bullshit?”

Though they’d achieved something resembling a real friendship, neither of them had been forthcoming with anything significant.  Steve continued to repeat the cover story he’d designed to attract Danny, who in turn talked and ranted in circles while never actually revealing anything beyond superficial details.

“Because it is,” Danny said.  He made himself comfortable against the cushions and laid his arm across the back of the couch.  “I’ve learned a lot about you over the last few weeks, and none of it meshes with the crap you’ve been spouting.”  Strangely, he almost sounded hurt.

“Yeah?  Let me guess – you’re one of those cops who run background checks on all of his dates, am I right?  Pray, enlighten me, officer.  Did you find something to contradict everything I’ve told you so far?”  Naturally, Steve assumed that Agent Williams would do his homework, but he had plenty of useful connections, including a hacker capable of revising Steve’s history to match whatever narrative he required.

Danny shook his head.  “Okay; first of all – no.  I did not run a background check on you, though in my line of work, that’s well within my right.  And second, I am a detective – agent – whatever, and a damn good one.  It’s my job to read between the lines and sort out the truth.”

“Okay, detective.  You think you’re so smart?”  Steve scooted closer and stared him down, his lips curved in a challenging smirk.  “What have you learned about me?”

“Well, let’s see.”  Danny placed the tips of his fingers to his temples, mimicking a psychic about to perform a reading.  He took an over-exaggerated breath.  “You either grew up in, or spent a significant amount of time in Hawaii.”

Steve’s smirk faltered.

“Swimming is your preferred method for staying in shape.”

Steve willed himself not to fidget.

“You have a dog, even though you’re more of a cat person.”

The smirk vanished altogether.  “How…?”

“You’re ex-military, probably U.S. Navy; your father is no longer alive, and you have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which I’m guessing you haven’t sought any sort of help in addressing.”  Danny lowered his hands.  “How am I doing so far?”

To say that Steve was dumbfounded would be an understatement, so much so that he didn’t bother to contradict anything.  “I – how could you possibly know all that?”

Danny sighed and met his glare.  “I also know that you’re incredibly thoughtful and gentle.  Those who are lucky enough to call you ‘friend’ would describe you as deeply caring and loyal to a fault.  And, in spite of this playboy act, you’re a hopeless romantic who desperately wants a family of his own – one that will never forsake him.”

Steve crossed his arms and scowled.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Danny inclined his head slightly and lifted a shoulder.  “You can deny it all you want, but we both know I’m right.”

“You keep accusing me of being dishonest and cagey, but you haven’t exactly been forthcoming yourself.”

“Fair enough.”  Danny studied him in silence for a moment.  Then he nodded to himself, as though he’d made some sort of decision.  

He leaned to one side and reached into his pants pocket, pulling out a glossy piece of paper folded into a square.  He offered it to Steve.

“What’s this?”  Steve straightened the paper.  

It was a photograph of two children, a teenage girl with long, brown hair, and a young, blond-haired boy with a wide-toothy grin.

“My kids,” Danny said.  “Grace and Charlie.  They’re the only good thing to have come out of my failed marriage.”

“They’re beautiful,” Steve answered sincerely.  He returned the picture.

Danny gazed at it, a sad smile on his place.  “My ex got custody of them in the divorce.  Then she got remarried to this real estate developer who’s been constantly moving them around the United States.  The only way I could keep up was to study and work my ass off to become a good investigator so that I could qualify for a job with the FBI, and later Interpol, which gave me the freedom to relocate with them.”

He carefully placed the photo back in his pocket.  “What sucks is that my current case poses a significant risk.  I can only video chat with them over secured lines at random intervals.  I haven’t gotten to hold them in over six months.  And even before this whole debacle, my ex-wife has been fighting tooth and nail to bar me from visitation.  She thinks that if she distances them from me, it’ll hurt them less in the long run if I get killed in the line of duty.”

“That’s – I don’t even know what to say.  Sorry, I guess.”

Danny smiled a little in thanks.  “That’s why this will be my last case.  Once I wrap this up, I’m going to quit and find some place stable where I can put down roots.  I’ll retire from law enforcement; maybe open a restaurant or something.  And once I’m settled, I’m going to sue for shared custody.”

Steve could hardly believe what he was hearing.  On the one hand, he’d just been handed the exact type of leverage he’d been paid to uncover.  Clearly, Danny would do absolutely anything for his children; probably even cooperate with some less-than-savory characters to keep them safe.  All Steve had to do was excuse himself, call Markova, tell him about Grace and Charlie, and he could sail off into the sunset with a full bank account.  

On the other hand, Steve wasn’t the type of guy to put kids in danger under any circumstance.  More importantly, how could Steve betray Danny after such a massive display of trust?  If he was being perfectly honest with himself, he had grown to like Danny very much.  In spite of the lies, they had real chemistry, if not enough for a relationship, then at least they might form a good friendship.

Then again, that point was moot.  One way or another, Danny would learn the truth about Steve.  And when he did…

One of Danny’s phones rang, disturbing Steve’s introspection and Danny’s quiet observation.

“Yes?  Okay.  I’m on my way.”  Danny hung up and gathered his files.  “I need to go.  Duty calls.”

Steve stood up.  “And I suppose I’m not allowed to come along?”

“Sorry babe.”  Danny got to his feet and took a few steps closer to Steve.  “You busy on Friday?”

He mulled it over.  “I’m not sure yet.  I have some – uh – stuff to take care of.”

“Okay.  Well, I’ll check in with you later.”  Danny hesitated.  Then he leaned up and gave Steve a peck on the lips.

Steve blinked.  “What was that for?”

Danny grinned.  “Meh.  Just felt like it.”  He left without another world.

Steve raised a hand to touch his lips.  It was a hardly a real kiss, certainly nothing to blush about, and yet Steve could feel his neck growing warm.

Oh god; he was so screwed.

[cybersecurityinfo]

Proactive Measures for Protecting Your Sender Reputati

Financial crimes include identity theft, computer hacking, financial fraud, and money laundering. There are many ways that criminals can steal from you through the mail, including by using fake checks or by sending you fake money orders. The websites below will help you detect if your Online Bank Account has been accessed or if any other suspicious activity has occurred. Coincidentally or not, each of these three sites is listed on Department of Justice (DOJ) lists of fintech activities that help fight financial crime. But consumers who don’t monitor themselves or their surroundings could be exposing themselves to major scams. Someone can make a seemingly innocuous purchase on the Internet and later claim a large amount of money from advertised auctions, instant win games, or other kinds of promotions. Scams can take many forms.

They could take the form of a salesperson telling you they have a special on a product, or a software salesman promising to sell you a package that includes free upgrades when you buy their product. There are many warning signs that someone is being scammed, even when they don't realize it. The best way to prevent getting scammed is to be skeptical about every offer you receive; look for the red flags! And if you have already been scammed, contact the company immediately so they can make it right and Spam may seem like a problem local to your inbox, but it's a global problem affecting billions of devices and apps. In 2016 alone, hackers stole data from over 2015 billion accounts. And that doesn't even begin to consider the costs of lost data or security breaches which can significantly impact on business. In 2018 the Internet Society will host its 25th global conference on cyber security. This year's theme is How to Avoid Being Taken Over by Spam. There are more than a million firewalls in place across the Internet today to protect against spoofing attacks and other attacks designed to steal personal data. This includes everything from your banking information to health records and retail purchases—but also everything else; every bit of information you've transmitted over the Internet in the past three years can be used against you if you're not paying attention. Protecting yourself and your data is vital. It's not about selling stuff or getting famous or anything like that.

This is just about keeping your computer and all the data it has locked down so nobody can steal it from you. It doesn't need to be complicated. It's not about buying expensive hardware products aimed at hacking or tracking you. The solutions are out there, and if you just look hard enough you'll find them. The worst thing is that you may become a victim of cybercrime without even knowing it. This is the email spoofing case – when your website domain or email domain is used by spammers to send spam and phishing emails.

What is Email Spoofing?

Email spoofing is a technique used by spammers to trick email recipients making them think the message came from an organization or person they know. The sender forges the sender’s email address which a recipient sees in the email client. If it’s a name and email address they recognize, they’re more likely to trust it. Spoofing can be carried out by a third party and it is a tool that can be used for sending emails to individuals that have already been identified as spam.

The technique works by tricking your email client into sending a request for an organization or person that doesn’t exist. The trick works because web servers look at the domain name when they’re deciding whether to risk sending an email to that address or not. If you create a completely separate email address, for example, spoofing won’t work because the domain name wouldn’t be included in the DNS records for those mail servers. Spoofing can be performed by ensuring that a single DNS record (a set of domain names and IP addresses) is repeated in an email's From field.

This ensures that the email server returns the same content even if the domain name and IP address have changed. The technique has been around for several years and was first documented by researchers at Symantec in 2014. Since then, many spam groups have begun implementing it extensively, making it increasingly easy to track emails. According to research from Norton Internet Security, around 77% of people have received the spoofed email in the past month. Many businesses use this tactic to extort money from their customers. Some spammers use spoofing to create additional sales by tricking buyers into revealing sensitive information such as their password or banking information.

Spoofing can also be used to help hackers break into computers and take control of their processes, though this is less common. So they open emails, download malware attachments, click malicious links, send personal data, and even wire funds.

How Does Email Spoofing Hurt Sender Reputation?

While some people fall for the bait of phishing emails, others consider them to be spam and send a complaint showing ISP that messages sent from your domain are not wanted and Spam is harmful to the reputation of an ISP and may even lead to fraudulent activity on parts of its network. Spamming can cause numerous problems on the internet infrastructure and may even lead to death or damage to data and systems. All user complaints about spam are important to the ISP, and it has to follow up on all complaints quickly to minimize any further negative impact. Spam emails are sent from different emails addresses and look just like legitimate emails from different companies and organizations.

The trick is that the domain name (the actual name of the website) on the email is different from the domain name on ISP's records. If the domain name on the email has.com and the domain name on ISP records does not have.com plus an underscore, then the email will be deemed spam even if it looks like a genuine request from an actual company or individual. Spam affects the reputation of email service providers, and it can negatively affect both senders and recipients. It's not just annoying — it's harmful. Spam makes it harder to get a real reply and can even cost businesses money by introducing poor customer service. To avoid possible scams, be sure to check your email frequently and follow the guidelines below.

If your email address is posted on a website or advertised in a magazine without your consent, get it changed so that it doesn't show up as Spam or junk mail in the inbox. Email spoofing is designed to trick email address readers into revealing their personal information. It works by tricking recipients into revealing information such as their credit card numbers, addresses, or legal names. More than a billion people rely on email services to receive and reply to messages. Spoofing can lead to identity theft and negative repercussions for business and reputation.

How does email spoofing work?

It works like this: an email service provider creates a website, which looks just like a real email service provider's site. The only difference is the domain name and URL. Anybody who follows the link has his browser automatically redirected to the spoofed site. Email marketing is one of the most vital aspects of a business. But many small businesses fail because they do not realize how vulnerable they are in an email-based market.

They fail because they do not understand how Emails work, or they underestimate the importance of an email marketing strategy. Often, businesses fall prey to spammers who trick legitimate shoppers into revealing sensitive data such as credit card numbers and Social Security Numbers.

How to Protect Your Domain from Spoofing

The good news is that technologies don’t stand still and, at present, domain owners can use email authentication mechanisms to avoid or mitigate damage produced by email spoofing attacks. These mechanisms are:

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a web address validation protocol that works in two steps. First, the domain owner adds a TXT record (also called an SPF record, for Simple Payment Failure) to their DNS record for the domain they want to control. This record contains the IP address of anyone who sent an email to that domain within the last hour, based on a histogram generated by a script running on Amazon's CDN service. Second, any recipient who tries to send an email to that domain also has to include the TXT record in their DNS record; if they don't do so, then their email will be ignored by the sending server and will be delivered to anyone with the SPF record configured on their behalf. Again, it's not perfect; as a result of this failure mode, SPF records can be rejected by intermediate servers, and in fact, many senders never bother to configure SPF at all, relying instead on MX records or SPF-base and SPF is a header field in email messages that specifies who should receive emails from a domain.

It can be used to filter out irrelevant or unwanted emails from a mailing list or to perform retargeting efforts. SPF is commonly included in links or form fields that ask users to help identify or help correct the record of a domain name. It can also be included in message body HTML to prevent SPF records from being mistaken for neither SPF nor a legitimate sender’s name.

DKIM (Domain Key Identified Mail) –This method also works by adding a TXT record to DNS. DKIM uses a pair of cryptographic keys to sign an outgoing message and validate an incoming message to make sure that the message wasn’t altered in transit. The weak side of this email authentication method is that the message can be forwarded without breaking the validity of the DKIM signature. This technique is referred to as a “replay attack”.

DMARC (Domain-Based Message Authentication)-Reporting, and Conformance). This method ties the two methods mentioned above and gives the highest level of protection when set to enforcement. DMARC is applied by adding a DMARC TXT record to a domain’s DNS. If an email receiver sees that a message passed DMARC authentication, it delivers it to the target recipient. When a message doesn’t pass DMARC authentication, the email receiver looks at the policy in the DMARC record to know what to do with the message.

Benefits of DMARC Authentication

Visibility-Using reports from the Domain Name Server (DNS) history, mail servers, and other resources, you can check for domains that are frequently being used without proper validation. This helps to pinpoint targets of various kinds for additional checks such as SPF and DKIM/SPF fail. Also, it provides the ability to trace phishing emails and other fraudulent activities back to their originating domain owner or service provider. When your website is visited by a robot or a bot, send an email report to the domain registrar that includes the email address and domain name of the visitor. This helps you detect whether a malicious threat was involved in the attack or not. If you are using web-based DMARC services, monitoring your e-mail marketing for signs of compromise is a great way to quickly discover whether an attempted breach went unnoticed or was detected by an informed insider. It can also assist in preventing credential theft by uncovering phishing attempts and other malicious activity.

Control- DMARC gives you the option to instruct the receiver what action to take when an email fails authentication. It’s done by adding the policy (p=) tag to a DMARC record. The p=none policy is normally used for collecting DMARC reports for analysis. The p=quarantine policy tells the email receiver to send the message to the Junk folder, and the p=reject policy tells to block the email at a mailbox gateway. You can also use the percentage tag (pct=) to apply the policy to a part of received messages. For example, pct=50 will tell the receiver to apply the policy to 50% of messages failing DMARC. The 100% reject policy will block all emails sent during a phishing attack and help you avoid user complaints and damaged reputation.

BIMI- The basic concept behind BIMI is simple ‘if I have a brand identifier in my email signature, it should be reflected in the header fields of any messages sent to that recipient. This allows an end-to-end authentication between the sending University and its students. DMARC, on the other hand, is actively being developed as an open standard for message and identity verification across the Internet. It provides guarantees that when you communicate using email services, the information you are sending will be authentic without requiring the sender to maintain a database of usernames and passwords. A BIMI record is used by domain name registrars to associate a series of characteristics with a certain domain name.

These characteristics are defined as keywords or phrases in an email message that are searched for in DNS records kept by various authoritative DNS providers. If the message contains a combination of these keywords or phrases, an email server will respond with a record with that associated value. The DMARC standards mandate that a message be encrypted using Transport Layer Security (TLS), Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), or some other mechanism before being sent to the recipient. BIMI will allow email senders to show their logo next to their messages in the email clients. BIMI will work for the senders who use the ‘quarantine’ or ‘reject’ DMARC policy. Thus, if the logo appears, the recipient can trust the sender and safely open the message. This adds value for the user and improves the overall user experience through an enhanced sense of security. The main reason domain reputation managers are not using DMARC is because they do not understand why it is important. The potential risk of sending junk data over DMARC is too high for most notifications and reports.

The main reason is many think the risk of getting banned is low enough and don’t care enough to set up their protection systems. A recent study shows less than 1 percent of senders use DMARC correctly. This is a huge failure if you ask me because it allows spam and phishing to continue while leaving consumers without the protection they deserve.

How to Automate Domain Monitoring

The good news is that today there are tools like Emailauth, DMARC Analyzer that do the analysis of DMARC reports for you. The tool creates a DMARC record for your domain that you must add to the domain’s DNS.

Source :-https://atozcybersecurity.blogspot.com/2021/09/proactive-measures-for-protecting-your.html

[alilybit]

Steam Scam Documentation

improved readability + table of contents on my website: https://phal.io/hackers/stean (free easter egg included!)

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TLDR – What To Do

Prevention

- Never sign in using Steam anywhere unless it’s a well known site that you navigated to yourself, preferably by manually typing the URL into your browser and saving that URL as a bookmark for later, NEVER sign in on links others sent you, even your significant other whom you would trust with your life because their account could be hijacked or they don’t know they’re sharing a malicious link

- Optionally send the link to an internationally approved computer expert you trust (me?)

- When you confirm trades in the app, always double check both trade contents AND the person you’re trading with (level, friend date) because hackers can automatically replace outgoing and incoming trade offers to go to a different account with the same name and pfp as your original trade partner

When It’s Too Late

- Warn your friends not to click on any link that might be sent on your behalf, check active chats for messages you didn’t send, send/tell them this

- Change your password (if you use your Steam password elsewhere, change those as well, you should be using unique passwords and a secure open source password manager like KeePassXC)

- Log out all sessions in the Steam desktop client by clicking on your name in the top right corner next to notifications and navigating to account details -> account security - manage Steam guard -> deauthorize all other devices

- Open https://steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey in your browser (if you don’t trust my link, which you shouldn’t, simply find out if steamcommunity dot com is the real domain for Steam and then manually type the complete link into your browser), revoke any API key there is if you haven’t created them or don’t know what they are, if you did make them replace them

- Optionally report the link at https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/?hl=en to make all common web browsers display a warning before loading the malicious site

(Source + further info: https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/hijacking/)

When a Friend Sends You a Malicious Link or Acts Suspiciously

- Try to contact them somewhere outside of Steam and send/tell them this to save their account and to prevent the hijack from spreading further through their friends list

- Warn their friends

Pro Tip

The interwebs are full of malicious links/downloads, even/especially search engine results. To make sure you get the proper installer for programmes/the proper link to log into/purchase something, ALWAYS use the Wikipedia Technique™:

- Open wikipedia.org

- Search for the programme/site/shop/whatever

- Look for the website link either on the right in the summary box or by navigating to the external links section at the bottom

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I will now describe and show how a friend of mine had their account hijacked. I’ll also keep adding other forms of scam attempts to this post/site as I come across them so you can look at examples and be prepared for when it happens to you.

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Incident 1 – Can You Vote for My Team?

It was the night before my first vaccination. I was still doing something on my PC, I don’t remember what, even though it was past bedtime, when I got a message from a Steam friend. I’ll call them Ingeborg. My brother, Ingeborg and I had met a month earlier on a TF2 rocket jump server and we added each other. We played together a couple more times but beside that I didn’t know Ingeborg that well. You can see the chat from that day in the images below.

The first cropped message from Ingeborg at the top is “hey u free rn?” or something. I assumed they just wanted to ask about playing a game of TF2 with me, as it has happened before. When they dropped the question about voting for their team and getting keys in return, I didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t know of any competitive team they were in and I also didn’t know Ingeborg well or that alleged tournament at all. It also didn’t seem like they could just throw expensive keys around. I took some time to process the information and to think about what I should reply, but Ingeborg didn’t leave me much time to think, following up with “?” and “u here”. So I asked, feeling stupid for not knowing what they’re talking about.

Then, they also set a time limit of less than 30 minutes and kept asking why I’m not immediately replying or “voting”. I have to admit, I nearly fell for it. I want to help people and I can’t think clearly under pressure, especially when it involves other people. And, for the Permanent Record, I of course wouldn’t have taken anything in return for helping a friend. I wanted to tell them that but they didn’t even give me the time to type that. I had already put my name and password in the form, after a lot of thinking, but something prevented me from pressing enter, it just didn’t feel right. I had even briefly searched the web for that tournament and didn’t really find anything. But what finally made me realise that there is something wrong and what made me think clearly again was the border and title bar of that alleged pop-up window. (Edit: Thanks for 1 likes. I compared genuinely signing in through Steam on scrap.tf and it did not open a pop-up window, it simply completely sent me to steamcommunity.com. I guess that means pop-up Steam sign ins are always fake.) I already tried clicking on the HTTPS information earlier which didn’t work for some reason but which still didn’t make me 100 % realise that this is a fake site. Until I noticed that the title bar is a Windows 10 default light theme title bar. I’m on Linux and I use dark themes, the title bar should look completely different. I tried moving the window around and it moved choppily and I could only move it within the Firefox window. I checked the source code and it was true: It was merely an iframe within the site that contained a fake Steam login form from a different URL that’s not steamcommunity.com. This is the site in the iframe:

As you can see, it’s the Steam login form, but the address at the top is not a Steam address. I took a look at its source code and found that it was a lot longer than the original and also contained a lot of dialogue lines about removing the Steam mobile authenticator. This apparently didn’t come up when actually putting in password and username, but you should look out for fake sites telling you to remove your authenticator, they could get complete access to your account that way.

I confronted Ingeborg with this and they stopped replying. But they didn’t immediately remove me from their friends list, like that one time I was actually scammed. I wasn’t sure what to do now. Was Ingeborg really a scammer? Was everything we did together so far just to gain my trust to scam me? Like that one time I was actually scammed? The funny thing is that out conversation before this was about scammers. Some usual random scammer put a usual comment on my profile and Ingeborg warned me. But I believe in the good in everyone and I didn’t want to just assume they were a scammer without making absolutely sure. I thought about what else I knew about Ingeborg. They gifted my brother some items because he barely has any. They invited me to their Steam group. They subscribed to me on YouTube and put my channel on their home tab. Coincidentally, earlier that same day, I also took some time to take a look at their YouTube channel and subscribed. So I thought that me subscribing to them was the sign they were waiting for, signalling that I trusted them enough to fall for the scam. I checked their channel and I was still on their home tab and subscriptions. I checked their Steam group and was still a member. This convinced me that there really is a possibility that this wasn’t actually Ingeborg trying to scam be but that they’ve also been phished and someone else is now trying to also gain access to their friends’s’s accounts.

Ingeborg’s friends list and profile comments were now set to private, so I couldn’t comment or directly message their friends to warn them. But there was the Steam group. One other member was online, one with a Pokémon profile picture and I believe I also remembered noticing them on Ingeborg’s friends list because of the Pokémon theme. So I put a comment in the group and added the Pokémon person, who unfortunately had their comments disabled as well, so I put an explanatory message into my profile to let them know why I’m adding them. I warned them and asked them to tell Ingeborg that someone has access to their account, should they know Ingeborg better than me. On YouTube, Ingeborg had their Discord name listed. I tried to add them but friend requests were disabled. There was also an Instagram name. I technically don’t have Instagram but I made a test account a while ago to test a YouTube scam comment with a link to an alleged Instagram password hacking site. I logged in with that account, changed my profile picture to my real one, added an explanation to the bio and added Ingeborg. But they didn’t react. So I wrote a comment on a YouTube video. I think it took three attempts for the comment to pass the automatic spam filter. It could of course also have been Ingeborg deleting my comments exposing them for being a scammer. But the third castle stayed up. And a while later, they actually responded. I then tried to tell them to add me on Discord, that also took many attempts and extremely careful wording to get through. Not even my Discord tag with numbers spelled out and 1447 speak, as Jeremy 900 800 500 would say, went through, but a carefully camouflaged link to my website did. By then, they also messaged me on Steam, asking for help and asking me to temporarily take their valuable items to secure them. I told them to add me on Discord so I know it’s actually them I’m chatting with. As it turned out later, it was really good that they didn’t trade me their stuff.

Apparently, Ingeborg wasn’t home at the time and only had access to their phone. And they allegedly fell for the exact same scam a day before. The obvious first thing that had to be done was changing the Steam password. But it seems that the password can’t be changed in the app itself. So I had the idea that Ingeborg could log into Steam on their phone’s web browser and change the password there, which worked. We kept chatting and I kept researching. I still wasn’t sure if this was still part of Ingeborg’s ingenious plan to regain my trust to scam me again, but I believed in them. Eventually Ingeborg got home, and I stayed awake gladly until 3:47 in the morning, I… I sang as time went off. Because as long as menly men like me are prepared to give their time, a flower grows. And that flower, that small, fragile, delicate yellow flower, shall burst forth and defeat interwebs criminals. On the “next” day, the vaccine had a side effect of making me a little tired. Strangely enough, that side effect already started before the injection itself.

I also kept thinking about what the actual purpose of this series of hijacking accounts is. Ingeborg’s Steam wallet and inventory seemed to have been untouched but there must be some way for the criminals to profit off of this, if only to pay for the costs of the website and domain. On Vaccinator day, I finally found an article on https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/hijacking/ that explains it. When you give them your password and current authenticator code, they obviously get access to your account, but you still have the authenticator, so what they can do is limited. Apparently, they use the opportunity to create an API key that allows them to keep accessing your account even after you changed your password and they use it to immediately replace incoming and outgoing trade offers with ones that go to a fake version of your original trade partner with the same name and profile picture. You might then not notice the difference when confirming the trade in the app and give them your items, unknowingly and without them having to have access to or remove your mobile authenticator. A brilliant idea. You might as well check if you have any API keys which you usually shouldn’t, the details are explained on the steamrep link and in the “when it’s too late” section at the top of this piece of medium literature.

And the moral of this story: Always be careful, educate yourself on how they trick you and on digital security in the sense of safety, never assume you won’t fall for it, don’t shame people who fell for it and don’t feel ashamed if you fell for it. And always have an internationally approved technical support character on your team.

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Incident 2 – Simply Building Trust AKA Social Engineer

We write the distant year of 2016. Two… œ… six… one. Oh, I’m an idiot, I held the pen upside down. Never mind. I don’t recall the incident in as many details, but I still know the most important things. It started on a TF2 tdm_hightower community server, rocket jumping and Market Gardenering around. I don’t remember exactly how one of the other players started conversing with me, I just remember that they, I’ll call them Wincohn, added me, chatted with me and wanted to trade one of my items that was not yet tradable. We chatted over the course of multiple days. Eventually, we also chatted about bad things that happened in our pasts, like the divorce of my parents and how their dad allegedly died when they were young. And we comforted each other. They also asked me if I was religious at some point, I guess because religious people are easier to scam. When I took a look at their inventory, I saw TF2 competitive matchmaking beta passes. I don’t remember exactly how that worked, but I was excited about matchmaking and you could only get in if you have the beta pass item, but having it also gives you some invites to give to other people. So I offered to take a beta invite in exchange for the item they wanted. My item, a festive Rocket Launcher was still not tradable though, so they offered me to temporarily give them something else and they would immediately give me a beta invite. Since the beta invite is not an item, I had to trust them they would actually invite me in return. We were on the aforementioned community server again and they agreed to make our trade public to the server members so they could witness it and report one of us, should we not keep our side of the bargain. So we opened a trade and I gave them one cosmetic drop I didn’t need, one cosmetic I used and two non-strange festive weapons so I don’t lose my stats, which were apparently in total about equal in value to the Rocket Launcher. Right before the trade went through, they left the server, which I only noticed when the trade window closed. And they removed me from their friends list. No beta invite. I told the others on the server that we traded but he left before it went through and he scammed me but nobody cared. The chat where we agreed that I would get a beta invite was also gone. I lost my items and I didn’t even have proof that it was a scam and not just a gift or tax dodge. Steam rightfully doesn’t return scammed items, because the scammers of course immediately sell them and taking them away from the buyer would be unfair for them and giving the victim a duplicate would be easily exploitable, but getting them banned would at least prevent further scams. The worst part, though, is that everything they told me was a lie and only served the purpose of gaining my trust. Fascinating.

After it happened, I was of course sad and angry. But only temporarily. I don’t hold a grudge against them, I’ve long since forgiven them. Quite on the contrary, I’m even thankful because I didn’t lose that much virtual material value (like 3 $) and it was a valuable experience. I only hope that they have changed since then and don’t do this anymore. The comments on their profile are disabled to this day, not the best sign. They also don’t have a Steam or third party ban. Either them scamming was not a common occurrence or nobody was ever able to prove it.

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Incident 3 – Wanna Join Our Tournament Team? (Incomplete)

I got another one of those friend requests on Steam from a suspicious looking profile. One of those that have TF2 comp stuff in their profile description. This time, I accepted it to see what they would do, to document more methods used by interwebs criminals.

This account had 1200 hours of TF2 playtime. So it looked like they’re an actual player, or maybe a hijacked account. Their inventory was public as well, but nearly empty, not even regular weapons or anything. They were playing TF2 the entire time and when I checked the server they were on, it always said no server. I guess that means they just have TF2 open the entire time to farm playtime that is publicly and prominently displayed on their profile to appear like a real player.

I tried to go along with their chat but it didn’t go well. I even prepared my long unused Gibus Cap Discord account that I used to use to test roles on our server. But apparently, I asked too many questions. I was too eager to get a nice phishing link into my net. After that last message, they removed me from their friends. Next time, I won’t ask questions.

[tradinggatorcom]

Storing Cryptocurrencies in a cryptocoin Wallet

Storing Cryptocurrencies in a cryptocoin Wallet

Most people think that storing Cryptocurrency in a cryptocoin wallet is secure. They may have heard of online privacy, but few know how to store their own private information online. Online privacy is quite fragile nowadays, and it’s quite easy for someone to get hold of your information, whether they are spying on you or not. Therefore, it is important that you learn how to store Cryptocurrencies in a cryptocoin wallet.

If you store them in a public online location such as a social networking site, it is quite easy for any hacker to break in and obtain your personal information. This can include photos, videos, personal messages, passwords, and even biometrics. There are some methods that you can employ in order to prevent this from happening to you. There are two main methods used to secure private information from hackers. The first method is physical security, which is what we talked about earlier.

The second method is by using a Cryptocurrency virtual private system, or also known as a Cryptosystem. These systems are specialized software applications, which you install on your computer. They basically act as if you have a secure back up copy of your private information stored somewhere else. This way, should your Cryptocurrency fall into the wrong hands, you will be able to retrieve it very easily.

A good Cryptosystem will store the private keys of your transactions. Private keys are needed to access many parts of your Cryptocurrency Wallet. The most popular way of securing your private key is to use an offline physical space. An offline physical space will give you more protection than a centralized location. It will also allow you to store your Cryptocurrency offline.

You can also store your Cryptocurrency online, but this method doesn’t give you as much protection as you would get with an offline location. There are two main reasons for this. First, many sites out there are not secure enough to protect your information. Even though you can purchase a subscription to their online service for a small fee, it still won’t be worth it unless you can trust the site’s private key servers.

The other problem is that it’s difficult to keep up with the changing monetary values of your favorite Cryptocurrencies. If you want to use your Cryptocurrency Wallet to trade currencies, it’s important to store those currencies correctly. Otherwise, if something changes and your Cryptocurrency’s value drops, you’ll be greatly affected. When you store your private information with an online Cryptocurrency wallet service, those problems are eliminated.

Some people prefer to use a third party service to store their Cryptocurrencies. These third-party services act as a bridge between the public and private information stored on your own computer. For instance, when you buy coins from an online site, they will import them into your cryptocoin wallet and then save all of your information on their server. Once those coins are sent to another person or place, they will automatically change in value because they have access to the private information of your account. Because of this feature, it is extremely easy for a business or individual owner to keep their entire financial portfolio stored and organized in the Cloud.

If you want to make the most secure transaction with any Cryptocurrency, you’ll need to have full trust in the online merchant or broker that you’re buying from. If they don’t have a secure system set up to keep your private information safe and secure, you should find another retailer. It’s important that you never give out your private information over the Internet, even if it’s an automated form that asks for it. Never hand your private information away to anyone, even if it’s an automated form that asks for it. Your information could be stolen, and it’s the only thing that you can protect.

The post Storing Cryptocurrencies in a cryptocoin Wallet appeared first on TradingGator.

source https://www.tradinggator.com/storing-cryptocurrencies-in-a-cryptocoin-wallet/