#((and what he might not have access to as far as info goes like the closeness haku has to faculty and such. but i figure gen students will

[aceies-desiresxx]

one of my favorite things to imagine in disney twst is yuu (your character) deciding to create a school wide publication. a school digital newspaper for the students of NRC.

the dates of all the upcoming unbirthday parties + plus a nit-picky checklist and particular rules that might apply that week to help out the heartsabyul students who don’t wanna deal with “having their head off”

constant updates of the week’s spell drive tournaments and games , + scoreboard for the season, as well as additional info about scouts and recruiters coming to visit said games to encourage the student athletes to reach out and do their best in hopes of their sports career, even a leader board + and mvps so far

monstro lounge’s weekly specialties and deals as well as hiring info incase students want to earn some extra money on campus, and how to contact azul if you’re from another dorm

reminders of important dates on the lunar calendar for both werebeastmen and scarabia students + the newest imports from foreign lands in sam’s shop that might make their dorm feel more like home

news about the newest fashion trends and movies + plus a gossip column that has features on particular students. it’s worded in a riddle, and all names are anonymous so the student body spends awhile trying to figure out who it’s about

new game releases, paired with student options on difficulty and enjoyment. students handles will be tagged allowing for their streams to reach a larger audience + showcases of student art

history on NRC and spooky stories that will be fun to theorize about. legends of trapped souls on campus ground and interviews from alumni and what they think of it or if they were witness to the history

you can also find info about clubs and their recruitment and how to join, when the housewardens will have another meeting with eachother so you can voice your ideas to them in hopes it will be brought up, dates for large student study sessions and after school help, dates for “leaked” pop quizzes or even large tests that you might’ve forgotten were gonna be later that week. tickets and shows to student performances even dumb quizzes to pass the time. you can find all staff emails and how to even duel your house warden to take their spot. but for some reason that tab doesn’t have a lot of viewers.

this digital publication keeps the student body of NRC well informed and is popularly visited, only gaining more traction as the school year goes on. so ofc students have been trying to figure out who’s been behind it.

all the crisp photos of the spell drive players, the leaked dates of tests, the gossip, sam’s stock. how’s one person able to get the news before anyone else is? no way azul would sign a contract with them, plus even azul doesn’t have access to all this info. if only he had some sneaky eels who love to be as slippery as they are in the water, above ground. or a few ghost friends able to go through walls and overhear things they probably shouldn’t. maybe sam IS in on it, wanting to spread awareness about his goods so he makes profit. even a cat small enough to sneak around when bribed with enough tuna could help out. plus a killer camera from the headmaster. maybe crowley knows what’s going on but is letting things play out. so far it hasn’t gone too far. plus. who would suspect the prefect from another dimension? they have a hard enough time as is. no way they’d be able to keep up.

[ficoandleo]

What, being willing to ask up front makes me bad at finding things out? 💔 Are u saying it's basic enough that I could figure it out myself? U want me to guess?

Ur relationship with ur fam is pretty bad. Like as bad as Kamurai's with his daddy(might be a Frostheim thing? Maybe ur ambition when u touched that mannequin was abt ur fam?) But ur kinda stuck with them even tho they don't like u right? Expectations or whatever. Could be abt getting away from them--it got u here right? And now ur stuck with the Institute unless u get the crown or whatever--or it's back to ur lil shrine with u💔

But I don't think it's that. Ppl who flirt like u do r all always abt escapism and stuff u don't have to think hard abt. And when you're a shame to your family you just want someone to say once that you did a good job and they appreciate you. Ur a lazyass who does all the work in his House. U left Frostheim around when someone else who could do more than u to help showed up

Ur totes a tryhard lol

But it isn't about that right? It's not about doing a good job. It's about not being Haku Kusanagi. It's about being literally anyone else, or no one at all, for a second. It's about proving people wrong without anyone saying 'wow, that's more than I expected from you.' Or maybe it's about not having that expectation at all. You don't wanna be thanked for what you do. You don't wanna be thanked or relied on so people don't start thinking different about you and don't resent you when you're a disappointment again. But you can always put on another mask and be someone else or no one else, right? No expectations, you could be the best or the worst and nothing will have to change.

Maybe you just don't wanna be you. That way you can come and go as you please, no matter how anyone feels about you or what they want from you. I bet it was something like that. "I wish I didn't have to be me all the time. I wish I could be someone else." Is that anything?

Fuck Marry Kill the (canon) vagastrom ghouls?

Kurosagi, Mido, Haizono. In the order presented.

[destinyc1020]

Dom's message again is being misinterpreted.

Dom had no issues with people talking about his blog, he even it said it during his blog read on Sunday that it comes with the territory. What Dom had an issue is with people taking parts of his blog and posting it on Twitter, posting it on IG and Tiktok which then caused the media to run headlines worldwide.

Dom for years has said that he has no problem sharing as long as people don't post his stuff online. He even warned that he would have to limit how he talked about Tom if that happened. So far he's been a man of his word he hasn't mentioned Tom in any capacity since that blog went everywhere

This goes back to people needing to understand that not everything on Tumblr needs to be shared elsewhere. I am still beyond pissed over the miss blog that we would have had if people knew how to safeguard certain info. Even more pissed over the fact that any tidbits from Dom in the future will be very limited.

Thank you for clarifying this because some of us don't have access to his paid content, or just don't keep up with Dom's blog like that.

I agree, I don't think people should be taking his paid content and spreading it all over Twitter.... but at the same time, I still feel that maybe he (AND Kaz) should have just followed suit and been very VERY tight-lipped on anything Tomdaya, especially when it came to their engagement.

But whatever.... what's done is done lol. 😅 Tom, Zendaya, and Dom will survive.

Even more pissed over the fact that any tidbits from Dom in the future will be very limited.

I understand.... 😔 But don't you think that maybe this might be for the BEST though? 🤔 Lots of celebrity parents aren't talking about their very-famous children in the public eye.... just sayin'.... 👀

[bleachbleachbleach]

I wanna know what Ikkaku knows about Urahara:

[Bleach 087]

Like, do they... know each other? The visual suggests that someone in the scene knows Urahara was a captain, and it sure ain't Ichigo. So I feel like we're meant to understand that Ikkaku knows this.

Urahara's name also holds weight in terms of Ichigo's viability as an opponent, which suggests Ikkaku knows Urahara as someone other than some rando criminal, or just as a Mad Scientist type. It's Ichigo's movement that impresses Ikkaku, not his strategic craftiness.

I don't try that hard to keep the Gotei's 20th Century straight in my mind, but we do know that during TBTP Zaraki wasn't 11th Captain yet, and therefore Ikkaku may not have been in the Gotei at that point then, ether. (There's a whole dispersal of 11th backstory filler eps, which I've been assuming aren't in the manga in any form, but who knows, maybe some of this backstory info also holds true here, too. In the anime, Ikkaku and Yumichika follow Zaraki into the Gotei.)

In any case, apparently Ikkaku has a whole Seireitei family (see: TYBW), so maybe they were well-positioned for all the hot TBTP goss regardless of whether Ikkkau was enlisted at the time.

Or does everyone just know who Urahara is? Obviously, he's a poorly kept secret at least as far as his outpost goes; he's made a whole business out of it. But if Rukia knew he'd been a captain she doesn't harp on it.

And if there's something you can count on me for, it is knowledge of random-ass Hitsugaya panels:

[Bleach 237]

Hitsugaya says he doesn't know who Urahara is. Well, he's heard the rumors about Urahara, but says Urahara is someone whose true nature can't be ascertained. He probably does know what Urahara used to be a captain. He's heard that he's formidable, and probably isn't someone to let your guard down around. Which, really, is all the things we know Ikkaku knows about Urahara. Hitsugaya's just not willing to extrapolate further based on rumor alone. Maybe Ikkaku is.

But based on how Urahara's name influences the way Ikkaku chooses to fight Ichigo, I feel like Ikkaku is not operating solely on rumor, either. Someone's battle prowess/skill as a mentor doesn't seem like something he'd accept without firsthand knowledge, even if he's willing to roll with it for other stuff. So I feel like it's perfectly defensible to argue that even if Ikkaku wasn't actually in the Gotei while Urahara was in the picture, he still had an ~encounter (and probably not while Urahara was in his Innocent Shopkeeper era).

Maybe Ikkaku ran into Urahara in the woods when Urahara was off making an impression on Kuukaku [1][2]. Or Ikkaku's Seireitei family sic'd the Onmitsukidou on him while he was off playing hooky in Rukongai! Tons of fun possibilities!

Of course, this raises the time-honored question of what, if anything, anyone in the current Gotei knows about TBTP. Because it really seems like they know nothing, and didn't even know there was something to not know. But for a lot of them that might be an effect of their willingness to pretend they know nothing? So I feel like you could go in a lot of directions with that. Not to have blorbo disease again, but Hitsugaya seemed like he was learning Vizard Lore in real-time during the Winter War, so apparently it's not like, part of some kind of Area 51 folder you gain access to when you become a captain lol. YOU HAD TO BE THERE. (BUT ALSO SOMETIMES NOT EVEN THEN)

[fanby-fckry]

A Rose by Any Other Name

Day 3 of Ace Alastor Week: QPR Day

Word Count: 2,533

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon)

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Archive Warnings: None

Additional Warnings: Implied/Referenced Kink (in the form of a Fade to Black ending), Implied/Referenced Cheating (no actual cheating occurs), Period Typical Attitudes, Outdated Terminology, (see beginning notes for more info)

Relationships: (Queer Platonic) Alastor/Lucifer Magne | Morningstar, (Queer Platonic) Alastor/Lilith Magne | Morningstar/Lucifer Magne | Morningstar, Background Lilith Magne | Morningstar/Lucifer Magne | Morningstar

Characters: Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Lucifer Magne | Morningstar, Mentioned Lilith Magne | Morningstar

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Fluff and Humor, Fluff, Humor, Attempt at Humor, Light Angst, Established Relationship, queer platonic relationship, Polyamory, Open Marriage, Lilith and Lucifer Magne | Morningstar have an Open Marriage, Asexual Alastor (Hazbin Hotel) Aromantic Asexual Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Alastor is Bad at Feelings (Hazbin Hotel), Alastor Has a Heart (Hazbin Hotel), (but he will deny it until the day he double dies), Bisexual Lucifer Magne | Morningstar, Bisexual Disaster Lucifer Magne | Morningstar, Nonbinary Lucifer Magne | Morningstar, (yup finally getting into Luci’s gender fuckery), Talking, Conversations, Awkward Conversations, Misunderstandings, the ‘what are we?’ conversation except it’s ‘what do we call us?’, what to call your qpp when the term qpp hasn’t been invented yet, Enochian Language (Abrahamic Religions), (taking massive liberties with the Enochian language), Fade to Black, Unreliable Narrator

Series: Part 3 of Fanby’s Ace Alastor Week 2024 ( <- Prev || Next -> ) || Part 6 of The Unholy Trinity ( <- Prev || Next -> )

Summary:

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Alright, my darling, spiteful deer. If not ‘paramour,’ then what should I call you?”

Alastor maneuvered himself into a more upright position.

“Hmm,” he hummed. ‘Paramour’ certainly wasn’t the right word, but he was drawing a blank on what was.

*

Lucifer and Alastor try to come up with a word to describe their relationship to each other. They only get side-tracked once or five times.

Better on AO3

Author’s Notes:

During the gender fuckery portion of their discussion, Alastor uses somewhat outdated language and while he has a vague idea that gender and sex aren’t a static binary, his grasp on the subject isn’t exactly congruent with more modern views.

This fic takes place in 1943. He’s using the language he has access to at the moment, and he’s honestly a bit ahead of his time thanks to Lucifer’s influence.

This is my first time adding notes to a tumblr fic, let’s see how this goes!

It had come up unexpectedly. A word, or rather, the lack of a word.

Lucifer had been telling Alastor about a conversation he’d had with Lilith, and in passing, he’d called Alastor his ‘paramour.’

Alastor cocked his head to the side. “You still call me that?” he asked.

“Hm?” Lucifer hummed absentmindedly. “What, my paramour?”

“Yes, that,” Alastor confirmed. “It makes it sound like I’m your…” Alastor made a conscious effort not to let the corners of his smile drop. “Mistress,” he hissed through gritted teeth.

“Well, you’re not my mistress,” Lucifer said, far too casually. “Last I checked, you’re a man who uses masculine language.”

Lucifer paused. “Last I checked,” he repeated.

Alastor stared at him, unblinking, wondering what the hell he was on about.

“If you ever feel like changing that, let me know. I’d be happy to call you whatever fits best,” the Devil offered. “And Sinner forms are more malleable than you might think when it comes to physicality.”

“I…” Alastor faltered. He could sense Lucifer’s sincerity on the matter, despite it not being at all relevant.

Lucifer was, in his own words, ‘not bound by human concepts of gender,’ with a particular distaste for ‘that strange binary system that’s gotten so popular.’ He actively encouraged demons and humans alike to live as their true selves even if – hell, especially if – that truth was an unconventional one.

And while Alastor legitimately could not care less about his own gender, he didn’t have it in his heart to spurn such genuine kindness from Lucifer. “Thank you for your support on my hypothetical sex change-”

“You’re welcome!” Lucifer interjected, all sunshine and smiles, and Alastor was hit with a swift and jarring reminder that Lucifer was once a creature of Heaven.

“But that is not even remotely the point!” Alastor said, exasperated. “I meant that it implies that we’re sneaking around.”

“We are sneaking around,” Lucifer said. “You don’t want the public to know about our relationship.”

“It implies that you’re cheating on your wife!” Alastor said, finally, his voice laced with static.

“Oh,” Lucifer said in sudden realization. “I didn’t think about it like that. Lilith and I have both used ‘paramour’ to describe our other partners since the fourteenth century,” he explained. “It just doesn’t have that kind of connotation to us.”

“Well it does to me!” Alastor sighed. “It was one thing when I thought I was an affair partner, but now that I know about your arrangement with Lilith, I’d like to stop feeling like some kind of homewrecker.”

“Hold on, did you actually feel guilty about the idea that we were” – Lucifer added largely unnecessary air quotes for dramatic effect – “‘having an affair?’”

Alastor laughed mirthlessly. “Remorse is for children and weak willed men. I outgrew it by the age of ten!”

“You’re not fooling anybody,” Lucifer teased. “Even if it wasn’t guilt, you felt something. And you were happy to know that you didn’t come between Lilith and I.”

Lucifer tapped his index finger against Alastor’s chest. “You’ve got a heart in there after all.”

“Hahaha, on the contrary, my dear friend!” Alastor swiped Lucifer’s hand out of the way and placed his own hand over his heart instead, curling it into a fist as he spoke. “While I may indeed have a heart, you’ll find it’s filled to the brim with more useful things, like bloodlust and spite!”

Alastor offered Lucifer a rather patronizing smile and wrapped his arm around him, taking advantage of the smaller form Lucifer so preferred to manipulate the Devil like a ragdoll.

“There’s no room for any of that emotional nonsense you’re blathering on about,” Alastor said with a dismissive hand wave.

He pulled out all the stops – sound effects, body language, squeezing Lucifer so hard it would’ve broken his ribs if he were human.

“I need every bit of it working towards my passion for performance! My romance with radio! And of course, my one true love…” Alastor performed a mock swoon to really top things off, one that ended with Lucifer scrambling to catch him. He looked up at Lucifer with half-lidded eyes and purred the word, “Murder.”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Alright, my darling, spiteful deer. If not ‘paramour,’ then what should I call you?”

Alastor maneuvered himself into a more upright position.

“Hmm,” he hummed. ‘Paramour’ certainly wasn’t the right word, but he was drawing a blank on what was.

“Boyfriend?” Lucifer suggested.

“Too juvenile.” Alastor promptly shut him down. “I’m a grown man and you’re older than humanity itself.”

“Partner?”

Alastor scoffed. “What are we, cowboys? Businessmen? Coppers? Lawyers? No thank you!”

“Lover?”

“Same implications as ‘paramour,’” Alastor told him. “And it adds the assumption that I love you.”

Something constricted in Alastor’s chest. The weight that was the acknowledgement of their mis-mached attraction, the crushing pressure of expectation.

In a moment of precarious vulnerability, Alastor felt the need to explain himself, the words tumbling off his tongue before he could think to stop them. “I know that you love me, and I care for you, I really do, but…”

Lucifer’s voice cut through Alastor’s rambling. “I know,” he said, gentle yet firm. “And I don’t expect anything else from you. I’m perfectly happy with the way things are between us.”

Lucifer held out a hand, palm up, offering Alastor the opportunity to initiate the touch.

Alastor took Lucifer’s hand. The pressure eased.

“What about something more personalized to you?” Lucifer asked. “Are there any French Creole words that might fit?”

Alastor thought it over, searching his memories for words he hadn’t considered applying to himself since he was a much younger man and still under the impression that he might someday fall in love.

‘Amourè’ had roots in love, as well, and wasn’t something he’d want to be called. ‘Kalin’ was more removed, but Alastor had always found the word a bit peculiar. As a noun, it meant ‘boyfriend’ or ‘male lover,’ but as an adjective, it was used to describe someone as lazy.

“No, none that I can think of!” Alastor said, sparing Lucifer his thought process.

Lucifer hummed. “I’ll just have to continue my guessing game, then,” the Devil mused. “Darling?”

“Too generic. You use that one on everyone from your wife to your one night stands.”

“Fair point,” Lucifer conceded. “How about sweetheart?”

“Too sentimental.”

“Significant other?” Lucifer offered. “S.O. for short?”

“Implies monogamy,” Alastor noted. “Which neither of us has any desire for.”

“Admirer?”

Alastor wrinkled his nose in disgust. “That makes it sound like I’m running a Lucifer Morningstar fan club.”

“I mean,” Lucifer said, drawing out the words in a wheedling manner. “I certainly wouldn’t mind that.”

“Lucifer.”

“I’d even start a Radio Demon fan club to reciprocate,” the Devil promised.

Alastor’s smile thinned to a line. “Lucifer, I’m vetoing ‘admirer.’”

“You’re no fun sometimes,” Lucifer pouted.

Alastor pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know, I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea, myself, but every once in a while, we will have to have a serious conversation.”

“But why does this have to be one of them?” Lucifer asked. “We’ll find a word for us eventually, but what’s the rush? What’s with this sense of urgency? You’re putting yourself under so much pressure, and for what?”

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose,

By any other word would smell as sweet.”

Quoting Romeo and Juliet was sickeningly sweet – and so very, very Lucifer that Alastor found it rather endearing in spite of himself. A Shakespearean comedy revered as a romantic tragedy, on the lips of the Devil, himself, as he tried to comfort his not-quite lover.

“Having a name for us might be helpful, but not having one isn’t going to end us.” Lucifer brought his free hand up to Alastor’s cheek, not quite touching it, and allowed Alastor to close the rest of the distance.

“You’re still my Alastor, my darling deer. I’m still your Lucifer, your Devil dearest. We’re still us.” Lucifer squeezed Alastor’s hand and gave him a pleading look. “Try and remember that, please, Al? Maybe it’ll help to take some of the pressure off.”

The realization hit Alastor like a bullet between the eyes. “I was doing it again, wasn’t I?”

Lucifer gave him a lopsided half-smile. “Getting hung up on the details, stressing the fuck out, and getting combative because things were out of your control and that scared you? Yes, yes you were.”

Alastor cursed under his breath. “Alright, how do I…” Struggling to find the right words, Alastor repeated Lucifer’s back to him. “How do I stop getting hung up on the details and stressing the fuck out?”

“Uhh,” Lucifer faltered.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Alastor thought to himself. He doesn’t know either?

“Give me a minute!” Lucifer protested, as if sensing Alastor’s judgment. “It’s not something I have a problem with, myself, and Lilith’s better at giving advice without speaking from experience.”

Alastor watched the Devil flounder for a moment, taking a small amount of sadistic glee in not being the only one struggling with emotional intelligence for once.

“Alright, I got it!” Lucifer said, finally. “You trust me, right, darling?”

“Yes…” Alastor said hesitantly.

“And you choose to trust me,” the Devil continued. “It’s something that you consider to be within your control.”

That wasn’t always the case – trusting Lucifer had been entirely accidental at first; at the time, it felt very much not within Alastor’s control, which had caused Alastor a great deal of distress and nearly led him to sabotaging the relationship on multiple occasions – but now…

“Yes,” Alastor answered honestly. Because trusting Lucifer was now a conscious decision. It was a choice he’d made after waking up in bed with the Devil one October morning, and one he had continued to make every day since then.

“So choose to trust me, now,” Lucifer said. “Trust that I know what I’m talking about, here.”

“Do you know what you’re talking about?” Alastor asked.

Lucifer stuck his forked tongue out. “Rude,” he said. “But fair. I’m asking for your trust and it's well within your right to make me earn it.”

Lucifer paused for a moment, then asked, “Did you know Lilith and I didn’t have a word for what we were for centuries?”

Alastor raised one eyebrow. “I assumed you would’ve called each other husband and wife.”

“Nope,” Lucifer said, popping the ‘p’ sound at the end. “It was a good long while before either of us were ready for that.”

“I mean, Lilith left the Garden so that she could be something more than just some guy’s wife. She wasn’t exactly itching to get married again.” Lucifer ran his free hand through his hair. “And I’d just Fallen so I was still getting used to the whole ‘not dedicating my entire existence to my Father’ thing…”

The Devil got a far off look in his eyes for a moment, and Alastor found himself holding tighter to Lucifer’s hand in an effort to bring him back.

Thankfully, it worked. Lucifer smiled softly and turned his attention back to Alastor.

“There wasn’t really a word back then for someone who was a lover but not a spouse,” Lucifer said. “There were exactly two languages – well, three if you count Tongues – but not one had a word for what we were to each other.”

“Was it…” There were one thousand and one questions on Alastor’s lips. In an effort to save time, he chose the most open-ended one. “What was it like?”

“New,” Lucifer answered. “And terrifying. Everything was, back then.”

“Hm,” Alastor hummed. The words echoed back to him from inside his mind. First in Lucifer’s voice – ‘New. And terrifying. Everything was’ – and then in a voice that sounded like his own – ‘New. Terrifying. Everything is.’

“And despite it all, we survived.” Lucifer’s voice caught Alastor’s ear. “We spent almost five-hundred years hopping between various endearments with nothing ‘official’ to call ourselves because the words to describe our love just hadn’t been invented yet.”

“Almost five-hundred years,” Lucifer repeated. “So, I think you and I can manage a little longer than five minutes if you just calm the fuck down.”

Alastor laughed in spite of himself. “Alright,” he said. “As you seem to be speaking from experience, Devil dearest, I suppose I can place my trust in your time tested hands.”

“Whoo!” Lucifer cheered, face alight with the goofiest grin imaginable.

Creature of Heaven, Alastor reminded himself with a sigh. And what an odd creature he was. Alastor wondered if all angels were like this – when they weren’t coming down in droves to commit mass murder in the name of population control – or if Lucifer was an oddity amongst even his angelic kin.

Lucifer cleared his throat and schooled his features in a rather amusing attempt at seriousness. “Better?” he asked.

Alastor thought about it for a moment before answering. “Yes, actually!”

It was surprising the difference it made to hand over control of a situation rather than feel it slipping through his fingers.

The seemingly impossible task of finding a single word to describe his and Lucifer’s connection to each other was now firmly Lucifer’s responsibility – as were any potential consequences of not finding one.

Alastor didn’t need to think about the what ifs or the what nows; he didn’t need to get wrapped up in the details of linguistic origins or cultural connotations. Lucifer would find something, or he wouldn’t. And either way, they’d be alright.

“I am curious, though,” Alastor said. “About the endearments you mentioned. And how they differ from ‘official’ labels.”

“Oh, that.” Lucifer paused. “If I had to compare… They were more like ‘darling deer’ and ‘Devil dearest’ than ‘paramour’ or ‘partner.’ Words for each other, not for the relationship.”

“Hm,” Alastor hummed, curiosity far from sated. He knew that these ancient endearments were in tongues he couldn’t understand, and yet, he couldn’t help but wonder…

“Tell me one,” Alastor demanded.

Lucifer got a dreamy look in his eyes. “I used to call Lilith” – Lucifer made a sound that Alastor could never hope to replicate, even with the entirety of Hell’s airwaves at his disposal. Perhaps if he had Heaven’s, he might get somewhere close, but it’d never match the reverence with which Lucifer spoke.

It was beautiful, melodic, Heavenly. And for the first time in quite some time, Alastor found himself genuinely awed by Lucifer’s angelic nature.

“It’s the Enochian word for ‘song,’” Lucifer explained.

“Fitting,” Alastor whispered, somewhat breathless. “It sounded like music.”

Lucifer laughed. “Oh the whole language is a bit musical,” he said.

The Devil gasped. “Wait, that’s it!”

“What?” Alastor asked. “What is it?”

“Flame,” Lucifer said, eyes lit up like the sun. “As in, I don’t want to set the world on fire,” he sang.

By the next line, Alastor was singing along with him, the instrumental playing behind them.

“I just want to start

A flame in your heart.”

Alastor kissed Lucifer with rare softness. “It’s perfect,” he whispered against the Devil’s lips.

“Told you we’d last more than five minutes,” Lucifer teased.

Alastor bit him in retaliation. And well, it rather devolved from there.

[teh-nos]

okay sorry to be a judgey bitch about literally everything (she lied) but i am halfway through the night manager and the plot of this episode seems to be that Blond Loki is being kept on an island for no obvious reason (possibly as a living sex doll?) and he wanders it meeting people who just instantly start explaining part of the plot to him. like this woman:

This is literally the first conversation I remember these characters having and this is the first topic she goes for. WTF. And I don't know what happens after this but if they AREN'T all playing a weird mindgame where they're all feeding him lies I will be disappointed as this is like watching someone play one of those video games where you have to go up to every NPC and ask them for a sidequest and/or plot info. There's a scene where a literal child starts expositing about secret rooms in the house and the magical items he'd need to find to access them to get to the portal to Hyrule.

I don't understand this, it is very odd. But this is the pattern so far, and sometimes the other characters are expositing because they want to fuck him (see above re: sex doll theory) but I don't think that's officially the plot. Is Hugh Laurie keeping him as a pet?

I do think maybe the Evil Gay Guy (so far the most entertaining character and therefore the best one) might be messing with him, otherwise it is hard to explain why you would approach a man, tell him not to fuck one specific woman, and then go back to the shop where you sell potions to plucky adventurers. I mean why would you do that unless you were trying to get him to fuck that one specific woman?

One of the amusing mini-games in this RPG is called "Who Is He Going To Fuck Next?"

(This is a different woman. She is not specific and so I assume she is on the 'fuckable' list.)

After I took that screenshot she asked why Hugh Laurie was keeping him on the island of fuckable NPC quest-givers. Blond Loki said he doesn't know. I don't know either. But it's okay, she has more information about the plot to share with him.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asks. IT'S HER JOB, BLOND LOKI, DON'T MAKE HER QUESTION HER ROLE IN THIS GAME >:( SHE WILL BECOME SENTIENT LIKE IN THAT EPISODE OF STAR TREK.

[basedkikuenjoyer]

So what's creepier? Standing over your own dead body, the fact it's surrounded by weird bird men, or...that damn Changeling girl standing off to the side? Honestly Clara is my answer, always such a weirdo. IYKYK, but this is pretty much the climax of the Haruspex route. Pretty much this then the only thing Pathologic could call a boss fight. I made it.

As much as I love the classic "Daniil Dankovsky's Fun Steppe Vacation" vs. "Artemy Burakh's Steppe Nightmare" meme...have to say honestly the Haruspex overall felt a fair deal easier than the Bachelor's route. It starts a lot harder. Starts. Because unless you're an ass the Bachelor pretty much never has to worry about reputation. But once you get a handle on that? Which takes half the first day? Overall he doesn't have quite as many huge challenges in my book. The jail segment being the only one that felt super technically hard, even the boxing match with Oyun wasn't too bad. I did it on the first try. That's what it comes down to for me, Pathologic has some clunky controls but if you have enough experience with old games to adjust to the crap factor none of it is as bad as some of the truly grisly 8/16-bit challenges. Artemy also gets easy access to the shotgun so even when you do have to deal with reputation, it's not that hard to play Dr. Batman at night and cap some muggers.

Now, some of that of course was knowing the mechanics better with this being my second pass. Which blends well with playing the prodigal son this time around. Artemy grew up in Town-on-Gorkhon. He left to study medicine and comes back at the behest of his father who dies shortly before you arrive. You're following his notes and unlike the Bachelor who's constantly frustrated with the pagan steppe traditions you uphold them. Which means a lot more time out on the steppe which hey...isn't plague stricken. Had fun with the alchemy bit. You can make medicine out of plants you forage. Which is pretty fun. I also got a kick out of rat racing. Artemy's story is all about paving the way for the kids to take over the town after the plague so he gets to join in on some of their silly games. One of them being racing plague rats if you can sneak up on one and catch it.

All in all, I liked his story. The town felt a lot less hostile and you get to interact with some of the weirder aspects. It's a lot more grisly at parts with some harder decisions. But eh, Artemy Burakh is a hard man. I love his relationship with the Bachelor this time around. Very collegial. Capella might just be my favorite NPC in the town as well. She's a cool kid. Speaking of...let's talk the secret ending because I managed it this time as well:

The funniest thing in this entire game to me so far. I'm sure Clara's route will have some contenders, but this is great. Like with Daniil, you get to the last day and have the final test. Were you able to stockpile enough cures to heal the other two characters' bound? Sweet, then you get the secret endings with the kids in the sandbox and talking to the "makers." I don't think either really gave me that much new compared to the Bachelor. Daniil is more incredulous where Artemy gets mad but especially the theatre goes very similarly.

But I like what you can do with that info. Bachelor can tell Clara the Changeling who already knew, hinting at her story which if you'll recall is locked until you clear one path first because she's very dependent on meta knowledge. But she suggests that Haruspex can't handle the revelation. Playing as him though? Go rub it in to that snooty doctor. Who won't believe you but will insist if it's all a game he wants his side to win. Amazing.

The other big thing Artemy gets is extra dialogue with the Inquisitor. Who has the hots for him. She also inevitably figures out it's all a game because her doll belongs to the kids' aunt. You get a fun bit with that where you can try to hit on her as the player while she demands her Artemy which is trippy. Good stuff, very fun route. I'll wait a bit before tackling Clara's but I'm sure it'll be great too.

[doubleedgemode]

that post u made about A.B.A regarding her classic GG quotes is so interesting I had no idea she said that! I haven’t played the earlier games, would u happen to have screenshots of where she says that or where I might be able to see some of her classic/unused quotes ? I just like having that stuff on hand lol. Thank you!

Thanks to you, anon, for making me revisit the screenshots, and sure thing! I'm gonna link the page, keep in mind it's super meaty and covers a lot of characters so ctrl F search will be your best friend to find specific character/quotes :)

I found them in this big quote compilation in guiltygear.ru, click the sentence to go there. (Kudos to @/solradguy's big gg neo.cities archival efforts making me find the page)... BUT before anything, important DISCLAIMERS❗:

1. Some of the quotes in general can get kind of explicit or with double entendres so uh keep that in mind.

2. Something I just learnt after going to find you the translations, it's to keep in mind their author: See, this is better explained in the aforementioned ne.ocities archival, but a lot of the site's translations were made by someone who, without going too much into detail, is... a controversial member of the community, who is known for putting a good bunch of misconceptions and mistakes into their translations. (Also they have, in my opinion, unsavory and even problematic takes about the franchise. Don't try to argue with them, just block, per proper net etiquette) I don't know japanese so I don't know if this quote index suffers from that so in the end, we'll have to take all this quote info with a huge grain of salt.

Keeping all this in mind, this is already probably a wordier answer than you expected BUT since we are at it, I'll ramble about some A.B.A quotes (in no order) that I found interesting about the topic under the cut, if you want to read that.

First and third quotes in this picture are pretty self explanatory about this part of her character. The vs Faust intro... Man, that looks straight out of her strive song. Dunno if they pulled inspiration from that, but it seems even in the classic days they had a pretty clear idea of part of A.B.A's story being existing and thriving in her own unique way.. Which makes me kind of emotional for some reason ;_;

These were NOT unused as far as I can tell, but obviously do correct me if wrong!

I find it fascinating how much of clear glimpses these are are into her law obsession (more on that specific one later) and believing herself to be a high class person and looking above "lower classes" shoulders.

Some of these aren't exclusively about the aforementioned topics but they mention her cooking god knows what creatures (like in that one infamous xxac ending) and just.. being a scared, pathetic individual at heart. Sigh.

There are probably more examples of all this but this post needs to end sometime today.😭 So, returning to her law thing being an obsession in capital letters, look at her ingame overdrives:

But before that, the elephant in the room: People's observations of her instakill looking pretty taxing to her to perform and even making a berserk Paracelsus look like even he thinks this goes too far are not far from the truth. "I might not recover this time... Dying!!!" What else can I say, that's just sad.. and very interesting lorewise about the toll of this kind of summonings. Yeah, people noticed that in strive, she can summon the same exact door as in her insta with no struggle (or at least not the same level for sure) indicates her power or skill have improved which is so so fascinating.. Anyways. Back to the law thing. We've always had a huge sign under our noses: Her saying Evidence in her overdrives. While sure it can be evidence in a more general meaning, like proving facts or something, it does call to LEGAL evidence, too

...Maybe that was super obvious for everybodh but I'm afraid to admit I didn't connect the dots til now haha 😅

I cannot access my xxacp copy right now to see if her saying shouko during her overdrives is correct, but were we to take this as truth and also trust a japanese language study site as solid because. Again I have zero knowledge of japanese... According to Nihongoclassroom..

It can be used in a legal setting.

And with this we can neatly wrap this up... Tdlr I guess she's living up to her creator being a mansion owner (which isn't precisely cheap) and it gets so interesting and double edged (HAH) if you believe her classic games was as self aware while doing this and fooling herself as strive A.B.A is.

AND she has or had a HUGE interest in law (and if u allow me to reach mayyybe morality too?). While probably not as core to her as her key thing, she sure has told the audience almost as much as it.

[stormdragon23]

Solo Leveling Novel Rambles starting from chapter 10 and up to chapter 12

(I should probably mention the chapter numbers I’m using are based on Tapas’ chapters, so it’s off from the actual chapter numbers)

Sung Jinwoo being reminded of Lee Juhee when he gets healed by the status recovery alsjdfa I wish more of their relationship was shown

Oh, the Rune Stones. Kind of forgot about them. I really like the background info on them though and how rare they are. Kind of want to explore that subject a bit more

I like how the novel spends some time explaining the skills. They were glossed over in the manhwa and anime, so by the time they were brought up, I didn’t even remember them

Jinwoo getting mad at the System because it’s not giving him any instructions about what anything means aksjkaksa I can relate to that though. I like step-by-step instructions. Also, him wishing he lifted the bed to test his strength before he spent his stat points is relatable haha Hindsight is 20/20

So far, Jinwoo in the novel seems more strategic than the manhwa? It speaks about his thoughts a lot more, so that may be why, but the manhwa seems to be more of him figuring out problems as it goes rather than taking the time he needs to figure things out

Jinwoo’s moments of excitement are so cute. He’s testing out his new strength after using the stat points and apologizes for making a mess when a nurse scolds him. I like Jinwoo’s sense of humor too. He seems easy to connect with in the novel compared to the manhwa. I love the art in the manhwa though, so you win some, you lose some

He seems a lot more grateful to be able to level up as well. In the manhwa and anime, he was more like “Oh thanks for saving my life. And the upgrades are nice too” while in the novel, he seems so excited about becoming stronger

Jinwoo doing research and the process behind it is something I really like seeing. Apparently, there are websites you need a Hunter’s license to access? I guess the license comes with an ID number or something? I don't think there was much of it in the manhwa. It would have been nice to see the forum in the manhwa though

Oh, Jinwoo noticed the sword in his inventory sooner than in the manhwa. I think I personally prefer the novel version of that since the manhwa seemed like too much of a coincidence.

I like Jinwoo's self-reflection after being betrayed in the double dungeon. While the manhwa does mention that Jinwoo wants to get stronger and not take unnecessary risks, I don't think it ever mentioned Jinwoo made the decision to no longer be necessarily kind. It's definitely shown later on in the manhwa which I found selfish yet understood why, but seeing the novel going into detail about it makes it clear about the reasons behind some of Jinwoo's decisions later on.

Oh, there's a conversation involving that one nurse that was pretty much forgotten in the manhwa. It's confirmed again that the S-Ranks are kind of seen as monsters, and the public doesn't know much about them. Baek Yoon-Ho is also mentioned! Although it's spelled as Baek Yun-Ho. At least his name is more recognizable than some of the other ones I've seen so far.

So the ranks of Hunters are visible for everyone to see? I guess that information isn't completely private. It does help with making sure people are telling the truth about their rank though

Okay, I can see why they dropped this part with the nurse in the manhwa lol I don't like it. This nurse girl wants to take advantage of the situation to have the chance to befriend an S-Rank. I mean, other people might do the same, but that doesn't mean it's not selfish.

Jinwoo says that his body has also changed drastically, even before he does the D-Rank dungeon, and notices the other nurses talking about him. He doesn't seem as dense as I thought he would have based on how he was in the manhwa

The chapters are split weirdly, so I'm actually around chapter 8 of the novel? They probably did it so that people would have to spend more. I'm choosing the free option though, so it doesn't really affect me that much, but the numbering is confusing

[more-luluteen]

Happy 10th Birthday to edition 64 - Cooking adventures! 🥳🎉

According to Guia dos Quadrinhos today 10 years ago the 64th Luluzinha Teen edition was published, ending the 6th season of the comics, which would only be succeeded by the 7th season stand-alone and last volume ever published for this series. Since there’s no scanlation available, the only info I found about this issue’s contents is this skoob text that was probably copied from the comic’s oficial blog that can’t be accessed anymore:

Translation:

"Hi, everyone. How’s it going? I’m here to tell you what went down in this edition.

Bola is still on tour and hasn’t called me in a while. It had been so long that when he finally decided to show up, I got so startled that I ended up in an alley far away from Escola Unida.

That was my lucky break! There, I met Simone, the owner of Bulldog, the only restaurant specializing in Liberta Udon. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but Udon is a type of Japanese noodle and it’s absolutely delicious.

There’s just one problem with all of this: Bulldog is in the middle of N-O-W-H-E-R-E, and no one goes there. So, I decided to help Simone and invited the whole gang to have lunch there.

Things were going really well until the school decided to add cooking classes to the curriculum. To make things worse, this subject is going to fail any students who don’t do well in it. Alvinho is already at zero.

I don’t need to tell you that almost everyone is in big trouble, right?

The biggest surprise in all of this was Plínio, who’s a real star in the kitchen and decided to give some lessons to me and Glorinha. Poor guy was super happy, thinking Gloss might have a crush on him.

The lessons didn’t go so well for the two of us, and now only a miracle—or some kind of chaos—can save us.

Besides this adventure, issue 64 of Lulu Tesn features an exclusive interview with the blogger Lully from Lully de Verdade. She’s super sweet, and I’m sure you’re going to love our chat. :)"

TLDR aka Notes I Take From This

Similar plot to the time when Lulu took martial art lessons in volume 47 — Lulu needs to win some kind of challenge, finds someone who can teach her, with dubious results (v47: she disrespects the base principals of a fair fight by mocking the loser after winning vs v64: she doesn’t learn how to cook)

It’s now confirmed in canon that both Lulu and Glória can’t cook (very well), while Plínio can

Alvinho might likely be acting like a clown in this (since it’s kinda his thing in latter editions 🙄)

Somehow Plínio is now bewitched by Glorinha (also a later season addition, since they began the series by breaking up and ignoring each other, contrary to the 50s comics)

[rottenbrainstuff]

BG3: The Party + random notes

And the big conclusion to the big fight: a big old party.

(dark urge spoilers)

Time to party with all my friends! There was a tiefling there I didn’t recognize, and apparently it’s because if any of the tieflings scheduled to be at the party die for any reason, there is a new back-up NPC there to take their place. So she was there instead of Alfira. 🥲🥲🥲 Sigh. I read online that if you’re playing durge, Alfira isn’t supposed to be replaced, and instead Lakrissa will mention she’s worried about Alfira… I would have preferred that (cause no one mentioned Alfira going missing at all) and I’m not sure why that didn’t trigger in my game.

Found a suspicious lady sneaking around in the grass???? She teleported away???? Doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of info about her online???? Guess I will find out more later????

What a cute party, everyone having a good time: Ikaron loosening up and having a pint, the three siblings still arguing, Bex totally smashed and trying to convince Danis to go into the bushes with her. I feel like if people don’t even like the cute tiefling kids, then everyone must just hate Rolan, who is always super annoying? I love Rolan though, silly idiot. I really wish I could follow these guys all to Baldur’s Gate and make sure they get there safely. Unfortunately it seems like I’m going to find some of them dead on the road as the game goes on no matter what I do, and… well. I’m not going to think about that right now - just going to enjoy the cute party.

It seems I’ve done something that’s glitched Gale or made him mad at me. All the companions propositioned me at the party, even ones I have politely rejected before, but not Gale. I had no dialogue options with him at all, he only told me to go and enjoy the party. Guess I really broke the guy’s heart when I told him that I only wanted to be friends. Sorry man. (another funny bug - Wyll is supposed to be off away from the party standing by the water. But sometimes he won’t be by the water, he’ll be at his regular tent, but he’ll still have the “I hoped you wouldn’t notice I had left” dialogue)

Apparently in early access, Zevlor lights magic lights in the sky, one for every life you saved today. Dang. Why did that get cut? That sounds beautiful? Man I just love Zevlor. Poor old guy can’t relax even at the party. (Honestly, if he was a romance option I think I’d be chasing him… sorry Astarion. It’s the shame, it’s the shame. I smell it like I’m a shark and it’s blood in the water. Give me a sad old character with shame and I’m there) I’m sure everything will go great for him from here on out and nothing sad will happen at all!!! :) :) :) :)

After the party scene, I got the second Guardian dream. DESPITE what you will read online, where the information seems to all be either guessing (incorrectly) or else based on the early access, I can confidently confirm that the second guardian dream is triggered after you free Halsin and talk to him about your tadpole. …and then my friend also playing this game, who has a really bad memory, swears up and down that they had a third guardian dream while they were at the goblin camp, but can’t remember what triggered it or what it was about. I could barely find info online about the second dream at all, I have no hope of finding anything about the third, but it seems so far that the dreams are triggered by concrete game events.

I might have mentioned this before but I am *REALLY* loving the little details in the books I find. I know there’s so many of them so there’s a tendency to skim them, but if you can force yourself to actually read each one, some of them are very funny or very interesting, and some include clever little easter egg tidbits. I LOVE how in conversations with Halsin, he mentions he wishes he had some books to read, and you can say that you keep finding a million books. I am collecting every single book I find and keeping them all in the chest I stole from Kagha, hehe.

Lastly, in my incidental looking up of things, I continue to see the most rancid takes and people complaining about the weirdest things. Like the fragile straight men crying that they need a filter in the game to protect them from male characters hitting on them. Or people complaining that the game is all just pointless combat, because these people are picking the most aggressive dialogue options then wondering why every NPC is aggressive. Or people saying you can’t blame the druids for being protective of their grove - yeah right, so protective they won’t even lift a finger to defend it from an invading goblin army, so protective they can’t even crack open their door to let in one single lost and scared child. On top of everything else they did that pissed me off.

The latest bizarre thing I read is complaining about how on a durge run, Alfira’s death shouldn’t be mandatory, or how the mandatory durge kills shouldn’t break your oaths if you’re a paladin.

Like. Guys, why are you even playing a durge run if you don’t like the durge story? This game has a narrative, it isn’t just a collection of “x action causes you to receive y effect.” The point of Alfira’s death is that it’s supposed to be senseless and devastating. If you are playing a good paladin, it absolutely SHOULD break your oaths and that should be something you have to deal with. That…. That conflict is supposed to be the entire bloody point of playing a resisting durge character. It’s what makes the story so interesting and gripping. If this stuff was optional it wouldn’t be as devastating. If you don’t like it, you can 100% play a different character. Why on earth play durge if you don’t like the durge story??? The game warns you at character creation that there will be consequences. Why… why would you complain when you run into those consequences?... I don’t get it.

Next up: just tying up all the loose ends before I am ready to explore the underdark. Gotta fight that gnoll nest, gotta do Ethel’s hut, gotta clear out the goblins leftover in the camp. SO looking forward to the underdark area.

[d4t-webserial]

D4T Extras: "Alice's Page 7"

//cw: transphobic, homophobic, and ableist slurs // go here for more info on d4t

She lays on her bed for a while sitting in her anxiety, unsure what their relationship even was anymore. After a while he responds to her text.

trashbag_minister (Lu): “it’s… complicated”

trashbag_minister (Lu): “i’ll try to answer questions as good as i can…”

She takes him up on that in fact she asks *alot* of questions, he doesn’t do a good job answering but she thinks that’s probably her fault (everything she was saying was pretty retarded). Thinking on it more she realized that her weird feelings about it probably was more about her than it was him. So she decided she just needed some time to think.

She couldn’t really talk to anyone else about this, and when she tried looking into detransition all she found new fun ways to hate herself. Now she only had access to google and twitter which might not be the best places to look, but she wouldn’t know where to find communities where trans supportive detransitioners (detrans people? detrannies?) hung out, people like Lu… even he said he didn’t know any other detrans people, not in person or online. So instead she just thought about it, she was kinda confused but she thought to herself “what would i want someone who had no idea what transness was to do”, he just… thought he was a girl, but wasn’t (right?). Did it have to be more complicated than that? He always treated her nice, he never said transness was wrong or unnatural. And he… expected her to leave kinda, like he didn’t say it he’d just say “i’ll understand if things can’t go back because of this” bracing himself for her to not be supportive, not be kind, she *hated* that, she hated that way more than she gave a shit he used to be a tranny. He was way too kind to need to have that reaction, like he didn’t *do* anything, not to her at least. He was just… himself.

She missed him, she wanted to be near him, and she wanted him to kiss her despite his gender bullshit. Hell if she was fine with him being a tranny why not be fine with him being a “detrans” boy, he was still *her* boy…

Tranny Mona Lisa (Alice): “r u free today?”

trashbag_minister (Lu): “ye, why?”

Tranny Mona Lisa (Alice): “can i hang at urs?”

trashbag_minister (Lu): “sure thing”

Tranny Mona Lisa (Alice): “yay!”

Tranny Mona Lisa (Alice): “when will you get here btw”

trashbag_minister (Lu): “around 20 minutes”

Tranny Mona Lisa (Alice): “❤️❤️❤️❤️”

She was so excited, nervous too but more so excited. She was gonna tell him she liked him… again, but like… it’s different this time cause she knows he’ll reciprocate.

When he comes to get her, she remembers how pretty he is. She just… stares at him for a second but before too long she snaps out of it and says hi. It started to dawn on her how scary this was, like she *thinks* he likes her but she doesn’t *know* he likes her, what if the detrans thing was his way off getting her to back off. She continues to spiral about this until Lu tells her they arrived at his campus, she tries to put the words together in her head as she gets to his dorm, but by the time she’s there she hasn’t gotten far. She realizes as she was about to talk that just coming out trails blazing talking about it might be… awkward (she wouldn’t want him to think she just came here to get with him… she really does miss him). So she tries to make some meaningless conversation but…

Lu: “Is there something you wanna talk about?”

Alice: “...”

(god damn it! stop being so fucking observing you bitch)

Alice: “yeah…”

his pretty brown eyes are staring into her soul

(okay… here goes nothing)

Alice: “I don't super know what your detransition means to you…”

Alice: “... i mean, i tried to learn, but there aren’t many… resources or anything”

Alice: “anyway i don’t know what it means, but i still like *you*”

he lets out a deep breath 

Lu: “Cool…”

(cool?!? the fuck does that mean)

Alice: “...”

Alice: “Do you… like me too?”

Lu: “Oh… you meant like *like like*.”

(this fucking retard…)

Alice: “Yeah no fucking duh, also who says ‘like like’ past the age of ten”

Lu: “i don’t umm…”

(fuck fuck fuck… she shouldn’t have assumed she’s so fucking stupid)

Alice: “Do you not? It’s okay if you don’t i… just thought you did…”

Lu: “No i d-do- i do, i just…”

(SHE FUCKING KNEW IT!!!)

Lu: “You shouldn’t,,n’t l-like me.”

(oh-no what gayass shit was this faggot gonna say now… he’s lucky she finds him so cute)

Alice: “Why???”

Lu: “Be-be-be-cau-cause you can do better-ter…”

(THATS RETARDED)

Alice: “That’s retarded!”

Lu: “L-Lys! You can’t sssay that!”

(shut the fuck up you stupid virgin bitch)

Alice: “Jesus fucking christ Lu, i… i just *fucking confessed to you*, and you respond with the dumbest shit i’ve ever heard, i can respond however the fuck i god damn want!”

Lu: “go-ju-Alice! I- it’s- god like you- you- you could- could have any s-s-ssself respecting man you want, you sh-shouldn’t se–se-set-t-tle for… *me*”

Alice: “I’m not settling, i *like* you, you’re smart and caring and sweet, why wouldn’t i like you.”

he looks like he can’t even understand the language she’s speaking

Lu: “Why *w-would* you! I’m a fu-fu-fu shit fuck god damn it! I’m a- I’m a fucking pathetic little shit preten-pretending to be a man, i-i-i can b-b-b-barely even s-sb-sp-speak, i…

he’s never stuttered this much before, he’s crying and she doesn’t know why, so she just reaches out to him

Alice: “Are you okay?”

Lu: “...ye i just, it’s nothing, my brain is stupid sometimes”

(she already knew that, but he seems to be talking about something else)

Alice: “That's okay, i’m sorry for getting you worked up.

Alice: “I’m just… if you like me and i like you there isn’t any real reason not to date right?”

Lu: “But it’s more,, complicated than that-t”

(don’t blow up on him)

Alice: “Why? Why does it have to be?”

Lu: “Because of all the s-st-stuff i said.”

Alice: “But i don’t care about any of that.”

he pulls back and looks a bit away from her

Lu: “I don’t even have a f-f-d-di-dick Alice… how would that- how would that even work”

(oh shit)

Alice: “Tons of people make that work.”

Lu: “But you shouldn’t- you shoulnt have too, your boy-boyfriend should be a real man not a tr-tr-trans girl in denial”

(trans girl in denial?)

Alice: “You could be my girlfriend then, we don’t hav-”

Lu: “I don’t want to be your girlfriend!”

(she feels her insides twisting)

Alice: “...”

Alice: “ok”

after a while she says

Alice: “I want to go home”

.

.

.

Lu: “ok… can i go to the bathroom first”

Alice: “of course”

Lu walks towards his bathroom

Fuck… why was he being so retarded. Did he hate himself so much that he can’t even allow someone else to love him, fuck… did she love him… no not important, he made his feelings known, if she does she’ll… stop. She *wanted* more than anything to say all the things to make him reconsider, but it was his choice. She couldn’t *make* them be together. Fuck…

when Lu returns she wipes the tears from her face

Lu: “What’s wrong?”

(she’s gonna kill him)

Alice: “...nothing”

Lu: “mhm?”

he puts his arm around her, and she lays her head on him

(why did he have to be so comfortable)

Lu: “You don’t have to say you’re fine.”

she looks up at him

Alice: “*I am fine*”

he clearly doesn’t believe her

Lu looks like he’s trying to tie a knot with his tongue

(why does he have to talk, can’t he just let her have this)

he puts his hand on her cheek

(mgddfmnsafsdm)

Lu: “Look as your boyfriend, you should- you should tell me when you aren’t ok.”

(what the fuck is happening)

Alice: “You’re my boyfriend?”

Lu: “I mean, even if i think you have bad taste, who would i be to deny the most b-b-gorgeous woman i-i’ve ever laid eyes on”

(since when did he have game?!?)

Alice: “... i… you think i…”

Alice: “I don’t have bad taste, you’re very…”

Lu: “The point is you should tell me why you feel bad.”

(he’s so stupid, it’s great)

Alice: “I actually feel alot better now.”

as he hears that he smiles and kisses her

(bfvbwjrbwfkregbhvbdhsmbrhfbiwsfkvbsfjh)

Lu: “I hope that means you don’t have to go home right now, cause i,, i really wanna,, be with you a bit longer”

she responds by grabbing onto his shirt and nuzzling further into him

Alice is so giddy. She has a boyfriend, *Lu* is her boyfriend. As she buries her face into him she thinks about how she never wants to leave.

[thequietmanno1]

Thelreads, MHA 274, Replies Part 1

1) “Also I think Endeavor showed up not-flying to fuck shit up, and he`s gonna die after throwing a single move. Let`s get started with Chapter 274: Search”- Luckily, Endeavour isn’t Fires Georg, and is actually competent in using his fires in ways both big and small, enabling him to survive close-combat with a man that is faster and stronger than him, with a bunch of additional powers, including his perfected ability to kill with a touch. And Endeavour survived agaisnt him with pure skill alone. 2) “Wakey-wakey Shiggy, it`s time for you to show what else you can do, what other weapons you have in that gamer body of yours?”- All Of Them, but none more dangerous to Izuku than the Auto-Targeting that’s focused on him, specifically, no matter where he goes. 3) “Horikoshi please I don`t think we had any need to know that much info, alright?

Oh wait, you meant his heart, sorry”- Or, ‘Search for the target’. Izuku isn’t even an opponent to Tomura right now, he’s just a speed-bump at best, but one that Tomura’s compelled to steamroll over regardless.

   (MHA ch 258)

4) “Oh yeah, I`ve been saying that for a long while, that AfO sitting at tartarus was exactly where he wanted to be, just bidding his time and relaxing while his successor did all the hard work. Once the pieces all topple down he`ll just walk out the door and get his throne back. Although, considering what happened so far, it might be he has some bigger plans than that, involving Shigaraki specifically.”- As it turns out, whilst he does plan to have his throne back, he still fully plans to have Tomura be the one sitting on the chair… Physically, that is. Mentally, and soulfully, it’s gonna be the one person AFO would trust to fully inherit his empire- himself. Meet the old boss, same as the new boss….

     (MHA ch 258) 5) “One thing that can happen is the, erm, “recruitment” of Twice to the heroes` side. If they bring him there then the heroes might have a chance, just need to clone a few high-powered heroes and use them as cannon folder to chirp down Shigaraki`s health, that way they might be able to stop him before All for One returns. Although.. I doubt that AfO will be sitting quietly once he knows what is happening, he`ll be out of that cell and joining the fight before the end, that`s for sure.”- Or he won’t need to physically leave the cell to start having a hand in dictating how this fight goes. Like a certain other ‘chosen One’, Tomura’s now got to deal with the big bad villain having access to the inside of his head, and unfortunately for him, strong emotions aren’t sufficient to repel his mental invader like Lord Voldemort.     (MHA ch 269) 6) “We have two options where this can go, either we learn of who the traitor is *eyes kaminari* or AfO is about to pull a Thanos and solve things with his own hands.

I think the second one is the most plausible one, I said a long time ago how I thought the plan was to get Shigaraki to rise to the throne, so he could eventually come and save AfO from hell, a long-game gambit to play, but now that plan kinda went down the drain. Shigaraki is still asleep, he`s gonna be transported somewhere safe, they won`t let Kaminari near him.

So, which place is safer to keep Shigaraki`s body than in the most secure villain prison in the world? Right where AfO is… I don`t think he planned this, but he sure as fuck won`t let that opportunity slide.”- Oh, AFO planned to solve things with his own hands all right. He just has a more direct means of doing so than reaching Tomura’s body physically, and it’s not, strictly speaking, his hands than he’s using…     (MHA ch 273) 7) “The Discord chat is already egging him to get going, jesus the man just woke up and they expect him to get shit done smh”- All For One’s been waiting a long time for this moment, he’s just too excited about his looming victory to hold back anymore…

8) “Let`s go Endeavor, show us how that firenado improved ever since, now this right here is a young-adult that you can legally murder”- If nothing else, Horikoshi manages to get across the sheer scale of destructive firepower Endevour can unleash better than Furuhashi 9) “What is that in the distance? Is there someone else coming that Shigaraki noticed?”- More like the proverbial devil on his shoulder has moved inside his head and is starting to pull his strings to get what he’s been wanting all this time… Tomura didn’t even seem to activate Search himself, it just flipped on and highlighted Izuku to him straight away, so it’s actually unclear anymore if Tomura’s the one using the Quirks, or if his dark passenger is lending him subtle expertise in activating them, so long as Tomura does what he wants in the end. 10) “Yeah, I doubt that was anywhere effective, but at least Endeavor can buy some time, depending on how powerful they made his regeneration. My best guess is: that`s gonna slow him down for a few seconds at most.”- Honestly, I think that fire just staggered Tomura for a second or two and made him lose focus on tracking Izuku more than anything. That inferno didn’t even really hurt him, it just distracted him. 11) “Bold of you to think he even needs to run away.

Sorry Endeavor, but you really have no idea what you`re up against, are you? Did you read what AfO was capable of in his prime? Yeah, that was nothing compared to what Shiggy here can do now.”- Honestly, No-One does. The accounts of what AFO’s true power and abilities were like at the height of his power are unclear at best, and the closest we’ve seen to that was the brief glimpse when he killed Nana. The most the present generation have witnessed of his strength was the fight at Kamino, and that was him with multiple handicaps. AFO always desired more power and strength no matter how much he had, enough that even weakened he was basically unbeatable. And Tomura? He set things up to pack this kid with even more strength than his original body could have held, just to avoid a repeat of his loss. AFO desired to have no limits on what he could amass, and Tomura is now the receptacle of that absurd amount of power, enough that even incomplete he’s basically more powerful that Machia himself going all-out

12) “Yeaaaah… That`s not gonna happen Endeavor, sorry. You couldn`t stop him if you tried- and I am pretty sure you are trying.

Also, fuck`s sake, X-crotch’s cape didn`t last, can`t believe it.”- Like Tomura, that Cape is a lot more durable than it seems at first glance. 13) “Shigaraki: Oh, finally some warmth, I was really getting cold here, even with this cape.”- Now, this panel raises an interesting question to me – Can Tomura even feel pain anymore? It would make sense for Garaki to inhibit his ability to feel  pain as a distraction if he’s now got Quirks that reverse the damage anyway, but given how he can laughing his head off even as his own arm started to crumble away, I honestly can’t say for certain if it isn’t simply that Tomura’s fucked-up psyche simply doesn’t register pain in the same way anymore, akin to how Izuku got used to it himself at 100% attacks. Either way, it doesn’t matter how much you damage him, Tomura’s not going to react to it, and will still be focused on killing you when an ordinary mortal would have at least flinched a little. 14) “Now for real, theoretically we could neutralize Shigaraki by burning him so bad that he can`t regenerate anymore, we did the same with the high-end back then, but that raises one question: even Endeavor uses all his power, goes plus ultra, even if he dies to release every ounce of fire he can muster, would that be enough to kill Shigaraki?

Something tells me the answer is “no””- The Nomus seems to at times be almost powered by their willpower, those of them that had it, and Hood’s loss came a little but after his mind and will were shattered by the strain of his multiple abilities. It’s unclear how much damage they can recover from head injuries, but if Tomura’s relentless willpower is now channelled into holding his body together to ensure he’ll destroy everything before expiring, then it might actually be impossible to kill him physically, unless you likewise break his mind and will to keep fighting. 15)“Yeah, Shiggy was already absurdly agile before the improvements, we are not dealing with a low-level gamer here Endeavor.

This is the End, and the End cannot be stopped.”- We can slow him down, but the end goal of the Nomu research was always to make a body that was utterly unstoppable: All Might level with none of the weaknesses or handicaps. The only advantage is that not everything’s ready yet, but he’s still so strong that it might actually not matter if he just kills everybody before the side-effects of waking up early kick in. 16) “Oh my, quick thinking and good reflexes there.

There goes the phone that Shigaraki had… Damn millennials can`t even take care of a single phone.”- It doesn’t matter at this point. The call got through, the order has been made, and now everybody at the lodge has their own unstoppable opponent to face down. 17) “Also, isn`t there like, half a dozen people already on their way? We saw the lights coming.”- Ragdoll’s search allowed her to track people’s location with no specified distance limitation, meaning that it’s entirely possible that Izuku could be halfway around the world and Tomura would still know where he is and be gunning for him. If anything, the fact he’s so close right now is a good thing, because it means he has a heads-up on the apocalypse that’s tracking him, rather than being ambushed by him out of the blue. 18) “Oh there we go, there are other quirks in there after all. Shigaraki was not given a blank slate so he could start building his stockpile from the ground up, he seem to have a lot of options to use

and like any avid gamer, he`s gonna find out what this new build he`s trying can do”- AFO admitted he was trying to give Tomura easy-use brute force Quirks for quick handling, such as the air cannon he just used, of the type that’s also incredibly damaging when unleashed in a civilian area. Even without Decay, Tomura can easily level a city with the sheer force his Quirks can unleash, especially with his Dark Master having a say in how the fighting’s going. 19) “Yeah Shigaraki, seems like you got a whole damn arsenal at your fingertips, time to use it to it`s full potential.

I do wonder how many quirks All for One left inside that thing, there must be hundreds of quirks in there, thousands possibly!”- The Quirk was somewhat limited at the time it was passed on, in that AFO’s physical vessel was broken and unable to store as many Quirks as he originally could, which limited what he could possess against what he desired to possess I.E: everything. With Tomura now, I’d say he’s got about as much Quirks as AFO was using in his ‘spare’ Quirk, with the potential to store many, many more down the line, should he desire to steal rather than destroy. 20) “Oh my god one the fucking hands survived all that? what the fuck”- The Hand. Nana’s hand, and the only sole surviving remainder of his family. Honestly, beyond the Quirk-erasing bullets stored in the machine, I’d say preserving it was mostly why Tomura didn’t Decay that platform. He can claim to have moved fully beyond his symbols, but his family’s remains still do stir his deep-seated emotions like nothing else… 21) “…

oh boy. Ohhh boy… Yeah, this is going to be a really interesting arc for shigaraki`s character.

The most powerful person in the world sat atop the highest mountain, and from there he saw the world below and skies above, both under his reach, both under his control. And yet, in the end, he was, and would forever be, completely alone.”- Well, not as alone as he’d like to be. He’s got an unfortunate passenger in his head, pushing him to do the things he might not really want to do himself. In a twist of Irony, accepting this immense power to be fully ‘free’ to do whatever he wanted only enslaved Tomura more to his master’s schemes and will. @thelreads

[eagle-shadow]

:3

i got more!

The first few days of being with section 4 they all shared a room. They were all very paranoid, Huang takes the first watch, then Mao, Hei and Yin. Hei Yin and Mao share the bed Huang takes the couch. Hei cooked all their food didnt trust anything brought by anyone. Yin was getting any bit of info/gossip to maybe use as leverage. Mao was taking over roaches and flies but couldn't control it. Huang was being a stubborn ass to everyone but also very proud of his team. Even after officially joining they all share an apartment. Misaki asks how is there new living arrangements

Huang: Eh not bad Hei cooks, me and Yin clean Mao catches the bugs

Mao: I have a nice place to sunbath and a clean litter box

Hei: I have what I need, a shelter, a bed, and a place to cook

Yin:...Huang snores in his sleep...Mao knocks things over...Hei likes to cuddle in his sleep.

The guys: Yin!

Misaki: wait you don't have your own room?

Yin: Not needed

Hei: standard procedures.

Huang: eh normally Dolls are very sought after so the contractors usually protect them. Figured it won't do any harm.

Misaki: Yin is a young woman who needs her privacy! Why would a man who's nothing more than a coworker share a room!

Mao: Eh there not much to see~

Misaki: That's not the point! What if something happens!

Huang: I think your just worried about Yin stealing him away. Not that he would lay a finger on Yin!

Mao: Hei wouldn't. But Yin might eat him up alive!

Huang: oh! You're right!

Hei: I am right here!

Yin:...

Yin will sometimes sit very still for hours, with perfect posture. She's far too still that you can't even tell she's breathing. It freeks everyone out, but the humans aren't use to dealing with dolls that aren't in the giant tubes. So they ask her what she likes, Yin's programming is still limited so she takes her time, says anime, music, Huang and Mao. Everyone laughs saying she doesn't like Hei. Yin blinks because they only asked what she liked. She doesn't get what is so funny, hei finds out and is super depressed.

Yin eats very little it makes Misaki worried because the wind will blow her away! They try to get her to eat more, it's to much and she gets a tummy ache. Hei glares at everyone involved asking who's idea was it to give her crap food. Hei takes his role as team cook very seriously. Huang is in the background fretting Mao is spilling the beans they didn't give him any food.

Huang will sometime add to section 4s plans but it's mostly like black ops type plans. They have to remind him that they're cops, who are out in the public.

Yin will drop the most random piece of information if the ask is not specific enough.

Misaki: Yin anything on the target?

Yin: His wife left him three months ago. He's watching xxx on his phone while-

Misaki: No! Stop

Huang:* laughing*

Yin finds Saito practicing on how to ask Misaki out. She wants to help because she's trying to understand love. She doesn't have access to her dramas nor her bl.

Yin: pretend I am Kirihara and ask me out

Saito:*deep breath* I have tickets to that new orchestra so do you want to go out with me?

Yin: we have a lot of cases to work on...

Saito: ah so that's a

Yin: If we finish them before Friday we should be free for the night

Saito: So it's a date!

The department gossip: oh new ship in the building! *Tells everyone they whole building knows*

Every guy asking how he got a date with section's 4 new beauty. Saito is confused, just brushes them off. Hei is just glaring at him from across the room. Mao and Huang are too but he's more worried about Hei because he's twirling his knife right out on the open. Saito thinks he sees blue sparks coming from the blade along with the red eyes. Maybe it's the nerves getting to him. Sadly he can't get any alone time with Misaki because Hei keeps interrupting for some reason. Section 4 romance experts are trying to see if this is a love triangle between Saito Misaki and Hei or if Yin is trying to build a harem of men. Yin goes up to Misaki

Yin: Saito wants to go on a date with you

Misaki: I what?

November 11: ah no can do we are going on a date!

Yin: Take him with you or Hei's going to kill him.

November11: just call off your dog

Misaki: Hei!

November: not you her

Yin:....

November 11 takes Yin under the presence of training. He wants July to have a friend, also wants to see if dolls react differently with one another. Turns out they have a silent conversation and just stare at each other. He gets bored and leaves them alone for like 5 minutes a d they're gone. November 11 panicks because July has never done this without orders it's obvious that Hei's doll has corrupted his boy. They are eventually found at a cat cafe. November 11 leaves July with Yin and Huang for babysitting. The boy now knows how to shoot a gun, take it apart and put it back together play card, count cards, use a pocket knife, he can now play the piano. Worst of all he's into those cheesy romance soap operas, has started watching dramas in foreign languages.

November 11: So um you know Spanish?

July: Sí me enseñó Yin.(Yes Yin taught me)

November 11: alright I'll pretend I understood

November gets cornered by Yin in a secluded hallway. He knows someone is listening in but doesn't know who

Yin: Where did you get July?

November 11: oh? Interested are we?

Yin: Yes I want a companion, Hei says July is yours. I want one for myself.

November 11: If you want one it's going to cost you?*leen closet trying to get a reaction*

*they both here a soft gasp and quick footsteps going away*

Yin: I found three locations where the syndicate is hiding dolls while waiting for transfer.

November: and you want to keep one as payment for the extra hands.

Yin: *nods*

November: we are going to be best friends.

Yin: liar you want to annoy Hei

November: oh definitely my new bestie.

Later it becomes knows that Yin is infact trying to build a harem of men, so far she has the gentle giant Saito, the cool foreigner Mr.Smith. April thinks it hilarious and joins Yin's supposed harem acting as Yin's bodyguard and babysitting when Huang isn't around. Yutaka wants to be part of Yin's harem because he's upset he wasn't picked first he thought he and Yin where friends after karaoke night!

That karaoke night is very hazy no one remembers anything April brought out the drinks. Saito and May were out first, Mao Huang and April were having a drinking contest. November was flirting with Misaki who was trying to flirt with Hei. Hei was keeping an eye on Yin while Yutaka and Yin were jamming out and drunk. Kunio was the designated driver.

Hei enjoys cooking for the team and later section 4 he makes way to much food and it's always enough to keep him full. Gets annoyed when the humans start making requests for food. He tells them no, but if Yin asks for something specific he'll make it for her so she can try new foods. Cooking is his love language and if Yin wants chicken and waffles she's getting some weird American food. Everyone else complains about favoritism. The next dinner Huang has an extra serving fried chicken with his beer. Mao gets some salmon, Yin gets tacos. Misaki gets a cheeseburger, July gets shepherds pie. That's it everyone else gets the usual, except November he gets nothing.

Girls night is wild Yin invited Kiko over. Mayu Kiko and Kanami take over and bring out the bl/NSFW discussion. Misaki is trying to stop them, Yin is not helping, at all.

Misaki: *Blushing* Stop!

Kanami: Oh there is nothing wrong with liking them younger than you ~

Kiko: ooh a Cougar we like that

Misaki: enough!*angry*

Yin: I want a man with a fat ass that I can pegg.

Misaki: wha-

Girls: Ohh!! tell us more!

Misaki:I must escape!

Later

Misaki: I understand why Hei needs to be careful around Yin.

Huang: ah you listened to that too

Mao: Don't worry we had the talk with her.

Huang:*Nodding* although I blame you for the way she turned out Mr ankle biter!

Mao: I appreciate the beauty of the ankles.

Huang: ya would suck toes infact you lick them now!

Mao: Cat brain took over! I said I was sorry

Misaki learns team lore against her will, Yin is known to spy on others, Hei has a limit on how much he can stand interacting as Li. Huang has gotten scratched by random stray cats thinking it was Mao. Mao and Huang have a running bet on if Hei and Yin will ever talk because there are moments when Hei will just stare at Yin. Huang thinks it's because he zones out, Mao thinks it's something else. The humans have picked up on it and also joined the bet. Saito to get back at Yin for that one time bets that Yin had a crush on Hei and the feelings are mutual. Everyone laughs because everyone has a crush on Hei, others bet it's a one-sided love that Yin holds. Some believe Yin is trying to build a harem for the giggles. November goes all in with Saito, April as well and July. Misaki says she's above betting but keeps an eye out.

Yin gets a guide dog! Because yes. Mao hates the dog on principle. Absolutely crushed that Yin has replaced him, he goes and sleeps under Hei's bed. They got Yin her own room. The Dog who doesn't have a name yet loves Mao and wants to play with him. Huang says to keep it away not even a day later he's petting it. Yin calls her dog Cherry. It's a boy she doesn't care. His name is Cherry.

Huang gets his hands on some weapons don't ask. He gives them out on dangerous missions. He keeps the cool ones, has been trying to teach Yin self defense because that guy Genma who they've only met once gives him the creeps. Mao feels it to like something in his animal instincts screama at him. Hei does not that like Genma at all, just the way he looks at Yin.

Yin makes a new friend Yoko, they bond over the piano and just enjoy each other's company. Yin also meets Mina who she mistakes for Hei at first, she quickly realizes her mistake. Mina finds out about the supposed Yin harem she wants Yin to instead join her harem of her and Yoko. Yoko is confused because she's not dating Mina. Yin sees this as an opportunity to understand more about love.

Everyone says Yin has a type.

Mao finds it hilarious that he teases Hei about it.

Mina takes one look at Hei, then at Yin she knows something is going on between them.

Mina: *glares at Hei*

Hei: * Glares back*

Mina:*glances at Yin *

Hei:*glances at Yoko

They nod at each other. Everyone is so confused about it. But just think it's a contractor thing.

the whole hei being employed by section 4 is great and hilarious and beautiful and I really want some more exploration of the little reveals that would happen. cuz obviously the big dramatic one would be the whole assassin contractor thing, but like. hei having been in heavens war. mind-blowing. especially cuz he's younger than most of section 4. he's a baby. hei speaking a bunch of languages? insane. why do you know how to speak Klingon you wacky little assassin? (he was infiltrating a con. walked right in decked out in full black reaper gear. he won best costume.) you're not actually a contractor? just super depressed? dude. no. that's not normal. go to therapy. you only own enough stuff to fill a duffle bag? no. unacceptable. here's some hand-me-downs from saito and Kono, and what do you mean you don't own a scarf?

just all the little things he would think are normal but are actually deeply concerning to the Adults™ on the team who relentlessly mother hen him.

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Continued from this post, Part 3 of my discussion of Essek Thelyss in the context of real-world espionage. This time: what happens to espionage assets in the long run? Do they break contact, and why? What might have been in store for Essek?

At the treaty meeting Essek tells Ludinus to his face that he wants no further contact with the Assembly, not even to learn what the Assembly discovers via their own beacon. He’s far from the first asset to try to sever their relationship, and it ends in one of three ways: they don’t manage to break contact, they break contact but voluntarily return, or (rarest of all) they end the relationship permanently. 

Most attempts don’t go beyond option 1, because intelligence agencies are not in the business of respecting their assets’ choices. Handlers are skilled in keeping the upper hand in their asset relationships and will take any further opportunity to gain leverage by compromising the asset. For instance they’ll often pay for information even if the asset hasn’t requested it, because money changing hands makes it far harder for an asset to frame their activities positively to their own side if they attempt to confess (”You expect us to believe they were blackmailing you when you got $10,000 to hand over the secret manual?” etc.) And when push comes to shove most people aren’t willing to accept the severe punishments for espionage. An asset’s threat to confess is more likely a negotiating ploy than a serious option.

Some assets, especially nervous or ego-driven ones, get the carrot: the KGB did a strong line in awarding secret medals to convince them they were doing important, well-regarded work and that the KGB would protect them - not an empty reassurance, as highly-placed moles like Aldrich Ames warranted elaborate ops involving double and triple agents to avert suspicions. And some assets get the stick: the handler tightens the screws using whatever leverage they’ve gained, implies that they’re already “too far in to go back,” or gives some time for those who were blackmailed into spying to think about the consequences of exposure.[1]

Those who get as far as option two, breaking it off and later returning, are usually driven away by fear but back by finances. Fantasy spies have all sorts of motives but in real life the majority are in it for the money. Assets, as you might imagine, make bad choices. About half start selling secrets just to stave off massive debt from overspending and poor financial decisions (the rest feel underpaid.) So even if these assets stop temporarily, the circumstances that drove them to espionage in the first place are still very much present. In these cases all a handler has to do is shrug and say, “You know where to find us.” Infamous FBI mole Robert Hanssen broke off contact with his Russian handlers when the Soviet Union collapsed, fearing he might get outed in the chaos, but linked back up with them just 10 months later when, surprise surprise, he needed some cash.

And then there are the rare handful who stop completely. There’s a bit of survivor(?) bias here because anyone who passes along secrets, breaks off the relationship before being caught, and manages to get away with it is by definition someone we don’t know about. Those who do manage to break contact long-term are usually able to do so because they left the situation that gave them access to interesting secrets and therefore the controlling agency determined they were no longer a useful resource and not worth pursuing. But even if an asset stops working for an agency, they’re far from forgotten - and far from off the hook. Names and evidence of their espionage would be kept on file for potential use as blackmail, leverage in state-to-state negotiations, or expendable material to prove bona fides in ops involving fake defectors or triple agents. A surprising number of spies are caught/outed years after their espionage ended.

Very few assets permanently sever their espionage relationships the hard way: making a genuine confession and accepting punishment. But it’s not unheard-of, especially if the espionage was brief and the asset believes the damage can be repaired. In 1989 Army signals analyst Michael Peri disappeared from his post in West Germany along with a portable computer containing numerous classified documents. Eleven days later he returned to his previous post with the computer and voluntarily confessed to the theft and sort-of defection to East Germany. When interrogated, Peri - who had been a model soldier until that point - said he felt overworked and underappreciated by his superiors, though he couldn’t entirely explain his decisions either to leave or to return (a sexy female Russian agent might also have been involved). He received a 30-year sentence.

Marine Clayton Lonetree, a guard stationed at the US Embassy in Moscow in 1985, was blackmailed over an affair to hand over details on the embassy compound for a year, but his conscience finally got the better of him and he confessed in late 1986. Being a Marine he faced the very real prospect of death by firing squad, but the court martial ended up giving him a 30-year sentence. It was later reduced to 15 after the Marine Corps Commandant wrote a letter to the Navy Secretary on his behalf attributing the young Marine’s actions not to treason or greed but to loneliness, naivety, and poor judgement.[2]

Going back to Essek’s case, he’s already in the minority of espionage assets because he doesn’t want money in return for the secrets he passes along; though the knowledge the Assembly promises him in return fulfills a similar desire, Essek doesn’t need that knowledge to pay off the equivalent of debt or to maintain his lifestyle. He has no pressures at home that force him to continue spying. With the beacons returned, the fall guys in place, and their tracks seemingly covered, he tells Ludinus that all he wants is to be rid of the entire affair. That rules out option one (he sincerely means to cut the Assembly off) and option two (he won’t be driven back by need.) 

Essek is also in an unusual position in that the worst of the damage he caused is repairable - just return the beacons.[3] A secret, once compromised, can’t be un-compromised. If an asset hands over a cipher machine they can’t fix the situation by stealing the cipher machine back; the foreign agency they sold it to has already studied the machine and learned its secrets, meaning it’s now effectively useless. But returning the beacons restores what the Kryn lost. While keeping dunamancy secret gives the Kryn a tactical edge, and I’m sure the Dynasty would prefer to keep the magical soulstones of their elite hidden from their long-time rival, the beacons don’t need to be secret to work. Essek therefore has a much better chance than most to simply repair the damage, cut off his handlers, and try to forget the whole affair ever happened. He might even think that, now that the Assembly has their own beacon, they’ll have no further use for him and will just leave him alone.

But from the Cerberus Assembly's perspective, this fruit still has plenty of juice in it and they risk nothing by continuing to squeeze. Now that they have their own beacon Essek’s knowledge becomes even more valuable. He has access to hundreds of years of dunamantic spellcrafting - and more importantly the rite of consecution, since the Assembly were probably after beacons in the first place to make themselves immortal. If Essek is caught, it’s treason for him, but the Assembly doesn’t suffer; they were doing it for the good of the Empire, learning about dunamancy to help the war effort. So if he refuses to keep spying voluntarily for the Assembly, they’ll just have to find another way to motivate him. 

As part of evaluating Essek before recruitment, Assembly operatives would have noted that he’s, well, highly motivated to save his own skin. Ludinus’ goal therefore becomes to make Essek see further espionage as the only way to stay alive. So instead of confronting Essek then and there, Ludinus shrugs and goes, “Okay. Sure.” Then he activates the Volstruckers, maybe leaks a little info to the Dynasty about a traitor in their midst, and sets up Essek to stew in fear, feeling isolated and attacked from both sides - targeted by the Assembly for his defiance, under suspicion from the Dynasty, unable to ask for help because of his crimes. Ludinus sits back and waits for Essek to re-establish contact on his own. Of course Ludinus didn’t know that the M9 had confronted Essek and gotten him to confess, making a return to spying impossible even if he tried.

While Essek’s motives revolve around ego, frustration, and rebellion, his situation is more like those of people who end up defecting because they’re unable to pursue their careers or live as they want to back home. He has virtually no social/family ties to leave behind, no loyalty to Dynasty authority, and no religious fervor to defend the Luxon, while the Assembly promises him the company of like minds and free rein in his experiments. Assuming no intervention by the M9 I think Essek would have ended up defecting to the Cerberus Assembly. If he did it early enough in the story he might have even joined the Volstruckers to complete the narrative foil transformation.

If the crew had confronted him at the treaty but not offered mercy I think he would have defected purely out of fear, thinking the Assembly were the only people who could protect him from both the Dynasty and the M9. He was already on edge watching the guy he'd set up to take the fall getting walked away in chains and with the Assembly's Wind of Aeons ship right there it would be the ideal time to make the move. Assuming the treaty confrontation went as it did (the crew makes him confess but lets him live) but the M9 hadn’t shown up in Eiselcross, Essek would likely have fled the outpost and gone into hiding in a bid to outrun his crimes (and probably gotten caught two weeks later given how awful he was at being “Dezrain Thane.”)

Essek is far from the first recruited asset to regret what they did even as they kept doing it. Those who can sell out their nation and not feel even a pang of guilt are thankfully thin on the ground. Most start off doing what seems to be a favor for a friend - or accepting a favor from a friend who wants to help with their “financial difficulties” - and end up so deep they can’t see any way forward other than to keep handing over secrets. He’s one more in a long line of those who compromised information out of frustration, especially through the appeal to shared professional interests (that’s how industrial assets tend to be recruited.)

But he’s also in a much better place to make up for it than most assets. Since he primarily compromised property, not secrets, returning said property can (somewhat, mostly) repair the damage done, which goes a long way towards buying leniency from the powers that be. And now I’m realizing that this post actually needs one final part, which is: how do you try someone for espionage, and should you charge them with it in the first place?

[1]  While spy dramas love sexy blackmail, and handlers will happily collect it to leverage against a balky asset, it works far less often in reality as a main reason for espionage. Social penalties for extramarital affairs pale before actual legal penalties like the death sentence for treason. On the other hand, those with foreign relatives are sometimes coerced by threats against those relatives.

[2]  Lonetree’s case for leniency got a boost in 1994 when Aldrich Ames was finally caught and some serious breaches of embassy security that had been attributed to Lonetree were found to be Ames’ work instead. In 1996 Lonetree was released after having served 9 years total.

[3] Although I did just think of a really messed-up Cerberus Assembly plan: consecute a handful of completely loyal Volstruckers, kill them, and send the beacons back so said agents will be reborn in the Dynasty and work to undermine it from within. How fucked up would that be?? Campaign 3 plot hook anyone?

(This accidentally turned into a series on Essek & IRL espionage: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4)

[secretsniper2]

Late for Class..

“Im going to be late! Again! Why cant I wake up on time, stupid alarm clock, Im breaking it when I get home I swear!”

Its my usual response really, but I already know full well why I stay up so late, last night I tried to cum for 4 hours before I finally gave up and went to sleep, I just cant seem to manage a single orgasm, all I do is edge and make the throbbing worse! What's wrong with me? I was in such a rush Im only wearing a Simple plaid skirt with pink panties and thin white top with a poorly chosen black bra that shows clearly through my even poorer choice of top, tight 3 inch boots on my legs, A single tear flies off my eye as I rush to the station, I don't want to miss my train today or I really will be late for class.

Dashing through the station, my long brown hair flowing behind me as I make my way to the platform, Its packed, Ill be lucky to get a seat, odds are ill be standing today but at least I made it in time, “Might make it to classes after all.” I think to myself with a smile. Train arrives and I brace for the rush, and as the doors open Im pushed by other commuters into the train and soon enough were all packed in like sardines, barely room to myself I notice that Im being pushed up into someone larger than most in this carriage. He is tall, 2 full heads taller than me, Brown hair and large beard, his green eyes looking down and not just into my own green eyes, but seemingly through them, staring at me harder than any other has before.

The people everywhere still fighting for more space pushes me further into this man as our eyes still locked onto each other as my chest presses into his and i can feel my nipples starting to get harder under my bra, Im still aroused from my poorly timed marathon last night and this man seems to have figured my arousal out, his arm moves around me and pulls me even closer as his other arm moves between us and touches my stomach with his big warm hands. 

Still locking eyes with me my mouth opens slightly as I feel his hand begin to slide down my leg and twist up my skirt, fingers crazing my slick thighs, and moments later caressing them, his fingers are being coated in my shame from last night. Sliding up my juice coated thighs his hand continues up till he cups my sex, Im soaked, dripping and desperately needy, moaning instantly into the gaze of this man the second he touched my pussy, my thin pink panties might as well not even be there since I soaked them through completely as his hands were trailing up my thighs before he even touched my wet sex.

A finger peels my useless panties off my pussy as I feel 2 fingers touch my clit and begin to rub, forcing louder moans as I break eye contact as his other hand, which had been holding me closer launches over my mouth and silences me before anyone could take notice to the moan, good think too as his massaging of my clit is making me moan harder and harder without stopping and it only took this man 12 seconds to bring me to a solid edge, it takes me much longer to get my edging started but this man.. 

Another edge hits as his fingers rub around my labia as he scratches at my clit constantly, dragging fresh moans from my face I feel him pushing a thick finger into my pussy slightly, seeming to test my pussy, its a tight fit, he knows Im a virgin now for sure, only a virgin is this tight to a single finger and I close my eyes as the idea of being raped on this crowded train as my first time slaps me with a edge on its own..

The movements of the train barely phase this man as his hand remains locked to my soaked pussy, his finger curled under pressing a knuckle into my nervous hole as his fingertip flicks at my clit, Im being overloaded, its far more intense than what iv ever done to myself and this man has only been in sexual contact with me for little over a minute and iv edged 4 times now.. 5 times now, his finger wont stop scratching at my clit, while his remaining fingers massage my labia from the base of my pussy to where my clit sits, Im being tortured and no one here is aware because a small girl is being gagged by a hand!

Constant stimulation has reduced my pussy to a source of ever flowing juices as my inner thighs are soaked down to my knees, if my boots weren't nice and tight id likely be standing on my toes in boots filled with proof of my arousal, thankfully they remain tight and my feet are dry inside though Im still being edged while standing on my toes almost making my legs give out beneath me. My juices flowing down my boots and pooling between my feet and the streams on my legs and the constant droplets from the mans hand keep expanding my puddle of need! I hate how turned on I am!

Pulling up to a station at last, I have 4 stops till I get to mine as I look back into this mans eyes, he still staring down, studying my expression and face as his other hand raises from my hand and a finger pushes past my lips and I instantly begin to swirl my tongue around it, I cant stop myself at this point as I suck hard on the finger rubbing my tongue as I moan in bliss as i hit edge after edge, as my head starts to shift back and forth, Im now giving this finger a blowjob and I cant stop myself, Im being swallowed in pleasure.

Another station and I slam into my 15th edge, my mind is in a haze as I drool as my head bobs back and forth on his finger with enthusiasm Im embarrassed Im showing someone who is essentially drugging me with my own arousal! My eyes unfocused as I feel his gaze still burning onto my face as my head drones on his finger, tongue working the underside of his finger as the suction Im giving is pulling my cheeks in on the draw back, my clit being rubbed to another mind breaking edge as we pull into another station and more people leave and enter the train. 2 stops to go, if I can even bring myself to go by then! And as i get to another edge the man leans in, removes his finger and locks his lips to mine, his tongue launching in and kissing me deeply, his saliva covered hand moving behind my head holding me in his kiss.

Making out with this man in brought to another edge quickly followed by another edge as the kiss goes in I melt into this man, legs going limp as I slam into another edge, my eyes fluttering as the man releases my mouth from his probing kiss as his finger drives back in and pulls against my jaw so Im forced to look back as he draws my focus as he pinches my clit before removing his pussy scented hand and licking his glossy fingers. Doors open and Im immediately pulled from the train, 1 stop early but the man doesn't care, his hand behind my head had lowered to my waist when the door had opened as he leads me out the train and through the station.

Walking out to the street the man directs me to the parking lot and a large van unlocks as we approach, I slow my pace but am met with a strong arm still wrapped around me as Im almost dragged to his van. Opening the side door I look around, 1 single seat with multiple bolts around the van, Pushing me into the seat Im quickly tied to the seat as i sit open mouthed in shock, the situation still not beating out my haze completely. Opening my mouth to voice something, anything, a cry for help, a plea for my safety, but as my mouth opens a finger dives in, its the same finger that was rubbing my throbbing clit earlier, I can taste my pussy on his fingers, smell the pure need I left on him.

“You don't say a fucking word, understood?” The man growls with a deep voice, echoing in my head I nod pathetically as his finger withdraws and a ring gag is pushed into my still open mouth, ensuring that my mouth stays open as drool quickly starts to pool in my mouth and flow through my ring and onto my thin white shirt.

Hopping in the drivers seat the man starts the van and we go for a drive, I cant see much outside the front windshield as the interior has been covered in padding to keep any silly screams for help between us 2 in the van. Tears start to form in my eyes as the man looks in the mirror and sees me dead centre of his view, he raises a remote and presses it and I jump in my bondage, my seat is vibrating! its formed in such a way my entire pussy is resting on a new vibrating pad, Im being forced to ride a vibrator while the man continues to drive, chuckling as I moan aloud, drool flowing onto my covered chest, the thin top soaking and sticking to me it almost fades when wet so it looks like Im not even wearing a shirt now!

10 minutes? 20? I don't know, the haze has returned as Im forced into more edges, and hearing a occasional chuckle I know when the man looks at me in his mirror as I lazily look around the van or up to meet his gaze when he drinks in my situation, was this all planned by him or was my abduction a spur of the moment thing? I don't know, and I cant ask with this ring in my mouth, only moan as I hit another edge and drool onto my generous breasts.

Pulling into a alleyway the man shuffles back and grabs my phone, Asking for the password i have little choice but to give him access and he starts going through my personal info, Smiling as he reads 1 of my bank statements.

“Looks like your going to be in debt a while Anna!” He says with a smile forcing a pathetic growl from my open mouth.

Reading my phones diary he goes into my private notes and laughs out loud and I hear him say the diary title “Orgasm Attempts” and my face burns red, Never having experienced a orgasm in my life for some unknown reason and now this man knows and I cant stop him!

“Lets run a test then! since were already in a nice place!” He says as Im untied from the still vibrating seat and the door is opened, thrown out of the van I notice Im not even in the city we took the train to, he's taken me somewhere I don't know! As the man follows he grabs my arm and lifts me up casually and spins me around and pushes my face against the alley wall, Hearing a zipper open i start resisting in earnest and Im rewarded for my resistance by hearing rapid clicking and something cold wrapping around my wrist, having my arm pulled behind my back then more cold clicking on my other wrist..

Iv been handcuffed! I cant push off the wall, I cant push him away! Im as helpless as a child and can do about as much as 1. Feeling my skirt get raised up and tucked into itself my ass is on display, pink thong parting my firm cheeks as he runs a thick finger down the band and pulls my thin layer of fabric and only cover aside and a monstrous pressure hits my asshole, his cock is lined up and my butt is about to take a beating. With ring gag still in my mouth i bite down as pain flows through me, my tight ass has only ever had small plugs and occasional finger enter but now Im taking a 4 finger thick rod in my ass my eyes are watering fast!

Blinking back tears as a moan scream combo rushes out as he thrusts hard and slams into me, his balls slapping my soaked pussy as Im impaled by a solid dry cock, and to my shame I hot another edge as he bottomed out, pulling back drew out another sound, I felt like i would throw up when he quickly thrust back in, raping my tight ass in a alleyway where anyone could see us, as his balls continue slapping my cunt as im fucked harshly to another edge. 

Im crying out, the first thrust was excruciating, the following 5 were horrendously painful but now Im feeling pleasure, Im being raped and Im starting to moan as he works me over with his cock, his thrusting speeding up and I know what's coming next, and Who is cumming next since its never been me in my life! Heat bursts into my tight, freshly deflowered ass, feeling hot like lava I cry out as I edge as Im filled, my pussy drooling with need and unfulfilled pleasure as my ass takes his cum all the way inside me, his balls tensing as he pumps more and more cum inside.

Spinning me around and pushing me into the van once again the man rummages around while I lay there, spasming with a full ass and desperate cunt, I feel something press into my ass again and it slides in easily, too easily to be his cock.. Its a plug! my ass has been filled with his cum and is now being plugged to keep me full! why would this man plug me? I turn to get my answer but hes already pushed me into the van and hops in after me, his hard cock swinging between his legs. It felt massive in my ass but its not as big as i thought, definitely larger than average by a full 2 sizes it isnt a monster to break me with, thankfully since if it was any bigger my ass would have torn for sure!

Mouth still open and drool flowing out and stuck to my face and hair he pulls me forward and my mouth lands right where he wants me to land, with my hands cuffed behind my back I cant stop or slow my fall as his entire length, which would go from my elbow to my wrist is now passing the ring and my throat parts as my momentum causes me to deepthroat him right at the start, my tongue thrashing around on the cock in my mouth, his tip in my throat I gag painfully but helplessly. I feel his hand run through my hair as I continue to swallow his cock in a long dive down, he grips my hair at the base and pulls me up and almost entirely off.

Im coughing painfully instantly as he then releases my head and I drop once again to the base of his cock and then once again having my head grabbed by his hand at the base of my hair he then begins to use my head as a fleshlight, a toy I cant avoid being used as at this point, my mouth being full of his cock and before too long Im pushed to the base, his length in my throat as i feel his balls tensing and Im rewarded for my unwilling blowjob with a stomach full of cum being pumped in my throat. Being bulled off his still rigid cock a dildo gag is pushed in my mouth and locked in, Im being forced to deepthroat another cock, at least this 1 cant cum...

Securing me to my seat Im once again sitting with my pussy firmly planted on the vibrating pad, and in seemingly no time at all Im forced to the edge once again, my haze ever present, iv been drowning in pleasure since I woke up, and this mans actions have shaken me, even when used by someone else I really cant cu, I tear up at that realization as we drive off yet again. My view limited again after another 20 or so minute drive with another 30 or so edges Im far beyond any daily edge count iv had before, pulling up to a random alley once again Im untied and the gags are removed from my mouth.

“See you on the train tomorrow.” The man says as Im pushed from the van and he drives away, Spit covered shirt with black bra still visible and my skirt still tucked in exposing pushed aside panties and bald bare pussy and thick plug in my ass I return everything to its usual place then look around to get my bearings. Im a block away from my Uni, a few hours late for sure and no longer caring for the class I clearly missed I might as well just go home, but ill need a new shirt before I go since this shirt is barely a shirt now.

Dashing into a clothes store and a few minutes later leaving in a cheap shirt with my soaked shirt in a bag I leave for the station I intended to reach far earlier today, Hopping on a train and start my hopefully peaceful trip back home I sit in a vacant seat and relax, my ass clenching on the plug he left in me and I know the second I remove it ill be spilling cum everywhere so Ill have to choose a more secluded place, Glancing up my eyes widen and I see him, Sitting on the other end of the carriage, green eyes trained on mine as he sits, and waits unmoving.

5 Stops then its mine and I watch him carefully, Is he planning on assaulting another girl like he did me? Why cant I bring myself to call him out? 4 stops remaining. I should hit him or kick him, he raped me and even plugged my throbbing ass! 3 stops remaining. I should tell someone, there are girls all over this train and they would help me right? 2 stops remaining. Whatever he does ill stop him, I cant let what happened to me happen so someone else.. even though they get his.. cock and get to cum.. why couldn't I cum? why cant I ever cum? 1 stop remaining. Sitting in my seat my hand idly slides under my skirt, my wet shirts bag hiding my action as I begin rubbing my still throbbing clit to another edge, “I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!” i think over and over in my head as my finger traces circles around my slick clit and another edge until.

Doors open and I jump up, the man following suit, I step off the train onto my station and the man does the same on the other end of the carriage.. What's his game? I cant go home if hes following me, I don't want this man knowing where I live! But what choice do I have here, If I don't go home and he follows me I could be in real trouble, in my own home town..

I take off running from the man who only walks after me, Its 5 blocks of zig zagging and a lot of looking back but I loose him quickly. “cant keep up if all you do is walk!” I think to myself as I unlock my front door, enter than lock everything I can lock to secure my home and I take a deep breath, Windows and doors all locked I take another breath, my ass throbbing after running while plugged like this I retreat to the shower and work the plug out. The second it comes out the cum follows, “he really filled me” I think as i turn the shower on, taking my clothes off to clean myself up.

Getting changed I don't feel very hungry.. considering the “Meal” I had earlier I just go to bed early, Resting my throbbing ass is all I need to focus on and that needs sleep.

Tossing and turning in a light sleep, the scenes from today keep replaying in my head, the arousal, the amount of edges I was forced to experience, the taste of his cum on my tongue, the pleasure.. it felt good, I cant lie about that much. Feeling the bed shift i simply readjust in my bed when a hand presses on my mouth. My eyes shoot open as Im staring back into those same green eyes..

With his other hand pulling my initially fresh and dry panties off my body, my imagination replaying the events from earlier soaking them thoroughly he grabs my leg and raises it high, his cock once again levelled with me he rubs it over my soaking pussy and thrusts a few times, coating his cock in my shame he aims once again for my tight recently emptied ass and pushes hard.

“Nice home you have here” He says in his deep voice as he pulls my raised leg back and so pulling me further onto his cock. “I think ill stay a while, show you a few fun things, teach you a few other things” He says with a smile as he thrusts hard and I feel his cock drive deep once again. “Tomorrow Im going to feed you a refreshing cum cocktail, you'll learn to love it, or not, its all you'll be drinking from now on anyway!” He laughs! My pleasure at its peak my mind cant believe whats going on, I black out in a mix of fear, pleasure and shock. I think Im going to miss my next few classes too..