#Biological WMD

[recursive360]

☣ BIO-WEAPON? 😷

BBC News | Covid: FBI chief Christopher Wray says China lab leak 'most likely'

“Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and fungi with the intent to kill, harm or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war. Biological weapons (often termed "bio-weapons", "biological threat agents", or "bio-agents") are living organisms or replicating entities ( ⁠i.e. viruses, which are not universally considered "alive"). Entomological (insect) warfare is a subtype of biological warfare.

Offensive biological warfare is prohibited under customary international humanitarian law and several international treaties. In particular, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) bans the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological weapons. Therefore, the use of biological agents in armed conflict is a war crime. In contrast, defensive biological research for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes is not prohibited by the BWC...

A biological attack could conceivably result in large numbers of civilian casualties and cause severe disruption to economic and societal infrastructure...

As a tactical weapon for military use, a significant problem with biological warfare is that it would take days to be effective, and therefore might not immediately stop an opposing force. Some biological agents (smallpox, pneumonic plague) have the capability of person-to-person transmission via aerosolized respiratory droplets. This feature can be undesirable, as the agent(s) may be transmitted by this mechanism to unintended populations, including neutral or even friendly forces. Worse still, such a weapon could "escape" the laboratory where it was developed, even if there was no intent to use it – for example by infecting a researcher who then transmits it to the outside world before realizing that they were infected. Several cases are known of researchers becoming infected and dying of Ebola, which they had been working with in the lab (though nobody else was infected in those cases) – while there is no evidence that their work was directed towards biological warfare, it demonstrates the potential for accidental infection even of careful researchers fully aware of the dangers. While containment of biological warfare is less of a concern for certain criminal or terrorist organizations, it remains a significant concern for the military and civilian populations of virtually all nations.”

=> Source: Wikipedia

[15-lizards]

“Every time a Targaryen is born the gods flip a coin” the concept of Nature Versus Nurture would blow some of y’alls minds.

[y-rhywbeth2]

Gortash: "I see murder as a grim necessity, to provoke a desired response from those who witness it. To Orin, it was a pleasurable pastime... I don't even want to know what it is to you." [dev: hint of disgust]

Rude. Orin judges Durge for the cannibalism, and Gortash gets on their case about their unsanitary, criminally insane turn-ons? My god, it's like you people think you have standards or something!

[liesmyteachertoldme]

The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) effectively prohibits the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological and toxin weapons. It was the first multilateral disamament treaty banning an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. (WMD)

[disinherited-dornishman]

Personal thoughts on Team Black, Rhaenyra, and Misogyny.

This is going to be a messy one as regard structure but also topic. Stay with me, people.

I've been seeing a lot of accusations of misogyny against anti-team black, anti-rhaenyras, and anti-hotd posters for criticisms uttered, and I can't help but be a little dumbfounded. Like are we really doing this? Pointing out that Rhaenyra was reckless for having 3 bastards is not misogyny. I'm sorry, as much as you guys might love your make-believe character, I'm just not humoring it. Not if you're going to make the conversation about feminism and sexual liberation.

Okay, let me just say. Rhaenyra having Jace I can understand. An experiment that was stupid but also respectable in a way, because Laenor was definitely traumatized and not fit for keeping up their agreement, so I can support that mistake wholeheartedly for the empathy behind it. But Luke and Joffrey? After finding out that her genes get overriden by Harwin's?

Plain stupid. I'm sorry, that's just playing with fire, especially since she should know how precarious her position would be after the precedent of the Great Council that robbed Rhaenys of her birthright on the basis of her gender.

And like, I'd be fine with it if the show didn't portray it as this girlboss, don't-give-a-fuck win, because all it does is highlight how ignorant the showrunners are about the world in which their show is set! I liked selfish and decadent Rhaenyra in the books, she didn't need to be treated as a hero for it.

And the fact that the rest of the world and everyone in it is portrayed as being at fault for not going along with what's basically that society's equivalent of a political clown show is absurd. Pointing this out doesn't mean I'm condoning it either, I'm criticizing the show's lack of self-awareness. It's so obvious the showrunners are disconnected from the their world.

GRRM writes all his characters as believable people grown up in a medieval society, but critiques it through his own modern moral lense in a way that's seemless, yet in this show they use characters as mouthpieces to spout modern feminist and egalitarian ideals from characters who are ruling class. Who the fuck are they kidding? If you want to make a feminist show, don't use bourgeoisie feminism!!! Idgaf about some Princess' sexual liberation while she's allowed to hold feasts that rips the food from the tables of peasants! There's nothing inspiring about that!

Rhaenyra, one of the single most bourgeois figure in the show, is supposed to be praised for her "sexual liberation" when it literally threatens the stability of the entire realm, and directly caused a war in which countless sexual atrocities were committed and will still be committed? Forgive me if I can't find it in me to be inspired.

If you want the show to be feminist, display the themes through the people at the bottom, the normal workers, the whores, the thieves, the daytalers and smiths and carpenters and undertakers and farmers, etc etc. Don't ask people to cheer for a reckless white woman from a colonizer background with a biological WMD at her disposal for breaking the social contract of a ruling class SHE'S A PART OF and risking destabilizing her entire country, it's fucking insulting! And don't get me started on the gender essentialism of the whole "women good, men bad" horseradish horseshit.

I'd love to discuss and analyze these concepts if we're talking about Rhaenyra's character arc, her as a person, and the themes of patriarchy that one can glean through her. But if we're talking actual, meaningful, proletariat feminism that means something to the medieval society they live in?

You wanna praise this brave monarch for sexually liberating herself, go ahead and praise the female Romans in Spartacus while you're at it. Praise their sexual liberation when they avail themselves of sex slaves taken from Thrace and Gaul and wherever else the Roman Empire had reach and rape them for fun. Understand I'm not comparing Rhaenyra's actions with having her kids with Harwin to rape, I'm pointing out power dynamics. And at least that show had the decency to show that the patrician romans were cruel and vile alongside their humanity, unlike HotD which seems to insist its ruling family of dragonriding depraved incestuous monarchs are actually virtuous while literally having Meleys burst through the floorboards and massacre a crowd.

P.S.: for any Anti-Rhaenyras, please don't start shit about her unless you wanna discuss how the writers fucked up her beloved character. I actually liked her in the books and she should've gotten a bigger part than Daemon, so don't slander her all willy nilly. It's unconstructive and I feel no desire to engage.

[medievaljournalist]

my new thing is kidnapping isekai protagonists to sell as biological WMDs because they have a strain of the flu from 700 years in the future

[sketching-shark]

which of swk's kids do you think would be his heir? and what roles do you think the others would take on?

Uh. Well with the Monkey King's whole 5+ immortality and enlightenment deal, probably none of them XD. As is--and while I am very much aware that this is going against macaques' usual structure of most young directly inheriting their status-- I imagine that SWK would take a little more of a background role to the politics of day-to-day living on Mt. Huaguoshan after he becomes the Buddha Victorious in Strife, and spends more time on that side of things ensuring that the relations between the monkey yao and other beings in heaven and earth stay amicable. So who's officially "in charge" of Mt. Huaguoshan is a pretty fluid thing that can't be completely pinned to one specific individual, but is rather made of a loose coalition between SWK, the immortal monkey generals and marshals Ma, Liu, Beng, and Ba, and a large collection of frequently shifting yaoguai and even a number of humans who specialize in different necessary fields like agriculture, masonry, and medicine.

That said, SWK IS Mt. Huaguoshan's official figurehead, mostly because of his long history as the official communal grandpa and protector of the Fruit and Flower monkey yao, and because of his status as a being who's both monkey, man, and buddha all at once. But less fortunately, there's also the fact that his raw power more or less makes him a living WMD, as proven to heaven all those centuries ago when he havoced through the ranks of the deities and other immortals. So while most are on board with keeping up a good or at least civil relationship with the Mt. Huaguoshan yaoguai now, there's also that background threat of what could and did happen when they're attacked.

So with that kind of situation, Quidou, Luohou, and Yuebei Xing are left in this kind of weird and sometimes frightening place. They have a lot of freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives since Sun Wukong had them not because he needed heirs but because he wanted biological children to love and encourage in their passions. But they are also living in the aftermath of the war with heaven, the burning of Mt. Huaguoshan, and the years-long massacre of monkeys at the hands of hunters which only stopped because SWK massacred said hunters in turn. Things have stabilized significantly since the days of war, genocide and famine, and their father constantly emphasizes the need for diplomatic solutions. Yet there's also always that sense that things could in fact go very bad for them and their loved ones if they aren't able to back up their words with legitimate threats. And they only have to look at the human world to see how often that's the case, even between nations :( Plus while they may also be stone monkeys, Quidhou, Luohou, and Yuebei Xing are also a LOT less immortal and invulnerable than their famous father.

But to give a quick summary, as adults Quidou does find contentment in acting as a Mt. Huaguoshan guard and a shifu for many young monkey yaoguai in the martial arts (he's actually the most skilled fighter out of the three), Luohou becomes an interesting mix of a court painter/traveling diplomat who's frequently on the move, and Yuebei Xing, while more of a homebody and scholar than her brothers, out of the three Sun children ends up gaining the most fame and notoriety mainly because of her vast knowledge of curses, especially one that can condemn even immortals to a painful death.

It's no wonder that a number of deities are regarding the existence of even more dangerous stone monkeys with concern and fear. But the truce between Heaven and Mt. Huagushan still holds.

[thevividgreenmoss]

Capital socially binds, represses and harnesses the material available for production including labour power before it engages it. The social category of control as such and the power platforms attendant upon the actual or ideological standing of the working classes precede the formation of prices. Making the Arab working classes more insecure, more vulnerable in the forms of their political organisation, means more profits accruing to central capital--in one facet of this one may envisage that the power-setting influences prices. The pittance spent in money form on control or destabilisation, whether it is the financing of Islamic fundamentalism or the US aid to Egypt, generates value for capital by the degree to which prices of Third World resources fall below value or, more significantly, the degree to which capital exercises control over value-forming processes. By tearing apart old ways of maintaining a living, inflating the ranks of the unemployed and driving people into poverty, capital inexpensively re-engages in production non-money assets (human beings) that had been disengaged by mass unemployment. (Of course, the same measures apply to all other resources-since to the imperialist, Arab working-class people are one more commodity to be devalued). Moreover, the images of dying Arab children, the cause of whose misery is assigned to cultural and identity politics, by 'demonstrating' that Arabs are culturally and nationally inferior, boost racism-laced nationalisms in the centre. Absurd scarcity and lifeboat theories bringing the Third World poor to First World safe havens acquire momentum and ideologically bear the weight of capitalist dynamics. The function of these campaigns is to conceal the fact that wars and their consequences in famines and chronic hunger are necessary to reproduce the ideological tools of capital. Deaths in Third World wars, famines and hunger are advertisements for imperialism (Avramidis 2005).

More often than not, diplomatic means of resolving conflicts are doomed to fail in the AW. None worked in the past unless the peace terms exacted more of a human toll than war. Egypt after the Camp David Accords is a case in point: after thirty years of growth, one out of three of its children is malnourished (IRIN 2010). That the empire will not take yes for an answer is not haphazard; war is necessary to circuitously reproduce the international division of labour attendant on accumulation by militarisation. Thus, despite the embargo on Iraq acting as a slow-motion WMD and the capitulation of its leadership, Iraq had to be invaded to crush even its remaining traces of sovereignty (Gordon 2010). Those on the Left who argue that the differences in wages across the globe are primarily derived from degrees of technological advancement, relative to differences in productivity (relative surplus value), forget that productivity in an integrated world is indivisible and that criminally wasted lives have gone into what is being produced. Accumulation and productivity do not start in the factories of the West; they begin in the Congo and Iraq. The concept of socially necessary labour and the reproduction of labour power presumes that wages are not exclusively determined by biological factors but by historical and sociological ones (Emmanuel 1972). The formation of value is an integrated historical process, in which all social moments participate in the realisation of the commodity, and not a statistical exercise accounting for distorted or power-brokered prices. The politics of imperialist aggression grapple with the growing rift between the US-led capital's bloated share of private appropriation and the redistribution of value to a complex global production structure (the shares of other imperialists). In the age of financialisation, this rift is magnified by the fetish incarnate in the dollar-based price system. The more acute the contradictions, the more developing nations have to be stripped of their security before they are deprived of political will and national resources.

Wars trace the outer limits of encroachment in the accumulation process. They are entwined with expansion by commodity realisation-- that is, the process by which commodities are brought to market and sold to realise their value. Wars also pre-empt revolutionary consciousness because they delink progressive reforms from their intermediation in revolution. In view of labour's abundance, those who perish in war reduce the number of labourers by so little relative to the huge total (an insignificant reduction of the labour-power commodity) such that they reduce the value of those remaining alive. When central-nation working classes are estranged from their own humanity (the alienated majority vote for the war machine) and under the incessant barrage of scaremongering associated with 'terrorism' and alleged resource scarcity, their initial attitude of compassion for and solidarity with Third World dead or skeletally starved people transmutes into its opposite--- deepening nationalisms and other identity forms to the benefit of capital. It is this ideological input of war distorting revolutionary consciousness that lays the ground for new wars. That wars are justified by fabricated information time and again is not a series of gaffes or mistakes; it is, as often said, a systemic calculus of mass crimc. Just as wars contribute to the reproduction of social conditions under capitalism, so also they buttress the ideology of capital, which must be continuously reproduced and is never separate from the expropriation of Arab formations. The epitome of war-making ideology was justifying what is utterly unjustifiable under the Charter of the United Nations--launching a war to protect 'a way of life'. During the ideological and media whip-up for the Second Gulf War, the distortion of humanist consciousness became so profound that some ideologues went so far as to quote Hegel's philosophy out of context in a manner that resembled the language of Mein Kampf.

Ali Kadri, Arab Development Denied: Dynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment

[sephirthoughts]

Father: Verb

Summary:

11 year-old WMD Sephiroth is assigned a new handler/bodyguard, named Vincent Valentine.

I am sure this has been done 10000 times but I can't stop thinking about it, so here's my version.

Rating: teen and up

tags: vincent & sephiroth centric, canon typical violence, autistic sephiroth, canon fix-it

Chapter 1: Spaghetti

He never cried.

He never dared. Not after that day, when a fit of exhausted frustration, during a rigorous testing session, resulted in the violent destruction of half a research facility, which killed nine people, and left fifty-two injured. The Shinra first responders found him huddled amid the flaming rubble, in tears.

He was seven years old.

Sephiroth is dangerous. His emotions are destructive. When he fails to control himself, people die.

But he was a hero. A hero doesn’t let people die. A hero doesn’t lose control. His over-educated but emotionally immature mind surmised that a hero must have no emotions. So from then on, Sephiroth had no emotions. At least, not the dangerous kind, that made people have long meetings about him, behind closed doors, and whisper about him in the halls.

It was shortly thereafter that he began to have a recurring dream, about a pair of eyes, watching him, in the dark. He was used to being watched constantly, by people, but these eyes were different. They were cold and inhuman, and their gaze was filled with killing intent.

“Who is the man with the glowing red eyes?” he asked one of his handlers, who was delivering breakfast, one morning.

She looked confused. “I’m not sure. Was this someone you saw, in the house?”

“No. I’ve only dreamed of him,” the boy said, matter-of-factly, as he scooped up a spoonful of dense, grey, nutrient-rich paste. “He watches me, and never says anything. He wants to kill me, but…he doesn’t, for some reason.”

“If you’re having nightmares, I can request that they prescribe you a sedative, to help you sleep,” she frowned.

“They’re not nightmares. It’s only that he seems so sad.”

“What does he look like? Can you describe him?”

The boy shook his head. “I can’t see his face, only his eyes. But I think I’ll meet him, soon. I’ll tell you, when I do.”

Four years passed, however, before he met the man with the red eyes. Though, by then, that handler had long been moved to another division, so he never had a chance to tell her about it.

He was walking down the hall, headed for the training yard, as he did every morning, when he noticed something was different, today. The atmosphere was tense, and the energy of the place was all wrong. People were whispering in excited tones.

“…aware that no one here can handle him. If something goes wrong we’ll all die…”

“…sending in a Turk. You know, just in case….”

“…hear that guy’s not normal…”

“…supposed to be a real badass, though…”

“…say they woke him up, just for this assignment…”

They always thought Sephiroth couldn’t hear them, if they lowered their voices, as if he was a normal person, with normal hearing. He never bothered to disabuse them of the notion. They didn’t like being reminded that the eleven-year-old biological weapon they were working in close proximity to every day was, indeed, a literal superhuman.

He pretended to ignore their chatter and reported to the training yard, as usual. If the fuss was related to what he suspected, they would come to him, soon enough. He was calmly practicing his sword forms, when his chief handler appeared and asked him to take a break. Following him, was the man with the red eyes.

Sephiroth had never seen anyone like this person, and was instantly enthralled by him. He was very tall and thin, and he wore strange, black-leather body armor, from head to toe, with one brass gauntlet, brass boots, and a floor-length, crimson cloak.

His long, shaggy, black hair hung over most of his face, and the rest of it was hidden behind the high collar of the cloak, but the eyes were the same. They were blood red, and one had flecks of gold around the pupil. Keen and cold, and filled with killing intent. The exact eyes from his dreams.

“This is Special Security Agent Vincent Valentine,” the handler was saying. “He’ll be looking after you, from now on. He’s your direct superior, so you must address him as ‘Agent Valentine’ or ‘sir’ and treat him with all due—”

“Just Vincent,” the red-eyed man interrupted gruffly. “Don’t call me sir, either.”

“Pleased to meet you, Vincent,” Sephiroth said, bowing dutifully. “I’m Sephiroth. I don’t have a surname, so everyone calls me by my forename.”

“Unless you need anything else, I will leave you two to get acquainted,” the handler put in, with a bow. “Good day, gentlemen.”

“Turks are assassins and spies,” Sephiroth asserted, once he’d gone. “Why would they assign you to look after me?”

“Not a Turk, anymore,” the man named Vincent replied, without looking at him.

“Have you been in the labs upstairs? I’m not allowed to go up there.” Sephiroth got out his locket and held up the picture, for the man to see. “This is my mother. Have you ever seen her?”

The scarlet eyes flickered over the locket and away. “No.”

The boy wasn’t excessively surprised or disappointed by the answer. He’d asked every person he’d met if they’d seen her, and no one ever had. He tucked the locket away again. “Why do people say they woke you up for this assignment? Were you in stasis?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re not afraid of me,” Sephiroth said, stepping closer.

Vincent gave a derisive snort. “No.”

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it. It’s not to protect me, it’s because they think you’re strong enough to kill me, if you need to.”

The scarlet eyes glanced down at him, but the man said nothing.

“Would you really kill me?” Sephiroth persisted. “Do you think you could?”

Vincent’s arms were crossed tightly on his chest, under his cloak, and he hadn’t moved, since they began talking. Now, suddenly, too quickly for even Sephiroth’s superhuman eyes to see, he seemed to vanish and reappear in front of him, his blood-red cloak billowing and whirling in the windless air, with a life of its own, and the massive triple-barrel of his heavy handgun pressed to the child’s forehead.

“You’re not the only freak in this sideshow,” Vincent growled, as the hammer clicked back.

Sephiroth switched instantly into combat mode, and his blade flashed out, like lightning. His first slash would’ve taken anyone else’s arm off, but Vincent was already behind him, somehow. Sephiroth dodged the grapple and flipped forward, throwing out a barrage of slashes, which missed the cloaked man as he vanished again, in a whirl of crimson.

The boy gave a cry, as his knee was kicked out from under him, then quick as a whip, he was hoisted up by the back of his jacket and thrown bodily across the training yard. He careened into a concrete barrier, through which his body smashed like a meteor, before he pushed off the ground with his feet, and went darting back through the air, toward Vincent, only to be swatted away like a fly, and wind up rolling to a stop, halfway across the training yard.

They went on like this for quite some time, without pausing, the red and black-clad man tossing the armed child around the training yard, neither of them showing any signs of fatigue or loss of focus. Sephiroth would’ve kept going all day, if he’d been allowed, but eventually Vincent called halt, and said he was expected to escort the boy to his quarters, for his noon meal. They’d been at it for almost three hours.

Thrilled and elated, to find someone who could actually fight with him, Sephiroth followed Vincent eagerly, big, green eyes fixed admiringly on the back of his head, as they walked down the halls, together.

He had never felt so energized, in all his time here—which was his entire life. This strange man with the red eyes, from his dreams, was the first opponent with whom he’d genuinely let loose and used all his strength.

And he’d been beaten so soundly, he felt it in his bones. It was an exhilarating feeling, to no longer be the strongest person around, and not to have to carefully restrain himself, when sparring with a partner.

“Vincent, will you stay and have lunch with me?” the boy asked hopefully, when they arrived back at his quarters.

Vincent hesitated at the door, then stepped reluctantly inside, looking about the suite of rooms like it was a wild animal exhibit, and the denizens might leap out from behind the furniture and attack, at any moment.

“It’s only me who lives here,” Sephiroth assured him. “I don’t know why they gave me all these rooms. I only use the bedroom and the main room. And the bathroom. Do you live in the manor, too? What are your rooms like?”

“I live…downstairs,” Vincent said vaguely, behind his high collar.

“There’s nothing below this floor but the basement storage levels. You don’t mean you live down there, do you?”

A handler arrived to deliver his meal, just then, so the conversation was forestalled, for the moment. Vincent stood against the wall, watching silently, as the man set a tray in front of the boy. It was divided into six sections, each filled with a different colored paste.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” the handler said to Vincent. “We weren’t told you’d be joining the asset for lunch. I will bring whatever you’d like from the kitchen, right away.”

Vincent was silent for so long, the man began to get visibly uneasy.

“Spaghetti,” he said suddenly, his deep voice giving the handler a start. “Spaghetti with meatballs. And…apple juice. And ice cream. Strawberry ice cream.”

The handler blinked, bewildered, then bowed and hurried away, saying he’d bring the things as soon as possible. When he’d gone, Vincent walked over to the table, took Sephiroth’s spoon from his hand and his tray from in front of him, and strode down the hall.

Sephiroth sat, speechless, for a moment, then jumped up and hurried after him. Vincent was in the bathroom, using the spoon to scrape the the contents of the tray into the toilet.

“Vincent, what are you doing?” he asked curiously.

“Putting this shit where it belongs,” Vincent replied flatly. “Don’t eat this anymore, understood?”

“Th—that’s the food they give me. What do you mean, don’t eat it anymore?”

“This is not food,” Vincent said, brandishing the tray and then tossing it into the bathtub. “Is this really what you’ve been living on?”

The boy looked perplexed. “What else is there?”

Vincent stood there, looking down at him, for a beat, then he dropped to one knee, in front of him, and pulled his collar down, exposing the rest of his face.

Sephiroth’s heart lurched and began to run raggedly in his little chest. Vincent was…beautiful. He was the most beautiful person the boy had ever seen, aside from the picture of his mother. He wanted to touch his perfect face, but he would never dare do something so outrageous.

To his immediate astonishment, however, the beautiful man touched him. Cautiously, as if Sephiroth were a baby bird that might be crushed in his hands, he reached out his black-gloved hand, and laid it almost weightlessly on the boy’s shoulder.

“Sephiroth, I…I’m sorry,” he said, inexplicably. “I’m so sorry.”

Sephiroth had no idea what was happening, except that the man was touching him, in a non-hostile way, that didn’t appear to have an immediate purpose, and it was making his head feel hot and fuzzy, the way it did when the old professor gave him medicine, sometimes.

Aside from the lingering trace of killing intent in his scarlet eyes, Vincent’s face wore an expression Sephiroth didn’t recognize. It wasn’t on any of the emotion flash-cards the Shinra PR people made him study, in order to ‘seem more human.’

Was he a lunatic? He didn’t dress like anyone else Sephiroth had ever seen, and he was acting rather bizarrely. When the handler asked what he’d like to eat, he said a lot of strange words, that Sephiroth had never heard, and then he’d dumped Sephiroth’s lunch into the toilet.

“It’s alright, it was just a little food. I can get more,” Sephiroth said gingerly. “Vincent, are you…unwell?”

“No—well, yes.” His black brow furrowed. “But I’m not insane, which is what you’re asking, correct? If I’m reacting strongly to some things, that’s because it is difficult, for me, to see you living this way, like an animal in captivity.”

“Why should you be distressed by the way I live? We only met today.”

The scarlet and gold eyes gazed intently into his, for another beat, then Vincent looked away, shaking his head. “Because you’re an innocent child. They have no right to treat you this way.”

“I’m an asset, not a child,” Sephiroth pointed out. “That’s what the old professor says. They don’t treat me that badly, so don’t worry about me. I like the food.”

“Do you?”

“Well…no, but I don’t hate it. It’s just…normal.”

“That’s because you’ve never eaten anything else. We’ll fix that, today.”

When the handler returned, Vincent took the tray from him and growled, “Get out,” before the man could say another word. He hastily retreated, more than happy to leave the two terrifying superhumans to whatever they were doing.

Meanwhile, the tangy-salty-herby aroma coming from the things on the tray struck Sephiroth’s enhanced senses like a slap. He wrinkled his nose, as he eyed them doubtfully.

There was a large plate of some pale, yarn-like substance, doused in a thick, red slurry, with dark brown lumps in it, a glass of what appeared to be urine, at first glance, and a bowl with a creamy, pale-pink paste in it. That seemed the most familiar, only there were red chunks in it, that Sephiroth was revolted by. They looked a bit like human flesh, when it had been torn up by explosives.

He watched warily, as Vincent used the fork to wind the yarny bits from the plate into a wad, then stuck the tines through a brown lump.

“Eat,” he said, holding it out to him.

Sephiroth balked. “Vincent, I don’t—mph!”

His protest was muffled by the forkful of food Vincent simply shoved into his mouth, when he opened it to argue.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Vincent warned, seeing the boy about to spit it out. “Chew. Swallow. Now.”

Suppressing a gag, Sephiroth did as he was told. Then his big, green eyes went wide. His slit pupils dilated. A tart, salty, sweet, oily, aromatic, nearly indescribable chaos of flavors was exploding on his tongue.

A little shudder passed through his body, and suddenly his eyes were stinging, like they’d had a bright light shone in them. He stared, stupefied, into the middle distance, and opened his mouth, for the next bite, which Vincent was already hovering with.

“What…what is this?” he asked, after he’d chewed and swallowed again.

“Spaghetti. You like it?”

“I never tasted anything like it in my life! I want to eat spaghetti every day! For all three meals! Only spaghetti!”

“You’ll get tired of it, if you do that. There are other things just as delicious. Let me show you how to wrap the noodles up on the fork, come here.”

Sephiroth took the fork in his hand, and guided by Vincent, went to work learning this new skill. The noodles kept slipping off, but at last, he managed to wind up a somewhat lopsided spaghetti wad, complete with meatball on the end.

He stuffed the large bite into his mouth, beaming triumphantly as he chewed.

Vincent gave an approving dip of his chin.

Within a very few minutes, Sephiroth had cleaned the plate spotless. Vincent picked up a napkin and dabbed the orange sauce stains from then corners of the boy’s mouth, as he gazed mournfully down at the empty dish.

“Don’t look so tragic,” he said, holding out the spoon. “Try this, now. It’s called strawberry ice cream.”

CH2:

[corvidcrybaby]

I wanna pick your brain a bit,babe;

Who do you think is/was the first vampire? usually people pin that on Alucard/Dracula, but since you obviously didn’t, who do you think it was/is?

Thanks so much for the ask!

So, my answer to this inquiry is simultaneously droll and deep. The harsh reality is that I think it was probably just some nobody. I tend to take a cryptobiologist's approach to how vampires work in the Hellsing universe. I know the text doesn't really support this, but I'm going off of the spin on the Hellsing lore that I utilize in Lesions of a Different Kind that asserts that vampires are a predator species that are a direct link to humanity which have been evolving alongside mankind for thousands upon thousands of years. There is a magical component in how these creatures transmit their infection and perpetuate their existence - in a way, they're a spiritual equivalent to Cordyceps (fucking horrifying, I know), in that they are a magical pestilence which brings about a distinctly biological change in their victims, driving them to perpetuate with others while also allowing them to retain their mental faculties and indeed even enhance them. Due to this? I think the first vampire was probably some random former hunter-gatherer from tens of thousands of years in the past, and that they've been perpetuating themselves ever since. It should be noted that in my Hellsing fanfiction I operate under the assumption that vampirekind are quite scarce. Low in number, and I mean low in number. Perhaps only a couple or few hundred scattered throughout the globe - this part on its own actually is backed by the text, incidentally, based on the entire fact that Sir Integra was taken aback by how unnaturally many vampire attacks were happening when Millennium began producing their artificial vampires as test subjects. Plus, given how horrifyingly powerful Alucard and Seras are, and even the Cheddar Priest (who we do not see a chip from, so we might possibly assume that he's a natural vampire)? It stands to reason they must be scarce. Big fish need big ponds to support themselves. I also hesitate to draw upon Gonzo Hellsing, but we do know Hirano was in cahoots with some of those decisions in the show's development, so we might also gesture to Incognito as further illustration of how horrifically powerful the average True Vampire can become (something I also play with in Lesions, with how Judah and Erzsebet are both sapient WMD's in their own right).

TL;DR some caveman named Ugg that ate something funny in a cursed cave somewhere and woke up the next evening covered in Gugg and Goog's blood. Thanks for asking!

[darkmaga-returns]

The SBU’s cowardly assassination of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov won’t stop his agency’s work.

Reuters cited a source in Ukraine’s SBU on Tuesday to report that they were responsible for assassinating Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces (RChBZ). RT reminded their audience that he was instrumental in informing the world about the WMD threat posed by Ukraine. This includes its American-backed bioweapons experiments, dirty bomb plans, and the use of chemical weapons against Russian servicemen in the special operation zone.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova posted on Telegram that Kirillov “has been systematically exposing the crimes of the Anglo-Saxons for many years, with facts in hand: NATO provocations with chemical weapons in Syria, Britain's manipulations with prohibited chemical substances and provocations in Salisbury and Amesbury, the deadly activities of American biolabs in Ukraine and much more. He worked fearlessly. He did not hide behind people's backs.”

Her country is correspondingly expected to continue raising maximum global awareness of these issues. They’d somewhat faded out of the media limelight over the past year as attention shifted to the scenario of conventional Western escalations in Ukraine such as the decision to authorize Kiev to use the ATACMS for carrying out strikes deep inside of Russia and the possibility of deploying troops there under the cover of peacekeepers. All the while, however, Ukraine’s WMD threats never fully went away.

[socialoutsider1a]

From the TV Tropes page on characters on the Blacklist:

Frederick Barnes (No. 47)

Played By: Robert Sean Leonard

"Barnes has always operated with a certain level of... detachment—always the designer, the seller. Never the delivery agent of his own weapons. But if Barnes is now willing to use his work to kill indiscriminately, then he is, quite literally, the most dangerous man in the world."

— Raymond "Red" Reddington

A former military scientist and known genius who worked in creating and developing WMDs for the U.S. military under DARPA, now a chemical weapons killer for hire.

Anti-Villain: Barnes is motivated by love for his son and takes no pleasure in his acts, acts which are nevertheless monstrous.

All for Nothing: It's all but stated that by the time the FDA finishes testing the cure he developed for his son's rare condition, the boy will be dead.

Character Death: Liz shoots him to prevent him from injecting his son with an untested cure. This, notably, is an action Liz comes to regret or at least question.

Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His son.

Faux Affably Evil: He acts like most of Robert Sean Leonard's characters—calm, very polite, somewhat awkward. Then he lets a trainload of people die horrifying deaths.

I Did What I Had to Do: He will go to any lengths to save the life of his son.

Mad Scientist: A genius at designing biological weapons, he's gone off the deep end and started publicly using them to commit mass murder.

A Million Is a Statistic: He'll sacrifice the whole damn country in pursuit of a cure for his son's rare condition.

Papa Wolf: Willing to kill thousands, even millions, to save his son, Ethan.

Put Your Gun Down And Step Away: He pulls this on Liz. It works the first time. It doesn't the second time.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: He is just trying to cure his son from a rare disease.

Would Hurt a Child: Barnes is willing to murder a child amongst the other train passengers. Even after seeing the boy, he continues with his plan without hesitation.

[most-mistreated-characters]

Chief Miles O'Brien from Star Trek Deep Space 9

There is no better fit than poor O'Brien. There was always at least one episode per season where he was put through terrible scenarios, which the writers referred to as "O'Brien must suffer" episodes. Highlights include: being infected by a biological WMD, his daughter falling into a temporal anomaly and (temporarily) returning back 10 years older and entirely feral, his wife being possessed by basically the star trek version of Satan, falsely accused of a crime and tortured for it, forced to relive traumatic experiences to keep his crewmates alive, falsely accused of a crime AGAIN and implanted with memories of being in a terrible prison for 20 years with the effects being irreversible, and many others. Also one of the most popular posts ive seen about him on tumblr is just an image of him saying "can i please have food" so he doesnt get much of a break, even here.

miles o’brien propaganda! thanks for submitting

[originalistideas]

So Vladimir Putin was right all along:

The US Pentagon released a statement on its official website acknowledging that it has funded 46 Ukrainian biological facilities over the past 20 years......

🤔