#I tried to include both measuring systems

[ddarker-dreams]

Cherubim.

Gojo Satoru x F Reader x Geto Suguru.

Warnings: Implied trauma, Gojo and Geto are both weird + manipulative. Word count: 6k.

-Index-

March 18th, 2006. 

2:26 p.m.

-

Gojo Satoru has found himself embroiled in his greatest turmoil yet. 

Assassination attempts? That’s nothing, he’s waved those off since he was a kid. Jujutsu politics? The higher-ups can yap until they’re blue in the face; they’re all bark, no bite. Curses? Similarly inconsequential. No matter how much power they hold, they're reduced to speckled splatters the instant they cross his path. 

For most, experiencing one of these dilemmas would prove too overwhelming, much less all three. He isn’t like most, though. He’s strong. Incomprehensibly strong. He can weather any storm, shift the tides of any battle in his favor. Has this gone to his head? Absolutely. He can handle ‘too much.’ It’s ‘not enough’ that’s proving to be an issue. 

This is why he’s detailing his recent woes to an uninterested Ieri Shoko, who made the mistake of reading in the dormitory’s common area. 

The scene is as follows:

Satoru’s along the length of the couch, his long, lanky limbs dangling wherever they can. He lays his head against the armrest, snowy hair succumbing to gravity in an avalanche that frames his face. He uses his ability to keep his sunglasses from meeting the same fate. Behind the dark frames, his eyes narrow into a piercing stare. If the ceiling were sentient, it would’ve fled by now. Such is the potency of his miserable mood. 

Parallel to him sits Shoko, the fat of her cheek squished upward from resting on her fist for so long. Books, candy wrappers, and notes from last year’s curriculum yet to be thrown away litter the table’s surface. Suguru’s could put a calligraphist to shame, even if they were written in a Badtz-Maru pencil you won from a gachapon. Your notes stand out as well. They’re bright shades of your favorite colors, organized according to a system of your own devising. Occasionally, the handwriting shifts, taking on Suguru or Shoko’s likeness for trickier kanji. You doodle hearts of gratitude around the yomigana they include for good measure. 

(You complained that his handwriting was ‘indecipherable’ when he tried doing the same. Out of spite, he gave you the cold shoulder… for three minutes. He withers and wilts without your attention). 

He sighs and concludes his monologue. 

“So, that just about sums everything up. Well? What’s the prognosis, Doc?” 

“You’re in desperate need of more friends,” Shoko replies. Satoru lets out an unsatisfied grunt. “And you miss [First].” 

Satoru perks up at your mention, finally giving that poor ceiling a much-needed reprieve. He shuffles around until he’s facing Shoko. 

“But she just headed out yesterday.” 

“I know.” 

“That’d make me really weird and clingy, right?” 

“Glad you’re catching on.” 

While Satoru contemplates the previously unconsidered possibility of him being ‘really weird and clingy,’ Shoko reopens her manga. She’s of the mistaken belief that the issue has resolved itself. Unfortunately for her, the problem extends beyond Satoru’s insatiable hunger for you. The problem is Satoru himself. Until he’s running amuck elsewhere, there’ll be no solace. 

She commends herself for her patience. 

In typical Satoru fashion, he continues testing it. 

“When was the last time you updated your passport?” 

“I’m not flying to her home country with you,” Shoko shuts down what he thought was a brilliant plan. “It’s just two weeks. Wait it out.” 

“What if we fly first class?” 

“Gojo.” 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s still too soon to meet her parents. It’s gotta happen eventually though, right?” 

Shoko doesn’t dignify this with a response. 

Satoru sinks into the cushions. Could there be anything worse than boredom? He has no missions lined up, you and Suguru are visiting family, and the first-years haven’t arrived yet. Pestering Utahime has lost its charm too. He could return home before the school year starts, but he’d rather have his fingers chopped off one by one than suffer that torture. 

“Hey, Shoko.” 

“Mm.” 

“Why aren’t you back home? I thought you got along with your parents.” 

“They’re both busy. I wouldn’t see them much.” 

Satoru doesn’t press the matter. 

It does intrigue him though — the relationship sorcerers have with their non-sorcerer families. Or, to be more specific, yours and Suguru’s familial dynamics intrigue him. Satoru can’t (and doesn’t bother trying) to care for the going-ons of anyone outside his small circle. This is more the hubris of a teenager who has been told he’s special his entire life than anything malicious. To Satoru, the world’s population might as well be stuck at three. 

Regardless, it’s an improvement.

Before meeting Suguru, those in his life consisted almost exclusively of suckups or stuckups. If he was unlucky, it’d be both, rolled into one terrible package. This was his reality. Jujutsu was his reality. He was the first to possess the Limitless and the Six Eyes in generations. The Gojo clan wouldn’t waste such an extraordinary opportunity. He was their pride and joy, personality aside. 

He was born to be the strongest. 

He can’t imagine any other life for himself. 

Then there’s you. 

He could see you leading a normal life. You wouldn’t be top of the class or a varsity athlete, but you’d be well-liked. Boys would nervously ask you out on dates and buy you roses with money they got from mowing lawns. You’d be the first one your friends would call when they experienced heartache. Maybe you’d go to college or land an entry-level job. Some co-worker with a decent sense of humor would win you over. Then you’d get married, rent a property, have a few kids… 

Satoru’s stomach twists. He grimaces, shifting his thoughts elsewhere. Namely, the question that’s bothered him for a while. 

Why did you become a jujutsu sorcerer? 

It was intentional. You chose to leave behind your home, your family. You knew the risks. How the body can break and ache in ways previously unrecorded. And what do you get in return for this thankless crusade? Sleepless nights where you tremble like a leaf beside Shoko? A nimbleness at dressing wounds that could only have come from years of practice? 

You’re open about everything until you aren’t. Fear, mortality, loss — when confronted by these unsightly truths, you retreat to someplace he can’t follow. 

Satoru can’t make sense of it. Neither can Suguru. Shoko says they shouldn’t press the matter. He wants to, though. He needs to know how you break. How else can he ensure that you never will? 

He thinks back to that humid August day. The binding vow eviscerated your insides, shards from fractured bones dug into your organs. Until that point in his life, Satoru prided himself on his immunity to fear. The pathogen never lasted long in his system. After all, fear is born from a lack of control. From having something to lose. If he couldn’t lose, what was there to be afraid of? 

It’s a question he’s been avoiding. 

(“If she dies,” he told Suguru, in a voice he barely recognized as his own, “They die too.”)

His mouth feels dry, his tongue heavy. He’ll drink that tea you’re fond of later to satiate his thirst. He wonders if you share its taste.

“What’re you reading, anyway?” he asks, hoping to take his mind elsewhere.

“Fruits Basket.” 

He laughs, incredulous. 

“Seriously? Didn’t take you for a shoujo type.” 

“I borrowed it from [First]. We’re doing a book exchange over break.” 

A book exchange… three words Satoru never thought would pique his curiosity. However, anything about you demands his undying attention. Even if it’s shoujo manga. Girls who read that genre do it to project onto the heroine, right? So the love interest must have appealed to you. What tropes do you like? Do you want a shy, sensitive soul who blushes and stutters in your presence? A misunderstood bad boy who’s only soft around you? The responsible student council president? 

Oh, he’ll have so much material to tease you with when you return. He can’t wait. 

“How do I enter this exclusive book club?” Satoru demands. 

“You don’t. I don’t trust your taste,” Shoko replies, much to his chagrin. “You can still read it, though. She has all of the volumes in her room.” 

… Your room? 

He grins from ear to ear.

Should he respect your privacy? Probably. Is he going to? Of course not. He never has, there’s no point in starting now. 

This trip of yours might yet redeem itself. 

-

Along the outskirts of Jujutsu High, Geto Suguru spots an odd woman. 

She’s wearing a baggy graphic tee, low-rise jeans, and gaudy bracelets on both arms. Her black hair is tossed up, thick strands sticking in every direction. Even from this distance, he can discern the silver glint of piercings that dot her ear like constellations. The stranger stands slouched, both her hands shoved into her pockets. For her to have gotten this far, she can’t be a civilian. Those unfamiliar with jujutsu can’t find this place. 

He stays still for a spell — watching and waiting. From this distance, she shouldn’t be able to sense his presence. It’s one of the few areas he excels at over Satoru. Satoru’s cursed energy is bright, blindingly so, a thunderous clap that can be heard for miles. Suguru prefers to keep his muted. It coils around his limbs like a serpent, never straying far. This is why you had no difficulty picking out Satoru’s stupefying presence on your first day, whereas he had to make himself known to you. 

Suguru’s lips quirk up. 

He was fated to meet you. 

“Hey! Kiddo!” A deep, somewhat raspy voice exclaims. He blinks rapidly, temporarily thrown off. “This ain’t an art gallery. What’s with the staring?” 

She noticed him? How? 

When the stranger starts slinking his way, he regains his composure. 

“I apologize. It wasn’t my intention to make you uncomfortable,” Suguru’s cadence flows smoother than a river. 

“Hah! ‘Uncomfortable?’ That’s a way of putting it,” she pokes the space beneath her emerald eyes twice. “Even now, I can feel ya picking me apart. Shit’s creepy.” 

His smile tightens. “I’ll be more mindful of my conduct in the future, then.” 

She waves him off. Her golden bracelets clink together as she does so, the sound grating his ears. 

“That’s a lie if I ever heard one. And I should know. Schemers excel at picking out their brothers in arms,” she juts her head up, giving the impression that she’s the one looking down on him, despite the slight height difference. 

“Anyhow, by the looks of it, you must be Sugu-kun.” 

… Did she just call him Sugu-kun? 

“What? Too soon* to be calling you that? Heh, heh…” 

Suguru’s smile tightens. “You can refer to me however you like, so long as I can return the favor.” 

She guffaws.

“Maaan, Goldie sure was gracious in her description of you,” the woman gives him a lopsided grin. “Name’s Akane. There — is the playing field leveled now?” 

“Ishimoto Akane?”

He doesn’t miss the way she winces as her surname is spoken aloud, rather pointedly at that. 

“Ah. S’pose I had that coming.” 

Suguru decides against prolonging her torment. He’s in a generous mood, it isn’t every day he has a chance to learn more about you. This is an opportunity he’ll take full advantage of. 

“And I presume 'Goldie' is [First]?” 

He makes a mental note to figure out the wordplay for your nickname later. 

“Full marks.”

Suguru hums, a sound indicating that he’s drifting deep into thought. 

You don’t mention your mentor often. When you do, it’s normally in the form of endearing (if not mildly concerning) anecdotes.

“She told me that natto is bits of caramel held together by melted marshmallows, like a Rice Krispy Treat. It… it was not like a Rice Krispy Treat…” 

“... For my twelfth birthday, she got me Pokemon Ruby. I remember crying because Roxeanne’s Nosepass took out my Torchic. My cursed energy spiked and the party had to end early…” 

“... Out of curiosity, I drank her stash of Georgia canned coffee. My heart rate was almost high enough to warrant a trip to the ER…” 

Getting anything else relating to her out of you was like trying to wring water from a rock. Suguru didn’t miss the wistful melancholy underpinning your stories. You recalled them with a far-off expression as if mourning that those days of whimsy were over. Initially, he considered it a consequence of growing up. Childhood idols rarely remain highly esteemed as the years pass and maturity accrues. 

His intuition argued that he should examine the issue closer.

(“I met her, y’know,” Satoru mentioned whilst he spun in a rolling chair ‘commandeered’ from Yaga. “Akane. Our girl’s mentor. Former mentor? Whatever the case is.” 

Suguru sat his pencil aside, any investment in his studies gone.

“When?” 

“Last March.” 

Suguru sighed. “And you didn’t bring this up earlier because…?” 

There’s a twinkle in his companion’s sunglasses-covered eyes.

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” Satoru shrugged. 

Liar, Suguru thought, unamused by Satoru’s faux nonchalance. He must’ve had his reasons for neglecting to mention it for so long. Suguru figured your impending trip home had something to do with Satoru’s ‘miraculously’ cured amnesia. 

“What? Don’t tell me you aren’t curious.”

The provocation failed to irk him. Instead, Suguru refocused the conversation.“Tell me your impression of her.”

Satoru stilled, threw his feet atop Suguru’s desk, and placed his hands on his neck. “About what you’d expect from a disgraced daughter of an influential clan. Bad-tempered, tattooed, pierced up… hah! Bet her old man would go into cardiac arrest if he saw her.” 

“Satoru,” he implored. 

“Fine, fine. So impatient,” The white-haired sorcerer complained. “I misread her. She got all mopey after she fessed up about Cursed Technique: Null. I wrote it off as envy. The student exceeding the master, or whatever.” 

Satoru remained silent for a moment. “Post Kaizu, though, I assume the feeling actually gnawing at her… ” 

Kaizu. 

Panicked phone calls. Satoru’s agitated exclamations. His horrified silence. Your breathing faded, theirs accelerated. You looked so small. So human. He scarcely believed the limp girl cradled in his arms just executed such a devastating maneuver. Your cursed energy had exceeded any output he’d felt from you before. It was too much, your body wasn’t ready to endure a spike like that. 

Suguru had never felt so distant from the title ‘strongest.’

At some point later on, in a hospital waiting room, Suguru posed a question. 

Satoru heard him yet offered no response.

“Who taught her how to do that?”

“... was guilt.”)

“You didn’t visit her.” 

Akane blinks. 

“Hah?” 

“You didn’t visit her,” Suguru repeats, his tone firmer. “[First]. Your student.” 

She exhales shakily. Suguru thinks she looks tired. 

“If you have something to say, just come out with it already.” 

He was prepared to wear her down for hours — this willing cooperation saves him time. Although, it doesn’t make navigating the volatile minefield that lies ahead any easier. He knows how to rein Satoru in when he’s going too far. He can fluster you without giving too much of himself away. After rescuing someone from a curse, he knows the exact pitch, timbre, and tempo necessary to pierce through their abject horror. He’s a virtuoso at playing people, a conductor hidden amidst the audience. 

Deceit. Misdirection. Coercion. 

His repertoire is expansive and ever-growing. 

From what he can see — what he can feel — the prodigal daughter before him boasts a similar discography. She returns his unflinching eye contact as if issuing a challenge. Daring him to use dubious methods that might work on anyone else. This obstinate resolve reminds him of you. Once you’ve determined your course, even he struggles to change the route.

He abandons all pretense. 

“You didn’t want her here,” he theorizes. Akane’s face reveals nothing. “You knew something like that was bound to happen.” 

Sorcerers aren’t only at war with curses. No, there’s an inner battle that must be fought as well. The recognition that the next assignment could be your last. And if it is, you won’t be commemorated by the masses; to them, you don’t exist. Your sacrifice will be known to a select few who mourn you, or  a few who don’t. Everything could go right. Everything could go wrong. Engaging in that high risk for such a low reward goes against one’s self-preservation instincts.

How each sorcerer handles this fight is unique to them. 

As for your strategy — you refuse to acknowledge this conflict exists. 

Paradoxically enough, that functions as your self-preservation. 

Akane smiles thinly. She’s almost his reflection, in that regard.

“Full marks.” 

-

Suguru idly observes as Satoru paces back and forth, his troubled figure illuminated by a row of vending machines. 

A nearby street lamp flickers. It’s late, but the local convenience stores glow with artificial light, tempting customers to come inside. Some are weary salarymen grabbing ready-made meals, others are middle schoolers clinking their change together, praying they can afford a sugary treat. The latest group cheers, indicating their triumph. 

The duo receives odd looks — thanks to their school uniforms, no doubt — not that they pay the judgment any mind. No one troubles them. Not even a wandering policeman, who, under normal circumstances, would scold minors out by themselves at night. 

Suguru theorizes that Satoru’s ominous aura is what subconsciously repels them. 

Earlier today, Suguru bid farewell to his parents and boarded a train for Tokyo. As nice as it was to spend time with his family, he’d been looking forward to reuniting with you and Satoru. He amassed quite the phone bill thanks to your frequent correspondence. Nonetheless, he carried the minor debt with pride; it’s a sign you often thought about him. He planned for Satoru to assume the debt by dangling the pictures you sent his way as ransom. 

His encounter with Ishimoto Akane grounded his soaring mood. This was made worse when he entered the dormitory, only to find a tight-lipped Shoko and agitated Satoru. 

Shoko remarked that unlike the two of them, she’d be handling things with ‘tact,’ and retired for the evening, not wanting to catch their ‘stupidity contagion.’ 

It’d been hours since then. That time stretch brought them closer to revealing the complete picture, but a few pieces remained missing or incomplete. 

The frenetic sorcerer stills and rummages around in his pocket.

Suguru takes the opportunity to break the silence. “I—” 

He cuts himself off as Satoru whips out a familiar-looking chapstick. The cutesy design befitting your aesthetic stands out like a sore thumb in Satoru’s large, calloused hands. 

“... Where did you get that?” 

“[First]’s room,” is Satoru’s response, spoken nonchalantly whilst applying it to his lips. “Why?” 

Suguru snorts. Sometimes Satoru’s ungodly strength blinds him to the fact that he’s still a teenage boy. 

“Won’t she notice it’s missing?” 

“I replaced it.” 

“Ah.”

“She has plenty more in the drawer beneath her vanity if you want one.” 

Suguru knows the exact spot Satoru’s referring to. They both helped you assemble it (Satoru got bored fifteen minutes in and fell asleep on your bed but still claims credit). 

After noting this suggestion, he asks, “Have you calmed down?” 

Satoru barks out a ‘hah!’ as if he’d just heard a hilarious joke. “Me? Shouldn’t I be askin’ you that?” 

Suguru massages his temples, sensing the looming headache that awaits him. “Satoru…” 

“We could follow her residuals, you know,” Satoru suggests. He tips his sunglasses down, revealing eyes that gleam with predatory intent. “With the Six Eyes, it’d be a walk in the park.” 

“And then what?” 

“Oh, you know, chat about the weather, latest political scandals, that sort of thing.” 

“You can’t strong-arm yourself through everything in life, Satoru,” Suguru chastises. 

Satoru opens and closes his lips. He folds his arms, scrunches his eyebrows together, and rapidly taps his foot. The shift puts Suguru at ease. Satoru adopts this countenance on the rare occurrence he’s faced with a formidable threat. The serious, almost somber visage speaks to his ironclad resolve. Suguru may have told his companion that he can’t strong-arm himself through everything, but that’s a half-truth; the Gojo clan’s pride can do whatever he pleases. 

It’s consideration of the aftermath that Suguru wishes to instill in his companion. Tempering the arrogance of a God is no easy feat. 

“... She isn’t going anywhere,” Satoru declares, as if any other outcome was blasphemous. 

“She isn’t,” Suguru agrees. Then, he lowers his voice, adding, “We can’t disregard what Ishimoto-san is getting at, though.” 

“Simple — all our girl needs is a good ol’ fashioned intervention.” 

“An ‘intervention,’” Suguru deadpans. “Didn’t you already try that?” 

Satoru smiles in a way Suguru can only describe as dopey, reminiscing on the night you got ‘mad at him for wanting you to be mad at him.’ That’s how Suguru interpreted the detailed account Satoru gave the next morning, anyway. 

(“I wish she would’ve cried, just a little bit; it would’ve made her look extra cute,” Satoru cooed, to which Suguru shot him an exasperated look. “Oh, don’t act so high and mighty. You’d make her cry just so you could wipe her tears away.”)

Suguru shakes his head. “Here’s what I think — the self-sacrifice in and of itself isn’t the problem. Well, the main problem. There has to be a reason, something personal… identifying that takes priority.” 

A gust rips through the narrow street, howling as it terrorizes store signs and doors with weak hinges. The two strongest sorcerers remain oblivious to the drift. What occupies their mind is greater than any force of nature, insignificant or otherwise. They have the means to challenge natural phenomena itself. And they would, should they deem it an obstacle to their goals. This single-minded determination is what elevates them beyond the rest. 

“I guess the old man has a soft spot for us after all,” Satoru says, referring to Yaga, Suguru guesses.

Breathlessly, he chuckles. “Maybe.” 

Studying Satoru from his peripherals, he silently mulls over the far likelier reality—  

—that Yaga understands Satoru’s potential for saving this world is matched only by his capacity to condemn it. 

-

From a young age, Ieri Shoko found irony everywhere she looked.

It’s prevalent in the medical field she wishes to pursue. When stabbed, it’s better to leave the knife in than immediately pull it out. For an immune system to better defend itself from a virus, it must first be exposed to it in trace amounts. If an appendage becomes too infected, removing that piece of the body is better than keeping it whole. It was you who pointed out this theme extends into the world of jujutsu. 

“You’d think fighting to survive a curse instead of defeating it would be an okay alternative, right?” You had said. “But really… that just means someone else gets to foot the bill. All ‘cause you cheaped out.” 

She regrets not asking you to elaborate. At the time, the observation felt so personal, so intimately interwoven with who you are, that she thought it best to leave it alone. 

Watching you now, lounging on the swing beside her, she’s determined not to repeat her previous mistake. 

“Tired?” 

“Well, yeah,” you laugh. It sounds off. “I wasn’t meant for long flights. It takes everything out of me, y’know?” 

Shoko unsuccessfully digs around her pocket for a lighter. The search ceases when she recalls its inopportune location — left behind in her dorm room in the rush to be the one who reaches you first. Not sure what else to do with her hands, she folds them onto her lap. Meanwhile, you pick at a stray thread on your jeans. 

“I didn’t mean from traveling,” she clarifies. 

“Hm?” 

“How many curses did you exorcise back home?” 

Your fingers go still.

“I dunno… a few?” You shrug, stuffing your hands in your pockets. “If I happen across them, I’m not gonna just let them run amuck. That’d be irresponsible.” 

Your nonchalance comes across as forced. You may be keeping your words lighthearted, but she can tell you’ve dialed up your senses, monitoring her closely. It reminds her of a cornered mouse. It’s then that any lingering doubt over her choices leading up to this moment dispels. Resolve strengthened, she swears to make as much progress as she possible before those two catch on. She felt a bit bad lying about your flight’s time, but felt the situation justified the call. 

“It feels different when they’re close to home, doesn’t it?” 

Shoko’s eyes scan over the lively park before them. There’s a group of children playing with one another, some scouring the grass for bugs and others playing tag. Their guardians watch from a distance, chatting amongst themselves, likely discussing the upcoming poor weather or latest neighborhood scandals. Young couples walk hand in hand along the pathways, cheeks flushed from the joy of experiencing their first love. 

“Encountering a curse is draining. Fighting them, even more so. But when they’re on a street you walk every day, or a few blocks over from your house, you can’t help but start thinking. ‘What if I hadn’t come this way? Would it have hurt people I know? People I love and care about?’”

Her eyes find yours. “‘What if it killed them?’”

You look like you’re going to be sick. 

She ignores how your expression contorts her stomach and continues. “Sorcerers are in the minority, it’s true. So… fighting to survive isn’t selfish. It’s strategic.”

In the distance, the rough silhouette of two individuals grows clearer. The spotlight she commandeered grows fainter with their every step. In what remains of the fading limelight, she considers you. The CC cream that conceals the worst of your exhaustion, how your pupils dilate from high caffeine intake, then your fingers. The keys that when steepled just so, open the future for others at the cost of permanently locking yours. 

She reaches over and gently squeezes your hand. 

“Remember — we won’t be much help to anyone if we’re six feet under. So let’s aim to stay above ground.” 

-

The evening sun sinks into the horizon, demanding acknowledgment in its final moments by dousing all in a fiery hue. 

Your uniform absorbs the brunt of this last stand. The dark fabric devours the waning sunlight, heating you from head to toe. It didn’t fully occur to you that you were back when you walked through the torii gates lining the mountainous path. Nor when you unpacked in your dorm, stuffing your passport away until your next break, where it’ll serve you faithfully again. 

Instead, it was the simple act of putting your uniform on again that made home seem far, far away. 

You’d gotten used to your clothes smelling like your mother’s preferred detergent. It’s a brand you couldn’t find in Japan, sold exclusively in your home country. You wondered what meal your parents were having when you straightened out your collar. If your neighbor ever fixed that rumble their old sedan huffed out as you slipped into your tights. Whether your grandpa knew you’d landed safely when you brushed lint off your skirt. 

The campus atmosphere is serene. Tengen’s barrier is a bulwark against curses, insulating you from any potential threats. Without this assurance, some part of you was always on the defensive, anticipating anything when you slept in your childhood bedroom. It siphoned away your vitality, just like Shoko pointed out. 

You sniffle and kick a rock aside. 

How does it always end up like this?

First Akane, now Shoko, you hug yourself. I just want to protect others. What’s so wrong with that? If I don’t, then who will?

You pause abruptly. 

When Akane began mentoring you, the world as you knew it changed. Suddenly, you were given knowledge no one else was privy to, for they lacked the tools to comprehend it. You’d seen those ‘creatures’, but it was Akane that explained their malevolent nature. What they could do, the pain they inflicted, how defenseless the population at large was against them. 

The shadow that this monstrous threat cast could never be outshone by light. The best you could do was create safe pockets the size of pins in the darkness. That was the extent of your hope, the most bitter pill you’ve ever swallowed.

The lingering specter of Shoko’s reassuring touch prickles along your hand. 

It’s easy to forget you’re not alone anymore after fighting by yourself for so long. 

-

Eventually, you happen upon a clearing near the school’s main grounds. 

The steep inclines surround a sizable outdoor track. This area is known colloquially as the school’s training grounds. You prefer to train in a more secluded, wooded area, but not everyone shares your enthusiasm for subtlety. Namely, the two prodigies who have turned the field into a colosseum that’d rival the battles of ancient Rome. 

You take a seat on the grassy hill and watch what unfolds. 

Your eyes can scarcely follow the blows Suguru and Satoru exchange. Their sparring sessions are unreal — blurring the very fabric of reality. Somehow, they manage all this without using cursed energy. The spectacle you’re witnessing is simply hand-to-hand combat. It’s like watching a film with skipping frames. In a matter of seconds, they can travel a hundred meters and return to their original position. Your brain struggles to process the stimuli your senses are feeding it. 

They were already strong when you met them. But now? The nomenclature doesn’t exist to properly classify them. 

And in the future… 

There’s no telling what highs they’ll reach or the ceilings they’ll shatter. 

Their light is the most dazzling you’ve ever seen.

Within a few minutes, they conclude their training session. Satoru instantly beelines toward you, whereas Suguru cycles through stretches. There’s not even a single drop of sweat on Satoru’s body as he plops to your right. He’s wearing his signature sunglasses, despite the night's looming shadow. 

“Shouldn’t you be asleep or something?” Satoru asks. “It’s past your bedtime.”

You punch him lightly on the shoulder. He yelps out an exaggerated ‘ouch!’ rubbing the area to soothe the nonexistent wound. 

Suguru approaches at a far more leisurely pace, sending a wave that you return in kind. 

Satoru, not one to be forgotten, yells out, “Be careful, Suguru! She’s violent!” 

“Only against those who deserve it,” Suguru replies.

Fondness blossoms inside your chest as you laugh. You’d forgotten how simple life feels around them. It’s as if when the three of you are together, you’re swallowed by a pocket dimension, isolated from everyone and everything. Permanently inhabiting this utopia is a temptation. 

Satoru places his hands behind his head and lays onto the ground. “Here I am, potentially out of commission forever, without a single ounce of sympathy to show for it.” 

“We could always settle in court,” you offer. 

Suguru stands before you, hands on his hips. “Or he could finally figure out how to use reverse cursed technique.” 

At this, Satoru shoots back up, his sunglasses falling askew. “Hah? Last I recall, you gave yourself a headache giving it a go. At least I’m not that bad.” 

“Hurdles are necessary to improve. Without any, how do you know you’re truly making progress?” 

Satoru gives him a grossed-out look. “All this philosophizing is gonna turn your hair gray before you hit twenty.” 

“That’s rich, coming from the guy whose hair is already white,” You point out. “What’s that say about you?” 

Suguru muffles his laughter behind his hand. 

Satoru’s quick to overcome his incredulity. “It says that I’m going to spoil the next volume of Inuyasha. Sesshomaru—” 

You cover your ears and sprint off. “Can’t hear you, can’t hear you, can’t hear you…!” 

He chases after you, periodically shouting the names of the main characters right when you think he’s finished. You do your best to block out his voice, running like your life depends on it. He’s hot on your heels, cackling at your expense. After a stretch of silence, you uncover your ears, hesitantly turning around to check if he’s finished his torture. 

You meet Satoru’s gaze. His lips are parted, his eyebrows slightly raised. Your reflection in his dark lenses appears equally perplexed. He straightens his sunglasses and regards you with an unreadable expression. 

“... You’ve gotten faster.” 

The comment is so quiet, you’re unsure if you heard him correctly. 

“Hm?” 

“Nothing,” he dismisses, waving you off. “You shoujo-loving types sure take this stuff seriously. It’s almost cultish.” 

“I don’t wanna hear that from the guy who references Digimon like it’s some sorta scripture!” 

“Honda Tohru is a lame heroine.” 

You audibly gasp. “Wh— you take that back!” 

And so it’s your turn to chase Satoru, who, for reasons unknown, is oddly knowledgeable regarding Fruits Basket. 

-

“Could you guys be honest with me about something?” 

“All depends.” 

“Of course.” 

Satoru and Suguru’s responses come out simultaneously, the contents offering little reassurance. You’re not sure what you expected. Nonetheless, you press past the gnawing discomfort, your conversation with Shoko a fresh memory. 

“Did Akane stop by while I was gone?” 

You scrutinize their countenances for involuntary reactions that might betray their inner thoughts. You begin with Satoru, who was in the middle of cleaning his sunglasses when you posed the question. His eyes, which normally brim with mischief, have an eerie calmness about them; like sheets of ice that were once choppy waters. He smiles softly and slips his lenses back into place, undoubtedly aware of the intent behind your stare. 

Then there’s Suguru. He hums, as if finding your inquiry unexpected and not an inevitable point of contention. He’s a more challenging puzzle to decipher than Satoru. With the latter, you can roughly gauge the greater picture, blurry and incomplete as it may be. Suguru, on the other hand, hasn’t given you enough pieces to attempt a solution. 

Satoru continues mulling over your question while Suguru responds, “Is that what’s been worrying you lately?” 

So they picked up on it too, you think. 

Frowning, you shift in your seat. Blades of grass tickle your thighs and you push your skirt down. 

“Er… not that, specifically,” you admit. You feel like you’re surrounded by walls that know just how far to close in to give the impression you might be crushed. “I just… I’ve been thinking. About why I’m here— what I’ll go on to do. And, well…” 

Much to their surprise, you stand, squeeze your eyes shut, and bow ninety degrees. 

“For so long, I’ve carried this burden. The truth is, when I first learned about Null, I was relieved. I’d always have something to rely on in the worst-case scenario. But at the same time… that meant not using it could also be a mistake. You have no idea how much that scared me.” 

You curl your hands up into fists. “I don’t want to think that way anymore. I see it now — have for a while, actually — strength I couldn’t even imagine before. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is… I’m in your care. If it’s alright, I want to rely on others, starting with you two.” 

Your heart pounds wildly in the silence that follows. 

Maybe this is selfish too, you think. But I don’t want to be alone anymore. 

You hear Suguru speak your name. It isn’t until he repeats it, his tone kind yet firm, that you straighten yourself and face him. 

Satoru stands further back, scratching his neck. Much to your confusion, a red flush has risen to his cheeks, extending up to his ears. Suguru corrects your staring by taking your face in his hands and redirecting your attention to him. Warmth envelops you. Your faces are inches apart, but somehow, the distance feels nonexistent, like he’s peering into your mind unhindered. 

“Surely, you can dream bigger than that,” Suguru chastises.

“... Eh?” 

“Do you think so little of us?” Satoru grumbles. It almost sounds like he’s pouting. Was he not listening to anything you just said? The sincerity behind your every word? Why are they both acting like you insulted them? 

“Eh?!” 

“I’m glad you’ve come to this realization, but… you don’t have to rely on anyone else. Just us,” Suguru takes a step back, though he keeps one hand cupping your cheek. You feel lightheaded. “After all…” 

“... We’re the strongest.” 

notes:

*this pun actually works decently in english ?? but akane is making a reference to how suguru sounds phonetically similar to すぐ, or sugu, which means 'soon.'

[stormz369]

☕💖 Can I Get Your Number? ☕💖 Ch 11

Jason Todd x (f)Chubby!Reader

written with a female reader in mind, first person pov, no use of Y/N, will probably get NSFW later, let me know if there's anything else I should tag this with!

warnings/labels: angst, little to no comfort yet

wc: 2.2k

Chapter Selection

Dick: heeeyyyy Jay?

4:03pm

Dick: … Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay??? Bruce is asking questions about your relationship.

4:45pm

Jason: And I'm ignoring them.

4:56pm

Dick: Well don't! It's important.

4:57pm

Jason: Not possible. It's not his relationship.

5:02pm

Dick: Look, I know you don't like sharing details with us, but Bruce is wondering how serious this is. Like … is she coming to the next Wayne Foundation Gala? Should we expect her at Christmas? Are you gonna tell her about your night job? These are things we kinda need to know

5:10pm

Jason: First of all, I'm not going to the next gala, so why would she? Second, it is way too early in the year to be worrying about Christmas.

5:15pm

Dick: … And the job?

5:25pm

Jason: … When do you tell someone something like that? We've only been together for a few months, but at the same time we've been together for /months/. It simultaneously feels too early and too late…

5:29pm

Dick: Yeah … you're asking the wrong guy, dude. I've only ever dated people “in the business” as it were … Tim might have some insights on that one.

5:31pm

Jason: Yeah, that's not happening.

5:38pm

Dick: Which leads us back to TALK TO BRUCE.

5:40pm

Dick: … DON'T YOU LEAVE ME ON READ YOU LITTLE SHIT!

6:30pm

Bruce: Call me

8:30am

Bruce: Jason, I just have a few questions for you.

9:30am

Bruce: Jason!

10:45am

Jason: Jesus Christ, B! Dick told me about your questions, I don't know what you want me to say! I have no answers for you, ok? This is all new, just let me figure it out!

10:50am

Bruce: As long as you're considering how best to approach the situation. I'm sure you realize you do not want someone else to tell her these things before you have the opportunity to. If you are serious about this relationship, sooner will be better than later.

11:02am

Jason: Believe me, I know. My worst nightmare is her finding out because some asshole tries to kidnap her. I know that us being together puts a target on her back, and if she doesn't know it's there she's at even greater risk. I know all this. It will be handled soon.

11:30am

Bruce: … That sounds pretty final; are you planning on ending things before something goes wrong?

11:41am

Jason: That would be the smart thing. The selfless thing. And I've considered it, I really have. … But I just can't. I don't want to. Can't I have just one good thing? Just this one, and I'll never ask the universe for anything else.

11:50am

Bruce: Jason, of course you can have good things! … But you need to find a way to tell her, before circumstance takes the choice from you.

11:58am

Jason: Working on it

12:04pm

Bruce: Good. We'll see you both at the gala next month then.

12:09pm

Jason: I think the fuck not!

12:10pm

Bruce: It's your turn, you have to come. And if you think that girl doesn't want to be shown off on your arm we'll need to revisit your training, because your observation skills are slipping.

12:15pm

Jason: … This kind of thing is exactly why I didn't want to introduce her to the family.

12:19pm

Bruce: Is it so hard to buy your girl a dress and spin her around the dance floor a few times?

12:30pm

Jason: If any of those socialites flirt with her I won't be held responsible for my actions.

12:33pm

Bruce: You will not threaten, attack, or arrange an attack on anyone at the gala.

12:37pm

Jason: Of course not

12:40pm

Bruce: That includes after they leave, Jason!

12:43pm

Jason: … Damnit.

12:50pm

“Thank god you got the security system in place, huh?” she chuckled a bit mirthlessly as they watched the news. The night before, Jason had installed new security measures around her apartment; better windows with strong locks -and bullet proof glass, but she didn’t know that-, motion detecting cameras on the balcony and front door, and stronger locks on both doors. Perfect timing too, because Bane’s escape from Arkham had just been announced. 

Jason pulled her closer, stroking her back, and kissed her forehead. “Not gonna let anything happen to you baby. You just stay inside for a few days, ok?”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders; “can’t. Gotta go to work tomorrow…”

“... Please don’t. … Please, I’ll take care of your rent, just don’t go out there until the bats have him back in Arkham.”

She looked up at his face, frowning a bit. “Jay, we can’t let them hold us hostage in our own homes. He could be out for months, it’s happened before. Hell, if he doesn’t do anything immediately and someone else starts making trouble, he could be loose for years before they get around to him. Besides, it’s not like you’re not going to work while he’s out.”

This was it. This was the moment; he was going to tell her. The only reason he was going to work was because his work was putting Bane back in Arkham. Say it. Say it right now. … She needs to know, just say it. This is the moment… Maybe she’ll stay inside if she knows, then she’ll be safe. Say it. …

“... then … let me take you to work? And pick you up at the end of your shift too.”

“... Just for a few days.” She nodded, kissing his cheek.

He sighed, stroking her shoulder, and held her close. … Coward.

A week later they were sitting on the floor in her apartment, legs crossed, knees touching, both wearing short sleeve shirts. Jason's wrists were resting on his knees, so she could see his arms. He refused to look in her eyes; this was too awkward.

The point was to slowly get him acclimated to the idea that she was a safe person to show his scars to. His forearms had some of his less gruesome scars, mostly cuts and a few old burns, and he was already less uncomfortable with her touching him there, so it seemed like the most reasonable place to start. She gently squeezed his hands, looking down at them. Not touching yet, just sitting with the fact that they were there.

“... Can I ask how you got them?”

This was it. This was the moment; he had to tell her now. Tell her. Tell her where they came from. Tell her what you do. Do it. Right now… 

“... Um … well, …”

He was trying to find the right words, how to start this conversation. But all she saw was hesitation. So she squeezed his hands, smiling gently; “it's ok if you're not ready.”

It really wasn't. He knew it wasn't; she deserved the truth, she needed the truth, and she needed it soon. But it felt like too big of a thing to just say all of a sudden, and it was so easy to accept the easy out. He squeezed her hands back, smiling weakly.

“... I love you.” Just give him a little longer, he silently begged the universe; he'd tell her soon, just not today. Give him a little longer.

“I love you too, Jay~” God, how he hoped that would still be true when he finally told her…

“What do you think?” She spun on the pedestal, showing off a green dress. Jason and Steph had taken her to get a gown for the gala; Jason would have been happy for it to be just the two of them, but she insisted she needed a girl's opinion too.

Steph grinned. “I love that silhouette on you. … But the color ….” She waved her hand in a ‘so-so’ motion.

“What's wrong with the color?” She frowned, looking down at herself.

“Nothing, you look beautiful.” Jason smiled softly.

“But it'll look like Christmas!” Steph exclaimed.

She tilted her head, frowning. “Christmas?”

Steph nodded emphatically; “Jason only has one tie for these events, and it's red!”

“Oh! Well then I need a red dress!” She grinned, gathering up the skirt and running for the changing room. “I wish you had the tie with you to compare …”

“I can find a picture!” Steph grinned, going through her Waynebook photos.

Jason blinked a bit, not fully sure what was happening. “... Y- … huh? … you wanna wear red?”

She reemerged, grinning; “Of course; I want everyone in that room to know at a glance that I'm your girl~”  He blushed bright red, letting her take his hand and pull him toward a selection of red dresses. Steph smirked a bit, following along to help find a few dresses that would match his tie nicely. 

She blushed brightly and giggled at the soft groan that emanated from Jason's throat when she came out in a dress with a high slit and off the shoulder sleeves. Steph smirked; “That sounds like a yes to me.”

“Hmm…” She shifted and squirmed a bit in front of the mirror, frowning at her reflection. “I dunno about this one…”

Jason stood behind her, offering her his hands. “Why not? You look incredible…”

She blushed more, taking them. They stood in the mirror, him behind her and to the side a bit, her hands resting in his like he was leading her onto the dance floor. “I dunno, … the slit is really high, and the off the shoulder sleeves sit in a way that draws attention to my arm fat…”

Jason frowned, gently squeezing her hands. “And?”

She chuckled a bit, looking at his face in the mirror. “What do you mean ‘and’?”

“You're gorgeous. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise it's because they're jealous of how effortlessly beautiful you are. You're going to be the most stunning girl at that entire stupid gala. Really, getting to see you outshine all those hoity-toity-stick-up-their-ass bitches is going to make it worth going.” The sincerity on his face almost made her believe it. She giggled, turning toward him. 

“... I haven't danced since P.E. in middle school…”

“We'll practice. Come on, let's practice.” He gently guided her away from the mirror. He guided her hand to his shoulder, then held his hand by her side, hovering a bit. “Can I touch?”

She nodded, grinning, and his hand finally rested against her side, gently guiding her in a simple waltz. Neither of them was particularly graceful, but Jason had the most basic steps memorized from years of being forced to attend Wayne functions. They stared into each other's eyes, mesmerized by the adoration and security they found in each other.

The trance was broken by Stephanie's coos of; “Aww, you two are adorable~”

Jason cleared his throat, smiling softly. “So … this dress?”

She looked in the mirror again, fanning out the skirt a bit. “... You like it that much?” He nodded, unable to tear his eyes off her, and she grinned. “Ok, this one then.”

Steph spent the next hour helping her find shoes that she'd be able to walk and dance in before they were finally able to check out.

That night at her place, Jason offered her a plate and kissed her cheek. She was, inexplicably, excited about the gala, she had fun picking out a dress, and now he was going to butter her up even further with her favorite dinner. She beamed, leaning into the kiss, and blinked in surprise as he sat behind her, gently pulling her to lean against his chest. 

“... Babe?”

He hummed softly. “Yeah?”

“... You're … this is good?”

He nodded, arms wrapped around her waist, and kissed her shoulder. “This is good. Eat up~”

She grinned, trying not to vibrate with excitement, and ate happily. “Mh~ it's perfect~ thank you~”

“Of course~” Everything was falling into place. It had been a perfect day. There was no way she could be angry that he'd kept this from her for so long, right? She'd forgive him. She'd understand, and she'd love him anyway. She would… right?

Although, maybe he shouldn't be sitting so close when he told her. If it scared her, she might think him being behind her was a threat. And with him touching her like this, she was trapped against him. He didn't want her to feel trapped. He needed to find a casual way to let go of her, and get to the other side of the room so she would know she was safe when he told her … but he was so comfortable here … maybe just one more minute like this. 

… Besides, it was better not to ruin her dinner. … Actually, maybe he shouldn't do it today. He didn't want her to associate the meal with this news, after all. Plus, they had the gala coming up, if she was upset she'd feel beholden to him, to go together even if she was upset. He didn't want that. No, maybe he should do it after the gala. 

… Yeah, after the gala…

Next ->

Divider by: @saradika-graphics

Taglist (open):

@jawdropforkpop @krys0210 @snowy-violet @superthoughts @wordsfromshona @mystic60 @iwannabealocalcryptid @morstuavitamea-a @frosty--giants @arisa191 @prized-jules @phoenix666stuff @dinonuggysandhuggus

[reasonsforhope]

Version that doesn't require sign-in.

"Hot Labor Summer just became a scorcher.

[On August 25, 2023], the National Labor Relations Board released its most important ruling in many decades. In a party-line decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, the Board ruled that when a majority of a company’s employees file union affiliation cards, the employer can either voluntarily recognize their union or, if not, ask the Board to run a union recognition election. If, in the run-up to or during that election, the employer commits an unfair labor practice, such as illegally firing pro-union workers (which has become routine in nearly every such election over the past 40 years, as the penalties have been negligible), the Board will order the employer to recognize the union and enter forthwith [a.k.a. immediately] into bargaining.

The Cemex decision was preceded by another, one day earlier, in which the Board, also along party lines, set out rules for representation elections which required them to be held promptly after the Board had been asked to conduct them, curtailing employers’ ability to delay them, often indefinitely.

Taken together, this one-two punch effectively makes union organizing possible again, after decades in which unpunished employer illegality was the most decisive factor in reducing the nation’s rate of private-sector unionization from roughly 35 percent to the bare 6 percent at which it stands today...

“This is a sea change, a home run for workers,” said Brian Petruska, an attorney for the Laborers Union who authored a 2017 law review article on how to effectively restore to workers their right to collective bargaining enshrined in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which was all but nullified by the act’s weakening over the past half-century. Taken together, Petruska added, last week’s decisions recreate “a system with no tolerance for employers’ coercion of their employees” when their employees seek their legal right to collective bargaining...

Since the days of Lyndon Johnson, every time that the Democrats have controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, they’ve tried to put some teeth back into the steadily more toothless NLRA. But they’ve never managed to muster the 60 votes needed to get those measures through the Senate. The Cemex ruling actually goes beyond much of what was proposed in those never-enacted bills."

-via The American Prospect, August 28, 2023

--

Note: I didn't include it because the paragraphs about it went super into the weeds, but the reason all of this is happening is because of the NRLB's general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, who was appointed by Biden. In fact, according to this article, this "secures Abruzzo’s place as the most important public official to secure American workers’ rights since New York Sen. Robert Wagner, who authored the NLRA in 1935." Voting matters

[transmutationisms]

thots on astrology? related, thoughts on mbti?

k i like that you guys just pop in my inbox from time to time and invite me to run my mouth about topics and concepts. like truly what else is this website for.

anyway astrology (& sorry, most of what i know here pertains specifically to europe in the middle ages onward) is genuinely such a bizarro historical case of a science whose core epistemological presupposition (a geocentrist and specifically anthropocentrist cosmology) has completely fallen out of favour in both popular and professional discourse, and i don't think most people appreciate how weird it is for astrology to continue existing with this degree of popular and mainstream participation lol. like most fringe science actually bothers to have some semblence of its own reactionary epistemology to fall back on; astrology just doesn't seem to care. it would be like if the medical guilds fully endorsed the position that blood is circulated in the human body by the heart, but then also recommended as treatments for clotting disorders medical practices that only make sense on the supposition that the liver is the origin of all blood and is continuously creating more of it. like no other science that i can think of tries to have it both ways to the extent astrology does. like, one reason phrenology and eugenics are bad comparison points here is because they're very much copacetic with post-enlightenment naturalism and evolutionary transpositions in the social sciences. astrology, like, intellectually is not and yet here it is anyway. ideology innit.

anyhow i assume the reason you asked about this in conjunction with mbti is because today's astrology is largely purporting to provide psychological analysis and is therefore more similar to a system like mbti than to the historical use of star-reading as a predictive science. obviously both astrology and mbti are deeply reactionary in this respect and belong to a larger trend toward attempting to categorise, measure, and taxonomise the psyche, tho an important difference here is that mbti has hereditarian elements, which no form of astrology that i know of does. i think astrology's shift in the personal-psychological direction has to do with a few different factors, including medical astrological practice (orthodox in the european middle ages, then varying degrees of heterodox from the early modern period onward) and self-help movements in the 20th century.

but in any case it, mbti, and similar attempts at psychometry are, like, staggeringly essentialist in conception and practice, and i do think their current popularity reflects some deeply reactionary tendencies amongst people who often (not always) consider themselves otherwise progressive or leftist. it's honestly kind of worrisome how many people will jump on a project that explicitly aims to define static and immutable human 'types' as long as it's dressed in quasi-spiritual or psy-scientific terminology. like i do think we all need to pause and think about the ideological ends and consequences of how we talk about each other and our bodies, minds, and birth circumstances 😵‍💫

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

I wrote yesterday about a Hezbollah drone which crashed in Israel without setting off the sirens, and missed by a small margin a kindergarten. Now we know about a second Hezbollah drone, which was found in someone's backyard in northern Israel, and which also didn't trigger any alarm systems. The fact that no warning systems were set off twice that we know of, is a real cause for concern, and is being looked into. As this second drone didn't explode after crashing, Israel will be able to study it, which is the main silver lining.

I have written repeatedly about UNRWA's complicity in Palestinian terrorism in general, and Hamas' in particular. We're getting even more data on this. Previous numbers talked about how many UNRWA members had ties to any Palestinian terrorist organization, now the figures on ties to Hamas specifically are being shared: at least 440 UNRWA workers in Gaza were active Hamas terrorists, at least 2,000 are registered Hamas operatives, and at least 7,000 have a first degree relative who's a Hamas member, making a total of at least 9,440 UNRWA employees in Gaza closely tied to Hamas out of a total of 12,000 Gaza UNRWA workers. And since we're talking about this UN agency again, remember when I recently wrote about the social worker employed by UNRWA, who was captured in CCTV footage kidnapping the body of a murdered Israeli man to Gaza, with the help of a fellow Hamas terrorist? Well, we now know who the man, whose lifeless body Faisal Ali Mussalem Naami was kidnapping, is. It's 21 years old Yonatan Samerano.

He was attending the Nova music festival on Oct 7. It seems he and two friends tried to escape the slaughter there by fleeing to the nearby kibbutz Re'im, where all three were murdered by Hamas terrorists at the community gate. Then Naami showed up DRIVING A UN VEHICLE (that's right, with UN LICENSE PLATES, as confirmed by Ayelet Samerano) and used this car to kidnap Yonatan's body. In the interview I heard with Ayelet Samerano, Yonatan's mom, she said she's going to be demanding answers from the UN secretary general, and that the family is considering filing a lawsuit. Meanwhile, because Jewish lives really are nothing, I'll remind you that UNRWA has been nominated by a Norwegian member of parliament for a Nobel Peace Prize. If you think this is the bad judgment of one politician, Norway is also one of the few western countries NOT temporarily suspending funding of UNRWA until further investigation, and have even said they might increase it. There's only one bit of good news, and that's the fact the US is saying its suspension of UNRWA fudning is going to be permanent.

The reality of Hamas' brutal sex crimes isn't news at this point to anyone with a bit of decency regarding Israeli civilians' fate on Oct 7, but a new report delving into more details than ever on those sex crimes has now been sent to the UN. I expect it to have zero impact given the UN's track record, but it's still important that this report was compiled and submitted by ARCCI, the Israeli association of organizations aiding rape and sexual assault victims.

There's a whole saga with Brazil's president, Lula. Sit tight. It started with Lula saying that what Israel is doing right now in Gaza has never happened before in history, and if it did, it was only when Hitler decided to genocide the Jews (this is absolutely untrue on any measurable level. The war in Gaza is not the bloodiest one ever, doesn't have the highest rate of killed civilians when the global one is a 9:1 ratio of killed civilians compared to killed militants while in the Gaza war there's a 4.5 times lower rate at 2:1, and certainly doesn't include an intentional attempt to kill all Palestinians on an intense industrial level with tens of thousands often being killed daily as the Nazis did to the Jews and which made the Holocaust stand out even in comparison to other cases of genocide). So to make it clear, what Lula did was antisemitic, both in falsely demonizing the Jewish state, and in minimizing the Holocaust by presenting it as comparable to a drastically less extreme event (in fact, the internationally accepted IHRA definition of antisemitism has included false comparisons of Israel to the Nazis for years now). In response, Israel has declared Lula a persona non-grata (unwanted personality) here until he retracts these antisemitic comments. This didn't make Lula reconsider his antisemitic comments, instead he recalled the Brazilian ambassador to Israel. This is maybe connected to Lula's warm ties with the Islamist regime in Iran (including allowing Iranian ships to dock in Brazil), which officially denies the Holocaust.

Here is a vid 21 years old Maya Regev, who was injured, and then kidnapped together with her younger brother Itay by Hamas on Oct 7, from the Nova music festival. Despite her complicated leg injury, she didn't get any medical help during here time in captivity, which compounded her state. She was released in the hostage deal more than 2 months ago, and had undergone several surgeries due to the state of her leg. In this footage, shared yesterday, Maya is seen walking on crutches for the first time since her abduction, more than 4 months ago.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[laulink]

Something that I don't often see in the "was Edelgard's war necessary" discourse is the interdependence between the Church and the nobility. The question is always framed such as "are Edelgard's reforms worth starting a war over" or "is the net result of the war positive or negative" or "did she need to invade the Kingdom and Alliance to do her thing or was she just a cold-hearted, power-hungry tyrant" and the arguments given for or against either side of the conflict very rarely includes this simple fact :

No reform is possible in Fodlan because the Church and nobility feed off of each other.

It doesn't matter whether or not the specific reforms Edelgard wants to implement deserve thousands of people to die for them (if such a thing is even objectively quantifiable) ; it doesn't matter what the "net result" of the war is (if you can even make an objective measure on that) ; it doesn't matter whether or not having the Kingdom and Alliance under her authority was necessary to make the reforms she wanted ; absolutely no reform, whatsoever, in any territory, could have been achieved and lasted with the Church still standing. Why ?

Because the Church and the nobility enforce each other's "divine right to rule" and neither wants to lose their power.

Rhea wants to keep Fodlan in stasis until she brings Sothis back. She's done that for a thousand years and will keep doing it for as long as she needs to. How did she do it ? By making the powerful (the Crest-bearing descendants of the Ten Elites) dependant on her. She made their strength (their Crest) dependant on properly following and supporting her Church, instilling in Fodlan's societies the belief that a family won't produce Crest-bearing heirs any longer if they oppose the Goddess. The Crests are therefore both a mark of the Goddess' favour, granting nobles their "divine right to rule", and a pair of shackles binding them to the Church. If the Church falls and the commoners don't believe in the Goddess any longer, they also won't believe in the nobles' divine right to rule anymore and will rebel against the caste system. Therefore, the nobles need to enforce belief in the Goddess by showing how devoted they are, as Ferdinand and Lorenz explain is their noble duty to guide the commoners on the path of the faithful, and by giving the Church money to keep its influence and prestige ; otherwise, the nobility itself will be at risk.

But the reverse is, therefore, also true : if the nobility were to fall or stop supporting the Church (the one Rhea leads, mind you), it would lose power, influence and the money necessary to maintain its presence throughout the continent. The Church needs to make sure that the nobility system either stays the same or at least still relies on the belief in the Goddess. Any reform that abolishes the nobility, title inheritance or Crest supremacy is bound to be an absolute nightmare for the Church. Sounds familiar ?

Three Hopes touches onto this by showing us Rhea's attempts at killing the Bishop of the newly restored Southern Church. She doesn't try to get him killed because Edelgard was the one to choose him, she tries to kill him because this Southern Church represents a threat for the Central Church she leads, and she doesn't accept that.

How is the Southern Church a threat ? Two possible, non-exclusive ways :

The Southern Church's teachings are in opposition to the Central Church's teachings : we don't know exactly what those teachings are, but if the Southern Church's teachings imply that the Central Church's ones are fake, it would put their legitimacy into question. Which brings us to the second point :

The Southern Church is trying to become more prominent than the Central one : the Southern Church was dismantled about 200 years before the start of the game for being "dissident" and is now being revived with Edelgard's support. It doesn't even matter what it teaches the people : it fills a gap in the Imperial citizens' lives. By doing so, and by being morally, publicly and financially supported by the new Emperor, it earns the support of the faithful of the Empire and takes it away from the Central Church, in part at least.

So, because Rhea doesn't accept power being taken away from her, she attacks and tries to kill the "rebellion" in the egg, the same way she did with the "dissidents" of the Western Church in Houses, where she sent her students to execute and capture the priests, then executed the survivors without a trial. Sending an assassin against a bishop is clearly not something she would hesitate to do.

But, in this example, the Church was the one "under attack". You might wonder how Rhea would have reacted if Edelgard hadn't restored the Southern Church or started the war and had simply reformed the Empire without bothering anyone else, right ? Well, the answer is : basically the same thing.

What we know of Edelgard's reforms is that they are meant to end the caste system, let anyone reach a position of power, oust the people who are not competent enough to handle them and deny the very idea that birth determines someone's right to rule over a region or a whole nation. Those are all ideas that the Central Church has spent the last millenia denying and fighting against so the nobles would stay dependant on them ; if Edelgard's reforms were to be implemented, and moreso if they were to be successful, therefore proving that Crests and the ability to rule are not related, the Central Church's teachings would be proved wrong and the people of Fodlan, Kingdom and Alliance included, would rebel and stop supporting the Church and nobility. Rhea would lose her power and Fodlan would evolve, one way or another, outside of her control. She would do anything to avoid that, including sending her knights to support the rebellious nobles (like the ones we see in Hopes) who are bound to fight against Edelgard's tyranny to preserve peace and order in Fodlan, even if it means fighting against the Imperial army until they can march on Enbarr and behead the mad tyrant... which is roughly what happens in SS where the Black Eagles form a rebellion and ally with the Church's forces to fight against Edelgard and ultimately defeat her in order to keep the status quo. Yes, they fought this war because they thought Edelgard was in the wrong and needed to be stopped, but the result is the exact same.

(if you want to get into real world parallels, the Catholic Church was in much the same position of power as the Central Church for a good millenia (the xenophobia and the way it wormed itself into being central in every government by saying the King ruled out of God's will and had to be a good Christian if they wanted to keep their throne is especially similar), but then Martin Luther called it out on its corruption and started the Protestant Church (Southern Church, in Fodlan's case), leading to a long religious and physical conflict where the Catholic Church tried to eradicate the dissidents, with fire among other things)

So, what do we deduce from all this ? Three things :

The Church and nobility feed off of each other to maintain their own power ; if one were to disappear or stop working the way it did in the past, the other would collapse.

Rhea is more than ready to do what it takes to preserve her power and influence over Fodlan because it allows her to keep it in stasis and she believes that is what she should do until her mother comes back from the dead.

Edelgard's reforms would put a dent in Rhea's power, war or no war, which would result in Rhea trying to get her killed so she could put a good, obedient noble on the throne in order to restore the Central Church's power and maintain the nobility's standing in the Empire/Fodlan.

So, in conclusion : no significant change to the system can be made and kept in place for more than a few years, a decade at most, without national level of armed conflict at the very least because the Church and nobility will ally and fight tooth and nail to preserve their power. Taking apart the nobility cannot be done without destroying the Central Church at the same time, for one will always try to save/bring back the other to justify its own power. If Edelgard hadn't started the war, Rhea would have ; if Edelgard hadn't invaded and conquered the Kingdom and Alliance, their nobility would have attacked her in order to avoid her reforms giving ideas to their own population, or the population would have rebelled and started a bloody civil war in order to win their freedom, which would have likely caused more casualties, especially civil ones and children, than a fight between two actual armies.

There would have been war anyway. There would have been thousands of deaths anyway. Edelgard did what she did in order to gain the advantage by attacking first, improve her odds and shape the conflict in a way that would cause the least civilian casualties. We can still debate whether or not she was right or wrong, whether or not there was a better way to achieve her goals and save more lives, but the fact remains that while she did start the war, if she had not, someone else would have in order to stop her reforms. There was no peaceful way to change the whole system. As always, when you want to take power away from a group of people, you have to fight for it, and they will fight back.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

You mentioned in another post about Dumbledore's "protection" being seriously lacking (for people like James & Lily). Can you expand on this?

I suppose it's time.

What the Fidelius Charm Does

The Fidelius Charm involves three parties: a location to be protected, a secret keeper, and the caster of the charm. Upon completion, a location is perfectly hidden. It can't be accessed physically even if someone knows it must be there (e.g. Grimmauld Place disappearing between numbers 12 and 14 with no explanation of the missing building in between), cannot be plotted by wizards, and can't be accessed magically either.

To enter the location and even be able to access it properly, a person needs access to 'the secret' which is granted by only the secret keeper. Through this person, they then have access to the location on a full-time basis (it is not a one-time ticket and seemingly cannot be revoked).

Those who are not granted 'the secret' cannot enter the location no matter what they might try. This makes it, on the surface, a highly dependable security measure.

Alright, What's the Problem

There's a few problems right away with the spell.

The first is the known one from canon, it relies on a 'secret keeper'. A party has to be trusted to grant access to the location. If this is a third party, they have to be able to reliably white list those seeking entrance and cannot afford to make a mistake. If this party is compromised or is nefarious then the charm is rendered completely void with no warning to those being protected or the caster.

The second is that, upon the secret keeper's death, there's no next in line but the secret instead defaults to being kept by everyone on the whitelist. In canon we see this with the death of Dumbledore (secret keeper for Grimmauld Place). Upon his death, everyone now has the ability to give access to Grimmauld Place. This includes Severus Snape who is a presumed Death Eater, meaning that Grimmauld Place is now completely compromised. This is very very bad.

The third is part of the above, once you're on the whitelist it seems you can't be removed. They discover Severus Snape is a Death Eater, Dumbledore dies and everyone's now secret keeper, they can't seem to revoke both secret keeper status as well as his presence on the whitelist from him. The best they can do is set up a hilariously terrible jinx to protect the building if he tries to enter (it is uh very ineffective).

The fourth is that your status on the whitelist never expires. Once you're in, you're in forever. You don't get just a one-time pass or a session with an expiration date where you have to reapply for access. Now, perhaps this is convenient as it means you don't have to seek out the secret keeper again (and in that sense secures the secret keeper's identity) however it means those who might have flipped sides later have access forever or else people now always have access to the location even in unwanted hours/if they were there for just a meeting.

These are just the weaknesses baked into the spell by nature, it gets worse when we consider how it's implemented for Godric's Hollow.

Alright, What's Wrong with the Godric's Hollow Implementation

This is where things start to look nefarious.

The above, I wouldn't expect wizards to necessarily be thinking about. While at this point asymmetric key encryption is taking off in the Muggle world and has been for decades, it's a recent Muggle invention and not one that even ordinary Muggles pay attention to let alone wizards (who would then have to consider how to implement this in a magical form and what use cases it'd have for them). What the wizards employ, while bad, is not out of line with how ciphers and things worked for much of Muggle history. You have a key you have to protect, if you lose it you're fucked, no way around that. Which means that passing the key to those who need it, making sure you can trust them, is the largest weakness of the system. The Fidelius is very strong in that it seems you have to have the key to break it, which is the case with all encryption, and the issue then is trying to keep the key as safe as possible (which is always a hard task).

Basically, looking at that, I don't think they could have done much better than the fidelius in terms of security in and of itself (there's other options they could have taken but we'll get into that below).

But then we look at Godric's Hollow.

The issue is who do they make secret keeper. They suspect Lupin of being a spy, someone has been leaking information to Voldemort including the Potter's location (which is why they had to go under Fidelius in the first place). At this point, they're already fucked.

They try to get around this by announcing the secret keeper is Sirius but in secret making it Peter, so that everyone will go after Sirius instead. The trouble is that James only has three friends. One he thinks is a spy, that leaves two.

Even had Peter not been a Death Eater, Peter knew who the secret keeper was. If you know who the secret keeper is, that's effectively knowing the secret itself. All Voldemort has to do is find the first person among the Order who will either talk, or slowly pick his way through Potter's associates and friends until he gets the secret or else kills the one who turned out to be the secret keeper.

Not to mention that all Voldemort has to do is imperio those who have access to the secret and send them to murder the Potters in his stead.

Sirius, Peter, and Remus would be the first on Voldemort's list, and everyone knew that.

It would have been a matter of weeks, had Voldemort actively pursued this, before Voldemort gained access to the house.

And here's the thing. We see that Dumbledore can be both the caster and the secret keeper from Grimmauld Place. Dumbledore, reportedly, is the only person Voldemort is scared of and is the strongest wizard by far in the Order. Why didn't Dumbledore offer to be secret keeper? Why didn't he insist on it? Why didn't James and Lily ask him to do it, especially when they suspect Remus of being a spy?

While James might have picked Peter out of a show of loyalty, Dumbledore could have insisted for their protection. Instead, it seems like Dumbledore purposefully let them take this option and never gave an explanation as to why.

Maybe, Godric's Hollow Was a House of Cards

We also have James. James, canonically, snuck out of Godric's Hollow while it was under protection to hang out with Sirius and the gang. Dumbledore confiscated his invisibility cloak for this reason, something Lily notes in her letter to Sirius.

The thing is, while Dumbledore takes the cloak, that's the only thing he does to stop James from sneaking out. Perhaps it's not his place to do more, but on the other hand, this does nothing to stop James from sneaking out and James (having access to the secret) could easily be imperioed and sent back to murder his family.

Instead, he makes it look as if he's doing something, but is taking an item he greatly wanted as it is.

With that prophecy, where Harry or Neville are the only ones capable of defeating Voldemort, it's starting to look like Dumbledore wants James and Lily to be found. He wants to set up just enough protection that, at a glance, it looks very secure and as if they're putting their all into hiding them: except that he doesn't want it to hold.

Godric's Hollow is a trap intended for Tom, to lure him into a confrontation with the child, when he's the only one who knows the full prophecy and the last few lines that Tom doesn't (as it is, I'm not sure even we the readers know exactly what the prophecy says or that Snape learning the prophecy wasn't a set up).

My theory is this: Dumbledore purposefully chose this method of protection (versus sending Lily and James out of the country with Harry), purposefully chose not to be secret keeper, and set up Godric's Hollow as a means to lure Voldemort into a trap and vanquish him with James, Lily, and Harry as unfortunate collateral damage.

[bekolxeram]

7x03 analysis part 2 — Too many Cats

Tommy flew a helicopter into a Category 5 hurricane, at least the show told us so. Is it even possible for an aircraft to fly in those conditions? Today, we are going to figure out just how strong the storm actually is canonically, and how realistic our beloved weewoo show is.

TW: Hurricane, extreme weather, natural disaster

What is the difference between a tropical storm and a hurricane? What even is a hurricane?

Both tropical storm and hurricane are tropical cyclones, just of different strength. A tropical cyclone is a rotating storm system with a low pressure center. The center, or the eye of the storm, sucks in warm moist air from an oceanic environment and it feeds into the generation of storm clouds that organize themselves into a spiral pattern due to the Earth's rotation, aka Coriolis effect.

A tropical cyclone is classified by its maximum sustained wind.

So if it's below 62 km/h, it's a tropical Depression. if it's between 63-118 km/h, it's a Tropical Storm. A Category 5 hurricane though has a maximum sustained wind speed of over 252 km/h.

A strong enough tropical cyclone is called a hurricane in North America, a typhoon in East Asian, and a cyclone in the Indian Ocean (including Australia).

How strong is the storm in 7x03 actually?

We first see the storm at the end of 7x01, when First Mate Kenneth tells Captain Ochoa there is a strengthening tropical storm in the ship's path. Captain Ochoa decides to reverse course back to LA and instructs Kenneth to alert the Coast Guard, but they get interrupted by the cartel.

Fast forward to 7x02, the next mention of the storm comes from Karen. When Hen is sent home by Chief Simpson, she tries to call Athena, but it goes straight to voicemail. Karen tells her cell service is probably spotty out at sea because of the hurricane, which has just got upgraded.

It's recently upgraded to a Category 2 hurricane, as we can see from Karen's tablet.

Then Hen goes to Maddie to ask the Coast Guard to look for Bathena's cruise ship. When Hen shows Maddie the ship tracking app on her phone, the time is 10:28. (I'm guessing PM because it's already dark outside during the Kyle Ortiz call.)

By the time Chief Simpson comes by to reinstate Hen, she's already talking about a Cat 5 hurricane. That can't be more than an hour or two later.

So which one is it? Is it a Cat 2 or a Cat 5? Who should I trust?

Tommy. Whenever he flies, his safety depends on his understanding of the local wind condition and weather. You should listen to him:

So it's a Cat 5, at least by the time the 118 set off on their journey to save Bathena.

Can a tropical storm intensify into a Cat 5 hurricane in hours?

No, not in real life. The record for most rapid intensification of a tropical cyclone is Hurricane Patricia in 2015, but it still took 24 hours. This doesn't mean the storm in 7x03 is completely made up. I believe I might have found the real life inspiration behind it.

Hurricane Otis (2023)

An area of low pressure formed on October 15, 2023 over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico. While it was during a significant El Niño period and the ocean temperature was record-breaking-ly high, strong vertical wind shear condition near the storm was predicted to hinder its development. It was originally forecasted to make landfall as a mere tropical storm. People in Acapulco went to bed on October 23 expecting moderate wind and light rainfall, many stopped seeking out updates of the storm.

In the early hours of October 24, meteorologists at the NHC recognized from satellite images that tropical storm Otis was rapidly intensifying into a hurricane. The NHC officially upgraded the storm to a Cat 1 hurricane at 13:00 CDT and sent out a hurricane hunter aircraft to accurately measure the actual wind speed of the cyclone.

Satellite images provide a pretty good model to estimate the strength of a tropical cyclone, but the most reliable way to measure wind speed is still to fly an aircraft into it and physically measure it. When the hurricane hunter managed to fly into the eyewall of Otis, everyone realized they made a huge mistake: Otis had already become a Cat 3 hurricane, and it was expected to strengthen even more. It takes time to process data received from the hurricane hunter, so operationally the NHC still classified Otis as a Cat 1 hurricane until the next advisory was scheduled to come out, which was at 16:00 CDT, but by that time, Otis was already near Cat 4 strength. It was then officially upgraded to a Cat 5 hurricane at 22:00 CDT.

While Otis did take around 24 hours to intensify from a tropical storm to a catastrophic hurricane, if you just look at the NHC advisories, it pretty much jumped from a Cat 1 into a Cat 5 in 9 hours. It caused extensive damage to Acapulco when it made landfall because the city was severely underprepared. I suspect the cruise ship disaster arc was inspired by hurricane Otis because it happened just a month after the writer strike ended. Also, in 7x02 Maddie, a 911 dispatcher, was not aware that the tropical storm had already strengthened into a hurricane, which mirrors the unexpected development of hurricane Otis.

As the storm in universe was going back at sea and not making landfall, the authority was probably in even less of a hurry to find out what the actual strength of the cyclone was. So it could take them even longer to send in weather reconnaissance aircrafts. I can imagine the 911-verse version of the storm jumping from a Cat 2 to a Cat 5 officially in mere hours.

Can a helicopter fly in a Cat 5 hurricane?

Technically yes, but the chopper won't be doing the flying. The aforementioned NOAA Hurricane Hunter is a Lockheed P-3 Orion specifically modified and fortified for weather information collection. If this four-engined workhorse has to fight tooth and nail against crosswind and turbulence in order to fly into the eye of the storm, a small single engine helicopter definitely would not fair any better. It would end up getting tossed around, a particular strong downdraft might slam it into the ocean, or a prolong bout of severe turbulence might rip it apart. Luckily in 7x03, Tommy is not actually flying into a hurricane, he's trailing behind it.

NOAA Lockheed WP-3D Orion Hurricane Hunter

In a blink-and-you-miss-it exchange between Buck and Tommy, after Tommy says "a Cat 5 hurricane passed through here", Buck asks why he means by "passed through" and what they are flying in at the moment.

"iNTermITteNt sHOweRs"

When looking at the cross section of a tropical cyclone, you can see rows of rainbands around the eyewall, increasing in size the closer it is to the center of the storm. If you have ever experienced a tropical cyclone making landfall, you would know it starts with sporadic bouts of rainfall (aka intermittent showers), which then gradually increase in frequency and severity as the storm approaches. Once you are within 100-200 km of the eye, wind speed would become violent while the rainbands become so wide and close together it basically keeps raining until you are right under the eye.

These are radar images of hurricane Irma (2017) making landfall in Florida. Bands of moderate to heavy rainfall spread across the inner core region of the cyclone, with still pretty consistent light to moderate precipitation between the gaps. But in the area further away from the eye in the southwest and southeast quadrants, you can see more squall line like patterns. Precipitation would abruptly begin and stop as you fly in and out of those outer lumps of clouds.

Wind speed in that area is no where near hurricane level even for a Cat 5 cyclone, it is typically under 100 km/h. That does not mean it is a safe condition to fly in. Because the outer rainbands of a cyclone are less affected by the storm's vortex dynamics, they behave more like regular thunderstorms. As you know, thunderstorms are big no-no's for aviation safety. In fact, the outer rainbands of a typhoon once contributed to a plane crash in Taiwan.

Conclusion

The hurricane in 7x03 is likely based on reality, albeit with a bit of exaggeration and a shortened timeline for dramatic effect. It is possible to fly and control a helicopter in this specific condition, but the danger is still quite high. Flying into a thunderstorm has a whole different set of risks associated with it, which I will tell you all about next time. Yes, part 3 of this series is "how to crash a helicopter with weather", so stay tuned.

[granulesofsand]

Hello there!

I had a question for you-- do you know much of anything about duality programming?

How to combat it? How it works? I know what it is, but knowing more would be a great help to my system.

Duality

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA/OEA (de)programming

We have a lot of duality programming. Do we know much of anything about it? Hard to say (only wrote a short essay on it).

The most active dual we deal with is good/evil. For us, this looks like angels and demons, white and red, mind and heart. These groups have the heaviest training to fight each other, though some of our duals maintain more of a distrusting truce.

Dealing with Duals

We started by keeping them away from each other. Both groups have their own extreme ideals, many of which are harmful to the body (white obeys unquestioningly, including orders to deprive the body of survival needs and cause harm to us or outsiders; red acts on emotion, including sexual and violent behaviors). The angels agree not to come around during mealtimes and to leave if we need sleep or the toilet, the demons practice impulse control, both go back inside if they have urges that would be dangerous to act on. They don’t front for urges, so they don’t fight over urges.

We taught them how they were lied to, which beliefs they held came from which shoddy staged events. We gave them choices, how far they wanted to move how fast. Let them stay within their belief system if they wanted to, and let them define the words they were fed for themselves. Taught them the different between natural consequences and punishments.

After a few months of preventative measures, we started to pick out which of each group was the most mild, who had similar external experiences, who was most willing to interact with other insiders without escalating. We tried to pair them up, getting them used to one another like introducing a new animal to a pet. Usually, the first reaction was disdain, which often led to escalation. Find them hobbies to bond over, media they can consume together, topics they both tolerate.

We have some pairs that are doing okay. ‘Good’ is a stretch, but okay.

Their groups’ higherups started to ostracize them. The few who were already working with us helped settle the defensiveness from the rest, and they’ve mostly given up trying to break the pairs.

Progress

The fighting is ongoing.

More and more of the ‘lesser’ angels and demons are coming forward looking for a partner — the ones who were mass-made, who have group loyalty but not as much ideology, or who have ideology but not so much group loyalty. These are the cannon-fodder who get recycled during the battles, and they don’t like that course so much.

We’re at a point where the violence is still going, but is more enjoyable for the participants? The higherups have some weird sexual tension happening that we’ve taken to therapy to see if it’s appropriate — it’s harm reduction, which is about as good as it gets.

How It Got Here

This dynamic was programmed in deep over the years, and it’s entangled in several of our integral structures with this dual alone. There are reflected layers for us, and they’re like pyramid schemes with each cluster under another person (in a cluster under another person). The higherups have mirrored roles based on the mythology we were raised with, and the top of each pyramid is another dual (yellow and black).

We were trained wearing clothes of the color, surrounded by people dressed like us and spewing similar beliefs. The second layer of each pyramid was trained for specific jobs, and they have symbols that code them. The bases are the mass-produced ones, and they were mostly trauma holders. The points are the most elaborate, magical-esque programmed systemmates, and they are… something else.

We had staged fights with color-coded teams, readings from cult texts and plays acted out for us. This was big for our group of origin, so we got the whole shebang. Growing up, we thought these sidesystems were external spirits from other planes.

So…

I don’t know how similar of an experience y’all had, but we’re open to talk more in DMs if that’d suit you. Only so much we can put out for the whole of the internet while staying safe ourselves.

I hope the process goes well for you, similar to ours or not.

[powerofmettatonneo]

An essay I wrote for psychology class that I'm really proud of:

On April 28th, 2019, Max Carpendale from the website Effective Altruism Forum interviewed biologist Jon Mallatt, the author of the books Ancient Origins of Consciousness and Consciousness Demystified. The main topic of conversation was the development and borders of consciousness throughout the animal kingdom. So, before going any further, we have to ask: what is consciousness? To quote the textbook (4.1), “consciousness describes our awareness of internal and external stimuli.” One of the main questions involving consciousness is what its limits are. Obviously, humans are conscious, but what about birds? Fish? Ants? Jellyfish? It’s hard to say. Mallat defines consciousness as the ability to “feel anything at all”, which is determined by having multiple sensory inputs to be able to form a mental or cognitive map of the world. This then implies the existence of latent learning and memory in the given organism.

One of the key tests for consciousness is the ability to receive positive and negative inputs. This may or may not be necessary for consciousness, but it proves its presence. There are multiple tests for this, but the most commonly performed is pain. This is itself difficult to determine. Mallatt only briefly touches on this topic, suggesting that crustaceans feel pain while insects and fish may experience momentary pain but not long term suffering. To explain that second part, if I were to stab you, it would hurt, but far worse would be the pain afterwards as your body tries to recover. Mallat is saying that insects and fish would only feel the initial pain of being stabbed and not the recovery. I have to disagree; it’s hard to think of a form of pain that wouldn’t result in long term suffering when general noxious stimuli exist in the almost certainly non conscious plants that might better explain their behavior. Instead, I went searching for an alternate model, and I found one created by the same person who wrote one of Mallat’s sources, one Robert W. Elwood, in the article Pain and stress in crustaceans?

They gave a seven criteria model, which includes:

(1) a suitable central nervous system and receptors, (2) avoidance learning, (3) protective motor reactions that might include reduced use of the affected area, limping, rubbing, holding or autotomy [shedding], (4) physiological changes, (5) trade-offs between stimulus avoidance and other motivational requirements, (6) opioid receptors and evidence of reduced pain experience if treated with local anesthetics or analgesics, and (7) high cognitive ability and sentience.

According to their model, vertebrates (including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish), cephalopods, and crustaceans possess all seven criteria. More controversial are insects, who possess four criteria (those being the fact that they possess a central nervous system, exhibit avoidance learning, exhibit physiological changes, and have a cognitive ability); on the other hand, they lack three criteria (protective motor responses, motivational trade-offs, and anesthesia response). Regardless, crustaceans, which have far more evidence for pain, also have a relatively low neuron count (100,000), suggesting that animals of a similar intelligence are also conscious, namely other arthropods (insects, arachnids, millipedes and centipedes). However, this still fails to definitively point to the boundary of consciousness, simply moving it down. Is there a way to instead measure if an animal has a cognitive map directly?

Yes, actually. Both nematodes and sea hares (a gastropod) have had their nervous systems completely mapped out, and while sea hares have shown evidence of latent learning and complex senses, nematodes lack any senses except for an extremely simplistic sense of smell, preventing them from ever creating a mental map of their environment. There are still a lot of animals that fall in between these, and I have my own opinions on them, but without further research, they’re more of a hypothesis than anything; in particular, some deep sea predatory worms were called out by Mallatt as having advanced senses.

Also of note, of the four clades of scientifically proven conscious animals, only two (gastropods and cephalopods) are closely related, meaning that consciousness has evolved at least three or four separate times.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

mike luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 18, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 19, 2024

This afternoon, Congress passed a new continuing resolution necessary to fund the government past the upcoming deadlines in the previous continuing resolution. Those deadlines were tomorrow (January 19) and February 2. The deadlines in the new measure are March 1 and March 8. This is the third continuing resolution passed in four months as extremist Republicans have refused to fund the government unless they get a wish list of concessions to their ideology.

Today’s vote was no exception. Eighteen Republican senators voted against the measure, while five Republicans did not vote (at least one, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, is ill). All the Democrats voted in favor. The final tally was 77 to 18, with five not voting. 

In the House the vote was 314 to 108, with 11 not voting. Republicans were evenly split between supporting government funding and voting against it, threatening to shut down the government. They split 107 to 106. All but two Democrats voted in favor of government funding. (In the past, Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts and MIke Quigley of Illinois have voted no on a continuing resolution to fund the government in protest that the measure did not include funding for Ukraine.) 

This means that, like his predecessor Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had to turn to Democrats to keep the government operating. The chair of the extremist House Freedom Caucus, Bob Good (R-VA), told reporters that before the House vote, Freedom Caucus members had tried to get Johnson to add to the measure the terms of their extremist border security bill. Such an addition would have tanked the bill, forcing a government shutdown, and Johnson refused.

“I always tell people back home beware of bipartisanship," Representative Warren Davidson (R-OH) said on the House floor during the debate. “The most bipartisan thing in Washington, D.C., is bankrupting our country, if not financially, morally…. It’s not just the spending, it’s all the terrible policies that are attached to the spending.”

Republican extremists in Congress are also doing the bidding of former president Donald Trump, blocking further aid to Ukraine in its struggle to fight off Russian aggression and standing in the way of a bipartisan immigration reform measure. Aid to Ukraine is widely popular both among the American people and among lawmakers. Immigration reform, which Republicans have demanded but are now opposing, would take away one of Trump’s only talking points before the 2024 election. 

A piece today in the Washington Post by European affairs columnist Lee Hockstadter about the difficulties of reestablishing democracy in Poland after eight years under a right-wing leader illuminates this moment in the U.S. Hockstadter’s description of the party of former Polish leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski sounds familiar: the party “jury-rigged systems, rules and institutions to its own partisan advantage, seeding its allies in the courts, prosecutors’ offices, state-owned media and central bank. Kaczynski’s administration erected an intricate legal obstacle course designed to leave the party with a stranglehold on key levers of power even if it were ousted in elections.”

Although voters in Poland last fall reelected former prime minister Donald Tusk to reestablish democracy, his ability to rebuild the democratic and judicial norms torched by his predecessor have been hamstrung by his opponents, who make up an “irreconcilable opposition” and are trying to retain control over Poland through their seizure of key levers of government. 

The U.S. was in a similar situation during Reconstruction, when in 1879, former Confederates in the Democratic Party tried to end the government protection of Black rights altogether by refusing to fund the government until the president, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, withdrew all the U.S. troops from the South (it’s a myth that they left in 1877) and stopped trying to protect Black voting. 

At the time, the president and House minority leader James A. Garfield refused to bow to the former Confederates. Five times, Hayes vetoed funding measures that carried the riders former Confederates wanted, writing that the Confederates’ policy was “radical, dangerous, and unconstitutional,” for it would allow a “bare majority” in the House to dictate its terms to the Senate and the President, thus destroying the balance of power in the American government.

In 1879, well aware of the stakes in the fight, newspapers made the case that the government was under assault. American voters listened, the former Confederates backed down, and Garfield somewhat unexpectedly was elected president in 1880 as a man who would champion the idea of the protection of Black rights and the country itself from those who wanted to establish that states were more powerful than the federal government. 

Chastened, the leaders of the Democratic Party marginalized former Confederates and turned to northern cities to reestablish the party, beginning the transition to the party that would, fifty years later, usher in the New Deal.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[celestial-mean-girls]

LUNAR AND SOLAR ECLIPSE MALFUNCTIONS: CONCEPT ART

:) teehee (hi @midnightsingvogel <3)

ok so!! Moony and Sunny's Eclipse(s) are categorized as malfunctions. it occurs when the DCA unit becomes overstimulated, stressed, overly emotional/angry, or provoked by either outside sources or internal error/A.I.. (as in, Sunny bothering/upsetting Moony during lights off) OR, if an A.I. tries to be more present through the currently present A.I..

for example: Moony trying to talk through Sunny during lights on, when he shouldn't be able to speak or have any sort of control over Sunny whether it be through voice or body manipulation. they can allow each other to sort of chime in now and then, but a continued effort or fight over control when they're not programmed to (Moony during lights on, Sunny during lights off, etc), can cause an Eclipse Malfunction.

there are two variants, of course: Lunar and Solar. the way i've thought it working for them is that what TYPE of eclipse it is is determined by who's currently active at the time: if Sunny is active, it's a solar; if Moony is active, it's a lunar. makes sense, seems obvious, right?

yeah, but hold the phone. the reason why an Eclipse occurs is due to extreme stress/upset in both of them, at once. it takes two to Eclipse, but the one who is INACTIVE at the time (aka Moony when the light is on, and Sunny when the light is off) been observed to ultimately be the "deciding factor" in whether or not an Eclipse takes place. oddly enough in those situations, the "dormant" one is more influential, or more powerful than the A.I. that's "awake". (something something about "inner turmoil", etc)

it's to note too that an Eclipse can even sometimes be seen as an overthrow attempt, and the A.I.s are literally fighting each other with the "active" one willingly initiating an Eclipse in order to shut them both down. think of it as using an Eclipse as a preventive or safety measure against further harm of each other/themselves (internally or externally), or others. (which is to also say that while these "orchestrated" Eclipse measures would do less damage to their system because they're doing it "consciously" so to speak, it STILL does damage, but less than a "natural" Eclipse would. if. if that makes sense. help)

the important bit: there are variables to an Eclipse, including partial-Eclipses.

because an Eclipse is a malfunction through and through, it corrupts data/programming for the DCA unit and causes some REAL rough harm on even the total robot body. their team would really REALLY like to understand it more, but due to the delicate nature and trouble an actual Eclipse does to the unit, and in order to study it more the team would need to provoke Sunny and Moony into doing it, and so it's just.. messy.

there is an "Eclipse blanket" in the Daycare for Assistant staff to use when/if an Eclipse takes place. the idea is to throw the blanket over the DCA unit whether Sunny or Moony (even if it's Moony and despite his functions being programmed for lights-out) and encase them in total darkness, and essentially shutting them down. but this needs to be done, first and foremost, because the Eclipse malfunctions for each are bright - and i mean, BRIGHT. they WILL cause damage to eyes and they are most often accompanied by some hell-noise right out of 90s dialup sounds, but Worse LOL.

rhdfgklhfghkg but ANYWAY THAT'S. quite enough chatter for now dafglkglhg pls enjoy my Eclipse(s) and cheers mates more art soon xoxo

[the-bar-sinister]

Lucifer Was an Angel As Well (3645 words) by thesavagesabretooth Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Additional Tags: Ambiguous Relationships, Dubious Morality, Post-Canon, Inappropriate Behavior, vera has a crush on the man who almost killed her, not ship and not not ship but a secret third thing, Extremely toxic, Vera Misham-centric, Kristoph Gavin-centric

Summary: Miles Edgeworth has been looking out for Vera Misham since her father's death, but he's not the one she considers her guardian angel.

The letters had started almost immediately after the devil was locked away from the sunlight, and she keeps them hidden from everyone despite their influence on her.

Meanwhile in jail, Kristoph tries to weave another spell, and regain some measure of control.

-

August 02, 2028– 2:05pm

In October it would be two years since Vera's father had been killed, and she had been put on trial for his murder. It was still a little bit unclear to her how exactly prosecutor Miles Edgeworth had ended up in her life, but he had been waiting in her hospital room when she woke up, and since then he had helped her make arrangements in her life.

So far, most of those arrangements had involved helping her understand her finances, securing her living space, and managing her enrollment in an accelerated adult learning program to officially obtain her high school diploma.

Now the fancy dressed man– who was by now the chief prosecutor– was helping her arrange the next step in her education. 

He took a sip of his coffee, sitting comfortably in her kitchen with her. 

"You're sure this is what you want, Vera? I remember last year we had discussed an art program."

Vera’s hands wrapped around the mug before her, letting the coffee inside warm them as she nodded firmly.

She’d thought about it for some time, of course, turning it over and over in her head on one of her many sleepless nights. She’d written back and forth about it, and debated it both internally and externally to always the same conclusion.

Art had stopped bringing her joy, at least as a career choice. Every time she’d put the brush to canvas with the intent to create something she could sell and survive off of, her father’s spirit hung heavy over her and crushed her creative spark to nothing. With the joy smothered from her dearest hobby, the idea of it becoming her job felt like an ever tightening box.

“I don’t want to make copies anymore.” she said softly. “That includes copying my father’s life. My eyes, my hands, could help people like how Apollo Justice and Mr. Wright helped me.” 

Mr. Edgeworth sighed and sipped his coffee, before putting it down on the counter with a little click. He shook his head.

"I understand, Vera. Sometimes it seems like everyone that this justice system touches ends up becoming absorbed by it. I wondered if perhaps you'd escape the… pattern."

Curse. Mr. Edgeworth hadn't said it. But that was what he meant. Maybe he was right. By now of course, Vera knew about the chief prosecutor's own history. The death of his father. The trial of Manfred Von Karma.

The beginnings of the great prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, in circumstances strangely reminiscent of her own. He’d been dragged into the mire of the legal system. Maybe it was a curse, a fate imposed on those touched by the scythe of death on its path through someone else that you’d find yourself entangled in the complicated and difficult world of the law and justice.

But Vera was no stranger to curses. She sipped her coffee. 

“Sorry Mr. Edgeworth…but I’ve talked it out and come to a de-decision.” Her voice dropped low. “I want to be a forensic investigator. Like Miss Skye.” 

"If that's what you've decided, then I won't try any further to dissuade you." He smiled a rather sad little smile and Vera managed her own fragile one in return. 

“Thank you…maybe I’ll..I’ll get the chance to work with you someday, Mr. Edgeworth.” 

"Perhaps you will. About all this– I heard you'd also been talking to Pearl Fey about the matter."

She nodded. “and I have been…Pearl and I have talked a lot about it, actually. She was …one…of the people I talked to when trying to figure things out.”

"I know she's been quite enthusiastic for herself," Edgeworth said thoughtfully. "Was she the one who suggested it to you?"

She hadn't been.

Vera was absolutely certain Miles Edgeworth wouldn’t have approved of the one who had. Her fingers tightened against her mug, a minute and easily missed sign of her internal spike in nerves.

If Apollo Justice were here, she was certain he would have noticed right away. The one who had suggested the path through the police academy had been another person entirely. A demon hovering over her shoulder, or her guardian angel, she wasn’t entirely sure.

“No, Mr. Edgeworth…she hadn’t. But when I told her I was thinking of joining too, she got rather excited.” 

"A fine coincidence, I suppose." Edgeworth nodded, satisfied. "The two of you have a lot in common, in some ways."

“We do, Mr. Edgeworth?” Vera cocked her head. “..I mean, I feel as if we do, we’ve found a lot of common ground…but I’m curious what you mean.” 

"Well. Without meaning to offend," he said carefully. "You were both raised in a quite sheltered way by a parent who was then… removed from your lives."

“Ah…” 

Vera had heard a little on this, here and there, in her conversations with Pearl. She’d always gotten the sense it wasn’t exactly something she liked to talk about– which was fair. Her own memories of her childhood with her father were complicated and entwined with the gut-wrenching feeling of poison pulsing through her body.

“That’s true, isn’t it..? Leaving us a little adrift when they were gone...” 

Miles nodded again. "Ms. Fey I think is a little bit ahead of you in working through that in some ways, and I think a little bit behind. Perhaps the two of you can help uplift one another during your time at the academy."

Vera leaned forward. 

“I’d like that. Pearl’s a stable presence. Nice. Maybe we could dorm together?” 

It was better than the mortifying ordeal of being set up with a stranger. 

"I'll see what I can do," Mr. Edgeworth nodded. "It shouldn't be a problem. Beyond that– I want you to know that if this doesn't work out, it isn't a problem or a failure, Vera. There's no shame in trying something and then wanting to change tracks."

It was a nice sentiment, but she had no intention of backing out. She’d been raised since she was a child to be an unknowing accomplice to forgery and corruption. Her talented eye and clever hands had rarely created anything beautiful that wasn’t a fake designed to put money in her father’s wallet.

As much as she loved art, this was something that could be all her own..just as she’d said in the letters to the man who’d suggested the academy in the first place.

“I know Mr. Edgeworth,” she smiled warmly at him. “I promise. But I know I can do it. I bel-believe in myself, as frightening as it is.” 

He nodded, and raised his coffee cup to her. "I believe in you too, Vera. I shall be watching your career closely."

August 02, 2028– 3:15pm

 I shall be watching your career closely.

Miles Edgeworth couldn't know that he wasn't the only person who had said– or at least who had written– those words to her in the last few days. With the chief prosecutor gone now, she was alone in her apartment. Just her, and her correspondence.

She sat at her quiet drafting table, unused paints and brushes gathering dust from where her lack of inspiration left them, pen hovering over an empty page as she scanned the opened letter pinned just beside it.

A simple envelope, and a letter scented with a gentle perfume written in careful handwriting.

Her pen swayed in her fingertips as she read it over once more and formulated her reply to one of the most constant presences in her life since the death of her father.

The letters had begun sometime shortly after she’d awoken from her coma, when she’d been getting settled in the new chance at life Apollo Justice had given her…and despite her better judgment, despite the good sense of men like the sort wielded by Miles Edgeworth, she couldn’t stop herself from responding. 

There had been no apology. 

Perhaps that was the most striking thing. No apology whatsoever. The letters had simply started with the tone of a casual correspondence. 

Dear Vera, 

I hope that you're keeping well and you haven't had trouble with your accommodations due to recent events. I'm afraid mine leave much to be desired…

That first letter she'd received almost two years ago– it was so casual. So pleasant.

She’d crafted a frame for it, though she never dared display it where her rare houseguests may see it and wonder. It sat, protected by hand-carved wood and glass, in a quiet drawer next to her drafting table.

It’d been just like its sender– so polite and affable, even when tugging the strings of its trap taut around you. It’d been a comfort to see that he hadn’t changed.

She’d responded in a haze. 

My life is in a state of flux, but Mr. Edgeworth and Mr. Justice have been very kind to me. I may lose papa’s house, but I’m told I should be given assistance to pick an apartment of my own. Are yours so terrible? Perhaps something can be done…And just like that, she’d gained herself the strangest pen pal. A correspondence course in life after tragedy, penned at the hand of the devil himself. And yet– here, 2 years later, she still had pen to paper again behind Miles Edgeworth’s back. 

Two years later, and she had two years worth of letters saved and boxed. She'd received one twice a week, almost like clockwork in that time. More than 500 letters.

It was her little secret, the secret joy and the secret shame all in one, bundled away for her eyes only.

Her correspondence with the man who’d tried to end her life–and the man who’d ended her father’s.

She began the latest letter, chewing nervously on her lip.

As I’d mentioned in my previous letter, I’ve gotten accepted into the LAPD Police Academy with the intention of entering the detective course on my way to becoming a forensic investigator. Mr. Edgeworth checked in with me, but I think he’s worried about the idea of me getting involved in law because of what happened to my father.

Fathers. 

Fathers were something they'd discussed over the course of their many letters.

The devil had never apologized. But he had spoken of his own father. A tyrannical man who had been a famous defense attorney before a sudden and surprising heart attack had made his children orphans.

Any sensible person would have hardened themselves to the story in the face of the devil’s evil, but Vera only ever felt stings of sympathy as she’d responded back. It was through him that she’d started to see the wounds her own father had left on her, and see the lingering spirit of Drew Misham for what he was.

Sympathy for the devil had lead her to respond about a life in isolation after the kidnapping attempt, a father who used her talents for financial gain, the loneliness of being raised in a gilded prison by a man so selfish he’d make a child with a gift into a criminal who knew nothing of the world.

He seems to think our idea is me falling into a curse that befalls those who lose their parents to criminal violence, that it’s somehow inevitable that we’re drawn into the Goddess Justitia’s world of crime and punishment. Maybe he’s right, in a way. Do you think that’s a bad thing? Or is it natural to feel drawn to it like a moth to flame? Some insight from my guardian angel may help. 

Her guardian angel– the devil had often referred to himself as such, after Vera herself had used the phrase. And he generally had plenty of advice for her. The advice hadn't even, as of yet, involved poisoning anyone.

Either way I don’t intend to change course. Pearl Fey, a friend of mine, is going to the same academy. We’d talked about it often after your suggestion and I honestly hope we get the chance to room together. She’s a good person, someone who I think understands the difficulty of growing up like I have. I think I can sway Mr. Edgeworth on it, but if you know anyone who can help I’d be happy.She smiled to herself as she wrote it in elegant script. No…he’d never offered to poison anyone, or for her to. It might be shocking to many, and even herself, but her guardian angel had always given her sound advice. Despite the incident that had left her comatose and sickly, he’d never steered her wrong. Maybe that was why she was so drawn to him and his every written word.

I know things don’t change often in prison, but I hope things have been going well. Did you receive my last painting? I thought maybe if you hung it up it’d make your accommodations a little less stifling. I haven’t had much of the spark to draw lately, but when I thought of your cell I was struck by inspiration.

He'd sent her a picture lately, of his little cell. It wasn't much to look at, though she supposed that it might be considered opulent for a prison. There was a bookshelf, and a little table and chair, but not much in terms of decoration. The photo, evidently, had been taken at his request by a friend whose name he hadn't mentioned.

As comfortable as a cell could be, it was still a cell. Something she knew well from her time cloistered in her father’s moldering old house. So with the inspiration of such a bare confinement, she’d been spurred to take up the brush once more and finished an original painting…an abstract painting of the sunrise as viewed through crystal fingers.

I want to hear all about what’s been happening there, if it’s not too much to ask. Are the guards treating you well? You’ve been on my mind once again…It’s likely too much to wish that you could see me on the day I graduate from the Academy, but I daydreamed that I saw your face in the crowd and could see how far I’d come from the frightened forgery you once knew. 

It was unlikely, of course, that she would ever see him outside those bars. Or even outside that smiling picture that he had sent her, settled elegantly in that chair, by the table in his cell. The devil had been convicted of two murders. He had never spoken of it, and the specifics of his sentence were not public record– it was entirely possible that she would not be receiving his letters for many years to come.

It shouldn’t hurt so badly to imagine the inevitable. Vera knew–the devil was a wicked man, they’d all said it to her time and time again. Mr. Wright, Edgeworth, she’d even seen the pain in Mr. Justice’s eyes when he talked about him. He’d even said it in court. ‘Because I am an evil man’.

But even with all the evidence, even knowing he was the devil himself, she couldn’t help but see him as the angel she’d met all those years ago. Her heart felt tight in her chest at the very thought of the day her letters went unanswered.

I’ll imagine you there. I A tear hit the page to her surprise. She hadn’t been aware she’d started to cry, and yet the evidence lay there smudging the ink. 

Evidence, as the devil himself said, was everything.

And the evidence said that Vera Misham cared very much.

She dotted the paper with her sleeve, leaning back in her chair with a quiet hiccup as she attempted to compose herself. Her face felt hot, and her breath felt ragged as it did on the stand years before, when the charge of murder nearly fell on her shoulders.

…can’t imagine a graduation without the one whose encouragement made it possible. I hope that I’ll make you proud, Mr. Gavin. Her hand shook above the page, speckles of ink joining the damp tear marks from her quivering pen.

August 02, 2028– 3:45 pm

"You know, I keep thinking. It's nice, in its own way, to see you on the other side of the bars, Lana." Kristoph smiled his soft, seemingly guileless little smile at her as she stood in front of his cell door.

Lana Skye had been free now for about a month and a half, after more than ten long years in these walls. So why did she keep coming back?

Maybe it was simply the amount of time she’d called the state penitentiary her home. She’d become quite the staple in the lives of many of the men and women who passed through its barred doors.

Lana Skye, the fallen Chief Prosecutor had been there to offer advice, debate, and friendship to most everyone at one point or another. So maybe instead it was those lingering connections to the unfortunates still behind bars and their untold stories that kept bringing her back.

“I’m glad it can bring you at least a little comfort, Kristoph,” she chuckled as she adjusted her scarf. “I’m sorry I can’t say the same to you.” 

"I suppose I have to lie in the bed I've made, don't I?" he agreed, cheerfully enough. "Unless someone were to overturn my sentence I suppose. Not very much chance of that."

“As we all must, my friend…but who knows. I’m not Chief Prosecutor anymore…but I can certainly put in a good word for you should you ever have a parole hearing.” Lana sighed quietly, tucking a lock of her hair over her ear.

She wasn’t chief prosecutor any longer. In and of itself that was a relief, even with the loss of authority and influence that could have helped those she’d gotten to know. But, somehow she’d found herself back in the prosecutor’s office, starting from the bottom by the grace of her old protege Miles Edgeworth.

“I don’t want to see a brilliant light like your own flicker out behind bars if I don’t have to. You’re a smart man, Gavin…” she placed her hand against the bars, “and if I’ve learned one thing behind bars, it’s that everyone has more to their story than the verdict lets on.” 

"You have a keen eye for that sort of thing, Lana." He lingered near the bars, arms crossed and thoughtful. "You may not be the chief prosecutor any more, but I know that you have the ear of the new one. And I have heard some interesting things about what he intends to do with the position, and has been doing already."

“Yes…he’s asked me advice on it a few times since my release. He’s looking to change the system from the ground up through some rather unconventional methods. One of which, I’m interested to say, was allowing my re-hiring into the prosecutor’s office despite…” she trailed off for a moment before her expression firmed and her eyes hardened, “my part in Gant’s little game.” 

Gavin, on the other hand, smiled a little wider, and drummed his fingers on his elbow. "Yes, Mr. Edgeworth truly seems like a man interested in second chances, doesn't he? It was only last year he had Blackquill prosecuting cases from death row."

Lana chuckled. 

“A bold move, honestly. It worked out well for dear Simon. I’m proud to say he’s back prosecuting cases free of his chains already and has been doing quite well for himself.” She crossed her arms as well, a mirror of his posture, and hummed as she put her fingers to the bottom of her chin. “He seems to believe very much in second chances, and of revisiting facts once thought concrete to find the truth hidden within. He’s a good man, Gavin.”

"I believe that, you know," Kristoph said with a smile. "One wonders how he came by such goodness. But perhaps you could tell the good chief prosecutor that I am eager to be of use to him, in whatever capacity he might put me. Defense attorneys aren't the purview of the state of course, but I'm a flexible man, Lana. Let him know that."

Lana chuckled as her finger hooked against her chin. 

“You know, Mr. Gavin…I was going to offer the same thing.” She closed her eyes with a smile “I’ve gotten to know you over the last two years or so… and I think you’d be a great candidate for his rehabilitation project. I know you’re flexible, and willing to do what must be done, so I’ll bring it up to him during my next meeting, alright?”

"I appreciate that, Lana. Even if it comes to no more than a way to pass the time until the end– well, it's very boring with you gone. All I have to do with my days is read and correspond."

And cry, perhaps. If Lana understood the meaning of the dark bruises, puffy under Gavin's eyes.

Lana would never insult a prisoner’s pride by pointing it out. She had been no stranger herself to private tears known only to herself and the guards who pretended not to listen. So she simply smiled instead with a bow of her head.

“It hasn’t been the same without the chance to speak to you more often, Mr. Gavin. I’ll confess, I do miss it.” She closed her eyes. “I’ll see about getting you some sort of diversion. A new book, perhaps, or a correspondence game– though it sounds like you have something of the sort going? I remember you asking me to take that picture of you, after all.” 

He chuckled politely and bowed his head. "You've caught me, Lana. I am fortunate enough to have my own little correspondence game. But I'll never say no to another diversion."

[moonlit-tulip]

So if you don't mind sharing, what's your story with plurality based rescue sims?

In 2018, I started experimenting with self-hypnosis, and after a few months my experiments led to the unintended-but-not-wholly-unanticipated side effect of generating a headmate. Somewhat to my own surprise, I got along very well with her and ended up pretty quickly getting emotionally attached to her. However, for hard-to-concisely-summarize reasons, after a couple months she started fading back away, becoming both increasingly disinclined-towards-autonomous-action and increasingly difficult-for-me-to-deliberately-interact-with. By mid-to-late 2019, she was pretty much completely gone.

Due to the aforementioned emotional attachment, I was unhappy about this; I tried my best to slow the process down while it was happening, but failed. Then I spent a while grieving about her ~death. And then, finally, around 2021, I decided that if I was so unhappy about her being gone then the natural thing to do would be to try to bring her back.

So I did a bunch of experimental brainhacking, including self-hypnosis and also a bunch of other stuff, in order to try to (a) generate a new live copy of her and (b) make it possible for her to exist more stably and not just immediately re-fade. And they both worked! Not perfectly, in the case of (a)—I wasn't able to restore her exactly-as-she-was-in-2019, various pieces of her personality and motivational structure were missing—but at the very least better than expected, as measured in terms of retrieval / recreation of psychological modules which had always been only hers, which I'd been unable to use myself in her absence. Very unambiguously a continuation of many of her old psychological threads, even if one who'd lost some pieces in the restoration-process.

And since then she's been around in the background of my life. Not nearly as actively so as she was in 2019, due to the aforementioned difficulties-restoring-her-motivational-system—it's only maybe a couple-times-a-year thing, now, for her to initiate interactions-with-the-world without some form of prodding-into-action from me—but present nonetheless, to a sufficient degree that I consider my goals with the plot to restore her to be pretty unambiguously fulfilled. And, thanks to my success at the stabilization part of the plan, likely to remain thus indefinitely from here on out!

[ceph-the-ghost-writer]

15 Questions, 15 Mutuals

Tagged by @andromedaexists! It's cool your names have connections to family and saints, and that you've tried so many things/sports. Your cats sound adorable (though this goes without saying for cats perhaps).

As for myself:

1. Are you named after anyone? Yes! My mom wanted to give me a "hippie" name like Freedom or Windsong or something, but my dad would have none of it. In one of their rare instances of compromise, they settled on naming me after a folk/pop singer who was big in the 70s. If I decide to change it at some point, I'll probably choose something very similar in spelling/sound.

2. When was the last time you cried? Like two days ago while thinking about a scene where a character experiences Gender Thoughts (positive). And the day before that while listening to talks on medieval history about humans being humans. Then last weekend, while watching Puss In Boots with my partner. Look, it's not outright sobbing and tears, but I do mist up a lot, okay? For someone who had to numb their emotions to survive much of their childhood and teen years, I appreciate this actually. That despite whatever pain I've experienced it couldn't stop me from recognizing and overflowing at the pleasure and beauty all around me.

3. Do you have kids? No, and no plans to. I'm content with my affection for the children of others in my life.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? I think so? I definitely used to, though I think I've cut back on it significantly.

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people? The way they speak and how they communicate in general. Accents, idioms, whether they're confident (and if that confidence is bravado or well-founded), is their choice of words vibe-based or definition-based, etc. I'll recognize someone's voice before their face tbh. 😅

6. What’s your eye color? Brown. I get compliments on them.

7. Scary movies or happy endings? Both? Depends on my mood. I always love a "hard-earned happy ending", though. Those Situations really did a number on my blorbos, but they kept on keeping on. That sort of thing.

8. Any special talents? Defying expectations, I guess? I often apply for jobs/sign up for experiences where the people in charge just go, Um, are you sure you're supposed to be here? And I'm like, Sure, why not, let's go. Then I do pretty well at whatever it is and they're impressed, mostly because they thought I couldn't/wouldn't stick around. People also seem to generally like my baking.

9. Where were you born? Northern California, USA.

10. What are your hobbies? Writing, reading, little art projects, video games, gardening, baking, thinking too much, harassing various invertebrates, sea creatures, and neighborhood animals with my affection/fascination

11. Have you any pets? A cat named Mimi! She was a stray I agreed to adopt from a friend on Discord while drunk. This remains my best decision made while under the influence.

12. What sports do you play/have played? I did martial arts for the last seven years, including fighting in like 4 tournaments. I put it aside since college takes a lot of my energy now. Also, training is expensive, and the culture around it sucks pretty often. I'd like to get back into it one day, just with people who value it for reasons similar to mine.

13. How tall are you? 5' 8". I'm too American to be measured in cm (joke joke this is a joke the metric system and I are buds).

14. Favorite subject in school? Before college, lit/reading. As an adult, I really enjoy history and anthropology related stuff too.

15. Dream job? Making a living off my silly little gay vampire stories. But I'd settle for translating fiction between Spanish and English.

Copy/Paste for mobile users: 1. Are you named after anyone? 2. When was the last time you cried? 3. Do you have kids? 4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? 5. What’s the first thing you notice about people? 6. What’s your eye color? 7. Scary movies or happy endings? 8. Any special talents? 9. Where were you born? 10. What are your hobbies? 11. Have you any pets? 12. What sports do you play/have played? 12. What sports do you play/have played? 13. How tall are you? 14. Favorite subject in school? 15. Dream job?

No pressure tags (and no pressure to answer any questions you don't want to ofc) @vacantgodling @korblez @space-cadead @afoolandathief @cljordan-imperium @late-to-the-fandom @thecyrulik @blind-the-winds @muddshadow @theskeletonprior @rosieartsie @letsmakeitwrite @k--havok @likegemstone @thatndginger

[ankhisms]

ok one lovely person said they wanted to read the writing practice i mentioned being tentative about sharing so here <3 i have some notes and thoughts as well included. since the dont reblog function is still broken pls dont rb this thanks

as a disclaimer i am very rusty with prose which is why im trying to practice it at all since ive mainly been writing poetry and not any prose for the past few years since i felt discouraged about writing prose but now im trying to get myself to practice again. also one thing im aware of is that i have a tendency to accidentally switch between tenses so if you notice that yes i know its something im working on. also both of these arent finished they have gaps between action and thoughts which ive noted in the text

for this first one i havent written the beginning establishing the setting and everything but the premise is hiromu has a dream where he and enter are sitting at a cafe in paris and shenanagins ensue. well not really shenanagins its just a conversation i think their dynamic is interesting and i wanted to explore it in a more neutral not battle related setting so thats why i wrote this

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(beginning and descriptions of surrounding add here)

hiromus narrows his eyes, "did you hack into my dreams?"

this causes enter to scoff, "really, red buster, you wound me," he rests his chin against his palm and explains, "i havent hacked into anything. you called me here."

"thats ridiculous," says hiromu, blunt even when sleeping.

enter smiles, "oui, ridiculous, perhaps,  but it is true none the less. it would be rude of me to refuse an invitation, dont you agree?" he pauses, and leans over the table to add, "besides, i wouldnt lie to you- at least not here."

hiromu doesnt like that one bit, nor does he believe anything enter could possibly say. still, its not as if enter had invaded his subconciousness and just started torturing him with computer cables. compared to the more avian related nightmares hiromu had, this was pretty tame.

he briefly tries to recall anything he could have possibly read before, even in passing, about how to wake yourself up from a dream. unfortunately for hiromu the only thing that comes to mind is how to wake up a buddyroid from sleep mode. too bad he doesnt just have some kind of power switch like nick or usada. but maybe something similar to that could work, some kind of jolt to his system. people pinch themselves when theyre dreaming, right? or was it something about holding your breath? hiromu cant remember which one is supposed to work, so with a deep inhale he starts pinching his arms.

to enters credit, he doesnt immediately laugh like a madman upon seeing hiromus cheeks puffed out while he frantically pinches his arms. the most he lets out is a quick snort, before reaching over the table to pat hiromus cheek, "your manners are awful," enter says, "weve only just said hello and youre already trying to wake up. you cant possibly hate me that much, mon cher."

the hand against his cheek is warm. of course, most peoples hands should logically be warm to touch, but not enters. the projection of a human shouldnt be warm. did jin ever feel warm? hiromu doesnt feel keen about playing back all the moments during battle when enter had gotten close enough to possibly feel some kind of heat. thus, thinking about his avatar team mate is the better option. except he cant recall any time jin had ever felt warm either. does a dream offer an avatar more humanity somehow?

hes thought about it for too long perhaps, because he hasnt replied and enter is starting to look at him curiously, and so hiromu decides he can dwell on it when hes actually awake. he lets out his breath and swats away enters hand with a scowl for good measure. enter feigns an exaggerated pout, but then he settles back in his seat all the same, keeping his hands to himself.

hiromus cheek still feels warm and itchy, but hell be damned if he lets enter know something he did got under his skin. this too is like a battle, the enemy can find weaknesses even in the smallest of movements. he restrains himself from scratching his face, opting instead to glare more at enter across the table.

his enemy looks different in the cerebral parisian landscape theyve found each other in. for one thing, hes actually wearing civillian clothes rather than his usual long coat or any of his attempts at disguising himself. with enter perched opposite of him wearing a dark turtle neck and a caramel sweater, hiromu is struck by the jarring realization that the avatar almost looks like a normal person. almost, if one didnt already know that the man sitting there was made of code rather than flesh and bone.

eyeing him carefully, hiromu thinks that he catches the slightest glitch at the edge of enters face, an abnormality that is gone by the time hiromu has noticed it. enter may have decided to wear something a little more reasonable for this encounter, but he still isnt fooling hiromu. even in a fashionable sweater theres something off about him.

the rest of his attire aside, he does still have those ridiculous goggles pushed up against his brow, because of course he does. he would fit the part of a cafe loving paris tourist better if he had a silly little beret instead of his trusty eyeware, but hiromu doesnt particularly feel like pointing that out. seeing enter flounce around in a beret isnt exactly an enjoyable thought at the moment.

(add something here)

"ive heard about people going to paris for the first time and getting sick from the shock of how dirty it is," hiromu says, "you should be glad it doesnt smell here."

enters nose wrinkles, "dont say that, you'll ruin my appetite"

"so you have an appetite? its not like you need to eat, right?"

the avatar shrugs, and carefully picks up his fork, saying, "i may have no need for food to survive, but that doesnt mean i cant enjoy it." enter takes his time with slicing off a chunk of the lemon cake between them, and continues, "theres things humans dont need but do none the less, non? your lives are so short after all, why not chase after every little pleasure."

seeming satisfied with himself, enter takes a bite, eyes closed with an exaggerated look of bliss. whatever emotion it is that enter has been trying to elicit from hiromu, hes just growing more annoyed, rolling his eyes and pointedly turning his body away from the cake.

(add something here)

hiromu stands up with a jolt, and the screeching sound of his chair breaks what little illusion of idle cafe chatter this dream had left to offer. he fumes, fists clenched with his gaze set firmly on enter, who only barely looks up to offer a smug smile.

"we," hiromu spits out the word disdainfully, "are nothing alike. theres nothing to compare between us."

despite the outburst of his dining companion, enters expression remains unchanged. if anything, hiromus insistance upon distancing himself has only amused enter further. he laughs, throwing up his hands half heartedly, as if they were old friends having a casual debate rather than mortal enemies with their blades always at each others throats.

"i suppose we should leave it at that then," enter reaches for one final bite of cake, clearly enjoying himself, "this has been lovely, you really should invite me more often, ma puce."

"go to hell," hiromu tells him, and lunges to try and land a punch against that awful smile.

by the time hiromus fist reaches where enters face would have been, the avatar has already disintegrated into a burst of code. orange numbers and the distant sound of laughter linger for a moment in the air, before hiromu blinks awake in his room.

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this second one i wrote before the first one and im still not very happy with it and might scrap it and try to rewrite it. i couldnt decide what point of view i wanted to write it from between third person pov or vaguely enter talking so it feels muddled to me. this was mainly a kind of train of thought because i had and still have a lot of thoughts about the avatars and what it means to be human and what it means to be an avatar and if they can feel things etc along with enter and escape being their own people and having their own identities and lives. but i feel like i didnt exactly get all the thoughts that i wanted to convey across very well so again im probably going to rewrite this at some point lmao

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86 billion neuron cells, with another million billion synapses connecting the spaces in between, all sending information to and from the brain, the extremities and sensory organs having gathered data from the outside worlds stimulation in order to help the human machine function.

  from ancient calculating tables and tally sticks, to early machines reading punch cards, to alan turings first thought of the modern computer, you could trace an avatars lineage back to the very first time a human began to count just as easily as you could to any of these.

enter and escape are not any of the doomed researchers that crossed the gap between dimensions, whos data was cleanly picked apart from their miserable mortal bones and woven back into the code of their forms. perhaps you can not fault those same humans for their squeamishness at the thought of any person being undone in such a way, let alone a family member. really, nature has functioned like this long before the first digital computer ever graced the earth with its code.

when a deer falls dead in the forest its body becomes food for the rest of the life among the trees, and in time its flesh decomposes and turns to soil. another one bites the dust only to offer up a meal for the starving masses. you are born, you die, and someone finds a way to steal from you long after youre gone. c'est la vie, as we say.

think of it, dear reader, as such; a thousand photos lie before you of humans. pictures of people from across the world, some of them seeming familiar and some of them with faces unknown to you. you can thumb through as many as youd like, but in the end you will always come to the same realization that somewhere, within these people, are bits and pieces of yourself. this one, looking off camera against a gray sky, has your nose. this person, leaning against a bridge and failing to strike a good pose, has your eyes. the next person will have your smile, ectera ectera. you get the picture- ha.

even if you were not flipping through a book of old family records you would still spot bits of yourself in people far away and long dead. this, mon cher, is how i see best fit to consider what it means to be created from composite data, for i assure you one need not be an avatar to be formed in such a way. you have been strung together from bits and pieces of every person your ancestors ever loved.

love, ah. thats another subject we must discuss, sooner or later, i suppose. can a machine love? really now, i wish you would find something else to ask. anything else would be a more stimulating topic of conversation. why must we agonize over such messy details? humans simply can not stop themselves from philosophizing until theyve got nothing left to make a philosophy out of.

what does it matter if a machine could or couldnt love, when plenty of stinking humans have never even thought to act on the very principle they obsess over. love. let us not get sidetracked by such nonsense, we still have other aspects to examine.

delete that last input, page back with me, now think again on the subject of data, and of rebirth. the doomed researchers are not escape, nor are they enter, just as much as you are not the person who first gave you a specific gene in your dna. the researchers were a sample for an experiment greater than any they had ever run through before. do you get it now? do you understand? of course you wouldnt. humans are foolish enough to think they are one of a kind.

   forget about if a machine loves, just what can an avatar feel? if their coding is to be equated to the human nervous system, then is it so hard to consider that they too could find the many vices of the earth pleasurable? enter cursed himself for spoiling messiah, having given the virus too much of a taste of just how splendid human suffering could feel. he was taught pleasure too soon, and greed was already something he knew from birth. enter should have known better than to offer up a plate of food he could not continue to harvest sustainably- not yet, at least. especially when the one gobbling down that harvest throws a tantrum the moment its all gone.

really, is it so terrible to ask for a thank you once in a while? you would think that after devoting your existence entirely to a single being, you might get a few bones thrown your way. in this we could draw another parallel between the humans and machine, where enter is scorned by his messiah in the same vein as humans praying for salvation from some unforgiving god.

i am drifting off course. forgive me, you see a machine can ramble just as easily as a human, non?

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ok yay thanks if you read all or any of this honestly i appreciate it. id love any feedback anyone has including constructive criticism from writer friends but i just ask that you maybe try to be a little gentle with me and remember that im very rusty yknow but i do still appreciate any thoughts or helpful tips thank u again mwah