#Kira T: within the law

[kiraxsavior]

Rumor has it you are Light Yagami.

Unfortunately, I will not allow that “ask meme” to be a gateway into giving you any hints as to my identity. I cannot confirm or deny your rumor. 

[translightyagami]

James “translightyagami/avoidfilledwithcelluloid” Death Note Fic Masterlist

Hello to all you guys out there. Here is my full masterlist of allllll the Death Note fanfic I’ve written: There are over 120 fics contained within this entire list. I’m going to split it up by chapter fics, one-shot fics, short fic compilations, and gift fics I’ve done for fandom exchanges. The descriptions will tell you what the pairings are (mostly Lawlight, but there’s other stuff too). There are several posts of mine that are loosely defined fic, but I won’t be adding those in this post as they are just … hard to organize lol.

Fics are marked with E if they have explicit content and T if there are textual references to transgender characters. Chapter fics are marked as either complete or currently incomplete. Okay! Here we go! 

[UPDATED 11/20/2021]

CHAPTER FICS

sit and stay awhile https://archiveofourown.org/works/31032719 complete Light has a fantasy of sitting in L’s lap, and he’s got a plan to make that a reality.

the art of ink and flowers  https://archiveofourown.org/works/35106943 currently incomplete, E, T Light needs an apprentice and thinks he's found the perfect one in young firecracker Mello. Now to deal with Mello's uncle, the strange, mysterious, and - oops! - super hot florist Ryuzaki, who doesn't want his nephew near a tattoo parlor. What could possibly go wrong?

i could write it (better than you ever felt it) https://archiveofourown.org/works/13913043 currently incomplete Light works in the To-Oh university library, where he meets his favorite romantic mystery author, Eraldo Coil, who later reveals himself to be the great detective L. Through the course of their working together to solve a crime, Light finds he might have feelings for L and those feelings might be shared by the detective novelist.

your heart is an empty cup https://archiveofourown.org/works/13027707 currently incomplete Light is the assistant manager of a Starbucks in NYC, and L is one of his most annoying customers. When L accuses Light (correctly) of being Kira, as well as mysteriously asking for his help on a different case, the barista has to decide if he’s ready to get in bed with the enemy – maybe even literally.

the forest holds strange creatures https://archiveofourown.org/works/16442660 complete, E, T Light, a paranormal research grad student, comes to a small town trying to find a mysterious cryptid. He finds L, a 10-foot-tall tree creature, who helps Light discover the greatest cryptid of all: love. The only reason this one is in the chapter fic section is because it includes a Halloween special chapter with the intro of Beyond Birthday into the cryptid AU.

At Your Service https://archiveofourown.org/works/19229524 complete, E, T The Yagami family owns the sprawling, exclusive Hotel Kitsune where all sorts of international espionage agents make their temporary home. That includes the great detective L, whose romantic tension with Light comes to a boiling point when he comes to stay after a long absence.

best practices https://archiveofourown.org/works/21113519 complete, E, T Light has been working his way to the top of the corporate ladder thanks to his own hard work, and his more-than-close relationship with L, the company CEO and founder’s son. Their relationship comes to a head when L challenges Light to open himself up, making him vulnerable to showing the true depth of what he feels for L and his own desire to explore sexual power dynamics.

ONE-SHOT FICS

tell me the truth https://archiveofourown.org/works/12592320 E, T Light and Matsuda hit up a bar after work, and then Light hits up Matsuda for sex, praise, and a distraction from the deep emptiness inside him.

constricting https://archiveofourown.org/works/13721580 E, T Light breaks L’s favorite tea cup in their kitchen, and L eats him out because he loves his husband so much.

tell me I’m good https://archiveofourown.org/works/13986861 E In the middle of the night, L receives a drunk call from Light, hiding in the bathroom at a party. The call, turning from desperate to horny, reveals more about Light than L wanted to know.

if at first you don’t succeed https://archiveofourown.org/works/15119816 E, T Light gave his first blow job and accidentally bit L on the dick. He tries to make up for his mistake by trying again.

let me work on you https://archiveofourown.org/works/15884799 E, T As the result of losing bet to him, Light has to be L’s computer desk – naked and laying over his boyfriend’s lap. Of course, when L gives him another sexy challenge, Light can’t help but rise to the occasion.

alterations https://archiveofourown.org/works/17945957 E, T Light comes to visit his boyfriend Mikami at his fancy law office and suggests they have sex there. When Mikami reacts unfavorably, Light has to do damage control, and it smarts a lot more than he expected.

lizard https://archiveofourown.org/works/18552499 E, T Light meets a beefcake guy at a bar on the anniversary of L’s death, and lets him take him home (Lizard is my death note OC, and the fic was a wonderful commission from @queerical​)

Buried Alive https://archiveofourown.org/works/19705540 L and Light live together in L’s underground bunker after the apocalypse scorches the Earth. They watch some VHS tapes and do some gardening.

Our Little Secret https://archiveofourown.org/works/23822881 E After getting his memories, his freedom, back, Light wants to give L a gift: Kira tied up at his mercy. But L isn’t so sure if that gift is the one he really wants.

The Light of the Moon https://archiveofourown.org/works/25052722 E, T L is a vampire and accidentally bites Light, who is haunted by dreams that make him question why he wants L to bite him again (and maybe … something more …)

little animals https://archiveofourown.org/works/26829778 E Light and his werewolf boyfriend L fuck in their backyard garden.

Change OR the one where L and Light get married https://archiveofourown.org/works/27748159  E, T A gift/commish fic for @ohgodplsdontlook​. Six years after the Kira case closes, L and Light go have a wedding in the mansion where L spent his childhood summers. They bring the Yagami family, their baggage, and vows to share each other’s secrets.

a divine power https://archiveofourown.org/works/28018197 E L has a particular power that has helped him get confessions from even the most hardened, tight-lipped criminals, and he offers to use this power on Light to get an honest answer to the question "Are You Kira?" Not really believing L's power is real (and also smelling an easy way to lie his way out of being caught) Light agrees to submit to this bizarre investigative power - not realizing that L is about to make him a *very* honest man. (TL;DR, L has a Magic Cock That Makes Anyone He Fucks Fall in Love With Him AU.)

Possession https://archiveofourown.org/works/29232294 E After being killed by his family for being Kira, Light makes a deal with the demon L to get back to the mortal realm - a very, very sexy deal.

24-Hour Gym https://archiveofourown.org/works/29415480  After the yellow warehouse goes (mortally) in their favor, Light and Mikami frequent the same 24-hour gym. Eventually, after seeing all his work out skills, Light asks Mikami if he can bench press *Kira*.

Fantasy of a Fantasy https://archiveofourown.org/works/29729685  E, T While monitoring the Yagami family home for suspicious activity, L catches Light getting off to a dirty magazine and projects what he thinks his main suspect's fantasies might be.

the chains that bind us https://archiveofourown.org/works/32051299 E, T  Obligatory post-Yotsuba arc fic where Light is released from the handcuffs, and wants desperately to be back in bondage with L. Features a very creative use of the handcuff chain.

Kept https://archiveofourown.org/works/33334282 E, T Omegaverse AU where Light cooks up a horny evil scheme so that L won’t throw him in jail, and also lets him get that alpha lovin’ he so desires.

so glad you’re home https://archiveofourown.org/works/33977605 E, T L returns from a solo case and he and Light have a purr-fect homecoming together - including some spanking, cat ears, and a shower of sappy affection. 

SHORT FIC COMPLIATIONS

hand in unlovable hand https://archiveofourown.org/works/15025058 E Okay so I’ve been answering Tumblr askbox prompts for over 2 years now, and this? This is ALL of the Lawlight fics. There are over 70 Lawlight fics in this compilation, with all the nsfw fics marked as such. Here are somethings you’ll find in this horde: an AU where L is fat; dirty talk; ghost sex; phone calls about buying a house; early morning tea; kissing; spanking; bondage; L’s hair being brushed; and much, much more. If you have wished for a particular type of Lawlight fic, it is probably in this bunch.

Containing Multitudes https://archiveofourown.org/works/17570645 E Like i said, I’ve been answering all types of Tumblr prompts. These are all the multi-pairing fics that are not Lawlight. In over 20 fics, you’ll find Mikalight, Light/Misa, Misa/Takada, Misa/Rem, Light/Namikawa, Beyond/Light, Light/Matsuda, and even a few ones with Light and my DN OC Lizard. All nsfw fics are marked as such.

hereditary https://archiveofourown.org/works/17159354 All the Tumblr prompt fics I wrote specifically about the Yagami Family. About 4 fics long, includes a really nice couple of Sayu and Light sibling sadness fics.

bottom shelf erotica https://archiveofourown.org/works/20899706 E These are the 5 fics that I wrote to fill Death Note kinkmeme prompts. They are few frills, dirty, sloppy, all bottom Light smut fics. Also, since I didn’t want to give myself away on kinkmeme they’re all cis stuff. (because really who else would have been throwing trans smut up there?)

something between us (anyway) https://archiveofourown.org/works/30304620 T, E a slowly updating collection of 10 tumblr fic requests I received for the pairings of lawlight and (my DN OC) lizard/light, covering prompts including omegaverse, coffee shop AU, sexy lingerie, and much, much more.

kinktober 2021 https://archiveofourown.org/works/34235686 E, T updated each saturday of Oct. 2021, these five fics all revolve around lawlight and specific kinky prompts.

GIFT EXCHANGE FICS

your father’s son https://archiveofourown.org/works/15115568 T A Secret Shinigami 2018 gift for AbbodonAbandon. Light and Soichiro have a talk about why Light quit the tennis team. Lots of trans shit in here.

in your shoes https://archiveofourown.org/works/22405516 E A Sexy Enquirer 2019 gift for @pashmina-dhaage​. L is a professor who is having a quiet relationship with one of his grad students, Light. When he sees Light through his office window stepping in mud, L rushes to give him the shoes off his feet.

wash it out https://archiveofourown.org/works/22405648 A Sexy Enquirer 2019 gift for @complicatedmerary​. Mikami and Light, a pianist and violinist respectively with the same opera company, are carrying on a passionate affair while Light remains married to the opera’s soprano, Misa.

Thank you for Reading, Commenting, and Being Nice to Me About My Silly Fic!

[crystalessenceswrites]

Shadows- Chapter Four

Shadows

A modern monster AU Pairings: Din Djarin x fem!reader Rating: T (at the moment- subject to change) Warnings: swearing, canon-typical violence, dark themes, death of unnamed and background characters, descriptions of blood, descriptions of a dead body Summary: Crypto- concealed; secret. You have always lived your life in the shadows; after all, you’re one of the creatures who go bump in the night. He has sworn his life to a creed that aims to protect the world from monsters like you.

[Masterlist] [Chapter Three] [Chapter Four] [Chapter Five] Cross-posted to AO3

Why was it always vampires?

It seemed like the bounty lists were chalk full of them these days, more so than normal. Which was not awful for slayers. They were generally high paying jobs, considering most of them were wanted for the murder of the humans or cryptos they’d been feeding on. You just preferred to stay away from the fangs. The superhuman abilities of a well-fed vampire were difficult to match in a fight, even for seasoned slayers. While you had the training and equipment to deal with them, the bounty was not always worth the medical bills after the fact. You specialized in the kinds of bounties that were more brains than brawn. Preferring the chase over the actual fight. Today you did not have much of a choice, apparently. You’d come into the office later in the morning and arrived to find all the new non-vampiric bounties had been promptly snatched up by the early birds. Leaving you stuck with the fangs. Great.

Your target was a vampire named Qin. He was active and was not doing much of anything to cover it up. A serious threat to everyone if left unattended to. The urgency in needing to deal with someone like him had bumped his bounty up fairly high, even for the usual vampire fair. There were plenty of breadcrumbs to follow, making your afternoon much easier. He was holed up in the old industrial district during the day. Most of the old neighborhood was being retrofitted for industrial lofts and modern condos, so there would be plenty of construction sites and condemned buildings for him to hide in and a steady stream of workers to pick off for food. Sightings and intelligence had his location narrowed down to a three-block radius. The was all easy enough. Killing him would be another story.

Vampires did not have any one magic bullet weakness- they aren’t susceptible to iron or silver- making them harder to handle. Staking one through the head or heart was usually the best way to incapacitate one, until their body was burned and ashes were scattered. That required getting closer than you were comfortable with. The last thing you wanted was a fanged creature with arms reach of your neck. You really should have just taken the day off. Too bad your landlord never took a day off when it came time to collect your rent.

Starting with the largest warehouse on the southside and moving north until you got lucky, or rather unlucky, enough to run into your bounty, seemed the best course of action. And today kept proving to be an unlucky day for you. You’d barely broken into the first building when you came across two completely drained corpses left out in the open, bodies still cooling. Your bounty was here and full of fresh blood.

Well shit.

Sword drawn you continue to sneak through the abounded building. Vampires were natural predators; their sense of smell was leagues above your own. It was more than likely he already knew you were here-unless he was occupied with another victim. That must have been the case, considering he hadn’t jumped out at you yet. On high alert you continue farther into the warehouse with a white-knuckle grip on your weapon. The main body of the building is split into two storage areas, the first dark in the overcast afternoon and empty. There are signs someone’s been around, a mattress and blankets in a corner, duffle bags and a pile of dark clothes next to a tower of take-out boxes. Odd.

You drop to the floor as the crack of a gunshot splits the silence. Mind reeling you wonder what vampire needs a fucking gun. Another scan of the space confirms you’re still alone, no shooter in sight. It must have come from the next room, too loud to have been outside the building. As you approach the partition the familiar metallic sting of fresh blood reaches your nose. Vampires don’t bleed.

Three more shots ring out, definitely from the other side of the partition.

Vampire’s don’t use guns.

Another deep breath draws more of the scents in, the dust and mildew of the building, the spark of gun powder and the overwhelming musk of human. Your bounty was not alone and wasn’t with anyone friendly. It wasn’t another slayer- once a bounty gets picked up its pulled off the lists- and most slayers didn’t smell so strongly of human, so the next logical assumption was a lone hunter. Not that it would have been hard for any human to pick up on this vampire’s trail, but if it had been law enforcement to find him the building would be flooded with cops.

You truly had the worst luck today.

Odds were probably one to four against the hunter. Humans rarely stood a chance against vampires unless they caught one out in sunlight.

A loud crash, like something heavy collapsing, shakes the silence. As a slayer you’re obligated to help the human but considering all that’s gone on in the last few weeks you’re feeling much less inclined to do so.

“Come on Mando! I thought you freaks were proud warriors and all!”

Fucking hell. Kira was right, you are a Mando magnet. The vampire’s taunt is not reassuring in the slightest. You did not need a dead Mando on your hands. Creeping into the next room you’re quick to find cover behind some dust covered work benches. Surveying the space leads you to believe the Mando and Qin have been at a while. The space is trashed, boxes toppled over and crushed, shelves up ended, and bullet holes are scattered throughout the space.

The Mando’s back is to you at the moment while he and the vampire stare each other down. You don’t need to see his face to know who you’re dealing with; you’d been on the look out for this particular mop of curls since your last run-in. How was he everywhere you needed to be? Why couldn’t you shake him?

He suddenly springs into action again, drawing the spear he’d been carrying on his back, swinging it in a wide arch at the vampire. Qin’s too fast and easily dodges the attack before going in for his own, trying to get within arm’s reach. Mando doesn’t let him, blocking each attack with deadly precision. Neither gives in, pushing back against the other, jumping around the other in attempt to land a hit.

You’re hesitant to say you’re impressed by Mando, but only out of spite. He moves like a well-oiled machine, despite not having the upper hand he does not give up control of the fight to his undead opponent. This is the most dressed down you’ve seen him, baring the silver tac vest over a dark colored shirt. You can safely assume its beskar, the metal harnessed solely by the Mandalorians. Just one of the things that made then unique to other hunters. As he circles around Qin you catch sight of blood dripping down his sharp jaw, the hair just above his ear dark and matted with it. He’d taken a pretty serious hit already.

Now you really had to help him.

This was the kind of opportunity you never had when dealing with vampires. Qin’s attention was solely focused on the hunter. There was no indication from either that they’d noticed your silent arrival. You had one shot with the element of surprise, and you needed to make it count. If you could incapacitate Qin, stun him long enough for you and Mando to finish the job you could make it out of here in one piece. Mando in close to one piece.

Although there was no magic bullet for vampires, a bullet wound did still require time and energy to heal. Even though vampires and the like were technically “undead,” they still felt and registered pain to some degree, meaning bullets also provided a certain shock factor. You lose the sword, reaching for your thigh holster instead. While you were not a fan of guns, you weren’t willing to risk a fight with a vampire for your pride. You always came prepared when dealing with a bloodsucker.

Qin and Mando continue to circle each other in their tense dance. Despite the dark look in both their eyes, Qin has a smug smirk plastered across his face, probably under the impression he was going to be having a Mandalorian for lunch. Too bad you couldn’t allow it. All you needed was a clear shot. You mentally will Mando to put some distance between him and the bloodsucker, as if that would actually work.

Your breath catches in your throat as Mando sweeps his spear in another wide arc, forcing Qin back. Maybe you were lucky today after all. The moment Qin lands back on his feet, far enough away from the hunter, you jump out from your cover and take the shot, tagging Qin in the temple.

Damn good shot.

Mando jumps as Qin’s body crumples to the ground, face drawing together in confusion. That feeling akin to satisfaction returns. You could get the jump on him and a vampire. Third time would not be his charm, you are sure of it. You would not let it.

His brain catches up with the situation and he swings around, staff pointed at you as you vault over the workbench. Next comes the recognition, his jaw dropping just a bit at your sudden materialization. You’re thankful his first reaction isn’t to attack as you’re quick to re-holster your gun.

“Focus Mando,” you quip, directing your attention back to the vampire beginning to move on the floor.

“Fuck!” Qin curses, already starting to come back to it. That seemed too quick, even for a recently fed vampire.

Mando snaps into action, kicking Qin down before his spear finds its way through the vampire’s rib cage. Judging by the ear-splitting screech Qin let’s out, Mando found his mark, staking Qin where he lays. Mando does not move as you approach with sword in hand. He does not move as you bring your blade to rest on the bounty’s neck.

“You have one chance to surrender or I collect the bounty on your head, Qin.”

“You bitch!” He snarls, thrashing around the pole shoved through his torso. “Working with a Mando, that’s low- even for a slayer!”

You roll your eyes. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“See you in hell one day, bitch.”

Smug even in death. Ugh. You don’t feel much as you chop his off with one swift swing. Not after you saw those two innocents on your way in. People like him were the exact reason humans called your kind monsters.

“Sunny disposition on that one,” you grumble, stepping back from Mando and the decapitated bounty. The hunter doesn’t even offer you a curtesy laugh. Stick in the mud.

“Why are you here?”

He doesn’t bother to hide the suspicion. Did he think you were following him now? That was rich.

“Doing my job. I took on the bounty for this one.” Pulling your messenger bag off, you begin to organize your supplies, “which I’d like to finish up if you have no objections.”

Mando just steps back, leaning against his staff. You can feel the weight of his gaze boring into you while you work. His eyes tracking your every move, detailing each item you pull from your clean up kit. You didn’t spot any bag of his lying around, you wonder how he had been planning on dealing with the body.

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Why did you help me?”

Questions, questions.

“You let us go last time- I owed you for that at least,” you shrug. Now you were even. Well, as even as you could be with a human Mandalorian.

He’s silent for a moment, watching as you pull a few jars and a water bottle out of the bag. One contains a small collection of thistle bulbs. Mando doesn’t ask but you can see the curiosity growing as you stick the sharp plants into the vampire’s wounds.

“Vampires are weak to thistle, introduce it into the body and it halts their healing abilities. Aloe vera works too, it’s just not as flammable.

“Aloe vera and thistles?”

You chuckle, “what, did you think garlic would work?”

Mando scoffs, his sharp eye still following your hands. Next comes the burning of the body. You want to get that done as quick as possible. Thistle was not an end all weakness and even decapitated vampires could regenerate. You douse the body and head in gasoline from the water bottle.

“Light?”

Eyebrows raised you gingerly take the lighter he offers, catching the edge of Qin’s shirt with the flame. It doesn’t take long for the rest of the corpse to catch. The flames cast shadows over the Mandalorian’s face as you watch him from the corner of your eye. The air is heavy between you and not with the smell of burning flesh.

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to let him kill me?”

“Why would I want that?” Had he not come to the realization that you couldn’t kill him?

“You get rid of nuisances, right? So one of you will have to kill me eventually.”

It takes all your will power to not burst out laughing. There was no way he was getting anything from an inside informant if that’s what he thought slayers did. You had this Mando pinned down about as wrong as he had you figured out. No wonder no one had been able to find a turn coat when one didn’t exist to begin with.

“I don’t know where you’re getting your info, but you need to find a different source. Trust me. As much as most slayers want to get rid of hunters, we can’t without very good reasons. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be any better than the ones we hunt.”

He quirks an eyebrow, arms crossed over his chest, “so what? You’re just monsters hunting other monsters?”

“One,” you hold up a finger, “we use the term crypto.”

“Crypto? Like cryptid?”

“Where do you think humans got the word from?”

Mando scoffs at that but doesn’t press.

“Two, most of us don’t actually qualify as cryptos. Slayers are primarily half-bloods.”

You revel in the confusion on his face. Never did you think you would find yourself completely altering a Mandalorian’s understanding of the world. This was priceless.

Why were you telling him all this?

“Half-bloods?”

“You know, half human?”

“That’s possible?”

Now you cannot hold back the laugh this time, “human genetics are surprisingly adaptable.”

A look of disgust washes over his face and your heart drops.

“I just want you to know we’re not so different… our job is to stop those who hurt or take advantage of humans, to stop those who threaten to expose us. I imagine that’s not so different from what Mandalorians want…” after all, they couldn’t want to kill you all, could they?

[mozaikrolez]

a random assortment of of lil headcanons featuring : mina ashido , yuuto kidou , paperstar , kai de anecdote , joy , hiroto kira , kiriya , gaito kurouzu , yuuma nosaka , kokichi ouma , rui & sanemi shinazugawa 

mina ashido tans very easily ! i noticed that her skin is portrayed as darker pink in the manga then what she appears in the anime . my portrayal will involve her having magenta coloured skin during late spring / summer ( reference here ) because of her acid quirk tinting a darker skin tone & light pink like what’s portrayed in the anime .

yuuto kidou likes a lot of classical music , that’s not a surprise . he grew up with that type of music ( he was put into piano classes ) , but he likes rap music too . i can see him liking j.cole , kanye west ( strickly his music - don’t come for me ) , kendrick lamar & a lil bit of travis scott .

paperstar’s real name is yoko gogatsu but that name is associated with painful memories . she hates it when others call her by it & sometimes when she hears it she dissociates . i will go into more detail about that in another post .

sleep doesn’t come easy for kai de anecdote because of his powers & the effect of being able to feel the emotions of those within a certain radius . 

when in complete darkness the demon that possesses joy tries to take over her body so she sleeps with a nightlight ( this also helps with her trauma ) . there are times when the demon isn’t actively trying to & that’s mostly when she’s in a better state of mind but in this case it taunts her .

hiroto kira isn’t part of a gang but people around his age tend to view him as if we was a gang leader & give him respect . this is because his father is a socialite & he can literally ( & has ) get away with ANYTHING .

kiriya , though strong & holding a lot of power , doesn’t understand why people look up to him . he’d rather people treat him like some normal guy because for the most part he is . he’s an otaku & would prefer to stay at home . he took the positions of chief executioner because he felt the need to help in eradicating the mafia problem in his city & country as a whole . it’s something that hits close to home because the mafia kill his family . he forced himself to become part of the solution to take down the mafia but in doing so became part of a corrupt government .

gaito kurouzu likes & aligns himself with birds because he views them as free . he is bound by his emotions that hold him back though he doesn’t recognize this & fights against showing / expressing his weakness instead — putting himself in a cage .

yuuma nosaka has a crown scar on his back from the experiments & it can symbolize his triumph over his prior humanity though it’s a sorrowful reminder of the effects of losing it ( not really an headcanon , i just really wanted to put that into writing) .

i decided to change the heLL out of kokichi ouma’s ‘evil secret organization’ . instead of a prank group , DICE is a group of people who do illegal ( often times morally bad ) things to get information to convict criminals . in a way , this organization can be seen as evil because of the methods they use to get this information but local law enforcement accept ( & actively depend on ) their information to prosecute criminals ( the police department & other parts of government seem fairly morally skewed in the world of danganronpa tbh ) , but they don’t even know who this leader is . in fact , no one except some staff members of hopes peak academy know that kokichi is the leader . & on the number of members , there isn’t 10,000 but there used to be . it’s about 4,000 now .

about rui’s age , according to this pose right here , it’s not something that is outright stated or confirmed . from what i can tell , his age ( chronologically ) lands somewhere in between 10 - 20 . i want to say he turned into a demon at 8 but has kept his appearance around 11 upon aging further because of the role he wants to play in his family ( & how he’s most comfortable ) is to be one of the youngest if not THE youngest . this is because he wants to be protected even though obviously he doesn’t need his family members for that . ether way , i want to say his chronological age is 15 , or at least that’s how i’ll portray him . he just appeared very well spoken to be 11 in my opinion . & of course , like all my other demon characters from the series , he’d be 115 in the open verse to stay consistent with the events of his backstory .

on that note , i think rui would be one of the lower moons who can fall out of muzan’s curse with relative ease in comparison to the other members of the 12 kizuki . he doesn’t seem too devoted to muzan ( emotionally & the like ) & comes off as a bit more self serving in what he does . while he does search for the blue spider lily as ordered i believe his top priority falls back to creating a happy environment for himself .

in the demon slayer manga , its stated that sanemi shinazugawa is colour blind but it doesn’t say what kind . i briefly wrote about this in his dead by daylight verse but i’ll go into a lil more detail . he has tritanopia , which means his blue & yellow colour perception is weak . blue’s & greens ( anything with this undertone from my understanding too ) look cyan & yellows ( anything with undertones too ) appears in different shades of red . since some of the human characters have a super natural element to them ( like zenitsu & his hearing etc. ) i decided to have sanemi see blood in a more vibrant shade of red than the typical human ( kinda like how birds see red differently than humans ) . going off that point , because of his colour blindness he can’t see very well in the dark but the injuries he inflicts demons & the blood they spill help guide him in the dark . blood demon art that utilizes their blood like nezuko’s burning blood technique or rui’s bloody spider webs really help with navigation .

[greyias]

FIC: The Waiting Game

Title: The Waiting Game Fandom: SWTOR Pairing: Theron Shan/f!Jedi Knight Rating: T Genre: Angsty angst angst Synopsis: The worst part about all of this was the waiting. Theron hated standing on the sidelines as everyone else risked their lives. He needed something to do. Anything to keep him distracted from his own thoughts. Spoilers: So many spoilers. For the end of Onslaught and its epilogue, for 6.1/“The Task at Hand” and for the upcoming storyline in 6.2. Warnings: Considering what’s going on in the world right now, I’m tagging this as “Covid19 related”, as parts of this may be uncomfortably familiar with the current state of events. There’s also a lot about Theron and his very fraught and complicated relationship with Satele in this. So if you’re not a fan of her, or you just think she’s the worst, you should probably skip this. Because I love her and their very complicated dynamic.

Crossposted to AO3

The crash was loud enough to hear from the senior staff meeting room.

It pulled Theron from the datapad he’d gotten lost in, and had him poking his head out the door into the hallway. He managed to just catch sight of Scourge’s dark armor disappearing around the corner as the Sith stormed off. Not that Theron hadn’t gotten used to Sith temper tantrums since coming to live on Odessen, but it still was enough to pique his curiosity.

Stepping out further into the hallway, he could just make out both Kira and his wife talking solemnly at the door that Scourge had stalked away from. Whatever the conversation was, both Jedi were clearly concerned. Grey gave the little astromech at her side an affectionate pat on the head, before she looked up, squinting down the hall until she caught sight of him. They were all far enough away where Theron couldn’t see their expressions clearly or even eavesdrop on what they were talking about, but the tense postures let him know that something was amiss.

As he walked up, he could see the remains of the crates that had splintered upon impact with the wall, and the rows of cracked monitors ringing the room. He quirked an eyebrow as he looked back at both Jedi. “You guys felt like redecorating? Not sure that ‘Warzone Nouveau’ is going to catch on as an aesthetic.”

Kira shot him a look, but he couldn’t quite decipher what it meant. Maybe she didn’t find his joke funny. Of course, he’d gotten that look a lot. Things had been a little awkward since she and Scourge formally joined the Alliance, but Theron hadn’t been able to figure out if they were just having a difficult time adjusting or if something else was going on.

He was saved from pondering on that further by his wife gently laying her hand on his arm. “Let’s take a walk.”

A familiar feeling of dread settled in his gut, and he swallowed before fixing a smile in place. Even if he had a feeling what this was about, he could pretend for a few moments more. They were quiet as they made their way to the elevator, and were about halfway down when he finally decided to break the silence.

“So, are we walking to any particular place?”

“I thought a stroll in the woods might be nice.”

“Are we going on an adventure?” His humor was a little forced, but he was trying for normalcy here. It’d been a while since they had that. About as long as since Kira and Scourge arrived on Odessen.

“Not the same type of adventure as the last time,” she said, a lilt of amusement tinging her voice.

“Pity.” Even if they were alone in the elevator, his voice was just a murmur as he leaned in closer.

He wasn’t really planning on doing anything inappropriate, was just angling on getting a reaction out of her, but the lift’s doors opened up onto the crowded walkway before he could push it any further. He let out a frustrated sigh and straightened up before anyone saw and got any ideas. The last thing he needed was to start rumors about improprieties in the lifts. Not that he really cared about the rumors about himself, but he’d already caused Grey enough trouble with his undercover stint. He didn’t need to give people more reasons to whisper about them.

Even if they were married.

They ambled on out, towards the cantina. He was trying to act casual, normal even, but Grey hadn’t said anything about what that conversation with Kira was about. Or why Scourge felt the need to redecorate the room quite so violently. But Theron had an idea anyway. Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face, because her hand found his and intertwined their fingers together.

When Theron had gone undercover, Grey had still been wearing the armor from her time before her carbonite sleep. Sometimes he’d wondered if she had worn the giant pauldrons, embroidered cape, and heavy gauntlets as some sort of armor against all the change in her life. But since his return, she’d adopted a new outfit. A much simpler garb, a deep blue tunic that was very Jedi in fashion. As silly as it sounded, it felt like some sort of evolution — like she was somehow more comfortable in her skin and her role in a way that she hadn’t been before. 

He liked it though, from the way the color of blue set off her eyes, to how the long trailing scarves on the tunic liked to pick up the wind when they stepped outside. The change from the heavy gauntlets to fingerless gloves was also a benefit, and especially nice in moments like these, as he was able to feel the warmth of her fingertips against his.

Of course, he’d also changed things up a little too. The long gray overcoat had long been discarded — the charred hole in the back where he’d been stabbed wasn’t a keepsake he wanted to hold onto. While he hadn’t abandoned his old style completely—his old, faithful red and black jacket was definitely still around—Theron had felt the need to integrate a little bit more variety into his style. Like the lighter coat he was wearing now, with a set of fingerless gloves of his own.

They were a little more comfortable to wear when he was just working around the base, and the tactile feedback of his bare hands was nice. He was of course referring to the fingers intertwined with his. For a few moments at least, the soft reassuring pressure and warmth of her touch chased away the anxiety welling up in the pit of his stomach. Although he supposed the gloves helped with the coding too, and his endless research with the HoloNet and beyond.

The sight of the two of them walking hand-in-hand didn’t raise too many eyebrows at this point. There had been a time where he’d tried to strictly keep the personal side of their relationship behind closed doors — but that had gone out the window a long, long time ago. At this point, Theron was pretty sure that the only person who scoffed at the public displays of affection was Lana, and that was just habit. Well, and maybe Grey’s older brother would make a comment or two about how disgusting and saccharine they were. But the jerk was probably just trying to get a rise out either of them with that sort of thing, because he got bored easily. It was like having a large, very old and very loud toddler as a brother-in-law. Sometimes Theron was thankful that he was an only child.

For now though, he and Grey were content to walk in companionable silence, meandering through the cantina, and out into the woods. It was springtime on Odessen, and it was a nice day. The variations in the season on the planet was still something that Theron was adjusting to, even years later.  If he had to pick a favorite, though, it would be spring. The fields beyond the military hangar would fill with these beautiful white flowers, and the sight of them brought to mind his homecoming from Nathema. The frequent rains kept the air humid, especially out here in the forest where there was less sunlight filtering through the canopy to speed up the evaporation. It made the ground smell fresh and new — and it reminded him of life.

These days, he really liked that reminder.

The temperature was still just cool enough where wearing a jacket outside wasn’t uncomfortable and gave him an excuse to draw his wife in a little closer under the guise of sharing warmth. She leaned into the embrace, and was happy to just walk along in ambling steps for a few more moments and let this quiet moment of peace linger. 

Then she let out a sigh, long and wearied, and it told him that whatever she was about to say next wasn’t going to be good news. But he’d already suspected that from Scourge’s temper tantrum.

“The quarantine has failed.” Her voice was quiet, ringing with an air of defeat she let show where no one but him could see.

His blood froze in his veins, his own steps slowing to a halt. “What do you mean ‘failed’?”

“The transport with Satele—where the infected were being contained—it’s not responding to our signals, and there was no sign of it at the next scheduled stop.”

That certainly explained the Sithly destruction. Theron couldn’t even blame Scourge, as a thousand conflicted feelings began to well up within himself. For the past few weeks, he’d been trying his best to keep them tied up. Like he was rolling every single thread of worry and anger and anxiety around each other, like it was some nervous ball of string. He wouldn’t let it unwind, he couldn’t. But the news picked at the fraying edge near the end, and if Theron wasn’t careful it could unspool into a mess that he’d have no hope of cleaning up.

The breath he blew out was long, whistling past clenched teeth. He needed to say something, because Grey was staring at him in the way she always did. Full of concern and warmth and understanding — and he loved being on the receiving end of that but also hated it because it just picked at that loose thread more. Her fingers shifted in his, holding him just a little tighter, and he let out another breath, giving her hand a squeeze in return. He swallowed, forcing the rising lump in his throat to go back down where it belonged, and managed to seize that thread of unease before it snagged on something and undid the tattered fabric of his composure.

He was fine. He just needed to focus. That was all. Preferably on the problem at hand.

So that’s what he did. “What’s our next step?”

“Right now Teeseven is heading out with an escort and as many probe droids we can spare. They can scan and sort through the data faster than we can.”

“And there’s no chance of them getting infected,” Theron pointed out sourly.

“That too,” she added with a sigh. “It’s just safer this way.”

She was right. Of course she was. The droids could do the job faster than anyone, cybernetics or no. He just hated being on the sidelines. Doing nothing.

“Do we know… how the ship disappeared?” He hated the hesitation in his voice, in the question itself. Hated the emotion in betrayed, even if he was sharing it with the safest person in the galaxy.

“No.” She gave his hand another squeeze. “I’m sorry.”

He’d had a nightmare last night. Where that ship of the damned had landed in some busy spaceport. Some place like Kuat. Or Nar Shaddaa. Or even Coruscant. And as the passengers of the transport walked out among the unsuspecting, all of the hapless victims fell into line one by one. And at the front of the crowd was someone that looked remarkably like his mother — but was definitely not her. The woman with Satele’s face had sightless, unseeing eyes that glowed with a malevolence. When she spoke, it was not the soft, calm measured tones he’d come to know, but with a deep chilling voice of a long vanquished ghost that Theron had first heard back on Yavin. Then the woman that was not his mother had turned on the unseen watcher and attacked.

Theron had awoken with a start. A fine sheen of sweat soaking through the thin sheet covering him. Somehow he hadn’t made enough noise to stir the woman sleeping next to him, still cocooned in all of the blankets and comforters on the bed. It had taken him a few moments to reorient in the darkness of their bedroom, let the familiar stone walls ground him back in reality. To remind himself that the dream had just been that. He hadn’t wanted to wake his wife to talk about the nightmare, even if he’d lain awake for a long time afterwards. Trying to shake the images from his head.

If someone were to ask him, Theron would tell them that he didn’t believe in ill omens. The timing of the dream with today’s news was just a coincidence. Or it was the product of a stressed mind trying to cope. His subconscious just trying to get him to pay attention to the things he kept pushing to the back of his mind during his waking hours.

In the light of day, he could see more clearly what was wrong with the dream. The last time the ship was seen, everyone on it was in a comatose state. Trapped in both a nightmarish slumber and stasis. The only thing amiss before today was the Force rumblings from Kira and Scourge that some thing was joining the consciousnesses of the infected together. His subconscious had just morphed that into something familiar — something a lot like Ziost. Another thing he didn’t like to think about.

There were a lot of things he didn’t like to think about. Too many mistakes and unpleasant things in his past to dwell on — and getting through the day right now sometimes felt like walking a very winding and narrow path to keep his thoughts focused and productive. Rather than take one of the branching paths into speculation about what was waiting for them when the ship was found.

As much as he tried to stay focused though, his mind still strayed. And he thought about Satele. A lot. He’d thought he’d excised that particular bad habit a long time ago. When he was growing up, he and Ngani Zho had talked about his mother, of course. Zho had never kept her a secret from Theron, and had told his young charge about his favorite student. For the longest time, Theron had this image built up in his head of this perfect, heroic Jedi that he’d someday meet. If he just tried hard enough, focused enough, and applied himself enough, he’d finally be able to wield the Force, and he’d have a chance of meeting the fabled woman that Zho talked about.

Even when both he and Zho had still been foolish enough to think that Theron had a chance at becoming a Jedi, they had never talked about mother and son ever being able to have that type of relationship. It would have been against those strict detachment edicts, as would have Satele taking her flesh and blood on as a Padawan. Even if the Force had deigned to grant him the ability to wield it like the rest of Revan’s bloodline, he probably would have had someone else train him. Maybe someone like Gnost-Dural. But if Theron was being honest with himself, not something he did often, in some of his more carefree moments as a child he’d imagined the two of them fighting side-by-side with lightsabers in hand.

He’d tried to scatter those stupid, childish notions away when he’d left Haashimut. Along with the selfish, immature longing for his mythical heroic mother to come save the teenage runaway when the shadows grew too dark during the night. He told himself that at thirteen he was too old to be wanting his mommy, especially since he’d never even met her. He reminded himself at fourteen too. By fifteen, he’d just about beaten that feeling away with bitterness. And at sixteen, he’d just learned to forget he’d ever even had the want to begin with.

Theron was approaching forty years old now. He was married and mostly happy with his life. There was still a small part of him, a part of him that he liked to pretend didn’t exist — to pretend had never existed — that still wanted his mother. Maybe not the one that he had, but that mythical, heroic figure of his childhood musings. Perhaps it was human nature, he thought, to crave the security and comfort provided by a parent.

A long time ago, before Ziost and Zakuul, before he’d even met the woman at his side, Satele had told her son that she would always be there for him if he needed her. All he had to do was ask. That same part of him he liked to pretend didn’t exist panicked at the thought that he might not have that anymore.

They’d never had a chance at a normal relationship. Not when Theron had been a young boy, dreaming of being that idealized Jedi like his mother before him. Definitely not as a bitter teenager out to prove that the galaxy was wrong about him. Nor even as adults, when they were working towards a common cause. Outside of a professional capacity, almost all of their conversations devolved into arguments — and since Theron was being honest with himself at the moment — a lot, though not all, of those had been started by him. Clinging to that old bitter feeling because the alternative meant opening himself up to being that scared, vulnerable kid again.

But not everything had been bad. They were precious few, but he did have a few pleasant memories with Satele. Most of them had been after Yavin, but before the Ziost incident. 

Mostly he remembers taking afternoon tea on Coruscanti terraces, a pleasant breeze teasing the air. He and Satele would take a break between the endless debriefs on the Revanite incident. Even during these moments of downtime, Satele would sit straight, posture perfectly poised as if she’d forgotten how to relax. Theron would sprawl back in his chair, kicking his feet up onto the table just to see if he could get a reaction out of her. Maybe get her to lecture him on proper decorum. He’d been careful not to kick any of the serving ware, just act like a bit of an uncouth ass.

She hadn’t lectured him though, just let a small smile quirk at the corner of her mouth. As if his attempt to rile her was both transparent and amusing. She would ask him politely about work, careful to keep the subject on something he was comfortable with. As if just the act of having this time together was enough for her, even if they never said anything of substance. 

It was funny. He hadn’t realized how much he’d actually enjoyed those quiet moments. At the time he’d just been focused on how awkward it was, trying to navigate the weirdness that was getting to know this stranger who was somehow not so strange. Now when he looked back on it, the awkwardness had faded, and the good stood out more. Time had a funny way of distorting things.

Theron didn’t know what he wanted at the end of all of this. He wasn’t sure if he and Satele could ever really have those quiet moments out on a Coruscant terrace now. Hell, he wasn’t sure if they’d be able to maintain a civil conversation. All he knew, as that when he was faced with the prospect of it, it crystalized in his mind clearly — he didn’t want his mother to die. She would one day, he knew that, by old age if nothing else. But he just wasn’t ready for that eventuality yet — even if they didn’t talk or hug or do any of the things normal families did. 

He was just not ready to live in a world where he didn’t have the opportunity to… do something different. And he didn’t want the last things expressed between them to be anger and bitterness. He didn’t want her to leave life thinking that he hated her. Because he didn’t. He just… just…

Without even realizing it, Theron started walking again. His pace brisk as if he could somehow escape the place that his mind had taken him to. Grey’s grip around him tightened but she kept in step with him, despite the fact that his legs were much longer than his and she was practically jogging to keep in stride. She was just there, a quiet, comforting presence at his side. Willing to wait on him to be ready to talk, always so patient and understanding.

He didn’t say anything yet, but slowed his steps a little so she didn’t have to try so hard to keep up even as he lifted his eyes up to the canopy. Counting the branches above as a way to think about something else.

Several years ago, this was the path that Grey had disappeared on when she had tried and failed to get intel from Valkorion for a mission. Where that ghost had stranded her out in the wilds. Where had Satele had found her, taken care of her — brought her to the ship that the former Jedi Grand Master had called home. Grey had eventually told him about all of what had happened, including all of the belongings and keepsakes that had been stowed away. Including some old toys Theron had when he was a child — and a locket with a picture of him after he’d joined the SIS. For a woman who had based so much of her life on not clinging to attachments, Satele apparently had quite a lot of things she was attached to. 

He still hadn’t figured that part out. Most people wouldn’t hoard the past possessions of children they didn’t want. Nor steal holos from sealed government files to have a memento of their long-lost son. There was a part of him that wanted to see Satele again so he could demand why she had those. The rational part of him knew it would be a stupid question, because there was really only one logical explanation.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure if hearing her say it aloud would make it better or worse. Hearing his mother actually tell him in words that she cared for him — maybe even loved him — would it make it easier or harder to accept whatever her fate was?

And beyond everything to do with Satele, and all of his stupidly complicated family drama, there was the woman at his side. His wife, his partner. One of the few people who was immune to the sickness that had overtaken his mother. The one who supposedly could walk into the heart of the contagion without fear of infection. Theron should have all the faith in the galaxy that she would save the day. Because she had never let him down, not once since they’d met. 

Yet the question still hovered. What if? What if she’s not immune? What if whatever had taken over Satele and all those following her took Grey too? 

Theron couldn’t lose his wife. He just couldn’t.

He knew that he would lose some unquantifiable part of his life if his mother died, even if he didn’t understand what that would look like until it happened. But he knew what his life would be like without the woman at his side. He’d already lived through that hell for nearly five years. He knew the emptiness of waking up each morning alone. Of the anger and impotent rage that never went away. Of the grief that bled away the brighter, happier moments. How even sleep wasn’t an escape, because then the day would just start over the moment he woke up.

It was why he’d so willingly thrown himself into danger when someone was conspiring to kill her. Better him than her, he’d thought. It was both a selfless and selfish desire. Keep her safe from harm — save himself from the pain again.

When he looked down from the canopy, it took him a moment to realize how far they’d walked. He blinked, breathed, and tried to reorient himself. Reminded himself to not pick at that thread of anxiety and what ifs. To not look too far beyond this moment. The future wasn’t guaranteed, only the present.

“Is there anything that I can do?” he finally asked, deciding not to ruminate on how long they’d probably been walking in silence.

“Right now, the safest thing to do is let Teeseven do his work.”

“So all we can do is wait?”

“It could be a few days. Or weeks. Or months. I can’t give you any certainties.” She let out a sigh. “I know it’s not ideal.”

Of course it wasn’t. Theron wasn’t good at waiting. For all his childhood training, all of the meditation techniques and special education that Zho had given him, he’d never quite been able to cure Theron of his natural impatience. His drive to just do. It was probably written somewhere in his SIS personnel file, hell, Lana had probably scribbled it in every single margin of his Alliance personnel file too. “Impatient.” ”Impulsive.” “Keep away from trains.”

Theron hated standing on the sidelines as everyone else risked their lives. Or in this case, as a bunch of droids did the searching for him. He needed something to do. Anything to keep him distracted from his own thoughts.

He hated this.

The waiting was killing him. Part of him wanted this to just be over. See where the cards fell and then let life get back to normal. He was also dreading the end of the waiting. The moment it ended, it meant that the danger arrived. Whatever this infection was building towards, something in his life was going to change. He could lose his mother. He could lose his wife. He could lose them both.

So the waiting was a blessing. And it was a curse. And right now, it was all he had. All he could do was focus on the present, even as the future came barreling towards them.

“You know, we’re already in the woods,” he said.

“We are.”

“What do you say we get lost here for a while…” Theron let his voice drop low, and watched as a little warmth raced into Grey’s cheeks. “We could have us another adventure.”

She snuggled in closer, laying her head on his shoulder. The proximity lit up a fire in his gut, and for a few moments, it knocked away that fraying thread of unease. In this moment, it was just the two of them.

“You know, I think that sounds like a good way to spend our time.”

And so they walked on, hand in hand. Still waiting. Together.

[supercilium-sulcos]

Fictober: Day 2

Prompt number: 2 - “that’s the easy part”

Fandom: Dragon Age 2

Rating: T

Warnings/Tags: blood, language

-

Carver Hawke was born to be more than his brother’s shadow.

Little Hawke. Junior. The baby brother. Maker, it never ends. It’s all anyone ever sees.

His mother made it especially easy the day Carver made for the Gallows alone. “What would your brother say if he knew?”

What would he say— piss on it. He’d be furious. He’d ask if a Gallows Templar is what he’d wish on their father, on Garrett himself, maybe he’d even have the audacity to bring Bethany into it.

Carver doesn’t give one moldy shit what his brother would say.

He will be more than his brother. He will define himself as his own man. For all its faults, Kirkwall is a chance for them all to start over. Even if Garrett and his mother squander their chances, Carver won’t follow them.

Knight-Captain Cullen is a good man. A good soldier. Carver hopes his armor may fit as well as the Knight-Captain’s does someday. Unfortunately, Cullen spends less time training recruits these days. It’s not with him that Carver learns the ropes, but under a sergeant — Malden, he’s called. Some of the more experienced Templars avoid Malden, and Carver’s heard whispers that he’s hard. Too hard. From the outside he’s rough, sure. And perhaps none of the girls at the Blooming Rose catcall to Malden like they do to Cullen and even Carver, but what does that matter? Carver braced for the worst, but Malden is fair to the new recruits.

“You’ve pledged yourselves to a worthy cause,” Malden had said. “The city guard may uphold the law, but we are the order.”

Law and order. Carver likes that. If Kirkwall must be his home, then he will make it a home to be proud of.

It was Malden who eased Carver through his first lyrium dosing. Malden who clapped him on the back, told him he was proud, knew Carver was tough enough to endure it easily. Thinking back on it, the moment still makes Carver’s chest swell.

He’d turned some heads with his swordplay already. Even the Knight-Commander took notice. Sergeant Malden had told him, “Keep it up, boy. You’ve got a future here.”

Carver clings to those memories. To the thought that he can be somebody — and that someone else acknowledges him. Carver clings to them more tightly than he’d ever clung to his mother’s hand when he learned to walk, to Garrett’s shirt when he was scared, to the wild hope of glory at Ostagar.

He clings even when he sees her across the training yard: a young girl, no doubt a mage, brought sobbing into the Gallows with a five-Templar escort.

They have to half-carry, half-drag the girl in; the tears come so hard she can’t even walk. Behind him, a couple of the recruits chuckle at the spectacle. But not Carver. Nor Sergeant Malden. He watches them drag her into the Circle tower. For a moment, he swears he hears his sister’s voice in those horrible cries.

He shakes it off, disquieted.

Sergeant Malden exchanges a few words with another Templar, who then passes him a small scroll. Malden looks it over, not a twitch of expression on his face, and immediately looks to Carver.

“Boy. With me.”

Carver follows at Malden’s heels. Part of him grumbles his frustration at being spoken to like Garrett summoning their mabari, but he shushes that inner voice. The less he thinks of Garrett, the better.

Here, his only family is the Order.

Malden leads him into the Circle to a small holding room on the first floor. The mage girl from the courtyard is shackled to the wall. Her small hands look like they could slip right through the manacles, but all the fight seems to have gone out of her. Two Templars man the inside of the cell, and two more guard from the outside.

Bit excessive for her — she can’t be more than ten, maybe twelve — but Carver has seen enough by now to know he can’t ever let his guard down. Malden nods to the guards, who let him in the cell. He beckons for Carver to follow.

“This is how we separate the strong from the weak,” Malden says. “You can sing the Chant, you can best your peers on the training pitch… but when it comes time to wet your blade, do you have the stomach for it?” Malden pauses, looks Carver straight in the eyes. “Do you, boy?”

“I did that plenty at Ostagar, ser,” Carver says. He squares his shoulders, but Malden notices him glance uncertainly at the chained up mage girl.

“So they tell me.” Malden nods to one of the Templars, who unfastens the girl’s wrist. She sniffles and flinches away, scrabbling at her dirty tunic with her free hand. “Today is the day we test you in the only way that matters. Carver Hawke, you will make your first phylactery.”

The grizzled sergeant pushes a rounded contraption in Carver’s palm. A ring of gold encircles an empty glass vial. At one end is a small hole in the metal to allow the vial to fill.

It’s… smaller than he expected. He’s never seen a phylactery in person before.

Whether or not the girl knows what a phylactery is, she knows enough to be afraid when she sees bare steel. Carver unsheathes the small dagger at his waist and her eyes go round. She shrinks back against the wall, blunt nails scraping at the stone. She cries out for her father, sobbing when the other Templars yank her back around and hold out her shaking arm.

Carver stops. He considers putting his dagger away. Again, he hears something of his sister in those pitiful wails. Then he sees Malden. It’s like the sergeant reads his mind. And Malden does not order him to do it — does not get angry or yell or even berate him for being weak.

He is disappointed, but not surprised. And that — that is worse than anything else.

“Leave her,” Carver says to the Templars. “Just let go of her. I’ll handle it.”

They don’t listen to him, but look to Malden. When the sergeant nods, they back off. The girl still cowers and cries. Carver kneels down in front of her. “Hey,” he says. “It’s all right. It’s scary right now, but it’ll get better soon.” He’s never exactly had a comforting personality, but he has to try. “My name’s Carver. I’m new here, too. Can you tell me your name?”

She peers down at him, glassy brown eyes bloodshot from smoke, by the smell of her. She reeks of fire and ash. Her tunic is singed, and so are some bits of her hair.

“Kira,” she says.

“Good to meet you, Kira,” he says. “People say some bad things about the Circle here, but we’re trying to help. It’s better for everyone if you learn to use your magic safely. Better for you, too.”

He trails off, unsure of how to transition the conversation towards cutting her before Malden gets impatient. She mumbles, “You talk funny.”

“I get that sometimes,” he says. “I’m Fereldan.”

“They have dogs in Fereldan? Those big ones?”

“Mabari. Yeah. You like dogs?”

Her jaw trembles but she nods.

“I have a mabari. Well, my brother does. Maybe the next time I visit home, I’ll bring the old mutt up here to meet you.”

“Does he bite?”

“Not even if I was getting pummeled in the street,” Carver assures her. “Big coward, he is. Got the brains of a mouse.”

Did she just smile? No, he’s probably imagining things. Trying to make himself feel better about this, too. “Kira,” he says, “we’ll make sure to get you some fresh clothes and food soon. First, I just need to take a bit of your blood. Can I have your hand?”

She doesn’t ask what for. She doesn’t ask if it will hurt. Clearly she knows the answer to both already. She flexes her fingers and looks down at them with her lower lip between her teeth. The Templar to her left lets out an irritated grunt. “Andraste’s tits. We haven’t got all day. Give him your fucking hand, you little hellbeast.” He gives her a shove for good measure.

Carver nearly snaps at him, but Kira extends her shaking arm to Carver. She ducks her head against her chest, silent as the grave.

The blade is sharp, so it hurts less and heals cleaner. But it doesn’t make Carver feel any less guilty for pressing the blade against her wrist. He holds the phylactery under her wound to catch the blood, holds her hand steady so she doesn’t squirm away and make it any harder on herself. And he talks to her. He tells her about the mabari, about how dumb and goofy he is, how much he likes it when he gets scratched behind the ears. Maybe it doesn’t make it better. But he hopes. Maker, he hopes.

When it’s full, the phylactery magically seals itself shut. The blood inside of it glows a bright, piercing scarlet.

“There,” he says. “All done. See? You’re all right.”

He wraps a clean cloth around her wrist until a healer can see to her. The worst is over now. She can settle in, clean up, and be around other mages who will help her acclimate to her new life. She’ll be all right now.

The Templars take her from the cell, but Sergeant Malden stays behind, so Carver does too. He cleans his dagger off without looking up.

“You look rather green, Hawke.”

“I’m fine,” he says. “It’s just — she’s a child. It’s hard.”

“Hard?” Malden says. “That’s the easy part.”

Maybe somewhere in the back of his head, Carver knows that. He tries to ignore it, but he knows.

“We’ll begin the Harrowing shortly.”

And just like that, Carver knows nothing. He jerks his head up. He must have heard wrong.

“Her Harrowing?”

Malden lifts an eyebrow.

“She’s a little girl. She’s not even properly trained,” Carver says. “And she just got here. She’s tired and stressed and — if you make her do this now, she’ll fail.”

“Three of your brothers-in-arms died in Darktown trying to subdue her sister, who became an abomination. That ‘little girl’ killed one of them herself, defending the demon,” Malden tells him. “Sympathy is weakness, Hawke. It is silent death. Either cut that weakness from your heart like a tumor, or it will kill you first.”

With that, Malden strides out of the cell, leaving Carver alone within. He cannot will his legs to follow. Then the footsteps stop, and Malden calls back, “You will attend the Harrowing. If she fails, it will be your blade that fells her. That is an order, Hawke.”

[lumiolivier]

Fan Fiction Master Post (and Where to Find Them):

Hello, Internet.  It’s been about a year and a half since I last updated my master post and it’d be nice for you to pass this one around instead of the others.  And so much has happened since the last list!  I finally jumped on the Ao3 train!  This list has got everybody here.  If you got nothing better to do and need a little fic to put on the wounds life has dealt you (or if you’re a little bit of a masochist and want something that’ll tear your soul to shreds), then pick a link and indulge yourself, K?  Like last time, this list is organized alphabetically by fandom and chronologically, if there’s a series.  You’ll see what I mean.  Enjoy!

** indicates a story in progress as of the time of posting this list.

Attack on Titan:

Classified Files:  Ackerman, Levi

AU Crack! Hanji needs a favor from Levi, but there's no way Levi would be so willing. That's what she has Eren for! But...Well...Why can't Hanji's experiments ever go right?

Black Butler:

Just a Simple Interview, Right?

1 of 4.  What starts out as just an interview with 19 year old earl Ciel Phantomhive for the paper turns into a little more than that a young reporter bargains for when she meets his enigmatic, yet beautiful butler. (Mostly T rated with some lemon chapters)

His Strange Little Girl and Her Butler, the Enigma

2 of 4.  She had her interview, but gained a few new friends and one very, very special butler. Now, she has her beautiful demon husband for the rest of eternity. But when the honeymoon’s over…is it really over? Of course not. We can’t have anything simple, can we?  (Also T rated with a few lemon chapters.)

You, Me, and Cambion Makes Three

3 of 4.  The Michaelis family has grown by one. The young lord has finally married Lady Elizabeth. So, what comes next? A little catastrophe, perhaps?  (Yet again, T rated with a few lemon chapters.)

Her Butler, One Last Time

4 of 4.  So blissfully living as a magazine contributor in modern day New York City. Until she meets her new landlord…or her demon husband from a past life?

Peace, Love, Unity, Respect

(Mini-series) She’s graduated college. Her boyfriend dumps her. Her roommates find a way to cheer her up. But for whatever reason, she’s feeling a little desperate. Especially when the DJ keeps giving her looks. He feels like he’s seen her somewhere before…

Crossovers:

Trouble Comes in Threes

(Hetalia x Fruits Basket)  Francis, Gilbert, and Antonio could get anyone they want. They're beautiful, they're young, and the whole school knows it. But...They've had it all and grow bored. Even traveling outside city limits wouldn't prove to be any sort of challenge. But after a mess of a party, it appears Yao and Kiku's family tree is extending its roots when their cousins relocate. They couldn't stay at the Sohma house forever.

A New Hacker Has Entered the Chat**

(DRAMAtical Murder x Mystic Messenger) The RFA is usually pretty airtight when it comes to their information. Although, when their systems end up getting hacked, Seven and MC put their heads together to figure out who did it and why their source is coming from two different places. 

DRAMAtical Murder:

His Angel Bunny

When Angel goes into work on her day off, she just wants to throw her head against the wall. Until she sees a cute boy with a face full of metal and a heart full of sadness. She had to do something about it. Little did she know, that would lead to the greatest domino effect adventure of her life.

About Time

Just a quick one-shot of Koujaku doing a HUGE favor to humanity. Thank you, Koujaku, for your bravery and your services.

Death Note:

Lawliet

Ever wonder how L happened? The name? The person? The little boy behind it all…? (child!Lx parental!Reader going into the Kira investigation)

Fairy Tail:

The Princess and the Dragon  

(AU) She wants to be where the wizards are. However, her father has other plans for her. Stay out of the books, Lucy! You don’t need to practice magic! How do you expect to further the bloodline if you don’t meet anyone?

The Siren’s Song

(AU) Beware a frozen heart desperate for warmth...What a load of garbage...Right?

The Knight in Shining Armor (At the time of me posting this, the last chapter is going out this week)

(AU) Erza's flashbacks to the days before she joined the guild kept getting worse and worse. Master Makarov couldn't stand to see one of the strongest members of the guild falling apart like that, so a special job for a special S-Class wizard should be enough to snap her out of it. Especially when that job is for the Fiore royal family.

Fullmetal Alchemist:

Halfmetal Heart

Edward and Winry’s precocious daughter Tricia has picked up the family trade, but when she goes to apply for her state certification, something wonderful catches her eye…

Don’t Forget

Their house used to be a pile of ash, but now, it’s a home as Edward and Alphonse reflect on the day it burned.  One-shot

Happy Birthday, Sir

Today marks a very special day in Amestris. It’s the Fuhrer’s birthday! And his wife has a little something, something planned for him, but can Mustang let it be a surprise?  One-shot.  Partially goes off the Halfmetal Heart canon

The Spark and the Sparrow

Just some young Royai fluff about a thunderstorm that happened at Master Hawkeye’s house.  One-shot

Hetalia:

Candy From Strangers**

Amelia's boyfriend is a jerk. No matter how anyone looks at it, he's a straight up jerk. One night, things got a bit out of hand and...Well...He's her ex-boyfriend now. A broken plate to the cheek does that. But a kind hearted stranger in the park was more than ok with fixing up more than the deep cut on her cheek.

Draw a Circle

France stumbles on a mysterious naked woman and can't keep her to himself, so he consults his good friend Britain. Who is she? And where did she come from?

The Legend of Zelda:

Courageous Duality

Five years after the Kokiri Village has been burned by the Gerudo King’s newest apprentice, Link gathers the intestinal fortitude to go back and pay his respects to his old home. Until he finds his true destiny deep within the Lost Woods.  Takes place after Ocarina of Time

MCU:

Kilgrave’s Good Little Girl

Who better to bring in a murderous psychopath than a murderous psychopath?  (Reader)

Mystic Messenger:

Mistake Messenger

A one-shot collection of alternate routes for Mystic Messenger ranging from sweet and fluffy to naughty and depraved. MC x EVERYONE.

Man’s Best Intern

(AU) Poor Jaehee. Overworked. Underpaid. Under appreciated. Luckily, with the newest C&R intern, anything is possible. Although, when Mr. Han takes a particular shine to her, Jaehee’s workload may be doubled even more.

The Number Next Door**

(AU)  MC has finally gotten the opportunity to move into the apartment building of her dreams. After years of clawing her way up with her design blog, things have finally fallen into place for her. That is, until she learns her next door neighbor likes to blast meme music at 1AM.

Regularly Scheduled Programming

(One-shot) Saeran and MC indulge themselves with one night a week for garbage TV. Although, sometimes, we can't always get what we want.

Ouran High School Host Club:

Kiss, Kiss

1 of 3.  You’re starting at a new school and for any normal person, that’s difficult. For someone with your list of diagnoses, it’s even worse. Especially when all you want is to keep your head down and find a quiet place to study.

Back to Normal, I Guess

2 of 3.  After her summer in New York, Lana goes back to her school in London with her heavy heart full of the memories she made at Ouran Academy. But little does she know, the Ouran Host Club will always be there to welcome her back, no matter what time zone she’s in.

Our New Normal

3 of 3.  Lana misses Japan. Can we blame her? Unfortunately, she had to graduate from Ouran Academy sometime. But her new life in New York with Kyoya is only just beginning. College is an entirely different ballgame.

Switch**

Daddy's only looking out for his little girl and he wants what's best for her. She's not ready to take over the...uh..."family business" quite yet. She doesn't understand why she has to go so far just to go to school. But Daddy's word is law. Hey...Why does the angry guy in her homeroom seem familiar? And what's a host club?

Supernatural:

A Family Forged in Fire

1 of 2.  Lena was living in an orphanage. Constant rejection day in and day out. They were looking for a baby, not her. Little did she know that a case would bring a pair of brothers that would turn her life upside down.

When the Fire Goes Out

2 of 2.  After taking down the devil himself, a girl needs to get away, doesn’t she? Even though it puts her brothers in a worry and opens up a golden opportunity for someone new to slip into her life.

Yuri!!! On Ice:

Adopted

1 of 2.  AU: Victor and Violet adopted two precious little boys that they can’t help but love and became an unorthodox family. Even though the youngest can’t stand the oldest, but that’s the way siblings work. And things get even more troublesome when they both want to take up the very thing that brought Mommy and Daddy together.

Off the Rails

2 of 2.  After Junior Grand Prix, the Nikiforov family has moved to New York and began their training for next season, including Violet’s comeback. However, her comeback may be a bit more than she…or Victor…bargained for.

Not a Perfect Fairytale (But It’s Ours)

Fairytale AU.  Whoever decided the prince needed a princess has terrible foresight…

Surprise

Yurio is always a little paranoid, but for some strange reason, today, his radar was up even more than usual. Especially when Yakov doesn’t yell at him for missing a simple jump.  One-shot

Dr. Nikiforov Has a Ring To It

Getting sick sucks something awful on its own. Getting sick with no one else home but your overbearing roommate to take care of you? That’s a mess in itself.  One-shot

Pierced Through the Heart

(One-shot) Yurio and Otabek had been together a while now. Why couldn't they have something match like Victor and Yuri?

[beneath-our-masks]

Meet Our Characters: The Kid Heroes

Hey everyone! Here’s a questionnaire filled out for each of our OC’s! 5 were created by Mod Concerned, and 5 were created by Mod Ten. We love questions about (or for) our characters, so feel free to send them in!!

Current Taglist: @aconstantcrisis

Name: Siham Almasi/"Midorikiri" (they change it later but that's what it starts as)

Pronouns: They/Them

Nicknames: n/a?

Age: 14

Physical Description: Siham is a slightly thin but muscled hyperactive teenager. They're dark-skinned and wear hijab, and often like to dress in jeans and large sweatshirts.

Height: 5'5

Superpowers: None--they just use some heccin good swords

Strength: Determined! Will Survive! Will Do Good Things!

Weakness: Naïve. They don't ever really believe they could get hurt so they aren't cautious.

One Unique Thing: They're an absolute weeaboo.

Name: Riley O'Malley/”Bells” or “Whistles”

Pronouns: They/Them

Nicknames: Ry

Age: 17

Physical description or picture: Skinny androgynous child. Short black hair, usually shorter on the sides than on the top. Wears leggings/skinny jeans and larger, flowy shirts.

Height: 5'4

Superpowers: Emotion control

Strength: Hacking (into anything and everything - loves to break the law, it’s actually how they got onto the team)

Weakness: Bad at expressing themself - joker who makes others the butt of their jokes

One Unique Thing: They’re adopted and has a little sister they will kill for

Name: Dakota Lee/ "The Charging Bull"

Pronouns: He/Him

Nicknames: n/a

Age: 16

Physical description or picture: Dakota is, as Mod Concerned puts it, Dorito shaped. He's a big hunk of muscle whose hands are usually scraped up. His hair goes down to his shoulders and it's usually either down or in a low ponytail. Native American descent, tanned skin and dark brown hair. Usually wears t-shirts and jeans or if he's being Fancy a nicer shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Height: 5'8

Superpowers: Superhuman strength (especially when angry)

Strength: Punching. Realistically is very physically strong and is also pretty mentally strong.

Weakness: Tends to doubt himself; thinks of himself as a monster/brute and is very slow to trust as he assumes that others feel the same way.

One Unique Thing: His father was a Native American craftsman so Dakota picked up some of it, he likes to work with his hands and do super delicate things.

Name: Hakim Nazari/”Tanin”

Pronouns: He/Him

Nicknames: Haki or Ki  

Age: 18

Physical description or picture: Chubby boye, Middle-Eastern. Shorter black curly hair. Wears flannels and jeans mostly.

Height: 5'8

Superpowers: Telekinesis, Body Transmutation, and Vitality Absorption.

Strength: Extremely empathetic, good planner

Weakness: Too soft

One Unique Thing: Likes video games

Name: Ha-eun Choi/ "Taeyang"

Pronouns: She/Her

Nicknames: Eun, Tae

Age: 15

Physical description or picture: Korean, long black hair that's usually in a high ponytail, pear-shaped, kind of short. Also is the flannel and jean queen.

Height: 5'3

Superpowers: Cosmic energies (Can do things like create black holes and flaming stars)

Strength: Compassion. She fully believes in not hating people and giving second chances, and interacting with people with understanding.

Weakness: She’s terrified of her powers, meaning her emotional flares make her powers flare, meaning she’s more afraid...vicious cycle

One Unique Thing: She got her superhero name from her father, who called her "my little star" (in Korean) when she started developing her powers

Name: Aeicekh (Ace)/ "The Ace"(They're an alien, so their given name is too difficult to pronounce and doesn't work super well in our language, so it's shortened always to Ace)

Pronouns: They/Them

Nicknames: Ace, if it counts

Age: 19 in human years, but since their species ages differently, they've got the maturity level of more a 13/14 year old

Physical description or picture: Pink slightly luminescent skin, eyes that look like sapphires, what we would consider a bit chubby. They have vestigial bits of skin that are sort of ears but not quite, they almost look like a bull's horns but move with Ace's emotions.

Height: 5'7

Superpowers: Flight, telepathy/telekinesis, pheromone manipulation (though they usually don't know that they do that)

Strength: Curious and persistent! If they don't get something, they'll study until they DO understand it and they are determined to figure out as much as they can.

Weakness: Inexperienced/immature. They're just a Baby on their home planet so they don't know things like how to control their powers as well.

One Unique Thing: Their planet doesn't have any mammals aside from Ace's species, so they think mammals are GREAT and love things like cats and dogs and mice.

Name: Kai Stanton/”Zephyr”

Pronouns: He/Him

Nicknames: n/a

Age: 19

Physical description or picture: Really skinny, hunched over guy, very pale. Short, dirty blond hair. Wears very cheap clothes, from Goodwill.

Height: 6'2 - 6'3

Superpowers: Regeneration, Phasing, Air Manipulation

Strength: Resilient

Weakness: Tends to lash out when he’s insecure/hurt/worried and hurts others around him

One Unique Thing: His parents and grandparents were heroes.

Name: Skyler Whittaker/"The Golden Beetle"

Pronouns: They/Them

Nicknames: Sky

Age: 15

Physical description or picture: Long, brown hair, usually in a ponytail, chubby, lighter skin. Dresses in cheaper clothes, no cohesive style.

Height: 5’5

Superpowers: Rodent/Insect Control, Substance Mimicry

Strength: Skyler does really really well in school, and is very smart.

Weakness: Skyler overthinks and overworks themselves.

One Unique Thing: They have pet rats and pet insects.

Name: Kira Williams/”Wisteria”

Pronouns: She/Her

Nicknames: Kiki

Age: 14

Physical description or picture: Vines for hair, usually down to her lower back. Her skin is a muddy brown, but she also has hues of dark green within it. It looks sort of like vitiligo. Likes to wear dresses. Not skinny, average body type.

Height: 5'0

Superpowers: Plant affinity, Technopathy

Strength: Sees the best in everyone, idealistic

Weakness: Perpetually nervous, anxious bean

One Unique Thing: Her family owns a plant shop

Name: Bayleigh Wood/ “The Mirror”

Pronouns: She/her

Nicknames: Bay

Age: 17

Physical description or picture: Small, leanly muscled girl (has some muscle bulk on the arms but that’s where most of it is), short, wavy blond hair that’s usually got some sort of different color at the tips/streaked into it. Usually wears her school uniform or exercise clothing.

Height: 5’4

Superpowers: Superhuman combat skill, power mimicry

Strength: Strong leader, ready to help people and be a proud hero

Weakness: Can be a little bit low on compassion to people who’ve hurt her and can hold grudges.

One Unique Thing: Is the usual driver of the team and has done some (kinda) stunt driving

[banshee-cheekbones]

and we’re back for round three! like it says on the tin, here’s a masterlist of all fics I wrote from the beginning of July to the end of September. links to both ao3 and tumblr are provided when available! 

this period is definitely the slowest I’ve had all year, both fic number wise and word count wise. however, some great things happened, those being: I hit one million words on ao3, I finished both my Teen Wolf Bingo & Rare Character Bingo cards, and I ventured back into the world of original fic! so yay!

some statistics:

total number of fics: 33

total number of fandoms: 7

total word count: 41,119

most common pairing: Camille/Clary, with 4 fics!

and now, for the fics!

American Gods

run right back to her. Audrey/Laura. Rated G. ao3.  "What?" she asks wearily, rolling to face Audrey. "Do you want to cuddle or something?"

Gotham

New In Town. Barbara/Tabitha. 250 words. Rated T. ao3.  "You're lookin' awful lonely there, angel."

Original Work

swallow me whole. OFC/OFC. 250 words. Rated T. ao3.  "We have to be quiet," she murmurs, pressing her lips to your temple.

these games we play (or, a study in trust). OFC/OMC. 4651 words. Rated E. ao3.  Rather than a summary, a list of kinks found within: breathplay, knifeplay, light BDSM, restraints, and facesitting.

Preacher

first time for everything. Emily/Tulip. 250 words. Rated T. ao3. "No one's ever gone down on you before?"

Riverdale

Twice. Alice/Hermione. 250 words. Rated G. ao3.  "I have another idea," Alice counters. "You come over here, we drink Mom's vodka and watch movies. And I'll eat you out."

Shadowhunters

a pleasant surprise. Izzy/Maia. 250 words. Rated G. ao3.  "I think you'll be happy to know that I'm not wearing any underwear."

a quick study. Clary/Izzy. 250 words. Rated M. ao3.  "What you said earlier," Izzy says, still regaining her breath, "about this being your first time. You're serious?"

and in that moment (she was all mine). Camille/Maia. 1190 words. Rated T. ao3.  Maia may be beautiful, astoundingly so, but she’ll be nothing more than a blip, a single sentence in the pages of Camille’s life, a passing fancy.

cages & coals. Dot/Jocelyn. 250 words. Rated G. ao3.  Dot had known that Clary's eighteenth birthday was going to bring difficulties with it.  

Coiled. Izzy/Lydia. 250 words. Rated T. ao3.  “Is that too tight?”

Distraction. Dot/Jocelyn. 250 words. Rated T. ao3.  "Sex pollen? You're serious?"

ecology & pathology. Isabelle/Maia. 250 words. Rated G. ao3.  "You're not the only one who has to study tonight. And before you say anything, I already told Luke that if he catches either of us not studying, he gets to tell the kitchen not to serve us. Deal?"

give me something to be scared of. Camille/Clary. 2509 words. Rated E. ao3. She’s fairly certain that even if she drained Clary every single day for the rest of her life, it would never be enough.

hard to breathe (bring me to my knees). Camille/Clary. 1701 words. Rated T. ao3.  The one that completely exploits the trapped in a closet together trope, but the closet is a coffin.

in the still of the night. Clary/Jace/Simon. 3247 words. Rated T. ao3 & tumblr. The camp counselor au where Simon doesn't want the thing that him and Clary have with Jace to come to an end with the last day of summer.

Mirror Image. Camille/Clary. 250 words. 250 words. Rated G. ao3.  It's the hair that makes Camille stop in her tracks.

Solemnity. Clary/Izzy. 250 words. Rated G. ao3.  Much like the city that it's located in, the Institute never sleeps.

the night before. Jace/Simon. 1582 words. Rated T. ao3.  “God, I’m so into you,” drunk Simon says, dropping his head to rest against Jace’s shoulder. “When we get home, can you please get into me?”

the sun wil rise with my name on your lips. Camille/Clary. 3000 words. Rated E. ao3.  The sequel to “give me something to be scared of,” featuring more blood drinking with a bonus of hate!sex.

we built this tomb together (I won’t fill it alone). Camille/Simon. 4200 words. Rated M. ao3.  With graveyard dirt frosting his hair and blood drenching his front, Simon runs.

Teen Wolf

ambition and inhibitions. Kate/Violet. 250 words. Rated T. ao3. "Are you in this because you want to be or because it's the only thing you're any good at?"

came home like a stone (and fell heavy into your arms). Lydia/Kira. 3781 words. Rated G. ao3 & tumblr. Ten years after Kira disappears into the desert with the skinwalkers, she comes back.

Five Times Malia Wants to Propose to Kira. Malia/Kira. 1500 words. Rated G. ao3 & tumblr. ...and the one time she finally does it.

I (Will) Possess Your Heart. Kali/Violet. 1000 words. Rated T. ao3.  The fact that he absolutely reeks of Violet, of her girlfriend, is enough to make her want to tear out his insides and sodden the dirt with his blood.

make it to tomorrow. Isaac/Scott. 2153 words. Rated E. ao3 & tumblr.  The Pacific Rim AU with "I'm so happy that we're alive" hand jobs

making up for lost time. Lydia/Parrish. 607 words. Rated G. ao3 & tumblr.  Between the dreary weather and Jordan's early return from a law enforcement convention, Lydia’s plan for the morning quickly changes.

Partners. Laura/Stiles. 891 words. Rated G. ao3 & tumblr. The one where Laura and Stiles are partners in more than one meaning of the word, and Laura hates nightclubs.

Predictability. Kali/Violet. 250 words. Rated T. ao3.  Baiting a werewolf is certainly dangerous, but Kali's sheer predictability, no matter how many times Violet pulls similar stunts on her, makes it so much fun.

raise me to your lips. Isaac/Stiles. 2495 words. Rated E. ao3 & tumblr.  The one where Stiles blows Isaac in their TA’s office to celebrate the end of the semester. That’s it. That’s the fic.

Supportive. Kira/Lydia. 250 words. Rated G. ao3.  Lydia gives Kira a piggy-back. That’s it. That’s the fic.

the best part of a bad situation. Malia/Kira. 2364 words. Rated G. ao3 & tumblr. The one where Malia and Kira go have their first date at a painfully unfunny comedy show, courtesy of Stiles.

welcome home. Braeden/Melissa. 250 words Rated G. ao3.  Domestic fluff. That’s it. That’s the fic.

[shinigami-eyes]

General Info & Rules

While erotica (NSFW stories) is within the site's TOS, artwork could potentially cause the blog to be flagged. For this reason, written pieces will be posted uncensored but artwork will be censored. The uncensored work will be posted on an external site which will ask the viewer to confirm their age.

How to Use It 

Signing up includes suggesting prompts that will be given to another. These prompts will be paired based on preferred pairings and category of gift and will factor in triggers. 

When the sign up is closed, you will be notified of your exchange partner's prompts from which you can choose. The list of exchange pairs will be posted when everyone has been assigned a Kira. 

Note: If you notice one of your prompts is not listed in the announcement for assigned Kira-exchange-pairs, it is probably because your partner gave us a triggerwarning that matched that prompt but otherwise you were a good match. 

Trigger warnings that will be tagged will be announced in the post with the assigned exchange Kiras

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1) Signup: You can sign up here. In signing up, we expect that you understand this exchange is intended for adults and you know the laws and the age of majority pertaining to your region or nation.

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Month1 30: Applications open 

Month2 13: Applications close 

Month2 16: Kiras are Assigned 

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 Written Pieces  Fill in the Title then fill in the body: 

 To: 

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Prompt: 

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Rating:G/T/M/R-18 

Note to Kira: 

 Paste your story here. 

 Artworks  Remember this must be 500px in width at minimum. These will be censored and uploaded to an external site unless you want them linked to your own site. 

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Prompt: 

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Rating:G/T/M/R-18 

Note to Kira: 

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Though we will show restraint whereever possible, we will defer to tumblr to handle any violation of TOS that poses a threat to any participant. This includes harassment or maliciously revealing their identity. 

“How skilled do I have to be to participate?” 

 We accept works of any skill level, The effort you put into your gift will be what counts. However, be reasonable, please don't send us stick figures or haikus... 

 “Will I be given credit for my work?” 

 As long as you want to be identified. (Please, see the template above) If you do not, we can list you as anonymous or you can be named in another way. The submission you send in, if you want to be anonymous will be posted in a now post not related to your blog. 

"What is the rating system?" 

General (G), Teen+(T), Mature (M), or R-18+. 

General is free of adult themes and described violence. (Ex. Light and L holding hands) 

Teen+ is some violence and minor adult themes. (Ex. Light and L holding hands while nude but obscured) 

Mature is strong non-explicit themes and strong violence. (Ex. Light and L holding hands while nude but unobscured) 

R-18+ is explicate adult themes. (Ex. Light and L holding hand while very obviously engaged in woohoo)` 

"How will work be censored?" 

Only art will be censored while there will be an uncensored link to the image beneath that. The uncensored link will either go to a place we upload it with a 18+ prompt or you can give us a link to your site (like if you have it on DA).

 This means no n1pples, no reproductive anatomy, and no booty. 

We will cover them with hearts unless you want to cover them with whatever you prefer, you can send in a pre-censored and uncensored version. - Hell, have fun with it and put Mikami's shocked face over their prohibited-parts. 

 Keep in mind, this is necessary to be within the TOS of our Tumblr overlords. We support the liberty of all nipples. 

 "Can I have particular tags for my work?" 

Sure, but keep in mind that the first 5 are usually what tumblr will be indexing. Which means any tag beyond that 5 will probably not come up when someone searches for it in tumblr's main search. 

 "Can you reblog my work rather than posting it?"  

In an effort to keep everything looking uniform so everyone looks equally special, we can link to your post but we will not be reblogging it. 

 "Does it matter what medium I draw in?"

 No. You can draw in pencil or create your work digitally. Try to get it scanned, if it is a physical piece. 

 "Are there any further rules?" 

- Do not harass others 

- Do not threaten or abuse others 

- Do not maliciously reveal anyone's identity 

- Do not violate the law 

- Do not give us a reason to get the all-seeing Tumblr involved

[casuistor]

ok this is comparing apples and oranges, but didn't Ace Attorney stem from a parody/critique of the imbalanced Japanese legal system? (Prosecutors with high conviction rates, understaffed/overworked lawyers, the death penalty, culprits with higher chances of walking free). I wonder how Death Note compares in exploring these themes, whether they came to similar or different conclusions about the justice system...

Huh…that’s an interesting question. You’re right that Ace Attorney was meant to be a parodic critique, but I don’t actually get the impression that Death Note was intended to be a criticism of the criminal justice system. If anything it has a bit of a conservative bias between the lines, imo. 

 I’ll put the rest under a cut because this is a bit wordy. Please keep in mind that I’m not a legal expert so if anyone has any further insights or corrections to offer, I’d genuinely love to hear them. 

To start with the most obvious point, Death Note famously just runs with the conservative talking point that the death penalty serves as an effective deterrent to crime. Within the world of DN, Kira has the miraculous effect of suppressing crime 70% and ending global warfare, which, frankly speaking, isn’t remotely realistic. But by treating it as “fact” in its own universe, it shifts the Oveton window to the right by making the discussion “Was Light justified given his results” instead of addressing the realities of the death penalty and its practical value by assuming the conservative talking point is accurate. 

A few of the uglier facts about the Japanese criminal justice system are touched upon in DN. For example, the fact that L was able to detain and essentially try to torture a confession out of Light and Misa for over a month without either of them getting any legal representation or counsel? That’s not an uncommon phenomenon in Japan. Part of the reason that the high conviction rates of Japanese prosecutors exist is that they use extended periods of detainment to interrogate suspects in order to try and extract forced confessions. The suspects are legally supposed to have a defense lawyer, but that’s often ignored outright. Defense lawyers really have limited power, and are not required to be present for an interrogation. 

It’s a bit of a vicious cycle because there is a lot of pressure on prosecutors not to lose court cases (b/c obvs that’s seen as incompetence) so they cherry pick cases they feel have a higher chance of conviction – which effectively means they take the cases where the suspect has confessed to the crime… either willingly or forcibly. It’s not that uncommon to hear of inmates on death row in Japan that claim they were forced to confess to crimes they didn’t really commit. This actually gets glossed over by the actual narrative of DN as it’s kind of taken for granted that other than the obviously innocent people (Naomi, FBI agents, etc) that the criminals that Kira targets are definitely responsible for committing the crimes they were accused of committing. Probably because the story mostly features detectives and this was published in Shonen Jump. Can’t lose the kiddies on complex social problems when you want them to focus on people trying to kill each other or something. 

But that’s a bit of an aside – the normalcy of L’s unlawful and unconstitutional tactics is highlighted in how the task force is more or less complicit with L’s torture sessions. Not once is the subject of a lawyer ever brought up. Nobody tells L he’s taking things too far when he subjects Misa to water deprivation. There’s some vague notion of “feeling sorry for her” but nobody actually thinks its unwarranted. …And why would they? The task force members know that having a confession on file will make it more likely that Kira is tried.

Now in the actual story itself, I don’t see a clear tell that suggests Ohba condemns OR approves of L’s use of torture as it’s really presented as “this happens and then that happens.” But because Light and Misa were indeed guilty, the net effect is that it causes people to defend the abuse of authority and treating people as guilt until proven innocent. Again, I can’t speak to that being Ohba’s intent, but given that this tends to be brought up as anecdotal “proof” that torture should be allowed, I’d personally count it as conservative bias. 

Further, Death Note also plays up the other side of the cherry picking by showing that there are plenty of people who do get away with crimes due to the flaws of the system. For instance, the robber who kills Misa’s parents never gets convicted because of “insufficient evidence” despite the fact that Misa witnessed the crime. The man Light murders in Shinjuku station to prove to Raye Penber that he is Kira is also a serial rapist who never got convicted for the same reason. (As another aside, sexual assault tends to go underreported in Japan due to stigma and shame for the victims, which is probably what partly feeds into Mikami’s zero hesitation over killing the guy who was trying to flip up a girl’s skirt on the train. Probably figures that the guy is a multiple time offender who’ll only keep doing that b/c nobody will speak up and report the guy otherwise). Anyway, it does highlight that there are flaws in the criminal justice system, but the way its framed the implication almost seems to be that the problem could be fixed if only the state had more authority and/or manpower to investigate, though I can also see how it can be inferred that the criticism is directed at prosecutors/law enforcement for not doing a proper job. 

I mean tl;dr, Death Note largely presents the events as “this is a thing” without taking a side on it….. for the most part anyway. Ohba did state in one of his interviews in HTR13 that he didn’t want to focus on the morality/social issues, so much as moving the plot after all. 

Keeping in mind that I haven’t actually played Ace Attorney past Apollo Justice and may very well be missing a couple of point the new game might’ve made past that, I think the AA series by and large takes more issue with suspects not getting adequate legal representation and abuse of state authority than Death Note does by highlighting cases where the defendant isn’t actually guilty. But at the same time, I don’t think AA argues the death penalty ought to be abolished either – between the lines, the goal is always on making sure the right person gets the death penalty. It’s just kinda assumed that if you definitely committed the crime and are handed a death penalty sentence, that’s a job well done. In the context of AA, I don’t think that’s really a suggestion that the death penalty should be kept because it deters crime, but it’s a built in assumption that the death penalty definitely has a role in the correct instances. 

Ofc, it’s also a video game and playing a defense lawyer taking on an appeal case for sentence reduction to life imprisonment w/o parole for a convicted criminal just isn’t as ~dramatic~ as saving a totally innocent person from the gallows; the game was never going to be that nuanced by design, haha. 

[theonewiththeeyebrows]

My OMGCP!AU Headcanon

Gosh this got super long. 

Character dev for Jack!Derek and Bitty!Stiles (and some of the others) -- a bit different from OMGCP!

Warning/Disclaimer: I know nothing about Hockey FYI. I have never even seen a game. All my knowledge comes from OMGCP, wikipedia, the NCAA, NHL, and various other HL websites/resources. OMGCP belongs to ngoziu you can read it omgcheckplease it is a brilliant story (I love it so much!).

Jack!Derek - Son of Talia & Jerome Hale (The Hockey Power Couple); Brother of Laura Hale (2016 Olympic Figure Skating Gold Medalist)

Talia Maheegan was of the few non-Goalie women Hockey Players in Professional Men’s Hockey. She was part of the Women’s Hockey team at Beacon Hills University before she was recruited by Leksands IF (Elitserien, now the Swedish Hockey League). A few years later she was offered a contract by the Bakersfield Condors. She was ready to be closer to home, so she came back although she was a woman, when a few of the guys in the NHL team got badly injured, she was moved up to the Oilers roster. 

She met her future husband, Jerome Hale, when the Oilers played the Bruins in her rookie game and she gave him a nosebleed. She was the first female Alternate Captain for the Oilers when they won the Stanley Cup in 1984. And the first female Captain when they won in 1985. She retired in 1986 when she was pregnant, had twins Laura and Derek. 

Jerome Hale played for the Bruins but was traded in 1985-86 he was the Captain of the Oilers from 1987-1993 - Derek pooped in the Stanley cup twice during that time - in 1987 & 1988. 

Derek and Laura started skating young, Laura wasn’t into Hockey, but she started enjoying figure skating, and took that route. 

(Strike throughs are for humanAU)

Derek looked up to both his parents and wanted to follow in their footsteps. He went into the Juniors where he met Kate Argent (maybe Kate’s dad hated her and Talia for being women in a Men’s sport or something, so there was a lot of sexism and prejudice there, and internalized misogyny maybe? If werewolves exist in this verse then she’s from a werewolf hunter family as is canon and she is using him to get info as is canon). She was beautiful and ambitious, and Derek and Kate became good friends, best friends even... then more. There was a lot of pressure to do well in the juniors as it would lead into the draft which would lead to the NHL. He worked hard and honed his skills for two years before he could enter the draft.

Kate’s brother was also in the Juniors, but he was reaching the maximum age for both the draft and the league. There was a lot of talk about how Derek was top pick. Kate would keep getting in his head, Derek was on anxiety meds since he joined the juniors, Kate knew and she kept telling him to take more so that he wasn’t off his game. Just before the draft picks his parents, younger sister, aunt and uncle got into a fatal car accident with no survivors (a drunk driver drove them off the road If werewolves exist -- Gerard put a hit on the family and got them killed -- but obvs. can’t get Derek and Laura now it would be too suspicious). Laura was at a Figure Skating meet in Europe. 

Derek took his anxiety meds, alcohol and something that Kate slipped him and had a reaction that sent him to the hospital. He wakes up to Laura slumped at his bedside still in her leotard. He pulls out of the draft, the media calls it an overdose, he doesn’t correct them. He goes to a rehab center after his family’s memorial service. Laura sorts out everything with the legal team while he is in rehab. 

When he gets out he supports her while she continues working on her figure skating and he tries to figure out his life without hockey. And he can’t. One day Laura comes in throws down a Beacon Hills University Pamphlet on the counter, and when Derek looks at her questioningly, she says “Ma went there. It’s where she truly fell in love with Hockey. They would want you to be happy, Der! I want you to be happy. You’re miserable, please. Think about it. You can major in History and play Hockey. I already called the coaches, they’ve already said they’d give you a Scholarship if you wanted it.” 

Derek gets on the ice for the first time in one and a half years. He’s rusty, but it’s in his blood. He trains hard for 3 months before he thinks he’s fit enough to go to college. He applies anyways. He gets in -- even without the Scholarship -- he was good enough to. 

Bitty!Stiles - Son of Claudia (former Figure Skater) and Sheriff Noah Stilinski

Stiles’ mother dies when he is eight, and Stiles is kinda lost after that. When he’s 10 he finds his mom’s cooks books and he feels a connection to her again so he starts baking. He bakes more than he or his dad can eat, so he takes the excess to the Sheriff’s station (where his dad works) or to the farmer’s market where he makes money off of his pies. 

There is this huge rift between him and his dad, and he can’t seem to figure out how to mend it. He loves his dad, and he knows his dad loves him. But his dad started drinking after his mom died, and his mom was the glue in the family. Sometimes his dad looks at him and gets this pained look in his eyes and Stiles thinks it’s because he looks so much like her. 

Stiles started ice skating with his mom because she used to be a figure skater. She taught him all sorts of neat tricks and even tried to get him to enter a few competitions, but after she died it became another thing that became harder to do. He still went skating every weekend, but he didn’t really feel like figure skating anymore. 

His dad coached peewee football, so in an effort to bond with his dad, Stiles joined the football team but when he gets tackled within the first thirty seconds, and ends up with a compound fracture, it instills the fear of God in him, and he refuses to ever go back, regardless of what his dad says. 

How he ends up playing Hockey is a mystery to him because Hockey is a high-contact sport just like football. But he’s in a co-ed no-contact Hockey team and he meets some amazing people. He starts enjoying being on the ice again, and he starts feeling another connection to his mother -- so he starts figure skating again as well -- just a little bit -- nothing like the fancy stuff his mother made him learn. 

Stiles’ was always the underdog, he was bullied in high-school because his mother died. He was bullied because his dad was a policeman, he was bullied because he came to school in a cruiser, he was bullied because he looked weird, or talked weird, or had ADHD. He didn’t have friends (not for lack of trying). He was called homophobic slurs because he did figure skating and couldn’t take a hit (he’s bi, thanks a lot for bi-erasure assholes! at least call him the bi-phobic slurs!) He can’t find a place for himself so he starts a v-log his Junior year of high school. For some reason people enjoy his sarcasm coupled with the sweet baked goods he tutors them on. So he keeps making the videos. 

His dad can’t afford to send him to College, but he has a few options though -- a merit Scholarship (but his ADHD make it hard for him to keep his grades up), a Federal Load (does he want the government hounding him for years after he graduates), a Sports Scholarship (can he get into the NCAA?). He applies to BHU because Beacon Hills is still in California (so he’s still close to his dad, but far enough away that it’s a few hours away by road or at least a short flight away). He send a tape of him playing Hockey as well as figure skating to the Coaches along with his Scholarship Application. He didn’t expect to -- but he gets in! His dad is so proud. He comes out to his dad, but his dad doesn’t believe him. Stiles doesn’t let that bum him out though -- he’s going to college. 

BHMH 

Isaac, Boyd (Sophomores) - Live in the Attic the Haus - best friends. Boyd is quiet and constant. Isaac is sassy and loud. Together they are constantly coming up with all kinds of shenanigans. They are the ones who handle all the parties and know pretty much everyone there is to know on campus. 

Jordan (Junior like Derek) - Lives at the Haus - is everyone’s best friend. But isn’t wild/crazy. Is wildly popular. He is beautiful and used to be a model. He is a women’s and gender studies major, but he’s also studying pre-law and criminology. 

Greenburg as suggested by Nonnie (Senior) - The metaphysical Goalie - LOL - I couldn’t think of who else to put here - I guess I could have added Peter (but I really don’t like him, maybe he can be a lax bro) - gives his dibs to Stiles. 

Erica, Allison (Sophomores) - Non-Goalie team-mates who initially faced sexism from the senior teammates (not from Derek or Jordan) but proved themselves after their preseason when they took down the biggest player skate circles around all the other players, not giving up the puck even once (but also refusing to score because the guys on their team are assholes). They live in an apartment near the Haus together. They were not surprised when Jordan got the dibs instead of one of them (Derek got dibs from the outgoing captain his freshman year, when Derek was voted incoming Captain). 

Scott (Freshman like Stiles) - Stiles’ Roommate, becomes Stiles’ best friend. Wants to be a vet. Is a Derek Hale fan, but doesn’t like Derek in RL. Is a cuddle monster. Is smitten with both Kira and Allison.

Kira is the Manager (Sophomore) - Doing a semester in Japan (Studying Art and Mythology). Cannot ice-skate. 

Lydia is a girl who Stiles crushes on in one of his classes, and he invites her to Epikegster and she says yes (but as a friend). She is into Jordan. When Jordan finds out he tries to dissuade her even though he is hella into her brains and beauty combo. Stiles is bummed, but he can’t deny his friend someone awesome like Lydia. So he totally gives Jordan a thumbs up, and tells him to pursue it. Lydia and Stiles get to know each other over time and realize how great they are as friends, anything else would have been Chaos. This is also around the time Stiles starts to realize he has major feelings for Derek. Feelings that make his stomach swoop, and his breath catch, and blood rush to his cheeks, even though Derek doesn’t really do anything (other than buy him his favourite coffee, or bake a perfect lattice crust for their American Food and Culture Class, or take his cold finger into his warm hands and rub them, just to hopefully bring some warmth because he knows how cold Stiles gets (Mt. Shasta gets really cold compared to San Diego). 

Jackson and Peter can be the dreaded Lax bros. idk. Peter isn’t related to Derek. 

[Part 2]

[kennethmjoyner]

Post-ILTA>ON Round-up: Tons of Legal Tech News – Acquisitions, Launches, Updates and More

Last week may have been the first-ever virtual annual conference of the International Legal Technology Association, but just like past years’ face-to-face ILTACONs, this year’s ILTA>ON was the occasion for a flood of major news announcements from legal technology companies.

And given my own perfect storm last week of spending three hours a day hosting live coverage of the conference for Litera.TV, plus preparing for my hosting duties, attending conference sessions, and dealing with my day job, I was barely able to come up for air, let alone keep up with the surge.

So allow me this belated opportunity to catch up on some of ILTA>ON week’s more notable developments.

AbacusNext Announces Updates to AbacusLaw

Legal technology company AbacusNext announced the release of new features and enhancements for its online law practice management platform AbacusLaw. The enhancements include:

Updated look. The toolbar, background imagery, dashboard interface, name and matter screens and case previews have all been updated with a cleaner design for quick access to vital information.

New apps available on the dashboard. The Accounting Overview App provides insight into the AR and AP process including not yet billed and past due invoices; the Hours Comparison App shows available, worked, invoiced and collected hours for timekeepers over selected periods.

Customizable dashboard. Users may now control the color and text of app titles to their liking.

Remote API provisioning. This functionality provides easier API access to third parties and streamlines future integrations.

BigHand Acquired by Private Equity Firm

BigHand, a company that specializes in workflow, productivity and profitability software for the legal industry, has been acquired by Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, a global private equity firm.

BigHand says that it has over 3,500 clients and 600,000 users worldwide. Founded as a dictation technology company in 1995, it expanded over the years into a multi-product company and has completed six acquisitions in recent years.

I wrote in April about the law firm Baker Donelson’s accelerated roll-out of the company’s task-delegation platform, BigHand Now, in the wake of the firm’s decision to require its attorneys and staff to work from home.

Previously owned by Bridgepoint Development Capital, BigHand says its new ownership will allow it to further accelerate its growth with the aim of becoming a full workflow business and establishing a wider customer base throughout North America.

Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

FileTrail’s New Version Addresses Challenges of Remote Working

FileTrail, the company that provides information governance and records management software for law firms and highly regulated industries, released a new version of its software, FileTrail GPS 5.0. The updates to FileTrail GPS (Governance Policy Suite) are designed to address the IG challenges of remote working, disposition related to critical needs around cost-cutting and eliminating paper and policy management tied to increasingly stringent client and regulatory compliance requirements.

FileTrail GPS 5.0 integrates directly within the user interface of a firm’s electronic document management system, with different configurations to fit the color, design and appearance of popular platforms including NetDocuments, iManage and others.

The company said that it allows attorneys and their staff gain access to the inventory of documents in SharePoint, file shares and other sources without leaving the DMS. They also can directly access centralized disposition review workflows and have visibility into policies, guidelines, timekeepers and other information traditionally difficult to centralize and present.

iManage Acquires Closing Folders

The week kicked off with major news from document management company iManage — its acquisition of the transaction management platform Closing Folders.

Closing Folders is technology that automates many of the steps associated with managing and executing commercial transactions. The company says that more than 4,000 transactions a month are negotiated, signed and closed on its platform, ranging from small commercial lending deals to multi-billion-dollar acquisitions of global companies.

iManage says that the combination of the companies offers a number of business and technology advantages, including a “single source of truth” for transaction documents that reduces risk, integration with iManage RAVN’s artificial intelligence technology to enable analysis of transaction data and trends, and a global training and support network.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Intapp Launches Service to Connect All A Firm’s Applications

Intapp, a company that provides software and services for professional services firms, launched Intapp Integration Service, technology that enables interoperability between all of a professional services firm’s software and applications on a single platform.

Available as either a pure cloud or hybrid deployment, the service lowers the cost of software implementation, speeds time to value, and centralizes firm data management to simplify the IT department’s job, Intapp says.

The service is supported by the first-ever Intapp Open API and a set of prebuilt integration processes. Initially, it will enable integrations for four major technology suites — Vuture, Thomson Reuters Elite 3E, iManage, and Dun & Bradstreet. Intapp said it will announce several additional integration partners in the coming months.

Kira’s New Feature Answers Your Questions

The machine-learning company Kira Systems said it will release a new feature in September, Answers & Insights, that will go beyond simply identifying and extracting contract clauses and actually interpret data to provide answers to pressing questions.

The feature will come with a collection of built-in questions commonly asked across legal and business documents. Users will also be able to build their own questions using Kira’s no-code machine learning platform Kira Quick Study.

Kira said that the tool will be able to answer questions such as, “Does the lease name a guarantor of tenant’s obligations?”, “Is LIBOR or Eurocurrency referenced in the agreement?”, or “Does the agreement renew automatically?”

“Answers & Insights represents the next level of our no-code AI technology,” Alexander Hudek, Kira Systems CTO and cofounder, said in announcing the feature. “It allows you to go beyond simply identifying relevant text by additionally assigning fine grained meaning to extractions.”

NetDocuments Unveils New Theme, New Products

The cloud-based document management company NetDocuments introduced new products along with a new vision of how it organizes and thinks about its products.

With the message of enabling its customers to “Work Inspired,” the company introduced two new products: Tasks, a collaborative task management system, and SmartView, a document preview and collaboration engine.

It also introduced a new five-pronged schema for how its various products support its theme of working inspired:

Organize is made up of the core NetDocuments capabilities, including document and email management and OCR technologies.

Protect provides controls and policy tools to reduce data breaches, as well as a geo-aware storage capability that supports compliance while accelerating content delivery around the world.

Plan is designed to bring teams together with one version of work focused on tools for coordinating teams and tasks, providing real-time team communication with ndThread and Microsoft Teams integration, and facilitating task management across matters and projects.

Deliver helps safely organize, package, and share content with clients, customers, outside counsel, and other third parties using built-in extranet and document bundling tools.

Learn provides insights about user activity and documents, and includes enterprise search-driven knowledge management insights.

Tasks gives users a visual snapshot of their workload and project status.

With regard to the two new products announced last week:

Tasks is a task management system designed to provide a holistic view into everything that is important in a project. It provides collaboration inside a workspace for various parties who have interconnected deliverables to help users track project stages, owners, deadlines, and deliverables.

SmartView is designed to simplify document reviews by making it easy to quickly preview, annotate, and mark up documents without ever needing to download the files to the desktop. Users can make Margin Notes to annotate files with colleagues and clients in real-time — and take advantage of findings to easily navigate through people, places, companies, and more.

SimplyAgree Readies New Version of its Signing and Closing Tool

The deal management platform SimplyAgree said that it is rolling out the latest version of its signature and closing management technology for transactional attorneys.

SimplyAgree is a closing management tool that helps deal teams streamline signings and automate the creation of closing sets and other post-closing work. It also provides tools to support professionals in closing deals remotely — including integrated mobile and electronic signing.

The company said that the new version enhances the platform’s performance and flexibility to meet more users’ needs and adds a more modern interface. Other new features include:

Enhanced document visualization and compilation, simulating desktop PDF tools.

Expanded signature packet functionality, including test emails, notifications, group messaging and signature links.

Support for multiple templates and types of binders for different practice groups and users.

Electronic closing binder delivery to securely share closing binders without emailing large files.

TitanFile Unveils New Features and Integrations

TitanFile, a secure file sharing and client collaboration platform focused on the legal industry, announced a number of product improvements. They include:

DocuSign integration: new integration improves work product workflow especially in times of remote office environments due to COVID-19.

Document management system compatible: now compatible with most popular legal document management systems.

Metadata scrubbing feature: upgrade to its “Secure Send” feature where it scrubs and sends and files emails to document management systems.

from Law and Politics https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2020/09/post-iltaon-round-up-tons-of-legal-tech-news-acquisitions-launches-updates-and-more.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

[sorayahigashikata]

Chapter 21: "Sports are serious business."

[alanafsmith]

The most technologically advanced law firms in Britain: 2017-18

Exclusive: Over 2,000 City trainees and junior lawyers told us how lawtech was affecting their lives on the legal frontline

In a bid to cut through the lawtech hype and build a picture of what is happening on the ground, we asked over 2,000 trainees and junior lawyers at the leading UK corporate law firms for their thoughts on their employers’ embrace of technology.

Were firms’ innovation achievements limited to ensuring that vending machines were updated to accept the new £1 coin, or was the progress so great that the Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey 2017-18 itself could be delegated to robot paralegals?

Alongside ranking firms out of ten for tech-savvy, rookies were also encouraged to provide us with details about how their firms’ investment in technology had been impacting on their daily lives — and we received hundreds of fascinating comments in response (a handful of them are featured below).

Firms were graded A* to D. The following ten scooped an A*. In alphabetical order, they are…

Allen & Overy

The magic circle giant’s ‘MarginMatrix’ digital derivatives compliance system — which it developed in partnership with Deloitte — is widely held to be one of the best examples of legal technological innovation over recent years.

Not only does it actually work, which is by no means a given in a booming lawtech field that now has its fair share of disappointing products, but it has saved Allen & Overy’s clients some serious time and money. According to the firm, it reduces the time of processing a document from three (highly paid) lawyer hours to three minutes.

Inevitably, the gaggle of lawtech start-ups that A&O is housing at its sparkly new ‘Fuse’ innovation space (repurposed former meeting room space on the first floor of the firm’s London office on the edge of Spitalfields Market) won’t all be similarly successful. But the fact that A&O is dabbling in being a tech incubator is significant in itself.

The ‘Fuse’ lawtech start-up incubator at Allen & Overy

The firm’s trainees that we heard from were impressed, noting proudly that their employer is “clearly at the forefront of legal tech and tech developments in the market”. They also remarked on the “excellent quality of the support teams (and the fact they’re 24hr)”, which one said “means I get to focus on legal work almost exclusively”, adding:

“I spend significantly less time typing up comments or running redlines than my friends at other firms.”

But any future applicants hoping for tech utopia should mind too some of the more cynical comments we received. One insider told us: “A&O tries to be forward-thinking with mixed success. I’ve spent many hours on telephone insolvency searches when this new thing called ’email’ gets a guaranteed response in 20 minutes.” While another warned that on occasion “I have been asked to do such basic tasks that I’ve been unsure if they’re joking”. The hope is that in the future such moments encourage rookies to pop down to Fuse to see what the techies can come up with to ease their pain.

Read Allen & Overy’s full firm profile, including The Legal Cheek View and Insider Scorecard.

Bird & Bird

In the early days of the internet, Bird & Bird became one of the first law firms to establish its own website, choosing the quirky domain name twobirds.com way back in 1995. Its core specialism of telecommunications, media and technology (TMT) remain strong, with the firm’s rosy recent financial results reflecting a boom in the sector. Recent work highlights include advising the European Commission and UK government on changes to data protection regulations and acting for Nokia on its patent dispute with Apple.

On the lawtech side, Bird & Bird has perhaps felt less compelled to crow about developments than larger rivals, with the firm less shouty about pilots with AI stat-ups than many in the legal market

But that’s not to say it hasn’t been active. Recently Bird & Bird began working with Palo Alto-based legal software company Intapp, which focuses on data security. It’s this sort of perhaps more carefully thought-through move, allied to the firm’s longstanding expertise in TMT law, that helped it score an A* in the Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey 2017-18.

Bird & Bird trainees tell Legal Cheek that it is “very tech focused” and that it “invests in this and it shows”, particularly in the smaller departments that “tend to be better at giving you responsibility and interesting work”. Beware in Bird & Bird’s larger corporate teams that “admin-type work” continues to be the norm for those starting out with the firm.

Read Bird & Bird’s full firm profile, including The Legal Cheek View and Insider Scorecard.

Bristows

With its smaller teams, Bristows — which takes on ten trainees each year — is not under the same kind of pressure as London’s global megafirms to boost its efficiency through technology. Already, the firm has a pretty lean model advising on the high end intellectual property, life sciences and IT law work in which it specialises.

That practice area mix has long seen Bristows target graduates of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) who then convert to law. Many of these STEM graduates also have PhDs. As such, it’s always been a pretty techie sort of place, with data analysis skills co-existing alongside legal expertise.

Nevertheless, some reckon it could be doing more. One insider tells us: “For a law firm dealing with so many tech clients it could have better tech itself, for example a proper CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system rather than Outlook and an automatic way to generate a statement of costs and use AI for document review.”

The interaction between the law and technology is nothing new, as illustrated by this copy of the Patent and Design Act 1907-1942, belonging to former Bristows partner G.B. Cooke

With a good deal of AI expertise within the firm — Bristows’ robotics team recently had a report published for the House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (AI) — expect that to change, if the firm considers that to be in its interests.

Other Bristows rookies note that there are “some neat apps for training diary reviews” and report excitement about the imminent arrival of “new laptops and docks for all fee-earners”. However, there was horror when trainees recently overheard “one partner explaining to another about a ‘new’ app called WhatsApp that he should try”.

Read Bristows’ full firm profile, including The Legal Cheek View and Insider Scorecard.

DWF

A £12 million investment in its IT systems has seen DWF score an A* for tech in the Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey 2017-18, as the effect of the money — allocated since 2014 — begins to be felt among rookie solicitors.

The firm has put together “blended team” that has seen lawyers work alongside technologists in the creation of new software like DWF Draft, a contract automation product. It has also created a buzz through the launch of DWF Ventures, which it dubs “a new ideas incubator”.

With DWF recording some disappointing financial results last year, which saw revenue fall despite continuing international expansion, the firm may have the incentive required to go beyond the hype and use technology to create some genuine efficiencies. It is well positioned to do this in that its core business includes lots of lower value claims and insurance work that is more easily automatable than many practice areas.

Read DWF’s full firm profile, including The Legal Cheek View and Insider Scorecard.

Gowling WLG

According to the Financial Times’ famously fluffy ‘Innovative Lawyers’ report, Gowling WLG “plans to digitise all its practices”. While we are not entirely sure what that means, the firm is clearly doing something right, with its trainees telling us that Gowling is “very tech-savvy” and indicating that the quality of its systems are “fairly good”.

The firm has demonstrated its commitment to technology publicly by appointing a ‘Head of Innovation and Digital’ in 2016, and doing deals with lawtech start-ups such as Loom Analytics. Apparently junior lawyers are “encouraged to contribute innovative ideas to management” as the firm “continues to invest heavily in” new tech products.

However, not everyone is impressed. Insiders tell us that “Worksite is clunky and Online Mentor is an appalling piece of software”, while complaining that too many fee-earners “seem to wear technical illiteracy as a badge of pride”. Legal Cheek spies also report that “a great deal of work [at the junior end of the firm] is very abstract and repetitive”. Another claims: “I have spent about 8 months doing work that is completely automatable.”

Yet Gowling was one of the best scoring firms for tech in this year’s Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey 2017-18 — which may tell you something about where the wider legal market is when it comes to true progress and innovation.

Read Gowling WLG’s full firm profile, including The Legal Cheek View and Insider Scorecard.

Linklaters

Linklaters “finally got their sh*t together” on the technology front, the firm’s rookies tell us, with “massive strides in the last 12 months… AI, laptops, iPhones, new software”.

The most appreciated of those strides, we understand, are firm-wide upgrades to Surface Pro tablets and Yoga laptops, which come on the back of everyone getting iPhone 6s last year. This “has made it easier to work from home when appropriate”, although an “old” and “annoying” timekeeping system that “looks like it’s from pre-2000” can hinder things at times.

Thankfully, “secretaries are generally great at the tech stuff and IT support are fantastic”.

A host of tie-ups with lawtech start-ups have also been noted. These include Linklaters’ 2016 deal with RAVN, which automates basic legal tasks, alongside a trial with rival AI provider Kira Systems and a tie-up with Eigen Technologies to build a natural language processing tool that helps with the review of contracts.

Noah Waisberg, the co-ounder of Kira Systems, who previously was an associate at Weil Gotshal & Manges, a firm that performed surprisingly disappointingly in the tech category of the Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey 2017-18

But penetration to foot soldier level seems to have been limited. “Lots of things being talked about… I haven’t seen any of them implemented yet,” an insider reports.

Read Linklaters’ full firm profile, including The Legal Cheek View and Insider Scorecard.

Osborne Clarke

As one of a handful of firms that has been pushing legal innovation before it became cool, Osborne Clarke has found itself ahead of the game as the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ hits the law. And a new research and development budget has been put in place to provide funds for the firm’s IT team to develop new lawtech ideas suggested by anyone within the firm.

OC’s A* score for tech in the Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey 2017-18 suggests that those at the corporate law coalface feel well-supported. One of the firm’s trainees tells us:

“The firm has a massive focus on tech. Our sectors tend to focus on tech, and so it makes sense that those at the top of the firm are tech savvy and this filters down.”

Another slightly more jaded character adds: “Behind many other industries, but better than average relative to other law firms”.

Doubtless it helps that OC counts among its clients Facebook and Amazon, which the firm has been able to get particularly close to via its Silicon Valley office. In particular, it has gone further than most in the legal profession to import less formal technology company working practices into its culture. The firm’s partners are famously down-to-earth and sit among junior lawyers in the firm’s totally open plan layout.

Read Osborne Clarke’s full firm profile, including The Legal Cheek View and Insider Scorecard.

Pinsent Masons

Pinsent Masons has been dabbling in AI for years, and as such now finds itself in the enviable position of being able to build its own software in-house rather than partner with lawtech start-ups in a bid to get new technology going within the business.

Pulling the strings are the firm’s director of knowledge and innovation delivery, David Halliwell, and its head of research and development, Orlando Conetta. The duo were instrumental in the creation and roll out of ‘TermFrame’, an AI-derived tool to “extract, review and analyse key contract risks, and provide actionable risk reports” for the firm’s lawyers and clients.

This cutting edge software hasn’t yet reached all of Pinsents’ trainees and junior lawyers on the frontline, although one rookie did quip to us that “I’m constantly worried I’ll be replaced by some Skynet-AI initiative”. Instead, the most obvious way the firm’s tech savvy manifests itself is in the wider “encouragement and support [given] from all corners to work in a more tech savvy way”.

At this stage, technology “lives within pockets of the business”, another insider tells Legal Cheek, with AI initiatives still “having a way to go”. However, there is an expectation that it will spread quickly as “the buy in from the key stakeholders is there”. In the meantime, Pinsents’ juniors are grateful for small mercies, such as partners printing their own documents (not always the case at law firms), “which is great so the trainees don’t just have their superior’s printing to do”.

They are also crossing their fingers that the unloved standard issue Windows mobile phones will be upgraded to “a more user-friendly device”.

Read Pinsent Masons’ full firm profile, including The Legal Cheek View and Insider Scorecard.

Reed Smith

Reed Smith became one of the earlier movers on AI when it launched a pilot last year with lawtech start-up RAVN. Applying the company’s ‘Applied Cognitive Engine’ to its real estate team’s database of leases, the firm was able speed up the sifting process to identify relevant information. Reed Smith has since revealed plans to roll out AI more widely across the firm.

As part of this strategy it has brought in an innovation manager — Alex Smith joined a year ago from LexisNexis where he had been a senior product developer — and set up an innovation hub at the top of its Broadgate Tower office.

Reed Smith’s Innovation Hub on the 33rd floor of the Broadgate Tower in London

Insiders tell us that “lots of innovation is happening”, although concrete examples of their work with new AI systems is harder to find — probably because the legal profession’s use of such software remains at an early stage. What’s clear is that there is an organisation-wide push to think about the future in a constructive way. Trainees report that they are encouraged to attend frequent sessions designed to encourage them to elicit suggestions for more efficient ways of working. In this area, not yet being “set in your ways” is refreshingly seen as a plus.

Read Reed Smith’s full firm profile, including The Legal Cheek View and Insider Scorecard.

Taylor Wessing

Taylor Wessing’s closeness to the tech scene is such that since 2011 it has been operating in addition to its London HQ a small office out of the Second Home workspace in Shoreditch, East London, while its Cambridge office has seen the firm develop close ties with top academics specialising in legal tech research. It’s no surprise, then, that the firm has been at the forefront of trialling some of the new AI software that has hit the market over the last year. Among others, Taylor Wessing is working with Brainspace, a machine learning platform, for UK litigation analysis. The firm has also been developing its own AI products internally through its ‘TW: navigate’ programme.

What has all this meant for trainees? Well, for one thing, a high proportion of quality work, with the firm’s A* in tech in the Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey 2017-18 matched by its A* for quality of work. That’s not to say that the firm’s rookies don’t do some grunt work (work “varies seat to seat”, we are told, with admin tasks far from a thing of the past). But the direct trainee opportunities afforded by the firm’s engagement with the tech space — such as advising start-ups at Second Home and potentially gaining useful future clients in the process — has helped foster optimism about Taylor Wessing’s positioning at a time of change for the legal profession.

As one on-message trainee told us: “Tech is a big driver for the company moving forward.”

Read Taylor Wessing’s full firm profile, including The Legal Cheek View and Insider Scorecard.

How firms outside the top ten scored for tech in the Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey

Firms listed in alphabetical order

Looking beyond the ten firms which scored A*s, a further ten scored As, 20 got a B, 19 were graded C and two managed a lowly D.

A

Addleshaw Goddard, Berwin Leighton Paisner, Clifford Chance, Hogan Lovells, Ince & Co, Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Mills & Reeve, Mishcon de Reya, RPC.

B

Baker McKenzie, Bond Dickinson, Burges Salmon, CMS, DAC Beachcroft, Dentons, Eversheds Sutherland, Fieldfisher, Forsters, Herbert Smith Freehills, Howard Kennedy, Norton Rose Fulbright, PwC, Ropes & Gray, Simmons & Simmons, Slaughter and May, Squire Patton Boggs, Trowers & Hamlins, Watson Farley & Williams, White & Case.

C

Ashurst, Browne Jacobson, Charles Russell Speechlys, Clyde & Co, Dechert, DLA Piper, Freshfields, Hill Dickinson, Irwin Mitchell, Jones Day, K&L Gates, Macfarlanes, Mayer Brown, Shearman & Sterling, Shoosmiths, TLT, Travers Smith, Walker Morris, Withers.

D

Stephenson Harwood, Weil Gotshal & Manges

Peruse all of the firm’s new 2017-18 survey scorecards — including training, quality of work, tech and much more — via the Legal Cheek Firms Most List 2017-18.

The post The most technologically advanced law firms in Britain: 2017-18 appeared first on Legal Cheek.

from All About Law https://www.legalcheek.com/2017/11/the-most-technologically-advanced-law-firms-in-britain-2017-18/

[totesmccoats]

Dark Nights Metal #2

Batman has stolen the most dangerous weapon in the universe, and the Justice League give chase. Meanwhile, the council of Immortals plan to find a way to kill Barbatos before his cult can summon them through Batman.

They may be too late.

There’s this saying in storytelling that you should start a scene 5 seconds into things so that your action has a running start. This issue exemplifies that perfectly, starting with Batman already having outsmarted the League, and baiting them with decoys upon decoys. It’s a genius way to remind us just how well prepared Batman really is without much actual set-up. And watching the League essentially open boxes within boxes until they reach the crunchy Batman center pays off like gangbusters.

And when Superman and Wonder Woman eventually do catch up with Bruce, the reveal is one of the best sight gags in comics history. Highlight below if you really need spoilers: Baby Darkseid in a baby bjorn 😀

And in the final pages of the issue, the shit hits the fan, and the real Dark Souls Nights Metal begins.

  Mister Miracle #2

Scott and Barda lead many successful campaigns against Darkseid’s forces, but none of it earns any respect from the new Highfather – Orion.

Instead, Orion sends Scott and Barda on a new mission – to kill Granny Goodness, the woman that tortured them through their childhood, while pretending to negotiate a treaty. But a half received message from Metron casts doubts on which side Scott should be fighting for.

Another great issue that probably couldn’t turn any more upside down than it does. The issue goes through stages: exhaustion by the endless warfare, then an unease while in Orion’s court as he compels his brother to bow to him, and finally uncertainty when Scott and Barda are “graciously” welcomed by Granny. You would think that GG would be the creepiest part of the issue, especially considering the reunion of abuser and abused, but she has nothing on Orion’s massive egotrip.

Luckily, King is skillful enough to break up the discomfort of the issue with one sweet, and incredibly relatable, scene of Scott and Barda trying to figure out how showers on New Genesis are supposed to work. Part of that sweetness is soured when it’s implied that one of Barda’s continuing insecurities was seeded by GG, and that GG knows it; but it’s the initial thought that counts, right?

Right now, Mister Miracle is an almost Hamlet-esque family drama above everything else – a deadly and divine Thanksgiving; and its completely gripping.

  The Flash #30

Infected by the black suit Negative Speed Force, Barry finally snaps at Singh and his fellow crime lab workers after they chastise him for investigating the missing samples alone. Luckily, Kristen won’t be pushed away so easily, and manages to talk him down in private, which leads Barry to a break in the investigation, which he follows up on as the Flash. Waiting for him is the thief, but he’s more than Flash bargained for.

I love everything about this issue. It’s just classic comics. Negative influenced Barry finally reaches his breaking point and angsts out in front of everybody! And then we get a new villain using a classic formula: after experimenting on himself, Bloodwork manages to turn his hemophilia into a psychic control over all blood. So good!

The Flash is on a roll right now, largely going back to superhero fundamentals, and knocking them out of the park.

  Wonder Woman #30

After being persuaded to be part of Hamilton Revere’s experiments to use her blood in regular people, Wonder Woman is told that he plans to use it to make super soldiers, not cure diseases. Realizing she’s been duped, Wonder Woman rescinds her help. And, realizing Diana has been led into a trap, Steve and Etta make their way towards rescuing her.

Following Fontana’s pattern so far, the prolonged fight scene in this issue is better than everything that comes after it. Diana’s running monologue where she says she will be a hero for humanity, but not a weapon, really works for her character, especially as she fights off partial Wonder-ized super soldiers working under Revere’s orders to – quite literally – bleed her dry. Wonder Woman will not be made an object.

But, the issues quality takes a sharp downturn almost immediately after the villain’s base explodes. It’s almost as though there were two writers on this book, it’s that drastic. Thankfully, it’s only for three pages, but it’s a sour note to leave this story, and this creative team, on.

  Amazing Spider-Man #32

Defeated, Norman Osborn searches once again to re-awake the Goblin inside himself, a search that leads him to the Temple With No Name, high in the Himalayas, to begin studying the arcane arts.

This is a one-shot, and a relatively insignificant one, all things considered, but a fine enough story in and of itself. I love the art of Smallwood and Bellaire, fresh off their run with Rucka on Moon Knight, and that meta-reference also is a small hint towards how this story winds-up.

But, honestly, Osborn isn’t as compelling a character as Slott would like him to be in this issue, and acknowledging that the story is similar to those of other magic users in the Marvel Universe isn’t an excuse for the lack of anything novel in this telling.

  Ms. Marvel #22

Just having found out that Jersey’s newest villain is one of her school friends, and revealing her own secret identity as a way to reach him, Ms. Marvel is just barely able to escape from Lockdown. Totally exhausted, and opposed by half the city, Kamala is lucky that the other half has her back, and also, that she’s friends with a teleporting dog.

Between this and Black Bolt, Lockjaw is in the running to be this month’s Marvel MVP. The rest of the issue is fantastic, too, demonstrating the power of a community to rise up against the parts of it that would destroy them from within. More heroic than Kamala are Nakia and Tyesha, who lead a march to the mosque where KIND has their kidnapped inhumans surrounded, and present them with a document from the court proclaiming their actions to be illegal. She’s also backed up by the rare good cop, and recently former mayor Marchesi.

After a quick refueling at a friendly neighborhood Mediterranean restaurant, Ms. Marvel hops back into the fray, but in this issue, the day is truly won by the people, whom, united, can never be defeated.

  Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #24

Ultron is a T-Rex now! That’s all you need! Also, Squirrel Girl teams up with Antonio the Doombot to try and stop Ultron, who is a T-Rex now.

Henderson and Renzi do some neat things with Ultron’s iconic face-lights cutting through the darkness in the beginning of the issue, and it’s almost a shame they don’t keep it up longer. But, almost as quickly as they finish doing that, North introduces us to Antonio the Doombot, who continues this series’ tradition of scene-stealing robots; although Ultron doesn’t let Antonio do so easily.

  Kill or Be Killed #12

After killing the guy who threatened Kira, Dylan realizes that if he really wants his newly improved relationship with Kira to last, he’s going to have to bring down the entire Russian mob before they can harm her or himself.

What strikes me most about this issue is the contrast between happy Dylan and vengeful Dylan. On Halloween, Dylan realizes that every moment he gets to spend with Kira is a miracle, and joyously wonders the city with her until they settle into each-other’s arms at the end of the night.

But then he’s consumed by vengeful Dylan, who compels him to stake-out a Russian Mafioso until he can lead him to his boss and tell him everything he knows before killing him in cold blood. He ruminates on how he’s learned to ignore his fear response because he’s realized that he’s not the first or only murderer among humanity. He’s ruthless, calculating, and single-minded. And you being to wonder how these two Dylans could possibly be the same person.

  Redlands #2

OK, this series is going in a very different direction than I expected. Having successfully liberated the town of Redlands, Florida; Bridget, Alice, and Ro became the new police force. Their latest case is chasing “Redbrant,” an “artist” murderer who poses his victims in symbolic positions while stuffing their bodies with alchemically treated rose-petals, and paints solid red canvases with their blood. Moreover, he knows about Bridget, Alice, and Ro’s witchcraft, and wants to expose them to the world.

If this series decides to settle into Witch Law & Order, I am totally here for that if this issue is any indication of how that would pan out. But Bellare has also clearly built a much deeper world with Redlands, full of – besides witchcraft – artistically predisposed murderers, and perverted high-school principals that prey on their students. Redlands may be run by witches, but men still be creepy.

Coming off its explosive cold-open of an issue, Redlands is still warming up, but I’m excited to see where else this series decides to go.

Comic Reviews for 9/13/17 Dark Nights Metal #2 Batman has stolen the most dangerous weapon in the universe, and the Justice League give chase.