#Meeting Aleksei

[fr-ogii]

falling for you

count vronsky

x fem!reader; poc friendly

masterlist

request: "romantic hc when he meets his now wife after Anna's death and how he fell for her 💎✨" @hilalcoven

-> the count never thought he could fall for anyone ever again after the death of his lover, anna. he didn't even know how he would be able to live. he couldn't raise annie, their kid. despite barely having any distinguishing features yet, the thought that she would turn into someone that resembled anna was too much to bear. he felt awful that his daughter had to lose both her parents in such quick succession, but he could not force himself to raise her.

-> he had sworn off love entirely, convinced it would bring nothing but misfortune to him and any future lover of his.

-> but he changed his tune when he met you.

it was a cold september night in st. petersburg. it had been a couple years since the fateful day anna lost her life. the count had returned to the city from serbia - his time fighting against the ottoman empire was up.

he had expected the pain of his loss to have reduced itself after the years both away from anna and away from the city he became acquainted with her in. unfortunately for alexei, the pain came back as soon as he saw the skyline of st petersburg emerging from the horizon.

to escape this, vronsky visited a tavern as soon as he arrived in the all-too familiar city.

the warmth of the bustling building rushed to meet him as soon as the count opened the well worn door. the stench of cheap alcohol enveloped him as soon as he stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind him. his eyes landed on the bar that was situated a bit further back into the establishment and was occupied by two men who were clearly foreigners to this area and were speaking quickly in a tongue alexei could not understand. as was the unspoken rule, alexei sat two stools over and waited for the worker behind the bar to come over.

count vronsky had become impossibly quiet in the time away from anna. he only spoke when addressed. he avoided confrontation. it was as if the death of the mother of his child had left him mute.

an uncountable amount of minutes passed before a noise brought alexei out of his stupor. he had long since received his meal - a roasted meat he already forgot the name of. the pale ale in his mug had been nursed far too many times and was nearly gone.

his head snapped up when he heard that noise again. it was the trotting of a horse and the spinning wheels of the carriage it was pulling. there was something so recognizable about it. before alexei could be sucked back into his reminiscing tendencies, he turned around as the wooden door opened.

and there you were.

he wouldn't exactly call it "love at first sight", but he was certainly intrigued. count vronsky looked around the bar and noticed a couple other men that let their eyes flicker towards you periodically. aleksey stood slowly, stretching out the aches and pains that had grown in his joints in the many minutes he had been sitting. he would not let another man reach you before he could. and so, he began to walk over to you.

[new-austin]

Izek Strazni's office is a place to inflict shenanigans

[void-imp-archived]

living in nyc is so expensive it should be illegal like there'll be the tiniest walk-up apartment with half a bathroom and shared laundry and it'll be 4000 dollars rent a month

anyway this made me think is it even realistic for my ocs to live there?? i think for jab and jeremy, yes, jab has well off parents to help him out and jeremy shares an apartment with two roommates.

for aleksey idk tho bc he doesn't have roommates and he's a fast-food worker but like i'm just gonna say it's the tiniest rat-infested studio apartment with like 1 window or smth 😭😭😭

[elcor-thespian]

What's your Rooks favourite place to be? Like either in the lighthouse or adventuring. Do they throw everything to the side to go to Arlathan Forrest any chance they get? Do they prefer the music room to the library?

Ok when I tell you that I am generally so touched somebody asked me a question in response to my most recent post. I have been on this site for 10+ years and no one really ever interacts with me. And this is such a great question! Please answer it too and tag me so I can read it!

Answering below because this is going to be long

My canon Rook is Nephele Mercer, and my first thought in response to this was the the market in Traviso. Nephele had a pretty horrific childhood, and once she ran away from home she's been sort of building the bridge out in front of her to make ends meet. Even with the Shadow Dragons she never really felt safe or like she could relax. She is also fascinated by luxury because she's never had anything nice.

It's hard to explain but some combination of the purple lanterns and the warm night air makes her feel like she can finally slow down. It feels homey in a way she doesn't know how to describe. The first time she saw it when they were rushing past with Teia all she wanted to do was stay behind and look around. And the second she got to go back she visited every single stall and talked to everyone she could. Probably also bought more than she could afford.

And fast forward to her being the wife of the First Talon, she absolutely refuses any discounts anyone tries to give her. She pays people what they're worth, and then some.

Now I also have 6 other OCs that while they aren't the protagonist of the game, they are all also present a the Lighthouse and are associates of Varrics. They also all have bird code names because I think I'm cute.

Nasreen "Raven" Aldwir: I actually think that Nasreen's bedroom is the music room. She likes to be alone, and she likes small dark quiet places, so it's a great place for her to hide out in. She also is a musician (a huge inspiration for her character was the elven instrument that you can have in Rook's bedroom). At the beginning of the game she would borrow stacks of books from Emmrich and hide out in her room for hours, occasionally going back to ask questions. Eventually she got more comfortable staying in Emmrich's office and reading on the couch.

Aleksei "Magpie" Laidir: This boy must be near to water at all times. He grew up on an island and now he's a sailor. But literally any body of water will do. Lake in Arlathan, beaches of Rivain, canals of Treviso. He's like a duck.

Konstantin "Wren" Ingellvar: I don't know that Konstantin has ever felt comfortable anywhere, bless him. He probably feels most comfortable in the halls of the Necropolis because at least he understands the rules there, and he can spend a lot of time alone without questions. His life's goal is to not to be noticed, but he's a 7'2" Qunari built like a brick shit house. I think after a few weeks his favorite place to be is the library, because that's where the most people who are happy to see him are likely to be (I'm sobbing. I love him)

Paloma "Dove": Paloma is also a Shadow Dragon (There's 6 backgrounds but 7 romances, so someone's got to be the bonus Jonas). Paloma and Elspeth (below) are the two I've played the least so I don't have them as fleshed out. I think she likes to be around people, but struggles to talk to them. Paloma is an escaped Sarebaas, and she's still not used to talking or other people expecting her to say something. She likes people watching, either in the Shadow Dragon hide out, at bars, marketplaces, or at the docks. She feels very protective of Minrathous, the place that took her in when she needed a place to go, so part of her people watching is being ready to shut shit down if she sees trouble starting.

Elspeth "Crow" de Riva: My first instinct is to say "wherever Harding is", because she is Lace's self elected body guard, but that feels too easy. She's definitely a city kid, and growing up as a Crow means she's a night owl. I actually think she spends a lot of time at home. Or wherever Viago is so that she can annoy him. I wonder what it says about them that I can best describe them in their relationship to other people?

Brenna "Kestral" Thorne: For a long time Brenna would have considered anywhere with a high concentration of Wardens to be her favorite place. Being a Warden means she is constantly shuffled around, so she doesn't get attached to places easily. 6 months after the events of the game, she gets permission to go watch over the griffons in Arlathan, essentially on mental health leave. She ends every day watching the sunset with the griffons on the hillside where she and Davrin had their picnic.

So yeah this was really fun! Would love to answer some more if anyone is interested.

[andro-dino]

tell me about ian and aleksei i love them

STARRYSTORM MENTIONNNNNN‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

I love them. sm. Their dynamic is everything to me. They were literally created by a random number generator but then I started thinking abt them and got invested from like, 2 things:

1. I hc Ian as a massive nerd. Ik the whole explanation in canon for his thing with the cyclone stadium was like “oh I’ve battled in this stadium so much that I just know how it works like second nature now” but like. you have an internal clock that is literally precise down to the exact SECOND for how this stadium functions to the degree that it has become YOUR SPECIFIC BRAND and no one else’s? and you have a bey that is themed around that specifically? yeah you’re a fucking dweeb I’m sorry. I like to think that he was around when the stadium was being built and learned about it as it was being developed as well, and that kind of kickstarted an interest in engineering and technology in him. I also hc that he custom designed and made cyclone herculeo himself, and I think it’s technically kinda canon/implied that he handles a lot of the bey mechanics and training for DNA in the future (and I also hc that he mainly designed those beys as well). And then that led to the thought process of like, aleksei is also a massive nerd. he knows science and technology things. we already know he canonically flirts via sick science facts. Who’s to say he can’t do it again with Ian?

2. And then i was also thinking like, well yk what the garcias are all about? cheating and trickery to achieve their goals by any means necessary. Team lovushka weren’t necessarily doing all that cheating and trickery against gan gan galaxy of their own entire free will, but I think the garcias would definitely take an interest in that. I do think that when they meet, Ian is like mildly disappointed to find out that it wasn’t entirely their whole idea and plan, but it doesn’t make him lose too much respect for aleksei.

It was those two thoughts that made me think that I could like realistically see them bonding and getting along with each other and having some chemistry, and it all kinda just spiraled from there. I like their dynamic because I could see them being really sweet and affectionate with each other but also having a lot of banter and back and forth. I think Ian (as with the other garcias) would be kind of used to having people be nervous or intimidated around him given their reputation, but I don’t think it would faze aleksei all that much and I think Ian would find that pleasantly surprising and kind of refreshing. I just really like them having a really mutual relationship they make me happy. I also like to think both of them can be pretty flirty with each other under the right circumstances and it’s very fun bc both of them can play off of each other and build on it relatively effortlessly, but I like to think that Ian has a lot more quiet internal moments of “ogh my god I need him” but refuses to let that show. They’re both dorks I love them a lot

I think their dynamics with the others team are really fun as well. The garcias for any of them are really protective in general and any potential partner of any of the siblings will all have to go through many trials of intimidation and being interrogated to see if they’re good enough, and aleksei is absolutely no different. I think they would be able to catch him a little off guard occasionally, but for the most part he’s pretty good at keeping his cool around the other garcias. It doesn’t take long for them to warm up to him, I think. I also think it then doesn’t take long for them to start making fun of Ian for it and being all stupid and teasing him, which is very fun.

On the other end, I think it’s a given that Ian and nowaguma probably aren’t having many interactions, but Ian and Lera however. Lera is VERY protective of aleksei and being the little barking chihuahua of a person that she is, wastes NO time in giving Ian the whole “if you ever hurt him I will hurt you” schpiel. Ian, for his part, actually respects her guts and it very quickly turns into them being worsties. They will be at each others throats any time they’re around each other and constantly bicker and fight with each other but when the other’s not around they’re like “oh yeah no they’re the best I love that guy.” Aleksei does not know if this is a good or a bad thing.

Another hc I have with them that I’m quite fond of is that they r both transfem to me. Ian is bigender and Aleksei is nonbinary and both of them are cool with any gendered terms, but specifically I like to think that Ian quietly gets really giddy when people use fem terms for him. any time he hears Aleksei call him his girlfriend he’s like “omg I’m his girllllfrienddddd heheheheh :>>>>” idk man they’re dorks I like them I like them being silly and in love <3

[callsignbaphomet]

Norfolk, Virginia November 30, 1765 CE

As he made his way towards Aleksey’s office he thought back on previous engagements and ran through them over and over again trying to see if he’d done something wrong. Usually being called to Aleksey’s office wouldn’t be cause for concern but the way Aleksey asked to meet him was unnerving, his tone of voice and the look on his face were both alarming yet so unusually calm. Maybe too calm. Jelani was aware that Aleksey had his hands full at the moment and his mind was occupied by other things so this meeting could’ve been about any one of those things and he was well aware that he hadn’t done anything to cause Aleksey any anger yet he was nervous.

Once he reached the door to the office he opened it and inhaled as the hinges creaked. He slowly peaked in and saw the office was completely engulfed in darkness, the only light source was the moonlight eerily pouring in from the windows at the back of the office overlooking a massive wooden desk with piles and piles of papers crudely strewn over it. The sight of it was strange, Aleksey wasn’t the tidiest of people, but when it came to important documents he was as neurotic as he was. As he looked around he reached for a knife he carried with him and as he gripped the handle he heard a voice from within the office.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot to light a candle. I–I forget not everyone can see in the dark.”

It was Aleksey. He rushed over to the desk and looked for a way to light up an oil lamp he had on his desk. Jelani watched him fumble and mutter curses under his breath as he tried to find anything to light up the candle but he seemed to be having a hard time of it. Jelani entered the office and quietly made his way towards the desk. Something was wrong. Aleksey was a very prim and proper man, he was accommodating and thoughtful of others, he wouldn’t just forget that not everyone was a werewolf and therefore could see in the dark. As Jelani watched him desperately search he sat on a chair in front of the desk and said, “Alex, are you alright?”

Aleksey stopped looking for the matches and placed both hands on the desk and let out a sigh, it sounded tired and frustrated all at once. He didn’t answer Jelani because he didn’t know how to answer that question. In truth he wasn’t all right, he was tired from staying up for almost twenty-six hours, tired of talking to doctors and hearing about his grandson’s injuries, he was frustrated at the situation he and his grandson found themselves in, frustrated that he couldn’t just snap his fingers and make it go away. He had yet to voice it but it could be seen in his eyes, he was angry, beyond angry. The type of anger that could only be satisfied if some kind of violence could be inflicted upon the people responsible for inciting that much anger in the first place. He sat down and as he was about to say something he looked down and saw some matches sticking out from under one of the papers on his desk. He grabbed one and lit the oil lamp and unceremoniously sat down on his chair.

“I have lived long enough to have witnessed people commit some of the worst atrocities you could ever imagine. The brutality with which we all injure each other gets worse as time goes by–I mean, look at these godsforsaken colonies, they’re a prime example of it.”

Aleksey lowered his gaze and placed his elbows on the desk as he clasped his hands together and rested his face on his hands. He was feeling so many different feelings that he couldn’t focus on any one of them no matter how hard he tried. He wanted to zone in on his anger because it was the easiest one to grasp or so he told himself, truth was that he was drowning in guilt, practically choking on it. If he focused on that guilt and the thoughts that were running through his head he wasn’t sure what he’d do or how he’d do it. He felt guilty for what his one and only grandson had been put through for a little over a decade. Everyone involved, including his own son, had been convincing. His grandson and his daughter-in-law, killed at the hands of slayers. The last letter he received from his son stated details that were sketchy when he first read it, though he chucked it up to grief, but the more he read the letter the less the situation made sense. His last visit to his grandson was to a grave that he now knew was empty. He blamed himself for not questioning his son more, especially since he had so many doubts. He looked up and saw Jelani looking back at him, he seemed calm though his eyes searched his, maybe to say something or waiting for him to do or say something.

“How is he?” Jelani asked.

Aleksey closed his eyes, he’d hoped he wouldn’t ask him about Angelus. A group of doctors had now spent over twenty-seven hours working on him, each time they came to him they gave him more and more horrible details about what they found. Each detail corresponding with the letters one of Katherine’s sons had written to him detailing everything they’d done to Angelus and for how long it’d been happening.

“It’s…bad…” Aleksey gasped sharply as he rapidly blinked his eyes as they began to sting from the tears building up on them. “Hundreds of broken bones, some healed wrong so they had to break them again to reset them, his entire body is covered in bruises–some of them so dark they look like wine stains, none of the doctors have ever seen anyone in that state of starvation. He is a thirteen-year-old boy and he weighs nineteen pounds. Both of his lungs had collapsed and a lot of his organs were barely even functioning, because of the dehydration his kidneys just stopped working all together. There are years of accumulated grime and dirt caked onto his skin and his hair was full of lice and other things, it all had to be cut off, it hadn’t been brushed for over a decade. He has several infections and he hasn’t fed on a single human heart, his immune system is three years overdo. There were some…some other things done to him that I don’t want to repeat. This child spent a decade locked in a basement and from some of the fractures the doctors think he was kept chained up to the wall, he is severely underdeveloped–he looks like a six-year-old not a thirteen-year-old.”

“Shit…I’m so sorry, Alex.” Jelani gasped as he lowered his gaze. Until that very moment he thought he had carried out a five or a six-year-old from that makeshift grave in the basement. He barely weighed a thing and the only thing he could recall were those tired and scared eyes that kept looking up at him as if wondering what he was going to do. Jelani looked back up at Aleksey and with determination in his voice he said, “Anything you need–”

“That’s why you’re here, Jelani. I need to focus on my grandson, he needs my full attention and I cannot do that as well as run Oracle. The doctors said he has a very long road to recovery. We’re looking at two to maybe three years and that’s only the physical aspect of his recovery. What he went through? Doctors believe he’s psychologically damaged–probably beyond repair–we don’t know yet, he’s still sedated. I need to focus on him and I need your help.”

“Sure. What do you need?”

“I have been at this,” Aleksey gestured vaguely as he looked around the room, “for a very, very long time. Some would even argue that I have been at it for far too long. I’ve had dozens of people that I’ve been able to trust by my side, some stayed with me until the end, some let me down, and some even betrayed me. Trust–in this line of work–is fragile and you could even say it’s foolish to place it on anyone and if anyone had said that to me earlier in my life I would’ve believed them wholeheartedly. But then I met you. Jelani, I don’t trust anyone, especially with this thing I’ve created, built, and taken care of for countless millennia except for you.”

“Al–”

“Please, let me finish.” Aleksey interrupted Jelani before he could say anything and derail his train of thought. “There have been thousands upon thousands of agents and familiars associated with Oracle, this agency has seen some extremely talented people come and go and yet you stand out amongst them in every conceivable way and I’m not saying this just because I’ve known your family for hundreds of years. As a strategist you’re second to none, you’re dependable to a fault, you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever had the privilege to speak to, when it comes to combat you are talented and unwavering, but you’re also compassionate and level headed enough to know when to extend a weapon or a hand. You don’t remind me of a younger version of myself, you remind me of my current version. The one that has grown and learned from all of his mistakes and achievements, that’s why I made you my acting leader. I trust you, practically blindly.”

“Aleksey, you cannot trust anyone blindly no matter how long you’ve known them.” Jelani was flattered by Aleksey’s words but part of him thought he was speaking from a vulnerable place. He knew he was hurt by what had happened to his grandson but he wasn’t about to let him make questionable decisions in the spur of the moment, not with something so delicate as the entirety of Oracle. He looked at Aleksey worryingly and slightly shook his head as he replied.

“And you keep proving my point, son. I chose you as my acting leader, as my protégé, because of everything I just said and more. I trust you and right now I need your help. I want to dedicate my full attention to my grandson, to see that he recovers as much as he can, I need to be available to him and the doctors at all times.”

“Ja…makes perfect sense.” Jelani’s response was calm but he was anything but calm at that moment. He knew what Aleksey was asking of him even if he hadn’t said it directly yet. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for such a gargantuan task yet…or ever…but he didn’t want to let Aleksey, his mentor, down especially when he needed him the most. Despite his doubts and worries sat up and looked Aleksey in the eye and in a confident tone said, “I’ll do whatever I can to help, Aleksey.”

“Thank you…” Aleksey whispered as he closed his eyes briefly, his voice shook at the end and he gasped as if he’d been holding his breath the entire time they’d been talking. He was completely aware of the magnitude of the task at hand but he needed help and he knew of no one else that was more fitting for such a task other than his protégé. In his heart he knew he could do it, he wouldn’t have picked him much less asked him for such a favor if he wasn’t sure Jelani could do it. Aleksey sighed deeply as he opened his eyes again, they were softer and less worried than they were before Jelani agreed to help, even his frame seemed more relaxed.

“You and I have a meeting in an hour with branch leaders, handlers–basically high ranking agents– I’ll make the announcement then and there. After that I’ll be stepping down, the only people that will have access to me are the doctors, my grandson, and you. Only you. You are more than welcome to come to me for anything no matter how great or small it is. So until further notice all of Oracle will answer to you, Jelani. Consider yourself the actual leader of Oracle.”

[muse-write]

Umm…here’s just a quick unedited thing I wrote today. It’s a little character study of some of the main characters of my new original WIP.

In the Imperial Academy of Magical Studies, there are many hundreds of impressive, interesting people of whom impressive, interesting stories could be told. But, dear reader, you will forgive me for directing your attention away from these prestigious magihistorians and herbal wizards to the slight, sharp-faced girl in the coffeehouse.

This is Lizaveta—Vyetta to her friends, though there are few enough of those. She sits in the coffeehouse in a way that might seem sullen to others but to those who know her is simply focused, hunched over a pile of textbooks and scribbling away in a cramped, spidery font.

Vyetta—we shall take the presumption of calling her this, for are not all characters friends of their narrators and creators?—practically glows with loneliness, though she would rather have died than admit it.

And, as her creator, I know something she has not yet realized—it is this loneliness which has driven her to Rodrikov Lamovich, the subject of her intense academic interest and the biography of whom she has made her postgraduate thesis. 200 years earlier, he was also a very lonely boy, so lonely and so looked over that when he disappeared after the death of his imminent father, no one really took any notice one way or another.

Except Vyetta, 200 years later.

For now we shall leave Vyetta—but not forever, certainly—and visit our other person of interest halfway across campus, in the hall of music. The girl fidgeting with a pen in the back row of a lecture hall is Angelina Rudrakova—Gelya to her friends, though those have all been left back in Tonland. Gelya is pretty in the way popular in Russki, the round-faced, delicate, snub-nosed way, and for this she is popular among the students at the Imperial Academy. She is also lonely, and she is very angry.

She can do nothing about either of these things, and she’s given up trying. The Imperial Academy, far from her family and her music studies in Tonland, was her last resort, and she very mildly regrets it. It has done nothing to help her anger except putting a buffer of distance between her and the cause, and it has only increased her loneliness.

And, though they know nothing of each other, these two women will become the most important people in the world to one another in about three hours.

We must leave them to their innocence for now to visit the third player in our tale, just finishing his third round of practice that week and laughing with a teammate as they head out of the soccer field and back to their dorms. This is Aleksei—Vyetta’s brother’s best friend, currently looking forward to that night, when he would slip away to a coffeehouse on campus (that same coffeehouse in which Vyetta is furiously, desperately studying) and lead the bimonthly meeting of the Union of Free Men. Because as much as he wants to get through school with his medical degree, he wants to kill the tsar more. And he will do whatever it takes—even giving up sleep, even risking his life (or, as he will discover, others’)—to achieve this goal.

[this-week-in-rust]

This Week in Rust 577

Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust! Rust is a programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software. This is a weekly summary of its progress and community. Want something mentioned? Tag us at @ThisWeekInRust on X (formerly Twitter) or @ThisWeekinRust on mastodon.social, or send us a pull request. Want to get involved? We love contributions.

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Missing iterable traits and how to introduce them effortlessly

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This week's crate is include-utils, a more powerful replacement for the standard library's include_str macro.

Thanks to Aleksey Sidorov for the self-suggestion!

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Updates from the Rust Project

462 pull requests were merged in the last week

dataflow_const_prop: do not eval a ptr address in SwitchInt

fn_sig_for_fn_abi should return a ty::FnSig, no need for a binder

rust_for_linux: -Zreg-struct-return commandline flag for X86

actually walk into lifetimes and attrs in EarlyContextAndPass

add allocate_bytes and refactor allocate_str in InterpCx for raw byte…

add context to "const in pattern" errors

add lint against function pointer comparisons

add more info on type/trait mismatches for different crate versions

avoid opaque type not constrained errors in the presence of other errors

avoid fetching the anon const hir node that is already available

deeply normalize when computing implied outlives bounds

do not implement unsafe auto traits for types with unsafe fields

don't suggest restricting bound with unstable traits on stable and mention it's unstable on nightly

don't use a SyntheticProvider for literally every type

fix MutVisitor's default implementations to visit Stmt's and BinOp's spans

fix suggestion when shorthand self has erroneous type

gate async fn trait bound modifier on async_trait_bounds

handle --json-output properly

hide errors whose suggestions would contain error constants or types

implement checks for tail calls

improve TagEncoding::Niche docs, sanity check, and UB checks

include LLDB and GDB visualizers in MSVC distribution

introduce default_field_values feature

lint against Symbol::intern on a string literal

lint: change help for pointers to dyn types in FFI

make CoercePointee errors translatable

make sure to record deps from cached task in new solver on first run

move most tests for -l and #[link(..)] into tests/ui/link-native-libs

no need to create placeholders for GAT args in confirm_object_candidate

only allow PassMode::Direct for aggregates on wasm when using the C ABI

parse guard patterns

reduce false positives on some common cases from if-let-rescope lint

reimplement ~const trait specialization

structurally resolve in adjust_for_branches

structurally resolve in probe_adt

unify sysroot_target_{bin,lib}dir handling

use correct hir_id for array const arg infers

miri: cleanup: avoid passing byte slice to anonsocket_read

miri: fix SC fence logic

miri: fix weak memory emulation to avoid generating behaviors that are forbidden under C++ 20

miri: implement simd_relaxed_fma

extend Miri to correctly pass mutable pointers through FFI

remove polymorphization

introduce MixedBitSet

stabilize const_collections_with_hasher and build_hasher_default_const_new

stabilize const_{size,align}_of_val

stabilize noop_waker

stabilize std::io::ErrorKind::CrossesDevices

stabilize std::io::ErrorKind::QuotaExceeded

add core::arch::breakpoint and test

implementation of fmt::FormattingOptions

add Extend impls for tuples of arity 1 through 12

cargo: docs(fingerprint): cargo-rustc extra flags do not affect the metadata

cargo: feat(build-rs): Add the 'error' directive

cargo: fix(add): Don't select yanked versions when normalizing names

cargo: fix(build-rs): Correctly refer to the item in assert

cargo: fix(build-std): determine root crates by target spec std:bool

cargo: fix(fingerprint): Don't throwaway the cache on RUSTFLAGS changes

cargo: fix(fix): Migrate workspace dependencies

cargo: test(build-std): make mock-std closer to real world

cargo: fix(build-rs)!: remove meaningless 'cargo_cfg_debug_assertions'

cargo: refactor: use Path::push to construct remap-path-prefix

cargo: semVer: add section on RPIT capturing

rustdoc: remove eq for clean::Attributes

rustdoc: rename issue-\d+.rs tests to have meaningful names (part 10)

rustdoc: rename set_back_info to restore_module_data

rustdoc: always display first line of impl blocks even when collapsed

improve code for FileName retrieval in rustdoc

clippy: doc_lazy_continuation: Correctly count indent with backslashes

clippy: extend precedence for bitmasking and shift

clippy: new lint for as *const _ and as *mut _ pointer casts

rust-analyzer: add Configurable Option to Exclude Trigger Characters for Typing Assists

rust-analyzer: add implict unsafety inlay hints for extern blocks

rust-analyzer: add typing handler for param list pipe

rust-analyzer: complete derive helper attributes

rust-analyzer: complete diagnostics in ty lowering groundwork and serve a first diagnostic 🎉

rust-analyzer: extend reported unsafe operations

rust-analyzer: support AsyncFnX traits

rust-analyzer: fix parsing of parenthesized type args and RTN

rust-analyzer: better parser recovery for paths

rust-analyzer: coerce two FnDefs to fn pointers even if they are the same, if they are subtypes

rust-analyzer: disable < typing handler again

rust-analyzer: do not report warnings from proc macros, ever

rust-analyzer: fix a bug when synthetic AST node were searched in the AST ID map and caused panics

rust-analyzer: fix parser getting stuck for bad asm expressions

rust-analyzer: fix parsing of dyn T in generic arg on 2015 edition

rust-analyzer: fix parsing of integer/keyword name refs in various places

rust-analyzer: fix shadowing of record enum variant in patterns

rust-analyzer: fixed another bug with glob imports

rust-analyzer: map new replacement nodes to their mutable equivalents in SyntaxEditor

rust-analyzer: non-exhaustive structs may be empty

rust-analyzer: panic when displaying generic params with defaults

rust-analyzer: parse lifetime bounds in lifetime param into TypeBoundList

rust-analyzer: resolve generic parameters within use captures

rust-analyzer: temporarily disable completion resolve support for helix and neovim

rust-analyzer: improve heuristics for on typing semicolon insertion

rust-analyzer: make bracket typing handler work on more things

rust-analyzer: migrate add_turbo_fish to SyntaxEditor

rust-analyzer: migrate introduce_named_generic Assist to Use SyntaxFactory

rust-analyzer: migrate sort_items Assist to Use SyntaxFactory

rust-analyzer: vscode: only show status bar item in relevant files

Rust Compiler Performance Triage

A pretty quiet week, with both few PRs landed and no large changes in performance.

Triage done by @simulacrum. Revision range: 490b2cc0..1b3fb316

0 Regressions, 0 Improvements, 7 Mixed; 4 of them in rollups 25 artifact comparisons made in total

Full report here

Approved RFCs

Changes to Rust follow the Rust RFC (request for comments) process. These are the RFCs that were approved for implementation this week:

No RFCs were approved this week.

Final Comment Period

Every week, the team announces the 'final comment period' for RFCs and key PRs which are reaching a decision. Express your opinions now.

RFCs

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Tracking Issues & PRs

Rust

[disposition: merge] Add --doctest-compilation-args option to add compilation flags to doctest compilation

Cargo

[disposition: merge] fix(cargo-rustc): stabilize higher precedence trailing flags

Language Team

No Language Team Proposals entered Final Comment Period this week.

Language Reference

No Language Reference RFCs entered Final Comment Period this week.

Unsafe Code Guidelines

No Unsafe Code Guideline Tracking Issues or PRs entered Final Comment Period this week.

New and Updated RFCs

[new] Drop type destructuring

[new] #[must_use = false]

[new] RFC: Partial Types (v3)

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Quote of the Week

Memory-safe implementations of PNG (png, zune-png, wuffs) now dramatically outperform memory-unsafe ones (libpng, spng, stb_image) when decoding images.

Rust png crate that tops our benchmark shows 1.8x improvement over libpng on x86 and 1.5x improvement on ARM.

– Shnatsel on /r/rust

Thanks to Anton Fetisov for the suggestion!

Please submit quotes and vote for next week!

This Week in Rust is edited by: nellshamrell, llogiq, cdmistman, ericseppanen, extrawurst, andrewpollack, U007D, kolharsam, joelmarcey, mariannegoldin, bennyvasquez.

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Discuss on r/rust

[fantasyandromancelover]

Spider-Man AU Act 2

Inspired by literally every movie and TV adaption of Spider-Man there is, and in a case where there are not one but three main heroes.

Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Raimi's Version) - Alastor

Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Webb's Version) - Angel Dust

Peter Parker/Spider-Man (MCU Version) - Moxxie

Mary-Jane Watson - Charlie

Gwen Stacy - Vaggie

Michelle Jones - Millie

Harry Osborn - Blitzo

Ned Leeds - Fizzarolli

Uncle Ben and Aunt May - Alastor's parents

J Jonah Jameson - Husk

Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin - Adam

Dr. Curt Conners/The Lizard - Asmodeus

Dr. Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus - Sir Pentious

Max Dillion/Electro - Travis

Adrian Toomes/The Vulture - Chazwick

Flash Thompson - Striker

John Jameson - Vortex

Liz Alan - Queen Bee

Aleksei Sytsevich/The Rhino - Valentino

Two years have passed, Alastor along with his cousin Angel have graduated from high school and are now attending college together. Their younger cousin Moxxie, is entering his senior year and is almost fully recovered from being paralyzed while on the verge of getting of an acting scholarship while Charlie, the secret love of Alastor's life is making it as a successful actress on Broadway and her best friend Vaggie has recovered as well from her coma. But on the downside, Angel who was Vaggie's boyfriend, chose to break up with her out of guilt, and because Alastor is now fighting crime alone as the Deer Demon, he finds himself constantly overworked, failing his classes, and becoming estranged from the people he loves. His friend Blitzo has become obsessed with killing the Deer Demon, still blaming him for his father's death and Charlie still has feelings for Alastor and feels that he's hiding something from her.

When Moxxie notices how stressed and overworked Alastor is, he begs him to let him become the Incredible Imp again but Alastor refuses, insisting that he will not lose another member of his family to crime. Still Moxxie feels useless and without a purpose, so Charlie invites him to join her theater trope which he accepts. There he's introduced to Charlie's handsome leading man Vortex, her best friend in the acting world Bee, and the lovely new-commer Millie whom Moxxie is instantly smitten with.

Later, Alastor's boss Husk, sympathizes with his home life and decides to give him an opportunity to boost his pay by choosing him to do the report on recently discovered scientist Dr. Dominick Pentious who has become the newest research developer for Blitzo's company. Alastor is thrilled, not only for the opportunity to make more money but because he knew Dr. Pentious as his instructor from science camp as a boy. Blitzo arranges for Alastor to meet him, his wife Cherri, and his assistant, a college professor Valentino before the presentation. Dr. Pentious still remembers Alastor and the two strike up a friendship, bonding over science and their respective dreams. Dr. Pentious's dream is his latest project, a device that can generate fusion power and will offer what he believes to be a more safe and pure form of electricity. Alastor is impressed but is skeptical of the machine, asking if Dr. Pentious has miscalculated which he assures him that he hasn't.

One day Vortex asks Charlie out, she likes him but isn’t sure about dating anyone because of her feelings for Alastor. She tells him she’ll think about it and later gives Alastor a ticket to her show, asking him to be there which he promises to do so. Unfortunately, on the night of the show, stopping a robbery prevents him from arriving at the theater in time and he misses her show. Alastor meets Charlie the theater and tries to give a valid excuse but she can tell he’s lying, which hurts her. She pleads with him to be honest with her but he can’t. She then angrily leaves with Vortex. Alastor goes home that night upset as the Demon Deer but suddenly his powers stop working.

Meanwhile, it turns out Valentino is secretly jealous of Dr. Pentious’s accomplishments and has changing the doctor’s notes, and sabotaging his work in order to steal it for himself. He’s also sniffing after one of his students, Vaggie, and harasses her. Charlie advises her to report his actions but Vaggie refuses because he has threatened to have her expelled from the university. Weeks pass, Charlie starts dating Vortex which causes Alastor to become depressed and Angel tries to see if he and Vaggie can be “just friends.” But while their love lives are a mess, Moxxie’s relationship with Millie flourishes. She goes with him to physical therapy and he works with her during rehearsal, and over time he learns that she used to be a fan of The Incredible Imp, because he made her feel like she could do anything. This makes Moxxie miss being a hero even more but being with Millie gives him purpose.

On the day of Dr. Pentious’s demonstration of his invention, he wears an exo-skeleton suit with the D.N.A of a snake in order to withstand the extreme heat and keep the machine under control. Alastor, Angel, and Blitzo attend the demonstration and at first, all seems to go well. However, suddenly the machine has a power spike due to Valentino’s tampering and it causes the fish ion to destabilize. Pentious refuses to shut the reactor down though which results in it going critical, killing Cherri, and fusing Pentious to his suit. As Deer Demon, Alastor shuts down the experiment and Angel catches Valentino fleeing the scene with some of the doctor’s notes. At the hospital, Pentious goes mad from the experience and slithers off into the shadows. Valentino finds him and convinces him to re-build the machine but only so Val can secretly take all the credit for himself. Dr. Pentious then renames himself Dr. Serpent and becomes a criminal, robbing banks for money. One robbery in particular almost leads to him killing Marie and Alastor unable to save her due to momentarily losing his powers, but luckily Moxxie trips him up and rescues her. Despite this, Alastor scolds Moxxie for risking his life again. But Moxxie retorts that he’s not as helpless as he thinks and that Alastor can’t keep doing this all on his own.

At a premiere party at the theater, Charlie becomes engaged to Vortex and Blitzo rants at Alastor in a drunken rage, accusing him of being a disloyal friend. Alastor suffers an emotional breakdown over his inability to balance his life, with the stress stripping him of his powers as a result. Unable to take it anymore, he quits being The Deer Demon, returns to his normal life, and attempts to reconcile with Charlie. As for Charlie herself, while her parents are thrilled with her decision to marry Vortex, her friends are not as supportive. Bee is angry and becomes distant, and Vaggie can’t help but be skeptical about the engagement. Asking Charlie how she really feels and if she really loves him. Charlie insists that she does but Bee angrily accuses her of only marrying him for publicity.

Vaggie voices her concerns to Angel who remarks that it’s probably none of their business. Vaggie then tells him that she just doesn’t want Charlie to make a mistake and throw away a chance at happiness, “Like some people.” Angel sees the allegory and tries to explain but they are interrupted by a jealous Valentino who attempts to get Angel to leave. Angel however stands firm and decides to do his own secret investigation on Valentino with Moxxie secretly helping him. They soon discover Valentino's plans of sabotaging Pentious's work.

One night, Alastor finally sees Charlie perform in her play much to her delight and afterward, he invites her up to the top of the church to witness a beautiful viewing of the city and they share a romantic slow dance which is witnessed by Dr. Serpent. Charlie realizes that she's still in love with Alastor and wants to be with him, but doesn't want to hurt Vortex. Alastor tries to confess his feelings for her but she becomes confused and leaves before he can, though she promises to talk to him later. As he walks home that night, he spots an apartment building on fire and learns that a little girl is trapped inside. Despite his loss of powers, he goes into the fire and successfully saves the girl but learns that one poor soul got trapped on the floor, perishing. This causes Alastor to feel guilty about his choice to quit.

Meanwhile, Blitzo who is still obsessed with getting revenge on the Deer Demon, is visited by Dr. Serpent. He demands that he give him tritium, threatening to kill if he refuses. Blitzo agrees under the condition that Dr. Serpent brings him the Deer Demon so he can kill him. He tells him to find the Deer Demon through Alastor but he also tells him not to hurt Alastor. Dr. Serpent agrees to the deal and before leaving to find Alastor, he builds an exo-skeleton for Valentino and charges him with guarding the reactor until he returns. Alastor eventually decides that his responsibility to the city are more important than his personal needs and tries to become the Deer Demon again but his powers still do not return. He goes to Angel and asks him to become the Spider Sinner again until he gets his powers back but Angel still refuses out of fear and guilt. Moxxie once again offers to return as the Incredible Imp but again Alastor refuses to let him, but he does apologize for snapping at him earlier and is glad that he still has a hero's spirit.

The next day, Bee visits Charlie and apologizes for her behavior. She reveals that she and Vortex used to be a couple and that she still loves him, but chooses to accept their engagement if Charlie and Vortex are truly in love. This makes Charlie's doubts about the engagement grow and she invites Alastor to meet her at the cafe to talk. She asks Alastor if he loves her, but having convinced himself that his responsibility as a hero makes it too dangerous for him to be with her, he tells her no. However Charlie can tell he's lying and instead of getting angry, she asks him to kiss her. He complies. But before their lips can touch, the cafe is ransacked by Dr. Serpent who kidnaps Charlie and threatens to harm her if Alastor doesn't find the Deer Demon. Seeing the woman he loves taken away from him and knowing that she needs him, Alastor's powers are restored and he once again becomes the Deer Demon.

He confronts Dr. Serpent at the clock tower and a fight breaks out. Eventually, they battle on a train which Dr. Serpent destroys the speed bar on the train, as it explodes on Alastor's mask making it blurry, he takes it off. He uses all his strength to stop the train from falling off the unfinished track and saves the people, passing out in the process. His identity is exposed but the people on the train are so grateful to him for saving their lives that they return his mask and vow to keep his identity as secret. Dr. Serpent returns, and ends up knocking Alastor unconscious and delivering him to Blitzo. After giving Dr. Serpent the tritium, Blitzo pulls out the knife and prepares to kill the Deer Demon. But when he unmasks him, he's shocked to discover that that Alastor is the Deer Demon. Alastor tells Blitzo the truth of what happened to his father Adam but Blitzo doesn't believe him. Still he reveals to him where Dr. Serpent is upon learning that he has Charlie.

The Deer Demon makes his way to Dr. Serpent's waterfront laboratory, with the doctor putting the finishing touches on his makeshift reactor. He finds Charlie chained up and attempts to rescue her discreetly, Dr. Serpent catches on and they fight once more. During the battle, the reactor turns on and Charlie is nearly sucked into the fusion but Alastor saves her in time. Valentino then attacks them both so Dr. Serpent can finish the machine. Soon the police and the media are drawn to the scene. The battle is televised and upon seeing Alastor and Charlie in danger, Moxxie becomes the Incredible Imp and goes to help them. Angel then sees a televised confrontation between Vaggie and Valentino, in which she finally stands up to him, prompting Angel to become the Spider Sinner again. He comes to Vaggie's aid and tells her to inform the police that everyone needs to be evacuated cause the machine has been re-built. The Spider Sinner and the Incredible Imp fight Valentino, allowing the Deer Demon to subdue Dr. Serpent. He reveals his identity and attempts to appeal to Dominick Pentious, pleading for him to stop the reactor. Valentino interjects, trying to manipulate Pentious once again but when Angel shows Pentious the evidence of Valentino's betrayal and how his sabotage pretty much caused Cherri's death, Pentious furiously kills Valentino. Still, Pentious is not ready to give up on his dream but Alastor manages to convince him to shut down the machine for the greater good.

With his sense of humanity restored, Dr. Pentious uses his strength to collapse the building and drowns the reactor at the cost of his own life. As the building falls apart, Charlie is nearly crushed by a falling beam but Alastor rushes to protect her, forgetting to put his mask back on. Charlie sees Alastor's face and finally knows the truth. Alastor confesses to Charlie that he loves her more than anything in the world but can't bear to let anything happen to her, so they can't be together as long as he is the Deer Demon. After that he returns her home and is later comforted by his cousins, causing him to admit that he really can't be a hero all on his own and that he needs them. They all agree to be a team again.

As for Blitzo, shocked by the trauma caused by revelation of Alastor's identity as The Deer Demon, has visions of his father Adam ordering him to avenge his death and leading him to a secret room containing all of his father's Dark Archangel equipment. He looks at the equipment and takes the serum his father created.

The next day Angel and Vaggie reconcile and resume their relationship, then attend Moxxie's debut performance with Alastor. There Moxxie and Millie perform a romantic love scene and have their first kiss. After the show, Vaggie and Angel go to Charlie and Vortex's engagement party but can't help noticing how troubled the bride to be looks. Charlie wanders off and overhears Vortex speaking with his agent about his decision to marry her. It is revealed that the proposal was indeed a publicity stunt that his manager pressured him into and that he's really in love with Bee. Learning this, Charlie releases Vortex from their engagement and urges him to be with Bee, which he thanks her for. Once she's alone, Angel privately converses with her, revealing to her that he's the Spider Sinner and that he broke up with Vaggie because he was afraid of something happening to her. But he also confesses that it was the worst decision he ever made because being without her only made him feel so alone and depressed, like he had nothing else in his life to make him happy. He tells her that Alastor is probably feeling the same way and that she shouldn't throw a way a chance at happiness like he almost did.

Inspired by this, Charlie leaves the party and runs into Alastor's arms. She tells Alastor that she wants to be with him no matter what and that they need each other. Alastor then realizes that he needs to be a hero not just for the city but for her and they share a passionate kiss. Suddenly a fire truck is heard, signaling danger. Charlie encourages Alastor to respond as the Deer Demon, and he goes off to save the day with the Spider Sinner and the Incredible Imp working alongside him.

[mg-dango]

I was gonna wait until I had a backstory for this sad boi, but the truth is I've been a bit lazy with him so I said "fvck it" and decided to post it now and then write the character sheet later

He doesn´t have a lore as wild as Dientes (Sorry that one is the favorite lol), but some interesting thins about him:

He´s a combat medic

Kinda a bit of a nepobaby, since he´s Natalya "Raptor" Orlov grandson and that maaaaaay have influenced some connections in the russian army

He´s very tall and when many people meet him at first, they are intimidated by his scary look, however, once you know him he´s actually a cinnamon roll.

Ok when I first made him, I didn´t know there was a character in the first call of duty games that's also named "Aleksei Ivanovich" but that´s just coincidence those two aren´t related at all

that´s pretty much everything I have from him until now, sorry Aleksei you´re like the middle child of my OCs/j

[stormyrainyday]

had a brainwave about a madoka/aleksei college AU where they have a meet cute and the whole cheating thing is for a competitive academic scholarship oh my GODDDDDDDD

please theyre acc kinda adorable i hate these stupid fucking nerds

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Chris Britt, Florida Politics

* * * *

President Biden meets with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya.

As Trump and the GOP twisted themselves into knots to avoid admitting that Putin assassinated Alexei Navalny, President Biden met with Navalny’s widow—Yulia Navalnaya—and his daughter, Dasha Navalnaya. It is worth pausing here to acknowledge that Biden has proven himself to be a compassionate and empathetic person capable of understanding the suffering of others.

Those qualities are strikingly absent from Trump's warped personality—and from his MAGA supporters, who take their cue from Trump in all things. America deserves and needs a president capable of understanding the suffering of others.

After meeting with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya, Biden said

Today, I met with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya – Aleksey Navalny's loved ones – to express my condolences for their devastating loss. Aleksey's legacy of courage will live on in Yulia and Dasha, and the countless people across Russia fighting for democracy and human rights.

Biden later said,

This morning I had the honor of meeting with Alexey Navalny's wife and daughter. As to state the obvious, he was a man of incredible courage. And it's amazing how his wife and daughter are emulating that.

Meanwhile, Trump maintains his silence on the assassination of Navalny and his minions dodge questions about Putin’s responsibility by saying they “Don’t know enough to answer.” Hmm . . . these are the same people who raged endlessly against Biden based on an unverified, quadruple-hearsay document from a confidential informant who was not believed by his FBI handlers.

The embrace of Putin by the Republican Party is troubling because of the implications for the defense of Ukraine and the integrity of the 2024 election. We have already seen one attempt by Russia to interfere on behalf of Trump, and we are witnessing the real-time betrayal of Ukraine on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to pretend as though Alexander Smirnov never happened. Read on!

House Oversight Committee removes references to FBI informant under cover of night

Speaking of the now-discredited FBI informant, his GOP champions in the House initially responded to his indictment for lying by claiming that his information was only a portion of the evidence they had against Joe Biden.

But actions speak actions louder than words. On Thursday, the House Oversight Committee quietly removed all references to Alexander Smirnov’s statements from the Oversight Committee’s website. See Meidas Touch Network, House GOP Quietly Deletes Russian Disinformation from Impeachment Website.

It is not enough for the House impeachment caucus to surreptitiously remove references to a Russian plant from its list of evidence against Joe Biden. Republicans should acknowledge their error and apologize—but they will not. The US media, however, should be a different story. They amplified and promoted the Russian lies about Biden—and are having a difficult time admitting their error.

As Josh Marshall wrote in his editor’s blog in Talking Points Memo,

The story here isn’t that the “Biden Crime Family” nonsense didn’t pan out. That was always transparently bogus. The story here is how the U.S. again got bamboozled by transparent foreign manipulation and how the U.S. political press bought into it pretty much whole hog. That doesn’t mean they accepted all the claims. But they treated it as reasonable, worthy of a presumption of seriousness, a serious story to be covered as such. Even with the veritable forest of red flags.

Donald Trump and his MAGA legions have spent years shock-training reporters not to bring up anything else about Russian disinformation programs aimed at helping Donald Trump. But they’re real. They’re continuing. They’re actually working. . . . Reporters have been conditioned to ignore the clear implications of what we’re learning.

So, the House Oversight Committee can try to slink away under dark of night to conceal the obvious effort by Russia to interfere in the 2024 election . . . but the media should not allow Trump to do so. As Marshall writes, Russia’s efforts to interfere are “real, continuing, and working.”

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[nedlittle]

I will never not be unwell about your post about Alyosha that you tagged “when you lose someone you love like that you have to create a way for them to never die” because HE. Also where did the whole idea of Alyosha kills the tsar come from? I read the book over a year ago so there might be some stuff I’m forgetting

i had to go back and find that post bc i was shocked that i was coherent enough about fedya d to articulate a single thought

in the author's preface, dostoevsky says "that while i have just one biography, i have two novels. the main novel is the second one--about the activities of my hero in our time, that is, in our present, current moment." (page 3 in the p&v translation)

the first novel is tbk proper, which takes place 13 years ago, placing it in 1866. our main source for tbk 2: alyosha kills the tsar comes from an article by james l. rice called "dostoevsky's endgame: the projected sequel to the brothers karamazov" which references a letter dostoevsky wrote during the novel's serialization:

"i can only say that aleksei in time becomes the village schoolmaster and, influenced by some sort of special psychological processes at work in his soul, he actually arrives at the idea of assassinating the tsar."

of course, dostoevsky died months after tbk was published in its complete form, at a time when people were trying to assassinate alexander ii, like, every two weeks. so that's our source for tbk: electric boogaloo existing. the other big source is from a guy named aleksei sergeevich suvorin, one of dotoevsky's friends, whose diary was published in 1923. here's him on the subject:

"he [alyosha] would commit a political crime. he would be executed. he would have sought the truth and in those seekings he would, naturally, have become a revolutionary."

we also know that the provisional title for tbk 2: who gave the baby a gun was "the children", referring to the titular boys of book 10 of tbk. according to dostoevsky's widow anna, alyosha "was to endure a complex psychological drama with lise [...] marry [her], then leave her for grushenka"*. there's more about how this sequel would work on a thematic and psychological level in the article and its sister article "foreshadowing the karamazov sequel" (also by rice). this isn't relevant but rice essentially diagnosis alyosha with victorian woman disease by calling him a "textbook case of male hysteria," which i enjoy.

so that's all we know about the hypothetical sequel, and i think about it a lot regarding a biographical reading of the novel because i think it's so interesting to take a character, based on your son who died of a hereditary disease you gave him, who you say is "like an angel, nothing touches [him]," and then plan a sequel where he is not untouchable and undergoes the same disillusionment and trauma as you experienced as a young man, only he dies in the end. and that's not even getting into the other biographical details like dostoevsky's own father dying under mysterious maybe-murder circumstances in 1839! or the fact that he looked at the loathsome father-figure he created for tbk whose hereditary "stain" he passes down to his sons as a black smear over their name and was like yeah i'm going to name him after ME. fyodor what was going on in your head.

i don't know, i sort of want to make a whole other post about this. he created a world in which his son survives and is loved so desperately by everyone he meets, but even still cannot save him, even in fiction. something something sons doomed to become their fathers.

tl, dr:

*this is from the rice article but is specifically referencing nina hoffman's interview with anna in 1898.

[sloshed-cinema]

Disco Boy (2023)

What a terrible path to citizenship. After breaking away from their football club during a trip into Poland, Aleksei and his friend Mikhail plan to travel to Paris to find a new life. Unfortunately for Mikhail, the journey is a fatal one, as he is struck and killed by a police boat while the pair cross a river. Alone, Aleksei joins the French Foreign Legion in order to secure eventual citizenship. On another river in another continent, Jomo and fellow freedom fighters in the Movement for the Empancipation of the Niger Delta resist the effects of colonialist and government-backed oil drilling which leaves the local people with a polluted river and ever diminishing farmland. The future is bleak for both of these young men. Fate forces the two together after Aleksei is deployed to enforce French interests by recovering French hostages captured by MEND. Jomo and Aleksei fight in a skirmish, and Jomo is eventually killed by the Belarusian. This trauma leaves Aleksei feeling bereft and vacant, especially after he finds Jomo’s sister Udoka, now living illegally as well in Paris, in a nightclub. The cruelty and callous nature of this means of gaining citizenship, giving dangerous and dirty jobs to foreigners as a way to carrot-and-stick them to the passport they so desire, smacks of indifference toward the lives of others. Citizenship is earned in the spilled blood of others in the name of the French Republic.

Especially in its final nocturnal Parisian act, Giacomo Abbruzzese’s film vocabulary takes on a neon-soaked hallucinatory feel as Aleksei loses himself first to dance and then to grief. The pivotal skirmish is filmed in infrared thermal imaging, the two men just body heat struggling for survival. This returns in the closing moments after a sort of transference has happened between Jomo, Aleksei, and Udoka. After meeting her in her apartment, Aleksei takes on one of Jomo and her’s defining features, a striking single brown eye. In a way, he has taken on Jomo’s spirit, and the two finally get to enact his desire to be a dancer in a nightclub.

Featured throughout is a throbbing, bassy, nocturnal house score by Vitalic. It’s really striking work, suffusing the film with passion and danger.

THE RULES

SIP

The film switches from one storyline to the other.

Someone name-drops the French Foreign Legion.

The score kicks in

BIG DRINK

A country or nationality is named.

[elcor-thespian]

1 and 6 for the spicy rook question?

Thank you for asking! I would love to answer as many of these questions as possible

What is your Rook's sexual orientation and identity? What are their pronouns?

Nephele: Bisexual, female, she/her

Nasreen: Bisexual/demisexual/demiromantic, female, she/her, maybe they? We're workshopping.

Aleksei: Pansexual, like if "little guy" was a gender?, he/they. Doesn't enforce the they, but does get a little extra pep in their step when it gets used.

Paloma: Lesbian, female, she/her

Konstantin: Bisexual/demisexual, male???? I guess??? What is gender??, he/him, but like....mayyybee they???? I don't know man, life is crazy

Brenna: Bisexual, female, she/her but she would be totally fine if someone threw a they her way.

Elspeth: Lesbian, non binary, she/they, but you have have to earn the "she". You don't get to use she unless you've passed the vibe check.

No one is straight in the Veilguard. No one.

6. Is Rook attracted to anyone or anything (i.e. negative qualities) that they shouldn't be?

Obsessed with this question because I haven't thought about it at all! I'm just going to start typing and we'll all find out together.

Nephele: I mean "people who do not treat her well" for sure. Which is why she doesn't date. She's had enough bad experiences to know that if you can't stop putting yourself in bad situations, maybe you're the problem (and if my OC is just me wearing a hat, what then?). She's been the victim of abuse and genuinely can not trust herself to distinguish a red flag from a beige flag and it's safer to not even try.

What is it that INITIALLY attracted her to Lucanis? Look, she is no better than any of us. That man flew out on spectral wings, started kicking ass, SNAPPED A MAN'S NECK IN FRONT OF HER FACE, and she was like....I'm pregnant. What made her fall in love with him is that no one has ever treated her well in a relationship, and this motherfucker is so goddamn sweet and romantic. She genuinely can't get over the cake thing. Seriously the bar is in hell for men, but the idea that she said something, and he listened and remembered and then SPENT TIME making something for her? Obsessed. Came for the stabbing, stayed for the unconditional love and support.

Also if she hadn't gotten with Lucanis, she totalllllllly gets the appeal of Emmrich. They would have been an awful couple and it wouldn't have lasted, but they would have banged it out for sure.

Nasreen: I mean SOME people would say that you shouldn't be attracted to people twice your age. Those people are cowards.

Something I haven't gotten in to at all is that Nasreen definitely had a huge crush on Aleksei growing up. Just to clarify in case you haven't read my other oc posts, Nasreen was orphaned at 10 and after she met Aleksei like a couple months to a year later Aleksei brought her home to his single mom and three younger brothers and was like "Hey this is my new best friend, can she stay forever?", and his mom is genuinely the sweetest person ever and basically adopted her. But while Aleksei definitely embraced the whole brother/sister thing, Nasreen was crushing on him hard and was always kind of waiting for him to see that. And he fully missed it.

She genuinely hasn't felt an attraction to anyone strong enough to act on it since. Until meeting Emmrich. So what is her type? Apparently it's lanky soft boys. And she's so real for that.

Aleksei: Aleksei's problem is that he's attracted to pretty much everyone. If it's got a pulse, he's going to flirt with it. If it doesn't go anywhere, that's totally fine. If it does, awesome. The problem is that he doesn't realize that some people take it really personally when he flirts with them and then flirts with other people. He also doesn't know when he's flirting for fun and when he has actually fallen for someone.

Genuinely, the group had to take his hand and explain to him that he either had to stop flirting with Bellara, or actually date her, because she was getting her feelings hurt. It literally didn't occur to him. And then they had to explain to him that he actually liked her and he was like.......OOOHHHHHH yeah I fucked up.

If I hadn't committed to using him for Bellara before starting the game, there are multiple romances I could see working for him. Particularly Lace, Davrin, and Neve.

Paloma: Paloma is a one night stand girl because she doesn't know how to talk to people and build relationships, not because she doesn't WANT a relationship. So she goes for anyone really who seems down to clown, and then gets really sad when they leave, even though there was never a realistic expectation of them not leaving.

Konstantin: Konstantin is big on pining for people who have shown absolutely no interest in him. I don't think he would know if someone was flirting with him either way, but he is very much in his room writing his crush's name in hearts while they have no idea he exists. He had fallen insanely hard for Lace, and was honestly doing his best to make moves until Elspeth made it very clear that she was going to beat his ass if he tried anything.

Brenna: Brenna is allergic to commitment. It's a Grey Warden thing (or at least that's what she tells herself). The fact that she actually falls in love with Davrin is so fucking embarrassing to her.

Elspeth: Elspeth has absolutely had like a fuckboi past (I like how the question was what are they attracted to that's bad for them and a lot of these are "here's how actually they are the toxic one"). And what's worse is they are attracted to very sweet shy girls, and then they get distracted or bored and they move on. Sometimes they forget to tell the girl they've moved on. Sometimes they date multiple girls at the same time and they're not very good at keeping them from finding out.

She's not a BAD person...she's just kind of irresponsible. She does genuinely care about them at the start.....she just doesn't know how to pick girls that match her energy. Viago has gone downstairs to find a lot of girls crying in his living room and he is sick and tired of it.

[shdwtouch]

Kaey BG3 / DnD universe info.

kaey and his twin sister as half-elves, but they both strongly resemble wood elves and that is the lineage they claim. their mother was a wood elf and their father was a szarkai (albino drow), but their parentage was concealed from them by their mother; it was a secret she took to the grave, so they do not know who their father was nor what the other half of their half-elf is. they are half wood elf, but again, they can pass easily as full wood elves.

his mother was a druid healer, and his father (unknown to him) was a drow spy on the surface. his father originates from a drow house, name undecided, that has taken a special interest in gaining information and making connections on the surface. both kaeys father and aleksey are of this house, and aleksey is aware of who kaeys father is, but has never revealed that to him.

aleksey is a webweaver and information broker, but has used his houses resources and power to conduct experiments in an effort to allocate his own... well, power, independent of llolth. all of this has been done in secrecy / under the guise of furthering his houses influence.

at some point after leaving his mothers druid circle (I haven't really outlined anything earlier than this in his story at this point) he ended up working for a mercenary company, some shady types, that had some dealings in the underdark. he ends up working for alekseys house (the specifics may change, I'm not really set on anything yet) and ends up taking part in alekseys research, becoming one of his... experiments.

after a grievous injury to his arm aleksey uses kaey to unlock a celestial artifact, a gauntlet of sorts, and the artifact bonds with him, essentially becoming a prosthetic replacing his arm. it cannot be removed. aleksey did this hoping to unlock the artifacts energy, using it as a catalyst to turn kaey into an aasimar, but this ultimately fails and the artifact is damaged, unable to focus energy after bonding with kaey.

unknown to either kaey or aleksey, the celestial energy within the artifact is somewhat sentient, and while accepting kaey as its host it could sense alekseys intentions and refused to cooperate, while simultaneously being weakened by his attempts to forcefully unlock it. the connection it has to kaey is fractured and unstable, as is its divine connection, meaning he can't really use the artifact or its power, however the artifact knows hes a good person and is able to recharge through his own good actions. it is also very sympathetic to him.

still, the artifact is partially corrupted due to aleksey forcefully unlocking it, and this is something that can't be fixed. when kaey is able to channel the energy within the artifact there is a darkness to it. it should also be noted that kaey did achieved a pseudo-aasimar state, but since the artifact is weak and unstable this isn't really evident. this can be seen most noticeably when channeling magic, whether an energy related to the artifact or not: one can see kaey has faint, shadowy wings, that almost seem to glitch in an out of existence.

the artifacts corruption also impacts his health and general magic. this can also be seen in his work as a healer of ilmater, as he takes on the pain of his patients.

as a healer of ilmater kaeys mark is related to the injury of his arm and the artifact. in my lore, all healers and clerics of ilmater have a mark of some sort, usually an injury, scar, or illness. as they heal they take on the suffering of their patients, and this is reflected / felt within their mark.

so far, the idea is that kaey was a healer by trade, following in his mothers footsteps, and thats how he ended up working for the mercenary company, which led him to aleksey. somehow he manages to leave the underdark and meets henri, a cleric of ilmater, who takes him in and helps him start a path of redemption after what aleksey did to him and made him do to unlock the artifact. once again acting as a healer, his good deeds are cleansing the artifact and strengthening it.