#Subaur

[stillness-in-green]

Chapter 374 Thoughts: Butterfly Effect

How’s this for a turn-around time?  XD  Next time, starting on the inbox. Back to chronological bullet points because, again, the table-shuffling going on this week means I have less in-depth to talk about. (The exception: translation quibbles. I have a lot of translation quibbles. It's one of those weeks.)

O  I love how ominous that one visible eye tracking up from the hand to Mic is.  Whereas at the end of last chapter, its forward aim and the thin line of a single eyebrow made Kurogiri look mostly surprised/shocked, here his expression is considerably more chilling.

O  I don’t have anything in particular to say about Meryl the Weather Forecast gal making a Principled Stand against AFO, save to note that the projection behind her notes that the forecast is for the midnight news.(1)  That is to say, the viewership numbers are not at an all-time high for this noble speaking of truth to power.  (Though if the government is still playing at placating AFO, I wonder if that means Tim Ackbar is out of a job?)

O  Amused that even the tail on Iida’s talk balloon is at right angles.

O  Love the note from Burnin’ that Dabi’s “will” is inherited from Endeavor, because, wow, ain’t that the truth—lethal determination that never falters or flinches, no matter the obstacle.  Touya continues to be by far the most Endeavor-like in temperament of the Todoroki children.

Well, except that, as much as I love the Dabi Is Endeavor’s Monster read, it is still worth discussing that crediting Dabi’s willpower to Endeavor is diminishing his own individuality in ways that, ironically, play right into the narrative he spun for the world in his video: that his flames are Endeavor’s flames, that there’s no boundary between Endeavor’s sins and Dabi’s crimes.  That’s dangerous rhetoric, Burnin’! Especially for your side!

O  I suppose there must be a resurgence of Phoenix Quirk theorizing in response to this chapter, huh?  What with Burnin’ being very explicit about the There’s Something Else Going On Here signaling.   Chalk that up as something I’ll wait and see on because I don’t have enough deep interest in Dabi to actively theorize about it, save a mild curiosity as to what the explanation is that Ujiko, noted quirk specialist, failed to spot it.

O  I adore that page of the portal opening up in front of Dabi, though mainly because it delights me to imagine the sheer face-splitting width of the grin Skeptic must be wearing while he delivers that free travel line.

O  I find it irksome that C. Cook decided to entirely remove all reference to the implied friends Spinner spoke of last chapter when he begged Kurogiri to rescue Shigaraki-tachi, but then here in this chapter, in a moment that allows for a touch of ambiguity about who AFO is referring to, Spinner or Kurogiri, suddenly Cook goes with friends, plural.  The noun in question is ambiguous in the Japanese, sure, but the official English would nearly rule out Spinner as the topic of AFO’s monologue thanks to that singular/plural disagreement.

For the record, yeah, I think AFO is obviously referring to Spinner here.  It’s a bit of a run-on meander, but I think the switch to Kurogiri is just to emphasize that his presence is the result of Spinner’s strong feelings, not to indicate that Kurogiri was the topic all along.  Though I’m sure Shirakumo’s feelings for his friends are not at all off the table going forward, there’s not much reason to assume AFO is placing his trust in those feelings, given that the last time they were awakened, Shirakumo was instrumental in interrupting the surgery.

(Caveat: Given that ominous shifting of Shiragiri’s eye on the very first page, I suppose there’s a slight possibility that AFO is talking about Kurogiri here, and the feeling he’s talking about is “resentment that his ‘friends’ didn’t save him from the dark life he led after Ujiko and I stole him from the nest.”  That feels like a reach to me, but it would be very funny.)

O  The microchip line feels like another case of Horikoshi overexplaining things so he doesn’t get buried in letters from confused fans again like he did after Deku’s 1,000,000% against Muscular.  It’s not quite as egregious as Hawks and Jeanist’s incredibly terrible conversation in Chapter 299 reiterating things they both already knew about Jeanist’s faux death, but it’s got the same sense.

Like, presumably Spinner—and if not him, then definitely Scarecrow and the other PLF advisors—had some way of communicating with Skeptic.  It would not be so unbelievably convoluted to just assume Skeptic could patch himself through on one of those lines the same way he does to talk to Dabi this very chapter, especially since Skeptic somehow realized right away that Spinner succeeded. Indeed, a heads-up from Skeptic is presumably how AFO himself knew when to start monologuing about Spinner's success before the portals even appeared.  That would feel less off to me than trying to imagine Spinner letting The Hand out of his sight long enough for AFO to plant some chip on it.

As it is, I have to assume that when AFO says "microchip," he really means "micro transceiver." AFO didn't know about the heroes' Tempt & Trap plan to split up his army, so he couldn't have put the coordinates Kurogiri would need on the chip in advance. Ergo, it has to be actively receiving a signal that can relay everyones' current locations. Maybe, as a Noumu, Kurogiri can automatically decode orders from radio waves a la the Near High Ends, but it seems like the simplest thing would, again, be to just use whatever comm device Spinner has. Doesn't seem like it would be any more or less prone to breaking than the microchip in The Hand did, you know?

O  I have no strong feelings about that “Heya” added to Dabi’s line as he comes out of the portal, but considerably stronger feelings (negative) about adding the “Oh” to Togawice’s.  “Oh, Hawwwwks,” makes Himijin sound like a sassy slasher killer rather than an incredibly pissed-off guy risen from the grave for revenge.

In fairness, if the Twice speaking is transformed Toga, she’s usually much closer to “sassy slasher” than “furious revenant,” but this is her confronting Jin’s murderer—a topic that makes her drop her singsong levity every time it comes up. That long, menacing growl of Hawks' name feels much more accurate to her mindset.

Anyway, somehow-not-the-most-baffling-choice-made-this-chapter localization aside, it’s a panel we’ve all been waiting for for the better part of three years now, and I seriously can’t wait to see more of it.(2)  You can tell Horikoshi loved it, too; that is some seriously dedicated attention to contours, lighting, and linework.

O  “Femme fatale” was actually the localization choice that had me scratching my head the most this week, but some research suggests that the term AFO uses—傾国, keikoku—is one that, while it literally translates to siren/beauty/courtesan/prostitute, is understood to refer to a woman of such beauty and magnetism that emperors and kings become enamored, endangering their countries as their attention strays.  Certainly the most readily understood comparison to a Western eye would be Helen of Troy.

AFO’s full phrase was 少女に傾国, shoujo ni keikoku; Toga being a teenager rather than a full-grown woman is presumably why the shoujo got attached.  I don’t pretend to understand enough Japanese to say for sure what the ni would indicate about the relationship between the two words, though, much less in the context of the full sentence.  (Terminology I can look up on Google with reasonable enough confidence that I’ll at least land in the right ballpark; sentence structure is well past my level.  Take me with a grain of salt.)

Anyway, regardless of whether AFO is literally using that term for Toga or just describing the situation using a string of words that just-so-happens to call the term to mind, I like it as a callback to what Giran tells Twice in his Deika flashback:

O  Hawks, having learned absolutely nothing, immediately leaps to the much-quoted definition of insanity: repeating the same actions and expecting different outcomes.  I cannot wait to watch him get his ass handed to him.  That last panel(3) activated every schadenfreude button I’ve got, and I will be reading the next chapter with gleeful popcorn gifs scrolling across the forefront of my brain.  Hell, I might make a bowl irl.  Do not let me down on this one, Horikoshi.  And All For One, if you want to rub it in a little harder, you go right ahead.

Taking a break from my Hedonism Bot-esque delight, I will say that I’m delighted that Tokoyami will have a front-row seat for this, too.  It always bothered me that we never got more of him thinking about the claim that his beloved mentor killed a man in cold blood.  I’m not even saying he had to disagree with the choice; I just wish we’d gotten to see more than him tearfully dismissing the claim and then literally never thinking about it again.

Time for a reckoning, lads. Past time.

---FOOTNOTES---

1:  Which would put the current time in central Japan as being a bit after 5PM the next day, by the way.

2:  Though I imagine we’re going to start in flashback next chapter, if only to see how Tsuyu’s doing, that clearly being half of her headset in the rear Twice’s hands.

3:  With one last sigh-inducing translation choice for the road, since soitsu seems to be usually singular, and Hawks is clearly focused on Twice here, not Twice and Dabi, as would be one interpretation of “them.”  Anyway, loving that Hawks not only calls for Twice to get murdered again, like he wasn’t even listening to AFO yammering on about the consequences, he can’t even be polite about it.  Soitsu is, by all accounts, at best the kind of thing you use with friends you have a teasing, rough sort of dynamic with, and much more commonly regarded as derogatory.

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

Will (Lapse & Prolapse)

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/CBtsknz

by razielim

"Kyle." Jason ground it out at nearly subaural levels but it reverberated through Kyle's chest. "If you don't pull out right now and Bruce finds us like this, I will personally rip your dick off and leave you a bottom bitch for the rest of your miserable life."

Yeah, sure. Kyle didn't exactly want to be discovered like this by Batman either. But there was just one teeny tiny little problem with Jason's request. Actually… it was a rather large problem that Jason had originally requested in the first place. And willpower be damned, it wasn't going away.

for the-overanalyzer

Words: 2419, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 3 of Smutfest 2022

Fandoms: Batman (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Kyle Rayner, Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne

Relationships: Kyle Rayner/Jason Todd

Additional Tags: Sneaking Around, Knotting, Object Penetration, Prolapse, Large Cock, Size Kink

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/CBtsknz

[that-girl-with-the-blue-dress-on]

andy won the musical-instruments contest ostensibly for his creativity, mushrooms, and general lovable wizardry but the real magic is the way his slide trombone vibrates right up my ear canals at a nearly subaural frequency and scratches my brain till it purrs like a cat, thank you for coming to my tedtalk

(song here)

[woundthatswallows]

i listen to rapture by blondie and go fucking ballistic 

[isabele-kuran]

A DL skit inspired by my dream

legit i just dreamed this last night and it made me laugh for a while so I had to share

Location: Backyard?

Me and Subaru are both just standing around talking about whether the flowers need watered or not when some random pixies show up.

Random ass pixies: “we wield bees if  you answer our trivia wrong we sting you”

Subaru: “Hah! Get lost!” -swings his fist at them-

Me: -watches and sighs- “i don’t think you can punch them...they’ll just fly out of reach...”

pixies (by the way there are two of them speaking in unison): “the question is name 5 architects”

Both me and Subaru have question marks basically appear above our heads as we both clearly know 0 architects.

Me: “This is like the only time Reiji would be useful...”

Subaru: -laughs- “Yeah really him and those books of his”

pixies: -rudely interrupt our conversation- “times up~ you get stung” -flings 5 bees at each of us-

Subaru successfully punches 5 bees and I manage to get stung by all 5 in the forehead.

Me: -eyes start watering- “how rude!” -staggers a little feeling dizzy- “stupid pixies... Subaru quit punching bugs and lets just go inside the flowers can wait til those jerks leave” -wanders in a circle from the pain-

Subaru watches and grunts before going over and shoving me towards the door.

....

Location: Nearest Bathroom (most likely..?)

I stand there squinting in the mirror as I have removed my glasses to get a better access at all my bee stings. Subaru stands leaning against the wall behind me sighing.

Me: “you don’t have to watch... it’ll take a bit I got to get all the stingers out or I’ll get an infection.” -gets out out using my fingernails- “Fuck! these things are in deep” -pouts-

Subaru: -apparently fed up watch gets out tweasers and makes me face him and removes the rest within a moment- “there go to your room and lay down. I’m going to go trick Reiji into going outside” -grins menacingly-

I laugh wiping away a few tears that watered out cause stingers hurt and wander off returning my glasses to my face.

[leopauldelr]

GUTS服永吉昴+スーパーGUTS服明石真秀

[dialovers-translations]

Don't you think Subaru's love for his big brother, Shu, is one-sided? I read in More Blood track when Shu told Subaur that he would take him to a torture room if he continued to get angry and hit him. Is there any event or shot that shows that Shu loves Subaru? Or at least care about him? Please😔

I definitely remember there being a scene where Shuu explicitly tells Subaru not to get himself killed. I think it's in one of his HDB endings when he decides to leave the house with Yui/the MC? I've just translated so much stuff by now, everything is blurring together, haha.

If somebody can confirm, that'd be awesome.

[deidaratheartboi]

Popularity Sakamki Group Chat Reiji: WHO IS THROWING STUFF AT 3 IN THE MORNING?? Subaru?! Subaur: Me? Why would I throw something at 3 in the morning?? Oh I get it since I punch wallls you immediately expect me! Typical Reiji. Reiji: Well I'm sorry for being mad about losing five hours of sleep! Who's making that noise?! Ayato: Laito started it! He said I was the least liked person among us! He said the fans loved him more then yours truly. Such a lie. Laito: You can check for yourself drama king! Ayato: I'm the drama king?! Have you even lived with yourself?? Laito: Listen here you little- Reiji: Enough! We can simply go on the website and solve this issue right now. The listings for the favorite character should still be there. It might be a bit old though but, they should still be the same. Ayato: Whatever! We need to solve this now. Shu: The hell is going on? Reiji: They want to see which one of them is more popular. Shu: Tch Reiji: So the most popular one is..... Ayato: Who? Who's first? Is it yours truly? Reiji: No it's Shu... Ayato: Nani?! Ayato: Impossible. He's lazy, he has horrible manners, and a deadbeat! Reiji: Well the fans say they think he's handsome, cute, and something about sadism. Shu: I don't care. And, this argument you two are having is foolish. Ayato: Shut up. Kanato: He's the most popular one? Shocking. Reiji: Next is....Subaru?? Subaru: Eh? Laito: I think the people voting have serious parental issues. Kanato: What's that mean? Ayato: They have daddy issues or something. Kanato: Ohhh...what does that mean? Shu: Stfu Reiji: They love his protective and gentle side. They also like his smile or something. Subaru: I- Idiots. As if I care about them liking me or whatever. Laito: Shut up and let's move on to me! Reiji: That is quite unbelieveable. Moving on still. For third place there is Kanato. Ayato: It's the face. Laito: There must be something wrong with our fans. Reiji: Well yes considering most of them are teenage girls and fanfic writers with an abundant amount issues. Someone even said they wanted to become one of his wax dolls. Kanato: Really? When and where? Reiji: Moving on. Ruki takes fourth place. Laito: He's not even a Sakamaki and he's placing higher then us! What do they like about him? Reiji: His distant and cool personailty. Someone called him charming and a genius. Subaru: Tch. More like a smart ass. Ayato: This is just sad. Where do we even come in at?? Reiji: Wait your turn. Next up we have Ayato. Ayato: HAH! Take that Laito! Top five baby! What do they say about yours truly? Laito: Shut up with yours truly. Dumbass. Ayato: Awww are you jealous Laito? Reiji: Someone said they love you most in the whole wide world- Ayato: As they should. Reiji: Let me finish. And, you're handsome, cute, and you every so often turn into a spoilt child. Ayato: What?! Whatever. I know most people adore me anyway. Reiji: Then we have Laito placing sixth after you. They love the voice drop and you're clingy. Laito: I'm not clingy! Reiji: They also said you're creepy. Ayato: Hah. Get some better fans Laito. Laito: Shut up. Reiji: Next we have Yuma, after him there's oh.. it's me. Eighth place. Laito: Oooooo what did they say about you? Reiji: None of your business. Next we have Azusa, and finally Yui. Laito: Imagine placing last. Shu: Couldn't be me. Ayato: Thought you said you didn't care. Subaru: Well a little popularity didn't hurt anyone. Besides I like making you mad. Shu: Hah. Kanato: Indeed. Can't imagine not being popular. Ayato: I placed top five though! Shu: Oh yeah he did. Why don't we invite Ruki over to celebrate with us? Only the top five are allowed though. Subaru: How can we argue with that? He is the number one after all which makes him boss. Ayato: Let's go! Reiji: What a headache.

Where I got the info from. See ya later.

[tessiete]

hii so idrk if u take reqs but can we have some korkie and obi-wan on fathers day?

Well, I have no concept of time, BUT I have finally completed this prompt! Hope you find it, anon, and I hope it lives up to your desires! Featuring cameos from Anakin, and Satine! Buituur = Parent's Day (It's become a full week, at this point!) Ijaat'ilor = Honour Meal Amalios = August(ish) (Basic) Haa'Tabguri = February(ish) (Mando'a) Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum = I love you. Alright, I think that's all the preamble! HERE WE GO!!

Master Kenobi has never missed a single Buituur Festival - not in all the seven years that Kiorkicek has been on Coruscant. Every year, with careful diligence, his master has marked off the dates on the little chronocalendar posted just at the door of Korkie’s room. It is always one standard week, but it always changes.

“It is based on the cycle of the moons,” his master says. “And there are two to keep track of, you know.”

“Yes!” Korkie agrees, eager to display the quality of his education. “Concordia, for eternal friendship, and Amity, for change.”

“Very good, Kiorkicek,” says his master, as he uses his stylus to draw a thick line across five days near the end of Amalios, which Korkie knows will be sometime in Haa’Tabguri on Mandalore.

“And will we go again this year?” he asks, bouncing on his seat. The thin pallet of his bed doesn’t rebound with the same elasticity as the one on Mandalore, but that’s alright - his enthusiasm is buoyant enough.

“Of course,” says his master, just as he knew he would, and Korkie grins.

“Thank you, Bebu! Thank you!”

His father understands, and his father would never miss it.

--

But the turn of the stars serves no single man’s purpose, and events conspire to grind promises to ash. Four years later, they are somewhere else, somewhere far away when Buituur Festival comes, and they cannot make it.

“You promised,” he says, cloak drawn tight to his body as he slides down the co-pilot seat, propping his feet on the dash. “You said we would be back in plenty of time.”

“I know what I said, Kiorkicek, but I was wrong.”

His master flicks a switch, calculating a sedate and altogether conservative flightplan back to Coruscant. Korkie watches the numbers scroll, and scoffs. Anakin would laugh at such a course. Anakin would die of shame if Obi-Wan were his master.

“So you lied,” Korkie says, toeing at one of the atmocontrols with his boot.

“Feet off, please,” says Obi-Wan. “I didn’t lie. I miscalculated.”

Korkie swings his legs to the floor, and stands with all the indignant wrath of a sullen fifteen year old. “Same thing,” he sneers, then he sweeps out the door to find his bunk.

--

The ship is too small for true privacy, and he’s compelled to share the narrow quarters with his father, but he’s not feeling particularly generous right now, so he shuts the door, and locks it behind him. Master Kenobi can sleep in the cockpit for all he cares.

He flops onto his bed, and throws his boots aside, unpolished. His cloak he drops in an untidy pile beside his bed. Let it crease, he thinks, as he pulls his tabards loose and flings his belt to the floor to join them. Let them wrinkle. I hope I lose them all. From the depths of his rucksack, still splattered with mud from their uncivilised flight, and hasty departure, he digs out a battered Temple issued comlink. Beneath his feet, he feels the rumble of engines drop to something subaural, and his stomach bottoms out to follow. For a moment, he feels weightless, like he sits at the top of a huge fall, but then he comes back to himself, and he flings himself backward over his bed. They’ve entered hyperspace.

No matter. It won’t get them anywhere fast enough to turn back time. Forget Anakin’s embarrassment - if it takes them sixteen years to return to Coruscant Korkie couldn’t care less. It’d still be too late.

He flicks through his comdeck to find Anakin’s number, and pings him.

“What?”

Anakin’s voice fills the room, staticky with distance and movement. There’s no image, so Korkie assumes he’s in the middle of something.

“Hello to you, too.”

“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” says Anakin, confirming Korkie’s hypothesis.

Korkie runs his hand through his hair in distress. “Well, I’m absolutely in the middle of nowhere,” he bemoans. “You should see the course my father set for this trip. I think Master Yaddle is a braver pilot than he is.”

“That sounds like Obi-Wan,” says Anakin. “One sec.”

There is the shuffle of fabric over the amplifier, and then muffled voices in the background. He thinks he hears Master Qui-Gon, and maybe distant blaster fire. A typical mission for the Jinn-Skywalker team. At least they have some excitement.

“You still there?” asks Anakin, a few minutes later.

“Nowhere else to be,” Korkie sighs.

“What’s wrong with your dad?” he asks, and Korkie frowns.

“Nothing,” he replies. “Why would you ask?”

“I dunno,” replies Anakin. He can hear the distraction in his voice. “Why else would you be calling me?”

Korkie sighs, making sure it is extravagant enough to be heard over the com. “Because I’m suffering,” he says.

Anakin’s tone hardly changes. Still that distracted disinterest. “Okay, well, tell him to call Master Jinn when he can. Something about remembering to bring back some nadashaap leaves from Sundari, or something.”

“We’re not going to Sundari.”

“Mandalore,” says Anakin. “Wherever. Look, I’ve really got to go. I - yes, master! I see them!” A lightsaber hums. “Korkie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got to go.”

“May the Force be with you,” he says, but Anakin’s already signed off.

He ought to call his mother, and explain. She answers almost immediately, and he feels guilty - had she been waiting?

“Korkie, my love!” Her face appears, tinted blue and blurred with the flickering light of a hologram, but it is her, and Korkie aches to see her smile. “How are you, darling?”

“Fine,” he says, but he cannot smile in return.

“Are you keeping up with your studies?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Your father says you have top marks in Core History, and Outer Rim Politics of the Colonial Age, but that you failed your last assignment in Pollinators and Pests in Basic Agriculture.”

Korkie frowns. “Well, if you already know that, then why did you ask?”

“Korkie?” she says. Her voice turns inquisitive, and he hates the fragile note of hurt in the tone. He wishes now there were no hologram, and that he hadn’t called at all.

“Sorry, Belli,” he says, bowing his head, and picking at his fingers so that she can’t see the shame burn across his cheeks.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, all hurt transformed to concern, and that is almost worse.

“Nothing,” he says.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Is your father -”

“Master Kenobi is fine,” he says. “Why does everybody ask?”

His mother recoils. Her image flickers as her expression shifts, and she lifts a brow in suspicion.

“Master Kenobi?” she repeats. “Not Bebu? Not father? What’s wrong?”

He lets out a groan, knowing that he cannot hide any longer. “It’s Buituur week,” he says.

“And?”

“And, perhaps it is nothing to you, but you may have noticed we are not there!”

“I had noticed, cyar’ika,” she says, calm and soothing even in the face of his simmering upset. She speaks as though it is not the betrayal he knows it is. “Your father called me before you left Parvis to tell me you wouldn’t be back.”

“Oh.”

“Did he not warn you?” she asks.

“No,” he replies. “He did.” He is angry, but he cannot lie. He will not slander his father with falsehoods, but neither will he defend him. “But he promised. He said - every year we would always go home for Buituur. Always.”

“And you have,” she says. “This is the first year that hasn’t been possible.”

“So he lied.”

His mother is taking none of this. He turns away so that he cannot see her lips press into a frown, and her brows draw together in displeasure.

“He didn’t lie, Kiorkicek,” she says, with the dreaded use of his full name. His mother never uses his full name. His father never shortens it. “He didn’t know you would be stuck in weeks of negotiations.”

“Then he shouldn’t have accepted an assignment so far away!” he retorts, some of the heat in his cheeks moving to his stomach to stoke those banked fires of indignation.

“It is his duty,” the Duchess reminds him. “And yours. Or do you think yourself above your vows?”

He rolls his eyes, and flicks his braid. “No,” he says.

“Excuse me?” his mother asks, a warning in her tone.

“No, ma’am,” he replies, just as testily.

His mother tuts, and Korkie tightens his jaw, biting back his resentment. For a moment, there is a strained silence between them, like the elasti-band tension between two armies before the first shot is fired. But some of his father must have rubbed off on him, because Korkie relents first, the rigidity of his spine softening, and he wilts into loose limbed resignation.

“I’m just...disappointed,” he says. “I miss you.”

“Oh, my love,” Satine says. “I miss you, too. Always. But I will see you soon, yes? Your leave will just be a bit later this year.”

“But we’ll have missed the festival.”

“Do you miss me, or do you miss the festival?” his mother demands, with a playful lilt, intent now on jollying him out of his gloom.

“You, of course,” he says, tucking a reluctant smile away before she catches him at it.

“Then it doesn’t matter when I see you,” she says. “The festival is only meant to be a reminder: honour your parents, and celebrate them.”

“I know,” he says. “That’s what I wanted to do. Honour you.”

“You know, Korkie, you have two parents.”

He cocks his head, and looks up at her sharply. “Well, yes!” he says. “But I’m always with bebu.”

“So?”

“So I wanted this week to be about you.”

“But we have decided that is impossible,” she says. “So how else might you celebrate it?”

--

He finds his father slumped over a datapad in the tiny galley, a cup of tea at his elbow. Korkie touches it as he sits down across from Master Kenobi, and feels that the ceramplast has grown cold with time, the liquid in it only half drunk. Obi-Wan looks up, blinking away the blur of distraction at his arrival.

“Kiorkicek -”

“I just wanted to apologise,” Korkie says, not waiting for his father to speak. Perhaps that might be considered impolite, but he knows that he is in the wrong, and he doesn’t want his father to excuse him before he can express his regret. “I’m sorry that I blamed you for the delay in Parvis, and I’m sorry that I was so unkind to you. I know that you couldn’t have foreseen that we would miss Buituur Festival, and that it was unfair to accuse you of lying. I was disappointed, but that is no excuse for my behaviour, and I promise it won’t happen again.”

His father is nonplussed. “Well…” he says, slipping his hands into the folds of his cloak. “Well, thank you. And I apologise for being unable to -”

“- To command time?” Korkie cracks a smile. “It wasn’t your fault, bebu. Don’t apologise.”

“Bebu?” says Obi-Wan, eyes sparkling. “Now I know I am forgiven.”

Korkie leans over the table to bring his father close, and pulls his hand from out his sleeve. He holds it between his own, and draws it to his lips leaving a delicate, reverential kiss upon the knuckles.

“Always,” Korkie vows. “And just because we can’t be home for Buituur Week doesn’t mean we cannot celebrate it.”

“Oh?”

“Yes!” Korkie says. He releases his father’s hand, and leaps to his feet. “Now, I know that we are rather limited in our supplies, but I am not limited in my creativity, and I have a plan. Belli says that one of the most important traditions of Buituur is the Ijaat’ilor.”

“The honour meal.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I am certain that we might come up with something suitable enough, and arrange a holocall with your mother so that you might dine together -”

“No, not with belli, alor,” says Korkie. “With you.”

“Me?”

“Are you not also my buir?”

“I am,” says Obi-Wan.

“Then I would honour you,” says Korkie.

He shifts away to search the stores and cupboards, seeking something moderately edible, something that may be reconstituted into a feast fit to exalt his master suitably enough, but in the hollow, ascetic reserves of their tiny ship there is nothing to match his desire. He gathers what he can, combining this packet with that tin, and adding the few spices that he knows his father can tolerate. He is done in minutes, thanks to the dull efficiency of ready-pack meals, and he sets a steaming plate of instant noodles, and nutricubes before him. As a last minute touch, he boils a little more of their precious water reserves and steeps a fresh cup of tea for his father.

Then, he sits, and together they lift their grub-sticks to sample his work.

His father chews, swallows, and sips at his tea, wincing slightly at the heat. Korkie grimaces in distaste.

“Well,” says Obi-Wan. “At least it’s hot.”

Korkie shoves his plate away, his heart sinking down to his scuffed up boots.

“I’m sorry, bebu,” he says. “I did try.”

“I know you did, my one. It is not your fault. There is nothing to be salvaged from ration packs.”

“But I wanted to please you,” Korkie protests. “I wanted to show you how I admire you. I wanted to honour you for Buituur Week.”

Obi-Wan pushes his plate to join Korkie’s at the side, and stands. With a single step, he is around the edge of the table, and kneeling at his son’s feet. Korkie doesn’t resist when his father tugs him to the end of the bench, turning him to face him where he waits, and taking his hands in his.

“You always please me,” his father says. “You always honour me. Kiorkicek, I do not need Ijaat’ilor, I do not need Buituur Week. You honour me every day, just by being you, and it is my admiration I must express. I am so proud of you, my son. So proud. And I am honoured to be your father.”

“Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum, bebu,” Korkie says, throwing his arms around his father’s neck.

His father wraps his own around him in turn, and holds him close. “Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum, Kiorkicek Kryze. Always.”

[crystalkleure]

The word of the day is:

Subaural

sub·au·ral /sŭb-aw'răl/

Adjective

Definitions:

• Below the ear

• Below the threshold of hearing

[gnusnoteunuchs]

The soldier kaiju, Megaturion.

Typical height: 45-55 meters

Typical weight: 3000-4500 metric tons

The first examples of the megaform Megaturion first appeared early in the Fall of Mankind. While many other contemporary megaforms were less aggressive, keeping to themselves and focusing on repairing the Earth’s broken ecosystems, Megaturions attacked human cities en masse. They exhibit competent herd behavior, with their behavior becoming more confident and directed in larger numbers. Megaturion was dubbed “the soldier kaiju” because of the protracted and aggressive campaign conducted by them against human cities and infrastructure during the Fall of Mankind, and much of the remnants of humanity consider Megaturion to be emblematic of the Earth’s enmity against human civilization.

Megaturion are skilled fighters with excellent coordination and body control. Their bodies are equipped with multiple spines, all of which are extremely durable and very useful for attacking both megaform foes and human constructions. Some Megaturion are able to spit a stream of electrolytic fluid from their mouth, which causes electric shocks and arcs on whatever it lands on, while other examples of the species have been observed spitting highly corrosive acid or flammable vapor instead. Additionally, Megaturion can fire a high-energy coherent electromagnetic beam from their Beast’s Heart crystal, though they seem reluctant to use this ability because of its energy-draining nature. However, this beam maintains strong effectiveness out to a range of approximately 800 meters, representing a strong area denial capability. All Megaturion exhibit strong learning abilities, and adapt to enemy strategies rapidly. They have been demonstrated to use human constructions as cover from ranged attacks, and will delay destroying buildings in order to keep them as cover, if they feel the situation demands it. Megaturion, however, are not confident swimmers, and will avoid bodies of water when at all possible. Older, more experienced members of the species have been observed to be more cautious around power lines, clearly association suspended cables with electric shocks. Megaturion communicate with a simple language of grunts, cries, and subaural frequencies, and can contact other members of the species up to miles away.

While Libra 318 (Colloquially referred to as Ultraman Libra) fought alongside humanity in the Fall of Mankind, they were eventually overcome by the Earth’s kaiju, especially the scores of Megaturion that appeared in cities across the world. Ultraman Libra ultimately fell at the hands of a Megaturion in Phoenix, Arizona in August 2062. Libra would not be seen again until 2090, when they reappeared in the Nagoya conurbation.

After the end of the Fall of Mankind (debated by historians, but generally considered to be late 2075), Megaturion activity and appearance decreased drastically. Megaturion do still encroach on human settlements from time to time, but typically no longer appear in groups of more than three, and are correspondingly less aggressive.

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

Will (Lapse & Prolapse)

by razielim

"Kyle." Jason ground it out at nearly subaural levels but it reverberated through Kyle's chest. "If you don't pull out right now and Bruce finds us like this, I will personally rip your dick off and leave you a bottom bitch for the rest of your miserable life."

Yeah, sure. Kyle didn't exactly want to be discovered like this by Batman either. But there was just one teeny tiny little problem with Jason's request. Actually… it was a rather large problem that Jason had originally requested in the first place. And willpower be damned, it wasn't going away.

for the-overanalyzer

Words: 2419, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 3 of Smutfest 2022

Fandoms: Batman (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Kyle Rayner, Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne

Relationships: Kyle Rayner/Jason Todd

Additional Tags: Sneaking Around, Knotting, Object Penetration, Prolapse, Large Cock, Size Kink

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/43825977

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/23/2019: FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION - BEAST STABLE

I’m not sure that I made the right choice by including this film in my blogtober program. A fugitive thriller with women’s prison and yakuza elements, BEAST STABLE doesn’t seem very horrific on its face. However, this third installation in the Female Prisoner Scorpion series (and the last by visionary director Shunya Ito) is also the most visceral and intimate. Its relative lack of action movie bravado shifts the focus from matters of the spirit to those of the body, the appalling details of which made me ask myself whether I didn’t consider this a horror movie after all. My conclusions are not very firm, but the debate is worth having.

During notorious convict Sasori (”Scorpion”)/Nami Matsushida’s latest escape, she runs afoul of the relentless Detective Kondo (Mikio Narita) on the subway, who no sooner cuffs her than loses his arm to her blade. This produces some of my favorite images from the whole hallucinatory series, with Matsu racing through the streets with the severed limb flailing behind her to the unforgettable sounds of star Meiko Kaji’s theme song “Urami Bushi”. In her flight to a shanty town on the outskirts of the city, she meets a young prostitute named Yuki (Yayoi Watanabe) in a most outrageous fashion. Yuki lies on her back in a cemetery, clutching bills from the john who left her there, and gazing vacantly at the stars. When a strange sound draws her attention, she finds herself locking eyes with the feral Matsu, who crouches behind a tombstone with the severed arm in her mouth, scraping away at the handcuff chain. The strange gothic horror of this scene only scratches the surface of how weird BEAST STABLE will become.

Yuki is an especially desperate character whose pitiful lot justifies the trouble that she makes for Matsu. A poor prostitute who is virtually enslaved to her brain damaged brother, she must keep his base instincts in check only by submitting to his every sexual whim. When Yuki chases after Matsu, begging to be freed from this nightmare, she unwittingly attracts the attention of the local mob, including a female pimp with a penchant for back alley abortions. The crow-obsessed crook Katsu, who might as well be a Batman villain (played by Reisen Ri, who has powerful Karen Black vibes) hatches a plot to take out Matsu, but this falls apart when Matsu starts slashing her way through the gang’s ranks. Rather than confront her, Katsu foolishly opts for the safety of prison--Matsu’s home turf, where she is able to exact a diabolical revenge that belongs more in a giallo than a standard issue women’s prison movie. 

BEAST STABLE is often as beautiful as either of its two predecessors, which are generally considered to be superior; the dreamy rain of fire produced when Yuki searches for Matsu by dropping matches into the sewer is not to be missed. Admittedly the other films have a more ethereal, allegorical quality, but BEAST STABLE holds its own in terms of being potently disturbing. Where we previously found female criminality presented in a sort of heroic light, aimed at the dissolution of the corrupt prison system and the punishment of hypocrites, here women are metaphorically imprisoned in maddeningly hopeless situations. Yuki is unable to emotionally separate herself from her rapist brother, as she is carrying his baby to term--even after being raped with a golf club by Katsu for intruding on the pimp’s territory. When one of Katsu’s colleagues sets his sights on Matsu, the thug’s distraught girlfriend kills him by virtually boiling him alive. Trapped in Katsu’s bird cage, Matsu escapes by retrieving a scalpel from the cold grip of a prostitute who died as a result of a horrifying abortion. Nowhere are the courageous, castrating antiheroes of FEMALE PRISONER 701: SCORPION or JAILHOUSE 4. In BEAST STABLE, we have only Matsu grimly following a trail of victims to the film’s hard won conclusion.

I am left trying to figure out if I can create a reasonable distinction between horror and pure exploitation, at least in this case. My first clue lies in the film’s profound sadness, which first appears in the image of the recently befouled Yuki, lying fully clothed in a cemetery like a discarded corpse. Apparently, I think that despair is an important element in horror. It would be pretty difficult for anyone other than the most serious degenerates to get it up for this movie, with its relentless agonies and heavy focus on abortion. There is no token lesbianism or nude calisthenics to brighten the mood now and again, and at that, the violence is rarely political. In the former films, Matsu and her defacto acolytes rage against authorities who would break their spirits, but in BEAST STABLE the violence is personal and intimate rather than institutional, and few characters are afforded a majestic martyrdom as a way out. SCORPION and JAILHOUSE 41 pit the anonymizing degradation of jail against the glories of anarchy and vengeance, but BEAST STABLE reaffirms that not much good awaits women beyond prison bars.

This line of thinking leads me to indulge in a personal note. I was introduced to this series while still in college, by a person who I would later categorize as a total abuser. Though he was highly intelligent and charismatic in an offbeat way, he dated exclusively much younger women--a sure sign of someone avoiding the sound judgment of his peers--and there was some evidence of his having that iffy white guy preference for asian girls. He lured in women who were too young or inexperienced to know better by flaunting his inner sensitivity and trauma, and then once he had someone (or more than one person) on the hook, he rewarded her by being relentlessly dishonest and unfaithful, as if to teach her a lesson for sympathizing with him. To my knowledge, he had not been a women’s studies major in his school days, but he might as well have been, as most of his film discussion came through a feminist filter. He analyzed sleazy genre fare to within an inch of its life, and seemed to delight in making remarks like that the infamous borderline pornographic slasher movie THE TOOLBOX MURDERS “is dangerous and should not be seen.” This all might sound like the typical calculation of a basic predator, but having been his unfortunate friend for several years, I truly believe that he believed his own bullshit. His manic depressive behavior belied little self-reflection, and he would sometimes make tearful statements that bordered on magical thinking, about how “something” unnameable about him drove women insane. He seemed genuinely affronted by his long suffering girlfriend’s suggestion that he might be a misogynist, even though he admitted to hitting her during at least one argument. (A fact that he naturally presented as something that should make me feel sorry for him, in his epic turmoil) He showed no awareness of how suspicious it might be to some people, that he voraciously took in any movie starring teenage girls or childlike women; even though I held his opinion in the highest regard for years, I had to learn to start ignoring him when he recommended these movies, because whether he was right about their actual quality was a complete crap shoot. 

The point that I’m coming to is that he was absolutely obsessed with the character of Sasori. He believed that the JAILHOUSE 41 was one of, if not The greatest movie of all time, and both his email address and user image related to her. The FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION series represented the pinnacle of his absolute favorite thing, which was raped virgins returning for revenge. Back when I knew him, I took this to be plain old good taste; today, I associate it obliquely with an attitude I sense a lot on the political right. Without giving this remotely the space that it would take more me to fully prove my point, I’ll just say that part of what motivates conservatives and bigots is the profound, primal, unconscious fear that those they have repressed will come back to avenge themselves. There’s a subaural signal in right wing rhetoric that I always hear beyond their empty circuitous logic, that simply says “We’ve done a lot of bad things to you, and by virtue of that, now we have reason to fear that you will do those same things to us, given the slightest chance.” Since that time, I have become acquainted with more men like this than I would have preferred to. Not the scheming women’s studies serial rapists, but  the sulking intellectuals whose unshakable belief in their own nobility--their certainty that they are too smart to be bigots--prevents them from fully acknowledging their abusive, misogynist, and frankly sometimes pedophilic attitudes toward women. These guys vocally obsess over the likes of Lydia Lunch and Kim Gordon and Sasha Grey and Asia Argento et al, and boast about their literacy in matters of gender and sexuality, only to routinely accumulate the most submissive and virginal partners they can find, and blame these girls for all of their personal problems for as long as they stick around. The FEMALE CONVICT SCORPION movies are great, both in terms of formal artistry and metaphor for the female experience. I would love to believe in the specialness of men who relate so openly to characters like Matsu, but because of my majority experience, I’m afraid I tend to find them all guilty until proven innocent.

[dailycharacteroption]

Stonesinger (Bard Archetype)

 There is magic in music, so they say, the bard class is proof enough of that. However, another common thread is that everything and everyone responds differently to different music. You’ve probably heard about fictional elven musicians which command the very forest around them with their notes, so why wouldn’t this also be the case with other races exerting uncanny control over their homes.

While not limited to dwarves, the tradition of stonesinging has been with that stalwart people for generations, even before their Quest for Sky in the Golarion setting. However, not just anyone can become a stonesinger, for it requires a vocal range, or at least a talent for music that dips into the subsonic range, resonating, both physically and mystically, with the rock around them.

With this power, such bards can provide abilities normally associated with geomancers to the party, supporting them in unique ways.

 As one might expect, these bards learn a handful of geomancy spells, adding them to their arsenal, everything from enhancing stone projectiles to shaping barriers and other shapes of stone, passing through the earth, hardening the body, and even speaking to the spirits of objects to learn from them.

Reaching into subaural ranges, the performances of these bards are more felt than heard, with most allies benefiting from them within the normal range, though allies that can sense vibrations can benefit from them from much further away.

By focusing the vibrations, stonesingers can upset a foe’s footing with localized tremors, upsetting their defenses, though obviously this has no effect on foes not in contact with the ground.

With another shockwave, they can even knock groups of foes off their feet.

Naturally this archetype works best when supporting allies with tremorsense, as well as debuffing foes that cannot fly, including flying foes grounded by tight quarters. Their selection of defensive spells and utility also make them quite survivable, and I personally recommend a build that mixes support with combat.

 Given the broad, universal connection that most such races have with the stone around them, this archetype definitely has a Darklands feel, but anywhere where geology has an impact could be a place where stonesingers thrive, regardless of race.

 Among the guardians of the rocky hills of Beremeth, lichen leshies are particularly popular allies, and geomancy is the preferred way to channel the power of nature, including the art of stone singing. The voices of such bards can be heard echoing through the mists.

 While normally associated with the sea, there are some clans of deep ones and their hybrid kin that dwell in flooded caverns, their members singing songs to the stone with deep, croaking voices. The clan beneath Tor Manogg holds stewardship over a fragment of the Elder Star, meaning those on a quest to reunite the pieces must deal with the piscine folk.

 Having turned away long ago from their subterranean wars, the drow and dwarves now channel their conflicts into competitions meant to demonstrate their mastery over their underground home, not least of which includes the stonesinger’s competition, the caverns resonating with various styles of music for miles and miles.

[edmund-valks]

What Lies Beneath... the Barn

“Wait, if you can think of that, why do you need me?”

Ilandreline brushed dark hair back from her sweat-slicked brow, carefully pouring molten metal into gear molds.  “Because I can only do the calculations, not the actual magic.  Also I would prefer to be able to validate it before I get my friends sucked into terrifying cosmic voids.”

She was really glad for this setup, even more glad that nobody seemed to notice she’d built a basement into the barn using a disintegrating arcanodrill while they’d been off engaging in weird things like “commerce”, whatever that meant.  Not that she didn’t know what the word meant, but.  Is my internal dialogue supposed to be this bad?  No, it’s not.  Maybe you’re not as smart as you hoped.  Fair.

“Anyway,” she said aloud, setting the fresh gears to quench, “you’re the only one I know who even cares about my planar work, much less understands how to use it in this fashion.  You already made it better, remember?  That second letter of yours?”  She spared a glance for the other elf, trying to gauge her reaction.

Perched on a corner of her workbench, the diminutive ren’dorei was… blushing?  Either that or suffocating; her cheeks were flushed a soft violet rather than her whole face, so presumably it wasn’t asphyxiation.  “Well, I mean, anyone could have if they-”

“If you finish that sentence I’m going to hit you with a wrench.”

She stopped so fast her teeth clacked.

The Fence Macabre’s resident -- whether they knew it or liked it -- engineer continued.  “If anyone could do it, then I’m a fool for not having done it myself, and I’m pretty sure you didn’t just call me a fool.  And second of all, no, they couldn’t have, so stop trying to downplay your work.  You’re smart about this stuff and you’ve got a unique perspective.  You’re a valuable colleague and I’d love for you to be a co-author when I publish this theory.”

More colour rushed to her cheeks, making Sentua look something like a blueberry.  Poor thing!  Whatever the ren’dorei had done to themselves, it had really screwed them out of any fashion choices they may have liked beforehand.  Red and gold just… didn’t… with that complexion.

“I… would like to be published with you, thank you.  Are you sure- Wait, of course you are, otherwise you wouldn’t have said it, right?”  She took several deep breaths.  “Sorry.”

Ila shook her head.  “Don’t worry about it.  You about studied up, ready to try out the first one?”

“Um.  Let me take one more look at the diagram and re-check the math.  Then I’ll go over the runes again.”

“Sure thing, take your time.  I got a bunch of these brass bastards to make anyway.”  Anyone from the Fence who wasn’t her was unlikely to have any idea why she was making multiple copies of something that was already built.  That was probably for the best.  Nobody else really seemed to appreciate the old grandfather clock the way she did.

While she worked, her visitor did exactly as she’d said she would, tracing the structure they’d slowly developed using extraplanar theoretics combined with several known nexus points.  If they’d had access to a superior medium (who wasn’t also wholeheartedly opposed to their purpose), maybe they would have been able to determine if it was going to work without having to craft a prototype.  But what would be the fun in that?

Well, it would certainly involve less child endangerment.

Hey!  That’s not fair, she’s an adult!

...In human years, yes.  How old is she?  Twenty?

Twenty-three?  Give or take a year.

This is wildly irresponsible parenting!

I’m not her parent!

Good point.  It’s really irresponsible of them to let her hang out with someone like us.

No kidding!  What are they thinking!

“Okay, I’m getting started now.  Try to keep quiet and stay over there.  I’m… not sure what this is going to look like when I get it going.”

That made two of them.  Ilandreline very casually moved behind a thickly armoured panel she used in case one of her iron molds exploded.  “Righto, let ‘er rip, Senny!”

Despite her youth, she sure looked like she knew what she was doing.  Having grown up around an assortment of arcane manipulators (as well as normal manipulators), Ila could usually follow spellwork as it happened.  She was utter rubbish at it herself, but that was why she’d done theoretical work.  That way she never had to prove anything except on paper.

The interweaving runic designs began flaring to life, unexpectedly nightblue with pinpricks of starlight within them.  A brief peek without her goggles in place confirmed that wasn’t a trick of the lenses, it was the Real Deal.  Since she had no idea what it meant, if anything, the sin’dorei kept waiting and watching.

A subaural thrum filled the air, slowly building intensity.  Sentua seemed unbothered, continuing to do… whatever a wizard did during a lengthy ritual.  Concentrate or something.  The vibration became more sensible until it started to feel like her teeth were going to rattle from her skull.  Then it stopped and things got weird.

When your family was exiled due to a misunderstanding involving the regular sacrifice over centuries of sentient beings to dark powers, you grew up with a different baseline for weirdness from others.  As a result, this wasn’t the weirdest thing Ila had ever seen, but it was certainly up there.  She pulled her goggles off to see with the tainted vision that same “misunderstanding” had gifted her.

Portals were opening and clothing, like mouths made of eyes, evaporating as soon as they formed.  A loop made of itself (what?) turned outside-in until they disappeared inside it.  Eyes of darkness flared against the backdrop of interminable void within one of the gaping portal-maws and she felt uncomfortably seen.  Maybe I messed up the math after all.

A crackle of power flared through the starlight rune-circles, drawing constellations like the antipodal counterpart of what she’d seen in drawings from Ulduar.  This was a place she recognized, but not in a way she’d experienced it before.  There was the old, familiar whisperings, comforting as ever, slipping over and through her being with their gentle rubberiness.  The sensation of being watched, as always, and knowing what was heard wasn’t her own thoughts; just another day looking at what the authorities of Silvermoon had called “the wrong side of things” when they’d been exiled a couple hundred years back.

The ache in her jaw was new, though.  And… getting worse.  Something was affecting the pressure in the room.  Maybe I should open the door up to the barn, help equalize it?  Ilandreline tried to move but her body wouldn’t respond right.  She tried to talk but nothing came out.  The air felt like molasses, though, and it started to… ooze… into her open mouth in one of the more unpleasant sensations she’d ever encountered.

This is definitely bad, this is going to keep increasing until we pop like overfed ticks.  It wasn’t a comforting thought.  She’d die like she’d lived, though: making bad decisions with dangerously undertested experiments.  Her jaw was being forced wider and wider, until it felt like it was going to pop out of its socket.  Then something did pop and there was a roar like an entire storm’s worth of thunder if it was packed into a giant’s sneeze.

Wetness -- blood?  Probably! -- trickled from her ears, but she could close her mouth again.  She did so, gingerly, rubbing at it.  “Faoh,” she mumbled, unable to make real words quite yet.  Her brain didn’t want to form them, her mouth couldn’t.  She blinked far too often for several minutes before recovering enough to replace the tinted lenses through which she typically viewed the world.

Sentua was still standing, looking… mostly normal.  Maybe slightly dazed; half catatonic?  No more than that, maybe only a quarter.  But she was also grinning like the cat who’d eaten a smaller, weaker cat to gain its feline prowess.

“Ah wubna!” she said in triumph.

“Fwah?” was Ila’s response as she stuck her little finger into an ear, trying to pry loose the inability to understand.  It came back covered in what was definitely blood, possibly with a little extra something she didn’t want to think about too closely.

The ren’dorei worked her jaw a bit, then tried again.  “I did it!”  The words formed right that time, managing to get through the sticky haze in Ila’s ears.  “I don’t know if it worked, but it went off just like we expected it to.”

“Hleva nuhs!”  Frowning, she slapped herself once, then a second time, harder.  Wiggling her jaw from side to side, she formed the words very deliberately.  “Ve...ry… nice.”  Moving over to where the first pocket watch -- more staggered, really, as if she was quite drunk -- Ilandreline examined it.  It looked right.

She turned it just so, opened a back panel to look into the mirrored surface there, checking behind her.  And sure enough, just as she’d hoped, there was the leering grin of a lurking specter, axe poised and with a hungry look in its eyes.  “Hey, fella!  Good to see you again.  We made you portable.”  She laughed, gave a wink that the cursed entity could never see.  “Look out, world!  The Fence Macabre has portable curse detectors now!”

Her new partner came to look over her shoulder and practically jumped out of her skin.  Sentua glanced hurriedly back to the real world then into the gleaming silvered expanse.  “This… this is what you were trying to do?”

“Absolutely!”

“But… why?”

Ilandreline just stared for a moment.  She didn’t understand why people kept asking that.  It was clearly a great idea.  “Because why wouldn’t you want to be able to see what kind of horrific spirits are lurking in an area?  This is a much more portable form of the curse, one that can be replicated multiple times using the demiplanar transpositionalities we derived, augmented through a series of linking and magnifying matrices.  So long as I keep at least half of the original gears in the grandfather clock, I can use the rest to create portable horror viewers!”

Sentua stared at her for rather a long time.  It got awkward.  Eventually she shrugged, though, which was probably for the best.  “Well, as long as you’re happy and it works, I guess that’s good enough for me!  I think I’m gonna go home and sleep, though, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, absolutely.  Get your rest, that was probably pretty draining.”  She grinned, squeezed the young elf in a one-armed hug.  “And be proud!  You did great.”

“Thanks!  I… don’t know if replicating a curse into multiple other objects was what I thought I’d be doing, but at least it confirmed our theories.”  She grinned weakly, then stumbled off to the designated teleportation corner, keying one of her completion-tokens to zap her back home.

Ilandreline kept turning the pocket watch over, chuckling.  It didn’t tell time worth a damn, but she didn’t care about that.  It had worked.  And she was going to be published again for that work, damn it, preferably somewhere that would absolutely irritate her parents to no end.

Truly, she was living her best life, and it was all thanks to the Fence.

[luisdemen]

La hibridación al estilo Subaru potencia la seguridad y la diversión de conducción

La hibridación al estilo Subaru potencia la seguridad y la diversión de conducción

A finales de 2019 se produjo la llegada al mercado europeo de la Gama ecoHYBRID, primero con la quinta generación del Forester y posteriormente con la versión híbrida del superventas XV. El aterrizaje de la tecnología híbrida 100% Subaru ha supuesto que casi el 65% (64,14%) de las matriculaciones de la marca en Europa en los seis primeros meses de 2020 correspondan con modelos híbridos. Si a…