#but at least the consequences and events were organic

[beelzzzebub]

three months until i get to go back to school. i can deal with three months.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ian Millhiser at Vox:

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will not hear Mckesson v. Doe. The decision not to hear Mckesson leaves in place a lower court decision that effectively eliminated the right to organize a mass protest in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act.

It is possible that this outcome will be temporary. The Court did not embrace the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision attacking the First Amendment right to protest, but it did not reverse it either. That means that, at least for now, the Fifth Circuit’s decision is the law in much of the American South. For the past several years, the Fifth Circuit has engaged in a crusade against DeRay Mckesson, a prominent figure within the Black Lives Matter movement who organized a protest near a Baton Rouge police station in 2016. The facts of the Mckesson case are, unfortunately, quite tragic. Mckesson helped organize the Baton Rouge protest following the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling. During that protest, an unknown individual threw a rock or similar object at a police officer, the plaintiff in the Mckesson case who is identified only as “Officer John Doe.” Sadly, the officer was struck in the face and, according to one court, suffered “injuries to his teeth, jaw, brain, and head.”

Everyone agrees that this rock was not thrown by Mckesson, however. And the Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware (1982) that protest leaders cannot be held liable for the violent actions of a protest participant, absent unusual circumstances that are not present in the Mckesson case — such as if Mckesson had “authorized, directed, or ratified” the decision to throw the rock. Indeed, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor points out in a brief opinion accompanying the Court’s decision not to hear Mckesson, the Court recently reaffirmed the strong First Amendment protections enjoyed by people like Mckesson in Counterman v. Colorado (2023). That decision held that the First Amendment “precludes punishment” for inciting violent action “unless the speaker’s words were ‘intended’ (not just likely) to produce imminent disorder.”

The reason Claiborne protects protest organizers should be obvious. No one who organizes a mass event attended by thousands of people can possibly control the actions of all those attendees, regardless of whether the event is a political protest, a music concert, or the Super Bowl. So, if protest organizers can be sanctioned for the illegal action of any protest attendee, no one in their right mind would ever organize a political protest again. Indeed, as Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett, who dissented from his court’s Mckesson decision, warned in one of his dissents, his court’s decision would make protest organizers liable for “the unlawful acts of counter-protesters and agitators.” So, under the Fifth Circuit’s rule, a Ku Klux Klansman could sabotage the Black Lives Matter movement simply by showing up at its protests and throwing stones.

The Fifth Circuit’s Mckesson decision is obviously wrong

Like Mckesson, Claiborne involved a racial justice protest that included some violent participants. In the mid-1960s, the NAACP launched a boycott of white merchants in Claiborne County, Mississippi. At least according to the state supreme court, some participants in this boycott “engaged in acts of physical force and violence against the persons and property of certain customers and prospective customers” of these white businesses. Indeed, one of the organizers of this boycott did far more to encourage violence than Mckesson is accused of in his case. Charles Evers, a local NAACP leader, allegedly said in a speech to boycott supporters that “if we catch any of you going in any of them racist stores, we’re gonna break your damn neck.”

With SCOTUS refusing to take up McKesson v. Doe, the 5th Circuit's insane anti-1st Amendment ruling that effectively bans mass protests remains in force for the 3 states covered in the 5th: Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

[the-great-empress]

After seeing last post I have to agree. How did Crowley lost to lilith?

Crowley despite being called incompetent, managed to run (and maybe even create) magic school that is one of the famous ones in entire world. He also might not be the best in terms of providing roof for Yuu, but he didn't kicked them out. Instead offered job and later let them be student until they find way to get back home. We are talking about elite school here, there is set number of students. But Crowley made exeption for someone with no magic and no money, who landed in unfamiliar world. Yuu might not survive long without it.

Meanwhile Lilith's actions were reason for all bad things that happened to brothers. She took fruit and gave it to human to cure them. She knew it was not allowed and it will have consequences. And don't try to explain it by she was in love. Loving someone also means to let them go. Instead she tried to cheat death and hurt her family in process. She didn't took her punishment and didn't stoped brothers from starting rebelion. After they fell Lucifer sacrificed his freedom so she could have her selfish dream and lived few years as human. Then used her descendant to fix mess she left. Pink Diamond behavior. Michael was right to throw her into void.

Yeah…

To say that Crowley is truly worse than Lilith is going into the absurd, not to say the stupid, I want to think that they do it as a joke. How are you going to say that a person who is the reason for all misfortunes, especially yours, is it better than someone who is letting you stay for free while you look for a way to get home?

I agree that despite being called incompetent, he managed to keep NRC a great reputation, I mean Crowley sometimes behaves in a questionable way and ok, laughing at that is not bad, at least I like the satire, but the man knows how to do his job as a director, I omitted things from both Crowley and Lilith because he didn't want to extend my time and I was already going to get to work.

I'm the type of person who puts myself in the protagonist's shoes and the truth is...

I am glad that Yuu had met Crowley because if it were someone else or in another fixed place that he would be thrown out without hesitation or taken by the authorities for “trespassing” private property, from the beginning of the prologue I RISK the reputation of the prestigious NRC so that Yuu and later Grim will stay, again, Grim is a monster who caused a FIRE at the entrance ceremony and the mirror of darkness pointed out that Yuu was a “void” all of this IN FRONT of students, even Kalim came out with part of your robe burned, the scandal that could shake the news and Crowley would easily receive a lawsuit for allowing Grim to stay, but he made the decision to leave Grim and have him attend classes at Yuu's request as well as for FREE.

If I were Yuu and Crowley gave me free accommodation, even if it was Ramshackle, I would be eternally grateful, I would go ahead and offer to help him with anything he asked for without complaining, I would be ashamed if he didn’t, especially if he accepted that Grim stayed and let it pass all problems mainly caused by Grim and Yuu.

Others would not even give him rewards for doing the jobs he accepted in principle or they would look for excuses and there is Crowley, letting them play magifht ON OPEN TELEVISION, organizing a big banquet for them, giving him a phone to communicate with, giving him tickets so he can invite friends to the VDC which is a very important event so tickets won’t be cheap DAMN! HE TRUSTED HIM WITH THE GHOST CAMERA! YOU JUST NEED TO GIVE THEM THE KEYS TO THE ACADEMY! 🙄 HE TOOK THE TROUBLE ON THE FIRST NIGHT TO BRING HIM SOMETHING TO EAT! 🥺 AND THEY SAY CROWLEY IS WORSE THAN LILITH?!😡 WHAT’S WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!

Lilith for her part... SHE DESERVES TO BE THROWN INTO THE VOID!

Look, in the other publication I had planned to talk about Lilith also as a sister, but I was going to leave Lilith in a worse position, but whatever, let's talk about her also as a sister and angel FRIENDS! The more I go through the first season of the game, the more I am convinced that Lilith is the Antichrist or God made her defective and gave her a certain charm similar to Asmodeus but more powerful, because she got her way and yet, even the characters in the game They paint her as the victim or that she had a mistake. EXCUSE ME?! ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THE SAME ANGEL WHO KNOWING IT WAS TABOO TO GIVE THAT FRUIT TO A HUMAN, GAVE IT TO HIM ANYWAY?!?!? THE SAME ANGEL WHO KNEW THAT'S WHY THEY WOULD KILL HER?! THE SAME ANGEL WHO BET YOU KNEW HER BROTHERS WOULD RISE UP TO PROTECT HER?!

Many say that Lucifer was the one who started the war or that he would not last long and would rise. Well, I'm sorry but I don't buy that story! We are talking about the man who, if bowing his head meant that his brothers were safe, would bow his head without tiring, we are talking about the demon who swore loyalty to DIAVOLO and had his BALLS and PANTS on tight to hide Belphegor from DIAVOLO at the same time EARN THE HATE OF HIS BROTHER WILLING TO ACCEPT THAT HATE! WHEN IN REALITY SHE IS SAVEING HIM FROM THE PRINCE, if Lilith had not committed that CRIME Lucifer would not have reacted, Lucifer was the bullet and Lilith who pulled the trigger.

It was Lilith who started the war out of SELFISHNESS in committing TABOO and a WAR for a human, I wouldn't be surprised if the angels held a grudge against humans for that, and I say selfish because if she loved that human so much she had to let him go in peace I know that love makes one commit stupid things, but there are stupid things and then what he did. Didn't he think that they could also hunt and kill the human for agreeing to eat the fruit? In the end she got her way because she was able to have a happy life while her brothers were in a war, fell and were discriminated against even by demons.

Her soul stayed in the house of lamentations after recovering the memories of her past as an angel, she had millennia to manifest himself and solve the problems of her brothers, but instead she waited during those millennia pretending not to be hanging around the house. of lamentations until a descendant of hers appears, the one she chose to go to the Devildom, and the worst thing is that she manifests herself to only free Belphegor only to have her descendant die by STRANGULATION and revive her to demand that she save her brothers. 😡, it's obvious that he doesn't give a shit about Mc and just wants her to help her brothers. THAT'S THE KIND OF PERSON THEY SAY IS BETTER THAN CROWLEY?! Mc because she is good and an idiot pays attention only to see how she dies in Mammon's arms while Belphegor celebrates. How did Mc not suffer a fucking mental breakdown after that?!

Mc was saved because she shares blood with Lilith, but oh... how the brothers begin to treat her, especially Belphegor, being Mc at least, I begged Diavolo to get me out of that crazy house and if not he would stay away from the brothers, except Satan, for the rest of the stay. At no time did Lilith care about Mc or apologize for her, the only time she helped her was to free Belphegor and he would kill her.

Do you want to use the Lilith is dead card?! PERFECT! I can play that game too

WHB SOLOMON is better than Lilith

And it is only in its first appearance

What did it cost Lilith to say that? NOTHING

[soon-palestine]

Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act.

It is possible that this outcome will be temporary. The Court did not embrace the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision attacking the First Amendment right to protest, but it did not reverse it either. That means that, at least for now, the Fifth Circuit’s decision is the law in much of the American South.

For the past several years, the Fifth Circuit has engaged in a crusade against DeRay Mckesson, a prominent figure within the Black Lives Matter movement who organized a protest near a Baton Rouge police station in 2016.

The facts of the Mckesson case are, unfortunately, quite tragic. Mckesson helped organize the Baton Rouge protest following the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling. During that protest, an unknown individual threw a rock or similar object at a police officer, the plaintiff in the Mckesson case who is identified only as “Officer John Doe.” Sadly, the officer was struck in the face and, according to one court, suffered “injuries to his teeth, jaw, brain, and head.”

Everyone agrees that this rock was not thrown by Mckesson, however. And the Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware (1982) that protest leaders cannot be held liable for the violent actions of a protest participant, absent unusual circumstances that are not present in the Mckesson case — such as if Mckesson had “authorized, directed, or ratified” the decision to throw the rock.

Indeed, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor points out in a brief opinion accompanying the Court’s decision not to hear Mckesson, the Court recently reaffirmed the strong First Amendment protections enjoyed by people like Mckesson in Counterman v. Colorado (2023). That decision held that the First Amendment “precludes punishment” for inciting violent action “unless the speaker’s words were ‘intended’ (not just likely) to produce imminent disorder.”

The reason Claiborne protects protest organizers should be obvious. No one who organizes a mass event attended by thousands of people can possibly control the actions of all those attendees, regardless of whether the event is a political protest, a music concert, or the Super Bowl. So, if protest organizers can be sanctioned for the illegal action of any protest attendee, no one in their right mind would ever organize a political protest again.

Indeed, as Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett, who dissented from his court’s Mckesson decision, warned in one of his dissents, his court’s decision would make protest organizers liable for “the unlawful acts of counter-protesters and agitators.” So, under the Fifth Circuit’s rule, a Ku Klux Klansman could sabotage the Black Lives Matter movement simply by showing up at its protests and throwing stones.

[unidentifiedly]

Eventful Morning

Micah Bell x reader

- In which Micah almost scares the reader to death. Or at the very least, scares them enough for it to have consequences.

"Tip, tip, tip" Soft sounds of rain droplets made their way into your ears.

"No, no. Just a few more minutes." You thought to yourself, unable to open your eyes just yet. Slowly but surely you adjusted to the idea of waking up and opened your eyes. The off white canvas tent filtered the morning light beautifully. Glancing around yourself, looking for your favourite blouse and overdress, your gaze fell on the small dusty mirror in front of you, perched atop a trunk and supported by a stack of hardcover copies of romance novels.

In the mirror, yourself staring right back. You glanced at the intricately engraved brass pocket watch by the side of the bed. The watch itself was a birthday gift from Arthur a couple months back. The arms reaching toward four and twelve, it was way too early to get up and start one's day. Yet, here you were.

Softly humming to yourself you tied your hair up lazily with a ribbon, deciding to spend the hours of the morning organizing your safe haven. The gang had only recently arrived at the new spot, Horseshoe Overlook they called it. Far too east for Arthur's liking, but to you about anything sounded better than heading back up those cold mountains toward Colter. You were used to it at this point, the constant moving around. It was a way of life that held you tightly in its grip.

That being said, the new camp was still unorganized and there was sure to be work around that needed doing. This was a chance to have some private time, peace and quiet for yourself.

Sorting through the mementos and trinkets from throughout the years was quick, you wiped the dust off of the little mirror with the corner of your nightgown. Gathering up the few clothes you had laying around and neatly folding them up you realized the growing pile of fabric by the end of your bed was clothes and linen that needed washing, not something that should just be sorted back into the trunks right away. "I think it was Charles who mentioned there was a river just west of here?" Mumbling to yourself, you picked up the dirty clothes and put them in a basket, not bothering to dress up all the way. "Everyone will be asleep at this hour anyways, and if not, it'll be Miss Grimshaw awake. It's nothing that'll bother her too much." Pulling on your trusty leather boots you untied the strings holding the fabric flap door of your tent shut. A prompt walk to your horse, a beautiful paint mare, and you were off along with your basket of laundry. With the carelessness, soft hums and the skip on your step you failed to notice a pair of eyes watch you leave the camp. The observer finished smoking his cicarette, let his legs fall from the log they were resting on while chucking the cigarette butt over his shoulder, and rubbed his hands together. What on on God's green Earth were you up to this early in the morning, and barely dressed to boot?

The sound of a running stream reached your ears fast. Charles had of course been right, even a blind man would notice the Dakota River from this close by. Hopping off your horse and tying the reins to a nearby tree you swung the basket on your elbow and kicked the boots off your feet, walking straight into the cold running water. Oh how sweet the feeling was! In a low point of the river, a rock stood taller than the surface of the water, so you took a seat and began the chore.

"Eeeasy there boy" Micah huffed to Baylock, staying well hidden in the trees, observing you from afar. A smirk spread on his lips as he saw your boots and gun belt scattered on the riverbank, and you sitting on a rock in the middle of the water, with your back facing him. Dismounting with an agile leap, he slowly but surely started making his way toward you.

Completely lost in your activity and the sweet warm sunshine of the spring morning you were singing to yourself, getting ready to leave. Looking at the last blouse, and squeezing the extra water out of it a surprisingly strong wave hit the rock and splashed water all over you, soaking your thin white linen undergarments. "Fuck!" You stood up and turned around, screaming out loud.

"Mic- Mr.Bell! What the fuck are you doing?"

Keeping his eyes locked on your body, his smirk widened, his arms reaching out toward you. "Just call me Micah, and I could ask ya the same thing, sweetcheeks. Now come on here." He beckoned with his hands, but you refused.

"No, I don't think so, you can't just creep up on me like that Mr Bell. I could have dropped my laundry basket, or worse, fallen down and then drowned out of shock!"

You took a step back, lifting the now heavier basket full of wet clothes up to rest against your hipbone.

For every step you took back, Micah took one forward, and the man had both the advantage of longer legs and facing the direction he was going. It didn't take long for things to go south.

"I'm warning you Mr Bell, I'm going to tell Arthur about this, and you know he is not going to be happy!" You tried in vain.

"Hrmph. The cowpoke ain't got nothing to do with how I conduct my business with a lady such as yerself."

You were taken aback, "what did you just call me? You never- Ah!"

Slipping on a rock and falling back, you reached out to Micah for support, and closed your eyes in anticipation of the cold hard surface of the river. The sensation never came.

"Gotcha." Eyeing down at you was Micah, who effortlessly supported your almost naked body by your waist and left arm. "Now how about ya let me show you a good time as a thanks?" One of his eyebrows rising up and his face forming a seductive expression.

You, however, were too occupied to notice or care. "Micah you idiot! All of my clothes are fucking gone!"

And indeed, the river was decorated with the various pieces of clothing running merrily downstream, way too fast to catch up to.

"Well, ya won't be needin' any of those for th- Ow!" "Shut the fuck up and help me get dressed before anyone else notices!"

The ride to the camp was one of the worst you had ever experienced. For Micah, it was the opposite. A prideful smirk on his cocky face, throwing you the occasional remark about the curve of your waist and ass, and how good you looked in just his jacket as you rode, and making no attempts to be quiet and discreet as you arrived in camp. You tried your best to ignore him and get away from the situation as quickly as possible. Hopping off your horse, not even bothering to tie the rains to the hitchpost, you walked briskly toward your tent only to run straight into Sean.

"Oi, watch where ya- Y/N, wow, let me tell ya, could not see this one comin'!" A smirk instantly grew on his face, and he slapped a hand on Micah's jacket, on your shoulder.

"Sean it's NOT what it looks like, and don't you dare mention this to anyone either!" You whisper yelled while taking off the jacket, exposing your still wet and thus transparent garments. Sean blushed bright red, poor guy, and you stomped right in to your tent.

Not being able to face the rest of the day, the longer you stayed in your tent the more intimidating the prospect of leaving felt. Surely Sean had told everyone about what he saw, and you'd be mocked til eternity.

No, there was no way you'd ever leave that tent again.

A few hours later you were starving for a snack and stuck your head out to find the main area empty. Great! An opening. As soon as you stepped out, a voice rang: "Y/N!" You turned around, mouth open to start defending yourself, only to face a very noticeably beat-up looking Sean. "Listen, sorry about the earlier, I never saw nothing, alright?" You nodded in confusion and he smiled, thanked you quickly and scurried off. You got the food you were after, and returned to your tent to eat it. There, on your cot, rested a shirt and a dress, folded in a way which looked like a very bad attempt, with a piece of paper on top. There, in barely legible rough handwriting:

"The idiot won't bother ya about it. M"

You smiled to yourself, feeling the fabric of the clothes. Both of good quality fabrics, a white undershirt and a red simple dress. Just like the ones you usually wear every day.

Observing from a distance as you emerged from your tent in your red dress, Micah Bell smiled to himself as he sharpened his knife, softly murmuring to himself: "Gotcha ta call me by my name at least. That's a start."

note: Yay! My first ever piece of writing I've published online :) do suggest if you get any good ideas and like my writing style.

[guess-that-ship]

S9 Round 1

Science, Sleep, and Solitude

cw: spoilers

Two people unethically experimented on find each other and think "hey what if we were gay about it?" and then they were. HM is occasionally the voice of reason for FM but to be honest they're both a little silly with it ("it" being slightly more ethical science). Their life can be rough, but least they have each other!

… Except they don't. Not as much as they'd want to be.

FM had to travel back in time to play the longest con of his life to get back at the scientist who experimented on the both of them. For several years, he was unable to even meet with HM, having to keep his identity a secret for the sake of his mission. They reunite eventually, get sappy with each other, and resurrect a guy, but it doesn't last. In order to avoid the consequences of resurrection, FM makes a deal with an entity that possesses his body, and keeps FM hidden from HM. Their only solace is in their dreams, where they can be together again, make up for the time they've spent away, but dreams can be fleeting.

In the real world, FM has been gone for two years. HM's boyfriend has been MIA for two years. Both are alone. But both can dream.

Red, Blue, and Fate

[This description has been modified to remove author commentary.]

cw: spoilers

They were friends when they were kids, but got separated due to a traumatizing event for Red that caused him to move away. Blue's life was changed by Red, however, and he did everything in his power to find him again. After seeing Red in the newspaper many years later, Blue changes his entire career just to find him again and to save Red from the person he's become.

When they meet again, Red is cold to Blue and barely gives him the time of day. Red gets accused of murder, and Blue saves him from this. Red still thinks he's the reason the traumatizing event from his childhood happened, and confesses to this. Blue helps him find out it wasn't Red, but rather the person who took him in.

Some things happen later and Red leaves the country, presumed dead. Blue knows this can't be the case and waits for him until Red returns to help him again. Blue is angry, rightfully so, but can't bring himself to resent Red.

The next time Red leaves, everybody knows and Blue is happier about that. Blue fell through a bridge and as soon as Red was contacted, he immediately organized transportation directly to Blue despite being out of the country. When he got there, Blue asked Red to do his job for him, and Red accepted.

[rustingcat]

Control

Lena's life was a series of the most extreme and random events. She wasn't sure if her being magic was part of it or the cause, but her life was, simply put, ridiculous.

Death, losing connections, friendships and relationships, manipulation, backstabbing, death threats, assassination attempts, kidnapping were all just some of the things she has experienced in her recent years alone, more than enough to make any sane person go crazy. She’s seen what crazy does to people, the destructive consequences of her family, her blood, and did what she could to avoid it, to keep herself afloat.

She tried to grasp whatever control she did get with both hands, using it as her way to sooth her soul when everything fell apart. She wondered if that was one of the reasons she felt compelled to take over the family company, deciding to dive right into the heart of the chaos to gain some hint of control over it. Her job was a major part in her life in which she held some control; as the boss she could dictate the direction of the company, she answered to no one (save for the board), and most importantly she could choose whenever to stop working. She could control the kind of food she put in her mouth, what to watch on TV, control the people she let into her life, her scientific knowledge gave her some control on her work, and her decision not to use her magic until she felt she grasped enough of its understanding gave her some comfort.

Yet, for every aspect of her life she had control over, Kara was always the exception to her rules. Breaking down every wall and defense mechanism, turning her life upside down, and the recent event proved it more than ever. Somehow every time she felt she had some hold on reality, the universe was keen to prove her wrong.

"Kara, I know you said that Kryptonian sex developed later than humans, but is it possible that one fetus developed faster than the other?" Lena asked after studying the live ultrasound footage on the monitor. Nia and Brainy's little girl seemed to be developing perfectly, at least that gave her some comfort.

"I don't think so? I can contact my father if needed, but what seems to be the problem?" Kara put her baby development book she'd been reading down and walked towards Lena.

"Well, after studying this ultrasound for quite a while, it seems like we have one fetus who developed male sex organs, while the other didn't." She did her best to keep her voice controlled and leveled. There was no actual reason to panic. Yet.

"Then we're having a boy and a girl! Lena, that's great news!" Kara said excitingly, raising her hands up to emphasise it.

"Kara, they are identical twins!"

"Oh, that I do know. It has to do with the chromosome distribution of the machine. Sex assignment is usually controlled by the parents, it is distributed individually after the process has begun. So it's given randomly to every child." Kara explained.

"So our identical twins are gonna be born with different organs?"

"Essentially, yes."

Kara really took the news far better than her. She wasn't sure how Kara wasn't phased by those surprises like she was. Kara led a life just as random and tragic, probably more, so by all accounts she should be just as disturbed. Then again, maybe she was simply better at repressing, Lena really couldn't tell.

Although thinking about it, Kara had been acting slightly different recently, even before the sex reveal. Lena couldn't put the finger on it, but she had her suspicions. She was more affectionate, more touchy. Not that Lena was complaining, she was eager to take any opportunity to be closer to her best friend. Lena couldn't help but wonder at the sudden change. Was the affection part a natural development in their relationship, or the most likely conclusion, had something to do with their project. They are going to become a family in the very near future, that by itself is enough to change the whole dynamic. A dynamic that is very likely to change regardless once the twins would come into their lives.

Lena suspected – despite her initial reservations – that Kara’s new affection has to do with a new romantic aspect, or something similar at the very least. The lingering touches, the crimson blushes that seemed to have coloured her face more often than before. True, a relationship with Kara was something she was hoping for for months, years if she was completely honest with herself, but the potential of a heartbreak might be too much for her to handle, especially if there are kids involved.

Was that the reason? Could it be a surge of emotions triggered by the idea of shared parenting that was wrongly interpreted as romantic attraction? Or was it something else? Fear perhaps? It is known to be a great motivator. Could Kara be fearing their shared partnership might be broken had Lena found a new romantic partner and instinctively started to develop something to keep their partnership at bay? Or perhaps she was reading it all wrong and Kara's new nervousness and touches were simply excitement and anxiety for their upcoming responsibilities.

Lena breathed out a long sigh, the whole thing was a lot to handle and she was already dealing with a lot.

"You okay?" Kara turned her head to her from the stop on the couch where they were snuggled together.

"Yeah," she flashed her a small smile.

"Then why aren't you watching the movie?" Kara fixed her with a knowing smirk

"Just thinking," she pretended to roll her eyes with irritation, but her smile gave her away.

Lena learned she couldn't control her emotions, she tried. She put them in little boxes for years to avoid and suppress them, so she wouldn't have to deal with them. She learned first hand how impossible and destructive it was.

"Well, your brain is very smart," Kara nodded. "Is this 'thinking' you're doing part of maintaining its smartness levels?"

"Of course, it's part of my daily routine." Lena said seriously, glad Kara wasn't pushing her to talk.

"I bet it would be even smarter afterwards." Kara pushed a stray hair off of her face.

"Oh, I wouldn't count on that."

"I would."

She wasn't sure when Kara got so close to her, but the distance between them was almost completely gone. Their conversation lowered to mere whispers. It was Kara, eyes half lidded, leaning in that broke her out of the haze.

Lena couldn't control her emotions, but she could control her actions at the very least. She could make sure to put herself in a position she was still in control of. Not let herself give in to temptations and dive into the unknown.

"I think I might retire for the night," Lena cleared her throat. "I'm more tired than I thought." She stood up before Kara could react.

She felt a cold shiver run through her body, and she had a feeling it was not because she stepped out of their blanket nest too quickly. Closing the door behind her didn't feel like the familiar safe space she hoped it to be, a distant voice at the back of her mind telling her that she left that one behind on the couch.

She stood there motionless in her room far longer than she realised.

Yes, Lena could still have some control. Although she wasn't sure about the cost anymore.

[p3ski]

Rule Of Nines

Betrayal Pt. 2

Explicit content, Graphic Violence

(18+)

Pairing: Reed900

Tags: AU, Multi-Chapter, Lovers to Enemies, Kidnapping, Crime and Violence, Oral, Anal, Dom/ Sub

Previous Chapter

Read on AO3 here:

Summary: In a world where loyalty is currency and compromise is weakness, Gavin Reed, a ruthless mobster, lives by his own rules. When an old enemy resurfaces with a deadly demand, his life is thrown into chaos-as his trusted second-in-command, Nines, is put to the ultimate test of allegiance. Will he stay committed to Gavin, or will the loyal guard dog begin to stray? (Human Mob!AU)

Warnings: Major Character Death (before events of the story), Graphic Violence, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Dubious Consent

Tag List: @sweeteatercat @wedonthaveawhile @ladyj-pl @tentoriumcerebelli @negative-citadel

If you would like to be added to the tag list for future projects, please let me know♡

It took until sundown for Gavin to realise that Nines wasn't coming back. The wait persisted well beyond this, extending into the night. There were no calls, progress checks, or even the slightest indication to suggest the man was still breathing. Just dead air on the radio. Continual, droning vacancy. 

His second in command had never done this—would have never dreamed of it before today. Clearly, he had gotten held up wading through the mountainous shit expelled during his recent temper tantrum. No doubt wallowing around like a despondent pig. One that just found out its sibling was being turned into bacon.

Maybe that was where he'd scurried off to. Charging headfirst into DeLuca's hideout on a misguided suicide mission to save his brother. The thought alone would've made Gavin laugh had it not inspired such bitter resentment.

Best of luck with that, dickhead.

Salvatore hardly ran a prestige operation, but he wasn't stupid. He and his boys would be waiting for them, armed to the fucking teeth. As soon as they realised Connor's 'saviour' had arrived empty-handed, it'd be open season in the abattoir.

Nines was good, but he wasn't made of kevlar and steel. When a man came faced with a hail of bullets, the bullets were going to win. No matter his physical prowess, he'd be hosting his family reunion six feet under the ground. 

Gavin cursed under his breath, his head lolling against the pillows as his eyes squeezed shut. The sweat beading on his brow started to trickle lower, charting a course down the bridge of his nose.

Instead of bottling his frustration, he attempted to refocus its energy into current licentious activities. The movements of his hand quickened as he brusquely dismissed concerns of doubt or culpability.  

If Nines was taking an extended dirt nap, it would be the fault of his own stupidity. A fitting penance for allowing sentiment to cloud his better judgment. 

Bleeding hearts had no place in the miserable shit they dealt with. If that lesson had been learned the hard way, so be it. Hopefully, it would serve as a reminder for the next dolt Gavin let slither under his sheets: Do not step out of line unless you're ready to face the consequences. 

His mind was bubbling over, hissing like a tea kettle, as he released a barrage of insults at a currently imagined Nines:

You selfish, ungrateful piece of shit.

Entitled, pompous asshole —

He missed him. 

The bed felt unbearably empty, as did every attempt to fill the void. His body howled with need, seeking a carnal depravity that no amount of self-indulgence could hope to satisfy.  

Maybe he ought to have hired the hooker. At least then, he could have secured the feeling of something . An opportunity to escape through the forgiving darkness of tightly closed eyes, where he could imagine the floundering mass on top of him belonged to someone else… 

He plunged deeper into himself, arching back as far as he could in pursuit of greater leverage. It would have still been better than condemning himself to the current arrangement of listlessly gripped hand and equally sad rubber stand-in. 

His toes curled from added exertion as he hissed in what he tried to convince himself was some degree of pleasure. If he continued to tell himself that, perhaps the sensation would manifest. The 'fake it til you make it' principle: like it was a goddamn job interview.

The movements continued as he abandoned his hardness in favour of running a hand up the length of his torso. His remaining fist grew increasingly agitated, anger permeating every mite of the increasingly rough pumps. 

Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.

There was a knock at the door, ending the ill-fated venture with a sudden jolt of paralysis. Gavin gawked at his ceiling, trying to confirm—somewhat hopefully—if he was hearing things. Then it happened again, prompting him to reach over and study his phone's lock screen. 

It informed that the time was 3:07 A.M., leading to the conclusion that this style of intrusion was getting extremely old.

Shooting up, he removed Nines' lacklustre understudy from his body. He craned himself towards the door, boring holes into the surface of the already beaten-up wood, his mouth snarling in an uncanny mimicry of a feral dog:

 "What the fuck do you want?" 

There was no reply save for a steady—and entirely undeterred—pace of knocks.

You can't be serious.

After tucking his shame securely into the bottom drawer of his nightstand, he ripped away the scant covering of his sheets. Whoever the mystery arrival was, they clearly wanted to play games—ones that the mobster was in no mood to be joining.

Either that or their appearance formed some style of divine intervention. The Big Man upstairs, tenuously apologising for all the recent smites in the form of a squishy sandbag on which to offload his grievances. 

 Whoever the person was, they were persistent. Refusing to let up on the incessant pounding for even a second despite having aired him just moments prior. 

Gavin wrestled with a pair of boxers, attempting to wrangle them over the prominent hardness between his thighs. They were lucky he even did that much—in half a mind to answer the door butt-ass naked, making exposure to his trouser snake part of the karmic retribution. 

"Do I need to put opening hours on my goddamn door?" he suggested bitingly, as the fervance of his movements resulted in a small tear of fabric. "It's the middle of the fucking night, what is wrong with you people?" 

To their credit, there was likely some underlying motivation behind the visit. Given how desperately the unknown figure sought to grab his attention—and the fact he'd made it clear that 'Connor Torture Porn' didn't constitute an emergency—it was probably something serious.  

Assuming Nines hadn't managed to get his brother mulched, they still had a few hours before DeLuca took care of business. That being said, it wouldn't have surprised him if Connor had decided to croak ahead of schedule.

The man had been in bad shape during his last on-screen appearance, barely clinging to whatever life was left to live after being gutted and carved worse than a grade-schoolers jack-o'-lantern.

Honestly, news of his untimely death was probably the only thing that could temper his current foul mood…

Swinging the door open, he prepared to lambast whatever slack-jawed goon was bumbling around behind it. Upon seeing who it was, his mouth went dry, and his snarled lips clamped shut.

"I'm sorry, Gavin, I know it's late." The words lingered on their tongue, chasing each delicate curl of the muscle. "I hope I didn't wake you."

…Well. Except for maybe that.

Nines stood in the archway, arm extended above his head, propped against the lip. He loomed over Gavin, simpering gently and exuding a stunning degree of confidence for someone who had just played hooky for the past fourteen hours.

Unfortunately, his current appearance made it extremely difficult for Gavin to stay pissed off. Nines had ditched much of the zombie chic he'd adopted over the week, taming the hair that had been clinging listlessly to his scalp. It was now washed and combed, pulled into its usual slicked-back style. The unsightly stubble that had started to bloom across his jaw had also been trimmed, made more apparent as he jutted it forward.

The movement was undoubtedly calculated as it rumpled the collar of his loosely draped trench coat. Sleek leather caught conspicuously against the lights above, encouraging his gaze to trail lower…

Oh, I see how it is. Sneaky son of a bitch. 

While the garment wasn't short, on the lofty man filling the doorway, it might as well have been lingerie. The hem barely covered his thighs, revealing svelte lengths of smooth, marble-white. The tenuously secured belt slackened with every twitch, causing the material to part and reveal a growing sliver of torso.

If the legs weren't already a tip-off, this seemed to prove irrefutably that Nines wasn't wearing a lot underneath the jacket. If he was wearing anything at all. 

The notion alone sent Gavin's mind into a pronounced tailspin—and while he was aware his second-in-command was still speaking, it might as well have been French. Words were leaving his mouth, but absolutely none of them were being processed.

He attempted to downplay his interest with an inward press of his thighs as he strategically tilted his body towards an adjacent wall. 

"Look who's decided to drag themselves outta the gutter…" He feigned indifference with a click of his tongue; all the while, his arousal twitched insistently between his legs. "Where the hell have you been, jackass?"

Whatever conversational threads had led Nines to this question remained a mystery. In any case, his response was flawless—smooth and candid, deftly withholding any sentiment:

"Wrapping up affairs at the docks. It took longer than anticipated; I had to take care of a few witnesses."

This was a lie.

All other men who had attended to the incident returned hours ago, ensuring any and all 'annoyances' were dealt with briskly. Despite this, the questionable statement almost demanded belief, in line with every stoic recount the man had ever delivered…

 Whether it was genuinely convincing, or his ungodly degree of horniness was warping his judgment, Gavin wasn't sure. All he knew was that his libido was screaming for him to let it go. To tug Nines by the crotch across the threshold so he could stop spewing mundane excuses and start pounding him into the mattress. 

 But he couldn't do that—because he was angry—and trying to make a point of not rewarding bad behaviour. Folding his arms across his chest, he maintained his outward scepticism despite all internal protest.

 Just when he thought Nines might have the balls to proceed with his current deception, the focus shifted to the elephant doing handstands in the back of the room.

 "...I needed some time to think." The playful expression faltered in line with his stiffening posture. He glanced over Gavin's shoulder, eyes fixed on the bed. "If you could let me in, we can discuss things more privately."

 As he leaned in, a smooth brush of skin came tantalisingly close to the shorter man's cheek. Cologne trailed the deft movements, igniting his senses, as a chin gently skimmed his shoulder. The touch was featherlight, and it could have easily been missed if Gavin hadn't been so keenly aware of everything Nines was doing.

His ulterior motive was painfully brazen; it might as well have been illuminated on a neon sign above his head. Such an abrupt and shameless shift back to their usual routine, it was fucking hysterical.

Because what did Nines know about privacy? He clearly wasn't opposed to attracting some attention, given his current attire. He would've had to pass through the meeting room like that, no doubt crossing paths with several lingering night owls.

Perhaps he'd wanted to get a rise. To imagine at least one of their cohorts had gotten desperate enough where they might be amenable to the idea of bending him over the card table—

Gavin's mind began to run wild, chasing all manner of depravity his twisted imagination could conjure. He forced himself to rein it in, swallowing back the dense lump forming in his throat.

He then clicked his tongue in feigned indifference, his crossed arms locking tighter over his chest. Unable to help himself, or perhaps out of habit, he made a point of flexing forward—puffing his chest and calling attention to the toned definition of his limbs. 

"What exactly do you wanna 'discuss'? You're being awfully vague right now."

Nines' attention flitted downward, a quirked eyebrow the only crack in his otherwise stony veneer. He gave nothing else away, his response measured and enigmatic.

"I took some time to remind myself what is important, to determine where my loyalties lie..." His gaze returned to Gavin's face as piercing eyes studied his features. A rogue spark ignited beneath them, completely indecipherable. "Now that I have done this, I think it is time to make amends."

His leg shifted, and the coat followed suit—coming dangerously close to revealing the junction between his thighs. If it were a robe, Gavin was confident Nines would be twirling the tie in circles, teasing him further. 

He was showing off, so sure in his conceit that he could play his boss like an upright bass.

This assumption was correct, obviously, but that didn't stop Gavin from being incensed with the mutinous bastard he called his dick. Fearing it might spring off without immediate attention, he obliged the request through gritted teeth. 

"Get in." 

As Nines entered the room, it became apparent that 'talking' had factored little into plans for their exchange. His subordinate slammed the door behind him before skillfully switching their positions and pinning Gavin against it.  

The handle pressed into the small of his back, as he was all but moulded onto it. He couldn't give less of a shit—feeling utterly giddy, mind reeling, as it ignited with vibrant bursts of excitement. 

Then Nines kissed him—biting, wrenching, capturing flesh between his teeth and mercilessly pulling back. Gavin could taste the warm copper pooling in his mouth, and it may as well have been syrup because nothing had ever tasted so sweet in his entire fucking life.

As a streak dribbled down his chin, he roughly shoved Nines away. Passion tempering long enough to recall what had brought them to their current frenzied encounter.

"You're going to have to put in some serious fucking effort if you expect me to forgive you." Crimson specks propelled from his lips as he wiped them with the back of his hand. "Don't think you can shove your tongue down my throat and expect bygones to be bygones."

"Of course not," Nines hummed. His lust-filled voice was irresistibly rich, purred like auditory velvet against his pulsing neck. "I have every intention of showing you just how sorry I am…"

Gavin was lost immediately. His bravado deflated as he slumped against the other man's hold, hopelessly ensnared. A rush of endorphins prickled his skin, in line with the indulgent nips being dotted across it.

The raging pulse in his boxers grew even more apparent, straining the material in a way that proved impossible to ignore. It pressed against Nines' leg, and he rutted forward shamelessly, desperate for friction.

 He wasn't left neglected for long. As his subordinate continued to tease his neck, he reached a hand into his boxers—brushing the concealed length with the same fluid motions. He traced it with the tips of his fingers before applying more targeted pressure, forcing it down with the heel of his palm. 

 "How about I start with taking care of this?"

 Gavin winced under the touch, resisting the sharp yelp pressing at his lips. His companion took this as a challenge. Stopping shy of using fingers to prise them open, he opted to coax the cry with steadily increased weight. 

 Pain stormed sensitive nerves, testing the bounds of his tolerance, as Gavin's hands balled into fists. They secured themselves into his jacket, clawing at the material in a frenzied attempt to strip it away. 

 He wanted to feel Nines—all of him—and was becoming increasingly agitated by the barrier preventing this.

 The rigid flesh of his arousal continued to be forced back until it rested flush against his pelvis. Anguish had started to wind him, making it difficult to hold himself upright. 

"The hell are you doing?" Gavin growled in protest as his physical resistance started to wane. He then doubled over, drenched in sweat and panting madly as though he'd just completed a marathon. "Touch me, you sadistic asshole." 

"I believe you'll find I already am," Nines rebuked, emphasising the point in line with the pitiless force of his hand. "If you stop squirming, I'll gladly give you precisely what you want."

"I'm only squirming because you keep—" 

The sentence was aborted as Nines' fingers contributed to the evolving barbarity. Nails brushed the underside of his arm before digging into it, creating a series of harsh grooves. 

Gavin was unable to hold back the screams he had been fighting so hard to suppress. As much as he enjoyed the rough play, even he had his limits—and feeling like his dick was caught between a blender and a hydraulic press was cutting it pretty fine. Before he could protest, however, a stern voice interjected: 

"Don't tell me what you do," it stipulated, more warning than suggestion. "Not when we're like this. Isn't that the arrangement?"

Gavin's mouth flapped open, desperate to argue, until he found himself unable to form anything coherent.

Well. You've got me there.

This was extremely annoying, given the satisfaction Nines seemed to garner from the implicit confirmation. The current power shift was being indulged a little too profoundly, beyond the expectations of their usual salacious roleplay.

He wasn't left to dwell on this long, as without warning, the oppressive force of Nines' palm relinquished. It was replaced by a gentler hold as neatly wound fingers enclosed his tortured flesh.

Relief washed over him, overwhelming and immediate, as the small bursts of light that peppered his vision burst into flames. He flung his head back, groaning deeply, as Nines moved his hand in well-practiced motions.

There had been no lie in his promise to deliver. The strokes came with sinful finesse—applied with flawless strength and precision, adjusting to his responses as though Nines had a direct line to his brain. 

It was delicious in its familiarity. Exactly how Gavin wanted it, the way it was supposed to be.

Any bout of insanity that had gripped his subordinate was coming to an end, assuring him it would not inhibit the enjoyment they were about to share. Nines had remembered who he was—and what they were together. 

At some point, his boxers had been removed, left abandoned at his feet. With unfettered access, a thumb was flicked across his tip, tracing the slit in a languid stripe. The effect was addicting, a greater high than any drug he'd ever experienced. He wanted more, pleaded for it, as he fisted a hand into the back of Nines' hair, using it to anchor himself.

After a few more teasing trails, Nines re-established his grip. His hand moved in measured pumps, gradually increasing the pace. Gavin whined helplessly, bucking forward in a feverish attempt to maximise the friction. 

He chased the movement with his hips as his desire grew progressively brazen. Culminating with meticulously styled strands wound around his fingers, tugged back in line with a moan—

The motions stopped as the delicious winch gripping him was unceremoniously removed. Before he had a chance to question this, he was shoved away, striking the door with a dull thud. 

"Get on the bed," Nines ordered, as darkened eyes trained his superior with predatory focus. If the look wasn't enough, he clarified the gravity of his demand with a curt: "Now."

Gavin shuddered, less from the tone and more from the sudden loss of heat. An unpleasant chill nipped at his arousal, but rather than bemoan the shitty insulation in his room, he decided the more constructive approach was to do as instructed. Which he did without any concern for pride or shame.

Twisting around, he stumbled back on quivering legs until his calves struck the edge of the bed. He promptly collapsed against it, allowing himself to become engulfed in a tangled mass of sheets.

He'd barely had a chance to settle before Nines made his advance. Discarding his coat with a decisive shrug, he positioned himself at Gavin's dangling legs before firmly wrenching them apart.

Fuck yes.

Nines then slid between the opening, sinking to his knees—maintaining a distinct air of control despite the submissive position. Grabbing the other man's quads, he manoeuvred them over his head before planting them securely on his shoulders. His grip lingered, digging into the skin with possessive fervour as his head began to lower.

The heat returned as a tongue swept across the bottom of his swollen length. Gavin attempted to crane himself forward in order to secure a better view of the beguiling show unfolding in front of him.

And damn, what a show it was. Nines repeated the movement, lapping his cock in gliding stripes. His mouth was agape, revealing an expanse of velvety pink walls. Trails of moisture coated his companion's skin, brushing at charged nerves which tingled appreciatively. 

All the while, he stared at him. Grey eyes bore intensely, refusing to relent for even a second.  

They fit perfectly with his face, complementing the rest of his sharp features to a near-inhuman degree of perfection. His defined cheeks hollowed further as he captured the swollen tip, suckling firmly.

"Oh my fucking god ." The mobster struggled to string together anything more coherent as the cavern of warmth lowered, claiming him greedily. Nines moved slowly, inch by inch, until the erection struck the back of his throat. 

Gavin was in ecstasy, washed away by a rising tide of pleasure. He rode it greedily until the resulting delirium knocked him back, unable to stay upright. Nines set an excruciating rhythm, pulling away almost completely before thrusting back down with a subtle gag. His tongue swirled around the hardness, exploring every pore, combined with a gentle graze of teeth.

The sensation was indescribable, making Gavin realise just how deluded he'd been to think he could find even a modicum of the same pleasure with anyone else—'seasoned professional' or not.

 If a night with a hooker was a cheap motel, being with Nines was like a trip to the Ritz. Opulence that couldn't be replicated, providing the exact level of attentive worship his body craved.

 "Yes—that's it," he praised keenly. His eyes balled shut as he dared once again to run digits amorously through silky brown locks. Hips bucked forward, goading desperately, as he sought an increased pace. 

 To his surprise, Nines permitted this, relinquishing some of his circumstantial control so he may seek to satisfy his needs. There was no delay in doing this as Gavin made full use of his mouth. Assaulting it with spearing thrusts, pounding against the spongy foundation with reckless abandon. 

 His companion spluttered around the intrusion, struggling for air. This failed to deter his efforts. If anything, it spurred him on. He arched upward, plunging deeper, as he riveted their head in place.

 Pressure built in his gut as his arousal twitched and swelled, signalling imminent release. No consideration was made to warn Nines—and with a final, quivering buck, his passion spilt over. Filling his mouth in thick ribbons, until the excess started to dribble from the corners of his mouth.  

"Goddamn..." Gavin sighed, teasing out a final, shallow thrust before his length began to soften. He flung an arm to the crease of his brow, wiping at a dense film of perspiration as he struggled to catch his breath. "Better late than never, I guess."  

Nines hummed distantly, ignoring the jab as he pulled himself upright. He then flicked a thumb across his lips, removing the salty traces. "Are you feeling satisfied?"

The man knew damn well that he wasn't. He never was after a single round, two or three being their established minimum. Still, his companion never missed a chance to tease him over his salacious insatiability.

There wasn't a chance he'd be letting Nines dip before the main event, under any circumstances.

 "Hell no." He scoffed, somewhat amenable to the playfulness but maintaining an distinct undercurrent of demand. "If that's all you're planning on giving me, I'm going to fucking riot."

His companion nodded, expression unshifting in a way that might suggest to a less seasoned lover that he simply wasn't interested. There was, however, a distinct glint of intent mingled in his hardened gaze, betraying his intentions. 

 He wasn't done, either. Not by any stretch. 

 Splayed palms planted firmly to either side of the mattress. Nines soon accompanied them, inching himself across the sheets until he had formed an animate cage around Gavin. The steady rise and fall of his chest synced with the fanning of blanketing breath, boasting unshakeable dominance.

"I thought you might say that."

One of the hands steadily lifted, running across the entrapped man's face. It trailed the fleshy canvas, assessing stubble and dotted scars before drawing back to strike them, painting a vivid streak of red.

"Move yourself up," he demanded, with all the composure of someone well-seasoned in using violence as an incentive. "Towards the wall."

It didn't take an expert to see where things were heading, and Gavin was no less than ecstatic. He dutifully complied, sidling up the length of the bed until he was just below the headboard.

"Lift your arms." 

Anticipation gripped him in dreamlike delirium as his spent arousal twitched, excitement renewing. Nines had not joined him yet, reaching beneath the bed in order to grab something. 

 He had a pretty good idea what, and it only caused the excitement to mount. 

There had always been too many 'supplies' to fit in the nightstand alone, with this now relegated to solo enjoyment—but in the time they'd been doing this, the collection had grown substantially, amassed in several containers.

This one was his personal favourite. A small leather box secured with a clasp, which Nines clicked open with a neat flick. The sound met his ears at blissful resonance, and it was a struggle to keep his arms up as the muscles began to quiver restlessly. 

Then Nines pulled out the rope, wrapped together in tightly bound coils. He started to unwind it until a section was held between his hands. It was flexed testingly before being pulled taut, the fibres straining audibly, creaking under his powerful hold. Gavin felt his mouth go dry. 

"Don't move." 

This command was completely redundant. There wasn't a chance of him going anywhere. Not in a million years. 

As he was strung to the bed, wrists bound by braided cord, Nines handled him with practised precision. Each stroke of his palm and brush of his fingertips was carefully planned, designed to elicit a response. The act of tying him up alone felt better than half of the ill-fated fumbles he'd had in his twenties.

 Hardly aggressive competition, nor was it particularly surprising.

 No one else knew his body like this, had ever bothered to learn—or even put in the effort to try. There was only Nines, with no other comparison that could possibly be drawn.

 If he were being honest with himself, the depth of the other man's feelings had been obvious for quite some time—but Gavin had always overlooked it, adopting a philosophy of selective blindness.

 Because he didn't want to confront that, to risk ruining all of this. It was the closest to Heaven he'd ever get, and he didn't want it to end…

Oh shit.

I missed him.

"You're being so good for me," Nines praised, promptly derailing his bleak introspection. "So obedient—" 

The crisis was forgotten, as the ends of the rope were hooked through a rickety metal grate before being pulled back. He made it look incredibly easy, still finding time to tease his companion throughout the process. He secured both arms, followed by legs, as he rushed his body with a series of suckles, kisses and bites—all he could think of to get a rise. 

"Now, continue to behave yourself and keep still." He returned attention to Gavin's face, positioning himself at the crook of his neck as he nibbled at his ear. "I don't want you wriggling away, not with what I intend to do to you."

 The promise was drizzled decadently, passing the shell and running in streams down the sensitive canal. It clogged his senses, deafening him to anything else. 

 Gavin arched back as far as his restraints would reasonably permit, groaning shamelessly as he did so. "Do it quicker, you asshole," he snapped, levelling the man with an accusatory glare. "Whatever you want, I don't give a shit."

 Nines pulled back momentarily, regarding him with a bemused expression. His eyebrows were raised as he huffed gently through twitching lips.

Then, without warning, a hand was brought across his face again. It moved harder this time, the resultant imprint burrowing into him like white-hot needles.

 Gavin howled before the noise was forcefully halted. His cheeks were captured in the grip of the unforgiving hand, its thumb and fingers closing in until his lips were crushed together.

 "Just remember, this is what you asked for." The twitch on Nines' mouth persisted until the corner curled upward, forming a subtle smirk. "It is going to be an extremely gratifying experience; I guarantee it."

He slipped away, ending the degradation as unceremoniously as it had begun. Dipping back into the box, he rummaged through its contents until he secured a small, silken scarf. He held it up to the light as though to show it off before the glow was quickly extinguished.

The cloth was wrapped around Gavin's eyes and secured in a tight bow. There was no care to ensure comfort; the knot anchored against his hair, catching several strands. Nines pressed down on his face to secure his leverage, pinching lids and ripping lashes in the process. 

"Tell me, do you still want this?"

It wasn't really a question. Before Gavin could even think of responding, hands were running in parallel lines down his chest. They traversed lower, passing his abdomen until they nestled on the protruding bones of his pelvis. The man traced them in enticing circles but refused to fan inwards—much to his dismay.

He more than wanted it. He needed it, with every inch of his being crying out in primal desire.

Despite this, he was powerless to speak, the words snatched from his increasingly barren throat. He instead settled for a whine; lips parted desperately. A parched man pleading for water.

Nines seemed to accept this as an answer. In spite of his blindness, Gavin knew he was watching closely—evident by the continuous beat of puffs assaulting his face.

"Remember what I said. Keep still. If you don't, I may be forced to do something drastic."

The weight of his domineering presence diminished, coinciding with the release of pressure on the mattress. His subordinate was gone for some time, amplifying the tension to a maddening degree as he struggled to control his increasingly ragged breaths…

The build-up lost its excitement as he grew impatient. 

His whines transitioned into frustrated groans, and his body squirmed against the covers, craving the attention being cruelly withheld.

"What the fuck is the holdup?" he eventually complained, attempting to reposition his pulsing wrists. The dig of the binds no longer felt gratifying, rubbing uncomfortably against his skin. "Seriously, how hard can it be to pick something to smack me around with?"

Then he heard it.

The metallic click of a magazine sliding into place, followed shortly by the frigid touch of steel being pressed to his forehead:

"I'm sorry, Gavin, but I don't think I'll be listening to you anymore."

The world paused, holding its breath. A rush of blood flooded his ears, drowning out all other sounds, as his heart hammered against his ribs—ramping to a bruising pace as realisation began to sink in.

Gavin Reed, you fucking idiot.

After all the self-imposed chiding for letting trust go too far, for allowing too much leniency, he'd still let Nines walk him into such an obvious trap. 

"... Dirty. Conniving. Double-crossing. Bastard ." The words were spat in embittered fragments, too mangled by rage to boast any structure. "You really are just like your brother, aren't you? I should've known, should have seen it sooner."  

"I remain loyal to those who prove deserving." His voice was cold and unyielding, in line with the barrel against his flesh. "You've given me no other choice." 

"Bullshit ! " Gavin bellowed, growing increasingly incensed, as molten speckles propelled from his mouth. "You could have chosen me , you son of a bitch! After everything Dad did for you, after everything I've done for you—"

"And I could have had what, exactly?" The other man snapped back. "A lie that continues to be perpetuated? Some fallacy that I matter to you?"

"Oh, boo-hoo , poor little baby." The jeer came with a mocking tremor of his lower lip as he proceeded to wrestle wildly against his restraints. "We already went through this jackass. I never lied; I told you exactly what this was. It's not my fault if you got your wires crossed."

 The barrel was pressed harder against his head, forming a deep-set groove. At the same time, the weapon trembled as though the wielder was being trounced by a sudden rush of hesitancy.

 Gavin was forced to wait like an old dog being taken out behind the farmhouse. Held in limbo as its owner debated on whether to go through with the act. It was a humiliating, demeaning role, one that he resented deeply.

 So he decided to flip the script, leaning further into the muzzle, practically mounting it to his temple. He felt strangely calm as he did so, his adrenaline pumping, providing a steadily increasing numbness. "If you're going to shoot me, then go ahead. What the hell are you waiting for?"

 Silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating but simultaneously fueling his resolve. He revelled in his renewed control, drawing from it a warped satisfaction before goading his assailant further.

 "Seeing as you're jerking around, you may as well take off the blindfold." The suggestion came as a saccharine taunt punctuated by a humourless cackle. "Look me in the eyes while you blow my fucking brains out."

The captive's heart continued to pound, echoing in the hush of the room. His adrenaline was starting to taper, turning to apprehension before creeping into fear. He refused to let this show, as his jaw hardened in bitter defiance, all the while bracing for the worst. 

It was too late to go back—and if the worst did happen, at least it would be over quickly. He wouldn't be forced to endure the continued sting of Nines' monumental betrayal.

Then, with a sudden jerk, the blindfold was ripped away. His vision was blurred momentarily as it attempted to re-adjust to the murky light. Once the haze cleared, he was able to see his face. 

Grey eyes were glazed with immeasurable pain, focus lost to detached longing. It was as if he were imagining a whole other life, separate from the bleak fate assigned to them. A future that would never exist, breaking apart and crashing around him in striking detail.

Tears started to roll down his cheeks as his stricken face crumpled with anguish. His breath hitched, and with a laboured shudder, Nines lowered the pistol. 

Gavin watched as he wept, grappling with the undoubtedly boundless weight of his lost pride and shattered yearning…

Until laughter rumbled in his chest—before bursting from his lips, loud and unrepressed. It was partly out of relief but mostly borne of spite, as he barked in the traitor's defeated face. 

Struck by a sense of marked vindication, he gleefully twisted a knife into the mangled remains of his spirit:

"I knew you couldn't do it. You might act like tough shit, Nolan, but deep down, you're weak . Guess you can't help that, though—it runs in your blood." 

The defamation seemed enough to snap Nines from his despaired stupor, renewing his anger tenfold. His eyes bulged wide, flooded by loathing, as any tenderness he may have held for the man as part of his fantasies promptly disintegrated. It was replaced with something decidedly sinister—as he carved the flesh from his bones with the serrated edge of his stare.

"You are not worth the energy it would take to end your miserable life." 

Then, as quickly as it emerged, the rush of emotion was gone. Rising from the bed, he retrieved the discarded coat from the floor before calmly slipping it on. After securing the belt and levelling the creases in the rumpled material, he smoothly turned away.  

Despite how exposed he still remained, there was a pronounced air of indifference about him. A cruel detachment that was undoubtedly dignified, as much as Gavin loathed to admit. 

"I don't need to do anything to you." His level tones demonstrated a disquieting lack of humanity as his focus honed on the nearby door. "They'll do it for me." 

He cleared his throat, glaring at the weathered panel with silent demand until it steadily creaked open. Shadows shifted in the hallway, lining in wait before the rest of the family started to emerge through the threshold. A poisonous atmosphere surrounded them, exacerbated as sights trained on their boss.  

With decisive confirmation that his second-in-command was far from the only backstabber in his ranks, Gavin felt his stomach sink—newly replenished confidence dwindling at an alarming rate. He was reminded of his current position and how woefully unequipped he was to defend himself from the pronounced physical onslaught approaching. 

Nines showed no sympathy as he coolly stepped around the men, striding for the exit. This was until he reached the doorway, where he lingered longer than necessary. Gripping at the fraught wood, a few of the mindless drones began to look over, presumably awaiting further instruction. 

With a sharp squeeze, splinters ripping into the tender rise of his palm, he did just that. Issuing a final command before disappearing from view, not so much as glancing back:

"Keep him alive."

[everlastiingiimmortals]

Theory: History of the Laurel Wreath Galaxy

Fair warning that I went nuts with this one and am absolutely reaching in some cases. Also, this will contain leaks about the upcoming Sigonia relic set lore, so please keep that in mind!

I established in a prior HC post that Ratio, as far as I'm concerned, is from the Laurel Wreath Galaxy. However, it was while thinking about this that I realized I missed something crucial from a Memory Bubble in the game: Rationality's Fall was a direct consequence of the Mechanical Emperor's War (referred to hereafter as MEW).

We learn from this bubble that the Philosopher's Union was overrun by robots after they massacred all of the philosophers, as well as destroyed most of the planets in the galaxy, before sentencing the Philosopher King Aurelius to his death by the Union's own laws and demanding he drink poison. We also learn that he does in fact do this, and this part of the war is what is known as Rationality's Fall, supposedly.

We also learn from Fu Xuan through Glimpses Into the Beyond that it was in fact Aha's followers who infected the robots with a virus called the "Philosopher's Poison," overthrowing the mechanical army in the Union with irony and a taste of their own medicine.

Naturally, this sent me down a long and spiraling rabbit hole, trying to place the time of this event.

My conclusion: Fucking Ancient.

You see, we know from Baiheng's journal that Screwllum is at least 800 years old in the Star Calendar, as Planet Screwllum had already been established during her travels. Do we know how many Amber Eras (AE) that is? No. Is there any sort of means of comparison or consistency for AE? No. Do we know how long the Star Calendar (SC) years are? No. But it's different from the Trailblaze Calendar, which is the closest to the Gregorian Calendar, and I guess we can assume that based on the Xianzhou's inspirations, the Star Calendar would be more similar to the Lunar Calendar. Regardless! This doesn't help us with the Amber Eras, but it's a nice point of reference all the same given that the MEW had been happening since before 3287 SC. The year now is around 8100 SC. Furthermore, we can't really tell whether Screwllum established Planet Screwllum while Rubert I was still alive or not, but it is implied to have been after Rubert's death, given the Anti-Organic Equation still infects machine life to this day and Screwllum isn't... exactly sure of the circumstances of Rubert's death. We do know that it happened many years ago, as it was "countless Amber Eras" ago. I'm going to choose a nice round number, overestimate how long the war lasted, and say maybe 5000-ish SC. That gives us 3000 years to the modern year.

So Rationality's Fall happens some time in this era, long before 5000 SC, and much of the Laurel Wreath Galaxy is destroyed as a result. What happened to the survivors?

This is where the theory gets wack.

We know that the people of the Laurel Wreath Galaxy were a space-faring people, as they were able to travel to the center of the Galaxy to engage in the Philosopher's Union with the King. Those that could escape likely did, traveling to other planets to seek refuge. I don't think it is too far of a stretch to suggest that Sigonia may have been one of those places.

Situated near the convergence of three major star clusters, Sigonia-IV has long been subjected to stellar winds from multiple stars, earning its reputation as the "eye of the storm" throughout the Cosmos. The planet's surface environment is extremely harsh, leading many civilizations to either migrate to other celestial bodies or succumb to natural disasters.

Such a harsh environment would not necessarily lead to widely available resources for space-faring -- we see this as it is with Belobog, a perfect in game example. Nor is it exactly an optimal location to settle in either, but when faced with the alternative of certain death, who wouldn't consider it? They were desperate. Is it not possible to consider, then, that perhaps the Laurelian escapees sought refuge on Sigonia, only for many of them to find they were unable to adapt to the environment and thus move on, while others attempted to survive? I posit this theory for a few reasons:

Ratio and Aventurine obviously share similar eyes, and yet only Aventurine's are commented on as being Sigonian (yes, I know this could be because of Ratio's dumb headpiece, but he also doesn't make any sort of indication towards the similarities himself, so hush).

We know from the Sigonia relic lore that the Avgin genocide was relatively recent, happening in modern history as Aventurine was just a boy when it occurred. This gives plenty of time for the Laurelian settlers to undergo genetic divergence and ultimately evolution to adapt to Sigonia's environment (under high evolutionary pressure, adaptation can happen fairly quickly as well, so at least 3000 years ish of extreme evolutionary pressure is admittedly nothing to sneeze at).

This is admittedly something I believe is more of a funny coincidence than anything, but I love to chew on regardless due to my fascination with the evolution of language, is that αυγή (avgí) in Greek means dawn. If you know, you know.

So by the modern year, the Sigonians and the Laurelians are genetically distinct enough to not be recognized as similar people, but the Sigonians could, theoretically, trace their lineage back to the ancient Laurelians.

To give a general recap of the Laurel Wreath Galaxy with this context:

The Philosopher's Union has expanded throughout the entire galaxy, championing as one of the most profound galaxies for critical thought and where countless philosophers flock to vie for a seat in the Union.

The MEW occurs, taking with it much of the galaxy, destroying the Union, and killing the last Philosopher King, Aurelius (who, by the way, was named after the Roman Emperor). This is the incident known as Rationality's Fall.

The survivors who could flee did so, some of them eventually settling on Sigonia. Those who survive evolve and adapt to the harsh environment, or perhaps remain stranded on Sigonia and must make do.

Aha's followers introduce the Philosopher's Poison into the robots in the Union and overthrow them.

Eventually, life in the Laurel Wreath Galaxy recovers and stabilizes, now with robots joining their ranks, though the Union remains a vacant amphitheater -- more an ancient monument than anything else. Nobody takes up the throne of the Philosopher King.

The IPC encounter Sigonia and try to profit, as they do.

Fast forward to the modern era, where Ratio and Aventurine are born.

...and the rest is history, if you know your lore and your leaks.

Admittedly, I do have a bone to pick with this theory, outside of the blatant overreaching, and that is Rationality's Fall. From the Curio it's my understanding that Rationality's Fall was a civil war wrought by the folly of man, and yet every other source I see, like the Memory Bubble, implies an invasion of the Union by Rubert's followers. I see two possible explanations here, one of which is more heavily likely than the other:

There were two Rationality's Falls: one by the robots invading and another after that WAS the civil war, which was man and machine alike. This is unlikely, weird, doesn't make sense, and thus I don't think this is the case.

The robots were in fact native to the galaxy and revolted after being subjected to the Anti-Organic Equation. This is more likely and a method Rubert used for converting machines to its cause, and thus it makes sense. It's possible the robots of the Laurel Wreath Galaxy didn't have sentience until the MEW, so there's little conflict here.

I had a hard time admitting to the second possibility because it meant needing to adjust my prior headcanon somewhat and it still doesn't sit right with me given the initial description of civil war, but I'll address that here:

I maintain that Ratio was from the Laurel Wreath Galaxy, and perhaps a warmongering trait still remains within his blood, but maybe it is because of this trait of his people that the Laurel Wreath Galaxy was so focused on by Rubert during the MEW in the first place. We know Rubert accused organic life of being flawed in calculation, leading to their own end and destruction, and thus needing to be eradicated. Does this not sound familiar? Rationality's Fall, the collapse of mankind, which prides itself on the ability to think and reason -- that is rationality, not calculation and probability -- and thus the world's impurities, in this case, is not referring to arrogance nor ignorance, the original philosophy of the Union, but to rationality itself, to mankind as a whole.

So, fast forward once again to the modern era. Where does this leave Ratio? A descendant of survivors who managed to stay on what few habitable planets of the Laurel Wreath Galaxy remained. Someone with personal ties and reason to care so much about the Philosopher's Union and its history. Someone who, inflamed by curiosity and with an insatiable hunger for knowledge, ends up chasing the very same philosophy that the Union, which no longer exists, prided itself on. If the previous era of the Philosopher's Union were the Roman Empire, with all of its Ancient Greek associations as well, then Ratio's era -- Ratio himself -- is the Italian Renaissance, the revival of ancient Greco-Roman culture, and thus one could argue the inheritor of the Philosopher King's legacy.

[sage-nebula]

Summary: After Tails accidentally electrocutes himself in his lab, he considers the consequences of his mortality and decides to do something about it. Sonic is less than enthused with the result.

[Part 1 of A.I. Means Love]

- - -

Tails came to on the floor of his workshop, the smell of singed fur strong in his nose and his muscles twitching all over his body.

For a minute, he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. He took stock of the uneven palpitations of his heart in his chest, the way his arm jerked without his consent. His foot did, too—and when it kicked, it hit something with a loud clang audible even over the music still playing from the overhead speakers. Tails craned his neck so he could look, and saw a partially disassembled eggrobo by his feet.

Oh.

Grimacing, Tails pushed himself into a sitting position. The eggrobo was a new model, or at least one he’d never seen before, and he’d found it skulking around the upper plateaus of the Mystic Ruins. Tails was never one to leave discarded badnik pieces laying around—that was littering, and also wasteful—and so he’d brought it back to the workshop to take it apart to see what changes Eggman had made to this new model. Taking badniks apart to study them was old hat by now; Tails was confident he could do it even half asleep. But his confidence had gotten the better of him this time. So sure was he that he could pull it off without a hitch that he’d forgone his usual safety equipment, and when he hit a live switch with his screwdriver . . .

Tails sighed, and barely resisted the urge to bonk himself on the head. The pain of electrocution was lesson enough; he didn’t need to smack himself for being so careless. And he didn’t need to tell Sonic, either, or else he’d never hear the end of it and would probably be monitored as he tinkered with things for at least a week—

A sudden surge of guilt swept through Tails’ system.

Sonic.

It was an exaggeration to say that Tails had almost died just now, he thought. Sure, he was electrocuted—but he couldn’t have been unconscious for that long, and though he could taste iron in his mouth and his muscles were jittery, he could still move everything just fine. He had all his mental faculties. There were other cases of electrocution that were much worse than what he’d just been through where people had come through just fine. He hadn’t almost died—he was fine.

But if he had . . .

If Tails did electrocute himself to death in his workshop, what then? What would Sonic do if he came home to find that? What if he came home early from his latest jaunt out because there was an Eggman emergency, and he needed Tails to build something to combat it, and Tails couldn’t do that because he was dead? Or what if Tails went with him to deal with the Eggman emergency, and got careless in battle just like he was careless here, and got stomped to death by a giant mecha? Truthfully, Tails wasn’t too worried about that happening; the odds of Sonic not pulling him out of the way in time were statistically very low. But very low wasn’t impossible, and if Tails got killed somehow and Sonic was suddenly left stranded without any way to combat Eggman’s new tech, or just the right machine needed to prevent the end of the world . . .

Tails clambered to his feet, and abandoned the eggrobo in the middle of the workshop floor in favor of making his way over to his computer desk. He jostled his computer from sleep with a simple shake of the mouse, and hopped into his chair as the monitor flared to life.

The best time to come up with a solution to help prevent the end of the world in the event of his untimely demise was yesterday, but today was still better than tomorrow. Now that he knew what he needed to do, all that was left was to crank it out.

Tails cracked his knuckles and got to work.

[Keep Reading on AO3]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Aaron Sibarium

Published: May 9, 2024

The school has declined to investigate faculty members for celebrating terrorism and calling for the destruction of Israel.

Yale University spent more than a year investigating a Jewish professor for six words of an op-ed he published in a pro-Israel newspaper, raising questions about the school’s approach to anti-Semitism and free speech as the campus continues to cope with the fallout of the Israel-Hamas war.

Evan Morris, a professor of biomedical engineering at Yale School of Medicine, penned the 2022 op-ed in the Algemeiner along with 14 other professors. They described a pattern of anti-Semitism in the Yale Postdoctoral Association, a group that runs social and academic events for researchers.

The authors listed several examples of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel bias. In one aside, they claimed that a researcher at the medical school, Azmi Ahmad, had "blocked an Israeli postdoc from speaking" at an October 2021 screening of a film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Those six words triggered a marathon investigation by the medical school’s Office of Academic and Professional Development—a body responsible for disciplining professors for "unprofessional behavior"—that began in February 2023, over six months after the op-ed was published, and concluded in April 2024.

The office told Morris that it had been "tasked with assessing the accuracy" of the six-word statement, according to an email reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. It did not tell him who filed the complaint, what policy he had allegedly violated, or what the consequences of that violation could be but said the review was likely to be completed by June 2023.

Instead, it dragged on without updates for over a year, according to Morris and emails reviewed by the Free Beacon. During that time—including in the post-October 7 era—Yale repeatedly declined to sanction students and professors for vicious anti-Israel speech, citing the importance of free expression.

The university took no action against Zareena Grewal, a professor of ethnicity, race, and migration, after she called October 7 "an extraordinary day" and stated that "settlers are not civilians." Nor did it investigate a Yale Law School student group that called for "armed struggle" against Israel and said that Hamas should be delisted as a terrorist organization.

"Yale is committed to freedom of expression," a university spokesperson, Karen Peart, said of Grewal’s remarks. "The comments posted on Professor Grewal’s personal accounts represent her own views."

By contrast, Morris earned a rebuke from the head of the university’s professional development office, Robert Rohrbaugh, who on April 11 shared the findings of the school’s investigation in an email.

"We were not able to substantiate the allegation that one postdoc was blocked from speaking by the postdoc identified in your article," Rohrbaugh said. "Our request to you for the future is that when attributing conduct to a named university community member, particularly a trainee, you be as diligent as possible to be sure information presented is accurate."

The protracted and seemingly selective probe has outraged Jewish faculty members, who say that the finger-wagging at Morris—and the decision to engage in it amid a nationwide surge in campus anti-Semitism—is tone deaf to say the least.

"Apparently, you have learned nothing from the last 6 months of rampant, unremitting and sometimes destructive and threatening anti-Semitism on campus,"  Morris wrote to Rohrbaugh. "Yale spends its resources and 2 years investigating 6 words in an OpEd by its faculty but fails to discipline professors who call for the annihilation of the Jewish people."

Pnina Weiss, a pediatrician at Yale Medical School who did not sign the 2022 op-ed but reviewed the correspondence between Morris and Rohrbaugh, said the investigation was  "hard to reconcile" with Yale’s stated commitment to free speech.

"The administration has defended the right of professors like Zareena Grewal to post on social media—celebrations of the rape, kidnapping, and cold-blooded murder of Israelis on October 7," she told the Free Beacon. "Yet when a group of 15 Jewish faculty write an op-ed about anti-Semitism and the suppression of an Israeli postdoc’s speech, the faculty are ‘investigated’ and reprimanded for misusing the word ‘block.’"

Double standards, Weiss continued, "are the cornerstone of anti-Semitism."

Aside from the verbal slap on the wrist, Yale has yet to formally sanction Morris, and the school declined to comment on its decision to single him out for investigation or say whether any other discipline remains on the table. In a statement on Rohrbaugh’s behalf, the university’s communications office said that the medical school was "not aware of any disciplinary action" against Morris, suggesting the rebuke in April was unofficial.

"Yale University and the School of Medicine vigorously reject anti-Semitism," the communications office said. "For example, the School of Medicine provides support for educational events on anti-Semitism organized by Dr. Morris through a grant from the Academic Engagement Network."

Ahmad, the postdoc named in the 2022 op-ed, did not respond to a request for comment.

The blowback to the investigation comes as Yale president Peter Salovey is preparing to submit testimony to Congress about the school’s handling of anti-Semitism, which, while less heavily criticized than Columbia’s, has generated its share of bad press.

Administrators stood by for days as protesters occupied a university plaza, defaced a World War II memorial, and harassed Jewish students who attempted to film the chaos, culminating in an April 20 confrontation that injured one student and prompted a sheepish apology from protest organizers. Additional encampments and occupations—one of which shut down a major intersection—sprung up sporadically in the following weeks.

Those disruptions followed a string of quieter scandals at the Ivy League university, where the campus aftershocks of Hamas’s assault fueled charges of hypocrisy and double standards. At Yale Law School, for example, the Schell Center for International Human Rights—which in 2022 spon.sored a talk on Israeli "apartheid"—resisted calls to host an event about Oct. 7, telling one Jewish student that the situation was "complex."

"What kind of 'Center for International Human Rights' would refuse to host an event condemning the largest pogrom since the Holocaust," Jewish students at the law school asked in an open letter. "Does the Schell Center not think that Israelis are entitled to human rights, too? Or is it perhaps because they were Jewish?"

The center only agreed to host an event after weeks of pressure, including from Jewish alumni. In the interim, several students posted defenses of the Oct. 7 massacre on a law school-wide listserv, which soon devolved into ad hominem back-and-forths.

"Expecting Palestinians to peacefully respond to unspeakable war crimes and illegal collective punishment they've experienced at the hands of Israel is laughable," Iesha Phillips, the lead editor of the Yale Journal of Law & Liberation, responded to one Jewish student. "Too many lives have been lost over the past few decades. We shouldn't only start to care because it's now affecting Jewish folks."

The law school’s hands-off approach to those posts contrasted sharply with its response to Trent Colbert, a second-year law student, when he invited students to his "traphouse" in 2021. Within hours of sending the invitation, Colbert was hauled into a meeting with school administrators who demanded he sign a pre-drafted apology and hinted he could face discipline—including consequences with the bar—if he refused.

They would later claim the encounter had been misconstrued. "We would never get on our letterhead and write anything to the bar about you," Yaseen Eldik, then the law school’s diversity director, told Colbert a month after their first meeting. "You may have been confused."

The backpedaling foreshadowed the tactics Yale used with Morris: launch an investigation, raise the possibility of discipline, then suggest after the fact that the probe’s target overreacted and imagined the threat.

"My prior communication did not question the right of faculty authors to voice their opinion or ask you to change your opinion," Rohrbaugh wrote in response to Morris’s message criticizing the investigation. "Although we found that one of the statements made about a trainee in a national media outlet could not be substantiated, my communication did not raise the topic of apology."

Rohrbaugh also chided Morris for declining to be interviewed as part of the investigation, after the school repeatedly refused to tell him what rule he’d been accused of breaking or who made the accusation, according to emails reviewed by the Free Beacon.

"Have I violated a Yale morality code?" Morris had asked Rohrbaugh in May 2023. "If so, where can I find it?"

He never heard back.

==

Never forget: the process is the punishment.

[dumpingground6]

I feel like info dumping about how Hyde is written lately

Because there's something very interesting about it because the first thing you see on his design is the skull and how you can't see his face and when you can't put a human face to a design it tends to make you think of this character as more cold maybe more distant from others

And with the information that we're given about him from an omnipresent view it fuels that

But then when we see him in dreams of redemption he speaks more politely There's something more warm about Hyde here

He's able to hold regular conversations although he is very blunt about stating the consequences and stuff and that is really cool

In embla's bounties he is concerned for her at every turn. Hyde eve tries to get embla to be more sociable/ less intimidating to her subordinates he gives her real advice that would work in theory if it wasn't for how she interpreted it

Now this is obviously because they are on the same side and stuff so it's understandable why he would be this warm towards an old friend and a coworker but also

This is going to be interesting to see you because we have seen how he interacts with close friends and now with the immortal fire event how he interacts with those who are neutral with him.

Now I want to see how he interacts with those who are against him I want to see how he changes and shifts

Not to say that he isn't cold or that he isn't unethical he's obviously an antagonist here and stuff but like with how he lays things out for people it's very honest and truthful

This is further seen in immortal fire

He lays out the fact that Nicholas's plan is Impossible

And while he does say there's an alternative he makes sure to explicitly say the consequences while also giving mateo and Nicholas a chance to back out at every moment

So on the surface you may think that it sucks that the Hades esper is seemingly in the bad organization but then when you peel back his layers there starts to be a sort of understanding this does not justify his means at all

But you understand the reasons why he has gone this far

Take his relationship with Hannah, now we don't know whether they are actually family or not and at this point we are probably not going to get an answer but it is clear that they were definitely very close friends at the least because of how much her death affected him. And it's clear he wanted to genuinely improve the world by partitioning his grief into something more productive.

That being the artificial esper project and I truly believe that this was a passion project for him because of how much work he put into it and how much he wanted this to succeed to the point where even after it was shut down he started an entirely new organization just so it can continue.

And we know why they want to research the miracles they need to know how to deal with them and clearly the events are showing that literally everyone doesn't know anything about the miracles at all even after 15 years of research

And other events also go to show the catastrophic consequences of letting the miracles go on

And they have results the shadow decree have undoubtedly made huge leaps in technology with stuff like the successful artificial transformation of kara

It really seems like the shadow decrees turn into crime likely isn't caused by him or at least caused by him completely.

But it's also clear that he's apathetic to any of the criminal activities that they go on because he rationalizes that the ends justify the means

And it's at the cost of every last ounce of their ethics

And that's why he's just so well written because like at first you think herder Hades esper bad but like when you peel it back it becomes way more complicated than that and that's so nice to see

[vihattu-thethoroughbredofsin]

EarthSpark: When the script is not your strong suit. Part 1.

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

I will say in advance that I do not hate this series, but I have a lot of questions and complaints about some plot points. These posts are also an invitation to discussion, but first I recommend reading to the end (if someone is interested, of course).

let's get started. It's going to be a long song.…

1. The unevenness of the narrative, forgotten moments, strange plot twists.

Many people, including me, have already talked about this, there are many moments in the series when events develop too quickly and occur without prior construction and prerequisites. This is especially noticeable in the filler series, which had no consequences for the narrative, despite the fact that events predisposed to this. For example, the episodes "Traditions", "Bear Necessities", "Decoy", "Friends and Family". In the first of these episodes, Alex recognized the signs of his colleague's inventions. Has anyone remembered this and tried to find out where Arachnamechs came from? No.

The mutant bear didn't surprise anyone at all. Why did the GHOST throw waste in the forest at all? There's no point in doing it so openly, and if there was a goal, what was it? We never found out. This is an extremely cheap way to show how much the GHOST is an evil organization that spoils nature. This is a militarized organization, where do they get hazardous waste, in principle, if specifically they are not part of military production and their base is obviously not some kind of factory? If this is waste from scientific research, then again, from where? It was not shown that the GHOST was studying or inventing anything until Meridian returned to them. And even if that's the case, what's the point of Croft throwing away evidence of some dark business of the organization where they can be found by the person whom Croft herself lured here to work? The only thing that helped the whole situation was that Dot and everyone else just forgot about this meeting with the mutant bear and did not start an investigation. And anyway, how long has this been going on? It would be a good move to show at the end of the episode "Traditions" a hint of these mutants, which the locals mistook for cryptids. By the way, is Dot a good ranger if she's not interested in what happened to that bear in the woods?

What about "Prime Time"? Apart from all the oddities, no one tried to figure out what kind of ship it was, is it really in orbit, what happened at all? Where did the Meridian go? Isn't anyone interested? Okay. By the way, it turns out that Robby alone could be enough to create Twitch and Thrash? Why? By what logic does the creation of Terrans work at all?! What's going on in this episode, help!

The entire episode of "Decoy" turned out to be useless because the beginning of the episode " Warzone" was cut out. And how would it be, how did it happen that the creators of the series cut out the plot outcome of another episode? At least they would have said that everything that happened was the work of Soundwave and Ravage.

Or an episode of "Friends and Family"? Did Bumblebee forget about the inscription and the drawing, did the whole family forget to get a supply of this water? Considering that this resource eventually disappeared! What did the Terrans eat after the episode "What Dwells Within"?! And if they had to hide for a long time, wouldn't it be worth having a supply of this water?

I'll just leave it without comment that for a long time the children did not even think about telling how the Terrans were born.

And that's not even the whole list. I do not know how it was possible to overlook such inconsistencies and nonsense.

2. Parents do not receive attention in the plot and because of this they look negligent.

The series, which began and is mainly positioned as focusing on the family, decided very early to sideline the parents, Dot and Alex, reducing their role and significance, but most importantly, the logic of the plot. That is, attentive and caring parents do not try to protect their children from getting into various fights and dangerous situations? I understand that the plot should be happening, but they could have expressed their fears, tried unsuccessfully to stop the children or talk to the Cybertronians about it, at least with Arcee, who instead of looking after the children went with them to fight with Soundwave! Are parents satisfied with such "babysitters"? Fine.

How considerate is Dot as a mother if, knowing that a free-roaming Decepticon has appeared in the area, which has already attacked people in the city, she did not think to call home and warn her family about it? This is "House Rules", and we remember how it could have ended for Mo and Thrash.

How considerate are Dot and Alex if, knowing that one of their children may be constantly connected to the Internet, they don't do anything about it? No attempt to control what exactly the Hashtag can see there? No explanation of the rules of behavior on the Internet and possible dangers? This is a show for kids, it could make a good educational episode or part of it, but so, are they waiting for this to become a problem to solve it next season?

One of your children has built a whole bunker out of materials that came from nowhere and constructs often dangerous inventions. What should parents do about it? Probably nothing, they don't need to ask questions, they don't need to control and supervise the safety of this child and the rest of the children, they don't need to look for a teacher, at least a Wheeljack. Why, because in "Bear Necessities" we were not shown the consequences.

Alex is our historian, but it doesn't affect anything beyond the first episode. Did he discover the similarity of Arachnamechs to his colleague's inventions? No, it's not worth investigating. Any historical information is told by one of the transformers, but not by him, although he could tell both his children and us some historical facts important to the plot. Information about Primes and artifacts? No, he didn't tell it, although he could have started with the basics, and the Cybertronians would have completed it. The battle at the space bridge? No, Megatron told about it. What's the point of making a character a historian if you don't give him the opportunity to use his knowledge?

Besides, Alex, by hints, had some kind of connection with the Meridian. This can be understood from the remarks from both Alex and Meridian, which were supported by the acting of the voice actors. But what did it lead to? How did this fact affect their meeting? How did it help to defeat Meridian? Did this give a backstory to either of them? The answer to all questions is no. Then why was this connection added?

Because of all this, Dot and Alex seem to be very neglectful parents who either don't understand what's going on or don't consider it serious. And this is very strange, because they were not originally written like that, and all these situations could have been solved by a couple of lines in the script, but the authors did not think of it.

3. Dads-2 don't make sense.

Well, the main theme of the series is family. And it seems like it is. And then, starting from the second part of the first season, the authors began to conveniently push the parents to the second and third plan, as mentioned in the paragraph above.

But the family doesn't end only with Malto, because this also applies to Cybertronians, who are mentors for Terrans or, as the fandom prefers to call them, dads-2. And it seems like the idea is clear, the Terrans are a bridge between humanity and the cybertronians, they have a human family and there must be someone who will provide connection with the Cybertronians. In addition, the show should show as many recognizable characters as possible in order to attract viewers familiar with the franchise, this is understandable. So how does the plot handle this?

Twitch and Wheeljack. Okay, he created a drone that she scanned and showed her which set of weapons she had. And after that, he disappeared from the plot, although he had several opportunities to help the Terrans, especially Nightshade. If it's expensive to invite a voice actor and add model to an episode, then authors could at least mention him.

Nightshade and Tarantulas. Okay, Tarantulas didn't teach Nightshade anything, because Nightshade already knows everything, he didn't teach any moral lesson, he was going to hurt Dot and Alex. A great dad-2, but apparently the fandom knows better. Nightshade even acquired an altmod in response to the danger posed by the Tarantulas, and this cannot be called a help, if you replace it with any other threat, nothing will change. Well, yes, an excellent dad-2 of a possible war criminal scientist, but more on that later.

Hashtag and Starscream. This is more of a fandom declaring Starscream the dad-2 for the Hashtag, but still. Everything is simple here, Hashtag serves as a plot justificator for Starscream's behavior, which will be discussed later, and no more.

Jawbreaker and Grimlock. It's not that bad here, and Grimlock has a lot to teach Jawbreaker. But do parents not care about the fact that one of their children will be taught by someone with serious PTSD and a problem with anger control?

And for some reason, the fandom appoints Swindle as the dad-2 for Trash. Should I remind you that Swindle used Trash and Mo and later threatened them, maybe even could have killed them? Is everything okay, a good role model?

In the end, this is another thing that the authors wrote into the plot and did not develop.

4. Terrans lose their features and look just like young cybertronians.

The question arises that we are constantly being pointed out that Terrans are important for the future of transformers, that they are unique in their nature. But how is it shown, what does it mean and what does it affect? They are techno-organic, but what exactly distinguishes them from Cybertronians? Do they drink some kind of unusual water instead of energon and can scan fossilized bones? Seriously, what else? Did they appear in an unusual way? And how do we know how ordinary Cybertronians appear, maybe in the same way, but with the help of another artifact and another water. Why would add a technoorganicity characteristic and not really do anything about it? Everything the Cybertronians teach them works, although we should have expected some differences in their functioning and the work of their bodies.

I don't think the situation will change in the second season, but we'll see.

5. The development of Robby and Mo is not consistent.

Why did such a remark from Mo appear in a conversation with Jawbreaker about the fact that no one takes her seriously because she is a girl? This never happened in the series, no one told her that, on the contrary, she was always on a par with Robby. Besides, her mom is a former soldier, how could there be such conversations in such a family? And everything is simple, it was added at the last moment for the sake of something unclear.

In general, their whole development is strange, the viewer seems to be told that both Robbie and Mo are important for some kind of "prophecy", but is it implied that Mo is more important, especially with his healing powers? What does that even mean? Why was the prophecy introduced? For some reason, the authors completely abandoned Robby's arch that he wants to be a defender of his family and is trying to be a leader? He should have had this arch on a par with Twitch, but Twitch took over the whole role. In addition, the final phrase of the parents in the episode "Prime Time" looks very strange when they say that Mo is special. They have a recently dying son sitting next to them! Which, as the episode showed, is also special on a par with Mo! Why was this phrase only about Mo, if it contradicts the whole morality of the episode?

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

[thegloweringcastle]

First off, I want to give the BIGGEST thank you to @azrielshadowssing for organizing this lovely event! Truly, I cannot thank her enough for her patience and kindness. This is my first time participating and I have so thoroughly enjoyed it!

This is also my first time writing nessian, so I apologize in advance if they are somewhat out of character. If you see any typos, no you didn't.

Summary: After agreeing to do a favor for her youngest sister, Nesta and Cassian reconnect after three years of no contact. Will this roadtrip be enough to salvage the ragged threads of their history, or will they return to be being complete strangers when all is said and done?

Warnings: None

Part 2 | Part 3

~2.2k words

...

The road ahead was gilded in sunlight, rays filtered down through the towering trees. The air was hot but the view was magnificent. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and Nesta had never been more miserable.

If Cassian spat one more sunflower seed shell out the window, Nesta was going to pull her car over and make him walk the next few hundred miles. Her car, a Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon in Opulent Metallic Blue with a custom expanded panorama sunroof, was her pride and joy and Nesta would be damned if the unsophisticated ass got spit and other crap all over it.

She said as much.

“Aww, c’mon Nes. Your car is fine, I’m not spitting inside, am I? Sunflower seeds are a staple snack; we can’t have our epic summer road trip without them.”

She took a deep, cleansing breath. “We are hurtling down the freeway at eighty miles an hour. Every time you open and close that window my ears pop and the air conditioning escapes, and it’s too damn hot out for that.” The steering wheel creaked under her iron grip. “I am doing Feyre a very, very generous favor in driving you, but I will not hesitate to kick you out. I don’t give a rat's ass about an ‘epic summer road trip’.” 

“Ouch. Those are some harsh words, Nesta.” He slumped back in his seat, resealing the plastic baggie of snacks. “If you kick me out and make me hitch-hike, it will be your fault when I get snatched.”

“It will be my fault either way,” she grumbled. “At least I know how to hide evidence.” 

He grinned. “What was that, Nes?”

It was all she could do to reign in her snarl. “My car, my rules. Tread carefully, you brute. I didn’t even want to drive you in the first place.”

If things between her and Feyre hadn’t been going so well, Nesta really wouldn’t have gone along with the plan. He was the one who ruined his bike, he was the one that could suffer the consequences; he could get his own sorry ass down south to Feyre & Rhys’s wedding, or, better yet, not attend at all.

“It’s good to see you too, Nes.” He winked at her, before slipping on a pair of headphones and finally leaving Nesta to her precious, blissful silence.

***

“Wake up,” Nesta slammed her car door shut behind her, but Cassian didn’t even budge. She went around to open the passenger door, pulling the headphones from his ears and startling him awake. “Wake up, we’re here.” Nesta wouldn’t be surprised if he had been sleeping to the sound of people shouting and smashing guitars against the ground.

He swiped one hand down his face, clambering out and jogging to catch up with Nesta even as sleep still pulled at his eyes.

“Hey Nes, tomorrow–”

“Nesta.” She said, not even looking over at him. “It’s Nesta, not Nes.”

“You never minded when we were together-”

She sighed, turning and placing her hands on her hips. “Well we’re not together now, are we?”

“I mean…” He trailed off, looked between them, looked back at her. “We are, technically, currently together.”

She huffed and kept walking towards the motel. “If you don’t want me to leave you behind tomorrow morning then I recommend you not be a smartass.” Nesta reached for the handle to the front office, pausing and looking over her shoulder to Cassian. “I’ll get the room keys, you take care of the luggage. I will see you at five in the morning. If you’re even one minute late, you’re stuck here.” And with that, she stepped out of the heat and into the cool front office, leaving Cassian to haul their baggage to the rooms.

The next morning he was thirty minutes early, greeting Nesta with a shit-eating grin as she emerged from her motel room a quarter past five.

***

Nesta was meticulous in unfolding and refolding the map. Always careful to not tear the creases, always careful to make the folds line up, always careful to not crinkle the paper. If Cassian drove how she navigated, she would not be so worried about her precious Cadillac. As it was, Nesta was preparing to hold a memorial service for her beloved car by the time they made it to the venue, if they ever did.

She gestured with one perfectly manicured hand to the roaring motorway ahead of them. “To get onto the next highway you’ll want to turn at this intersection right up here.” 

He tugged his headphones - again with the stupid headphones - to hang around his neck. “Huh?” They whizzed past the turn. 

“Hey, whoa, where are you going? Pull a u-turn, that’s where we needed to be.” He put the pedal to the metal; the pitstop town was fading in the distance, fast. “If you hadn’t had your music blasting your brains out you would have heard me the first time.”

He shrugged, mouth twitching. “Mmmm… I know a detour. There’s less traffic and it’s much prettier. It’s the one we took when we came here a few summers ago, and it was just fine then.”

Nesta was sorely regretting her decision to trade places with Cassian after their pitstop for coffee and breakfast, but her leg was too cramped and her foot was too numb for her to officially be the safer option.

She shut her eyes, doing her best to keep her voice even. “Cassian, we’re practically in the middle of nowhere. It would be easier to just go back and turn there - don’t you remember how twisty this road is? It goes all along the coast.”

“That’s exactly the point.” He stared straight ahead, stoic and unmoving. When 

She sighed, crinkling the map as her hands turned to fists. ”Oh please, you could at least try to not be an obnoxious bastard for the whole trip-”

He cut her off, his voice rising. “See, but that’s the thing, Nesta, you’re the one being difficult. We’ve been on the road for three days now and so far I would say I’ve tried pretty damn hard to not get on your nerves. Yeah, I know I have annoying habits, and yeah, I know it’s been a while and we’re not used to each other anymore.” Now he was really shouting. “But by the Mother, you could work on having some human decency too.” 

He braked hard and turned into a ‘scenic overlook’, which was really just a parking lot at the edge of a rocky beach. Silence hung between them thick like fog, the soft click of the turn indicator echoing through it. Cassian backed into a spot, diligently checking the mirrors. He still refused to use the backup camera.

“Come sit with me. Please.” He got out without a second glance, opening the hatch and rearranging the junk they stowed in the back.

Nesta stood, the muggy morning causing her clothes to cling to her skin. The tide may have been far out, but thick clouds of fog lingered close to the mainland, shrouding their view of the horizon. Cassian handed her a blanket and waited for her to get comfortable in the trunk before taking his place beside her. The car dipped under his weight, and for a moment Nesta missed feeling that sturdiness. She eyed his muscled shoulders and broad hands, let her eyes creep to his torso, then lower… She snapped her gaze to the ocean where waves crashed into rocks and birds circled above and fog began to dissipate. They were totally and utterly alone, which made it all the more jarring when Cassian began to speak.

“For two and a half years, Nesta, I had no idea where you were. Things were going so well, and then all of a sudden, ‘things’ were completely nonexistent. And I couldn’t reach you.” He looked at her then, and Nesta saw the hollow loneliness in his hazel eyes.

That just wasn’t fair. “I gave you warning, Cassian.” Her voice was strong, but it lacked her usual edges and angles. “I told you I had to help my sister. Feyre was so… It was so bad, Cass. You wouldn’t have even recognized her as the girl you knew in high school.” Her voice, now soft, quickly returned to hard ice and sharp steel. “I needed to take care of her; I told you as much. I have no idea why you were so shocked.”

He engaged the rocky shore in a staring contest, mulling over her words. “I understood she needed you. But I didn’t understand why you had fallen off the face of the earth. I couldn’t contact you at the law firm you worked at, you disappeared from all social media, your phone number was disabled.” He smacked his palm to his forehead, eyes going wide as he stared at the ground. “Hell, I even wrote letters that were returned to me within the week I mailed them.” Cassian heaved a sigh, the blanket he had draped around his shoulder slipping off. Nesta fought hard to not readjust it.

It was just the guilt. She was just tired from driving for so long. She didn’t actually care. So what if she was unreachable? It was her choice. It didn’t matter anymore. It was so long ago.

“And so I’m sure you can imagine my surprise,” He continued. “When I heard from Morrigan - Morrigan, Rhys’s cousin, the one you despise - that Feyre and Rhys had just begun dating, and that you had started your own wildly successful law firm.”

Now he looked back at Nesta and caught her staring. She couldn’t bring herself to look away.

“I went for another year after that hoping to find you, Nesta. I hoped to every deity that I don’t even believe in for you to come back into my life. I didn’t think it would even be that unlikely, what with your sister dating my best friend. But it took them getting married, and your sister forcing your hand, for me to see you again. And even still, I don’t have an explanation. I don’t know if I did something wrong or if… I don’t even know.” He huffed a laugh, weak and humorless. “But in all honesty, Nes, I thought we were worth more than that.” And then, quietly, “I kind of hoped I was worth more than that.” 

He leaned back, keeping his gaze locked with hers and gripping the blanket edge in two fists. “Now it’s your turn. I’m not leaving until you say something, anything, about what happened or why or how or whatever.”

“You can’t do that, Cassian. We have a schedule to stick to. We can talk about this later.”

He shook his head. “No can do, Nes. I’ve been waiting three and a half years –”

“Exactly,” She stood, refolding her blanket and tossing it back into the trunk. “You’ve waited that long, another few hours won’t kill you.” She put her hand out, palm up, and made a grabbing motion. “Now give me the keys. I’ll drive the rest of today.”

He stood, rising to his full height. “No, Nesta. I do not want to go anywhere with you until I have something, even just an inkling of an understanding.” Because you hurt me. 

He didn’t need to say it, Nesta saw it in his expression. She pretended she didn’t.

“You can’t keep me here against my will,” She swiped for the fob, missing when he brought it up above her head.

“I will swallow the key if I need to. Do not test me, Nesta.”

“You disgusting brute, just give me the key-” 

He opened his mouth wide. 

“You will choke yourself! You’re absolutely insane! By the mother,” Nesta gripped her hair, clawing at it as if she wanted to rip it out. “This is why I left! This is why I don't want to have anything to do with you! Because you’re a mess! You’re a child! You are literally a man child.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Ah, see? Now we’re getting somewhere.” He resumed his seat in the trunk, keeping the car fob in a tight fist. “Please, continue, Nesta.”

She could feel her cheeks growing red, she knew there would be crescent indents on her palm from clenching her fists. Honestly, it was amazing her jaw didn’t snap under pressure. If she could tackle him - which wouldn’t be difficult, what with her body fueled by coffee, anger, and adrenaline - she could steal back the key and ditch his sorry ass.

She made a show of giving in; hanging her head, unfolding and shaking out the blanket, and grumbling under her breath. And just when Cassian fell for it, Nesta lunged.

Everything happened so fast that she barely saw it. Cassian leapt from the trunk, Nesta pulled him to the ground, they wrestled in the sand, rocks and driftwood, and the key went flying, lost to the void of damp, gray rocks.

Nesta stared with wide eyes where she had last seen it before slowly looking back to Cassian, who now was frozen beneath her. In any other situation Nesta would be thrilled by the fear in his eyes, but rage clouded her mind; she wanted to shake him until his head rolled off. Her voice was feral as the next words tore free from her throat.

“You. Idiot.”

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

I always felt the way Gabriel got the miraculouses (peacock and butterfly) was very… underwhelming, to certain extent

The idea of him hiring someone to find them and going on a epic quest is kinda good, but I also expected something more. What if Gabriel hired someone very dangerous like a kind of Evil organization which wanted to exploit the power of the miraculouses or at least a evil organization which only got the grasp of the miraculous after making a deal with the agreste since they promised a lot of money, and at the end they saw the great powers of the miraculous and said “maybe I want more for this deal”, Nathalie could still be the ones who helped find them like a retired member of said organization. Imagine if after Gabriel was defeated in like season 3, the leader of said organization appeared asking for the miraculouses since he’s deal with Gabriel was to get Akumas to make weapons with in exchange of keeping the secret of Gabriel having the miraculouses, and when the villain arrives he takes Gabriel’s place has the ‘big bad’ by changing the Akumas with Robots or something similar. It would connect with the past events, making it feel like the universe is more grounded and actions have consequences (I always love when details which could be look over like “how did this war between humans and monsters start?” Get fleshed out to explain a future threat like “oh it was the fault of this man which manipulated both sides so he could gain ultimate power”, but miraculous always takes this concepts like the ‘what destroyed the order of the guardians’ or ‘what broke the peacock’ and then proceeds to give the most simple and boring answer to return to the status quo)

But something so crucial has “the way Gabriel found the miraculouses” feels very unimportant, that adds nothing to Nathalie’s character, Heck it even makes her even less interesting to me.

I always saw this small parallel between Marinette and Nathalie (fell in love with this rich boy and did everything for them in blind love) and then it results the way Nathalie and Gabriel meet was when Gabriel was married and searching for magical jewels to impregnate he’s wife. Why Nathalie fell in love with Gabriel? I always thought they were childhood friends to parallel Adrien’s and Marinette’s relationship in earlier seasons, but current seasons make Nathalie slightly interesting and deep, but kinda take away what kinda made me interest even in the slightest on the character, specially when Gabriel became a Abusive father all of the sudden which turned their relationship also suddenly into the joker and Harley Quinn and just because she surpassed the Harley Quinn syndrome doesn’t mean she became more of a endearing character (mainly because she didn’t do much or actually tried to stop Gabriel outside of a couple scenes which didn’t actually add nothing to the plot), specially since the appeal to me was how Gabriel didn’t want Nathalie to risk herself, a lot of people say Gabriel was abusive but at first (before Gabriel became a psycho) Nathalie did brought herself a lot of pain when Gabriel openly asked her not to do that (heck, 70% of the time she was Mayura is because of her own choice against Gabriel’s wishes. Until suddenly Gabriel stopped acting like a character with deep who cared for her like showed before, and actually asked her to use it which completely contradicts heroes day part 2. So this ’abusive to Nathalie’ Gabriel was a mix of character assassination for both)

I just feel how Nathalie wasn’t handled well, and the way Gabriel got the miraculouses wasn’t very climatic or even interesting since we don’t even know very well how Gabriel even discovered the existence of this jewels

I don't really expect a big flashback episode, but if this backstory is something you're using to build the entire show's conflict on, I'd at least expect more than "Kid Fu broke the Peacock Miraculous, lost it and the Butterfly, and then they were found by Gabriel and Nathalie a long time later".

Then again, this is the same show that decided to put the scene showing why Gabriel decided to become Hawkmoth in the video game of all things. Believe me, when I get the time to cover that, I'll have a lot to say about that decision.

[granulesofsand]

Subtle Reminders

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA, programming, CSA, details about conditioned beliefs, vent

I’ve never thought of myself as a programmed alter. I’m just a presentation alter, hardly any of the nastier flashbacks the others have. I do personal hygiene, washing and brushing and those types of things.

Except today I took a shower at night. This is a normal thing to do, I’ve seen many others presumably do the same. It seems to be second most popular to the evening, but hardly anyone here showers in the morning.

I grew up terrified of doing this. It was absolutely against the rules. There were regular punishments, the yelling and beating for disobedience. But there was more. I sincerely believed that showering at night would hurt us.

The first layer of this belief is the CSA from a while back. The adults were around at night, so nakedness was dangerous and therefore asking for it. They actually said that to me, that I must have been asking for it. I wasn’t allowed to lock doors, and if I did they used the atop the doorframe and set a harsher consequence.

Then there was the RA layer. At night we were demons, and running water would surely burn our flesh. It was several past torture-enforced ideas combined with cues from other events.

A very active front alter holds an even more powerful conditioning to see our body as rotting, and they would take the burning of wounds as further proof. Both me and this alter elaborated from function fragments, although their function was more cult-aligned, and both of us hold so much trauma.

Our system works to keep memories away from functions, so we do our tasks without the knowledge of why. Learning is separate from memories, emotions are separate from information. At such a base level, we dissociate.

I don’t have access to all of the data from those events, but we get closer to piecing them together every time we do this work. We use the movie-box method, putting in copies of what each of us knows until we have a full picture, then watching it back however feels least awful.

I wouldn’t trade my system for anything. There is no timeline where we grow up untraumatized, and few where we evade programming. I still manage to feel jealous of the students around us who didn’t have this particular hell.

I know that’s insensitive, I wouldn’t say that to anyone about their own life. Life fucks us all. I don’t believe that anyone is truly better or worse off, only different.

So I don’t know how much most singlets are hurting, but I do know that I am in pain. I liked it better when I wasn’t capable of thinking. It was still there, but I couldn’t process it. Makes me wonder how many of us are truly organic. How many are just refusing to look.

It’s a shame most bathrooms aren’t soundproof, I’d like some time to scream. Not that we could do that anyway.

Good news is I now have evidence that night showers are nonlethal. The first steps of deprogramming are understanding there is an issue and finding the roots. Now I get to sit here and feel my emotions about all this mess.

*flops onto floor, hysterical laughter fading into sobbing, sound muffled by ground*