#nate don't read this

[applestorms]

@jessaerys ok shit this took a while but WHATEVER. wammy's lore collection here we go :3c less analysis this time, this is mostly just to archive the main known details we have in canon about the house, and also the people from there more generally. however much you wanna accept all this/take it at face value is up to You, Dear Reader (and tbh y'all should just read all these if ur curious since they're all pretty short + have Interesting narrators. i'll include links to free versions). do whatever you want forever etc. etc. also, SPOILERS. obviously.

LABB: (listen here)

no this book isn't written by ohba. yes i'm including it. shush. anyways, most of the lore in this comes from mello's vague comments about beyond's backstory, but there's a Lot of interesting things established in this, so. here's a bunch of notable quotes. if you're not already familiar, please keep in mind that the narrator of this novel is mello, writing at some point shortly before his death.

"L. The century's greatest detective. In light of his staggering mental abilities, L died an unjust and untimely death. In the public record alone he solved over 3,500 difficult crimes, and sent three times that number of degenerates to prison. He wielded incredible power, was able to mobilize every investigative bureau in the entire world, and was applauded generously for his efforts. And during it all, he never showed his face." (pg. 10)

"So, what you're reading now are my notes about L. It's a dying message, not from me, and not directed at the world. The person who will most likely read this first will probably be that big-headed twit Near. But if that's the case, I will not tell him to shred or burn these pages. If it causes him pain to discover that I knew things about L that he did not, then that's fine." (pg. 10-11)

"I am one of the few people who ever met L as L. When and how I met him...this is the single most valuable memory I have, and I will not write it here, but on that occasion L related to me three stories of his exploits, and the episode involving Beyond Birthday was one of these." (pg. 11)

"Obviously, it never came to light that L--and more importantly, Wammy's House, which raised me until I was fifteen--was deeply connected to the matter, but in fact, they were. L, on principle, never got involved in a case unless there were more than ten victims or a million dollars at stake, and this is the real reason why he belatedly, but aggressively, involved himself in this little case, which only ever had three or four victims. I will explain further in the pages that follow, but for this reason, the case of the Los Angeles BB murders is a watershed event for L, for me, and even for Kira. It was a monumental event for all of us. Why? Because this is the case where L first introduced himself as Ryuzaki." (pg. 11)

"For any one else but those two [Near and Kira], my identity may be of no interest, but I am the old world's runner-up, the best dresser that died like a dog, Mihael Keehl. I once called myself Mello and was addressed by that name, but that was a long time ago. Good memories and nightmares." (pg. 12)

"She [Naomi Misora] briefly considered the idea that Raye Penber, or someone else, was playing a practical joke on her, but she found it hard to believe that anyone would be so bold to sign their name as such. L never revealed himself in public or in private, but Misora had heard several horror stories about what happened to detectives who tried passing themselves off as L. It was safe to say that no one would dare use his name, even in jest." (pg. 18)

"This was L, so he was undoubtedly solving several other difficult cases all at once. Cases all over the world. For him, this case was just one of many parallel investigations. How else could he maintain his reputation as the world's greatest detective? The century's greatest detective, L. The detective with no clients." (pg. 35)

"L had earned a certain degree of hostility from other detectives, and the jealous ones called him a hermit detective, or a computer detective, but neither of these is a particularly accurate representation of the truth. Naomi Misora had also tended to think of L as an armchair detective, but in fact, L was quite the opposite, a very active, aggressive individual. [swoon.] While he had absolutely no interest in social connections, he was certainly not the kind of detective to shut himself up in a dark room with the shades drawn and refuse to come out. It is now common knowledge that the three great post war detectives, L, Eraldo Coil and Danuve were all actually the same person. Certainly, anyone reading these notes is almost certain to know...though they may not know that L engaged in a war with the real Eraldo Coil, and the real Danuve, and emerged victorious, claiming their detective codes. The details of this detective war I will save for another occasion, but in addition to those three names, L possessed many other detective codes. I have no idea how many, but there were at least three digits' worth. And quite a number of those were fairly public detectives--just like, as anyone reading these notes must know, he appeared before Kira, calling himself Ryuzaki or Ryuga Hideki. Of course, Naomi Misora had no way of knowing this, but in my opinion, the name L was, for him, just one of many. He never had any direct connection to that identity, he never thought of himself as L--it was just the most famous and most powerful of the many detective codes he used during his life. The name had its uses, but lacked obscurity. L had a real name that nobody knew, and nobody will ever know, but a name which only he knew never defined him. I sometimes wonder if L himself ever knew exactly which name was written in the Death Note, which name it was that killed him. I wonder." (pg. 43-44)

"If we must discuss why L so adamantly refused to reveal himself, we can explain it very simply: doing so was dangerous. Very dangerous. While the world leaders should make efforts to ensure the safety of all the finest minds, not only for detectives, the fact is that the current societal systems do not allow for this, and L believed he had no choice but to protect his mind under his own power. By simple arithmetic, L's ability in 2002 was the equivalent of five ordinary investigative bureaus, and seven intelligence agencies (and by the time he faced off against Kira, those numbers had leapt upward several more notches). This is easy to think of as a reason to respect and admire someone, but let me say this as clearly as possible: that much ability in one human is extremely dangerous. Modern danger management techniques rely heavily on defusing risk, but his very existence was the exact opposite. In other words, if someone was planning to commit a crime, they would greatly increase their chances of getting away with it by simply killing L before they began. That was why L hid his identity. Not because he was shy, or because he never left the house. To ensure his own safety. For a detective of L's ability, self-preservation and the preservation of world peace were one and the same, and it would not be correct to describe his actions as cowardly or self-centered." (pg. 69 nice)

"So whenever L was working, he would usually have someone else as his public face--and in this particular case, the FBI agent Naomi Misora was filling that role." (pg. 70)

"Beyond Birthday had the eyes of a shinigami congenitally. It was not particularly difficult for him to track down people with the initials B.B. or find people who were fated to die on a certain day at a certain time." (pg. 94)

"Normally contact with a shinigami was a prerequisite for acquisition, but Beyond Birthday had traded nothing--he had seen through those eyes since before he could remember. He knew your name before you said it. He knew the time of death of every person he met." (pg. 94)

"You might think [the eyes] would hardly be useful without a Death Note, but that is simply not the case. The ability to see someone's remaining life is the ability to see death. Death, death, death. Beyond Birthday lived his life unceasingly reminded that all humans would eventually die. From the time he was born he knew the day his father would be attacked by a thug and die, knew the day his mother would die in a train crash. He had these eyes before he was born, which is why he called himself Beyond Birthday. Which is why a child as strange as he was taken in by our home, sweet home--Wammy's House. He was B. The second child in Wammy's House." (pg. 94-95)

"The competition between L and B. L and B's puzzle. 'If L's a genius, then B's an extreme genius. If L's a freak, then B's an extreme freak. Now it's time to get ready. There are things I must do before B can surpass L. Henh henh henh henh.' This thought was the only thing that made him laugh without needing to think about it. And those that know will recognize the laugh of the shinigami. Still grinning to himself, he faced the mirror, brushed his hair, and began applying his makeup. The reflection of himself in the mirror. Himself. As always, he could not see his own time of death. No more than he could see the death of the world." (pg. 96)

"We were raised at Wammy's House in England, in Winchester, as L's successors, as L's alternatives, but that does not mean we knew anything more about L than anyone else. Including myself, only a few of us ever met L as L, and even I knew nothing about L before he met Watari--Quillish Wammy, the genius inventor who founded Wammy's House. Nobody knows what's going on in L's head. But even so, I know how Watari felt. Looking at L's incredible talents from the perspective of an inventor--of course he wanted to make a copy, of course he wanted to create a backup. Anyone would feel the same. As I have already explained, L never appeared in public. L knew that his own death would increase the crime rate all over the world by a few dozen percentage points. But what if they could copy him? What if they could make a backup? That was us. L's children, gathered from all corners of the world.

"But even for a genius like Watari, creating a fake L was easier said than done. Even for Near and I, who were said to be the closest to L...the more we tried to be like him, the closer we got, the father away he was, like chasing a mirage. So I hardly need to tell you what it was like when Wammy's House was first founded, when he was still experimenting. The first child, A, was unable to handle the pressure of living up to L and took his own life, and the second child, Beyond Birthday, was brilliant and deviant. B stood for Backup.

"But B tried to surpass L, not become him...no, that might not be right. I have no way of knowing the inner workings of his mind. He...their generation was not like the fourth generation, with Near and I, all the children bound only to the code with the serial L. They were prototypes, never even given the L code, expected to fail. I prefer to refrain from idle speculation based on my own experiences, but, well, Beyond Birthday may have thought something like this: As long as there was L, B would never be L. As long as the original existed, the copy was always a copy." (pg. 104-105)

"The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases. L.A.B.B.--L is After Beyond Birthday. This reading is why I think this name is so much closer to the killer's intentions than the Wara Ningyo Murders, or the Los Angeles Serial Locked Room Killings. I wasn't talking about the names on a purely stylistic basis. Whether Beyond Birthday had put that much thought into it I have no idea, but if he had a specific reason for choosing to commit his murders in L.A., then that is probably why. I am sure he had a much more personal obsession with L as an individual than Near or I ever did. I can understand why someone would become a criminal in order to fight against a detective, which is why I can write something like this, but even so. What did he hope to accomplish by killing unrelated people? Or perhaps B simply wanted to meet L. Then he could use the eyes of the shinigami he'd been born with and see L's real name, see when L would die. He would be able to figure out who L was. Beyond Birthday had never told anyone that he had the eyes of a shinigami, and it would not surprise me at all if he believed himself to be some kind of shinigami." (pg. 105-106)

"Beyond Birthday challenged L. And L accepted the challenge. To put it bluntly, the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases were nothing but an internal struggle, a civil war within our home, sweet home-- Wammy's House. Unfortunate for the victims that got mixed up in it, but even if Beyond Birthday had not killed them, all those victims were fated to die that day, at that time, for some other reason, so logically and morally, their deaths were unavoidable. So in the strictest sense of the word, the only one who really got mixed up in their war was Naomi Misora." (pg. 106)

"L was said to never move on a case unless there were more than ten victims or a million dollars at stake. The only exceptions to this were cases at difficulty level L (extremely fitting), or when L had personal reasons compelling him to get involved. The Los Angeles BB Murders were both of these. I hardly need to point out the difficulty by this stage of the story, and L was essentially fighting his own dead copy. [harsh, dude.] The current head of Wammy's House had told Quillish Wammy/Watari, who had told L about B's disappearance in May, and ever since L had been looking for him even as he solved other cases. Wammy's House only knew him as B--they did not know his real name, Beyond Birthday, so this search was near impossible, but L knew who the killer was. He had not been looking for a killer so much as he was looking for a case. L had been waiting, expecting Beyond Birthday to do something to challenge him. L could move any policeman in the world, but in this case, he could not ask anyone for help except Naomi Misora...more than likely, for this reason. I don't think L really put that much stock in honor, but everyone is embarrassed by their own sins, and nobody wants those missteps to become public knowledge. L was the goal of everyone in Wammy's House. Every one of us wanted to surpass him. To step over him. To step on him. M did, N did, and B did. M as a challenger, N as a successor. B as a criminal." (pg. 116-117)

"No matter what she did, she had no way of knowing. That this killer, Beyond Birthday, could tell someone's name and time of death just by looking at their face, that he had been born with the eyes of a shinigami--she had no way of knowing that fake names were useless with him, completely and utterly pointless. How could she have known? Even Beyond Birthday himself could not explain how he had been born with the eyes of the shinigami, how he could use them with no payment, with no arrangement. Neither Misora nor L knew why, and, obviously, neither do I. The closest thing to an explanation I can offer is that there are shinigami stupid enough to drop their notebooks in our world, so there might well be shinigami stupid enough to drop their eyes." (pg. 193-140)

"'So, Naomi Misora...' said L, wrapping up. But Misora hastily stammered, 'Um, er, L...' but then she hesitated, not sure if she should ask this or not. 'You...know the killer, right?' 'Yes, as I said. He is B.' 'I don't mean like that...I mean, he's someone you know personally?' On the 16th, L had said that he had known the killer was B, and she had sort of known ever since, but two days before, L had said something that changed her guess to conviction. Whatever you do, please catch the killer. The century's greatest detective, L, would never say that about some ordinary indiscriminate serial killer. And the way his letter was just one letter long... 'Yes,' the synthetic voice agreed." (pg. 144-145)

"'I have nothing to do with him,' L said. 'To be completely accurate, I do not even know B. He is simply someone I am aware of. But none of this affects my judgement. Certainly, I was interested in this case, and began to investigate it because I knew who the killer was. But that did not alter the way I investigated it, or the manner in which my investigation proceeded. Naomi Misora, I cannot overlook evil. I cannot forgive it. It does not matter if I know the person who commits evil or not. I am only interested in justice.'" (pg. 145)

"My great and respected predecessor, the man whose actions were a strong influence on me personally, B, B.B., Beyond Birthday--obviously, I need hardly explain again that the murders themselves were not his purpose. So what was he doing? Again, I hardly need to explain--he was challenging the man he copied, the century's greatest detective L. A matter of winning or losing. A contest." (pg. 159)

"Since L could solve every case no matter how challenging, if he created a case so difficult that L as unable to solve it, B would have defeated L." (pg. 159)

"He knew that the moment he took action Wammy's House and Watari would alert L, so he did not even bother trying to stop them. He could only guess at which stage of his plan L would start to come after him, so he prepared things carefully, ready for L's entrance at any point." (pg. 159)

"B approached Naomi Misora, calling himself Rue Ryuzaki. Rue Ryuzaki--L.L. For anyone from Wammy's House, there could be no higher goal than identifying yourself with that letter--and Beyond Birthday seized this case as his chance. even Naomi Misora knew what had happened to detectives falsely identifying themselves as L, and B was from Wammy's House, so he knew this better than anyone--so this choice suggests the strength of his decision. He never once intended to survive--had had made up his mind. He was ready." (pg. 160) [trans. note: the name "Rue" in Japanese, ルエ (ru-e), is an anagram of エル (e-ru), which is how L is pronounced.]

"Naturally, his face and fingerprints would burn as well--he had always disguised himself with heavy makeup while he was with Misora, and he never left a picture behind, so even if someone directly affiliated with Wammy's House inspected the body, they would have no idea that Rue Ryuzaki/Beyond Birthday was B from Wammy's House. He had left nothing to connect Beyond Birthday to B." (pg. 162)

"B was presenting the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases to L as a case that could never be solved. That L could never solve. In other words, he had never prepared any clear solution to it--since the killer had committed suicide, disguised as the fourth victim, there was no longer a killer to catch, and no clues left to catch him with." (pg. 163)

"My poor, poor predecessor. Not only was he utterly and completely defeated, but he survived, driving home his embarrassment...he must have longed for death. Accept my condolences, B." (pg. 169-170)

"If I had space left over I had intended to carry right on into the other two stories I heard from L: the story of the detective war between the three greatest detectives, all solving that infamous bio-terror case, with guest appearances by the last of the alphabet, the first X to the first Z from Wammy's House; and the story of how the world's greatest inventor, Quillish Wammy, aka Watari, had first met L, then about eight year's old--the case that gave birth to the century's greatest detective, the Winchester Mad Bombings that occurred just after the third World War. But however objectively I look at things, I do not have the space or the time. Oh well." (pg. 170)

"She had spoken to L only once after the killer was arrested. He thanked her for helping to solve the case, and told her just a little about the background of the case. That B had been a candidate to succeed L, and that the pressure of that had driven him off track." (pg. 171)

"And a few years after his arrest, on January 21st, 2004, serving a life sentence in a California prison, Beyond Birthday died of a mysterious heart attack." (pg. 173)

C-KIRA: (read here)

near grief :pensive: pretty sure this was animated in the anime movie thing?? tbh i still need to watch that. Very interesting as some of the most recent post-main story lore we get about wammy's imo. less quotes now + more summarizing since these are just comics

near has apparently only "talked" to L once (in quotes since he didn't actually say anything, just sat in the back of the room doing a puzzle the entire time. real asf girl)

during this "conversation," roger or one of the orphanage heads set up the usual L screen + a camera/mic so that L could see all the kids and answer their questions.

notably, mello & near didn't ask any questions, just lurked in the back watching L with a "nasty look in [their] eyes," which near assumes is what made him pick them to be his top successors, considering the fact that he didn't actually look at any of their data. (somewhat seems to imply that L didn't actually give a shit about grades or anything like that when picking his main successors?)

while answering questions, near is caught off guard by one of L's answers. to transcribe it all directly here--

NEAR (NARRATING): At the time, I didn't think L would put it so bluntly. L: It's not a sense of justice. L: Figuring out difficult cases is my hobby. If you measured good and evil deeds by current laws, I would be responsible for many crimes. L: The same way you all like to solve mysteries and riddles, or clear video games more quickly... For me too, its simply prolonging something I enjoy doing. L: That's why I only take on cases that pique my interest. It's not justice at all. And if it means being able to clear a case, I don't play fair, I'm a dishonest, cheating human being, who hates losing...

not quite the monster speech, but fascinating all the same. near seems to imply that this answer sent some kids into a despair spiral, but it actually caused him to like L more and more, feeling that he was, "exactly the kind of person who wanted to achieve his own goals." kinda goes against the HTR13 ohba comment? shrug

The Wammy's House/L's One Day: (read here)

honestly i interpret these comics as like. canon crack fic. but anyways, here's the established L lore included in these two.

L was taken into wammy's as a nameless orphan at an unknown but likely quite young age

very soon after arriving he beats up all the other kids he meets--

he is "utterly incompatible," with all the other kids and monopolizes all the things he likes simply cause he's stronger than them and presumably could fight them for it-- naturally, he ends up usually just playing by himself

notably, this all establishes that L isn't the first kid at wammy's, that there was already at least one generation of older kids living there before he got there (and could eventually turn it into an L successor creating machine)

once watari realizes that L has some outstanding mental abilities, he gives him his own private room and a computer. afterwards, L spends most of his time sitting in front of the puter by himself

L requests that watari buy 1 million pounds with Japanese yen and tells him which stocks to buy, causing his assets to reach "almost 20,000 times the original amount," in two years. visually this is depicted as happening when L is still quite young

several years later, L stumbles across a serial murder case in the news, which is the first he solves, starting his new career path

-

L can stay awake for 100+ hours and then gets over it by sleeping for like 17 hours. pictures also may imply that he doesn't actually sleep in a bed, but just lies down sideways in his chair. RIP yotsuba light's perfectly designed sleep schedule

L also shits/pisses in the same position he usually sits in (frog-pose), facing the tank south park style

he is a big fan of cleanliness!! human washing machine etc. etc. honestly i think this is just another way for him to hold that same crouched position

text says he always has, "ten or so identical sets of clothes prepared for him," since he's picky about it, but the art itself shows way more than ten. also rare shirtless L moment?? (watari helps)

L does in fact go outside!! he likes roller coasters/theme parks, swinging, art galleries, live music, etc. though most of the time he just sits in his room thinking thru shit n solving cases.

[libraryofgage]

The Wish Job (One)

Part of: Steve Deserves Good Parents, Actually

Debbie and Fester Addams One | Two | Three | Four | Five Rick and Evelyn O'Connell One | Two | Three Harley Quinn One | Two1 0th Doctor and Rose One | Two (on the way!) Scooby Gang (there are plans for this one lmao, so plz be patient with me orz) Jedidiah and Octavius (from Night at the Museum) One | Two Queen Clarisse Renaldi One | Two | Three Leverage Crew One (you're here!)

This fic was line jumped! If you'd like to learn more about line jumping (getting to see your favorite fics updated sooner) you can read this post

I had a lot of thoughts for this AU, actually, so I'm really glad it got line jumped so I was forced to put them down into words lol

Steve becomes one of Nana's foster kids, but he spends a majority of this series with the Leverage crew working a job (as the name of this series suggests), and they fill similarly parental role.

As always, if you see any typos, no you didn't ;P

----

After his father's arrest, everything is a blur. Steve can remember flashes, sure, but nothing concrete. Nothing more than two FBI agents in the door of his classroom, the cold steel of interrogation room chairs, an agent's ponytail with split ends, a kind smile but clammy hand on his elbow, the broken A/C of the car when he finally left the FBI office, and the slippery feel of the garbage bag he's given to pack 14 years of a life he'll never see again.

Nothing comes back into focus until he's faced with an older black woman, standing outside a two-story house. The man with a kind smile but clammy hands introduces her, but Steve doesn't actually hear the name.

"You can call me Nana," the woman says, looking at the man like she doesn't know why he's still there when his work is obviously done.

"Well, uh, Steve, feel free to call if you need anything. We'll keep in touch," the man says, nodding before half-running down the walk way.

"Never liked him," Nana says, clicking her tongue. "Too damn squirrely for my tastes. Now, Steve, come inside and we'll go over some ground rules."

Steve follows her mechanically, gripping his trash bag tightly and wondering far too late why he wasn't allowed to pack his own suitcases. The house is a cacophony of noises: feet running across wood floors, a TV blaring from the living room, shouts coming from every direction, a microwave beeping while the oven timer rings, a crash from the next room over that makes Steve wince.

Nana stands in the doorway, takes a deep breath, and then shouts at the top of her lungs, "Y'all had better stop all this racket right the fuck now before I cancel pizza night!"

The house goes silent, and Steve feels his shoulders tense even more. He hates the silence. Silence means anger, and anger means punishment. He clenches his jaw, trying to keep himself small as Nana nods and leads the way into a dining room.

A girl appears in the room shortly after, carrying a mug and a soda. She places the mug in front of Nana and the soda in front of an empty seat, gesturing for Steve to sit. "Welcome. I can take your bag, if you want," she offers, looking at the trash bag with bright eyes.

"Don't make trouble, Breanna," Nana says, dismissing her easily.

Steve watches her leave before sitting. He licks his lips, opens the soda as quietly as he can manage, and waits for Nana to take a sip from her mug before saying, "Thank you for taking me in, ma'am."

"I said to call me Nana, none of that ma'am business unless you're in trouble, and you're not in trouble," she says, waving her hand dismissively. "Now, the rules. No complaining about sharing a room. No TV remote access after seven because that's when my shows start. We all eat dinner together on Wednesday night. You go to school every day unless you're sick, and you tell me when you're feeling sick. You got all that?"

"Yes, m....Nana."

"Good. Now, I know you're used to a fancier living than this, but I expect you to adjust without too much complaint. You still get your own bed, and whatever you brought is yours to keep, but money is tight. We save where we can, and I expect you to help with that. Turn off lights, use less water, unplug things when you're not using them."

Steve nods again, inexplicably feeling a little better as Nana speaks. She's not treating him like a spoiled brat, but she's not coddling him, either. She gets another boy (an older one named Hardison) to give him a tour of the house. He shows Steve the mezzuzahs on each door and the Kaaba directional marker in each room---"We're a multi-denominational household, kid, Nana will get whatever you need if she doesn't have it already," Hardison says, grinning widely at him---and makes sure he knows which spots are good for hiding when he needs a few minutes.

He ends the tour at Steve's new room. It has two bunk-beds, three of the bunks with rumpled sheets and one bottom bunk devoid of sheets altogether. Hardison gives Steve blue sheets, welcomes him, and then leaves Steve to unpack by himself.

It's new, it's unfamiliar, it's terrifying. Steve hopes, despite himself, that it's not a temporary stop.

----

"I don't care! He can't stay!"

"We're already in London, Hardison. We can hardly send him back on a plane by himself."

"Isn't that how he got here in the first place? He's 17, not seven."

Steve moves his gaze from Hardison to Sophie to Eliot, feeling like he's watching a tennis match. He's sandwiched between Nate and Parker, a hand on his shoulder holding him back from trying to defend himself. Not that he's upset about it. Keeping everyone from turning their frustration on him sounds like a great idea.

"Yeah, and how did he get here?" Parker asks, dashing Steve's hopes right as they're forming.

He shifts uncomfortably as everyone looks at him, ducking his head and staring at the floor. A small part of him is frustrated, angrily protesting the familiar move when its usual target has long been absent.

"Hey, give him some room," Hardison says, moving forward to push Nate and Parker back a few steps. He stands at an angle to Steve, leaving him plenty of room to move away if he wants. "Nobody's angry, kid. Well, I'm a little mad, but only because you could be putting yourself in danger. So, how'd you catch up to us?"

Steve wonders for a brief moment about whose wrath he'd rather endure. In the end, he decides Breanna is scarier than Hardison, so he lies. "Nana and I overheard you on the phone with Parker at Hannukah dinner, and then Nana said she gets worried about you sometimes," he says, meeting Hardison's eyes before glancing away. He makes himself small again, but it's on purpose this time, broadcasting shame as he adds, "I still have, um, access to my savings account...from my....from them. Enough for a plane ticket and cab ride, at least."

"Aww, Nana worries about us," Parker says, smiling brightly as she nudges Eliot with her elbow. "That's sweet."

"If it weren't a lie," Sophie says, her lips pursed and her eyebrows raised slightly as she walks closer to Steve. She taps his shoulder, his temple, and his hand. "Lowered head but not as low as before. Shoulders drawn in but tense to hold them there. Fingers twitching just slightly. Impressive, I will admit, but I'm a professional, darling."

Steve sighs and lifts his head, his shoulders relaxing some as he frowns. "You didn't have to call me out on it," he mumbles.

"Breanna got you here, didn't she? Ain't no way you'd lie to protect anyone else."

"She could ruin me, Hardison."

"I can ruin you, too, did you forget about that?"

Steve considers him for a moment before shrugging.

"Well," Nate says, clapping his hands together and pulling everyone's attention to him. "Steve is here now, we might as well use him. Sophie, give him an Italian accent and some suede shoes."

"I can already speak Italian," Steve says, "and I have my own suede shoes to match a Cesare Attolini suit." He feels something like guilt twinge in his stomach when Hardison glances at him. Steve's mother may have forfeited custody of him, but she still sends gifts every now and then. Steve usually sells them, slips the cash into drawers and wallets and couch cushions so they can be discovered by Nana and his foster siblings.

The suit and shoes, though? Steve couldn't bring himself to sell them. If there was one thing he missed about life before Nana's foster home, it was the clothes. It was the way his clothes made him feel like a better version of himself, a version everyone would admire and approve of. So, yeah, he'd kept the clothes and shoes his mother sent him two months ago, and he'd packed them for this trip just because.

He'd glad they seem to be coming in handy.

After processing his words, Nate blinks, a smile growing on his face like he's discovered a treasure he won't be letting go of any time soon.

----

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[italictext]

More manga panel coloring!! I love Light and Near so much <3

[pragasecacomdoenca]

Mello finds Near's diary but everything is completely unreadable. Not even Mello's basic knowledge on hieroglyphics could help him decipher those pages

[roedotjpg]

I found that instinct took over in firefights, and fear was replaced by the countless small tasks of living, leading, and fighting. The anticipation was worse. As we drove towards the guns, I unconsciously pulled my arms and legs inward, trying to tuck inside my body armor. My doorless Humvee, which south of An Nasr had satisfied me as a pleasant way to enjoy the beautiful countryside, now felt ridiculously exposed. In my mind, every tree, rooftop, and berm hid a fighter with an RPG, and that RPG was surely going to hit me square in the chest. At first, I stayed off the radio for fear that my voice would sound funny. But when I made a call, I was surprised to hear it steady and calm.

One Bullet Away - pp. 225-26

[hughesapalooza]

TALK ABOUT YOUR OCS!!!!!!!!!!

oh yay :) let me tell you about my guy nathan !!

his full name is nathan helen lovelace. he's from toronto. he's a two way defenceman :)

he was initially a forward but when his team needed a defenceman he switched. he's not super naturally talented at hockey but makes up for it with sheer hard work and will power. which worked pretty well cause he was drafted at the end of the first round

he played in the ohl for three years winning the memorial cup his final year

his only family is his mom who is a mlm/girlboss type and was basically uninvolved in raising him. so while he had a lot of people at his draft he didn't have a single relative :)

he has a pet cat named palace who he found outside the arena after an ohl game that followed him home and refused to leave

his best friend calla was his next door neighbour growing up and as kids they made a pact that they are going to get him to the nhl. and his pacts with calla are the only thing he's really superstitious about because the last time they broke one they both broke an arm on the same day

he has little tattoos that represent all his friends so he can feel like they're supporting him while he's on the ice

his former babysitter who would take him to his games growing up decided to become part of his support staff so he could properly advocate for him

he's just a guy who tries really hard and i'm obsessed with him :)

oh and he actually outdates me being in the hockey fandom !! he was initially a check please oc. well technically he was two separate check please ocs that got merged into one

[justinegreenpie]

star stable warderobe update wish list

rearrange my pages to how they were before the update PLEASE. keep things from page one on page one, from page two on page two and so on D:

easier organizing

moving multiple items at once

moving whole pages !! this is my dream update

costumization

let me choose icons for the pages that look like pants / hats etc.

or even better, let me choose an item i want to display as the page preview, similar to how signs work in stardew valley for example.

if thats too hard, let me name the pages or at least choose different colors

filters

the search and filter should work more like in global store

adding more filters: for color, "sort by" like in global store, @horseslur and @corinne-eaglebridge-sso suggested based on stats and type of item

miscellaneous

i'm a little sad I can't see the game anymore. i used to enjoy planning outfits with friends, now u'd have to close the closet after every change to see each other

more options for the preview, like sitting on the horse, closer zooming, etc.

i'd love a miscellaneous category with zero restrictions! that would let us easily empty our inventories into it while we reorganize. or it would let us save outfits, tack and pets next to each other if we want to

if none of my costumization options are possible, I think it would be cool if the pages had a different color if they're completely empty

i've seen some people wish for a dark mode

selling straight from storage. no more running back and forth to stores when buying js stable costumizations

@centeris2 made the great suggestion of adding a hotkey for moving the item your hovering over from the backpack to the closet and vice versa

@knoockies pointed out that the amount of collumns and rows is different depending on your screen size, so if you play on two plattforms, for example mobile and pc, or ever switch your resolution, everything would look all shifted again ??????

the option of adding more pages!! the current size really doesn't seem that future proof

please feel free to add onto this list!

[residentialsinyomakai]

My Thoughts/Kind of a Summary on "Katie's Yokai Butler"

This will all be from memory, so I apologize if some things are off, out of order, or otherwise incorrect `~` Edit Yomo here! I watched it about halfway through this but i have an awful memory ahhh! Anyways, screenshots n stuff might be included now! This'll basically be somewhat of a summary as well as a few observations I've made. Also, I'll be using the English names for characters! Keita is Nate, Fumi-chan is Katie, Warunyan is Baddinyan, so on so forth—☆

[SPOILERS AHEAD OBVIIIII]

The alternative timeline in summary is basically if Katie had gotten the yokai watch instead of Nate. It's first (and last) anime mention to my knowledge is in the Season One episode "Katie's Yokai Butler" if my memory served correctly! The episode follows Whisper through his 'dream' in what is presumed to be a look into the alternate Whisper's life. After a little argument with Nate about his messy room, Whisp cream goes to bed upset. He first wakes up to the smell of roses, and quickly realizes he isn't where he should be. (Probably bc Nate's room smells like cheeto puffs/j) He looks around to find himself in Katie's room. ( ＞Д＜；)

This brings us to the first major difference in this timeline; it takes place in Katie's house obviously! Makes sense since she got the watch instead of Nate >u○ Her room is a lot cleaner, and even appears to be more spacious than her male counterpart. That aside, Katie comes upstairs at some point to wake Whisper, to which he responds with confusion as to where he is and how she can see her. To this universe's Katie, she thinks he's acting strange. She pinches him upon request to make sure he's not dreaming, to which he didn't wake up. That confirms that!

(*￣∇￣)ノ

After a bit, Katie returns back downstairs when she hears her father calling her. This leads Whisper to wonder about another difference; the inclusion of Baddinyan. Besides the obvious fact of it not being Jibanyan, this also means Katie is probably going to interact with other yokai in a rather different manner than Nate! I say that because Nate met Roughraff in Season 1, Episode 3. He didn't even get Baddinyan's medal! (which sucks because that's one of my favorite yokai! Goofy little cat,,, °□°)

Baddinyan's first appearance in the episode 💞🐛👾

If we're talking on all timeline differences—not just the ones in Katie's house—then the meeting with Roughraff might be a good point to bring up. Considering the fusion was involuntary in Nate's timeline, what happened in Katie's? Did they decide to stay fused after that for whatever reason, did Katie fuse them at a place like shonen temple (which doesn't exist in the anime I think >~>), or did something happen pre-canon for them to have became friends and fuse? Sometimes, a fusion can be in the same place as the yokai that fused them in the anime due to certain yokai like Baddinyan forming a separate consciousness from either original host ( 〃=▽=〃) (I probably sound like a huge dweeb rn </33) Maybe Katie said something to the newly existent Baddinyan to make him give her the medal, and thus hanging around her from now on!

After some vague threats at fighting Whisper from Baddinyan, the yokai butler in question wonders about who replaced Hidabat in the closet. He goes to open it leading us into our next difference; Shadow Venoct. There isn't much from me to say about this one to be honest, he doesn't have any lines except for maybe the hissing of his snake-scarf thingies hissing at Whisper (¤o¤|||. I've noticed that a lot of Katie's friends seem to be more powerful, or at least a higher rank than Nate's. [Ex: Shadow Venoct being S Rank, Baddinyan being B Rank, and another S Rank we'll get into later—!♡]

Sometime after that, Katie calls Whisper down to help her investigate the strange way her mother was acting. Whisper attempts to use the Yokai Pad to identify the yokai...although Katie swipes it away just as quickly. <°[O□o;]°> She says that Whisper (or this timeline's original version of...) promised to try and memorize the information instead. It seems un-Whisper like, but to be fair, alternate Whisper probably formed a different dynamic than the usual! She identifies the yokai with the watch, to which Whisper (discreetly uses the pad and) figures out it's Noway!

To deal with him, Katie said that she'd summon a special rare friend. This turns out to be Robonyan's timeline counterpart; Goldenyan! Upon asking the golden robot cat for help, he says that this was 'beneath' his capabilities and basically that his power shouldn't be wasted on it...; ￣Д￣ Anyways, he leaves to the future and the episode ends with Katie using Whisper as a special attack against Noway, much to his dismay >u<. Oh, and it's revealed here that Whisper was dreaming.

Although it may have been a "dream", I'm 99% sure that was a plot device to not have to script in 'Whisper going to another universe!!' to the episode and how he eventually gets back. I personally believe it would be cool to see a spin-off dedicated to something like this! There's Nyanderful Days I guesssss but that doesn't really count cuz it just has Whisper and Jibanyan and it's just inserting Katie into the og series plot (￢_￢) There's a lot of potential, and I'm sure viewers over here in the west and Japan would be happy to see our girl the the spotlight for once wwwwww. Maybe it'd also be an opportunity to have McKraken put into the anime? Hint hint? That, as well as several yokai who might not have been seen by Nate due to him going different places as Katie, hanging out with different people, etc! Anyways, that's all for now!

[oh-meow-swirls]

i think this was funnier in my head.

[asterdeer]

i want to see the leverage crew go up against lumon

[ubtendo]

@skipitty-bop because I'm mean I'm going to tease something

[sptiap]

ONE BULLET AWAY: The Making of A Marine Officer

Select Excerpts

DEDICATED TO CAPTAIN BRENT MOREL Bravo Company, First Reconnaissance Battalion, First Marine Division. Killed in Action 7 April 2004, Al Anbar Province, Iraq AND THE BRAVE MOTHERS OF UNITED STATES MARINES

PART I PEACE

We should remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school. —THUCYDIDES

1

I went to Dartmouth intending to go to med school. Failing a chemistry class had inspired my love of history, and I ended up majoring in the classics. By the summer of 1998, my classmates were signing six-figure contracts as consultants and investment bankers. [...] Others headed off to law school or medical school for a few more years of reading instead of living. None of it appealed to me. I wanted to go on a great adventure, to prove myself, to serve my country. I wanted to do something so hard that no one could ever talk shit to me. In Athens or Sparta, my decision would have been easy. I felt as if I had been born too late. There was no longer a place in the world for a young man who wanted to wear armor and slay dragons. [...] I wanted something more transformative. Something that might kill me—or leave me better, stronger, more capable. I wanted to be a warrior.

My maternal grandfather [...] had served in World War II. He was a Navy officer in the South Pacific, and his ship, the escort carrier Natoma Bay, fought at New Guinea, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, often supporting Marine invasion forces ashore. [...] My father enlisted in the Army in 1968. When most of his basic training class went to Vietnam, he received orders to the Army Security Agency. [...] He completed OCS just as President Richard Nixon began drawing down the military, and took advantage of an early out to go to law school. But my dad was proud to have been a soldier.

The Army sent me a letter during my junior year at Dartmouth, promising to pay for graduate school. The Navy and Air Force did the same, promising skills and special training. The Marine Corps promised nothing. Whereas the other services listed their benefits, the Corps asked, "Do you have what it takes?" If I was going to serve in the military, I would be a Marine.

[...] I'd seen a poster in the dining hall advertising a talk by Tom Ricks. Then the Wall Street Journal's Pentagon correspondent, Ricks had recently written a book about the Marines. I sat up most of one night reading it. [...] His review of the Marines, or at least my interpretation of it, was glowing. The Marine Corps was a last bastion of honor in society, a place where young Americans learned to work as a team, to trust one another and themselves, and to sacrifice for a principle. Hearing it from a recruiter, I would have been skeptical. But here was a journalist, an impartial observer. [...] "How can you support the presence of ROTC at a place like Dartmouth?" [a young professor] asked. "It will militarize the campus and threaten our culture of tolerance." "Wrong," replied Ricks. "It will liberalize the military." He explained that in a democracy, the military should be representative of the people. It should reflect the best of American society, not stand apart from it. [...] His answer clinched my decision to apply for a slot at Marine OCS during the summer between my junior and senior years of college.

[...] when I broke the news to my parents. They were surprised but supportive. "The Marines," my dad said, "will teach you everything I love you too much to teach you."

Pop culture has immortalized the arrival of enlisted Marine recruits at Parris Island, South Carolina. But this was OCS, and the lack of theatrics disappointed me. A fresh-faced Marine with a clipboard took the roll by Social Security number and then handed a pencil to each of us, saying we had a lot of paperwork to fill out.

We slept in squad bays with fifty bunks per room. [...] The Corps is a naval service, with nautical vocabulary. Doors are hatches, walls are bulkheads, and floors are decks. Signs at Quantico, miles from the sea, read WELCOME ABOARD. [...] Running shoes were called go-fasters. Our flashlights, worn on the hip at OCS, were moonbeams.

In the beginning, my strongest impression of Quantico, apart from its isolation, was its timelessness. [...] The only decoration was a sign of two-foot-high letters stenciled along an entire wall: HONOR, COURAGE, COMMITMENT. I already had the feeling that the Marines were a world apart, that what we did at OCS would be separate from the rest of my life.

With introductions complete, the colonel turned to the staff and uttered ten words that ended our civilian lives: "Take charge and carry out the plan of the day." [...] The Marine strutted up and down our crooked ranks. He spoke to the group, but in a way that made it personal for each of us. "If you so much as breathe, I'll hear it and rip your freakin' windpipe out. Now grab your freakin' trash and move with purpose. Pretend for me that you want to be here."

I snuck a look at the instructor's name tag. Olds. Three stripes on his shoulder. Sergeant Olds. [...] "Don't eyeball me, candidate. Do you want to ask me out on a date? You look like you want to ask me out." "No, Sergeant Instructor Sergeant Olds." "Go ahead, candidate. Keep whispering. And keep looking deep into my eyes." [...] "I dare you to ask me out. Your chucklehead classmates here might get a laugh out of it, but I swear it'll be the last thing you ever do." This is theater, right? I had seen Full Metal Jacket. It's all a joke. But it didn't feel like a joke. When Olds spoke to me, icy adrenaline washed through my chest. My legs shook. The worst part was that Olds knew he'd gotten to me. He would, I feared, increase the pressure. Sergeant Olds had opened a gap of fifty yards between himself and the straggling platoon. He stood facing us with his hands on his hips. "Dump your trash. I want to see who's trying to sneak naked pictures of his boyfriend into my squad bay." I hesitated, unsure whether he actually meant for us to dump our belongings onto the puddled pavement. [...] I unzipped my bag and placed boots on the blacktop. Then I stacked my clothes on them and put the toiletry bag on top to deflect the rain. Olds's attention landed on my carefully constructed pile. He kicked it over and put a boot print on the chest of my neatly ironed shirt. "What's in here?" He grabbed my toiletry bag. "Drugs ? Booze? Maybe a tube of K-Y jelly and a big cucumber?" One by one, my toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, and shaving cream fell to the ground. "You must have hidden it pretty well, candidate," Olds growled. "But I'll find it. Oh, yeah, I'll find it. And when I do, I'll run your ass out of my Marine Corps before you can even call your congressman." Olds moved on to his next victim, and I hesitantly began to piece my life back together, wondering again why I was at OCS. Next to me, Dave caught my eye with a smile and mouthed, "Semper fi."

[ladyelainehilfur]

an extremely important moment in literary history I fear

[artschoolglasses]

Currently Reading: March: Book Three, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

I did say I would pick this up next... Certainly one of those series that everyone should read. But especially now, given... *gestures at everything*

[amischiefofmuses]

I just want all iterations of Cable to have some happiness goddamn it.

[bigassbowlingballhead]

i've been reading this book, meddling kids. and it's basically a scooby doo type story? gang of kids and a dog, solving mysteries. expect the gang reunites 13 years later to revisit a case. things have changed in that time, as they do. one of the original boys died. so when they come back it's the two girls and the one guy.

i don't love how the girl treat the guy. they handle him with kids gloves, don't listen to anything he has to say (when he's RIGHT THE WHOLE TIME) they lock him out of conversation, discredit his ideas. it's frustrating.