#unholy partnership

[girl4music]

Is anybody gonna talk about how he seemed to believe that he had a soul when he lost his memory?

Innate monster, my ass. Just give him a blank slate and he is literally Angel. Without the brooding…

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER | S6E8: Tabula Rasa

[ozzgin]

Let me introduce you to: Rent-A-Monster Services

Do you need a part time partner? Entertainment for your bachelor party? Someone to walk you home in a shady neighborhood? Someone to keep you company on lonely nights?

Look no further! Our extensive catalog ensures you will find the perfect monstrous help for any of your needs. Large or small, humanoid or unholy abstractions, our beastly creatures are at your service, begging to have you in their care.

You will be given the papers you need to sign, detailing our flawless performance with no competitor in sight. Do not concern yourself with redundant paragraphs, such as the risks that may come with a monster partnership. Sure, some of our horrific residents may be reluctant to leave your presence upon the completion of their task. Getting too attached to their human is only a natural reaction. If worst comes to worst, we may offer you a counter-monster to deal with the lingering consequences.

Don't let them wait for too long.

[More Monsters]

[hiisikoloart]

I am pretty sure this is not burnout anymore, I'm just melted ice cream on lukewarm tarmac turning into sticky sad goop that even heavy rain can't wash away.

[aesthetically-dying101]

Law of Attraction (Part 2)

A/N: part two, things don't get better yet.

Do not copy nor translate my work.

Other parts: Part 1 ; Part 3 ; Part 4; Part 5 ; Part 6

It wasn't really fascination.

That would be giving it too much weight. It was more like... curiosity. A mild curiosity about the way you carried yourself. How you walked into a room like you were bracing for impact, how your bracelets clinked faintly whenever you moved, how you always seemed to have something biting to say even when you weren't speaking.

Loud. You were loud, even when you weren't saying a word.

He approached the partnership with quiet detachment, assuming he would have to carry the weight of the work. It wasn't arrogance; it was pragmatism. He'd done it before with other group projects. Better to take control early than risk being dragged down.

But then you surprised him.

You were a contradiction.

On one hand, you were undeniably clever. Your sections of the project were always meticulously researched, your work thorough enough that even he couldn't find fault in it. On the other hand, there was an air of chaos about you—like you were constantly balancing on the edge of something, a storm waiting to happen.

The first time you handed over your part of the research, he had stared at the document longer than he probably should have. It was thorough, meticulously cited, and impressively detailed. Far more than he'd expected. He didn't know what to make of it. The effort you'd put in didn't match the person he thought you were.

Still, he rationalized it. One good draft doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was a fluke, a desperate attempt to prove yourself. People often tried harder at the start.

He'd seen the timestamps on your emails, the meticulous attention to detail in your notes. It didn't go unnoticed.

But it wasn't something he could bring himself to address. Not directly.

He'd caught himself watching you in class a few times, though he didn't let it linger. There was something about the way you seemed to fold into yourself lately, retreating further and further into your own little bubble. It was subtle at first—avoiding eye contact, staying quiet unless spoken to. But by now, it was clear. You were pulling away.

He didn't know why that bothered him.

*-*

You weren't good at... being normal.

You stopped texting Nanami, stopped trying to initiate anything. No more casual "Hey, how's it going?" No more questions about the project or his thoughts on what needed tweaking. It was like everything you said might be the wrong thing.

Every night, you'd sit at your desk, headphones on, the cold glow of your laptop screen the only light in the room. You'd type out your part—perfectly researched, perfectly worded—and then you'd hit send, your heart pounding in your chest like you were doing something wrong.

Is this how people work together?

You'd pause, question it for a moment, but then shrug it off. The work was done. That's what mattered.

But it wasn't.

Even your friends, who you didn't see much of lately, had noticed. Aiko, your human hurricane of a best friend, had pulled you aside last week.

“Hey, so like... you alive?” she’d asked, eyebrow arched, arms crossed like she was ready to stage an intervention.

“I’m fine,” you’d mumbled, brushing her off. “Just busy.”

“Uh-huh,” she’d said, clearly not buying it. “You know there’s a difference between being busy and being a hermit, right?”

You hadn’t responded. Just shrugged and made some excuse to leave.

And unbeknowkst to you, Nanami had noticed- he had noticed far more than you thought he had.

In his calm, observant way, he had pieced it all together. The silence. The absence of your texts. The sudden shift from hesitant, overly polite conversation to absolutely nothing.

And then there were the emails. They landed in his inbox at unholy hours, like clockwork. Perfectly formatted, always thorough, always on time. But cold. Clinical. No notes, no context, no “let me know if this works for you.”

It wasn’t like before.

He noticed how you kept your head down in class, eyes glued to your notebook, avoiding his gaze like it might burn you. He noticed how you’d slip out the door the second the lecture ended, no room for small talk, no chance for him to say... well, anything.

And it bothered him.

More than it should have.

At first, he told himself it didn’t matter. You were still contributing. You were still doing the work. But there was something nagging at him, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Maybe it was the quietness of it all. The way you seemed to disappear into yourself, little by little. Maybe it was the realization that he didn’t know why.

Nanami wasn’t used to this. He was used to predictability. People fitting neatly into categories, into roles. But you? You didn’t fit anywhere. Not in the law department. Not in his carefully ordered world. And now, not even in your own orbit.

And for reasons he didn’t fully understand, he hated it.

*-*

"Hey, Nanami," Tetsuya said, his voice more curious than teasing, "How's the project with your... partner? What's her name? The one with the piercings and the black eyeliner?"

Nanami stiffened, not used to hearing the conversation turn in that direction. He didn't like talking about it, not in front of his friends, especially not in front of them. But Tetsuya was always a little too curious for his own good.

"You mean Y/N?" Nanami said, the name slipping out of his mouth with a little more force than he meant.

"Yeah, that's the one," Tetsuya continued, his grin widening. "How's that going? You two make a good team or... what?"

Nanami's eyes flicked to the table, his hand gripping his coffee cup a little too tightly. "It's fine. We're making progress."

Tetsuya raised an eyebrow, leaning back in his chair. "Fine? That's it? Man, you're a lot calmer about this than I expected. I thought she'd be all over the place, distracting you or something."

Hiroshi chuckled from his seat, not even looking up from his phone. "Yeah, isn't she one of those alternative types? What, like, a punk or something?"

Nanami felt his jaw tighten. "That's not really what I meant, and she's a metalhead." he muttered, but he couldn't help the defensive edge in his voice. He hadn't really thought much about it, at least not until now. But you—you were different from the others in his class, in every way.

He didn't like it when his friends reduced you to a stereotype. It felt wrong, like they were talking about someone he was supposed to be working with. But maybe they were right. Maybe your differences were too much to ignore.

"Honestly," Tetsuya continued, "I don't get how you deal with someone like that. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's cool and all if that's how she wants to dress. But c'mon, she looks like she walked out of some underground concert or whatever."

Nanami kept quiet, not sure how to respond. His friends were usually well-meaning, but they never understood the kinds of things that got under his skin. He had already heard their jokes about people like you—about your style, your piercings, the way you didn't fit into the law department's neat, pressed environment.

But hearing it now felt different. It didn't sit right in his stomach.

"It's just weird," Hiroshi added, still tapping away at his phone. "How does she even keep up with the work? You don't think she's just coasting, do you? I mean, how much could someone like that actually know about law?"

Nanami's hand gripped his cup a little too tightly, the ceramic cold against his palm. He swallowed hard, trying to push down the surge of frustration.

"She's competent," he said, his voice cold and curt. "I don't think she's the problem."

Tetsuya gave him a skeptical look. "Really? I don't know, man. You sure about that? I mean, she looks like she'd rather be doing anything else."

"Maybe she just doesn't like drawing attention," Nanami said, his voice quieter than usual, surprising even himself. It wasn't like him to defend someone, especially not when he didn't know how to explain what he was feeling.

The two friends exchanged glances, then shrugged, clearly not convinced.

"Whatever, man. I guess you know better," Tetsuya said with a dismissive wave, returning to his conversation with Hiroshi.

But Nanami couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. It had been weeks, and he'd barely seen you in class anymore. You barely spoke. Your work was good—excellent, even—but you were withdrawing more and more. Every time he received your section of the project late at night, he found himself staring at the screen longer than necessary, wondering why you weren't just... there.

:)

[necrotic-nephilim]

for the ask game, an AU where (somehow…) jason and tim (begrudgingly) team up in the search for a hero/battle for the cowl era (either when jason says tim should work with him on the gang stuff or when batman jason asks tim to be his robin) :]

for the ask game!

god, Search For A Hero my beloved. for the Search For A Hero version of their team-up, I think I'd write it something like this

I think the biggest reason Tim says no when Jason asks him is Jason asks Tim too early in the arc. as the storyline develops, Tim gets more and more desperate to best Ulysses, which is what pushes him to make the mistake that gets Ulysses' siblings killed. he's in a tight spot and he misjudges the situation. (i think the guilt he carries from that moment is one of the biggest inciting incidents for becoming Red Robin) so, i'd introduce Jason to the plot just a little later. just as Tim is on the edge of desperation. Tim isn't entirely adverse to working with villains if he thinks he can stay on top of them. so instead of sending Jason to prison, i think if Jason came to Tim at the right time, Tim would begrudging accept Jason's help

part of Tim's plan would be leveraging Jason's power with the mafia/mob scene in Gotham. they'd agree that topping the gangs would just cause a power vacuum (i'm pretty sure that's actually addressed in SFAH but i could be misremembering) so it's more about a balancing act, which is where Jason thrives. Tim is right on the cusp of being willing to do more morally questionable things, so it'd be a fun internal war for him to second-guess himself at every turn.

there would be such a delightful lack of trust in their partnerships. TIm has *zero* reason to trust Jason, and while Jason likes Tim enough, i don't think he's naive enough to put any trust in Tim. so there'd be moments where they don't fill each other in on aspects of the plan. Jason kills people behind Tim's back, Tim keys in his cop friend behind Jason's back. it builds the tension between them with a lot of hot arguments that get more and more charged.

the jealousy. there would just have to be a scene where Jason gets wildly jealous over Ulysses' complex over Tim. Ulysses tries so hard to pit himself as like, Tim's biggest adversary, his opposite. and Jason would *despise* that. sure, Jason is working with Tim, but part of the fun is that they're still enemies as they do it. i think it'd be sort of fun to have the moment where Ulysses blows Tim up be something Jason witnesses and he raises unholy hell about. because if anyone is going to kill Tim Drake, it's going to be him. and that angry possessiveness is what makes the romantic/sexual tension something neither of them can ignore anymore.

Tim deciding to put on the Red Robin suit to fight Ulysses would be where Jason just. goes full tilt possessive "he's mine i marked him that's my suit. see. mine. i said so." and Tim would push back but. what ground does he have to stand on bc he could've picked any suit with any cowl to protect his head after the blast, but he did choose Jason's. it was his own open invitation to Jason in a way. and well. they fuck nasty about it. and then Damian becomes Robin, so why not Tim keep the suit and just maybe, keep Jason in his back pocket.

and!! for the Battle for the Cowl version. man on one hand i love "Tim accepts Jason's offer to be his Robin" fics but i feel they lack a bite to them, so this is personally how i would try to pull it off, while being relatively in character.

so the biggest thing for me is, TIm agrees to be Jason's Robin not because he trusts or likes Jason, but for the same reasons he became Robin in the first place: to keep Batman stable. being Jason's Robin isn't about wanting to work with Jason, it would be Tim knowing there's no world Jason is ever going to stop and seeing Jason slowly tip over the edge of madness and well. if Tim was self-sacrificial enough to do it for Bruce and attempt to do it for Jean-Paul, he can do it for Jason.

him agreeing would i think startle Jason. like, Jason's offer was never particularly serious because he's at the point he knows Tim wants nothing to do with him. so when Tim says yes it sort of. snaps Jason out of the rage BftC puts him in. he's so startled but enticed by the thought, he willingly agrees to stipulations Tim sets, like no murder. like even if just to see where this goes, Jason jumps on the chance.

i'd really want to keep Dick and Damian as Batman and Robin, and the weird divide that would exist with Dick/Damian and Jason/Tim both running around as Batman/Robin and how off kilter that puts Gotham. like Gotham is so baffled by it, it actually makes criminals easier to handle. because they have no clue if they're getting the Batman who needs Robin to keep him in line, or the Robin who needs Batman to keep him in line. people know there's two Batmans, two Robins and no one knows quite what to do with that information. who's the "real" Batman? who's the "real" Robin? and on the personal level, the divide between Dick and Tim would be unmistakable. Dick would know what Tim's doing and try to convince him Jason is a lost cause bc well, Dick at this point *really* believes Jason is a lost fucking cause. So Dick's genuine care and concern for Tim just drives a further wedge between them.

i think there'd need to be a scene where Tim flat out asks if Jason even *wants* to be Batman. in a sort of attempt to slowly ween Jason off of being Batman, but also because i don't think Jason ever really wants to be Batman, he just wants Batman to be what his vision of justice is. and it'd be the first real heart to heart they have, discussing the legacy of the Robin and Batman mantles and how it's affected them. it'd be heated, but it'd be their first real conversation as just. Jason and Tim.

to me, i think the end goal of this AU would be Tim successfully "taming" Jason, and not in like a soft way, but in like a manipulative way, where even Jason knows that's what Tim is doing, but he just goes along with it because it's the first real human connection he's had in a while. also, i would work in Scarlet, Jason's sidekick in Batman & Robin (2009) as like. a pseudo daughter figure for them to help Jason find his humanity a bit. so it's not just Tim as Jason's rock, but also this misguided girl they'd both try to help. and well, then they ride into the sunset and all that, but still have a complicated, toxic dynamic they're both aware is unhealthy, but as balanced as it can be.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The surveillance advertising to financial fraud pipeline

Monday (October 2), I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab. On October 7–8, I'm in Milan to keynote Wired Nextfest.

Being watched sucks. Of all the parenting mistakes I've made, none haunt me more than the times my daughter caught me watching her while she was learning to do something, discovered she was being observed in a vulnerable moment, and abandoned her attempt:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/may/09/cybersecurity-begins-with-integrity-not-surveillance

It's hard to be your authentic self while you're under surveillance. For that reason alone, the rise and rise of the surveillance industry – an unholy public-private partnership between cops, spooks, and ad-tech scum – is a plague on humanity and a scourge on the Earth:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

But beyond the psychic damage surveillance metes out, there are immediate, concrete ways in which surveillance brings us to harm. Ad-tech follows us into abortion clinics and then sells the info to the cops back home in the forced birth states run by Handmaid's Tale LARPers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/29/no-i-in-uter-us/#egged-on

And even if you have the good fortune to live in a state whose motto isn't "There's no 'I" in uter-US," ad-tech also lets anti-abortion propagandists trick you into visiting fake "clinics" who defraud you into giving birth by running out the clock on terminating your pregnancy:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/15/paid-medical-disinformation/#crisis-pregnancy-centers

The commercial surveillance industry fuels SWATting, where sociopaths who don't like your internet opinions or are steamed because you beat them at Call of Duty trick the cops into thinking that there's an "active shooter" at your house, provoking the kind of American policing autoimmune reaction that can get you killed:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/14/us/swatting-sentence-casey-viner/index.html

There's just a lot of ways that compiling deep, nonconsensual, population-scale surveillance dossiers can bring safety and financial harm to the unwilling subjects of our experiment in digital spying. The wave of "business email compromises" (the infosec term for impersonating your boss to you and tricking you into cleaning out the company bank accounts)? They start with spear phishing, a phishing attack that uses personal information – bought from commercial sources or ganked from leaks – to craft a virtual Big Store con:

https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/safety-resources/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes/business-email-compromise

It's not just spear-phishers. There are plenty of financial predators who run petty grifts – stock swindles, identity theft, and other petty cons. These scams depend on commercial surveillance, both to target victims (e.g. buying Facebook ads targeting people struggling with medical debt and worried about losing their homes) and to run the con itself (by getting the information needed to pull of a successful identity theft).

In "Consumer Surveillance and Financial Fraud," a new National Bureau of Academic Research paper, a trio of business-school profs – Bo Bian (UBC), Michaela Pagel (WUSTL) and Huan Tang (Wharton) quantify the commercial surveillance industry's relationship to finance crimes:

https://www.nber.org/papers/w31692

The authors take advantage of a time-series of ZIP-code-accurate fraud complaint data from the Consumer Finance Protection Board, supplemented by complaints from the FTC, along with Apple's rollout of App Tracking Transparency, a change to app-based tracking on Apple mobile devices that turned of third-party commercial surveillance unless users explicitly opted into being spied on. More than 96% of Apple users blocked spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

In other words, they were able to see, neighborhood by neighborhood, what happened to financial fraud when users were able to block commercial surveillance.

What happened is, fraud plunged. Deprived of the raw material for committing fraud, criminals were substantially hampered in their ability to steal from internet users.

While this is something that security professionals have understood for years, this study puts some empirical spine into the large corpus of qualitative accounts of the surveillance-to-fraud pipeline.

As the authors note in their conclusion, this analysis is timely. Google has just rolled out a new surveillance system, the deceptively named "Privacy Sandbox," that every Chrome user is being opted in to unless they find and untick three separate preference tickboxes. You should find and untick these boxes:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/how-turn-googles-privacy-sandbox-ad-tracking-and-why-you-should

Google has spun, lied and bullied Privacy Sandbox into existence; whenever this program draws enough fire, they rename it (it used to be called FLoC). But as the Apple example showed, no one wants to be spied on – that's why Google makes you find and untick three boxes to opt out of this new form of surveillance.

There is no consensual basis for mass commercial surveillance. The story that "people don't mind ads so long as they're relevant" is a lie. But even if it was true, it wouldn't be enough, because beyond the harms to being our authentic selves that come from the knowledge that we're being observed, surveillance data is a crucial ingredient for all kinds of crime, harassment, and deception.

We can't rely on companies to spy on us responsibly. Apple may have blocked third-party app spying, but they effect nonconsensual, continuous surveillance of every Apple mobile device user, and lie about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

That's why we should ban commercial surveillance. We should outlaw surveillance advertising. Period:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/ban-online-behavioral-advertising

Contrary to the claims of surveillance profiteers, this wouldn't reduce the income to ad-supported news and other media – it would increase their revenues, by letting them place ads without relying on the surveillance troves assembled by the Google/Meta ad-tech duopoly, who take the majority of ad-revenue:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

We're 30 years into the commercial surveillance pandemic and Congress still hasn't passed a federal privacy law with a private right of action. But other agencies aren't waiting for Congress. The FTC and DoJ Antitrust Divsision have proposed new merger guidelines that allow regulators to consider privacy harms when companies merge:

https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FTC-2023-0043-1569

Think here of how Google devoured Fitbit and claimed massive troves of extremely personal data, much of which was collected because employers required workers to wear biometric trackers to get the best deal on health care:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/google-fitbit-merger-would-cement-googles-data-empire

Companies can't be trusted to collect, retain or use our personal data wisely. The right "balance" here is to simply ban that collection, without an explicit opt-in. The way this should work is that companies can't collect private data unless users hunt down and untick three "don't spy on me" boxes. After all, that's the standard that Google has set.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/29/ban-surveillance-ads/#sucker-funnel

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[secular-jew]

Reza Pahlavi, the future leader of Democratic Iran, made a brilliant speech today. Everyone should pray hard that he is successful getting Iran (Persia) back.

"I am not here to ask for your permission to get rid of the Islamic Republic nor am I here to ask you to do it for us.

The true Iran, the ancient Iran, and the soon-to-be free Iran doesn’t seek your patronage, it seeks your partnership. It doesn’t seek your funding, it seeks your friendship because our interests are aligned in the most unique of ways.

So as opposed to the growing threat of this unholy alliance of the red and the black, what, my friends, might a partnership with the Iranian nation look like? What will it look like when sovereignty over our ancient nation is returned to its true sovereign– the Iranian people?

Iran will once again be the anchor of peace and stability in the Middle East, so you can finally bring your boys and girls home from faraway lands, but, with dignity.

Iran will once again be the center of prosperity in the region and a safe haven for foreign investment – not foreign aid.

Iran will once again be an ally of the United States and a close partner of both Israel and the Arab states and see the Abraham Accords grow to the Cyrus Accords.

Iran will once again be the engine of progress, the defender of freedom and righteousness, not the spreader of terror and evil."

[fantasyandromancelover]

Aaron’s Monologue

Aaron: There are three things you can be that will make life harder for you: A sinner demon, a hellborn demon, and a teenager. But do you know what you can be that makes life ten times harder than that?! Being all three! Which unfortunately is what I am. But let’s start at the beginning…

About maybe twenty or fifteen years ago, I don’t know, time passes differently down here. The radio demon a.k.a Dad, the most ruthless, deadly, and psychotic sinner to have ever existed and the surprisingly, sweet, angelic, hell-born, princess of hell a.k.a Mom, formed a partnership in establishing the Hazbin Hotel for redemption. (And seriously Dad? Hazbin? What, is trolling like your hobby or something?)

Anyway, at first it was strictly platonic, mainly because Mom had a good head on her shoulders and Dad…Well he was a few therapy sessions short of sanity. Not to mention hell born royalty was strictly forbidden to mix their “pure blood”, (Pure blood, right) with what my grandpa would occasionally refer to as “mutts.”

But Mom had a good heart and Dad did have a soft side to him, and they were both theater freaks so next thing you know they’re spending a lot of time together and developing crushes and getting real deep, and fighting the urge to act on their feelings (Soap opera shit. How those are popular, I’ll never understand)

Eventually though they fell in love and decided that they were soulmates. But Grandpa was psycho about the whole not-mixing thing so Dad and Mom had to elope and keep their marriage secret. And for about a year they managed to pull it off, but then the unholy stork paid them a visit. Now I know what you’re probably thinking, how the hell could a sinner conceive?

Well…(And oh God this is so gross) Dad had been holding off getting intimate with Mom until they were married because he was very, very, very inexperienced. And he was a little afraid that he wouldn’t be able to…(Ewww) get it up. So my Uncle Angel got him a special aphrodisiac that is supposed to revive one’s…Ahem…”Special Organ” to its younger and more lively state.

Dad injected that into him every time he went to bed with Mom and it worked, but Uncle Angel had neglected to warn my father about a certain side effect in which that the aphrodisiac could also revive sperm count. And thus I came to be in my mother’s belly and my parents’s secret marriage was out. Of course Mom was overjoyed, Dad was freaked, and Grandpa was pissed but what can you do? Nature had taken its course.

So here I am now. Half sinner, half hellborn, the son of a radio maniac and a demonic princess, raised in a hotel full of lunatics, and going through puberty. You think Hell is bad? Welcome to my world.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

oh! theres actually something thats been going around on bsd twitter that rimbaud and verlaine were, in a way, a generation of soukoku themselves? unofficially? and i think it makes sense! theres also those little parallels between rimbaud and dazai believing in verlaine and chuuyas humanity....the meta sense where one has a lighter hair color and the other dark....etc etc..i really wished we could've seen rimbaud and verlaine more as a duo, and what kind of dynamic they have back then.

Oh yeah there’s definitely parallels! What’s neat though is that both Dazai and Chuuya have commonalities with both Rimbaud and Verlaine.

Dazai - Rimbaud: dark hair, polite, logical and detached except with specific people who they intensely care for, grows darker from extended time spent in the dark, thinks the world of their respective partnerships and always see their partner as human

Dazai - Verlaine: nihilistic worldview, think they should not have been born, feel inherently different and separate from humanity, feel like a cursed/unholy existence and think negatively of themselves (which unfortunately enables them to be worse), decide to make their problems everyone else’s problems

Chuuya - Rimbaud: follow the commands of their organizations yet have more personally driven motivations, enjoy having a trusted other at their side, assert the importance of living - a refusal of their partner’s brand of defeated nihilism, see Verlaine as just like a human even though he’s a clone and empathize with him

Chuuya - Verlaine: lighter hair, same ability, similar appearance, similar backstory, never stops fighting, destructive with the wish to burn everything down (though Chuuya fights this), cocky and flaunts their strength (the pear scene with N) but this strength also makes them feel outcasted, deeply deeply lonely

These are just off the top of my head so I’m sure there’s more if you really go through the text (and perhaps I also misspoke on some of these), but there’s a lot there already. It seems pretty deliberate, from an author’s standpoint.

The thing that Rimbaud and Verlaine didn’t have was that mutual unshakeable trust that makes Soukoku so powerful. Rimbaud trusted Verlaine, but Verlaine was resentful, and that destroyed them. And that’s kind of why I’d like to see at least one of their missions together - because I bet you that would show. What would that look like? Both occupying similar positions? Lack of communication? One of them deviates without warning but “it’s fine because it all worked out”? Really neat to think about.

[thealogie]

look I haven’t followed Michael sheen much until recently so I can’t comment but David tennant does have somewhat of a record of being insane about his work friends (in different ways sure, but still unhinged). Like take Billie piper for example, or even Catherine tate. But yeah whatever unholy chemistry he has going on with Michael is what happens when he meets his kin (the difference is this time their families are inseparable too and they pretty much decided they’re going to make their double act everyone else’s problem)

David Tennant was born to be in insane and close creative friendships/partnerships and he was just collecting them along the way as he went. It was all genuine and true but it was also all practice for the greatest doubt act of my lifetime

[kastlequill]

wrath of the lamb

pairing: sebastian krueger x f!reader word count: 6.9k synopsis: your first time hunting with dr. krueger tags: hannibal au, haunted hoedown, dark, serial killers, a couple that kills together stays together, enemies and lovers, unreliable narrator, unholy mentions of god, religious imagery, no y/n warnings: violence/death, blood/gore, mutilation, body horror, cannibalism, voyeurism (except the voyeur is dead), killing as foreplay, smut (blood + murder kink, hair-pulling, biting) ao3: read here  ← prev

“I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth.”

— Sophocles

Bait; that had been your role. The lure, the dangling bit of appetizer to ensnare prey on behalf of another. This particular catch of the day had believed you to be the fish to his fisherman, but you nonetheless had been bait, he the fish, and Dr. Krueger—

The fisherman.

Soon, you would be a fisherman yourself, capable of priming, reeling in, and fatally securing a wide array of aquatic life all on your own. Before that, however, there was much to learn about the sport and the art of choosing one’s hunting spot, of casting one’s net. Naturally, Dr. Krueger had been ever so enthusiastic to help bridge the gaps in your knowledge.  

Currently, the fish was tied up in the foyer, bound by his wrists and ankles to a wooden chair, the same in which you’d sat years ago as Dr. Krueger’s temporary patient. At the insistence of Agent Blaustein and your undiagnosed encephalitis, you had given therapy a shot. These visits had eventually increased in frequency, more so for the psychiatrist’s company than his pseudo sessions. 

Some attributed the progression of your relations with Dr. Krueger to be a product of fate and circumstance, but you knew better than that. Over the past several months, a deliberate and intentional hand had guided you to this very moment, everything meticulously planned and orchestrated by someone with a vested interest in your ascent. 

In your. . . becoming. 

What started as a chance meeting snowballed into a partnership between professionals, identifying and apprehending serial killers across the state together. Thereafter, a friendship did blossom, though this too evolved since your pure empathy made you highly susceptible to internalizing others; him. The line that separated your psyche from his thus gradually became muddied and blurred as you vacated your mind and beckoned in this monster among men. 

You would be hard-pressed to forget just how fervently he had appraised the order and disorder of your headspace. How worshipingly he had looked upon the ever-encroaching darkness that you kept shamefully hidden within the crevices of your bones, stowed away for fear of the day your worser nature might rise to the surface. How eagerly he had called forth that wickedness, that sin, happy to watch you partake and take. 

How easily he had metamorphosed you into the person you’d unwittingly been pursuing throughout all your years of existence. 

“The throat is a double-edged sword. It makes life possible, housing the airways, overseeing the safe passage of air into the lungs. But so too does it make death readily accessible, boasting the jugular vein, exacting a swift end if cut at just the right angle, the right depth,” an accented voice sounded from behind. 

Hopelessly obedient to the pull that locked your soul and his in perpetual orbit of one another, you cast a glance over your shoulder then looked down at the knife in his hand. It was an ordinary carving knife, blade sharpened and thrumming with excitement at the prospective union of steel and meat. More importantly, it was an offering. 

A gift.

Dr. Krueger quite enjoyed showering you with lavish presents, and he preferred the intimacy of being the craftsman in addition to the sender. To court you, he’d sawed off the tongue of the reporter who’d mocked your condition in her crude tabloids, coated the severed organ in poison, and shoved it down her throat until she choked on its toxicity. To express the extent of his devotion, he'd torn out the vocal cords of a suitor who’d made lewd comments about you at the opera house, fashioned them into a noose, and left him dangling from the ceiling to be discovered in the morning by a screeching primadonna. 

And to apologize for spilling your blood on his kitchen floor, he’d Frankensteined together a beating heart, openly baring his affections despite the penetrative gaze of all who sought to imprison the Cut-throat Killer. The sculpture, composed of a decapitated corpse’s inverted musculature instead of typical granite stone, had told a tale of repentance and of yearning.

My heart is yours. Broken and maimed though it might be, you have managed to assuage its ache and mend its pieces. This foreign object no longer fits properly in the cavity of my being, so do what you will with it. Even if you decide to break it once again, the resulting shards are still all for you only, just as it was. 

The twisted love letter had resulted from months of deceptive intentions, divided loyalties, and belated sacrifices. Your inevitable betrayal had struck dead the fantasy of a shared future. In his mourning, Dr. Krueger had gutted you to bestow a matching wound, yours a physical representation of his own intangible pain. However, contrary to previous prey, watching your face lose its vibrancy and a red puddle form around your twitching body had inspired not satisfaction, but fear. 

A certain desperation had seized him then. Losing you, a kindred spirit who had known and seen him, would have damned the man to a lifetime of loneliness. For someone incapable of thriving in total solitude, that was a terrifying notion.

So though the urge to slit your throat and cook you into a feast might occasionally possess him, though he might periodically contemplate cracking your skull open to reveal the beautiful brain that tormented him day and night, such calls-to-action would go unanswered. 

During periods of separation, he could easily convince himself that his feelings for you were an unnecessary suffering. A fruitless agony; a beacon of masochism. Ready to put an end to this mounting misery, a murderous plot would begin to take shape until your mere return resolutely derailed any plans of excising you from his destiny. 

Cyclical, the way he grew hungry in your absence, champing at the bit, gnawing on bone, only to find his stomach brimming with contentment upon spending a single moment in your presence. 

The rude were nothing more than livestock to a refined man like Dr. Sebastian Krueger. Just as the average non-vegetarian viewed chickens, cows, and pigs as rightful staples of their omnivorous diet, he believed disrespectful folk were no different to poultry, cattle, or swine. At least in death, these subhumans could transcend their lowly stations and reach new heights of beauty and value as his culinary masterpieces, as elaborate displays of mutilated art. 

Like God, he played judge, jury, and executioner, wielding the power to decide the earthly ends and undead beginnings of those he deemed lesser.

Between equals, however, consumption was to him the pinnacle of humanity’s capacity for love. Diligently preparing a delicacy of the vessel that housed a loved one, transforming their anatomy into a gourmet meal, was the supreme method of honoring them. Further still, intaking a pound of their flesh meant immortalizing a beloved by becoming the very urn in which the remnants of their existence could always be found. Whether they should depart by nature or by circumstance, a piece of them would forever stay inside this biological graveyard. 

The mixing of bloods, two pulses beating in synchrony, a dialogue between gullets. An irreversible breach of one’s external layer of protection that said, you are mine, and I am yours; the proof resides in the pits of our stomachs.

By his logic, if he were to eat you and satisfy his craving for fusion, then perhaps whatever hold you had over him would denature, eliminating the threat that this love posed to his livelihood. In actuality, a glimpse of you was plenty enough to sate his normally-raging appetite. 

To daily feel a stab of hunger and then obtain nourishment at the slightest bit of eye contact. . . that was how viscerally he loved you. 

Of course, Dr. Krueger hadn’t overtly verbalized these sentiments, but you nonetheless recognized and understood the unspoken truth. After all, pure empathy did not just expose you to the onslaught of his expert manipulation—it also unveiled his best-kept secrets.

“When hunting, one must always consider efficiency. Time is of the essence, as they say. It’s better spent on the artwork itself than on gathering your materials, wouldn’t you agree?” 

Your eyes jerked up to meet his appraising stare. Not the type to waste air on rhetorical questions, he raised a single scarred brow, and it only lowered once your fingertips answered by brushing the palm of his hand. As you plucked the knife from his grasp, its heavy weight took you aback. The hefty task of reaping an unclaimed soul added at least a few extra pounds to the blade, but you adjusted your grip until wielding it became effortless.  

At its core, killing was a fairly quick and simple endeavor. Humans often exited the world as fast as they had originally entered it, and, in a manner of speaking, your lives were just preparation for the inevitable return to that shadowy limbo from which you’d all been birthed. 

The fish had yet to regain consciousness, and you were determined to ensure that his eyes would never again open to anything but a dark abyss. 

You weren’t apologetic in the slightest for what was about to come. This bound asshat had been selected because he’d had trouble understanding the word no at a pub and spilled wine on an intervening Dr. Krueger’s prized coat. Such unprincipled behavior warranted an equally-indecent fate. 

Out like a light, his head was tilted back to rest on the back of the chair, displaying a ripe throat, fresh for the taking. And take you did, aligning your blade at the corner of his jaw and dragging it across the jugular, slitting his trachea, causing it to collapse unto itself. Liquid beads of crimson bubbled to the surface along the laceration, and the macabre necklace enraptured you. 

Your psychiatrist-turned-mentor had earned the moniker of Cut-throat Killer due to his apparent fixation on the neck and its surrounding regions. His kills were linked by this common denominator, whether a body was headless, or had a ripped-apart larynx, or had died by asphyxiation. Sometimes, Dr. Krueger liked to experiment with different finishing blows to keep the FBI on their toes, but his modus operandi never failed to involve the throat. 

It made sense, then, why you too had developed a similar appreciation. 

“Well done,” praised the doctor, now beside you, and the words set alight your bloodstream. His tone held no surprise; your profession had revealed your natural aptitude for the hunt and erased any reservations he might’ve had. From the very first day your paths crossed, he’d recognized what you were, what you could become. “Now, where do you wish to go from here?” 

A loaded question, one that dictated how the rest of the night would unfold. If you stayed in the foyer, cleaning up the grime and gore out from between each plank of wood would be an absolutely dreadful ordeal. If you went to the main room, splatters and stains on his Persian rug and fine fabric drapes would undoubtedly irk the man, and you quite preferred staying on his good side for the time being.

That left his extravagant kitchen. It was the ideal location—the freezer was conveniently placed, and the tools for harvesting meat were at your disposal. Also, in the not-unlikely event of blood running off the table’s edge, you could simply scrub the tiles spotless.

“The kitchen.” You diverted your focus from the dead man to the one who had mastered death itself. Although you were unsurprised to discover Dr. Krueger’s deep brown eyes already intent upon you, a chill cascaded down your spine nevertheless. He’d sooner gouge out the organs that granted him sight than stop his lingering stares, you knew. “Removing the skin from a fish this slimy is messy business. I wouldn’t want to ruin your nice hardwood floors. Black walnut?” 

His wide smile told a tale of predation tempered with adoration. “Wenge.”

You softly shook your head in fond exasperation. Of course he who settled for nothing but the best would choose one of the most rare and expensive species of hardwood in the world. 

The doctor held your gaze as he removed his outer layer, not wanting to sully a tailored, dry clean-only suit jacket. Once it was safely out of range, he cut loose the body from its restraints and dragged it to the kitchen with you trailing behind him. 

After hauling the corpse onto the center of the marble island, Dr. Krueger rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt to his elbows and slipped on surgical gloves from his vest’s pocket, handing you a pair as well. He used scissors to reveal the man’s flesh beneath his clothes, took the murder weapon from your fingers, and made an incision that started at the collarbone and ended at the navel. Wrenching open the ribcage, snapping any resistant osseous matter, the doctor efficiently primed the carcass for harvesting before it could stiffen in rigor mortis. 

His work done, he unsheathed a sizable butcher knife, handed it to you, then stepped out of reach, content to watch you pick up from where he’d left off. You imitated his previous motions, careful not to sink the blade too far in lest you ruptured any organs. The last thing you wanted to do was accidentally ruin the meat. 

Meat. 

You’d discovered a couple of months ago that the delicious protein scrambles shared with you by the kind Austrian man had actually contained bits of strangers. Initially, the revelation had repulsed and angered you in its violation of your right to informed consent. But now, while you didn’t see the appeal of human cuisine, you could admit there was something uniquely intimate about a shared hunt, about the subsequent communion, the breaking of bread and bone. 

It was with this logic in mind that you proceeded to dissect the body according to the anatomical direction given by the doctor. First, you extracted the lungs, then the spleen and liver, next the stomach and gallbladder, the intestines and kidneys, and, lastly, the heart. 

The turn of the hour quickly came and went. You moved to push back some hair that had fallen out of place, wishing you had worn a hairnet, when you caught a glimpse of your lover’s current state. He stood to the side of the counter a few feet away, hunger plain on his face, erection evident through the fabric of his slacks. 

As ravenous for your fill of him as he was for a taste of you, you set the knife on the cutting board and started to walk over to—

“No.” 

The lone, measured syllable echoed throughout the large kitchen, ringing in your ears, and you instantly halted mid-step. A trait that separated the doctor from so many other men of his stature was his refusal to resort to yelling. He’d done a lifetime’s worth of it in the Austrian Armed Forces, had been his explanation, and it was beneath him. It signaled that one lacked omnipotence and control, that they didn’t have an effortless dominance with respect to the masses over which they resided. 

Dr. Krueger, however, had no shortage of charisma and no trouble garnering an obedient audience. The personification of sin beckoned you forward. “Crawl to me.”

Without hesitation, you slowly descended to the floor, gaze steady and stuck on his looming figure. Your clothed knees met tile first, then your palms followed suit as you navigated your way towards him through a pool of blood and innards. Something unnamed coiled tight in your stomach the nearer you drew to him who looked down at you, stoic and unfazed. From here, a passerby might think you a worshiper bowed in supplication to her god.  

For what purpose did you plead? 

If I should die, let it not be his blade that strikes the finishing blow. 

To what end did you pray? 

If he should rot in a cell, let it not be my testimony that sends him away.  

When your fingers brushed against his shoes, imprinting red on the fancy leather, the doctor leaned forward to snake a hand around to the nape of your neck, lightly massaging your scalp. The soothing pressure made your eyes roll back, but the false sense of security it had given you evaporated at the following sharp tug on the roots of your hair.

His grip firm, Dr. Krueger pulled you up until you were on your feet once again. Before you could properly calibrate to the change in orientation, he spun you to face the kitchen island then sandwiched you in between his pelvis and the counter. Squirming against him, your instincts commanded you to escape, but you remained steadfastly in place. Trapped.

Ensnared.

Skillful hands made quick work of your attire, throwing your belt to the ground, shoving your jeans and panties to bunch at your ankles, unbuttoning the flannel he’d called hideous yet endearing, snapping free your cheap bra. Satisfied with your current state of undress, Dr. Krueger used his teeth to tear off his gloves so that he could begin exploring the treasures he had uncovered.  

You never let him touch you with gloves. The sensation of latex on skin was too reminiscent of a butcher prepping slaughtered livestock to be further chopped up into refined cuts of meat. And you were not foolish enough to think you could ever be the butcher in this scenario. 

His hands journeyed up your front to your neck, rubbing at the splatter of blood there that had yet to be cleaned. Adamant on dirtying you further, he smeared it downward as he cupped the heft of your breasts and rolled your nipples between his fingers. You must’ve looked like a sacrificial offering to some deity, back bowed, though the only who would partake in the enjoyment of your flesh was him.

Once you were sufficiently marked, the man wiped any excess blood off his right hand and onto your stomach then continued his descent to the epicenter of your heat. When he finally reached your mound and dipped an explanatory finger inside, he found you wet and wanting. 

“Filthy thing,” Dr. Krueger admonished with a click of his tongue. “I’ve barely touched you, and yet here you are, already dripping onto the floor. Tell me, how long have you been like this?”

“Since you—” The rest of that sentence died in your throat, cut short by the featherlight brush of his thumb against where you wanted him most. A sudden jolt traveled through your body, and you struggled to form a coherent thought, let alone string together a sensical series of words. “Since you rolled up those stupid fucking sleeves, you bastard.” 

His answering smirk could be heard in the gravel of his voice, smug and self-assured. “I didn’t know my forearms had such an effect on you.”

Said forearms came into view as he encased you, both of his hands relocating to either side of yours, flat on the countertop. A knee replaced where his hand had been between your legs, and he ground it upward, pulling back whenever you tried to reciprocate, relief just out of reach. 

“Like hell you didn’t,” you snapped, your frustration getting the better of you. “Don’t play dumb, Doctor. It’s not a good look.” 

All traces of his humor evaporated at the snark. Announcing no warning, your lover sank two fingers into your weeping core, curling them to stimulate the spot within that never failed to make you see stars. He scissored you open and gathered enough slick to begin working in a third finger, intent on making you plead for forgiveness. Absolution. 

Most nights, Dr. Krueger prided himself in his patience, in his ability to draw out one, two, three orgasms from you before his cock got anywhere near your cunt. But tonight, you knew, would be different. It would be hard and fast. 

Carnal. 

Upon deeming you ready to take him, you heard the unclasping of a belt buckle followed by the zipper of his pants coming undone. A soft caress along the notches of your spine, and then he aligned himself with your entrance and immediately surged to erase the distance between your bodies, filling you to the hilt. 

The force of it caused you to double over, and your elbows buckled at the sudden shift in weight. With the side of your face now pressed against the counter’s cold surface, you couldn’t help the way your ass slightly elevated and protruded. This position felt explicit, dirty, and you gleaned from his sharp inhale that you looked as much from his perspective. Rather than allowing you to rise, Dr. Krueger dug a hand into your hair and pushed you further into the granite. 

“Have I neglected you, mein Schatz?” Each thrust was punctuated by a tug on your hair, a scrape against the surface, the repeated motion jostling you forward, while you fucked back into him. “Have I left you wanting? Is that why you’re so needy tonight? So rude?” 

When you didn’t answer, he retracted his hips until the tip was all that remained nestled in your warmth, leaving you empty and unfulfilled. Then, as though sensing you were on the verge of complaining, the doctor slammed home, yanking from you a pitiful mewl of agonized desire. 

“Please.”

This particular word was a shapeshifter; it adopted a different meaning based on ite context. Here, it served as a Hail Mary, as a cry for mercy, but you weren’t sure whether you were imploring his punishing rhythm to abate or for him to give you more. Regardless of your intention, Dr. Krueger intensified his torturous movements, a dark chuckle tumbling from his lips. 

Damn sadist. 

“Begging will get you nowhere. Not tonight.” At your despairing whine, he laughed again. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, you’ll get your wish. Eventually.”

So attuned to the ins and outs of your body, was this man, so intimately aware of where to press, where to pinch to elicit sweet melodies and moans. And yet, he toyed with you, glossing over these erotic zones, waiting for you to confess something before he might grant you penance, a token for your suffering. The thread of your sanity was wearing thin. 

“Stop teasing, or I swear to God.” 

You’d expected him to ignore your pleas as he had done before, but instead, you felt him thicken inside you. “Do it, then. Swear to me.”

His ego almost earned him an eyeroll, but you couldn’t help giving into his demands. The relentless pace he’d set was very persuasive, and you were only human.   

“Sebastian—”

It had the desired outcome. Hardly ever did you call him by his name, so if you did, that meant something. Due to said infrequency, using his name had a kind of Pavlovian effect on the man.

“Scheiße,” he groaned out the curse, hips stuttering forward and reaching a newfound depth that made you both gasp. “Yes, my heart, that’s right. You’ve made me your god, and I’ve made you. . .” 

. . . mine. 

Because that was the truth, wasn’t it? Dr. Krueger had plucked a rib from the cavity of his chest, sharpened it into a blade, and carved you into his vision of perfection. In turn, you had turned him into a conduit for your enlightenment, for your becoming. He was your tangible nirvana, and you were his sole gateway to heaven. 

The two of you had found religion in each other, and there was little else more dangerous than that. 

“Is this what you wanted? What you were so impatient for?” At your jerky nod, he seized your slackened jaw and tilted your chin up to direct your attention towards the kitchen island where the corpse still laid. “My, we haven’t even cleared the table yet. Can’t let the meat sit out, or else it’ll go sour.”

When your brain finally caught up to what—or to whom— he was referring, an epiphany struck you with startling clarity: 

This dead man was evidence of what had transpired here tonight. Better yet, he was the first witness to this taboo consummation. Perhaps it was stupid to believe that gave your relationship any real legitimacy in the world’s eyes, beyond the perimeters of this manor. Nonetheless, the thought caused you to involuntarily tighten, and you prayed the correlation would go unnoticed.

Dr. Krueger froze, because of fucking course nothing ever got past him. “Oh, you like that, do you? You like that we have a guest for dinner, that another finally sees the truth of what we are. Hunters. Lovers.” 

Oftentimes, being known was a riveting experience that bridged the gaping chasm of solitude. But there came moments when you wished to conceal the ugliness. You lowered your head, mortified that he might at last realize you were unworthy of his affection, his touch. 

“There���s nothing to be ashamed of when you’re here. This home is yours, Liebling,” he murmured, reverent as he resumed his torturous ministrations, regaining momentum. “I can think of no more beautiful a sight than you happy and honest in it. Never hide from me.”

A horrific prospect, baring one’s heart to someone so well equipped to tear it to shreds, but your walls were already beginning to crumble. Brick by brick, he dismantled you, intending to undo a lifetime of repression then reconstruct you in his image. 

Sex with Dr. Krueger wasn’t just a physical release. It was near ritualistic in its conjoining of two souls. It was a collision between two supernovas, a calamity in progress. 

It was an inevitability.  

What a pair you made—serpent and Eve. Ravisher and ravished, entangled in a web of debauchery and death. 

In spite of everything, you didn’t believe that he made you worse. He made you real. 

Time after time, warnings that this should never happen again would echo throughout your mind, but time after time, you found yourself in this same position, wrapped up in him. Coaxed by his sweet nothings and consumed with the way he alone understood what you still refused to speak aloud, it was through this union of flesh and bone that you elevated each other to art. 

And hell, if he made you worse, then you accepted that to be worse was to be honest. In this realm, you were closer to God than to the Devil. 

And was it not so that every devout follower hoped to be in league with their god, to be rewarded for their unshaken faith? What better way to actualize that hope than to devour?

A well-angled thrust brought you back to the present. Man or monster, God or Devil, neither distinction mattered as he pummeled into you, a fusion of the ultimate caliber. In this room, he was not your enemy, just the equal who helped you ascend to great heights, who guided you until your eventual arrival to the precipice. 

Lucifer before the fall. 

“I—” The word broke off in an airy gasp. Second attempt. “Sebastian, I’m—”

That too went interrupted, for it was then that your lover decided to circle your swollen clit with his calloused fingers. Dazed and nonverbal, you felt him wrap your hair around his fist and use it as leverage to assist in his corruption of you, tugging your head to his chest, baring your throat, arching your back. 

“I know, it’s alright,” he lovingly hushed your cries, lips nibbling on the rim of your ear. The wet roughness of his tongue licked away the tears that had begun to flow freely from your eyes, glossy and unfocused. “You can let go now. I’ll be here to catch you, yes? I’ll always catch you.” 

It shouldn’t have been a comforting sentiment. This was a man who killed people for being rude, who had seriously told you it’s only cannibalism if we’re equals. And yet, hearing that he would be there to envelop you in his arms if and when you plunged into the deep end was what at last sent you over the edge.  

Before him, no partner had successfully brought you to an orgasm. He loved to lull you into a state of la petite mort, compensating for his inability to actually kill you by inducing several little deaths whenever you laid together. But he had your brain short-circuiting as you came apart, your thighs trembling and jaw unhinged, your nails notched into the muscles that rippled across the expanse of his back, a bright light behind halfway-closed lids.

Thick fingers crawled across your left cheek to enter the black hole of your wet mouth, and you instinctively closed your lips around the intruding appendages. As you sucked and lathered them with spit, you pushed your ass further back into his pelvis, wordlessly encouraging him to use you to chase his own release. Several strokes later, his pace grew desperate, erratic, and he removed his fingers to cup your face, angled it just right, then bit down on the side of your neck, drawing blood. The brief flare of pain made your walls flutter and take his cock even deeper, your bodies reluctant to separate. 

Harvest me, and don’t waste a single drop. 

The moment of stillness that ensued when he at last emptied his seed in you was something holy, you decided. Ropes of cum seemingly endless, the pulsing of his member combined with his low groans brought you unparalleled bliss. While he descended from his lustful high, he lapped up the metallic trail along your throat, and the pressure of his tongue soothed the wound’s mild ache. Dr. Krueger, the man who had no qualms about eating within his species, was content to stop his consumption of you here, at a bite and a drop of ichor. 

Is my taste as divine as you imagined?

His hips continued to jerk and lurch in the aftershocks, and the noise of skin ricocheting off skin was more audible now that your senses were starting to return. Some might consider it to be an obscene sound, blatant and crude, but its obviousness appealed to you. Anyone who heard these echoes of anatomical convergence would have no misgivings regarding the recreational activities in which you and the doctor participated. 

I fear I would give you the most tender parts of myself, if only you were to ask. 

One hand caressed the top of your head, smoothing back your sweat-slickened hair. The other used his pristine white shirt to wipe the sweat from your brow, the gore from your body. Its fabric was rough against your overstimulated skin, but his movements were gentle. 

So please—

The doctor finished remedying the mess he had made of you and tossed the clothing aside, murmuring something about how he would have to explain to the lady at the dry cleaner’s that he’d spilled red wine again. Wrapping both arms around your waist to pull you impossibly closer to his chest, he then pressed a soft kiss to your nape. 

Your eyes fell shut. 

—do not ask. 

The manor was silent save for heavy breathing, yours and his. A sudden foul stench of rot and decay reminded you of the gruesome company on the kitchen island across the counter. You forced yourself to meet the vacant stare of the fish whose death had started this spontaneous coupling session, passion fueled by elevated adrenaline and a godlike rush of power.  

“I thought you didn’t get off to killing,” you murmured, energy half spent. 

An affirming hum vibrated through your bones, and you felt him rub his forehead against your back, up then down, nodding. “You thought correctly. I do not.”

A snort escaped from your throat since very recent evidence pointed to the contrary. Still inside you, his cock twitched at the sound. 

Perhaps he found the noise undignified and the response rude. The man had probably killed people for far pettier reasons; nonetheless, you continued to push the envelope because he continued to let you. 

This risky game would someday reach its limit. Someday, you might cross a non-negotiable line, and then you’d be dead before you knew what hit you.  

But today was not that day. 

“There is no sexual gratification in my hunts,” he further clarified. “Such perversion indicates one who is subjugated to the whims of his more primitive nature, one who is being controlled rather than doing the controlling. 

“Arousal at its most basic implies common ground. It drives us to seek a favorable mate with whom we can sire offspring to carry on our legacies. Should the hunter find this kind of pleasure in the hunted, it would mean a debasement of the self. Dethroned from the top of the food chain, he would forever live among his lessers. Since my prey are not and never will be my equal, killing is a strictly nonsensuous act.”

You are my equal, my mate, were the words you heard him omit. 

“But I keep discovering how much you defy my logic. I did not expect to be so. . . moved by that insatiable look in your eyes, by your presence in my kitchen, holding my knife.” The sigh he exhaled contained genuine frustration, not at you, but at himself. At his lack of self-control, at his underestimation of your ability to undo him. 

His right hand strayed from your midsection to ghost over the swell of your ass, vexation having seemingly passed. “And what a lovely painting you made of yourself. The only improvement is for you to coat your bodily canvas with my blood instead of that unworthy pig’s.”

Your brows furrowed at the thought of him gravely injured, stained red, and you grabbed his wrist, gave it what you hoped was a reassuring squeeze. “I don’t want to hurt you, Sebastian.”

The rare occurrence of you using his first name outside of sex had him nuzzling deeper into the crook of your neck and lightly nipping at the soft skin there. Although his teeth were eager to pierce flesh, his canines maintained a respectable distance. In the afterglow, he was always so, so careful not to cause undue damage. You were at your most vulnerable, and he was at his most untamed; a dangerous combination, like fire and gasoline.

Who was the struck match that would sacrifice wholeness to ignite the other, and who was the ignited that would disappear without a trace post-explosion?

Did it even matter?

“Very pretty lies, Liebling, though not quite as beautiful as you.” 

Despite his sardonic delivery, the fondness with which he uttered the term of endearment betrayed his affections. Complicated relationship with the Cut-throat Killer aside, none could deny that there was genuine love between the two of you. 

An unconventional, tempestuous love, true, but love nevertheless. It made the dichotomy between your loyalties all the more messy. 

Because yes, you appreciated his craftsmanship and were awed by the artistry behind his kills. Yes, you had moments ago indulged in your first hunt alongside him and had enjoyed it.  

Yes, you would probably do so again in the future.  

Yet somehow, the FBI profiler in you still felt obligated to confront the man, to put an end to his reign of terror. Why your lover would forever be visited by the need to eat and savor every inch of you, why you couldn’t ever entirely relax in the breadth of his embrace. . . it all tied back to this:

You couldn’t reconcile your ethical code with your want for him. The enormity of your desire approached suffocatingly-absurd levels, and the extent to which you ached for and craved this man was sickening.

No matter your personal feelings, the bitter reality of the situation remained unchanged. Before you could irreversibly walk the path of either love or duty, you needed to perceive your brain as something other than deformed, to conceive that the unnatural was a natural product of the universe in its own right. You needed to believe that the person who returned your stare in the mirror was not a disfigurement of humanity, nor a bastardization of goodness. 

But what constituted good, and what qualified as evil, anyway? Who had the right to decide which was which? Was it Agent Blaustein, who had pushed you to the point of breaking, who saw your mind only as a tool, caring not if he damaged you beyond repair in the field? 

Or was it Dr. Krueger, who had made you question your sanity, who wished for you to access and become indivisible from the rawest pieces of your marrow, even if it damned him in the process?

One thing was for certain: until you unabashedly accepted the darker elements of yourself—the same facets that he reflected back at you—this game of cat and mouse was cursed to resume and repeat, over and over. The roles seemed to reverse each time; you had first been the mouse to his cat, then you’d briefly turned the tables as the cat to his mouse. 

Recently, neither of you could puzzle out who was who. 

And the scariest part about all this was that you had never known yourself as well as you knew yourself when you were with him, a fucking serial killer. How frightening, that your ability to acknowledge and make sense of your own existence might hinge on whether or not he was in your life. 

Even a fool could see how you had changed under the gravity of his influence. In the beginning, you’d shunned the ugly bits, the chunks of you that proved too abhorrent to swallow. Now, you were learning how to indulge, how to see the beauty in the so-called horror. During the day, outsiders reminded you of your malignancies, of the shame that accompanied the sin of authenticity. However, at night, with him, you at last shed these social shackles and basked in fantasies of what could be, for the mere weight of his stare had the power to propel you toward self-actualization. 

Obviously, Dr. Krueger was well aware of this war between your moral duties and your innermost shadows. You expected as much, considering he had almost killed you for it. 

In your quest to unmask the Cut-throat Killer and confirm your suspicions, you’d nurtured a budding friendship with the doctor. You had wormed your way into his good graces by telling him exactly what he wanted to hear, nevermind that it had been you at your most honest. When the scheme eventually fell apart, murdering you had surprisingly not been his immediate reaction. Instead, he had offered you the chance to come clean so as to leave all the secrecy in the past and move forward anew. 

Together. 

It made perfect sense for Dr. Krueger to try holding onto his one true companion in life after getting a taste of reprieve from loneliness. Except, oblivious of your blown cover, you had doubled down, giving him no choice but to clutch you to his chest and carve his heartbreak into your gut. As you drifted toward Death’s door, as regret and fear willed him to frantically press onto your wound, the man had realized just how much you’d changed him, too.

Although you were indeed the harbinger of his ruination, he’d concluded that imprisonment paled in comparison to the grief of losing you. He loathed to imagine spending the rest of his days in a jail cell, but he could not commit to killing you, his greatest weakness and threat. You sought to cleanse this town of him, but you too could not pull the trigger on this evildoer. 

Two halves of a whole, locked in a stalemate. 

Can’t live with him, can’t live without him. A grotesque and ghastly piece of work, this man you called lover. And yet, you wouldn't dream of leaving his side. 

Because Sebastian Krueger was never going to get better without you. And you were never going to become better without him. 

“Apologies, but I insist we skip our entrée tonight.” 

That caught your attention—an absurd statement from someone who would probably make the time to properly dine even if the FBI was actively storming the gates of his manor. You twisted your spine to at last come face to face with him, and awaiting your curiosity was his hungry brown eyes, his dark blond hair freed from its gelled confines. 

“I know you worked hard to provide us this meal, and the meat will not go to waste,” the doctor assured, expression neutral, the perfect picture of calm if not for the way his fingers dug further into the meat of your hips. “The problem is me. I simply cannot curb my craving for dessert anymore.” 

You nearly scoffed. “Was this not dessert?” 

“No, mein Schatz,” he chuckled, as if you had just told a funny joke. The low timbre of his laugh caused a wave of desire to pool in between your legs, and you pressed your thighs together to trap the renewed heat.  

Ever intuitive, Dr. Krueger moved one arm away from your body to rest flat and steady on the countertop then dragged the other down to pinch your inner thigh, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake. 

“That was only the appetizer.” 

fin.

[ronqueesha]

Dragon Age hype has me thinking of my beloved OCs that have been living in my head for years.

Kallian Tabris - city elf rogue

A spiteful, angry, hateful elf born with Intermittent Explosive Disorder. The rampant injustices elves suffer only make her worse, especially the unjust murder of her mother. Kallian begins the story hating humans so much it literally makes her feral.

The blight becomes a remedy for Kallian. The gentle positive influence of Leliana, Wynne and Alistair give Kallian a chance to show that her anger is a defense mechanism to protect a very loving heart. She is so angry because she doesn't want to lose the people she loves.

Kallian's story is a redemption arc. She truly becomes a hero, and gets to ride into the sunset with Leliana after a job well done.

Being a city elf means she is almost entirely uneducated. But Wynne teaches her to read and write during the blight. And post-canon, she teaches her father so they can send letters while Kallian is traveling. Later, Kallian teaches herself to speak Orlesian for Leliana.

Sarah Hawke - sarcastic mage

Sarah is too smart. Way too smart. And a magical prodigy. In fact, Sarah is such a talented mage that she hides her status by almost never using her magic. She'd rather deal with situations through quick wit and baffling people with bullshit. Her friendship with fellow wordsmith Varric is the stuff of legends.

Kirkwall never even knows she's a mage until she is forced to use her magic to survive the Arishok fight.

The constant losses and tragedies Sarah suffers in Kirkwall wear her down, until it becomes very difficult to maintain her witty sarcastic persona. Her romance with Anders starts as a mutual partnership of hopes and dreams, both of them wishing for a better future.

As Anders deteriorates, he starts blatantly using and manipulating Sarah. When he fully snaps, she has no choice but to kill him. As the knife slides into his back, something permanently dies inside Sarah. The funny charming mage is gone. Sarah chooses to end her life in the fade years later, defending her friends and the Inquisitor.

Keeran Trevelyan - warrior

Maximum manwhore. Keeran comes from a wealthy, spoiled background. But one where he got very little attention from his family. So he has spent his life acting out just to get noticed. Lavishly spending coin and bedding as many people as possible to fill the void in his heart.

The only reason Keeran wields big weapons is to show off and look good to people who might be watching.

He spends his early days with the Inquisition living in terror. He thinks all of these religious extremists would certainly execute him if they learned the Herald of Andraste was a decidedly unholy hedonist who has no idea where his powers come from.

His anxiety gets worse when he starts to fall for Dorian, of all the people to be in love with when politics is suddenly a major factor in your life.

But over time Keeran matures into a competent yet caring leader. He had no idea that Solas stuck by his side for nefarious reasons, he just thought the two of them were good friends.

The Inquisitor at the end of the story is completely unrecognizable from the selfish and ditzy manchild who started the journey.

[toomanyf4ndoms7]

Wow, it’s like some kind of… what am I thinking of? Unholy partnership? Devilish team-up?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Peter Montgomery at RWW:

As the aggressive Christian nationalism that infuses the MAGA movement and Republican Party intensifies, journalists and filmmakers are paying closer attention to the threat this political ideology and its adherents pose to freedom in America. A must-watch new documentary, “Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy,” will be available for streaming on AppleTV, Amazon Prime, and Google Play beginning Friday, April 26. Directed by Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher Jacob Jones and narrated by Peter Coyote, “Bad Faith” makes masterful use of archival and current footage of Christian nationalist religious and political figures, infographics, and interviews with scholars, religious leaders, political analysts, and even a former Trump administration official. The film draws a compelling through line from the scheming power-building of Paul Weyrich, the right-wing operative who recruited Jerry Falwell and other evangelical preachers to create the religious-right as a political movement in the late 1970s, to the institution-destroying antidemocratic ambitions of MAGA insiders like Steve Bannon, as well as Donald Trump’s dominionist “prophets” and “apostles” and the Jan. 6 insurrectionists they inspired.

[...]

“Bad Faith” explains how that transformation happened, documenting the role played by the Council for National Policy, a partnership between anti-regulation, economically libertarian oil barons and the religious-right leaders who intended to remake the Republican Party, take over the Supreme Court, and use their political power to enforce “traditional” views of family, sexuality, and gender on the rest of the nation. The Koch brothers poured tens of millions of dollars into “a state-of-the-art political data platform” that Council for National Policy groups use to collect personal information—including personal mental health, behavioral health, and treatment data—and use that information to micro-target individuals. (In “God & Country,” another documentary released earlier this year, Ralph Reed is shown bragging that his organization tracked “147 different data points” on the conservative Christians they targeted for turnout operations.) [...]

As “Bad Faith” makes clear, religious-right leaders viewed Trump as a powerful blunt weapon in a long-term political and spiritual war against the federal government and institutions dominated by progressive forces. “The Council’s gambit had paid off,” the film notes about Trump’s time in office. “Christian nationalists were firmly embedded at the highest levels of government. The Supreme Court had an absolute majority of justices poised to overturn landmark civil and women’s rights decisions. Paul Weyrich’s vision of a Christian nation was becoming a reality.” That explains why Christian nationalist leaders were willing to dismantle democracy to keep Trump in power. Members of the Council for National Policy and its political action arm went into “full combat mode” to promote Trump’s big lie, and, as Right Wing Watch documented, they supported his efforts to keep power after the 2020 election, portraying it as a holy war between the forces of good and evil. As Samuel Perry notes in the film, viewing politics as spiritual warfare between the forces of God and Satan makes it easy for those who see themselves on God’s side to “justify just about anything.”

The Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy documentary comes out today on streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Google Play today. Bad Faith focuses on the history of Christian Nationalism and its very real threat to democracy.

[azspot]

It's hard to be your authentic self while you're under surveillance. For that reason alone, the rise and rise of the surveillance industry – an unholy public-private partnership between cops, spooks, and ad-tech scum – is a plague on humanity and a scourge on the Earth…

The surveillance advertising to financial fraud pipeline

[no-where-new-hero]

A final Barney/Dean parallel: Emily proposes to Dean just as Valancy proposes to Barney.

The situations are, interestingly, reversed though: Valancy proposes to Barney at the end of her life. Emily proposes to Dean at the new beginning of hers (after her recovery). In terms of what's happening in the scene, the emotional roles are also reversed: Emily almost seems like Barney accepting Valancy, driven to linking her life with Dean's out of affection and something like pity. Both partnerships begin from friendship and a weird kind of mutual obligation, which absolutely plays into the statements that both Barney and Dean make about love being a bondage (I am very very certain LMM thought love was a bondage, especially her marriage, though she tries to work past it in an idealistic way). But Emily still chooses her bondage to Dean, as Valancy chooses hers to Barney, which feels radical in the context of the time.

(More rambling Dean discourse under the cut)

It's so tempting to see Dean as somehow pressuring Emily into choosing him because he's older and has this authority over her, and that's true to an extent. Obviously, he wouldn't have been in Emily's life at all if he didn't intentionally cultivate her friendship. But I think LMM is careful to underscore Emily's own agency in the matter and the way that she made this decision to marry him in the end based on a lot of other competing factors. Would she have proposed if Teddy were around and did anything but write an anemic distant letter to her? Probably not. But he did write that anemic distant letter which is BAD FORM BUDDY, so no wonder she felt abandoned by everyone else she cared for except for Dean, who stayed by her. Even from the beginning, LMM makes it clear that Emily pursues Dean's friendship as much as he does hers: look, it's hard being a weird misunderstood girl. Sometimes your best friend can be a weird misunderstood guy and if he happens to be 20 years older than you, that's a problem, but that's not really anyone's fault. (She also offers to kiss him if he wants when she doesn't like kissing people. Not that is is sexual or romantic by any means (in her mind at any rate), but she is giving him a special privilege, which is basically what she does when she proposes. We love people staying in character.)

That being said, I think LMM's determination to make Emily the master of her own fate is the hardest thing to reconcile. Through a modern lens, the types of patterns that bring Emily to Dean and keep him in her life are plainly visible (lonely young girl, lacking good guardianship, precociousness, etc). In a modern novel, we would say the person in Emily's place is a victim and interpret her with that as part of her identity. Yet because of how uncompromising LMM makes Emily, it feels impossible to think of her that way. When Emily wants to hang out with Teddy, she will, even if it’s at Dean’s expense, and she once gets annoyed at Teddy for not being like Dean and complimenting her looks (which is another interesting note on Emily’s personality). Emily even refuses to blame Dean for her destruction of her book, which translates to assuming culpability for her own exile from creativity.

One thing I did notice on a recent reread was that she finds life "cruel and wasteful" after looking at Vega of the Lyre. We're obviously meant to know she's thinking about Teddy in this moment. Two conclusions can be drawn from this: either the thought of him makes her more lonely and desperate because he continues not to be there for her, or the thought of him isn't powerful enough to counteract Dean’s condemnation of her work. Either way, we can never escape this unholy triangle of her creativity, Teddy, and Dean. The removal of one element is impossible.

But if she doesn’t blame Dean during the engagement, is she operating under chronic self-delusion? Because that’s not really part of her personality. Yes, she is dissatisfied in some measure, but the conditions of this seem unclear even to Emily. Which is why the choice of Teddy over Dean is no more satisfying to me in certain ways BECAUSE when Emily yearns for Teddy at the end of Emily’s Quest, it’s again because there’s no one left. She goes to him in the same way she turned to Dean. Yadda yadda, Emily and Teddy belong to each other. That’s all very well and we accept this because we’ve accepted everything else LMM has done. But even though Teddy wouldn’t have made her give up writing, we’re still stuck in the writing/Teddy/Dean triangle on almost the very last page as though that’s the only paradigm in which Emily can operate.

This got very out of control and so multitudinous apologies. I also feel like every time I sound like I’m defending Dean I put myself in front of a metaphorical firing squad for being a terrible person, so hopefully that won’t happen here.