#How Spies Think

[usunezukoinezu]

'' ‘Negative capability’ was how the poet John Keats described the writer’s ability to pursue a vision of artistic beauty even when it led to uncertainty, confusion and intellectual doubt. For analytic thinkers the equivalent ability is tolerating the pain and confusion of not knowing, rather than imposing ready-made or omnipotent certainties on ambiguous situations or emotional challenges. To think clearly we must have a scientific, evidence-based approach which nevertheless holds a space for the ‘negative capability’ needed to retain an open mind.''

-David Omand, How Spies Think

[drawnfamiliarfaces]

🌼Totally Spies🌼 new season in year of 2025??? here we go???

[ricky-mortis]

Curtwen Week Day 4: Haunted

[backpackingspace]

Okay so with the line "the olive tree where we first met" we have two equal hilarious options.

When penelope was sassily like oh I'll marry you if you make a living bed out of this tree right here! Cue penelope stumbling over odysseus very very carefully digging up the tree "because how else is he going to get it to itacha we can't have a wedding bed out in the open in sparta duh"

Or

2. Penelope, knowing that Helen's suitors would soon be arriving to take over her home for a while. Snuck out and went on her own wacky shenanigan filled journey where she scoped out all the major players. Odysseus caught her spying in an olive tree. And when she got back she told Helen she had dibs on the cutie from itacha.

[aardvaark]

love that parker’s slightly magical abilities have apparently progressed from the appearing/diappearing thing to reading eliot’s mind

[undeaddudling]

I had a silly idea…

Plus a textless version, WIPs, and alternate layouts below!!

[txtssera]

rick making drew and the aphrodite cabin out to be non-fighters etc was such a fucking miss bc you’re trying to tell me drew tanaka wouldn’t jump someone? that girl loves a cat fight, she would so play dirty! im talking hair pulling, nail scratching, poking in the eyes like come on!

[transingthoseformers]

I keep rereading the one decepticon spy!Hot Rod/Rodimus x Optimus fic that implies at the end that Hot Rod would do anything to have a threesome between himself, Optimus, and Megatron

But in a scenario where the war *does* end, and they're all on the same side (one way or another)

I want them to have that threesome

[science-lings]

so the Dark Knights of Steel didn't give any of the robins backstories or heavily defined characteristics and I want to change that. I love a good fantasy AU and the batfam. What could go wrong?

[smytherines]

thinking about that six months Owen spent captured by the Russians again

I've always liked the headcanon that post-fall he was haunted by visions of Curt too. That could be explained by Owen gradually losing his mind from the amount of pain he would've been in, or from a head injury, but there are other possibilities to throw into the mix that are consistent both with real life cold war era espionage and with the spy genre

He is a British spy with operational knowledge of both UK and US intelligence, an extremely high value prisoner who just destroyed a multi million dollar Russian weapons facility. He almost certainly would've been kept in isolation in a KGB facility, and given the information he had it seems likely that he would've been (at the very least) repeatedly interrogated. This is the same organization that canonically turns a four year old girl (Tatiana) into an assassin, so I think it's reasonable to assume that Owen's time in a KGB facility was not a pleasant experience

The more familiar physical forms of torture probably weren't necessary on account of his injuries. But there are several types of "soft" torture that don't leave physical marks or injuries, and were widely used during the cold war era. The first is just isolation itself. Prolonged periods of isolation can lead to severe anxiety, hallucinations, psychosis, obsessive and intrusive thoughts, paranoia, problems with impulse control, increased risk of self harm, and delirium (and that's even in people with no preexisting physical or mental health conditions)

Other possibilities include sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, transit torture (just constantly keeping prisoners moving so they can't rest), mock executions, etc. They all lead more or less to the same severe mental health effects, so I'll avoid going too in depth there because some of it is pretty disturbing

So I imagine Owen there, alone, injured, badly burned, having nothing but time to ruminate about what happened, his only company being hallucinations of his partner. Maybe for a little while he holds onto hope that Curt will rescue him, or maybe he thinks that Curt must've died in the explosion too and now he's being haunted by the ghost of the man he loves

And at first it's almost a comforting thing, imagining the person he felt safest with to help him survive. But the more his mental state devolves, the more the hallucination shifts. Taunting him, forcing him to relive it, confirming every paranoid thought-- that Curt never loved him, that Curt just wanted a convenient fuck and someone to do all the boring bits, that Curt would be disgusted at the state Owen's in now. That Owen was foolish and naive, that his love for Curt was a weakness that nearly destroyed him, and the only way to survive is to cut it out like a cancer

And Owen's in such bad shape that even after six months in Russian custody, the first thing Chimera has to do is nurse him back to health. They reset the bones that didn't heal properly, they do skin grafts for the burns, but there's no undoing that six months in isolation. So Owen sweeps up all those jagged pieces of himself, papers over them with a new identity. Not a person, just a weapon, a means to an end

From Owen's perspective, Curt destroyed everything that meant anything to Owen-- his identity, his career, his body, his mind, and perhaps most importantly, his relationship. So Owen dedicates himself to destroying the only thing Curt truly cares about-- being a spy

And on the staircase, Curt insists that it's not too late to fix this, that Owen can turn on the people who rescued him and get a pardon, that things can go back to how they used to be. But there is a bottomless pit between the man Owen used to be and the man he is now. There's a break that can't be healed, can't be fixed. The future is happening, and it isn't going to wait for them

something something the horror of staying alive

[mentallyillmindmeld]

From the warmest hello to the coldest goodbye or smth

Never done anything like this before + I’ve never smoked a cigarette so I’m sure it’s not lore accurate

[goddesspharo]

Thank you for not telling me sooner. It would hurt more. THE AGENCY: 1x01 "The Bends"

[ricky-mortis]

Curly haired Agent Curt Mega :D

[petrolwave]

rivers javier they should've let you experience plot <//3

[the-cpu-system]

Had to get this out of my head ... Curt and Freddie are SO similar I think they'd hate each other

[constellama]

who up thinking about curtwen !! bc I am !!! I will take any and every opportunity to draw owen looking at curt as smug as possible. And to draw curt with the saddest wettest eyes known to man but that’s just a given.