#echelon army

[sea-changed]

"The [Quartermaster] Corps determined not to cater to 'sectional appetites' [when creating U.S. Army rations], another problem. Deemed unacceptable was any food considered 'ethnic'--for example, Mexican cuisine. In 1941 the Subsistence Research Lab (SRL), acting under the aegis of the Corps, refused a company making tamales without even so much as testing a bite. Instead the SRL developed menus according to a vague concept of 'American food.' This bland meat and vegetable diet stripped food of all traditional or regional meanings. Although it was called 'American,' it had no real place in American food habits."

Mary Louise Roberts, Sheer Misery: Soldiers in Battle in WWII (2021)

[rockingbytheseaside]

✦ When someone tries to imitate you or take your place 

Pierro, Capitano, Dottore, Pantalone 

(tw: general mentions of violence and intimacy, swf. Old ask suggested by the lovely @pandaquick, better late than never)

Your position in the Fatui is a much more personal and delicate matter. You are not just some high-rank advisor or soldier idling within the Zapolyarny Palace, nor can you be defined as another Fatuus. You are someone of a different echelon - a Harbinger’s beloved, safeguarded with the utmost honor conferred by Her Majesty the Tsaritsa. It is no secret your significant other would utilize a whole army to protect you, but what happens when someone, in their foolishness, forgets that?

✧ Pierro was the first to notice that someone tried to imitate you. An individual of high status endeavored to emulate your work and areas of expertise. Subsequently, this individual began to adopt aspects of your appearance, from hairstyle to clothing. However, the breaking point occurred when this foolish person attempted to purchase an identical jewelry brooch to the one you frequently wore. It was a similar piece, one gifted to you by Pierro.

Except that imitator missed one important clue - Pierro orders you custom-made silver adorned with deep-cut sapphires that would put the Tsaritsa’s crown into shame. A one of a kind piece.

This cheap attempt to imitate you and usurp your spot was what forced The Jester to abandon his silent observation. His gaze has long caught the envious glances directed towards you whenever you accompanied him on meetings, whenever he linked his arm with yours, whenever he generously kneeled beside you to put his coat over your shoulder and keep you warm from Snezhnaya’s cold - the same individual, always seething with resentment. Thus, it was time for the Director to silently act. 

He kept tabs on this person via a network of spies, gathering intel on their behavior and intentions. And with the most skilled spies raised from the House of the Hearth, it didn't take long to have a whole pile of evidence right on his desk. And with the simple snap of his fingers, he effortlessly orchestrated the apprehension and subsequent banishment of the culprit, sparing no unnecessary words. Hearsay will not be tolerated in the Fatui, but to see some lowly scum tarnish your reputation by cheap mimicry then it’ll be his responsibility to weed out. 

“Pierro, dearest, What's wrong? You seem so deep in thought.” - Your gentle murmur broke The Jester's train of thought. As he lay in bed, your head resting on his chest and his arm draped over you, he reminded himself that he was in the comfort of your love. He doesn't have to mull over the bloodied ordinances when he feels the warmth of your skin underneath the covers.

“Apologies, my divine. It seems my mind was drifting to troubling thoughts. But it no longer matters when you're here.” - Thus, he gently planted a kiss on your forehead and tucked the covers around your body which harbored marks of his devotion earlier that night.

✧ Il Capitano clutched the hilt of his sword in resolution. Something was wrong and he could see it. The Harbinger was in the middle of his morning spar with you, a regular training session where you and the Captain warm up as a routine. He stood in a defensive stance, his movements fluid yet measured as his sword received blow after blow from your weapon. You, on the other hand, moved like a silent tempest, your strikes precise yet frustratingly urgent.

It was unlike you to be so unsteady, noted Capitano to himself, especially when fighting. Despite the unspoken patience, an undercurrent of concealed despondency and anger laced your body language. 

“Alright, my dear, I can feel your unease. What troubles your heart?” 

You shook your head, panting as you almost faltered. You insisted on continuing the training session, but it was clear your brave facade was almost crumbling. 

“It would be foolish to continue. And I care about your well-being. Please, confide in me, my beloved.”

You tried, you really did. But before you know it, your lips pursed into a thin line and a flood of tears escaped the moment you shakily lowered your weapon. Now the Captain was on full alert, rushing towards you and gently supporting you before you could hide your tearful face in shame. With an arm around your trembling form and much persuasion - you relented and shared the source of your frustration. A newly enlisted soldier had undergone thorough training under the tutelage of Il Capitano, and their impressive advancement was unmistakably evident in their unwavering dedication. However, this individual began to devote more time to the Captain, delving into military intelligence and climbing the ranks. You genuinely felt joy for the new recruit, truly. Yet in timid humiliation, you had to confess you felt obsolete as if your power alone wasn’t enough for a harbinger of his caliber and ranks.

“Ah, my dear, you are far from weak. My time with the trainees is merely a duty, a part of my job as the 1st Harbinger. But when it comes to you, my dear, your might and wisdom are incomparable. You don’t deserve my ranks, you deserve my life laid before you.”

But whatever gentle words of affection were coming out of the Captain, your next words of truth made him halt at once. “... At least, that’s what the recruit told me when we spoke. That I'm weak.” 

“...What did you say?” 

The gentle armored hand on your shoulder now tightened in restrained anger, fury flaring within his chest. Capitano now understood: your tears, your sudden insecurity, your doubt, your silence… It wasn’t coincidental. This recruit who was so conveniently rising in the ranks made sure to aim not just for the Harbinger. Specifically, you; to sow self-doubt onto you and hinder your precious relationship. Someone was deliberately bullying you.

You looked up at Capitano’s dreadful silence, asking him what was wrong.

“It… seems, my dear, someone has crossed an unforgivable line. One that would cost them their life dearly. And I am to blame for not noticing when harm and doubt came your way. I must amend this transgression for your forgiveness.”

You blinked in response, not having time to comprehend the severity of his words; It’s hard to respond when your beloved suddenly kneels and bows like a knight on duty. In the end, Capitano ushered you to take a day off and let your mind rest easy.

The next day, Capitano returned home early but was eerily silent once more. He stayed with you the whole day, like a hawk overlooking his nest, his arms crossed but his touch gentle. Although he claimed nothing was wrong, you received news that certain recruits were gone, and any upcoming soldiers that would come into his care would receive even stricter training from now on. That day, you wondered why some Fatui soldiers feared talking to you. Not to mention the armor around Capitano’s knuckles seemed faintly red-tinted.

The Fatui organization was a constant battle of powers and ranks. But to climb the ladder and meddle with the life of The Captain was a personal offense, one that would result in quick and unapologetic bloodshed. Nevertheless, he made sure to remind his soldiers about that. 

✧ When one of the folks working under Il Dottore as a lab analyst approached you, you didn’t expect them to call you names so suddenly. You stood there, confused and apprehensive at the sudden barrage of insults from the stranger. But they explained:

“You don’t do anything when helping during research, you know! I don’t even know how The 2nd tolerates you when you’re this useless. I’ll tell you what, quit your special-treatment act, and don’t come back to the lab. The Doctor is better off with someone of his level of intellect.”

You didn’t fight or defend yourself, you didn’t even insult the assistant. Instead, you smiled simply  - “Very well, I won’t. Good luck.”

That day, you turned and left. The frustrated lab analyst was left in confusion but thought they succeeded in eliminating the only obstacle left to get closer to the elusive yet powerful Harbinger. After all, what the hell do you even do at his lab? You exchange a few words with Dottore, maybe sporadically point at what to do, and remain seated in the back, resting as if you were the Tsaritsa herself. The audacity. How come Il Dottore never kicked you out?

Well, it didn't take long for this person to find out.

The next day, naturally, Dottore couldn’t find you when he proceeded with work. You were neither at his study, nor at the lab, nor at your favorite corner of the library. It was barely noon, and receiving your warm greetings was his routine. And the Doctor always follows the agenda.

“Where are they?” 

His question was brief but pointed, and his subordinates knew exactly who he was referring to. They could sense the tension in his voice. The only individual privy to the reason for your absence smirked smugly and responded.

“Hmph. It seems they decided not to come, Lord Harbinger Dottore.”

That was their first mistake because The Doctor caught on to the haughty smirk coming from his new analyst.

“And you know so certainly how?” - he quickly gestured to a nearby Fatui servant with a flick of his wrist. “Send in servants to check in on my behalf. I wasn’t informed. If my darling is feeling tired or unwell, bring their preferred refreshment immediately, and ensure it is warm.”

However, this displeased the new lab assistant, as even while you were away, Dottore was still dotting on you as if it was his second nature to do so while he was busy with work. Thus, they cleared their throat and spoke up:

“They… barely accomplished anything in your presence, doctor. So I advised them to leave, to which they agreed. Pretty straightforward, s-sir.” 

“Oh? Did you, now” - A burning rage, like never before, flared up within Il Dottore. With clenched teeth and a rigid jaw, his voice oozed with venom. But any seasoned lackey working under Dottore knew that this was the calm before the storm. Because soon, an echo of shattering vials and slammed objects would ring out from the laboratory. And in your absence, nothing would prevent the doctor from showing a bit of despotism. 

Much later that evening, after everything was set and done, the servants informed him of your whereabouts. Il Dottore briskly made his way through the Zapolyarny Palace to find you. Spotting you tucked away in a secluded nook of the palace, he hastened over, anxious to ensure your well-being, fearing you might’ve withdrawn due to the influence of some blabbering lowlife. 

“Dear! There you are… No one has the right to speak to you like that ever. Are you alright? My dearest, why did you not tell me immediately?! I would’ve-”

Dottore’s frustrated rambles come to a halt when you place a finger on his lips to shush him. You didn’t look despaired, in fact, you looked calm - “Zandik? Did you have another tantrum in your lab while I was absent?”

The doctor gulped, remembering his place. Calming his senses, he placed his hands on your waist and ushered you closer to his arms.

“... Perhaps. But I had to. How could I be certain that no one had harmed you? Why did you comply with that impudent fool? You should’ve gone to me first.”

“Well, it was unpleasant to hear the insults, sure. But…" - you glanced apologetically and a knowing smile returned to your lips. "I knew you'd find out and deal with the issue very quickly." 

✧ You and Pantalone were an odd couple. You didn't hail from a rich background, nor were you well-versed in the art of business and finance. You were more proficient in adventuring, your travels taking you to all sorts of journeys and commissions, a polar opposite from your beloved Pantalone. This led to raised eyebrows among the aristocrats of Snezhnaya. How can the richest man of Teyvat, who lives and works in prestige, be associated with such a simple person as you? For some, this gave the impression that they had a better chance of winning him over.

Thus, once upon a night, Pantalone was invited to a luxurious soirée. Here he was, clad in his finest suit, silver rings complementing his equally expensive optics. But to the Regrator, the jewelry adorning him was the least of his concerns - because you were the most precious gem in this gala. You accompanied him, although reluctantly, feeling out of place amidst the grand assembly of extravagant guests and the languid orchestra.

“Pantalone, do we have to…? I know you said this is not a business party, but there are so many guests already lining up to talk to you.” 

“Oh do not fret, my sweet. Evening galas like these are where the real negotiation and connections entail. But I know the details bore you, so I promise we won't stick here for too long. Besides, I get to introduce you as my one and only!”

That's exactly what you were afraid of. As a company of some esteemed noble ladies adorning elegant gowns, you had difficulties matching Pantalone’s polite smile. Overwhelmed by the scrutinizing gazes of some guests, you politely excused yourself to the bathroom. Pantalone was concerned, thinking of following you, but that was exactly what the guests wanted. 

You spent a long while by the hallway alone, trying to stabilize your breathing. The muttering of guests enjoying drinks and strolling was faint, but you could hear some people nearby:

“How can the 9th be with someone like them…? Surely it’s a joke.”

“A charming, rich man like him, and he can have anyone he desires. Yet he wastes his time on a simpleton?”

“Someone was definitely in it for the Mora, maybe he hasn’t seen real class. Quick, let’s go talk to him while he is alone.”

You stood with your back to a wall, and for the first time, uncertainty crept in. With fists clenched by your side, you reprimanded yourself that you are not alone. You came here with your significant other - and he, above all else, knows that gossip has no place in your shared private life. Hence, gathering up your courage, you raise your head high and strode back into the gala.

Pantalone, unfortunately yet expectedly, was surrounded by the same foul-mouthed nobles who wished to impress him. They prattled on about his financial success, while ladies fanned their folding fans and stood too close for his comfort. While they humored him, The Regrator cast hurried glances around the gala in search of you. Where are you?

“Lord Harbinger, may we offer you more champagne? I am sure this expensive bottle is up to your taste.”

The 9th attempted to hide his frown at the woman's tone, his stomach unwilling to ingest any drink some excessively elaborate name. “No thank you, I’d rather decline. I am waiting for my dear. I promised her a dance later this evening.”

“Oh, please sir, I insist. The night is young and there is plenty more for-” 

Before the woman could continue, your voice cut through the air; calm, yet unmistakably firm. “He said no. Simple enough to understand.”  

A hush fell over the gathered guests, the weight of your words settling like a sudden gust. Only Pantalone beamed with a genuine smile. “Ah, dear! There you are,”. The Harbinger was about to step back towards you, when the same lady suddenly blocked his path, her back facing him while her tone edged with defiance.

“I beg your pardon, but I’m afraid the question is directed towards Lord Harbinger Pantalone. I am sure you wouldn't know the pleasure of tasting a 500,000 Mora champagne from Fontaine.”

You recognized the snark in her tone directed towards you, and you couldn’t deny the anxiety twisting in your gut as eyes narrowed in your direction. However, with a shake of your head, you reminded yourself who you truly are and simply said: “Sheesh, lady, you spend that much on a drink that tastes worse than sparkling water? To each their own, I presume”

Her smile vanished. The guests stared in stunned silence, but it was Pantalone’s genuine laughter that pierced the tension. The sound was rich and real—because only he knew how adept you were at humbling an overconfident aristocrat with a dose of blunt truth. That’s how Pantalone managed to push through the crowd and circle his arm back around your waist, leaving the astonished onlookers behind.

“Ah dear, you’re a savior. I apologize I dragged us into this unpleasant company…” - he confined to you apologetically as you two walked away. “You always knew how to be sincere in your honest way.”

“It’s not like I meant to pick up a fight…" - you sighed. "I simply couldn't bear the humiliation, Pantalone. I'm aware that some people give me strange looks when I'm with you. They regard me as if I'm some peasant standing next to a powerful Fatui harbinger. That I'm nothing. That's why I couldn’t just hide, I had to step up to defend myself.”

“Oh, darling… My sweet, precious darling.” - The two of you left the manor that hosted the soiree, the chill night breeze muting the faint sound of guests and replacing it with a symphony of cricket noise from the garden nearby. Pantalone's fingers intertwined with yours.

"You are not just 'nothing' - you're my everything. You did not come from riches, and neither did I. You of all people know that. Would I really hold respect for some rich fool who didn't know an ounce of hardship when Mora was all they had since birth? No, dear, I wouldn't."

With a tender hand, he rested his palm on your waist, gently guiding you along the cobblestone path as if leading you into a slow waltz by garden roses in the night.

"Besides, you should never be ashamed to seek out my help. Although I must admit... Your tone earlier - oh my. Use it on me more often, darling. I wouldn't mind." 

[mpreglover225]

[Newly Declassified Document from U.S. Army Medical Corps Archives, 1944 Subject: Medical Assessment Report — Pvt. Andrew “Drew” Matthews (Service No. 5XXXX) Date: May 10, 1944 Location: Field Hospital, Western Front

Background & Context

Private Andrew “Drew” Matthews, 18, is currently serving overseas under the U.S. Army. Initial enlistment was in late 1943. He has been under periodic medical review following the discovery of an unexpected pregnancy while stationed in-theater. According to the most recent examinations, Pvt. Matthews is now at approximately seven months gestation. This update provides a detailed assessment of his physical condition, with particular focus on rectal and hip adaptations pertinent to male pregnancy.

Current Medical Evaluation

General Physical Status

Vital Signs:

Blood Pressure: 115/76 (stable)

Pulse: 84 BPM (slightly elevated but within normal pregnancy parameters)

Respiration: 18 breaths per minute

Weight Gain: 18 pounds above initial enlistment baseline (notable increase from previous month, consistent with advancing gestation).

Gestational Progress

Estimated 28 weeks (7 months). The uterine and lower abdominal growth is consistent with typical third-trimester developments in male pregnancy.

Fetal heart tones remain strong on auscultation (~146 BPM). Fetal movements reported to be frequent, especially in the evenings.

Rectal Examination

Pvt. Matthews reports periodic pressure and heaviness in the rectal canal, especially when standing or marching for extended periods.

On gentle palpation, the rectum shows increased vascularity and mild swelling, which is not unusual in the late stages of male pregnancy. However, care must be taken to prevent or manage potential hemorrhoids, given added strain in this region.

The anal sphincter demonstrates normal tone, though Pvt. Matthews describes occasional episodes of discomfort—likely linked to fetal positioning and the downward pressure exerted by the growing child.

Hip and Pelvic Girdle Assessment

Complaints of hip soreness and lower back ache have intensified since last examination (one month prior). This is attributed to gradual pelvic widening and the shifting center of gravity.

Physical palpation indicates mild ligament laxity around the hip joints—a natural adaptation in male pregnancies as the body prepares for labor.

Pvt. Matthews experiences discomfort when required to traverse uneven terrain or stand in formation for extended durations. He reports temporary relief with short seated rests and mild stretches.

Nutritional and Environmental Factors

Wartime rationing complicates access to fresh produce, but additional calorie allowances have been arranged.

Daily supplements (when available) include powdered milk, iron tablets, and occasionally vitamin-fortified biscuits. Pvt. Matthews has been instructed to remain vigilant about hydration, as dehydration can exacerbate swelling and discomfort.

Duty Restrictions and Lifestyle

Currently assigned to administrative duties at a rear-echelon facility to minimize prolonged standing and heavy lifting.

Recommended low-impact movements: occasional short walks, gentle pelvic exercises, and if feasible, daily check-ins with medical staff for observation.

Sleep remains inconsistent due to frequent nighttime fetal activity and shared barracks noise, though Pvt. Matthews states he manages intermittent rest as best he can.

Psychological Outlook

Pvt. Matthews displays a mix of resolve and concern. He expresses worry about the stigma associated with his pregnancy and the uncertainty of how the child will be cared for if deployment conditions worsen.

Reports a sense of relief in having official medical oversight. Limited but consistent morale support from select squadmates and some discreet chaplain consultations appear beneficial.

Recommendations

Rectal & Hip Care

Moderate Rest: Schedule routine seated breaks to alleviate rectal pressure.

Support Garments: A supportive belt or band around the lower abdomen may reduce strain on hips and rectal canal.

Warm Compresses: Applied to the lower back and hips can mitigate soreness; for rectal discomfort, brief sitz baths or mild topical ointments (when resources permit).

Continued Nutritional Support

Maintain priority rations and supplements. Encourage iron- and protein-rich foods to prevent anemia and support fetal growth.

Ensure hydration, especially given increased metabolic demands at seven months.

Monitoring and Follow-Up

Regular monthly checks, or sooner if rectal swelling increases or if new symptoms arise (e.g., significant bleeding, severe pelvic pain).

Coordinate with field hospital staff to prepare for potential labor or complications, given the unusual deployment environment.

Emotional and Social Support

Where possible, arrange for discreet counseling. Encourage Pvt. Matthews to continue confiding in chaplain or trusted medical personnel, minimizing isolation.

If feasible, discuss postpartum logistics with commanding officers to ensure the newborn’s welfare and Pvt. Matthews’s postpartum recovery.

Conclusion

At seven months pregnant, Pvt. Matthews remains in stable condition with no immediate red flags detected aside from typical third-trimester challenges. Symptoms such as rectal heaviness, hip soreness, and general fatigue reflect the normal physiological adaptations of late-stage male pregnancy. Ongoing support, both medical and logistical, will be crucial to ensure a safe outcome for both father and child as wartime circumstances persist.

Signed,

Capt. Robert H. Nolan, M.D.

U.S. Army Medical Corps, Western Front

[city-of-ladies]

A complex figure, Irene of Athens (c.750/755 - 803) was the first woman to rule the Byzantine Empire in her own name. For over two decades, she dominated imperial politics with a rare blend of resilience, cunning, and charisma. She also stood out for her philanthropic initiatives and enduring cultural legacy.

Empress consort

Irene was born in Athens between 750 and 755, into the Sarantapechos family—a locally influential clan of unclear standing, likely outside the upper echelons of the aristocracy. Her marriage to the young Emperor Leo IV in 769 was likely arranged to bind Greece more closely to Constantinople’s authority. Irene arrived in the capital that November and was crowned empress shortly after.

Her father-in-law, Constantine V, was a staunch iconoclast, while Irene already showed signs of favoring the veneration of religious images—a theological rift that may have created tension with her husband.

In 771, Irene gave birth to her only child, Constantine VI. When Leo IV died suddenly in 780, she was left to protect both her son’s inheritance and her own position.

Irene in power

Irene swiftly seized control of the government, and she and her son were proclaimed co-rulers. But her authority was soon challenged. Leo’s half-brothers, each holding the title of Caesar, conspired to overthrow her and install the eldest, Nikephoros, as emperor.

Irene dealt with them decisively. She punished their supporters and forced the princes into clerical life, effectively neutralizing their claim. Symbolically, she had them serve at the Great Church during Christmas Mass and restored a crown that her husband had removed from the Hagia Sophia—an act rich in political and religious significance.

She soon appeared alongside her son on imperial coinage and took a leading role in foreign affairs. In 781, she arranged his betrothal to Rotrude, daughter of Charlemagne.

Aware of her precarious position, Irene surrounded herself with loyal servants, notably eunuchs, whom she promoted to high office. Though often capable, their presence in military leadership roles drew resentment from the army. As a woman unable to lead troops herself, Irene depended on these trusted men—and the strategy was not without consequences, for some of her allies later proved treacherous and corrupt.

In 781, she dispatched an expedition suppress a rebellion in Sicily, which successfully restored Byzantine control over the island. Yet in the East, her policy faltered: a general defected during a campaign against the Arabs—perhaps out of hatred for the eunuch Staurakios, or due to Irene’s purge of Constantine V’s loyalists. The fallout forced her to pay a massive tribute to secure peace.

Pacifying Thrace

On the northern frontier, however, Irene scored lasting victories. In 784, she sent Staurakios to campaign against Slavic tribes in Thrace and Greece. His triumph brought back booty and captives, and Irene celebrated his return with honors.

In May of that year, she embarked on a public tour of Thrace with her son—a gesture that left a powerful impression. She fortified and renamed Beroia as Eirenoupolis (“City of Irene”), symbolizing renewal and imperial authority. Her efforts stabilized Northern Thrace that had largely escaped imperial control for two centuries. She cemented these gains by founding a new theme (the military-administrative division): Macedonia.

Champion of icons

A devout patron and builder, Irene founded the Convent of the Mother of God on Prinkipo and played a crucial role in resolving the iconoclasm controversy.

In 787, after carefully neutralizing potential military opposition, she summoned the Second Council of Nicaea. There, she overturned her father-in-law’s policies and restored the veneration of icons, marking a monumental shift in Byzantine religious life and reviving iconophile art.

Constantine VI attempts to rule alone

By 788, Irene’s name began to precede that of Constantine VI in official proclamations. She dominated his life and eventually broke off his engagement to Rotrude, arranging a new marriage with Maria of Amnia. She opposed Charlemagne’s growing influence in southern Italy and launched a military expedition that ended disastrously.

Frustrated, Constantine sought to assert his authority. In 790, provincial troops acclaimed him as sole emperor. He had Irene’s eunuchs punished and exiled, and confined her to the Palace of Eleutherios.

Yet his reign floundered. After a series of military defeats, including a humiliating loss to the Bulgars in 792, Constantine reinstated his mother as co-ruler. Their uneasy joint rule descended into chaos. As the chronicler Michael Psellos wrote:

“They went for each other, hit and hit back in turn, and now Irene exercised absolute power, now Constantine took possession of the palace alone, again the mother, again the son, until their conflict resulted in a disaster for both.”

Constantine further alienated the court by divorcing his wife and remarrying—an act that scandalized the clergy and nobility alike.

Sole Ruler of the Empire

By 796, Irene had outmaneuvered her son. She won over the army and her household through persuasion and bribes. In August 797, Constantine attempted to flee the capital but was captured by Irene's allies. Irene had him blinded in the porphyra, the chamber where she had once given birth to him.

Blinding, though brutal, was seen as a merciful alternative to execution. Whether he survived is uncertain; some sources suggest he lived until 805.

Now ruling alone, Irene struck coins bearing only her image. She used the masculine form basileus on some of her legal documents and used the masculine title autokrator, asserting full sovereignty.

Her rule wasn’t, at first, met with much opposition. Irene had carefully prepared her ascension.

Imperial philanthropy

Irene’s reign was marked by a deep commitment to philanthropy. Her concern for the poor seemed genuine, not merely political. She abolished taxes levied on soldiers’ widows and exempted orphanages, hospitals, and religious institutions from hearth taxes— a relief her successor would later revoke.

A prolific builder, she was interested in developing the capital. She funded public works, established soup kitchens, retirement homes, and free graveyards for foreigners and the poor. She reduced taxes and, in 799, distributed coins to the people during a ceremony.

The last years

Irene’s later years were fraught with challenge. In 798, she sent envoys to both the Arabs and the Franks, striving to keep military conflict at bay, but failed to secure peace with the Arabs.

She extended imperial administration into the Balkans and possibly created new provincial units in Greece. Her treasury remained strong, with substantial reserves at her disposal.

She fell ill in 799 and the crowning of Charlemagne as “Emperor of the Romans” by the Pope in 800 seriously undermined her legitimacy. The Byzantines considered themselves the true heirs of Rome, and the coronation was a major blow to Irene’s prestige.

She seems to have proposed marriage to Charlemagne, possibly to unite the eastern and western empires and ensure peaceful cooperation. Frankish ambassadors arrived in Constantinople, but the plan came to nothing.

By 802, dissatisfaction at court had reached a tipping point. Irene’s failure to designate a successor led to her downfall. Her finance minister, Nikephoros, staged a coup and was proclaimed emperor. Deserted by her allies, Irene was exiled—first to Prinkipo, then to Lesbos where she was closely guarded, most likely because she had plotted against her successor.

She died on August 9, 803. Her remains were later returned to the convent she had founded. That she managed to hold power for so long—despite lacking support and governing in a deeply patriarchal society—testifies to her extraordinary political acumen.

If you enjoy this blog, consider supporting me on Ko-fi!

Further reading: 

Garland Lynda, Byzantine Empresses - Women and Power in Byzantium AD 527-1204

Herrin Judith, Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium

[victusinveritas]

From Joe Haldeman, author of The Forever War:

"I’m putting a flag out front for No Kings Day.

If I can find an Army Corps of Engineers flag at the VA store, maybe I’ll put that out, too. That was my outfit. I didn’t “join” it any more than I “joined” COVID; I was just infected by it.

The process went like this:

1. I turned 24 and was drafted.

(1.5 I tried to be a conscientious objector, but that required a letter from from my minister, priest, or rabbi – and atheists don’t have those authorities.)

2. Brilliantly, I asked the Army what I could do. They said “volunteer for the draft.” That was still two years’ service, and you’ll probably get a low-echelon science job, cleaning test tubes or something.

(2.5 They threw away all that paperwork and just sent me to Vietnam.)

3. In Vietnam, they gave me a rifle.

4. I told the sergeant that I couldn’t kill anybody.

5. Oddly enough, the sergeant said “A lot of people say that. But you have to carry the rifle anyhow. You can decide whether to shoot it or not.”

6. I was issued an M16 that had THIS MACHINE DOESN’T WORK! Scratched into the stock. It indeed didn’t work.

7. Then I was issued an M14 rifle, but never fired it. As a combat engineer, that really wasn’t in my job description. I just blew shit up and tried not to stop a bullet.

8. About four months in, I did stop a bullet, and more: seriously injured by a booby trap.

8.5 My paperwork in Pleiku got screwed up, and instead of going to relatively safe hospitals in Japan and stateside, I stayed in South Vietnam.

9. I wound up in a relatively safe spot in the 6th Convalescent Center in Cam Ranh Bay, a large well-defended base, where I finished out my year (weirdly!) working as a volunteer for the Red Cross. I didn’t even have a gun, though I’d be issued one if the enemy broke through. We had to run for cover during frequent rocket and mortar attacks, but injuries were minor, and fatalities rare.

10. I personally suffered nothing but a few decades of anxiety attacks.

I guess that’s my unexciting biography as a “citizen soldier,” or semi-voluntary prisoner of wartime. Any objective observer would have to point out that although my injuries were fairly serious, I’ve wound up only slightly handicapped, and in about a year, I did get material for a lifetime of books and stories.

I may have wound up a science-fiction writer anyhow. If I hadn’t been drafted, I was slated to take a job with the Naval Observatory, doing bachelor-level astrometrics down in South America. (My main qualification for that, other than a weak B.S. in astronomy, was that my wife spoke Spanish.)

Anyhow, it’s No Kings Day, and I have the right to wear a little Purple Heart medal in my lapel. Lost it years ago, though.

Instead, I shall try not to vote for people who would send other people’s children into the furnace. "

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Yitzhak Arad

Yitzhak Arad was a teenage resistance leader in Poland who became an Israeli army general, prominent historian and director of Yad Vashem. As the only member of his large extended family to survive the Holocaust, he devoted his life to making sure the Jews of Europe, and what happened to them, were not forgotten.

Born in Lithuania in 1926, Yitzhak grew up in Swieciany, a village in Poland. He attended Jewish schools and was active in the Zionist youth movement. Shortly before Yitzhak’s bar mitzvah, Germany invaded Poland. Life in Swieciany didn’t change immediately, but in July 1941, Germany occupied the town. The towns 3000 Jews were rounded up to be sent to a ghetto. Yitzhak, then 15, ran off along with about a few other 15-16 year olds and escaped to Belorussia.

A few days after they arrived in Belorussia, they learned that the Jews of Swieciany were not relocated to a ghetto but rather taken to a remote location and massacred. Yitzhak’s parents and 30 immediate family members were killed, along with most of the Jews of Swieciany. Only 250 people were left alive – skilled laborers who were forced to work for the Germans as tailors and craftsmen.

Yitzhak and his companions were safe in Belorussia – for a few months, until the Nazis came for the Jews of Belorussia. A teenage orphan, out of options, Yitzhak didn’t know what else to do so he returned to Swieciany. He found a handful of people he knew among the few survivors, but he was soon captured by the Germans. Yitzhak was sure his life was about to end, but instead he was put to work cleaning weapons the Germans had confiscated from the Soviets. Not one to waste such an opportunity, Yitzhak hid a small pistol under his clothing the first day and nobody searched him. Together he and a few other young Jewish workers stole ten guns over the course of a month, and in February 1943 they escaped to the forest.

They tried to create a paramilitary force but encountered opposition from locals, who informed on them to the Germans, leaving the Jewish would-be fighters constantly on the move and hiding within the forest. They needed people to help them with food and information, but had no success with the local Poles and the situation was dire.

Finally they met up with a group of Lithuanian partisans, people who’d escaped from the Soviet Union during the Russian retreat and were organizing a resistance movement. Yitzhak was a Lithuanian citizen so he was accepted into the group, although with reluctance because he was Jewish. He later said in an interview with Harry J. Cargas, “There were many problems for a Jew to be with the Soviet partisans. First of all, there were anti-Semitic feelings.  Then, a Jew would only be accepted in the ranks of the Soviet partisans if he had his own arms.  (Any non-Jew, whether a local peasant or one who had escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp, would be accepted without arms.)  Also, there was the image of the Jew as a bad fighter or a coward.  So you fought to prove yourself, to say, “Anything you can do I can do–if not better at least as well.”  So in the beginning we had to struggle for our places.  But after a few months I was able to prove myself–my courage–and was allowed to take part in mining many trains, in ambushes and other activities.”

More and more Jews joined the unit and by 1943 they had gained more power and influence within the partisan movement. Despite being one of the youngest, Yitzhak had status because he was the one who brought the first arms into the ghetto and he became a leader of the Jewish partisans. During his two years in the forest, he took part in blowing up sixteen German echelons. Yitzhak later said, “I knew the Jewish world in Eastern Europe that was alive and well and destroyed in the Holocaust. I saw with my own eyes thousands of Jews being led to the firing pits. I survived, and fate allowed me to join the partisans, the fighters against the murderers of our people, and in their ranks to blow up German trains.”

After the war, Yitzhak went to Israel illegally, on a small boat. He immediately became active in the underground movement to resist the British occupiers. When Israel became a sovereign nation in 1948, Yitzhak became an officer in the Israeli Defense Forces, retiring with the rank of brigadier general.

When he first arrived in Israel, Yitzhak tried to put the horror of the Holocaust out of his mind but soon chose a different path – to dedicate his life to making sure the Jews of Europe were not forgotten. He enrolled in Tel Aviv University and earned a doctorate in history. Yitzhak became a very well-respected historian specializing in the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. He wrote many books and articles on the subject. In 1972 he became director of Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem, and served in that role for 21 years. Under his leadership multiple monuments to victims were created, including the Children’s Memorial.

Yitzhak later said, “I came to Yad Vashem as a historian, as a teacher. I have this obligation to the people who were less lucky than myself.  In order to survive, in addition to everything you did, you needed some luck. If you are religious you can say you needed God’s help.  What I am doing at Yad Vashem is my obligation to those who did not survive.  Fate enabled me to live, and I must do something to commemorate the war, to write about it, to make it more understandable to people.  I think there are many lessons from the Holocaust, for us as Jews, for human beings in general–there is a whole universal meaning.  If, in some way, I succeed in doing something in this direction – to promote more awareness, more knowledge, the lessons that should be learned – this is for me a great satisfaction.”

Yitzhak Arad died on May 6, 2021 at age 94. He was preceded in death by his wife Michal, and is survived by three children and numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren. May his memory always be a blessing.

For fighting Nazis and making sure the six million Jewish martyrs are not forgotten, we honor Yitzhak Arad as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[sebastianswallows]

The Little Death — 14. The mental and physical settings

— PAIRING: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Bene Gesserit!Reader

— SYNOPSIS: A Bene Gesserit gets left behind in the Arrakeen palace. When Feyd becomes the Planetary Governor, he finds her there in hiding. The Harkonnens don't traditionally keep them as truthsayers or concubines like other Houses do, but Feyd might have a use for her. After all, he's never had a Bene Gesserit of his own before.

— WARNINGS: none

— WORDCOUNT: 2k

— A/N: I'm back again! This chapter immediately follows the previous one, and a plot is forming in this lady's head. She just needs to convince Feyd to play along 😅 Enjoy reading, my dears! 💗

— TAGLIST: @elf-punk @lowlyloved @pomtherine @slytherins-heir @babyofneptune @localravenclaw @missbingu @wo-ming-bai @torossosebs @mrsjobarnes

What social inheritances went outward with the Scattering? We know those times intimately. We know both the mental and physical settings. The Lost Ones took with them a consciousness confined mostly to manpower and hardware. There was a desperate need for room to expand driven by the myth of Freedom. — The Scattering: Bene Gesserit Analysis

She found Feyd by following the troops. He was in the command room, pacing along a shivering holo-map. The mentats, relieved of their posts, were muttering among themselves in sparse syllables in the back of the room. They turned quiet when she entered.

“You,” said Feyd, calling her to him with a curl of his pale finger. “Come here.”

“Yes, my lord na-Baron?”

“You remember that advice you gave me once?”

She did… She suggested he pull back the attacks, just enough to bait the Fremen into exposing themselves. “Yes,” she answered as she stopped beside him, her hands folded at her lap.

“I don’t suppose you have a follow-up plan in the event that it worked?”

“I’m glad to hear my words bore fruit.”

“Don’t try to be funny,” he grumbled.

“I’m not.”

“We’re about to send in an echelon of 60 units but the scouts we sent ahead never returned.”

“Then it might be a bad idea to send in the echelon.”

“But we can’t just leave them there,” said Feyd, pacing up and down the length of the long holo-map.

She stepped softly behind him, watching the way his shoulders tensed beneath the pauldrons, the trembling in his spine, his restless legs.

“They would’ve gone in knowing the risk. If they’re lost, they —”

“I mean the Fremen,” he growled. “We can’t let them think they can crawl across Arrakis whenever they please, not anymore.”

Her instinct was to advise against it. It was not in Feyd’s interest to conquer Arrakis, not really. He was just trying to please his uncle, she realised, which was why he was so tense, so scared even with an army all around him. But there was no use trying to explain that to him. It would be too blunt, too clumsy, and have the opposite effect. Feyd, in spite of what he claimed, desired a gentler hand.

“Why not post new scouts?” she offered, walking to his side. “Feign retreat and follow these rogue Fremen. See where they come from, where they hide. Then, you might eliminate the lot.”

“They live in colonies, like vermin,” said Feyd, shaking his head. “They could slip through underground tunnels to fuck knows where.”

She cast her eyes over the map, its surface bending in thin threads of light. Behind her, she could feel the stares of the Harkonnens, all of them suspicious of a ‘witch’ and unhappy to see her at their na-Baron’s side, but too scared to speak.

“I still think it would be pointless to strike at them impulsively,” she said. “If you never know how many occupy the planet, how can you plan for further attacks? How can you calculate the cost of the reserves and equipment you’ll need? How can you forecast economic costs or surplus? Even your mentats could tell you how futile it is to engage in large-scale combat in these circumstances.”

“Which is why I’m not asking a mentat,” he hissed, cold eyes sliding to her.

She chewed on her lower lip as she thought. “You say they are like vermin… They do behave more like the Arrakis wildlife... But they have the reasoning abilities of any conscious being. They are trying to wait you out, encircle you, pick away at you, and use what they have available to them — which is the environment, and specialised information… You must cut off at least one.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the table. “Any other advice you can offer? Try something a little more vague this time.”

She treated him with a cold look yet couldn’t help but smile. He was endearing when he was acting like a bratty little boy.

“You could make the environment less recognisable to them. Cut off their usual pathways, destroy, construct, expand. Or… you could find out the information they keep from you, such as what their true numbers are, where they hide, how they use spice, how they use worms, what technology —”

“They’re savages, they don’t have technology.”

“Everyone has technology. Especially people who can survive in a place like this.”

She could tell Feyd wanted to say something sarcastic again, but instead, he turned his gaze upon the map and thought about what she said.

“Sir?” mumbled one of the men behind him, a commander by his uniform. “What should we tell the troops?”

“Send more scouts,” said Feyd at last, turning away from the map and putting distance between them with long strides. “Would be stupid to risk our numbers blindly.”

“Yes, sir.”

She followed him quietly out of the room and allowed herself a moment of satisfaction. He’d actually listened to her… Perhaps saving herself from that cursed planet wasn’t so unlikely after all, and she might even save him too.

“Do you want to have dinner together?” she asked, falling in step with him.

“You’re not protecting them, are you?”

“Who?”

“The Fremen.”

“No,” she frowned. “Why would I protect them?”

He didn’t answer, but his silence spoke. He was conscious of the difference between them — not only that between a Harkonnen and a Bene Gesserit, but that between a Harkonnen and anyone else. They were a House isolated by their culture, their toxic planet, even by their appearance… And so he naturally saw her as having more in common with the natives of Arrakis than with him.

“The sooner you defeat the Fremen, the sooner things normalise,” she quietly said. “But you can’t defeat them with brutal methods. Their whole culture was shaped by brutality.”

Feyd didn’t look at her as they walked together, swift and remote. “So you want things to relax enough that you can finally escape, is that it?”

She grew cold at his implication. Had she not indulged his every mood? Had she not forgiven him his aggressions, violations, absorbed them within herself to let them bloom? He was being an ungrateful boy — but he was not completely wrong.

“I know I can’t escape,” she said, somewhat resentfully. “No Guild transporter is going to come down here just for me, and I mean nothing to the Sisterhood. Nobody is coming to save me. But…”

“Yes?” he said, turning to look at her as they reached the dining room.

“But don’t you too want to escape from here?”

He scoffed. “I can’t escape. I rule this planet.”

“And, you don’t want to escape?”

He evaded her gaze and walked into the room, closing the wide doors behind them. The stomping of the troops became a distant echo. He kept her at a distance as he went to sit down and angrily rang the bell that called the servants in. She sat opposite him while they filled the table with small dishes carrying elegant meals, and poured the both of them tall glasses of water — enough for an Arrakeen family to live off of for a month. Feyd watched on with pale furrowed brows, and she watched him. She knew her words had woken something in him.

As soon as the servants were gone, she rested her wrists on the edge of the table and leaned forward.

“What did it mean to you, when I asked you that?”

“What?”

“When I asked if you wanted to escape.”

“It sounded like treason,” said Feyd, gazing from beneath his lashes as he cut into his food.

“It’s only a question.”

“It’s a suggestion. I’m not stupid.”

“It’s not a suggestion,” she said, leaning back and nearly slouching. “I can’t do anything on this planet without you.”

“Ah,” he chuckled. “So is that why you want to escape? You don’t want to be mine anymore?”

“If that were so, why would I ‘suggest’ that you escape, too?” she countered with a smirk.

Feyd frowned at her again but kept on eating. He twirled his fork around a spread of moss, oily and black with stars of golden spice shining on its surface, and dragged it through a verdant sauce of pickled seaweed. He ate delicately, reminding her of how different he was from his uncle.

“If you were so upset with me because of it, you’d have killed me already,” she muttered, finally turning to her plate.

“Maybe I want to enjoy you one last time.”

She sighed. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset with me. You’re the one who wanted to know what I was thinking.”

“And this is it?” he asked, looking at her again. “You’ve been thinking of running away?”

It was tempting to say yes and be done with it, to bear the brunt of his anger, which was already bubbling to the surface. But she remained in her relaxed pose and brought a small morsel of food from her plate to her lips and let the fork linger between them.

“If I did, would you chase me?” she asked somewhat playfully.

And just as she expected, a flame flickered in Feyd’s eyes. Because he was a bratty little boy, and he liked playing, and he resented having to manage Arrakis when instead he could enjoy himself… The prestige in the eyes of his uncle mattered less and less to him each day, and no amount of tall glasses of water, however luxurious on that planet, were enough for him when there was a whole universe out there.

“Flirting won’t save you,” he managed to say.

“Are you suggesting I need to be saved?”

“I am.”

“From what?”

“From me.”

She smiled at him as she twirled her fork across her plate. “I would’ve thought it’s from this planet. Just like you.”

He sighed and tried to distract himself with drinking, gulping half the glass of water in one go. “I regret ever asking you about it,” said Feyd as he slammed it back down. “You’re just lucky I’m the one in charge here. Anyone else would’ve had your head cut off and hung you upside down to drain the blood for moisture.”

She could have chuckled if she didn’t think he’d take it the wrong way. Underneath his threats was a genuine concern and hurt at the mere suggestion of her leaving him one day. He couldn’t even look at her while he mumbled his threats. In fact, he’d never seemed more harmless.

But she was certain her words had set his imagination going, a welcome respite after the troubles of the day. She would have to be on her best behaviour that night to let his thoughts and feelings settle, to make him sweet toward her again, and bring him back to her. It wouldn’t be difficult, it never was.

Although he seemed not to enjoy it much, he finished his dinner, and she did too. And as they walked together to the bedroom they shared, shadows dancing on the walls, she wondered if the spice melange was playing tricks on her, making her dizzy and giddy and almost self-destructive around him. She had had too much that morning too, she recalled, and her meditations had been troubled afterwards. But if she was struggling, how must Feyd feel? He had less of a capacity to modulate poisons in his system… And yet he indulged in it. Perhaps he’d used so much that he’d gained a tolerance for it. He was more at ease after dinner than before it, but his eyes were darkened, his lips a little red, and when she took his armour off that night his skin felt hot and sticky.

Was he seeing things too, she wondered… Did he have the same sort of visions she had had — of white shores and crashing waves and pale sea spraying on his skin? He looked at her with the same sort of longing he did when he felt loneliness threatening him, as if he were at once in the comforting present, with her arms around him as she pulled him down to bed, and at the same time in a horrible future with all of its uncertainties.

“It’s alright,” she whispered as her warm hands cupped his cheek. He curled up by her side and laid his head down on her shoulder. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”

[grimitto]

Hello. I've never posted on tumblr before but I figured I would now.

I'm trying to get a full description of Messmer's backstory plotted out and after doing some research this is what I have so far (the briefest, simplest version.)

Messmer was born with a cursed ability, flame. Much like the frenzied flame that threatens to burn the Lands Between into pure chaos. Messmer was also born with an Abyssal Serpent (Base Serpent???) inside of him, although it can manifest on the outside. (???) The serpent consumes his flames and grows endlessly more powerful. Messmer's flame and the Abyssal Serpent were very powerful, drawing ire from his mother, Marika who despises any threat to her throne.

Messmer has always been family-oriented and enjoys the camaraderie between shared bonds. Brothers in arms or brothers in blood. Before his mother's crusade, Messmer spent his time with his younger siblings and friends, and likely trained alongside them from youth. Particularly Radahn is said to regard Messmer (and Gaius) as older brothers.

"Both were as elder brothers to the lion, and both were cursed from birth. In spite of, or perhaps because of this very reason, Gaius was both Messmer's friend and the leader of his men." - Remembrance of the Wild Boar Rider

The "lion" being Radahn.

Marika, fearing Messmer's powerful flame, wanted to test his loyalty by turning him into a symbol of her wrath. Marika has always hated those who embraced unnatural and grotesque traits, wings and horns specifically, so she embarked on a crusade to cleanse these people, the "hornsent," from the Lands Between. Messmer, eternally loyal to his mother, did so without qualms. The hornsent, and any who are considered enemies of Messmer's mother, Queen Marikia, will always be enemies of Messmer.

[Of the hornsent] "A vestige of the crucible of primordial life. Born partially of devolution, it was considered a signifier of the divine in ancient times, but is now increasingly disdained as an impurity as civilization has advanced." - The Crucible Scale Talisman

Although his armies knew this war would be far from honorable or heroic, Messmer's strong bonds with his men resulted in him having a large and loyal army for his crusade. They gave up riches, titles, and faced scorn for being loyal to Messmer.

"The warriors who fought in the crusade set aside both honor and mercy to wantonly impale and scorch those deemed impure." - The Crusade Insignia Talisman

"Each and every knight hailed from a renowned family of the Erdtree's upper echelons, but were shunned and chased from their homes after pledging allegiance to Messmer as their master." - Fire Knight helm

One warrior, who became known as Messmer's most loyal, was a princess of Carian, Rellana. She abandoned her nobility to follow Messmer. Her loyalty was influenced by romantic love that Messmer never returned.

The crusade was going well (as far as genocides go), but some of Messmer's men learned of his accursed flame and the Abyssal Serpent always growing stronger inside of him and—fearing Messmer was actually corrupt or would become so inevitably—rebelled and mutinied against Messmer in an attempt to kill him. Messmer dispelled them without any difficulty (they were banished to an underground tomb), but mourned the loss of his brothers-in-arms.

The surviving hornsent and many of the general population rightfully vilified Messmer for the crusade.

His mother, learning of this growing unrest, finally found a reason to get rid of Messmer, who was powerful enough to threaten her throne. She plucked out Messmer's eyes, and replaced only his right eye with a Seal of Grace, used to weaken the Abyssal Serpent and flames inside of Messmer. Marika then rescinded Messmer's Grace and banished him to a realm known as the "Shadow of the Erd Tree." Marika also banished any of those still loyal to Messmer, including Rellana.

Messmer, forever loyal to his mother, does not scorn her for abandoning him. Although he is bitter in exile, he blames himself and his flame, he hates the crimes he committed, resulting in a strong self-resentment. Messmer took all the blame of Marika's orders.

"On his mother's wishes, Messmer made himself a symbol of fear, undertaking the cleansing crusade she desired."

"Direct thy maledictions, thine ire, and thy grief towards me alone." - Messmer's armor

Also, I haven't seen the item descriptions to back this up, but apparently the Shadow of Erdtree realm is like the afterlife for the Lands Between and Marika has assigned Messmer to rule over it. That makes more sense than just banishing him, but I haven't seen the in-game sources.

Judging by his dialogue when Messmer meets the Tarnished, I believe the reason he attacks is solely out of loyalty to his mother. As he considers all Tarnished an enemy of Marika as they are "stripped of the grace of gold," AKA they are not guided by grace because Marika doesn't like them.

He also clearly harbors his own prejudice against Tarnished, as he then destroys the restraining eye his mother put in him saying, "I will not suffer a Lord devoid of light," which means he'll die to stop Tarnished becoming Elden Lord, even though Marika allegedly wants the Tarnished to become the Elden Lord, which is fairly common, but overall confusing...

---

Anyways, this is what I personally consider to be Messmer's backstory after looking around (Credits mainly to this reddit post) and trying to compile all the random bits into a story. If anyone knows other important details or thinks something here is wrong I'd love some feedback!

Grim out 💪

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #41 – Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy by Eri Hotta

Almost everything I know about World War 2, I learned against my will through a poorly spent adolescence and reading people argue about it online. Living in Canada, Japan’s role in it is even more obscure, with the wars in the Pacific and China getting a fraction of a fraction of the official commemoration and pop culture interest of events in Europe. So I went into this book with a knowledge of only the vague generalities of Japanese politics in the ‘30s and ‘40s – from that baseline, this was a tremendously interesting and educational book, if at times more than a bit dry.

The book is a very finely detailed narrative of the internal deliberations within the Japanese government and the diplomatic negotiations with the USA through late 1940 and 1941, which ultimately culminate in the decision to attack Pearl Harbour and invade European colonies across the Pacific. It charts the (deeply dysfunctional) decision-making systems of the Imperial Japanese government and how bureaucratic politics, factional intrigue and positioning, and an endemic unwillingness to be the one to back down and eat your words, made a war with the USA first possible, then plausible, then seemingly inevitable. Throughout this, the book wears its thesis on its sleeve – that the war in the Pacific only ever seemed inevitable, that until the very last hour there was widespread understanding that the war would be near-unwinnable across the imperial government and military, but a broken political culture, the career suicide of being the one to endorse accepting American demands,, and a simple lack of courage or will among the doves, prevented anything from ever coming of it.

So I did know that Imperial Japan’s government had, let’s say, fundamental structural issues when I opened the book, but I really wasn’t aware of just how confused and byzantine the upper echelons of it were. Like if Brazil was about the executive committee – the army and navy ministries had entirely separate planning infrastructures from the actual general staffs, and all of them were basically silo’d off from the actual economic and industrial planning bureaucracy (despite the fact that the head of the Cabinet Planning Board was a retired general). All of which is important, because the real decisions of war and peace were made in liaison meetings with the prime minister, foreign minister, and both ministry and general staff of each branch – meetings which were often as not just opportunities for grandstanding and fighting over the budget. The surprise is less that they talked themselves into an unwinnable war and more that they decided on anything at all.

The issue, as Hotta frames it, is that there really wasn’t a single place the buck stopped – officially speaking, the civilian government and both branches of the military served the pleasure of the Emperor – whose theoretically absolute authority was contained by both his temperament and both custom and a whole court bureaucracy dedicated to making sure the prestige of the throne didn’t get mired in and discredited by the muck of politics. The entire Meiji Constitution was built around the presence of a clique of ‘imperial advisers’ who could borrow the emperor’s authority without being so restrained – but as your Ito Hirobumis and Yamagata Aritomos died off, no one with the same energy, authority and vision ever seems to have replaced them.

So you had momentous policy decisions presented as suggestions to the emperor who could agree and thus turn them into inviolable commands, and understood by the emperor as settled policy who would provide an apolitical rubber-stamp on. Which, combined with institutional cultures that strongly encouraged being a good soldier and not undercutting or hurting the image of your faction, led to a lot of people quietly waiting for someone else to stand up and make a scene for them (or just staying silent and wishing them well when they actually did).

Now, this is all perhaps a bit too convenient for many of the people involved – doubtless anyone sitting down and writing their memoirs in 1946 would feel like exaggerating their qualms about the war as much as they could possibly get away with. I feel like Hotta probably takes those post-war memoirs and interviews too much at face value in terms of people’s unstated inner feeling – but on the other hand, the bureaucratic records and participants’ notes preserved from the pivotal meetings themselves do seem to show a great deal of hesitation and factional doubletalk. Most surprisingly to me was the fact that Tojo (who I had the very vague impression was the closest thing to a Japanese Hitler/Mussolini there was) was actually chosen to lead a peace cabinet and find some 11th hour way to avert the war. Which in retrospect was an obviously terrible decision, but it was one he at least initially tried to follow through on.

If the book has a singular villain, it’s actually no Tojo (who is portrayed as, roughly, replacement-rate bad) but Prince Konoe, the prime minister who actually presided over Japan’s invasion of China abroad and slide into a militarized police state at home, who led the empire to the very brink of war with the United States before getting cold feet and resigning at the last possible moment to avoid the responsibility of either starting the war or of infuriating the military and destroying his own credibility by backing down and acceding to America’s demands. He’s portrayed as, not causing, but exacerbating

every one of Japan’s structural political issues through a mixture of cowardice and excellent survival instincts – he carefully avoided fights he might lose, even when that meant letting his foreign minister continue to sabotage negotiations he supported while he arranged support to cleanly remove him (let alone really pushing back on the army). At the same time, the initiatives he did commit were all things inspired by his deep fascination with Nazi Germany – the dissolution of partisan political parties and creation of an (aspirationally, anyway) totalitarian Imperial Rule Assistance Association, the creation of a real militarized police state, the heavy-handed efforts to create a more pure and patriotic culture. He’s hardly to blame for all of that, of course, but given that he was a civilian politician initially elected to curb military influence, his governments sure as hell didn’t help anything (and it is I suppose just memorably ironic that he’s the guy on the spot for many of the most military-dictatorship-e aspects of Japanese government).

One of the most striking things about the book is actually not even part of the main narrative but just the background context of how badly off Japan was even before they attacked the United States. I knew the invasion of China hadn’t exactly been going great, but ‘widespread rationing in major cities, tearing up wrought iron fencing in the nicest districts of the capital to use in war industry’ goes so much further than I had any sense of. The second Sino-Japanese War was the quintessential imperial adventure and war of choice, and also just literally beyond the material abilities of the state of Japan to sustain in conjunction with normal civilian life. You see how the American embargo on scrap metal and petroleum was seen as nearly an act of war in its own right. You also wonder even more how anyone could possibly have convinced themselves that an army that was already struggling to keep its soldiers fed could possibly win an entirely new war with the greatest industrial power on earth. Explaining which is of course the whole point of the book (they didn’t, in large part, but convinced themselves the Americans wouldn’t have the stomach for it and agree to a favourable peace quickly, or that Germany would conquer the UK and USSR and impose mediation on Japan’s terms, or-).

When trying to understand the decision-making process, I’m honestly reminded of nothing so much as the obsession with ‘credibility’ you see among many American foreign policy hands in the modern day. The idea that once something had been committed to – the (largely only extant on paper) alliance with Nazi Germany, the creation of a collaborator government in China to ‘negotiate’ with, the occupation of southern Vietnam – then, even if you agreed it hadn’t worked out and had probably been a terrible decision to begin with, reversing course without some sort of face-saving agreement or concession on the other side would shatter any image of strength and invite everyone else the world over to grab at what you have. The same applies just as much to internal politics, where admitting that your branch couldn’t see a way to victory in the proposed war was seen as basically surrendering the viciously fought over budget, no matter the actual opinions of your experts – the book includes anecdotes about both fleet admirals and the senior field marshal China privately tearing their respective superiors in Tokyo a (polite) new one for the bellicosity they did not believe themselves capable of following through on, but of course none of these sentiments were ever shared with anyone who might use them against the army/navy.

The book is very much a narrative of the highest levels of government, idea of mass sentiment and popular opinion are only really incidentally addressed. Which does make it come as a shock every time it’s mentioned that a particular negotiation was carried out in secret because someone got spooked by an ultranationalist assassination attempt the day before. I entirely believe that no one wanted to say as much, but I can’t help but feel that people’s unwillingness to forthrightly oppose further war owed something to all the radical actors floating around in the junior ranks of the officer corps who more than willing to take ‘decisive, heroic action’ against anyone in government trying to stab the war effort in the back. Which is something that the ever-increasing number of war dead in China (with attendant patriotic unwillingness to let them die ‘for nothing) and the way everyone kept trying to rally the public to the war effort with ever-more militaristic public rhetoric assuredly only made worse.

That same rhetoric also played its part in destroying the possibility of negotiations with the United States. The story of those negotiations runs throughout the book, and is basically one misunderstanding and failure to communicate after another. It at times verges on comedy. Just complete failure to model the political situation and diplomatic logic of the other party, on both sides (combined with a great and increasing degree of wishful thinking that e.g. letting the military occupy southern French Indochina as a concession for their buy-in on further negotiations would be fine with the Americans. A belief held on exactly zero evidence whatsoever). The United States government was actually quite keen to avoid a war in the pacific if possible, as FDR did his best to get entangled in Europe and effectively start an undeclared naval war with Germany – but the negotiating stance hardened as Japan seemed more and more aggressive and unreliable, which coincided exactly with Japan’s government taking the possibility of war seriously enough to actually try to negotiate. It’s the same old story of offering concessions and understanding that might have been agreed to a few months beforehand, but were now totally unacceptable. In the end, everyone pinned their hopes on a face-to-face diplomatic summit with FDR in Juneau, where sweeping concessions could be agreed to and the government’s credibility staked on somewhere the hardliners could not physically interfere with. The Americans, meanwhile, wanted some solid framework for what the agreement would be before the summit occurred, and so it never did.

After the war, it was apparently the general sentiment that the whole nation was responsible for the war with the United States – which is to say that no individual person deserved any special or specific blame. Hotta’s stated aim with the book is to show how that’s bullshit, how war was entirely avoidable, and it was only do to these small cliques of specific, named individuals that it began. The hardliners like Osami Nagano, but just as much the cowards, careerists and factional partisans like Konoe, Tojo, and (keeper of the Privy Seal) Kido. Having read it I, at least, am convinced.

[blueiscoool]

Rare 4th Century Roman Helmet and Chainmail Found in Denmark

Archaeologists have recently unearthed a massive stockpile of weapons near Hedensted, Denmark, buried 1,500 years ago by an ancient chief. In addition to many weapons and unique chainmail, fragments of a Roman helmet from the 4th century have also been found.

During recent archaeological excavations at Løsning Søndermark in Hedensted, Denmark, a significant discovery has been made that sheds light on the region’s Iron Age history, dating back 1,500 to 2,000 years. Archaeologists unearthed a burial site containing an extensive array of weapons, sufficient to equip a small army, alongside a remarkable chainmail shirt and other valuable artifacts. This find suggests that the site belonged to a powerful chieftain, and the manner of the burial indicates that these war implements may have been offered to higher powers.

The excavation was prompted by the Danish Road Directorate’s ongoing project to expand the motorway to three lanes, leading to the unearthing of these extraordinary artifacts just northwest of Hedensted, situated between Vejle and Horsens.

Some of the half-buried weapons found in Løsning

In addition to the extensive weapon deposits, archaeologists have discovered two unusual iron plates, each approximately the size of a human palm. Initially, the origins of these plates were uncertain. However, through the application of X-ray imaging technology, conservators and archaeologists were able to penetrate the thick layers of rust that obscured the objects.

The imaging results revealed an extraordinary and rare discovery: the remnants of a Roman helmet. The two plates identified consist of a neck guard and a intricately decorated cheek guard, which are components of a crest helmet—a type commonly utilized during the 4th century within the Roman Empire.

The illustrations show the placement of the neck and cheek guard on a Roman helmet. The top of the helmet has not been found, so its appearance remains purely speculative

Finds of Roman helmets from the Iron Age are exceptionally uncommon in southern Scandinavia, and this particular discovery lacks direct parallels within the region. The few comparable artifacts have been located at Thorsbjerg Moor in Schleswig, as well as in southern Sweden and Gotland, with no similar finds recorded in Denmark itself.

An X-ray scan shows the fragments of an ancient Roman helmet found in Løsning

In addition, a chainmail shirt was discovered at Løsning Søndermark. Only a very small number of chainmail shirts from the Iron Age have been found in the southern Scandinavian region. Notably, the chainmail unearthed at Løsning Søndermark is particularly remarkable as it is the first instance found in association with a settlement, rather than being recovered from a burial site or bog.

The production of chainmail required specialized expertise, access to resources, and a considerable, sustained effort. Consequently, these expensive pieces of armor were owned exclusively by the highest echelons of the warrior elite in society, underscoring their status and importance.

The ancient chainmail shirt found in Løsning

In addition to the extensive weapon sacrifice, archaeologists have uncovered fragments of two highly distinctive bronze neck rings at the Løsning Søndermark site. These rings exhibit striking similarities to imagery found on gold bracteates from the Vindelev Hoard, as well as other representations of Iron Age rulers.

The motif of a ring-bearer holding an oath ring in one hand, symbolizing power and influence, is a well-established theme in Nordic imitations of Roman gold medallions and gold bracteates. It is likely that the rings discovered at Løsning Søndermark served a similar function and may have been integral to the chieftain’s personal equipment, alongside the chainmail, sword, horse gear, and other military items that were part of the sacrificial offerings.

Two ring fragments found in Løsning

Notably, the ring-bearer depicted on the Vindelev bracteates is also adorned in a garment featuring an unusual pattern, which may represent chainmail akin to that found at Løsning Søndermark.

Starting Saturday, February 8, 2025, selected items from this remarkable find, including fragments of a Roman helmet, will be exhibited at the Cultural Museum in Vejle, providing the public with an opportunity to engage with Denmark’s rich archaeological heritage.

By Oguz Buyukyildirim.

Some of the swords and other weapons found in Denmark

[dancing-lex]

Can't stop returning to Katniss thinking "All I was trying to do was keep myself and Peeta alive. Any act of rebellion was purely incidental."

Because incidental actions are a large part of what rebellions are made of; often people don't mean for their actions to directly challenge authority, it's just that said authority is incompatible with life. Humans were not meant to be controlled. We are free-willed creatures, just like other animals. But authority seeks to control. It objectifies. What better example of this than the Hunger Games? The Capitol kills 23 children each year to flaunt their control. The Games are treated like prime time TV, and the tributes' humanity is stripped from them in order to become objects of entertainment among the highest echelons of society.

Consequently, to act in the interest of keeping yourself and others alive is to act in opposition to authority, no matter how innocent your intentions. And it's very easy for people to challenge authority simply by trying to live their lives; it's only natural for them to try and keep themselves and their loved ones alive. To quote Nemik's manifesto from the show Andor:

"Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward."

There are so many of these small acts of insurrection just in the first book. Peeta giving Katniss that bread, despite getting a beating for burning it. Katniss and Gale hunting to keep their families alive and bartering with the other people in District 12. Arguably, Katniss volunteering in place of Prim. Katniss and Peeta appearing as one unit during even the first ceremony, where they hold hands on the chariot. Cinna's designs for her outfits, especially the "girlish" dress he puts her in after the games. Katniss allying with Rue, and the flower crown that she gives her after death.

These seemingly small acts build solidarity with others. This is shown in several reciprocal, more innocuous (yet still rebellious) acts. Madge gives Katniss the Mockingjay pin. District 12 gives that three-finger sign of respect to Katniss instead of applauding like they are told. Peeta's father and Gale promise to make sure that Prim doesn't go hungry. District 11 sends Katniss bread and Thresh spares her once, because they want to honor how she treated Rue.

In a world that attempts to dehumanize and objectify you, it is rebellious to recognize the humanity in yourself and others. It is rebellious to help others, to make their lives easier, to hope, to care.

[sambhavami]

Krishna Vaasudeva - Bani Basu - 3

This is a partial summary, all the magic is Dr. Basu's!

Balarama walks on, on a winter evening. It is true that them two brothers have faced off against armies of thousands and emerged victorious. Krishna is smart, and capable and strong, but didn’t he do most of the heavy lifting? But everyone just says Krishna this, Krishna that! Even as children, everyone only sang praises of Krishna. He too was one of them, no doubt, he loves his brother more than anything, but still. Also, now people say he is a god. In that case, is Balarama a god too? Or is he relevant only when he follows his brother around? Who is he then? Is he Brahma? Shiva? Sudarshana? Garuda? Balarama looked around to see if anyone was watching. Then he flapped his arms around a bit. No. No feathers. Balarama laughed to himself at the absurdity.

Life was so simple back in Vrindavana. They would sneak off, to secret wrestling spaces, the girls would follow Krishna around like bees around a flower. They would drown in his love. Did any of them love Balarama like that? He isn’t too ugly, now, is he? Back then, even more than the cows, he loved the fields. Scaring off the farmhands, he would complete a day’s work on his own, until Nanda would drag him away by the ear, complaining to his mother, now Vasudeva would think I am using his son as a farmhand now! Balarama could never explain to them that he genuinely enjoys this.

He doesn’t know what Krishna thinks, but nothing in Mathura really pleases him. Not like Vrindavan. His mind keeps wandering back to his childhood. There was a girl. Dark-skinned. Lived near the river. He used to call her Yamuna. He never did find out her name. Thank God, they go out on trips every now and then, or else he would go crazy with all the rules and regulations of the upper echelon.

Krishna isn’t here now. He told everyone he’s going on a random trip, but he’s actually down in the city he calls Dwaravati. No one’s here to talk to him therefore. His mother’s here, so is Devaki, Kanu’s real mom, but he never knew about the twelve others. He finds it difficult to go on respecting his father. Every time he tries to tell his mother all this, he finds her too so anxious, for his safety, upset at his father’s indifference. He ends up swallowing his part entirely.

One day, therefore he just woke up and left. Towards Vrindavan. The ministers had ordered him to not go, but he had laughed in their faces. I am but a simple cowherd, he had said, you can manage for a week or two! Out of the boat on the other side Yamuna, Balarama steps but, his shoes get stuck in the mud. Good riddance, he thinks, as he walks faster towards his home.

When he walks through, the first word out of Nanda’s mouth is, you came alone, or is someone coming?

Balarama laughs it off, wouldn’t you even let me in the house without Kanu now? Where’s my plough?

That’s Balarama! Not where Yashoda is, not where his friends are, but first, his addiction!

In the evening when the whole village gathers in their courtyard, Balarama just shakes his head, I am just on vacation. All the big stuff, the smart plans, that’s all Kanu. I am just a meagre helper, that’s all!

Later he goes out to see the village, but everyone’s busy with their own families and even the cattle don’t remember his scent. After a full round, he comes back frowning, I haven’t forgotten anyone Yasho-maa, it seems you people have forgotten me! He exclaims.

The next day, however, it seems like a festival has started. Everyone comes to see him and shower him in love. Just then, one lady form somewhere says, now just if we can put some black colour on him, wouldn’t we get just a taste of Krishna? Balarama stands up, tearing the garland form his neck, walks up to a hollow Kadamba tree, and starts drinking the water that has fermented over long inside that hollow. Kadambari.

You all can’t seem to think one step ahead of Kanu it seems! You haven’t seen nothing yet! He roars, I’ll show you what Balarama is! He ran, swaying from side to side, screaming Yamuna! Where are you!

The dark-skinned woman, having heard his voice had come out. Pulling her close with his plough, he screams for her to let him have his way. The woman screams and begs him to let her go. Finally, Balarama releases her. I am truly worthless then, he cries. Then again he became angry, From now on, you must walk the path I tell you to, he roars, and draws a wavering line with his plough and disappears into the forest, leaving the village staring speechless at his retreating form.

That night, no one saw Balarama, but a storm came. Almost as if the sky was to break down on their heads. The next morning, they found the river flowing through the forest. Along the path that their Rama had set! The villagers were left speechless once more. The poor woman’s house too had been washed away, and she was nowhere to be found. Only Rama didn’t remember anything.

[katy-133]

The Other Teams of Team Fortress 2: An Essay

(Spoilers for issue 7 of the TF2 comics)

I wanted to talk more about this statue.

This scene infers that Team Fortress (which consists of the 9 mercs) is not the only team orchestrated by the Administrator.

I would say that this statue is meant to show off 6 different teams. I've written already about how the letter F (for Team Fortress) has been ripped of the statue. The reblogs in the thread of that post also point out that the TF logo is meant to be straight, but TF2's logo is crooked, visually showing that they are the scrappy team (thank you to hatoholic for this additional observation!).

This makes be believe that there is a ranking system, where the A team (aha, we see what they did there!) is considered the best, and F would be considered the worst.

Additional evidence of this is Classic Heavy's dialogue here:

Classic Heavy: "We spent six months huntin' down her best. Echelon. Citadel. Team Ajax, for god's sake. We got 'em all. We beat her. All she had left was you rejects."

(Image from issue 6 of the TF2 comic, The Naked and the Dead.)

Classic Heavy's words imply that he thinks that 1) Ajax was the team most unlikely for him to beat (his emphasis of, "For god's sake"). And, 2) That Team Fortress were so low in the hierarchy, that beating them was meant to be a mere formality.

Also, Valve retcon edited Classic Heavy's dialogue here when they released issue 7 of the comic. Before December 2024, the word Ajax had previously been Vanguard.

Below are the before and after edits of the panels. Image sources are the History page of the TF2 Wiki.

So Valve thought this detail to be so important that they edited previously-established canon (which is what a retcon is).

I also think Classic Heavy's dialogue also means that the Administrator had 6 teams, and no more. Team Fortress was her worse one, which means there were no lower ranked teams (no Team G, H, I, etc).

So the teams are:

Ajax

B?

Citadel

D?

Echelon

Fortress

We see glimpses of how the other teams look. We don't know who is from which team, but each team appears to use the same class system as Team Fortress:

On the statue, we see a man as Heavy with a big gun, an armoured figure with grenades as Soldier, a woman with a scoped rifle as Sniper, a man with I think a megaphone which I think makes him Scout, and woman Spy with a silencer.

Below, Pyro spots a poster of another Pyro, surrounded by flames, and Demoman sees what I think is another Demoman with rockets and I think explosives.

These other mercs also seem to have more advanced weaponry that Team Fortress, adding to their "rejects" image. They don't have as high of a budget for items.

Also, the Administrator (I'm assuming) removed Team Fortress from documentation. Either because she was so ashamed of them, thought them useless, or wanted to keep them hidden for some other purpose.

Back to the team names. Looking up dictionary definitions of each of them (Ajax, Citadel, Echelon, Fortress, and even the edited out Vanguard), I would describe each of these names having links to Latin and invoking war imagery:

AJAX: In Greek mythology, Ajax was the name of a hero from the Trojan War, as told in Homer's Iliad, renowned for his large stature and bravery. (Ajax means "mourner," "earth," or "land").

CITADEL: Fortified structure that is often located within a city or town. The word is from the Latin civitas ("citizenship" or "city").

ECHELON: A level or category within an organisation or group of people. Echelon comes from scala, a Latin word meaning "ladder."

FORTRESS: A strong place, a fortification.

VANGUARD: The troops that marched at the head of the army (van = "before," guard = "protect").

So, if I were asked to come up with a good B and D team name for a TF2 fanfic, I would open up a Latin dictionary and choose something that invokes war in my mind when I read the word's definition.

[pencildragons]

1 like and i'll explain my entire gar restructure headcanon (part 1)

THANKS TESSA ILYYYYYYY

okay so as i'm sure you've seen everyone and their mother in this fandom say, 1.2 million soldiers for an INTERGALACTIC WAR is nowhere near enough. i mean, look at the top ten largest armies in the world this year.

by canon explanation, the GAR is smaller than the standing army of a country with 23 million people living in it. you know how many people live on coruscant? three trillion (and that number should be way way way higher to match the population density we're shown, but let's not get into that.) so, because that is stupid, i've gone the route of what someone suggested on wookiepedia one time: that a unit refers to a standard group of soldiers.

It is also possible that Lama Su did not intend the term "unit" to refer to an individual soldier. If a "unit" referred to a battalion of 576 troopers (as Lama Su spoke of later in Obi-Wan's visit), then 200,000 of these would render 115,200,000 clones and the 1,000,000 others spoken of as 576,000,000. This grand total of 691,200,000 would be far more suitable for the core of a galactic army. A "unit" being a 2,304-clone regiment, the largest military division classified as a unit instead of a formation, would amount to 2,764,800,000 clones. Furthermore, if a "unit" refers to a legion, the closest formation in size to a real-life British division of 15,000 men, the 1,200,000 units would have more than 18,000,000,000 clones, a truly "grand" army, suitable for defeating the huge numbers of droids under the Confederacy.

this scared me, because 18 billion people created purely for the purpose of serving in an army kind of broke my brain, so i settled for a nice round 1 billion, which is tbh way too low, so i Will also include the numbers for an army of 18 billion.

Structure of systems army if GAR = 1 billion (numbers, units, and clone+jedi officers) (if you use these in your fic or art, please credit my tumblr)

at this point i cant remember what is and isn't canon, because i created this two years ago. however, i'm pretty sure i invented most of it using vaguely equivalent military terms, because canon is Stupid.

Squad: 15 soldiers corporal

Patrol: 75 soldiers (5 squads) sergeant (5 corporals, 1 sergeant)

Echelon: 375 soldiers (5 patrols) sergeant-major (25 corporals, 5 sergeants, 1 sergeant-major)

Platoon: 5 625 soldiers (15 echelons) lieutenant (375 corporals, 25 sergeants, 15 sergeant-majors, 1 lieutenant)

Company: 28 125 soldiers (5 platoons) captain (also a rank awarded to high ranking medics/chief medical officers) (1 875 corporals, 125 sergeants, 75 sergeant-majors, 5 lieutenants, 1 captain)

Battalion: 84 375 soldiers (3 companies) major (5 625 corporals, 375 sergeants, 225 sergeant-majors, 15 lieutenants, 3 captains, 1 major)

Regiment: 337 500 soldiers (4 battalions) colonel (end of promotion that CTs can reach, beginning of CC ranks) (22 500 corporals, 1 500 sergeants, 900 sergeant majors, 60 lieutenants, 12 captains, 4 majors, 1 colonel) Rank 1 general (Knights)

Legion (this is what i headcanon most of the 'battalions' in tcw to be, e.g., 501st, 212th): 1 350 000 soldiers (4 regiments) clone commander AND/OR jedi commander (Padawans, e.g., Ahsoka) (90 000 corporals, 6000 sergeants, 3600 sergeant-majors, 240 lieutenants, 48 captains, 16 majors, 4 colonels) Rank-2 general (Knights or Knights with Padawans, e.g., Anakin) (4 Rank-1 Generals, 1 Rank-2 General)

Corps: 5 400 000 soldiers (4 legions) Brigadier commander (e.g., Bly [in my hc]) (360 000 corporals, 24 000 sergeants, 14 400 sergeant-majors, 840 lieutenants, 192 captains, 64 majors, 16 colonels, 4 commanders, 1 brigadier commander) Rank-3 general* (very militaristically-competent Knights (e.g., Aayla Secura) on the verge of Mastery and militaristically-competent Masters) (16 Rank-1 generals, 4 Rank-2 generals, 1 Rank-3 general)

Sector army: 43 200 000 soldiers (8 corps) Senior commander (e.g., Gree) (2 880 000 corporals, 1 920 000 sergeants, 115 200 sergeant-majors, 6 720 lieutenants, 1 536 captains, 512 majors, 128 colonels, 64 commanders, 8 brigadier commanders, 1 senior commander) Senior general* (very experienced + competent Masters, e.g., Luminara Unduli) (128 Rank-1 Generals, 32 Rank-2 Generals, 8 Rank-3 Generals, 1 Senior general)

Systems army: 86 400 000 soldiers (2 sector armies) Marshal commander (e.g., Cody) (5 760 000 corporals, 3 840 000 sergeants, 230 400 sergeant-majors, 13 440 lieutenants, 3 072 captains, 1 024 majors, 256 colonels, 128 commanders, 16 brigadier commanders, 2 senior commanders, 1 marshal commander) High general (all members of the High Council/Council of 12, e.g., Obi-Wan, Mace, Yoda, Adi Gallia, etc) (356 Rank-1 Generals, 64 Rank-2 generals, 16 Rank-3 generals, 2 senior generals, 1 high general)

GAR: 1 036 800 000 soldiers (12 system armies) 69 120 000 corporals, 46 080 000 sergeants, 2 764 800 sm, 161 280 lt, 36 888 cpt, 12 288 maj, 3 072 colonels, 1 536 commanders, 192 brigadier commanders, 24 senior commanders, 12 marshal commanders) 4 272 Rank-1 Generals, 768 Rank-2 Generals, 192 Rank-3 Generals, 24 Senior Generals, 12 High Generals (total of 5 268 Jedi, not counting all those who act in Combat Service Support Roles)

up next in this series: GAR figures if there were 18 billion clone soldiers, and then after that ranks + branches. reblogs very much appreciated!!!!!!

*note: if a Jedi more superior than a Rank-1 General has a Padawan (e.g., Senior General/Master Luminara Unduli w/ Padawan-Commander Barriss Offee), then the Senior General will also be given direct personal command of a Legion, and will also operate as a Rank-1 General or, in most circumstances, share capacity with a Rank-1 General. i headcanon that because of this in the war, Padawans with two masters (their actual Master if this is more superior than a Rank-1 general, and their Rank-1 General master who they by necessity spend a lot of time with) become VERY common

[dagwolf]

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the population of Gaza will be displaced to the south after his security cabinet approved an expanded military operation in the enclave that a minister described as a plan to 'conquer' the territory.

The vote on Sunday came hours after the military said it would mobilize tens of thousands of reservists, strengthening its capacity to operate in the besieged Palestinian territory.

'One thing will be clear: there will be no in-and-out,' Netanyahu said in a Monday video message posted on X. 'We’ll call up reserves to come, hold territory — we’re not going to enter and then exit the area, only to carry out raids afterward. That’s not the plan. The intention is the opposite.'

'There will be a movement of the population to protect them,' Netanyahu said of the 'intensified operation.'

A senior Israeli security official earlier said the operation in Gaza, called 'Gideon’s Chariots,' was unanimously approved by the security cabinet with the aim of subduing Hamas and securing the release of all hostages.

The plan would be implemented after US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East next week to 'provide a window of opportunity' for a hostage deal, the official added.

'If no hostage deal is reached, Operation Gideon’s Chariots will begin with full force and will not stop until all its objectives are achieved.'

The plan then, is to displace Gaza’s entire population to the south of the enclave, following which the total the blockade of humanitarian aid may be lifted, the official said, adding that the military 'will remain in every area it captures.'

'In any temporary or permanent agreement, Israel will not evacuate the security buffer zone around Gaza, which is intended to protect Israeli communities and prevent arms smuggling to Hamas,' the official said.

'We are on the eve of a major entry into Gaza based on the recommendation of the General Staff,' Netanyahu said in his video message, adding that military officials told him it was time to 'start the final moves.'

The 'highest goal' of the expanding operation in Gaza, according to the military’s top spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, is returning the hostages, not defeating Hamas. His comments come just a week after Netanyahu said the war’s 'supreme goal' is the defeat of Israel’s enemies, not the return of hostages.

'The top goal of the operation is the return of the hostages. After that — the collapse of Hamas rule, its defeat and subjugation — but first and foremost, the return of the hostages,' Defrin said responding to a question about his message to hostage families.

The military spokesman faced swift condemnation from Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, who said Defrin was 'confused into thinking that the army is above the political echelon.'

Hostage families were quick to condemn the announcement of the expansion of the war, fearing that the Israeli government is prioritizing the defeat of Hamas over securing a deal to return Israeli hostages – and endangering them through the expanded military operations.

Asked if the US approves of the new Israeli plan, National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes told CNN: 'The President has made clear the consequences Hamas will face if it continues to hold hostages, including American Edan Alexander, and the bodies of four Americans. Hamas bears sole responsibility for this conflict, and for the resumption of hostilities.'

Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Monday that 'we are finally going to conquer the Gaza Strip.'

Annexing Gaza is a possibility, and once the military expands its operations in the enclave, it will not pull back – even if Hamas agrees to a new hostage deal, he said at a conference in Jerusalem, referring to the security cabinet decision on Sunday.

'Once we conquer and stay – we can talk about sovereignty (over Gaza). But I didn’t demand that it be included in the war’s objectives,' he added. 'Once the maneuver begins – there will be no withdrawal from the territories we’ve captured, not even in exchange for hostages.'

Smotrich primarily handles the country’s finances, but he sits on the security cabinet and holds significant sway over Netanyahu, who relies on his support to keep the government from collapsing.

More than 2,400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since mid-March when Israel launched a wave of deadly strikes, shattering a ceasefire, which had been in place for nearly two months. More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The expansion of the fighting will be gradual to give a chance for a renewed ceasefire and hostage release deal before US President Donald Trump’s visit to the region in mid-May, the officials said. Trump is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar next week, but there is currently no stop planned in Israel.

The UN raised concern with the latest expansion plan, saying it would lead to more civilians being killed.

'I can tell you that the Secretary General is alarmed by these reports of Israeli plans to expand ground operations and prolong its military presence in Gaza,' Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, Farhan Haq told reporters on Monday.

An Israeli blockade of all humanitarian aid into the strip is now in its ninth week.

The cabinet also discussed allowing the resumption of aid deliveries into Gaza under a new framework which was approved, but has not yet been implemented, according to one of the sources.

Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan 11, reported that a confrontation had broken out during Sunday’s meeting over the resumption of aid deliveries with two far-right members of the cabinet, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and settlements minister Orit Strook opposed to any resumption of aid and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir arguing Israel was obligated to facilitate them under international law.

According to one of the source who spoke to CNN, the Israeli media reports about the arguments over the aid 'are not wrong.'

Israel says it cut off the entry of humanitarian aid to pressure Hamas to release hostages. But international organizations say its actions violate international law and risks creating a man-made famine, with some accusing Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war – a war crime.

United States and Israeli officials are discussing a mechanism to deliver aid to Gaza that bypasses Hamas, an Israeli source familiar with the matter and a State Department official told CNN. The official said an announcement could be made 'in the coming days.'

The delivery mechanism in the works is intended to allow aid to reach the Palestinian population with safeguards to ensure it is not diverted by Hamas or Islamic Jihad, according to a State Department spokesperson.

An unnamed private foundation would manage the aid mechanism and the delivery of the humanitarian supplies into Gaza, the spokesperson said.

The US expects the United Nations and international aid organizations to work with the framework of the foundation’s mechanism to ensure that supplies do not reach Hamas, the spokesperson said.

Aid agencies working in the occupied Palestinian territory rejected the new framework for aid deliveries Sunday saying the plan appeared 'designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items' and would fail to ensure aid reached Gaza’s most vulnerable residents.

'The UN Secretary-General and the Emergency Relief Coordinator have made clear that we will not participate in any scheme that does not adhere to the global humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality,' the groups said in a joint statement."

--ffs

[scary-grace]

Enough to Go By (Chapter 20) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Your best friend vanished on the same night his family was murdered, and even though the world forgot about him, you never did. When a chance encounter brings you back into contact with Shimura Tenko, you'll do anything to make sure you don't lose him again. Keep his secrets? Sure. Aid the League of Villains? Of course. Sacrifice everything? You would - but as the battle between the League of Villains and hero society unfolds, it becomes clear that everything is far more than you or anyone else imagined it would be. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Chapter 20

Thanks to the alliance between the League of Villains and the Meta Liberation Army – or more accurately, the League’s hostile takeover of the Meta Liberation army – you’ve learned a lot more than you ever wanted to about the country’s largest gang of quirk supremacists. Their ideology is roughly as awful as you thought it was, and if your quirk hadn’t shown up, they’d be treating you like shit, regardless of what Tenko or the rest of the League had to say about it. Their members, at least in the upper echelons, are uniformly upper-class, and most of them are fourth- or fifth-generation quirk-users in addition to being second- or third-generation members of the organization. In spite of the terrible things the lieutenant you killed was saying to Spinner right before your bullets tore through his aortic arch, the MLA doesn’t appear to distinguish between quirks. If you have a quirk, you’re in the club.

That means you’re in, as much as you’d rather not be. You’re treated with deference you haven’t earned, and every person you encounter seems to be trying their damnedest to forgive you for killing one of their senior members and shooting their former leader a whopping nineteen times. You try to stay away from them as much as possible, but some of them are hard to avoid – like Re-Destro, who’s constantly hovering around Tomura and who seems to think that you and he are destined to get along.

So far, he’s interpreted the dislike you can barely hide as a protectiveness over Tomura, which is part of it. The rest is something simpler. When you faced him in Deika City, he made it clear that he wanted you dead whether you were part of the League or not; even if you hadn’t been, your quirklessness would have condemned you. You try not to hold grudges, but that’s not something you’ll ever forget.

The MLA has been holding off on the presentation of Tomura as the new Grand Commander until Tomura’s able to sit up without enough pain medication to sedate a horse running through his system. The day’s arrived – sooner than anyone expected, courtesy of your quirk. Re-Destro’s insisted on providing Tomura with appropriate clothes for such a momentous occasion, and he brought his personal tailor to make it happen. Tomura wouldn’t go unless you came with him, and Re-Destro decided that since he’s the only person in the equation who’s ever worn a suit, he needs to have an opinion on the matter. So you and Re-Destro are sitting off to one side of the room, watching as Tomura’s fitted for the first suit of his life.

He’s fidgeting, clearly uncomfortable with standing for so long, but you’re getting a little fixated on the suit itself. Even halfway fitted, it looks good on him. Really good. You’re always attracted to him, no matter what he’s wearing, but this is so outside your frame of reference for him that desire hits you like a punch in the stomach. It’s not a feeling you want to have while sitting next to Re-Destro, who’s staring just as avidly at Tomura for what you fervently hope is a very different reason.

It’s a relief when he turns his attention to you, but not much of one. You’ve got your veil on, and it’s opaque enough to hide the flush in your cheeks, but you have a hard time imagining that you aren’t radiating concentrated horniness that Skeptic’s satellites could pick up from orbit. With that in mind, maybe it’s a good thing that Re-Destro’s trying to talk to you. You could use a distraction. You pull your gaze away from Tomura with an effort and turn towards the man he deposed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Say again?”

“It’s all right,” Re-Destro says. He probably thinks he sounds magnanimous. The word you’d use is condescending. “I was just asking how you’ve adjusted to the awakening of your meta ability.”

“I’ve – um, adjusted.” You really don’t want to talk about this. “Thank you for asking.”

That should be the end of it, in your opinion, but Re-Destro doesn’t let you off the hook. “Were you aware you had a latent meta ability?”

“No,” you say. “In my family, quirks are present at birth. They all had them, and I didn’t. That was it.”

The magnanimity fades. Now he looks like he’s thinking hard about something. “Was that not the answer you were hoping for?” you ask.

“It wasn’t.” Re-Destro earns the smallest sliver of your respect by owning up to it. “Quirk latency theory presents a problem for Liberation ideology.  The place of the quirkless in a world based on Liberation ideology is clear and unambiguous. If quirk latency theory is correct, then a Liberated society becomes more difficult to implement.”

Liberation ideology is so antithetical to a society most people would want to live in that it would topple if you blew on it too hard. You engage in a maneuver that you’ve been using since you were quirkless and play dumb. “How so?”

“The average age of awakening is four years old. We’ll set that as the mean of our distribution,” Re-Destro says. You’re about to get a statistics lesson, and you only feel slightly guilty for hoping that Tomura will suddenly keel over and give you a way out of it. “However, a not-insignificant number of meta abilities, like your family’s or those of heteromorphs, present at birth. Imagine them at the left side of the mean. Together these groups constitute eighty-five percent of individuals with meta abilities.”

He glances at you. You nod. “Now, if we look to the right side, we’ll see a precipitous drop,” Re-Destro continues. “Of the metahuman population, ninety percent awaken their abilities by age five. Ninety-three percent by age six. Ninety-eight percent by age seven. A tiny percentage of the population awakens their abilities in early adolescence – I believe a current UA student holds Japan’s record.”

“Midoriya.”

“Midoriya?” Tomura scoffs. “That’s not his quirk.”

It’s quiet for a second. “What do you mean?” Re-Destro asks, but Tomura ignores him, and after a long, awkward stretch of time, Re-Destro turns his attention back to you. “In any case, it’s well-known that meta abilities don’t awaken past adolescence. The categories of metahuman and human are easily defined, unless –”

“Unless quirk latency theory is correct,” you say. “If it’s correct, it means that everyone’s a potential metahuman. Nobody can be written off.”

Re-Destro nods. You can tell the idea doesn’t agree with him. “You represent an extreme outlier,” he says, “in more ways than one. It was clear from your actions during the Revival Party that you are a true believer in the Grand Commander’s vision – the first true believer, if my sources are correct.”

“They’re correct,” Tomura says, before you can say a word.

Re-Destro turns to him, clearly hoping he’ll say more, but Tomura goes back to picking at the sleeve the tailor’s just adjusted. You and Tomura are going to have a talk later about how your responsibilities as his sidekick slash girlfriend don’t include constantly running interference with the guy he overthrew, but for now, you’re still the main object of Re-Destro’s attention. “You believed you were quirkless,” he says. “What led you to devote yourself to a vision such as the Grand Commander’s?”

There’s a lot of reasons why, but all of those came later. There’s only one that really matters. “It’s his.”

Re-Destro looks surprised. Tomura looks sort of surprised, honestly. He’s stopped glaring at the tailor in favor of staring at you, looking as thrown off as you’ve seen him look in a while. He really shouldn’t be, in your opinion. You hold his gaze and watch as the same smile he wore when you were children crosses his face, the one you saw when you came up with a new twist for your games or swapped lunches with him or even just when you got out your front door first and were waiting for him on the sidewalk for the walk to school. Shigaraki Tomura or Shimura Tenko – he’s who you’re devoted to. He always has been.

You get a few more seconds of his real smile before the tailor accidentally sticks him with a needle and Tomura turns to snap at him. “Saintess,” Re-Destro says, and you glance sideways. “Since you’ll be accompanying the Grand Commander onstage, you should look the part. Some updates have been made to your costume for the sake of form and functionality.”

Functionality is fine. Form, on the other hand – “What did you do to it?”

“I want to see,” Tomura says, which practically guarantees that it’ll be here in two seconds. Re-Destro zips out of the room in his motorized wheelchair to retrieve it. You glare at Tomura, who looks back, unrepentant. “I have to wear this stupid thing. I’m not going to be the only one dressed like a clown.”

“You don’t look like a clown,” you say. “You look – um –”

Tomura’s waiting for your answer, but you really don’t want to say it in front of the tailor, and it doesn’t take Tomura long to figure that out. “Go away,” he says, and the tailor books it. Tomura looks back to you. “What?”

“You look really hot.”

Tomura coughs. “What?”

“You do.”

“You’re joking,” Tomura says. You shake your head. “You just want me to quit bitching about the suit.”

“You can bitch about the suit forever if you want. You still look really hot.”

Tomura looks flustered. You’ve never seen him look flustered before. “Don’t say weird things.”

“Saying you need to touch your sidekick is weird,” you say. Tomura’s mouth twitches. “Saying my boyfriend’s hot in a suit is normal.”

“It’s not funny. Stop saying it.”

“You don’t believe me?” you ask. Tomura’s gaze slides away from yours. Maybe you need to be a little more convincing. “Let me show you.”

You’re still kissing him when Re-Destro comes back in, and you take your time pulling away, just in case Tomura had any doubts left. Tomura’s slow to let you go. Whatever Re-Destro’s just dragged in, he can see it over your shoulder, and his eyes widen. “Damn,” he says, and you turn to look.

If there’s functionality hiding somewhere in your new costume, you can’t find it. The original was washed-out grey, shapeless without a sash, obviously thrifted and cheaply made. This one is jet-black, with a shimmering veil and a silver crown, but your biggest problem with it is the shape and structure that’s been added to the tunic. It looks tight. Really tight.

Only a guy would have designed a costume like this. You cross your arms over your chest and try to keep the acid out of your voice. “What updates did you make to the functionality?”

“The reinforcing in the tunic may look cosmetic, but it was added to accommodate Kevlar paneling,” Re-Destro says. “It will be tighter and heavier than the previous costume, but it will provide protection for the center mass – which, as I’m sure you know, is the target of choice for most competent snipers.”

Tomura is smirking. “Would it stop nineteen shots?” he asks. “That’s how many times she shot you.”

“Nineteen?” Re-Destro looks genuinely puzzled. “It’s highly unlikely that anyone would aim that many shots at Saintess. She presents a much smaller target than I do.”

That, and one well-placed shot would be enough to take you down. Tomura nods, still smirking. “What else did you do to it?”

“The veil is a special fabric that functions as a two-way mirror. Saintess can see out, but no one can see in,” Re-Destro continues. “The boots are of better quality. The crown can be armed with this –”

He holds up a silver bracelet. “And once armed, it will deliver a shock to anyone who attempts to remove it.”

“Oh,” you say. “That’s – um.”

“The modifications are defensive, for the most part,” Re-Destro says. “Aesthetically, black suits the Grand Commander much better. Would you like to try it on?”

“Try it,” Tomura says. You give him a pained look. “I’m wearing the suit.”

You get a look at yourself as you’re changing into the costume and feel your heart lurch. It’s not just that it’s tighter, heavier, that the crown on your head’s gone from barely functional to weaponizable. Maybe it’s the color. Grey was passable. Black looks scary, and it only gets worse when you put on the veil. In your old costume, you look like half a ghost with a red belt and cheap shoes. In the new one, you look like a specter, a wraith. In your old costume, you were strange, but that was it. In this one, you’re unmistakably a villain.

That’s what you are now. A villain, a murderer, aiding and abetting the leader of the nation’s criminals in destroying the world-that-is with the faint hope that you can build a better one. You look like a villain because you are a villain. The sooner you get used to that, the better.

Re-Destro looks pleased when you step out from behind the screen, but Tomura doesn’t. Tomura’s frowning. “Not black,” he says.

“Red? To match with you –”

“No,” Tomura says, and for a split second, you think he’s about to put an end to this whole stupid exercise. “White.”

Re-Destro coughs. What you’re doing is more like choking. “Are you certain?” Re-Destro asks. “White has certain associations –”

“White,” Tomura says. Re-Destro starts to hem and haw about it, and Tomura cuts him off. “Make it happen. Or she wears whatever she wants – and so do I.”

Re-Destro’s definitely not about to sacrifice Tomura in a suit just so he can make you wear black. He zips off again, and Tomura reaches for you, pulls you closer. He catches the edge of your veil and flips it back, exposing your face. “You aren’t like us,” he says. “I’m not making you dress like it.”

“Not like you? I am,” you say. “I’m a villain –”

“Killing somebody to save a friend makes you a villain? No.” Tomura shakes his head. He grimaces slightly, and you realize how long he’s been standing. You need him to sit down. “That’s not who you are. I know who you are.”

He does. Just like you’ve always known who he is, underneath the hands and the suit and any other trappings of villainy he’s tried on. Still – “Does it have to be white?”

“You want it to be black?”

“Black and white aren’t the only colors on the planet,” you say. Any color is better than black, though. You’d be fine to just go with grey again, but it sounds like that’s not what Tenko wants. “I don’t want black. Do you really want it to be white?”

“Yes.”

He doesn’t say why, and you don’t ask him, but when the two of you step out onstage in front of the gathered members of the MLA, you’re dressed in white instead of grey or black. Even the League seems startled by your new look. “You look like a bride,” Toga hisses under the cover of Re-Destro’s speech.

Spinner disagrees. “You look like a ghost.”

White is a wedding color. It also symbolizes purity – and looked at another way, it symbolizes death. If Tomura’s making a statement in making you wear white, you’ve got no idea what it is. You and the others stand still through the speech, cheer dutifully when Tomura announces the MLA’s new name, chosen by Spinner and Re-Destro, and file off the stage while the members of the newly-christened Paranormal Liberation Front cheer. Dabi hops off the stage and vanishes into the crowd, and no one stops him. You stick close to Tomura. He was on his feet through the ceremony, but he’s not good at walking with the cane he has to use, and you still haven’t figured out how to make your quirk work faster.

The doctor was watching the ceremony. You know, because he calls the instant you’re offstage. “My congratulations to you, Shigaraki. Your master will be proud when he hears what you’ve accomplished.”

“I did it without him. And without you.” Tomura’s grimacing. It’s quiet for a second. “This is the part where you tell me why I should keep taking your calls.”

“Ooh, Tomura-kun is spicy today!” Toga grins. “Tomura is right, mister – why should we listen to you? What can you do for us?”

You’re not upset about the idea of cutting the doctor out of things, but you are concerned about how Tomura’s going about it. The fact that the doctor isn’t hanging up the phone somehow makes you more nervous, not less. “I understand,” the doctor says, “but why not accept the power your master and I have already stockpiled for you before you go? We were very careful in curating a collection of abilities that would suit you, and it would be a shame to waste them.”

It’s quiet for a second. “What kind of abilities?” Tomura asks.

“Why, quirks, of course!” The doctor sounds surprised that Tomura would ask, but you don’t trust the doctor on anything, let alone his reactions over the phone. If you saw him in person, you’d have a better read on him, but you can’t. “Come to meet me. Bring Saintess with you. I’m confident we can come to an agreement.”

“Why just me?” you ask. It strikes you as weird. “The rest of the League should come, too.”

“You’ll report back to them after the meeting, of course. Some of you need to remain where you are, to consolidate your control over Shigaraki’s new subjects.”

That’s true, you suppose. You still don’t like it. Nothing good has ever happened when the League’s split up – the Deika incident should be all the proof of that you need. Tomura’s thinking along the same lines. “You should come here. You’re more mobile than we are.”

“My equipment isn’t, and if I go missing, it will be noticed. Unlike you all, Saintess and I are still undercover,” the doctor says. You’re not sure how undercover you are these days – you’ve committed crimes now, and the fact that your crimes took place in the context of hundreds of other crimes doesn’t mean that Kazuo won’t spot them if he asks the right questions. “Make your arrangements, Shigaraki. Saintess and I will be waiting.”

“What?” Tomura demands, but by the time he figures it out, the warp sludge is already spewing from your mouth and nose. The last thing you see is hands reaching towards you – Spinner’s, Toga’s. Tomura’s. His fingers brush over the back of your hand, scrabbling for purchase, and then you’re gone.

You reappear in the doctor’s lab, and you’re already in a bad mood. “He’s going to kill you for that.”

“I think he’ll change his mind,” the doctor says indulgently. You don’t think that. At all. “This isn’t simply to force compliance. I have a final test to run. How severe would you say Shigaraki’s injuries are these days?”

You’re trying to cough the taste of warp sludge out of your mouth. It takes you a second. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, how much healing does he have left to do?”

“Um –” You think it over. “The internal organ lacerations are healed. His hand isn’t healing fast. He keeps trying to use it. There’s the same problem with his leg.”

“He’s far from recovered, then.” The doctor holds a set of leads out to you. “Attach these in the proper locations. No needles this time.”

He says that, but he’s lying. After a few minutes, he draws some blood, then clamps a pulse oxygen monitor onto your finger. Next he makes you huff into a peak flow monitor, at which point you start to get annoyed again. “What are you doing?”

“Healing quirks come at a cost, typically paid by the person being healed.” The doctor puts the vials of your blood into a centrifuge and sets it spinning. “The most famous quirk of that type – Heal, possessed by UA’s Recovery Girl – depends on the stamina of the individual being healed. If that stamina is exceeded by the energy needed to heal the injuries, the person dies. That quirk couldn’t have mended Shigaraki’s injuries, even if you possessed it.”

He’s looking at you, like there’s something you’re supposed to grasp here, but your mouth tastes like warp sludge, and you’re not in the mood. “And?”

“You’re smarter than that, dear. I’ll wait.”

Healing quirks have a cost. If Tomura had paid it, he would have died. The only other person in the equation is you. “It comes from me,” you say, and the doctor nods. “I didn’t feel anything. I haven’t felt anything. If I had –”

“It may not be perceptible to you at the moment, but based on the tests I’m conducting as we speak, your body is under a level of strain that does not match your current exertion.” The doctor points out the EKG he’s been taking, which shows consistent tachycardia, and the peak flow output, which is low, and your pulse oxygen, which is also low. “My current theory is this: When you are close to Shigaraki, the strain is negligible. The farther you are from him, the harder your body has to work in order to maintain the same boost to his healing capacity. I further theorize that this effect grows more pronounced when his injuries are severe.”

“So if I was far enough away from him and he was badly hurt –”

“Your body would exhaust its own resources to maintain the healing factor, and you’d die,” the doctor says, like he’s talking about the weather. “For a quirk that can’t be switched off, this is disastrous, and it leads me to believe that there’s a third difference between your quirk and your cousin’s. La Brava’s quirk costs her nothing. It’s simply an expression of her love. But your quirk, taken to its extreme, could lead you to pay the ultimate price.”

You don’t know what to say to that. Or what to think about it. Your mind is completely blank. “In light of that,” the doctor continues, “it’s likely that love is not the only requirement for the activation of your quirk. Tell me – before you spoke the activation phrase, would you happen to have had any thought about valuing Shigaraki’s survival above your own?”

No. You didn’t, and you’re about to say that – and then you remember one desperate thought, as you were holding his hand and staring at certain doom spelled out on the screen. “Yes.”

“That’s the key, then, and why your quirk didn’t activate the first time you told a person you loved them,” the doctor says. He sounds pleased with himself. “Your quirk bestows an increased healing factor on the person you love most, whose life you place above your own. Devotion doesn’t begin to cover it.”

A device is beeping somewhere in the offing. The doctor consults it. “Shigaraki is trying to reach me. Take those leads off. I’ll bring him here shortly.”

The doctor answers the call. You can hear Tomura snarling at him through the phone, and the doctor assuring him that you’re perfectly fine. The doctor gestures for the Nomu with the warp quirk to activate it, and Tomura’s voice chokes off suddenly. He’ll be here soon. He’ll be here soon, and with what you know now about your quirk – “Sir,” you say to the doctor, and he looks at you. “Don’t tell him.”

“Why, Saintess, I’m surprised at you. Don’t you think that’s something your master should know?”

“Yes,” you say, because it is. “But it’s my quirk. I’ll tell him myself.”

“Of course,” the doctor says. Warp sludge spills into midair, falling from Tomura’s mouth, and you can see fury on his face. “In exchange, I’ll need you to prevent him from killing me.”

Right. You get between Tomura and the doctor just as the last of the warp sludge dissipates. “I’m fine,” you say to Tomura. “The doctor just wanted to talk to me about – doctor stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“How you were healing, mainly.” That’s not a lie. You leave out the part where the doctor was more interested in the mechanism of the healing than how it’s going. “Is everything okay back there?”

“Spinner and Compress are in charge until we get back,” Tomura says. He’s glaring at the doctor over your shoulder. “When are we getting back?”

“Yes. As you know, your master has been compiling quirks for you, in order to allow you to become the next him,” the doctor says. That’s news to you, but Tomura doesn’t look surprised. “Based on the Deika incident and your takeover of the Meta Liberation Army, you’ve reached the physical strength and maturity necessary to manage them. Some you’ll recognize, as they’re copies of the quirks your master possessed –”

“Why are they copies?”

“It was intended to be the originals, but your master was captured after Kamino,” the doctor says. Tomura’s shoulders tense. “No need to worry. The copies are just as good.”

“Which quirks of his do I get?” Tomura doesn’t look opposed to the idea. He doesn’t necessarily look into it, either. “I don’t want all of them.”

“We’ll go over the full list in a moment, but there are two that are particularly important,” the doctor says. “First is your master’s quirk – All For One. He currently possesses a copy. You will receive the original. Second, there is a synthetic quirk, one I’ve been working on for quite some time: Super-Regeneration.“

Something clicks into place in your head. “My quirk speeds up Tomura’s natural healing process. If the starting point of that is Super-Regeneration –”

“Then Shigaraki becomes nearly indestructible,” the doctor says. “The injuries you suffered in the takeover of the Meta Liberation Army were severe, and the recovery has been unpleasant. Imagine never taking that sort of damage again.”

Tomura is nodding, and it occurs to you that there’s another side effect. If Tomura has Super-Regeneration, if your quirk is accelerating an already-advanced healing capability, the likelihood that Tomura will take an injury that it would kill you to heal is low. “All For One, and Super-Regeneration,” Tomura says, and you try to focus. “What else?”

There’s a list. Search, a quirk stolen from a pro hero that allows the user to gather information about a person just by looking at them. Air Walk, which gives the capability of flight. Strength and speed enhancements. Something called Radio Waves, that would let Tomura disrupt electronic communications at will. With this collection of quirks, combined with Decay, Tomura would be close to omnipotent. As close as it’s possible to get.

Tomura doesn’t think so. “This isn’t enough,” he says. “All Might –”

“You aren’t facing All Might,” the doctor reminds him. “And One For All’s new wielder is nowhere near his master’s level.”

You feel like you missed something. “What’s One For All?”

The doctor looks askance at Tomura. “You didn’t tell her?”

“It didn’t come up,” Tomura snaps, but he looks guilty when he turns to you. “There’s this quirk that gets passed from person to person. It collects their physical abilities and it collects their quirks, if they have quirks. My grandma was the seventh person to have it. All Might’s the eighth. Midoriya’s the ninth.”

“Oh,” you say. “That’s why he’s – like that.”

“A pain in the ass? Yeah.” Tomura is scowling. “Sensei made that quirk – One For All. He wants it back.”

“That’s why you need your master’s quirk,” the doctor says. “It will allow you to take it from Midoriya Izuku and restore it to its rightful place.”

“It gets passed from person to person,” you say. You’re still a bit stuck on that one. “That means All Might picked Midoriya to follow in his footsteps. Why?”

“Your guess is as good as mine –”

“It’s because he’s stupid,” Tomura interrupts the doctor. “Throwing himself into the middle of fights he doesn’t belong in, like there’s nobody he can’t save – the same thing All Might does, except Midoriya can’t even do it – it’s pathetic. That quirk should die with him.”

“Toga will be mad,” you say, like an idiot. Tomura looks taken aback. “You said you wouldn’t destroy the stuff she likes.”

“She needs better taste,” Tomura mutters.

“It seems reclaiming One For All is the wiser course of action,” the doctor says. “You’ll fulfill your master’s dream, and grant Toga’s wish at the same time. Midoriya Izuku will be much easier for her to manage without a quirk.”

Without a quirk? “He’s quirkless?”

“So was All Might.” Tomura changes the subject while you’re still reeling from the fact that the ranks of the quirkless used to include both the Number One hero and his successor. “Those are my master’s quirks. What else do you have for me?”

“Dabi’s test of the High End Nomu was successful, and I have five in the early stages,” the doctor says, “along with many near-High Ends and others who can serve as foot soldiers. They’ll all be keyed to respond to your voice, just as Gigantomachia does. And once you have your master’s quirk, we’ll be able to produce them quickly. The process of transplanting quirks without All For One is painfully slow.”

“I knew there was a catch,” Tomura says. “How long is it going to take to give me those quirks?”

“Four months,” the doctor says.

It’s quiet for a second. “And?” Tomura says.

“And it won’t be easy. There’s a reason the process is usually conducted on corpses,” the doctor says. “You’ll spend the majority of those four months in hellish pain.”

Your stomach clenches with fear, and the thought comes into your mind, then out of your mouth, with no editing whatsoever. “It’s not worth it.”

The doctor and Tomura both turn to look at you. The doctor looks annoyed. “We’ll transplant Super-Regeneration first. That will decrease the risk of death –”

Of death? “That’s not the point,” you say. You’re not going to convince the doctor. There’s only one person here who matters. You turn to Tomura. “The point is – you were right before. You don’t need this. You can do what you need to do without it.”

“Four months is a long time. The longer we wait to act, the more likely it is that the heroes catch on,” Tomura says. “I’ll take the Nomus. Not the rest.”

“Without your master’s quirk, the Nomus are a finite resource,” the doctor says to Tomura. “I understand your hesitancy. Four months is not insignificant. Take my proposal back to discuss with the rest of your comrades. Keep in mind that nothing will happen before your injuries are fully healed. Is that agreeable to you?”

“Yes,” Tomura says, without looking at you. “My injuries should be healed in two weeks. If the League decides to accept your offer, we’ll start then. Send us back.”

He reaches for your hand, grasps it as the Nomu with the warp quirk reappears – but you pull it out of his grip at the last minute. You need to have a conversation with the doctor.

The doctor looks surprised to see you. “Is there something else we need to discuss, Saintess?”

“You’ve got procedure notes for what you do to make the Nomus. I want them.”

The doctor’s eyes narrow. “Why should I give them to you?”

“Tomura should know exactly what you’re planning to do to him before he decides,” you say. “If this could kill him –”

“It won’t kill him,” the doctor says. You open your mouth to argue and he cuts you off. “As I said. I’ll transplant Super-Regeneration first. Combine that with your quirk, and we’ll have no trouble whatsoever, assuming you’re present for the key points of the process. It should all be fine if you go along.”

“If it’s all going to be fine, then give me the procedure notes,” you say. The doctor rolls his eyes. “Why not? Do you have something to hide?”

The doctor looks offended for a second, but then his expression smooths out. “I suppose in your position I would have the same concerns. Just a moment.” He turns away and taps a screen, and somewhere further back in the recesses of the room a printer whirs to life. “I’ll include the list of quirks to be transplanted, as well as the planned designs for the Nomus. Shigaraki should know exactly what he’s gaining from this exchange.”

He vanishes into the darkness, and you cross your arms over your chest. “Do you ever turn the lights on in here?”

“You should know by now, Saintess – some deeds are best done in darkness.”

What is that supposed to mean? You wait, your nerves already jangling. Tomura’s going to be angry when you get back. You can already tell that the two of you are out of alignment on this, that your loyalty to him is going to force a clash with his plans, and somehow you don’t think that showing him whatever the doctor’s going to do to him will change his mind.

But you won’t know that until you try. And you have to try. The doctor comes back and drops a stack of papers into your arms. “Run along, Saintess,” he instructs, and beckons the Nomu forward. But then he stops, studying you. “Was the white costume your idea?”

You shake your head. “He insisted.”

“Mm.” The doctor frowns. “All For One won’t like that.”

“My costume color?” You can’t help but be a little incredulous. “All For One’s in prison. He has bigger things to worry about than what I look like.”

“Shigaraki is meant to be the next All For One,” the doctor says. He gestures at you. “This is a complication. You’re quite lucky to have a useful quirk.”

This is weird. You’ve always gotten the sense that the doctor liked you, and the change of tune makes you nervous. You fall back into conciliation, a position you’re maybe too familiar with. “If he says yes,” you say, “and I’m here while it happens, can I learn about it from you? I can’t be as useful to him as you are to All For One, but I want to be able to help as much as I can.”

It’s quiet for a second. You’re not sure if he’s taken the bait. “Of course, my dear,” the doctor says finally. His smile doesn’t seem faked, but you don’t know if you have enough data to say for sure. “You’ll be here already. I’d be remiss if I didn’t allow such a devoted servant to learn how to help her master – and with your medical background, you’ll be an apt pupil. Hurry back, now. Your master is waiting.”

Tomura’s angry with you when you get back for not going with him, just like you thought he’d be. He’s less angry when you present him with the information you collected, and explain that it’s why you stayed behind – but less angry isn’t the same thing as not angry at all. “Don’t do that again,” he says, even after you’ve reassured him. “I don’t trust him with you.”

“But I’m supposed to trust him with you?”

“That’s different.”

“No, it isn’t.” You aren’t going to let it go. “You love me. You don’t want me to be hurt or taken advantage of. You want me to be safe.”

“Of course I do –”

“That’s what I want for you,” you say. The documents feel heavy in your hands. “I want us to win. I want us to do it fast, and I want it to be decisive. But I don’t want to see him hurt you. I don’t trust him, either. Not with you.”

Tomura gives you a curious look. “Why not?”

“I can’t put my finger on it,” you admit. “The way he talks. Something about how he says things. It bothers me and I don’t know why. And when you’ve been hurt and he hasn’t helped you –”

“He’s an asshole,” Tomura agrees. “But he’s not going to screw me. That would get in the way of Sensei’s plans, and he wouldn’t do that.”

No, he wouldn’t. If the doctor sees a reflection of his loyalty in yours, he’d never jeopardize All For One’s plans for Tomura. But you don’t know if All For One’s plans for Tomura and Tomura’s plans for Tomura line up. That’s not an argument you can have today. Tenko’s been touchy in the past when you’ve directly crossed All For One – so touchy, in fact, that you haven’t brought it up since the night you refused to go along with the idea that Tenko killed his family on purpose. Things are tense enough. You can’t bring that up right now.

What you can do is make your case. “We should talk to the others. I’ll read this over so I can explain what’s in it. If you’re serious about everybody deciding together –”

“I’m serious.”

“We should have all the information when we do.” You find the nearest wall and sit down with your back to it, only to immediately get to your knees to stop Tomura from falling face-first as he tries to join you. “Hey. No. You need to rest, not sit on the floor!”

“Technically I’m lying on the floor.” Tomura waits until you’ve gotten settled again, then lifts the documents out of your lap so he can put his head there. “And I’m resting. Are you really going to make me move?”

“Yes,” you say. Tomura looks up at you. “Are you really going to give me puppy eyes?”

“If it works.” Tomura closes them, looking almost unbearably smug. “Wake me up when you’re done reading.”

“Don’t you want to read them with me?”

“I didn’t finish kindergarten. You graduated high school and did college.” Tomura yawns. “You can explain it to me. You always know how to say things right.”

It’s quiet for a little bit. Your head hurts and you’re unsettled, so unsettled that having to sit still for this feels impossible. Tomura’s good hand pulls lightly at the edge of the veil. “Take this off. I want to see.”

You don’t take it off, but you do flip the edge of it up and back over your head, out of the way. “Yes?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“You’ve never asked me that before,” you say. “Not even after you tried to kill me.”

“I didn’t want to kill you,” Tomura says, even though that’s not what you said. “I want to know. Are you mad at me?”

“No,” you say, and mean it. The relief that crossed Tomura’s face makes you want to cry.

You aren’t mad at him, but you feel like things are slipping out of control, and you can’t stop it. The more power Tomura amasses, the more moving parts there are, the more places there are for things to fall apart – and for every one you know to be wary of, there are probably three more you’d never see coming. Your quirk can save Tomura, sure, but it can’t protect him. You don’t know how to convince people, how to win them over to your side. You’re right about this. You know you’re right about it, even if you can’t explain why, but you have a bad feeling that it’s not going to make any difference at all.

You have to wake Tomura up before you’re done reading, because someone from the MLA comes along and freaks out at seeing the Grand Commander fast asleep on the floor. You trail along at Tomura’s side into the rooms they’ve set aside for him, which look like the kind of penthouse rich people live in, and get yanked onto the bed next to him as soon as he’s gotten under the covers. You finish the rest of the reading there, and then you go looking for the League, a hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach the entire time.

You start off by explaining the medical procedures the doctor’s going to put Tomura through, but nobody’s listening – they’re too interested in the list of quirks Tomura’s going to pick up as a result. Dabi’s interested in the Nomus, and in the idea that you could learn how to make them; Compress is more interested in the financial resources the doctor can cough up to support all of you. “These Liberationists are too stingy,” he says, when you ask him. “I’m tired of arguing with Skeptic every time we order in.”

Spinner snorts at that. “More money won’t hurt,” he agrees. “We need better gear, and weapons –”

“And costumes!” Twice chimes in. “How come Saintess is the only one who’s got a new look?”

He starts describing what he wants his new look to be, and Dabi starts picking on him about it. Compress looks like he’s thinking about takeout, and Spinner is scratching the League of Legends logo onto a desk with his fingernail. Your blood pressure is rising. “Did any of you hear what I said? These kind of procedures –”

“He’s got you. Nothing to worry about,” Dabi says. “I’d go through that and worse to crush the Number One hero – if I didn’t know how to do it already.”

“We know, we know. You have a super secret mission,” Toga says, to the tune of snickering from Spinner. Toga isn’t laughing. “I don’t want Izuku to get hurt. Just because I think he’s cute when he’s bloody doesn’t mean I want him to get hurt. Saintess doesn’t even like blood.”

“Who cares about that? Get to the point.”

“If I was Saintess, I’d worry too,” Toga says. You feel a surge of relief that almost makes you dizzy. “I was listening. Those quirks all sound really nice, Tomura. But you have a good quirk already – and you have all of us. You don’t need those quirks to win.”

“So you say no,” Tomura clarifies, and Toga nods. She’s sitting closest to you, on the end of Tomura’s bed, and she reaches out to squeeze your hand. You squeeze back. “That’s one against.”

“For, obviously,” Dabi says. He gives you a dirty look. “If you’re really going to walk away from that much power because your girlfriend’s scared, Shigaraki, maybe you shouldn’t be the next leader at all.”

That’s the kind of bait Tomura would have risen to back when this started. He lets it go and looks to Twice. “I think it’s nice that you’re worried,” Twice says to you, “but I’m with Dabi.”

“I’m not so sure,” Compress says. “It’s a risk, and we’d lose too much time. Our control over the Liberationists isn’t solidified. We need you here. And yet –”

You’re hopeful for a second. “That much power shouldn’t be left on the table,”

Compress says. “I vote yes. For reasons other than Dabi’s.”

That’s three in favor. “I vote no,” you say. There’s only one vote left, and it should be in favor of your position, which will force a tie. “Spinner?”

“Yes,” Spinner says without hesitating. Toga’s grip on your hand tightens almost to the point of pain, and the distraction it lends is the only reason why you don’t lose your shit instantly. “If that power’s there, you should take it. It’s not like it’ll hurt to have it.”

“It won’t hurt you,” you say, and Spinner startles at the sound of your voice. “None of you understand what this means.”

“We understand,” Dabi says. He looks warier of you than you’ve seen before. “We care more about winning than we do about Shigaraki getting an owie.”

“Don’t care about that, then. Care about what I’m going to do to you the second I figure out how this Nomu thing works.”

Dabi sneers. “That’s not very saintlike of you, is it, Saintess?”

“That’s the name you all gave me,” you say. Your body is shaking with rage. You hold still with an effort, death-gripping Toga’s hand. “Want to bet on whether it fits?”

“Hey, take it down a notch,” Twice says. He’s looking back and forth between you and Dabi and Spinner, clearly anxious. “It’s going to be fine! You’ve got your quirk now. You won’t let anything bad happen to the boss.”

He doesn’t understand. None of them understand that the bad thing is this. This is the thing you’re supposed to protect him from — people who would hurt him, people who don’t care that they’re hurting him, people who want to use him for their own twisted, selfish needs. You’re pissed at Dabi, frustrated with Twice, but both of those are misdirections. There are two people you’re angry with right now. One of them is Spinner, who acts like he cares about Tomura only to pull this bullshit. The other one is you.

“Twice, get out of my way. Or at least make a clone of her that I can torch.” Dabi’s eyes are locked on yours. “You want to do this? Fine. Let’s do it. Let’s see how good you are at –”

“No,” Tomura snaps from the bed. “Get out.”

He’s talking to Dabi. You know he’s talking to Dabi. You get up from the bed anyway and head for the door, faster than Tomura can protest, faster than anyone can stop you. The door shuts behind you before he can even say a word.

“Hey!” Toga’s voice follows you, and you glance back, startled. She’s still holding your hand. You’ve been dragging her. “Slow down, okay? I got hurt in the fight too and I don’t have a pretty girlfriend who can heal me.”

“Sorry.” You try to let go, but Toga won’t let you. “Let go. I need to be alone.”

“No.” Toga shakes her head. “I’ve never seen you get mad like that before. Nobody has. Not even Tomura-kun.”

You remember Tenko asking you, forever ago, when the last time was that you really got mad at somebody. You can’t remember being this angry as an adult. As a teenager, sure. You were never good at calming down, and that’s why you need to be alone, because you only know one way to do it. You yank your arm back from Toga, and she tightens her grip. “We’re supposed to be friends,” she says. Her sharp-toothed smile is tight and anxious. “Friends talk to each other.”

You don’t want to talk. Even thinking about your feelings is impossible sometimes. But she’s not letting go of you, and the sooner you give her what she wants, the sooner you can get away. “I’m useless,” you spit. “I can’t stop him from doing this. I can’t make all of you see that it’s wrong. I can’t make Spinner pay – I expect this shit from Dabi, but he doesn’t get to act like – if you knew –”

You’re getting incoherent. Your face is heating up behind the veil, and your eyes are starting to burn, and now that you’ve started talking, you can’t stop. “I can’t do anything even now that I have a quirk. I just have to stand here and watch and I don’t care that it’ll kill me before it kills him –”

Toga’s eyes widen. You shouldn’t have said that. It’s not the point. “I’m useless,” you say again. “Quirk or no quirk. I can’t save him. I have to save him and I don’t know how.”

“You sound like Izuku,” Toga observes, and you blink. “He has to save people too. He gets upset when he thinks he can’t, but he always finds a way. You can find a way to save Tomura-kun. You did it before.”

“No, I couldn’t.” Your voice wavers. “Not when it counted.”

Toga gives you an odd look, asks you what you mean, but it’s too late. Your mind’s already spun off, carrying you back fifteen years – almost sixteen, now – to the wreckage of Tenko’s house.

The instant you realized what you were walking in, what was sticky and staining the bottoms of your bare feet, your heart stopped. You didn’t throw up. Throwing up would have been normal. Screaming would have been normal, and you did scream – but not yet. As soon as you realized what you were walking in, panic seized you by the throat, and you picked up the pace, feeling your stomach lurch every time you identified another piece of a person you knew. Tenko’s grandmother’s glasses. His grandfather’s wedding ring. Bloodstained strands of his mother’s hair. Hana’s favorite hair tie and Tenko’s dad’s wristwatch and Mon’s collar with its little bell, and by then you were crying so hard you could barely see. But you kept moving, banging your shins on chunks of rubble, blood staining your nightgown, looking for the person who was missing, your favorite person in the whole world. He wasn’t there. His family was there, but he wasn’t, and that was when you screamed. Tenko!

The scream brought the neighbors running, and some of them threw up. A lot of them cried. A lot of them called the cops, and then your parents came looking for you — but you were already on the move, leaving horrible bloody footprints on the sidewalk. Tenko wasn’t there at his house, which meant he was somewhere else, and you were his sidekick, his best friend. It was your job to find him.

You didn’t get far before your parents caught you, and they dragged you back into the house to clean you up and make you get dressed for school — but then they let you walk to school, and of course you went the opposite way as soon as you were out of sight. Whoever took Tenko had a head start on you, but you knew Tenko would be trying to escape, and once he did, you’d find him and the two of you could hide. You’d find him; you’d have to find him. There wasn’t another choice.

But people were looking for you — the school called your parents when you didn’t show up, and your parents called the police. You were so out of your mind that you thought they were there to help you look for Tenko when they showed up. When you realized they weren’t, you ran away from them, too. A hero caught you next, and you bit him when he picked you up, not that it helped at all. You couldn’t figure out why so many people were looking for you, when you still had a family, when you had somewhere to go home to. You were fine. They should have been looking for him.

You turned into sort of an escape artist over the next week. You snuck away at school, climbed out the window at home, even ducked a turnstile and made your way onto a train deeper into the city to look for him there. Even if Tenko couldn’t get away just yet, he had to know you were looking for him, right? He had to know you wouldn’t let somebody take him away. Even if nobody else was looking, you were going to keep looking until you found him.

You don’t remember why you stopped. You have a vague memory of your mom giving you a medication, something she said would make you feel better while you looked for Tenko, but whatever it was, it just made you tired. Tired, and slow. Even when you snuck out, which you did, you’d forget where you were going almost instantly. You don’t remember what the medication was, just that it tasted bitter on your tongue. Just that they made you keep taking it until Isuzu was old enough to walk. After that they needed you too much to drug you into compliance. After that it was too late to keep looking.

No, it wasn’t too late. You just gave up. If you hadn’t given up, if you’d kept trying, if you hadn’t let him go, none of this would have –

“Hey!” Toga shakes your shoulder, snapping you out of it. Your face is wet under your veil. Your eyes are stinging. “It counts. You got to see him again and you get to keep him, so it counts. But you have to calm down or they won’t listen to you anymore.”

She’s right about that. Showing them that you can get angry right after you’ve shown them that you’re not afraid to shoot people has given you a little unpredictability, the kind that the rest of the League already has, the kind that makes people think twice about crossing you. You’ll lose that if anybody catches you crying in the hallway over how you failed your best friend. You stick your hand under your veil and wipe your eyes, and your phone starts to buzz in your pocket. You pull it out, and when you see the caller ID, your heart sinks. It’s Kazuo.

“I have to take this,” you say to Toga, and she nods but doesn’t leave. You accept the call and put the phone to your ear. “Hey.”

“You’re inside my parameters,” Kazuo says. You close your eyes. “Illegal possession of a firearm, assault with a deadly weapon, voluntary manslaughter. I’ll conceal your identity as long as possible, but if they use a truth-detecting quirk or a mind-reader on me, I won’t be able to hide it.”

“I know,” you say. “Thank you, Kazuo. I don’t know how I can repay you.”

“You sound unwell.”

“So do you,” you say. They must be pushing him hard. The MLA concealed the Deika incident, but you know better than to think the HPSC believes the cover-up. A hit of inspiration comes to you. “Ditch them. Join us.”

Toga elbows you sharply, but Kazuo’s already saying no. “If I go missing, they’ll turn their investigative skills on me, and on my known associates. You’ll be discovered faster than you would have otherwise.”

“It’s not about that,” you say. “They’re going to find out about me eventually anyway. It’s about you being safe.”

“You can’t save us both –”

“Fuck you,” you say sharply, and both Toga and Kazuo suck down shocked breaths. “I have to save somebody. It’s our fault that you’re in this spot, and you’ve still been helping me. Please let me help you.”

“I can’t,” Kazuo says, and you’re about to swear at him again when he follows up. “Not yet. Once things become more chaotic, maybe – but this isn’t the only reason I called. The HPSC has a spy inside your new organization.”

“Oh,” you say after a moment. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

That’s something you haven’t heard Kazuo say in a while. That’s something you’ve never heard Kazuo say. “Uh –”

“I’ve asked the question, but there are thousands of potential answers. I can’t sort through them without losing consciousness.” Kazuo sounds so tired. “There are heroes among your ranks. It could be one of them. The HPSC could have recruited someone entirely unknown. There is no way for me to narrow the results without more information, and I discovered the existence of a spy only by accident. If I knew more, I would tell you.”

“I know you would,” you say. Your heart aches. “As soon as you can come to us, do it. I’ll make sure you don’t have to use your quirk again if you don’t want to.”

“You can’t –”

Saying you can isn’t going to change his mind. It won’t help you, either. “I will.”

“Hey!”

You and Toga both look up to find either Twice or one of his clones hurrying down the hall towards you. You tell Kazuo to stay safe and hang up the phone in a hurry. Twice stops once he’s close, out of breath. “The boss is losing it,” he explains. “You left and then Re-Destro showed up because he heard we were making decisions without him –”

Great. “So then Shigaraki threatened to Decay him the rest of the way and Dabi said he can’t just Decay people because his girlfriend left him – and then Compress and Spinner were trying to convince him that you aren’t actually leaving him – are you actually leaving him? Because if you are we have more problems than I thought we did.”

“She’s not leaving him,” Toga says confidently. Then she looks at you. “You aren’t, right?”

You can’t decide whether nodding or shaking your head is the appropriate response. You go with nodding, and take it as a good sign that nobody panics. “I just needed a break,” you say. “And I just talked to my contact at the HPSC. Apparently we’ve got a spy somewhere in the PLF.”

“Well, shit,” Twice says. “We gotta tell Shigaraki right now!”

He doubles himself, and both versions of him hold out their hands to help you and Toga to your feet. Then he borrows a trick from your book and sets off down the hall without letting go, pulling you along in his wake. You’ve got a few more minutes at most to work things out in your head.

But in the end, there’s not that much to work out. Kazuo said you can’t save both – him and Tomura, or you and him – and for the first time in his life, you’re going to prove him wrong. You’ll find a way for Kazuo to be safe, and for Mitsuko and Ryuhei, who only got involved in this because of you. And it doesn’t matter anymore that you couldn’t save Tomura when you both were children. You’ll just have to make up for it by saving him now.