#(and are currently studying two but only have speaking capabilities in one)

[twelve-nights]

sometimes i feel like my entire life is the nuance button on pollS

[technicallyastar]

Enlightened

DemiGod!Two Time x Reader

(a bit of practice writing for Two Time, his character intimidates me and I fear I don't do them justice, I hope I wrote the #creepyasf-ness well.)

Summary, you were so privileged to be given the chance to sleep with a divine child of Spawn; the chance to copulate with one of the most powerful of Spawns disciple's. They could give you so much. Could give you infinite potential and strength beyond your mortal comprehension if you would just give in.

Your hands trembled as you turned the ancient gold-leafed pages of text, eyes barely scanning the words and figures. You weren’t actually reading or studying or searching for answers but rather wandering lost in the planes of your own mind. The events of the past few weeks had finally caught up with you and both your mind and heart were left careening down the path of no return. It was only a matter of time before the consequences of your actions caught up to you as well and the ghosts of regrets and all you had left behind began to fester in your mind. As you sat at the foot of the transcendent eldritch throne with the cursed tome of spawn weighing heavy in your lap, all you could think about was escape, too return back, to be anywhere else.

“turning to the anachronistic texts this evening?”

Their voice emanated from everywhere all at once like they spoke through the very architecture and air itself. You could feel the ominous, oppressive force of their presence approaching and as always it made an awful shiver cascade down your spine. Despite being their chosen vessel the presence of fear never left the pit of your stomach when they were close. Only a fool wouldn’t cower before the omnipotent force that was Two Time and you were no fool - you were painfully aware of the terrifying predicament you had become entombed within.

“Yes my lord. Just doing a bit of reading before we retreat for the night,” you answered quietly and focused your gaze on the pages laid bare in your lap. The scripture of old robloxian tongue seemed to glare up at you as if its very parchment knew of your lie.

“And what passages are you studying? I always find that tome so amusing.” they mused and steadily walked closer until they were directly at your side. Their bony hand rested heavy on your scalp and they delicately carded their fingers along your scalp. The gesture instantly lowered your guard and you felt your eyelids growing heavy, drooping, begging to close…

“The passage about the old sanctuary. I find it fascinating how far they've come throughout the centuries, how all of their worship and sacrifices have transformed them,” you answered in a quiet murmur and glared down at the pages through half-lidded eyes. His fingers started at your scalp and ran through your locks until they reached the tips. “But also how interesting their worship is, their history, just…everything.”

You found it impossible to keep speaking as their gentle petting continued. It didn’t take long before you were completely lulled into a false sense of security and almost put under a hypnotic trance. Tingling sparks cascaded down your body and followed the trail of their trance-like touch. You found yourself leaning back and reclining against their lean legs.

It all felt so…dreamy and peaceful.

“Have you read the passage concerning their telekinetic abilities? As you are aware the enlightened ones though their propensity for exploring the depths of living consciousness is not as advanced as my own they are still capable of probing your thoughts. Just barely pulling back the veil but enough to see what makes you tick. But I can see further. I can observe every single fleeting thought that enters your mortal mind.” 

Your eyes flew open in an instant and you went as rigid as the fingers currently digging into your scalp. The thundering of your pulse drowned out everything else and the fear you felt was practically suffocating you to the point you could barely breathe. One would think that in such circumstances the brain would race with possibilities of escape and any and all available lies to spew but your mind was seized with terror and therefore, completely empty.

“Why have you been contemplating escape?” they asked innocently, as if they were a child asking 'why is the sky blue?' and in an instant the air became even more oppressive despite the playful lilt in their voice it bore down upon you like physical weights. It felt as if hundreds of eyes were staring at you from the darkness - watching and scrutinizing every single movement you made, waiting for you to slip up. You didn’t know how to respond and you couldn’t even form the words to even defend yourself.

"Speak Lamb. Silence will not save you.”

“M-my Lord…please grant me mercy and understanding, like spawn would...” you started slowly, choosing your words carefully. Now your thoughts were beginning to rush in a panicked dam break but it didn’t matter. They were able to read your stream of consciousness like an open book so there was no point in even attempting to formulate excuses or explanations, you could only plead now.

You took a shuddering breath and when you exhaled you felt all of your nerves and every muscle in your body tighten up. But before you could speak he began to lay out your trepidations and fears bare before you like an awful offering all with a radiant smile.

“You fear retaliation against us for the actions we have taken to reclaim our land, and every sacrifice you have committed in my name in order to lie with me. You worry about harm befalling us and your loved ones despite how woefully outside the realm of possibility such occurrences lay. Such a silly lamb,” he murmured and gently dragged his fingers through your hair again. He moved to stand in front of you and you quickly squeezed your eyes shut before being confronted with his visage. “So many worries filling up that pretty head then there are grains of salt in the sea. I would question you further but then I remember that, despite my blessings and assistance, you are still only a human, you have yet too receive the gift of Spawns enlightenment.”

A human that had committed various atrocities and wanted nothing more than to disappear because of them. A human that's left everything for a lover they felt they knew no longer... Not since they've been changed, 'enlightened' by spawn.

A human that longed to return to a normal life with their lover without the burden of the knowledge you both knew now or the new purpose your lover mantled championing the effort to two spread spawns reach throughout all of robloxia. 

“Look into my eyes and speak,” they commanded, voice low and threatening. A bony, calloused hand took hold of your chin and tilted it upwards and you took a shuddering breath before gazing up into the deep dark depth of their eyes, eyes of  inescapable madness. 

In all honesty you should have felt privileged. No living being had ever gazed into the eyes of the unfathomable and survived to tell the tale. But there you sat with trembling hands and eyes welling up with tears and a heart threatening to rip its way through the bone and sinew of your chest, staring at the human visage of a Enlightened One.

“Youre right. I am w-weak and afraid,” you finally managed to say and felt twin rivers carve paths down your cheeks from your eyes. The whispers were nearly deafening and there were thousands of unblinking, black  eyes peering at you from the darkness. The edges of your vision pulsed with writhing, hideous amalgamations of things you couldn’t understand and your brain felt like it was throbbing in your skull like a heartbeat. Your grip on reality was crumbling like so much sand between your fingers and there was nothing you could do to stop it - nothing you could do to prevent your mind from totally shattering into millions of pieces -

“Its okay Lamb.” Two Time piped cheerily and finally released your chin, painfully dragging their nails down your skin and leaving angry red marks. You gasped loudly and squeezed your eyes shut again as you were able to regain mental and physical control. Your shaking hands instinctively flew to your burning eyes and shielded them from the phosphorous lights in the throne room and from accidentally gazing into those horrible black eyes again.  

 “Though, You insult me. You insult both my intelligence and conviction in appointing you as my priestess and scared vessel. Do you honestly believe that a god of my intellect would impart my divine rights given unto me by spawn, onto a weak, pathetic troglodyte unable to understand their teachings? Their lessons? Their duty? I demand an apology, now.”

“I apologize Sire,” you spoke and finally pulled your hands away from your face. Your palms and cheeks were a mess of watery red streaks and you realized that tears hadn’t been the only thing you had wept. “I apologize a thousand times and it was never my intention to insult you, especially not your intellect. Please forgive me.”

Their Cheshire smile widened too such impossible lengths that it almost made you lurch, a their response to your heartfelt plea only meant damnation. You felt a slight shift in reality and when they spoke again his voice sounded from behind.

“Sweet Morning Lamb... As pitiful as you are it is even more pitiful how infatuated with you I remain,” they sighed and you felt his foot nudge the small of your back. “I so deeply regret making you my human host, and yet It will spawns will, This is your destiny as it is mines…”

Their voice trailed off to join the hushed, eldritch whispers as they continued to float like wisps in the air of the throne room. You managed to clean your face of tears and blood with your handkerchief but you were still so on edge knowing that omnipresent gaze was still probing your thoughts. Your hands shook with uncontrollable tremors as you returned your attention to the neglected book and turned the page. The quiet minutes seemed to stretch on for an eternity as you sat there, staring, blank-minded, hoping and praying that your brain would be able to start comprehending the words on the page again. 

“Come closer, darling. I wish for you to read to me,” Two Time finally spoke in that dark rumble as they once again prodded your back with the toe of his bare feet. “We have gotten so few of these calm moments just to ourselves. Logic dictates that we should make the most of them, don’t you agree?”

“Yes sire,” you quietly agreed and managed to stand despite the weakness in your knees. You held the book clasped in your hands as you straightened your rumpled robes and hair before turning around. When you faced him you were rendered immobile. It was impossible to not stand in awe of the Enlightened One and you found yourself doing just that - observing and trying to comprehend their magnificence.

In this form they resembled an middle aged man with long black hair, nearly translucent white skin. His eyes were exactly the same, a terrifying and piercing charcoal black that were capable of breaking the most willful with just a gaze. That evening their long hair was wild and roused and they was dressed casually in a simple black tight silk turtleneck with the symbol of spawn plastered over the front of the material with matching flowing harem pants and you could trace every curve of his muscle through the thin fabric. He was lean but built and looking at him made you so weak in the knees you despised it. And the way he was sat upon his throne, head resting on his hand, just watching you with burning gaze.

You were so weak...

 "angel come, lie with me,” they murmured and patted their lean thigh. You nodded and went to them, gently taking your place on their legs. Apparently you weren’t close enough because their built arm wrapped around your waist and pulled you closer until your back was flush with their chest and you were able to tuck your legs up into the throne itself. Your heart was once again beating wildly in your chest.

“Relax. Spawn has blessed us with this time, savour it lamb."

“Even though I insulted you?” you quietly asked.

Two Time sighed heavily and the walls and pillars and floors seemed to heave in time with their chest. Fingers tangled and toyed themselves in your hair again and for once they frowned.

“Such a lamb, concerned about such trivial nonsense. Inconsequential silly matters that have no forebearing on the present or future,” they hummed as they continued to play with your hair. The low, rumbling timbre of their voice and the warmth of their body; you were totally under their spell again. All you wanted was to be safe and able to relax but you knew that any second they could rip every bit of comfort and humanity from your poor body.

“I will never leave you,” they cooed directly into your ear and you instinctively jumped but their arm around your waist kept you trapped in their embrace. “You are entitled to your frivolous human beliefs and your thoughts are your own but they are redundant. I am able to exist freely in this dimension without a human host and still you are my chosen one. So relax... my precious, delicate little lamb. I have yet to cause you physical harm so why do you insist on fearing me so? Enlighten me.”

“How do I not fear abandonment with the physical embodiment of sacrifice itself?” you asked and received a light, airy chuckle in response.

“I am simply teasing. My apologies, little lamb. Now please - read for me,” they ordered and gently squeezed your soft belly. You inhaled deeply, attempting to steady your heartbeat and keep the panic and terror from rising to a fever pitch in your chest. After a few seconds of deep breathing you cleared your throat and carded the ancient tomb back open you hesitantly began to read.

“Spawn 77:13, which says "Thy way, O Spawn, is in the sanctuary may they send you help from the sanctuary.", you read out loud and heard a deep rumble of contempt come from the enlightened one cuddling you. They relaxed further back into the throne, taking you with them. Their lips were so close to your ear that you could feel their breath and their soft long hair tickled your neck and bare shoulder. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, body, and spirit that by sacrifice you may discern what is the will of Spawn, what is good and acceptable and perfect, what will be Rebirth.…”

As you continued to read you felt their fingers continue their gentle stroking of your tresses from scalp to tip, brushing your bare flesh at every opportunity. Their physical presence wrapped around you was warm and comforting and slowly your mind and heart were beginning to relax. The words flowed from your lips like water as you read the dusty text and the enlightened one pet you like a cherished animal. You were literally a pet, a plaything, a toy that they kept around for their own amusement. They didn’t have to treat you this way - they could do like the other Enlightened ones before them and keep their host locked away in a state of constant, agonizing consciousness with no free will and no ability to live. Being forced to just exist, to be chained like a animal too the synapses of your own mind, unchanging. Being eaten alive at the mere comprehension that, this was reality and being drove mad by it as your body rotted and expired.

 Instead they showed you mercy and treated you like a human; a capable and intelligent and incredible creature with your own autonomy. You were allowed to exist independently from them and make your own decisions, suffer your own consequences. They made sure you wanted for naught with every physical trapping you could ever require. Their compassion and understanding despite your transgressions was unceasing and they respected your opinions and actions despite your methods or their impacts. There was also the matter of their genuine affection. There was something about you that constantly tugged at their innards and drove them mad to the point they wished to dote on you, to protect you.

You were sickeningly spoiled and should be eternally grateful.

The words suddenly stuck in your mouth as your now-hazy mind tried to comprehend them. The stroke marks begin to warp and bend and you almost felt like you were suddenly swimming in a pool of honey; sticky and hot and unable to breathe. You paused in your reading to gather yourself but a gasp escaped you at the lips on your neck and the hands tightly gripping your soft lovehandles. 

“Sh...should I stop?” you asked and forced your eyes shut for a moment as the world spun behind your eyelids. Once again you felt like you were going insane; from the warmth and their tender touch and the thoughts about them that suddenly flooded your skull like a deluge. 

“Did I command you to stop?” they asked, pressing hot kisses up the side of your neck. An involuntary shiver rocked through your body and they just clutched you tighter.

“You ah, seem distracted,” you managed to stutter and found it increasingly difficult to even form coherent thought due to the strange state your mind was in. Why did you feel lost within a thick mental fog?

“Perhaps I am. I do so love to watch you squirm.”

Their sharp teeth sank into the tender flesh where your neck met shoulder and you inhaled so sharply you nearly choked. It was delicious - the seductive pain of their biting and sucking into your skin while their fingers wrapped around your windpipe and squeezed.

“It appears that you have become rather distracted as well. Complacency in the presence of your god? You should be grateful I am so merciful.”

Your eyes flew open with a start and you went completely rigid in their embrace. The realization that they were mind breaking you struck you like a physical blow. Once more he was in your head influencing your thoughts and attempting to manipulate you like a marionette on strings. Frustrated tears burned your eyes but didn’t fall as their fingers suddenly snaked their way under your chin. They turned your face towards their's and drew you into a deep, passionate kiss. They tasted like sanguine that they was so fond of indulging in and their tongue traced masterpieces against yours that you couldn’t even begin to follow.

You wanted to escape.

You wanted OUT.

“So sweet,” they whispered after swiping your kiss-swollen bottom lip with their tongue. “Rise and put the book away, Lamb.”

"Yes... Two Time."

You despised the fact that the compliant words left your mouth so easily. You despised the fact that you stood up from the throne and placed the book down on the stairs, off to the side, so easily. And then that you turned to face him with tears streaming down your ruddy cheeks and a damp spot in your underwear, waiting patiently for their next command so damn easily.

("I don't like Two Time at all" I say, then I suddenly tripped and fell to the ground, as multiple pictures of Two Time fall out of my bag. "Wait!" I madly cried out. "These aren't mine!")

[adragonthatwrites]

Absolutely loving your marine biologist cqms diaries and need to know the full Moshang backstory at once... Why do I see sqh taping programmable LED strips to himself with double-sided sticky tape so that he can 'talk' to Mobei Jun...

Thank you, glad you're enjoying it! As for the story behind MoShang... Sit down, grab a drink, because I am about to do a lot of elaborating!

So first off Dr. Shang Qinghua; he's a very renowned marine biologist, who specializes in Leviathan Class mer language and behavior (though his knowledge regrading the behaviors and linguistic abilities of smaller, coastal species is nothing to sneeze at either). He's the head of Leviathan Class mer study at one of Cang Qiong's facilities; a different facility from the one Dr. Shen Jiu works at, actually! He did spend time working with Dr. Shen; both in school, and during their internships, and during those time periods it was decided that those two should not be allowed to work in the same space as each other. Project Pisces is an exception.

One of Dr. Shang's most well known and well renowned achievements (aside from The Tank Incident which we'll get too) was his part in the illegalization of mer poaching, selling, and ownership. His study of mer habits and language assisted in the official classification of mers as Sentient Species, granting them rights against being killed or owned as pets. He also assisted in the seizure, rehabilitation and release of hundreds of mers previously being kept as pets or sideshow attractions.

Back to MoShang:

Mobei Jun, a category 2 Leviathan Class mer (Yue Qingyuan is a category 3; the first and currently only), was one of Dr. Shang's first subjects of study in his pursuit of proving mers capable of complex language. He was found caught in a fishermen's net and brought to Dr. Shang's facilities for both treatment and study. Almost all of Dr. Shang's knowledge of Leviathan Class behaviors, as well as mer language, was gleaned from his study of Mobei Jun over the course of several months' worth of treatment and rehabilitation. He spent hours and hours outside the mer's enclosure, speaking to him in English, Chinese, and even incorporating some sign language. He took direct responsibility over feeding, guiding and treating the mer, studying Mobei Jun's behaviors and responses to the stimuli around him.

He was able to identify complex, grammatical structure within the calls and sounds Mobei Jun made when interacting with him, though he wasn't able to reliably decipher these into a language (at least not one that would earn mers the rights of Sentient Species). His major breakthrough came in studying the bioluminescent patterns located on Mobei Jun's face, shoulders, chest, and across his back. He discovered that mer language is actually largely associated with these markings; words are formed via the flashing of certain markings in certain patterns over certain areas of the body, while the low, intense vocalizations Mobei Jun frequently made were generally associated with more broad emotions; for example hunger, irritation, curiosity, threat, etc.

Essentially; the markings convey words, while vocalizations convey feelings, as Dr. Shang put it his paper on the subject.

Actually decoding, understanding and then mimicking these individual words in order to have a proper conversation with Mobei Jun proved to be a bit more of a challenge, in large part because Dr. Shang, being human, had no markings of his own, and no ability to make the appropriate sounds to convey his emotions.

His solution to this problem was ultimately to pick up a flashlight and start turning it on and off over various parts of his body in an attempt to mimic the signals used to convey words. He was... actually surprisingly successful, and was able to engage in one of the very first human to mer conversations. Which mostly consisted of Mobei Jun asking what the fuck he was doing while Dr. Shang spammed a rudimentary approximation of the words for 'learn' and 'friend'.

Which finally brings us to The Tank Incident...

Near the end of Mobei Jun's rehabilitation, a few weeks before he was to be moved to one of their oceanic enclosures (a big pen off the side of the facilities that connects to the ocean itself), before being released back to the wild, Dr. Shang was walking alongside the edge of Mobei Jun's holding tank making observations about his sleeping patterns. It was very late and most of the lights had been turned out, and Mobei Jun himself had retired to the den built into his tank for sleep.

Evidently a feed bucket had been left out beside the tank and Dr. Shang wasn't aware of it, as he tripped over it and fell, directly into Mobei Jun's tank.

He would later go on to describe the experience as 'equal parts terrifying and thrilling.' Mobei Jun was naturally woken up by Dr. Shang's tumble into his tank, and emerged to investigate. The sound of his voice; echo-locating to see what exactly had fallen in his tank; was loud enough to make Dr. Shang's chest vibrate.

Dr. Shang had expected to die then; it wasn't common for mer's to eat humans, but not unheard of, particularly in Leviathan Class. Sentient though they may be, mers are undoubtedly much more... wild than humans.

Mobei Jun, on the other hand, had apparently recategorized Dr. Shang from food to a potential mate during their months of interaction, and took the opportunity of having the man within his reach to... finalize, that decision.

Dr. Shang has gone on record stating that the experience was 'not as bad as you'd expect actually! For one thing it's nice and narrow at the tip and he doesn't just shove it all in at once, so you have time to adjust. The smaller one's on the sides also help to distract you, and the fact mers also like to be penetrated at the same time they're doing the penetrating definitely helps too." (for more info on speculative mer reproduction, check out Sinn-Bee's MerLiu au, I took a lot of inspo from them ;))

Regardless, Dr. Shang quickly became very famous for his little... adventure. He is not however the first person to end up in such a situation; he's not even the first researcher, so he wasn't blacklisted or fired. He is the first to pull it off with a Leviathan Class though...

[azzie-beastbinder]

The wagon and horses stayed close enough to the rest of the procession to not seem like they were falling behind, but far enough that Lazaro’s silencing spell ensured that the ensuing conversation did not escape to ears not meant to hear it. Koda sat in the wagon, his cane in his lap. He had evoked Kosui, the Kami of Jealous Thirst, to bolster the mediocre horses they were using for travel and make them feel braver by convincing them that the water they would receive at the end would be sooooo nice to drink, so they wouldn’t worry about the stones or strange noises. He was sitting in the back of the wagon with Adayn, Vasro, and Roxie while Lazaro and Arturo were driving it. Shregresha and Valentina were on horseback alongside the wagon, ensuring that they stayed within range of Lazaro’s spell.

“So,” Koda began, gritting his teeth to speak past his cramps, “I really, really must stress that what I am about to tell you all has been a Dokuchi Reckoner secret since the days of its founding, when we split from the budoka of the Jukai Forest to cut into Towashi. Baby shit as far as history goes, but it’s where we started.”

Once everyone nodded, Koda took a deep breath and shifted to be more comfortable.

“Reckoner tattoos were created in order to ensure loyalty to a given gang and to be used in a fight. It originates from ancient scarification rituals done before the Kami War. But when Setsa, our founder, studied the art of tattoo magic, he took its power a step further. He wanted to ensure that a Dokuchi Reckoner could always learn from the past among our family. To accomplish this, our tattoos are imbued with the power of the Serpent.”

Koda nodded to Vasro and Lazaro. “I’ve already told these two about the Serpent. I even tapped into it when telling Lazaro to show him, which is probably what caused his...current condition. We don’t know if Setsa created or merely discovered the Serpent, but through our tattoos, we can tap into it as a collective, animistic force. It is the concept of a snake, which makes us more snakelike ourselves. It’s why we’re called the Poison Blood Reckoners, and it’s why our blood has weird properties. In return for the Serpent allowing us to see the past through the eyes of another Dokuchi Reckoner, we share our memories to it, from our points of view and perspective, so all other Dokuchi Reckoners can do the same thing. You have to offer the memories willingly, and you get to choose what to share.”

He took a deep breath. “I am the first planeswalker to be the Dokuchi boss since Setsa himself. Because of this, I have shared a lot of my experiences in the Multiverse with the Serpent, ensuring that my family is not left surprised by other planes. Since I became boss, I brought more planeswalkers into the gang who wanted to join us. And while I am not our gang’s formal tattoo mage – that would be Flinttooth, who is training a youngling by the name of Riku Tsukimi in the art – I am capable of wielding our tattoo magic and granting others the Dokuchi Reckoner tattoos, allowing them to tap into the Serpent and become part of the gang.”

Koda leaned back, trying to find a comfortable way to sit despite his current blood issue. “But there is a price. The Reckoner tattoos will harm you if you betray your gang. You will be left alive in excruciating pain until someone takes pity upon you and puts you out of your misery. When you become a Reckoner, there is no leaving. Setsa knew this when he made our tattoos, which is why he emphasized that this was a family one could join only after being told of the dangers involved.”

With that, Koda finished speaking, allowing others to ask whatever questions they wished.

@warrior-of-tol-angata @dusk-legion-diplomacy @obscura-omenseeker @normal-innistradi @roxie-proxy

[princessanonymous]

When Night Comes

Platonic Yandere Vampire

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First Chapter

9. 𝓐 𝓓𝓲𝓪𝓶𝓸𝓷𝓭 𝓲𝓷 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓡𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱

"Mrs Mitchell," the vampire called as he entered the lavishly appointed study room they had designated for (Y/n)'s lessons, "I regret to inform you that classes will be canceled for the evening."

(Y/n) was startled by that. The sudden announcement was as surprising for her as it was for the governess. Though (Y/n) supposed she didn't mind skipping this evening's classes. History was quite boring after a certain point. With a subtle sigh of relief, she approached the man, grateful to escape another tedious lecture.

Her teacher, however, didn't look so pleased. She shook her head in clisapproval. "The young miss has already missed a class this week," she reasoned, annoyance etching her features. Firmly, she held onto (Y/n)'s arm, hindering her departure. "Allowing her to miss more classes will only reinforce the notion that her behavior goes unpunished."

(Y/n) glared at that. She did skip a session this week, and two the week before. The vampire was quite lenient on that subject. As long as (Y/n) asked nicely and behaved as he wanted her to, he didn't mind if she missed some lectures. Lessons were fun in the beginning, but now, the woman was becoming stricter. Every little mistake was met with harsh words and more work. She couldn't count the number of time she had been forced to write the same lines over and over again just because of one word that hadn't been written properly. Or the number of time she had to recite the same poems.

"She is an intelligent young lady, fully capable of catching up," he responded with a dismissive wave of his hand. His gaze descended until it rested on (Y/n)'s wrist, and he pursed his lips. "Release her."

"That little missy is going to grow up spoiled," she spat in annoyance. "Ladies must not grow to become self indulgent or spoiled."

"My child is flawless in her current state," he hissed with a dangerous undertone.

"Your child?" she scoffed with a sardonic laugh. "This girl speaks and behaves like a commoner. Individuals of her kind should be well aware of their position in our society."

(Y/n) glared. The vampire took a dangerous step forward. "You should know your place," he snapped back. "Release her at once!"

"My responsibility," she responded with an indignant sneer, "is to educate properly this young misfit, and I shall discharge my duty as I see fit—"

In the blink of an eye, the woman found the vampire's fingers encircling her throat. (Y/n) freed herself from the woman's grasp and retreated. The woman continued to wheeze desperately. (Y/n) witnessed the vampire's hand gradually constricting around the human's throat. Every second, he was squeezing it tighter, and tighter, and tighter and—

"Don't do this!" She pleaded. "Please don't kill her!" Her desperate plea resonated in the tense silence of the room

"She is receiving her due, starshine," he replied with a composed, even voice. "If you don't wish to witness it, you may simply leave."

"She doesn't deserve death," she pleaded desperately, attempting to pry his hand from the human's throat.

"Leave," he ordered. "Go amuse yourself with your little dolls. I shall fetch you once this ordeal is over."

"No! You can't -"

"Get out," he bellowed.

She flinched, recoiling from his command. (Y/n) cast one final, pained glance at her teacher before turning away. Suppressing tears, she grappled with the conflict within—choosing self-preservation over another's life. Hugging herself for solace, she closed the door behind her.

...

She sat on her bed, staring blankly at the wall. A certain relief settled upon her as she realized the noises from the study were muffled. She wouldn't have to hear the noise, granting her a reprieve from the grim images haunting her mind. Perhaps, in this solitude, she could convince herself that the cruel vampire wasn't within those walls, smothering the life out of that woman.

Her eyes casted upon the door once she heard the creak of the cloor opening. The nobleman entered, looking regal and calm. He gave a distasteful look at the door. "Remind me to instruct a servant to oil that door's hinges," he remarked with a frown. "The creaking noise is rather annoying."

Silent, she listened as he continued, unsure if he failed to notice or simply didn't care about her inner turmoil. He summoned a maid with a ring of a bell, issuing orders before leaving the room, allowing her a moment of privacy for the attire change.

In the hands of the maid, (Y/n) was adorned with a tightly laced corset over a delicately trimmed chemisette, paired with a long blue skirt embellished with intricate embroideries and trims. The many layers of petticoat complimented her skirt. Dark blue gloves and a bonnet completed the look, harmonizing with the rest of her attire. Finally, she completed it with a small diamond necklace and bracelet. He came back just as she was done getting dressed — like the last time, he gushed and showered her in compliments, marvelous — and they were ready to leave.

(Y/n) stepped into the carriage and the coach started its journey through the moonlit night. "Where are we going, sir?" she inquired, her voice a soft melody that wove into the fabric of the night.

The vampire, seated opposite her in the carriage, allowed a subtle chuckle to escape. "Sir? You don't need to call me that, doll."

"And what, then, should I call you?" The words were poised with a gentle defiance.

His gloved hand reached out to her, fingers entwining tenderly with a strand of her hair. She recoiled with a sour expression, prompting a subtle narrowing of his eyes as his hand retreated. "Father," he declared, the wind carrying his soft whisper.

A near-imperceptible snarl curled on her lips as she responded with defiance, "Never, you don't deserve that title."

The vampire reclined in his seat, a bitter edge to his chuckle. "Titles mean nothing to you, I see." He glanced at her with a subtle disdain that lingered in the air.

She remained unyielding, her gaze unwavering. "Titles should be earned, not handed out like sweets."

Frustration subtly crept into his voice as his fingers traced an invisible pattern in the air. "Earned? I have been around for centuries, and you deny me a simple acknowledgment."

"You took the life of my real father," she seethed, her grip on the seat betraying the restraint she fought to maintain.

Leaning in, the vampire's eyes gleamed with a volatile mix of anger and hurt. "Forget about this man," he insisted with a griped tone.

"I won't forget my real—"

"Enough!" He roared, a tempest of anger causing (Y/n) to flinch, her eyes widening with apprehension. She instinctively scooted away from him, the tension palpable in the opulent carriage.

Then, as swiftly as the storm had erupted, the anger dissipated. He sighed wearily, the echoes of his rage lingering in the confined space. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he looked at her with a weary expression. "Your 'real' father, as you call him, was a mere mortal, a fleeting existence in the grand tapestry of time."

She shot back, her voice laced with defiance, "He was my father, and you took him away from me."

"He was a casualty of our world, a sacrifice for a legacy you cannot escape."

Her eyes narrowed, the flames of resentment burning bright. "Legacy? Don't justify that slaughter with grand words. You're not my father, and I won't let you rewrite history."

He chuckled, the sound mingling with the subtle hum of the carriage's wheels against the stones of the path. His gaze shifted to the window, a distant glint in his eyes. "Have you heard of bonsai trees, doll ?" He asked curiously. He did not wait for an answer and continued. "I first heard of it during a brief stay in Japan in 1808. Exquisite works of art, truly. Elegant ornamental trees shaped with intricate precision. Interestingly, people often assume these trees belong to a specific species, but that is a misconception. To craft one of these art pieces, you don't start with a particular tree. No, you grow it in a pot to stifle its natural growth. Any rebellious shoots must be ruthlessly eliminated. Then, it undergoes a merciless process of cutting, curving, and shaping until it reaches perfection. A long and tedious procedure, but the reward is undeniable."

His gaze bore into hers, a calculated intensity in his eyes. She gulped at the analogy, her heart quickening its pace. "Your point is?" she asked, her throat dry, apprehension lingering in her voice.

He smiled darkly, his grip on her hand tightening gradually. "My point is... I would do a lot for you, starshine." The ominous words hung in the air, a foreboding promise shrouded in the unsettling ambiance of the carriage.

A tense silence enveloped them, the room bearing witness to the thinly veiled threat.

[spinedog]

Please talk about birds and why their existence is horrifying!

For dabble prompt, Yang and Weiss making macaroni, as inspired by the recent Instagram where Barbara and Kara made macaroni.

You can request a ramble and drabble here, and see prompts I've finished and am currently working on!

Ramble - I have a lot of Emotions about birds and their relationship to mammals.

Drabble - The college AU returns: guess who has no fucking idea how to make macaroni, and who else finally got fed up with it.

Birds. Birds my beloved, birds my beloathed.

Here's the thing. Every time I research birds, for any reason, I learn something new and horrifying. I could fill a post the length of Do You Like The Color Of The Sky with the shit I know and fear about birds. Rather than go into a specific reason, let me explain the underlying reason why I find them both fascinating and disturbing.

Birds are endotherms (warmblooded), like us. They have a four-chambered heart, like us. They have complex social behaviours across multiple unrelated genera, like mammals. Many unrelated bird species use tools and can solve human puzzles. While not shared with us, birds also have paired larynx structures that let them make insanely complex noises. Between the intelligence and this ability, many species are capable of mimicking human speech - and at least one species has both scientific and anecdotal evidence of being able to use human speech to communicate. (The only mammal proven to be able to mimic verbal speech is a goddamn Grey Seal btw)

All of this is lovely until you take a step back and realize our ancestors diverged 300 million years ago. Our shared ancestral traits are a handful of internal changes, the loss of gills, keratinized skin, and fucking chest breathing. That is how goddamn little we have in common with birds ancestrally. To be clear, the first true mammal came along closer to 225 mya - but we are the only living group left from the synapsids, then therapsids, that grew Better Teeth and split off. In comparison, birds and crocodiles are the only living members from archosauria, and the arrival of birds themselves is still under a lot of debate but was probably around 150 mya.

This is the part that I find so fascinating. Go all the way back to that paragraph with all the things we share with birds. Both mammals and birds evolved all of those traits separately. And yet, despite being so far away that we may as well be alien, we've ended up on a parallel course to each other. Almost every part of our body, right down to the brain, works in a completely different way and yet the outcome is spookily similar. We can reason. We can problem-solve.

We've gotten to the point that a well-educated human and a well-educated grey parrot have stood eye to eye with each other and had a true, verbal, two-way conversation.

Seriously. Think about that. That's something we had to use sign language to do with our closest living relatives, and talking buttons to do with our longest-running domesticated companion species - and both happened in the last few decades. The first account of a 'talking parrot' was in 5th century BC.

I think that's a significant connection, on the grand cosmic scale of time and evolution. Sister groups not in blood but in destination, driven by curiosity and a miraculous set of coincidences, reach out and speak to each other in a language both are able to understand.

And I didn't even touch the fact that birds and mammals are the only two living vertebrates that developed fucking flight.

---

"I wouldn't use this in a hot pan, it's plastic."

"Oh." A pause. "Right."

Yang's voice coming from the kitchen wasn't new, but Weiss' certainly was. Blake poked out from her room, curious enough about the potential of dying in a house fire to emerge from midterm studying.

Immediately she saw Ruby, pressed up against the wall to stare down the stairs. The younger woman turned, catching sight of Blake and pressing a finger to her lips before motioning her forwards, kneeling to clear room for her. Blake slowly crept up, leaning over Ruby as they both peered around the corner.

Down the stairs, the small, messy kitchen was visible. Weiss Schnee hovered over the stove, hair pulled up in a ponytail and eyes wide with uncharacteristic worry. "Okay, I think it's all combined."

"Good, now you can pour the milk in." Yang appeared from behind the wall in their view, where she must have been standing by the fridge. "Don't do it all at once, pour in about... here. That much. Whisk it together until there's no clumps and then add the rest."

Blake turned her gaze downwards, bewildered.

"Weiss admitted she doesn't know how to cook mac and cheese." Ruby whispered. "Yang couldn't let that one go."

She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. It was probably bound to happen. Weiss hadn't had to cook for herself a day in her life, and Yang had probably been cooking for herself and Ruby since she could reach the stove. Sooner or later, there would have to be a collision. Of course, she had to feel a bit bad that no one had ever taken the time to teach Weiss any of it. But any guilt she felt was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer surrealism of the scene unfolding in the kitchen. Weiss had merely brushed off all points at her complete lack of housekeeping and cooking. And now here she was, taking lessons from the person who gave her the most shit for it.

"This all seems complicated?" The trademark Weiss sass wasn't gone entirely, even with her being miles out of her element. "Isn't mac and cheese supposed to be a really simple thing that kids can make?"

"That's Kraft dinner. This isn't much harder to make and tastes way better, so we're starting with it. Relax, ice queen, it's hard to screw it up completely."

Weiss heaved a frustrated sigh, whether it was at the nickname or the recipe wasn't clear. "Is the pasta in yet?"

"Nope, water still isn't boiling." Yang had leaned against the cupboards, clearly amused.

"They always say, to uh." Weiss looked up, blinking. "A watched- when you look- when you watch the bowl of- it never boils." She looked over, as if hoping Yang might have understood the verbal equivalent of an orchestra falling down the stairs.

Yang nodded sagely. "Exactly."

Blake pulled herself away from the corner, barely choking back laughter. Ruby's breathing devolved into chaotic inhales.

"Seriously, what is the saying?! Something about pots? And watching it?"

"No, no you nailed it. A watched when you look when you watch-"

"Yang Xiao Long I will beat you with this spatula I swear to God."

She could hear the grin in Yang's voice. "You and what ladder?"

That was the final straw for both Blake and Ruby. Ruby broke first, the laugh escaping like a water from a high pressure hose. Within moments both of them were in hysterics, Ruby on the floor and Blake leaning against the wall, fighting for air.

"Well." Blake managed to look over, and found Weiss glaring at them both from the bottom of the stairs, hands on her hips. "If you two are going to have input, you may as well get downstairs and help cook."

It was a fair enough point, and the two women managed to pull themselves down the stairs and into the kitchen, still wiping tears away. Yang watched them sit down at the table, clearly fighting back a laugh of her own.

Weiss re-entered the kitchen, frowning down at the water in the pot. A split second of quiet.

Blake wasn't much of a comedian - but she knew when the timing was right. "A watched pot never boils, Weiss."

Yang broke like china, falling against the fridge with a howl of laughter. A spatula bounced off the center of Blake's forehead, and it was worth every second.

[autisticayano]

yandere simulator ramble

ayano's inferiority and the rival's control

Inferiority and Possessiveness. Is ayano possessive over taro because she feels as if she's inferior to taro or is she inferior because she tends to be possessive?

NOTE: this came to me in a vision (aka mid studying) that ayano and the rival's have an interesting dynamic, especially if you consider taro linking them all and how they connect with him

now listen,, hear me OUT,, i understand that that ayano is BOTH possessive (over taro) and feels inferior (compared to her rivals) HOWEVERRR i like taking things to a deeper level because im me so come.. walk with me....

I. INFERIORTY

ayano must feel inferior to all the rivals as every single week taro finds himself enamoured with a new girl (excluding hanako, mida rana, and muja kina) because the previous rival has to be 'eliminated'. although we don't know any of the canon eliminations for the rivals, we all are aware that they're eliminated nonetheless, peaceful or not. now, the question being asked is this: does ayano feel inferior to the rivals?

you could be asking yourself right now, "why does this matter?"

ayano is a null character portrayed to be lacking emotions, and really only experienced the bare minimum of secondary feelings, something similar to complex emotions but never having any real intensity behind them (most would make sense if you read this post). after meeting taro she was exposed to greater emotions on a larger scale, everything felt far more intense and thus her whole lifeline connected to him because of what he makes her feel which makes her possessive as she needs him.

the rivals on the other hand have experienced emotion their whole lives; they have no reason to feel possessive over taro and they certainly don't love taro the same way ayano does. however, that also means they wouldn't be able to understand the inferiority that ayano would feel because of this. all of the rivals, even oka who is noticeably off-putting to majority of akademi, are capable of forming connections with others relatively quickly, proven by how quickly they were able to connect with taro the saturday before their week actually starts. ayano is likely to feel inferior to the rivals because she doesn't have the confidence nor the ability to talk to taro immediately without being extremely overwhelmed. and if she even attempted to talk with him, at her current state, she would just end up coming off too strong/in a negative light. she isn't ready to talk him as she can barely contain her emotions.

it is almost certain that if she did talk to him, her possessive nature would be revealed, which would end up making taro want to leave. this can be evidenced through her various fantasies of wanting to be kidnapped by him, or even kidnapping him, or just simply snap ending where only SHE can have taro, no one else. obviously, because she DOES want to have taro in her life talking to taro is not something that ayano wants at the moment, so she stays afar. besides, like most possessive people they tend to want to control from the sidelines so that they don't seem to be the issue.

once again, you could be saying, "literally how does this correspond with inferiority and possessiveness. we get it she's weird blah blah blah"

it corresponds with the inferiority and possessiveness because they both fuel each other. ayano will feel inferior to every single rival because she will never have the connection, control or ability to speak with taro normally like they all have. ahe will feel possessive because her rivals are taking what’s “supposed to be hers.” these two things fuel each other by feeding off of the negativity that is conjured up from the several weeks where every single rival of ayano’s spends more and more time with taro unnecessarily while she stays on the sidelines finding ways to eliminate them. this is also fueled by the fact that the rivals have a sort of control compared to ayano.

II. RIVALS' CONTROL

the rivals have control over themselves, their emotions and on a smaller scale, taro. some of the rivals control, is obviously hypothetical since (FUCK YOU ALEX) groomerdev doesn’t know that sometimes giving out lore for a game he knows isn’t gonna be finished before he dies is a GOOD thing but whatever, BUT it is obvious in some ways. going in order from osana to megami they all have their control.

osana is not really able to control her temper and emotions around taro, however, she does have a ‘control’ on taro. If she dies or drifts away from being matchmade to expelled, taro feels extremely vulnerable and sad the following saturday. if the game had better writing and was similar to reality, taro would continue to feel this way even as the following rivals continue to talk to him on saturday/monday considering she is his closest friend; his CHILDHOOD friend. this ‘control’ is more similar to an impact she has rather than a control but its better than what ayano has on taro. ayano has no impact on taro whatsoever because she is, to put it plainly, nothing to taro.

amai has control over herself; she is aware of her situation with the bakery and yet she remains kind to her club members and the akademi students and not letting her personal frustrations affect her. she’s supposed to be a sweet character especially since she offered to help taro when he was very clearly feeling down, when she interacts with the akademi students and others. furthermore, like osana during the befriend route, amai has control over herself enough to let taro go. (I get that it’s a game mechanic where they HAVE to agree but even so it still shows control that these girls have that ayano will never be able to possess as she cannot imagine a life without her and taro together now that she has met him.) amai has a sense of control over herself and her emotions in a way ayano will never have. ayano is unfortunately too deep into her love for taro and she lets it affect her life.

it can be easily assumed that oka, asu, osoro, megami that are essentially the same way: controlling themselves or having minor control over taro as the days go by under the ruse of occult activities, sport activities or protection!

now, muja kina and mida rana are the WORST rivals to exist but unfortunately, they have an unbelievable amount of actual control over taro compared to the others BECAUSE they are both adults. muja kina, in my mind atleast, is slightly better than mida rana because she does not intend to harass taro into submission nor does she want to date him immediately (although her being a rival at all is gross enough because she can infact date him) ANYWAY the control that these two adults have against taro is based off of irl interactions between younger men and adult women.

muja kina, a nurse, is within the faculty and is assumingly, during her week, supposed to take care of taro while he is ill and whatnot. however, due to her “attractiveness” (which ew, bring back my wife from 1980s mode she’d never go for little boys) and position as both a caregiver and a rival she takes on the role of both nurse and a romantic interest. this holds control over taro when he is ill because 1. muja will be someone constantly by his side for a week and close proximity is what gets people going and 2. muja can easily manipulate taro, even if its not her intention, due to being the one to “care for him” since its her JOB and she’s an ADULT whos supposed to DO HER JOBBB. long story short she has more control over taro because she is an adult and is unintentionally using her position as an adult and an authority figure to enter the dudes life on a personal romantic level when it should be a student-teacher type of thing

i haven’t mentioned control for feelings or herself mostly because in the official wiki or whatever it says “she may still eventually feel the desire to become a mother and engage in activities of a sexual nature. her affection would begin first with the desire to be physically affectionate with him, and eventually both would have the desire for greater physical intimacy.” and is then supported by yk groomerdev the whole thing is really weird. moving on to even weirder is mida rana who is also another adult figure who is using her position to harass teenage boys but this time intentionally! she has control because she is an adult and a teacher at that! weirdos everywhere! would ayano really be jealous/possessive/inferior over this? i don’t think so! i think she would be really angry though because adults using their authority and uncontrollable circumstances to enter taro’s like, when they shouldnt.

moving on from the pedophiles, hanako has the greatest control over taro in the sense that taro is willing to stay “loyal” by her side because theres the feeling of abandonment coming from hanako is taro were to get a girlfriend. her impact and control on taro has been mentioned from osana and the book that hanako gave taro and its pretty clear that he loves his sister enough to stay hastag single and would be CRUSHED if she died. on other note, hanako does NOT have control over her emotions proven by the hypothetical, taro-would-stay-single-because-of-hanakos-insecurity-of-abandonment. ayano would feel inferior due to the amount time the two have spent together but not necessarily the type of connection they have (because Hanako and taro have a sibling connection while ayano wants a romantic one.)

as a result of all the control and connection the rivals have with taro, ayano is in comparison a nobody. her inferiority and possessiveness will only further disconnect her from taro. however, this cannot be stopped because as the rivals continue to talk to taro as the weeks go by, the possessive fueled inferiority will continue to alienate her from taro.

/// relatively short ramble for now, hope it made sense!

[beardedmrbean]

North Korea could lose 30,000 to 45,000 troops per month in Ukraine after sending more soldiers to the frontlines, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW)'s Russian offensive campaign assessment published on January 22.

Why It Matters

Pyongyang will reportedly send additional troops to the battlefield by mid-March, and if they maintain the current pace of assaults in Kursk, they may suffer significant losses, the Washington-based think tank said in it's recent assessment.

The ISW's prediction that North Korea could lose up to 45,000 soldiers per month indicates that they are not capable of sustaining the war effort in Kursk, suggesting they are not prepared for battle. Further, the sustained losses of troops will only add to Russia's manpower problem and could possibly sour relations between Moscow and Pyongyang.

What To Know

An anonymous senior U.S. defense official told the New York Times that North Korean reinforcements are expected to arrive "within the next two months," but they did not specify the number of troops, if Pyongyang is rotating its forces, or if they are increasing the size of its total force grouping in Russia.

South Korea previously reported in late December that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will deploy more troops and send additional equipment to Russia after North Korea suffered significant losses. Russia has previously dismissed reports of North Korean troops fighting in Kursk as "fake news."

Noting the time period in which North Korean troops reportedly trained for at least a month in eastern Russia before engaging in battle, the ISW wrote: "This timeline roughly coheres with the possibility that a fresh contingent of North Korean forces could undergo training and replace the shrinking North Korean group in Kursk Oblast by mid-April 2025, assuming the reported next batch of North Korean troops will train for the same duration as their predecessors, and deploy to Russia imminently in late January or early February 2025."

The ISW predicted that additional DPRK troops are "unlikely to decisively improve Russian operations" and will suffer about 30,000 to 45,000 casualties per month if they "sustain Russia's tempo of operations despite heavy losses."

Part of the issue stems from a lack of ability to communicate between the two forces. In addition to two alleged clashes between the allied forces due to "troop identification errors," a Ukrainian commander claimed that North Korean troops had added a translator who speaks Russian, but suggested that "these groups are still not very effective."

As such, the ISW assessed that "North Korea's high casualty rate and interoperability difficulties with Russian forces will affect the lessons that the North Korean military command will learn from fighting in Russia's war."

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that 3,800 North Korean troops had been killed or injured in Kursk in early January, as the fighting has escalated on the frontlines.

A total of 12,000 North Korean soldiers were initially deployed to Russia and were first reported to have engaged in battle in November 2024. As they had not engaged in serious combat since 1953, the troops appeared underprepared and therefore have sustained such high casualties.

What People Are Saying

Anton Gerashchenko, the former Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: "North Korea will soon send a new group of military personnel to the war against Ukraine, The New York Times reported, citing the Pentagon. Reinforcements are expected "within the next two months," according to one senior U.S. defense official. Overall, North Korea's armed forces number 1.2 million. It is one of the largest regular armies in the world. Last fall, North Korea sent about 11,000 soldiers to aid Moscow's forces in the Kursk region of southern Russia."

"Since their first combat engagement in early December, roughly one-third of the North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded, Ukrainian and American officials said," Gerashchenko added. "Even before it sent troops to Russia, North Korea was a major supporter of Russia's war effort. It has sent Moscow millions of artillery shells — which now account for about half of the Russian munitions fired daily — and more than 100 short-range ballistic missiles, according to Western and Ukrainian intelligence officials."

In a previous comment, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described reports of North Korean troops on the frontlines as "contradictory," saying: "North Korea is our close neighbor, our partner, and we are developing our relations in all areas. This is our sovereign right. This should not worry anyone because this cooperation is not directed against third countries."

Peskov added: "[Moscow would] continue to develop this cooperation."

What Happens Next

It is unknown how Ukraine and the global powers will respond if North Korea deploys additional troops and equipment to Russia and if the DPRK troops aid Moscow in seizing more territory.

[weekendpassrevoked]

Easy's Songbird - Chapter 19

authors note: This chapter was one I’ve been slowly working toward for a while — and it honestly means a lot to me.

When I first introduced Project Blitz, it was easy to focus on the groundbreaking element of Isabella being the first female paratrooper. But the truth is, that was never meant to be the full extent of her purpose in this story. Project Blitz was never just about the parachute jumps — it was about what a woman like Isabella could bring to a war that had never made space for her. And this chapter is the beginning of that shift.

I’ve been sitting with the weight of duality lately — of being two things at once. A medic and an analyst. A soldier and an artist. A girl growing up in war and someone who still wants to remember who she was before it. Isabella is constantly balancing between those worlds, and in this chapter, she’s asked to keep secrets from the very people she trusts most — and that’s not easy.

What makes this chapter particularly personal to me is that Isabella is, in many ways, me.

I’m an artist — always have been. I sing, I paint, I write. It’s how I make sense of the world. I’m a soldier — I used to wear the uniform as an Airman, and even though that chapter’s closed, it’ll always be a part of me. And now, I’m an analyst — currently studying International and Global Studies with a minor in Terrorism and a certification in Intelligence and National Security. (Yes, it’s a mouthful.)

All three sides — the creator, the warrior, the strategist — live in Isabella. Writing her story is, in a way, writing my own. Exploring what it means to hold so many truths at once. To belong in multiple worlds that often feel like they weren’t built for someone like you.

As always, thank you for being here. For caring about Isabella, for loving Easy Company, and for letting me stretch this story into something deeper than I ever thought it would be.

See you in the next chapter. — Isabella

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Camp Mackall, North Carolina, June 8th 1943

Easy’s time at Mackall had been interesting. While Toccoa and Benning had focused on the jumping aspect of their job, Mackall focused on the combat. 

Isabella enjoyed being on the field, even if it was under Sobel’s incapable command. She had patched up mild injuries that resulted from training or a scuffle here and there, but she had been lucky enough to not deal with anything major.

She was enjoying her free time in the barracks reading one of her school books when Nixon appeared, making sure none of them stood at attention for him, something he was never very keen on. As she noticed him quickly approaching, she gently closed her book, curiously peering at his expression.

Nixon didn’t wear many expressions — not openly — but Isabella had gotten good at reading the subtle shifts. And right now, there was something focused about him. Not urgent. But not casual either.

“Corporal Vega,” he greeted, voice low enough that it didn’t carry past the bunks.

“Sir,” she replied, sitting up straighter.

“Walk with me.”

That was enough to make a few of the men glance over. Luz raised an eyebrow. Liebgott gave her a look that said ‘tell me everything later’. Isabella just nodded, slipping her book into her footlocker and rising to follow.

They stepped out into the thick June heat, the kind that stuck to your skin and made your uniform feel a size too small. Nixon didn’t speak at first, leading her past the cluster of barracks and toward the edge of the officer's quarters. Only when they were out of earshot did he finally stop.

“What I’m about to say doesn’t leave this conversation,” he said.

Isabella’s brow furrowed slightly, but she nodded. “Understood.”

Nixon glanced around one more time, ensuring they were truly alone, before continuing. "The War Department has taken a renewed interest in your intelligence capabilities."

Isabella blinked, caught off guard. While Project Blitz had initially mentioned her language skills as an asset, most of her training at Toccoa, Benning, and Mackall had focused exclusively on her role as a medic. For the past two months, she'd almost forgotten about the "intelligence" part of her assignment.

"My intelligence capacities, sir?"

Nixon nodded. "Your languages, pattern recognition skills, problem-solving abilities. The whole package that got you selected for Project Blitz in the first place."

"I see," she said carefully.

"Those aptitude tests you took when you signed up weren't just routine evaluations," Nixon continued. "You scored exceptionally high in several areas that are particularly valuable to intelligence work—pattern recognition, code parsing, tactical analysis, not to mention your multilingual capabilities."

Isabella thought back to the various assessments she'd completed during her examination period with the Nurse Corps —tests she'd assumed were standard for all recruits. "I didn't realize they were measuring those specific skills."

"They're always measuring something," Nixon replied with a hint of dry humor. "The brass doesn't do anything without a purpose."

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, folded piece of paper. "This is an excerpt from an intercepted communication. Intelligence is still working on breaking parts of the code, but I'd like you to take a look."

Isabella accepted the paper cautiously, unfolding it to reveal several lines of text - partly in German, partly in what appeared to be a simple substitution cipher. Her heart beat a little faster as she realized the significance of what Nixon was asking her to do. This wasn't a training exercise—this was actual intelligence work.

"Take your time," Nixon said, leaning against a nearby tree trunk. "No pressure."

But she could feel the weight of his gaze as she began to analyze the document, her mind working through multiple layers simultaneously—translating the German phrases, looking for patterns in the coded sections, connecting the fragments into a coherent whole.

"It's discussing troop movements," she said finally, looking up at Nixon. "Something about reinforcements being redirected to... Sicily, I think? The coded section seems to reference specific unit numbers and timeframes."

Nixon's eyebrows lifted slightly. "Sicily," he repeated, taking the paper back from her. "Interesting. And you got that in what, three minutes?"

Isabella shifted uncomfortably under his evaluative gaze. "The cipher isn't particularly complex. It's the military terminology that's more challenging."

Nixon tucked the paper away before speaking again. "Because in about three hours, you're going to be meeting me again. I’m going to test your analytical abilities more thoroughly, and if you pass muster, you'll start spending part of your training time working with intelligence."

Her pulse quickened. "In what capacity, exactly?"

"Analysis of intercepted communications, pattern recognition, code work, tactical problem-solving. The full spectrum of your capabilities." Nixon paused, studying her reaction. "Your intellectual strengths are becoming increasingly valuable as we get closer to deployment."

Isabella absorbed this, mind racing with the implications. "Will this affect my duties as a medic?"

"No," Nixon assured her. "You'll still train with Doc Roe and maintain your medical qualifications. This would be additional duty, primarily during times when the rest of the company is on standard PT or classroom instruction."

It made sense. Her dual role had always been part of the project's design, even if the medical aspect had dominated her training thus far. Still, the sudden shift left her momentarily unsettled.

"Why now?" she asked.

Nixon's expression shifted subtly. "Let's just say certain theaters of operation have become priorities, and personnel with your particular skill set are suddenly in high demand."

The implication was clear. The invasion of Europe was approaching, and her analytical abilities—particularly when combined with her language skills—made her a potentially valuable intelligence asset.

"I will brief you further later," Nixon continued. "For now, I just wanted to give you a heads-up. This aspect of your role has always been part of Project Blitz, but it's about to become more... active."

Isabella nodded, still processing the development. "I appreciate the warning, sir."

Nixon offered a small, wry smile. "Consider it professional courtesy. And Isabella?" His use of her first name caught her attention. "This stays between us and the intelligence staff. Not even your closest friends in Easy need to know the specifics."

She understood immediately. In a company of men who shared everything—from socks to life stories—secrets were rare. But operational security was paramount.

"Yes, sir."

"Good." Nixon straightened, his demeanor shifting back to its usual casual confidence. "Report to the S-2 office at 1300 hours. And don't worry too much. You've already made it further in this project than anyone expected."

As they walked back toward the barracks, Isabella's mind raced with questions and possibilities. The role she'd envisioned for herself when joining the paratroopers—primarily focused on medical treatment under fire—was expanding in unexpected ways.

Nixon left her at the edge of the barracks area with a casual salute and a final reminder about the time of her meeting. As Isabella returned to her bunk, she found Liebgott and Luz watching her curiously, clearly waiting for an explanation of her private conversation with the intelligence officer.

"What was that about?" Luz asked immediately, not bothering with subtlety.

Isabella shrugged, keeping her expression neutral. "Just some Project Blitz stuff. Paperwork and evaluations."

It wasn't entirely a lie, but it wasn't the full truth either. For the first time since joining Easy Company, she found herself deliberately withholding information from her friends that didn’t involve her family.

Liebgott studied her face, skepticism evident in his expression. "Didn't look like paperwork to me."

"That's because you try to avoid paperwork at all costs," she retorted, deflecting with humor. "You wouldn't recognize it if it bit you."

Luz laughed, but Liebgott's eyes lingered on her with a knowing look. Ever since their conversation about Cameron, a deeper understanding had formed between them—an awareness that everyone had secrets they kept out of necessity.

"If you say so, Birdie," he said finally, letting the matter drop.

Isabella retrieved her book, settling back onto her bunk with a sense of relief. But the coded message and German phrases on that small piece of paper kept running through her mind, along with Nixon's words: Certain theaters of operation have become priorities.

Whatever was coming next, she was about to become more deeply involved than she had anticipated.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At 1300 she reported to the S-2 office as Nixon told her to. 

The intelligence office was housed in a nondescript building near the camp headquarters, indistinguishable from the other administrative structures except for the armed MP standing casually by the entrance. Isabella approached with measured steps, her uniform freshly adjusted, her hair neatly pinned back.

The MP checked her identification and nodded her through without comment. Inside, the office was smaller than she'd expected - a compact room with maps covering the walls, filing cabinets lining one side, and several desks arranged in a practical but cramped configuration. The air smelled of cigarettes, coffee, and paper.

Nixon sat at the desk farthest from the door, hunched over what appeared to be a stack of reports. He glanced up as she entered, gesturing for her to approach without standing.

"Corporal Vega," he greeted, his tone surprisingly formal compared to their usual conversations. "Right on time."

"Sir," she replied, standing at attention.

"At ease." Nixon shuffled some papers aside, revealing a folder with her name printed on the tab. "Take a seat."

Isabella settled into the chair across from him, her eyes automatically scanning the office. She noted the map of Europe on the wall behind Nixon, with colored pins marking various locations. Sicily, she observed, had several red pins clustered around its coastline.

"First things first," Nixon began, opening her folder. "What I'm about to share with you is classified. You'll need to sign this before we proceed." He slid a document across the desk.

She scanned it quickly - a standard non-disclosure agreement, but with additional clauses specific to intelligence operations. The penalties for unauthorized disclosure were clearly outlined and severe.

"I understand, sir," she said, signing her name at the bottom.

Nixon nodded, taking the paper back. "Good. Now, let's get started." He pulled out several sheets of paper from the folder. "This first test is probably familiar, it measures your pattern recognition speed. You'll be identifying recurring sequences in what appears to be random data."

He placed a sheet in front of her, filled with seemingly random letters and numbers arranged in a grid. "Find any patterns, mark them, and explain what you see. You have five minutes."

Isabella studied the page, her eyes tracking methodically across the rows of characters. Initially, it appeared completely random, but as she focused, certain sequences began to emerge - a repeated grouping of letters here, a numerical pattern there. She circled them with the pencil Nixon had provided, noting her observations in the margin.

The next test involved language proficiency - translating a series of phrases from German, with particular emphasis on military terminology. This was followed by a more complex code-breaking exercise, involving a partial encryption key and several encoded messages.

Throughout the testing, Nixon maintained a professional demeanor she had never seen on him before, offering no feedback beyond basic instructions. His poker face was impressive - she couldn't tell if she was performing well or poorly.

After nearly an hour of increasingly difficult assessments, Nixon finally gathered the papers, tapping them into a neat stack.

"Well?" Isabella asked, unable to contain her curiosity any longer.

Nixon's mouth quirked in a slight smile. "You don't lack confidence, do you?"

"Just wondering where I stand."

He leaned back in his chair, studying her. "Your pattern recognition is exceptional - top percentile. Language proficiency solid, particularly in Italian. The code work is promising, though you'll need more technical training there."

Relief flooded through her, followed by a touch of pride. "Thank you, sir."

"Don't thank me yet," Nixon replied, his expression turning more serious. "This isn't a reward, Vega. It's an additional responsibility, and a complicated one."

He stood, moving to the map on the wall. "Intelligence work isn't like medical training. There's rarely a clear right answer, and the consequences of mistakes can be severe. You'll be making assessments with limited information that could potentially affect operational planning."

Isabella joined him at the map, noting how his finger tapped lightly near Sicily. "Is that where we're headed, sir? Sicily?"

Nixon shot her a sharp glance. "That's precisely the kind of direct question you need to stop asking." His tone wasn't harsh, but the reprimand was clear. "In this room, you look, you listen, you analyze. But you don't speculate aloud about operational destinations or timelines."

She felt a sudden rush of guilt fill her chest. "Understood, sir. I’m sorry."

His expression softened slightly. "It's a natural question, Birdie. Just not one you can ask in your new capacity." He turned back to the desk, retrieving another folder. "This contains your training schedule. Three sessions per week, in addition to your medical duties. You'll continue to bunk and train with Easy Company, but when you're here, you answer to me."

Isabella accepted the folder, noting that the cover was unmarked. "What do I tell the others?"

"That you're receiving specialized training related to Project Blitz. Nothing more specific." Nixon paused, watching her carefully. "It'll be difficult, maintaining that separation. Your friends will be curious. Some might even be suspicious."

The truth of this statement settled uncomfortably in her chest. Easy Company had become her family, and now she would be keeping secrets from them.

"I understand, sir."

Nixon's expression suggested he did too. "We all compartmentalize in wartime, Vega. It's necessary, but it comes with a cost."

She nodded, thinking of Michel Alejandro and his carefully worded letters from the Pacific. How much was he not telling her about his experiences? How much would she now have to withhold about hers?

"Your first full session is tomorrow at 0900," Nixon continued. "We'll begin with basic intelligence protocols and more comprehensive assessment. In the meantime, I suggest you get some rest. You have a night exercise coming up, if I recall correctly."

"Yes, sir. Live fire obstacle course."

"Sobel's idea?"

"Yes, sir."

Nixon's mouth quirked. "Well, try not to get shot. Would be a shame to lose our new analyst before she even starts."

As Isabella left the S-2 office, the weight of her new role settled more firmly on her shoulders. This wasn't just additional training or a new skill set - it was a fundamental shift in her position within Easy Company. She would now operate with one foot in two different worlds: the visible, shared experience of combat training with her unit, and the classified, solitary world of intelligence analysis.

The afternoon sun beat down as she walked back toward the barracks, her mind racing with everything that had just happened. The tests had been challenging but stimulating, tapping into intellectual abilities she rarely got to use in her daily training routine.

Yet there was also an undeniable thrill to it - the puzzle-solving aspects of intelligence work appealed to the part of her that had always loved school, that had planned to study history before the war intervened. This wasn't so different, in some ways - piecing together fragments to create a coherent picture of reality.

As she approached the barracks, she could hear the familiar sounds of Easy Company preparing for the evening's exercise - equipment being checked, weapons cleaned, the rhythmic cadence of Guarnere's voice issuing instructions. Normal, routine activities that suddenly felt slightly distant, as if viewed through a new lens.

"There she is," Luz called as she entered. "We were starting to think Nixon had recruited you permanently."

Isabella managed a casual smile, tucking the unmarked folder into her footlocker. "Just Project Blitz stuff. You know how it is."

"Actually, we don't," Liebgott pointed out, glancing up from where he was cleaning his rifle. "That's kind of the point."

She ignored the subtle challenge in his tone, instead grabbing her gear to prepare for the night exercise. "What'd I miss?"

Gene appeared beside her, medical bag in hand. "Equipment check for tonight. We're going to need extra supplies for the live fire course."

Grateful for the practical task, Isabella fell into their well-established routine, helping Gene inventory bandages, sulfa packets, and morphine Syrettes. The familiar work centered her, a reminder that whatever additional roles she might take on, she was still first and foremost a medic.

"You alright, cherie?" Gene asked quietly as they worked, his perceptive gaze missing nothing.

"Yeah," she replied, surprised to find it wasn't entirely a lie. "Just... adjusting to some new responsibilities."

Gene nodded, accepting this without pressing further - one of the many qualities she appreciated most about him. "Well, don't forget the old ones. I'm counting on you to keep these idiots patched up tonight when they start running through an obstacle course in the dark."

She smiled, the tension in her shoulders easing slightly. "Wouldn't miss it."

As the barracks buzzed with pre-exercise activity around them, Isabella found herself settling back into the comfortable rhythm of Easy Company life. The intelligence work would be challenging, the compartmentalization difficult, but at her core, she remained part of this unit - these men who had become her brothers in all but blood.

The complexities of her dual role would sort themselves out in time. For now, there was a night exercise to prepare for, and that was exactly where she needed to focus her attention.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the sun began to set, Easy Company assembled near the training field, fully equipped for the night exercise. The atmosphere was tense but focused, men checking and rechecking their gear in the fading light. Isabella stood with Gene, both of them wearing their medic armbands over combat gear, medical bags secured at their sides.

"Face paint," Guarnere announced, approaching with a small container of dark grease. "Orders are to cover all exposed skin."

Isabella accepted the container, dabbing the dark substance onto her fingers before applying it methodically to her face. The face paint was cool and waxy against her skin, reminding her of the makeup she'd sometimes worn for performances back home.

"Here, you missed a spot," Liebgott said, reaching over to smudge an area near her temple. His fingers left additional streaks of darkness against her skin.

"Thanks," she murmured, continuing the application. "Anyone know exactly what we're doing tonight?"

"Live fire course with tactical objectives," Gene replied, applying his own camouflage with practiced efficiency. "We'll be split into small teams, working through the obstacles while identifying and neutralizing targets."

Winters approached their group, his own face already darkened with camouflage paint, making his eyes stand out starkly in the twilight. "Listen up. You'll be operating in four-person teams tonight. Each team will navigate the obstacle course, locate specific objective markers, and reach the extraction point while avoiding or neutralizing hostile targets."

He began calling out team assignments, and Isabella found herself grouped with Liebgott, Malarkey, and Guarnere. A solid team, she thought—experienced, levelheaded in crisis, and familiar with each other's movements.

"Medics will be distributed among the teams," Winters continued, nodding toward Isabella and Gene. "You'll provide treatment for any actual injuries, but also simulate battlefield care when a team member is designated as a 'casualty' by the observers."

The exercise would test not just their combat skills but their ability to continue operating while managing wounded comrades—a realistic preparation for what they might face in actual combat.

As full darkness settled over Camp Mackall, the teams were transported to different starting positions around the perimeter of the training area. Isabella's group crouched in the underbrush, waiting for the signal flare that would begin the exercise.

"Remember, stay low and move quiet," Guarnere whispered, his voice barely audible. "We don't know where the observers are positioned, but they'll be marking 'casualties' based on exposure and tactical mistakes."

Isabella nodded, adjusting her helmet strap. The weight of her gear—medical bag, canteen, helmet, and the unfamiliar addition of a rifle—pressed down on her shoulders, a constant reminder of the dual nature of her role. As a medic, she wouldn't primarily be engaged in combat, but she was still expected to know how to defend herself and her patients if necessary.

The signal flare shot into the sky, a brilliant red burst against the darkness. Immediately, Guarnere motioned them forward, and they began moving through the underbrush in a staggered formation.

The night was alive with sounds—distant cracks of blank rifle fire, the occasional shout or order, the rustle of vegetation as soldiers moved through the darkness. Isabella kept close to Malarkey, her eyes gradually adjusting to the limited visibility. 

When she was a girl, she and the boys would often stay out in the forest behind the house until the dark set in. They would climb the trees and stay in them until the morning came. The darkness of the night reminded her of the barefooted running she did as she sneaked around, covered in mud and the humid air that heavily weighed them down as they climbed. 

‘Maybe Skip was right when he called me a swamp-person.’

Their first obstacle appeared—a series of low wooden barriers requiring them to crawl underneath while keeping their weapons from touching the ground. Isabella moved through efficiently, the months of physical training paying off as she maintained her low profile and steady pace.

"Target, two o'clock," Liebgott whispered as they emerged from the barriers. A silhouette was visible against the treeline, barely distinguishable in the darkness.

Guarnere made a series of hand signals—Liebgott would provide covering fire while Malarkey flanked the position. Isabella would hold position, ready to move forward once the target was neutralized.

The coordinated movement worked smoothly. Liebgott fired several blanks, the sharp cracks breaking the night's silence, while Malarkey disappeared into the underbrush. Moments later, an observer's whistle confirmed the "enemy" had been successfully engaged.

They continued moving, navigating a series of increasingly challenging obstacles—rope bridges, water-filled trenches, dense vegetation that required careful maneuvering to avoid noise. Isabella's heart raced with the exertion and adrenaline, but her movements remained precise, her awareness of her teammates' positions constant.

"Liebgott," Guarnere whispered suddenly, freezing in place. "Listen to that."

She stilled, straining her ears. From somewhere ahead came voices—low, indistinct murmurs that didn't sound like English. She concentrated, filtering out the ambient sounds of the exercise.

Liebgott shook his head, frustrated. “Can’t catch a damn thing they’re saying.”

"It’s German," she whispered back after a moment. "They're using German phrases to simulate enemy forces."

Guarnere nodded, impressed. "Can you make out what they're saying?"

She listened more carefully, picking up fragments of conversation. "Something about patrol positions... checking the bridge area... I think they're describing a guard rotation."

"Useful intelligence," Guarnere murmured. "Any mention of numbers or specific positions?"

Isabella concentrated harder, filtering through the German phrases. Her brother's lessons had emphasized formal terminology, unexpectedly useful now. "Two at the bridge, four patrolling the perimeter. They're changing positions every twenty minutes."

Liebgott looked at her with newfound respect. "Didn't know you spoke German that well."

"Family thing," she replied simply, unwilling to elaborate further during the exercise.

Guarnere adjusted their approach based on the information. "We'll wait for the rotation, then hit them during the changeover. Maximum confusion."

The tactic worked perfectly. When the "German patrol" began their position change, Guarnere led their team in a coordinated strike that the observers quickly ruled successful. Isabella couldn't help but feel a surge of pride—her linguistic ability had provided actionable intelligence that directly contributed to their tactical success.

As they moved deeper into the course, the sound of actual live fire became more prominent—carefully controlled bursts from fixed machine gun positions, shooting well above the height of any personnel but providing realistic combat noise and muzzle flashes in the darkness.

Then came the complication they'd been expecting. An observer stepped from the shadows, pointing at Malarkey. "Casualty. Gunshot wound, right shoulder."

Malarkey immediately dropped to one knee, simulating injury. Isabella moved to him without hesitation, medical bag already open.

"Cover us," she ordered Liebgott and Guarnere, who took up defensive positions as she began treatment.

The exercise rules required her to perform actual medical procedures—bandaging, splinting, assessment—though without the urgency of a real injury. She worked efficiently, applying a proper field dressing to Malarkey's "wound" while maintaining situational awareness.

"German patrol approaching from the east," she whispered to Guarnere as she worked, having caught another snippet of conversation from the darkness. "Three voices at least."

Guarnere nodded, adjusting their defensive posture. "How long till you're mobile?"

"Two minutes," she replied, securing the last of the bandaging on Malarkey's shoulder.

Their escape was narrow but successful, with Liebgott and Guarnere providing covering fire while Isabella helped Malarkey move through the underbrush. The observers, playing the role of the German patrol, pursued briefly before another team inadvertently drew their attention.

The remainder of the course tested them fully—additional "casualties," more complex obstacles, simulated enemy concentrations that required careful navigation. Through it all, Isabella moved with a confidence born from months of training, her dual roles as medic and intelligence asset creating a uniquely valuable team member.

By the time they reached the extraction point, all four were exhausted, mud-splattered, and breathing hard—but successful. They had completed all objectives, treated their casualties, and reached safety with minimal "losses."

Winters was waiting at the extraction point, clipboard in hand. "Good work," he said simply, making notes as they reported their experience. "Especially the use of intelligence gathered in the field. Creative thinking."

Isabella recognized the subtle nod to her language skills, but maintained a professional demeanor. "Thank you, sir."

As they were transported back to the main camp, the adrenaline of the exercise gradually faded, leaving behind a bone-deep weariness. But beneath the exhaustion was a sense of satisfaction. Tonight had been different—for the first time, she'd actively utilized both aspects of her role, medical and intelligence, in a practical scenario.

It felt right somehow, this integration of her diverse skills. Perhaps Nixon's expanded assignment wouldn't be as compartmentalized as she'd feared. Perhaps there was a way to bring her whole self to this war, not just the pieces that fit neatly into prescribed roles.

Back at the barracks, as she cleaned the camouflage paint from her face, Isabella caught Liebgott watching her in the small mirror.

"So," he said quietly, leaning against the wall beside her. "German, huh?"

She smiled faintly. "Among others."

"How many languages do you actually speak?"

Isabella hesitated only briefly. This wasn't classified information, after all—just personal. "Fluent in Spanish, English, and Japanese. Proficient in German, Portuguese, and Italian. Elementary understanding of French."

Liebgott let out a low whistle. "That's... impressive."

"Colombia actually has quite a lot of German influence," she explained, keeping her tone light. "Its army was modeled after the Prussians. And it’s easy to learn languages when you know the roots ones. Plus, growing up in Florida, you hear a lot of different languages."

He nodded, seeming to accept this explanation. "Well, that all paid off tonight. That intel about the patrol rotation was the difference between us getting through clean or walking into an ambush."

The compliment warmed her, even as she acknowledged the irony. Her language skills—the very abilities that had helped the team tonight—were now becoming part of what would separate her from them in her work with Nixon.

"Just doing my job," she replied simply.

"Yeah, well," Liebgott said, pushing off from the wall, "your job just got a lot more interesting, didn't it?"

There was something in his tone—not accusation exactly, but awareness. He suspected there was more to her meeting with Nixon than she'd admitted.

Isabella merely shrugged, offering a noncommittal smile. "Night, Lieb."

"Night, Birdie," he replied, watching her for a moment longer before turning away.

As she prepared for sleep that night, Isabella found herself thinking about the next day's intelligence training session with new anticipation. The night exercise had shown her a glimpse of how her various skills could work together in practice—how being a medic and an intelligence asset weren't necessarily conflicting roles but complementary ones.

Tomorrow would begin a new chapter in her military service, expanding her responsibilities and testing her capabilities in ways she hadn't anticipated. It was daunting, yes—but also exciting. A chance to contribute more fully to the war effort, to protect her brothers both in Easy Company and fighting overseas.

As she drifted toward sleep, her mind still processing the night's exercise, Isabella felt a growing certainty. Whatever challenges awaited in her expanded role, she was ready to face them.

One step at a time. One day at a time. Just as she always had.

The S-2 office looked different in the morning light—less mysterious, more functional. Papers stacked in precise piles, maps carefully annotated, filing cabinets neatly labeled. Nixon sat at his desk, coffee mug in hand, looking surprisingly alert despite the late-night exercise.

"Vega," he greeted as she entered precisely at 0900. "Right on time. Coffee?"

"Please," she replied, still feeling the effects of the previous night's exertions despite the few hours of sleep she'd managed.

Nixon poured her a cup from a battered pot on a side table. "Heard your team did well last night. Creative use of intelligence gathering."

Isabella accepted the coffee gratefully. "The German voices were a nice touch."

"My idea," Nixon said with a hint of pride. "Wanted to see how many of our people would recognize it and adapt. Not many did." He took a sip from his own cup. "You're a polyglot."

It wasn't a question, but she answered anyway. "Yes, sir."

"Your file mentioned Spanish and Japanese, with some German. But Portuguese, Italian, and French weren't listed."

Isabella shifted slightly, uncomfortable with the feeling that her personal history had been examined without her knowledge. "They didn't seem relevant at the time."

Nixon set his cup down, leaning forward. "They're relevant now. Language skills like yours are gold for intelligence work. The ability to switch between linguistic frameworks, to recognize patterns across different communication systems—it's the foundation of effective analysis."

He stood, moving to a stack of folders on a nearby shelf. "Today we're going to establish your baseline in several key areas. Then we'll develop a training regimen that builds on your existing strengths while addressing any gaps."

For the next three hours, Isabella worked through a series of increasingly complex exercises. Language proficiency tests in each of her stated languages, pattern recognition challenges using both verbal and numeric sequences, code-breaking simulations with varying levels of encryption.

Throughout, Nixon observed, occasionally making notes but offering little feedback beyond basic instructions. His poker face was impressive, revealing nothing about her performance.

"Alright," he said finally, gathering the completed exercises. "That's enough for today."

Isabella set down her pencil, flexing her cramped fingers. "How did I do?"

Nixon's expression remained neutral as he flipped through her work. "You have a natural aptitude for this, that's clear. Your pattern recognition is exceptional despite your challenge with the numbers, but we’ll work on that. You have a solid proficiency across the board, particularly in the Romance languages and German. Japanese will be especially valuable for Pacific theater intelligence."

He paused, setting the papers aside. "The code work is more technical, but you've got the right mental framework for it. With proper training, you could become quite proficient."

Relief flooded through her, followed by a spark of pride. It was one thing to believe yourself capable; it was another to have that ability confirmed by someone with Nixon's expertise.

"Thank you, sir."

After a moment's silence, Nixon retrieved another folder—this one marked with a classified stamp. "Let's talk about your first actual assignment. I want you to read these intercepted messages—mostly in German, with some Italian. They appear to discuss coastal defenses, but there may be coded information embedded within the standard text."

He placed the folder in front of her. "Take your time. Note any patterns, any anomalies, any connections you can draw between separate communications. Don't focus on translating every word perfectly—look for the underlying intelligence value."

Isabella opened the folder with a sense of purpose, scanning the first document. The German was technical but comprehensible, discussing defensive positions along an unnamed coastline. The Italian portions were briefer, primarily concerning supply movements.

As she worked through the materials, a picture began to emerge—coastal fortifications being reinforced, specific mention of anti-aircraft positions, references to expected amphibious landings. The details were fragmented, spread across multiple communications, but together they suggested preparations for defending against a major assault.

"There's a pattern here," she said finally, looking up at Nixon. "These aren't just routine reports. They're anticipating a possible invasion."

Nixon's expression remained neutral, but she caught the flicker of interest in his eyes. "Go on."

"The repeated references to Sicily's southern coast, the reinforcement of anti-aircraft positions, the redeployment of reserve units—they're expecting an Allied landing. Soon." She tapped one of the documents. "And this Italian message mentions 'Neptune's Day' multiple times. It seems symbolic rather than literal."

Nixon nodded slowly. "Good. What else?"

Isabella hesitated, then pointed to a series of numbers embedded within one of the German messages that confused her. "These don't fit the context. They're presented as supply quantities, but the values are inconsistent with the items being discussed. I think they might be a simple substitution cipher, using numbers instead of letters."

"Can you break it?" Nixon challenged.

"Not without more samples or a key," she admitted. "But I believe they're communicating something beyond what's explicitly stated in the text."

Nixon gathered the documents, returning them to the folder. "Not bad for your first analysis. You have good instincts—seeing beyond the obvious, connecting disparate elements, identifying what doesn't fit. That's the heart of intelligence work."

Isabella felt a surprising sense of satisfaction. When she first started learning Japanese, it was quite similar. Trying to learn a completely different alphabet and learning the new sentence structure reminded her of the actual code, while learning to distinguish the meaning of the different strokes in Kanji was very similar to breaking down a cipher.

"Your assessment was accurate, by the way," Nixon added, securing the folder in a locked cabinet. "The Axis powers are indeed anticipating an Allied invasion of Sicily. What they don't know is exactly when or where."

Isabella processed this confirmation with a mixture of professional satisfaction and personal anxiety. Sicily. The invasion was real, not theoretical, and potentially imminent. And if Easy Company was part of the Airborne contingent...

"For our next session, I want you to review these," Nixon continued, handing her a thin manual. "Basic encryption techniques. Study the principles, not just the specific methods. Understanding how codes are constructed is the first step to breaking them."

She accepted the manual, noting it was unmarked except for a simple designation: "Field Guide S-2."

"One more thing," Nixon added as she prepared to leave. "Lieutenant Winters asked me to inform you that there's a medical training session this afternoon. Something about evacuation procedures under fire."

Isabella nodded, grateful for the reminder. "Thank you, sir."

As she turned to go, Nixon's voice stopped her once more. "Isabella?"

"Sir?"

His expression was uncharacteristically serious. "You did well today. But remember—what happens in this office stays in this office. The line between your roles as medic and intelligence asset must remain clear, especially to others."

"Understood, sir."

As she left the S-2 office, stepping back into the bright June sunlight, Isabella felt the weight of her dual identity more keenly than ever. In just three hours, she had crossed a threshold—from theoretical intelligence asset to active analyst, working with real operational information.

The medical training session that afternoon would pull her back into her primary role, grounding her once again in the physical realities of battlefield medicine. The alternating focus would become her new normal, a mental compartmentalization that she would need to master just as thoroughly as her medical or linguistic skills.

It wouldn't be easy. The lines would blur sometimes, especially in field exercises where both aspects of her training might be relevant. And maintaining the necessary secrecy with her friends in Easy Company would create a distance she hadn't anticipated when joining the paratroopers.

But as she walked back toward the medical station to meet Gene for their afternoon training, Isabella found herself surprisingly energized by the challenge. Her expanded role wasn't a burden but an opportunity—a chance to contribute more fully to the war effort, to use every skill at her disposal.

Sicily might be waiting across the ocean. Combat might be approaching more rapidly than any of them had expected. But for now, her focus remained on preparation—becoming the best medic and the best intelligence asset she could be.

When the time came to put both skills to the test in actual combat, she would be ready.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

taglist: @darling-heffron, @malarkgirlypop

[crystalkat6747]

Honkai star rail OC: Aoi

English VA: Emi Lo

Aoi is another one of my honkai star rail OC's, she is Kesshou's mother and the current queen of Elsaria.

Aoi is an elegant and warm-hearted woman who ruled her kingdom with firm yet fair hand, despite her royal status as queen she enjoys the more simple things of life, she will often spend her mornings out in the palace gardens, having a cup of her favorite tea or dancing amongst the flowers, when Kesshou was a young child she would always watch her mother dance.

Those feelings only sparked in her heart when she saw how Jing Yuan treated Kesshou and Kakeru, who was two years old at the time, like his own children, she'd seen the three of them asleep together with both of them snuggling with Jing Yuan multiple times. Aoi met Jing Yuan before she met Sunday because of the Xianshou alliance placing the Ali under their protection after the antimatter legion's attack, at first the only emotion she felt towards Jing Yuan was unwavering respect, but over time that respect turned love, though their keeping their relationship on the down low. Dai Koushaku, a member of Elsaria's council, and Yamakaji's ex boyfriend, in his arrogance and spite believed that the Xianshou had already meddled in the affairs of the Ali enough and one of their generals being in a romantic relationship with an Elsarian queen was simply barbaric in his eyes, but he was unable to speak against Aoi after she put her foot down in a way that left absolutely no room for further argument.

Though Aoi was not always like this, she was actually very angry and cold as a teenager, spending most of her time studying with her grimoire, though she was trying to study on how to be a proper lady despite that, because after the antimatter legion's attack 100 years ago, and her eldest sister Yamakaji being corrupted by the power of destruction and temporarily going crazy before fleeing Elsaria a little over 20 years ago, she knew that she would have to truly immerse herself in her potential role, and she did not regret doing so, because when her parents king Kudoku and queen Sayuri told her she would be taking the throne she actually felt very confident in her capabilities, that is until Kudoku explained that she'd be going to Penacony because she had been arranged to conceive a child with Sunday, every king and queen of Elsaria has been arranged to conceive at least one child with someone that Elsaria's council chooses, they had chosen Sunday in the hope of gaining political ties with the family. Although Aoi wasn't too keen on the arrangement she was going to at least try and get along with Sunday, she was a little cold to him at first, but after she officially became pregnant she began to warm up to him a little, she'd fallen asleep on his shoulder a couple of times because Ali's tend to sleep a lot when they're pregnant, both male and female Ali's can get pregnant. When Aoi gave birth to Kesshou and held her in her arms for the first time she felt so much maternal love that it changed her greatly, Sunday also held her, even a little longer than Aoi did. But when Kesshou was about a month old she heard Sunday talking with someone about Kesshou and her future, Aoi had been scheduled to return to Elsaria the next day so she didn't have the time to talk to Sunday about it, though she had no idea that Sunday had romantic feelings for her, she herself never felt a great spark with Sunday, she did care about him as a person and as a friend but she had no romantic feelings for him.

[mariacallous]

How will AI be used in health care settings?

Artificial intelligence (AI) shows tremendous promise for applications in health care. Tools such as machine learning algorithms, artificial neural networks, and generative AI (e.g., Large Language Models) have the potential to aid with tasks such as diagnosis, treatment planning, and resource management. Advocates have suggested that these tools could benefit large numbers of people by increasing access to health care services (especially for populations that are currently underserved), reducing costs, and improving quality of care.

This enthusiasm has driven the burgeoning development and trial application of AI in health care by some of the largest players in the tech industry. To give just two examples, Google Research has been rapidly testing and improving upon its “Med-PaLM” tool, and NVIDIA recently announced a partnership with Hippocratic AI that aims to deploy virtual health care assistants for a variety of tasks to address a current shortfall in the supply in the workforce.

What are some challenges or potential negative consequences to using AI in health care?

Technology adoption can happen rapidly, exponentially going from prototypes used by a small number of researchers to products affecting the lives of millions or even billions of people. Given the significant impact health care system changes could have on Americans’ health as well as on the U.S. economy, it is essential to preemptively identify potential pitfalls before scaleup takes place and carefully consider policy actions that can address them.

One area of concern arises from the recognition that the ultimate impact of AI on health outcomes will be shaped not only by the sophistication of the technological tools themselves but also by external “human factors.” Broadly speaking, human factors could blunt the positive impacts of AI tools in health care—or even introduce unintended, negative consequences—in two ways:

If developers train AI tools with data that don’t sufficiently mirror diversity in the populations in which they will be deployed. Even tools that are effective in the aggregate could create disparate outcomes. For example, if the datasets used to train AI have gaps, they can cause AI to provide responses that are lower quality for some users and situations. This might lead to the tool systematically providing less accurate recommendations for some groups of users or experiencing “catastrophic failures” more frequently for some groups, such as failure to identify symptoms in time for effective treatment or even recommending courses of treatment that could result in harm.  

If patterns of AI use systematically differ across groups. There may be an initial skepticism among many potential users to trust AI for consequential decisions that affect their health. Attitudes may differ within the population based on attributes such as age and familiarity with technology, which could affect who uses AI tools, understands and interprets the AI’s output, and adheres to treatment recommendations. Further, people’s impressions of AI health care tools will be shaped over time based on their own experiences and what they learn from others.

In recent research, we used simulation modeling to study a large range of different of hypothetical populations of users and AI health care tool specifications. We found that social conditions such as initial attitudes toward AI tools within a population and how people change their attitudes over time can potentially:

Lead to a modestly accurate AI tool having a negative impact on population health. This can occur because people’s experiences with an AI tool may be filtered through their expectations and then shared with others. For example, if an AI tool’s capabilities are objectively positive—in expectation, the AI won’t give recommendations that are harmful or completely ineffective—but sufficiently lower than expectations, users who are disappointed will lose trust in the tool. This could make them less likely to seek future treatment or adhere to recommendations if they do and lead them to pass along negative perceptions of the tool to friends, family, and others with whom they interact.

Create health disparities even after the introduction of a high-performing and unbiased AI tool (i.e., that performs equally well for all users). Specifically, when there are initial differences between groups within the population in their trust of AI-based health care—for example because of one group’s systematically negative previous experiences with health care or due to the AI tool being poorly communicated to one group—differential use patterns alone can translate into meaningful differences in health patterns across groups. These use patterns can also exacerbate differential effects on health across groups when AI training deficiencies cause a tool to provide better quality recommendations for some users than others.

Barriers to positive health impacts associated with systematic and shifting use patterns are largely beyond individual developers’ direct control but can be overcome with strategically designed policies and practices.

What could a regulatory framework for AI in health care look like?

Disregarding how human factors intersect with AI-powered health care tools can create outcomes that are costly in terms of life, health, and resources. There is also the potential that without careful oversight and forethought, AI tools can maintain or exacerbate existing health disparities or even introduce new ones. Guarding against negative consequences will require specific policies and ongoing, coordinated action that goes beyond the usual scope of individual product development. Based on our research, we suggest that any regulatory framework for AI in health care should accomplish three aims:

Ensure that AI tools are rigorously tested before they are made fully available to the public and are subject to regular scrutiny afterward. Those developing AI tools for use in health care should carefully consider whether the training data are matched to the tasks that the tools will perform and representative of the full population of eventual users. Characteristics of users to consider include (but are certainly not limited to) age, gender, culture, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, education, and language fluency. Policies should encourage and support developers in investing time and resources into pre- and post-launch assessments, including:

pilot tests to assess performance across a wide variety of groups that might experience disparate impact before large-scale application

monitoring whether and to what extent disparate use patterns and outcomes are observed after release

identifying appropriate corrective action if issues are found.

Require that users be clearly informed about what tools can do and what they cannot. Neither health care workers nor patients are likely to have extensive training or sophisticated understanding of the technical underpinnings of AI tools. It will be essential that plain-language use instructions, cautionary warnings, or other features designed to inform appropriate application boundaries are built into tools. Without these features, users’ expectations of AI capabilities might be inaccurate, with negative effects on health outcomes. For example, a recent report outlines how overreliance on AI tools by inexperienced mushroom foragers has led to cases of poisoning; it is easy to imagine how this might be a harbinger of patients misdiagnosing themselves with health care tools that are made publicly available and missing critical treatment or advocating for treatment that is contraindicated. Similarly, tools used by health care professionals should be supported by rigorous use protocols. Although advanced tools will likely provide accurate guidance an overwhelming majority of the time, they can also experience catastrophic failures (such as those referred to as “hallucinations” in the AI field), so it is critical for trained human users to be in the loop when making key decisions.

Proactively protect against medical misinformation. False or misleading claims about health and health care—whether the result of ignorance or malicious intent—have proliferated in digital spaces and become harder for the average person to distinguish from reliable information. This type of misinformation about health care AI tools presents a serious threat, potentially leading to mistrust or misapplication of these tools. To discourage misinformation, guardrails should be put in place to ensure consistent transparency about what data are used and how that continuous verification of training data accuracy takes place.

How can regulation of AI in health care keep pace with rapidly changing conditions?

In addition to developers of tools themselves, there are important opportunities for unaffiliated researchers to study the impact of AI health care tools as they are introduced and recommend adjustments to any regulatory framework. Two examples of what this work might contribute are:

Social scientists can learn more about how people think about and engage with AI tools, as well as how perceptions and behaviors change over time. Rigorous data collection and qualitative and quantitative analyses can shed light on these questions, improving understanding of how individuals, communities, and society adapt to shifts in the health care landscape.

Systems scientists can consider the co-evolution of AI tools and human behavior over time. Building on or tangential to recent research, systems science can be used to explore the complex interactions that determine how multiple health care AI tools deployed across diverse settings might affect long-term health trends. Using longitudinal data collected as AI tools come into widespread use, prospective simulation models can provide timely guidance on how policies might need to be course corrected.

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 3 replay, part four of Leviathan:

Dr. Bryson’s Lab

-Why is Ann permitted to be on her own when they know she’s indoctrinated?

Leviathan could take control of her and force her to destroy the entire lab! Or herself!

Yes, so far it’s only occurred when an artifact is present, but they don’t know an artifact's required. It may just take more effort without one.

-Ann is yet another character with daddy issues. Does anyone in this series have a good relationship with their father?

-How did the Reapers validate years of Dr. Bryson’s work? Did he have a reason to suspect they existed?

-I still think having a piece of a Reaper in the middle of the Citadel is a very bad idea. It’s too dangerous for such a public location.

And I still want to know how they know the shielding works.

Saren had an entire lab devoted to studying indoctrination in an attempt to protect himself, but Dr. Bryson found a method in just a few years?

And if it works for the piece of the Reaper, why can’t it be expanded to protect organics? Why can’t it be used to safely research the destroyed Reapers on Tuchanka and Rannoch?

-Hmm. I suppose if Garneau knew how the shielding around the piece of the Reaper worked he could have developed something similar for the artifact. That justifies why he could develop shielding for it so quickly.

It also explains why Ann was so confident that the artifacts could be shielded.

-On a similar note, why is the husk head out in the open? And why isn’t it shielded?

The base game emphasizes that any contact with Reapers results in indoctrination. Alive, dead, their technology…

Leviathan is far more casual about it.

-Why are Shepard and James near the artifact when the shield is dropped?

It risks them becoming indoctrinated.

It’d be far safer to have Edi turn the shield on/off.

-The subtitles switch to Leviathan again when they speak through Ann.

-James can be ruthless when necessary, but he’s more paragon aligned. He’s pretty angry at Shepard for the danger they put Ann in if they go renegade.

-If you go paragon, Shepard and Ann both refer to Leviathan as “it”.

I think that time Shepard used “he” must have been an exception.

Despoina

-I suppose we can assume the crashed ships are recentish, since the M-55 Argus 1 you can find on the ship is a current weapon.

At least that explains why Shepard can read the datapads.

-The datapads tell a rather harrowing story.

Notably, the skeletons are in the various tents.

The Leviathans caused them to just lie down and wait for death… Terrifying.

At least the Leviathans made them not feel hungry.

-According to the datapads, there aren’t any fish.

So what are the Leviathans eating?

-Why does a deep diving mech have the same weapons capabilities as as a Cerberus Atlas?

I think this is gameplay convenience. In game, it probably has tools that can be used as weapons if needed.

-Well, Shepard’s undeniably indoctrinated in the Leviathan DLC. By the Leviathan, but still indoctrinated.

Maybe that prevents or Reaper indoctrination?

-Why is it still treated as a given that the Leviathans are the ones that killed the Leviathan of Dis?

When was this proven?

I suppose we’re supposed to assume Dr. Bryson proved it offscreen and that’s what led him to the artifacts.

I had assumed he stumbled over the artifacts in his search, but that the two were not directly related. Or that researchers indoctrinated by the Leviathans created the weapon that took the Reaper out.

I still feel Shepard is making a leap here.

-Do the Leviathans remind anyone else of the turians?

“Lesser races”, thrall races = client species, the lesser races are cared for…

-Leviathan: “Tribute does not flow from a dead race.”

I think we all know the Leviathans real concern with the “lesser species” being exterminated by their machines.

-How did the star child destroy the Leviathans, anyway?

The first Reaper was created from the Leviathans, so it’s not like it was superior firepower and more advanced technology like it would in future cycles.

Yes, it built pawns to perform the research it needed to perform the task the Leviathans gave it. But how did these pawns have enough strength to take out the Leviathans?

I will assume the star-child somehow also seized control of the Leviathan’s existing infrastructure and turned it against them.

-Even billions of years later, the Leviathans can’t own that they fucked up.

The star-child wasn’t a mistake. It’s still serving its purpose!

So the part where it turned against the Leviathans and destroyed them is what, a minor flaw?

-If I understand correctly, in the early cycles the Leviathans took thralls. When the Reapers came they used the thralls to destroy any evidence the Leviathans existed.

So the paintings may come from that period.

Later they switched to using the artifacts to observe and direct without leaving their safe places.

-They refer to the artifacts as fragments.

Fragments of what?

-We all agree that the Leviathans exist on other worlds, right?

They’re just not telling Shepard that for security.

-Shepard should have the bends from returning to the surface so fast.

Let’s attribute their lack the Leviathans.

-Leviathan: “Today, they pay their tribute in blood”.

A very badass line.

-The Leviathans can override Reaper indoctrination. Still no evidence if the vice versa is true or not.

-Ironically, the star-child turning organics into Reapers might have helped lead to their downfall.

The Leviathans presumably could not take control of whatever machines the star-child used to wipe them out.

They can take control of Reapers.

-After meeting Leviathan, Shepard still refers to Leviathan as “it”.

-Ann’s indoctrinated. Isn’t having her work on the Crucible risky? It gives the Leviathan a direct line to it.

-The Reapers know the Leviathans are on Despoina. Why don’t they just chuck an asteroid at it to eliminate them? They could do that without getting into indoctrination range.

The Leviathans would not be able to indoctrinate a chunk of rock. Even if they have defense systems in place, if the Reapers threw enough asteroids at once I doubt the Leviathans could stop them all.

[good-beanswrites]

Can I request "this didnt turn out like I intended" with shidou, es, and amane?

Aw yeah!! Thank you so much for the request -- I ended up giving the line to Es but honestly all three of them could have said it, it was perfect 👀 I pictured this before the T2 interrogations, with Es being fairly quiet about their guilt towards everything that happened. Though Shidou appears a bit less, I hope I could convey that he and Es share a lot of thoughts, interestingly.

Es would never get accustomed to the screaming. 

They’d heard a few anguished cries from the prisoner’s videos. They’d gotten a few agitated shouts when the first trial verdicts were announced. But nothing could have prepared them for the way the prison halls echoed now. Whether the prisoners poured out their sorrows, anguish, or agony at recent injuries, Es didn’t think they needed Milgram’s power to hear the true sounds of their heart. 

Es wished they’d just stop already. They knew it was selfish to hope for. They knew it stemmed from their own guilt. That didn’t make them wish for it any less.

The current bout of cries was coming from Shidou’s cell. Es had paused just before passing, trying to bury a wince as they listened to Fuuta struggle with treatment.

Amane approached from the other side. She glared at the cell, though Es knew it wasn’t the screaming that was bothering her.

She opened her mouth to speak, but they said in a hushed voice, “hey, I don’t need you giving Shidou any trouble. I know you disapprove, but I stand by this. I’m the one who told Shidou to check on Fuuta and Mahiru. I’m going to make sure they’re cared for.”

Amane studied them with her bright, unsettling gaze. “Why?” Her voice came out as strangely even as always. She was one of the few Es hadn’t heard any kind of shout from. “If something is destined to happen, who are you to change its course? Do you really believe you are the same as God, having that much control over the lives of others?”

“Not at all.” Es didn’t fight her. They weren’t here to change her heart, only read it. Still, they wondered if they could convince her to soften a bit without denouncing her beliefs. “The thing is, I’m not affecting their fate.”

“Then what do you call this?”

“Putting things back the way they should be.”

Es had tried to stand by their actions. They’d put on a tough face in front of the injured prisoners. They could not show weakness. As their warden, they couldn’t show any uncertainty, whatsoever. After all, the only thing worse than nearly getting killed was finding out you nearly got killed because of a child’s mistake. So they would keep this act up. They would assure everyone that this was still going according to plan. 

The way Amane looked at them, she already knew it wasn’t.

So, they figured it wouldn’t hurt to speak a little more openly now. Maybe it would even help explain Amane’s verdict. That certainly hadn’t gone as planned, either. “I wrongfully changed their lives when I let them get hurt. I saw that Kotoko had the capability for something like this, and I ignored it in the name of forgiveness. Now I need to fix the harm I’ve caused.”

“You haven’t caused any harm.”

Fuuta howled from inside.

Amane turned her gaze away. “That was still an outside force. You had no control over Kotoko’s actions. You and Shidou have control now.”

“I did have control over Kotoko, though. I knew my choices would have consequences. This is my fault.”

It felt good to say it out loud. Maybe not 'good.' It was a relief.

“And if I may venture to speak for Shidou…” That man was a mystery, but Es had put a few pieces together, at least. “It seems… he also took some lives off of their intended course. This is his way of fixing that. Right now, this is all we can do to make up for our decisions of the past. Isn’t that acceptable?”

She went to answer, but some shuffling from the cell cut her off. Shidou emerged, his expression changing ever so slightly upon finding the two just outside. Fuuta scowled on his way out, but said nothing. 

As the pair stood face to face, Amane’s eyes lit with fiery fury. Shidou met her with a harsh coldness.

“I wasn’t expecting you two,” he said simply. He was one of the others Es had yet to hear with a raised voice. Their two quietest prisoners, locked in such an intense struggle. That had certainly been an unexpected turn. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” Es lied. “We just stopped to talk for a moment.”

“Oh? What about?” Shidou folded his hands together. His gloves were covered in blood, they noticed. 

“Just that… this…” they waved a gloved hand in a general gesture, “didn’t work out as I intended.”

Shidou offered them a smile. It was one without any warmth, but that didn’t make it any less genuine.

“Mmm. It never does.”

[missr3n3]

This is a disease that spreads and burns /j (Context: this is an idea I had, originally for Moon's blog, but I guess this is what happens when you have more than one current hyperfixation)

"Anti-characters" -> Doppelgangers of some of the main cast who usually only have a few tiny physical differences, but are otherwise completely different, if not complete opposites, of the character they look like

Anti-Joshua: Edgar Fermour

Actually has a lot of physical differences: is far shorter than Josh, has very short hair, wears glasses and has grey eyes instead of green.

Comes from a stable, middle class family and has one younger sister, Everlee, and two parents who love to spoil their children and to read, a passion that Edgar ended up inheriting from them.

A very well-behaved, studious, helpful, always-has-high-grades teacher's pet kind of guy, he is both respected and hated at school, with most other students only going out of their way to talk to him when they need help with studies.

Is actually very sociable and energetic, though he gives off the impression of being closed off as he rarely initiates conversations, but this is because Edgar only trusts and sees others as friends when they're capable to keep up with his "nerdiness", which is hard to come by for him.

Anti-Isaac: Orchen Ansel

Edgar's blue-eyed devout best friend who has a pony tail, something he wishes to keep as he sees his body as a gift from both his parents and the Lord, though he doesn't judge people for doing what he doesn't, such as Edgar himself keeping his hair short and occasionally swearing.

Rarely anyone outside of church kids wants to interact with Orchen, as he's seen as a "missionary in training", always having a bible verse or moral teaching at the tip of his tongue, which many find annoying.

He is the eldest out of four children born to an interracial Pentecostal couple, though he doesn't speak in tongues outside of church because he knows most other Christians don't have this practice.

Orchen is a very naturally shy kid, so because of this, and his piety driving other children away, he carries around a small prayer book all the time, for whenever he has been harshly pushed aside or feels he was unhelpful, since he loves to help whenever possible.

Anti-Madeline: Lillian "Lily" Mitchens

With a few extra inches of height and both eyes being brown, Lily is the complete polar opposite of Maddie.

Being the child of a successful Diane businessman and a respected Hemera doctor, Lily grew up being overly nurtured and spoiled by all the adults around her, thus she became a vain, haughty and snooty young woman who feels entitled to mistreat and belittle those she sees as "nobodies".

She especially has it out for a boy in her school called Francis Lacey (anti-Amir), who comes from a struggling family in the "poor district" of Hemera, often showing off her new presents and chasing him around with her motorcycle. Lily only ever noticed Francis' existence due to him being friendly with her former playdate companion Zella Xaver (anti-Leah), though she never targeted Zella herself, as Lily knows she is too much of an empath for her own good and makes friends with practically everyone.

Other than her parents, their friends and the few children she got along with, the only other person Lillian is kind and sweet with is her little brother, Orion, whom she adores.

(Will describe the others if you guys really want it)

thanks for sharing!

even tho the canon cast are more often the ones being bullied than the bullies, i still can't help but feel like canon joshua, isaac, and madeline would steal these kids' lunch money n shove them in lockers lmao

not amir tho, even he's a wimp even in canon <3

[dorotontheglow]

Why Would You Not Want Change?

Think of it this way: Why would you want to suffer? And if you don't want to suffer, why would you dwell on your sadness?

It took me a while to realize that I was going to live and it meant that if I did not change my ways, I was gonna live like this my whole life. If there's no way out, the only way is up. Or do you wanna stay in your rock bottom? Is your lowest point, also, your comfort zone?

Yes, things could have been different. I could have learned two-three languages but unfortunately, I lost that time to mental illness. The thing is that, though, if you do not take action, a few years from now the future you will be looking at you, thinking "damn, I could have studied a language at that time. I would've learned two-three languages by now." You are never late. Get that idea out of your head. The future you is still being built by YOU. You choose who you'll become. Push yourself a little. You don't have to study Spanish for two hours every single day, you don't have to learn it in three, in six months. What you need to do now is to start. Doesn't matter if it's 2 minutes or 2 words a day. Just start.

You are going to live this life. That distant future you're so scared of will become your today one day. It is scary I know. But if you're going to do this, do it right. Prepare yourself. Do something every day that will benefit you in the long run. You might not have defined muscles right now, though you're working out. But do you know who has them? YOU if you keep working out. You might be A1 in Spanish but do you know who speaks it fluently? YOU if you keep studying. The fact that the future you might be doing these means that you are also capable of making it happen for her. Yeah, she knows how to speak Spanish but it's you that made it happen. You are capable as you are now. Your potential, your best-self, higher self is not some mystical creature detached from your current self. Without your current self, she would never exist. Believe in yourself.

Also, we are doing this right? We are living this life, we'll continue doing so. So why would you want to stop at this state? Since we're doing this, why not make it a pleasant life for you to live in? Why not become a little healthier, a bit smarter, happier? There's no logical explanation as to why you wouldn't want these for yourself.

Sadness, anxiety, depression sucks. Sometimes the best you can do is to survive and that is valid. But there's a point where it just becomes comfortable. Make yourself a little uncomfortable and step towards your best self.

[dykeyote]

!! i am asking abt the wtnv guys.. i know carlos is the love interest but whats he like :-3

!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA JOYOUS I WAS ACTUALLY PLANNING ON ASKING IF ANYONE WOULD SEND ME ASKS ABOUT CARLOS HEHEHEHE I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

ok so carlos is the love of my life basically the whole thing w him is that like . im sure uv at least Gathered the general concept of night vale from being in podcast spaces but i like being thorough so im xplaining anyway .... night vale is a town that is weird and Freakay and carlos is a scientist who comes to study it . he starts out equally fascinated and frightened by the strange events that happen there and is quite othered by the town but eventually grows to adjust to it more and love it while still being able to call out some of the weirder shit which helps CECIL begin to question things more which is fun mutual character development (: he tends to be the more closed off and quiet one in comparison to cecil who can barely keep a secret to save his life, except when hes talking about science which he can go on about foreva and eva and eva

he is extremely autistic i love him dearly hes some of the best autistic rep ive seen (except when hes Not but thats usually not bc of how hes written but bc of how cecil Talks about him on occasion but whatever . its a show thats gone on for like ten years its bound to have some flops) i love him so much (: his fixation on science is Very obviously written to be a special interest (he only finds jokes that are scientifically accurate funny, he gets so excited at being asked a question about space that he goes on a huge ramble about it before laughing and skipping bc hes so excited, he self regulates by looking at a list of his favorite numbers) and it makes me very happy it was PIVOTAL for kid me loving himself as an autistic person . because hes also the most handsome man in town and his husband is MADLY in love w him and finds all that endearing (the heist isnt canon btw) and hes incredibly smart and capable and agh!!!!! and hes also written with other autistic traits too (not being able to understand jokes, not being able to read subtext, getting so overwhelmed hes unable to speak, intense hyperfocuses) and all of these things dont detract from these facts!!!!!!!! AGHHHH i love it it makes me so happy . genuinely he was so so so impactful on like eighth grade me feeling comfortable and happy w those Things abt herself that he didnt yet understand aaaghhhhhhh. i love him so much!!!!!

hes also an INCREDIBLY interesting character i think wtnv doesnt use him as much as he should a lot of the time hes sometimes relegated to just "cecils husband" which is sad bc hes SO SO SO interesting? hes incredibly bad at expressing his emotions and tends to keep them very clsoe to his chest and hold secrets from people that he cares about - the desert otherworld arc being a KEY example of that hes so fascinating . he develops this really codependent friendship with kevin (an ex-antagonist current-general freakazoid) thats really Really intense due to them being like the only two people trapped in the desert otherworld together and they really do seem to care about each other (kevin was canonically in love w him and carlos seems to feel enough abt him in return that kevin Also canonically genuinely believed it was mutual) and hes unable to really express any of his emotions verbally so he just leaves kevin a letter before leaving without explicitly saying that hes never coming back outside of the letter that kevin reads after hes already gone . and also he was trapped in the desert otherworld (which is like another dimension) for what seemed for cecil (his boyfriend at the time) like a year but for CARLOS due to time dilation it was ten years . where he was trapped in another dimension with no way to get to his home and see the man that he loves again . and carlos said in the ten year anniversaty ep that cecil will Never know how long carlos was in there and that carlos is never gonna tell him . and i find all that FASCINATING carlos is such an interesting character mostly due to the way he keeps everything so close to his chest but its quite sad bc DUE to that we rarely ever see his cmoplexities .... hes a bundle of lies via omission and oh my god i want to know more about his psyche so so so much

also hes a silly goose!!!!!! he loves theatre and acting and gets so excited to go to a murder mystery dinner theater (which in night vale is a very serious thing thats a way of like . actually trying to solve a crime) that he tests out so many fake accents on cecil (live on air) that the secret police tell cecil to uninvite carlos immediately which makes carlos so sad disappointed that cecil has to say that theyll make their own murder mystery dinner theater to cheer him up. he has a brief hyperfixation on making tiktok dances to the degree that when he says hes working late cecil assumes hes lying so he can do more tiktok dances. another one of his hyperfixations over the years is elden ring which he hyperfocused on so hard that he played it for 22-23 hours a day and was so fixated on it that he didnt know the moon was missing, or particularly care until he finished this boss. he spends his time at work making construction paper collage love notes for his husband and considers this important undisturbable work. when talking to one of his assistants he says that the subject of discussion will now be science, and then pulls out a graph with just the word "science" on it and says that its a visual aid for the discussion. i love him so much hes so silly goose