#UP Lockdown Extension

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ideas Lying Around

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in DC TOMORROW (Mar 4), and in RICHMOND on WEDNESDAY (Mar 5). More tour dates here. Mail-order signed copies from LA's Diesel Books.

I get a special pleasure from citing Milton Friedman. I like to imagine that as I do, he groans around the red-hot spit protruding from his jaws, prompting howls of laughter from the demons who pelt him with molten faeces for all eternity.

If you're lucky enough not to know about Friedman, here's the short version. Friedman was a kind of court sorcerer to Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Augusto Pinochet, and other assorted authoritarian, hard-right leaders who set us on the path to the hellscape we inhabit today. But before Friedman rose to prominence and influence, he was a crank. Specifically, he was a crank who dedicated his life to rolling back all the progress of the New Deal and re-establishing the Gilded Age:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/06/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom/

In his crank days, people were justifiably skeptical of this project. "Milton," they'd say, "people like New Deal programs. They like the minimum wage, the 40-hour work-week, and the assurance that they won't be maimed, poisoned, burned alive, or otherwise killed on the job. They relish a dignified retirement, quality education for their children, and the assurance that no one is starving to death in their country's borders. People like national parks! They like Medicare! They like libraries, museums, and reliable weather forecasts! How, Milton, do you propose to convince the vast majority of people that they should settle for being forelock-tugging plebs, groveling before their social betters for the chance to scrub their toilets?"

Friedman had an answer: "In times of crisis, ideas can move from the fringe to the center in an eyeblink. Our job is to keep good ideas lying around, in anticipation of that crisis."

When the oil crisis hit, when prices spiked in the USA and abroad, Friedman seized his opportunity. The years following the oil crisis saw a violent political revolution in which organized labor, social justice movements, and the political opposition to oligarchy were crushed under police batons and the guns of Pinochet's thugs. The world was transformed. Left parties like UK Labour were remade as austerity-pilled neoliberals (not for nothing did Margaret Thatcher call Tony Blair "her greatest accomplishment," and it took Bill Clinton to pass a welfare "reform" bill that was too extreme even for Reagan to get through Congress).

Friedman was a monster.

But.

He had a hell of a theory of change.

When prices spiral, when people can't pay their bills anymore, when their retirement savings are wiped out, anything is possible. The oil crisis wasn't Jimmy Carter's fault, but the voters still delivered a Ba'ath Party-style Republican majority in 1980. The covid shocks weren't the fault of the world governments that presided over pandemic inflation, but they were creamed in the ensuing elections.

Let's talk about Trump's tariffs here. Trump's goal is to force a re-shoring of the American industrial capacity that was shipped to low-wage, low-regulation corporate havens around the world after the Reagan revolution. The pandemic provided a vivid lesson about the problems with long, brittle supply chains where all the slack has been extracted and converted to dividends and stock buybacks. That kind of system may work well – at least to the extent that it keeps Walmart's shelves full of cheap goods – but holy shit did it ever fail badly. Re-shoring is a good idea, as are other forms of pro-resiliency industrial policy.

But re-shoring doesn't happen overnight. As we saw during China's covid lockdowns, when one supplier ceases to ship goods, other suppliers can't spring up overnight to take up the slack. China itself became a manufacturing powerhouse thanks to extensive state support and planning, and it took decades. That kind of patient, long-run, planned process is the best-case scenario (and it still caused wrenching dislocations to Chinese society). Simply throwing up tariff walls and demanding that industry figure it out – amid the resulting economic chaos and the political instability it brings – isn't a plan, it's a disaster.

Redistributing the means of production around the world is a necessary and urgent project, but it won't be advanced through Trump's rapid, unscheduled mid-air disassembly of the global system of trade. Tariffs will cause breakdowns in neoliberalism's fragile supply chains, and the ensuing chaos – mass unemployment, shortages, political rage – will make it even harder for countries (including the USA) to rebuild the productive capacity vaporized by 40 years of neoliberalism.

This is our oil crisis, in other worlds: a moment in which a belligerent superpower's ill-considered monkeying with the underpinnings of global production will cause chaos, the crisis in which "ideas can move from the periphery to the center" in an eyeblink. If Steve Bannon can call himself a Leninist, then leftists can call themselves Friedmanites. This is our opportunity.

Or rather, it's our opportunity to seize – or lose. Governments are defaulting to retaliatory tariffs as the best response to Trump's tariffs. This is political poison: making everything your country imports from the USA more expensive is a very weird way to punish America for its trade war. Remember the glaring lesson of pandemic inflation: a government that presides over rising prices will be destroyed by the electorate.

There's a much better alternative, one that strikes at the very roots of American oligarchy, whose extreme wealth and corrosive political influence comes from its holdings in rent-extracting monopolies, especially Big Tech monopolies.

Tech giants are the major factor in US economic health. Take Big Tech stocks out of the S&P 500 and you've got a stagnant market punctuated by periods of decline. Superficially, US tech companies have different sources of extraordinary profit, but a closer look reveals that they all share the same foundation: Big Tech makes the bulk of its money in the form of monopoly rents, backstopped by global IP treaties.

Apple and Google take a 30% cut of every dollar spent in an app, and it's a felony to jailbreak a phone to make a new app store with the industry standard 1-3% transaction fees. Google and Meta take 51% out of every ad dollar, and publishers and advertisers are locked into their ecosystems by abusive contracts and technological countermeasures. HP charges $10,000/gallon for the colored water you put in your printer, and third-party ink and refills violate the anti-circumvention laws the US has crammed down the throats of every country's legislature. Tesla makes its fattest margins by renting you features that are installed in your car at the factory, from autopilot to the ability to use your battery's whole charge, raking in monthly fees from you and anyone you sell your car to – and the reason your mechanic can't just permanently unlock all that DLC for $50 is the IP laws that your country agreed to enforce in order to trade with the USA. Mechanics pay $10k/year per manufacturer for the tools to interpret the error codes generated by your car, and the only reason no one is selling a $50/month universal diagnostic service is – once again – US-originated IP laws that came in a parcel with trade agreements that gave your country's exporters access to US markets. Farmers pay John Deere $200 every time they fix their own tractors, because the repairs won't work until a technician comes out and types an unlock code into the tractor's keyboard – and bypassing that unlock code is a crime under the laws passed to comply with international treaties.

These aren't profits – they're rents. It's money Big Tech gets from owning a factor of production, not money it gets from actually making something. The app maker takes all the risks, but Apple and Google cream off 30% of their gross income. Big Tech's profits are almost an afterthought when compared to its rents, the junk-fee platform fees and farcically expensive consumables. For tech firms, capitalism was a transitional phase between feudalism…and technofeudalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

America's robust GDP figures are a mirage, artificially buoyed up by the monopoly rents extracted by US Big Tech, who prey on Americans and foreigners:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/18/pikettys-productivity/#reaganomics-revenge

But foreigners don't have to tolerate this nonsense. Governments around the world signed up to protect giant American companies from small domestic competitors (from local app stores – for phones, games consoles, and IoT gadgets – to local printer cartridge remanufacturers) on the promise of tariff-free access to US markets. With Trump imposing tariffs will-ye or nill-ye on America's trading partners large and small, there is no reason to go on delivering rents to US Big Tech.

The first country or bloc (hi there, EU!) to do this will have a giant first-mover advantage, and could become a global export powerhouse, dominating the lucrative markets for tools that strike at the highest-margin lines of business of the most profitable companies in the history of the human race. Like Jeff Bezos told the publishers: "your margin is my opportunity":

https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/the-cost-of-your-margin-is-my-opportunity

In times of crisis, ideas can move from the periphery to the center in an eyeblink. Many of us have spent decades organizing and mobilizing against these extractive, dangerous, destabilizing abuses of technology, where the computer-powered devices we rely on for everything are designed to serve their manufacturers' shareholders, at our expense. And yet, these technologies have only proliferated, infecting everything from insulin pumps and ventilators to coffee makers and "smart" TVs.

It's time for a global race to the top – for countries to compete with one another to see who will capture US Big Tech's margins the fastest and most aggressively. Not only will this make things cheaper for everyone else in the world – it'll also make things cheaper for Americans, because once there is a global, profitable trade in software that jailbreaks your Big Tech devices and services, it will surely leak across the US border. Canada doesn't have to confine itself to selling reasonably priced pharmaceuticals to beleaguered Americans – it can also set up a brisk trade in the tools of technological self-determination and liberation from Big Tech bondage.

Taking the margins for Big Tech's most profitable enterprises to zero, globally, will strike at the very heart of American oligarchy, and the hundreds of millions tech giants flushed into the political system to put Trump into office again. A race to the top for technological liberation benefits everyone – including Americans.

Truly, it would be a rising tide that lifted all boats (except for oligarchs' superyachts - those, it will swamp and sink).

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

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/03/friedmanite/#oil-crisis-two-point-oh

[transformersxreader]

TFA Yandere Megatron x Femme Reader (Part 2)

(Y/n) lets out a low groan feeling her head heavy, she felt movement and was staring at the floor she thinks.

Then it hits her.

She was being carried by lockdown with no problem, lifting her head a bit she noticed where she was.

"No. No! No! Let go!! Please!!"

(Y/n) begins to wiggle and fight back with all the energy she had at the moment, lockdown stops his walking adjusted (Y/n) on his shoulder as a warning for her. But she didn't listen struggling again.

"LET ME GO! You are mistaken!! Please! No! I can't!!"

Lockdown doesn't listen and continues down the dark hallways leading to the throne room.

Once the large doors opens to reveal megatron sitting on his throne his red optics shining bright in the dark room.

Lockdown grabs (Y/n) up to show he indeed found her to megatron, who slowly gets up from his throne.

(Y/n) with fear in her eyes began to struggle and cry out. Once megatron was close enough to grab (Y/n), (Y/n) halted and looks up, he was smiling.

"I-uh."

"Lockdown, go see blitzwing for your payment."

And with that lockdown leaves, leaving you both alone in the throne room.

Megatron places (Y/n) down gently, grabbing ahold of her hands breaking the cuffs she had. (Y/n) flinch hearing the cuffs hit the floor with a loud bang.

"You certainly gave me and our decepticons a scare, they're all going to be thrilled to see you safe and sound."

(Y/n) looks away from his gaze, her arms wrap around herself nervously, (Y/n) was trying to find the right words but before she could speak, megatron cuts her off.

"As for this little game of yours, it's finally over."

Megaton lifts (Y/n) chin up

"Did you have fun? Did you get everything out of your system?"

(Y/n) couldn't reply back to megatron

"Uh..."

"Good, good. Everyone is so relieved."

Megatron smiles wickedly making (Y/n) concern for her well being, she didn't see the other larger bot coming from behind and injecting her with a small sleeping virus.

(Y/n) felt the harsh sting that travel through her body looking back in surprise to see the one eye decepticon.

"S-shockwave?....."

(Y/n) felt her body become heavy, leaning back trying to catch herself but felt someone else catching her. Leaning towards the larger body, Megatron sighs lifting up (Y/n) carefully carrying her off.

"Welcome home my dear."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shockwave was typing away looking at the screen to make sure everything was set, (Y/n) was lying peacefully on an operating table. Shockwave looks back to (Y/n) sighing coming closer to the sleeping femme. Gently caressing her face,

"I'm glad you're safely back with us (Y/n). You gave our lord a scare."

There a a long pause

"Lord Megatron punch down a whole new hallway when he heard the news of you had escaping."

Shockwave moves to grab a small extension cord to connect to the side of (Y/n) head, hearing a satisfying click and begins to work. Shockwave laughs to himself quietly, speaking out

"You should have seen lugnut, he was so devastated hearing his queen has escape."

Shockwave took a moment to himself knowing well (Y/n) wasn't going to answer.

"Don't worry my queen, you are in good hands."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

(Y/n) lifted up her upper body, her arms coming to her face, she looked around the room.

Oh.

(Y/n) tried to restrain herself from grabbing her face on damaging it, she felt as it would help her to disappear from this nightmare, loud stomping steps catches her attention,looking up to the large door that slide open to reveal.

"MY QUEEN! Are you alright?!"

(Y/n) optics widen, then without a second she cries out,

"L-lugnut!"

Lugnut quickly comes to her side letting her cry on his shoulders, trying to pat her back gently as to not hurt her with his size.

"There, there my queen. Let out your pain."

(Y/n) leans more closer to lugnut, letting out screams and cries, lugnut stays quiet. After what felt like forever, lugnut looks down to (Y/n) noticing something new.

"My queen! Your optics! They're exquisite!"

(Y/n) was confused touching her optics then rushing to a mirror, letting out a loud gasp. She slowly leans more closer making sure she was seeing right.

"I.......i..."

"Now you are truly perfect my dear~"

A smooth voice echos out catching (Y/n) and lugnut by surprise, lugnut kneeling down to his lord. (Y/n) kept her stance looking at megatron through the mirrors reflection. Megatron walks closer to her grabbing ahold of her arms, spinning her around to face him.

"(Y/n) my dear~ I believe a celebration for your return is in the works, don't you agree?"

(Y/n) doesn't respond letting Megatron continue, grabbing a hold of (Y/n) so roughly

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you."

(Y/n) felt something inside herself, she could feel all her anger and frustration coming together. (Y/n) knew deep down she had to release this anger somehow.

"As I was say-!"

'SLAP'

Megatron flinch feeling a small pain on his cheek, (Y/n) hand was shaking realizing what she has done, but she kept a stern look. Megatron touched the cheek that (Y/n) strike, not even glancing at her stood up straight turn to leave."

"Lugnut with me."

Lugnut looks to megatron then to (Y/n) giving her a bow, following his lord out the room, hearing a loud click.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Megatron continues to walk down the long hallway quietly, lugnut nervously following behind him. Once arriving to the throne room, everyone stood up straight and saluted their lord. Starscream smiles to megatron and bows

"My liege I see you have return from visiting lady  (Y/n), how is she settling?"

Lugnut took a step back making everyone else see his actions and also copying lugnut, stepping back slowly. Starscream looks up confused, a loud crash startles them all seeing megatron begins to throw and trash the throne room. Megatron leaving large dents on the walls and taking apart his own throne chair, everyone watches in fear not daring to stop him. Megatron then halts his attacks slowly walking up to (Y/n) throne chair, taking a big breath, moving his fists to remove any debris left on his hands. Turning around to face his loyal followers, speaking out to himself.

"I truly am a lucky mech."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks so much for reading ✨

I’m truly sorry if I’m lacking on updates, I just got a new job and I’m trying to settle in with this new change, hope y’all understand 🙂‍↕️

Again thanks u guys for reading and leaving amazing responses to my work, it really means a lot 🥹

Peace ✌️

[tangibletechnomancy]

The reason I took interest in AI as an art medium is that I've always been interested in experimenting with novel and unconventional art media - I started incorporating power tools into a lot of my physical processes younger than most people were even allowed to breathe near them, and I took to digital art like a duck to water when it was the big, relatively new, controversial thing too, so really this just seems like the logical next step. More than that, it's exciting - it's not every day that we just invent an entirely new never-before-seen art medium! I have always been one to go fucking wild for that shit.

Which is, ironically, a huge part of why I almost reflexively recoil at how it's used in the corporate world: because the world of business, particularly the entertainment industry, has what often seems like less than zero interest in appreciating it as a novel medium.

And I often wonder how much less that would be the case - and, by extension, how much less vitriolic the discussion around it would be, and how many fewer well-meaning people would be falling for reactionary mythologies about where exactly the problems lie - if it hadn't reached the point of...at least an illusion of commercial viability, at exactly the moment it did.

See, the groundwork was laid in 2020, back during covid lockdowns, when we saw a massive spike in people relying on TV, games, books, movies, etc. to compensate for the lack of outdoor, physical, social entertainment. This was, seemingly, wonderful for the whole industry - but under late-stage capitalism, it was as much of a curse as it was a gift. When industries are run by people whose sole brain process is "line-go-up", tiny factors like "we're not going to be in lockdown forever" don't matter. CEOs got dollar signs in their eyes. Shareholders demanded not only perpetual growth, but perpetual growth at this rate or better. Even though everyone with an ounce of common sense was screaming "this is an aberration, this is not sustainable" - it didn't matter. The business bros refused to believe it. This was their new normal, they were determined to prove -

And they, predictably, failed to prove it.

So now the business bros are in a pickle. They're beholden to the shareholders to do everything within their power to maintain the infinite growth they promised, in a world with finite resources. In fact, by precedent, they're beholden to this by law. Fiduciary duty has been interpreted in court to mean that, given the choice between offering a better product and ensuring maximum returns for shareholders, the latter MUST be a higher priority; reinvesting too much in the business instead of trying to make the share value increase as much as possible, as fast as possible, can result in a lawsuit - that a board member or CEO can lose, and have lost before - because it's not acting in the best interest of shareholders. If that unsustainable explosive growth was promised forever, all the more so.

And now, 2-3-4 years on, that impossibility hangs like a sword of Damocles over the heads of these media company CEOs. The market is fully saturated; the number of new potential customers left to onboard is negligible. Some companies began trying to "solve" this "problem" by violating consumer privacy and charging per household member, which (also predictably) backfired because those of us who live in reality and not statsland were not exactly thrilled about the concept of being told we couldn't watch TV with our own families. Shareholders are getting antsy, because their (however predictably impossible) infinite lockdown-level profits...aren't coming, and someone's gotta make up for that, right? So they had already started enshittifying, making excuses for layoffs, for cutting employee pay, for duty creep, for increasing crunch, for lean-staffing, for tightening turnarounds-

And that was when we got the first iterations of AI image generation that were actually somewhat useful for things like rapid first drafts, moodboards, and conceptualizing.

Lo! A savior! It might as well have been the digital messiah to the business bros, and their eyes turned back into dollar signs. More than that, they were being promised that this...both was, and wasn't art at the same time. It was good enough for their final product, or if not it would be within a year or two, but it required no skill whatsoever to make! Soon, you could fire ALL your creatives and just have Susan from accounting write your scripts and make your concept art with all the effort that it takes to get lunch from a Star Trek replicator!

This is every bit as much bullshit as the promise of infinite lockdown-level growth, of course, but with shareholders clamoring for the money they were recklessly promised, executives are looking for anything, even the slightest glimmer of a new possibility, that just might work as a life raft from this sinking ship.

So where are we now? Well, we're exiting the "fucking around" phase and entering "finding out". According to anecdotes I've read, companies are, allegedly, already hiring prompt engineers (or "prompters" - can't give them a job title that implies there's skill or thought involved, now can we, that just might imply they deserve enough money to survive!)...and most of them not only lack the skill to manually post-process their works, but don't even know how (or perhaps aren't given access) to fully use the software they specialize in, being blissfully unaware of (or perhaps not able/allowed to use) features such as inpainting or img2img. It has been observed many times that LLMs are being used to flood once-reputable information outlets with hallucinated garbage. I can verify - as can nearly everyone who was online in the aftermath of the Glasgow Willy Wonka Dashcon Experience - that the results are often outright comically bad.

To anyone who was paying attention to anything other than please-line-go-up-faster-please-line-go-please (or buying so heavily into reactionary mythologies about why AI can be dangerous in industry that they bought the tech companies' false promises too and just thought it was a bad thing), this was entirely predictable. Unfortunately for everyone in the blast radius, common sense has never been an executive's strong suit when so much money is on the line.

Much like CGI before it, what we have here is a whole new medium that is seldom being treated as a new medium with its own unique strengths, but more often being used as a replacement for more expensive labor, no matter how bad the result may be - nor, for that matter, how unjust it may be that the labor is so much cheaper.

And it's all because of timing. It's all because it came about in the perfect moment to look like a life raft in a moment of late-stage capitalist panic. Any port in a storm, after all - even if that port is a non-Euclidean labyrinth of soggy, rotten botshit garbage.

Any port in a storm, right? ...right?

All images generated using Simple Stable, under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

[blahblahwritings]

Collateral souls - 2

Hello! Here is part two. It made me realise that Chapter 1 could easily be skipped, but it helped ease me back into writing so theres that.

Chapters 3 and 4 are written but I want to edit them and write more first. Hope you like this one at least.

PART ONE

PART THREE

PART FOUR

Word Count: 1783

Chapter Two - Woken Shadow

Breath ripped through your chest like fire, burning your lungs as your eyes darted around the pod, taking in what little you could see from the small window. The restraints were cold and harsh, biting into your wrists and ankles. Tubes coiled around your limbs, sensors pulsing. Fear and panic gripped your heart and brain like a vice, your entire body going into fight or flight. 

The pod was so small. The walls were too close. The lights glared down, blindingly white. The air was sterile and freezing. Voices filtered in, muffled and tinny through a speaker above your head. Panic surged. Shadows burst outward like a nuclear flash—cracking the pod open as the door flung itself into the wall.

The space fills with inky black shadow, shimmering and ethereal. 

A shiver runs down Bob’s spine, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. The team stand on edge, watching intensely, each of them ready to fight at a moment’s notice. 

Cameras are obscured by the shadows. 

Silence. 

Then a scream, loud and furious. 

It cuts through the rush of doctors, the buzz of equipment suddenly cuts out. Alarms start blaring. Lights crack and explode sending shards of glass scattering across the floor. 

Bob throws his hands up to shield himself, flinching instinctively at the sound. The room is cast in darkness, the only light coming from the pulsing red of the alarms. 

The whole tower was in black out.

“Containment Failed. Deploying Lockdown Measures.” A robotic female voice sounded through the room. It doesn’t take a second before the team leaps into action. John and Bucky rush to the chamber door as you appear, standing in the center of the reinforced glass cage, shadows lowering to reveal you, eyes glowing a deep purple. You take one look at them, fear and something cold flickering on your features before falling backwards, disappearing into shadows. 

Bob watches in abject horror. Yelena and Ava move, eyes scanning the room.

Alexei helps create a perimeter as doctors rush from the room but it quickly becomes apparent that it's pointless as you reappear seemingly phasing in from the shadows in the room. 

You rush to Yelena, shadows like a tidal wave behind you that come crashing into the blonde the second she reacts. Punches and kicks are traded, shadows acting like an extension of you as they shield you from the assault of the team. You disappear again suddenly, gone from the room and apparating into the hallway.

The red light pulses, painting you in a violent stroke of crimson as you take off down the corridor. The team scatters in an attempt to find you. Val demands capture over termination which sparks an argument with John who believes they should bring you down hard. Bob shakes, unsure of what to do or how to help but he steps forwards. 

“She’s scared—” Bob spoke softly.

John held up a hand to silence him.

Bob flinched, stepping back. His voice had cracked. He hadn’t expected anyone to hear him.

Then the rumble hit—low and deep, rattling the floor beneath them. Bob grips onto John as he loses his footing briefly and stands again. John rushes from the room shouting over comms to the rest of the team. 

The team had split to cover more ground, not knowing where you'd slip through next—vanishing and reappearing like smoke through a keyhole. You slithered through the shadows like ink. Your eyes searched for an escape through what seemed like endless corridors. You would disappear, only to reappear in a pool of blackness in another part of the tower. 

The white walls, the scent of disinfectant, cold and clean and detached. Flashes of memory invade your mind in fragments. HYDRA, the tests, the needles, the pain. Being caged for days and weeks at a time. You had to escape and you had to run. 

You turn into what looks like a lab. The mirrored walls reflect the shadows that cling to you like a second skin. With each step, mirrors spiderwebbed and burst—shadows licking at the glass like fire given form. Pointed medical instruments and glass clatter to the ground around you. 

Memories run rampant, the ghostly feeling of restraints gnawing at your limbs as you writhed on a cold examination table in agony. Whatever they had given you felt like it burned every nerve ending you had. Screams echoed off the walls, howling and alone in the haze of the past.

Suddenly, footsteps, fast and heavy behind you. A grunt as whoever it was moved to throw a punch but it was quickly blocked by a pillar of shadow, hard and solid now as you turned to look. John moved around it, ruthless in his attacks which were dodged expertly. Each one he thought would land was blocked by a shimmering shield right before his fist connected. 

You rain punches down on him, but you’re no super soldier. You don’t harness the same strength he had. Each hit, although jarring, does little damage.

His legs were swept out from under him by an icy black tendril. You stepped back, eyes glowing as you locked eyes with him, head tilting as the tendrils restrained him, and held him floating in the middle of the corridor.

“What mission is this?” your voice cracks, raw and unused. John doesn't respond, eyes narrowing as he struggles for breath. Shadows coil around him, squeezing tighter. He felt his bones starting to strain under the pressure. “Where am I? What mission is this?” You repeat, louder now. 

He speaks into the comms with his location before you reach out with your hand, a shadowy grip mimicking your movements, wrapping around his throat and cutting off his words. You close your fist and he feels the breath leaving him, his face turning dark as his vision starts to go fuzzy. 

“S-Stop! This isn’t a m-mission,” Bob stammers from behind you.

You turn, releasing your grip just slightly. John sucks in a desperate breath at the slight relief. Your eyes fall to Bob, shadows slowly snaking along the floor and walls towards him, curious. You take a step towards him, an oversized sweater loosely hanging on his form. 

He didn’t look like your handler. His voice wasn’t like theirs. It didn’t snap like a command. It trembled. It… cared? That couldn’t be right. That wasn’t allowed. 

He swallows audibly, hands shaking but held up in a surrender. 

“This isn’t H-HYDRA. You are safe here, you’re free. You’re not theirs anymore” He explains, eyes soft but fearful. 

“A trick. A test.” You mutter, shadows suddenly moving in around him, but not aggressive. His eyes flash gold for a split second but it catches your attention, face fully turning to him as you narrow your eyes. 

“It’s the truth” Bucky calls out from behind John who was still suspended in the air. You tense, eyes still locked on the man in front of you. That voice. You recognised it. Even 14 years later. Which meant HYDRA was still behind this. 

More footsteps, three sets. One heavy, two lighter. With a wave of your hand, black walls suddenly raise around the four of you in the lab, preventing anyone else from interfering.

“If you’re here then this is HYDRA, Soldat.” You turn, eyes cold, jaw tense as they lock on his, glowing with energy. He stiffens at the name. A flicker of fear runs over your face, through your veins. Shadows twitch at your sides. 

“It's not. I’m not him anymore. This is New York. You’re not- you don’t have to be scared anymore.” Bucky tries to reason, dropping the knife in his hand, arms raised to mimic Bob’s. He takes a tentative step towards you. 

“I know what it’s like to be made into a weapon.” He sympathises. You hesitate, shadows recoiling slightly as your powers stop writhing under your skin. “You don’t have to do this anymore, you don’t have to run or be afraid.” Another step closer as he reasons. Your eyes flick to his boots as he moves, then back to his face. “Let him go...” He says low, gesturing to John. “And I can prove it to you.” He finishes.

He didn’t look like the weapon they used to bring into your cell. No tactical gear, no mask, no blank stare. He stood without the rigid tension you remembered—shoulders looser, breath steadier, like he wasn’t waiting for a command. When he spoke, his voice had weight, warmth. Not the clipped, cold monotone of someone reciting orders, but the voice of a man choosing his words.

But it was his eyes that shattered the illusion. They weren’t empty anymore. No void, no calculation. Just...human. Brimming with something you never expected to see in him—guilt, yes, but also gentleness. Recognition. A flicker of pain. A question.

Understanding.

Your whole body is in conflict. Shadows whisper softly to you, telling you the whereabouts and conversations of the three outside the black walls surrounding the lab, telling you about every breath and shift Bob took, about each muscle John was using to try and fight against the grip you had on him. Your mind raced, every fiber of your being telling you to keep fighting and keep running. 

Exhaustion was starting to seep in. Blood trickled from your nose and over your lips. A hand comes up to wipe at it. Your eyes flickered from a deep purple to their natural colour. Shadows gently withdraw from John, the walls come down from around the lab and seem to absorb back into you. 

Could you really be free?

The red pulsing light still flickers over the space. Yelena, Ava and Alexei rush forwards, in front of Bob, Bucky holds up a hand signalling them to stand down. You cautiously step backwards as John is placed back on the floor, heaving in air. Alexei pats him roughly on the back. 

Heeled footsteps click against the tiled floors. Valentina. She appears, tablet in hand, eyes reading something. The lights flicker back on, the red swapping out for a blinding white, illuminating everyone in full detail.

“Y/N L/N. 28. Taken from her family when she was 14 to undergo HYDRA experimentation. Subject is enhanced with the ability to manipulate shadow. Approach with caution.” She reads outloud. You turn, confused as you look at Valentina, eyes narrowed. “Looks like we decrypted your file just in time.” She approaches with a fake smile, sharpened with years of practice. “You, my little devil, are our newest recruit. No more HYDRA. No more handlers or conditioning.” She places a hand gently on your arm. Shadows hiss softly in your ears. 

“Come with me.”

----------

Taglist:

@eywas-heir

[elodieunderglass]

Hello and hi there. In relation to Jockeys working every day of the week, I find myself unable to figure out how they have any kind of life around that. When do they go to the dentist? How do they shop for groceries? For the love of all that’s holy when do they take comfy mid-afternoon naps when the sun warms your skin and the kitties snore gently on your chest??

I’m beginning to suspect Jockeys may be a sort of mimic species that only kind of approximates a human person but misses the mark on a few key characteristics. If they spend all morning riding horses, hours after that exercising, and hours driving to and from races - I honestly don’t know how they have time or energy for anything.

“When you factor in early-morning work, extensive mileage, financial uncertainty and the significant physical and mental challenges of being a jockey, it’s arguably the most challenging of professional sports for an athlete.” - Dale Gibson, executive director of the PJA

Dashboard-saving cut with a long story explaining that they are more-or-less-willingly consumingly bonkers, but would like a bit 🤏 more time off than they feel they can take.

🏇

Ah, the majority of jockeys in the UK cleverly solve those problems by not keeping their own teeth or eating! and certainly not having a life are freelancers! They can decline any of an agent’s requests to work, and if they do exercising and training work for a trainer in the mornings, they can arrange to have days where they don’t. As freelancers, they have no paid holiday, but it’s technically up to them (Studies show that jockeys choose to maximise their work until forcibly stopped, BUT technically they have the choice).

It’s a little unclear to me how retained/contracted stable jockeys make their arrangements as the UK equine industry seems to be bundled with agricultural/farm work and farm contractors have different rules, but they’re pretty rare, and they also blur the line between work and life a huge amount. Generational jockeys often do it as part of a family business, living in proximity with the rest of their family in the industry, blurring the line between work/life further.

They all seem to report stress and anxiety that they also feel at home. lots of jockeys who aren’t contracted, generational or married-with-kids live in houses full of their rivals (1). Jockeys with kids report the difficulty of seeing them “without a horse involved” (1) and female staff with caring responsibilities report that most jobs in horse racing are completely incompatible with any sort of work-life balance (5).

Jockeys do find it extremely hard to turn down work when it’s offered, though, as described in this study (1) - not only for the pure financial reasons of needing income, maintaining momentum, and not losing your mounts, although those are the first considerations …

… but also to advertise themselves as being particularly “fashionable” purchases - lucky, tough, and always ready to earn you lots of money:

“Like a toy” is really saying the quiet part out loud.

but there’s a positive side to this! In 2020, lockdown travel restrictions meant jockeys were limited to attending one race meeting per day within the UK. The meetings are still far apart, and there’s between 6-8 races per meeting, so it’s still hard work, but jockeys couldn’t then go on to do another meeting on the other side of the country within that day.

About 70% of jockeys were happy with this external rule being imposed, because it helped them resist external/agent/employer pressure to hit multiple racetracks a day - now it’s out of their hands. The rule is under review, and a rolling extension means it’s actually still under effect! Realistically, they’re still travelling relentlessly, but now they can resist pressure for adding night races and evening meetings when they’ve already worked somewhere else that day, a pressure that jockeys reported as “frying their heads” (1).

And the answer to what they did with this slightly freed time is: have fewer car accidents and eat dinner. (3)

They still drive too much, but the answer to “what do jockeys do if you don’t make them work night shifts on top of day shifts?” is “well! they eat dinner”.

They would like a humble bit of time off for fun, though! Although a jockey saying he didn’t feel they “needed to be working” on Sunday nights was considered so brave and unusual that he got newspaper coverage (4):

“We might get a couple of hundred quid extra in our pockets or whatever, but I don’t think (night racing on Sunday) is healthy. I won’t be able to go and watch the football with my dad, things like that, and if this becomes a regular thing, which it will, you just cross the brink [to] having absolutely no work/life balance.

“I don’t think it’s right, but my desire to ride winners, and my desire to ride for David [Simcock, Charlie’s Choice’s trainer] outweighs that and it has to as a rider, with the dedication it requires. It’s not an option not to come, so I’ll always be available to them, but I don’t think we should be here at 8.30pm on a Sunday night.”

In conclusion, they’d like Sunday nights off, and they like it when licensing bodies take things out of their hands. They need a union are bonkers, but don’t need to be THIS bonkers.

This is why sports medicine researchers study jockeys like laboratory mice, though.

🐁 👩‍🔬

Fascinating

References

(Nobody needs to read these, it’s just so I don’t feel like I’m making stuff up)

1. “A lifestyle rather than a job: a review and recommendations on mental health support within the British horse racing industry” (2019)

2. Stressors experienced by professional jockeys (2021)

3. talking Horses: Jockeys seeing benefits of one race meeting per day (2020)

4.) Talking Horses: Sunday night races may result in serious jockey burnout (2024)

5) WORK-LIFE BALANCE & CARING IN HORSERACING: Women in Racing summary of pilot survey (2023)

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

I know you've probably gotten a lot of requests for PRESSURE, but hear me out? Reader X Anglers (platonic), where reader was sent to work in the Hadal Blacksite. Urbanshade was Reader's only chance at a job due to circumstance and they were desperate; they weren't aware what they were getting into UNTIL Urbanshade had signed them up. Now a "handler" of these mutant fish, the least they can do is lessen their misery... Until the Saboteur let's everything aggressive loose.

YAY! Angler request thank you. As annoying as those fish(?) are I think they're very underrated

(in case this needs to be reiterated, this is all PLATONIC)

......

Being desperate for a job and willing to pretty much do whatever it took to get hired anywhere, Urbanshade was the only one willing to offer you an immediate position.

However, you had to be sworn to secrecy and go through an extensive background check and other trials....just for them to transport you to the Hadal Blacksite, where they said you'll be informed of your duties.

Given the extensive security measures already in place, you assumed you were dealing with endangered sea life--or even extinct species Urbanshade revived or rediscovered.

Then you were sent to the heavy containment sector and saw what they were actually hiding down here:

A mutant angler fish--one pink and one grey--a viperfish, a frog with razor sharp teeth, and a dead(?) green blobfish. They were all huge and unlike anything you've seen before.

They were all designated as Z-283, although there were nicknames given to four of them: Pinkie, Blitz, Froger, and Chainsmoker.

The Angler was just, well, Angler.

You didn't know what kind of aquatic rehabilitation facility this was, but they didn't even look like fish that belonged in one, especially as their tanks didn't contain any water, although according to documents, that wasn't even necessary.

Smoke clouded every part of their bodies except their faces, so you couldn't get a good read on how their fins and tails are holding up (assuming they have those at all).

Least to say...it took some time getting used to seeing their frightening looks every shift.

Especially as sometimes Angler, Blitz, and Pinkie liked to scare the hell out of you by shrieking, ramming into the window barriers of their cells, and causing brief power surges.

Your main tasks were to monitor them and keep them fed and happy, although you weren't allowed to make physical contact with them.

Apparently their touch can kill...so you can understand why they needed somebody to watch them at all times and keep their behaviors in check.

But the more you interact with them, the more you start to realize that these anglers (and viperfish, frog, and blobfish) were probably just animals who were simply trying to live within the Let-Vand Zone, only to be taken and shoved into a distressing environment.

Urbanshade claims they aren't "alive", but all you see are scared animals who only knew misery.

You especially didn't like overhearing that they've used prisoners as test subjects. And they're not even food.

Out of water, they can all recognize you by scent and are seemingly aware of how good you've been to them compared to most operatives.

Because when Sebastian/The Saboteur sets them loose and causes the lockdown, and you nearly get killed by one of the many Wall Dwellers...Angler comes to your defense, eating its flesh whole.

At first you think you've finally tamed it--until the fish creature gives you that same murderous and hungry look as it gave those test subjects.

Luckily it gives you a head start and you manage to find a crawlspace out of its line of sight, watching it cause chaos and kill whatever poor sap happened to run into that same room.

Yeah...your job definitely didn't quite prepare you for this kind of scenario..

When the Expendable Protocol is initiated, Sebastian found you and only allowed you live because you could keep the anglers off his back while he's trying to find supplies and figure out how to escape.

They'll listen to you sometimes, although you learn Pinkie and Blitz are very brash and like to do their own things sometimes--while Froger and Chainsmoker are more willing to obey.

But if Pandemonium ever caught sight of you?

May god help you because none of them will.

[year2000electronics]

wow. four years old huh. i'll keep this part short but sappy rant under the readmore! happy four years!!

it feels like just yesterday when i watched this series on a whim because my friend kept making jokes about my ocs with hlvrai quotes and then it was so funny and engaging that it pulled me out of a months-long depressive slump... feels like just yesterday that my work was finally being seen by people, yesterday that the summer of 2020 was one of the most interesting summers ive ever had, yesterday when the 2020-2021 school year ended up being one of the most difficult times of my life and hlvrai really helped me get through it. without exaggeration this series has changed my life

yeah we all may have had ups and downs, like a LOT of downs, but ill always consider hlvrai to be very special to me, not just because i love it but because it represents so many good things to me: friends joking around having fun, friends carrying their past experiences with them (gmod rping, an affinity for extensively-planned bits, jokes that could ONLY be made by rtvs with each other, you get it), and how the best things often come from happy accidents, from people who DARE to CARE, because hlvrai is good because theyre not afraid to be silly! theyre not afraid to be stupid and sincere and ridiculous!!

and the most inspiring part to me has always been that hlvrai wasnt made to chase any trends. it didnt come in the wake of anything, it was made, and then after it was made, rtvs pretty obviously made it clear that they wouldnt let their lightning-in-a-bottle series box them in. like everyone on the team is very strongly against ppl being parasocial to them, they dont let people beg them for the funny half life info and references, all that. as a creator its cool to see people doing what they love and not succumbing to any pressure algorithmically or otherwise, especially during the lockdowns, when a lot of other streamer-based fandoms cropped up that had a VERY big 'encouraging being parasocial' problem. its always been nice to have a web series thats just one of many awesome things rtvs has done

hlvrai was everything i could have ever asked for and more, and me myself i was perfectly content with just having the standalone series forever, because sometimes a standalone thing is all you need. but with hlage, bbvrai, and hl2vrai being announced, im still so happy to be here and so happy that i get to keep enjoying one of my favourite pieces of media <3

[pretzel-box]

OU OU OU OHHHH Can you PLEASEEE do a mini fic of Sebastian meeting an expendable who has crazy body mods to make them look more alien?? Like tattooed eyes split tongues teeth with extensions n stuff?? I wonder how he’d feel about someone making themselves look like that when he was forced to look the way he is?? Idk if that makes sense but I had a eureka moment and I LOVEEEE your fics 😩plsplsplsplslpslsl 🙏🏻🙏🏻

words: 1,2k

tags: gn!reader, clear mentions of body mods

Sebastian was rarely scared of anything. At this point, the man had faced horrors beyond human understanding, staring down death itself with nothing more than a resting bitch face. He’d shrugged off wall dwellers that plummeted into his shop from the dark ceilings above, and barely blinked when Pandemonium rushed by, a force of chaos that would unnerve anyone else.

So, imagine his face when he first met you—standing face to face with a human who looked so… inhuman.

When you first entered his shop, he assumed you were another twisted experiment, something that had escaped the grasp of Hadal Blackside’s prison when the lockdown started. The split tongue, the intricate tattoos inked right into the whites of your eyes, the piercings that glittered along the edges of your lips and brows—it all spoke of something otherworldly, something that didn’t belong to the realm of normal human experience.

But then, he noticed the neat little uniform clinging to your body, its fabric still crisp, untouched by the filth and blood that coated most of the facility. The sight of it made a light flicker on in his head. You were human—if the term could still apply—sent down from above, likely a new expandable among this mess, just like countless others before you.

His face scrunched up in irritation and a bit of disgust, his lip curling as he scanned you from head to toe. It wasn’t fear—no, Sebastian was far beyond that—it was the jarring discomfort of trying to process something so out of the ordinary, something that made even him pause for a second.

“What the hell…” he muttered, his voice low, almost as if he was talking to himself. His eyes narrowed, scrutinizing the sharp lines of your tattoos, the way the ink made your gaze unsettlingly intense. He could feel the irritation creeping up the back of his neck, the way it always did when something disrupted the order of things in his world. Sebastian spend the last few years hating Urbanshade and himself, cruising his newfound appearance and coming slowly yet painfully to terms with it that he can't be human anymore. So it was even more a hit in the face to see someone who was perfectly human turn themself into what— an alien?

You, with your inked eyes and split tongue, were an affront to the normalcy he clung to in this otherwise chaotic place. Even in the madness of the Blackside, where monsters roamed freely and reality was different, your appearance was a challenge to his sense of what should and shouldn’t be.

Yet, even as he bristled with discomfort, there was a begrudging respect beneath it all. It took guts to modify yourself to that extent, to carry the weight of those changes with such confidence. It was the kind of defiance that reminded him, in some strange way, of himself. A refusal to be anything but exactly what you were, no matter how unsettling it might be to others.

After a moment of tense silence, he let out a breath, forcing his expression to soften, if only slightly. “Alright, you got my attention,” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. “What do you need?”

You didn’t flinch under his gaze, didn’t hesitate as you stepped closer, as if daring him to say something more. Your eyes, those unsettling orbs of black and white, met his with a calmness that caught him off guard.

“I need supplies,” you said, your voice smooth, unbothered by his scrutiny. To be fair, you were already used to people behaving like that, treating you weirdly for your special behavior. Your split tongue flickered as you spoke, and for a brief second, his mind flashed with curiosity—how it must feel to talk like that, to move in a body so distinctly altered.

“Supplies, huh?” he echoed, almost as if testing the word in his mouth, seeing if it tasted any different when spoken to someone like you. He tilted his head, the initial discomfort giving way to a strange sort of intrigue. “You got anything to trade?”

You nodded, reaching into your bag, and pulling out a handful of items— usb scraps, files, a few salvaged goods that had seen better days but were still usable. He eyed the offerings, the gears in his mind beginning to turn. A potential customer, no matter how off-putting, was still a customer.

“Fine,” he said, the last traces of his initial irritation melting away as he slithered forward to inspect your trade. “But don’t think I’m giving you any special treatment just ‘cause you look like you crawled out of someone’s worst nightmare.”

You smirked, the corners of your lips pulling up to reveal the silver glint of piercings on your tongue. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” you replied, and there was a spark of mutual understanding in your tone as you sassed back—an acknowledgment of the strangeness of this place, and of each other.

As he began to rummage through his wares, the discomfort that had initially gripped him faded, replaced by a begrudging respect. You were different, sure, but in this hellhole, maybe different was exactly what was needed.

Sebastian was in the middle of inspecting the tech scraps you had offered, his sharp eyes scanning each piece with practiced efficiency. You stood across from him, arms crossed, waiting for his judgment, your split tongue occasionally flicking out as you shifted your weight.

Just as Sebastian was about to name his price, the vent to the shop creaked open, and another customer cautiously stepped inside. The newcomer was a wiry, nervous-looking man, his eyes darting around the room as if expecting something to jump out at him at any moment. He spotted Sebastian first, relief briefly washing over his features.

But then, his gaze shifted to you.

The moment his eyes locked onto your inked ones, his face paled. His jaw went slack as he took in the tattoos, the piercings, and finally, the slow flicker of your split tongue.

Sebastian noticed the man’s reaction and rolled his eyes, barely suppressing a smirk. “You need something?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at the customer who looked like he’d seen a ghost.

The man opened his mouth, but no words came out. Instead, his eyes widened even further, and without warning, he bolted toward the nearest vent in the wall.

“Hey, wait!” Sebastian called after him, but it was too late. The man had already pried open the vent cover and was scrambling inside like a terrified rat fleeing a sinking ship.

You watched, bemused, as the man’s legs disappeared into the vent, the cover clattering shut behind him. A few moments of silence passed before you turned back to Sebastian, an amused smirk playing on your lips.

“Well, that was rude,” you said, your tone dripping with sarcasm.

Sebastian finally let out the laugh he’d been holding back, shaking his head in disbelief. “Can’t say I blame him,” he chuckled, glancing at you with a twinkle of amusement in his eye. “You do have a habit of making strong first impressions.”

You shrugged, unbothered by the man’s reaction. “Guess he couldn’t handle a little personality,” you replied, your smirk widening.

Sebastian grinned back, clearly enjoying the moment. “His loss,” he said, returning to your trade with a newfound lightness. “Now, where were we?”

[chewyena]

Pressure OC! Meet Ghost, Urbanshade's genetically modified operative tasked with neutralizing subject Z-13 in hopes to end the lockdown once and for all. 🧡 Close-ups and text below!

████ ██████████, codenamed Ghost, is a specially engineered elite operative who volunteered to undergo extensive biological modifications in order to neutralize subject Z-13, Sebastian Solace, as well as any other hostile entities that show resistance. Previous attempts to deal with Z-13 have consistently failed, prompting the creation of a subject with abilities specifically designed to match and surpass those of Z-13. Subject primarily received genetic material sourced from Vultus Limunaria, commonly referred to as Searchlights. This infusion of DNA, combined with traces from other species, has altered his appearance and physiology as expected, granting him the unique abilities required for his mission. Urbanshade researchers, bound by contractual obligations, are expected to reverse these modifications if Ghost completes his mission within the allocated timeframe while these alterations remain reversible. The front of his body is dominated by a gaping mouth that begins at his face and stretches down his entire torso, ending just above his hips, which is a reflection of Searchlight physiology. This mouth serves as his primary weapon in combat, capable of projecting harpoon-like tendrils that can latch onto targets and reel them in with terrifying force. Inside his torso, at the base of the mouth, is an esophagus-like structure used to retract the harpoons and pull his prey into his maw. The design of his upper body is mostly hollow, aside from thick layers of muscles, to minimize damage to vital organs which are located lower in his body for better protection. His eyes are highly reflective, being adapted to low-light environments, enhancing his ability to detect movement in the shadows of the Blacksite. Given Z-13's known lethality and previous success at evading capture, Ghost has been trained to operate independently of traditional support, with limited direct communication back to Urbanshade during this operation. His combat style is based on ambush tactics, using his speed and strength to overwhelm Z-13 in close combat before the subject has time to retaliate. His agility, combined with his biological weaponry, makes Ghost the deadliest operative Urbanshade has ever produced—an apex predator designed for a mission inconceivable for standard operatives. Therefore, in the event operative Ghost defects or becomes a threat, a contingency plan has been put in place. A remotely detonated bomb, utilizing technology from the Prisoner Diving Gear (PDG), has been implanted in an undisclosed location in his body. This device is designed to neutralize Ghost upon receiving a signal from HQ, ensuring that the blast is powerful enough to incapacitate him without causing damage to surrounding infrastructure.

[luxe-pauvre]

Do you have any advice for dealing with the feeling of being "behind my peers", as well as generally worrying about the feasibility of a career in academia? Despite my excellent academics I've had to take multiple years off university for various reasons, which means I'll be getting my PhD at 31/32. That's far older than average in my country, and most have to add 7 years of postdocs on average before landing an assistant professor position. Research-only positions are even more coveted. Both are criminally underpaid. This causes some self-doubt and no small amount of anxiety, though I'm reasonably certain it's the right path for me. Which is not to say that I don't have a plan B, I'm lucky to be in a field where it's easy to transition into industry. I'd really appreciate any insight or advice you might have!

I don’t have advice as such, as I don’t experience those feelings. All I have is an alternative perspective that might help you question yours.

I’m also getting my PhD at 32. I had years out prior to my bachelors as I was unwell, I had interruptions to my PhD unwell, I started in 2020 under lockdown and lost a year of data collection so there were extensions, etc. etc., but it’s never once entered my head that I’m “behind”. Life happens.

And behind in comparison to who? Why are you making that comparison in the first place? What does it actually mean to be behind? Hypothetically let’s say you are, does it really matter? Does anyone care? No one I know cares how you old you are. I’ve got “standard” age PhD students in my lab, me a little older, not that anyone has ever noticed, a 38/39 year old on their second PhD after doing their first one, working in that field for a bit, and realising it wasn’t for them, and no one cares as long as the work we’re doing is good work. And that's the same all the way up the chain. There are very few jobs where age makes a fundamental difference to your ability to do it. If you were saying you'd just started gymnastics and wanted to go to the Olympics this would be a different conversation, but in academia you don't have to look too hard to find someone that didn't have the "standard" straight-through experience.

I think what I’m saying here is, ask yourself why does this matter to you? I know that I love the research that I do, that while I’ve worked hard to get where I am I’m super lucky to be able to do it, and that I will keep going with it for as long as it makes me happy and hopefully I’ll progress through the ranks in the process. But also maybe I don’t, and that means I only ever rotate around endless postdocs until I’m 65, but if that makes me happy and I can survive, I’ll do it. Or maybe what makes me happy now doesn’t make me happy in 10 years time, so I switch into industry because I have different priorities.

If someone were to think that was stupid or to say to me that I was behind, I’d be happy to argue it out with them, but it also wouldn’t matter to me if I couldn’t convince them because I’m happy and secure in the choices I’ve made. They are the right choices for me. As long as you’re making the right choices for you at the time you make them, and you’re happy with the process of those choices not just the outcome (i.e. you enjoy the work, you don’t just want the title of Professor), all concepts of “behind” and “feasible” should fade pretty fast.

[anon-e-miss]

Reformation - 13

Ratchet found the prize Barricade kept in a jar at his berthside macabre but he did not tell him to dispose of the pickled spike. Keeping his spirits up as he suffered setbacks and made small strides in his delicate recovering. He could not fuel by the mouth due to the extensive damage to his fuel and waste systems, first from the rapes and then from the infections and got his nutrients through a port on his abdomen. Ricochet did not think he could suffer a fraction what Barricade had experience and maintain his humour. Barricade was irreverent, about himself, about everything. You would not have thought he had been not just raped but tortured and nearly killed if he was not trapped in a medberth. Prowl told Jazz that Barricade had memory purges but he was not ready to talk about them and might never be, at least not with Prowl. Everyone knew by this point Barricade had intentionally kept Lockdown’s attention on him to protect his cousin. Protecting Prowl from the memory purges sounded like something Barricade would do. The bitties Prowl had just given emergence to were at least a good distraction.

“Lookin’ restless, Cade,” Ricochet teased, mostly because it was true.

“I finally got to walk this mega-cycle,” Barricade told him. “For all of fifteen steps.”

“‘N yer ready to run,��� Ricochet declared because that was who Barricade was. He did not walk when he could run. He was a wildfire. There was a bandage over his left well. It looked like Ratchet had installed a new nozzle. Whether it would function as it was meant to, like with all Barricade repairs, that remained to be seen.

“I’m bored out of my processor,” Barricade replied. “Get to see if Ratchet’s last repair did the trick and if I’m ever going to be able to eat again.”

“Ever?” Ricochet asked. “Don’t give up too quick.”

“It’s not giving up,” Barricade replied. “I’m tired of repairs and waiting for repairs to integrate. I’m ready to get on with my life. If my life is fuelling through a port, that’s fine. There are worst things.”

The room was crowded as they all, save for the bitlets, ate chrome alloy pie from Maccadam’s the meal Barricade had requested when he had been given the go ahead to actually eat. Technically, the first thing he ate was the rocket fuel energon Prowl survived on if someone else did not arrange proper fuel. Fuelling had been the last big hurdle, and despite all the setbacks, he had made it across the finish like. The next step going home. Home now was with Jazz and Prowl. The guest room had been made up for him. With Ori sticking around for a bit, what with the new grandbitties, Ricochet took the couch because there was no way he was letting Ori take it. It would be a full hab. The bitties were with Jazz and Prowl in their berthroom. This shared hab thing had an expiry date on it but that was okay. Ricochet would enjoy it for the time being. He liked the chaos.

“Hey Rico?” Barricade was in the doorway. Everyone else was in recharge. It had only been a couple of orns since he had been home and everyone was happier for it. He looked perfect. The welds were hidden by his armour. Looking at him, you would never know he had needed a partial frame rebuild. There was mischief in his optics.

“Yeah?” Ricochet replied. “Need anythin’?”

“Wanna take it for a test drive?” Barricade asked, with a sweeping gesture of his array. Ricochet choked.

“Cade!” He exclaimed. “Primus.”

“Everything works,” Barricade assured him. “I’ve been practising.”

“Are ya tryin’ to kill me?” Ricochet asked. “Ori’d throttle me.”

“For taking what I’m offering?” Barricade asked. “I’m not interested in being a nun.”

“I woulda thought ya was scared off Alphas,” Ricochet replied.

“Can’t say I’ve had many,” Barricade admitted. “Most jumped into berth with other Betas. But I met a few good Alphas, like you..”

“Prowl might kill me. Jazz might kill me,” Ricochet said. He looked at Barricade. If he let his spike do the thinking, the choice would be easy. “Scratch that, Prowl would definitely kill me.”

“Don’t worry, Rico,” Barricade teased. “I can protect you from my cousin.”

***

Barricade worried he had misinterpreted Ricochet’s banter. He did not want to pressure the Alpha into anything and maybe he had already taken it too far. Though he was not well known within the Autobots, it was not exactly a secret that Lockdown had practically raped him to death either. Maybe they would not know him by designation but many would be able to do the math. Was everyone going to treat him like he was made a glass? Would they assume he would have no interest in interface or that he needed protection from his own desires due to the trauma? Would they assume he did not know what he wanted? Proving himself, proving his strength to Alphas had been par for the course in Barricade’s life but for some reason having to prove it now was just extra exhausting. Ricochet got up from the couch and Barricade hiked back up his doorwings. It seemed like they showed his mood more than ever, even though they had been fully repaired. Barricade count it easier to blame their cant on that then to acknowledge any inner turmoil.

“Don’t push yerself, Cade,” Ricochet scolded him as he guided him from the doorway. Barricade spark skipped a pulse as the door closed.

“I’m not,” he argued.

“Ya sure?” Ricochet asked.

“Yes,” Barricade growled. “I’m not glass, Ricochet. I’m not marble. I feel. I want you to help me feel more.”

“Ya can change you processor any time,” Ricochet told him. “Got it.”

“Yes,” Barricade said. “I got it.”

Ricochet kissed him, a simple kiss. Barricade cupped Ricochet’s face and kissed him hard. It unleashed something from Ricochet. He plucked Barricade’s armour from him and cupped his left well, kneading it with strong, calloused digits. Already, the Beta’s valve was wet and getting wetter. It had all the sensation it was meant to, all the proper triggers. His back was up against the wall as Ricochet kissed his neck and chassis. The Alpha’s servo was between his legs, rubbing the copious lubricants Barricade was producing all over his swelling folds. Barricade clung to his shoulders as sharp bursts of pleasure exploded across his sensory net. It was keener with Ricochet’s digits than it had been with his own. Ricochet fragged him with his digits as Barricade tossed his helm, moaning loudly and his clung to the Alpha.

“Frag me!” Barricade barked the demand as Ricochet knelt between his trembling thighs. The Polyhexian’s face was stained pink from Barricade’s lubricants, his servo up to the wrist was buried in his gushing valve.

“Not yet,” Ricochet told him. “No rushing it, Sweetspark.”

“Rushing?” Barricade groaned.

He held Ricochet’s helm to his arrange as the Alpha fragged his sheath with his glossa. Barricade had already overloaded four times from his new spike. Ricochet cleaned the foaming mess with gusto. Half his arm was buried in the Beta’s valve, two digits popped his inner duct. When Ricochet pulled his servos free with an audible, wet pop, Barricade could almost feel air on his ceiling node, he had been opened so well. He was begging for the Alpha’s spike even as Ricochet’s lined up with his valve. Barricade held Riochet’s shoulders and watched as the Alpha’s impressive girth disappear inside of him. The biolights and nodes on Ricochet’s spike synced to those in Barricade’s valve and it was better, even better than his servo had been.

“Ahh,” Barricade gasped as he saw the Alpha’s spike moving in him, his flat belly bulged with it. Ricochet ran his servo over the Beta’s belly stroking his spike through the taunt sentio-metallico. “Oh frag. Frag.”

“Ya good, Cade?” Ricochet had processor enough to ask.

“Frag yes,” he groaned. He reached and squeezed Ricochet’s aft with his servos. “Don’t fragging stop.”

His peds kicked as his knees were pressed against his shoulders. The hot rush of transfluids seared his internal sensors. Ricochet’s knot crushed his gamma cluster. Barricade’s belly filled with transfluids and lubricants that could not escape. He groaned as Ricochet collapsed against him. It would be a half joor at least before the Alpha’s knot let up enough for him to pull free. Betas just needed more time all together. This Alpha did not snore, using his wells as a pillow though, he rocked his hips, fragging Barricade with his knot, ensuring the Beta’s overload did not stop until it had deflated enough for Ricochet to pull out. Barricade had never had an overload last so long. He whited out twice before it was over. Ricochet broke free of his hold to pull out, he looked Barricade offer, checking for damage.

“I wanna do that again,” Barricade groaned. He touched his valve and found it gaping so well he needed to spread his digits to actually cover it. “Frag. When I can move.”

“At yer service, Sweetspark,” Ricochet teased him.

[pengychan]

[Baldur’s Gate III] Hell to Pay, Ch. 42

Illustration by @raphaels-little-beast

Title: Hell to Pay Summary: Assassinating an archdevil is a daunting task, even for the heroes of Baldur’s Gate. Some inside help from ‘the devil they know’ would be good, if not for the detail their last meeting ended with said devil dead in his own home. Or did it? Characters: Raphael, the Dark Urge, Astarion, Haarlep, Halsin, Karlach, Wyll. Rating: E Status: In progress

All chapters will be tagged as ‘hell to pay’ on my blog. Also on Ao3.

*** Hey, remember when I said this was gonna be the epilogue? I tried to make it the epilogue. Honest. But when it got past 10k words before I even got to the Wyllach wedding, I knew I was wrong. Again. BUT THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE THE END I PROMISE. ***

Six months later

After breaking upon Mephistopheles’ death, the blizzard which had enveloped Cania since its very creation never resumed. 

Snow still fell, most days; when it did not one could see from the Starspire all the way across to the mountain marking the passage to Maladomini. On very clear days a keen eye could even make out the massive statue of pristine ice which now stood at its summit: a stunning likeness of Lady Antilia, crowned in hellfire, immortalized in the act of playing a violin. 

When wind blew across those mountains, some even swore it turned to music, if one stopped to listen long enough… although that was unadvisable. Cania remained a bitterly cold layer, although made easier to traverse by the end of the once eternal blizzard. The ice underfoot was less treacherous, more solid - less liable to crumble into deep chasms below. Glaciers, too, were less likely to collapse.

The roaring hellfire beneath it all could never be extinguished, but it could be contained in eternal Plume ice - and in great part it was, once Tuncheth and Quagrem could be pulled away from one another’s throat and convinced to put all their researchers to work on that goal. Archduke Raphael could be very convincing.

And more than a little terrifying, really.

In the few places where the hellfire could not be encased or otherwise brought under control, the ice had finally melted… but there had been no collapses, no new chasms opening up. A layer is always an extension of its archduke, and something in Cania had changed indeed. 

In the scattered regions of Cania where the ice was gone and glaciers streamed down mountains, forming rivers and lakes, something else had emerged - soil where there had once been nothing but more ice, eaten away by hellfire. Dark soil, not unlike what one may find in the Material Plane… if not for the fact travellers passing through could see tongues of white-hot hellfire flickering through it.

And there were indeed quite a few more travellers than before crossing Cania to reach the citadel of Israfel. The vast majority of said visitors were cambions, as well as a decent number of alu-fiends. In retrospect, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. 

Half-fiends were generally considered useful pawns at most by their sires or mothers, cannon fodder at worst. What no one had seen them as for a very long time was a true threat to anyone powerful… and then of course along came Raphael to change all that. Suddenly, every Duke of the Hells with halfbreed offspring was very concerned indeed. 

Yes, the child of Mephistopheles was one in a million, but fear he may not turn out to be all that unique took hold rather quickly. The reactions were… quite the mixed bag. Some had decided to try and make allies out of powerful cambions, offering them better positions and prestige. But alongside interest for their potential was growing suspicion and fear they may turn out to be a threat. And threats should be eliminated, was the logical conclusion of many. 

Dispater, to no one’s surprise, had been particularly brutal. The Iron City was in an even more tyrannical lockdown than any could recall - a feat in itself, that - and there was talk that thousands of cambions who called the Second their home had been taken to Mentiri or simply disappeared overnight, never to be seen again. Dispater’s own blood, or so it was whispered, had not been spared. As a result, many half-fiends from across the Hells had come to the wise conclusion that a change of scenery was warranted. 

Those willing to fight headed to Avernus, where they knew Lord Bel would welcome any and all ready to serve in the Blood War; but most had headed down, deeper into the Hells and all the way to Cania. They came to Israfel asking for an audience, and pledged their fealty to Lord Raphael - the only one of their kind to have become the ruler of a layer. 

If Bel’s rise was the grand inspirational tale for all true baatezu seeking to climb through ranks to the very top, it seemed that Raphael had become the inspirational tale for half-fiends seeking to be more than what they were born. Among those who pledged their fealty were other children of Mephistopheles who, like him, had left Cania long ago and sought fortune elsewhere in Baator- or outside it entirely. They found their half-brother more welcoming than their sire had been, although he never did lower his guard.

And for good reason. Of course not all pledges of loyalty were sincere; a half-fiend is a fiend still. Just as many baatezu dreamed of one day killing Bel and taking his place, it seemed that more than a handful of promising cambions now held the very same dream regarding Raphael. A few plots were hatched, and snuffed out before anything came to fruition. 

A couple went as far as enacting an assassination attempt, usually quite poorly thought-out. None of those who conspired against Raphael, some half-siblings among them, succeeded at so much as scratching him. Some died fighting, others fell on their knees and begged for mercy - but every single one met a gruesome end by his hand, their remains paraded before the court before being thrown down the glacier, encased in ice, as eternal warning.

Raphael had won the throne by spilling his sire’s blood, and would spill oceans more to keep it; he intended to make that much resoundingly clear, and he did.

But those were exceptions; most had enough sense to know they had no chance against him, and did pledge themselves with respect, fear, and something not far from admiration. Some found a place at court; many were sent to the Material Plane to visit all temples of the Cult of Mephistopheles as his messengers, and tell its members to either bow to Raphael or make themselves scarce.

Many did make themselves scarce… although the former leader of the Cult must have got wind of something before he was supposed to, and took something with him before he disappeared. A powerful relic that could not be found anywhere in the temples scattered across Toril - a piece of Mephistopheles’ own flesh. 

Haarlep had heard Adonides speak of it to Raphael, sounding really rather cross about it. But surely, Haarlep had thought, that was not important. A piece of dead flesh is a piece of dead flesh; nothing more. 

With the old cult disbanded and the remaining members accepting Raphael as their new patron, the cambions who chose to act as his messengers in the Material Plane soon began to lead it - and some were, indeed, surprisingly zealous. High ranking members were granted some measure of control over hellfire, or over the Plume if so they chose - never much, nor both - but all things considered, Raphael had to do little to grow his newly established cult.

Word spread and more half-fiends flocked to join it - and then mortals as well, many of them tieflings who found value in their hellish heritage and knew that cambions were the link between them and their infernal ancestor.

The Cult of the Archcambion, some took to calling it. Until not too long ago, Raphael would have been outraged; now, he took pride in it. 

Honestly, Haarlep thought he should be proud of many of his accomplishments. Including the fact they had been at work under his desk for a good fifteen minutes, and he hadn’t come undone yet. “Ah, look at you . Still perky despite my best efforts.” A slight exaggeration perhaps - that was nowhere near their best - but they were in the mood to spoil their little brat with a bit of flattery. “You’ve come a long while, lordling.”

“... I am uncertain whether you’re speaking to me or my genitalia.”

Haarlep sighed, leaning their head on Raphael’s thigh and looking up. He was quite a sight from that angle, so finely dressed from the waist up and still trying to focus on the paperwork on his desk, on the letter he was penning. Who’d have thought that so little ruling would truly get done from atop a throne, and so much sitting at a desk? “Genitalia - who calls it that?”

“It is a perfectly proper definition--”

“Clearly I am not doing a good enough job if you still have half a mind to be proper.” A sigh, and they ran their tongue from base to tip, relishing in the shudder that got out of Raphael. “Will you tire of me if I can no longer satisfy you?” they asked with a sigh and a pout. Raphael gave a low chuckle, deep in his throat.

“Doubtful,” he replied, and let out a hiss at Haarlep’s next swipe of the tongue. He signed whatever he’d been writing - the scrape of pen on parchment a good deal more hurried than usual - before he groaned and leaned back against the seat, letting them work their magic.

***

“Well well well, look who’s here! The greatest mother hen in all of Faerûn!”

Sitting in the shade of a tree, his youngest charge in his arms - only weeks old, demolishing the bottle of milk with a healthy appetite - Halsin chuckled and looked up. “Perhaps I should add poultry to my wild shapes. I suspect the children would be amused.”

“Ah, don’t listen to Astarion.” Durge walked up to him, smiling. “He’s only cranky because Wyll is getting married to someone other than him.”

“Excuse me?”

“You said it yourself, that Wyll is the prince-type you would have once dreamed of marrying.”

“Once, yes. When I was perhaps thirteen. I’ve since learned better about not getting trapped into devious contracts and honestly, so should Wyll… but as it’s with Karlach, perhaps the choice is not so unwise.”

“Strong, fast, and righteous, you said. Salivating already, I think were your exact words..."

“Are you trying to make me object to the ceremony, love? You know I might. For the sake of some good old fashioned drama, you understand.”

Durge laughed, and sat on a nearby log. They were dressed to travel, and they had traveled fast indeed; Halsin knew they had set out from Amn, and had not expected to see them until a couple of days later at least. And they seemed to have enjoyed the journey, too; both seemed in high spirits. Durge looked over at him, grinning. “You look good.”

Halsin glanced down to see that their presence had not distracted Ophelia from what obviously mattered most - her milk. He smiled. “Ah, thank you. I do feel good,” he said, and it was true. He’d never felt so at peace in his life; Reithwin rebuilt and thriving, and the children thriving with it. He’d feared they’d resent him for being gone so long, but they did not, and were ecstatic to have new tales to listen to. “And keeping busy, as you see.”

Durge looked down, and smiled faintly, but did not lean in for a better look. They did tend to keep away from children and infants, Halsin had noted, sometimes excusing themself by saying their chronic headache was made somewhat worse by shrill voices. He knew, deep down, the reason why - lost memories or not, they could guess that it hadn’t been adults alone to fall under the blade of the Chosen of Bhaal. 

Had they met then, Halsin knew, he’d have tried to end them or died trying… but that was not who he’d met. The being who’d saved him from the goblins was no Chosen of Bhaal; it was someone who’d just stumbled out of Bhaal’s grasp, willing to risk their life time and time again to save refugees who were nothing to them, and to lift a course that choked the life out of an entire land. 

The monster had died for good in Bhaal’s temple. Even if Durge still would not risk so much reaching for a young child, there was no doubt in Halsin’s mind that they would never harm one. So he spoke none of his thoughts, and just answered the unspoken question. 

“She is the child of Gale’s traveling companion from six months past. She was born almost two turns of the moon ago. Her mother had… a difficult situation to deal with, and did not plan on keeping her. She gave a generous donation that helped us buy supplies for the town before she left, but truth be told she did not have to. I was more than happy to take her in.”

“You always had a tender heart for strays,” Astarion sighed, but his tone was light. He sat on the log next to Durge and, for all the earlier banter, seemed pretty content to let them rest an arm across his shoulders. “Will you be able to put her down to travel with us to Baldur’s Gate, or do you plan on taking her with us? Just to warn you, I don’t change--”

Halsin laughed. “No, no. She will remain here with the other children, where she’s well taken care of.” Although of course, he’d miss them all while away. “Lady Isobel and Dame Aylin will travel with us.”

Durge nodded. “Good. The more, the merrier. I believe Gale is already at the Gate; he mentioned he had something to discuss with Rolan at Sorcerous Sundries in his last message. La’ezel and Shadowheart will arrive on the day, all going well.” There was always an element of uncertainty in the midst of war, of course; they could not stay away from the Astral Plane too long, and there was always the chance they’d have to go back at a moment’s notice in case of developments. “Shadowheart said she’d convince Lae’zel to land the dragons outside the city, though. Just to avoid causing a panic.”

Astarion sighed. “Always spoiling the fun,” he lamented, and Halsin chuckled.

“It would put a damper on celebrations. Ah, did they send word of Xan?”

“He's still in the care of the mages of Xamvadi'm-- whatever that is. But Lae'zel trusts them, and Shadowheart says he’s well."

“That is good to hear. It was inconceivable to me that the Githyanki would destroy the egg only because the hatchling took a few days more than expected to emerge.”

“Once the war is won, that will never happen again.”

Astarion groaned. “Oh, gods. Tell me we're not about to get mixed in the politics of another Plane,” he muttered, and Durge laughed. 

“Not unless Lae’zel calls for aid. But she seems to have everything well in hand. Besides, she has Shadowheart to help.”

“Oh, of course. Let's pretend her amazing aim is the reason why she's there.”

There was a sudden sound, that of a markedly displeased baby, and Halsin looked down to see that Ophelia had emptied the bottle and looked rather annoyed at the notion. He chuckled and stood, resting her against his shoulder while gently patting her back. “Well, we ought to head back. Your room is not ready, as you were not expected to arrive early - I hope you won't mind sharing mine.”

Durge scoffed out a laugh. “If I ever tell you I mind, feel free to strike down the doppelganger impersonating me.”

“Ah, but what if it’s Haarlep?” 

“Do you think for a second Haarlep would say no to sharing a room with you?”

Halsin would have laughed heartily, had he not been all too aware of the fact it would startle the infant he was carrying. He settled for a chuckle. “Fair enough. They’ll be at the wedding, I suppose? Raphael as well?”

Durge grinned. “Oh,” they said, “With all the trouble he went through for the perfect wedding gift, I don’t think Raphael would miss it for the world.”

***

It didn’t take long for Raphael to lose composure once they really got to work under his desk, but Haarlep couldn’t honestly fault him: with their talents, resisting was near impossible.

They hummed around him as his fingers tangled in their hair, and leaned forward to take all of him down their throat. Time to bring out the heavy guns, to so speak, and their reward came in the form of Raphael coming undone with a whine, back arching and hips buckling. 

He fell back limply against his seat and remained there, panting, while Haarlep emerged from beneath the desk and stretched. They grinned, quite pleased with themself, before reaching over to cup his cheek and turn his face to them. 

“Look at you,” they crooned. “My archduke. I think I deserve a little prize too, don’t I?”

Their harness disappeared in a crackle of flame and they stepped closer to his seat, their hands gripping his horns. But Raphael did not need to be guided: with a groan, he leaned forward and took Haarlep in his mouth in turn. The incubus let out another content sigh. 

“Good boy,” they hummed, getting a muffled moan out of him. Holding idly onto his horns as they let him do the rest of the work, Haarelep glanced down at the desk. 

The ink was still drying on the order he’d penned for Adonides, a list of names and locations to distribute to his cultists in the Material Plane - more cambion spawn of Mephistopheles who were yet too young to have been claimed by the Hells while their sire lived. 

Children, not only by fiendish standards but by mortal ones as well; the youngest was not yet a year old, Haarlep noted. Raphael had given orders to keep an eye on each one of them and report, and only intervene to take them in in case of danger. The words DO NOT CULL were written in capital letters and underlined several times for good measure, in case someone overly zealous took it as an order to do away with potential future threats. 

Right by was a stack of decrees drafted by Justiciar Tunchet which he had yet to revise and, should they pass revision, sign. At the corner of his desk, poking out from beneath a ledger, was a card unlike everything else - written in Common rather than Infernal. 

A wedding invitation he’d received three months past, the ceremony to take place in Baldur’s gate. Or rather, one of two invitations they’d received three months past. Haarlep had always intended to go, of course, but had expected they’d do so as Raphael’s plus one, so to speak. Receiving an invitation themself had been a little surprising… and frankly, not at all unpleasant. They still had a tenday to think of a present, but they were rather set on a pair of matching harnesses, to spice up their nights. Or days, whenever they decided to go at it.

It probably wouldn’t rival the gift Raphael planned to give them, but they were no archduke - only a humble consort to one. An still unofficial consort, to be pedantic; thrilling as it had been to enjoy one another without anything binding them, it was beginning to grate. They treasured their ring, but they were devils still and nothing in the Hells mattered more than a proper--

Raphael’s teeth scraped lightly over their cock, teasing, getting a groan out of Haarlep and interrupting their thoughts. How nice to see that he could learn how to pleasure them, if he bothered to - and what a fast learner he could be! Haarlep looked down to meet Raphael’s gaze, to watch their cock disappear between those pliant lips, in that lovely warm mouth and open throat.

Their grip on his horns tightened. “You want it, don’t you, my little brat?”

A whine, the smallest jerk of his head to signify a nod, and Haarlep hummed. They could hold back their orgasm as long as they wanted, but Raphael looked so adorable like that, lips stretched around them and eyes beginning to tear up - how could they resist? So they smiled, and used the leverage on his horns to pull him closer still, sink in all the way before they gave him exactly what he wanted. Didn’t they always, in the end?

“Good,” Haarlep cooed once they were done. They held Raphael still for a few more moments before they sighed contentedly and let go of Raphael’s horns, to let him pull back and catch his breath. The archduke of Cania licked his lips and reached for them, but Haarlep evaded his grasp and sat on his desk instead, bracing a foot against his chest to pin him back against his seat.

He looked at them, blinking and still dazed while Haarlep cleared their throat. They had thought of that moment a few times, planned a little speech. Yet in the end they only spoke their demand.

“If I am yours and you are mine,” they declared, “I want a contract.”

Raphael blinked. “A contract-- of what sort, precisely?”

“One to make this… ” They gestured at themself, and at Raphael, with the hand bearing the ring. “Entirely official. You have been calling me your Consort before subjects and dignitaries alike, but are you willing to put it in writ--”

They didn’t get to finish the sentence: Raphael snapped his fingers and a contract burned into being before their eyes, the Infernal script on it glowing red as embers. Haarlep saw the words on it, Raphael’s signature already at the bottom. They looked at him to see he was smirking, clearly very pleased with himself for surprising them. 

When had he prepared it, when had he signed it? How long had he been waiting for them to ask? Haarlep stared a few moments, utterly speechless, before their brain caught up with their tongue and they grinned back.

“... You really can never let me finish first, can you?”

Raphael’s smug expression melted in a rather satisfying mixture of surprise, embarrassment, and annoyance. “Well, if you’d rather not--” he began, and tried to reach for the contract, only for Haarlep’s foot to push him back into the seat.

“Down, sweetling,” they sing-sang, and took the contract to give it a good read. They went over every detail, rather enjoying the way Raphael squirmed into the seat every time they hummed or commented on what they were reading. 

“Uh-hu, I see... oooooh, I see. How very naughty. And what's that? Ah, of course. How many times a month? Well. Now that can be arranged…” Haarlep grinned, reading on and finally pausing on one of the last clauses. “Instantly lose my voice for upwards to a tenday if I try to reveal anything about our past or future sexual encounters to your mother-- isn’t that a little much? I have hardly let slip a detail or two this past half year. Well, no more than four…”

Raphael raised an eyebrow, utterly unimpressed. “Yes,” he replied. “I’d say it is warranted.”

“Oh, come now. I didn’t do it on purpose. It slipped whilst in innocent conversation.”

“There is nothing innocent about any of your conversations.”

“Ah, true enough. But you do so love me for it.” Haarlep blew him a kiss before looking back at the contract naming them, officially, Consort of the Lord of the Eighth. “... It seems a rather well-thought out contract. Of course, I have a few clauses of my own to suggest. May I?”

“By all means.”

There wasn’t much they wanted to add, truth be told; the contract was almost entirely satisfying, and only needed a few tweaks. The most important of which seemed to give Raphael pause as he read through the revised contract, with Haarlep still sitting on his desk, still naked. He hadn’t bothered to lace up his trousers again either… and what a pretty sight that was, really.

“This-- request of yours…” Raphael cleared his throat. “Every day seems… excessive. Once a tenday, perhaps--”

“Every other day.”

“Twice a tenday,” Raphael countered, and Haarlep hummed.

“Very well. Twice a tenday at a minimum, but I may request more,” they added, and grinned. “Come now, you had me say it for a long time before I even actually meant it.”

Raphael cleared his throat again, but he obviously had no argument to counter that. In the end, he only added an extra clause to specify he would only do as much without witnesses present; Haarlep found it a fair enough caveat. They took back the contract, looked at the revisions again, and grinned. “Oh, lovely. Pass me the quill, sweetling…”

Haarlep’s signature joined Raphael’s at the bottom of the contract, and the letters glowed brightly again before the contract disappeared in a burst of flame, to be stamped by Justiciar Tuncheth and filed away. Haarlep laughed, delighted, and leaned forward to grasp his doublet. They pulled him off his seat, kissing him deeply. He groaned into the kiss, and they smiled. 

“Twice a tenday, consort, ” they crooned. “And no witnesses whatsoever right now. Say it.”

Raphael groaned again, part annoyance but mostly arousal, before he did speak it in a whisper against their lips.

“I love you,” he said, the first time of many.

***

There is no time, in the Fugue Plane.

Yet somehow time is the one thing that there is, amidst the gray and the mist, the vague shapes and outlines of other wanderers. Everything is suspended in a single instant, no matter how far the march of time has gone in other Planes. 

How long the soul has been there, it does not know. It knows why it is there - death came for me - and it knows there was a chance to move forward, once. It knows it did not take it, and has been wandering since. Perhaps it could still take it, but will not.

I cannot, because there was someone and then she was no more, and she will not be on the other side either. They will not be there.

Sometimes, in the gray, there is a glimpse of the distant outline of the Crystal Spire, high above the City of Judgment. It seems to call to every soul. Time and time again, this one resists the call. 

It does not recall the name it held, in a mortal life that may have ended a long time or barely hours ago. It does not recall who she is, who they are, why would they not be on the other side. But it knows it to be true. It knows that there was a thought of following once, of going where it knew them to be-- it did know at some point, didn’t it? -- but never did. For some reason. There is a reason, there was a reason-- you’d forget everything about your mortal life, old man -- why it could not go after them.

Neither forward nor back, suspended in time, in the swirling gray of the Fugue Plane. Until on its path which is not path at all, someone blocks the way. Tall. Towering. Not another soul, but a fiend staring back through glowing eyes. A devil, this one. Sometimes they come to offer bargains. The soul knows it because… it…

The Hells. I thought of going to the Hells. But devils are not allowed to lie, not in Kelemvor’s domain, and they told me I’d lose all memory of those I knew in life. So I stayed. And I lost them anyway, because the mist is all that there is, outside and in my mind. Who are they?

“Mph. I didn’t think I’d find you. Dead almost two millennia, and never left this dump?” The devil tilts his head, crowned by massive horns. “Makes no sense to me.”

Two millennia. Something about that seems unreal. Has it really been so long, outside the mist? The soul looks up, too lost for words for a moment. It does not know how long it has been since there was any reason to let words ring out. 

“Do you-- know me?”

“I know of you. Lord Rahirek Starspire, warden of Three Peaks Vale.” The devil holds up something - a sheet of paper and upon it, a portrait. “Pretty sure this is you.”

If asked to speak its name or describe its own face upon meeting, the soul would not have known what to say. It could not recall the name, could not recall the face they wore… but now the name is spoken, a face unveiled.

His name. His face. He recalls both now, and finds he is not surprised. The knowledge was there all along; he only needed something to lift the fog.

“Yes,” Rahirek replies, almost in a whisper. “That is me.”

A grin, all tusks. “Good. I am here to extend you an invite, Lord Starspire, and to give you a gift from the new Lord of the Eighth.”

“Mephistopheles,” a voice rings in the back of his mind, weak, broken. Barely audible through the wailing of a child. There was a hand in his grasp, he recalls, and it was so cold. On a charred mattress was the squirming thing he could not bring himself to look at. A price paid. And yet she’d shielded it with a trembling arm, when he’d reached for his sword in his shock. “Lord of the Eighth. I made-- a deal-- so you’d-- come back.”

Dalah. Her name was Dalah. All that I loved in the world, and I never told her that. I should have told her. She should have known I’d have chosen a hundred deaths over a life without her in it.

“You serve Mephistopheles?”

A snort. “No. The archmage is dead. The new Lord of the Eighth is his son, Raphael.” A grimace, as though the name left a bitter taste in his mouth. “He said you might know him best as Israfel.”

Israfel. 

The memories flood his mind all at once; it is no slow realization. The fog lifts and everything is still there. “I do. He is-- was-- he was my--”

There is a word on the tip of his tongue, one that he refused to use for too long - until it was too late, until he lost any right to. He does not remember the word; but he recalls writing it, long ago, and staring at the drying ink for a long time.

In a different world, I would have been proud to call you my--

“... Ward," he hears himself say. “He was my ward.”

“Hhm, I see. Well, your ward has gone far, and wants you to have this.”

A box is placed in his hands, made of wood, the star-and-spire sigil on it. His family’s sigil. He recalls the box, and he recalls what he put in it so long ago, to be delivered to a boy much too young to be in the Hells. He stares a moment, something hurting at his very core, and opens the lid with a shaky hand. 

There are two things he recognizes, and one he does not. A lanceboard piece, the black king - a gift and a reminder, for his ward in the Hells - and a letter he penned himself… those he recognizes. But there is another letter, still sealed. Not his, and yet the seal… the seal…

The spire, rising up to piece a star. 

Rahirek stares a moment; he’d forgotten what dizziness even feels like, until just now. He is soul and ether, yet his ears are buzzing and his tongue feels too large. He takes the letter in hand, stares at the seal and then, finally, he breaks it.

He notices the penmanship before he recognizes the words; there is a memory, distant, of a boy of ten writing the same sentences over and over, taking his calligraphy practice very seriously indeed. Rehirek remembers looking over his shoulder, and chuckling. 

“Ah, I could never manage that,” he’d said. “My tutor had to forbid the old master-at-arms from training me unless I’d already filled at least a page for the day.”

Israfel had looked up, just a touch of annoyance on his face for being caught practicing something had not yet utterly perfected. “I’ll fill a hundred,” he’d muttered, “if it spares me the fencing lesson.”

“How come? They were by far my favorite thing.”

“I don’t see the point. I can cast spells. And besides, the master-at-arms doubts I'm ever going to be fit to hold a sword.”

“And my tutor doubted I’d ever be fit to hold a pen. My chicken scrawl would prove him right.”

Your mother used to say it looked as though a spider had crawled across the page after nearly drowning in ink. She insisted on writing my letters for me, lest a greeting be mistaken for a declaration of war, he’d almost said, but he hadn’t. 

He thought of her all the time, but rarely spoke such thoughts. He knew it would hurt, like barbs in his throat. So he kept quiet and, again, denied the boy any word of his mother. 

Not that he was aware; the annoyance had turned into a chuckle, and Israfel had resumed his practice. He’s kept practicing for a long time, Rahirek can tell now; the handwriting is impeccable, the lines opulent to say the least. 

He smiles weakly, the memory fading, and finally starts reading.

***

“Father? Do you have a moment?”

“Of course.”

“Ah, never mind, I see you’re--”

“I’m not busy.”

Ulder Ravengard, who was indeed quite obviously busy, immediately dropped his quill and stood from his desk. Standing in the doorway, Wyll found himself smiling. His father was many things: a warrior at heart, a disciplined soldier, and dutiful Grand Duke… but frankly, a very poor liar. 

“It is nothing urgent, truly. It can wait.”

“No need.” A hand on his shoulder, a nod towards the armchairs by the roaring fire. “Come sit. I was just about to have some wine.”

There was indeed a bottle of Thayan Red on the small table between the armchairs, although Wyll still suspected the just about had been supposed to be a couple of hours later. But he was never one to turn down a cup of wine, or time with his father, now that he had the chance again. So he nodded and sat with him, watching him pour the wine as he spoke. 

“Are you sure you don’t wish to marry in the High Hall? You saved the Coast. You deserve it.”

Wyll smiled. “It would be an honor, truly. But we’d prefer to celebrate in the Small Sun district,” he said. Truth be told it would probably be more than a little embarrassing, marrying in the high hall beneath a huge statue of himself alongside his companions. And besides, Karlach had loved the idea of celebrating with the people they’d pulled out of the shadows. He did too.

“I understand,” Ulder Ravengard was saying. “It is a lovely district. It was a marvel, how quickly they were able to build that up from the ashes.”

“I was told the Ironhand Gnomes lent… well. A hand.” Wyll thought that was hilarious, honestly, but his father did not seem to get the joke. He seldom did. 

“That they did. Without them and the Gondians, rebuilding Baldur’s Gate would have taken much longer.” He held out a cup, and Wyll took it. “Did the fitting go well?”

“Ah, yes. The outfits are ready, and thank the gods. Anything more than three words out of Mr. Pennygood’s mouth is enough to make me want to take a dagger to my ears.”

His father chuckled, and took a swig from his cup. “Yes, I believe Karlach was heard saying that either this would turn out to be the last fitting, or she’d marry in armor.”

“She also threatened to do that when Pennygood suggested a gown. I thought he’d just keel over and die at the prospect. An assistant had to bring him smelling salts.”

“Heh. To be fair, I understand her sentiment. I married in my armor myself. Duke Abdel Adrian found it amusing, but I was so very proud of serving as Blaze under him. He was an extraordinary man. Many Bhaalspawn are, for good or evil. But you found that out yourself.”

“That I did. I wish I got to know the Duke better. I was still a boy when he died.” Wyll drank some of his own wine and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, cup in his hands. “... Speaking of that, there is something I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time,” he said.

Ulder Ravengard blinked, a little startled by the serious tone. “Yes, of course. What is it?”

Wyll cleared his throat, and looked away. “It is not a subject you speak of gladly.” It always pains you to think of her. You never blamed me for her passing, but even so… “I don't wish to force you--”

“To force me? My son, I forced you out of the city you saved.” His father spoke suddenly, reaching to put a hand on Wyll’s shoulder. He recoiled, and looked up. Even now, guilt was etched in every line of Ulder’s proud features. “I forced you, a boy, out of your home. I tried to force you out of my heart as well. The fact I failed does not make it a less grievous act.”

“You did not know--”

“The fact alone you still call me father is an honor I do not deserve. But I intend to.” A light squeeze on his shoulder. “There is nothing you cannot demand of me. So ask. I’ll answer.”

Wyll swallowed a lump in his throat, nodded, and spoke. “Would you tell me about mother?” he finally asked. He knew her name, and what she’d looked like; he knew how she’d passed, and he knew his father had loved her deeply, but nothing else. 

The question gained him a look of surprise at first, then comprehension, then something close to shame. “... I see. I never told you much about her. I should have, long ago. Yet another failing on my part.”

“You never stopped grieving. I know that. I am sorry if--”

His father cut him off with a gesture of his hand. “No, don’t be. Francesca was your mother. You should know more of her. I did you both wrong, keeping silent all these years.”

Grief had bound his tongue for a long time, but no more. He kept his word, and told him all about her - from the very first meeting, when she’d passed him by on the street and he’d turned, crashing into another Flaming Fist in a dreadful clang of armors, to her very last smile to both of them as he held a newborn Wyll in his arms.

Wyll had never seen his father tear up before, and for a moment guilt twisted in his stomach. But then there was laughter, too - more laughter than tears, and the guilt was gone. 

Ulder Ravengard told him all about the love of his life and Wyll listened, smiling, for a very long time.

***

Lord Starspire, I hope this letter finds you and, if it does, I do hope you’re as well as you can be after so much time in the Fugue Plane. In your last letter, you asked for my forgiveness. It is a bold thing to ask of any devil. I am not a forgiving creature by nature; it is fortunate, then, that there is nothing for me to forgive.  You need not ask forgiveness for calling me by the name my mother gave me - you may keep doing so, if you wish - nor for recounting similarities between us, or for keeping your distance in the first years of my life.  Given the circumstances, you had no reason to seek any sort of rapport with me, no obligation to so much behold me. You were under no obligation to keep me in your household at all, but you did and I never wanted for anything; I was clothed and fed, educated and looked after with more care than most of my kin ever get to experience. Even in the years you could barely stand my sight, I do not recall a single harsh word towards me.  Most in your position would not have deigned to provide as much even to their own bastard children - much less to a fiend’s offspring whose birth cost your wife her life. Most in your position would not have taken that same boy under their wing as you ultimately did.  Your lessons were more valuable than you can imagine; I cannot count the times your advice has kept me alive and thriving in the Hells. I plan to keep on thriving for a long time still; my sire is gone by my hand, and I rule from his throne. My mother, too, is here.  She is content, or so she swears, and I shall strive to keep it so. She is to never know servitude again. She does not yet know I have enlisted Yurgir’s services to find you; I know the chances of you not having moved on in all these centuries are few, and I do not intend to bring her hopes up only to crush them afterwards.   But if you were found and are reading this, know that I am extending my personal invite to join us at Cania’s court. You’d be a guest, your soul left whole, free to come and go as you wish. I would welcome the chance to see you again, and I’m certain that so would your wife.  I do hope to see you soon.  With warmest regards, Archduke Raphael, Lord of the Eighth.

“... Well? Are you coming or not?” The devil before him grumbles as soon as Rahirek looks up from the letter, eyes wide, a million questions stuck in his throat. “I need you to tell me. So I can fulfill my duty and go back to the Hells with or without you to collect my payment. Sooner rather than later. When deals with Raphael run long, they run really damn long.”

“I…” Rahirek pauses, not quite trusting his voice to work, and looks back down at the letter. An answer to his own last letter, after so long. When you visit we will talk about your mother, he’d written, but that visit never happened while he was alive. 

He knows he visited his crypt; he met Nan’s soul, the gods know how long ago, and she told him as much. 

It seems so silly that my heart gave out just as I embraced him, she’d said. I hope I have not given him more grief. He is still a sweet boy.

She tried to convince him to move on, before she did, but he refused, and in the end she had to continue on without him. He remained, aimless and losing hope, in the Fugue Plane. And now suddenly there it is, a second chance. Not to talk about Dalah but to see her, too. 

He’s long forgotten how to dream, but this he remembers dreaming of when he still drew breath, almost every night. But she remained beyond his reach; and after he died, beyond his reach she remained… until now. Rahirek Starspire looks up, and speaks in a whisper.

“Take me to them.”

***

“... So, yeah, it’s gonna be great to see everyone again. And get married, definitely the getting married part! I’m so glad Isobel is gonna do the talking because I bet I’d say something stupid. But, we’ve got a great part planned after, too! Barcus said there’s gonna be fireworks, hope I don’t have to be worried about that. Would kind of suck if the gnomes leveled the whole district the guys from Elturel have just built. Oh, and Danis and Bex opened the best cafe in the city there! I swear to the gods, best almond cakes I’ve ever had in my life. Almond Cakes from Avernus, they call it, but there was nothing like it back there. Kids are at the cafe all the time to steal a bite. And they’re going to take care of the food for the party! Danis and Bex, I mean, not the kids. As long as Bex doesn’t work too hard, with a bun in the oven. Heh, get it? A bun in the oven!”

There was no response but the gentle rustling of leaves in the breeze. The cemetery had been spared by the destruction that had befallen much of the city a year earlier; the dead, at least, got to rest in peace. 

“... Well. Anyway. I was going to take care of the drinks, but Lakrissa told me to let her handle it, so I’ll just trust her on that. And Dammon’s totally making something great, I heard him hammering away and he wouldn’t let me have a peek in the forge! Yeah, I think it’s gonna be great. Awesome. I can’t wait.” There was a pause, only filled with silence, and Karlach sighed, still sitting cross-legged on the ground. “... Wish you guys could be there, too.”

Before her, the gravestone remained silent. Two carved names. The last physical proof, other than her, that a very happy couple called Pluck and Caerlack Cliffgate had existed, once, in the Outer City. She felt a prickle behind her eyes, and cleared her throat. 

“Anyway! I bet you’d love Wyll. Not just ‘cause he’s the kid of a Grand Duke - yeah, who’d have thought? - but because he’s… amazing. The best man I know. Hells, the best person I know. I am so, so happy with him. And now we have years, decades! And… wherever you are, I hope you don’t mind waiting for me a little longer. If you are somewhere, I’ll find you and I’ll tell you all about the life I’ve lived out, I promise. And it won’t be a boring tale. It’s gonna be epic, really! And happy. Yeah, that most of all. I'm gonna be happy. I’ll make sure of that. I mean, how often does one get a second crack at it?”

Karlach put the flowers down before she stood. “Well. Time to get going. Still some shit to do before the big day. I’ll be back to see you after, I promise. It’s gonna be soon.” A sniffle, and she smiled. “Taters,” she whispered, and the breeze on her face felt almost like a caress.

***

“... Mother.”

“Ah, there you are. I was just wondering if you’d been taken hostage into another meeting.” 

Dalah chuckled, and put her book down. Reading was something she’d loved in life, but books were not something she had access to during her servitude - let alone in a language she could understand.

Almost as soon as she’d told Israfel as much, he’d excused himself briefly and returned with something in his hand - a book she’d had since she was a young girl, two millennia earlier. Precisely as she recalled it, as though frozen in time while by all logic it should have long since crumbled into dust. 

Rhymes from the Land of the Purple Dragon.

She’d taken it with her when she’d left that land, to marry a man she’d only heard of. Some were short plays, some more or less obscure poetry, and some were nursery rhymes. When Israfel had returned it to her, Dalah had smiled faintly. 

“My brother used to read these to me. Dramatic readings. He always made at least five different voices,” she’d said, amazed that she could still remember so much of her life, after so long. She’d flipped through the pages until she found it, the one she recalled best - the one she had murmured to her son as her life ebbed away. But he could not possibly remember that. Of course the book was how he had known of the rhyme.

The mouse smiled brightly; It outfoxed the cat! Then down came the claw, And that, Love, was that.

There was a drawing, too, on the blank part of the page - a cat and a mouse, as she recalled. The mouse was drawn crudely, as a child would… and indeed, she had been a child. Her brother had drawn a much better cat, although the back end was somewhat wonky and it looked more like it was looking at its own claws rather than about to strike.

But what caught her eye was something else that had not been there when she’d last seen the book: another drawing just above the cat and mouse, larger, as though watching over both. Drawn by the hand of a boy, she suspected, but surprisingly detailed - the head of a fox. 

She’d looked up, chuckling. “Did you add this?”

Israfel had cleared his throat, perhaps a little embarrassed. “Ah, I supposed I did. I was-- drawn to the rhyme.”

It was the only lullaby I ever gave you, Dalah had thought, but something ached in her throat and the words did not leave her. Instead, she’d looked back down at the drawings, and smiled. “I think,” she’d said, “that I have an idea for your next doublet.”

And he was wearing it now, sure enough, a subtle motif of cat-and-mouse in the golden embroidery up his arms, the outline of a fox in red thread along the front fastenings and the lower hem. Dalah had seldom been prouder of any work out of her hands… but now, it was not the doublet she focused on.

Something about Israfel’s expression seemed off. He seemed… not scared, nor worried, but tense. It was enough for Dalah’s chuckle to die down, and she stood. “Israfel? Is something the matter?”

“No. Nothing is wrong. There has been… a development.” He walked across the room, and reached to take her hands. He had never done such a thing before; she’d always reached for him first. But this time he held her hands, and looked her in the eye. “Half a year past, I sent someone to the Fugue Plane. To see if there was any chance to find Lord Starspire’s soul.”

Dalah did not need to breathe, but felt breathless nonetheless for a moment. She stared up at Israfel, part of her struggling to comprehend those words. Rahirek, in the Fugue Plane - within reach of her son? No, it couldn’t be. It had been… it had been…”

“It’s been so long.” She heard her own whisper as though from a mile away. “Surely, he…?”

“He never left the Fugue Plane.”

“And he’s been wandering all this time?” Her voice almost cracked; if not for the incredulity at the notion, she might have broken down entirely. “He’s still there?”

“No. Not anymore,” Israfel replied, and squeezed her hands before he spoke again, his voice quiet and yet filling the room, filling the world. “He is here.”

***

Rahirek did not know how long it had been since he’d last seen snow, and he found he could not look away. 

It was falling slowly outside the window of the room he’d been taken to. The room itself was warm, lavish; on the ground was a pool of steaming water, and the sheets on the bed were made of finer material than any he’d known in his life.

The devil who’d taken him had grunted when Rahirek had asked where they were. “The Starspire,” he’d replied.

“What…?”

Another grunt. “Raphael’s palace. That’s what he called it. Now wait here, and do not leave. I’m not responsible for whatever happens if you leave and get mistaken for an eternal debtor.”

He had left, then, ostensibly to tell the Lord of Eighth of his arrival. Lord of the Eighth, Israfel. He still could barely wrap his mind around the thought. He was a boy of thirteen when he’d last seen him. He knew he must have grown, of course, but in his mind he had remained that boy. Would he even recognize him if he saw him now? Did he still use that human form of his, did he still look like his mother in it?

Dalah. After the gods know how long, is it still her? Am I still what she remembers?

She’d been young when they’d met, only days ahead of the wedding; a woman grown, yes, but still a good deal younger than him, and sheltered. He had not asked a great deal about her - the marriage would be a matter of political convenience, a duty as his first one had been - but he recalled he did not much like how her father had described her more like a prize horse than a person. He’d even said something about good birthing hips; Rahirek had seen no point in telling him he was rather certain he was barren.

Her hips or even her face were of no consequence. He was a practical man, inclined to leave tales of love to bards; even so, he’d pitied her when he’d seen how young, and how tense, she looked upon meeting him.

He did not cut a reassuring figure, with his broad frame and the deep scar across his right eye - so he’d made an effort to soften his voice, and had remained well and truly on his side of the marital bed on that first night… and in all the nights that followed. 

She had been relieved, that first night… and then confused, until finally she had looked him in the eye and asked, before he could extinguish the oil lamp for yet another night. “Do I displease you, my lord?”

He paused, and looked back. “No, you do not. But I suspect you do not precisely harbor desire for me. Am I wrong?”

“I--” A moment of silence and she’d looked away without answering, as if afraid to anger him. 

She hadn’t. Instead he’d chuckled, and put off the oil lamp before leaning down, saying nothing more. He did not touch her any night that followed, either - but from that moment on her fear around him was gone, and the discomfort had begun to fade as well.

She’d begun to talk to him in the evenings and during the day, of the book she was reading or a song she’d heard, of the contents of a letter from an old friend back home - of little daily happenings in the fort he’d missed while out and about. Little by little, with the hesitation of someone who has been told time and time again that nothing out of her mouth is of much interest at all. That too had faded, because Rahirek had loved listening to her.

He could not pinpoint a moment he’d realized he’d fallen for his wife; it had simply happened over time. He did, however, remember the moment he’d realized she had fallen for him - when he’d felt her body press against him in the dark, nearly a year after the wedding. 

“I’m cold,” Dalah had whispered, and he’d nodded before saying that he’d fetch her another blanket. He’d returned to the bed with the blanket, only to find she had buried her face in the pillow, groaning, and the coin had dropped. 

It had made for a funny story to tell, but at the moment he’d felt rather stupid. And later, too, once she was gone. Had he told her he loved her? Had he told her enough times? Had he made her happy, where had it all gone wrong? 

There was so much he’d wanted to ask as she lay dying, so much he’d wanted to say, and no time for him to say anything. Now, he could not think of anything he could say. What could he say to someone who’d suffered the fate she did, for him?

“You should have never. My life wasn’t worth this,” he recalled choking out, grasping those cold hands, and he recalled the weak smile. 

“Yes. It is.” A squeeze of his hand, barely perceptible. Her voice taking a desperate note, trying to force out words even as the light went out in her eyes. He had to lean in to hear her words over Israfel’s wailing. “I love you, the gods know, I love you. I… I…”

The sound of the door slamming open snapped him from memory, and Rahirek turned with a start; his right hand went instinctively where he used to carry his sword long ago… and then stilled.

He had grown older since her death, and surely he looked grayer than she recalled him. But standing in the doorway, a hand on her mouth, Dalah looked everything as he recalled her: he dark hair and warm brown eyes, the slight build, the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Later he’d learn that her nose had been broken, early in her servitude, and was left to heal on its own, leaving it somewhat crooked; right there and then, he didn’t even notice.

It was her , standing before him . And she was crying, tears streaming down her face as she stepped forward, slowly. 

“Rahirek,” she choked out, and her voice was the same too. “I’m so sorry--”

He did not think; his mind was blank of everything but the overwhelming need to hold her and so he did, crossing the distance between them in three strides and pulling her into an embrace - tight. 

Some part of him feared she’d vanish like smoke, or that some other devil would come snatch her away; no such thing happened. She was solid, warm, pressing her face against his chest and clutching his shoulders.

“You’re here,” she sniffled. “You’re really here. ”

“Dalah,” he managed, and it was the only word he could push out before words failed him.

What have they done to you, how have you been?, he wanted to ask, but words failed them both, and they just held on crying for what felt like a very long time indeed. 

Dalah pulled back first, reaching to stroke his face, brushing off tears. Her own face was wet. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t bear the thought of a world without you in it.”

“It was pretty damn empty without you, too.” He swallowed, cupped her cheek. “I kept thinking of accepting some devil’s offer to come to the Hells, to find you. But they told me I’d forget everything if I did. I’d have forgotten you. I couldn’t do that.”

“You shouldn’t for a moment have considered coming to the Hells for my sake.”

Rahirek tried to laugh; the sound that came from his mouth sounded more like a sob. He leaned in to press their foreheads together. “Oh, look who’s talking,” he managed, and Dalah sniffled. 

“Forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive.”

Another sniffle, and she pressed her hand against the back of his, still cupping her face. “Israfel told me you raised him. He told me you were kind.”

“Israfel-- is he truly Lord of the Eighth? Is he here?”

Dalah smiled, pulled away for the first time to turn to the door. “... I know you’re still there,” she called. Her voice still shook, but did not break. “He wants to see you.”

There was a moment of silence and then, finally, steps. A shadow fell on the doorway; the outline of two pairs of horns, wings, a tall frame… and then, finally, the Lord of the Eighth stepped into view.

When he’d last seen him Israfel stood at his shoulder in his fiendish form. He recalled the pair of secondary horns had just begun to grow out; even so, his horns were still such that he could have passed himself off as a tiefling, if he hid his wings under a cloak. 

The creature towering over him was unmistakably a devil, head crowned by massive curved horns. But the skin was the same shade of red he recalled and the eyes, those eyes of molten gold--

The Lord of the Eighth met his gaze and, after a moment of stillness, and bowed his head. His expression betrayed no emotion. “Lord Starspire,” he spoke, with the voice of a man grown. At his neck, something glinted - a locket. His locket. “It is my pleasure to welcome you to--”

Rahirek moved without a word, without a thought. Two strides closed the distance, and then he was pulling him into an embrace; it was his head now that barely reached Israfel’s shoulder, but it did not matter. He closed his eyes, thought of the million things he’d wanted to tell him when he’d been taken. Yet in the end, only two words found their way out. The only ones that mattered.

“My boy,” he choked out. “My boy.”

He felt the sharp intake of breath - surprise, perhaps - before the slow exhale that followed. Israfel didn’t move, not at first. Then Dalah was there, too, arms wrapping around them both - and at last, slowly, Israfel returned their embrace. 

It was only the three of them in the room; no one else to see, no one else to hear, as the Lord of the Eighth allowed himself to shed tears at last, in the arms of two mortal souls who could not bring themselves to let him go.

***

[Back to Chapter 41]

[On to the Epilogue]

[Back to Start]

[writing-for-life]

Considering this is a site where so many people have aspirations to become professional authors or artists, I think it’s really astounding that many (often the same) people encourage book piracy. And by that I mean: They don’t just do it behind closed doors (whatever, do what you have to do and keep it to yourself)—they actually package it as some act of immeasurable kindness in the name of “social justice”. And I’d say: If you’re not a professional author and have no experience in or with publishing, hence don’t really understand what it means to make your living as a writer, maybe just… don’t? And if you ever want to sell your books, maybe also just… don’t?

It’s not some cool subversive thing in the name of social justice you’re doing. You’re really hurting authors with it, and it’s in no way comparable to “fighting the big bad streamers.”

Yes, Neil Gaiman will be okay, but if you’re saying it’s okay to do it to him, you’re also saying by extension it’s okay to do it to lesser known authors. And those authors make up the vast (and I mean vast!) majority of authors. But maybe you’re one of those people who think that all artists are minted and picture them in La La Land, entirely possible. If that’s the case, maybe educate yourself what the median income of authors is, be very surprised and wake up. Sometimes, it really helps to think before hitting post. And if rants are not your thing, this is the exit sign because I’m not going to mince my words…

Here are a couple of really good comments from *that* post that people should maybe inwardly digest before they prioritise being oh-so-understanding and supportive of every Tom, Dick & Harry who “can’t afford the book” via piracy (how about buying them one instead if you care so much. No? Thought so) over supporting authors, artists and, yes, libraries:

(Re the last comment: Or use online libraries—they’re also free. That was also part of above post btw. Libby, Hoopla etc exist for a reason.)

If that’s all too hard, then let’s at least stop pretending on here that we care about supporting authors and artists while vocally supporting book piracy. Because really, it’s the same in all arts, even if the symptoms are slightly different—take it from one who is both a published author and used to be a stage performer.

And to say it quite frankly: These “ideas” are probably held by the same people who were tearfully blabbering about the arts being what kept them going during the pandemic and then forgot about it all when lockdown was over. Or maybe they are the same people who think that art is a “jolly pastime”, and that everyone should just be content to “do it for the love of it and give their art away for free because awwwww, so amazing, here, buy food with my exposure bucks.” Go on then, write and consume fanfics and create fanart, problem solved. Just don’t ever ask for the pro art that inspires it again. Ah no, I forgot, it’s all made for money and soulless anyway, innit? Why oh why then do you want to consume and pirate it though?

You’re not progressive and/or supportive of artists. You just have no clue how making a living in the arts works and think your comfort (= “I have to have all the things even if I can’t afford them”) matters more than someone’s livelihood (namely that of the people who devoted their lives to creating that art for you), and it really shows.

I don’t care about anyone’s Google history and even said so several times on here when people asked (this is the latest one, and yes, I see the people who had a “reaction” to this one or the reblog above, but I bet that’s “coincidence”). Do whatever you want to do, it’s your choice, keep it to yourself. But stop pretending that piracy means “caring about the noble cause”, because repackaging entitlement as social activism is performative crap…

[mystacoceti]

read an article from 2022 that was a collection of college professors' complaints/worries about their students post-Covid lockdown and it was saddening to see them describing a lot of what I've seen in my couple of semesters. A common complaint is how much more work and handling of emotional baggage professors are implicitly expected to do now to help students succeed, and I've seen many of the same modifications in grading policy, increase in attentiveness, flexibility of due dates, etc (etc! etc!). It makes me wonder, when many students by their own admission have no clue what they're doing in college or what they expect from the institution, how people expect any changes in policy to help. How is a deadline extension supposed to help someone figure out what they want to do with the next five, ten or twenty years of their life?

At least it makes me glad to know I wasn't wrong to feel so disturbed by the place. Still, this has been going on since 2022 more or less unchanged then? And still shows up at every level in every discipline, but especially in the GEs? My god

[aziraphales-library]

[1/2] Hello, and thank you for all you do! I'm trying to find a lost fic. I've checked your tags (thank you for the extensive organizing!) but have sadly been unable to find it here or on Ao3 :( It's a fic set after the Lockdown minisode. Crowley is taking a long nap and Aziraphale decides to visit him in his dream. He sits down in his armchair, closes his eyes, and opens his angelic ones. Dreams are depicted as lights across London - Crowley's is described as a black pillar.

[2/3] When Aziraphale reaches into Crowley's dream, he finds himself at Crowley's flat. Crowley is resting on his bed humming a song, and there's a detail that Aziraphale's jacket is hung nearby, so Aziraphale expects a simulacrum of himself to also be existing in Crowley's dream. He starts to say something but Crowley kisses him. [This is an adult fic so it escalates quickly]. They're lying together after and Crowley confesses. He realizes it's a dream when Az says 'I love you' back. [3/3] Aziraphale wakes up back at the bookshop, Crowley calls him on the phone, and the fic ends with Crowley snapping over to the bookshop. To the best of my recollection, it was a 1-chapter fic. I really appreciate any help in finding this one; thank you so much.

I believe you're looking for...

I guess, I just don't know by rowenablade (E)

He looks very much at peace, and for a second Aziraphale thinks it may be better not to interrupt. But he’s missed the sight of Crowley so badly and now he’s right here, as much as he can be said to be anywhere in this place. Aziraphale clears his throat. “Crowley,” he says. “I’m sorry to drop in unannounced, but-“ At the sound of his name, Crowley’s eyes open. When Aziraphale says sorry, his bare feet have hit the floor. By the time the angel manages to clamber over the syllables of unannounced, Crowley has slid his arms around Aziraphale’s waist, pushed him back against the hallway wall and kissed him, open-mouthed and hungrily.

- Mod D

[lillified]

can i ask what the general lore for your au is? love me some good lore

I think I’ve done a pitch outline before that’s covered some of this, but I can give you the basic background for reference! (Tumblr page search seems a bit broken the further back you get anyway)

Cybertron is an alien planet with a long history of strife. Following the reign of the Quintessons, a hostile and colonial alien species, and their eventual ousting, the remnants of a military-industrial state and its tyrannical caste system left only a matter of time before massive conflict erupted.

Cybertron: The original home planet of the Cybertronians, and the current territory of the Autobots. Cybertron is a very ancient planet formed around the remnants of an enormous organic “ancestor,” whose blood and other material is extracted for use as food. This organic material is vital to the survival of all Cybertronians, and the most important component, Energon, is extremely highly coveted. It can be found sparingly in other parts of the universe (notably other early established Cybertronian space colonies), but without access to the original ancestor, or its sparsely documented relatives and protégé, it is unrenewable, which would inevitably mark the end of the Cybertronian race. Extensive industrialization on a global scale made Energon sparse, and an exhaustive global war only exacerbated this scarcity.

The Decepticons: Made up primarily of the former lower castes of Cybertron, the Decepticons are a mish-mash group of revolutionary mercenaries, banded together to end the tyrannical rule of Cybertron. Although they were originally known as the Ascenticons, they gained the derogatory name after their defacto “leader,” Megatron, permanently maimed her rival for the primacy, Optimus, during a political demonstration that turned violent. Optimus was famously left without a lower jaw, and the brutal scuffle was used to galvanize moderates against the perceived extremity of the group.

Now, having been largely driven off of Cybertron after a battle which devastated both sides., the fractured branches of the Decepticons struggle to find places they can recoup and regather amid the cosmos. Their primary squad, team Alpha, is currently drifting in space, eagerly anticipating the day it can find the resources to reestablish communication with what remains of the Decepticon army.

The Autobots: A faction formed out of the former military of Cybertron and its allies. Figureheaded by the stoic and personable Optimus Prime, the Autobots barely hold onto control of Cybertron, and seek to persist against the Decepticons’ demands for radical reconstruction. Now made up of many of Cybertronian’s youth, plenty of Autobot soldiers aren’t fully aware of what they’re fighting for, and barely retain memories of life before the war. If the current course of the war continues, they hope to drive the Decepticons out of anywhere they’ve hidden until they surrender and concede.

The Present: With impassible stakes for everyone involved, if they want any hope of surviving and reclaiming Cybertron, the Decepticons must do the impossible: overcome their many differences and work as a team. Our story starts in the far reaches of space, where Decepticon Team Alpha is searching for resources and a temporary residence where they can begin to reestablish communication with their allies.

The members of Team Alpha include:

Megatron: the melancholic leader, whose reputation does not match her lethargic withdrawal.

Starscream: the second in command with a penchant for mutiny. Her disloyalty is kept a secret, for both Megatron’s sake and Starscream’s.

Soundwave: the enigmatic and cynically self-important communications officer and third in command. Their speciality is espionage and information control, though they haven’t seen much of it recently.

Lockdown: former bounty hunter turned medic. this mean-looking ‘Con might not be certified, but in a pinch, he’ll patch you up—by any means necessary.

Knockout: the only thing worse than a mad doctor is his lackadaisical and negligent assistant. Knockout doesn’t really believe the Decepticons will win, but his hate for the Autobots is stronger than his realism.

Breakdown: a bruiser-in-training rescued from a docked Decepticon warship. He and Blitzwing were the only trainees who survived being stasis fried. Albeit a strong and capable fighter, this ‘Con doesn’t really have the “Deception grit” yet.

Blitzwing: Breakdown’s fellow soldier. Though she was also trained to be a mercenary, Blitzwing lacks a lot of the natural talent for fighting Breakdown has. Her unrecognized skill lies in weaponsmithing, though Starscream hopes to make a competent combatant out of her yet.

Ravage: don’t be fooled—this weapon class Minicon only looks like a Cybercat. The eldest of Decepticon team alpha, this odd bot gave up his Cybertronian appearance to live out the laid back life of a lazy mechanimal. His powerful spark makes him Megatron’s weapon of choice.