#joint intelligence center

[bookloversofbath]

A North Africa Story: The Anthropologist as OSS Agent 1941-1943: With Historical Settings from the Editors of Gambit :: Carleton S. Coon

[forensicfield]

Investigative Agencies of India

Know About The Investigative Agencies Of India Any country that values its safety and defense establishes a significant focus on having top-notch intelligence expertise. There are numerous intel organizations in our country, specializing in different....

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[eatmangoesnekkid]

As a female, hydration has to be one of your core values because our systems are far more physically and energetically linked to the water element than the male body which means that a higher quality of hydration has to be centered and nurtured in our bodies and in our realities, a hydrated consciousness. A properly hydrated female body of any age will be healthier in spine, skin, vaginal tissues, natural beauty, breasts, joints, intuition, and mind. Not only does proper hydration support healthy circulation, immune functioning, pooping, sensuality, and better sex, turn-on intelligence, magnetism, and creativity, it also leads to pain-free moon cycles and ease during the transition into menopausal years, including increased sexual desire and heightened post-menopausal intuitive awareness that we usually never hear about and remain great mysteries. I will be one of the first to demystify what's possible. Because with your hydration restored, you become a whole Goddess, dripping with life force as you innocently walk down the street feeling like warm sun. -India Ame'ye, Hydration chapter, Water Bearer, Opening paragraph

[naffeclipse]

Talk about your monster husband ocs coward (affectionate❤️)

Everyone, the tumblr user themeeplord is bullying me (affectionate <3)!!

You have no idea how normal I am about my monster OCs. They're so lovely just let me—ahhh!

Hawthorn is a Mothman monster. His wings are based on the garden tiger moth and he is so fluffy! He has a thick fuzz on his neck and chest and is a warm, cuddlebug. He also possesses bright orange eyes that pierce the darkness and startle the unfortunate late-night hikers or anyone piercing into the woods after midnight.

He has a thing for hanging out in the thick woods near where the MC lives. Wherever he goes, bad omens follow. He really shouldn't be near MC—he knows he'll be the death of his precious little human, but he can't help it. He's drawn to the MC like a moth to a flame (heheh). He's delightful and gentlemanly, but don't let that fool you. He's got a possessive stretch a mile wide and does not take kindly to anyone giving the MC looks or reaching out for a too-familiar touch. He will bristle and buzz, and fly swift and silent through the darkness to chase after anyone to ensure the MC stays all to himself. He is a bad omen, after all.

Grease is an oil demon! He feeds off of fear, literally, and delights in terrifying people in the night. His body is slick and iridescent, and he is constantly dripping black goo from his person. He is capable of shifting his form to hide in a puddle, slink underneath doors, or bubble through a crack in a broken window. He's got wicked sharp teeth, and eyes like a tiger but with a pale, unsettling blue color. He possesses tendrils on his head that constantly drip and a long, slick tail that he can use to grab MC by the ankle. He's terribly seductive and charming, terrifying but mischievous. He likes to say 'boo' just to watch MC jump. Of course, he's not all tang and salt. He's got a sweet side that rouses in a protectiveness over MC. He's possessive, sure, and he's marked his claim with the oil stains on MC's work apron, but he's got an ooey-gooey center of sweetness that MC occasionally finds when he blushes at a stray touch or a nice comment about him.

Calmo 91, otherwise just called Calmo, is a robot. Constructed in the 90s with a box TV screen head to match, he has bright yellow optics in the screen face along with thick wires falling behind his head in a ponytail-like fashion. He is cool and difficult to read but wickedly intelligent and learning much about humans and affections. His body is a thin endoskeleton with plastic matt gray coverings that give peeks of blue, red, and yellow wires at his metallic joints. He's got a mysterious past the MC is attempting to unravel that he truly wishes the MC would leave be. He's got much to learn about technology but he quickly figures out how to connect to the MC's phone for texting, phone calls, and other useful things of course, like keeping tags on where MC is and monitoring MC's heart rate. Useful tools. Modern technology. Living in the MC's house, he gets to spend more domestic time with the human he decided is kind and generous, but the MC occasionally finds him at the foot of the bed in the darkness, his yellow optics strangely switched to red until the MC says his name and his optics revert back to yellow again.

[dearestgojo]

Moonlight Haze

Aki x Fem Reader

A/n: inspired by Moonlight by Kail Uchis. @public-safety-network

Warnings: 18+. Dubcon. Smoking. Fingering. Drugs. Oral both receiving. Mirror Sex. Cunnilingus. Reverse cowgirl. Riding. Creampie. Pain Kink. Slight burning (accidental). Doggy. Multiple orgasms. Mating press.

Wc: 3k  | CSM Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Bright colors dance on the wall you're facing while you hear yourself giggle far away, other stifled laughs accompanying you. The world is tilted; the sock-covered foot of whoever is with you comes into view while you lay flat on your back on the cool floor, a haze of smoke clouding your view. There's music playing in the background, a 90's band whose name you don't recall or never bothered to learn, but the sound helps re-jog your memory of whose room you're in. And how you had ended up with your head in the clouds when you had a work project to be finished by tomorrow's deadline.

Not that you give much of a damn about that deadline right now when your entire body is buzzing. The effects of whatever your boyfriend gave you is starting to really kick in. Your tongue feels heavy when you try to speak, the words slurring together to where they're barely even intelligible, "What was that?" 

Aki turns to look at you, the moonlight catching dark hair falling into his dazed eyes. He speaks smoother than you can at the moment, still appearing less affected by the drugs, "Don't know, took them from Power and Denji earlier today." He raises the joint in his fingers to his lips again, exhaling a breath of smoke through his nose, you watch in awe as it curls up into the air, "But whatever it was, it sure has a kick to it."

You hum back in response, turning to look up at the ceiling, shifting uncomfortably on the floor as something starts to tingle in the pit of your belly. Your thighs start to rub together, and the inside of your thighs feel wet and sticky. Sweat travels down the back of your neck, your entire body feels burning hot. 

"Aki," his name slips past your lips just above a whisper, your head rolling over to look at him as he inhales more smoke. 

He exhales, another puff of smoke flowing out his lips, and peers down at you, his eyes finding yours, "Yeah?"

Swallowing down loudly you raise your hips off the floor, slipping your fingers under the waistband of your shorts, pulling them down your thighs, "I feel hot." 

From where you lay you can see the highs of his cheeks burn a light pink, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. "Yeah?" He grunts out, eyes glued on your bare legs. 

"Yeah," you answer, throwing your shorts across the room, and running your tongue over your bottom lip. Swinging your legs, giving him a glimpse of the wet patch on your underwear, stretching out your arm asking for another hit from the blunt.

Aki crawls over to you, blunt hanging from his fingers, hooking your legs over his thighs. He hands you the joint, sliding his free hand along the inside of your thigh, feeling the heat of your skin under the tip of his fingers and emitting from your center. Clearing his throat he looks down at you while you blow out a puff of smoke, "Should I open a window?"

You shake your head, reaching down to hand the joint back to him and letting your fingers glide over his hand, "No." 

Aki chuckles when he hears you hum as he slides his middle finger along your slit through your panties, "Should I keep doing this then?"

The back of your throat feels dry, whether from the drug you're on or from embarrassment at being exposed like this, you don't know. You squirm closer to his touch, nodding your head. You watch as Aki moves your underwear to the side to touch you directly, mewling as he teases your entrance. 

"You're wet," he states, spreading your slick on your folds, covering his fingers in it before pushing to fingers in. The heel of his palm bumps against your clit while he slides them in and out, making come hither motions while scissoring, stretching you open. 

Your body starts feeling even hotter, Aki's fingers reaching deep inside your walls, brushing against your soft spot. Peering at him through your lashes, you watch as he raises the joint to his mouth, his eyes glued on your pussy, and deeply inhales the smoke before breathing out the smoke gradually. Your hips start to grind down on his hand, a knot forming in the bottom of your belly, the inside of your mouth feeling with saliva as pleasure courses through your bottom half up your spine, but it doesn't feel like enough to push you off the edge you stand on.

Your head rolls on the floor, and you whine, "Need more, Aki." There's pressure on your thigh when he brings his hand back down, his free hand resting on it he glides his fingers in and out of your hole. You can feel the heat of the joint and the curve of his hand, a jolt travels up your spine when you feel the hand shift, Aki dropping down to his belly. "More what?" He asks, looking at where his fingers are sliding in and out of your cunt, the high of his cheeks burning.

Your hand comes down at you tugging on the long strands of his hair, pulling him closer to your heat, whimpering, "Need you to touch me more."

Aki tosses one leg over his shoulder and pushes it towards your belly while the other is trapped under his arm. He removes his fingers, leaning forwards and nudging his nose against your clit. You hear him inhale, sniffing your cunt, and the tips of your ears burn. You wiggle when his warm tongue licks a long stripe up your slit, tongue circling your clit. 

Your hips come off the bed, Aki's lips wrap around your swollen clit, sucking on it. Your eyes remain stuck on the ceiling, your fingers flexing through his hair, his head dipping down to lap at your hole. A groan vibrates in the back of your throat, followed by a gasp, his tongue sliding into your cunt, the warm muscle lapping at your walls. 

The knot in your belly grows and gets tighter, your thighs tremble in his hold. The squelching sounds your pussy makes as he moves his mouth against your lower lips, his hands kneading the back of the leg he holds over his shoulder. You feel him murmur something against your folds, a satisfied hum reaching your ears, your hips rolling into his tongue.

The back of your head starts to feel fuzzy, your eyes fluttering closed, "Aki g-gonna cum soon." 

Aki's hand grips the side of your thigh, pushing it up toward your belly, forcing himself deeper into your folds. His tongue moves eagerly along your slit, from your sopping hole to your painful swollen clit that his nose keeps nudging against. 

Your orgasm washes over you suddenly and swiftly. A blissful warmth spreads from the crown of your head to the tip of your toes. Your eyelids squeeze shut as you see white and your body shakes in his hold. There's a light pained sting against your stretched-out leg, the stinging growing as the burning blunt digs deeper into your skin, it barely registers but you hiss through a moan. Aki forcefully separates himself from your pussy, cursing under his breath while he lets your leg fall off his shoulder.

He crawls up your body, wrapping your legs around his waist, "Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to burn you, I should have killed it before taking things further." 

The effects of the drug are starting to wear off, your body humming from just the orgasm Aki just gave you. You wrap your arms around him, pulling him down to press your lips to his, tasting yourself on his tongue. When you pull back, you look up into lust-blown us, giggling at the dark pink that tints his cheeks. You've lost of how many times you've found yourself in similar positions, clothes tossed on the ground, and yet every time it never fails that Aki's cheeks turn a variation of pink. 

You run your fingers over his blush, the pain on your thigh starting to register in your brain, "It's fine." Leaning forward you press another kiss on his lips, nudging your tongue into his mouth. The kiss is sweet, The fingers of your hand caressing his cheeks while your others thread through his dark hair. You fall back onto the ground, your head making a soft thud sound as it hits it. You grin up at him, "I kinda liked it," it comes off as a question.

"Yeah?" Aki raises an eyebrow, leaning down to nip at your neck, running a finger over the mark the joint left. 

You hum, running your hands down to undo the buttons of his shirt, "I think so. I mean I barely noticed it."

Aki sits up, resting back on his knees as he pulls his shirt off, tossing it randomly somewhere in the room before pulling you up to him. He kisses your lips again, sliding his tongue along yours, his hand gripping the curve of your ass. "Should I light another one, and we can try again?" He asks, plopping on the bed, fingers sliding beneath your shirt. 

You eye the bag on the end of his bedside drawer, five blunts staring back at you, Aki grinding you down on his bulge pulling your attention back to him, "Maybe next time." Your lips find his, hand descending down his torso, undoing the button of his pants. Your hand slips in, and you pull his cock out, gliding up and down, you pull away from him, "I have other plans right now."

You kneel between his legs, shuffling down while tugging his pants and underwear down his thighs, his hips raising off the bed. His cock slaps on his lower belly, the inside of your mouth salivating as you watch it twitch, Aki whimpers above you, tossing his head back to stare up at the ceiling. Leaning down to take the tip between your lips, keeping your hand wrapped around the part that doesn't fit in your mouth, as you slide down.  The head hits the back of your throat, and you give yourself a moment to adjust, breathing in through your nose. 

The weight of his cock resting on your tongue has you squirming on the floor, and you carefully start to bob your head. You hollow your cheeks as you pull back before going back down, your hand following your lips, twisting around the girth, spreading your spit along the length. The sound of you gagging on around his cock fills up the room, the sound so loud that you're sure that Power and Denji can hear it from their rooms.

Aki moans and whines above you, his fingers gripping the sheets of the bed, the feeling of your warm mouth enveloping his cock almost feels like too much. His hand comes down to rest on the back of your head, guiding you down further down subconsciously. 

His thigh trembles under your hand, hips rising off the bed to shallowly thrust into your mouth. "Feels good," he moans, glancing down at you, breathing out through his nose. You feel him twitch in your mouth, a warning of his impending orgasm leaving his lips a moment later, "Gonna cum."  A few more moments pass, and you feel him start releasing in the back of your throat, the salty taste landing on your tastebuds, the corners of your eyes stinging with tears. His hand holds your head in place while he cums down your throat, his pubic hair tickling the tip of your nose.

You come up swallowing the semen in your mouth, Aki pulling you back up onto his lap, his arms shaking still and chest heaving up and down. His lips crash into yours, arms wrapped around your waist. You don't know how long you've been kissing, the effects of the weed have long worn off, but your body still feels hot, Aki's semi-stiff cock resting against your inner thigh. 

Coming up for air, Aki rests his forehead on yours, and he shifts back to the center of the bed, his voice an octave deeper, "Feel good enough for another round?" 

You nod, letting him move you around on the bed, your back facing him while you look over your shoulder at him. "Yeah," you answer, feeling the weight of his hand on your lower back as he pushes you down. 

Aki leans down, pressing a few kisses along your spine, pushing your hair out of the way, and licking the back of your neck. "You don't feel tired?" He asks, running his cock between your soaked folds.

"N-no" you whimper Aki pushing the first inch in. You turn to look forward, finding a reflection of yourself staring back at you through the mirror of the vanity. Your pupils are blown, your eyes puffy and red, and the corners of your lips are swollen, stained with slobber. Your back is arched, Aki's large hands resting on either side as he pushes his entire length into your warm spasming walls, jaw slack as you clench around him. 

The scene is sinful and perverted, but you'd be lying if you didn't admit that it made your stomach swirl with need, your mind feeling ditzy as you watch Aki plow into you. His hips snapping into your ass, the sound of skin slapping on skin permeating the bedroom walls. Slick dripping down your thighs as you watch yourself get fucked by your boyfriend, mouth ajar letting loud moans and wails out.

Aki's eyes find yours in the mirror, nails digging into your hips as he pulls you back, the tint on his cheeks is no longer caused by him feeling flustered. He doesn't break eye contact as he leans forward, his chest pressed to your back, hand snaking down to circle your clit and pull you up off your hands.

"Do you like watching yourself get fucked?" He asks, your clit caught between his fingers, "Not the first time I catch you looking." He kisses your shoulder, other hand leaving your hips

to grip your bouncing breast, smiling when you wither in his arms, "Just look at yourself," Aki breathes into your ear, teeth nipping at the lobe of your ear, "taking me so well."

The two of you watch as he fucks you in the mirror. His cock sliding in and out, covered in a thin veil of slick, tits shaking as he thrust into you. The lewd image in front of you starts to become blurry, and you don't think you'll last much longer, it's then that Aki pulls out and plops on the bed. 

He tugs you back to him, your ass still facing him, voice hoarse as he orders, "Watch yourself bounce on my cock for a bit."

Carefully lowering yourself down on his dick, you keep your eyes on the mirror, watching as you get stretched. You mewl as you drop yourself, feeling the coil in the bit of your belly close to snapping as he bottoms out.

Taking in a deep breath you lift yourself until the head of his member is the only part that remains in you. It feels like he reaches deeper like this, with you on top. Watching yourself slide back down. 

You don't know what to do with your hands, resting them on his thighs at first, bouncing back on his length. But you find you don't find the image that stares back at you as flattering, and that his cock hips slipping out, so you adjust your hips and thighs, slowly leaning back til your hands rest on his lower abdomen. You roll your hips, watching as his balls twitch in the mirror, his hands shooting up to hold to your hips, helping you lift yourself up. 

The coil in the pit of your bell grows, getting tighter and tighter as you watch yourself fuck Aki's cock. Your hand comes down to circle your clit, hurdling yourself for an intense orgasm that has your vision go white, loud wails of Aki's name tumbling out of your lips incoherently. You collapse sideways on the bed, legs quivering as you cum. 

The mattress shifts and you feel Aki's hand grip your calves, pushing your legs toward your head. Your ears are ringing but you still manage to hear him uttering, "Just a little longer, I promise so just bear with me," as his cock breaches your gaping walls once more. 

He feels deeper than ever as if he's in your stomach, and your brain can't fully comprehend how that is possible as it remains on the blissful post-orgasm high. The feeling of Aki's hips snapping against the curve of your ass has the knot in your belly forming quickly once more. Your legs burn from being forced into a foreign position.

"T-too much, Aki," you whine, speaking in pauses, "Still sensitive. Just came."

Your words seem to fall on deaf ears, Aki's sole focus is that of filling you to the rim with his cum, eyes glued on where his cock spits you open. Watches as he slides in and out, the base of his shaft coated in a white rim. He watches your clit pulse and twitch, your thumb coming down to play with it while holding both your legs against your stomach with one hand.

You cum when he decides to flick the swollen bud, your mind going blank again. The feeling of your walls clenching down and spasming around his cock pushes Aki over the edge finally. He comes with a loud whine, his hips stilling against you, the grip on your legs loosening enough for you to break free, falling on his shoulders as you cum. He paints the inside of your walls white, some of his semen seeping out of your cunt and onto the once-clean sheets. 

Aki collapses on top of you when he finishes. Chest heaving and eyes drooping close, as he presses lazy kisses on your shoulder and whispers sweet nothings. Lulling you to sleep. You would deal with the mess later in the morning, right now you just wanted to sleep off the rest of the drugs and the sore feeling that was spreading along your lower half.

© Copyright 2023. Dearestgojo. All rights reserved.

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[bokettochild]

Fenuwhump request for day 3, how about make it about Wild & Legend, where Wild’s the one who’s injured enough to need to bite down on something while Legend it trying to treat him. Maybe they need to get a spear or something out of Wild before using a Fairy. Whump for both of them basically except for Legend it’s emotional whump.

Oh boy, this one was fun! Took me a hot tick (and it's late, whoops!) but it was worth it!

Wordcount: 5,157

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Hemophobia, panic attacks, graphic descriptions of injury and LOTS OF BLOOD

-

They’ve been wandering for a week.  

Normally, that’s expected, only normally they find at least something in their path while they do so. A village, a town, a couple of farmhouses- be they occupied or not, there’s always something. Here though there have only been monsters, and lots of them. He'd think, based off of the abundance of enemies, that it was his own time, or something very close to, except even his era has more in the ways of civilization than this! At least back home, the paths lead to somewhere, and even if homes and villages aren’t prosperous, they’re at least existent! 

Legend sighs. Maybe it's the rain, maybe the stiff joints and the sore muscles caused by the heavy downpour of the last two days is the cause of his ire. He's not usually so fussy about where he’s walking, as long as it’s on a path, although this era of Hyrule doesn't seem to have much in the way of those either. He really had wondered if they were in his time though, but the lack of civilization and the sparsity in monster species had convinced him otherwise. Not that there’s a lack of monsters, just that there’s only been three or four main types they’ve run into in the last week, and they’d all been familiar, almost easy to take down, and frankly boring. He’s used to having changing targets, things that challenge him and make him actually try in order to stay alive, but so far most of the monsters they’ve met on this journey, here in this era or in the ones before, have been familiar. Although, the strange black blood does tend to make them more violent, resilient and intelligent, so fighting them isn’t exactly easy either.  

Wherever they are, no one else seems to enjoy it either. Time looks most miserable, his armor no doubt incredibly uncomfortable while wet, but saying he’s the most miserable isn’t saying much about the comfort of the rest of them. Twilight slogs through the field, leading Epona beside him and hunching in under his heavy fur hood. Likewise, Four has donned his hood, shivering as he walks along at the center of their group, grumbling softly under his breath about whether rain is or isn’t the worst sort of weather. The consensus so far seems to be that sandstorms are worse, but by a thin margin because they’re incredibly rare in comparison. 

Personally, Legend finds hail to be the worst sort of weather, seeing as the chunks can get as large as some stones in his era, but he keeps that to himself. It’s not like Four’s asking for his opinion after all. 

“Anything?” Sky calls ahead, his sailcloth pulled over his head and, surprisingly, not soaking up the water. Legend wonders what the thing is made of, maybe he can ask later, or give it a look once they’re somewhere dry. He’d never expected it to be waterproof. 

Beside their leader, Warriors shakes his head, water dripping off the ends of the hair that’s now well and truly plastered to his face. The captain had leant Hyrule his scarf, and while seeing him without it is strange enough, seeing his hair as flat and ruined as it is, is even stranger. “Nothing, sorry, Chosen.” 

The skyloftian sighs again. They all know, from previous conversation, that rain is very much a new sensation for Sky still, and while he’s apparently past the stage of thinking the sky is falling, something he’s apparently still in the process of teaching his fellow skyloftains back home, he still doesn’t like it at all. Like the vet himself, their chosen hero seems to be wary of storms, and lightning storms for the man, as with himself, are the worst. 

Actually, you know, maybe hail isn’t so bad. Maybe lightning storms are worse, especially after Four said that your chances of being struck increase with each time it happens. Or something like that. 

“We’ve been walking for days,” Wind whines, a true testament to his frustration, because their youngest hates whining. “How is there still nothing?” 

“Because life hates us.” Four drones, “life hates us, and the goddesses are pissed we are still alive.” 

Even he stares at the smithy for that one. 

“Four,” Warriors pauses in his walking, and most of them follow suit. “Would you like me to carry you?” 

The genuine request is shut down very quickly with some foul language that no doubt would earn a very harsh stare if anyone could still see the captain’s face. Good grief, their captain looks like a drowned sheepdog with his bangs hanging that low, he desperately needs a trim (not that Legend’s offering). 

“Sumthin’s sure t’come,” Twilight tries, and it’d be assuring if it wasn’t the thirteenth time he’s said that in the last few days. “jist hod in there, sailor.” 

“How many times have you said that already?” Sky sighs. 

“Thirteen.” 

The rancher shoots him a glare and Sky chuckles, adjusting his baldric as he walks, head shaking under the white sailcloth. Strangely, he looks like the pictures of the old priestesses like that, and while Legend’s not in the best of moods, what with his hands and joints burning and aching from the rain, he still smirks a bit at the thought, although he doesn’t speak it. Catching eyes with Hyrule though, face half hidden by blue fabric, he sees a similar sort of smile playing over the traveler’s face, one that glints a bit as it turns on him, as though asking if he sees it too. He grins back, only to wince as his feet stumble some over the uneven ground. 

He flounders for a moment, almost catching his balance only to have the muddy earth slip under his newly settled feet and make him trip further. It’s Wild hand, shot out to catch his own, that stops him, and he grips back tightly as he finds his feet again, panting maybe a bit harder than necessary once he has. When he glances up to thank the champion though, he’s met with flat eyes and a blank face, none of their young knight's typical cheer and playfulness present. 

“Champ?” 

“Watch your step,” it’s not harsh, but the other’s voice is distant as the other withdraws. Wild’s been quiet for a while, since the rain started actually. Usually, bad weather is met with some hair-brained anecdote or story that has Twilight shaking his head and Time cracking secret smiles, but these last couple of days are different for some reason. Legend can’t name why, but he supposes it’s not his place to ask either, seeing as how it’s not like they’re close or anything. Maybe more so than they were before, but not nearly as much as the champion is with Twilight and Time, or Wind is with Warriors. 

Oh well, Wild being weird isn’t new either. As long as the young knight doesn’t do anything, it should be fine. Still, he makes a note to keep an eye on the kid, at least until he starts acting like himself again. For now, though, the champion walks- no, marches- along at their center, just in front of him and granting him direct view of set shoulders and a tense jaw. He’s making that same face he does when he’s in a memory, although he’s proven to be more responsive than when he fades out into one of those. Glancing around, the vet wonders if maybe this place reminds their champion of something, or maybe he’s just equally off put by the lack of people, places to stop, and opportunities to warm up by fires or cook. They haven’t been dry in over twenty-four hours after all, and that’s got to have an effect on anyone.  

“What the heck is that?” The voice of the captain has all their attention drifting to the front, watching their medic dash hair and water out of his eyes for what’s got to be the thousandth time, peering out into the rain with a squint. The rest of them follow suit, staring out and trying to make out anything against the grey sky and thick curtain of water that pours down around them. 

He hears it before he sees it. It’s a strange mechanical whirring noise, steady and unbroken, but very, very unfamiliar. He can’t even tell where it’s coming from for a moment, but then, out of the deluge around them, he sees a faintly pink glow. 

Wild, directly in front of him, stiffens, hands flying for sword and shield. 

“Cub?” 

“Guardian,” the champion bites out, and while that word means nothing to any of them, they all follow his example, arming themselves and crouching low. If the thing, the guardian, is a threat, it isn’t doing anything yet, just wandering around on long, spider-like legs that almost remind him of a tektite, or maybe a gohma. 

“Threat?” Time asks, glancing back, as though they aren’t already prepared for that very thing. 

Wild nods, sharp, firm, jaw set. 

That’s the last thing any of them are able to do either, as a moment later there’s a sharp, alarming beeping that makes some part of his soul scream in response, a red beam cutting through the rain around them, drifting over them briefly before settling on the champion, who’s closest. Harsh blue eyes blow wide at the sight, and the champion’s voice, a soft rasping whisper a moment ago, rises in a shout. “Run!” 

They scatter, like so many keese out of a cave, they dart off in all directions, Twilight swinging up into the saddle and catching Four by the belt as he does so, kicking his mare off and away even as the rest of them rely on their own two legs. Some of them slip, some of them fall, but they’re all well accustomed to moving and moving quickly when enemies appear. The important thing is not letting the red beam settle on them. He’s not sure why, but he knows, and he’s ever been one to ignore instinct. 

An explosion, not unlike one caused by a beamos, lights up the grey world not far from where they’d all been standing, and Time’s form darts across his vision as the man circles around the creeping monster as it glides on far too many legs towards their quickly fleeing group. 

“Cub, weaknesses!” Is shouted over the sound of their feet and the rain, the steady mechanical whirr of the so-called guardian sending his mind screaming in warnings that any normal person would take as a sign to book it out of there. They don’t though, because heroes never run when they should, unless it’s to run towards the thig trying to kill them. They’re a bit dumb like that. 

The champion is somewhere on his left, no, right- blue tunic standing out against the grey world, even despite the sheets of rain making it muddled against the cloudy sky and churned up earth. “Eye!” Except the blasted thing is a mechanical monster, so there isn’t an eye. Legend supposes the blinking blue and pink circle on what seems to be the front of it is rather like an eye though, and it doesn’t take much to send an arrow flying towards that point, a whisper of a prayer on his lips that it’ll do some good. 

The red beam tracing after Wind disappears, pink and blue lights blinking in and out for a brief moment as the whole creature shakes and shudders, the top part swiveling wildly for a second before turning, slowly, as the lights come on again. 

The red beam focuses on him. 

Shit. 

“Vet, run!” 

He does. He didn’t even need the warning, he just breaks into a full sprint the moment he can, boots kicking into use to give him a little extra speed. Pegasus boots aren’t nearly as effective in the rain, or on muddy ground, but it’s better than his normal speed when it’s wet and cold and his joints are aching enough to make walking miserable. Unfortunately, that does require him staying upright, something that’s exceedingly more taxing on his body as a whole. 

“Do not take it on!” The champion shouts, and Legend has no clue how the usually rasping voice of the young knight carries so clearly over the drenched field, but he can hear it as clearly as if the champion is right next to him. “Move away! Get as far as you can!” 

They rarely warn each other to not take on monsters, usually only in the case of the worst ones, but the utter and complete terror he’d seen on the champion’s face the split second before they’d all darted off had been clue enough that that is the case now. Even if the others didn’t see the champion’s face though, the run. Twilight is already out of sight, Four with him. Time stops to grab ahold of Wind and then they both plunge off into the wetness, Hyrule and Sky taking off in the opposite direction, north and northwest. 

Southwards of the strange thing, Legend’s got no chance at following any of them, and the blinking red beam fixed on him is making his steps more and more desperate as he weaves this way and that, desperately trying to throw off its aim as it trundles steadily closer, hardly hurried as the blink of its beam quickens its flash. 

In a last-ditch attempt, he throws himself down into the mud the moment he hears the blast fire. The ground in front of him bursts into flames, unaffected by the rain pelting from the sky, but at least he’d escaped. This time. 

The sound of another blast charging has him darting up, but the ground and his joints are no aid, making him slip and slide and falter for a moment before he finally gets his feet underneath him and takes off again. 

The second shot strikes the ground just a few inches from him as he darts to the side, once more at the last moment. 

“Hang on!”  

He doesn’t know why Wild’s still around, the rest of the heroes now absent by both sight and sound, but he can hear the other flying through the mud and the muck towards him, arrows pinging harmlessly off of the sides of the giant, multi-legged hell-beast that’s chasing him. For some reason though, its sights remain locked on him, not faltering even for a moment towards the champion whose breathing is becoming more and more shallow by the second, terror painted clearly in its pulses. 

The thing is getting closer, he’s losing ground. Instinct says that he’s not outrunning this thing, not even with all his magic poured into his boots to try and speed him along. The moment he runs out is the moment it catches up, and he’s not making great distance anyways. They need a new plan. 

He turns around, shield raised. 

The champion’s throaty scream rings out at nearly the same pitch as the firing laser. 

The blow makes him stumble back, force like nothing he’s faced before, even a lynel, but the mirror shield does its job, sending the horrid blue light rocketing back to its source with a flick of his arm. 

 The spidery monster stalls, lights blinking and fizzing, top spinning about again, this time for longer than what the arrow had done as the things stops moving long enough for Wild to reach it. The champion’s sword, freshly forged for the second time, swings for the legs, hacking and cutting in a motion he darts to mirror, tackling the twisting limb that’s closest. Two legs hit the ground, still writhing, sending the not-a–beast teetering and then tipping, unbalanced with the loss of two of its eight awful legs. That isn’t enough to stop it though. No, the thing’s glow returns, top spinning again, seeking them, and Wild’s hand catches his wrist before it does, the champion pulling him away. 

The red beam follows them as they dart off, and the monster does too, although it’s slowed by the loss of its legs, and a quick shot from the champion’s bow at the last moment has it spinning and fizzing again, stopped in its tracks a moment more and granting them both long enough to gain some ground. 

Wild’s hand is a vice on his wrist. 

He doesn’t dare pull away. 

Their feet slip and slide, and more than once he nearly falls, only for the hand nearly bruising his wrist to pull him up again. An arm wraps round his shoulders to steady and pull him up, Wild’s blue eyes cast all the while towards the thing behind them. There’s fear in those eyes; desperate terror that makes him almost miss the empty coldness from on the road. Makes him miss the wild child streaked with dirt and all too eager with a stupid plan. The ma beside him, soaked to the skin, dirt streaked and desperate, is like a whole different person, but even that doesn’t stop the fact that his brother is there, standing beside him and getting his ass out of danger as best he can rather than darting off as his own mind is likely demanding he do. 

Didn’t Wild say his scars came from a guardian? Didn’t he die to these things? Are they going to die? 

The mechanical whir picks up again, the steadily increasing beep that he’s quickly learning signifies preparation of a shot is sounding in their ears and they only have so much distance between themselves and the monster that outpaces them without even trying. 

“Keep running,” Wild orders, eyes finding his for a moment, startled at the contact, but the other pulls back all the same. 

Legend finds his own feet skidding to a stop, already whirling around to ask what the champion’s plan even is, but a harsh “that’s an order!” has him obeying. He's not sure if it’s the firmness, the desperation, or maybe even fear of the champion himself, but his instinct takes the lead to send him stumbling away as quickly as possible. 

This is Wild’s monster, he knows it’s weaknesses, he knows how to fight them. This is Wild’s world, he knows what he’s doing, he does. Wild knows what he’s doing, Wild knows what he’s doing Wild knows- 

The champion’s grunt of pain, a bit bac scream and the sound of something falling stop him in his tracks. 

The champion is wincing, ash floating around him, shield now notably missing as the enemy closes in on the hero who is running and darting with a speed Legend didn’t know he had in him. Running towards him, eyes locking on him, blowing wide and full of terror as they catch on the vet’s frozen form. 

The red beam locks onto the running form of his brother. 

They don’t have time. Wild doesn’t have a shield any longer and Legend’s not confident he can replicate the parry he’d done before on total accident. Their options are slim, but they have some. 

His bow is easy to equip, arrow flying off the string in a second, aim easy to take as the mechanical monster crawls steadily towards them, target never shifting. The single shot does little, save restart their timer, but that at least is something. He fires again. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Distracting!” Depleting the health, if this thing even has health. He's doing damage though, he knows that much He’s doing damage because they’re out of time for flight, it’s time to fight now. 

The champions snarls, a foreign, harsh sound that rips across scarred vocal chords, but he’s not challenged. No, instead, the other darts in, sword ready and already hacking the moment Legend fires off another arrow. The new sword screams against the metal legs of the guardian, but after some heavy, terrible looking blows, yet another twisting, writhing limb falls to the soaked earth, and the spinning head of the not-creature turns to focus instead on the champion. The red beam pulses, already too quick, eye faced away and out of sight of Legend’s bow. 

“Wild!” 

Resignation is already clear in those eyes as the other hacks away, darting and jumping and flipping about, moving too fast but not fast enough, rough voice still so harsh against his ears. “Run! I’ll hold it off!” 

He’s not going to. 

“I’ll be fine!” The champion’s voice breaks on the words. He won’t. 

The pulsing light is blinking faster than his pounding heart, lights blurring his vision as his feet slide in the dirt, running as bidden. Rather than away, he’s headed towards, but even with sword and shield raised, with all his magic streaming into aiding his stride, he’s not fast enough. 

The beam of blue light strikes Wild in the center of his chest, and it’s like time stops for a moment. The scream of his brother rings over the field, no doubt echoing in the ears of their fled brethren. He’s frozen, watching, as the champion falls, as though in slow motion, but then Wild’s body slumps against the earth and the guardian is turning on him this time and time catches up again, returned to normal, ticking on as though he hasn’t just witnessed the stuff of his brother’s nightmares. 

And yet Wild still get’s back up. 

“Go!” Those eyes are so wide, so pained, so terrified. “Zelda! Run!” 

Wild doesn’t know it’s him. Wild doesn’t know it’s him! Oh crud, Wild doesn’t know it’s him! Wild is running, stumbling, one hand to his sodden and bloodied chest and the other clutching tightly to his sword, gaze fixed on the vet with the same sort of desperation that screams and pounds fit to make Legend’s own heart burst. 

If Wild takes another shot, there’s no promise he’ll get up again. But Wild isn’t seeing Legend, he’s seeing his princess; his desperate, defenseless princess, and there’s no way in the Dark World that the dutiful knight he knows would let Zelda take the blow of an enemy, even if that means he has to make himself into a living shield. 

What to do? The things bearing down on him, target set, lights already blinking in a too quick countdown. He can’t parry the beam back twice in a row, there’s too much distance to use his sword. He can shoot but for how long? How long till it’s on him? How long till he runs out of arrows? 

Arrows! Zelda! 

He’s not sure, hasn’t time to think, hasn't time to do more than send a prayer heavenward that Hylia did more than curse him with her blood, but then it’s there, shining and bright and light arrows are at the tips of his fingers, bright and warm and pulsing as they fly to his string. He pulls back. The guardian’s light pulses once. He releases. 

The thing flies back, rolling and crashing against the wet earth, sparking and fizzing out, twitching and spluttering as the ever-present whine of its core gives out. Legend doesn’t care, he has eyes only for his wavering friend, the brother whose eyes are flickering, and legs are faltering. He tries to quicken his pace, but even as he reaches out his arms, the strain and the mud have them both tumbling down into the muck, the chapion’s breath stuttering with a pained groan as they slide and roll. 

He comes out on top, something he alters quickly, pulling himself to the side and upright, knelt over his brother’s sprawled out and boody form. He gags. 

The beams effects are immediately obvious, flesh burnt away, bubbling at the edges as blood seeps out from the wound, running thin under the rainwater but in no ways washed away by the downpour. There’s charring already, and where there isn’t is exposed muscle that trembles and spasms, veins pulsing as pained shudders shake the champion. 

Shit shit shit, he;s going to be sick, he’s going to be so sick! 

“Zel-” the pained whimper has him tearing his eyes away, wide violet finding fluttering blue, holding as one hand lifts, the champion trying to catch hold of him in some way or another. 

For a brief second, the image of his uncle, gaping wound leaking blood across the floor and into the sewage drain behind them, flashes in is head. Wild’s eyes are just as glazed over, words fumblinga nd slurring as a hand reaches clumsily for him. He catches it, pushing it down and out of his way, motions a echo of ten years ago when he did the same for the man who raised him. “H-hey-: his voice is shaking, trembling, foreign even to his own ears, “h-hang in there, y-you're- you're gonna be fine.” 

He doesn't know how to treat a burn like this. Doesn’t know how to deal with the hole that’s been seared through his brother's chest. He’s no medic, no healer, and his magic may be enough to end but it can do nothing to heal. 

“Zel,” his brother wheezes, still fighting his hands, finger slipping easily across soaked skin to grip his own, tight but not tight enough, not as tight as the bruising grip before. “y’gotta keep-” his breath stutters “-keep running. Calam-” 

“No,” Wild’s eyes aren’t focused enough to see him shake his head, but he’s not thinking about that right now. “No, no, Wild I am not leaving you like tis i got it, it’s dead, I got it.” 

“Zelda-” 

“No!” His voice is sharper than the sound of the blast, “Din dang it, Link, I’m not leaving you!” 

Wild’s blue eyes flutter open, breath straining, hands fumbling even as he tries once more to push the away, to turn his attention to the smoking hole in the man’s chest, the blood oozing out to turn the mud beneath them faintly pink, blue tunic unrecognizable beneath the crimson flow and spattered earth.”You have-” 

“I have to save you!” Not save the world, not save zelda, not save his sister or chase his destiny or leave becasue he is not leaving again! Not again! He’s not wandering off and leaving the champion to bleed out, letting precious life-blood spill down the drains of Hyrule castle as though it’s worth as much as the sewage it flows alongside. He's not taking the sword and the shield, he’s tossing them down and pressing his hands over the gaping would, trying desperately to stop the bleeding even as his vision swims and weak hands fumble against his own. 

“Princess!” 

He ignores the cry, the scream at the contact of his hands with exposed muscle, with blood that seeps between his fingers and stains them, flows past even despite his efforts to trail over skin and ruined clothes. 

He needs to close the wound! He needs to stop the bleeding and close the wound, but the hands reaching for his have become violent, clawing at his wrists and tearing to pull them away, the champion’s scream of agony rattling his heart, his mind, making his vision swim and his own breath falter and catch in a cry he can’t hold back.  

He needs the screaming to stop! 

He tears his hands away, plunging them into his bag and grabbing the first thing that gives way under his touch. For a moment he stalls, mind flicking through his inventory, praying a potion or fairy hides beneath the mounds of supplies, but he’d used his last one in their last battle and they haen;t seen fairies since Time’s world. He grabs the soft feeling thing, ripping it out of his bag and sparing uit not a single glance before shoving it towards the champion’s outh. “Bite down on this.” 

Be it in relief or desperation, his order is obeyed, and sharp teeth close tightly on the old belt, sinking into it and granting blessed silence long enough for his brain to function again. 

Blood, he needs to stop the blood. 

The blows too close to the heart, there’s no cutting off blood flow, there’s no stopping the blood seeping through except by packing the wound and praying it’s enough. Pack and bind, like Fi taught him. Use any scrap of clean cloth he’s got and hope the blood will stop long enough for someone to find them- or him to find them- or any blessed miracle to grant itself to them and provide a way to end the wound! 

His hand flied to his bag again, sorting by touch alone, finding wool socks he’s mostly certain are clean and pressing them to the wound, one hand holding them there een as another stifled scream escapes his brother, the champion’s back bowing forwards, body surging up under his hands to writhe in pain, a motion he only barely responds to, pushing back down again as his other hand paws and grasps wildly for anything, anything at all to stuff into the gaping hole that pours blood, so much blood, red crimson ooze that stains his hands and is warm, far too warm, burning hot against trembling, froze hands. 

There’s so much blood. God, why is there so much of it! Why isn’t it stopping? Why cant ke make it stop! 

His own sobs ring in his ears beside the agonized cry of his brother. He can’t even feel the grip of the champion’s fingers clawing at his wrist anymore, mind a stuttering and stalling haze as he somehow manages to press another wadded up piece of clothing to the endless stream of red. 

Bandages, he manages to process. He needs to bandage them in place, tie the packing in so that it won’t get out, so the wadded-up fabric and wool will catch the blood and stop more from coming out, make it finally stop. Stop staining his hands, stop burning, stop rolling in his stomach and pounding in his heart and clogging in his throat as his breath catches on it, lungs seizing on it, vision lost to red red red. 

Somehow, he manages to bind the wound. He doesn't know how had he doesn’t know what with, but he knows that he does and then he’s pulling Wild in, holding close and clinging, rocking slowly as the champion whimpers. 

His fingers are red, streaking red across white features as Wild’s screams fade to moans and whimpers, the champion's nails still clawing at his wrists, at his arm, painting them both in more red red red. 

He whimpers, body shaking, breath stalling, chest stammering and seizing. 

He did it. It’s bound. The blood is stopping. He did it. He didn’t run away, and he didn’t leave. He didn’t leave the blood to flow, flow, flow, dripping into the sewers, staining the stone, painting the dungeons in blood blood blood. 

He did it. He did it this time. 

He did good. 

He stopped the blood. 

[racefortheironthrone]

Cherik (xmen) - like the loganxscottxjean throuple (s), any basis in the comics to pull from? And any personal opinion on that interpretation of xmen’s arguable most important relationship?

Great question!

Before I answer it, I'm just going to express a pet peeve of mine, but I'm not a particular fan of that ship name, in part because I don't really think of Magneto as "Erik" any more, especially in this context. In the comics, Xavier met Magneto as "Magnus" (which was Magneto's human name for the first thirty years of publication), and it strikes me as odd that this wouldn't be the name Charles would default to in emotional situations. (Charles is still enough of a bad boyfriend that he forgets to call Magneto "Max.")

"Erik Lensherr" came about only in the late 90s, in a context that made it quite clear that this name was a cover identity that Magneto constructed with the assistance of a Romanian forger to protect his true identity from various intelligence services. (It's also tied to the odd decision to retcon Magneto as Sinti Romani, but that's a separate issue.) Moreover, for the past sixteen years it's been established that Magneto's canonical birth name is Max Eisenhardt, and it is that name which he responds to in the Sphere of Judgement.

But to answer your question, there's much more textual basis for that particular swooningly homoerotic relationship than there is for the throuple. These two have been the most poorly-communicating, dysfunctional, co-dependent, non-monagamous bi4bi pairing in the entire Marvel Universe - albeit one always couched in carefully deniable subtext and brightly signposted visuals between X-Men #161 and #200. Hell, when Magneto first joins the X-Men and becomes Headmaster, he goes so far as to adopt Charles' last name!

(Pictured: the intricate rituals.)

Their relationship has endured quite a few deaths and resurrections, murder attempts (quite often by one against the other), a mindwipe or two, the joint creation of a being of pure evil, and much more. It only became more prominent in the early 2000s thanks to the Fox movies, and has been front-and-center throughout the Krakoan Era.

[mariacallous]

As November’s U.S. presidential election draws closer and the campaigns of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris kick into high gear, so have efforts by hackers from Washington’s adversaries aimed at disrupting or influencing the vote. One adversary in particular is playing an increasingly prominent role: Iran.

Iranian state actors have stepped up their efforts to interfere in this year’s election through online disinformation and influence operations as well as cyberattacks on both presidential campaigns, three U.S. agencies—the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—warned in a joint statement on Monday.

They’re not the only ones sounding the alarm. In the past three weeks alone, current and former intelligence officials as well as cyber threat researchers from Microsoft and Google have shared a growing body of evidence of Iran’s hacking efforts. As several of them have pointed out, Iran’s targeting of U.S. elections isn’t new—hackers linked to Iranian security services have attempted to interfere with presidential and midterm races dating back to at least 2018.

However, “Iran perceives this year’s elections to be particularly consequential in terms of the impact they could have on its national security interests, increasing Tehran’s inclination to try to shape the outcome,” the U.S. agencies wrote in their statement. “We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle.”

Trump and his acolytes have been particular targets of Iranian hacking, with some former intelligence officials speculating to Politico that efforts to compromise their email accounts could be part of an effort to assassinate U.S. officials in retaliation for the 2020 killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani during Trump’s presidency.

In their statement on Monday, the FBI, ODNI, and CISA officially blamed Iran for the so-called hack-and-leak operation against Trump’s campaign that the campaign made public earlier this month. Those tactics, mirroring Russia’s breach of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election, are only one part of Iran’s election interference efforts along with broader disinformation campaigns aimed at sowing discord among the American electorate.

“Iran, especially because of the past events with Suleimani, they have a marked interest in this election,” said retired U.S. Army Col. Candice Frost, the former commander of the Joint Intelligence Operations Center at U.S. Cyber Command. “They have attempted to message on past elections,” she said, but “I think this one is almost personal to them.”

Iran’s relatively elevated profile and more brazen cyber efforts may also be spurred by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East between U.S. ally Israel and Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, Mohammed Soliman, director of the strategic technologies and cybersecurity program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., told Foreign Policy. “I think the timelines have collided [between] regional confrontation with Israel and the U.S. elections,” he said. “This made them more proactive in attacking high-value targets that have brought massive visibility to their work.”

Iran is not the only adversary officials in Washington are concerned with—election interference efforts by Russia have been extensively documented, and U.S. officials have increasingly warned about China’s shift in cyber tactics from espionage to more disinformation and disruptive campaigns. Those two countries remain the prime threats, in large part because their capabilities are relatively more sophisticated.

“Russia and China are really a league of their own,” said Frost, currently an assistant professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies. “We oftentimes discount Iran and North Korea, and then you’ll have something like the Sony hack or this hack [of the Trump campaign]. So it’s not necessarily the level of advancement or competency that they have, but the fact that they kind of found a vulnerability and have been able to exploit that.”

“Any nation that has an interest or perceived stakes in the outcome of a U.S. presidential election is going to be thinking about how to influence that outcome,” said Gavin Wilde, a senior fellow in the technology and international affairs program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former U.S. national security official. “It’s easy to point to Russia and China as the most adversarial and the most sophisticated, but every nation around the world has some perceived interest in the outcome, and so I think we need to calibrate along those lines.”

Officials and experts say the U.S. government has learned from the missteps of previous elections, particularly 2016, and is better prepared to defend this November’s election from cyber threats than it has ever been. Part of that is the shift to publicly calling out adversaries and their activities much earlier in the process and adopting a form of sunlight-as-best-disinfectant strategy, like the ODNI, FBI, and CISA did this week with Iran.

“It’s very hard to counter that narrative once it gets into the American psyche and our citizens’ spheres of influence,” Frost said. “But I do see the focus and calling out [of] this behavior. … That is what we’re seeing at a much faster pace, and I give the current intel community a lot of props for doing that early.”

But Wilde warned that while U.S. officials are “unquestionably” more prepared this time around, they also now need to be careful about showing their work without inciting panic about elections being compromised. “The tightrope they now have to walk is [being] helpful without creating the very kind of panic that might itself undermine confidence in the election,” he said, adding that it’s also important to draw distinctions among hack-and-leak operations that have become “a new normal” for political campaigns, election influence efforts that can sometimes be hard to legally define, and actual efforts to interfere with the ballot box itself.

“I think the most consistent thing from all of them is how much it’s been a lot of just entrepreneurialism and experimental spaghetti-against-the-wall tactics to kind of just see what works,” Wilde said. “The U.S. and everyone has to be careful not to inadvertently incentivize this activity by making too big a deal out of it, and luckily I think we’ve done a lot better this go-round than we did in 2016.”

[kintsug1kitsune]

welcome to the library [short story ; no cw]

"Welcome to the Library, dear guest."

The doll at the front desk bowed dutifully. It was wearing the Library's fine black longcoat, suit and tie, and its brown porcelain body was delicately powdered with makeup.

"Uh, hey." 92 Jagged Edges was a rather small and squat woman, brown-haired and plain, with many scars, wearing only a haphazardly-tucked button-up shirt and jacket, and worn slacks with combat boots. "Thank you. I'm here on behalf of--"

"Firmament," the doll answered, bowing again. "The Director knows. She will be coming to greet you…" Its head canted up at thin air. Jag followed suit, but slower, perplexed.

And then, in a warping of that air, there appeared another doll.

No. It looked false and mechanical, joints and all, but its flesh was darkness, about 170cm tall--shorter than Jag--pooled together into a figure neither dark nor light, humanoid but not human, wearing a far more embroidered Library robe, bismuth thorns and flowers, and a tie with a special clip: roses, a tome, a sword, and a singular "I" marking it. The sheer aura, as if the Library around them bent to accommodate her…

"Hello there." She smiled, all fangs, two magenta eyes--no, far too many eyes, it was hard to tell--under the broad brim of a Witch's hat, veiled. "I heard a representative from Firmament Corporation was coming. Thought I'd welcome you in. I am the Library Director, Cynithe."

The petitioner took a gulp and bowed politely, herself. "Ma'am. 92 Jagged Edges, intelligence officer, Firmament Corp. Call me Jag."

"Jag," the Witch tasted. "Good name. Wonderful. What can I do for you, Jag?"

"I'm here for a book. Uh--obviously," she chuckled, trying not to let sweat bead down her forehead.

"Yes, I expected as much," Cynithe smiled, as if she was sharing a joke.

"Heh. Yeah, I'm looking for the specs on a certain weapon." She paused a moment. "…The mirror-splitter."

"Oh, I see." The Director hummed and tapped her chin; her gaze betrayed nothing, empty beyond belief. Hungry. "Why? Is Firmament going to war?"

"We have reason to believe Raze Corp's going to employ it."

"…Walk with me."

Not thinking for even a moment of refusing the Director's vast will, Jag followed as they began walking further into the Library's halls. It was better-crafted than anything she'd seen in in human-made lands; elegant pillars lined the walls, strips of pure light illuminated everything in comfortable gold. The ceiling was far overhead, the floor was fine stone, and soon the hallway out of reception emptied them onto a vast balcony.

A ring--layers of rings--overlooked the Library's grand center, a massive tower crossed with bridges and stairways, railings hewn with flowery designs. It was, for all its greatness, very empty; dolls went here and there, a few patrons of different kinds milled and searched, some seemed engaged in conversation, and yet others were reclining on one of the many red couches, smoking, drinking, laughing. But for its size--it was quiet, serene, even, if not a little eerie.

Jag whistled low. "Nice place you've got."

"Thank you," Cyn said, "I do think I look lovely."

"Ah, right--the Director is the Library itself. Or, that's what I heard," she hurried to say.

"You heard right," she nodded back, leaning on the near rail to watch everything. "I am the Library, the Witch of the Endless Night."

"I see. It's an honor to be, uh… in you?" Jag frowned a bit and followed her lead, leaning on the railing.

Cyn laughed, a sound like a thousand mortals being cut down and church bells shattering. "You're welcome, love. Now. Do you know what a mirror-splitter is?"

"Vaguely," she answered. "I've heard it's some sort of weapon." The Director hummed, "Potentially. It's inspired by witchwork, a device that is capable of slicing through possibility. It can render divinations of the future, as it was intended to do, or… it can cut possibilities away."

"I… see?"

"Imagine that you toss a coin." Cynithe flicked her claws and an ancient nickel medallion appeared amidst her fingers.

"Uh, a coin. Right, that used to be used as money." Jag watched curiously.

"Yes. Now, it can be heads," she showed one side, "Or tails," and showed the other. "When I flip it…" She used a thumb to launch it into the air--caught it, and slammed it over onto the top of her other hand. "Now, it can be either heads or tails, and we don't know which."

"Right, I see."

"But if I were to use a mirror-splitter, I could cut the possibility of it being tails. Do you understand? There would be no choice but for it to be heads, in any reality."

"…Huh."

She let the coin out--tails, as it happened--and let it vanish into darkness. "If used on a living being, it could force them to be only one thing. It could force a singular outcome for their existence. Or, it could erase all possibilities of their existence at all."

"That… Nobody should use that. If anyone made that, it could destroy free will forever. Let alone people--the implications as a weapon…" Jag gripped her hair and shook her head, eyes wide, frowning.

Cynithe looked understanding. "Mhm. And your employers want it."

She shot her gaze up to the Director. "No-- I can't let them have it. I can't let anyone get ahold of it. Fuck my job."

"Good, you understand the problem. Do you have a head for books, Jag?"

"--Uh?" She cocked an eyebrow. "I guess? I'm in charge of gathering and organizing company intel. I do my share of paperwork, filing, and that shit. Wait, are you offering me…?"

"Not a job," the Witch shook her head. "A position with me, here. You know you cannot return empty-handed to Firmament."

"Pft, they'd cut my heart out and burn it just to make a point," Jag spat.

"And neither of us want you to return to them with the schematics for a mirror-splitter."

"No…"

"Work with me. Become a Librarian, and we will recover the mirror-splitter plans from Raze Corp." The many-eyed stare affixed to Jag was empty… but still far from as vile as the looks in her managers' eyes.

She nodded. "Sounds like a plan, Director. Let's get to it."

Cynithe smiled.

"Welcome to the Library, Jag."

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

All Along the Watchtower

Pairing: Captain John Price x Fem!OC (3rd person POV)

Word count: 2.6k

Warnings: some military jargon, mild angst, brief mentions of sexual activity in the past, brief mentions of violence

Summary: Sgt. Rory Sinclair with the Special Reconnaissance Regiment of the British army has been called on to assist with a joint US/UK operation. Quickly discovering that her Commanding Officer for the mission is a man she's met before...

A/N: Rory Sinclair is a dual citizen (both Canada and the UK) who's been living in the UK since she was 14. She is 28 at the time of this fic, Price is 32. This series is set in 2017 before the events of the first MW game. Rory's thoughts are bold and italicized, other italics are used for emphasis. Will also be available to read on AO3.

October 13, 2017 09:37 - Special Reconnaissance Regiment Headquarters, Stirling Lines, Credenhill, Herefordshire, United Kingdom 

Rory sat in her cubicle, grey plastic walls surrounding her, free of any personal items. Scouring hours of footage shot during a scouting mission in thermal vision, taking note of timestamps and important location details for her report, she couldn’t help but taste the acrid pang of jealousy. It was the duty of her and the other SRR operators in the office to painstakingly comb through reports and footage, collecting intel. The nerve center for army intelligence. Keyboards clacked and phones rang as information was filtered and passed along to where it was needed.

"Sgt. Sinclair."

A deep voice broke the monotony around her, it was one that few ever heard unless the powers that be deemed it so. She’d only heard it once before when her transfer to the SRR was approved. Spinning in her seat at her desk, she rose to stand, her hand raised in a salute as she stood at attention. "Colonel Rourke, Sir?"

Rourke, a man with decades of experience as part of the British army, stood at her desk. Brusque and stern, he was a bulldog of a man trapped in an office space. He would have been more comfortable leading a fleet of tanks rather than an infantry of analysts. "At ease, soldier." She relaxed, hands held behind her back as he continued, "I don't make a habit of personal visits, but I've just left an important meeting and I need your attention for a moment, Sergeant."

"Of course, sir."

“Follow me.” Leading her away from the bullpen she was sitting at and towards a quiet corner, a potted plant was the only company there. Free from prying eyes and ears, he turned his back to the rest of the room, and lowered his voice. "There's a joint operation happening between the Americans and the SAS, and they require our assistance. However, they're looking for boots on the ground experience, and a fair portion of the SRR operators currently available for missions of this sort of nature just don’t have that. But you –"

She nodded, her face falling somewhat. She'd only transferred six months ago and was still settling in. The SRR HQ provided a different type of work than she was used to, but she appreciated the change of pace it gave her, utilizing a different portion of her skill set. It also meant she was closer to her father rather than being half a world away in the middle of a war zone – but a soldier could only be at peace for so long. 

"I understand you were transferred here to clear the headspace, but I can’t think of anyone better suited. You have an impressive record, Sinclair. A real asset. You’ve a history with counter-terrorism, been in the thick of it, and I have a Station Chief with the CIA here who wishes to speak with you."

It wasn't a question or an offer. She had been selected. An honor bestowed upon her. There was no turning it down. Not that she would. Ambitious, career-oriented – she had no reason to say no. Walking past the cubicles of operators, it was a stark contrast to where she was less than a year ago. The ground no longer shook as bombs dropped overhead, bullets didn’t tear through the air or rip through kevlar, it was quiet here. Safe. She still played an important part in the war effort, but without the risk to life and limb. The blood no longer dripped from her hands, though that still didn’t make her clean. 

The colonel stopped outside a large meeting room and opened the door for Rory, directing her inside with his hand. The room was empty except for one woman with a coffee and a laptop sitting at a long table. Dressed in business casual clothing, she looked prepared for a day at the office compared to the soldiers around her wearing their uniforms. Looking up, her face serious, she tilted her head in Rory's direction but spoke with the Colonel, "Is this her?"

"Yes, this is Sgt. Sinclair."

Like a child being spoken about between a parent and a teacher, she was recognized as being there, but not as part of the conversation. Things had been set in motion, all of which she had yet to be made privy to. Rory was no stranger to working on a need to know basis, moving up the ranks meant for much of her career she often merely had to follow in the direction she was being pointed. This was certainly no different.

"Good to meet you," the American said with a nod of her head. "I'm Kate Laswell." Holding her hand out to the open seat beside her, she directed Rory to it. "Take a seat."

Appearing sure in her steps, even while the stress took hold, she stopped at the table and took a seat, exhaling her breath finally as she settled into the chair, still trying to hold the proper decorum expected of a soldier. 

"You can relax, Sinclair. It's just you and me." Laswell looked at the Colonel and the door quickly closed, leaving the two women to sit alone in the large, echoing, blank slate of a room. She sipped her coffee, her eyes shifting to the screen of her laptop before speaking again. "I assume the colonel didn't reveal much about what's going on here, did he?"

Shaking her head, the short choppy locks of her chestnut bob hovered around her neck. "No, not really. Just that you're looking for boots on the ground?"

"Not exactly. We have the boots, it's more so a certain expertise." Kate glanced over at the younger woman, her brow lifting. "Why's a soldier like you working behind the scenes?"

Rory stretched her neck from side to side, cracking her knuckles. A cigarette suddenly seemed like a very good idea to her. "It was suggested I take a transfer from the field after I completed my last tour.” Glancing over at Laswell, she noticed the woman had begun looking right at her, scrutinizing her. “I spent the last several years in Iraq during the civil war. Working with CIA, PMCs, whoever my unit was assigned with." Her eyes fell to her fingers as she started to pick at the hangnail on the edge of her thumb, the skin underneath as sore and raw as the memories.

"Off the books?"

She cleared her throat and returned Laswell’s eye contact. "Oftentimes, yeah."

Kate paused, her head tipping to the side. "Seen some things, huh?"

Rory tried to get a read on the woman, it was hard to get much from her face or her demeanor. There was empathy or at the very least some form of understanding. Was she a soldier in the past? Or just an overpowered cop like some of the other CIA agents she'd met? She scratched her brow, clenching her jaw. "Did some things too."

"Not afraid to get your hands dirty then." Laswell’s face never seemed to change, her mouth drawn in a straight line as she folded her hands on the table. 

"I did what was asked of me."

"Like?" The station chief seemed genuinely interested in her, trying to get a beat on her all the same. Both of them were in the process of figuring out who they were about to get into bed with. 

"Primarily I focused on targets of high importance to prevent further incursion from the insurgency. Assassinations, interrogations – been there, done that."

"Assassinations?" Kate's voice rose, her interest piqued.

"I”m SSC trained. Ran a fair few missions that left me in some nests in high towers."

"A sniper, huh?"

"Yeah. When needed."

Nodding, Laswell’s straight face seemed to break for just a brief moment into a nearly unnoticeable grin. "How many confirmed kills?"

"High importance targets? Thirty three. I lost count of the random sods," she said with a shrug.

Laswell sipped her coffee, unfazed, hearing news like that was just a walk in the park for this woman. "No stranger to deep recon then?"

"It's in the name,” Rory confirmed. “It's what the SRR does. It used to be part of the SAS, but broke off and focused on the intel part of things. It’s why I was specifically transferred here and not just put on leave. Command didn’t want to lose someone with my experience."

"You have some connections with intelligence?"

"I have friends at MI6."

"Good.” Laswell’s attention fell on her completely. “Well Sinclair, I have a friend who's running this op – he's SAS – and you sound like just what he's looking for. If you're up for it, of course." 

Rory contemplated the decision for a moment, she hadn’t thought she’d be back out in the field quite so soon, and considering the fact that none of the details of the mission were being revealed to her until she agreed to come, she assumed she was heading into some real shit. Her hands slipped from the tabletop and into her lap, a tremor shaking through them out of sight, before she nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that."

"Great." Laswell shut her laptop and scooped it under her arm as she stood, collecting her coffee cup in her other hand. "Come with me."

Her brow lifted. "Just like that?" She was well accustomed to the bureaucracy and strict measures the British army seemed to enforce, things didn’t just happen, not without cutting several layers of red tape and after being passed through multiple hands first.  

"Just like that."

She stood up and followed behind the Station Chief, keeping pace with her as they moved through the halls. Rory was in no position to argue, nor would she want to, it was nice not to be beholden to the rigidity of the chain of command. This was more cavalier. Very American. 

"So, you straddle the line between spy and soldier, huh?" Kate asked, her eyes kept forward.

"Sort of like you, I assume?" Rory asked with a sideways glance, her lips curving into a half grin.

"Sort of." Kate huffed out a laugh. "Yeah."

They turned the corner and headed down the stairs, the reverberations of their shoes on concrete bouncing off the walls. Once an RAF base, now the headquarters of the SRR and the 22 Special Air Service Regiment in the midlands, it was sprawling with large open fields. Out on the parade, a helo sat waiting, it’s rotor warmed up and the blades spinning. There was no time to grab her things, it was get up and go, the moment she said yes she was being tossed from the frying pan into the fire. The urgency was clear, she had likely already been transferred and meeting Laswell was simply a courtesy. 

Ducking under the blades, the shadow of each one cutting across the sun as it broke through the dense cloud cover above, Laswell pulled open the door of the helicopter. “Head inside,” she said with a tip of her head towards the waiting entrance into the vehicle, raising her voice to be heard over the engine. 

Rory climbed in and looked over at the row of seats, noticing another soldier sitting there, already strapped in. His face stern as he shifted, adjusting his hat, the overwhelming scent of cigar smoke drifting from him. Scratching at his cheek, his nails dragging through a thick fuzz of facial hair, he glanced over at her and then turned back to Laswell who took the seat across from him. "I assume this is the one, Kate."

"Yeah, John, this is her.” Laswell pulled on the front of her jacket as she sat back and got comfortable. “Sergeant Sinclair, meet Captain Price."

Rory's brow furrowed for a moment at the name. It was familiar, but she couldn't pinpoint how. Was it one she'd seen in a report? As she strapped into her seat, steely blue eyes measured her up before turning his attention to lighting the Villa Clara cigar he’d pulled from one of the pockets of his vest. 

"Nice to meet you, Sergeant."

His voice was deep, rumbling, and it stirred something in her. She was no stranger to appreciating someone’s timbre, but this was something different. He seemed so familiar, she couldn’t place how, but she knew it. Intimately. And then the memory hit her – the bathroom stall. Five years prior, one night in a bar. The sheer chance of them meeting like this damn near improbable. Her stomach dropped. Jesus. His face was nearly recognizable beneath the facial hair that hadn't been there the first time they met. His voice had become more gruff, lower than she remembered. The cigar he was currently smoking gave a clear indication as to why. Swallowing down the embarrassment that threatened to burn at her cheeks as she looked at him, gauging his reaction to her name - if he recognized her the way she suddenly did him, he didn't show it.

"Good to meet you too, sir," she said. Her gaze fell to her hands, remembering how it felt when he had held them. Trying her damnedest not to look at him, she preferred to appear nervous over the mission and not the man who had suddenly become her commanding officer. 

Tugging at the tactical vest he wore, Price tilted his head back, puffing on his cigar and looking out the window as the helicopter began to move, the inside shaking as they lifted up off the ground. 

There was no backing out now.

Laswell passed her a tablet, and started giving her the brief. “That is Igor Zorokov, Russian oligarch and alleged trafficker. Weapons, drugs, information…people.” Rory’s eyes locked on the screen, scanning through images of the man. Older, blond, in relatively good shape. Not the type someone might assume as a master criminal upon first inspection. “He has ties around the globe, but his stronghold is in Eastern Europe. Supplying several military coups with funds and weapons, he’s a dangerous man with people at disposal in his back pocket, and we have reason to believe he’s funding terrorist activities.”

“And we’re investigating him? Or taking him out?” Rory needed to prepare for exactly the type of mission this was going to be. Recon was one thing, taking someone’s life was another. 

“Erring on the side of caution. The Russian government could easily sweep just how far his global reach is under the rug if he’s brought to light, especially since it’s been beneficial for them. We want to find out who he’s funding and put a stop to the pipeline he has through his many ventures.”

Rory hummed, muttering, “Putting a tourniquet on before cutting off the arm.” 

“Exactly." Price's voice cut through the roar of the engine. "First stop is Kastovia, have a friend who’ll meet us there and get us into Russia undercover.”

“Nikolai?” Laswell asked.

“Yeah.”

It was clear these two weren’t just casually paired together for the mission, there was a long-standing relationship. Trust. She certainly understood how being a soldier who just so happened to have a friend who could get into the places they normally couldn’t would be beneficial, having an American ally even more so. 

“I hate to be a bother, ma’am," Rory spoke up, "but I’m not exactly prepared.” She felt damn right naked. Her duffel was down in the red brick complex below that was steadily getting smaller and further away. Her gear, her weapons, all of it was disappearing out of view as she sat there in her fatigues.  

“No need to worry about that, Sergeant.” Price replied instead, blowing out a stream of smoke. “Nik’ll have us covered when we land.”

All she had to do now was sit back and relax (as best she could) and try not to let her mind stray too far afield as the memories flashed before her eyes of the man who sat six feet from her.

[hellsite-detective]

Hellsite Detective in...

The Bad Banana

it was another cool day in Tumblr City. the breeze was blowin' through the streets and the rain was poundin' down hard against my window. the ceilin' fan that hung above me spun slowly and hypnotically as if blown by a wind that wasn't present. as i sat there in my chair, smokin' my cigar and watchin' that fan spin eternally, i grew hungry. thankfully i keep a small fruit bowl in the corner. gettin' up to go grab a bite, i picked a banana out of the bowl. it was a bright yellow, but you might not have known it from the monochromatic filter over the scene. as i began to unpeel it, a voice spoke from the back of my head sayin'...

...hold on...

...go ahead...

...what...

naturally confused, i spun around to see if someone had snuck in while my back was turned. but no, no one was there. however, the words continued to resound in my head. almost like they were callin' me to somethin'. i walked over to the window and took a look outside and the traffic lights at the intersection caught my eye. i looked at them, and looked back at the banana in my hand. that's when it hit me...

see, there was a post i've been lookin' for for ages. in fact, it was the post that inspired me to open my office up in the first place. it was a post comparin' the colors on bananas to the colors on traffic lights. back then, i couldn't find it. but now? i had the experience i needed. i decided to re-open this personal case of mine.

i tucked the banana into my coat and strolled through the rainy streets. i came across that hoppin' joint with jazz music always pourin' out the doors onto the street. the neon sign above the door read "The Search Bar." i headed inside, ready to do some business with my associate, but they were nowhere to be seen. they weren't sittin' at their normal booth. curious, i decided to ask the new robot bartender for help...

say, doll, you know where i can find the Boss?

[Oh! I do apologize. Don Google is upstairs in their office, but they are not seeing any visitors today.]

heh, well we'll see about that, won't we? say, what's your name?

[I am H.A.V.E.N. It stands for Hostess Attending to Virtual and Informational Needs. Essentially, my purpose is to keep track of Don Google's database so they do not have to. I also serve the drinks.]

Haven, huh? nice to meetcha, Haven. i gotta go see the Don though, whether they like it or not. i'll be seein' you later.

i tipped my hat to Haven and walked to the door leadin' to the stairwell. my mind lingered on the robotic hostess, wonderin' what an advanced artificial intelligence construct like her was doin' in this world that had it's basis in 1940's noir, but i wasn't gonna think about it too much. i headed up the stairs and into the Don's office. their goons whipped out their guns and almost took my head clean off, but the big fella themself stopped it.

the office was a far cry from the bustlin' night club on the first floor. where as the club had neon lights and kept things rather dark, probably for the best, the office was more well lit and elegant. it held a more warm atmosphere than the club, but somehow it was more oppressive in here. the walls appeared to be made of wood, bookshelves lined the walls, and a chandelier hung from the ceilin'. there was a carpet in the center of the room that had a kaleidoscope of colors rangin' from blue, red, yellow, and green. and directly across from the door was the desk. mahogany, it seemed, and real fancy too. a giant round window overlookin' the city streets was placed behind it with a large letter "G" formed in the window frames. the Don spun around in their large leather chair and puffed on their cigar.

"'Ey there, Miss Detective. What can I do ya for?"

i'm lookin' for a post involvin' bananas. specifically in relation to traffic lights. you got anythin' like that for me?"

i set the banana i had brought down on the desk and they chuckled at the sight.

"Yea, I think I got what your lookin' for."

with a wave of their hand, one of their goons fetched a file from off one of the shelves and brought it over to them. they thumbed it open with one hand, the other hand draggin' on the cigar. they slid it across the desk.

"This what your lookin' for?"

and there it was. the post that started it all. it had finally come full circle. i grabbed the file eagerly and began to leave the room, but the Don wasn't finished with me yet.

"'Ey, Miss Detective! Don't think I've forgotten about that little favor you owe me..."

i stopped dead in my tracks. preparin' myself for the worst, i stood there frozen. i couldn't even turn around to look at them. but shockingly, the conversation took a different turn.

"I'm not lookin' to cash that in just yet. Just be on the look out for a call, got it? I'm lookin' forward to our partnership."

i couldn't see them, but i knew their snide smile was bearing down on me at that moment. fear filling my body, i left the lion's den and went back to my humble office to file my prize away. as i did so, my stomach rumbled...

damn it. i left the banana with the Don...

Post Case: Closed

[logorrhea5mip]

How lovecraftian would we seem to machine life

Imagine that there exists a planet populated entirely by mechanical life, where "plants" are power stations and ore harvesters, where creatures have motors for muscles and iron rods for bones.

Imagine then an intelligent alien of this world coming to Earth. When analyzing our life, they think of discrete components, parts doing their jobs in obvious ways. And there are some, bones obviously provide support and joints act like hinges and...

What the f are all those bags of slime doing in the center of the body? Where is the motor, the wires, the sensors? WHY IS IT SO WET?

Our alien scientist might then pull out a microscope to examine a piece of tissue. First they see the larger structure, the blood vessels, the nerves, the blobs of fat. This doesn't explain anything. Then they may see cells, and this is where the horror starts. Cells are small, unbelivably small. The smallest component in an average electromotor is a wire which forms the armature. The average wire is 30 cells wide. What could a thing that small possibly do?

At the current zoom level the cell just has some stuff floating in it, moves a bit, and thats about it. And then, one of them starts twitching, moving about, and splits.

How? Why? What? After many hours of high power microscopy and chemical analysis, the alien figures out what the cells do and how: they are a bag of goop, with other smaller bags of goop in it. It lives, and grows, and does its job as long as the surrounding fluid has the right chemicals and gasses and temperature. And in it, lives The Dance.

The Dancers are myriad. Their shapes are more diverse than entire ecosystems back home, their form ever changing. There are small dancers, of mere dozen or so atoms. They run and spin and collide wildly, their moves ruled only by the mad forces of entropy and chance.

Then the larger dancers assemble. They form and break and form constantly, mostly in special places when many come to become one, where form and shape are copied and translated and changed. The dance of the larger dancers is still wild, the tumblings of a hot solution slamming them into each other many tines a second, and only sometimes do they actually merge, or change one another, or split apart like a dandelion being blown apart in the wind.

Tens of thousands of dancers dance, and they in the dance build and move and change, playing with chemistry itself as a hyperactive toddler plays with his toys. And all this madness, guides the wet, pulsating blobs of hot goo, and they form structures ever larger, until a bird takes flight, or a plant opens its flower.

The life of this world is a dance, one designed by madmen, one which can move and think and see and hear and live...

And the dancers dance into the dark, ever more chaotic, until all form and rules are forgotten and the music stops and the last dancer turns off the lights, to wait until they are eaten or drunk or breathed in, and the dance once more returns.

[girlactionfigure]

🔘FRIDAY - events from Israel  

ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

✡️Erev Shabbat - Parshat (Torah portion) Shoftim - Deuteronomy 16:18 - Moses instructs the people of Israel to appoint judges and law enforcement officers in every city. “Justice, justice shall you pursue,” he commands them, and you must administer it without corruption or favoritism.

▪️HAMAS HORROR PROPAGANDA.. during the Shivah, Hamas publishes a video from the captivity of the murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, may G-d avenge his blood.  Reports the US is upset as this may affect negotiations., the murdered was a US citizen. 

▪️SAMARIA - JENIN.. The Arabs report that the IDF forces left the city of Jenin and the Jenin camp area after ten days of military activity.  The Mayor of Jenin: The occupation has halted the supply of electricity and water to Jenin. The Palestinian Authority will require external assistance to rebuild Jenin and the Jenin camp.  The IDF: "We are continuing the operation in Jenin until its objectives are completed."

▪️TIT-FOR-TAT CONTINUES WITH HEZBOLLAH.. 100 rockets and missiles were launched by Hezbollah at northern Israel yesterday. IDF fighter jets struck more than 10 Hezbollah rocket launchers and other infrastructure across southern Lebanon overnight, per the IDF.

The military says the targets had "posed a threat to Israeli civilians."

▪️1,307 ROCKETS.. were fired at Israel from the north, Lebanon and Syria, amounting to just over 40 a day on average.

▪️ON THE CONSULATE ATTACK IN MUNICH, GERMANY.. official: the shooter in Munich was an Islamist terrorist of Bosnian origin who belonged to the Syrian organization Jabhat al-Nusra.

▪️ON THE ATTORNEY GENERAL SCANDAL.. Amit Segal: Mandelblit's court request for a gag order was rejected.

.. Recordings: how he recognized a strategic consultant as his main opponent - after two years he sent him to false arrest in a far-fetched affair without disqualifying himself. (N12)

▪️ON THE TEACHER UNION HIGH SCHOOL STRIKE.. Against the background of the strike: alternative educational frameworks will be activated starting next week.  In a joint initiative of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance and the Local Government Center to be operated by the local authorities, the ministries agreed on the activation of alternative frameworks for secondary school students.

▪️AI.. Israel has signed the Council of Europe Convention on the Use of Artificial Intelligence.  The purpose of the treaty is to ensure that artificial intelligence systems operate while maintaining human rights, democracy and the rule of law, without creating new human rights.  The convention applies mainly to artificial intelligence systems used by the public sector, while excluding uses in national security contexts and some of the R&D stages.

▪️ECONOMY.. Salesforce buys the Israeli startup Own for $1.9 billion.

▪️NEWS SOURCES.. Survey: Israelis, what is the main TV channel where you keep up to date about the war?  Ch. 12 - 38%, Ch. 14 36%.  ( Ch. 13 apparently doesn’t make the list, and sadly neither does Israel Realtime.  Did you know you can share us with a friend?  Send them the links at the bottom, they click, they join!  Special Rosh Chodesh deal

♦️SAMARIA - TUBAS.. IDF carried out three drone strikes against Arab gunmen who were shooting at troops during a raid in the Tubas. Forces began a new raid overnight in Tubas and the nearby Far'a camp, as well as a separate operation in Jericho.

[princesscatherinemiddleton]

The Princess of Wales’ Year in Review: April

April 9th - William, Catherine, George, Charlotte and Louis joined extended members of the royal family at the traditional Easter Mattins service April 19th - The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron of the Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, received Professor Marc Brackett (Founder and Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence) at Windsor Castle. Later, she held an Early Years Meeting April 20th - The Prince and Princess of Wales visited Birmingham. They began by visited the Indian Streatery, before giving a reception at the Rectory April 21st - A photo of the late Queen, taken by the Princess of Wales, was released by Kensington Palace April 23rd - Kensington Palace released two photographs for Prince Louis' birthday. The Princess of Wales appeared in one of the photos April 24th - The Princess of Wales visited the Baby Bank in Maidenhead April 25th - The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron of the Royal Foundation, held a meeting at Windsor Castle. She then held an Early Years Meeting April 27th - The Prince and Princess of Wales headed to Wales for a two day visit. They attended a training session with Central Beacons Mountain Rescue Team to mark the Rescue Team's Sixtieth Anniversary. They then visited Dowlais Rugby club and delivered pizzas. April 28th - The Prince and Princess of Wales this morning visited Aberfan Cemetery, before visiting the Aberfan Disaster Memorial Garden April 29th - Kensington Palace released a photograph of Catherine and William for their 12th wedding anniversary. Later that day, a video surfaced of Catherine taking Charlotte and her friends to see Cinderella at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden

[rjzimmerman]

How many of you get excited when you see a monarch butterfly? If you do, did you get excited as a kid, or is the excitement a function of their possibly pending extinction? If you do not, can you imagine a world without monarch butterflies?

Excerpt from this story from E&E News/Politico:

Judgment day approaches for the monarch butterfly.

Bound by a court settlement, the Fish and Wildlife Service is supposed to decide by early December whether the monarch warrants listing as threatened or endangered. Although the agency misses many Endangered Species Act deadlines, it appears determined to meet this one after several years of study.

“We wanted to make sure that we have all the best science available … and we wanted to make sure that we were able to gather all that information and make a quality decision,” said Nicole Alt, director of FWS’ Center for Pollinator Conservation.

With the migratory butterfly passing through dozens of states, a decision to list the species could be accompanied by the designation of an expansive critical habitat. Combined with other regulatory implications, this could make the long-delayed monarch listing call one of the most consequential actions in the history of the ESA. It also appears likely, some monarch experts say, given the bleak population trends that led FWS to conclude in 2020 that “monarch viability is declining and is projected to continue declining over the next 60 years.”

Despite the dire circumstances, a campaign to help the monarch butterfly has been advancing on multiple fronts but without a unified commander in chief. Rather, the monarch’s allies march under different flags that reflect a dispersed approach toward species conservation. Some study the insect, some set aside habitat and some tinker with new tools, all without reference to a species recovery plan that an ESA listing would mandate.

Consider:

From an urban office building, a program administered by the University of Illinois, Chicago’s Energy Resources Center has recruited energy companies, state departments of transportation and counties into conserving hundreds of thousands of acres as butterfly habitat on rights of way, such as the medians between roads.

On sprawling Fort Cavazos — formerly Fort Hood — in Texas, biologists prowl the grounds in search of adult monarchs as well as eggs and larva. Since 2017, they estimate they have collected information from more than 10,000 tagged adult monarchs and forwarded this data to another team of collaborators with the Monarch Watch program based at the University of Kansas.

From her Denver office, Alt oversees four geographically scattered FWS staffers and collaborates with others in and out of government. With yet another allied group called Monarch Joint Venture, for instance, the Center for Pollinator Conservation is supporting studies of drones and artificial intelligence in measuring milkweed distribution on wildlife refuges.

And, scattered as they are, the various monarch teams, researchers and advocates periodically gather for a meeting of the minds, as they did in the summer of 2022 for a first-of-its-kind Capitol Hill butterfly summit where Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced establishment of Alt’s pollinator center.

“It’s really been exciting to see the level of interest from lots of different sectors,” Alt said, adding that “different people want to work in different ways and in different spaces … and in the vast majority of situations they are all advocating for the same thing.”

Some conservation groups, however, want to see a more urgent focus on the problem, saying Congress needs to dramatically increase funding to help the monarchs truly recover. In letters sent last week to House and Senate appropriators, the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups called on lawmakers to provide $100 million annually to restore 1 million acres of pollinator habitat in this country each year and another $30 million to preserve forests in Mexico where some of the butterflies spend their winters.

The groups noted how people over generations have heralded the black-and-orange butterfly’s “spectacular beauty and epic, life-affirming migrations.”

“Dedicating $100 million a year to monarch conservation gives these beloved butterflies a fighting chance at survival,” one letter said.

[darkmaga-retard]

Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Associations, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.

Western intelligence agencies are apparently preparing to face “serious global threats” due to current geopolitical changes. In a recent article for the Financial Times, the heads of the CIA and MI6 – the main American and British secret services – made it clear that their countries see the current process of geopolitical reconfiguration as a threat, having a big effort on the part of these security services to neutralize possible “enemies”.

Bill Burns and Richard Moore stated that London and Washington are working together to maintain the contemporary world order, despite current geopolitical trends favoring radical changes in the global system. According to them, some “state actors are” trying to reconfigure the geopolitical scenario, and a joint effort on the part of liberal countries is necessary to prevent these changes.

The authors point to the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine as a pivotal point in this process of geopolitical transition, recognizing how emerging countries began to challenge Western hegemony following Russia’s initiative. , leaders of emerging nations on all continents have embraced the multipolar agenda, encouraging a series of reforms to diminish Western influence over their countries – which is obviously seen as tragic and dangerous by Western politicians.